 
### GOD'S COUNTRY

### A THREE VOLUME

### CONSERVATIVE, CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW OF HOW

### HISTORY FORMED THE UNITED STATES EMPIRE AND

### AMERICA'S MANIFEST DESTINY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

**By** **STEVEN TRAVERS**

COPYRIGHT © (20011 BY

STEVEN R. TRAVERS

"I don'need ta know history I know now."

-CHARLES BARKLEY

### "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to re-live it."

-SANTAYANA

To not know about things prior to one's birth is to remain forever a child.

_To conquer and achieve without_ **contribution** _is to leave no dent._

RES IPSA LOQUITER

The things speaks for itself; i.e., the things stands on its own.

"Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free."

-THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN

This book is dedicated to my daughter, Elizabeth Travers, because I want her to know the Truth!

GOD'S COUNTRY

By Steven Travers

The United States of America at the beginning of the 21st Century is the greatest, most powerful nation and empire in the history of Mankind! This fact has been reinforced by the events that followed September 11, 2001. The U.S. has achieved effective victory in the War on Terrorism, rendering Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda relatively impotent; achieving total victory over Saddam Hussein; and laid the groundwork for American hegemony in the Middle East. Powerful U.S. Democratic, military, diplomatic, economic, and cultural influence spans every corner of the globe, in a way that no colonizing empire has ever known.

In the second half of the 20th Century, liberals have written the majority of history. Conservatives have been spoon fed the Leftist point of view to us in schoolbooks, from college professors, books, magazines, newspapers, network journalism, and Hollywood. All along, conservatives had a sneaking suspicion that what they were being told did not add up.

Steven Travers, America's poet-warrior and Renaissance Man – an athlete, soldier, writer, political philosophizer, historian and patriot - has written his _magnum opus._ He is one of the New Conservatives who have recently decided to fight back and tell the Truth about history and America's extraordinary place in it. He says that we are embarking on the age of the New American Empire, but that it is a "new kind of empire." He writes that this conclusion is based not on vanity but on moral responsibility, and that it is ideas, not military success or occupation, that will shape the new empire of the 21st Century. Travers concludes that America is and will continue on the path of greatness because we are a nation that submits to God's will, instead of succumbing to the vainglorious paganism that has marked too many historical powers. He has taken on the task of outlining how America's extraordinary place in the world came to be, and details the no-holds-barred, unflinching strategy for the future of America and the world. This is not your average "objective" history book. Instead, it details the facts of the past 3,000 years, interspersed with the slant of a columnist's right-leaning opinion. However, it offers the theory that the so-called "end of history" has demonstrated that the socialist-Communist theories of the Left are the demonstrable losers of history.

Travers boldly poses questions like, "Is it biased to say the New York Yankees are the greatest sports team of all time, or is that simply stating a fact?" His answer is that the statement is not opinion, but fact backed by empirical evidence. He offers that same logic to his dissection of history. America is not hated, it is respected. It is the best country on Earth, but being the best does not generate love. Time after time, conservatism, Christianity and America have triumphed, and this is not an accident or a trend. Rather, to state that this trinity represents the best hopes and aspirations of Mankind is not merely a biased opinion, but rather a simple, accurate description of events that repeat themselves time after time.

If not for the U.S., according to the author, "the world would be one big concentration camp, with German, Soviet, Japanese and Chinese nuclear missiles crowding the skies above us."

"God's Country" is a comprehensive history book, covering Mankind's triumphs and failures, including the rise of Christianity and a study of all the world's great religions. Travers gives treatment to the most influential philosophies (giving equal weight to good and evil). Covered are the wars, politics, territorial disputes, cultural influences and dramas that shaped the world, leading to the rise and fall of great empires in Rome, China, England, and France; and the minds of those who are most responsible for great movements, ranging from Athenian Democracy, the anarchism of Rousseau, Thoreau and Emma Goldman, Marxism-Leninism, and finally the ultimate triumph of Jeffersonian Democracy.

The second phase is the history of America, from the Revolution to Iraq. Travers, an unapologetic conservative, boldly offers that America is the greatest country ever conceived by man, and theorizes that the young nation has not achieved this by accident. First, he offers "evidence" that America, from the Founding Fathers to the present day, is a country Divinely Inspired and protected by God, a notion that no doubt drives the liberals crazy! Rather than paper over or justify America's controversies – the U.S.-Mexico War, Manifest Destiny, slavery, Vietnam – Travers explains each of these events with unflinching honesty, rebuffing the lies of detractors without excusing the human failings that demonstrate that this great country is neither infallible, nor impervious to future threats. The author is able to show the huge advantage that the United States has. Idealistic, intelligent, Christian Europeans who were brave and moral founded the nation, thus inculcating a unique ideal. Geography and natural resources have proven to be of enormous benefit. But most important, by outlining the patterns of history, he demonstrates that the wise men who built America had centuries of lessons to learn from and avoid the many mistakes of history. That is why the Great Experiment is such a resounding success.

Finally, Travers writes that the U.S has "saved" the world and must accept its role as the greatest superpower of all time. He details the wisest plan to make use of this status in a way that will best benefit his country and the world as we enter the new Millennium. "America's Manifest Destiny" is written from the perspective of his Christian worldview, and an interesting back-story permeates this view. That is the concept that good and evil constantly battle each other. The author outlines his fascinating theories of how the devil has strategized and schemed to gain advantage through a never-ending series of lies, bluffs, false alliances and rear guard actions involving governments, despots, religious, political and military leaders.

"God's Country" also posits fascinating "what if?" theories, including a dissection of John Kennedy's "stolen" Presidential victory over Richard Nixon in 1960. The author offers that had Nixon been in office, the Bay of Pigs would have ousted Fidel Castro and freed Cuba, Nikita Kruschev never would have risked the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Communism would have been halted in Vietnam before that war escalated. He also argues that Communism is worse than Nazism, and details how the Cold War "normalized" it. Travers makes the point that had World War II ended in a stalemate with Adolph Hitler, a Cold War with the German Empire would have resulted in off-shoots of international Nazism that Western appeasers would have dismissed as less threatening than in fact it would have been.

"God's Country" is not your average "history book," the dry ruminations of a Ph.D. thesis. "God's Country" serves as "one-stop shopping," offering 2,000 to 3,000 years of history under a single cover, while at the same time providing the information with conservative opinion. It used the gathered knowledge of centuries to demonstrate the victory of conservative thought and why America is where it has flourished. It is highly opinionated and filled with personal reflection. Travers contends that the world _needs_ liberals, but left to their own devices with unchecked power, their criticisms of American policies would lead to ruination. The good news, Travers says, is that America is so great even the Left cannot bring it down. Their formulas are untenable in the real world. So even when they come to power, they must govern conservatively because they have viable alternatives. Liberalism has failed and those on the Left have little left except to blame America first. He informs the reader with stories, drama and modern cultural humor, providing a scathing review of unpatriotic Hollywood, the falsehoods of the Blacklist, liberals who find themselves on the wrong side of history, media bias, and how new communications are feeding a public thirsting for Truth.

His fascinating "Reagan Theory" details how Ronald Reagan should be credited with winning the Cold War without firing a shot, and will do more to enhance his legacy than any other retrospective. In the end, Travers outlines the next century, where he sees a battle for the world's soul between liberalism and conservatism. In a chilling "cautionary tale," he details how Communism has found a substitute international ideology which stands at odds with American values. He describes how Plato's "warrior spirit" is a concept that the U.N. and Europe have abandoned for the worse. Travers warns that unless Christianity makes a comeback outside the U.S., Napoleonic mistakes of the past may repeat themselves. The Internet has the potential to disseminate evil on a massive scale.

He is a futurist who makes a surprising observation, which is that the "defeat" of liberalism has the potential of launching destructive forces. Pointing out that Nazism and Communism strove for a "purity" of form, Travers says that the evil specter of White Supremacism and race wars may be in our future unless stopped. After 3,000 years of history, he feels the only way to prevent this catastrophe is through the messy ideals embodied by America, and that it is this great country that was empowered by a loving deity to prevent such a thing. The future of our world, therefore, depends on the success of America.

Also written by Steven Travers

Barry Bonds: Baseball's Superman

The first comprehensive biography of a man who may one day be regarded as the greatest baseball player of all time, Travers delves into the intensely private, proud mind and ego of the world's most celebrated athlete. This Best Selling book, currently in re-print, available in paperback and nominated for a Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of 2002, examines Bonds' childhood, his high school and college years, his entire professional career, and his relationships with his father, Bobby Bonds, and his Godfather, Willie Mays.

TO ORDER BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN, LINK TO: http://sportspublishingllc.com/book.cfm?id=3

OR CALL TOLL FREE: 1-(877) 424-BOOK

OR SEND CHECK, MONEY ORDER OR CREDIT CARD NUMBER BY MAIL:

Sports Publishing LLC

804 N. Neil St., Ste. 100

Champaign, IL 61820

FAX: (217) 363-2073

GO TO A MAJOR BOOKSTORE NEAR YOU.

GO TO www.sportspublishingllc.com OR www.amazon.com.

ISBN: 1-58261-488-1

$22.95

Angry White Male

A novel that combines baseball, sex, pornography, Christianity, racial tensions, and all the things that makes life worth living. This is the story of Stan Taylor, a youthful baseball star who never attains the greatness predicted of him, while his boyhood rival, the African-American Billy Boswell, becomes the greatest player in the game. Stan, now a writer, contracts to ghostwrite Billy's surefire Best Selling autobiography, but a black writer, jealous of Stan, first sets him up to be fired from his sports columnist's job, then snakes the book deal away from him. When Billy's ex-porn star wife turns up dead, it first looks like Billy did it, until the cops discover that Stan had an affair with her and planned to "get back" at Billy by co-writing a "tell all" book with her. The twists and turns have just started.

The Writer's Life (2004)

A complete compilation of all the articles, columns, essays, songs, poems, stage plays, teleplays, screenplays and books by America's hardest-working and most prolific writer.

STEVEN TRAVERS' YAHOO SEARCH:  http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Steven+Travers+AND+Barry+Bonds%3A+Baseball%27s+Superman&sub=Search&fr=fp-top

STEVEN TRAVERS' WEB PAGE: http://hometown.aol.com/__121b_CGcgOUHm43yNTzigf53J2ni4PDx4ScfGkWFqoTUQObCsJUA+iZmx7g==

OTHER WORKS BY STEVEN TRAVERS

SCREENPLAYS

Once He Was an Angel

21

The "K" Conspiracy

A Murderous Campaign

Rock `n' Roll Heaven"

The Lost Battalion

Baja California

Wicked

The Hunter's Dream

On the Edge

Summer of '62

Burning Snow

Blackjack

TELEPLAY

Bandit

STAGE PLAY

The Cool of the Evening

SONGS

You Asked Me to Love You

The One I Love

Puttin' Up With Me

Never Quit

SHORT NON-FICTION

Broken Wings

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

**STEVEN TRAVERS** is the author of the critically acclaimed Best Seller "Barry Bonds: Baseball's Superman" (www.sportspublishingllc.com), in multiple re-print, now in paperback, and nominated for a Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of 2002. Travers writes for _Human_ Events, America's leading political magazine for the past half century. A former columnist for the _San Francisco Examiner_ and _StreetZebra_ magazine in Los Angeles, he wrote for the _L.A. Times_ as well _._ Travers is also an award-winning screenwriter and author of the novel "Angry White Male" and "The Writer's Life", his complete compilation of all the articles, columns, essays, songs, poems, stage plays, teleplays, screenplays and books written by America's hardest-working and most prolific writer.

An ex-professional baseball player, Travers struck out 1989 National League Most Valuable Player Kevin Mitchell five times in one night (striking out 15 that game) while pitching in the St. Louis Cardinals organization. He was also a teammate of Jose Canseco in the Oakland Athletics organization. Pitching for the A's vs. San Francisco in a Major League exhibition game at Phoenix Municipal Stadium, Travers struck out the side against the Giants en route to three scoreless innings.

Steve's suburban California high school team won the National Championship team in his senior year. The 6-6, 225-pound Travers attended college on an athletic scholarship and he was an all-conference pitcher. Steven graduated from the University of Southern California, where he studied in the USC School of Cinema-Television, as well as in the UCLA Writers' Program.

Steven served in the United States Army during the Persian Gulf War. He coached baseball at USC, the University of California-Berkeley, and for one year in Berlin, Germany. After attending law school, he was a political consultant and a sports agent before embarking on a writing career. His screenplays include "The Lost Battalion" (a true tale of patriotism, valor and Congressional Medal of Honor winners during World War I), "Wicked", and "Once He Was An Angel", the story of ex-baseball player Bo Belinsky.

"The defining event of my life is the fall of the Berlin Wall and America's victory in the Cold War," Travers says in explaining his outlook. "Growing up, I did not think I would ever see it fall, but I was a young man when the wall came down, and lived in Berlin for a year shortly thereafter. This experience taught me that the United States can do anything we have the will to achieve, and my studies conclude that astounding achievement is a continuing trend in America's history. This comes with the great responsibility of doing good."

Travers is a sixth-generation Californian who still resides in the Golden State. He has one daughter, Elizabeth Travers, and comes from an old political family. His uncle, Colonel Charles T. Travers, was a longtime Republican advisor to politicians ranging from U.S. Senator William Knowland, Vice-President Richard Nixon, Governor Ronald Reagan, and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Tired of the Leftist slant of his alma mater, the University of California-Berkeley, Colonel Travers began the Travers wing of Cal's political science department, based on the premise of providing fair, balanced study of government, policy and history. It has expanded each year, and today is the most popular source of elective classes at the university.

# TABLE OF CONTENTS
# GOD'S COUNTRY

# Chapter Title

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

# AUTHOR'S NOTE

PROLOGUE

BOOK ONE

HISTORY LESSONS FOR A YOUNG AMERICA

  1. A MODERN THEORY OF GOOD AND EVIL

  2. THE FORMATION OF DEMOCRACY

The Hindu Vision of Life

Plato's "Republic" applied to modern politics

  3. MACHIAVELLI AND _REALPOLITIK_

  4. THE ORIGINS OF COMMUNISM

5 INFLUENTIAL CONTRARIANS

Henry David Thoreau: Anarchist?

Fyodor Dostoevsky and the Grand Inquisitor

Anarchism and liberalism

6 HITLER, GANDHI AND THE LIE OF MORAL RELATIVISM

7 CIVILIZATIONS AND CHRISTIANITY

The rise and fall of the Roman Empire

Homer and the Trojan Wars

The life of Christ

Christianity spreads, the Church is formed, and religion takes different shapes

8 THE MIDDLE AGES

The mysterious East

After Rome: Is war the true nature of man?

The Crusades and the political militarization of Catholicism

The Hundred Years' War and Joan of Arc

9 THE RENAISSANCE

10 THE FORMATION OF WESTERN EUROPE

The transformation of Elizabethan England into a modern power

France struggles under the Catholic monarchy

The failure of the French Revolution, the "reign of terror," and the

Napoleonic wars

Dress rehearsal for Communism: 19th Century social revolutions

  11. A DIFFERENT KIND OF REVOLUTION: AMERICA FORMS "A

MORE PERFECT UNION"

The ride of Paul Revere

Lafayette and the American-French alliance

No taxation without representation

The experiment

Our Founding Fathers: George Washington

Our Founding Fathers: Thomas Jefferson

Our Founding Fathers: John Adams

Our Founding Fathers: Alexander Hamilton

Our Founding Fathers: Benjamin Franklin

12 MANIFEST DESTINY

Indian Wars

13 AMERICA: WHERE SLAVERY CAME TO DIE

14 THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES

Civil War time-line

Battle of Gettysburg

Gettysburg Address

General Robert E. Lee

Ulysses S. Grant

President Abraham Lincoln

15 A MODERN WORLD POWER

"The man in the arena"

The Old West

The Industrial Revolution

William Jennings Bryan

President Theodore Roosevelt

BOOK TWO

THE AMERICAN CENTURY: A NEW KIND OF EMPIRE

# Title

PART ONE

SUPERPOWER

World War I

Lawrence of Arabia

The fall of the Ottoman Empire: Lessons of the Middle East

Armenian genocide

The Russian Revolution

V.I. Lenin

The "lost generation"

The Roaring '20s

The Great Depression

PART TWO

MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR CHRISTENDOM

Did FDR allow the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on purpose?

Adolf Hitler and the rise of Nazi Germany

The Zionist movement

The "four freedoms"

The gathering storm

Blitzkrieg

The Battle of Britain

The Russian Front

The "rape of China"

Awakening the "sleeping giant"

Dealing with the devil

The Holocaust

Holocaust time-line

The eagle against the Sun

History is written by the winners

Japanese-American internment

General George S. Patton, Jr.

General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell

General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery

The "desert fox"

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Winston Churchill

PART THREE

ASIA AND THE COMMUNIST MENACE

Berlin airlift and the Marshall Plan

George C. Marshall

Mao Tse-tung

Korean War time-line

The "forgotten war"

Harry S. Truman

American Caesar

The "soldier of Democracy"

Joseph Stalin

Kennedy and Vietnam

The Kennedy's: American royalty

Lyndon Baines Johnson and Vietnam

LBJ: The conundrum

Vietnam and triangulated global diplomacy

John Lennon sang "Give peace a chance," and Southeast Asia

"imagined" Pol Pot

The age of Nixon

Henry Kissinger: "Dr. Strangelove", Republican _Svengali_ , war criminal or diplomatic hero?

PART FOUR

THE REAGAN THEORY

Time-line of the Cold War and Red Scare

Glossary of Cold War terminology

The gulags: Communism's holocaust

The Venona Papers

Eastern Europe under Stalinism

Democrat Communists sell out Eastern Europe

An interview with Alger Hiss

East German uprising of 1953

Hungarian revolt of 1956

Fall-out of the East German uprising in Poland and beyond

The "church of America": The CIA's covert action in Guatemala, 1954

McCarthyism

Voices of the Left and not-so-Left

Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution

Bay of Pigs

Cuban Missile Crisis

Che Guevara

Nikita Kruschev (1894-1971)

"The Right Stuff"

The nuclear "arms race"

The Cultural Revolution, 1966-76

Prague Spring: 1968

The after effects of Watergate: Détente; the appeasement of Jimmy Carter; the Cold War is "passe" on the Left; the Battle of the Third World; apartheid; the "eve of destruction"

The "church of America": Central Intelligence Agency and the Church Committee

Time-line of CIA covert ops, 1946-1984

South African Apartheid

Russia's "Vietnam": Afghanistan

Lech Walesa and Polish Solidarity

Glasnost, perestroika and Mikhail Gorbachev

Margaret Thatcher: Britain's "iron lady"

Ronald "Dutch" Reagan

Caspar W. Weinberger

President George Herbert Walker Bush

BOOK THREE

AMERICAN HEGEMONY

# Chapter Title

1 THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

American Gandhi: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Malcolm X

George Wallace

J. Edgar Hoover

2 THE MIDDLE EAST

Israel

Time-line of major events in Israel's modern history

1967 Six-Day War

1973 Yom Kippur War

Menachem Begin, sixth Prime Minister of Israel

Golda Meir

Ariel Sharon

Benjamin Netanyahu

Anwar al-Sadat

Black September: Yasser Arafat's murderers kill Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics

The Iranian hostage crisis

1987 Palestinian Intifada and beyond

Persian Gulf War

  3. WHY THE RIGHT GOES AFTER THE CLINTONS

Vince Foster's murder

The Clinton body count

Time-line of the Clinton Presidency

Clinton raises taxes; "don't ask, don't tell"; Waco, "Black Hawk

down"; Hillarycare

War in the post-Communist breakaway Republics

Rwandan genocide

North Korean nuclear build-up

Newt Gingrich's Contract with America and the Republican

Revolution of 1994

1996 Clinton-Dole campaign

The Monica Lewinsky scandal

The Clinton legacy in the Middle East

The Internet boom, Elian, Clinton's pardons and Democrat

vandalism

"The bitch is back": Is Hillary Clinton worse than Bill?

  3. THE NEW WORLD ORDER

2000 Presidential election

9/11

America's Mayor: Rudy Giuliani

War on Terrorism: Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda

War on Terrorism: The Taliban and Al Qaeda

War on Terrorism: Afghanistan

War on Terrorism: Iraq

President George W. Bush

After terrorism, the next crusade: Africa

  3. THE DOMINANT MEDIA CULTURE, AND THE EFFECT OF SPORTS ON AMERICAN SOCIETY

Hollywood and the McCarthy "backlash"

Talk radio

"Useful idiots" and liberal media bias

Are liberals less patriotic than conservatives?

Our National Pastimes

6 "LET'S ROLL"

Apocalypse now? Drawing U.S. into world conflagration is

terrorist's goal

Arabs and distortions of history

Letter to George W. Bush

AIDS and the devil

The Kissinger doctrine: Self-interest and history are keys to

Middle East diplomacy

One man's take on a new kind of war

The American instinct

The truth about politicians

California

United Nations

George W. Bush, the 2004 Presidential election, and G.O.P

strategy

The next war

G.O.P. policy: Taxes, small government, and other issues

America's Manifest Destiny: A new kind of empire

Christianity

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AUTHOR'S NOTE

As I sit here at my desk in 2004, writing the last words of "God's Country", I envision this to be a "manifesto" for the 21st Century. I find it ironic that that the word _manifesto_ and its derivations can be sourced not just to James Monroe, but to a very unlikely source, Karl Marx. In the 1840s Marx was a German _emigre_ living in such miserable squalor in London that his beloved daughter died from a lack of medical care. It was during this time that Marx wrote "Das Kapital", and later the "Communist Manifesto". His political ideas were formulated from the experience of being all but penniless in England during this time. He wanted to find out what was wrong with a system that he might have called Darwinian Capitalism. He set out to find a utopian "workers paradise."

I make no pretense that my book will create a revolution. My ideas are a continuation of conservative philosophy that has been expounded for many years, especially since 1964. Nevertheless, I would not write this if I did not feel as if I have something new to offer the debate. Marx was a revolutionary. While many of his ideas came from the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Marx proposed ideas that were virtually unheard of.

Marx, for all of his misguided ideas, had passion, and while it may be difficult to find two people in the history of the Earth more different than Karl Marx and Steve Travers, I must admit that I admire his passion. Marx wrote because it was "in him." He had no publisher urging him on, no advance, no promise of a big income. He just had to do it. He was as wrong as wrong has ever been, but is influence on the 100 years that followed his publication cannot be denied.

I see the future as clearly. Only time will confirm whether I am a visionary. It is with visionary zeal that I wrote this book. I find myself in a period of introspection, like Henry David Thoreau at Walden's Pond, but examination of life is not relegated simply to my personal non-entities, but rather to the political world I live in.

I am not a Ph.D. or a fellow at Heritage, Hoover or Brookings. I do not have an assortment of government grants to study things. This book is not a thesis, nor is it some offshoot of a professorship in which at least I am guaranteed a university press publication which force-feeds distribution of my work to future students.

I am just a guy who reads a lot of books and cares deeply about my country and the world we live in. What I have set out to do is to tell the story of America. How we arrived at its place in the world, from a philosophical, military, economic and political perspective. This requires a study of the great thinkers of the past, applying their ideas to the American Experience. My book looks at the U.S. and the world from a conservative, Christian standpoint, and I make no apology for this.

I also write from the perspective of a man who knows how lucky he is. Not just lucky to be an American, the product of an affluent family and comfortable surroundings, but to live in the times that I do. I am a white male, but this means something substantially different in California at the end of the 20th Century, my formative period, than it does in Alabama in the 1930s. The fact that I have been exposed to a diverse cultural world has been part of what shapes me and makes me a better person. No doubt future generations will look back on my era and find things we do that are distinctly backwards. However, from where I sit, I think history will judge my generation to be a pretty enlightened one. I think the basic morals and things we find virtuous today will stand the test of time.

There are certain elements of virtue that transcend events. One finds great virtue, for instance, among the Confederate soldiers of the Civil War, despite the fact that history proved their cause to be the losing one. As a conservative, I have the advantage of hindsight in examining the origins of my political philosophies. Members of my political class have made mistakes in the past, but since hindsight is 20/20 vision, I am able to improve upon them. Hopefully. This is the duty of every generation, to improve on the past. This does not mean to radically change everything. The quest for understanding the past, and making use of it, lies at the heart of why I am writing this book.

I welcome any and all commentary, good and bad. I can be reached at (415) 455-5971, or by emailing me at STWRITES@aol.com.

STEVEN TRAVERS

Marin County, California

January 1, 2004

PROLOGUE

### AMERICAN CENTURIES: THE 2OTH AND 21ST

Who we are.

How we got here.

What history teaches us.

Why America is special.

Where we are headed.

The United States of America is the greatest country in the history of Mankind, but why? To merely boast such a statement is empty unless it is backed by a solid premise, and this is the basis of my proposed historical analysis of my nation and how we came to become the greatest, most dominant empire in world history.

First, I do not believe that the U.S. achieved its status by pure chance. My worldview is based on a Christian perspective, but rather than centering on the concept of the United States as a "Christian nation," I prefer to look at our advancement as the result of a "guiding hand" that defies denomination. Perhaps it is not meant for us to understand _why_ we are the "chosen nation," but rather to focus on the evidence that we are without probing into a spirituality that is beyond our ken.

The first evidence of divine guidance comes during the Revolutionary War, a time in which men with much to lose chose, for reasons more often than not against their personal interests, put themselves on the line against King George's England. This war could have been lost during many periods, yet somehow fate drove us to victory. To consider the intelligence of the resulting Constitution and its lasting importance without believing that it was a Godly document is, to my mind, almost impossible.

The lack of self-preservation that lies at the heart of our Founding Fathers lies at the heart of America's history. Herein we discern the difference between all other countries and us. While certain diplomats such as Henry Kissinger practiced a European kind of _realpolitik_ , our ultimate purpose has always been one of benevolence. How else to explain that we have achieved unprecedented power so benignly? The U.S. possesses the ability to dominate all others, to turn the globe into a Pax Americana, to enslave and conquer beyond the realm of all previous conquerors. Can one envision the Romans, the Chinese Dynasties, the Soviet Bloc, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, even the British Empire, possessing our weapons and also our restraint? What about modern countries like Iran and China? The question is impertinent in the face of what we know.

So how did we get that way? While the hand of God cannot be discounted, one must consider that timing and the quest for human knowledge has been the weaponry of our good fortune. By that I mean that we had the wonderful hindsight of world history to study and determine what mistakes had been made, and how to improve on the performance of our predecessors.

Using as a model the study of politics endeavored by Dennis Dalton, Ph.D. from Barnard College and Columbia University, we start by examining the Hindu vision of life. At the heart of Hinduism is a four-part "life education" centered on the value of property (capitalism), sensual pleasure, religious duty, and spiritual enlightenment. The study of Hinduism, embodied in the 20th Century by Mohandas Gandhi, contrasts with the study of the Muslim religion. It is impossible not to note this in light of current affairs.

Next, we analyze the cradle of Democracy, Greece after the Peloponnesian War. War is said by the Greeks to be a "violent teacher." It is a peculiar fact of Mankind that to our worst mistakes has allowed us to gain our greatest knowledge. Socrates proposed ideas that were so radical he was given the hemlock, and his students, Plato and Aristotle, expound upon the lessons of the losing battle with Sparta and the Hindu vision of life. The result, in short, is a view of politics that conservatives can relate to in the modern era.

First, the Greek philosophers disagreed with the Hindu "fourth step," which was to find personal enlightenment. The Greeks felt that personal enlightenment, while admirable, should be used for the purpose of political contribution. This can be found in the concept of _noblesse oblige_ that is at the heart of the greatest political family today, the Bush's, and can be contrasted with the Machiavellian concept of power that was Joseph Kennedy's vision of his Massachusetts dynasty.

Plato argues that politics should be a science that, like Hippocratic medicine, trained professionals to eschew personal ambition and, like doctors, desire to do only good. He felt that Greek Democracy was too widespread, fomenting the mob mentality that Americans, by forming representative government, sought to avoid.

His study of war teaches us that the liberal creativity at the heart of the Athenian military was not a match for the strict discipline of the Spartans, a lesson worth remembering when we contemplate our military as a social experiment instead of a bulwark against our enemies.

The study of Machiavelli is important in trying to understand those who have opposed us over the years. Like the Greek thinkers, Machiavelli arrived at his conclusions in light of military disaster. Italy was in the throes of despair in the years after their Empire had been broken up, and it was the lessons of that fall that Machiavelli applied to his view of political power. We find Machiavelli's ghost whispering in the ears of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and the Clintons – both Bill and especially Hillary. The Republicans have not been immune to the Machiavellian creed. McCarthyism and Richard Nixon's paranoid "enemies list" carry the Machiavellian touch, and from these periods we find cautionary tales that we must heed or face disaster.

Contrasting the Greeks with Machiavelli allows us to get to the heart of unique American designs, which are to _do good._ To do good, often at great sacrifice, is a concept perhaps still too novel for those not fully understanding of American values to grasp. In that regard we can offer only patience and continuing example.

Next, I address the politics that co-existed with the United States. This includes the French Revolution and how it was inspired by the American Revolution, but veered so far from that concept. Next, the English transformation from royal to parliamentarian embodied by their Jewish Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. The U.S. influence, embodied by Theodore Roosevelt, is studied as it applies to the eventual break-up of the British Empire and its resulting racial implications.

No study of America is complete without an unflinching look at slavery, and it is here that I propose a revolutionary, bold model that I call "America: Where Slavery Came to Die." Plato determined that slavery was a natural result of the human condition, and the British colonial view did not veer far from this concept. These values were thrust upon America. Yet somehow, in four score and seven years, the U.S. managed to address a thriving institution that had existed for thousands of years and, effectively, end it. This was accomplished on our shores, using our laws. No foreign power came here, defeated us and told us what to do. Considering slavery's economic benefits in the South, and the cost of the Civil War, the ending of the "peculiar institution" might be the most compelling example of how we changed the politics of self-interest into the politics of better interests. This is a premise meant to cause some controversy and plenty of discussion, always a healthy result of philosophies and critiques.

How did Communism rise and why was it opposed in America? What did we learn from Gandhi? What lessons did we apply in the post-World War II years? Throughout history, conquering nations had enslaved and colonized. We left Europe and Japan with a legacy of goodwill never seen in the annals of Mankind. Contrast Doug MacArthur with Napoleon, just to start the discussion.

What were the results of McCarthyism? I argue that here we see the true roots of liberal bias. It was a backlash against McCarthy that lies at the heart of a Left wing dominant media culture, embodied by millionaire actors racked with guilt over their good fortune, and a "gotcha" journalistic ethos spawned by Watergate. But why should the Left be the sole disseminators of correct political thought? Where were Ben Bradlee, Katherine Graham and the _Washington Post_ in 1960 when the greatest political crime in American history was being perpetuated? Orchestrated by Joseph Kennedy, the Democrats stole the election from Nixon by creating Texas' "tombstone" vote and rampant corruption in Mayor Richard Daley's Chicago that rivals...New York's Democrat Tammany Hall. To study liberal bias carries with it a study of how talk radio and cable television has finally brought about a sea change in the way Americans receive their information. Because of it, the world will never look back. I argue that the current Democrat Party's days are numbered, in my lifetime. Despite my obvious Republican sympathies, however, this prospect is rife with potential disaster, because a thriving two-party system is healthy.

We will look at the role of the Democrats in the Jim Crow South and how it was the Republican Party that husbanded the region from its racist past into its current thriving, functioning role in our society.

The Cold War is examined herein, and at the heart of my argument is the Reagan Theory, which is based first on an observation of World War II. In that war, over 50 million people perished from the Earth. Some 358,000 Americans died. Yet the country and the world agree that the cost was worth it, to purge society of Hitler and the Japanese warlords. The theory then delves into a scenario worthy of a Tom Clancy novel. The U.S. and the Soviets enter into World War III in 1983. The war lasts until 1989. 50 million people die. 360,000 of them are Americans. Better technology and Divine Intervention bring victory to the U.S. The political result of W.W. III is _exactly the same thing that actually did happen!_ The Berlin Wall falls. The U.S.S.R. is broken up. The Eastern Bloc crumbles. Communism is relegated to the dustbin of history, leaving rogue regimes in North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba to live out their miserable, meaningless existences until attrition takes its inevitable toll. The Reagan Theory asks the question, _Would such a result be worth the lives of 360,000 Americans?_ and posits the notion that a post-World War III world would, like its World War II predecessors, agree that it was.

Except that Reagan and the conservatives who believed, endorsed and fought for him achieved this without the loss of life. Is anything more telling? Still, this notion has never been put forth, so herein I propose a theory that, at its heart, offers a revolutionary new model for looking at history.

Finally, we must ask ourselves who we are today, and what the post-9/11 challenges are. We see history repeating itself. It is America that stands, seemingly alone, ready and willing to do the heavy lifting necessary to rid the world of terror, while Europe, long the benefactor of our protection, reverts to its old notions of self-interest. As Santayana once said, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to re-live it." I might add that America is willing not only to remember the past, but in so doing, we willingly take on the task of shaping a hopeful future.

Lastly, as you read this book and some of my ripe conservative views, I have a message for liberals, conservatives and everything in between and beyond: There is love in my heart for _everybody_ , do not take the politics personally, and in the U.S., we are all Americans.

"United we stand," Abe Lincoln once said. "Divided we fall."

VOLUME ONE

HISTORY LESSONS FOR A YOUNG AMERICA

## CHAPTER ONE

# A MODERN THEORY OF GOOD VS. EVIL

Americans like to congratulate themselves on what a great country we are. We pat each other on the back because we got it right where others were off the mark. Our Constitution has lasted well over 200 years. We managed to effectively end the institution of slavery as a viable trade between legitimate nations. We have fought wars for the right reasons. Instead of plundering the conquered lands for booty, we re-built nations and endeared ourselves to grateful millions. We managed to create a political and economic model that defied the previous assumptions of men. Our mistakes are placed in the storefront window, not hidden from view. We study our errors and seek to correct them in a way no country has ever done.

Consider Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France in the beginning of the 19th Century. Bonaparte was one of the greatest military strategists of all time, but his strategies failed to take into account important aspects of campaigns. First, aggressive war makes enemies. Second, post-war occupation is a breeding ground for conspiracy.

People are remarkably pliable over time. As generations change, populations get used to their situation. But Napoleon was not much more benevolent than all previous dictatorships. The Roman Empire plundered and enslaved conquered territory, and so did Napoleon. The Romans did bring their culture to distant outposts, and some of the native populations managed to prosper under their command. But mainly populations chafed under Roman dictate. This was not the impetus of the empire's crumbling. However, benevolent strength throughout their empire could have proven to be the necessary infrastructure of its existence.

This lesson was not learned by Napoleon. He thought he could do better. He attacked his neighbors and looted their riches. He did not institute governments or policies that improved the situations of the defeated nations and armies. Many of the dispossessed multitudes would have welcomed changes that improved their political landscapes.

The British, while the most progressive of the great pre-American empires, made the mistake of treating the populations in their colonies with contempt instead of endeavoring to create respect for law and equality. The one real exception to this was America, where the British viewed the colonists as semi-equals because they came from English stock.

What is important to understand, however, is that the United States has had the great advantage of history, timing and modern sensibilities guiding its destiny. Imagine how much recorded history had passed, like sands through the hourglass, before the U.S. came into being. England had crossed the seas, coming upon strange lands filled with mysterious, dark-skinned peoples. While the precepts of morality and goodness tell us that the English _should_ have treated these populations with respect, it may be too much to expect the English race, faced with their own ignorance, suspicions and religious view of "pagans," to act out in the manner God would intend. The English, imbued with a superior view of themselves, were not advanced enough to welcome non-whites as equals. Many have tried to blame Christianity for this, but one finds nothing in the Bible, or the teachings of Christ Himself, any justification for this behavior.

Holding historical people responsible for their acts, using modern knowledge, is a standard that few can live up to. There are exceptions, but they are rare. The American Ideal was born from what we knew about the British, but because we were colonists chafing under their authority, it gave us the principles that lie at the heart of our country's foundation. Thank God for it.

This is not to discount our own dark moments. The slavery experience, and the Indian Wars, in retrospect could have been handled much differently. But slavery did not continue, and the Indian experience was not the holocaust it could have been. What other countries in the 19th Century would have handled the Indian confrontations in a manner substantially different from the U.S.? A reminder of the Spanish Inquisition offers some perspective. The American West was an unavoidable clashof civilizations.

Mainly, the history of America occurs side-by-side with enlightened times. The civil rights struggle, women's suffrage, and modern religious, political, economic and psychological ideas are part of America's growth. The question is worth asking, Has the world grown up because of America, or is America the by-product of a grown-up world? No doubt a little of both. This chapters endeavors to place credit where credit is due, by looking at historical figures whose writings and teachings influenced the formation of American political thought.

Dennis G. Dalton is a Ph.D. who teaches a course at Barnard College, Columbia University, called "Power Over People: Classical and Modern Political Theory." Professor Dalton teaches in a beautiful, non-judgmental manner that seems to be devoid of the kind of political correctness and historical revisionism that colors so much scholarship today.

Professor Dalton endeavors to tell us who we are by examining the giants of political thought throughout history. He uses two major criteria: How important the questions are, and the responses to the questions.

Since America is at its core a Democracy, it seems to make sense that one begins with an examination of Democratic principles. This takes us to the cradle of Democracy, Athenian Greece. But the three great philosophers of Greece, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (and before them, the medical ethicist Hypocrites) did not just come to their conclusions without teachers of their own. Who and what influenced them?

Western political theory generally falls into three broad areas. The first involves the characteristics of human nature and interaction within society. But what drives human nature? Are we a product of internal or external matter? Does reason or passion drive us? Let us cut to the chase. Are people sinful or good? Violent or non-violent? Understanding these questions is as fundamentally difficult today as it was in Socrates' time. It is the essential question that drives public policy today and in our future.

The attempt here is not just to gain some understanding of these tenets of the human animal. The purpose is to apply what we have learned to a study of the unique American character. The premise of this treatise is an acknowledgement that in the United States, we have made better and more moral decisions for the public good than any previous power. Still, we have not achieved a perfectly harmonious society. The quest for harmony goes back several Millennia. In order to achieve harmony, leaders must find a balancing act between coercive acts of power and the containment of conflict, as outlined by the laws written by institutions. Professor Dalton then asks, or really repeats the question, is social unity achievable? Is it even what we are looking for? Ah, as Shakespeare once said, there's the rub. This is the nexus of struggle.

What about human rights? The American promise is based on the principle that man has unalienable rights. Legal theory has over the years ascribed the term "natural law" to this concept. It is brought up a great deal today. Natural law was a major part of the questioning of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991. When the inevitable debate occurs over _Roe vs. Wade_ , the abortion decision delivered in 1973, it will be the central theme of this question.

To understand the rights of man, one must address whether a Creator endows his rights. This requires that leap of faith religious people have made. But many do not take that leap. Furthermore, remember that throughout the ages, many people lived under the rule of _people_ who thought _they were gods._ This premise creates further complicating dilemmas when addressing the question of equality and human rights in the context of social authority.

As somebody once said, the one constant is change. If this is so, should revolutionary thinkers be extolled for endorsing their cataclysmic ideals, or are they just historical conduits of necessity? Inevitable shifting sands of thought? To put it in plain terms, if Socrates, Plato and Aristotle do not come along, does somebody else take their place? Are we dealing with inevitability? If this is the case, one shudders to think that somebody like Adolph Hitler was inevitable.

So the question of dynamics is addressed, in the context of moral leadership and inexorable laws of history. The attempt here is to define some kind of absolute truth that exists as obviously in Athenian Greece as in 21st Century Iowa. Let us call this what it is, the question of good and evil. To determine a kind of universal, enduring code of ethics is to dispute a premise that makes its way around the modern landscape. This is the idea of moral relativism. Is it okay for Palestinian suicide bombers to blow up 50 Israeli men, women and children at a shopping mall, because Palestine has not achieved independence? Is it okay for the State of Texas to put another human being to death because that man killed another human being? Is it okay for a military commander to order his men to shoot into a crowd trying to break up a riot that would cause more casualties than those inflicted in order to stop it?

Are the answers to these questions founded in the realists' grasp of hard facts, or some higher truth? This question has been framed at times as, What would Jesus do? One finds it difficult to imagine Jesus yelling, "Fire" at a column of soldiers who respond to His command by shooting at civilians, even if they are rioting civilians. If humans can operate on the premise that there is a God, and that the vagaries of life on Earth pale in comparison to an eternity in Heaven, then the quest for truth becomes operational. Perhaps we must simply acknowledge that while we have come a long way, the kind of understanding needed to avoid life's hard facts is still far beyond our ken. What _is_ realistic is that humans will not do the same things that Jesus did, because we are humans. Asking us to do what He did is not a viable expectation. Jesus had better information at His disposal than we do.

As we look at ourselves in the beginning of the New Millennium, it is important to address the nature of change. We live in a world of newspapers, cable televesion, satellites, the Internet, and information that is readily available to much of the world's population. Change can occur much faster now than it did 300 years ago. Could the Communist Revolution have survived the kind of available knowledge we have today? National Socialism? Slavery? Or is technology a source of evil? This seems to be a strange question, but the Internet has turned out to be a place where child pornographers and terrorists communicate and readily find what they want. Is there some kind of universal dark message on the World Wide Web? The Web dislocates us from our communities, which have always operated as a kind of bulwark protecting us from ourselves. Believe me, I am a guy who uses the Internet every day. Maybe the Internet is just the way evil operates now. Through back channels. Via subterfuge. No more frontal assaults. I have a theory, based on my faith not only that there is a God, but that there is a devil, and that these forces of good and evil are constantly battling for the Earth. Maybe if the devil wins, that is when Armageddon occurs.

Or, maybe Armageddon has already happened, and we are just living in a post-Armageddon world. World Wars I and II could have been Armageddon. The atomic destruction in Japan could have been Armageddon. Maybe the build-up of opposing forces in the Middle East will lead to Armageddon. There actually is a place in the Holy Land called Armageddon. Maybe we averted Armageddon when we defeated the U.S.S.R. in the Cold War. Maybe the success of America thwarted the devil's Armageddon plans and he was forced into a rearguard action.

Great advances in science do not equate with morality. Look at the world we lived in 100 years ago. We made great strides during the 19th Century in art, culture and political philosophy. The work of Sigmund Freud symbolized a new Modernism, heralding a dawn of understanding among men of goodwill. The United States was an optimistic nation, led by Theodore Roosevelt, making its bid to be a world leader. We had settled the terrible slavery question on our own shores, and the feeling was that we had learned from our mistakes, our wars, and our misunderstandings. Hope sprung eternal.

But one might posit the notion that the devil had a plan. He might have seen the new technologies of the Industrial Revolution, and determined that man would just as likely put them to use for evil as for good. That is what happened during World War I. We ended that conflict and called it the "war to end all wars." We formed the League of Nations and told ourselves that civilized men and nations would keep the peace. The great expectations of the new century had simply been postponed by unfortunate old feuds between ancient European rivals. But evil has a face. It is the face of Hitler and Stalin. It was symbolized for years by the swastika, and the hammer and sickle. In the Roaring '20s, a group of Parisian-based writers called the Lost Generation sensed that the horrors of war had unleashed darkness that was spreading, not receding. The devil discovered, to his great delight, the machine gun, chlorine and mustard gas, the railroad line; these were weapons to further his work. It was heard in the cries of Armenians who died by the hundreds of thousands at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, in a genocide that the world ignored.

How wonderful, thought the devil. How convenient. A massacre of an entire people, all done under the color of "military  
necessity," and given the imprimatur of government respectability. The devil knew then and there that the selfish people of the world, concerned only with their own petty national problems, could be duped easily. We would just stand around while his work was done. The devil set out to find the most efficient regimes to carry out his plan.

The United States? Naw, said the devil. It would be great if he could get those people to carry out his work. He had had a few successful campaigns in the New World. Slavery. The Civil War. But the U.S. was too Christian, and those Founding Fathers were independent thinkers. Trying to overcome the Constitution was too difficult a task. So the devil looked at the two huge countries hit hardest by the Great War, Germany and Russia. How perfect, he thought. He would pit them against each other, and it would not matter who won. The devil was hedging his bets for both sides.

First, and how perfect was this, the devil planted the seeds of hatred in Germany against the Chosen People of Israel. By almost the middle of the century, over 45 million people were dead. Among them were 6 million Jews, plus another 6 million who died within the camps, and countless soldiers and civilians. Misery, disease, injuries, and displacement. The devil was on a roll, but he was facing his old nemesis, the United States. A chosen nation, given all the extra advantages that God could bestow upon it. The devil might not have expected the U.S. to come out of this latest war so well, but that is what happened.

Damn, thought the devil. Foiled again. Just when it looked like the 20th Century would be his greatest victory, America came along with its _principles_ , its _ideals_ of _happiness_ and _equality_. The French had espoused these ideals in 1789, but the devil saw to it that greed and retribution would win the day. But these Americans kept _doing the right thing_.

The devil kept getting his licks in. He managed to divide this beautiful nation, just enough to keep us from achieving our goals in the rice paddies of the Southeast Asia. He smiled when Pol Pot's minion's killed millions in Cambodia. But when the Berlin Wall fell, the devil new the old techniques would not work any more. He needed to change the plan.

Now, the U.S. faces new challenges in a new century. Evil is a tricky thing. Like Communism, evil looks for disciples amongst the dispossessed, the losers, and the left-behind. Who better than the Arabs, who contributed little to victory over the Axis Powers, then aligned themselves with the Soviets in one of history's poorer choices. These are the people who live in Third World squalor. They have occupied these countries for centuries, while the desperate, refugee Israelis moved into their back yard. Within a few years, they created the ultimate in your face: A thriving economic and military power.

The devil knew how to get to these Arabs. He planted seeds of hate, masked in the guise of destiny, within the little heads of Hussein, Arafat, Qhadafi, bin Laden, al-Assad. He found in these small people admiration for Hitler's Germany. He told them that _Der Fuhrer_ had been doing God's work by massacring Jews, and that it was their chosen path to keep up the good work. This time, the Jews fought back, armed with better brainpower, moral authority, and partnership with the United States, who were now calling the shots instead of France and the ancient appeasers. The U.S.-Israeli alignment simply said no, and the little men were stopped.

In this new War on Terrorism, we are more and more facing an "enemy" that we call Militant Islam. But is this the real enemy? Is the devil just using the Muslims, a convenient group as it is, to hide his real agenda? He has, it would seem, just substituted the Jewish face, or the Armenian face, with the musky, bearded face of Islam. Something different and hard to understand. The enemy? Just as the Germans learned that the Jew was not their enemy, we will learn the Muslim is not ours. The key is to do it in time, before World War III breaks out in a massive misunderstanding of chaos and anarchy that sounds like the laughter of evil.

Who will say, "Never again?" Who will do the heavy lifting necessary to advance civilization in such a way that the devil retreats and cries "uncle" for 100, 500, maybe even 1,000 years? That is a pretty good guess, pilgrim. The answer: The United States of America.

CHAPTER TWO

THE FORMATION OF DEMOCRACY

My search for the American soul begins with the cradle of Democracy, Athens, Greece during the time of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. As mentioned in the previous chapter, their search for understanding was based on the teachings of history prior to their times. Professor Dalton has chosen to center his initial study on the Hindu vision of life. It is a very noble vision, pre-dating by many centuries the Muslim religion. A study of Hinduism illustrates contrasts with Islam. It is not my intent to downgrade Islam. The comparison really is worth its relevance when one considers that the two religions coexisted as rivals in India prior to the break-up of the country after achieving independence from Great Britain. Gandhi was a Hindu, not a Muslim. In light of recent developments, as one gains understanding of Hinduism's core tenets, one might wish that the warped mind of Muslim extremism would have been imbued with some of those tenets. The tide of history has divided the two religions, instead of allowing them to co-exist and benefit one another. Hope remains that some day the twain shall meet.

The Hindu Vision of Life

The two sacred texts of Hinduism are "The Bhagavad-Gita" and the "Chandogya Upanishad". The central theme of these texts is self-mastery, and the pursuit of ideal conduct. Unlike other philosophies of ancient times, the self-mastery of this religion is entirely peaceful, instead of instilling a warlord's creed. Illusion and ignorance are the enemies of self-realization, because they cause fear.

Fast-forwarding over 2,000 years, we can apply these human frailties to the study of 20th Century racism. What we do not understand, we fear. This was at the heart of Adolph Hitler's persecution of Jews. Using skilled propagandists, Hitler replaced misunderstanding with demonizing lies and mischaracterizations of Jews.

Much of American racism against blacks can be traced to ignorance and fear. Segregation bred the creation of division between the races, and what they did not know of each other, because they chose not to know, they replaced with fear.

Today, we face a protracted battle that, for better or worse, involves the confrontation of Christianity and Islam. This is not the first time these forces have collided. The Crusades were about Christianity's attempt to defeat Islam. Today our challenge is overcoming not only our ignorance of Islam, but Islam's ignorance of Christianity (and its natural co-religion, Judaism).

The Hindu's felt that there is an inter-connectiveness of all being, and tapping into that can be approached through the light of knowledge, bringing forth the highest truth. This search for truth is far more than an ephemeral term, a code word for New Age seekers or parents trying to instill values in their children. It lies at the heart of everything we do.

The political or military leader worth his or her salt knows that the only advice worth hearing is the unvarnished truth. To surround ones' self with yes men who tell him only what he wants to hear is to court disaster. Hitler did it. Joseph Stalin did it. Mao Tse-tung did it. Look at what history tells about their careers. Saddam Hussein took no advice. Neither does Kim Jong-Il of North Korea.

Contrast that with President George W. Bush, who has surrounded himself with experienced military, political and diplomatic minds. Franklin Roosevelt gave George C. Marshall _carte blanche_ when it came to strategy and personnel decisions during World War II. Roosevelt was unimpressed with the Midwestern farm boy, Dwight Eisenhower, when it was proposed that the youthful Ike be named as head of U.S. forces in Europe, but it was Marshall's call.

Leaders listen to their advisers. They also make calls that go against the grain when they feel they have acquired the knowledge to do so. Abraham Lincoln listened to his generals during the Civil War, but eventually saw through George McClellan's stall tactics, choosing instead a general like Ulysses Grant "because he fights."

But the search for truth is not something relegated only to generals, prime ministers and Presidents. It is something all of us must try to find. It is part of why I am writing this book. I am trying to find currents of truth in history that enlighten and tell me that what I have believed, my morals and the guides I have used to make decisions and support causes, are the right ones. This search can take me to tricky territory. The truly enlightened must be willing to find fault in his most sacred cows. If the truth leads down an unwanted path, only when he addresses this fully can he give real support to the things he chooses to believe in: God, politics, nations, family.

Where Hinduism differs from the Greek ideal is in the distrust of politics. The Hindu model offers a guide to educating the individual, but falls short in its vision for society as a whole. Some have attributed the Hindu influence to modern anarchists and the dark contemplators of French existentialism, but I find this to be a stretch.

The first goal of Hindu self-mastery is to gain enough self-knowledge to exercise power over others. They saw the exercise of power to be more of an individualized process, such as a parent-child or student-teacher relationship. The Greeks took it further, beyond teacher-student, to the creation of mass learning centers (the beginning of colleges) and to the application of political power.

The beauty of Hindu philosophy is in the thriving for ideal standards of conduct. These are seen as universal standards by which humans guide their behavior. This is in direct contrast to the murky moral relativism that drives liberal thought. The Hindu's set high goals that were not necessarily attainable, in order to avoid self-satisfaction, complacency and corruption. The teachers of these philosophies were called _gurus_ , who sought to teach by example. Apparently Bill Clinton did not emulate these teaching methods when it came to imparting his example to his daughter, Chelsea.

Karl Potter's "Presuppositions of India's Philosophies" states that the Indian teaching tradition centers on the individualized instruction because the teacher can only be effective if he knows his students innermost needs. This becomes more difficult when teaching a large class or leading a mass movement. While the individualized method is admirable, it limits those thrust into roles of leadership over many. However, it no doubt offers a great first step.

Education is the anti-dote to fear, which arises from the illusion of ignorance. The Hindu's said that evil and sin were illusions that arose out of their anxieties. By shedding light on the object of their anxieties, they overcame fear of other human beings while perceiving the "unity of being," the collective tissue as it was, of all human existence. Through this process, which requires great self-discipline, they attained the highest truth.

Let me examine this philosophy, which is the basis of Gandhi's teachings, and while noble fails to perceive some important things that I think history has taught us. The concept that evil does not exist except in our fears is utopian, in my view. Gandhi, the pacifist, was once asked whether he would have opposed Hitler if the Germans marched into India, and the Mahatma actually said something about prayer and the power of righteous causes.

Let me point out a few truths about Gandhi, which is not to denigrate his rightful place as a great man, but to show him to be a limited one who made the most of a "perfect" situation. First, Gandhi did little if anything to mobilize against the two great evils that rose like giant snakes side-by-side with his historical times, Nazism and Communism. Many brave Indians fought with the British against the Germans and the Japanese, but not under Gandhi's flag. Gandhi chose to oppose the British, forcing them to put valuable resources into the Indian question, at a time when they were valiantly struggling, at first all by their lonesome, against the Nazis. Gandhi's victory over the colonialists owes much to the depleted resources of the empire. It was World War II that ended the British Empire more than any single factor.

Gandhi also understood that in the British he faced a peaceful, moral, benevolent foe. He knew this, relied on it, played to it. It was a convenient way to achieve his ends, to realize that the English were sympathetic to his peaceful cause. How many occupiers would have let Gandhi lead his people in peace? The U.S., of course, but who else? The French? Studying their history in places like Indochina and Algeria tells us differently. Certainly not the Germans, Japanese, Chinese, or the Italians.

Gandhi's revolution offers important lessons in _realpolitik_ , and exposes a hole in Hinduism. While the concept that evil is non-existent proves to be a questionable tool in the arsenal of modern liberalism, it is the opposite of the Christian philosophy and flies in the face of a world history in which violence and hatred has moved mountains. Furthermore, one finds in Gandhi's politics a sad futility. Once he was assassinated, his best plans seemed to go awry. His country was torn asunder and has been the scene of violent strife between Hindu's and Muslim Pakistan ever since.

I apologize for my criticisms of Hinduism, and by no means do I wish to besmirch it. Despite pointing out some holes in the concept, I am pointing out its precepts herein because I find it an exceptionally worthy form of education. I see parallels that do exist with Christianity. The truly enlightened Hindu and Christian does not fear violence because he knows that beyond this realm of consciousness lies something beautiful and eternal.

The education of Hindu's centers on four values, in ascending orders of importance. I particularly admire the four values, and find them not just enlightening, but fun and easily incorporated into Western thought. The first is called _Artha_ , which values wealth and property. Good for the Hindu's. They are not socialists! Of course, this value is only the _first_ order of importance, because they felt that while property is important, the enlightened being sees the _illusory_ nature of its value. This may not play well with those who identify their place in society solely on the size of the bank accounts, but nevertheless offers an eternal truth that lies at the heart of our moral compass.

The second value is _Kama_ , and again, I say God bless 'em. _Kama_ places value on sensual and sexual pleasure, and I am all for that. I am a Christian, and there are some strong, repressive attitudes in my religion that tell us sex is sinful, but I am not a hypocrite. I love sex and find it healthy as all get out!

The third value is _Dharma_ , which centers on imparting a sense of righteousness through religious belief. The last value is _Moksha_ , or spiritual liberation. As mentioned before, the Greeks and Western philosophers depart somewhat from this value. While _Moksha_ brings freedom from illusion, fear and ignorance, thereby leading to the perception of the unity of all being, it was urged that those who attain such enlightenment do so in a singular way, not necessarily for the good of a larger community. The Greeks argued that we are all political animals, and when we achieve this high education, we have a duty to devote ourselves to a worthy cause instead of retreating within ourselves.

The four values co-exist with four stages of life. _Brahmacharya_ encompasses the first 25 years of life, known as the "student stage." It is devoted to studying and understanding all the sacred texts of Hinduism. It is interesting to note that the Hindu's felt that one was still a student at age 25, at a time when people were lucky to live until they were 30 or 40. Women often were married and having children in their early teens. One might pre-suppose that a 25-year old man might be an elder of the tribe, so to speak. Still, the Hindu's were a patient people who did not try to rush the process.

_Grihastha_ covers a stage of life, from age 25 to 55, which involves establishing and providing for a family, and raising children. One can only determine that there were a fair amount of people who lived to this ripe age. The _Grihastha_ concept is an interesting one, and worth examining as it relates to two major American political dynasties. The first is the Kennedy's. While Joseph P. Kennedy certainly provided for his family, his three surviving sons, Jack, Robert and Edward, skipped this part of the process. All of them inherited wealth from Joe instead of making their own marks in business, and entered politics at very young ages.

The other great dynasty, the Bush Family, embodies the _Grihastha_ ideal in that their men all set out to make their marks, each earning fortunes that would be passed on to their heirs, before embarking headlong into politics with a sense of Platonic _noblesse oblige_ , or "noble obligation."

_Vanaprastha_ means "forest hermit." The Hindu's advocated that when a man becomes a grandfather, he should leave society and "find himself" through self-knowledge. While Christ went on this quest during his "wilderness" period, it was a relatively short time and he returned with renewed determination to teach and lead his followers. The Hindu self-knowledge period does not advocate this, but rather, curiously, advises the seeker to virtually abandon his family obligations.

Finally, after self-knowledge is attained, the seeker enters into _Sannyasa_ , or "saintliness." The person returns to society, transcends its rules (of caste) and of temptations (wealth, property and sex). The saint is strictly non-violent because he understands that to inflict harm on others is to necessarily harm ourselves.

Gandhi's position in Indian society reflects _Sannyasa_ with some variations. Certainly he was revered beyond all others, and he resisted the temptations of wealth and sex. He tested himself by sleeping naked with young women were presumably more than willing to hook up with him should he make the move (JFK and Clinton could have used a little more _Sannyasa_ ).

Where Gandhi veers is from _Vanaprastha_. He never became hermit, choosing a public life early and maintaining that place in society until his death. This is to his credit, although Gandhi yearned to seek a solitary state away from the adoring eye of the populace. His life was a great exception, of course, and he simply had too many important obligations to abandon his cause to lesser lights like Nehru while he communed in the forest.

The Hindu's liked their metaphors, telling the fable of a man entering a room at night. He sees a shadow in the corner that looks like a cobra. Scared of the cobra, he stays away from it all night. When the morning light exposes the room, the man sees that the shadow was not a cobra, but rather a piece of rope, which he now fearlessly folds up. The period of night turning to day reflects a man's life, and his realization that the thing he feared was not to be feared. In fact, it was a useful tool, a rope.

Not to continually rain on the Hindu parade, but it is instructive to understand that the rope might have been a cobra. As Ronald Reagan once said, "Trust, but verify." The Hindu vision of life placed more value on nurture than nature, and was based on the idea that the human personality is composed of a combination of wisdom and goodness, courage and energy, desire and appetite, all in varying proportions to each other.

They established social organizations based upon the qualities attributed to different classes of people. _Brahmans_ were the philosophers of the priest caste, possessing of great wisdom and goodness. This term would later find its way to the description of a certain class of the American Revolution and early period of our nation's history. It was applied to a kind of Yankee who occupied the highest place in Boston or Philadelphia Main Line society. With the advent of political correctness, it has been bastardized into an indictment of wealth and privilege, attributed in ways not meant to compliment the likes of an old money New Englander like George H.W. Bush.

_Kshatriyas_ were those identified for their courage and placed in a military caste. _Vaishyas_ were the engines of the economic caste because of their appetite for wealth.

The Hindu's veered from their concepts over time. The original system was based on merit, but eventually degenerated into an exploitative system based on privilege and heredity. While education was valued as the way to determine what caste an individual was best suited for, eventually people were seen as being born into their castes, with no chance of raising from castes deemed to be of the lower classes. The crux of the Hindu vision, as it applies to political theory, revolves around _Vanaprastha_. They felt a man should seek solitude because to put a wise man in the public sphere would corrupt him. Later, Plato argued that a system can be created where the wise man can wield power safely.

One thing is clear, however. The Hindu vision, as beautiful as it is, has presided over a country (India) that despite great size, a huge population, people of intellect, natural resources and strategic geography, is a terribly poor, sick, Third World nation. Surely, the philosophies of these people can be improved upon, and herein the study of how to do just that continues. The debate rages on.

Plato's "Republic" applied to modern politics

The study of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are interesting and begin a trend that threads through history. That trend is to gain understanding in the aftermath of tragedy. It seems that man often does his best thinking when he is desperate to do so. War brings on such desperation. The post-mortem of war provides a bounty for philosophical thought, but we also know that such philosophies can be just as dangerous as they are good. Niccolo Machiavelli did his writing in light of Italian military defeats. So did Adolph Hitler. To the extent that any "philosophers" existed in the Reconstructionist South, little good came from them in the ensuing 100 years of Ku Klux Klan terror.

Luckily for us, the Greeks extracted lessons of goodness, not evil, in the disastrous aftermath of the Peloponnesian War. The Peloponnesian War is one that gets a lot of attention. It is studied at West Point. Generals like Napoleon, George Patton and Douglas MacArthur extracted lessons from this ancient conflict, fought more than 400 years prior to the birth of Christ. The reason this battle lives on in memory is because a Greek general named Pericles took the time to analyze the Peloponnesian War in a book called "Funeral Oration". It was the best seller of its time.

Professor Dalton points out that Thucydides, the "First Citizen" of Athens at that time, analyzed Pericles' book, which is the beginning of the whole debate on "how we went wrong," to put a modern spin on it. Thucydides then wrote "History of the Peloponnesian War", detailing Athens' losing battle with Sparta from 431 to 404 B.C. Athens' mishandling of power under Pericles' leadership served as the construct on what to avoid in creating a good society. Thucydides had a pessimistic view of human nature, but Plato differed in his assessment.

Athenian democracy gave every male adult citizen a share in direct rule. The assembly met once a month, and no requirements other than the above related were required. Its huge membership was in direct proportion to its restrictions. Women, _metics_ (resident aliens) and slaves were not allowed membership, which meant that Athens, a city of 350,000, was ruled by 40,000 of that population. Obviously, considering these numbers, amateurs dominated rule of Athens. It was this absence of professionalism that stuck in Plato's craw.

Pericles was a leading general and dominant public figure in Athens during what was called the "Golden Age" (461 to 429 B.C.). In "Funeral Oration", Pericles extols Athenian virtues of honor, courage and freedom, identifying the city's political achievements as a model for all of Greece. In so doing he differentiates Athens from Sparta. He cited the Spartans' "state-induced" courage. The Spartans were force-fed military discipline instead of the spontaneity of Athenian society. Pericles also had, for the time, not surprising observations of women. They should "avoid public duties and strive not to be spoken about by men."

Where Thucydides and Pericles differed was in their interpretation of the Peloponnesian corruption of Athens. Pericles maintained a Pollyanna view of Athens, preferring to still see glory, while Thucydides clearly saw attrition, embodied by the events of a civil war on the island of Corcyra.

On Corcyra, a terrible fight erupted between pro-Athenian and pro-Spartan forces. Thucydides pulled no punches, noting that, "People went to every extreme and beyond it." Fathers killed sons, and people were killed within the precincts of religious temples.

"War," said Thucydides, "is a violent teacher." His account was the crux of Plato's and Aristotle's attempt to examine the corrosive nature of humans in search of a good society. The war on Corcyra swept away civilization. People put new emphasis on words and phrases, using them to characterize degenerative deterioration of people's ungovernable passions.

Thucydides found that power operated through greed and personal ambition, the "cause of all evils." This might be the root of the phrase "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely," for in Thucydides' view power cannot be used for good. It was the search for the good use of power that lies at the heart of Plato's teachings. The contrast is between Thucydides' realism and Plato's idealism. Thucydides did not feel that human nature had much promise, even if exposed to education, once power was allowed to rear its ugly head. Plato said people _can_ be taught perfectible humanity.

The battle on Corcyra was so terrible because it came on the heels of Athens' great achievement. By 431 B.C., Athens was at its height. Athenians had come to believe their society was vastly superior to all others, and to any in history. The lessons of Corcyra can be applied in the desultory way in which they have been repeated, over and over, throughout the history of man.

Take Germany, the easy target of the 20th Century. Here is a society of great culture and sophistication, but strains of militarism that the country had always prided itself on become the driving _power_ first in the creation of the modern Bismarck state of 1870, and later the aggressive pursuit of war from 1914-18, and again from 1939-45. A great society, a great European people, saw all of its accomplishments literally go up in flames.

My love for America does not preclude me from applying the Corcyrian lesson of corrupt power to events in our history. At My Lai during the Vietnam War, a breakdown of societal restraints occurred in the wake of power that, in that time and place, was conferred upon Lieutenant William Calley. The result was the slaughter of innocent civilians, justified by a man who felt that power was his guidepost, not morality. The indictment of public opinion, more rightly than wrongly in my view, was applied to a corrupt system more than a single man. The court martial of Calley bore this out. The system in question was not "American military power," as the liberals would have us believe, but the pervasive evil that society never eradicates. History does not simply teach its lesson to the next generation, who learn from it and sets it in stone. It is imperative that it is continually taught and re-taught, each generation learning it anew. We forget our lessons so easily, with such astonishing swiftness, that the lessons of history should not simply be elective courses in life. Rather, the lessons of Corcyra, of Auschwitz, of 9/11 must constantly be _mandated_ upon a populace that learns them not because they enjoy stimulating education, but because they _must_ hold this knowledge as truly self-evident.

Go to a public place, and ask people who Pol Pot is. Holocaust survivors said, "Never again," but again and again it did happen, in our time, under our nose, during the age of television and mass communications. It happened while the Yankees and Red Sox were battling it out for the pennant. It happened in a part of the world where millions of Americans had been just a few years before, in a place that was being depicted graphically in movies like "The Deer Hunter" and "Apocalypse Now". It happened during the age of investigative journalism and satellite TV. Pol Pot killed more than a million and a half human beings in Cambodia. Yet I would bet that were I to fly to Cambridge, Massachusetts and walk in to any class at Harvard, our most prestigious university, less than 30 percent of the students in that class would be able to tell me these perfunctory facts about Pol Pot. As I have said earlier, modern communication technology is not the safeguard against horror that too many think it is. It may be the passive partner of horror. In fact, the depiction of horror has become so commonplace – in Rwanda, in Serbia, in Iraq – that people are numb to it. They are immune. Saddam Hussein terrorized millions. His horrors were detailed on television nightly, yet the world was so numbed by or forgetful of past atrocities that it was actually considered _debatable_ whether getting rid of him was worthy of military action.

The purpose of future generations is to drum the lessons of Corcyra and its successors into the minds of our young, to shout down "Joe Millionaire" and "The Simpson's", and make a substantial portion of the world's population the same kind of thinking, caring, committed students who sat at the feet of Plato. To fail to do so is to allow the devil another victory, and perhaps it is the bleak realization that Plato's idealism was ultimately founded on sand instead of rock.

At Corcyra, Pericles depicted a complete breakdown of order. This anarchy came as such a shock because it was felt that Athens had achieved a society that would withstand such assaults on Democratic values of goodness and decency. This was behind the thinking of people like John Lennon. When I was a kid, I ironically thought John Lennon and V.I. Lenin were the same person (the Lennon Sisters confused me). The former Beatle, like the Athenians before him, may have succumbed to the notion that society could withstand assaults on our goodness. When we finally did "give peace a chance," pulling out of Vietnam in 1973, anarchy ruled in a way that made Corcyra look like Sunday school. It was the weak knees of peaceniks like Lennon, the "useful idiots" that Lenin (supposedly) spoke of, who opened the door for Pol Pot and his ilk. It is the forgetfulness of humans, caught in their own daily lives, who lack the vigilance to stop evil. Therefore, they are the "useful idiots" not just of defeated Communist ideology, but of terrorism in the new era.

As Thucydides wrote, the civil war _instructed_ people on barbarism. Individual, small groups and cabals were formed at Corcyra, each driven by a "violent fanaticism." The use of violence would be encouraged by Hitler to settle local scores. It was always directed at scapegoat Jews. In a terrible example of what former U.S. Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill said, "All politics is local," the Germans directed their anger at Jews _in their neighborhoods_ to _protect those neighborhoods._ Thus was the Corcyrian dilemma, where local warlords abandoned all previous identification with Athens, with Greece, and with Democratic values. Instead they recognized the creation of small fiefdoms within their control, to be protected because it was in their immediate self-interests.

So, the Greeks tried to make some sense of Corcyra. They came to a pretty interesting conclusion, one that may have been fairly revolutionary. They determined that Pericles, who helmed the losing campaign, was as responsible as anybody they could try to pin it on. Since he was a military commander, trained not in civil skills but rather in the art of war, then it stood to reason that civilian values must be charged to civilians. Think of Jack Nicholson telling Tom Cruise "you can't handle the truth" in "A Few Good Men", for perspective. The message is that civilians (Cruise is in the Navy, but he represents a civilian symbol) _must_ handle the truth because they are the ones with the most at stake. The military might be good and going in, killing people and breaking things, but it is the civilians who must live with the aftermath.

In reading Percles' "Funeral Oration", I find much to admire, and therefore I am not willing to blame Pericles as much as Thucydides does. Since Athens had lost the Peloponnesian War, Pericles was the scapegoat. However, certain facts seem to contradict the scapegoating of the general. Pericles found much value in military virtues of honor and courage. However, it was a strict adherence to such codes of military behavior that was attributed to Sparta's victory. The Athenians were said to have lost because they placed too much value on individual creativity. So how can Pericles have it? Is the lesson that society and the military must be more war-like, or more liberal? Aw, an age old question.

Pericles wrote about a post-war scenario. "When our work is over, we are in a position to enjoy all kinds of recreation for our spirits." This is the refrain of military/political planners, the idea that the hard work must be done now so that future generations can enjoy freedom.

Pericles demonstrates some useful ideas about society and economics when he wrote, "...our love of the things of the mind does not make us soft. We regard wealth as something to be properly used, rather than as something to boast about. As for poverty, no one needs to be ashamed to admit it: The real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it." This sounds like Jack Kemp promoting Empowerment Zones in the inner city.

Pericles also makes an interesting point in light of the Hindu observations on fear of the unknown.

"Others are brave out of ignorance; and, when they stop to think, they begin to fear," he wrote. In other words, bravery and fear are often very close to being the same thing. True bravery, Pericles said, is found when a man has full knowledge and meets the challenge head on.

Pericles makes the point that Athens was a city of kind people with charitable hearts. Their frequent military invasions were seen as the result of an adventurous spirit. Those conquered and plundered by them no doubt would debate this "adventurousness." The colonialist philosophy lives in Pericles' words, but the Greeks did not invent such an attitude. Nations had been plundering each other for centuries prior to his time. But the theme of "charitable hearts" is worth examining. I am struck by this, and see the age-old question of power. Pericles seems to be saying that his people have so much to offer, once the war is over the survivors will surely benefit. This is a theme of power repeated many times. In the film "Wall Street", Hal Holbrooke scolds Charlie Sheen for the way he achieves his high position, knowing Sheen is a man of conscience. Sheen says he can be "a pillar and do good things" after he has achieved his millions, which of course he attains through illegal insider trading.

The Americans strove to win the "hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese people they were sent to help, but unfortunately this meant "destroying the village in order to save it" (although that phrase was made up by a reporter to give a bad American spin to the war).

Pericles was prescient of revolutionary spirit when he wrote, "The people who have the most excuse for despising death are not the wretched and unfortunate, who have no hope of doing well for themselves, but those who run the risk of complete reversal in their lives, and who would feel the difference most intensely, if things went wrong for them."

What he foretells with this statement was the nature of revolution and uprising. Throughout history, the dispossessed, feeling they had nothing to lose, were the ones who rose up and attempted to overcome their suppressors. Pericles herein tries to attribute nobility to the Athenians who fought, as if to say that they were placing themselves at risk in order to achieve a noble cause. This falls short in light of the fact that the Athens of Pericles' time was an invader more often than a defender. But the statement applies to revolutions in France and Russia, where the poor, the uneducated, and the hapless chose to fight because life offered little hope. Where Pericles' words resonate with clarity is in a study of the American Revolution, a very unique cause indeed. Here, it was the wealthy, the educated, and the landowners who did business with England, and had much reason to maintain a status quo relationship with the King. They put everything on the line not out of desperation but, remarkably, out of pure idealism. The unique American spirit stands out during this conflict, when the Americans refused to give in, to split their cause, or to cut and run, despite the pressures brought to bear by the formidable English forces. All the lessons of humanity, of Corcyra, of people abandoning principles, reason and order to defend selfish interests, were replaced by a new lesson in America. Four score and seven years later, when the American experiment faced its toughest test, President Lincoln gave meaning to the philosophy when he said, "A house divided cannot stand."

Almost as an afterthought, Pericles made his observation of women, in particular the widowed brides of dead soldiers.

"Your great glory is not to be inferior to what God has made you, and the greatest glory of women is to be least talked about my men, whether they are praising or criticizing you," he wrote.

One doubts that Madonna and Condoleeza Rice, for instance, are big fans of Pericles. Madonna probably does not know who Pericles is, while Rice likely studied him.

Where Pericles found much to glorify in "Funeral Oration", Thucydides recounted the disaster of the Peloponnesian War, focusing on the Corcyrean civil war. The island was split into rival factions, one siding with Athens and the other with Sparta. Thucydides saw these factions as a microcosm for Greek society. Terrible acts of retribution and revenge were committed upon varying ethnic, religious and political groups. They were singled out as enemies by the people who had enough of an upper hand to single them out, group them together and commit atrocities upon them. All semblance of justice and order went out the window. The Corcyreans killed many who they said had conspired to overthrow Democracy, but in reality the killings were done on the grounds of personal grudges over money and other mundanities.

As the United States grew as a power, becoming more and more involved in peacekeeping in the wake of conquering victories in Cuba, Europe and Japan, the study of the Peloponnesian War became important at West Point and the Naval War College. These acts of human nature became something to avoid at all costs. Where the U.S. was not involved, the Corcyrean experience repeated itself, in China's Cultural Revolution, the Hutu-Tutsi conflict of Rwanda, and in the break-up of the old Soviet Empire, just to name a few examples. It may be the most daunting ghost hovering over American shoulders in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Eventually, the events on Corcyra spread through the whole of the Hellenic world, with Democrats trying to "bring in" Athenians, and oligarchs trying to "bring in" Spartans. Strange bedfellows are created during war. Rival factions, considered enemies during peace, were joined in an effort to extract ruthless changes in government and the social order, without respect for reason or justice. These collaborations had a calamitous effect, and as Thucydides noted, the worst of human nature resulted in great savagery. Where the deprivation of people's daily wants occurs, Thucydides wrote, "it brings most people's minds down to the level of their actual circumstances."

This was the case, as stated earlier, during most of the world's revolutions. It was the root of Communism in Russia and China, where Lenin, Stalin and Mao manipulated the starving masses into acts of savagery. In light of the seemingly inexorable tide of human nature, history must accord credit to both the Indians and the British during Gandhi's struggle for independence. The British, for the most part, did not relegate the Indians to the kind of suffering that would have made them feel they had nothing to lose. Gandhi, to his great credit, never inflamed such passion in the mobs, even after early acts of violence against the Indians that had some elements calling for English blood. It was a revolution, but a relatively civil one on both sides.

The aftermath of Corcyra was terrible because of the slow-moving news. Word spread to other cities, and the violence was exaggerated, the lies tailored to create zealous hatreds that played themselves out depending on individual situations. Again, to quote Tip O'Neil., "all politics is local." Words were changed to fit needs. Descriptions of thoughtless aggression were changed, now regarded as courageous. Prudence, on the other hand, was said to be cowardly.

Millions protested war in Iraq, and while I supported George Bush and the U.S. military, I must be mindful of the words and phrases of the Peloponnesian aftermath. I therefore choose not to call the protesters cowards. They might be considered prudent. The best way to make my point is to tell the story of history as truthfully as possibly, and by shedding the anti-septic light of truth on recurring events, to let the thing speak for itself. Or, as it is said in Latin, _res ipsa loquiter._

At the same time, Thucydides made note of "fanatical enthusiasm," which was said to be the mark of "a real man" by those who would use the term to disguise and legitimate their violence. Fanaticism rears its ugly head today. It is essential to the cause of those who advocate military action to rid us of the Saddam Hussein's of the world, to avoid fanaticism, and maintain calm heads. It is the reason juries are selected from among a populace removed from the passions of a case.

Plots, counter-plots and conspiracies created fear and mistrust everywhere. Therefore, people used this as an excuse to lash out pre-emptively. Families were torn asunder. Partners were formed in crime, not ideology. Acts of propaganda and misinformation were made to reduce the effect of opponent's speeches and good acts.

Revenge became greater than self-preservation, and pacts between groups were dissolved as soon as they no longer served respective purposes. Treachery was considered a virtue. Villainy was called clever, while honesty was called simple-minded. This brings to mind the age-old term, "Dealing with the devil." The U.S. is not immune from this. For various reasons, we teamed with Stalin against Hitler, supported Saddam against Iran in the 1980s, and worked with less-than-ideal groups to foment revolutions and change that served our interests in Guatemala, Chile and Afghanistan.

So hostile did sides become that fear overcame all subsequent efforts to create peace, which reminds me of the Palestinian-Israeli standoff. Oaths and pacts were broken at the drop of a hat. Those who lacked intelligence showed the greatest capacity for survival, because while their smarter opponents tried to reason with them, the Dumbellionites simply launched attacks that left their quick-witted opponents, over-confident in their belief that they could win by reason, surprised. This lesson is worth remembering when considering that certain dictators – Stalin, Hussein, Hitler – are impressed only by force, because that is all they understand. The difference between Thucydides and a study of these modern dictators is that the dictators should not be considered Dumbellionites.

Poor people, seeing a breakdown in law and order, used the revolutions to rob the rich. Envy overcame all control of passions. In the David Lean classic "Doctor Zhivago", Omar Sharif returns to Moscow after the revolution, only to find that his lovely house has been taken over by the rabble, sub-divided into housing for many people who have overrun his property. Knowing that if he protests he will be shot because he was once a member of the educated elite, Sharif just acquiesces and says, "Yes, it is more...just."

In the wake of Corcyra and the awful conflicts that followed, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle tried to make sense of things, to define what "just" really is, and to address fundamental questions about the true nature of man.

Attica was the leading Greek "city-state" during the fifth century B.C., and Athens was its principal city. Attica was about the size of Rhode Island. The term "Democracy" has been coined in describing Athens, while Sparta was said to be an "oligarchy," but Athenian political rights were limited, not to mention diluted.

In Athens, citizens composed of 160,000 men, women and children, but among this group, only 40,000 adult males had political rights. "Outlanders" included 96,000 non-Athenian Greeks, Phoenicians and Jews, 24,000 of them alien adult males, but none had political rights. However, some enjoyed wealth and economic rights, and were important members of Attican society. There were some 100,000 slaves, and they had no rights. Plato and Aristotle saw slavery as a simple fact of nature.

"The lower sort of Mankind are by nature slaves," Aristotle stated. Most slaves were "imported barbarians" who served as domestics, or as assistants in business.

There is no disputing that the Greek philosophers were intelligent men whose teachings have had an enormous impact on the world for thousands of years. They were legitimately Great Men. Yet, they not only tolerated, but also advocated as natural, slavery. Considering this imprimatur of legitimacy, one can see how slavery existed as a thriving institution for so long. In light of the fact that we now see it for the evil it is, the entire question of moral relativism must be addressed to their teachings, even their own pointed efforts to address that very question. Slavery, and the subjugation of women, were both considered to be the manifest way of human nature in Greek society.

The teachings of these philosophers, a profound part of upper crust English education for years, helped justify British colonialism. The English simply acknowledged themselves as superior to the dark-skinned peoples who they ruled over in an Empire that never saw the setting of the Sun. The facts justified their worldview. In India, the British thoroughly ruled the sub-Continent despite being outnumbered _400,000 to one_. Their superiority of intellect, their ability to organize and to create order where chaos reigned, presented themselves as justifiable facts that need no commentary. _Res ipsa loquiter._ It was only after generations of natives were exposed to Western religion, teaching and manners that they even hinted at revolution. This lesson was the reason American slave owners frowned on teaching them how to read.

Thomas Jefferson's legacy is in question because he, too, owned slaves. This is a more legitimate question than any attempt to hold Plato and his class to such "unthinkable" standards, because the question of the "peculiar institution" was already a focus of Christian protest in Jefferson's day. The modern debate is framed around the question of whether tolerance of slavery overshadows all other good works. Logic dictates that it cannot. So, the slavery/colonial question, and the American conflict with Native Indians, then centers on a more scientific premise. A Darwinian "survival of the fittest" gave credence to the British. Their occupation of exotic lands was the evidence of their own evident fitness. American Manifest Destiny was justified because it represented progress.

Still, Truth is Truth. American patriotism cannot just "explain away" the Indian conflicts, while conservatives point out liberal moral relativism where it is convenient to do so. If Plato argued about true justice in his day, then he must also be held accountable for the blinders that kept him from protesting Greek slavery. An honest accounting of righteousness is imperative no matter how many sacred cows are pierced. In its place are lies, large and small, that are at the heart of evil.

As I mentioned earlier, I feel fortunate to live in the times I live in. The tides of progress have created racial equalities that make such obtuse divisions of class and justifications based on superiority passé. Getting back to the scientific aspect of human progress, it seems that over time races simply evolve. In the rhythm of human history, where time is immemorial, "white superiority" is just a phase, not a timeless fact. Dinosaurs once ruled the Earth, but times changed for them, too. White supremacists point out that while people of color have progressed, it was mainly when they were exposed to and taught by whites that progress occurred. There is, of course, debate on the validity of this theory, but empirical evidence demonstrates that like it or not, it is founded on facts.

Of course, the slavery question historically was not always race-based, and in Plato's day slaves came in all shapes and colors. The accident of nationality and military weakness was much more prevalent in creating slavery than was race. This prevalence is lost on current race baiters who see slavery not from a truly historical point of view, but as a tool to extract reparations and victim status out of white guilt, mainly in America.

The Greek name for "city-state" was _polis_ , or polity, and they had a very high rate of public involvement, which contrasted with Sparta, also known as Laconia, which had a population roughly the same size. Sparta was a military society, while in Athens 20,000 men were on the political pay roll, while 6,000 comprised the armed forces.

There were no particular requirements for membership in the Athenian Assembly, which met once a month, with 6,000 people considered a quorum. Any citizen could address his grievance to the Assembly. Within the Assembly, the agendas were prepared either by the Council of Five Hundred (the Boule, or ballot) or an "inner council" of 50 men. The Assembly controlled all legislation, administration and justice. The court system consisted of 101 to 1001 men, most of whom were amateurs. Plato was a critic of the system, his main complaint being the lack of professionalism.

Plato's philosophy was given voice in Sophocles' tragic play, "Antigone". The play addresses three main questions. First, whether and under what circumstances it is legitimate to challenge authority. Second, weighing social order with conscience. Third, the compatibility of man-made law and divine law.

All of Plato's "crisis of conscience" questions are colored by his acceptance of the "natural" state of slavery, which I have addressed herein and, for the sake of studying the many questions at hand, I will endeavor to set aside for purposes of this study.

Sophocles lived from 495-406 B.C., and is considered one of history's great dramatists. He wrote 120 plays, 96 of which won first prize in dramatic competitions against such esteemed playwrights as Euripides, Aeschylus and Aristophanes. "Antigone" was part of a trilogy that also includes "Oedipus Rex" and "Oedipus at Colonus". So popular was "Antigone" that Sophocles was named a general, an honor bestowed upon neither Tennessee Williams nor Shakespeare.

The play opens in Thebes after a conflict in which Antigone's two brothers, Polynices and Eteocles, killed each other. Two themes are immediately apparent. One is the fratricidal violence that the Peloponnesian War created, and the other is the role of women. Antigone is left without brothers, and she is a woman in a society in which women are regarded in the highest esteem if they just stay silent.

Creon, ruler of Thebes and the uncle of Antigones (and her dead brothers) orders Eteocles honored because of his loyalty, while Polynices is to be thrown to the dogs because he plotted Creon's overthrow. Antigones vows to defy Creon and bury Polynices, citing her defiance as an adherence to divine law vs. Creon's "profane" law. Antigone therefore introduces us to a heretofore unknown concept: Civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is defined in "Antigone" for its contrast to ordinary law breaking, and in Professor Dalton's study is promoted as foreshadowing the later actions of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Creon sees things differently, of course (what is drama without conflict?). He asserts that his word is the law, citing the importance of political stability vs. anarchy. The play winds itself around the merits of this theme, and predictably demonstrates that Creon has too much _hubris_ , or arrogance, against the gods. The conclusion, as demonstrated by the Chorus representing public opinion, is that ruler's must demonstrate good sense and moderation. "Antigone" is seen as a cautionary tale (after the fact) against the excesses of the Corcyran civil war and its subsequent revolutions. It also breaks new ground by showing a woman to be strong and willing to speak up.

Creon's tyrannical rule parallels his view of women, who he says need to be kept under wraps. "Antigone" has also been compared to "Funeral Oration", with Pericles shown as the military commander who may have chosen not to highlight the result of military defeat, but nevertheless espouses Democratic leadership. These two works have been used over time to demonstrate moral command in the military. In World War II, the two worlds of Democracy and dictatorship were pitted against each other. At D-Day, on the one hand were the "automatons" of Hitler's legions, and on the other Omar Bradley's "citizen soldiers." Historian Stephen Ambrose was just one of many writers who pointed out cases where the German enlisted personnel, who would be shot if they did not carry out immoral orders, were almost helpless when their officers were killed. American privates, corporals and sergeants, on the other hand, showed initiative and leadership countless times under stress after their officers had been killed. General Dwight D. Eisenhower put the conflict in perspective this way: "It's Huck Finn vs. Alexander the Great." Chalk one up for Mark Twain.

Plato read "Antigones" and "Funeral Oration". He was greatly influenced by them. He incorporated Pericles' value of bravery, which has a mystical quality, into a vision of the future in which political leaders would have a vision of higher law. But he took Pericles further by advocating equality for women (like Antigone) who demonstrated equal intelligence with men.

I have spoken already of Plato, who authored "Republic" and is seen as the most influential of the "big three" because he was the protégé of Socrates and the mentor of Aristotle. Let me now retrace my steps back to Socrates. Socrates asked a simple enough question: "What is the best way for humans to live?" Boy, did this get him in hot water.

Influenced by the Hindu's, Socrates sought knowledge through life's journey, and in another book by Plato, "Apology", Socrates offered up truth as a method instead of a possession, and wisdom as awareness of one's own ignorance.

This has caused me to re-think my own _hubris_ , since when I am arrogantly _informing_ people of "facts," I have been known to say, "I possess the knowledge that..." or "The fact that such-and-such is true is within the province of my knowledge." It may shut up members of the Dumbellionite Class, but lacks Socratic self-deprecation.

Gandhi certainly made much of his "awareness of his ignorance." He used it as a powerful tool of persuasion, getting people to do the right thing by "teaching him" what Gandhi knew was the moral way, then giving them credit for it. The Orientals might call this "saving face." Western political leadership has been less concerned with letting their enemies (and friends) save face, however, preferring often to just do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may. One sees this in U.S.-French relations. America has never gone out of their way to hide the fact that the Vichy French collaborated with the Nazis. When French oil businesses were exposed in their complicit propping up of Saddam Hussein, there was little effort to hide this fact. It was, instead, allowed to sit in the proverbial "store front window."

Professor Dalton, in his teachings, discusses Plato's "Symposium", in which Socrates says the meaning of love, which comes from self-knowledge, occurs when man seeks not simply to _know_ goodness, but embraces good with genuine love for it. This is an extraordinary point, and worth repeating. _To know real love only, man must not simply know goodness, but he must LOVE goodness._

This allows man to expand his love to many. Man will love selfishly, and while love of family and friends is admirable, many criminals and immoral men have loved their mothers and wives. Socratic love is a love of good things, even if there is no payoff to it. The love may be of a distant thing, or in the most telling case (and one picked up on by Christianity), love of ones' _enemies_ ("...I forgive those who trespass against me...").

Socrates lived from 470-399 B.C. and was the leading philosopher in Greece. Much of his teachings were reflected in Platos's writing. His question about which course of life is best is discovered in Plato's "Gorgias". Socrates eventually made quite the pest of himself, accosting businessmen and important figures in Athenian society on the street, and asking them out of the blue to answer his question.

Since many asked the question were corrupt in one way or another, Socrates' questioning had the corrosive effect of embarrassing them. After developing a big following among Athens' youth, he was in 399 B.C. placed on trial for impiety and corruption of his followers. Plato's "Apology" describes the trial, and he personally begged his mentor to apologize, or admit wrongdoing, which presumably would have ended the trial. Like Jesus of Nazareth some 334 years later, Socrates chose the path of righteous martyrdom instead. He was given the hemlock that ended his life.

Socrates made an important point in differentiating philosophy from religion when he said that philosophy seeks the truth, while religion claims to possess it. Socrates' truth is dialectical, and found through dialogue. Thus, the "Socratic method," which consisted of intense question-and-answer sessions with his students that probed each other for the deepest meaning of things. If you walk into a law school classroom, you likely will see the Socratic method in action, with a professor who is not content with his students reading the cases, reciting them in writing, and understanding what the law is. The verbal back-and-forth in law school forces students to explain and analyze the law, which serves to deepen understanding while getting them to question both sides of the issues. In the film "Paper Chase", one student seems to think he will ace Harvard because he possesses a photographic memory. Professor Kingsfield (John Houseman) informs him that a photographic memory is of no value because it does not allow him the ability to do these things, and of course he flunks out.

While the Socratic quest for "goodness, beauty, justice and freedom" has the ring of New Age gibberish, it becomes revolutionary when it is considered that Socrates was not advocating this simply to people in a benign setting. Like Christ he was confronting the power structure at great, and ultimately mortal, danger to himself. In viewing Socrates as the "father" of Democracy (with regards to the physician Hypocrites, who influenced the "big three"), one can be quite proud of the origins of our political philosophy. Socrates' willingness to die for what he believed in, even though he had much to lose, influenced the American Founding Fathers who put their lives on the line, too.

"The unexamined life is not worth living," Socrates declared in a statement that I find elitist. While Socrates said this to explain his "higher obligation" to seek truth, to exhort others to do the same, and like the Hindu's to view as most important the "big questions," the concept that such bravery, intellectual curiosity and moral righteousness are the requirements of all is far too demanding. Either Socrates is asking this of all people, which is unrealistic, or he is saying that only those with the moral and intellectual compass to take on his challenge are worth being on this Earth. If I could interview Socrates, I would question this statement, but couch the question in such a way as to give him an out. I think the statement must be one that he means to pose to himself, not for all. Certainly many people live their lives without thinking these deep thoughts, but they contribute to the love and beauty of humanity.

The Greeks were quite obsessed with love in all its forms. Their poetry, art and mythology often centered on love. Pausanias defined love as physical lust, not an unusual determination for the Greeks. They loved the human form and worshipped it in a narcissistic way. The Olympic Games derived from this.

Aristophanes saw in love the romantic elements of searching for one's "better half," but his explanation for this term is found in mythology. In mythology, humans originally were a combined male and female form, but Zeus, jealous of human happiness, split them in half. I think we can rule out that theory.

However, the second part of Aristophanes' definition bears value to this day. He said love came about when, after the separation, one half seeks to pursue the part that "completes" the whole.

Socrates refuted both definitions, calling Pausanias' definition shallow because it ignored romance in favor of sex, and Aristophanes' version because it was too selfish. Love is found not in lust or in satisfying our personal needs for it, but in loving goodness. Socrates also attributes a metaphysical quality to love that I do not follow. That is that all reality is perceived as good, while evil has no reality. Had Socrates watched Indians being burned to death during the Spanish Inquisition, or Jewish farmers starving in the Russian countryside during the 1930s as a result of forced collectivization, he may have rescinded his theory on the reality of evil. It would seem that the recent Peloponnesian War had driven home to him the reality of evil, but Socrates was not a military man and there were no TV cameras to bring the atrocities. Still, he read Thucydides horrid descriptions of the civil wars and revolutions. I am puzzled that he was able to quantify evil in some safe place that is not part of his reality.

Socrates, like the Hindu's, regarded physical love as the first step on a ladder, but ultimately insufficient. Had he seen Pamela Anderson in lingerie he may have had other thoughts. Evil is an illusion to him. Self-mastery is achieved by loving, which is noble and true.

Plato's "Republic" is the "seminal text of the Western philosophical tradition," and receives extraordinary attention in Professor Dalton's "Power Over People" series. Plato picked up on Socrates' fundamental issues (malleability of human nature, origins of right conduct, qualifications for exercising political power, reasons for obedience to the law, and mutual obligations in individuals and the state). He did this to be alert to the high purpose and consequence of such an undertaking, his mentor having been put to death for his insightful teachings.

Plato differed from Hinduism in that he envisioned the state as an agent of virtue, whereby the Hindu's saw it only as a coercive force. Plato must be considered quite the optimist, considering that it was the state who executed his friend and teacher. His willingness to still maintain optimism for the state, however, lies at the heart of his ideal world. To succumb to vengeful thoughts because of Socrates would not differentiate Plato from those who committed atrocities at Corcyra, and it was Corcyra and the Peloponnesian War that Plato wanted to learn from in order to make a better world.

At the heart of the state's role is education, and the teaching of "right conduct." Current educators differ from this, choosing to legally remove God from the classroom and insisting that teachers are not there to instruct in values or, God forbid, tell the children what the difference between right and wrong is! In "Republic", Plato pointed out that Socrates' view of "right conduct" was not based on religious theory, which in the end is better. Atheists do not have any excuses.

Polemarchus did find right conduct as emanating from religion, while Thrasymachus felt that only the strong had the will to the right thing, which might be pretty true. Socrates again gets in over my head by saying that justice consists of "right ordering of the whole, with no part usurping the functions of any other part and with reason ruling over all." While I doubt Socrates would have agreed with Karl Marx, one could imagine some Red Guard revolutionary espousing these words at a show trial. Perhaps it is just esoteric, and I again admit that failure to grasp everything Socrates says is my failing, not his.

Socrates obviously was dissatisfied with Athens, which Plato said was a "ship of state" steered by demagogues, misled by passion and deceived by illusion. What Plato foresees is an educational system devised to create leaders who seek and cultivate "ultimate truth" more than their own common interests. The Hindu's sought such qualities within the individual, but felt that achieving it was the result of self-discipline. In other words, it was a self-taught virtue. Plato was convinced it could be taught. The Hindu's simply did not believe political power could be wielded wisely, but Plato believed in the possibility. In "Republic", Plato delivered dialogue between Socrates and his questioners, and as they say, everybody has an opinion.

Polemarchus focused on "giving each man his due," based on the retributive justice embodied by the phrase an "eye for an eye." Socrates told him that while this may be expedient, it is never just to harm another person. What constitutes "harm" is not fully explained, and if Socrates somehow infers that criminals not be punished, then his theories do not hold up well. But beyond the language one surmises that he has a deeper meaning in mind, based not on letting wrongdoers off scot-free, but hopefully based on a system of justice that is "corrective" in nature.

Thrasymachus said that "might makes right," that what is right is based on what is in the stronger party's interests, and that injustice brings happiness to those who practice it. Socrates recalled the Hippocratic Oath by making reference to the role of physicians, stating that the ruler must endeavor not to help himself but his people (or patients). What is imperative is the concept that the ruler possesses the scientific knowledge to do the right thing, just as a doctor must. Thus was born the concept of the professional ruler.

Glaucon wanted Socrates to more completely refute Thrasymachus' premise, and advocated the idea that justice is not a spiritual value but the result of expedience, and at its heart is the desire by the weak to seek protection from the strong. This varies somewhat from Socrates, who seems to think that a "trust me" philosophy is possible. But Glaucon wanted safeguards, and said that if there is a "social contract," then it must be codified into law. Socrates replied that the state has an "appetite, but his idealism was so obvious because he somehow thought that appetite would naturally find the right order of reason, spirit and desire. He thought this could happen by virtue of three "waves." First, he held the revolutionary idea that qualified women should hold office, that the nuclear family and private property must be abolished in order to reinforce its adherence to the common interest, and that philosophers should rule.

These ideas were highly dangerous to the Athenian power structure. It helps explain why the man was given the hemlock. His idea for women was admirable, and certainly gave credence to Socrates' morality as being universal (as opposed to the apathy held apparently by all towards slavery). "Antigone" helped to influence his view regarding women, because the play gave voice to a large class of widowed women (even though Antigone lost brothers, not a husband, but the point was the same). Pericles said these women should just stay quiet, but he probably advocated that more to relieve his own conscience as the commander who ordered many of these husbands to their demise, rather than addressing some kind of quiet strength of women.

Socrates' views on the abolishment of private property and the break-up of the family were dangerous. It is instructive to understand the nature of Greek Democracy as advocated by the "big three." Socrates' socialistic views are discredited theories, some of which are found in Communism and totalitarian despotism. What could have made Socrates advocate the break-up of the family? Hitler, Mao and Stalin advocated an allegiance to the state that caused many cases of children "turning in" their parents. It is hard to think of anything more repugnant. One questions Socrates on a personal level. Did he want to avoid the kind of anarchy that occurred in Corcyra, where "fathers killed sons"? Or was Socrates a homosexual who, because of his condition, wanted to dismantle one of the rocks of society because he would never be the head of a nuclear family? What was his relationship with his students? When Athens executed him for "impiety" and "corrupting the youth," were they referring to his sexual antics?

Socrates was considered a great philosopher and a man whose values are inculcated into our most cherished political structures, so let me emphasize that I am not out to discredit him. What is important to understand out of this is that Socrates was the first of the three "superstar teachers," as we might call them. Those who came after him were allowed the chance to learn not just from his good ideas, but to understand his mistakes, as well.

Plato had poor experiences with Athenian Democracy, which he considered to be a mob. It was that mob mentality that led to the death of his mentor. Plato said that Democracy failed to distinguish between freedom and license; catered to desire ahead of civic duty; and the central theme of his and Socrates' teachings was that it was run by opinion, not knowledge.

What would Plato say about opinion polls, and how pols use them to make their decisions? What would he have thought about the "one man, one vote vote" concept of Jeffersonian Democracy? Obviously, people do not determine what is "right" and therefore create "genuine knowledge" by virtue of a vote. Plato's teachings have a Quixote-like quality to them. A realist like Winston Churchill, not prone to chasing windmills, gave voice to the anguished hopes and cries of Plato by simplifying the whole concept.

"Democracy," said Churchill, "is the worst form of government known to man, with the exception of all other forms of government known to man."

But Plato lived some 2,400 years before Churchill, and was not privy to all of Democracies' alternatives. He knew of military rule and the kind of autocratic power imposed by kings. He lived in a time of slavery, and was aware of the Egyptian-Jewish dilemma in the Middle East. But he never saw Communism or National Socialism. Would a modern Plato have accepted the Churchillian compromise?

He advocated meritocratic rule. Democracy was a deficient ship of state, physically imposing but shortsighted. If we were to see Plato's system put in place today, instead of elections a group of wise men would create a test, like the Bar exam for lawyers or the medical exams given by each state to doctors. But how effective would that be? Joseph Mengele, the "Angel of Death", was a brilliant physician but obviously he chose to harm many patients in the death camps. Few in American society have a worse reputation than lawyers, every single one of which graduated first from law school, then passed the Bar.

The tests can be manipulated. Plato would say that committees could be formed to study indiscretions, just as those who violate medical and legal ethics are subject to inquiry. Plato makes the metaphor of the "ship of state," stating that the ship ( _demos)_ must be steered by a navigator who knows the science of the seas, as opposed to a crew that makes it decisions based on whim and opinion.

Plato's "knowledge" is presented as stages of cognition. The first stage involved uncritical acceptance of the known world. The next stage was a critical examination of society. Next was advancement from opinion to knowledge. Plato said that if man could pursue knowledge of abstract reality as in the study of mathematics and astronomy, why not politics? Finally, he saw a perception of people's humanity, defined as "seeing each other in ourselves."

Like Socrates, Plato herein grasps at things that are either too difficult for most (at least me) to fully comprehend, and he is opening the door to some potentially dangerous concepts. Where Plato is given the benefit of the doubt is in reducing the area of "knowledge" that he seeks to develop, as within the sphere of natural law.

Plato's concepts are seen as precepts of Communist "re-education," as practiced especially by the Red Guard and Pol Pot. These re-education camps made no attempt to say they were teaching ideology, but tried instead to teach Marxist-Leninist doctrine as simple fact, not to be disputed. But Plato was not advocating lower taxes, or separation of church and state, or decision-making power shared between a chief executive and his legislature. Plato was keeping his "knowledge" within a narrow area of right and wrong. Much of politics is driven by economics and changing times. A large, diverse country like America may have different political and economic needs than a small, educated, homogenized society like Sweden. Plato's nostrums link America and Sweden together as being under the umbrella of natural law. In both countries, moral leadership is beneficial to the people. Leaders not only must not be allowed to get away with corruption, but they must be _taught_ not to. Where modern Democracy differs is that we assume corruption will exist, and therefore the emphasis is on the _people_ more than the government. It is the people who, given free choice, have safeguards against these wrongs. Plato thought it was possible to make these safeguards unnecessary, or at least secondary, to "facts." Before linking Plato again to re-education camps, which I admit is unfair (I do so only to open a wider discussion), let me point out that our wonderful documents of freedom are willing to use language like "we hold these truths to be self-evident" and "unalienable rights." Again, the key point is that Plato is getting to the rights of man, or the "pursuit of happiness," if I may, whereas the Marxist-Leninist "facts" are entirely worldly, economic and driven by the lowest common denominators.

The liberals will hate to hear this, but while Plato's natural law may not address the right or wrong of the Stamp Act, it conceivably could address something like abortion. If Plato advocated goodness and justice, would he justify killing unborn children? Or would he favor the rights of mothers who choose not to be mothers? Would his cognitive reasoning allow him to address the consequences of people's actions in such a case? For the sake of avoiding the soapbox, I will again defer the question and instead try to let cleansing truths enlighten the reader by virtue of obvious things that need no commentary.

Plato uses the "cave allegory" to describe cognition. When man lives in the cave, he fears all outside the cave. Only after leaving the cave to discover the "truth" of life outside its environs does the man gain the credentials for leadership in the cave. Plato does ask man to question the truth, for only in so doing does he separate it from illusion. Power is wielded wisely only by those who have "left the cave."

However, Plato seems to have missed an important point. Why are only some men able to leave the cave? Instead of power being given only to a select few who leave the cave and return a better man for it, why should not all the people be allowed to leave the cave and experience the truth that exists outside it?

Perhaps an understanding of Plato is best accomplished by defining a glossary of terms, as outlined by Professor Dalton.

_Arete._ Plato defined this as "excellence", and broke it into two meanings. Special "virtue" speaks to a function such as strength or speed. The second speaks to morality, and it is important that Plato feels such a quality is inherent within certain, but not all, people. Only through education do certain chosen people exude the quality. Therefore, Plato would be suggesting that certain highly gifted people be selected for schools that are designed to make the most of them. For instance, athletes, potential musicians, and the like are selected from among the people and singled out, and those who show traits of high morality are also selected for advancement. This does not suit the notion of "fairness," since it acknowledges that in life some people simply do not possess greater gifts than others, but they should be given the added advantage of cultivating those gifts if they are discovered.

_Dike._ This means "righteous, fair and just." Plato defined this as "right conduct" and related _arête_ and _dike_ to each other as virtues that lead to happiness. _Idea_ was Plato's word, more imagining a model of perfection. Plato revealed something about his vision of perfection when he acknowledged that ideal patterns of living could be approximated but never fully emulated. Thank God. This gives us all a sigh of relief, knowing that Plato agrees that as humans we will make mistakes and cannot be expected to be perfect all the time.

_Nomos_ means custom, or man-made, as distinct from natural law. These are laws that meet everyday needs. _Phusis_ was Plato's foundation for all morality, but others argued that it meant no more than "what is" to individuals with no moral implications. Plato no doubt disagrees on what the "meaning of is is." _Techne_ denotes a talent for manipulation that is learned over time, and may or may not be joined with the person's natural excellence. Plato sought to find a system that married a person's natural skills with acquired ones. He emphasized that technical skill not grounded in moral virtue can lead to unjust conduct. He used as examples Sophists like Thrasymachus, thus the meaning of the word _sophistry_ , in which great rhetoric is a skill but lacks greatness if not backed by moral virtue.

How many examples point this up, not just in politics but in everyday life? Hitler was a _sophist_ who espoused great rhetoric that lacked virtue, but his great skill was in manipulating the masses into believing he did. We see great _sophists_ all the time. Great trial lawyers can twist words around until a jury is duped into letting a guilty man go free. Great salesmen can get you to buy what they sell. My favorite is when some over-ripe insurance guy tells me it is a "no-brainer" for me to purchase a policy, inferring that I would be stupid to do otherwise, _and I certainly do not want to be stupid._

Skilled speakers, "silver-tongued devils," or according to some, the _real_ devil, are those who use words, lies and illusion to get people to make bad choices. In David Halberstam's "The Best and the Brightest", he pointed out that all the top advisers to Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were the top minds from academia. This is not to infer that McGeorge Bundy, Robert McNamara, George Ball and the rest of the Kennedy-Johnson White House were "devils," but that they may have been too smart for their own good.

LBJ, in particular, who was from the Texas hill country, the product of a rural education, was particularly enamored. He told his mentor, Speaker of the House "Mr. Sam" Rayburn, another good ol' boy from the Lone Star State, about all those "Harvard boys" and "West Point generals," and how impressed he was that they were advising him on Vietnam.

"I'd feel a whole better about the lot of 'em," Mr. Sam presciently replied, "if just one of 'em had run for county sheriff."

Their inch-by-inch Vietnam policy proved to be less than brilliant.

Richard Nixon was too smart for his own good. His smartness veered into paranoia. Bill Clinton was too smart for his britches, too. He saw everything through a _techne_ lense honed from his political and legal skills. He could foresee events 10 steps ahead of others. Therefore, he made choices based on his personal needs, knowing that "this will happen, then this, then this, then this..." and so on. The predictable results were that he would always "get away with it," somehow forgetting that while he would be technically unscathed (impeached but not convicted, for instance), the country had to suffer his slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Sam Rayburn's desire that leaders should have at least run for "county sheriff," which of course meant that they should be down-to-Earth and not high-minded ivory tower intellectuals, has validity. George Washington was not the most learned of the Founding Fathers, but he was the most admired. Abraham Lincoln was a man of country wisdom, his Kentucky education having been developed by candlelight in a log cabin. Harry Truman was a "plain speaker" and Dwight Eisenhower a "soldier's soldier." Ronald Reagan made simplicity an art form, to the consternation of his foes, and the occasional gaffes of George W. Bush seem to reveal a simple integrity that most Americans equate with a resolve to "do the right thing."

Even Johnson did his best work when his basic values were allowed to develop. A man of humble beginnings, he was a school teacher who taught poor Mexican kids in Texas before entering politics as a New Dealer more in line with Huey Long than Franklin Roosevelt. It was the lessons learned in the hill country that inculcated his civil rights plank.

Great intelligence and learned skill are beneficial, but not to the exclusion of all things. Nixon and George Herbert Walker Bush were probably the most qualified men to be elected President in the last century, but both faltered. Kennedy's youth and charm were overshadowed by a family ruthlessness passed down by his father. Their shared abuse of power foreshadowed his near-final act, the tacit assassination of the President of South Vietnam in 1963. This may be seen as having a karmic affect of overwhelming proportions.

The last term in the "Platonic glossary" is _Eudaemonia_ , or happiness. The Greeks applied this word to material prosperity and good fortune. Plato and Aristotle view _Eudaemonia_ not just as mere "pleasure" but decided that "true happiness" referred to a state of mind revolving around the pursuit of moral purpose. The Christian concept of happiness would differ. In the film "Nixon", the young Nixon addresses his Quaker mother, played by Mary Steenburgen. Nixon has lost one brother to illness and another one is about to die. The family is destitute and the only thing they know is poverty and hard work with little reward. Nixon has been taught that his hard work will be rewarded, but he is tired of the grind.

"What about happiness, mother?" he inquires, and his mother replies, "Work in this life, Richard. Happiness in thine other."

What this means is that happiness is found in Heavenly reward for a life of self-discipline, but Plato optimistically sees a kind of spirituality in the living world that provides happiness and satisfaction.

In Professor Dalton's summation of "Republic", the following are excerpts of philosophers as translated by Plato.

Cephalus: Justice is "telling the truth" and "paying back" one's debts.

Socrates: The above standard does not hold up since it would mean returning a weapon to a madman (again Socrates is beyond me).

Polemarchus: Justice is to help friends and harm enemies. The Chinese adopted the latter part of his statement in their famous phrase, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Socrates: He does not agree with the part of justice that seeks retribution, since this involves harming others, even if such harm is punishment of a criminal for a crime.

Thrasymachus: He has a more Machiavellian perspective, equating justice with the interests of the stronger party.

Socrates: Justice demands correct perception of interests by the ruler.

Thrasymachus: Rulers must have knowledge and training, like physicians, in order to make the correct decisions.

Socrates: He adds to the physician analogy by stating that the ruler not only knows what is "right" but has an interest in the subject's interests.

Thrasymachus: He says the ruler must exploit his subjects to his own advantage.

Socrates: He disagrees with the exploitation of Thrasymachus, stating that justice is based purely on acting on the advantage of the subject.

Thrasymachus: On the defensive, and having been proved on the wrong side of the moral equation, he now actually defends _injustice_.

Socrates: Justice is balance, while injustice has no measure or limit. Picture the image of the lady balancing scales of justice in each hand.

Thrasymachus: Injustice is a source of strength, superior in power to justice.

Socrates: Injustice fosters weakness. Here Socrates makes great sense. History has shown many unjust rulers who gained power through strength, but ultimately that strength is a weakness. Napoleon, for instance, appeared to have the stronger hand as he conquered much of Europe in the early 19th Century, but his strength was proved to be a weakness when allies formed coalitions to defeat him. The same can be said of Saddam, a "strong" ruler of Iraq who was ultimately proved weak because justice coalesced to undo him. "Only fair treatment can make man friendly and of one mind," said Socrates in one of his more profound statements.

Thrasymachus: Injustice brings happiness because it brings one more than one's fair share of power and wealth. One hopes that by this point he is playing devil's advocate and not really advocating his point.

Socrates: Justice rather than injustice brings happiness. This is an interesting concept, because it forces us to examine the mind of the despot. For instance, is Kim Jong-Il of North Korea happy? He has all the worldly things that he likes, including money, access to women, entertainment, and power. But is he happy? His constant excesses might be a vain attempt at finding satisfaction that he never achieves. The Rolling Stone's song "Satisfaction" comes to mind. A rock star has all the girls, the dough and the perks, but as Mick Jagger says, "I can't get no satisfaction." Gandhi, on the other hand, eschewed many worldly desires available to him, but by all accounts he achieved satisfaction. Is Yasser Arafat happy? What about psychopaths and mentally unstable people?

Glaucon: He finds a moral relativism in Thrasymachus' argument that he agrees with. Justice, he says, is not universal but rather based on changing laws, and is demanded only by the weak, who lack the power to commit injustice. He says anybody who gains power then acts in self-interest, and in fact possesses the kind of wealth and cunning required to do injustice and get away with it, creates happiness. Such cynicism, unfortunately, has its pockets of truth. I once had a business partner who was a liar and a cheat, not just in his insurance business but in his personal life. Married with four children, he cheated on his wife at every opportunity and once bedded a bartender from a golf course country club. He gave her a phone number that was only a voicemail. When she became pregnant, she called that voicemail, which gave only his first name, over and over and over. The more desperate she got, the more this "man" enjoyed himself, playing her anguished messages over and over again for his friends, who squeamishly noted the satisfaction he felt at "getting away with it."

I found my experience with this person to be one of the most beneficial of my life, albeit very painful. I had known him since we were eight, and while I knew what a liar he was, I somehow fooled myself into believing his cheating would never be directed at me because we had "history." When our company was failing, I offered that I would go into debt to keep us afloat if he promised to pay me back. He assured me that he was "working on some big deals" and I would get all my money back when he closed them. Of course I went into debt, the company failed, and I was never paid back. I had a contract with him, which he breached, so I sued him, only to be sent a letter from his attorney stating that he had declared bankruptcy and therefore I would get nothing. The bankruptcy documents spelled out hundreds of creditors who were being stiffed hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I recognized many of them as personal friends and associates of this individual, just as I had been.

The lesson learned is that unjust people will commit unjust acts on anybody if they have to. They are not going to "do the right thing" just because those they wrong are friends. This guy _enjoyed_ the fact that got away with it. Doing things in a just manner was nothing more than a strategy to him. He would not simply wrong people for no reason. Impressing others with good acts often worked to his advantage, but when push came to shove he was not going to bite the bullet and uphold his end of the bargain if it meant a sacrifice to his selfish interests.

This is the attitude that I find in both Bill and Hillary Clinton. In eight years in the White House, they did achieve some good things, but it is my gut reaction that these accomplishments were not the result of a sense of justice, but purely political acts done to build up their image. Like the business partner who lied and laughed when he got away with it, there is a primal sense that behind the smug look on Bill's face, or the self-satisfied smirk that adorns Hillary's, they are laughing at the way they continually pull fast ones on the American public. This lies at the very heart of why conservatives went after them, and despite the fact that ultimate "smoking guns" gave them a hollow "victory" (staying in the White House until the end of their term), it is why their detractors continually grind against their legacy.

Finally, in words that the teacher's unions might want to put in marble on public school house doors everywhere, Adeimantus says Socrates "insists that the current use of education to indoctrinate justice and virtue is a farce..."

"There will never be a finer saying than the one which declares that whoever does good should be held in honor, and the only shame is in doing harm," says Plato on page 155 of "Republic".

Socrates, however, is an interesting study because he focuses on enemies, not just friends. It is obvious that in his time, harsh justice and vengeance were doled out upon "enemies," but Socrates seems to find the greatest nobility in forgiveness. For this he should be accorded high status. As I wrote earlier, this is the basis of Christian doctrine. Somehow these tenets were never given much credence in Islam, which had almost 1,000 of hindsight and analysis of Socrates prior to the formation of this "religion of peace," yet chose to sever hands and tongues for acts of petty thievery. 1,500 years of progress later, these acts are still common in their "justice system."

As I say, some things require little or no commentary. _Res ipsa loquiter._

Socrates seems to have seen every act of justice as individualized from all others. He made constant reference to the role of physicians. Perhaps his views can be explained by examining the Red Cross, or doctors during wartime. The Red Cross is an organization that does not take sides. All they do is try to help those in need. If a soldier is held prisoner, needs medical care, or needs food, they do not ask what side he fights for, what acts of barbarism he may have already committed, or what his politics are. They see only his immediate needs and attempt to fill it.

The same is said for doctors in MASH units. They are presented broken bodies, often enemy forces, but in the triage they do not choose who their patients are. They simply use their skills as best they can to heal anybody who is brought in.

The Hippocratic Oath, written by the physician Hypocrites (460-377 B.C.) states, "I swear by Apollo Physician...that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath...I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrongdoing. I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art. In whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrongdoing and harm."

Plato took this oath and applied it to politics. So where do we see this philosophy in American justice? We find a mixed bag. In the U.S., we are prevented from administering "cruel and unusual punishment." Any prisoner is allowed access to competent medical care. We used to have chain gangs, but today such punishment is no longer found. Prisoners are not placed in the "hot box" like in the film "Cool Hand Luke". However, we allow capital punishment. At some point we felt that the liberalism of Socrates and Plato was going too far. Placing a man in prison might not be doing "harm" to that individual, but what would Plato have us do? Would he simply apply a "hands off" policy to criminals? Such a fuzzy thinking has been proven as wrong as wrong can be.

What would Hypocrites say about abortion? Given a healthy, pregnant women who is carrying a healthy child, would Hypocrites find that cutting up the woman, reaching into her, removing the life, and rendering it lifeless, is "abstaining from all intentional wrongdoing and harm"?

Would Hypocrites find legitimate argument in the concept that to abort a child provides "freedom" to women? Would he give credence to the countless tales of "free" women who live lives of agony and regret for 60 years with the memory of the child they aborted? The child who by then would have given them memories of high school proms, college graduations, weddings, grandchildren, and all the other joys of life? Are there really two sides to this issue? Again, some things just are True on their face and my further commentary on this question is not necessary. _Res ipsa loquiter._

At the heart of the criminal justice system advocated by Socrates and, to a lesser extent, by Plato, Socrates insisted that to punish "bad men" only makes them "worse men." Somehow Socrates seemed to think that the unpunished criminal would not do crime again. However, he modified his stance somewhat on page 148 of Plato's "Republic" when he says, "...one should avoid doing wrong <or injury> with more care than being wronged..." At least here Socrates allowed that criminals should be punished, albeit the punishment should not exceed the crime. Fair enough.

As Plato then pointed out, thankfully, these concepts of non-injury are ideals, not "attainable in the Earthly republic." Not to say that his ideal would not be a beautiful world, it is simply not one we are not even close to living in. We simply must deal with the world as it is presented to us. The pessimistic part of this is that 2,300 years after Plato's time, we are really not any closer to the "non-injury" system than in his day.

Plato finally adhered to these realities after letting the argument play out, when he admitted the necessity of war (as a defensive measure), capital punishment, and the cultivation of military attitudes.

One gains a greater understanding of Plato's sense of idealism in his vision of three cities. He finds contemporary Athens to be corrupt. His "Republic" envisages the ideal. Finally, he outlines an "eternal city" that exists, as Professor Dalton puts it, as a "transcendental idea."

In Athens, Plato was dissatisfied by the wide swings of extreme forms of government, ranging from democracy to oligarchy. Plato wrote that while he initially yearned for a public career, he became disillusioned by such a prospect as time went by. Plato found the Democracy of Athens and the oligarchy of Sparta, despite their differences, both sharing in an arrogance of power. He was particularly disgusted with the execution of Socrates. It was Plato's exposition of corruption of power within Democracy that the American Founders observed when they drew up their "checks and balances" in the Constitution.

It is in the _Earthly_ ideal that Plato's vision begins to take real shape. He has actually arrived at his conclusions in a powerful way, by giving voice to different opinions via the Socratic method. Now, in describing his ideal vision of a real city, Plato begins to bring utopian views into practice with real-world concerns.

Socrates had thought the best _polis_ would be one where each citizen did what he was best suited to do, perhaps modeling this on the _original_ Hindu caste system (not the segregated system it became). Plato sees three major changes in the new city. He wanted access to rule by qualified women, a unified "community of Guardians" that was integrated as a single person (a president or a prime minister?), differentiated from family or allegiance to property, and rule of reason.

What is important to understand about the Socratic-Platonic view of government is that it is a constant battle. They admitted that achieving it would be hard, but "achievement" is never-ending. Assuming it is ever achieved, the challenge to Democracy is that it must be achieved over and over again. It is not reasonable to think that one society can accomplish a great society, and that all societies that follow will simply continue to uphold the tradition.

In understanding the fluid nature of history, Plato's "Republic" becomes that high ideal that all future governments strive to attain. Like the Hindu's, it is in the attempt to attain these ideals, not actually getting there, where excellence is found. What "Republic" does is something that science fiction writers did centuries later, which is to describe some kind of "alternate universe" that gives humans a glimpse of what could be if we attained perfection.

Plato then moved on to discern three elements in individuals and in the state. He saw the rule of reason as the correct rule. Plato made an interesting point by showing that Socrates was a man of such reason, that he was "the most righteous man in Athens," but for this reason _he cannot attain power._ Plato envisioned philosopher-kings who meshed philosophy with politics. These people would be selected after their qualities, which would be a "passion for wisdom" and a "passion for truth" were identified. The resulting training would teach them the difference between knowledge and belief, and their two corresponding powers. Plato added that such people would not love money. Plato wrote that lesser rulers tragically reacted to things they were not sure of, making use of the allegory of the cave. Lives were lost, civilizations ruined in fighting over something that meant nothing. The philosopher-kings, Plato said, would be reluctant rulers.

This is an interesting concept. Unfortunately, few men meet these criteria in an examination of European history. Perhaps the rule of Queen Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII in England, could fall into this category. The "virgin queen" was thrust into power amid great manipulations from all sides, within her family and among the Court's advisers. At first considered a mere symbol, she refused to be anybody's fool, and eventually decided she wanted to hold her throne. By that time she had learned invaluable lessons about power and how to use it, mostly to the good. She foreshadowed a century of transformation in the U.K. that saw the country go from a feudal, medieval fiefdom to a modern world leader in every way.

Later, General George Washington was drafted to be our first President, and it is precisely his reluctant nature towards power that allowed him to wield it wisely. Dwight Eisenhower possessed the same qualities. His contemporary, Doug MacArthur, was a power-hungry sort pitted against a man, Harry Truman, who had ascended to his place in a somewhat reluctant manner.

In the United States especially, lust for power is exposed and downgraded. This creates a bit of an anachronism. Abe Lincoln, for instance, was a politician through and through who, if not lusting for power, certainly craved it. It drove him to continue for high office despite repeated defeats at the polls and in his career.

Theodore Roosevelt's desire for attention drove his career. He was an astute PR expert who, as a relatively low-level New York public servant, irritated the power structure at Tammany Hall by drawing newspaper attention to his efforts to root out corruption. His military exploits in the Spanish-American War were as much about fulfilling 19th Century _wanderlust_ as it was about "remembering the Maine," and he played it up for the press to the hilt. As President, he craved power for this still-young country, by "speaking softly and carrying a big stick." History could have gone wrong for T.R. at various times throughout this period, but smiled on him instead. His Presidency from 1900 to 1909 rightfully goes down as one of the greatest in U.S. history. In the end his run for President on the 1912 Bull Moose ticket was an attempt at power that did great harm to the Republican Party that he should have been grateful to.

As the century moved along and the country grew, the quest for the White House became something that is now all but impossible to attain unless one has the "fire in the belly" to go through everything to attain it. This requires enormous ego. It would have to be a unique set of circumstances that creates the "reluctant hero" President. Secretary of State Colin Powell has been viewed by some as that kind of hero, but his refusal to try (so far) is an unfortunate statement about modern politics.

Powell's wife, Alma, is reportedly concerned about white assassins, because Powell is black. Powell himself is concerned about the kind of personal expose that Presidential candidates go through. Rudolph Giuliani begged out of the New York Senate race because he contracted prostate cancer, but it is suspected that the real reason was because the media was getting too up close and personal with his private life. He had a marital split, divorce and affair with another woman, all on top of each other. After 9/11, Giuliani again ascended to the short list of leaders who, if they play their cards right, can be seen as "reluctant" to be "drafted." Perception plays a big role in whether the "reluctant" role holds up to scrutiny.

In Rudy's case, his aggressive prosecution of _La Casa Nostra_ , using the newly-enacted RICO statutes of the 1980s, brimmed with the kind of _hubris_ that could only come with great ambition. New Yorkers respect this tremendously. The World Trade Center bombings left him free of any trace of posturing, but he had to negotiate his book tour, and now a possible role in the Bush Administration, anticipated candidac(ies) for Senate (again) and/or President in 2008, all while walking the fine line between reluctance and destiny.

Nelson Rockefeller had everything, it seemed. He was the popular Governor of one of the two most important states in the U.S. (New York). He possessed so much personal wealth that he could finance first class campaigns. But he lost the 1964 G.O.P. nomination to a little-known, bespectacled Christian with a Jewish last name from a tiny state. Barry Goldwater might not have been "drafted," but the power of his ideas drew the crowds to him, instead of vice versa. His loss in 1964 never left him with the "loser" label that so many aspirants have been tagged with. Instead, his words have hung on the Conservative Revolution like those of Aeschylus.

Nixon and L.B.J. wanted it far too badly. Jimmy Carter so obviously wanted it, but when Watergate handed it to him he seemed to only know how to campaign, not to govern. With his natural instincts for fairness and decency, Carter might be the kind of President that Socrates would have voted for, but Socrates has been shown to be unrealistic.

In studying Greek Democracy and making comparisons with historical figures, particularly of the American variety, I often wonder what times and circumstances would do to change people. Certain figures, like Eisenhower, are so much a product of the whims of history that it is impossible to contemplate their place in other times. Nixon and Lyndon Johnson were power manipulators who might have done well in Athens or the Roman Empire.

Bill Clinton's lust for power, however, puts him a league of his own. His intelligence, cunning, ambition and looks would have made him both formidable and vulnerable. He would have possessed far too much charisma to survive in Stalinist Russia. Uncle Joe would quickly have determined that Bill was developing a "cult of personality" around him and put a bullet in the back of his head at four in the morning during an all-night Vodka party. Or he would have forced him into a Trotskyite exile until the goons found him wherever the hell he would have gone.

My analysis of Clinton is obviously not terribly favorable, but at the heart of the matter, I find something less than real evil; a benevolent kind of evil. If and when we ever discover the truth about Vince Foster and the children killed on railroad tracks near Mena, Arkansas, where Clinton may or may not have been running some kind drug smuggling operation, then it will be no holds barred in analyzing this character. Again, the conservatives despise him not so much because he did everything they accused him of doing, but because it is _something he would have done!_

Then there is Hillary, and she represents something else altogether. Her supporters hate this kind of talk, but we all have gut reactions to people, inner voices, hairs that stand up on the back of our necks. At least, the perceptive among us do. With Hillary Clinton I see a woman who does good only because she lives in a society in which to do so is rewarded. I have no doubt that, had she been born in 1900 Berlin, by the late 1930s she would have manipulated her way to a high role in the Nazi Party without thinking twice about it. She might have been the woman that they needed to give a feminine face to their mostly-male fraternity. Or she might have married her way to power, much like she did with Bill. As horrible as it is to say, Hillary Clinton to me could have been the "bitch of Buchenwald." If she lived in Roman times I could see her being a highly placed lady of means who, displeased by a servant or some serf overstepping his bounds, would have had the unfortunate boiled in oil.

I realize that many Democrats will consider this assessment of the Clinton's to be "hate speech," but I must say simply that in life we play hunches, have gut feelings, are intuitive, and sometimes we "just know." As a Christian, I must not "hate." I do not hate the Clintons. I could be wrong. I can forgive them. There is a very real chance that these people are not what I think they are. I just do not think the chances of that are very good.

Pure politics has nothing to do with this reaction. In fact, I found Clinton to be relatively moderate. He portrayed himself as a New Democrat from the Southern Democratic Leadership Conference, and after some very liberal moves in 1993 and 1994 (a proposed big tax increase, gays in the military, and Hillarycare), he was forced to work with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress beginning in 1995. This turned out to be an uneasy but successful relationship. Forced to govern from the right, his wife shoved by unpopular opinion to the background, Clinton presided over strong economic times.

As President, he has every right to take credit for this, and I do credit him. I also do not ignore the facts of history. The good economic environment of the 1990s is the result of several things. First, the recession was ending just prior to the end of George H.W. Bush's Presidency. Ross Perot, Bush's own lackluster approach, and the "it's the economy, stupid" premise swayed the vote against him after it was too late. Second, the recession and succeeding boom times were the result of our victory over Communism in the Cold War.

In this respect, Republicans were victims of their own success. There were no enemies to protect us from in 1992 or 1996, since Ronald Reagan and George Bush had all but vanquished them long before the first Primary in '92. Mainly, the end of the Cold War meant a major crimp in the military industrial complex, especially in vote-rich California. From 1988 to 1992, many skilled workers were laid off. This, plus the Bush tax increase of 1990 and the natural cycle of economic forces, caused the recession.

Then came the Information Superhighway in 1993. I will even give Al Gore some of the credit he yearns for. After all, it came during his watch as Vice-President. Richard Nixon took much credit for the moon landing of 1969 that was the result of the Kennedy-Johnson Administrations. All is fair in politics. Besides, I have no evidence that George H.W. Bush was particularly responsible for the Internet. All those sharp laid-off workers of the military industrial complex, mostly people skilled with computers and technology, well educated and hard working, were the first wave of the Internet boom. It was a marriage made in Heaven. They combined with the new generation of computer-savvy kids to create a huge economy. I am not blaming Bill Clinton for the fact that it went bust by the New Millennium, either, even thought the economy was in slide prior to his leaving office in 2001. It was a wild ride, but an unpredictable one.

So my feelings about the Clintons are personal, not political. It is about their character, which is at the heart of the Socratic-Platonic-Aristotelian government ethic. As a conservative Republican, I find Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer to be far more liberal. I honestly have no problem with Pelosi. Boxer I dislike because she is so strident and critical of Republicans without exception, but she is hard working and honest. She cannot say it, but I suspect that in private she can tell a thing or two about the Clinton Family. Her daughter married Hillary's brother and ended up on the dirty end of the stick just like almost everybody who comes in contact with them. The laundry list of disgraced politicians, convicted criminals and former friends who were ratted out by the Clintons is disgustingly long. The fact that Hillary was a "Goldwater girl" in 1964 does not sway me in the slightest. Growing up in the Chicago suburbs at that time, she saw that as the pathway to power. When she moved on to Yale during the late "protest '60s" she saw that the tide had shifted. She shifted right along with it, with no pretense for ideology other than a desire to achieve power. For her, the Democrat, Republican, Nazi or Communist Parties are inter-changeable as long she can slither her way up the ladder. She found no compulsion with getting there by sleeping her way to the top (although with her marginal looks one finds this odd), getting in with slick law firms, or moving to a small Southwestern state with a population she figured would be gullible enough to buy their slick propaganda.

The problem with the Democrat party is not entirely their politics. They have an honorable tradition (although Tammany Hall, the Kansas City Pendergast Machine, Richard Dayley's Chicago, and Bill Clinton's Arkansas were awful organizations, while the G.O.P. has no comparable organizations). The politics of Franklin Roosevelt had its time and place, in the 1930s, when the country was mired in the Great Depression. Roosevelt met the needs of this nation by instituting needed banking and stock market protections; Federalizing work projects; providing relief to the jobless; uplifting the blacks; giving credence to unions fighting for safe work conditions; and bringing power to rural valleys.

But "Republic" keeps coming back to character, doing the "right thing" for the people, not to establish, increase or hold on to individual power. At the core of Greek idealism was a sense of justice, and in applying these standards to American politics, I am continually disappointed at the bad people who are encouraged and propped up by the Democrats. This is a party that lionizes Ted Kennedy. Forgetting his family history, his evil father, the fact that he never earned much of anything, or his abysmal liberalism, his performance surrounding the drowning of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick in 1969 is so repugnant as to simply disqualify him from public life. He is a _hero_ to Democrats. _Res ipsa loquiter._

The Democrats' most powerful and influential Senator is Robert Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klansman. The Republicans do not tolerate anything even approaching such outrageousness. When Republicans make embarrassing _faux paus'_ regarding race or sexual indiscretion, they take care of business in house, placing higher ethical standards upon themselves than the general public. Because Republicans have the temerity to identify immorality within the Democrat party, they open themselves up to criticism and backlash when their own human mistakes occasionally are discovered. This is the price they pay for being on the side of good, and they accept this because the merits surrounding the fairness of these double standards is simply that with which is exposed.

There are some fine Democrats. U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California and Connecticut's Joe Lieberman are excellent public servants. But even their best and brightest lose respect because they are forced to side with the nefarious stain of Clinton, Kennedy, Byrd, et al. Lieberman had to disavow a lifetime of morality in order to get with the Democrats' 2000 Presidential program. Al Gore is not a bad man, although far from being a great one. His father, a U.S. Senator from Tennessee in the 1960s, was a segregationist who worked against the civil rights legislation of 1964-65. This is the dirty secret of the Democrat party, seemingly made public only because of the relatively new phenomenon of conservative talk radio. I have never heard the traditional networks make hay of the fact that it was Southern Democrats who opposed civil rights legislation opposed by Eisenhower and Johnson, and who were the official public face of Jim Crow.

Somehow, men like Gore highjacked history and present themselves as the "friend of the black man," but conservatives like myself will continually stem this notion by shedding light on the situation with facts. It may take awhile, but black Americans will some day shift back to the party of Lincoln.

Gore is a man of ambition, although as mentioned earlier this has become indispensable to national politics. Where he loses respect, just like so many in his party, is when he turns his back on core values in favor of naked politics. Gore stood next to Bill Clinton, disgusted by him but saying nothing, for eight years. He was loyal, and loyalty is an admirable trait, but at the end of the day he and his kind are forced to say things that are untrue, even when they know they are untrue. The fact that they are untrue is readily available to them. Bill Clinton is a man who reads everything. This means that he has acquired the knowledge that he is wrong, yet he says what he says anyway. Is there some way of calling this behavior something other than lying? The Clintons yelled and screamed when Newt Gingrich was given a huge advance to write a book, but accepted huge advances to write their own books. That is simply fact that speaks for itself. _Res ipsa loquiter._

Gingrich's book eventually sold enough copies to make for him what the advance (which he gave back) paid. Conservatives are the authors of best selling books and the hosts of wildly successful talk shows. In the free market of ideas theirs are the best ones. Aside from having winning ideas, the conservatives are popular for other wonderful reasons. With the exception of a few eggheads who populate the halls of _academe_ , conservatives are _smarter._ This has some serious implications. When conservatives drive cars, they listen to talk radio because they care about the world and want to know more. Liberals blithely drive around and listen to FM music. Is it possible to objectively look at the success of conservative radio and dispute this?

Conservatives are likely to be better educated, have better work skills, and are more successful people than liberals. They are more likely to be religious and they are more likely to serve in the military. Let me break this down. Most of the traits that we attribute to intelligence, success, morality and patriotism are traits more likely to be those of conservatives than liberals. Plato wanted to use empirical date to actually determine _better government._ Well, here it is. _Res ipsa loquiter._

The Democrat Party is home to far too many liars, disinformationists, racists, race baiters, shakedown artists, philanderers, and immoralists to regain real respect from those who see simple truth for what it is. Until they clean their house of these scoundrels, they are headed towards a bad end. The prediction here is that the Democrat Party will cease to function as a major political entity in my lifetime.

Getting back to Plato's assertion that "access to power must be confined to men who are not in love with it..." I want to point out a statement that Gore made during the 2000 campaign.

"George Bush wants the Presidency," he said. "I have to have it." At any cost. This was Nixon's Achilles heel, but Reagan was a man who would have been comfortable in his skin whether he won the Presidency or not. So is George H.W. Bush.

These passages may be seen as "running amok," a term that one book reviewer once attributed to a rant I made against the media in my biography of Barry Bonds. Let me point out that I am trying to bring to life the ideals of Plato's "Republic" by making reference to modern events that speak to Plato. In so doing I advocate the causes that I find compelling. It is an effort to show that the political choices I have made are based on the research of history.

Plato made some very cogent observations of men who seek public office in order to snatch the "happiness they hunger for." How clear is this view? How courageous, too, considering that his mentor had been put to death and he lived under the rule of men who must have been the role models for the unscrupulous "public servants" that Plato describes. Tyranny, said Plato, prevails first in the born despot's soul, and then over his country.

My earlier theories regarding Hillary Clinton in Nazi Germany, just to name one example, is worth considering in light of Plato's critique of the tyrant. It is in reviewing tyrants that we owe the deepest gratitude to the Founding Fathers. In constructing our country they managed to create safeguards against true despotism. The important aspect of this exercise is to realize what human nature actually is. Essentially, it is the same everywhere. Events, history, customs, traditions, religion and other factors make for circumstances that allow history to play itself out.

Adolph Hitler was a product of Germany's defeat, the unfairness of the Versailles Treaty, the ineffectiveness of the Weimar Republic, economic disaster, and the pride of a cultured, yet flawed, people. All of this was combined with his terrible humanity. So the question of the day is this: Could Hitler have emerged some place else? What about in the United States?

This at first seems to be an absurd notion. Americans, proud of our history, must take exception to the idea that a _Hitler_ could rise on our shores. But how would Hitler go about it? Well, how did he go about it in Germany? He joined the Army and fought in a losing battle, and his status as a decorated veteran gave him respectability and the _passion_ to enter politics. He made speeches, he wrote position papers, and he gathered support. He paid for his _hubris_ with a prison term martyred himself, and wrote "Mein Kampf". Eventually, Hitler entered German politics in a legitimate manner, and was elected legally. Only after consolidating power through these measures did he become a full-scale dictator.

Hitler in America might have served in the military, and he might have been a war hero on the winning side. There is no denying that he displayed courage under fire on the Western Front. Yankee Hitler (call him "Al Hilton") might have tried his hand as a painter in New York or some other large city, and like most artists found this to be a difficult way to make a living. What if "Hilton" was raised in the South? In California? Would his racial views have found a voice no matter what? To what extent would he be a product of nature or nurture, especially regarding his opinion of blacks, Jews, Arabs and Hispanics? The tides of history are what make history, and it is this that drives the ending of the classic book and film "The Boys from Brazil".

Gregory Peck plays Dr. Joseph Mengele, and Sir Laurence Olivier a Nazi hunter based on Simon Wiesenthal. Mengele has cloned Hitler and now some 60 "Hitlers" are 14 years old. They are living in family circumstances orchestrated by him to be similar to Hitler's upbringing. Olivier has discovered the plot. After Mengele is killed, a young Jew takes it for granted that all the Hitler clones must die. Olivier burns the only document detailing who and where they are. His premise is that Adolph Hitler was unique to his place and time, and therefore (thankfully) not inexorable.

A sequel to "The Boys from Brazil" would be the premise of my question. What happened to those clones in America, England, Germany and other places? Could Hitler's inner rage have found a voice some place else? Was he born evil? More to the point, where does this kind of voice find a platform? Do we find Hitler in David Duke and Timothy McVeigh (the Oklahoma City bomber)? Is it possible Hitler could have been a decent member of society, if he found a loving wife, had children, and sold some paintings?

It is all academic, of course. Some might say such wanderings are dangerous. It also begs separation between ideology and power seeking. Does "Al Hilton" seek power or ideological victory? This gets back to the Hillary model. In Hillary I found the seeker of power who will use ideology (feminism, abortion rights, class warfare) to attain her goals within the framework of the America she lives in. In Hitler we find the seeker of an ideology, and from what we do no know of him, his ideas were one-track. How does such a man find an avenue for his fury, his theories, his dreams in, say, Communism, or in a Democrat-controlled state like Louisiana during the 1930s? Does such a man attach himself at the hip to the accusations of Joe McCarthy?

Again and again the creative mind wanders into evil. Duke, McVeigh, Ted Kaczysnki. The point of the exercise is that Plato has set about standards of conduct that are universal. He has identified the worst kind of offender as the one who seeks power for power's sake. It is this person who the system must safeguard against. America has done its best work in marginalizing, as much as possible, this kind of individual. This reminds me of the refrain I repeated throughout the 1990s. So great is the United States that not only did Bill Clinton not destroy her, he actually did some very good things because the checks and balances set him on a course of good conduct.

The concept of the "good Clinton" is an optimistic one. It says a great deal about the beauty of America. On the flip side, evildoers take advantage of our laws and ideas to shape them to their own wants. There have been those who say Plato's "Republic" was a blueprint for totalitarianism, because his stringent code of justice is a guide on how the tyrant can manipulate the system by playing to our ideals. I find this in the prescriptions of the Left, playing to the emotions of minorities. They feed them the notion that they are "helping them" when in fact they seek only to set themselves up as the only source of their empowerment, therefore increasing their hold on power.

The same tenet is behind the pro-choice movement. Liberals set themselves up as the protectors of women's rights. The movement is less about giving women a real choice than it is about giving radical feminists political power.

The truth about the Left becomes obvious when one discovers that they are not for all blacks, just Democrat blacks. Clarence Thomas was an enemy to them because he identified their prescriptions as frauds. Even moderate African-Americans like National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell are held at arm's length because they succeeded without bowing to the Left's nostrums.

Black talk show hosts like Ken Hamblin and Larry Elder are excoriated for their right wing views despite the fact that they display a genuine intelligence that should be held up and championed as exemplars for all black people. Elder in particular takes major heat because he acknowledges that he entered Brown University thanks to Affirmative Action, yet he opposes Affirmative Action. Los Angeles native Elder then points out some basic Truths, namely that had he not been admitted to Brown he would have been admitted to some other fine university instead. Whether his degree was from Brown, or USC, or UC-Irvine, he asserts, is less important to his career than the fact that he worked extremely hard. He become a lawyer, then built a business from scratch, entered the competitive radio profession and worked his way to the top there, too. His detractors try to paint a picture of Elder scratching out a meager existence, but-for his Affirmative Action admittance to Brown. Elder is understandably insulted not just for himself, but because such an assertion is a tacit statement about black folks in general. But-for white help, goes the assertion, blacks are left to the tender mercies of a Darwinian world they cannot possibly be expected to succeed in. The Left uses all the code words of "opportunity" and "justice" that make up Plato's "Republic". They use them to create little tyrannies and pockets of division. Theirs is the racism of low expectations.

Plato gave personal traits to the worst kind of tyrant, who he said "combined the traits of drunkenness, lust, and lunacy"; an insatiable thirst for money and power; contempt for law and reason; and constant provocation of wars. Can anybody say Kim Jong-Il? Is anybody further from these traits than Gandhi? Plato says that true despots do not have a true friend in the world; they are sometimes a slave, sometimes a master. They possess no faithfulness.

Adolf Hitler never had a true friend. In looking for these traits among public leaders, it is instructive to note who a man's "friends" are. Are they associates or friends? Does he "sell out" his friends when push comes to shove? Is it necessary to mention the name of a recent American leader who has these traits, or is the answer just obvious?

In the end, the passion to dominate others dominates the tyrant. Plato's "Republic" has often been noted as describing the rise of Hitler. Plato saw these same traits in a succession of Greek and Persian rulers who he despised. Hitler displayed Plato's version of irrationality. He justified his fatal invasion of Russia by saying, "I feel it in my blood."

Plato is said to have used the tyrant Creon of Sophocles' "Antigone" in his characterization of tyrannical rule. In "Antigone", Creon's only son, Haemon, pleads with his father to listen to reason because "of all God's gifts, good sense is far the best" and "there is no disgrace in being able to learn." Creon responds by cursing Antigone to death and forcing the son to watch her death.

Plato also described "spirit" at being a valued trait of courage and honor, admirable in an individual or in society, but not in a ruler. Plato felt that wisdom was a greater value than courage. During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson and Attorney General Robert Kennedy were the only members of President Kennedy's top level cabinet and advisory council to openly oppose an invasion of Cuba.

"Maybe one of us should be a coward," Stevenson said, opening himself up to great criticism. What the crisis was ended via peace, due in no small role to Stevenson's strong display of photographic evidence at the United Nations, he emerged as a Wise Man.

General Curt LeMay and the others, hawks and non-hawks among them, pressed for war. They all displayed the spirit of courage, but of course none of them were on the front lines. Today, the Bush Administration is infused by "warrior spirit." Plato said that the ruler must have two distinct groups at his disposal. Reason and wisdom must characterize the philosophical group. Spirit and courage must infuse the military group.

Since then, history has demonstrated that the military group, because of its strength and spirit, can overpower the philosophical group. No where is this more obvious in recent memory than in Japan. Tojo's militarists took over from the statesmen, launching the country into hell.

America reserves its greatest honor to those among the spirit group who transcend the philosophical group. A great General like George S. Patton had no place within the philosophers. In fact, he was a man in the wilderness between World Wars I and II. George C. Marshall, on the other hand, was the perfect catalyst who infused his leadership skills with the spirit of both groups. It was the example of statesmen-soldiers like Marshall that led to doctrinaire changes in the education of officers at the academies and war colleges.

The result has been generals like Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell. They despise war, value the lives of their men and those of the enemy, and understand that battle is the last vestige of failed diplomacy. Facing possible war in Iraq much time was been spent contemplating this task. The spirit group and the philosophical group were well represented and merged together with the Bush advisory council. The decision was a balanced one.

Georges Clemenceau said, "war is too important to be left to the generals." He was right, but it is too important to be left to the statesmen. The new world demands that it be left to an organic merging of both camps.

Plato made an interesting observation with timeless connotations. The Athens Board of Generals had successfully defended the city against Persia, but had disastrously led them into war with Sparta. The lesson of this is not to esteem victory so highly that those who orchestrate it are considered infallible. This lesson, at its simplest core, emerges from examination of the American experience in Vietnam. It resonates in our contemplation of further Middle East conflict.

After the successful Persian Gulf War (1991) and the Iraq War (2003), our military is considered infallible right now. Our weapons are so technologically superior, our intelligence so much better, that we view total victory as pre-determined. I do hope any dark foreboding that hides behind this view has no justification. In 1964, 19 years after defeating the most formidable armies ever assembled, the almighty Americans surely felt the same way about Indochina.

Plato based his observations on spirit mostly on Pericles' "Funeral Oration". Pericles infused his speech over and over with references to "honor," "gallantry," "meaning of manliness" and other testosterone-laced perorations. Spirit, Plato noticed, is not associated with reason or intellect. He made the leap that while such traits infused the Athenian Army, since they lost, they must subordinate themselves to reason.

Plato further observed that reason was not applied simply as a safeguard against entering a disastrous war. In fact it is the protector of humanity _during_ a war. Thucydides first recognized this when he described the revolution in Corcyra, where all hell broke loose. The conclusion was that the kind of spirit and gallantry so necessary in developing _esprit de corps_ within the military is quickly turned into something else once war takes a turn for the worse.

The Nazi S.S. had as much _esprit de corps_ as any warrior group ever assembled. They were razors, killing machines. But they were infused with no reason, no compromise. They were picked for their physical skills and traits of gung-ho bravery. In their case, they were manipulated into doing the most heinous of Hitler's work. In the Peloponnesian War, the spirit had no outlet once battle plans went awry in the fog of _dispiriting_ defeat. War is a massive psychological struggle, where morale and confidence play as much a role as strategy. The esteemed bravery of the Athenian fighting men turned to blind violence once anarchy replaced the plan of battle.

Plato said this approach had been based on a concept that the "weaker must be kept down by the stronger," and that the rule of spirit without reason leads to irrational mishandling of power. As anybody who has ever observed a barroom confrontation knows, it is better when "cooler heads prevail."

Professor Dalton's wonderful "Power Over People" teaching series then turns its attentions to Aristotle, who Dalton says was both Plato's greatest student and one of his most "trenchant critics." They felt similarly about ethics, but arrived at their conclusions in different ways. Aristotle was more of a realist than Plato, and certainly more so than Socrates.

Aristotle posited the theory of the "golden mean." His differences with Plato were partly based upon his personal experiences, which were not the same. Aristotle hailed from Macedonia, and as a younger man was not personally affected by the Peloponnesian War. A similar situation would be an older liberal American who grew up protesting the Vietnam War, who mentors a younger man from Canada who has moved to the United States, and has no personal memories of Vietnam.

Furthermore, Aristotle saw Plato live a long, productive life, while Plato had seen Socrates condemned and executed. Aristotle was middle class, whereas Plato was an aristocrat. Aristotle sought knowledge through biology while Plato sought it through mathematics. Aristotle relied on observation, and found fault in Plato for theorizing, i.e., transcendent forms.

They resembled each other in regarding the state as an agent of virtue. In Renaissance painter Raphael's classic "School of Athens", Plato is depicted focusing on the transcendent realm, Aristotle on the moderate.

Aristotle's first critique was of Plato's "revolutionary wave," notably the concept of women in politics. Aristotle believed that people were derived through nature, and that the union of the family produces an organic order in which the man rules via superior reason and forethought. Those who naturally are ruled by the superiors just as naturally are subservient. His reliance on biology was the locus of this thinking, since the study of animals consistently shows that the male of varied species assumes natural superiority.

Plato relied on mathematics, although his use of math in determining women's place in politics seems less influential on his thinking than Sophocles' play, "Antigone". Had one of the Greek playwrights penned a great play showing slaves rising above their condition, something like the film "Spartacus", for instance, perhaps he might have changed his attitude about the "natural" role of slaves in Athens.

Aristotle's reliance on biology does not seem to give him the data he might have needed to veer from Plato on the subject of slavery, either. His use of the concept of "natural" social orders does not bode well for any theories of what Aristotle's attitude towards slavery might have been had he lived in different times. Because he was indisputably a moral man, it does not seem to be a stretch that he would have had an open mind (and heart) had he lived during a time of real debate about slavery. He was a product of his times, when it was not a subject of debate. The revolutionary changes these men brought about are such great contributions to the world that nit-picking every view is not a worthy exercise.

The study of slavery gets bogged down in hard moral equations of right and wrong, ignoring the fact that great thinkers like Plato and Aristotle saw it as natural. They may give credence to an intellectual people, yearning to be free, led by a charismatic leader like Moses who advocates their fleeing from Egyptian bondage. Apparently they view many other forms of the human family to be less worthy of freedom than the Jews escaping to the Promised Land.

Their views probably do not change very much in a study of the African slave trade. What they would see are white people, skilled, crafty, and smart, in association with blacks who have seemingly made no real evolutionary progress, capturing and selling their own people for profit. They would say these blacks do not have the capacity to "reason" other than amoral self-interest.

Less moral men did justify slavery in later eras by pointing to Aristotle's "natural" views of Mankind. In the end, the practice of slavery seems to have survived all theories of science and politics for some 2,220 years. Many religions tolerated it. Judaism-Christianity tolerated it less than all others. In the end run it took a modern version of Democracy advocated by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, now practiced by a union of sovereign states in a new world, to end the damn thing once and for all. Placed in the middle of the Christian intellectual argument against slavery, one hopes that these three men would have seen the morality of freeing the slaves.

But we are dealing with Aristotle in his times, and the record says certain things. Aristotle believed that the human soul ( _psyche_ ) has two elements, one that rules and one that is ruled. Some humans, he said, were slaves because they lacked the _ability_ to reason. Women, he felt, lacked rational capacity. He bases his views on practical observation, but did not say what the future might hold.

Aristotle also criticized Plato's call for abolition of the nuclear family, because just as males are naturally superior, they are naturally the head of the family. Mainly, Aristotle said that break-up of the family is harmful because men pay most attention to what they possess. The protection of the family, knit together within a society of "family men," is beneficial to society and later has been cited as the bedrock of capitalism. The natural care of children is a civic virtue, and goes part and parcel with the possession of private property. To eradicate ownership is "wrong and futile," and characterized an extremist attitude on Plato's part. Aristotle placed some limits on private property, but understood that charity stems from private ownership.

Aristotle also found fault with Plato's contemplation of the "third wave" that concentrates power in the hands of an elite philosopher class. Here we begin to see correlations with modern thought processes that are telling. Plato, the aristocrat, advocated putting elites in power over the masses while taking away their private property. Aristotle, from the middle class, wanted to give the moderate middle the greatest say in decision-making while advocating giving them an economic stake in the system. He said that the middle classes, more likely to be run by reason, are less likely to be as extreme as the rich or the poor.

Aristotle differentiated himself from his predecessors more by advocating these virtues than by any other means. In so doing he emerges as the champion of future Western forms of Democracy and capitalism. Modern conservatives speak ill of an "elitist" class of people who presume to make decisions for the rest of us, because we are not able to make smart decisions for ourselves. The moderns place great emphasis on private property not simply because it is fair to keep what one works to attain, but because to do so invests one in the community.

While Plato's views regarding private property never seem to find any logical home, his views of the elitist classes should be studied and given some leeway. Plato did not like the way the Athenian Assembly was constructed, because he rightly saw a "mob mentality" in its thousands of members making decisions that later might have been considered the famous "tyranny of the majority." Perhaps he would have been pleased with the representative form of government embodied by bi-cameral American and parliamentarian English government.

Aristotle eschewed radicalism and saw the Middle Class, from whence he emerged, as the protectors against it. According to Professor Dalton, Plato is viewed by history as the revolutionary. Aristotle is the reformer. Much of the difference between the two is traced to the fact that Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) did not experience the severe crisis of the Peloponnesian War. He was more of an optimist than Plato, and saw Athens as less corrupt than his mentor. He did not advocate sweeping change. While not a product of the aristocracy, Aristotle certainly grew up in affluence. His father was the court physician to the previous King of Macedonia. Aristotle's reliance on biology is traced to his father. He stressed empirical analysis over abstract reasoning. One might say he advocated _realpolitik_ while Plato was more of a dreamer.

Aristotle studied under Plato for 20 years, from 367 to 347 B.C., beginning at the age of 18. Eventually Aristotle founded the Lyceum, which was located next to Plato's Academy. Raphael's painting demonstrates the difference between them by showing Plato gesturing toward the Heavens, while Aristotle is pointing forward. Regarding the complicated role of women, Aristotle disagreed with Plato's view of them as potential rulers, but he does not ascribe them as "natural slaves" within the family. This followed his concept of "naturalism" that embodied his ideas of slavery. He did not view intelligence and reason as sex-linked. He found women inferior to men because they could not reason, but above slaves because they fulfilled natural functions within the family, which he was an advocate of. Thus, moderation.

CHAPTER THREE

**MACHIAVELLI AND** _REALPOLITIK_

_Realpolitik_ is a term that is often ascribed to Florentine diplomat and political theorist Niccolo Machiavelli. Of course, the term, which obviously means "real politics," is as old as man and applies to almost everything. The first humans had to deal with the "reality" of survival. Plato's allegory of the cave is an attempt to show that man has not always _known_ what was real, but reality is always with man; the reality of life and death, of sickness, of enemies, of danger, of the need to eat, to sleep, to survive. What man knows may not be everything there is to know, but it is always real. Lies and deception are real. Military planners and CIA handlers are among those who count on this "reality."

Everything is real. The French existentialists may have tried to steer away from this, but even their work is based in the realm of reality. Even looking inward and conceiving of _nihilistic_ nothingness, of a purely individual existence, does not stand with the fact that they wrote books for others to read, had relationships, survived, met their needs, and influenced their realm. The very fact that they dealt with these real aspects of life is evidence of a reality they philosophized against.

European politics, staggered by wars and tragedy, are infused by _realpolitik_. In the post-Napoleonic era, continent-wide revolutions eventually led to treaties that weakened France, strengthened Germany and led to more tragedy: World Wars I and II.

Former American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a Jew who escaped Nazi Germany, employed _realpolitik._ He was influenced by one of the major practitioners of the art, Prince Klemens von Metternich, the Austrian minister of state who acted as the president of the Vienna Congress. Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, who brought _glasnost_ to Eastern Europe, emphasized _realpolitik._

_Realpolitik_ gained credence because of Machiavelli's influence, but in general principle has not been the guiding force of American political theory. This begs the question, _Are Americans too idealistic?_ War-weary Europeans rejected Plato's idealism in "Republic", but the young Americans gave it a home. Somehow, this country has remained idealistic for almost 230 years. Is it our idealism that keeps us strong, or our strength which keeps us idealistic?

As with most things, and the moderate Aristotle would agree, the answer is somewhere in between. _Realpolitik_ does not dominate American policy, but it is always part of the decision-making process. Protesters, militants, and rabble-rousers raise the loud hue and cry for change or peace or whatever it is they are yelling for. They are tongue-tied when asked to present alternatives. _Realpolitik_ presents itself most obviously when the reformers and the idealists of the Left occasionally grab power, and to their horror find that the policies of those they fought against are the only ones that really work.

The only idealism that really has survived _realpolitik_ is based on a Judeo-Christian morality that has tempered America's place as a country and world leader. It has survived European ridicule, socialism, Communism and all others _isms_.

As mentioned, _realpolitik_ always has and always will be an important part of diplomacy and planning. Machiavelli marks the transition between classical and modern tradition. Professor Dalton contrasts Machiavelli's theories regarding human nature and power to those of Creon, Thrasymachus, Glaucon, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. He believes that Machiavelli has much in common with Plato. This is interesting because at first blush it would seem that Plato would despise Machiavelli, while Machiavelli might think Plato a dreamer.

Both men lived during times of political crisis, and looked for power-based solutions to the problems of their day. They both felt power should be accorded to the few, not the many. They disagreed on methodology.

In this last regard, it would appear that both men would advocate strong leadership that is willing to make difficult decisions even if they may be unpopular. In a free Democracy, protest is allowed and, if organized well enough, can appear to be quite the chorus. Any human would be affected, probably swayed, by large demonstrations. Machiavelli would disregard the protesters as a distraction from the real work that the powerful must do. Plato would find them to be a "mob," not the professional leadership that he advocated. Aristotle's downplaying of the importance of political leadership was reflected by the calm times he lived in, as opposed to the rocky climate of Plato and Machiavelli.

The first big difference between Machiavelli and the Greeks is that he views government not as an agent of virtue, but an instrument of masculine force. The primary role of government is to provide security and survival. This is a paradox for Americans, who, as Jack Nicholson said to Tom Cruise in "A Few Good Men", "both rise and sleep by the very freedom that I provide, then criticize the way I provide it."

After surviving a revolution, a civil war, two world wars, two Oriental police actions, a Cold War, and now the War on Terrorism, Americans with any sense of history simply must accept Machiavelli's admonition that the government is there to provide security. All other things emanate from it. This does not address the other very important goals of government, which is to protect civil rights and promote all the general benefits of a peaceful society. Politics, Machiavelli said, is about how we really live, not how we ought to live.

In his book, "The Prince", Machiavelli warned that the prince will be destroyed if he becomes too idealistic. He says the prince must not be _too good_ , doling out goodness only as it is required, while practicing vice for the sake of political gain.

His view of human nature, Professor Dalton says, is closer to Thucydides or Thrasymachus than Plato or Aristotle. Pragmatism is his way. Virtue is not part politics, only false virtue.

Why is the U.S. so different from Machiavelli? All the elements of Machiavellian philosophy existed when the U.S. was forming itself. America had to fight a war, one that was not as popular as we might imagine it to have been. Many colonialists were royalists, loyal to King George. Traitors and profiteers were embedded amongst the population. Intrigue involving other countries, personal wealth and power were at stake. The possibility for the dark underpinnings of Balkanization of the varying colony/states was possible. Yet it all fell into place as if...guided by the hand of God!

All the trappings of Machiavellianism played itself out when the French tried to emulate us a few years later. Machiavelli would have been utterly mystified by the American experience. He would have seen the French Revolution to be predictable, preventable only by playing it his way _ahead of time_. His ghost seemed to have had Napoleon's ear in the aftermath of the days of guillotine.

Machiavelli emphasizes that the prince is better off feared than loved. He seems to be advising a Mafia boss more than a leader of a country. He should ask if he prefers _respect_ , a word that too often gets thrown around when it means fear, but actually should replace love. The great leader does not need to be loved, but he must be respected. Machiavelli would disagree with the concept that only through moral virtues such as honesty, and yes, spirit, can he earn respect. Urban gangbangers cruise the city streets, flashing their colors and waving guns, all the while demanding _respect._ They are so far from being respected as to be laughable if they were not so dangerously tragic.

The prince must use violence or he risks losing his position, which echoes Creon, for people will not offend those who they fear will do violence against them. Bonds of love are easily broke, while fear endures. Finally the prince, in order to avoid _hate_ , must not molest his subjects' wives or property.

It all sounds like a mob movie.

"Never mess with another man's broad," the overused DeNiro/Pacino/Pesci/ Garcia/Montegna character says in a million stereotyped gangster flicks. Machiavelli overlooks so much. If one wanted to find real nobility in a mob movie, check out the scene in "The Godfather" when Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) gathers the heads of the families together after a long war in which his oldest son (James Caan) was killed and his youngest (Pacino) has been exiled. He proposes "on the soul of my grandchildren" that he will not be the one to break the peace that he proposes. In so doing he becomes what Machiavelli seems not to have understood: A coalition builder.

Machiavelli lacks broad vision, in my view, not to mention nobility. Nevertheless, to deny that his views have merit in some circumstances would be to turn one's back on reality. Machiavelli believes it is of value for the prince to keep his word, but he is more likely to gain and keep power by using deception. This reminds me again of my former lying, cheating business partner. If you have read this book this far, you probably have figured out that I place value on truth, decency and morality, and that I am not a member of the Dumbellionite Class. How, then, was I duped into taking on a business partner who was a liar and a cheat? Especially when I admit that I had knowledge of his lies regarding other matters prior to our going into business?

Machiavelli says it is "praiseworthy for the prince to keep his word," but he is advocating truth as a strategy, which is what the business partner did. The fact is, the man in question kept his word a lot. He did favors for people. He followed up on his promises, and established a reputation among many as somebody who could be counted on. What he realized was that lies should be held back and used as aces in the hole. As long as the truth was advantageous to him, he would be truthful. This way he avoided patterns of deception, built loyalty and allies, and established credits that he could use when, inevitably, he would have to lie.

As Machiavelli advised, the truth is a weapon to be used effectively, and not veered from without good reason. Obviously, if the truth is only available when it is convenient, then a man is not trustworthy. But the business partner was smart and he knew that if he mixed in enough truth, like Bill Clinton he could make time his ally and win by attrition.

The beginning of my fallout with the business partner came about when I made a very honest assessment of his actions to his face. He owed me money. A long period of time passed and he kept promising to make payments, but he never did. I finally told him that the way he staved me off reminded me of the Japanese strategy in the late stages of World War II.

"Your strategy is to win by attrition," I told him. "You're like Japanese troops living in caves at Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima, hoping that if you just hold out long enough I'll tire and eventually go away."

Normally, Dave had a comeback, a defense, and a smart remark to off-put me. Not this time. He was cornered, identified and exposed. He had only two possible responses. The first would have been to do the right thing and pay me. The second was to lash out and put me back with swear words and anger. He chose the second course of action. The line in the sand had been crossed, and all belief that the company and our partnership could be saved was gone.

All that was left was legal action, which I would have won easily via _prima facie_ evidence of his breach of contract. I sued him and asked for summary judgment, because the evidence I presented, which was the signed contract, and the accounting that showed it was not honored, was so obvious. I was determined that he would not be successful in his "Japanese in the caves" strategy. He was a tricky SOB, though, and had an atom bomb in his quiver: Bankruptcy Court. Machiavelli would have been proud.

The business partner maintained appearance and illusion well. He lived in a huge home in a very fashionable section of suburban California, and entertained friends and clients there regularly. His banker, however, seeing that I was in deep with him and contemplating getting in deeper, informed me that he was unable to meet the "nut" on the home and it would all have to go eventually. Nevertheless, long after I was informed of this, he continued to use that house to create the illusion of prosperity, and to gain trust.

He was blatant about himself, too.

"I live here," he would say about the fact that he knew a lot of people and had been raised in the community. "What's known about me is easy to find out."

This was an interesting statement. First, as I said, he had used "truth" enough to build a good reputation in many quarters, and that is where he steered any prospective clients or investors who might have wanted to "check him out." The brazen part was that if one really _did_ want to check him out, they would discover he had a history of cheating going back to little league, and had had scrapes with the law since high school. But the man had covered his tracks well and instead of being secretive, created the _illusion_ of openness and honesty.

Machiavelli said the ends always justify the means, and the business partner believed that, too. Machiavelli discussed two conceptions of power in "The Prince". Fortune ( _fortuna_ ), characterized by irrationality, is a powerful force, and is characterized by women, who must be held down by men.

_Virtu_ is the masculine face of power, is rational, and therefore can be guarded against.

Machiavelli (1469-1527) was born in Florence the year that Lorenzo "The Magnificent" de Medici came to power. Lorenzo was the grandfather of the Lorenzo to whom "The Prince" was dedicated. Machiavelli held the post of Florentine chancellor between 1498 and 1512, then he was exiled until 1527. He wrote "The Prince" and "The Discourses" while in exile.

As with Plato and Socrates, Machiavelli's work emanated from political change of crisis proportions. He lived during a time in which the politics of Mediterranean Europe surrounding Italy were marked by transitions from weak and decentralized feudal regimes to the more centralized rule of despotic monarchs and princes in Spain, France and also in England (who because of their strong navy and trade economy were a force in the region, too). Italy did not fall under powerful rule, however, and Machiavelli observed his country remaining weak, and therefore subject to victimization by its neighbors.

In Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella (1479-1516) created a nation-state, and later Phillip II further transformed Spain into a power. Louis XI (1461-1489), Charles VIII (1492-1498) and Francis I (1515-1547) were strong rulers of France. In 1494, France invaded Italy.

The War of the Roses (1455-1485) marked English history during this period. Henry VII (1485-1509) established the Anglican Church, and Elizabeth I held the throne despite great Machiavellian-style conspiracies in Britain, from 1558-1603.

Italy was still experiencing the long, difficult aftermath of the fall of the Roman Empire. Religious power and theology created conflict and introspection in the country over its role in the world. Arguments between Italian world dominance (the Empiricists) and the guilt-ridden liberals (the passivists) only served to split the country. Out of this turmoil, Machiavelli could have had one of two distinct visions. He could have advocated the building of coalitions, embracing old enemies, and creating a peacemaker with great political power. Or, he could have advocated the creation of a smaller fiefdom for the prince he advised; one that gave the prince limited but secure power.

As this was the age of Martin Luther, Calvinism and Henry VIII, bitter acrimony developed between Catholics and Protestants. Luther was a Catholic priest in Germany who loathed the tithes that parishioners had to pay in order to "petition" God, and he firmly believed that individuals could commune with God not through the priests, but through direct prayer with Jesus Christ.

Henry VIII was so incensed by Sir Thomas Moore, who as liaison between the English Catholic Church and the throne, informed Henry VIII that he could not marry Ann Bolyn and remain King because of Catholic strictures against divorce. Henry VIII responded by beheading Moore plus several of his wives over the years, and created a new Church of England, the Anglicans (in America we call them Episcopalians).

Machiavelli viewed all of this and was cynical about religion, which helps explain why moral questions of right and wrong do not enter into his political equations. Getting back to religion and my lying former business partner, he was raised a Catholic but did not much practice it. Once he made a point of letting me know that he had attended a recent Mass, eliciting the admirable response that he knew I would have for making it to church.

"That's the kind of guy I am," he said, and in retrospect it is a telling remark. He wanted others to think he was religious because it was to his benefit. The inner spirituality of religion does not appear to be his motivating force.

This was the way it was with Machiavelli, who paid lip service to Catholicism because it suited his needs to do so. The Papacy in his time was strong, and in those days intervened in Italian politics. Italy's role in the death of Christ historically has played a role in creating guilt and a strong Church. In turn, it has been used to justify intervention with the affairs of state, to "right the wrongs" of previous Italian governments who opposed Christianity.

Pontius Pilate had been appointed Governor of Jerusalem by Rome, and acted with the authority of Rome and with the army of the great legion to imprison and crucify Jesus. The capture of Christians and the feeding of them to lions in the Roman Colloseum were done with the approval of the government. Then the Emperor saw a vision of Christ while in battle, and everything changed.

Almost overnight, Italy became a Christian country, with the Catholic Church set up at the Vatican of Rome. By Machiavelli's time, Catholicism was the dogmatic word of Italy. Alexander VI (father of Cesare Borgia) was the Pope from 1492-1503, followed by Julius II (1503-1513) and the military leader Leo X from 1513-1521. In Florence, Savonarola led a Dominican sect when Machiavelli was a youth there.

Machiavelli lived during a time of great artistic beauty. The Italian Renaissance reached its peak in the 15th and 16th Centuries, marked by the great works of Boccaccio (author of "Decameron"); Sandro Botticello (master painter famed for his "Botticelli angels"); Leonardo da Vinci ("Last Supper", "Mona Lisa"); Raphael (who painted the Plato/Aristotle classic "School of Athens"); and Michelangelo (who painted the Sistine Chapel).

Five states made up the Italian Peninsula during Machiavelli's time. The Duchy of Milan and the Republic of Venice were in the north, the Republic of Florence and the states of the Church (which included Rome) made up the central area, and in the south was the Kingdom of Naples. Florence went from a first-rate power into an also-ran, under Spanish rule, and was further weakened by French invasions under Charles VIII in 1494, then under Louis XII in 1499.

The aristocratic family of Medici and the populist Soderini's directed Florentine politics with poor effect. When the Medici's took power from the Soderini's in 1513, Machiavelli, an advisor to the Soderini's, found himself on the outs. He was exiled, but instead of holding the Medici's in contempt for taking action against him, he admired them and dedicated "The Prince" to Lorenzo de Medici.

Various dark actors made up the Italian landscape of that era, including Cesare Borgia, who with the help of his father the Pope, attempted to gain control of the entire country. In 1502 Machiavelli met Borgia, and he thought him skilled in the intertwined arts of politics and military skill. Borgia demonstrated terrific sales ability. Machiavelli modeled "The Prince" on him.

Two kinds of leaders ruled the varied provinces of Italy. There were adventurous princes and mercantile princes. The land did not yield great abundance, moral or material. There were no great traditions to guide any leaders or would-be leaders. The Roman Empire offered history but not a popular model, even if its glory could have been re-captured. Instability was the order of the day.

(Sounds like Italy today, actually.)

The country lacked a good military, and its neighbors, who felt no sympathy for the country in light of the Romans' long history of invasions, felt no compunction about attacking and taking what they could get.

Despite the rise of Christianity that had emerged during the dark days of the Empire, the Protestant Reformation had not yet happened, and the Church held almost no sway over the people, much less the various political groups.

The various groups attempted to use cunning and duplicity to one-up each other, with the result that various small tyrants came to power, only to fall. The Medici family became dukes in Florence, the Sforza's in Milan, and in Venice and Genoa, the republics were narrow oligarchies.

Out of this low period, Machiavelli yearned to return Italy to the glory that was Rome. Machiavelli admired not the later Caesars, who presided over the drunken, fat, amoral fall, but rather the early, militaristic Rome that brought patriotic virtue to the lands they conquered. The 15-year old Machiavelli was not enamored by Italian art. He coveted military power. In 1494, the French followed Hannibal's path, crossing the Alps and invading Italy in a way that eventually resulted in a divisive battle between France and Spain, who had invaded earlier, on the country's peninsula.

Machiavelli's country fell to varied hordes of Spanish, German, and renegade Italian armies, who made their way to Rome. They sacked the city in an orgy of rape and pillage. The Pope was imprisoned and his Cardinals publicly disgraced. Machiavelli wrote "The Prince" in order to give advice to future Italian leaders, hoping they would use his ideas to prevent such a disaster. Unfortunately, Machiavelli correctly predicted that the country was beyond prescription. He is one of the world's most influential political advisors, yet his advice was unable to prevent his country from becoming a disaster for 300 years. The _virtu_ of Machiavelli was not employed by any Italians of his lifetime.

Machiavelli determined that the crisis in Italy occurred because the public representation and leadership, in place when the barbarians invaded, was bankrupt. The Italians had spent all their time feeding their little fiefdoms, and not preparing for international diplomacy or battle. They paid dearly. In this respect, Machiavelli has something in common with Plato, the man who attempted to come up with answers in light of the Peloponnesian disaster.

While Machiavelli may be viewed as prescribing an unfollowed saving grace for his country, it is not patriotism that endows his words. Neither he nor Plato were concerned with the survival of a system. What concerned them, as Professor Dalton says, was a "crisis of spirit." Their efforts are to direct a course of action in the _minds of men._ Human nature is what pre-occupies their philosophies. Both wished to replace amateurs with professionals.

Reality is where Plato and Machiavelli differ. Plato believed morality can be taught as a "form," and that the professional leader can be trained to act with wisdom. At the heart of this is an absolute principle of truth.

Machiavelli, on the other hand, saw only layers of truth, a game if you will. He would have made a great CIA agent. He believed that to blindly adhere to a moral course leads to ruin, not salvation. He only valued strength. Power demands either force or deception, depending upon what is expedient. Machiavelli saw men as liars and deceivers, who can be preyed upon through greed and fear.

In America, we like to think of ourselves as being followers of Plato (or, in my view, Aristotle), rather than Machiavelli. Much of our history, in fact some of the crucial moral decisions we have made, uphold this concept. However, our place in the world gives us the great advantage of holding the position of power Machiavelli would covet. Therefore we have the freedom to follow Plato and Aristotle.

By the same token, former European powers like Germany, France, Russia, Spain and Italy seem to have eschewed the baser politics of Machiavelli. It is not wholly right to say they are Platonic, either. A kind of realism about their place in the world seems to have created a new Europe in which power is considered a pure burden, to be avoided.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE ORIGINS OF COMMUNISM

What is interesting to note about Communism is that it needed capitalism to rear its ugly head. Throughout human history, people were deemed to be born into various classes. A man, a family, a group of people inhabited higher or lower places in society depending in many ways upon vague, and sometimes not-so-vague, ideas of destiny or God-given rights. The King's subjects might begrudge the King, but generally did not see themselves as worthy of holding the same place in society.

British capitalism and world trade changed the way people viewed their economic condition. Certain people demonstrated greater acumen in the grubby dealings of business. Pure uncanny intelligence in the ways of trade and business dealings were naturally intertwined with corruption, inside deals, back scratching, nepotism and all the other ways that money makes men ugly.

Naturally, large segments of the great unwashed found themselves left out of these insider works. The first vestiges of class warfare replaced class distinction. It stood to reason that certain street lawyers would tell the mob that they were being exploited. The masses eventually found eloquent voice. Professor Dalton makes the point of demonstrating who the major thinkers of history are, and who their protégés and students were, as well as identifying who broke from their chidings to make new proposals. Thus, we have pointed out the progression of Socrates to Plato to Aristotle, but also shown how different Machiavelli was. At the same time, certain similarities are often found among disparate personalities.

In attempting to identify the origins of Communism, the name Karl Marx of course comes first. But Marx was greatly influenced by the writings of French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I have also made some observations that apply to Socrates and Plato (but not to Aristotle) that, in my view, show that the first two Greek theorists made some statements that give encouragement to later socialists.

This chapter concentrates on Rousseau and Marx. Rousseau was an idealist, and unlike Marx, history accords romanticism to his work. Professor Dalton agrees that he had much in common with Plato. The common thread between all three was a benign view of human nature, in direct contradiction with Machiavelli. Where Machiavelli thrived on competition and one-upmanship, Rousseau finds wrong in this.

Private property, which Aristotle agreed was the anchor of the middle class, was the bane of society in Rousseau's view. Rousseau and Plato were critical of the societies they lived in, and saw education as the answer to the problems. Ethics were at the heart of their view of reform, and they thought private property bred avarice and inequality.

Rousseau said that history was built on man's instincts to survive against suffering. The dark side of human action is a reaction to that suffering, but in a world where suffering is alleviated, people are at their heart good. He said this innate goodness is what keeps men from harming others even more than they already do.

Even in his day, Rousseau railed against a society corrupted by "progress" in the form of urbanization that put too many living too close to others in cities, therefore losing their sense of community and humanity.

Professor Dalton brings up a modern case that he says accentuates what Rousseau was talking about. That was the1964 Kitty Genovese murder, in which her neighbors failed to rescue her from her attacker even though she was being raped and eventually killed right under their windows while they stood by and did nothing. Another case made the news just a few weeks prior to my writing this. A man was murdered at a gas station in Maryland while an on-looker stood by and watched. The video camera shows the on-looker not only did nothing, failed to come to the man's aid, or reported the crime to the store or called 911, but _continued to pump gas_ while the man lay dying a few feet away.

Rousseau had little good to say about the educational system in France, and decried economic rivalry. All of his visions for a better society are outlined in his classic book, "The Social Contract". In this book he attempted to alleviate the fear that men have of each other by emphasizing the inter-dependence of humanity, and that justice must replace instinct. Equality can be attained through legislation, particularly as it pertains to the education of young people, and that real freedom is not license. Freedom, he says, carries a responsibility, which is to attain a "oneness with others."

This last admonition carries some strong political baggage. Nobody argues the value of people working with each other to build a better world, but the association of "loners" with alienation is one that many disagree with.

In the U.S. more than any other country, the freedom of individuals to pursue their own course is not only allowed but also romanticized. This is the story of the American West, the cowboys and the settlers. John Ford and Duke Wayne were not, uh, of the Rousseau mindset, thank you.

In the military, fighter pilots are an elite corps. Studies have shown that a majority of them are only children, "rugged individualists" who march to the tune of a different drummer, and in the movies they are depicted as "Mavericks."

Some of our greatest literature strives to give face to lonely people who society says is "different" because they choose to be alone. The Boo Radley character in "To Kill A Mockingbird" is just one example of someone who is demonized as an "other," only to be accorded sweet qualities once he is revealed. Such tales fly in the face of the Rousseau theory.

Nowadays, being alone and white is almost tantamount to being a crime. Randy Weaver was a separatist in Idaho, but the media called him a "white separatist" to put an edge on him.

In Waco, Texas, the Federal authorities surrounded the Branch Davidians because they possessed a cache of weapons, but if they had just "cooperated" and not tried to distance themselves from the community, they would never have been attacked. To be "understood" is something the authorities apparently are much more interested in than those who are misunderstood. The racial dynamic turns around in the world of sports. Baseball superstar Barry Bonds chooses not to divulge much of himself to a mostly-white media that takes umbrage with his distant attitude. The unspoken feeling is that because he is black, he is "uppity," and even though his performance is exemplary and his personal life as clean as can be, he is vilified as an "arrogant jerk."

What many do not realize is how different Democracy is from "majority will." Plato disparaged the "general will" of the Assembly, calling them a mob. The Roman elite felt the same way about the masses, perhaps more so because the outrageous mob mentality of the crowds who watched gladiators kill each other demonstrated the worst kind of human behavior.

The Founding Fathers warned of the "tyranny of the majority," and the criminal jury system is devised in such a way that a majority of 11-1 is not enough to convict; a unanimous decision is necessary. Much of this thinking emanates from Rousseau, who said that not all majority decisions are in accordance with general will. The "transcendent" spirit of public goodwill is something Rousseau talked about, as did Plato. The American Founders just came right out and called it God, and to be more specific, Christ.

Rousseau lived from 1712-1778, passing 11 years prior to the French Revolution that bore, at first, many of his grievances but certainly did not end up being what he envisioned. His life in France during a time of crisis and inequality permeated his ideas. He was born into poverty in Geneva, and his family was dysfunctional. He became a wanderer, settling in Paris where he lived from 1741 to 1762. He published "Discourse on the Sciences and Arts" in 1750, "On the Origin of Inequality" in 1775, "Emile", his education thesis in 1762, and that same year "The Social Contract". "Considerations on the Government of Poland" reflect his wider view of international politics in 1772. In all his works he is viewed as an "outsider," which is ironic considering he advocated a "brotherhood" approach to social problems.

The Calvinists were very influential in the France of the 17th and 18th Centuries. They were very strict moralists who believed in a sense of pre-destiny. Rousseau was shaped by this concept, along with the scientific discoveries of the era, but not in the same way as other theorists such as Locke and Hobbes. Rousseau in fact denounced the Enlightenment ideas of science and rationalism, relating them to the urban, inhumane world he tried to advocate against. He viewed much of these ideas as heartless and devoid of compassion. Whereas Locke had welcomed the Royal Society of London, which was devoted to the sciences and was founded in 1662, and later the Academy of Sciences in France (1666), Rousseau opposed the French Encyclopedists in Paris (1751-1768). Rationalists like Diderot and Voltaire, whose works greatly inspired the French Revolution one year after he died, were opposed by Rousseau.

Rousseau conceived of "the constitution of natural man" being evolutionary. "Prior to reason" man felt the need for self-preservation, for compassion, and the natural compassion of man was where all our good qualities flowed from. This compassion, he said, would be the basis for a citizenry dominated by "moral liberty" and "legitimate equality." His concept of moral liberty echoes the Greeks, who said happiness came from noble purpose, not acquiring power or money.

Rousseau thought too many "philosophers" were cold and heartless, either ignoring the plight of man, or treating man's problems as abstract. Today, such people would be said to be living in an "ivory tower." Instead of viewing individual property ownership as being part of an intertwined investment in the community, Rousseau saw it as "private interests," "private wills" and "different interest." These private interests are, in his view, the roots of cultural alienation.

The social contract of Rousseau's view is a civil state that leads to the implementation of the general will. Rousseau enjoyed creating a kind of "Pro vs. Con" lexicon of phraseology: "Justice vs. Instinct"; "Duty vs. "Impulse"; "Law vs. "Appetite"; "Reason vs. Inclinations."

He envisioned a change from "a stupid, limited animal" to "an intelligent being." Nature, he said, is to be replaced by morality. Of course, there are caveats to Rousseau's utopianism. The ideal civil state of his theory is limited to about 10,000 people. In other words, Rousseau describes a small town in America in which the values he espouses roughly make up the reality of his vision. Petaluma, California. Molalla, Oregon. Smalltown, U.S.A.

What answers Rousseau are teeming cities filled with illegal aliens who have crossed the border to live there because there is no work in their native countries? Or refugees from political despots, wars and famines, who have no place else to go? When a town reaches 10,000, does he propose a law that turns future residents away?

Professor Dalton compares and contrasts the political theory of the realists, the idealists and the reformers. Everybody, he says, wants security through a strong political system. Civil and international warfare is something to be avoided at the highest cost. The difference is that realists believe attaining security is paramount, and any idealistic vision of civil rights that threatens security is dangerous. If vice is the vehicle towards security, then so be it, according to Machiavelli's advice for "The Prince".

"Machiavelli consciously lowers the standards of social action," wrote Leo Strauss in "History of Political Philosophy".

The Aristotelian argument is for diversity in occupation and education. He said power should be in the hands of a few, but distributed because of the "natural equality of all citizens." When Bill Clinton said, "I feel your pain," he might have been echoing a Platonic metaphor:

"When one of us hurts his finger, the whole extent of those bodily connections which are gathered up in the soul and unified by its ruling element is made aware and it all shares as a whole in the pain of the suffering part; hence we say that the man has a pain in his finger," wrote Plato.

What Plato advocated was creating a polity in which people no longer fear that events will turn others against them; rather, that their pain and their troubles will be absorbed by an empathetic public.

Plato saw his ideas as having an effect on the government, and no doubt it has. But I see his admonitions embodied in the free press. The free press in a Democratic society provides differing viewpoints and investigative reporting. This is very important. Human-interest stories and in-depth tales of the plight of citizens create awareness and empathy.

Rousseau's "organic _polis_ " is one in which the multitudes are united, so the harming of one constitutes the harming of the whole. Many have used this concept. NATO says an attack on one of their countries is an attack on all of them. China calls itself the _People's_ Republic of China. Communism says an enemy of the state is an enemy of the "people." In our jury system, prosecutors use terms like "the people rest," and cases are titled "The People of the State of..." vs. the defendant.

There is an intimidation factor to the Rousseau/Plato political structure, and Rousseau offers some language that may have been benign at the time, but we know that it was misused disastrously by later regimes.

The legislator should "change human nature; to transform each individual...into part of the greater whole, from which this individual receives in a sense, his life and his being; to alter man's constitution in order to strengthen it to substitute a moral and social existence for the independent and physical existence which we have all received from nature," he wrote.

This is all very good, but one wonders what Rousseau would have thought about those Nazi soldiers goose stepping in lockstep in order to "strengthen" their society (not to mention the city he lived in). The nature of man is not only to be free to conform, but free to not conform. The charisma of actors like Marlon Brando and James Dean was based on their "rebel" attitudes. On the schlocky Fox reality show "Joe Millionaire", the girl picked by "Joe" said what she liked most about him was that, despite his "wealth" (before she discovered he was not rich), he "marched to the tune of a different drummer, which attracted me to him."

Even among the social class, this kind of rebel mentality is valued. There is nothing sexy about the Red Guards. Fidel Castro is far less appealing in the romantic mind than Che Guevara, the handsome "revolutionary" he sent to Latin America to foment rebellion from the norm.

Before we get to Che, however, we have to pass through Karl Marx. Surely Marx would have been appalled at what happened to his vision. Would he have felt a responsibility for the millions and millions of dead bodies that litter his altar? His name has been vilified, his hoary image despised, his legend trampled on by history. But sitting in his tiny London flat, weighed down by grinding poverty, his beloved daughter dying because he could not afford proper medical care, Marx sought only social justice. It is just and proper to argue that he and Rousseau were wrong. It is not valid to blame them for the ultimate tragedy of Communism. He never would have advocated the gulags, the round-ups and the re-education camps. Not the way they eventually occurred.

Marx was born into the middle class in Germany, but when he became involved in Leftist politics he was exiled to Paris in 1843. After five years he wore out his welcome, and in the year of the European revolutions, 1848, he was exiled to London. He lived there until his passing in 1883. Many have said of Communism that the concept was a good one, but since it so obviously was not, one has to hold Marx and Rousseau to a higher standard, in my view. Marx should have been more specific or prescient about human nature. He lived in Dickensian England, a place where many social inequities existed. Nevertheless, it was a place where Marx was fully exposed to Democracy at a time when Benjamin Disraeli was the Prime Minster who orchestrated a power shift from monarchy to parliament. Marx was not closeted in a place where his ideas were the only solution. Could he not see the changes in England? Disraeli, like Marx, was Jewish. Queen Victoria said he was her "favorite Prime Minister." In the United States, the "experiment" had flourished beautifully. Marx was only 47 when the Civil War ended and the slaves were freed. Despite these lessons, he doggedly held to theories he developed in post-Napoleonic times. He lived in a Germany broken up by feudal states, then in a discombobulated France that had seen one revolution feed more scattered revolutions. Then he lived in the London of Ebeneezer Scrooge's time. But he saw _change_. He saw that the problems he addressed were slowly being addressed.

The problem with Marx is that change did not occur fast enough. Therefore, he envisioned great revolutionary change, massive upheaval that could not occur without uprooting everything around it. Did Marx not understand how much the upper classes would fight to retain what they had, and what kind of excesses the lower classes would resort to once they gained the upper hand? Had he not studied the French Revolution? Did the days of guillotined terror not offer lessons to him?

Marx understood that man's first natural instincts were for work, food and sex. He echoes Rousseau in his view of the next stage of social evolution as being about the alienated self in an alienated society. He saw corruption all around him, especially economic corruption. The culprit? Private property and capitalism. He said these tenets perverted human values, exploited women, and encouraged domination. The next stage is classless Communism.

Why Marx thought Communism was coming was because in capitalism he saw contradictions. Greed and avarice would expose society, therefore creating a populace that demanded equality and true justice, i.e., Communism.

So where is Marx wrong? He is wrong because he fails to see the truths that are exposed by a free society and a free press. What if Germany and France had never exiled him? He viewed the upper classes as repressive organizations, silencing him and his kind. He went to England and wrote, and his voice was allowed to be heard. Although he was not popular, he was not silenced. Marx never envisioned investigative reporting with a social consciousness. Marx never envisioned corporations that felt the need to contribute to society, and to even profit from it? Technological advancements that would not only help millions, but provide goods and services that made life freer, and improved the environment, too.

In large factories, Marx saw only low-paid workers and high-paid bosses. Did he not consider the public that needed the products being made? Did he not see in education the kind of consciousness-raising principles that he advocated? Was it always "greed and avarice," or could Marx respect ambition and accomplishment?

Regarding work, Marx thought that under capitalism, men are not fulfilled by their work, which they perform out of "compulsion." That is, they must do it or starve. Jim Morrison of The Doors called it "trading your hours for a handful of dimes." Marx was thinking about factory work, which was unsafe and debilitating. Low wage workers in Third World countries today perform much of this kind of work. There is a conundrum to the Marxist view of work, and it exists today. Hollywood celebrities and "gotcha" journalists are always "exposing" some corporation that has a plant in Mexico, or Guatemala, or some other Latin American country. These plants employ thousands of people who work for far less than the U.S. minimum wage. These people are viewed as being exploited. In reality, they make more money and provide for their families better than a majority of their fellow citizenry. The people who do not work in these factories are not doing so because they do not want to, but because all the jobs are filled as soon as they become available.

The future Marx did not foresee was entrepreneurial capitalism, the savior of Democracy perhaps. The Marxist philosophy is wrong for the same reason that old time affirmative action quotas were considered wrong. People _improve_. Men desire to reach for something beyond themselves. What free societies have provided is an outlet for any man with enough gumption to make better for their families. Marx seemed to envision soot-covered men who toil at their jobs with no dreams or aspirations. This failed vision helps explain why unions have drastically lost membership.

Unions were strong because men who worked for the companies had no greater goals than to just toil at their jobs in safety with reasonable promotions and cost-of-living adjustments, plus health care and a pension. They weakened because they failed to address the notion of men who wanted to become the _boss._ They _aspired_ to be in management, and the more ambitious among them learned their jobs and the jobs of everybody else. They educated themselves, and made themselves indispensable to the companies they worked for, instead of being adversaries. Eventually, when a man became good enough at what he did, he could go out on his own, start his own small business, or work for another competing firm that valued his experience and good efforts.

Of course, this sounds like an easy vision for a 21st Century white man, raised in affluence, who writes these words sitting in a three-quarter of a million dollar hilltop California home. Granted. Of course there was grinding poverty. Many, many workers had no hope of ever starting a company. They were ignorant and uneducated, and hoped only for enough to survive. But Marx was unwilling or unable to ask himself the hard questions. That would have forced him to address whether my vision of workers rising above themselves, Horatio Alger-style, was untenable. His alternative is a bleak one, some kind of place that meets basic worker needs without empowering them. The Horatio Alger model occurred in the United States. Marx gave it scant attention. He blinded himself to it. Why? Everybody has their own demons, their own personal animus's. Marx seems to me to have been less interested in bringing the workers up than he is in bringing the employers down.

Marx said that under Communism, the free development of each would conduce to the free development of all. I have previously mentioned Socratic quotes I do not understand, and I freely admit when I do not understand something. I have no idea what Marx means by this.

Marx somehow thought that under Communism, the need for sex would be satisfied in love, and the need for work satisfied by meaningful labor. Marx might have had something about sex if what he envisioned were the "communes" of the 1960s. There was plenty of sex at Charlie Manson's Spawn Ranch, Dr. Timothy Leary's mansion in Duchess County, New York, and at the La Honda commune where Ken Kesey, Wavey Gravey and the other Merry Pranksters dropped acid.

But why is work supposed to have become more meaningful under this new system? That is, if the work was mindless and unfulfilling before, why would that change? Making widgets all day is boring and mind-numbing no matter what. Marx's argument was that if everybody is "in it together," that is, they all share in the profits of the widget sales equally, then the guy on the assembly line is of equal value to the foreman. However, can Marx truly know human behavior and think this "equitable" relationship would have a lasting effect? They are still just widgets, and to my mind making them is never going to rise to being exceptionally "meaningful labor" over a long period of time.

These kinds of jobs are to be handled by the young and the dumb. Education has progressed in the United States to the point where the young do not need to work these jobs, and there are not enough of the dumb to handle them. So they are farmed out to the Third World. When conditions improve to the point where nobody in the Third World needs to work these types of jobs, either, the technology will have taken over and people can move onto better work, while machines handle "widget making." This is simplistic, yes; some might call it racist; others, the uncaring screeds of an out-of-touch white American. Okay, fine. But I think my vision explains work a lot better than Communism.

Marx thought society would evolve into a "species society," in which humans would define themselves and realize their species. Under Marxism, this became re-education camps. In the U.S., we call them guidance counselors.

Professor Dalton points out that in actuality, Marx's program was never implemented, since he never advocated totalitarian or despotic rule. Soviet Bloc and Red Chinese Communism were totalitarian from the beginning. Italian Communism was no better organized than any of their other political parties. The socialism of Sweden is so tailored to their small, highly educated, homogenous-white population, that nobody would call it Marxist.

The fact that real Marxism has technically never been implemented is why liberalism still exists. The discrepancy between Marx and V.I. Lenin gives the liberals an out, a way to distance themselves from Communism. The problem is that a pervasive thought continues to run rampant in the salons of Leftist thought. This thought is that the program was not _bad,_ they just got it _wrong_ the first time. If they got another chance they would learn from their "mistakes."

Marx's social criticisms, however, are not completely invalidated. He is an enormous historical figure, a man of tremendous importance, and despite my pointed barbs, he is a man who meant well. Lenin and Joseph Stalin were men of ruthless ambition. If their intentions had been exposed they would have been imprisoned. Marx's heart seems to have some "purity" within it.

Therefore, he is a tragic figure. Since he was Jewish (albeit not a practicing Jew), his legacy is even more tragic. Hitler hated Communism, in no small part because Jews dominated it. His actions came about in part because of Marx. What truly would have broken Marx's heart would have been the way Jews were exterminated under _Communism_. The Jews were the first to be exterminated in the pogroms of farms during the Russian Revolution. Jews paid the heaviest price when Stalin activated his collectivist strategy in the 1930s. Again in the 1950s, Stalin murdered Jews, including, for some draconian reason, Jewish doctors. Jews were rounded up and killed throughout Soviet rule. History shows that it was not done as systematically as the Nazis. Jewish hate did not feed the Soviet propaganda campaigns like it did the Germans. But over a longer period of time, more Jews died under Communism than under Nazism. Of course, because they did have more time, the Communists murdered many more humans than the Germans did.

Marxist apologists point out that the gap between rich and poor in the industrial world has expanded in the past 30 years, but this is a total non-argument. Many rich people have established vast wealth, but it is not a zero-sum game. For instance, take 1,000 people, and the top 10 of them make $1 million, while the lowest end make $20,000. 10 years later the lowest end is making $40,000 while the highest end is making $5 million. The income gap has widened, but the lower end has risen nicely. The Republicans call it, "a rising tide that lifts all boats." If the zero-sum argument made sense, then all the people who made $10,000 10 years ago would now _owe_ $4,970,000 per person to the rich people. The fact is, when the rich got richer, it was their taxes that paid for the services of the low end. They used the extra money to create companies and jobs that helped increase jobs and low-end salaries. This exercise only assumes everybody stayed in the same economic class. It does not take into account a Bill Gates, who at one time was at the low end, or near it, when he dropped out of Harvard and entered the workforce. 10 years later he was one of the guys on the high end.

One area where Marx maintains some current relevance is the question of Democracy, liberty and equality. The first hint that Jeffersonian Democracy might not be for everyone was the French Revolution, whose battle cry was "fraternite, liberte, equalite." It should have been, "Today France, tomorrow the world." All of Voltaire's aspirations went by the wayside by virtue of the guillotine and Napoleon's armies. Today, despite bumps in the road, Democracy has taken hold all over the world. It is the greatest, most successful method of government ever devised.

It also is not a panacea. It has failed in many places. It has succeeded sometimes only by hook or crook, by virtue of coups, back alley dealings, propped-up governments, and rigged elections. Countries like Guatemala, Chile, Italy, Turkey and Greece are just the more obvious examples of places where Democracy flowers, but if the CIA had not manipulated the people in favor of it, it might have been a different story. Most of the places where the hand of the American government played a major role in creating "friendly" Democratic governments surely would have turned away from Communism eventually, but only after much misery.

The "big experiment" does not work perfectly and immediately wherever it is tried. Let me be perfectly clear, I see Democracy in the future everywhere. At one time, it might have seemed unlikely that South Carolina would be integrated and their elected officials would have among them members of the black race. It would have seemed at one time incongruous to imagine Nelson Mandela as President of a post-Apartheid South Africa. But visionaries saw these things. In 1986, I heard a white diplomat from South Africa address a group in Orange County, California. The questioners pressed him pretty hard about the Apartheid issue, which at the time was quite intractable. Blacks were in uproar, rioting and "necklacing" traitors in the streets. The idea of letting these people have run of the place was horrifying to the white power structure in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

"You have to give us time," the man said, and I realized he wanted to do the right thing. He was not a racist. "We are like America in the 1950s. The freedom demanded for the black population will come to South Africa, but it must happen incrementally."

Based on his timetable, equality and true Democracy would have not come to that country until the mid-2000s. Four years later, in 1990, Nelson Mandela was President and Apartheid was in the dustbin of history.

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, history seemed to speed up. Events that took generations to take place now occur, it seems, much faster. But still, there are places that are not ready for Democracy. Some day, there will be Democracy throughout the African Continent, the Third World, and even in Palestine. But it cannot just _happen_ overnight.

It is not reasonable to expect the German and Japanese model of modern, industrial nations to be followed in all countries. Africa in particular is a tragic place, riven by AIDS and genocidal dictators. The irony is that the blacks of South Africa, whose plight under Apartheid drew so much attention, had it far better than almost all the blacks living under black governments on the continent. Somalians are some of the most physically beautiful people on the face of the Earth. They have suffered horrendously under a series of tribal warlords, with over 300,000 dying. George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton both tried humanitarian missions to bring some kind of peace to this land in 1992-93, but it ended disastrously for the American soldiers and the starving people. When the Tutsi and Hutu tribes of Rwanda quarreled in 1994, it became all-out genocide. Over a million died by the sword. The Americans did nothing. The Somalia disaster was fresh in their minds and they figured the situation was almost beyond help.

Acknowledging that Democracy in its purest form is not the answer in the Third World, however, does not mean that Communism ever was or will be. Who but a lunatic would actually argue that Castro's Cuba has benefited the people there? After Jimmy Carter was elected President in 1976, and Saigon had fallen to North Vietnam, the Communists became adventurists in the Middle East and, especially, Africa. The Reagan Administration, along with the simple disaster of Communism itself, ended the "adventure" by the 1980s. Communism was shown for what it was in Cambodia, when the Khmer Rouge took over.

The reason so much of the non-industrial Third World is a disaster is that progress and modernity outpace human ability. We have seen it in the American West. The tragedy of Native Indians was not just what happened when they went head-to-head with the whites, but that _it was inevitable._ If man could invent a time machine and transport an entire government of liberals, Indian activists, medical personnel and social workers to Gold Rush Era Washington, D.C., with a direct mandate to re-write history and see to it that white settlements of the West be done "peacefully" this time, my prediction would be that little would change except that more whites would die than actually did. Substantially more Indians would die, too. The problem might not have been resolved until the 20th Century.

Marx's vision of social justice, if implemented in the Old West, might have resulted in genocide's to rival Eastern Europe. The first premise is that the U.S. was going to expand, populations were going to spread, and modern progress would occur. America-haters say that this Manifest Destiny is a scourge on our history, but it was a completely inexorable, unstoppable movement. Any government that would have attempted to put a break on it, to legislate against it, to imprison would-be settlers and the like, would never have survived the vote. Had the government attempted to stem the tide, a riot, a war perhaps to match the Civil War, would have broken out. There would have been no popular support among the people to support any military action by a U.S. Government to stop Westward Expansion.

The "time-travelers" would have set forth their rules of engagement. Many of the moderns would have been dispatched West to try and put a break on the actions of the whites when they met the Indians, to give them medical aid, to educate them, and be nice to them.

The question of whether white men had the right to take over the West may be an argument, but it is sophistry. There was no Indian Nation. Disparate tribes roamed the plains. They were often nomadic in nature. They just existed. It is a huge land, an enormous country. Incredible distances could be traveled without a sign of human life. The anti-America crowd pictures hordes of whites bearing down on enormous populated Indian citizenry. They put forth the proposition that industrialization, pollution and population have robbed us of our land. I beg them to get in a car like Jack Kerouac and roam the American West.

Take the drive on Interstate 10 between Los Angeles and Phoenix. It is 2004, the apex of the American Empire, the height of our military might, the Information Age, of environmental degradation, population explosion and modern technology. Once you get past the suburban sprawl of San Bernardino and Riverside, you will see some restaurants, gas stations, some windmills to generate electricity, some signs, some telephone poles, a town every so often, and a few rest stops. The resort town of Palm Springs will pass by to your right in the distance, but unless you are paying attention you may not notice. Beyond that, it is pretty much desert until Phoenix. Beyond that is more desert as far as the eye and the gas tank will take you, staying on 10, one of the most heavily traveled, major interstates in the country. In Santa Monica, where the 10 starts, a sign tells drivers they are entering the Christopher Columbus Trans-continental Highway!

The same thing can be said about the drive between San Diego and Las Vegas, Las Vegas and Reno, Reno and Salt Lake City, Lake Tahoe and Portland, Colorado and Iowa, and on and on. The American West today still contains vast quantities of untrammeled land, as pristine now as it was in Geronimo's day. The concept that the white hordes descended like Mongols upon the peaceful Injuns is malarkey of the highest order.

Let us get back to our fictional time travelers, appointed by a Special U.N. Commission on Time Travel and the Reconstruction of History, headed by Bill Clinton. We now set forth on the journey West. A large group of Native American leaders, representing all the various tribes, are sent with the contingent. Time travel allows people to make the trip, but they do not have modern equipment or medicine. They have to make do with what is available in the 19th Century. To make a long story short, when they finally make it over the Rockies, most of the modern men are dead from disease, attrition and hardship. Tired and bedraggled, the survivors could not care less about diplomacy with whatever will meet them "on the other side," but they still want to "do the right thing."

The Indians they finally see do not understand any of their liberal nostrums, quickly deduce these quasi-Indians are heap bad medicine, and it is not too darn long before they break out the old bows and arrows. After that it is every man for himself. About the only thing Clinton would be able to do, in charge of this doomed operation, is send the Army out West in huge numbers so that the show of overwhelming force would simply mollify the Indians. Variations of the Little Big Horn and the Trail of Tears follow.

The plight of the Indians is similar to the plight of the Africans, and the Arabs after World War I. The "enemy" of these people is, in an odd way, modernity. In other words, the world changes. Progress takes place, and people who cannot keep up with it are not just left behind, but left behind to die. What a conundrum. Who would argue that roads, highways, electricity, hospitals, medicine, phones, air conditioning and a million other things, almost all invented by white males, is not a good thing? Would any one say that American Indians would be better off living in teepees than with modern appliances? The same question applies to Africans in the jungle and Arabs making their way on the shifting sands of the Sub-Sahara.

So how can the modern wonders of white invention be a bad thing for non-whites? The answer is complicated. Obviously, modern inventions usually are not bad. Medicine is never bad, is it? It is if sick people need it and armed thugs steal it. Modern methods of making and getting food to people is bad if it gets hijacked and stolen, or diverted to guerrillas, revolutionaries or army troops instead of to the people.

When things were simple, they did not know better. Before white inventions made their way into the Third World, people just got sick and died. Nobody much paid attention. It was considered quite natural, actually.

Then came the guns. The gun is one of the most schizophrenic of inventions. If guns had never been invented, would this have been a good or a bad thing? The gun debate is not part of the present issue of discussion, which is an attempt to deal with the forces of societal evolution as an offshoot of Marxist theory.

What modern life has done is to elevate those who have been able to take advantage of it, but it sheds light on those who do not. For centuries, people in what became known as the Third World existed. If they had a plague, many of them died. If they had a drought, people starved. Very few were educated, and ignorance was the norm. Injustice reigned supreme.

Then came the missionaries. The missionaries, if one really wanted to examine this, are the original racists. They came to these places to spread religion, medicine and food. On the face of it, this is a benevolent act, but this was affirmative action at work for the first time. Too "save" the natives by introducing them to Christ is to assume that the way they knew was not as good as the way of the white man. To assume they needed to be fed is to assume that the white man's way, which is to eat nutritious foods, is better than to starve. To assume they needed medical care is to assume that the white man's way, which is to prevent the spread of disease, is better than pestilence.

Obviously I am being facetious, but these intellectual exercises hopefully explain, or shed light, on the impossible-to-avoid cultural clash and backlash that occurred when whites and natives met and began to inter-act. It is the white man's entire fault. As somebody once said, no good deed goes unpunished.

So let us get back to Karl Marx, who probably would agree that the white man was at fault, too. His theories will never die completely as long as big American companies like Coca-Cola do not pay minimum wage to workers in a bottling plant in the U.S., instead paying $1.50 an hour for workers in Mexico. The end of Marx and the end of social inequality may be beyond our ability to deal with, on its own, using current methods. In Marx's time, the exploited workers were white, but the downgraded whites of the 19th Century – the Irish, the Italians, the émigrés – rose up above their standing in the world. We have seen minorities in the 20th Century – blacks, Hispanics, and Orientals in the West - rise above their standing in the world. Hopefully, the next wave of change will be in the 21st Century, when we see the Third World rise above their current standing.

Certainly, the Third World has been a pawn in the global chess match for too long. Now that the U.S. is the world's sole superpower, maybe the gates will open for them. When the Americans and Soviets were dueling it out for 45 years, we all cared less about food and working conditions in Africa and the Middle East than we did about arming the right guerrilla armies, fixing the right "elections," or propping up the right dictator. The fact that this messy business was necessary does not help those who were left behind. Now, the challenge is to make a difference even in places where it is not in our so-called "national interest."

In the Middle East, oil and the battle against terrorism make this a logical place to help elevate the living standards of the people. The obstacle there is radical Islam, which is where Christianity was 500 years ago. The Muslims have to evaluate their religion the way the Christians did during Reformation and the Renaissance, when they decided not to be a religion of violence and oppression, and instead to be one of love and spirituality. This is the role of modern Islam, and we have to help them. When this happens, we can help promote the kind of human conditions that the West enjoys.

Africa is a tougher nut to crack. It is a land of boundless natural resource, but the brutal truth is that events can take place there that do not really effect our way of life. When Africa was a pawn in the Soviet-U.S. chess match, we paid attention to it. Would the "Rumble in the Jungle," the Muhammad Ali-George Foreman boxing match of 1974, have been held in Zaire if we were not in the middle of the Cold War at that time? I do not think so. Terrorists impede progress in the Middle East because it is in their interests to do so, just as warlords do the same in Africa.

Yasser Arafat wants Palestine to be poor and in shambles because if peace prevailed and they were allowed to modernize, the people would not "need" him any more. The African warlords want their people hungry and crazy. Out of that fatigue for life comes the soldiers who will fight their awful battles out of desperation. In the post-war Iraq of 2003, remnants of Saddam's regime, his _Fedayeen_ and Baath Party loyalists, mixed with Hezbollah and Al Qaeda elements. Some of the terrorists operated in Iraq before the U.S. invasion. Others came over porous borders after it was over. They attacked the U.S., plus U.N. and Iraqi elements. They sabotaged infrastructure built by the U.S. to help the Iraqi people. But why?

Well, these terrorists might say they did it to get the "infidels" out of their country. They did it to remove the hated Americans from Iraq. But does this hold up to logic? No, it does not. The reason it does not it because the more they sabotage the U.S. re-building effort, the longer the U.S. will have to stay and keep re-building. If these terrorists wanted America and the U.N. out of Iraq, the best and fastest way to see that happen would be to lay down their arms, turn themselves in, and allow for the smooth, cooperative transition from American administration to Iraqi independence. If, after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, terrorists elements had sabotaged the re-building of Kuwait, the U.S. would have had to stay there for years to root them out and repair the damage from the war. The terrorists did not cross the Kuwaiti border, and in short order the U.S. left Kuwait with the exception of a small detachment for security. This is an example of the "new kind of empire" that America represents. This empire is not the kind that ruled countries, taking them by force, brutally suppressing the people, and creating totalitarian regimes. This is the American Empire. It is an empire of ideas. In Kuwait we freed a country, made it safe to do business, an engendered the thanks of grateful people.

That is what we have done in Iraq, too, but the terrorists hate our way of life; our success and our freedom. They hate the possibility that it will spread throughout the Middle East the way it spread through the rest of the world. They sabotaged the post-war effort in Iraq because they did not want to see Iraq become another example of American success. They are afraid the new American Empire because it is more dangerous to their antiquated philosophies than the old empires. The old empires were easy to hate, like prison guards. This new empire is an empire of ideas, the most powerful in the history of the world. These ideas represent their death knell.

The terrorists of the 21st Century Middle East have in much in common with the Communists of the 20th Century. They are the losers of history. Marxist atheist dogma has been replaced by Wahhabi fundamentalism. Both concepts are based on a form of utopia, whether it be a "workers' paradise" or a "virgin's paradise." These kinds of anti-social "revolutions" will always be around as long as there is evil and ignorance. Stamping out evil and ignorance is a tall order.

The recent rantings of Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela of South Africa are the result of a similar kind of frustration. Both men have spent an inordinate amount of time criticizing the United States. Mandela called the U.S. an "atrocious" country. These kinds of remarks are the result of not being relevant any more. When their countrymen used them as symbols against white oppression, they were important players. Now that the issue of white oppression has been replaced by the day-to-day administration of government, they are not major factors. Even former President Jimmy Carter falls into this syndrome. His policies have been largely discredited, and now, in retirement, Carter knows he is not important, so he lashes out at George W. Bush. The increasingly less important international community feels fellowship, and awards meaningless Nobel Peace prizes to Carter, Arafat and other has-beens.

Marx felt that as humans evolve, they experience three phases of growth. The first phase was the "animal" phase, which consisted of the need to eat, work and procreate. Hunger and sex were pursued out of our selfish selves. Work was performed out of necessity.

Marx said that the Western society of his era had evolved into an alienated society, with man divided against himself. Exploitation and domination were the result of the new alienation. Marx lived in Europe, but in his era whites were divided by classes. The lower classes could identify with the minorities and Third World natives who were the "exploited class" of the 20th Century. I have attempted through example to address the "exploitation and domination" of natives by whites because I see relevance to the work of Marx. In an examination of 19th Century Europe, I find parallels among the "exploited workers" to the natives.

Marx felt that the lower classes of Europe would only find equality through Communism. Forgetting whether his model was followed closely enough or not, history tells us that they did not find equality through Communism. Rather, the natural evolution of people through social awareness and modern technology explains their rise better than any revolution. At one time, the Irish and the Italians were on the low rung of the barrel. They came to the U.S. and were members of the roiling class of have-nots that Marx felt would foment revolution. But they rose within a free market system.

This same evolution occurred in other countries, some more easily than others. Obviously the "rise" of Jews in Germany resulted in a clash with the worst possible consequences. All social experimentation and natural progression was put on hold by World War II, but a look at modern Europe and America indicates that the lower classes of Marx's day _did_ rise to the middle class. The lower classes of today are _rising_ to the middle class.

This helps explain the popularity of conservatism in America. Marx saw a world in which the lower classes had nothing in common with the upper classes. He saw alienation and strove to make the people more alienated, so as to drive a wedge between classes. This is the oldest trick in the book. Terrorists in the Middle East and warlords in Africa use this method. The last thing these people want is for the dispossessed to feel kinship with the powerful. When this happens, the "leaders" lose power. Marx's ultimate destination was one class, but somebody would have to topple for this to occur. He never foresaw the ambition of people in a free society. In the U.S. today, the Democrats are losing an important part of their constituency precisely because the alienated class does not feel as alienated as they used to. Democrat efforts to divide the classes, instead of bringing them together, result in occasional short-term gains. In the U.S., too many of the so-called "lower classes" rise above their circumstances for this method to have long-lasting success.

People look at the rich, with their tax shelters and their protectors within the political hierarchy, and do not feel disdain for them anymore. Instead, they desire to be like them. The more ambitious among them think they have a shot at it. Look at the Silicon Valley, for instance, or the dot-com revolution. Much of the wealth of the go-go '90s has been lost, but the spirit of entrepreneurialism that existed then still exists today. The black-Jewish 20-something with computer skills does not look at the corporate elite with envy. He looks at them as a model. The Indian immigrant who comes to America or Europe with the ability to work on microchips does not associate himself with Gandhi's underclass. He is thinking about stock-options. The dot-coms did not explode, but the same conditions that allowed them to happen are just waiting to bubble to the surface, better than ever the next time. Mistakes of the past are a learning experience for all.

One area that Marx does not readily address is health care, a major bone of contention in the modern era. Modern medicine is, in some ways, a victim of its own success. The simple explanation is that people get sick and want the latest cure. Medical breakthroughs have been so amazing that there are seemingly cures for everything. Of course, it all costs money. In the past, folks got sick and there were no cures for a lot of diseases. People just accepted that this was the way it was and that was that. Now people get sick with diseases that would have killed them in the past, but we have cures now. They consider it their right to have those cures. Common empathy for the human condition directs us to provide those cures to everybody, regardless of the cost. Hillary Clinton said everybody should pay, and believe it or not, I would not really have a problem with that if I thought it would have worked. The problem is that health care and medical cures do not necessarily go hand in hand. The other problem is a consideration of the environment that produces great medical breakthroughs.

Why is the best medicine found in the U.S., and after the U.S., in other industrial, capitalist countries? Because of incentives. Great doctors and scientists want to make money just like everybody else. They are inclined to go the extra mile to discover and make their breakthroughs not because of pure altruism or government regulations, but because of a desire to make the most for themselves. All the other benefits - fame and honor - go along with it.

Marx envisioned a "workers paradise" of happy employees all striving for the common good. He seems to have lost sight of the human desire for excellence. The workers of the world he helped create just slugged along, putting in their hours and producing below-standard products. If what they made was great they were not rewarded, and if what they made was terrible, they were not punished. How any educated man (and Marx was) could have been so blind to man's nature is beyond me.

The same philosophy has played itself out in medicine. The social engineers cannot get past the idea that excellence comes at a price. A great, custom-made automobile costs more than an ordinary assembly-line job. Health care is now considered a right (whereas driving a car is not). Everybody wants the Bentleys and Shelby Mustang equivalents of medicine.

Providing it for everyone by virtue of national care is not deliverable. Compare it with the idea of a national auto-provider who provides each U.S. citizen with a car from the government when they turn 18. The auto-provider plan is even more viable, in some respects. Driving does not have the variables of medical need. Everybody just "needs" a car to get them around. If everybody gets a Ford Taurus, for instance, they have what they need. Various medical conditions are such that some people "need" the "Shelby Mustang" of medicine, i.e., exclusive cancer treatments, high-end AIDS "cocktails," rare liver transplants, etc. Others can get by with a clunker (yearly check-ups).

Marx has an answer for the capitalists who exploit the workers. He said they are "addicted" to money, compelled to consume or accumulate property, and that the more one gets, the greater the addiction becomes. As Professor Dalton states, Marx felt that this kind of behavior was as "far removed from our natural needs and state of good health as obesity or bulimia."

One can see a certain nobility to Marx's claims. The man who works hard and accomplishes greatness, but does so only to share it with others, is a man of saintly qualities. He might be viewed as a fool or a "chump," but he is a man of greatness. Former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden might be such a man. Wooden is the greatest college coach of all time, but he never got rich doing what he did. His salary was paltry by today's standards. When he discovered in his early days that a promised retirement fund was going to a student organization, and not to him, he chose not to leave out of a sense of commitment. He never cashed in on the shoe contracts and outside endorsement deals of his successors. He lives to this day by modest means. He could have gone to the NBA and made a great deal of money, but chose not to. His accomplishments were "shared" by millions who cheered his teams and benefited from his example. He is the basketball equivalent of a man who discovers the cure for a rare disease, but chooses not to gain monetarily for his work.

But Coach Wooden is rare, and Marx should have understood that it is not in the human nature for men to be like him. That is why he Wooden is so revered. If all were like Wooden, Wooden would not stand out. Even Wooden himself has a proletariat outlook on life, as evidenced by the fact that, when I interviewed him, he said the "person of the century" was, in his view, Mother Theresa.

Now let us examine this. Mother Theresa was a woman of extraordinary greatness, who forsake all things of worldly value to spend a lifetime comforting the sick in the slums of Calcutta, India. But what is her contribution vs. that of, say, scientists who discovered fabulous drugs that cured innumerable diseases? They did so working in a capitalist-friendly environment in which their accomplishments were rewarded with raises in salary, stock options, and awards of merit that gave them fame and, in turn, more fortune. Who did more for Mankind? Mother Theresa bathing the feet a dying man, or a white-shirted country club doctor in Connecticut or San Francisco or England who made a medicine that saved that man from dying long before he met his final days in the tender hands of Mother Teresa?

There will always be sick people. The human condition mandates sickness and death, and in the end, beautiful souls like Mother Theresa provide comfort and faith that is more valuable than money. The comparison of the country club doctor and Mother Theresa is an uncomfortable one. It reeks of country club snobbishness.

The only problem, of course, is that it is on point. The mere fact that people like John Wooden and Mother Theresa are so revered therefore refutes the Marxist premise, which bases his entire society on reliance of most people to be as altruistic in nature as these two people were.

Marx saw the phases of development as analogous to childhood and adolescence. He compared the "alienation phase" to the teenage years, when life "gets worse before it becomes better," according to Professor Dalton. This is an interesting point, actually, and unlike much of Marx's theories, not really something that can be disproved. It requires a look at the future that is impossible to see. That is, of course, unless we say that we _are_ the future. Marx thought society would grow out of its addictions, rebellions and alienation's, like the adolescent does, and mature into a healthy "adult." While the world has not reached its maturity, the question is, What is our maturity? Whatever we are, we have come a long way from the Dickensian, colonized, racist world of Marx's day. We are past institutionalized slavery, the Holocaust, world war, and the Jim Crow South. We have matured a helluva lot. We are not what Karl Marx thought a mature world would look like.

Frank Sinatra once said of America, "We're not perfect, but we spend a lot of time trying to fix our mistakes." The United States still plays power games, and exploitation in one form or another still takes place, as Professor Dalton notes. It is an ongoing experiment, this system of ours. Ol' Blue Eyes was right, though. We do spend a lot of time examining our actions to try and make it better.

Marx had one thing that he could not get around. That was the basic nature of capitalism as a necessary tool. He could not adequately explain it away or give us the model for a better system. He ended up saying that it was a "necessary and desirable" stage in our evolution to Communism. He said it would promote our third and "final state" of evolution. One wonders what Marx would have made of Lenin's statement that, "The West will sell us the rope we will use to hang them," which turned out to be as utterly wrong as Nikita Kruschev's shoe-pounding, "We will bury you."

Marx felt that sharing and cooperation were not compatible with the capitalist system. He should have spent some time in any small town in mid-America, especially during a time of crisis like a flood or a tornado. If you want to see "sharing and cooperation," check out America. We wrote the book on sharing and cooperation. Other countries do not, generally, share and cooperate like Americans. Foreigners were utterly amazed at the way this nation came together after 9/11. In many villages far and wide throughout the world, disasters lead to hoarding, Mafia vendettas, arguments over ancient feuds, tribal in fighting, and all the nit-picking things that did _not_ happen after 9/11. They do not happen in thousands of other lesser disasters and semi-disasters that require people to come together across the Fruited Plain.

Marx addressed the issue of prostitution as a perfect metaphor for capitalist society. He said we view "others" as sex objects rather than loved ones. Both males and females are victims of prostitution because the relationship is based on domination, which deforms both parties. This prevents healthy relationships from forming. Even here Marx is off the mark. Many forms of prostitution do look like what he describes, but not all. Modern prostitution is very often a matter of negotiation not any different from any other business transaction. Prostitutes and strippers succeed or fail based on the merits, just like anybody else in business. A beautiful woman who possesses extraordinary skills is in high demand, and can charge huge sums of money. She is able to define the rules, and is not "dominated."

Marx saw workers as prostitutes, exploited by the employer's "compulsive quest for increasing profit." He said the worker was not the only victim. The alienated employer was a victim of his own compulsions, too. With all due respect, Marx's views must be examined in relation to the times he lived in. Prostitutes in mid-19th Century London were crabby, low-class whores who made their living on the dangerous, fog-shrouded streets, in a desultory back-and-forth with the skulking johns who sought them out. This condition does not vary all that much from the factory conditions of the era.

Today, prostitutes are often gorgeous "escorts," many of them semi-famous porn stars who exploit their own stature as fantasy women. They are dressed up as glamorous, socially acceptable trophy girls who provide the kind of entertainment that rich bigwigs consider their just due for their accomplishments.

This picture is not an attempt to belittle the conditions of drug-addled street hookers plying their wares in the back alleys of shady big cities, or the bargirls of Manilla and Hong Kong. It is not an attempt to glamorize the human slave trade of the former East Bloc. Prostitution is still associated with drugs and organized crime. But the factory worker and the prostitute in a capitalist society have something in common that Marx did not account for. The most skilled among them, the most entrepreneurial, the most ambitious, have a way out. In fact, they can thrive.

Marx asserted that people were perceived solely by their place on the economic ladder. But the high regard society accorded to John Wooden and even Mother Theresa flies in the face of this concept.

The third phase of Marx's world is one of communal self-consciousness. His ideas are not entirely separate from Socrates and Plato. He hoped that professional "do-gooders," for lack of a better term could replace corruption. The Hindu's esteemed self-conscious actualization. This involves replacing dominating sex with love; making the home self-sufficient; and making work creative and self-esteeming. Need I say it? This sounds like the "family values" plank of the Republican National Convention.

At the heart of Marxism is work. He wanted to elevate work from boredom and tedium, to something joyous. He wanted this to occur, but did not seem to offer a way of increasing the value of the workers' output. For decades, Communism billed itself as a society that provided a free education to all its citizens, who therefore were more valued workers because of it. Eventually, this was determined to be a lie. The most promising youth were chosen for advanced training, in sports, the sciences, or other careers. The average worker just kept on working in menial jobs without advantage of education or training. They never became more beneficial to the state-employer.

I can recall living in Europe and discovering this first hand. All my life, I had been told that the American education system was inferior to the European model. Europeans I met were highly educated, spoke several languages, and seemed superior to average Americans. Then I lived in Germany. What I discovered was that the average German did not speak several languages. They had less education than the average American. The myth of European educational superiority was a combination of propaganda and the fact that their "ambassadors" were those Europeans who could afford to travel, and therefore were cosmopolitan. By the same token, I came to realize that the _Americans_ one meets traveling in Europe are also more likely to be bi-lingual, better-educated, and more cosmopolitan that their compatriots.

It "is just in his work upon the objective world that man really proves himself as a _species-being_ ," said Marx. "This production is his active species life. By means of its nature, it appears as his work and his reality." Marx wants each of us to see our own reflections in our work.

"Objectification" in Marx-speak means the presence of a person's activity in the objective world; to see ourselves reflected in our environment. It is the opposite of individuality. Private property must be abolished because it promotes "exclusive enjoyment."

"In a higher phase of Communist society," he wrote, "after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banner. _From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"_

Marx felt that economic forces determined ideology. If this were true, then George Bush's liberation of Iraq would have been doomed to failure. In fact, if this were true, it would illustrate only a vicious cycle. No societies that are both poor and totalitarian can become free with Communism. Of course, all totalitarian societies are poor. Under Marxist theory, Iraq cannot become Democratic before they become economically prosperous. The Bush plan relied on Iraqis' desiring the simple freedom that all men want.

"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property," Marx wrote in "The Communist Manifesto". "...bourgeois notions of freedom, culture, law" are, in his view, ideological rationalizations of economic interests, which he says are "false." All justifications for the status quo of the Western economic and social systems, said Marx, are meant only to mask dominance and exploitation. Marx further said that morality, religion and metaphysics were all just part of a larger ideology, all tied together, all designed to pervert reality.

CHAPTER FIVE

INFLUENTIAL CONTRARIANS

It is a testament to the importance of Sigmund Freud that his findings in the field of human psychology find a legitimate place in a book about politics. Freud's findings have had their ups and downs, but for the most part, he remains the pre-eminent figure in his field. His theories help explain the motivations of some of the most important figures in history.

In "Civilization and Its Discontents", Freud expresses a pessimistic view of man. This contrasts with what some see as the "optimism" of Rousseau and Marx. I for one do not view Rousseau and Marx (particularly Marx) as optimistic. He does "envision" a utopian society of happy workers. If it had existed, it more resembles Heaven than anything a reasonable man could ever foresee on Earth. But I am not as ready to let Marx off the hook as others. I think he should be held responsible, because surely he could have seen, if not the murderous acts of Soviet Communism, surely a perverted, twisting of his ideas.

But I have had my time with Mr. Marx, and I move on to another German-speaking Jew of enormous intellect. Whereas Rousseau believed that human nature was inherently compassionate, and Marx thought that nature could be channeled into a harmonious society, Freud goes in the opposite direction. He saw people wrought by three irremediable personalities, all battling with each other. These are the id, the ego and the superego. These human traits might be considered metaphors for all of humanity, although this is not necessarily Freud's view. But the battle within every person is like the battle between nations, in that there is a constant struggle for domination.

The id is the most powerful. This is the part of our personality that lusts for aggression over others. The id might be the part of our personality that comes out when we try to get ahead of another car on the road and cut them off. Freud thought man suffered from psychic alienation and victimization from others. All efforts to avoid this predicament lead to more suffering.

Their Judaism influenced neither Freud nor Marx. Marx probably felt it was too stifling. Freud probably disdained it because it did not meet the needs of his high-ego intellectualism. Judaism and politics fascinate me. I have always figured that Jews were natural conservatives, but in the U.S. they vote Democrat. However, in Israel, they vote conservatively, for the Likud Party, which consistently holds power. As a general rule, very religious Jews are conservative, while less-religious Jews are liberal. Jews explain that they vote Democrat because they were excluded from Republican country clubs and fraternities. They associated themselves with minority causes, which in the 1960s became the dominant constituency of the Democrats. But they are very smart, well educated, intelligent, thoughtful, highly successful people. These traits that typical Republicans and separate Jews from the ragamuffins that make up so much of the Democrat constituency. The liberal Jews reading this are probably saying, "This guy doesn't get it," but I get it, fine. Jews should be Republicans.

Not only do Freud and Marx reject Judaism, they reject all religion. Marx seemed to feel that there is some kind of heaven on Earth. Freud thought concepts of a fatherly God or a martyred Son are just plain silly, the work of lesser minds than _his!_ Marx predicted a happy ending, while Freud's view seems particularly prescient in light of Communism and Nazism. Marx's "happy ending" classless society has never really happened and never will, but it might be said that the closest anybody has ever come to it is in the good old U.S. of A. Marx would roll over in his grave over such a thought. To make the allegory of the baseball fan out of these two people, Freud would be the Red Sox fan, Marx an old Brooklyn Dodger guy ("wait 'til next year").

Freud's id is the center of our sexual and aggressive instincts. It unconsciously dominates all the other parts, but creates frustration by making demands that are not fulfilled. The ego is rational and cautious, and concerns itself with reality. It is our negotiator to the external world, but is ultimately dominated by the id. Pressured by the id and the superego, the ego generates anxiety. The heart of Freudian therapy is the strengthening of the id against the other two. The superego is our conscience, and this is where our mostly unattainable moral standards come from. It is irrational and the adversary of the id.

These values of our psyche have been described in many ways. Our good side and our bad side. The devil on one shoulder, the angel on the other. The superego is more powerful than the ego, less so than the id. Its main weapon is guilt, instilled by parents. Pain and suffering is found trying to fulfill the superego.

Freud's anti-religious side is an important consideration in addressing these theories. According to him, we do not have "morals" in the sense of "goodness." Goodness is something that comes from God, but there is no God to Freud. Instead of God, Freud sees only guilt, imposed by our parents.

In the song "The Seeker" by The Who, the lyrics are, "I got values, but I don't know how or why." What are values? Why do people have good values in the first place? Freud would postulate all kinds of answers, without ever addressing the _possibility_ that they come from a benevolent God. He disdained the values and substituted only guilt, and said this is where our unhappiness comes from.

I have done just about everything, within reason (and with the parameters of heterosexuality) in my life. I have partied. I have lived out most of my wildest fantasies. Without getting too graphic, I have "been there and done that." I have felt the exhilaration of athletic success at the professional level, and enjoyed some fame. This being said, I can say unequivocally that nothing has ever made me happier and more utterly satisfied than spending time with my daughter and my family together, especially on holidays. Nothing. This is a totally natural feeling. It has absolutely nothing to do with guilt. With all due respect, I think Freud misses this. Whatever it is that is in me, was not, in my view, in him. I have always feel, when I am with my daughter and my family together, that I am closest to God. I always pray and thanked Him. Freud said there is no God. He feels only guilt. Maybe he is just too smart for me to understand. Maybe he is too smart for his own good. Maybe if he ever felt the way I feel on those simple holiday occasions, he would not attach guilt and his parents to the central tenets of his psychological philosophies.

Freud says the superego imposes "unreachable" standards. But he is basing his analysis on people in therapy. I know Coach Wooden does not think his standards of morality are unreachable. Neither does Mother Theresa.

Suffering comes from our own bodies, the external world, or personal relationships. All are inevitable. The personal relationships provide the most painful suffering. Freud said we are doomed to suffer, and we desperately want to hurt others. We do not admit this to ourselves because the superego will not allow us to. We cope through intoxication, isolation or sublimation. Isolation is impractical to most, and sublimation is the aggressive impulse we live out through work or sports.

Religion is the mass superego, a collective ethical organization devised to suppress lust and aggression. The id will triumph over civilization. Men are "wolves," inclined to wage war and persecute minorities. Marx's benign view of human nature is hogwash, according to Freud. He sees private property as all the neat little homes that are hiding places for our natural hatreds, and also things that we use to register aggression against others. Freud's view makes the Holocaust seem inevitable.

Differences between Marx and Freud, however, outweigh the similarities. Freud felt that the id not only dominated the self, but did so unconsciously. He said humans are unaware of it. Freud's "ego" is not the same as the way we usually evaluate the term. We think a person with a "big ego" has an inflated view of himself. But in Freud's original definition, the ego is not proud, but rather cautious and rational. The id and the superego master it. The superego is also irrational, but stern and strict. This is the area that Freud calls guilt, and I might call morality, or our Godself. Freud says it is developed out of socialization. I feel that it is manifest within us, that it is the "good" that opposes "evil." The ego, in my view, is the choice that lies at the heart of the constant battle between good and evil. Freud felt that religion was created simply to serve the superego.

Alienation was the common phrase of Marx and Freud, but what are we alienated from? Marx said from our essence, Freud said from our personality. Their remedies differ. Marx felt that we could overcome alienation by becoming one with our communities. Freud said that analysis could give individuals power over their individual id/ego/superego struggles, but his predictions are bleak. Analysis is only available to a select few. The masses, he said, would destroy us all eventually.

While historians have pointed to Communism and Hitler as obvious results of Freud's predictions, he had more mundane thoughts on his mind. Predicting genocide and world destruction is tricky. One finds scant evidence that Freud's theories are meant to do that. Yes, his conceptions of the battle between conflicting human emotions are instructive in the study of individual leaders like Hitler. They do not take into account the precise "moments of history" that must occur in order for a Hitler, a Mao, a Pol Pot – or for that matter a Lincoln or an Eisenhower – to rise to full power and exact change on the world.

Freud studied individuals. It is in individuals that we can best study his predictions. In this regard, the id seems to have made its presence known. It has done so throughout history, and continues to do so. Reformation and the Age of Enlightenment might be the id part of our personalities asserting itself. The superego may have dominated early man because it operated as a survival mechanism. But as life became easier, the id made its presence known. The paintings depicting Christ, angels and beautiful women were frowned upon by the Church as being heretical. We chose to pursue pleasures of the flesh that manifested itself in art and changes in the social structure.

Since Freud's time, the id has been the dominant force behind drug abuse, the sexual revolution, pornography, music, movies, gay rights, women's rights, and many other forms of evolution. In this regard, Freud provides us some hope. Analysis and therapy can help people whose id has turned them into addicts of drugs, sex and even violence. Addiction seems to be the id run wild. Moderation, the ego self, is best in all things.

Henry David Thoreau: Anarchist?

Henry David Thoreau was a civil disobedient. He influenced Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The study of civil disobedience is an important point, and is especially worth looking at as it relates to the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, and the civil rights struggle.

G.W.E. Hegel said that people are social beings who seek fulfillment through the state. Hegel upheld Machiavelli's rejection of the classical Greek view. The Hindu's rejected the connection between ethics and government, which the Greeks did advocate. Thoreau is in line with the Hindu's. Thoreau said the state had no moral authority, and felt that their corruptions were dangerous to the public.

Thoreau is the exact opposite of Creon's "Antigone". If a law is immoral, it is to be disobeyed. After many debates, even the Uniform Code of Military Justice agrees with Throreau. The U.C.M.J. actually gives leeway to a soldier who disobeys an order if it is not moral. This is quite a leap of faith for an organization that is based on the strict ladder of authority and the following of orders. But the Nuremberg Trials and the Japanese War Crimes Tribunals were not just the exposition of German and Japanese evil. They made us think about human nature and the role of soldiers. The My Lai massacre forced us to examine ourselves. Disobeying a direct order is risky business, but it has its roots in the civil disobedience of thinkers like Thoreau.

Two recent military films point out examples of the disobeyance of immoral orders. The first is "A Few Good Men". Two Marines are on trial for murdering a fellow Marine. They contend that they did not intend to murder the man, merely to give him a "code red," which is to say they intended to "rough him up" because he had become a burden to his unit, and needed to be taught a lesson. The man had an unknown medical condition, and had an unforeseen reaction to a rag they stuffed in his mouth to keep him quiet. The rag caused him to go into seizure and die. The premise of Rob Reiner's film is a little shaky, though.

Told in flashback and through backstory, we learn that code reds are a common practice with the Marines, but because they can lead to problems, they have been discouraged. The commander at Guantanamo Bay is Jack Nicholson, and he thinks code reds are invaluable to close infantry training. However, he denies having issued the code red. If nobody issued the code red, the Marines on trial acted on their own. Therefore they are responsible for what they caused, even if it was unintended. How the filmmakers contend this is murder instead of a lesser charge, I am still not sure, but the film operates with this premise.

When it is learned that Nicholson did order the code red, the murder charge is lifted from the two Marines. However, and this is the point that is made, they are still dishonorably discharged from the Corps because they followed an immoral order. They were supposed to tell their superior officer to go blow when he told them to teach "Santiago" a lesson. Reiner and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin dishonorably discharge them despite their "Madam Butterfly"-like choice. This reeks of a liberal "perfect world" view of the military, but the lesson is still a worthy one.

As for Nicholson, he is arrested, although for what is not explained. It is either for ordering the code red against a directive, the simple issuance of an immoral order, or possibly for lying under oath.

The other film that demonstrates the quandary is James Jones' "The Thin Red Line", which over time has developed into a real classic. During the battle of Guadalcanal, the commander, Nick Nolte, has sent a reconnaissance force in strength up a hill to spearhead a charge against Japanese strongholds. The Japanese drop heavy ordnance on them and the men are being cut up. Nolte orders a direct charge, but the captain in charge of the force, Starles, knows that if he orders his men into this line of fire they will be destroyed. The direct charge could possibly work if enough men are sacrificed, but Starles simply will not obey Nolte's order. Nolte is literally spitting mad, but in the end he does not pursue charges against Starles. The episode is white washed, possibly because Nolte knows that his order could, in a court of law, be exposed as immoral.

At the heart of the concept is the idea that individual liberty trumps the claim of state authority. In Thoreau's day, his contemporaries were not quite ready to accept it. Thoreau arrived at his conclusions after much self-examination, as described in his book, "Walden". His journey is reminiscent of Socrates and Buddha, or of the _vanaprastha_ stage of the Hindu vision of life. Thoreau was dissatisfied with the United States, but instead of leaving the country, he chose to liberate himself through a "state of universality." As an outsider, he objected to the state's abuse of power, and accorded little legitimacy to the political and economic institutions of the country. This manifested itself in his refusal to pay a poll tax, his protest of slavery, and his opposition to the war with Mexico. While his outspoken views regarding war and slavery made him a mere dissident, his refusal to pay taxes makes him an outlaw. Since he did this on purpose with no attempt to evade the consequences, he becomes a civil disobedient.

John Locke and John Stuart Mill were British liberal theorists who railed against the abuse of power, but did not make themselves criminals by breaking laws they disagreed with. Locke said that government's duty was to defend private property. Thoreau denounced private property. A number of leading writers lived in the Walden Pond area of Massachusetts, among them Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Thoreau challenged these great minds to follow his lead and disobey unjust laws, but there were no takers. Emerson was aghast at his colleagues' stance.

Former baseball player Bill "Spaceman" Lee, a friend of mine, is another man who made his mark in liberal Massachusetts. He once made a comic run for the Presidency on the "Rhino" ticket, and during this time I invited him to speak to the Orange County Young Republicans, of which I was a member. Spaceman was viewed as an oddity by the business suit crowd that made up the Y.R.'s, but he was extraordinarily funny and soon had us rolling in the aisles when he said, "I'm so conservative I eat road kill. I'm so conservative I stand back-to-back with Chairman Mao." I am not sure exactly what Spaceman meant. I suppose it was Daoist or Buddhist or something, but I am reminded of him when I think that Thoreau believed that "the government that is best governs not at all."

This is an anachronism of sorts. Thoreau was definitely liberal, but like Spaceman standing back-to-back with Mao, his liberalism takes him so far around that he ends up right next to the philosophy of conservatives. That is, of limited government. Thoreau was not the predecessor of Barry Goldwater, however. It is unclear whether he advocated "limited government" or _no_ government.

Because this distinction is not made clear, his anarchism is called into question. Professor Dalton says he is not an anarchist, because he did not advocate for the elimination of government. He criticized majority rule and representative Democracy, while denying that law can make humans just individuals. He attacked capitalism because it exalts money and is the engine behind slavery, and went beyond Marx in that he indicted it as immoral. Marx just saw it as the end product of an evolutionary process that needed to be changed.

Thoreau lives on as a significant thinker because his theories of civil disobedience are just and were used by great men. But aside from his call for the end of slavery, one struggles to know what he wanted. Born in 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts, he lived until 1862, making him a contemporary of Marx. He considered Concord to be the center of the "American Renaissance." He graduated from Harvard in 1837, influenced by Emerson's philosophy of Transcendentalism. Emerson's views were similar to Hegel's idealism, that a "divine essence inheres in all being; a transcendent spirituality exists and permeates nature," as Professor Dalton's outline reads. Hegel sanctified the state, though. Thoreau denounced it. Hegel saw divinity in it, but Thoreau called it "half-witted," strong in appearance but rotten at its core. Thoreau did see God as nature's individual conscience. He said the state attempts to quell individual spirituality.

"I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the state, to withdraw and stand afoot from it effectually," he said.

Thoreau is a revered literary figure and a very influential American, but an enigmatic figure. Here is a man living in what was the freest country on Earth at a time when free countries were pretty few and far between. He would have been swept away in two seconds, sent to a gulag in Russia, a re-education camp in China, a concentration camp in Germany. If he finds so much disillusionment in America, where in God's name does he propose to find his kind of freedom? That said, Thoreau is part of a long tradition of obstructionists, confrontationalists and contrarians. Thoreau precedes modern writers like Christopher Hitchens, comedians like Bill Maher, and renegade politicos like Ramsey Clark. He lives in the protesters and the shouters. The problem with people like Thoreau comes when confronted with the question, "What, then, do you propose as a solution?"

Prior to the Iraq War, I saw a man-in-the-street journalist interviewing anti-war protesters in New York City. He asked each one what they would propose doing about Saddam Hussein other than going to war. The question was straightforward and carried with it no biased edge. One after the other, the interviewees were unable to give any concrete answers. Out of some 30 people, only one made any sense when she said the war with Iraq was devised to divert American attention from the wavering economy. This ridiculous "wag the dog" scenario may have been part of Clinton's strategy in creating a Bosnia-not-Monica strategy, but was not true in the case of Bush. Nevertheless, it was the closest thing that any of these protesters could come up with when asked to propose a solution. At the very core of my political philosophy is the premise that, unless one offers solutions, no matter how outrageous, one is not "eligible" to enter political debate. They sure as heck are not going to get my attention or respect.

Thoreau somehow saw in government a systematic undermining of moral development. If Thoreau was an investigative reporter like Hunter S. Thompson, Sy Hersch, or Woodward and Bernstein, delving every day into the sordid goings-on of CIA manipulation, military corruption, and partisan political intrigue, then _maybe_ I could understand where he was coming from. Up there at Walden's Pond, living a quietly reclusive life, with no governmental hindrance, he reached these conclusions. Maybe if he _had_ seen Watergate, My Lai or the House Committee on Un-American Activities, he might have been startled into some weird reverse philosophy. Who knows?

What he did see, from afar, was institutionalized slavery and a war with Mexico. His opposition to slavery makes him a great man, if for no other reason. In the Northern part of the U.S. that Thoreau lived in, abolitionist views were the norm. It was not as if he stood alone, trying to hold up the Seven Pillars by his lonesome.

He also opposed the Mexican War of 1846-48. There always have been and always will be anti-war activists. Plenty of people were abolitionists, too, but they chose to protest the government's policies within the system, not to all-but-disavow the legitimacy of the institution. Thoreau simply viewed slavery as evil and the government as evil for allowing it. How he would have reacted to the freeing of the slaves is an interesting point of conjecture.

His response to the government was to refuse to pay the poll tax, levied on every male in his state between the ages of 20 and 70. On July 23, 1846, he was arrested at Walden Pond and imprisoned for one year in the Concord jail. He welcomed the experience, using it to write "The Relation of the Individual to the State," which he delivered as a lecture on January 26, 1848. In it, Thoreau embodies a fairly new kind of political animal, the radical. The outsider. He rejects his and his nation's traditions. He was a protester.

He denounced nationalism in the opening paragraph of his essay, but as mentioned before, declared he is not an anarchist. He made the somewhat contrary statement that the best government is the least government, but people are not ready for no government. He declared "war" on the state while "using it" for his purposes. Later anarchists like Emma Goldman would adopt Thoreau. It seems that, at the heart of Thoreau's complaint, is the notion that spiritual forces drive the American government.

Now we are getting somewhere. As anybody who has ever read the Federalist Papers or studied the writings of our documents, particularly during the hot Philadelphia Summer of 1787, knows, American laws are rife with religious references. The Founders repeatedly refer to God and His divine inspirations. That offended Thoreau, who said government is not imbued with such authority, especially not a government that allows for slavery. The nation, quite simply, is suspect.

As for voting, Thoreau said, "All voting is sort of gaming...Even _voting for the right thing_ is _doing_ nothing for it...There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men...It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice." Therefore, when the state becomes intolerable, "then, I say, break the law."

Some had tried to say that Thoreau was simply carrying on the tradition of the colonists who resisted British rule in 1776. This argument does not hold up because the colonists were not represented and that was what they sought. They advanced laws within the British government, and once those demands were not met, an alternative to the government. Thoreau dissented from a government that gave him every opportunity to give his views and seek redress, to stand on a soapbox or even run for and hold office. No, said Thoreau, the government is _illegitimate._ In many ways, I see in Thoreau concepts more in line with later French existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.

At Walden Pond, Thoreau lived a simple life absent from the trappings of wealth. He chided Emerson, who lived in a big house in Concord.

"Things are in the saddle and ride Mankind," said Emerson.

"...a man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can do without," replied Thoreau.

He would have agreed with Marx when he wrote of capitalism, "Its principal thesis is the renunciation of life and human needs" by teaching that life depends on "the more you _have"_ and "my own power is as great as the power of money."

Thoreau differs with Marx, calling luxuries and comforts of life "positive hindrances to the elevation of Mankind," subscribing to voluntary poverty. Marx did not find these luxuries to be evil, but the system that led to their importance blocks man from his true destiny. Marx would agree with Thoreau in exposing business as working hand in hand with slavery. Again, Marx would find the businessmen misguided and Thoreau immoral.

"The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich," wrote Thoreau.

"Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue," Marx wrote.

"His moral ground is taken from under his feet," as he strives for profit, Thoreau wrote of the man of commerce.

Marx might have thought Thoreau a utopian thinker, although, despite Thoreau's less-government concepts, it would seem that Marx's vision is more unrealistic. Thoreau might have advocated breaking up government, but Marx advocated constructing something that relies on an imperfect premise. As the saying goes, it is easier to tear something down than to build it up.

Marx was an inevitablist. Thoreau was a conscientious objector. Marx did not consider individual voluntary poverty, which is interesting. The _leaders_ of Communism and socialism never did, either. Marx hated the capitalist accumulation of wealth, but what would he have said about the accumulation of wealth and the private _dachas_ of high-ranking Communist Party members? Marx simply saw no merit to being poor. Despite being born into money, he was so poor in his London that the result was personal tragedy, the death of his daughter. Wealth was okay by Marx, as long as it did not come due to exploitation. Under his theory, an actor who becomes wealthy playing idealistic roles is fine. An actor who becomes wealthy "exploiting" sex and violence is not.

Furthermore, Marx would have you join the Communist Party, with all the baggage that entails. Thoreau wanted no political affiliation. In the end, of course, if Walden lived in Russia, Walden Pond would have been turned into a collectivist farm. Walden would have died of starvation whether he joined the party or not. Still, despite Thoreau's recalcitrance, one can certainly give him credit for being true to himself.

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth," he said.

He also saw a future for his ideas; there is a historical inevitability to his future. In a way, he was right. We see it all the time, only the study of Thoreau allows us to pinpoint what it is. Thoreau is the patron saint of complainers and whiners. Nothing will ever be good enough for these people. They will always be with us.

Thoreau criticized people who say there is truth in God. He did not say he has the truth, but is in pursuit of it. Well, aren't we all. Thoreau leaves everything open-ended. Perhaps that is the way it should be, but he gives no credence to other people's beliefs. He knows what he knows, he feels what he feels, he questions what he questions. So, like so many elitists, the idea that somebody else has faith is _preposterous!_

Where I admire Thoreau is not in his views on government, patriotism or truth, but in his concept of civil disobedience. This does not change the fact that he would have been just another face at Auschwitz if he had chosen the wrong country to be civilly disobedient in. The Israelis have not chosen the Thoreau/Gandhi path, and thank God for it. But in the right society, Thoreau is the right kind of protester.

"If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the state to commit violence and shed innocent blood," he said. "This is, in fact the definition of a peaceable revolution..."

Fyodor Dostoevsky

It would not be appropriate to write a book about who shaped world politics, and in that book to include a chapter on influential contrarians, without including somebody from Russia. After all, Russia has been at the center of the political and revolutionary universe, albeit on the wrong side. Unfortunately (and this is meant ever so slightly as a joke, with apologies to Alexander Solzhenitzyn), I have to go back well over 100 years to find a Russian who is a great thinker. Maybe that explains some of their troubles. Okay, I am kidding, a little bit. When you win the Cold War, you can be a tad arrogant.

Professor Dalton, whose outline I am following, chose to study Fyodor Dostoevsky, and in particular his chapter on the Grand Inquisitor from "The Brothers Karamazov". The Grand Inquisitor's power is Freudian, based on individual and mass psychology, not on economic or political forces. His nature clashes directly with Thoreau.

The Grand Inquisitor is in the tradition of Thucydides, Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes, in that people want not freedom, but security. Thoreau thought men are freed by their conscience. The Inquisitor thinks them burdened by it. In this regard he resembles Freud. They are just sheep who want to be told what to think.

I must break in here with some commentary. Every time I come across these historical figures who spout various nostrums about people wanting others to do their thinking for them; and religion being the opiate of the masses; and people wanting security, not freedom, I am tempted to get on my knees to pray and thank the Almighty for creating a country called the United States of America. In this country, levelheaded moral people systematically, completely, and utterly obliterate such bullshit. You may resume your regular programming.

Dostoevsky was a novelist, not a political consultant. But he was a notable social thinker. He was born into a middle class Moscow family, flirted with socialism, got into trouble with the authorities, and was sent to Siberia. This might be the first sign that Thoreau's theories would not have gotten him very far in Czarist or Communist Russia. The result of Dostoevsky's experience was enmity toward Roman Catholicism, as shown in the Grand Inquisitor.

The chapter starts with Christ returning to Earth during the Spanish Inquisition of the 16th Century. Heretics are being burned at the stake. All the Indians were heretics, of course, since they had never heard of the Lord before the Spaniards showed up. Christ gracefully meanders throughout the city, and his radiance and compassion are made obvious. When the people are drawn to him, the Grand Inquisitor has him seized. The Inquisitor delivers a public relations campaign that sways people away from Christ, who is led to prison. The inquisitor then has a private meeting with Christ in his cell.

He tells Christ that the people want security, and in worship they only want someone to whom they can hand their freedom over to. Freedom is terrifying to them in a hostile world. The Inquisitor sounds much like Hitler later did.

The conversation then centers on Satan's three temptations of Christ. The first is economic. People want money more than freedom. Christ can bring them all to him through bribes. Christ says no.

The next temptation is psychological. The people, who demand signs of Christ's power, require visually satisfying miracles. But Christ disdains such displays because he wants people to choose him voluntarily.

The Inquisitor then offers Christ political power, couching his offer in language that describes a "universal" or "world government," which sounds like the "one-world government" that Communism later aspired to. Christ rejects this offer, and then kisses the Grand Inquisitor. Dostoevsky describes the Inquisitor has having hatred in his eyes that embodies the very highest form of evil. The encounter is telling in its contrasts of good and evil. It is a very pro-Christian message, while being anti-Catholic at the same time, which is very significant. Studies of Dostoevsky by 20th Century scholars have been used to highlight the difference between Gandhi's and Hitler's power. It also symbolizes the widespread abuse of nationalism in pursuit of power.

Born in 1821, Dostoevsky was a contemporary of Marx. His father was an army doctor, and had influence over his son. Dostoevsky wanted to be a writer but his father directed him to engineering. He spent five years in the Army Engineering College in St. Petersburg, but his father was murdered in a peasant uprising. In 1844 Dostoevsky resigned his commission to commit himself to writing. It was at this time that the French utopian socialists (Saint-Simon and Proudhon) influenced Marx. Dostoevsky read their works and became "mildly socialist," according to Professor Dalton. He was a critic of Czar Nicholas I (1825-1855).

In a five-year span from 1844-1849, Dostoevsky published 10 novels and short stories. "Poor People" (1845) was an instant success. Dostoevsky is seen as a literary figure of great influence because he helped create the "social genre" that was later found in the works of Charles Dickens in Britain and John Steinbeck in the U.S.

His truthful description of the plight of the poor in Czarist Russia earned him an eight-month imprisonment in 1849. The charges stated that he was plotting criminal attacks against the government, but also cited the "insolence" of his works. He was sentenced to die and wrote that he "escaped," but the sentence was actually commuted to four years in Siberia. This resulted in a major change of heart. He became an adherent of Nicholas I and Alexander II (1855-1881), committed to his country, to the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church, and his nation's culture. He completely disavowed his early socialist ideas. Towards the end of his life, when the early stirrings of the socialist movement was beginning to take place in Russia, he intensely opposed it.

From 1864 to 1860, he wrote "Notes from the Underground", "Crime and Punishment" and "The Brothers Karamazov". His chapter on the Grand Inquisitor in "Brothers" is set in 16th Century Spain, during the "worst period of the Spanish Inquisition". Started by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1481 to expose Muslims and Jews, Isabella's confessor Tomas de Torquemada (1420-1498) was the first Grand Inquisitor. He had 2,000 people burned at the stake in public _autos da fe_ , or "acts of faith." It is Torquemada who Dostoevsky models the old Cardinal of his book.

At the beginning of the story, Christ enters and is recognized by the people. This immediately threatens the Inquisitor's power. Dostoevsky obviously thinks history would repeat itself, and is pessimistic about man's ability to learn its lessons. Or, as Santayana said, "those who not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The Inquisitor echoes Pontius Pilate and has Christ seized by his soldiers. The rest of the story is Dostoevsky's philosophy of good vs. evil, showing the people as accepting Christ's imprisonment because they choose to be cowed into submission and obedience (Dostoevsky did not learn much from the American Revolution). The Inquisitor goes on a diatribe intended to justify his blasphemy, and in it he announces that he has accepted Satan over Christ because Satan understands human nature.

The overriding theme of the story is freedom. Christ sees freedom as being spiritual and says the "truth shall make you free."

"Man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone to whom he can hand it over quickly that gift of freedom with which that unhappy creature is born..." countered the Inquisitor. "Did you forget that man prefers peace and even death to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil? Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience, but at the same time nothing is a greater torture."

Dostoevsky's concepts of freedom are incredibly instructive of our knowledge of European history. In his moody pessimisms about the rejection of freedom, Dostoevsky echoed the sad tide of political history. We see his words resonating out of the French Revolution, when freedom gave way to retribution and left the bewildered, morally corrupt French masses begging for somebody – _anybody_ – to be their master. What a tragedy! Thus rose little Napoleon.

Dostoevsky's influence in Russia is tremendous and tragic. The future leaders of Communism used his words, and the people believed them. Europeans were not prepared for an alternative to despotism. Dostoevsky indicated that it is natural. The only exception was Great Britain, which slowly rose above and beyond themselves to become a Democracy.

Dostoevsky must have known the American success story. Perhaps the geographical and metaphysical distance that separates the U.S. from Europe and in particular, Russia, must have made the stories of our revolution something exotic and impossible to truly comprehend. Dostoevsky's vision is one of great gloom. He could not comprehend people of freedom and rugged individuality. However, the great influx of immigrants from Russia, Germany, Italy, Ireland and other European countries had begin during his life. He did not live to see the height of Ellis Island, but what did he think these people were looking for? What motivation did Dostoevsky attribute to all these people? They were obviously looking for _precisely the opposite of what he says the people want!_

Instead, through the Inquisitor, Dostoevsky wrote that people need to be freed from themselves, because they are afraid and therefore look to authority "and huddle close to us in fear, as chicks to the hen. They will marvel at us and will be awe stricken before us, and will be proud at our being so powerful and clever."

Now, it is important to note that Dostoevsky was quoting a character that he is not sympathetic to. Attributing the future of Russia and Europe to him, by calling it his dark vision, is not entirely appropriate. After all, Dostoevsky was sympathetic to Christ and does attribute to Christ a spiritual love of the truth, which might be viewed as "freedom." This gives man some kind of desire to avoid the authority of the Inquisitor. But he seems to indicate that the Inquisitor has found the pulse of what makes man tick.

In "Escape from Freedom" by Erich Fromm, the Grand Inquisitor's view of freedom vs. authority is related to politics, especially Hitler's Germany. Fromm felt that there are different kinds of freedom. John Stuart Mill described a kind of freedom that is more Western in nature, and helps to promote the vision of individualism that makes up the American psyche. Fromm said that in contemporary society, people are afraid of this kind of full freedom.

They are afraid because, as Dostoevsky said, they are "alone with his self and confronting an alienated, hostile world." "The frightened individual seeks for somebody or something to tie his self to; he cannot bear to be his own individual self any longer, and he tries frantically to get rid of it and to feel security again," wrote Fromm, in his explanation of why men "voluntarily" eliminate free choice. Fromm pointed to Hitler's "Mein Kampf", and his understanding of how to mobilize the masses.

Security, security, security. This is the world that lies at the heart of the Hitlerian view of what people want. It is the word that drives explanations for the two massive, evil, totalitarian movements of the 20th Century. But why? I think that while this is one of the most imponderable questions ever asked, there are some explanations. First of all, there is the sheer _weight_ of history in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and in the Orient. Centuries of monarchs, despots, wars, torturers, tyrants, plagues, disasters, genocides, racial hatreds, religious hatreds, tribal hatreds, divisions, broken promises, abandonments, and a million other horrible sides of the human condition. All of these conditions met up with the Industrial Revolution, when people went to work in factories. Huge numbers moved from rural farms where they owned the land, to dirty cities where they found themselves to be numbers. New technology and machinery created weapons of killing that were impersonal and efficient.

Fortunately, luckily, by the grace of God – choose your phrase – these conditions are not as much a part of the landscape of America as the rest of world. America is a young country, and it has been forged out of success. They learned valuable lessons about how _not_ to govern, what the _dark_ side of the human condition is, and how to improve upon it. We gained a big boost of confidence when we won our revolution. We saw the French try to copy us. We saw ourselves become an influential country in the world. Our enemies, the English, came around to becoming more like _us_ , led by Lincoln's contemporary, Disraeli. We fought a terrible Civil War, but out of that we confronted our worst problems and began the long process of fixing them.

Perhaps most important, we were never occupied. The South was occupied during Reconstruction, but this was a much different set of circumstances than the French being occupied by the English, the Sicilians by the Moors, the Germans by the Romans, the Greeks by the Persians, and all the other results of all the wars. This cannot be overstated too much.

Let us imagine this scenario. The Civil War started, and around 1862 or so, the French traveled to our shores and joined forces with the Union. Then French forces took the fight to the South, and eventually splits with the Union occurred, especially regarding the lands of Louisiana, in and around New Orleans. The French decided to "re-claim" their lands. The French push the Confederates to defeat, then occupy the South and force the Confederates to free their slaves. Then the English, the long-time enemies of the French, come to the aid of the Confederacy and a major new front is created in which the French and the English fight each other on our soil.

Eventually, the war ends, and various political compromises, treaties and land grabs dot the American landscape. Our states are divvied up between various confederated groups of Franco-Union and Confederate-English military occupations. For years after, we live as an occupied nation. The slave trade ended at the hands of foreign invaders, not of our own will. Our laws and freedoms are dictated in part by these alien people. Various fights and rebellions occur, with different splinter groups trying to fight guerilla wars in an attempt to create little fiefdoms. Had _this_ been our history, then the kind of citizenry that Dostoevsky said the Inquisitor was satisfying might have developed. The kind that Fromm describes in Germany, and which makes up the landscape of humanity in China, the Middle East, Latin America and throughout the Old World. Then America might have been open to the kind of dictators and dividers who came to power in the rest of world.

Why did this not happen? Many reasons, of course. Our geographical location created a kind of psychological separation. We followed the vision of Alexander Hamilton and Federalized a strong military, with a great navy, to protect ourselves. Plus, and this I believe whether you like to hear it or not, we were graced by God!

Americans are not more intelligent, they are just smarter. Smarts come from experience. We are lucky to have had so much history occur before we became a country, and to learn from past mistakes. All of is true, but men of morality shaped the destiny of the United States. How easily our values could have been rent asunder, discarded like old campaign slogans (see France in the 1790s). But they were not. They were immortalized.

Man, according to the Grand Inquisitor, is "weak, sinful, worthless, and rebellious." Let me take one word out of this sentence and examine it. _Worthless._ Man is _worthless!_ Take everything out of the equation, and if men in power think man is worthless, all other explanations for history come into focus.

"You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs," Stalin said.

The worthlessness of man gives men of "vision" the excuse they need to send them into wars, to kill entire races, to wipe out religions, to abort children by the millions, and to torture the imprisoned. At its core is a rejection of religion, because if man is worthless, then God is irrelevant. The battle is between the concept of man being created in the image of God, nurtured by His love, and protected by his guiding hand, vs. the image of teething masses of human animals.

Humans are "vile and weak," says the Inquisitor. "Man is weaker and baser by nature than You believed him to be." Human nature yearns for "miracle, mystery, and authority" to soothe his anxieties.

Dostoevsky poses "three questions," the temptations of Christ found in the New Testament, Mathew 4:1-11. Professor Dalton's outlines captures them as Plenty, Pride and Power. They are based on the temptations that Satan offered Christ while he wandered in the wilderness.

"Man cannot live by bread alone," Christ said when the devil offered him a deal whereby he would be a hero by feeding the masses bread.

"In the end, they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, `Make us your slaves, but feed us,'" the Inquisitor screams at the Christ of "The Brothers Karamazov". One feels compelled to make the guy watch some John Wayne movies! Imagine Rooster Cogburn laying his freedom at anybody's feet in return for some food?

The question is whether people want Earthly or Heavenly bread. The pessimists say that to pursue God is a contradiction of human nature. This fails to address a trend throughout much of the world whereby poor people are more religious than rich. If one were to buy the Inquisitor's argument, then the wealthy, who have their "bread" needs taken care of, would turn to God more readily than the poor. The poor would be too busy trying to feed themselves to pray. The dirt-poor peasants of Latin America worship Christ with a love and fervor almost beyond imagination. The notions of man described by these dark artists just do not jive with this reality.

The next temptation that the Inquisitor puts before Christ is an offer to demonstrate himself in a vain display of power. The Inquisitor is infuriated by Christ's calm refusal to do so, saying he wishes man to follow him freely, not because of demonstrations of immortality. Dostoevsky's interpretation is a bit obscure in light of the fact that Christ did display His powers in His life, by walking on water among other miracles. What Dostoevsky does, however, is aimed at showing the Inquisitor, and therefore the Catholic Church, as being guilty of intellectual arrogance, of "playing God," and of being demonic. In its avowal of infallibility, as Professor Dalton called it, studies of Dostoevsky's work indicate that he is also showing science to be guilty of the sin of pride. While science is supposed to be open-minded, it is elitist and impersonal.

This seeming side reference to science, which is not the main point of the chapter, nevertheless brings up some very important points about the nature of man in society. It has been pointed out that some dark thinkers believe man to be worthless. This is the heart of the anti-religious concept. Christians believe that God loves Man, and therefore each man is of great value.

But science is a tricky question, and one that gets mixed up with questions of evil as it applies to mammon. Science is prideful, and it displays itself in vulgar demonstrations of its "greatness." Christ chose not to do. The Internet is an example of science, technology and information potentially running amok. It is the natural tool of the hated "one-world government." It has already been shown to be a valuable tool of terrorists and pedophiles, and it is only about 10 years old. The important constraint of science must be in the idea that it serves man, not the other way around.

Science also tends to assert itself as infallible, or true. Dostoevsky saw this as the way of the Catholic Church. Both science and the Catholics view the masses with contempt, and it is for this reason that Dostoevsky views pride as the harbinger of Western downfall.

Professor Dalton makes some important points, which speak to my own views regarding Manifest Destiny. Dostoevsky viewed the "West" as being the outside world, and Russian was not part of it. He said the West had convinced itself that it is endowed by God's grace, and uses this to justify its exploitations of native people's and lands. Marx saw this and thought it the fatal flaw of capitalism. I have addressed these issues and provided my own strong, some might say arrogant opinion of the issues of Western colonialism, "spiritual oversight" and disputations of Marx and his ilk.

Pride is a word that has been stretched around. As it applies to the Inquisitor and Biblical sins, it is a detrimental human trait. But just as Freud's "ego" is different from the ego we use in everyday usage, pride has come to be seen as something of value. Humility and humbleness are valuable human traits, but pride in one's work, family, country, religion, accomplishments – pride in Western culture, in America's place in the world – these are things we deserve to be proud of. What must be kept in mind are not the simple concepts of sinful pride, but rather the temperance of pride as being something that each man must measure against something larger than himself.

An example would be this very book I am writing. In it I espouse and throw out facts, opinions and knowledge, like I am some kind of sage or prophet whose words simply cannot be kept to myself, as if it is just too important that I provide my wisdom to the gasping world. Please recognize that in saying in this I am making fun of myself. Jesus Christ were to appear I would bow to him and say _nothing_ because next to Him I am nothing.

But He loves me anyway.

Power is the third temptation of Christ, in the wilderness and in the jail of Dostoevsky's novel. In the Bible, Satan offers Christ all the land of the world. In it is the implicit parallel of one-world government. This was the goal of international Communism. The United States, with the help of our Allies, prevented this from happening. The Soviet Union happily would have made this deal with the devil. The U.S. currently possesses enough military, economic and political power to make the world one Pax _Americana_ ; a single world governed by us, a giant colony, an empire to diminish and make small any empire ever created in history. The U.S. has rejected the devil's offer, and casts itself with the spirit of Christ.

There is a long, long list. It is a list that would fill all the pages of this book. The list contains the names of leaders; military, political and dictatorial, throughout the annals of human history. Every person on this list has one thing in common. If they had access to the power that every President of the United States, elected every four years, has access to, they would accept the devil's offer to Christ. They would use all the power the U.S. has at its disposal, to take control of one-world domination of the Earth.

All these leaders never would have understood that real power is in _ceding_ this power. It is in _not_ utilizing our full military might. It is in allowing freedom to reign. In this way the U.S. possesses more power, and controls a mightier empire, than any in history. We have greater control and more influence simply by letting _man be free_ than by any other method. The dark visions of Marx, Dostoevsky and Freud are exposed as frauds, miscalculations, lies, and falsehoods by the very example of the United States. We recognize that the freedom of man is not ours to "allow." It is the unalienable, natural right of all men. We cannot "grant" freedom, but we can help those who are not free gain access to it.

For example, we do not like the drug trade, which emanates from Latin America. With a flick of the switch, we could wipe Latin America from the face of the Earth, and with it the drug trade. We do not like Fidel Castro's Cuba. If we wanted to, we could eliminate that island from the maps of the world. North Korea? We could turn them into a hole in the ground. We could eliminate our enemies and intimidate our "friends." We could take dissenters and turn them into dust. Stalin would have done it. Hitler would have done. Saddam would have done it. Kim Jong-Il would, too.

We do not. We follow the moral way. We let the wicked live, the messy reign, and the corrupt thrive. We do this because to get rid of them by overwhelming force and our own fiat would make us no better than they are. We do this because we believe some have the capability of redemption. We do not believe all the innocent should die so evil may be eliminated. If we did this evil would just take a different form. We choose excellence. The Israelis do the same thing. They have the capability of simply making the Palestinians extinct, and to turn into all its neighbors into fire. They do not do this. They live with the threats. They put up with the violence.

We choose goodness and freedom. The Grand Inquisitor can put that in his pipe and smoke it!

The parable of the 20th Century comes at the end of the exchange between Christ and the Inquisitor. The Inquisitor seems to have hit the nail on the head, his descriptions to Christ describing the worst excesses of our age. But in the end, Christ closes the encounter with a kiss. This "gesture of inclusiveness," as Professor Dalton writes in his outline, is one of incredible symbolism. It represents the Hitler/Gandhi spectrum, and the East/West divide. It is a parable for the way we welcomed Germany and Japan back into the family of nations, and later allowed Russia to save face and call themselves our friend.

Anarchism and liberalism

Dostoevsky, Marx, Stalin, Hitler, Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, and Winston Churchill all represent political philosophies that have had millions of followers. In their own ways, each has been admired and vilified. But there is another kind of philosophy that is worth looking at. It represents a strain of thought that really never does go away. This is the idea of anarchism. Rousseau and Thoreau had anarchistic ideas. "Red Emma" Goldman gave it voice and propelled a movement. In it she expressed views that have some limited admirable, albeit not very workable, qualities. Anarchism does not offer answers, but it represents part of human nature that many people relate to. It allows people to _complain_ without _taking responsibility._ We see this every day. It is very, very seductive. Of course, I am more than happy to expose it, and those who do it, for what it is.

Anarchism has a benign view of humanity. It stresses compassion, a community of people, but not of state authority. As Professor Dalton points out, the view of anarchists like Sacco and Vanzetti is one of "violence-prone sociopaths." But a theorist with the appropriate name of William Godwin said that anarchism is the result of a natural order within society, based on voluntary cooperation among equal humans, as opposed to coercive state power. In this concept we see a world that Jesus Himself might have approved of. Christ did acknowledge the validity of the state, saying that we "render unto Caesar that with which is Caesar's," when asked about paying taxes to Rome. Christ advocates a Kingdom of Heaven. He might consider America to have been a nice "keeper of the flame" until He can establish that once and for all. Despite our patriotic fervor for America, we have to acknowledge that the anarchists do resemble a Christian vision of humanity.

That being said, the anarchists do not offer real answers in the real world. Their conundrum is their ideals vs. the way things are. This is a metaphor for God. God reigns over a Kingdom in which our questions are answered. These questions are not _meant_ to be answered in this world. In the mean time, we have to protect ourselves.

Anarchism and Marxism have many similarities. Marx and Goldman have much more in common than Marx and Lenin. They were both revolutionary in nature, but anarchism is not as proletarian as Marx's vision. It is similar to Thoreau's and Gandhi's non-violent con-cooperation with supposed "evil." The problem with both of these examples is that neither overcame "evil." Gandhi overcame the English. History has not given the Brits the credit they deserve. They allowed Gandhi and his movement to grow, to gain momentum, and to thrive. Thoreau was frustrated by his lack of martyrdom. He lived in a country that let him say whatever he wanted to say.

The anarchists felt that if the state was not involved, people would cooperate with each other, and in this they have an interesting point. Volunteerism is a very strong thing in society. We see the cooperation, help and compassion of the human family in the wake of terrible disasters like earthquakes, floods, and droughts. The anarchists felt that this pervasive and benign part of human nature could be channeled into something bigger than all of us.

Anarchism has been espoused by a wide variety of practitioners. The Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy was a Christian anarchist who advocated non-violent change. Michael Bakunin was a violent anarchist. Anarchism has been considered evil by some. Creon and Thucydides were threatened by it because it challenged their authority. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism in the third century B.C. (for a portrayal of stoicism applied in the modern world, read Tom Wolfe's "A Man In Full"), called for a stateless society where people worked in harmony with each other.

Anarchism was kept under wraps for centuries. The alienation of 19th Century industrialism revived it, as it did many of the revolutionary movements of the era. "An Inquiry Concerning Political Justice" (1793) by Godwin, gave voice to the theory that people have the ability to live in harmony. George Woodcock's "Anarchism" predicted that eventually government would become obsolete. There is an anarchic concept found in the modern Libertarian and even Republican parties, and certainly so in the separatist and militia movements. The Libertarians and highly individualistic Republicans see a world in which there is less government, although not a complete lack of government. They give voice to that rugged individualism embodied by the cowboys of the Old West, and the ranchers, farmers and self-sufficients of the modern rural world. The militia wings range from romanticized mountain men to those who espouse violent and too-often racist views.

Emma Goldman was born in Russia in 1869, and moved to America in 1886. She wrote a book called "Living My Life", and in it describes a very authoritarian father. New York City in the post-Boss Tweed era was her staging ground. She was often jailed for advocating free love (hey, as the Russian ambassador in "Dr. Strangelove" may have said, she might just have something there), atheism (ugh), conscientious objection and birth control.

The first principle of anarchism is that human nature is benign. Machiavelli and Freud argued that people are the opposite: Aggressive and untrustworthy, to be controlled by the state. These principles are actually played out in the Middle East. The U.S. is often advocating to our allies in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, and even to Israel as it relates to control of Palestine, that Democratic principles of freedom be allowed to occur. This ostensibly gives voice to the "anarchic" concept that people will do the right thing. The allies respond with the Machiavellian concept that if they are given freedom, they will destroy the stable governments and replace them not with harmony, but with chaos. So far, nobody really trusts the anarchic vision of cooperation in the Middle East. Former Richard Nixon aide Charles Colson once said, "If you got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow." This is the approach we are taking in the Middle East. Let them "cooperate" when there is little alternative.

The early Communists used the malleable and benign nature of people and twisted it into a violent revolution. Fascists viewed people as more gullible than benignly malleable. Anarchists just want government to get out of the way.

The second principle of the anarchists is to stress cooperation over competition. This is an interesting concept, but it has flaws. As a former professional athlete, I have a great deal of experience with competition. This is not just the competition with my opponents on other teams, but with my teammates. Any coach can tell you that strong competition for positions on the team makes for a better ball club. Only when the positions are to some extent settled (although competition always exists from second-stringers and up-and-comers), does the team jell into a cooperative unit that can defeat other units.

The other example is one found in business. Local Rotary Clubs found in any American city, large or small, are organizations that put the lie to the anarchist's concept. These kinds of organizations are made up of _competing businesses_ who _cooperate with each other_ as well as with _the government._

In "Mutual Aid", Peter Kropotkin said that our actions would be guided by a sense of "oneness." The animal world indicates that there is evidence for and against the anarchist view. In the animal world, there is cooperation, but there is also competition. The reality of man is somewhat similar. There is a kind of environmental culture that exists in which competition and cooperation work together. In the end, we have a blend of both.

Emma Goldman firmly believed that there is a tyranny of the majority, and that this majority works as a destructive force of coercion and evil. The Communists split from the anarchists in that they say the proletariat needs must be consolidated with the state, in order to defeat the bourgeoisie.

The anarchists advocate liberty in all its forms, especially social and economic. They reject the Marxist principle that any means are justified to attain the end. Goldman said the means had to be the same as the ends, but anarchists who followed her went too far and became quite violent.

The anarchists actually held some worthy views. They felt that while human nature was benign, individual behavior was shaped by choice. This is a slight variation on the Christian view, which is based also on choice. In Christianity there is a value for evil, as well. Somewhere between the Christian/anarchist value of "personal choice" is the concept of "resident evil," which might be found in Freud's analysis.

Anarchism seems to be an idea made for the big cities, where people live together and are, therefore, tied by social circumstance to each other. This leads to a natural cooperation between people. But as I pointed out earlier, this does not always work itself out in this way. If anarchistic cooperation was the way in the cities, then how does one explain why violent, stupid, nonsensical gangs divide many major urban centers, while in the countryside people who live many miles from each other pull together in times of crisis?

The anarchists would argue that the gangs in the cities are divided because the evil, divisive levers of government have operated to separate them by class envy. But class envy is not at the heart of gang warfare. Drugs and, for lack of a better explanation, the forces of evil, i.e, drugs and violence as a proof of "respect," are much more likely to blame. The weird offshoot of this is that the drug trade in the cities can be traced back to a _cooperative_ effort from an organization that might be the perfect form of anarchy: _La Casa Nostra._

The Mafia embodies many of the traits of anarchism, with the notable exception of benevolence. They are a series of families, or groups, who cooperate with each other to form one organization. They operate in a world of their own, created because they did not want or trust government intervention in their lives. It was the mob that made the decision to expand the drug trade into the inner cities, because they had no respect for blacks. "They're animals anyway; let them lose their souls," one _capo_ says in "The Godfather".

It is no mere coincidence that many anarchists were Italian, and the Mafia grew out of Italy and Sicily. Whether anarchism gave birth to the Mafia or vice versa is debatable. The anarchists wanted to foster diversity, but do not think that government can do it. History disputes this. Call it political correctness, or whatever you want to call it, but the U.S. government may have done more to "foster diversity" than any organization in history. How did the anarchists think that such disparate groups as native New Yorkers and first generation Irish would ever consolidate? Or blacks and Southern whites? How else, other than laws and government, would these people have been brought in and joined as one?

Goldman and Enrico Malatesta would argue that anarchism did not breed the Mafia because they do not emphasize hierarchical, authoritarian organizations. But somehow they do not account for the natural rise of leaders. Charismatic individuals evolve into positions of leadership. It is the tendency of people to accord respect to elders with experience. There are organizations that were formed within the anarchistic vision. Among these are the Red Cross, the Peace Corps, and Doctors Without Borders.

The anarchists told people not to vote, because it only encourages the state. The Republican party might not advocate this, but in a way they have benefited from non-voting. The reason for this is because Republicans succeed when voter turnout is low. Republicans are generally good, solid citizens who keep quiet, are aware of the issues, and vote. The Democrat constituency is too often the offshoot of the anarchy movement; ruffians, protesters, rabble, quasi-criminals, various and sundry individuals of low rent. These folks are less likely to know the issues, or vote, thus helping Republicans. Republicans really do not mind these people staying away from the polls, preferring to have government decided by those who educate themselves on the issues.

The election of Hillary Clinton to the Senate from New York in 2000 exemplifies this. A study was made of the precincts that voted for Hillary as opposed to those who voted for Republican Rick Lazio. It was determined that Hillary won by virtue of getting the votes from New York City precincts with extremely high crime rates. Lazio carried the suburbs where law-abiding citizens live. Hillary benefited from higher-than-usual turnout in high crime areas.

A study of the Clinton vs. Lazio voters contracts somewhat from the anarchist concept, however. The criminal element that votes for the Clintons would advocate big government when it comes to providing them benefits. They would not want the government to interfere with their "need" to deal drugs or other unlawful activities. The Republicans in favor of Lazio want less government. They would want fewer taxes and controls on small business, but would want government to crack down on crimes committed by Clinton's constituents.

Res ipsa loquiter.

The problem with anarchism is that the anarchists favored the example of the French Revolution over the American Revolution. They were unable to square the three tenets of _liberte, equalite_ and _fraternite._ The violence of the French peasants created an anarchist model. For others, it was abhorrent. Gandhi may not have been an anarchist, but he used methods of the non-violent anarchists to attain his goals. His success was mixed. He gained freedom, but died a violent end. Furthermore, once his country became free, they were unable to govern themselves without splitting into a war that. For all intents and purposes, that war is still going on. It is not at all inconceivable that India would be better off, certainly more prosperous, if the British had never left. Independence comes with grave responsibility. Not everybody is able to handle it.

The story of anarchism is the story of rebellion. Rebellion must have some kind of end game to be successful. Emma Goldman's rebellion started with her desire to break the bonds of her authoritarian father. She broke free from him, leaving Russia and settling in at 210 East 13th Street in New York's East Village. There, she joined Johann Most and Alexander Berkman to promote better working conditions for women working as seamstresses. She was a gifted orator, and soon gained the reputation of being a dangerous radical. She found herself imprisoned in 1893 for inciting the unemployed to riot. Inciting a riot seems to go against the grain of the so-called anarchistic concept of benign behavior, non-violence and rejection of the Marxist statement that the end justifies the means. Riots become violent and are not benign. Apparently the ends do justify the means if the people who get hurt are police officers and the businessmen whose shops lie in the path of the rioters!

She plotted to assassinate President William McKinley in 1901, and opposed the U.S. entry into World War I in 1917. The good things she advocated were the opposite of what she actually _did_ do. Apparently the killing of a Republican was okay. Opposing Kaiser Wilhelm and his attempt to inculcate German culture into the rest of Europe by force was not. She is the mother of the anti-war movement, the goddess of the rabble, the spirit of the foul-mouthed dirty hairs who litter our streets to protest all things. Her ghost urged the Chicago Seven to throw bags of feces at the police, or Reverend Jesse Jackson to shake down some company with the blackmail threat of racist complaint - just for the sake of protest. She is at the heart of a group of people allowed to live in America because it is a free country. They hold no jobs but take money from the disenfranchised and confused. These are professional dissenters who litter us with their presence. _Niiiiice._

When Emma was not figuring out how to blow a President's brains out or opposing red-blooded Yanks fighting to uphold Democracy, she was preaching that people should just screw each other whenever they wanted to. She wanted to rid America of our Puritan values. She did not even see the joy in sex. She viewed it only as a way of tearing things down. She wanted to see heresy and atheism destroy churches. She wanted soldiers to become pacifists.

"The more opposition I encountered, the more I was in my element," she told Alix Shulman in "Red Emma Speaks". She was deported to the Soviet Union in 1919. When she saw a country that had adopted many of her policies, she was - _surprise!_ – appalled and felt betrayed. This she states in "My Disillusionment in Russia", written in 1924.

Goldman was a hypocrite, the leader of a movement that decried violence, but who orchestrated violence. Her elitist concepts made it okay for her to be Machiavellian and Marxist, but not for others. In 1923 she was effectively a woman without a country. Having seen the failure of Communism in Russia first hand, she wanted to return to the "land of milk and honey." Only then did she acknowledge that the violence she spawned was wrong. This is similar to the Symbionese Liberation Army revolutionaries who expressed sorrow for the dead in their wake, once they grew up and saw how wrong they had been.

"The one thing I am convinced of as I have never been in my life is that the gun decides nothing at all," she wrote. Maybe this was because she saw that McKinley's death did not result in a Democrat in the White House, but instead another Republican, Theodore Roosevelt who liked guns and called them "big sticks." Or maybe it was because lots of people became free to think for themselves as a result of the use of American guns in dislodging Germany from France in 1918.

"Even if it accomplishes what it sets out to do – which it rarely does – it brings so many evils in its wake as to defeat its original aim," she continued. Maybe she said this because guns were used to promote American-style freedom throughout the world. This was an unworthy prospect in her mind. Emma's confusion continued throughout the Roaring '20s. In 1928 she was back to her old self.

"We must become Bolsheviks, accept terror and all it implies, or become Tolstoyans," she said. "There is no other way." Maybe because the Chinese Communists were using a lot of violence at this time, she said, "Revolution is indeed a violent process."

"Though Goldman grew skeptical about the value of individual acts of violence," wrote Shulman, "in her remaining years, she never doubted that necessity of collective revolutionary violence against capitalism and state." She supported the violent Spanish anarchists of 1936. Considering the non-violent plank of the anarchist manifesto, one would think she would have liked Gandhi. She seems to have found much more in common with Francisco Franco.

"The first ethical precept <of anarchistic revolution> is the identity of means used and aims sought," she said. "The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life..." She felt human life was sacrosanct, unless it was the life of a Republican, a soldier, a successful guy, or an unborn child.

She offers nothing.

CHAPTER SIX

HITLER, GANDHI AND THE LIE OF MORAL RELATIVISM

When Muslim extremists destroyed the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon, and a plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001, the ghosts of Emma Goldman, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Karl Marx whispered in the ears of the liberal envious and told them, "Aha, here it is. Backlash against the success of United States. Tell the world the Americans brought this upon themselves. There is no evil. There is no morality. It is all relative. There is only the here and now. Why should America be so successful while others fail? It's not fair. Let the Americans suffer for once."

In this chapter, I shall study the rise and impact of two 20th Century political contemporaries, Adolf Hitler of Germany and Mohandas Gandhi of India. In so doing I will make my best case that evil exists, and that moral relativism is immoral.

Hitler used demagogic psychological powers to liberate the "unconscious of the German people and articulate their latent aggressiveness," according to Professor Dalton. He considers Freud a major political thinker because his evaluation of human nature is the best answer to the unanswerable question, "How could Nazi Germany happen?" In a perverse way, Hitler was the wrong man at the right time and in the right place. This is the way it is in politics and history. Ronald Reagan was the right man to run against and succeed Jimmy Carter. George W. Bush, if all indications up to now are a go, is the same to Bill Clinton. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was just the ticket after Herbert Hoover.

Teddy Roosevelt was in the right place on a number of occasions over 20 years - Tammany Hall reformer; Spanish War hero; V.P. to an assassinated President; leader of a fledgling nation just itching to bust its muscles. In fact, almost everybody famous was the right guy (or gal) in the right place at the right time. Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, Harry Truman, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth; the list goes on.

Others had their time altered, through Shakespearean drama, simple bad timing or murderous tragedy. Richard Nixon, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and William Jennings Bryan help to fill out this list.

But Hitler and Gandhi seem to transcend their time. They were not constrained by electoral cycles or term limits. They were the faces of their countries, for good or bad, and beyond that. They represented the entire moral spectrum of humanity.

In Hitler, we see perhaps the most influential man of the 20th Century. He is not the _Man_ of the Century. _Time_ magazine said Albert Einstein was, but even in identifying Einstein, it can be said that if there were no Hitler, Einstein's role would have been diminished. Einstein, like many of the men listed above, exists as a significant historical figure because he opposed, or juxtaposed, Hitler. Without Hitler, Ike, Patton, even MacArthur, would not have been nearly the giants they were. Franklin Roosevelt's place would be far more controversial.

Without Hitler, Communism probably would not have rose as an international behemoth. It was in opposing Hitler that the Soviet Union and Stalin rose to a prominence they never would have known had they just remained in the background. Without the rise of Russia, China would not have gone to Chairman Mao, Korea would not have happened, and neither would Vietnam. Truman spoke of a domino effect, and he applied it to Communism. No domino was bigger and more powerful than Adolf Hitler.

Hitler started the jet program that started the Americans on a race to get there first, thus creating an atomic bomb that probably would not have come along for years. It would have delayed bombs built in Russia and China, and the Russian space program.

Without Hitler there would not have been a Berlin Wall, East Germany, an Iron Curtain and a Soviet Bloc. Without Hitler there would be no Israel, and the Communist spin-off that led to war in Southeast Asia and Pol Pot's genocides. Without Hitler Gandhi would not have liberated India, and the British Empire would not have crumbled. Without Hitler, England and the U.S. would have existed on relatively equal footing for many years.

Without Hitler, Harry Truman would not have had to drop the atomic bomb and Tom Dewey would have beaten him in 1948. He probably would have been succeeded either by William Howard Taft's son, Robert Taft, or maybe Adlai Stevenson. Without Hitler, countless people who died on the battlefields of World War II would have made names for themselves in politics, the sciences, in sports and on movie screens.

Without Hitler John Kennedy would not have been a war hero. His brother Joe probably would have become President. Without Hitler, local business leaders in Whittier, California would not have asked a young Navy lieutenant to run for Congress in 1946. Richard Nixon would not have had the Communist scourge and Alger Hiss to campaign against. There would not have been a Supreme Commander to ask him to be his running mate, and there probably would never have been a Watergate.

Without Hitler, the dividing line between right and wrong, between good and evil, would have been much blurrier. The fuzzy morality of Emma Goldman and Karl Marx would have more easily assuaged its way into the thinking of a fat and happy populace. We would have been much more willing to be seduced by the socialistic propaganda of John Steinbeck's descriptions of the Great Depression and an evil business climate to blame for it. Without Hitler there would not have been something to rally around.

The mind can go many places on a subject like this. Page after page could be filled with wild scenarios and what-could-have-beens. I will let it rest at this juncture. Suffice to say, the point is made, and the point is this. Somebody, probably a Christian minister, once said that, "All things happen for some good reason." There are many reasons to dispute this claim. Certainly the Jewish people might need some convincing. As insane as the concept is, it may be said that Hitler's existence on this Earth resulted in a change in the course of history that turned the 20th Century. This, quite simply, is a good thing. Does that mean that if we could time travel we should not have sent assassins to Germany in the 1920s with orders to terminate Hitler with extreme prejudice? Sure, if we could have eliminated Hitler, we should have. But this is all water under the bridge. Sometimes it takes great evil for great good to fight. No place is this more evident than in the confrontation with Hitler.

History records him to be the most evil man in history. It is often pointed out that Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung did more damage. But Stalin and, in turn Mao, are products of Hitler. It is ironic that Hitler despised Communism as much or more than the U.S. did in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Stalin and Mao had more time to do their killing. Much of Stalin's territory grabbing resulted from historical opportunity. Hitler was the most blatant land-grabber and warmonger of all time.

There is a sense of chauvinism among the modern class. We tend to look back at history and dehumanize people, especially when studying warfare. Genghis Khan and the Mongol hordes, for example, are viewed as bloodthirsty beyond our current ability to understand. The Romans were a cruel empire. They enslaved, raped, pillaged, took the spoils of war, and terrorized populations through crucifixion. There are conflicting dimensions in studying the warfare and killing methods of the old warriors. On the one hand, war was a much more confined process. Most of the killing was hand-to-hand, or in relatively small numbers. This required a certain kind bravery and savagery. Much of the killing done today is "anti-septic," "push button," "computerized," and "surgical." But we have our modern examples of very personal savagery. Saddam was the most visible of the current day until the United States decided to put a stop to it. The Taliban in Afghanistan, the torturers of Bangladesh in the early 1970s, and the necklace specialists of South Africa's ANC come to mind.

Furthermore, the study of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle put a much more human face on Mankind long before the birth of Christ. Humanity has always had deep thinkers. Compassion for our fellow human beings is as old as a desire to kill him. Biblical scholars will point to the study of Caen and Abel.

However, the viewpoint of modern vanity is that by the 20th Century, the world had matured. The rise of Hitler's Germany, however, is alarming and confusing. Communism was a long time coming. Many books and movements heralded it. We find Communism in the works of Rousseau, Thoreau, Marx, Engels, Goldman, and many others. Communism was a social movement of the industrial age.

National Socialism may not have been a new idea, per se. Nationalism is as old as nations, and it is not necessarily a bad word. Moses might have been a called a nationalist. Teddy Roosevelt was a nationalist. Certainly, it is a concept that was always popular in Germany. Otto von Bismarck was a highly successful nationalist. In 1870, the year the Germans fought France to the encirclement of Paris, he accomplished the great feat of unifying all the German states and "tribes" into one country. The common language, culture and arrogance of the German people built itself up to what many think was their "natural" militarism, resulting in World War I.

Kaiser Wilhelm's attempt to subjugate Europe into a Greater Germany was not entirely the result of saber rattling. The blunder of nations was in not recognizing the killing machines they had created. The German plan for the invasion of France in 1914 had been sitting in the Kaiser's desk since his chief of staff drew it up in 1905. It said that the troops would march into France through Belgium with the "right sleeve of the last German brushing the Atlantic." It was the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand by a Serbian _Nationalist_ that drew the Balkans, Russia and eventually Turkey into a World War that originally was planned as a French-German re-match. The Americans, the Dardanelle Campaign, and the Russian Revolution were not considerations.

The point of this discussion is German culture. The Versailles Treaty laid out harsh penalties on Germany for waging war and trying to impose their culture on everybody else. Despite criticisms of the treaty, the bottom line is that Germany got what they deserved. Germany is and was a country of _cultured people_. The fact that people of such culture could be put under the sway of a Viennese corporal is the great dilemma of history.

Hitler and Napoleon have been compared. They have their similarities. Hitler was a corporal and Napoleon was known as "the little corporal." Napoleon was not actually a corporal, but in one of his early campaign he moved freely amongst the enlisted personnel, a rarity for officers. The nickname stemmed from this incident.

Sometimes mass movement is proletarian in nature. The rise of Napoleon and the rise of Hitler are quite different, however. They both emerged from economic chaos, but Napoleon emerged from the French Revolution, which was in effect a civil war. Hitler emerged from a depression that resulted from Germany's failed war. Napoleon came from a movement that had "won" in their battle with the French monarchy. Hitler came from a standpoint of abject failure. The use of their forces by Napoleon and Hitler were quite different, too. Napoleon utilized foreign mercenaries to man his enlisted forces, a tradition in his country that still is in effect with the French Foreign Legion. Hitler would never have thought of such a thing. His forces were made up of "German supermen."

The greatest similarity between Napoleon and Hitler is the fact that they rose to power over cultured people. There is arrogance, perhaps even a racist arrogance, which allows us to tell ourselves that Arabs, Persians, Africans, Indians, Hispanics, Islanders and Chinese could be swayed by such totalitarians. A kind of British Darwinism has always tinted our vision of the Third World. This is the same view that gave the English a sense of destiny in the ruling of dark-skinned peoples. Surely _we_ can be trusted to rule over _them._ Middle class conservatives despise academic elite classes who pre-suppose the same thing for them, but of course the middle class is mostly _white._

But the arrogance plays itself out in a view of modern barbarism or, at the very least, chaos. Whites look at Africa, Latin America, much of the Middle East, and tell themselves that these places have problems ruling themselves because of some kind of endemic inferiority within native populations.

There may be truth to this. Maybe we are just at that moment in the changing ebb and flow of history where white people are, for the most part, in control. But some important points need to be made. First, some Third World cultures have a lot more history than some elite whites are willing to consider. The Aztecs were not just plains Indians. They were inventors and pyramid builders of the highest order. They were scientists and mathematicians. They also employed some hideously barbaric practices. Some moral relativists have excused these practices as simply being part of their particular culture.

White supremacists and sheet-wearing Ku Klux Klanners would have you believe that Africans have always been little more than "jungle bunnies." That modernization imposed upon them by their white enslavers and colonizers is the only reason they have any foothold at all within the modern world. But these dunderheads do not take into account the brilliant military strategist Hannibal, who led the North African Carthaginians in wars that gave the Romans all they can handle. This included a magnificent surprise Alpine crossing that led them to the gates of Rome. Nor does it give much credence to their offspring, the Moors, who conquered Sicily and much of Italy. They were responsible for a great deal of the culture and racial make-up of the Mediterranean. William Shakespeare's "Othello" was about a Moor.

The Chinese were mathematicians and linguists. The Egyptians were architects and workaholics. Politics, wars and the tides of history met an Age of Enlightenment in which white Europeans became the inventors of the world, giving a disproportionate concept that they are responsible for all progress.

At some point, the Europeans became the educated class, the rulers, the militarists, the organizers, the inventors and the conquerors. There is no denying they are the majority architects of the world. However, and here is the point, this is not to say that this resulted in straightforward progress for humanity. This chapter is about Hitler, Gandhi and moral relativism. Racism and the Third World are tied together with it.

The Christian worldview is really no different than any other moral worldview. At the heart of all good religions, and I include all the major ones under this umbrella – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist – is compassion for humanity. Compassion for humanity has been the conflict of man and governments since time immemorial. It is _not relative._ It was as much a matter of right and wrong, good and evil when Caen slayed Abel, as it was when the Aztecs sacrificed virgins by cutting out their still-breathing hearts, and when the S.S. sent trainloads of Jews into the gas chambers. There is no excuse for it. It cannot be cloaked under the guise of culture, bravery or retaliation. Refuting the concept of moral relativism lies at the center of great, unifying political moves, when countries and leaders decide to "bury the hatchet" and make real deals for lasting peace with hated enemies. It is for this reason that the Palestinians, oppressed and terrorized as they are, cannot use moral relativism as an excuse for sending suicide bombers into Israel. It is the reason that Arab extremists, frustrated by English-American demarcation lines resulting from the break-up of the Ottoman Empire that put the "infidels" in charge of the oil, must be held responsible for their actions. They cannot excuse their actions as justifiable backlash.

Compassion for humanity is the responsibility of everybody, _especially_ the ones in power. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle all emphasized this. Even if we were to accept the racially charged view that white Europeans are in control of the world because they are intellectually superior, one thing is as clear as clear can be.

White Europeans are not morally superior!

By no stretch of the imagination am I saying that white Europeans are morally _inferior._ What I am saying is that morality, good and bad, is the single strain that connects all humans throughout history. It supersedes Christianity or any organized religion. It is the basic "free will" that all people have always had, from the cavemen to the scientists. It is inherent in man, a struggle between God and the devil, fought within the breast of all beings.

White accusations of immorality among the dusky peoples, the "great unwashed," and the wild-eyed natives of the Earth, is hypocritical blindness in light of what whites have wrought upon the world. This goes back to the question of German culture. The German-speaking people are the culture of Mozart, Brahms, Wagner, Beethoven, Freud, Einstein, Martin Luther and Thomas Mann. They are people who embraced Christianity. They were thoughtful enough about it to reform their Catholicism and create one of the strongest of the Protestant offshoots, Lutheranism. They are people renowned for their work ethic, their intelligence, and their physical beauty.

These people elected Hitler, waged war on the world twice in 20 years, leading to the deaths of 70 million people. They sent 12 million people to concentration camps, and in the process came close to wiping out European Jewry.

As a result, the world views race in a way they never did before. To some extent, political correctness owes itself to Hitler. An entire victim class of minority's points to Hitler as an example of inherent white racism that must always be kept down, checked, exposed and dealt with. Hitler's victims were not just his countrymen, the Jews, the soldiers and the refugees, but generations of good, decent white people who now live in his shadow. This is a wicked shadow. It is a shadow of aspersion that leaves that trace of question on the heads of white people who operate in a world in which the unspoken question is whether they are racists. It has caused many whites to apply guilt to themselves and set out to bend over backwards to prove that they are not.

Optimists have been known to say "all good things happen for some good reason," and while this writer is not advocating affirmative action quotas, white guilt or P.C., I do acknowledge that there exists today increased sensitivity for people, and a compassion for others. That is a very good thing.

Hitler's Germany is not the only example of white people unable to lay claim to a monopoly on morality. Communism was promoted and maintained, in large part, by whites. The KGB was a "white" organization. There is no excuse for any of it. The excesses of Communism cannot be justified as a backlash against exploitation any more than the Nazi death camps are "understandable" after World War I, Muslim terrorism is a reaction to Lawrence of Arabia, or the KKK was okay because the South lost.

Another point needs to be made, to dispel myths promoted by the Left for too long without being debunked by the right. Ever since the McCarthy "blacklist," liberals have been identified with Communism, and conservatives have been identified with Nazism. Liberals, trying to get the spotlight off of them when their Communist sympathies were exposed, attempted to say that there is a far right, an extreme element of conservatism, and that this is the Nazi equivalent of their Communism.

Eventually, their willing accomplices in the Fifth Column picked up on this. Historical references to the Nazis were flavored with phrases like "far right" and "right wing." This is garbage. This book has gone into great detail describing the thinkers who inspired socialism and Communism. They include Thoreau, Rousseau, Marx, Engels, Emma Goldman, and to a lesser extent, Dostoevsky. These people were all "true believer" liberals. They saw intrinsic flaws in capitalism and felt that workers were exploited victims. They espoused changes in government and/or philosophy, and were part of a worldwide movement that operated in France, the United States, Russia, and Germany, among other nations. There is a direct, undeniable link between them and the Sino/Soviet Communist bloc that eventually formed.

Some of these "icons of the Left" are embarrassing to the progressive liberals who have had to try and promote their causes despite growing evidence that they are swimming against the tide of history. Unable to make these people into heroic figures, the liberals then turned to the right and tried to pin an equally horrendous historical movement on them. Hitler's Germany, they decided, was right wing!

They tried to find similarities between the "party of Lincoln" and Hitler; between Teddy Roosevelt and National Socialism; between conservative principles of free speech, lower taxation, business promotion, smaller government, rugged individualism, greater liberty, and German totalitarianism; between Dwight Eisenhower and...Heinz Guderian? They tried to find all of these similarities. Of course, there are no similarities. Desperately they tried to find some correlation. They could not find it in the matter of African American civil rights, since Democrats ran the Jim Crow South. They only found a few limited places to go. American country clubs, whose members were mostly Republicans, and who discriminated against Jews, were trotted out as examples. McCarthyism was their easiest target, because most of the Communists found were Jewish. So, they grasped for this straw. They decided that not letting Jews play golf, and the fact that most U.S. Communists were Jews, was a direct link to Adolf Hitler. This sophist lie was allowed to grow in part because the dominant media culture – Hollywood and the networks – consisted of a large number of liberal Jews. They had the power to orchestrate a backlash against McCarthyism.

At the heart of Leftist lies is moral relativism. Liberals must try to reconcile their evil, Communism, and say that their "opponents," the conservatives, have an equally evil ideologue hiding in their closet. But the concept dies fly, not only because of the failure to find linkage between the far right and the Nazis in the 20th Century, but also throughout history. In other words, they are trying to play down their dark side with a the concept that "everybody's doing it."

It is, of course, essential to good debate to know what ammunition the other side has, be capable of playing devil's advocate, and in this regard systematically debunk the arguments before they can gain root. So where will the liberals look for historical "evidence" of the link?

Well, they might try and say that conservatism and despotic dictators and military leaders have something in common. For some reason that has no good explanation, the phrase "further to the right than Attila the Hun" has made itself into popular parlance. Popular right wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh even jokes about it. He says he occupies the "Attila the Hun Chair for the Advancement of Conservative Studies at the Excellence in Broadcasting Institute." Because Attila was the leader of a "Germanic tribe," this might explain the so-called historical "connection" between Nazis and conservatives. There seems to be no other good explanation. Attila fought the Romans, but he also was allied with them at times, although he was a notorious double-crosser. Because he was an effective military commander, this is supposed to make him a "conservative." George Patton admired him and was compared to him. Patton was a Republican. Oh.

The Left will point to the Ku Klux Klan and try to make that connection, but this falls laughably short. First of all, the KKK rose out of the defeated South. The defeated South was run by the Confederacy. The Confederates were Democrats. The Union elected the Republican President, Abe Lincoln. The KKK was the shadow para-military of the Jim Crow South for 100 years, operating like Al Qaeda's relationship with the Taliban. Of course, the Jim Crow South was, as mentioned before, run 100 percent by the Democrats. Thinking blacks like Clarence Thomas and Condoleeza Rice, who grew up and recognized this Truth, made the obvious choice: The Republicans.

The Left will then try to say that after Lyndon Johnson's Civil Rights Act, the South abandoned the Democrats and went Republican because the Republicans held the kind of racist views they could live with. Of course, this does not pass the smell test, either. Without strong Republicans support, the Civil Rights Act never would have seen the light of day. The South went Republican because the G.O.P. offered the right kind of leadership to husband them from Jim Crow to the modern world. Bigoted Democrats like Albert Gore, Sr., Robert Byrd and William Fulbright fought tooth-and-nail against civil rights, but the Democrats simply have not had the gumption to face these realities. They have too many other unpleasant realities to face up to without adding to the list.

The Left will then throw out the name David Duke, a former KKK leader who tried to run for office as a Republican in Louisiana. Unlike the Democrats, who fail to excoriate their Gores, Byrds, and Fulbrights, the G.O.P. never gave Duke the time of day. He wad drummed out of the corps in short order without any decent endorsements, lost, was all but disgraced by the right, and at last word lives in another country.

Next.

The Left might try and point out that in the 1930s, a small group of Republican businessmen tried to get a World War I Marine hero to orchestrate a right wing coup against Franklin Roosevelt. The Marine played along just enough to turn them in, and the coup never came close to getting anywhere. It consisted of a tiny handful of people and had no popular support. Had it been exposed, the Republican party would have quashed it before anybody else would have had to. This of course did not stop the heroes of Hollywood from making as much hay of it as they could. The book "Seven Days in May" was based on these events, and in 1963 a John Schlessinger movie, using a Rod Serling screenplay, starred Burt Lancaster, Fredric March, Ava Gardner and Kirk Douglas.

The Left might try and say that anti-Semitism and racism are products of the "elite classes" of right. These ideas have fomented for centuries among ruling classes of people who are supposed to be conservatives. This is the so-called "linkage" between the right and the Nazis. Anti-Semitism and racism are as old as man. They have found homes in a lot of places that might be many things, but are not historical pre-cursors of the Republican party. Does anybody think the Egyptians are the ideological brethren of Ronald Reagan? Or anybody else in the Arab world, where anti-Semitism has always been a hotbed? Since the Republican party is also the home of the Christian Coalition, about the only linkage to racism I can find is anti-slavery. It was the "Christian Coalition," if you will, of the 19th Century who forced the issue of slavery.

I am not just a conservative because nature intended me to be one, as if conservatism comes to somebody the way dark hair, short stature, or athletic ability comes to him or her. I chose this path. I chose it because I thought a lot about it and I wanted to do what was right. The beauty part is that the information needed to see why it is right is readily available to anybody who chooses to find it. I did not learn all this stuff studying for a doctoral thesis at an expensive graduate school. We need not cede all knowledge to the elites who occupy the tenured professorships of certain colleges. The daily newspaper, magazines, the Internet, libraries, and bookstores are your friend, as they are mine. Folks who possess a lot of knowledge need not be deans and chairs and fellows. They can just be guys who own a lot of books, and read 'em!

Adolf Hitler, who we now can safely say is _not_ associated with the conservative right, united Germany through division. He did it using methods not uncommon to elite organizations, whether they be fraternities, the Marine Corps, Navy SEALS, or Masons. He did it by putting Germany through a kind of "boot camp," separating what he saw was the "wheat from the chaff." It was a harrowing time of round-ups, violence, reprisals, re-education and test. People knew fear. But when Krystalnacht, the "night of the broken glass" and the other events described in William Shirer's "The Nightmare Years" were over, Germans felt like the frat guys who were accepted, the Rangers who passed the last survival test. They were in the inner circle that knew what the secret password was. Once this happened, Hitler said they were _uber alles_ ("all of us") and he told them what they wanted to hear. The Jews, he said, were responsible for their downfall. Now that they and their kind – Communists, anarchists, homosexuals, intellectuals, clergy – were eliminated, Germany could rule the world, as was their divine right.

Hitler's hatred of Communism, of course, is still another peace of "evidence" the Left has tried to use as the link between the right - who hate Communism, too - and the Nazis. The fact that we allied ourselves with Communism to defeat Hitler effectively ends that theory.

One of the great arguments throughout history and psychology is the "nature vs. nurture" concept. This argument has its place in dissecting Nazi Germany. Did Germany turn to Hitler because of some natural tendency within the country? Did Hitler tap into some kind of dormant part of the psyche that is as much a part of all of us as our hearts, our lungs, and our bones? Or was Nazi Germany a product of particular events at a particular time in history? Of course, nobody really knows the answer. Probably a little, or lot, of both. But there is another theory, and this is the one I have proposed as a partial explanation for the violent, beautiful 20th Century.

This is the theory that says that the devil decided to go on the offensive, and that Hitler was merely his puppet, his mouthpiece, his general. As Mick Jagger once sang, "I rode a tank, in a general's rank, when the blitzkrieg reigned, and the bodies stank." The name of the song? "Sympathy for the Devil". Well aaawwrright, Mick and the Stones may have been on to something!

If so, if the devil and the forces of evil were mounting the big charge, let it be said, "Thank God for the U.S. of A." In that case we not only stopped Germany, we _triumphed over evil._ Not bad for government work.

Since we do not have access to the devil's archives, and he turned down my request for an interview, we can only go by what the evidence is. The psychological answer has many adherents. Strasser's critique is that Hitler unlocked Germany's "mass unconscious," according to Professor Dalton. Somehow he found their secret desires. According to Freud's terminology, the German people's mass superego was submerged in their mass id, allowing them to give "full vent" to an "unarticulated desire for aggression." There is something to be said for this.

The Democrats might say that because Republicans are naturally pre-disposed to "love" war. This is hogwash. General Douglas MacArthur once said, "No one hates war more than a soldier." However, there is a psychological desire for aggression. There is a part of us that glory in it. Once we feel that we have freed ourselves to think this way, it is like opening up a psychological valve that allows us to vent this aggression.

When John Kennedy was contemplating bombing Cuba during the 1962 Missile Crisis, he reportedly said, "It sure would feel good," and he was not kidding. Right or wrong, at some point it feels good. This is the part of our personality that Hitler tapped into, but it was not something uniquely German. He was reaching into something uniquely human.

This is an important point. If we dismiss Hitler as a creature of Germany, or Europe, or some "other," we fail to safeguard ourselves from the same kind of psychological needs that Freud knew everybody has.

The circumstances of Hitler's rise, however, are particular to a time and place. The Versailles Treaty came on the heels of a crushing, demoralizing military defeat, and what followed was a brutal depression in Germany. Huge inflation and mass Germany was forced to pay war reparations that resulted in massive unemployment. In the 1920s, a weak government, the Weimar Republic, led them.

Luckily, the U.S. learned the lessons of Versailles. We gave Germany and Japan a chance to save face after World War II, preventing a re-occurrence of events that could have let history repeat itself. In the 1990s, we carefully monitored events in Russia, a country compared to the Weimar Republic because they, too, had lost a war, albeit a cold one. So far, it seems that Vladimir Putin is not Hitler and nobody is pushing the id buttons in the former U.S.S.R.

Hitler's rise started not with military goals, but in answer to Germany's psychological and economic needs. Tip O'Neill said that, "All politics are local," and so it was in Germany. Individuals liked Hitler at first because he created jobs.

Professor Dalton offers an explanation that is not entirely psychological or economic. He points to a combination of leadership, ideology and organization.

All studies of Hitler start with his conversion to anti-Semitism, which is explained in "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle"), which he wrote while serving a prison sentence for fomenting an uprising. Hitler advocated the politics of exclusion, and used his prison term to martyr himself.

The Hitler phenomenon takes on German "characteristics" that he drew upon in "Mein Kampf" and in his oratory. There has always been a strain of anti-Semitism in German culture. Wagner was anti-Semitic, and the Nordic characteristics of Germans, who valued blonde hair, blue eyes, physical strength and, in their women, sexual eroticism. This was set against the image of Hebrews, who tended to have dusky skin, dark hair, wore beards, dressed "differently," spoke an alien language, were seen as the traitors of Christendom, were non-athletes, and whose women were unappealing.

Despite these negative characteristics, Jews nevertheless excelled intellectually. They ascended to positions far beyond their percentage of the population in the arts, the sciences, and in banking. These are professions that average people would normally consider "high brow" anyway. To top it off, the Jews had the "arrogance" to call themselves the Chosen People.

However, this set of circumstances is not absolutely unique to Germany. Jews exhibited these characteristics wherever they were. Hatred of Jews prior to World War I was just as vehement in France as in Germany, as evident by the despicable treatment shown a Jewish Army officer in the "Dreyfuss affair."

But France "won" World War I. The French did not need any scapegoats. Anti-Semitism is rearing its ugly head in modern France because this is a country exhibiting some of the characteristics of post-World War I Germany. France has had a huge influx of immigrants in recent years. Their culture is under siege. Their collaboration with Germany is no longer a secret. Jews are highly successful in France, as they are everywhere they are found. France finds itself a shell of its old self, no longer a dominant member of the world community. This has produced a latent backlash of Jew-baiting that bears watching before it gets out of hand.

Hitler's exclusionary policies were hardly new. In fact, they resemble, as Professor Dalton notes, the "dehumanization of the untouchables in the Indian caste system." The excluded are considered unclean, both physically and morally. However, the brilliance of Hitler is found in the way he built his enemies up in order to tear them down. He recognized a rebel spirit in the human psyche, the same desire to topple the "high and mighty" that infused the French overthrow of Antoinette and Louis. In this regard, Hitler characterized Jews and Communists as "controlling" everything in German society. Had Hitler simply demonstrated hatred for these groups, he would have taken Germans to a dead end. At some point, the people would have felt sorrow for the objects of their hatred, who would have been seen as dispossessed and homeless.

It is this build-up of the "other" that still fuels movements like the Aryan Nation in America. The white supremacists would not get anywhere if they simply pointed to black failures in school and society; the welfare state, inner city turmoil, black-on-black violence, drug dealing, the irresponsibility of fathers, foul rap music, and under representation in a competitive business environment. Instead, the white supremacists try to point to the same control of societal institutions that Hitler pointed to.

The Catholics are no longer viewed as the enemy. There is no evidence, especially after the Kennedy Presidency, that American Catholics owe allegiance to a Papacy rather than the Constitution. In the case of Jews, the supremacists use the Hitler playbook. They see Jews in control of Hollywood and academia. There is no doubt that Jews make up an extraordinarily high percentage of movers and shakers in the arts and in the intellectual salons of New York and California. However, the kind of worldwide conspiracy theories that involve the so-called Tri-Lateral Commission are either non-existent or, if they do exist, hidden so carefully that nobody can truly make the case.

The supremacists of the post-civil rights era, however, have turned their real attention to blacks and other dark-skinned types. Jews, they have found, are difficult to identify. They are likely to "look like" them. Blacks can be spotted and identified easily. The blacks are "built up" by white supremacists like the terrorist Timothy McVeigh. Blacks have become such a victim class that "leaders" like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have turned themselves into millionaires extorting and shaking down money from legitimate business, who prefer to appease them rather than face lawsuits and poisonous accusations of racism.

What infuriates white racists now are not blacks at lunch counters or the fronts of buses. They wonder why it seems like there is a Federal law that states that only blacks can be skycaps and only Filipinos can work in military PXs. They are exasperated when they go to the courthouse, the DMV, or some other government building, and instead of getting decent service they find only minorities, languidly and unenthusiastically moving about their jobs, all on the taxpayer's dime. They turn on the television and see episode after episode of "Law and Order" or (name the show) that depicts the perp as a Second Amendment-spouting white Christian bent on murdering minority kids. Or tough but dedicated, honest black police captains who keep the whites from running amok. Or TV commercials that make the world look like everybody is a preppy-dressing black consumer who makes the engines of commerce run. They cannot figure out why firefighters, doctors and judges on TV are likely to be black, but when they see their real-life counterparts they are white. They see these images and they see lies. They are not happy about it. Instead of just shrugging their shoulders and accepting it for what it is, however, the white supremacists take it very personally.

They decide that modern minorities have ascended to a special class of affirmative action beneficiaries, responsible for keeping them from reaching their full potential. They see them protected by a liberal media and an evil government. The worst part about it is they know that simply expressing knowledge of these facts will bring down the full force of Political Correctness on their heads. It infuriates the Aryans who see blacks escape their crimes because they were "profiled," while whites are sought out and targeted by the FBI, the DEA and the ATF.

The modern white supremacists have taken Hitler's idea of building up their adversaries. The difference between Hitler and the Aryans of today is that Hitler had the power to "do something about it." The current racists really do not, so they find outlets for their frustration.

Hitler de-humanized the Jews. Nowadays, we call it demonizing the "other." The liberals have found that it is their only real weapon in their battles with conservatives. Hitler also brilliantly "seduced" the German people in the manner of a man making love to a beautiful woman. He portrayed himself as the clean, Aryan alternative to the Jewish seducer. He scared the people into believing "the Jew" was out to befoul them with sick and immoral acts, i.e., sodomy and homosexuality.

Finally, Hitler, who was raised a Catholic but did not believe, nevertheless played on German Christianity by asserting that he was doing God's work, which was he said was to exterminate Jews.

Hitler used militarism and the "spirit" that the Greeks said was noble, but secondary, and raised it as the highest principle of German glory. This is an interesting point. Hitler saw major action in the Great War. He smelled death and defeat. He could have learned lessons from this experience. In 1962, Nikita Kruschev drew on his awful experiences defending Leningrad during World War II. He wrote to President Kennedy, justifying to himself as much as anybody why he was giving in and removing nukes from Cuba. But Hitler did not just see failure. He saw _missed opportunity._ His view of war is not as odd as one might think.

Many Americans were frustrated by our only real military "failure," Vietnam. But instead of seeing only the failures, they see the clear mistakes that were made. They say that if we had done certain things, i.e., not fight the war with "our hands tied behind our backs," bombed the dykes, flooded the countryside, then invaded North Vietnam, conquering and occupying Hanoi, we could have ended Communist adventurism in Southeast Asia once and for all. Hitler's love of militarism existed side-by-side with his view of violence as a tool. Plato and Aristotle saw violence as signs of an immoral state. Machiavelli viewed it as legitimate state policy, to be used when necessary. He did not endorse excess or unneeded violence. Marx did not glorify violence, but felt that it was the only way to disrupt the bourgeoisie. Hitler took it further than anybody. He glorified it and made it a state creed.

As mentioned before, Hitler feminized the masses, believing that they were like a woman who secretly wishes for a strong, dominant man. Women prefer to bow to a forceful man, and people prefer to bow to a forceful leader. Like women, Hitler believed that the masses are emotional and irrational. It was this in mind that Nazi propaganda emphasized simple, repetitive messages.

Born in 1889 in Austria, Hitler was the son of a customs official father and a doting mother. His father died in 1903. Hitler attended high school but dropped out. He viewed his life as one of struggle, and this was the dominant force of his existence.

In 1907, Hitler set out for the city of Freud, Vienna. He attempted to gain admission to the Academy of Fine Arts, but his rejection brought about bitterness. His mother died shortly thereafter, and in his second try at the academy, he was turned away again. His bitterness was now a struggle. For the next six years, Hitler lived as a vagabond and starving artist on the streets of Vienna. He observed the dregs of Viennese society.

"By interpreting men exclusively in the light of that twisted experience and seeing in their motives nothing but hate, ruthlessness, corruption, greed, lust for power, cruelty, or fear, he imagined with provincial complacency, that he had come close to ultimate knowledge, whereas actually he was merely revealing his own desperate and depraved personality," wrote J.C. Fest in "Face to the Third Reich". If one is predisposed to belief in such concepts of absoluteness, this is an apt description of a world served up for the devil himself.

Vienna was the "hardest, though most most thorough school of my life," Hitler wrote in "Mein Kampf". He obtained "the foundations for a philosophy in general and a political view in particular which later I only needed to supplement in detail, but which never left me." In the book, Hitler outlines a tri-partite "axis of evil" that includes Marxism, parliamentarians, and Judaism.

In World War I, Hitler felt that he was engaged in a struggle that all the German people wanted. He peppered his memories of the Great War with descriptions of struggle, describing his feelings about participating in it in orgasmic terms. He felt an "ecstasy of overflowing enthusiasm." Hitler fought bravely in the trenches until he was gassed and spent the last days of the war in a hospital.

"...Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base," he wrote, "will be wavering and uncertain." Hitler said that violence must be more than "naked force"; rather, it must stand for an ideological commitment. However, the truth beyond the ideological commitment is secondary to getting people to believe in it, which is where his views on propaganda, which are frankly brilliant although evil, come in to play. Getting back to the Hitlerian allegory of the masses as female, one could compare his views with the cad who only wishes to talk a woman in to sex. How he gets her into bed is unimportant, only that he gets her into bed. This is similar to the Machiavellian "ends justifying the means." If Hitler is to be compared with great seducers, he is the Robert Evans, Hugh Hefner and Robert Guccione – combined - of political seducers.

"Like a woman...they have been abandoned," Hitler wrote in "Mein Kampf". He likened the Germans to a beautiful woman who has lost her husband, with a grubby Jew trying to get into her pants, only to be saved by the gallant Aryan man.

The "Aryan – unlike the modern pacifist," he wrote, subjugates "lower peoples" and bends them to his will. Through struggle and domination, those among the populace who are deserving of greatness will rise "upward," and in so doing avoid "blood mixtures," which preserves "pure blood." This is not an entirely new idea. Hitler emphasizes race, but this kind of "destiny" is one that higher classes have applied to themselves with regard to intelligence, athletic ability, and other concepts of excellence.

In Norman Mailer's fabulous CIA _magnum opus_ , "Harlot's Ghost", a legendary "company man" named Hugh Tremont Montague is the product of an elite class of East Coast Americana that includes the best schools and a complete understanding of every nuance of the espionage arts. He happily understands his essential role in protecting the U.S. from Communism. In so doing finds no necessity in recognition or grubby politics. He is so self-assured that his own view of himself is all he needs. In speaking to his protégé, Harry Hubbard, he tells Harry that some people are blessed with exceptional ability. Those people deserve to be recognized and placed in positions above the normal, and not held to the same standards. Unexceptional people, he tells Harry, are "fodder for the devil."

This kind of thinking plays itself out in every facet of our society. Gifted athletes are given scholarships to great colleges, and then paid enormous sums to play for professional teams, where they are able to live like modern kings. Brilliance is rewarded in business, academics and in the literary world. People who rise above the masses and distinguish themselves are accorded godlike status.

Where these examples stray from Hitler is that they are color-blind (many athletes, for example, are black), while the law, more or less, applies to everybody. Western society does some strange things to its exalted, who they like to build up, but enjoy tearing down even more. Hitler would have none of that "tearing down." In his world, those who rise to "godlike status" are immune to any of the laws of normal society. Saddam and his inner circle lived in a similar world. Like the Nazis, members of Iraq's Ba'ath Party lived well, but God help them if they displeased the boss.

Hitler was Machiavellian in his view of governmental structure. He despised the ragged failure to reach consensus found in the English Parliament, insisting instead on strong, centralized control. He openly encouraged "fanaticism and intolerance" and to "intolerantly impose its will on all others. Hitler naturally assumed that the state's role was to achieve racial purity. He invoked Providence when he said he "must sacrifice himself for the totality" of the state. Hitler used reference to a God he did not personally believe in; to believe in a Christian God was entirely opposed to his vision of humanity. Christ could never be squared with his actions. But he used Him when for his purposes.

Hitler's views clash with the Greeks, and even his use of violence as a creed breaks from Machiavelli and Marx, who were pragmatists compared to him. There may not be another political figure more different from Hitler than Gandhi. This tremendous difference in the end worked in Gandhi's favor. Gandhi said the end never justified the means. Gandhi believed in Thoreau's non-violent cooperation. He despised violence not just because of the harm it did the victim, but the harm caused to the attacker.

Gandhi studied Thoreau's works while practicing law in South Africa. He returned to India and in 1919 organized an independence movement against the British. Gandhi owes much of success to timing and patient British benevolence. As for timing, he made his pitch for independence in the wake of the two great conflagrations of history, when the world was most horrified by war. The independence movement began one year after the Armistice, and reached its successful conclusion two years after Nagasaki.

Gandhi was able to take over an independence movement previously riven with strife between moderates and extremists. The extremists were in full throttle in 1919 in light of the Amritsar massacre, and they wanted British blood. However, Gandhi pointed that the Indians were not in a military position to win a bloody battle with Great Britain. But most importantly, he said the English had de-humanized _themselves_ by killing so many at Amritsar. Gandhi endeavored to point this out not only to the Indians, but also to the British, and to use their own compassion against them. In this regard, Gandhi was not merely "lucky" that his opponents were compassionate people. He was perceptive first in seeing this despite much evidence to the contrary, and in formulating a long-range plan that would best work against such opponents. Had Gandhi's opponents been bloodthirsty, he most likely would not have succeeded. It is instructive to understand that had Gandhi adhered to the "eye-for-an-eye" principle many Indians wanted, then it would have allowed for "justification" on the part of the English; an "I told you so" attitude" that would have given them _carte blanche_ to break the Indian spirit by force.

Gandhi's contemporary, Nehru, cogently observed that Gandhi's greatest attribute was in teaching liberation from fear. The Brits had up-to-then relied on institutionalized fear to keep the Indians in line. The English had maintained the "jewel in the crown" of the empire despite being outnumbered 4,000 to one. Hitler appealed to aggressive elements of the mass unconscious. Gandhi appealed to man's nobility. This is not just an impressive political tactic, but one that generates a sigh of relief. After studying Machiavelli, Freud, Hitler and Stalin, one might be convinced of the frightful human craving for dominant leaders who tell them what to do because they are too timid to know better, or lack the courage to make their own decisions. The success of America, and the English transformation from a monarchy to parliamentarian power, might have been seen as indicators that the Machiavellian-Hitlerian vision is not entirely true. But the freedom of the U.S. and English people, up until Gandhi's India, was seen from a racial perspective. After all, the Americans and the English were free to make their choices because they were composed of educated whites. In India, many misconceptions about dark-skinned peoples were tossed away. In this Gandhi achieves perhaps his greatest accomplishment. His lasting legacy in India is actually mixed. He was assassinated and the country itself was split along religious lines, thrust into Civil War. But he made the world aware that "natives" were capable of compassion, restraint, thoughtfulness and self-rule.

Gandhi's political instincts were honed by his own religious values. He was a Hindu, and therefore an adherent to the Hindi vision of life outlined in an earlier chapter. At the core of his philosophy was _swaraj_ , meaning self-discipline. While this had been taught to 2,000 years of Hindu's, it was not necessarily a political concept. The Hindu's believed in one-on-one teaching that resulted in self-actualization. Gandhi incorporated these concepts into _mass_ instruction. This was necessary but difficult. Many Indians thought of self-rule as foreign. They preferred to be told what to do. In many ways this might have appeared to be examples of the Hitlerian vision of man. But Gandhi was determined to show this was not so.

_Swaraj_ is about self-mastery and personal understanding of ones' self and others. A person's individual journey is meant to be self-liberating. Indians needed to achieve this before they could hope to achieve political liberation. In this way, Gandhi was not merely a leader or a strategist. More than anything, he was a teacher. Gandhi had to get Indians to liberate themselves from their long-held concept of individual liberation and get them to think about non-exclusivity in their lives. Perhaps the famous term "no man is an island" is more apropos to what Gandhi taught his countrymen.

It is this teaching principle that Gandhi wanted to impart, not just to get the Indians liberated from the British, but in getting them to the point where they could rule themselves effectively. Tragically, he was shot and killed just when he was needed the most, as a teacher and a unifying symbol. It is a testament to his greatness that no charismatic replacements have come close to Gandhi since his death, while his nation slipped back into a funk. But he is a powerful force of nature, and hope springs eternal that India will find its way with Gandhi's spirit guiding them.

Gandhi also employed the concept of inclusivity that is called _satya_ , or _pursuit_ of the truth. The language is important here. Gandhi does not call for possession of the truth, but pursuit of it. Truth is not entirely possessed by humans. The highest truth we can know is that we are all part of one another. Note the difference from Hitler. He went by the "boot camp" approach, separating the unclean, the unworthy and the weak from the selected few, calling that few "all of us," directing them not to live in a world still littered with the unworthy, but to conquer it for their rightful selves.

Gandhi unnerved and disarmed the British by including them, not opposing them. He did this using _ahimsa_ , intertwined with _satya_ , which is the practice of non-violence. The highest truth is not the means, but the end. The means and the end are connected. This diverges even from American campaign theory. The Kennedy's were strong adherents of the idea that one had to attain power before they could use it wisely. Gandhi would say that how they attain power is just as important as the wise use of power.

Unfortunately, both Gandhi and the Kennedy's met a similar fate. Attaching much karmic significance to their diverging philosophies is futile. In nonviolence, Gandhi taught, man elicits the greatest force at the disposal of the human race. But his life, especially since it coincides with Hitler's, is a conundrum. When asked how he would have confronted Hitler, Gandhi is vague. Everybody knows he would have been killed in two seconds and his "movement" utterly destroyed. His fate would have been left in the hands of the U.S. and Great Britain, which of course were forced by no other choice to oust the likes of Hitler by using greater violence than Hitler. It is, in the study of this human conundrum, that we see the special strategy of the devil.

Gandhi no doubt would have opposed war to take out Saddam Hussein. So, probably, would Jesus Christ. The phrase the "devil is in the details" and "getting in bed with the devil" are very telling.

Gandhi believed that truth and nonviolence generated liberation called _satyagraha_ , which activates our energies for love and compassion, which are (hopefully) stronger than hate. The best way to describe _satyagraha_ is to remind people the way they felt when their children were born, or the day they proposed marriage. It is the way they felt when they were six and had been away at camp for two weeks, and after missing their parents so much saw them again. What _satyagraha_ does is to give people that kind of feeling about everybody, not just friends, relatives and loved ones. It has the power of complete substitution for hate. It is the essence of goodness, and it the most powerful force in the Universe.

Finally Gandhi endorsed _sarodaya_ , meaning equality. Gandhi endorsed a concept that, in the caste system as it had evolved in India, was not a state of equality. He felt that people voluntarily restricted their wants, and that people uplifted each other to unify humanity. He was not unlike the Bush family and their sense of _noblesse oblige_. Gandhi was a member of privileged society. He felt the obligation to extend his wealth, influence and place in a "socially constructive manner," according to Professor Dalton. He felt that the underprivileged would view the benevolence of the upper class and in turn feel the need to overcome their deprivation. Finally, Gandhi insisted on the Indians being treated as equals by the Brits. This was a tough nut to crack since even Winston Churchill referred to Gandhi himself as a "half-naked fakir."

Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbundar, in Gujurat province on India's west coast. He was assassinated in Delhi on January 30, 1948. Gandhi was shaped first by the region of his birth, which was provincial and not highly influenced by the British, as was Bombay or Calcutta. As a member of the _vaishya_ caste, he was third in the Hindu hierarchy, a "lowborn." The Gandhi's were a sub-caste of the _bania,_ the small business owners. In their case they ran a grocery. His people were known to practical. Gandhi's relatively low caste status helps explain why later, when he was the most powerful man in India, he emphasized equality for all.

His family was very religious. Gandhi's mother was one for vows, fasting and self-control. Gandhi had an oppressive view of sex, and identified with the _Harijans_ , or Untouchables. He attended Alfred High School, where he was schooled in English. He gained admiration as well as anxiety for the English. Obviously bright, Gandhi was sent to London where, from 1888-1891, he took law and spent his time "playing with the English gentlemen," as he put it in his simple-titled "Autobiography". Returning to India in 1891, Gandhi had high hopes, but did not achieve immediate success as an English-trained attorney. Upon hearing that lawyers were needed in South Africa, he left for that English colony in 1893.

This was an important part of his life. He was needed and found himself a man of influence among the Indian minority, as opposed to being just another Indian lawyer in India. There were 66,000 Indians in South Africa, most of whom were laborers. 570,000 British and Dutch ruled over them, and the 2 million Africans.

Gandhi was accorded political status, and utilized a liberal style in forming the moderate National Indian Congress. He petitioned Indian grievances in court, and became a darling of the _Indian Opinion_ newspaper, formed in 1903. Gandhi did everything within the law, using moderate legal and constitutional means at his disposal.

In June of 1906, the Zulus, a renowned warring tribe that had fought the British to a standstill in the Transvaal Province a few decades before, rebelled against English rule. Gandhi formed an ambulance corps to assist the British during the rugged Boar War. He saw first hand the English massacre of 3,500 Zulus.

Up until that time, Gandhi was an "emulator," a term used to describe educated Indians who chose to dress like the English, and take on their proper mannerisms. Gandhi broke from his emulative status gradually, first by testing himself with a vow of _brachmacharya_ , which is sexual abstinence. Young English males, separated from home, were encouraged to engage in libidinous adventures in the colonies that would be frowned upon at home. As an educated man of professional means, Gandhi lived in a society in which women were available to him. In denying himself he was making his first break with English ways.

"The experience of witnessing the outrages perpetrated on black bodies by white he-men aroused in Gandhi both a deeper identification with the maltreated, and a stronger aversion all male sadism, including such sexual sadism as he had probably felt from childhood on to be a part of all exploitation of women by men," wrote Erik Erickson in "Gandhi's Truth".

This alerted in Gandhi a deeper, crucial connection between three forms of exploitation: Imperialism, racism, and sexism. The "Black Act" was enacted in 1907, and in response Gandhi called a meeting of 3,000 Indians in Johannesburg. The movement took on the name _satyagraha_ , or truth-force, and set forth to passively resist the British by exposing truth. Arrests followed, but after seven years of continued campaigning, the government granted reforms in 1914.

As mentioned before, Gandhi's key moments came in close proximity to events that took up greater English concern. In 1914 the Brits were engaging in the saber rattling and eventual mobilization of forces against Germany that started the Great War. There was a pattern of giving in to Gandhi during times when the country had to focus on larger issues.

In 1909, Gandhi had visited England and during a five-month stay, lobbied Parliament. His arrival was not terribly welcome since he came shortly after a British official had been killed by an Indian terrorist. To put it into context, the English may have viewed Gandhi the way they viewed a member of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, in the 1970s. But Gandhi advocated peaceful measures that put the British at ease. He negotiated with British liberals and Indian terrorists.

Upon his return to South Africa, Gandhi drafted the treatise "Hind Swaraj" ("Indian Independence"). He rejected Western civilization and not only affirmed Hindu tradition, but preached it as superior. After the reforms that lessened the harshness of the Black Act (Indians were called Blacks), Gandhi was emboldened to move on. In 1915, while the English were fighting bloody battles in Europe, he returned to India. His advocacy of nonviolence contrasted against news of the war. Instead of fomenting a coalition, he was seen as disoriented and confounded by the war. He was an uneasy ally of Great Britain. The Germans and the Turks offered no friendship. Gandhi cooperated in India's participation in the war. The performance of Indian soldiers serving the Crown was honorable.

The effects of the war, economic and otherwise, created a sense of disillusionment with the movement and India's place in the Crown, despite England's victory. In 1919, events shaped Gandhi's path. The "Rowland Batts" were passed, giving the government jury trial power with no appeal. It was, in effect, Martial Law. The British gave themselves the right to detain anybody who "threatened public safety," was considered "dangerous," and virtually any offense or document was deemed seditious in nature. To possess such documents resulted in two-year prison sentences, followed by two-year probationary periods.

In March of 1919, Gandhi called for a nationwide _satyagraha_ in resistance to the Rowland law. After fasting for 24 hours, people were instructed to go on a general strike ( _hartal_ ), with specific instructions to make it civil and nonviolent. The following month in Amritsar (a city of 160,000, located in the northern Indian Punjab province), civil agitation led to crackdowns. On April 13, a British Indian army force of 50 riflemen, under the command of General Reginald Dyer, fired on 10,000 unarmed Indians, killing 400 and wounding 1,500. Dubbed the "Amritsar massacre," it was marked first by the shots, then Dyer's "crawling order." Dyer was praised in London, and the event marked the full turnaround in Gandhi's attitude toward the British. Because the killings were carried out by Indians, not British regulars, it solidified in his mind the idea that emulation of the British, for all their good qualities of honor and tradition, in the end was destructive to India. Gandhi began the practice of dressing in traditional Indian garb, and prepared for the next campaign. From 1919-22, the country engaged in massive nonviolence. This was the great consolidation of India, including all castes; Untouchables, Hindus, Muslims, emulators, and the like. Most important, Gandhi gained control of the nonviolent movement, which had been in a struggle with those who agitated for English blood after Amritsar. Gandhi now was completely inclusive, even inviting liberal Brits to his cause. He attracted the attention of the press, basing the movement on trust, tolerance and _active_ nonviolence.

This was a courageous step for Gandhi and for his followers, who not only abstained from violence, but also put themselves in harm's way by virtue of marches and strikes. This often incurred the wrath of British soldiers who used force to move them off the streets.

In 1930, Gandhi went on his "salt march," perhaps his greatest single achievement. It was dramatized in the Richard Attenborough classic "Gandhi", and in Joan Bondurant's "Conquest of Violence", in which she states "as for the elements of true _satyagraha_ , all are to be found in the salt _satyagraha._ " The march was widely publicized and drew into his orbit women and other traditionally non-political Indian groups. Studies of Emma Goldman have ascertained that she embodied a strain of society, which exists everywhere but manifests itself among the poor and the radical. These might otherwise be considered "professional protesters." Gandhi's "salt march" effectively ended discussion of his campaign as being of this variety, at least among the mainstream.

The "salt march" was an entirely symbolic gesture. One of England's most profitable exports was that of salt collected from the Indian Ocean, but the profits went to them as they considered this natural resource to be theirs exclusively. Gandhi said the salt was a product of Indian environment and therefore should belong, along with profits from its sale, to the people of India. The brilliance of his claim in part deflected talk of his being a Communist or a socialist. Gandhi did not disdain the capitalistic effects of salt sales. Rather, he was trying to get India involved in the trade. It was an inherently good thing, in many people's eyes, that India wanted to participate in the business of India, instead of simply playing the role of the servant, the welfare state, or the ignorant.

Gandhi spoke eloquently during of elevating British humanity above imperialism. He found a receptive audience in the United States, thanks to coverage of him by the _New York Times_. His revolutionary position in opposition to the English struck a cord with Americans, as did his call for equality. Furthermore, the Americans, now a world power after forcing the Great War to a victorious conclusion, were thinking geo-politically. They were engaged in "gunboat diplomacy" in China, where a nascent Communist revolution threatened business trade, and saw India as an important strategic country. In the endgame, the Americans wanted to stay on the good side of Gandhi should he prevail, although in 1930 it was far from a settled issue. But they were also naturally pre-disposed to opposing colonialism. World War I had expanded British colonial rule and American influence along with it, though. The Yanks were not about to press the issue.

In the 1930s and '40s, Gandhi drew women and disparate elements into his movement, including American reporters and the English, who he extended olive branches to. His constant mantra was that humanity be elevated above imperialism. As times changed, this resonated even with the English. Again, tragic events worked in Gandhi's favor. World War II took up all the effort and resources of the British Empire as they mounted a desperate, successful struggle to stop Hitler and Tojo. Unable to pay much attention to Indian politics, the English had little control over Gandhi. Gandhi did not give the English much help in their war effort. As a pacifist, he let others do the fighting for him and took advantage of them when their guard was down. By the time the great crusade against the Axis Powers was over, Britain was a shell of its old self/ They were unable to stop the tide of Indian independence, which came officially in 1947. No sooner had this occurred, than fighting erupted between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi decided to make a symbolic gesture that would make himself a martyr and a hero to his people. He went on a fast in Calcutta, in order to get the religious fighting to stop. Indians were killing themselves, and undoing all the peaceful good that Gandhi had stood for. The irony is that the British had kept their powder dry, for the most part, since 1919. Now, far more Indians were killing each other than the English ever would have. The "Great Calcutta Killing" was a bloody outburst that lasted throughout 1946 and '47. Gandhi's fast had the peaceful effect he desired in August of '47. It was the "greatest miracle of modern times," wrote British historian E.W.R. Lumby.

Unfortunately, Gandhi met the bullet of a Muslim assassin shortly thereafter. The two religions went back to fighting, and in almost no time, most of what Gandhi spent his life fighting for became, not relevant, but perverted by the ethnic strife, the civil war, the splitting up of Indian into Muslim Pakistan. 50-plus years of continued bloodshed and hatred followed. Gandhi is a revered figure and a great man, perhaps even too great to be contemplated by humans. But his greatness stands not in contrast with the British, who he fought against, but rather side by side with them. Gandhi _needed_ England, and England needed Gandhi. The two are partners in history. They uplifted each other in ways they could not do on their own. If Gandhi's "nemesis" had been some other country, he likely would have been killed and his movement squashed in infancy. By the same token, England discovered, in losing its empire, its soul. As they say, God works in mysterious ways.

Gandhi's philosophy is best described in the title of his one-volume collection of writings, "All Men Are Brothers". Through self-discipline, Gandhi was an example to his people, who exhibited a national self-restraint rarely seen in history. He strove to liberate India from Britain by eliminating from the Indians the _fear_ of the British. His work inspired many of his followers to stand up to English soldiers, sometimes taking physical beatings. He is the descendant of Plato and Rousseau, but took their work to a much higher level. They were mainly writers and teachers, but Gandhi was a "soldier," a politician, and a man who risked everything. He elevated political discourse to the concept of moral freedom. He did it not by attributing morality to the state, but rather instilling morality in individuals, including playing to the conscience of his "enemies." Gandhi fought not only for Indian freedom from the British, but for the freedom of Indian women within their own culture. While India remains a paternal culture, he did begin a tradition of women's liberation. His legacy includes Indira Gandhi, as well as a small handful of women leaders throughout the Middle East. Women are seen as subservient to men, but some exceptional women have been accorded special status that has allowed them to transcend gender roles. This is very much a part of Gandhi's legacy.

Gandhi's self-discovery is the self-discovery of an entire people, and in fact his journey is one the whole world took. His contrast to Hitler is so stark as to make him a symbol of conscience. In Gandhi, man sees somebody who makes us take a second look at ourselves and ask questions we never dared ask before. _Can the world live in peace? Can conflict be resolved peacefully?_ The answer to these questions may not be 100 percent yes, but it is more often yes now, because of Gandhi, than it was before him. It is important to note that Gandhi is an important figure whose life is taught in the U.S. All leaders in the most powerful nation on Earth are well aware of who he was and what he stood for. Gandhi may not be the prime influence in all decisions made by modern leaders, but his voice is one that is listened to and respected as part of the process.

Adolf Hitler, for all of his power and the armies at his disposal, has been relegated to a disgraced part of history. Gandhi, the man of the flowing robes who never hurt a fly, influences billions. This is as hopeful a fact as any that comes out of the 20th Century. It gives hope to the Christian concept that the lamb will in the end reign supreme. It is a powerful message of truth. Man is not an entirely evolved species. Violence is still very much a part of the way we do business, but the power of love has been shown to be more than just a specious phrase.

Gandhi showed that nonviolence is superior to violence. The force contained in emotions of love and compassion are stronger than those found in hatred, as Professor Dalton points out. Gandhi discovered that love manifested itself not just in action, but in a gentleness of the soul. That is, when man not only refrains from hatred, but does not _feel_ hatred, the veiled threat is replaced by spiritual satisfaction. While Gandhi was not a Christian, his teachings are very much like those of Jesus. He came to the world as if Heaven-sent, with words to soothe the savage breast of humanity at a time when Christ's message was not getting out. While Christianity is a beautiful religion, Gandhi the non-Christian is great evidence that it is not the only religion. The dull concept that only Christians can ascend to Heaven is leavened with stupidity when reflecting on Gandhi's life. Forgiveness by one God of all Mankind is at the heart of his message. No single _kind_ of man is better than another; not the richer more so than the poor, the white over the black, the smart over the dull. All men are equal and all men are worthy of love.

Gandhi freed himself and his adherents from selfishness and narrow interests, replacing that with inclusiveness. He believed in sharing, and his concepts of economic freedom differed from Locke and Rousseau. They felt that the dilemma of Democracy implied, as Professor Dalton writes, a tradeoff between freedom and equality. Gandhi said that equality could be attained through individual liberation, with all inclusive of one, and vice versa. Exclusivity was the enemy of freedom. Dominance and submission are the concepts that Gandhi abhorred. As mentioned earlier, perhaps in a strange twist, the Gandhi vision is found in such uniquely American organizations as the Rotary or the Lion's Club, where businesses that compete also include. By sharing resources they all lift each other. Gandhi's approach is found in American foreign policy, too. The U.S., despite the power to do so, has not taken up the mantel of British colonialism. Instead, they prefer to share power through trade and cooperation. Gandhi might not like the fact that we occasionally have to use force, but this does not change the fact it is necessary.

Gandhi's teachings were reflected in our own struggles with the Vietnam War. Martin Luther King employed Gandhi's methods in the civil rights struggle. King connected the war with civil rights in a way he envisioned Gandhi would have. Connectedness is the legacy of Gandhi.

CHAPTER SEVEN

CIVILIZATIONS AND CHRISTIANITY

" _Veni, vidi, vici"_ ("I came, I saw, I conquered.")

\- Julius Caesar, 46 B.C.

400,000 years before the birth of Christ, cave dwellers known as "Peking Man" roamed the Earth. They were capable of killing and cooking animals. They were the survivors of the Great Ice Age. 40,000 years ago, mysterious cults surrounded death and the hunt of animals. Scholars say these are man's first religious rituals. Mesolithic Man learned how to use bows made out of implements of tools and bone. Over time, climates warmed, and man was not forced to migrate as much. The formation of villages began. Artists depicted men and animals, creating early records of life on Earth. Farming became the basis of village life. Men learned how to make boats, which they used to sail and transport themselves.

From 4000 to 1750 B.C., the Sumerians worshipped at temples such as the one at Khasfadie. They created "sacred towers" called Ziggurats, and offered sacrifices to the gods. The earliest signs of writing have been found on Sumerian tablets. Their crafts were detailed and beautiful. Sargon was an early ruler. He was known as Ruler of the Akkadians. Much turmoil existed; power struggles and in fighting. The result was the Code of Hammurabai, which came about after consolidation of Sumer, Akkad and Babylonia under a single military chieftain around 1790 B.C.

The Hittites made Hattusas, a fortified city, their capital. They were rough tribesmen who built as kingdom that lasted from 1750 B.C. to 700 B.C. Under Ramesses II, the Egyptians decided to force the Hittites out of Syria in 1286 B.C. The Hittites fought a major battle with the Egyptians, defeating them in the Battle of Kadesh. But in a great example of the power of misinformation, the Egyptians claimed victory, which they used to consolidate allies. A treaty was forged.

The Egyptians were the best of the early politicians and coalition-builders. They developed a great empire. They made the most of skilled artisans from among conquered populations. They built boats and wonderous engineering achievements. King Khufu decided that he wanted a tomb to surpass all others, and the building of the Great Pyramids began. By 2200 B.C., Egypt had entered a period of upheaval, and the pyramids were robbed and went into disrepair.

Hyksos invaders came south from Syria and Palestine, and they introduced the horse to Egypt. Around 1600 B.C., Kamose of Thebes organized a revolt against the Hyksos, and in an amphibious invasion on the Nile River, wiped out the Hyksos strongholds, freeing Egypt. Led by Thutmose III, the Egyptians attacked the Syrians in the Battle of Megiddo. After defeating the enemy, in a lesson that too many successors failed to learn, Thutmose III did not slaughter or enslave his enemies. Instead he consolidated them into his empire. Fighting erupted throughout Asia, and Egypt got richer.

Egypt went through the age of the Pharoahs, but when iron came into use among people in the empire, Egypt lost power because the country did not produce any. In essence, their empire crumbled for economic reasons.

Abraham was a native of Sumer. He was a Hebrew, one of many tribes of Semites said to have descended from Shem. He was the son of Noah, said to have been saved from a flood when God told him to build an arc. Abraham rejected the concept of multiple gods. He felt he was in the presence of "one God." The sons of Abraham made a long journey into the Land of Canaan. Nomadic Semite tribes began roaming the desert in 3000 B.C., but when they landed in Goshen, in the eastern Nile Delta, they came under the rule of the Egyptians. A Hebrew named Moses had been orphaned and raised as an Egyptian prince. When he examined his circumstances and that of the enslaved Hebrews, Moses felt kinship with them. He heard the word of God, and led the Hebrews on a long exodus from Egypt.

The Hebrews wandered in the Sinai Desert for many years. They were forced to become a warring tribe because they had to fight to survive. Joshua, a student of Moses, became a successful general. After crossing the Jordan River, he led the Hebrews, who called themselves Israelites because that was the Promised Land God told Moses to lead them to, in a victorious assault against the fortress of Jericho. They were encouraged by this victory and went on to fight many more battles, finally meeting their match against the powerful Philistines. A young Israelite named David organized the effort that drove the Philistines out of Jerusalem. David was a successful and erudite king. His son Absalom attempted to wrest power from him, but was killed in the revolt. His other son, Solomon, was loyal and ascended as rightful heir to the throne. He built a mighty economic kingdom.

Over five centuries in Canaan, the Israelites did not practice the teachings of Moses, which had come down to them on a stone tablet called the Ten Commandments. But they did maintain Abraham's concept of "one God," or "Yahweh." Their religious views separated them from the other tribes. In 597 B.C., the Babylonians, who had taken over the Assyrian Empire under King Nebuchadnezzar, captured Jerusalem. The Israelites had failed to pay heed to the voices of hate and dissent over their religion until was too late.

The Israelites, now under Babylonian rule in their homeland, decided that they had broken faith with Moses and were paying for this now. Jewish scholars emerged and attempted to memorialize the teachings of Moses and to make a historical record of various prophets over the centuries. The result was The Torah, the Jewish Bible. Over time it would become the Old Testament.

The Assyrians rose from 1600 to 539 B.C. They were known as the Warrior Kings. They built a wondrous city, Babylon, with marvelous sights such as the Gates of Ishtar. Babylon was the final capital of the Mesopotamian civilization, but the city fell to tribes from east, the Medes and the Persians. They were descended from Aryan peoples, horsemen who settled in the valleys and mountains of Iran.

When Cyrus conquered Babylon, he freed the Jews and orchestrated their safe return to Jerusalem. A Persian, he was able to coalesce the old Babylonian Empire under his control, but allowed the people to keep their own gods, customs and local governments. His successors, however, were severe. Darius eventually claimed the throne and put down rebellion. Known as the King of Kings, Darius built citadels and palaces in his honor. The Persians controlled Greece, and the Greeks were not willing to be put down as other subjects in the Persian Empire had.

When Darius sent Persian forces to Greece to exact a final putdown that would place them under strict control, the Greeks fought back, proving themselves to be great fighters and smart tacticians. In a war that began in 480 B.C., the Greeks defeated the Persians in a naval battle, forcing their defeat. Alexander then attempted to bring Persia under the umbrella of a Greek empire, but instead the Persian world was divided among generals.

This is an important part of the historical record. The Greeks were a Democratic people. Had Alexander's dream of a united Greek/Persian empire been realized, perhaps a lasting peace would have settled in the Middle East. Instead, various warlords took over feuding tribes. The culture of violence has never really left the region.

India became a civilized culture over a 3000-year period prior to the birth of Christ. Hinduism rose in India around 1000 B.C., and in 560 B.C. a young man known as the "Enlightened One" began to question Hinduism. Known as Buddha, it was said that he was the product of some 500 reincarnations, and that each of these lives had taught the Buddha the meaning of life. While the Hindus and the Buddhists differed, a sense of brotherly love lay at the heart of both religions.

China's history dates back to 4000 B.C. Rival chieftains, dynasties and warlords controlled the vast territories. In 770 B.C., an alliance of rebellious states took the Chou capital, forcing a settlement. Feudal chiefs held the real power. The Chou king was used as a figurehead by various political factions, but then a young man named Kung Fu-Tze, born in 550 B.C., entered the scene. Born into a poor family, the man came to be known as Confucius. He spoke of the problems in Chinese society.

A wise man, he was employed in the government, but dismissed because he did not take orders and built a following of his own. He began to preach to anybody who would listen. His message made sense: _Never do anything to others that you would not want done to yourself._

From 600 to 300 B.C., various great religions conflicted with each other, among them Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Judaism. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle tried to make sense of all the elements of philosophy espoused by these religions. The Chinese built a Great Wall to keep invaders out. When Hun invaders attacked, a period of conflict ensued in which it appeared that China would collapse. What saved the country was the gentry of landowners and noble families who were invested in the country and had the most to lose. The gentry, through marriages, schools and cultural institutions, managed to save Chinese society from the varying influences that threatened it. The lesson of China, unknown to many, is that private property and conservative politics is the glue of national pride.

The rise and fall of the Roman Empire

The city of Rome began as six farming villages. Over time, the citizens of Rome became known as educated people. They were interested in public affairs and well conditioned in athletic endeavors. A Republican form of government came to power, but barbarians such as the fierce Gauls had swept down from the Po Valley. In 390 B.C., the Gauls took Etruria and then invaded Rome. The Gauls failed, and the result was that the Roman leader, Publius, became a powerful leader. Certain Roman ideals emerged from the effort at thwarting the Gauls. Military service in the legions of Rome and Italy became a noble cause. In an effort to prevent future attacks from Barbarians, the legions were sent out to attack potential enemies before they could become powerful enough to march on Rome.

About 350 B.C., the Samnites, savage tribesmen who held the mountains that ran south along the peninsula, attacked their kinsmen in the lowlands. The threat to Rome caused the legion to take on the march out of the city. Their ensuing battle won for the Romans the great plains of Campania, which included a wealthy city, Capua. The Latins saw the spread of Roman strength. Even though they had been friends, they now saw the Romans as a threat. A war broke out, and when the legions defeated them, the Latins were forced to join the legion. In the mean time, a Senate was formed in Rome where Patricians debated city laws. In the ensuing years, the Romans expanded their armies. In 312 B.C., the senator Appius Claudius Caecus built a highway called the Appian Way. The Romans were great engineers. They built more roads, bridges and aqueducts. It was this that furthered their ability to travel and communicate, the keys to empire building.

In 280 B.C., the Greeks formed an army to meet the legion, led by General Pyrrhus. He sailed to southern Italy to fight the Romans and set up a western empire of their own. Known as the Eagle, Pyrrhus met the Romans and defeated them on the plains. But in victory, he lost most of his army. He was unable to hold the territory he had gained. Knowing that further warfare would rout his army, he was forced to retreat after his "Pyrrhic Victory." He did return in 275 B.C., but the legions were too strong and they repelled him. His loss left Rome free to expand their empire to Carthage. Soon, it was "all roads lead to Rome."

A pivotal year in the empire was 264 B.C., when a debate ensued in the assembly to ask whether they should, in essence, be a people of peace or a people of war. They decided, for all practical purposes, to be a people of war. Greed and a sense of Manifest Destiny dictated this. Their next move was to form a navy. The Empire had been in constant struggle with a truly barbarous army from Carthage, in northern Africa. The Carthaginians worshipped Baal, a cruel god who was embodied by a bronze statue in the city center. A fire burned in a hole under the statue. Human sacrifices were fed to it.

The Carthaginians had taken control of the Mediterranean between Sicily and the African coast, with colonies dotting Spain, North Africa and Gaul. The Romans devised drawbridges, which were new inventions, and sailed to Carthage. The ships effected Rome's successful amphibious invasion, but the Carthaginians were bold counter-attackers. Through attrition and surprise, the Carthaginians managed to sink the fleet, leaving the Romans stranded in enemy territory. They were miserably beaten, and the Carthaginians then sailed to the Italian coast, where they sacked harbors and villages.

But like the "Pyrrhic victory," Rome managed to turn defeat into advantage. They were a wealthy country, and over time the Carthaginians were unable to sustain their military adventures.

Hannibal was a lifelong Carthaginian soldier who had gone with his father on campaigns against the Spaniards. He became a commander at 26, and immediately began a plan against Rome. Realizing that the battle for the seas was a losing one, he devised what, up to that time, was the boldest military strategy of all time. The Romans were prepared to defend a sea invasion. Hannibal led his armies through the Pyrenees Mountains at the top of Spain, then west across Gaul, and over the Alps into northern Italy. By 218 B.C., he was ready, and from Spain he descended on 40,000 Spaniards with Numidian horsemen, routing them.

Word reached Rome. They sent an army to meet him at Gaul, but Hannibal by-passed them, risking envelopment in favor of a lightning attack on Rome. He left behind just enough troops to be sacrificed in Gaul, keeping the Romans busy there. The trip across the Alps was brilliant but dangerous. Hannibal brought elephants, and had to cross steep ravines in freezing weather. His leadership and inspiration was legendary, and he managed to lead his frozen, starved men across the mountains. In September, he reached the Po Valley. The lessons of Hannibal have been taught to military commanders for centuries, and his ghost no doubt whispered in the ear of General MacArthur during the invasion of Inchon. 14,000 of his 40,000 men had died, and Rome had 770,000 citizens, soldiers and allies. The Romans, however, were outflanked and defeated by Carthaginian troops using elephants as protective battering rams.

For years, Roman armies sent to the plains were defeated by Hannibal, but in the end Hannibal fell victim to the same fate as Pyrrhus and other armies who won individual battles with the legion, but could not win an entire war. His plan had been based on getting to Rome and surprising them with their pants down. The Romans had built roads and a system of communications that had allowed them to learn of the Carthaginian advances in time. Hannibal had been unable to bring with him the heavy artillery necessary to capture a fortified city.

Hannibal was allowed to roam the countryside, but Rome was the prize. The entire purpose of the invasion was centered on capturing Rome. The Romans changed their strategy to one of attrition, choosing not to send legions into battle with the Carthaginians, only to be defeated. So, they let time become their ally. But Hannibal was a dogged commander, and the Romans grew tired of his threat. 54,000 legionnaires marched to Canae, but Hannibal changed strategy. So brilliant was Hannibal that he knew when the dust storms would hit the plain, made worse by the churning of thousands of cavalry and infantry, mixed with the low afternoon sun. He drew the legion into the middle, and when the dust mixed with the sun encircled them and broke the confused Romans in a deadly vice.

In the wake of the victory, Hannibal then made peace with surrounding towns, turning them into reluctant allies in the wealthy Syracuse region. The lessons of Syracuse would be learned well by George Patton, who understood during World War II that if Syracuse fell, all of Italy fell.

Instead of taking on Hannibal again, the Romans reverted to their attrition strategy while waging guerrilla tactics on cities that had fallen under Carthaginian sway. Hannibal marched to the gates of Rome, but his old problem was still his problem. He lacked the artillery to mount a city attack, and eventually marched south. In retrospect, Hannibal should have consolidated the territory and the population of the regions he controlled, creating reinforcements of larger numbers, taking advantage of the natural resources, plundering for war supplies, and creating technological units that could invent war machines to be used against Rome. But Rome always had the advantage because of their system of roads, which allowed them to move from town to town disrupting Hannibal's political unity.

Time did eventually favor the Romans. Using hit-and-run tactics, they eventually re-captured the cities, including Syracuse and Capua in 211 B.C. Hannibal made his way out of the area, winner of countless impressive victories, but devoid of the big prize. There are few military campaigns that carry more lessons than the war between Carthage and Rome on the plains outside Rome.

Forced to retreat, Hannibal was met by four Roman Legions in the Alps, and was beaten. His remaining troops made it to Spain. Rome then put a young commander named Scipio in charge of the legion. Scipio's plan would make Rome a world empire. Scipio's father and uncle had died fighting Hannibal, and Scipio wanted revenge. He was convinced that the Carthaginians were depleted in retreat. The Spanish population was naturally pre-disposed to Rome as opposed to the North Africans. Scipio led his legions into Spain, where they gathered Spanish forces to join with them. With momentum on his side, fighting on neutral turf, Scipio's forces drove the Carthaginians to the sea.

Now Rome controlled Spain, but they were not through. The African Continent held riches in human and natural resources, and they wanted it. They had made the decision to be a warring people, and had survived against Hannibal, the strongest commander ever known. In 204 B.C., Scipio invaded Carthage. Hannibal had been held back in Spain. He was now sent back to his homeland to defend its very existence. At Zama, Hannibal again faced the Romans, who had been defeating all Carthaginian forces they faced in North Africa. All of the lessons of previous losses had been learned by Scipio. With the tide turned, he slaughtered the Carthaginians.

The Romans took political control of the region. Hannibal went home and was protected by his people, but Rome ordered him turned over. Carthage fled to Syria, but Rome captured that territory. Hannibal, with no place to turn, killed himself in 195 B.C. Scipio was honored by Rome as Scipio Africanus.

Carthage stayed under siege and the Romans refused to let them off the hook, eventually sacking the city and enslaving the population. Africa became a Roman province. They demolished Greece in 146 B.C. The Romans controlled Spain and much of Gaul, then expanded their empire to Asia and Egypt. From 130-70 B.C., Rome addressed corruption, led by Marcus Tullius Cicero, who had collected evidence of bribes during the trial of an aristocratic senator, Caius Verres. Now a military and economic power, Rome attempted to create a Republic that would serve the people and reign in the plunder that came with conquering foreign lands. A debate ensued regarding the use of slaves. The influence of Greek political thinkers spread to Rome. But two things worked against true Democracy taking root in Rome. For one, the people were hungry for violence and lust. Hedonism spread among the ruling class. Wild orgies and drinking parties served to hinder the moral authority of the rulers. Chariot races and gladiator games thrilled large crowds. Slaves were brought in and forced to fight to their bloody deaths.

The other thing was that the Roman Senate developed a loathing for the people they were supposed to serve. They picked up the Greek phrase, deriding their constituents as "mobs." The empire enjoyed too much power, too many spoils of war, and their aristocracy was too corrupt. They were exempt from laws, and acts of wanton sex and wild parties were available. No dominant religion held sway over Rome to provide a moral template for the leaders. Various military leaders developed private armies. Intrigues of deceit worked against a coherent ruling order. His enemies forced one Roman consul, Sulla, into exile, but he formed an army and won victories outside of Rome. His rival, Marius, died and Sulla returned to Rome. He exacted brutal revenge on his adversaries. He also raised money by extorting the rich, accusing them of trumped-up crimes and demanding payment for their freedom, then killing them anyway. Sulla strengthened the Senate, but not to the advantage of the people.

When Sulla died in 79 B.C., Rome entered an important phase in its history. A man named Crassus discovered a way to become rich. As head of the fire department, he found the buildings of rich people, lit fires to them on either side, and offered to "buy" the building from the rich men for low prices. He would have made a good baseball general manager, picking up top free agents-to-be in "trades" with clubs who knew they would lose them at season's end and wanted something in return.

Crassus would then bring his slave fire department in to save the buildings. In the he end would rent the buildings back to the former owners. Crassus, a military commander under Sulla, was called to service when Spartacus led a slave revolt of gladiators and soldiers from armies defeated by Rome. The men were homeless, looking for a cause and sweet revenge. Crassus achieved heroic status when he formed an army that met Spartacus' forces outside of Rome and destroyed them.

In the mean time, another commander, Pompey, was winning victories in Asia Minor. A natural rivalry developed. It became obvious that at some point Crassus and Pompey would vie for the same crown, which was to be Roman leader. Pompey was so successful that he brought to Rome plundered riches worth a staggering $36 million. But Pompey had been an outsider, and despite his victories the Senate did not anoint him full power. Crassus was not given it, either. His put-down of the slave revolt was considered necessary, but not heroic. It was time for somebody new to emerge as the leader. His name was Julius Caesar. Caesar was a young officer under Pompey, from a politically connected family. Caesar had been out of favor with Sulla, which played to his strength upon the death of the hated Sulla. He had military guile and educated himself on tactics and diplomacy, but he was not of a warrior's mindset. Caesar had a soft side, which drew people to him.

In 68 B.C., Caesar earned his spurs as an officer in Spain. Upon his return he and Crassus formed an alliance of convenience that combined Crassus' money with Caesar's public popularity. Caesar managed to diplomatically create a power-sharing plan between himself, Crassus and Pompey. The Senate lost power and was replaced by what was called the First Triumvirate. In 59 B.C., Caesar was elected consul and then commanded a five-year military campaign in Gaul. He pushed the enemy into the English Channel. Caesar then crossed the Channel and added half of Britain to the empire, an enormous coup. His exploits were widely hailed, and in Rome, Pompey and Crassus stewed. Pompey came to be seen as a politician, which was not as powerful as a military commander like Caesar. Crassus attempted to gain military status on a par with Caesar. He mounted a campaign to the east, but became bogged down with problems. After being caught flat-footed by barbarians, he was murdered after thousands of his men died needlessly.

Now there were two rivals. Pompey controlled domestic politics, having been in Rome all the while. Caesar had taken half of Europe for Rome and, worse for Pompey, Rome was in turmoil, beset by street crime. Pompey convinced the Senate that Caesar was out to take their power away. He positioned himself as Rome's defender. But Caesar had the backing of his legions. Caesar was ordered to appear before the Senate, but to leave his legions behind. He marched to the Rubicon, the river marking the boundary between Gaul (where Caesar had control) and Italy. His lieutenant, Marc Antony, acted as his go-between with Rome. Caesar reasoned that if he came to Rome unprotected, Pompey would arrest him. Pompey had calculated using a weak hand. He had no army to match Caesar should Caesar march on Rome. Caesar ordered the legion to cross the Rubicon. When Pompey heard, he and his Senate colleagues fled.

Now it was a full civil war. Caesar consolidated full Roman power and left an army to protect Rome. He took off for Spain to eliminate Pompey once and for all. Pompey had formed legions along with Greek and Macedonian cavalry, but they were no match for Caesar's army. Pompey was forced to flee into exile in Egypt, but the Egyptians betrayed him. He was murdered, rather than making himself and his host a target of Caesar's legions. Caesar was unaware of Pompey's fate, though. He decided to pursue him in Egypt.

This led him right into a family feud. In 48 B.C. he arrived in Egypt and discovered that Pompey's death had been ordered by 13-year old Ptolemy, who shared the throne with his 20-year old sister, Cleopatra. Cleopatra aggravated the ruling class in Alexandria with her brashness and blatant sexuality. She lost a power struggle with her brother and was ordered out of Alexandria – just as Caesar was arriving. What timing!

Cleopatra performed some bedroom gymnastics that disarmed Caesar in ways Crassus' and Pompey's armies and political factions never could. He agreed to help her take back the throne. Caesar's men marched to the palace, took Ptolemy prisoner, and held siege. The Egyptians surrounded the palace. Then reinforcements arrived from Asia Minor, and the Egyptians were put down. Cleopatra's charms had gotten the best of him, and would prove costly. He had used men and taken too much time dealing with Egyptian politics. Adding Egypt to the empire was not worth losing power in Rome. Barbarians who defeated Crassus were in provinces in Asia, now depleted by forces that had come to aid in Cleopatra's struggle.

Meanwhile, Pompey's sons had taken Africa. Caesar wanted to return to Rome, but Cleopatra just kept turning on the charm. He kept the man in Alexandria throughout the Winter. In the Spring, he at last departed for Asia. Over the next months he restored order in Asia, then in Africa. In 46 B.C. he returned to Rome.

He was a conquering hero, having won great conquests in Gaul, Africa, Egypt and Asia, while defeating domestic opposition from Crassus and Pompey. At his victory procession, he said _"Veni, vidi, vici"_ – "I came, I saw, I conquered."

Caesar then proved to be a fair leader of Rome. He pardoned old foes, fed the poor, provided land for veterans of campaigns, and was highly popular. He also declared himself Dictator for Life. Nobody in the Senate dared vote against him. They even offered to make him King, but he said he wanted to preserve the Republic. This proved to be a conundrum. He ruled benevolently, but could not be replaced. His great popularity was a threat to the other Senators. There were still remnants of the old rivalries.

Gaius Cassius, an old officer under Pompey, was spiteful towards Caesar, plotting against him. He approached Senator Marcus Junius Brutus, a thoughtful and honest man whose family had fought to rid Rome of the old Etruscan kings. Brutus thought a plot against Caesar to be ridiculous. Cassius persisted and found his ear by comparing Caesar and his Dictator for Life title to the Etruscan tyrants. Brutus' reputation for honesty won the day. He gathered conspirators, convincing all that Caesar was too power-hungry.

Caesar's wife, Calpurnia, had a vision of the plot and warned her husband to "beware the Ides of March." On March 15, 44 B.C., Caesar ignored her and a soothsayer, who warned of bad omens, and arrived at the Senate. On the steps of the Senate, the conspirators stabbed him. Caesar, mortally wounded, recognized Brutus, his trusted friend, a man of honesty.

" _Et tu, Brute?"_ he cried ("You too, Brutus?"). He was dead.

The aftermath of Caesar's death was typical of the in fighting, treachery and political machinations of Roman times. The senators gathered cautiously to discuss his death with Marc Antony, Caesar's second-in-command. Marc Antony asked only that Caesar be given a proper public funeral. His assassins were at first relieved that the request was so modest. But Marc Antony knew public emotion well. He understood the love that the people had for Caesar. When Caesar's body was displayed, he was wearing the bloody robe he had worn at the time of his killing. This aroused great passion, and the crowd turned into the proverbial mob. The crowd then turned on Brutus and his conspirators. Eventually they were forced to flee, leaving Rome in the hands of Cicero while Marc Antony was positioned to rise in power.

Marc Antony was not Caesar's handpicked heir to the throne, but his public position after his death changed his situation. Cicero decided to play his hand. He sided with Caesar Octavius, Caesar's 18-year old nephew and sole heir, against Marc Antony. Caesar Octavius spurned Marc Antony's efforts at power sharing. Cicero underestimated Octavius' skill. Octavius earned the loyalty of a large army. Cicero made it plain that he was using Octavius and would then push him aside. Octavius made a power play and had Cicero killed.

Marc Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Julius Caesar's old Master of the Horse, had been given command of legions in the West. Brutus and Cassius had armies in the East. Octavius consolidated them along with Marc Antony and Lepidus in a war against Brutus and Cassius. In 42 B.C., the Senate elected them the second "Triumvirs of Rome." They set out to destroy Julius Caesar's murderers. At Philippi, in Macedonia, Octavius earned his spurs in a winning battle. Antony's forces also were victorious. Brutus and Cassius both committed suicide to avoid capture. In Rome, Cicero was executed.

The Second Triumvirate had the same problems as the first. Lepidus was weak. Antony and Octavius were rivals. Antony went on campaign in Asia, leaving his personal secret police to stir up trouble. It was during this campaign that Antony ran into the great _femme fatale_ of history, Cleopatra. He would fall for her just as Julius Caesar had.

At this point, a study of the Roman Empire begins to reveal some important lessons. Rome accorded great power to her military heroes, but in order to maintain power, one had to build coalitions in Rome. Unfortunately, military heroes spent half their time on campaign in distant provinces or unconquered territories. When gone their rivals operated against them. Legions tended to stay loyal to commanders, rather than a central government. Various leaders would make their move when they thought enough force was amassed. This caused the constant turmoil and upheaval of Roman leadership. It required absolute loyalty from commanders to Caesar, but too often Caesar was the commander, leaving somebody to seek power back home.

It was in understanding of this problem that Alexander Hamilton brilliantly helped to devise the concept of our modern governmental power-sharing arrangement. Hamilton called for a strong military that was beholden to civilian control that operated centrally, instead of a kind of traveling government led by a President who went on campaign. Had Abe Lincoln been forced to leave Washington during the Civil War to lead the Union troops, the Federal government might have been broken up or even splintered by Confederates in Washington, taking advantage of his absence.

Considering what kind of power Cleopatra had over powerful men, one can only imagine her sexual abilities. She met Antony on her luxurious barge after Philippi. She had considered several potential mates, all with an eye to a political position that would make her Queen of the East or even the Mediterranean. Caesar, choice number one, was dead. Pompey's son was happy to fall under her spell, but he lacked the power she wanted. In Antony, she saw her ticket to power. She met Antony in a scene straight out of an elaborate, high-ticket pornographic movie, complete with sexual children fanning her and maids dressed like sea nymphs. She luxuriated on her bed like Venus, her fine, tanned body writhing as if craving great pleasure. Antony was done. He forgot about campaigning and spent all his time pleasuring Cleopatra.

Back in Rome, Octavius had no Cleopatra's to divert him from his purpose. When new wars broke out in Asia, Antony asked Octavius to send troops. Octavius knew he could weaken Antony by denying the request. Antony returned to Rome. Again an agreement was reached, to split the world amongst the three leaders. A political marriage was arranged, between Antony and Octavia, the sister of Octavius. Various campaigns ensued. Octavius made his move, attacking and taking over Lepidus' armies. At this point, Antony could have met Octavius in a major battle for all of the empire. Instead he heard the siren song of Cleopatra. He sent Octavia back to Rome and returned to Alexandria. Cleopatra made him King of Egypt. A plot was hatched to bring much of the empire under their joint control. When news reached Italy, of Antony's plans and the shunning of his sister, Antony was declared an enemy of Rome. A final battle was set upon. In 31 B.C., forces of Octavius met Antony's navy at Actium in Greece. 1,000 ships and 80,000 legionnaires engaged in the pivotal struggle. Antony had lost the grip on his men. Years of loving amongst the Egyptians had left them wondering about their strange ways. They were convinced that Antony had fallen under a spell from the bewitching Egyptian beauty. Octavius won the day while many of Antony's men refused to fight their fellow countrymen. Antony evaded capture. Cleopatra managed to break through a line to escape, too. They returned, defeated, to Alexandria, trailed by Octavius' armies.

In 30 B.C., Octavius marched around the Aegean, through Asia Minor and into Egypt. When the Romans appeared on the horizon, Antony's few soldiers surrendered. Then word came of Cleopatra's death. Antony went off by himself and committed suicide. But word of her death was false. Cleopatra instead went to her palace, anointed herself with oils, prepared to welcome Octavius as her new lover. Her charms did not work on the younger man. When she realized that she could no longer sleep her way to the top, and instead was to be taken as a prisoner of war, she had her priests bring a poisonous snake to her. She let the snake bite her, and soon she was really dead.

Octavius now held full power at the age of 32. Egypt was under Roman control, but it was a time to make peace after years of campaigns, in fighting and civil wars pitting Romans against Romans. Octavius was named Octavius Augustus, a name granted to the gods. He set out to re-build Rome. Aristocrats lived off the riches of the empire. Great wealth poured in to the city from the captured territories. The pursuit of sex became the favorite pastime of the rich. But Augustus was a man of discipline, as evidenced by his spurning of Cleopatra. He chose to live and rule not as a god but as a man. He toned down the hedonism of society. He also sent his legions to the frontiers not to make war, but to build societies and create an environment for strong economies and trade.

Again, the lessons of Rome are explored. Because Rome was a Republic, but not a Democracy, they were still ruled by emperors. Octavius Augustus turned out to be a good one, but this was the result of chance and struggle. Emperors still could name their successors, instead of having power passed on by vote or some more reasonable manner. Augustus chose to pass power to his stepson, Tiberius. Tiberius was a typical rich kid, born to power, elevated to without merit. He was contemptuous and stingy, had little use for the people, and considered the Senate "slaves" instead of letting them think they controlled Rome. A Brutus-style plot was formed but Tiberius' Praetorian Guards protected him.

In the provinces, however, only his policies and not his personality were known. He was loved because he made fair laws based on creating economic opportunity. But Tiberius died suddenly. His great-grandson, the infamous Caligula, replaced him. History cannot confirm it, but Caligula probably murdered Tiberius.

Caligula was criminally insane. He enjoyed killing for pleasure, and went on a wild, murderous spree of blood, sex and madness. Finally, his own guards turned on him and killed him during the gladiatorial games. The soldiers then marched to the palace and found his uncle, Claudius, waiting to be killed. But the soldiers knew Claudius was a sensible man who had no control over his nephew. In an act of semi-Democracy, they anointed Claudius Emperor. For a while, Claudius ruled wisely, listening to the advice of Greek advisors he had brought in to his council. But he had four wives. One of them, Agrippina, was hell on Earth. She had a son named Nero. She hen-pecked Claudius into naming Nero his heir. Once that was done, she fed Claudius poison. Nero was emperor.

Nero and Caligula were cut out of the same cloth. Nero turned Rome, literally, into a circus. His mother knew she was targeted for assassination, and avoided four attempts. It finally took a direct military attack to kill her. In the Summer of 64 A.D., Nero may or may not have started a fire that nearly burned down the entire city. Nobody knows for sure. Nero played the fiddle while his city burned. Gossip that he had caused the fire in order to re-build the city with buildings and statues that honored him ran rampant. Annoyed at the gossip, Nero needed a scapegoat. He chose the Christians, a new and troublesome religious group. Their leader, called Christus, had been put to death during Tiberius' rule. His death only spurred the spread of the religion.

Nero had the Christians rounded up, condemned them for setting the fire, and had them killed by wild animals at the Colloseum. The people quickly realized the Christians were innocent. Their deaths served to martyr them and helped the religion spread further. Nero decided to leave the city to avoid the criticism. He went to Greece where he ordered them to hold the Olympic Games that had become part of their tradition. When he returned, Rome was filled with plots against him. He could not fend off all of them. Eventually forced to run for his life, he killed himself before capture. No more Caesars were selected. Plagues and uncertainty haunted Rome for many years, during such time as a succession of leaders, either unlucky or unworthy, ran the empire.

By 117 A.D., however, the empire was weak in Rome but strong throughout the world, which included Spain, Syria and Britain. The Emperor was now Hadrian, a soldier-statesman. He set out to visit the provinces. By this time, peace, roads and methods of transportation made travel safe. Romans were free to visit as tourists the exotic locales of the world. Hadrian built more roads and beautiful edifices. 65 to 100 million people were under his rule. He held their loyalty not by military action, but through the influence of ideas: Architecture, music, art, and government. This period lasted until 167, when barbaric Germanic tribes poured into Italy. Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor by this time, left on campaign to stop the hordes, leaving Rome under the charge of his son, Commodus. Commodus was straight out of the Caligula-Nero mold; a braggart, a coward, cruel to the core. He learned gladiatorial skills, and fought in the games, but always against lesser opponents in fixed matches that left no doubt that he would win. He became Emperor, but was eventually assassinated by his wrestling teacher at the order of the Praetorian Guard.

The end of the empire did not occur quickly. The Roman Empire lasted until 476. In an effort to keep all the power from being consolidated by a single, bad emperor like Commodus, Nero or Caligula, they experimented with various systems, such as the appointment of four Caesars, each with an army behind him. Nothing really worked. The Senate did not possess real power. The Caesars were not accountable. When one proved to be incompetent, he could not be removed through a peaceful process. Rule over Rome was simply too heady for a man to accept as public duty.

In 284, Diocletian survived a typical power struggle and ascended to the throne, holding it for 20 years. His legacy lasted an additional 80. Diocletian knew how to hold power, but at the expense of the people. He turned Rome and much of the empire into a virtual military state, conscripting young men and imposing draconian laws that hurt the economy. Eventually, the Diocletian empire went to Constantine, one of the most important men in world history.

Constantine was a military commander right out of the Diocletian school, which is to say he was ruthless and Spartan. But on the night before great victory, he had a vision in the sky. It was a glowing cross shown in the Heavens along with the words, _"In hoc signo vinces"_ – "By this sign, you will conquer." Constantine took this as Christ's sign that he had been chosen to rule Rome. For years, Roman Emperors adorned themselves, or had the Senate adorn them, with the title Augustus. It gave them god-like status. Constantine now had a great weight lifted from his shoulders. He was _not_ a god. All he had to do was obey the one true God.

Suddenly, Christianity, the growing threat to so many emperors, whose disciples had been fed to the lions, was the official religion of the Roman Empire. It was a victory for the lamb of God. The government that had killed the Son of God now worshipped Him. It changed everything. For one thing, the people liked the idea that a divinity had chosen the leader, instead of a bloody general defeating another bloody general and then calling himself a god. Of course, Christ would be misused. For he next 1,400 years, European kings would claim their thrones as "divine right," but an important threshold had been crossed.

The virtually overnight conversion of the Roman Empire into a Christian bastion is unprecedented, at least to the best of my knowledge. I am not a religious scholar, but I am unable to conceive of any other religion that achieved what Christianity did. In a mere 476 years, the religion had risen from an obscure Middle Eastern sect. Its leader had been put to death, its followers bedraggled and persecuted, made to suffer the worst atrocities. It was a religion with no home and no government. It became the most influential religion of the most widespread empire on the planet. In fact, it did not take 476 years. It all virtually occurred in one single epiphany.

No other religion has received so many converts so peacefully, from among its enemies. The Jews certainly suffered as much adversity. There have always been converts to Judaism, but there is no history of major armies or governments, especially those opposed to the Jews, who simply took to Judaism out of whole cloth.

Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism and later Islam certainly have their adherents, but these religions started as philosophies. Charismatic leaders were deified and millions followed. But they have no record of simply enveloping mass conversion, without war or the threat of war, over night. Constantine was a Christian, but he did not stamp out other religions. Because of his power and influence, and because his testimony was so compelling, many followed him into Christianity for political reasons. Constantine felt others would see Christianity as he saw it. He chose not to force it. He did give it the imprimatur of state sponsorship, though, declaring there would two capitals of Rome. The Italian capital would be in Rome. The Christian capital would be Byzantium, the ancient Greek strongpoint on the Hellespont. It was here that the land route between Asia and the Danube jumps across the channel between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean – a crossroads of the world.

In 330 A.D., the "new Rome" was built. It was now named Constantinople. The building of the city and the spread of the new religion were meant to do two things. It was supposed to hold the empire together in a fellowship of man. However, the new religion and the "new Rome" weakened Rome. All citizens of the empire had now become equals, in the eyes of God and the eyes of the government. An Italian, even a Roman, was no more important than any other citizen of the empire. Christians were of equal value. Their income, citizenship or influence was rendered unimportant next to their religion.

Christianity had somehow managed to triumph over tyranny. In examining how this happened, one must look closely at the nature of this religion. It is a religion that appeals to both rich and poor. Norman Mailer is neither a Christian, nor a lifelong conservative. By the early 1990s, however, Mailer, who at one time might have been an anarchist of the Emma Goldman bent, had reached the point where he called himself conservative. It was during this time that he published "Harlot's Ghost". In this novel the Hugh Montague character explains Christianity and the perversions of those who try to twist it to their own purposes. Mailer's Montague probably gives voice to modern Christianity as well as any other I have found.

"The better your family," he tells his protégé, Herrick Hubbard, "the more closely you must be examined as a security risk. For the Russians are able to get their licks in on whatever is left of the Christian in many a rich swine. It goes so deep – this simple idea that nobody on Earth should have too much wealth. That's exactly what's Satanic about Communism. It trades on the noblest vein in Christianity. It works the great guilt in us. At the core, we Americans are even worse than the English. We're drenched in guilt. We're rich boys, after all, with no background, and we're playing around the world with the hearts of the poor. That's tricky. Especially if you have been brought up to believe that the finest love you will ever come near goes back to the sentiments of Christ washing the feet of those same poor people."

In this passage, Montague expresses the power of Christ to change the hearts of powerful men; to remind an empire of their guilt and to teach its leaders that they are men, of equal value in the eyes of God, to those they rule no matter how wretched. It explains how Constantine could turn Rome into a Christian empire, and it explains what it is meant to explain. The American Empire, even more powerful today than Rome was in hers, is still monitored by a humble decency and love of humanity. It also explains the basic snake-like approach of Communism, which is atheistic and has no place for Christ. It works on the goodness of Christ that exists in men, for its own immoral purposes. The devil, as they say, is a liar. This playing on men's emotions, on their guilt, has been at the core of Communism's "useful idiots." Montague says in this passage that he is on the side of good. He explains in the next passage, he would never knowingly work for the side of evil. He has worked it out in his mind. He has arrived at the conclusion that humans who wish to live free as Christians face the conundrum of doing necessary work. Only when realizing that they are _men_ , and not Christ Himself, are they comfortable with where that work takes them. This helps explain Constantine and the new Christianity of Rome. Constantine, unlike previous emperors, did not consider himself divine, but divinely inspired, which is a big difference. Therefore, he was free to do the work of man. While Christ is an example, no man is able to live up to Him.

As Rome became a Christian city, the empire lost strength. The people lost the will to impose themselves on the rest of the world. Barbarians invaded and splintered Asia, Britain, Gaul and Spain. After Constantine's death, the empire did not have strong leadership. The Goths even captured Rome for a while. They did not stay, but it was the end of the empire.

Rome fell because they did not have the moral authority to rule. When Christian love was embedded in the hearts of enough of its citizens, they lost the ruthless will to fight for what they had so ruthlessly acquired. This lesson is as important a lesson as any in history. It applies to the current status of the United States. America, despite its protestations that there must be a separation of church and state, is a religious country. Christianity is dominant among those religions. Up to now, the U.S. has extended its influence because it has the moral authority to do so. The trick is to maintain that moral authority. If we ever lose it, we will lose our empire just as Rome lost theirs.

The study of history is daunting beyond imagination, as is the collection of books, materials and research material gathered in my office as I write this. There is enough to write separate volumes on many of the relevant events in history. I am contemplating writing a 5,000 or 6,000 page book. This requires re-focusing on what the goal of this book is. I do not intend this to be 6,000 pages. I may write six volumes on world history at a later time. For now, my concentration is on the United States, written from the perspective of a conservative, Christian worldview. Therefore, I will reduce my elaborations on history. I am making the effort to continue demonstrating important events from the standpoint of how they shaped a world that, through all of its twists and turns, is now dominated and controlled by the United States. What it comes down to is that this fact would not seem to be an accident. There must be some reason why, in a couple hundred years, a small group of colonies in an almost-uninhabited part of the world rose to become the greatest superpower in the history of Mankind. No empire, no despot, no dictator or axis of nations has ever known the power and influence of modern day America. We hold this influence not simply because we are the most powerful military ever assembled (we are), but because of many other things – music, culture, media, Hollywood, fashion, money, oil, politics. We have managed in a few decades to gain greater influence, through a simple philosophy based on freedom and Democracy, than the Romans had in the course of a Millennium.

Homer and the Trojan Wars

The historian must be a detective. The examination of history is in part the assemblage of clues. The clues go back a long way, but one thing looks to be very clear. In trying to figure out who we as Americans are, what we stand for (and eventually where we are going), we keep coming back to the cradle of Democracy, Greece. This seems to be a strange place to come back to. Greece is not a very powerful country. They have an unsteady government, and have flirted with Communism. The country is not terribly prosperous, their people not overly impressive. But here is the key. Rome controlled the world, and Greece fell under its yoke, but it is Greece and its Democratic principles that survive, more influential than Rome.

Americans should take some lessons from the Greeks, and a few other major countries in world history. The lesson is in understanding the shifting sands of history. Greece was one of the most influential countries in the world, but not anymore. The Romans replaced them, but their time came and went. The Chinese had their run, but became a fractured country now holding on to a failed ideology. The British ruled the planet, but they are now our back-ups. The Russians and the Germans took their turn at world domination but did not make the cut, either.

Does this mean that the U.S. as a nation, an empire, an idea, will eventually recede in importance. Well, _eventually_ is quite a concept. Eventually the Earth will cease to be heated by the Sun. But until then, the U.S. stands for something that must remain standing, at the risk of sounding arrogant, for the good of Mankind.

We have explored the "big three" of Greek philosophy. Now allow me to return to Greece, using as source material the classic "The Iliad of Homer", translated by Richmond Lattimore. The "fall of Troy" (which has nothing to do with USC's failure to win a National Championship in football from 1978-2002), concerns the "classical" Greeks of the post-Homeric period. As with Thucydides and the varying written accounts of the Peloponnesian War, Greek history is influential in part because they were a literate people and much was written about their accomplishments. They left a traceable record of their deeds. The Trojan War is one of these written-about events. The Trojan War has often morphed into myth, for varying reasons. Greek mythology is such that anything to do with Greece, the ancient civilization, occurred so long ago as to almost appear to be a parable instead of the flesh-and-blood story of real people. Thus has the story of Homer become an allegory of sorts.

The fact is that Paris, who was also known as Alexandros, was the son of Priam, who was King of Troy. Troy was a city-state located in the northwest of Asia Minor. Paris traveled to see Menelaos, the King of Mykenai, in Sparta, and fell in love with Menelaos' wife, Helen. He took Helen back to Troy, with her full consent. This caused a great stir. The princes of Greece, displeased that a man could be so contemptuous as to simply "steal" another leaders wife, decided to get Helen back. A force of 1,000 ships was arrayed, manned by fighters, and led by Agamemnon, who was Menelaos' older brother.

Helen was a great beauty. Her visage has been made a legend by the term, "The face that launched a thousand ships." It was one of the greatest alliances ever formed, with lords and kings from the Peloponnese, Central Greece, Thessaly, and various islands, engaging in the armada. The fleet landed and assembled at Aulis in Boiotia, then made for Troy. A fight ensued, but the city held. Nine years of battle ensued. Agamemnon, the most powerful warlord, feuded with Achilles, causing Achilles to withdraw his forces. Hektor, the son of Priam, took advantage of the break in the invading force and attempted to destroy the ships, which would strand the forces and hurt their morale, already low after years of battle on foreign soil. Achilles saw the gains of Hektor and returned his forces, catching Hektor by surprise and killing him while routing the Trojan counter-offensive. Achilles, too, died in the next fight, but his forces still took Troy. The defending armies were killed and the population enslaved. Despite the victory, troubles ensued when the Greek lords returned to their homelands amid bad weather. Upon their arrival, political in fighting was brought about by their absence and disagreements over the validity of such an operation, simply because of Helen. The lesson of the Trojan War is about war aims; what constitutes valid reasoning for sending men into battle. It is an argument that goes on today and will as long as there are reasons to fight.

The "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" are Homeric poems that contain all knowledge of the Trojan War. Homer is considered the official poet of Greece, because his work was recorded. Other poets were quoted at great length during his day, but Homer's work was kept and maintained. He is the one who is remembered. Homer wrote of the return of the troops. The "Iliad" is a 15,693-line poem, divided into 24 books. Much of the work was not de-constructed until the third century B.C., after the time of Plato. In it, Chryses, priest of Apollo near Troy, requests of the Greeks the return of his daughter, who has been captured by them and is Agamemnon's concubine. Agamemnon refuses, and Chryses prays to Apollo to avenge him. Wrath ensues, causing much consternation among the invading Greeks. Agamemnon agrees to give the girl back, but wants a compromise to sooth his wounds. Achilles, the ally of Agamemnon, opposes the idea of replacing the concubine, so Agamemnon then takes Achilles' concubine, Briseis. Achilles then withdraws his forces and leaves a curse on Agamemnon, who is always on the bad end of wrathful curses and prayers. The gods get involved, as they always did with the Greeks. Much fighting with the Trojans ensues, with no decisive verdict one way or another. Eventually, the god Zeus favors the Trojans and they sweep the plain, threatening to drive Agamemnon's demoralized troops into the sea. Agamemnon then acknowledges his errors and agrees to give Briseis back to Achilles. After much politicking no deal is set. The Greek troops stalemate by the ocean.

Eventually Agamemnon and his allies, Diomedes, Odysseus, Eurpylos and Machaon, are defeated. Only Aias is left to fight the Trojans. Many manipulations sway the battle back and forth. The Greeks refuse to yield. They fight for their lives and manage to survive thanks to Achilles, who with Agamemnon gone returns to the fray in the nick of time. Patroklos, an ally of Achilles, arrives with fresh troops. He pushes the Trojans back, but Hektor then kills him. This turns the tide again to the Trojan side. Patroklos' army is captured.

The gods favor Achilles, though, and in a move that Hitler could have used on the Russian front, simply shouts war cries at the Trojans. Patroklos' troops, the Achaians, escape. Achilles then ends his quarrel with Agamemnon, and leads Agamemnon's army into battle, slaughtering the Trojans in a final battle. Hektor runs, but the gods prevent his escape. He is stripped and dragged by his heels. More requests are made, all in the spirit of honor overseen by the gods. Hektor is allowed to be buried, along with Patroklos.

The machinations and intrigue of war are as vividly described in the story as in any John Le Care novel. Homer's poem is about Pyrrhic Victory; that is, battles fought and won at greater loss than the gains of victory. Homer was required (in Greek) by students at West Point and by military historians. Lessons are learned about personal vendettas, backstabbing, inside politics, and the wisdom of committing troops to battle for nefarious reasons.

The life of Christ

This book has not attempted to follow a direct time line. Rather, I have examined eras and empires. This has required going back and forth in time so as to maintain the train of history. Now we go back, from the end of the Roman Empire, nearly 500 years to the man responsible for bringing it to its end. In so doing, He replaced warring minds with a message of peace. His name is Jesus Christ, and He was probably born in 6 B.C. It is easier to attribute his birth to six years prior to his birth date than it is to change all the landmark dates of human history. Historians have determined that mistakes were made in determining the Christian calendar in relation to His life. December 25, for instance, is probably not his birthday, but rather the day we have determined to celebrate it.

All that is known about Jesus of Nazareth appears in the first four books of the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote them years after his death. All tell different stories.

An angel appeared before a married woman named Mary, who was still a virgin. The angel informed her that she would be giving birth to the Messiah, who the Jews had long prophesied would come to them and be their King. Her husband, Joseph, was a carpenter. They never consummated the marriage. The baby Jesus was born to them. Jewish prophets and wise men came to mysteriously know of the baby's impending birth. Based on ancient writings, they followed the stars to be at His birth.

Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary, in Bethlehem of Judea, during the days of King Herod. Little is known of Jesus' childhood. How He came to know who He is was not known. He may have been told, it may have been hinted at, or He may have simply come to understand through the force of His inner spirit. He spoke Aramaic, served as a Jew in synagogue, studied Scripture, and learned the skills of carpentry.

Jesus was 30 years old when He began to make His mark. He was drawn to the prophet John the Baptist, preaching in the Jordan Valley. Jesus was baptized by John, and after much discussion went on a 40-day journey of fasting and prayer in the wilderness. According to the Bible, Jesus was tempted by the devil, just as He was in Dostoevsky's chapter on the Grand Inquisitor in "The Brothers Karamazov". Of course, what happened in the desert is to some extent speculation. One might presume that the devil showed his hand during this time. Christ may or may not have been convinced of His true Self, that of the Son of God, when He went on his sojourn. But when the devil paid so much attention to Him, it was obvious that he was not just another man. Upon His return, Jesus' course was set. He began to preach the word of God.

Over time, Christ's fame spread. People came to Him demanding miracles and to heal the sick. Jesus performed a number of miracles, such as when He single-handedly caused an enormous catch of fish using nothing more than a broken net. The fishermen, James, John and Peter, who witnessed this (along with a large crowd), became His first disciples. On another occasion, He walked on water. Crippled, plagued and dying people were healed by His touch.

Christ's trouble occurred when he returned to Nazareth. The people who had known him all His life were amazed at the stories of Jesus, and His claim that He was anointed by God Almighty. They had not seen the miracles first hand, and thought him arrogant. They demanded miracles. Christ wanted them to come to Him through faith, not by trickery.

Jesus' continued to preach in the Synagogue. His easy approach, using regular words instead of the expert text of the Pharisees, drew more to Him. He traveled about, invited to the homes of his growing flock. His disciples wandered along with Him. No riots, fights, starvation or crime followed him, only love and kindness. Christ did not deny Judaism. He said He was there to bring perfection to the religion. He pointed out certain wrongs in the Old Testament, such as the term "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." Jesus preached against vengeance, and told people to "turn the other cheek."

This phrase is often the one cited by those who preach against war. It is one that leaders who believe in Christ but still desire to protect their countries have a hard time squaring. Perhaps nobody really knows "what Jesus would do." It is possible that if he were President of the United States, he would not legalize aggression. Instead, Christ might very well let other nations destroy us. After all, the Roman Empire destroyed many people, nations and governments. In the end Christianity conquered all. Christ knows that life on Earth, freedom, prosperity, power and all the benefits of our existence, are nothing compared to Eternal Heaven.

There is some arrogance in the American idea, which I have proposed herein, that this country is indeed protected by God. Are we doing His work? Are we protecting His people? The answers are not easy. In fact, they are too complex to try to understand. All a man can do is to satisfy himself that he is doing his best. No matter what his best is, he does not possess all the answers. He is not God. Once a man who might be President understands he is not God, he can understand that he never will be able to "do what Jesus would do" because he is not Jesus.

Pope John Paul, as a young Christian in Poland, was a freedom fighter who battled the Nazis who occupied his country. He engaged in activities that might be called "terrorism," resulting in the deaths of human beings. It was meant to intimidate and scare other humans into the fear of death. Is that what Jesus would have done? The Pope is a learned and thoughtful man. It is doubtful that he really knows the answer to this question any more than I do.

Christ also taught men to build a treasure in Heaven, not on the Earth. A choice had to be made between material things and the Kingdom of Heaven. There is no question that this is a conundrum for many, too. People work to provide for their family, to make a better life for their children, and to create things so that one has the comfort to do further good works. These works provide jobs and fulfill services. Can this be a bad thing?

Christ asked men to be merciful, and not to judge others. Christ's teachings were astonishing for their times, but others were disappointed. He was expected to be the promised Jewish King sent to lead them against the Romans. Jesus Christ actually did not earn the name of "Christ" until after his famous Sermon on the Mount. He had by this time gathered 12 disciples. He asked them who He was. Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Christ was a Greek word that meant Messiah, the Anointed One.

Jesus then confirmed that Simon Peter was right, He was indeed the Son of God. With that, He told them what the future was. He would be killed for being so. His disciples did not understand. Jesus sent the disciples out among the populace to preach, with no food or necessities, only the faith that God would provide. They came back amazed that they had traveled and preached and, indeed, their needs were taken care of time and time again. Christ attempted to reinforce their faith, telling them faith can move mountains. The disciples were still human and their faith was sometimes wanting.

When Peter was in a boat, he saw the dim outline of Jesus on the water. He called out that if it was indeed his master, he bid him to come to him on the water. Jesus replied, "Come," and Peter began to walk on water. He walked several steps, but the experience shook him. Fright replaced faith. With that he began to sink, calling to Jesus to save him. Jesus helped him in the boat.

"O man of little faith," Jesus said, "why did you doubt?"

Jesus resumed the performance of miracles, but it sometimes had the opposite effect of that with which He desired. He cured Romans and Canaanites. His fellow Jews saw this as treachery, since Rome was the hated oppressor. Canaanites did not believe in the "one true God." Jesus preached that all men were God's chosen children, not just Jews. The Pharisees were angered at what they considered blasphemy.

Jesus' teachings caused problems among the Jews, some of whom became careless of their religion, became friendly with pagans, and even married outside their religion. The Pharisees made additional rules to countermand the effects of Jesus. These complicated rules stood in stark contract to the simple commandments of Jesus. Jesus even chose Matthew, a tax collector and therefore, by Jewish opinion, a sinner, as one of His disciples. Jesus preached and His disciples worked on the Sabbath. This turned the tide against Him. The Pharisees began to say he was a sinner. Jesus reminded them of Moses' Second Commandment, to "love thy neighbor as thyself." When asked who His neighbors were, Jesus did not give a direct answer. Instead He offered a parable. He told the story of a man, attacked by thieves and lying on the side of the road. A priest and a Levite, who assisted priests in the temple, both passed the helpless man Apparently they were afraid, or they might have thought the man unworthy of their help.

Then a Samaritan passed. Samaritans were thought to be very low people by the Pharisees. But the Samaritan carried the man to safety at a nearby inn. The Pharisee saw Jesus' point. The Samaritan was the one who had shown mercy.

"Go and do likewise," said Jesus.

Jesus then came to Jerusalem. He was met with great fanfare. He taught people the Lord's Prayer, and found great comfort in certain Jewish Scriptures that had been forgotten or passed over by subsequent scholars. But He was constantly asked if He was "the Christ." Jesus chose not to perform miracles in front of large crowds. He answered questions in roundabout ways, apparently wishing to have people choose to worship Him of their free will instead of out of coercion or magic. This angered many. The old charges of sin and blasphemy reared their ugly head again.

Then Jesus was told of the death of a friend, Lazarus, who lived an hour's walk from the city. He had been deceased for four days. Jesus went there. If the reports are accurate, He rolled the stone off Lazarus' grave and brought him back to life. This was the final straw, as far as the Pharisees were concerned. The Jewish Passover was approaching. Many in Jerusalem had heard of the Lazarus miracle. Jesus' popularity did not sit well with the Pharisees, whose power and influence paled next to Him. Jesus was hailed as the King, returned to His people just as Scriptures had predicted, but he did not heed strict Jewish law. The Pharisees met and debated whether he should be put to death. Jesus then boldly rode into Jerusalem and taught at the Temple, further infuriating the Pharisees. The Romans entered the picture, but chose not to arrest the popular Rabbi. The Pharisees also tried to trap Jesus by peppering him with questions, implicating Him with the hated Romans.

"Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?" they asked Him. They figured He would not have a good answer. To say yes would lose the respect of the Jews, but to deny Caesar's legal ability to tax the people would be a reportable offense. Jesus simply noted that Caesar's image was on the coins, and said, "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

This statement has been used by many to promote taxation, and to say that Christ believed in lawful government. Then Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus' most popular disciples, went secretly to the chief priests and offered to tell them where Jesus camped, in exchange for 30 pieces of silver. The night before Passover, Jesus sat down for The Last Supper. Normally, the Passover feast would have been held on Friday, but Jesus gathered his disciples a day early. He broke bread and told the disciples it was His body, and the wine was His blood, thus beginning the Sacramental tradition. He again foretold His death. He predicted that one of them would betray him, while the others would deny Him. He also told them that the Holy Spirit would soften his death. Then they went to Gethsemane, on the Mount of Olives, to pray. Judas knew they would be there. He directed a congregation of Jewish Temple servants and Roman soldiers to the place. Jesus was arrested.

An impromptu hearing was held in the house of a Jewish official, where Jesus was asked, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?"

"I am," He replied, "and you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of Heaven."

This was considered blasphemy worthy of the death penalty. That decision was left to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. He would have preferred to have been left out of this Jewish squabble. But leadership has its requirements, and his requirement was to make a decision. Pilate did at first try to divert the question of Jesus' fate to Herod, the Jewish King and ruler of Galilee, Jesus' hometown. But Herod merely dressed Jesus in the clothes of a king, mocking his so-called status of "King of the Jews."

As it happened, this all occurred on Passover Friday. A tradition was allowed in Jerusalem at the time because the Roman governor wanted to look merciful. One condemned prisoner would be released to the people. The two prisoners in his custody on that day were Jesus and a well-known thief named Barabbas. When Pilate addressed the crowd, the response was that Barabbas be released, not Jesus. Why this was is speculation, but it makes sense that the Jewish officials had succeeded in making Jesus look to be blasphemous. Jesus made no attempt to save Himself, through miracles or powerful words. He just let it happen. He wanted people to make the right decisions of their own free will. He had performed miracles to reinforce the beliefs of those who already loved Him. He received animosity when he approached more cosmopolitan urban areas like Jerusalem. The more animosity He received, the less He was willing to perform miracles.

Pilate was disturbed by his predicament. He did not want to crucify Jesus, but the tide of emotion from the Jews was developing into a life of its own. The Jewish elders told him that Jesus was not their King, and gave their loyalty to Caesar. Caesar, they said, was their King. This was quite a turnaround for the Jews, who hated Caesar, but now used Caesar to show that they hated Jesus. Jesus' fate was sealed. Pilate tried to "wash my hands" of the decision, stating that it was the Jews who demanded his crucifixion, not him.

Jesus was flogged, a crown of thorns placed on his head, and marched to Golgotha, "the place of the skull." There, he was crucified and placed in public spectacle between two thieves. The Jews taunted him and told him that if He was the Son of God He should save Himself and come down from the cross. For about nine hours it went on like this, until Jesus cried out to God, asking why He had been forsaken? Jesus forgave those who had done this to him, telling God that they knew not what they had done. Then He died for the sins of all humanity.

Jesus was buried in a nearby garden. On Sunday, some of His followers came to his grave to pray and worship. They found the stone covering His grave moved, which frightened them. Mary Magdalene, a one-time prostitute who had become one of His most ardent followers, was weeping next to the grave when Jesus appeared to her, alive. Jesus told Mary and a few others that He was not a ghost, but a living man returned from the dead. He ate a meal with them, and traveled into the mountains, where He met some Apostles. He provided them instructions to carry out his teachings, and then He ascended to Heaven before their eyes.

This is the Gospel story of Jesus Christ. There are many who do not believe it. His disciples and Apostles wrote much of what we know. The possibility exists that they made much of it up. It is possible that Mary Magdalene and the others who claim to have seen Jesus return from the dead invented the story to glorify his memory. They may have conspired with the Apostles in the mountains to say that they, too, saw Him. His ascension to Heaven may have just have been a story. Possibly, they did see "something," and in their grief they agreed on the story as it has been related.

Jesus' miracles in the countryside may have been exaggerated. Perhaps, instead of walking on water, he walked during low tide. Historians have said that Moses did not actually part the Red Sea. He may have merely led his people across low-lying wetlands that filled up when the tide came in, preventing the chasing Egyptians from their pursuit. Doctors have demonstrated that there is great evidence that attitude can be of great benefit in the healing of maladies. Perhaps the sick who were healed by Jesus just needed hope, which the charismatic prophet gave them.

Perhaps Jesus' predictions were only made up by those who wrote of Him after His death. Maybe that attributed powers to Him that He did not have. All of this is possible. Questions arise from His life and the very nature of faith comes in to play. Jesus did not like to offer proof of His divinity. He wanted people to have faith in Him. In that leap of faith comes the real power of God. He felt that His examples were enough proof of who He was.

Obviously, the Jews do not believe in the divinity of Jesus. Their rejection of Jesus comes from two main strains of history. First, they were complicit in His death. This forces them to either reject Him completely, or face the agonizing guilt of their role in the murder of the Son of God. Second, the Jews rejected Jesus because they were expecting a divine man to be sent by God. The political circumstances of their existence at the time of His life put them under the thumb of Rome. Therefore, they expected that the King would lead them to victory over Rome. Instead, Jesus rejected much of Jewish law. He made no attempt to lead an insurrection against the Roman legion. The freedom He taught was individual; in the heart, the mind, the soul.

Jews are not the only ones who do not believe in Jesus. Atheists, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Confucians are among those who do not accept Christ as the Savior. Christianity has spread throughout the world, but there is a geographical reality to the religious strength of Christianity. There is virtually no doubt that a man named Jesus did live in what is now Israel and Palestine, for about 35 years, some 2,000 years ago. While it is possible His story is just a fable, a fairy tale, there are some cogent facts that need to be made clear.

Jesus is a historical figure who lived during the same time as many other historical figures. Man had much earlier learned how to write and document the events of history. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle lived, and wrote books, 400 years before Christ was born. The Peloponnesian War, for instance, was written about extensively. The Romans had exercised political control over much of the world by the time of His birth. They were prolific record-keepers. Rome and its provinces were a highly organized society when Jesus lived. They communicated, passed laws, taxed citizens, and gathered evidence of everything that occurred under their control.

Furthermore, while Lazarus' and Jesus' resurrection were reportedly seen by only a few, thousands of normal people saw Jesus over a two to three year period. The miracles He performed are not disputed even though many observed them. Some of what we know about Jesus comes from His own proclamations, but much is the evidence gathered by observers. Many of those observers were not pre-disposed to believe Him before they met Him.

Jesus may have been an ordinary man. He may have been delusional, like some Freudian patient who thinks he is Henry VIII or Napoleon Bonaparte. If so, He was a charismatic delusional. His message resonated in a way that no other message has ever resonated. The fact that some questions still are unanswered about His life and who He was is probably exactly the way He wants it to be. It is in achieving faith without proof that he bonds and strengthens His relationship with his adherents.

The years after His death may offer greater "proof" that He is the Son of God than His actual life. The Jews settled back and forgot about Jesus. They were looking for a man to lead them from out of Roman bondage, and they had still not found him. But many Jews were the early Christians. At first, they met secretly. Jesus' followers multiplied quickly. At the celebration of the Pentecost, 3,000 Christians appeared. Soon they numbered 5,000. Peter and John began to preach openly, baptizing the converted and espousing the power of the Holy Spirit.

Christianity spreads, the Church is formed, and religion takes different shapes

The Roman Empire in the post-Christ period spread from the Euphrates on the east to the Atlantic on the west, from the Rhine on the north to the Nile in the south. Jews made up parts of the populations almost everywhere in the provinces. As people traveled (which occurred a lot, because the Romans had built roads and had ships), word of Jesus spread. Many Jews, especially those in the Greek isles, were open to new ideas, more so than the conservative Jews of Israel. Christianity caused great joy and much panic. Many non-Jews joined the religion. The original Christians, all former Jewish converts, thought only they could be Christians. Then some of the Romans joined. When Peter baptized the Roman Cornelius and his household, other Christians were shocked. The religion met hostility, and many died defending it. These people were martyrs. The courage they demonstrated in meeting death impressed others, causing the religion to grow instead of disband.

The Jews were in crisis. Many of their members converted to Christ, weakening their strength. Christianity spread throughout the empire. Gentile Christians decided that the laws of Moses did not bind them. When Rome burned to the ground, Nero, as written earlier, placed the blame on the Christians. When they were persecuted, it served to martyr them and strengthen the religion.

Despite persecution, Christianity grew and grew and grew. A New Testament was written, encapsulating the writing and letters of the Apostles. The word "Catholic" was applied to Christianity, meaning "universal." The church even grew in Rome itself, despite efforts at meddling with it by various emperors. In the fifth century, when Attila the Hun was at war with Rome, it was Pope Leo who it is said met Attila at gates of Rome and reached a diplomatic solution that saved Rome from being sacked. The solution apparently involved Attila being paid not to attack. The event had the effect of legitimizing the Church.

History is a funny thing. Major events often occur in the flash of an eye, or within a short span of time. Such was the epiphany and conversion of Emperor Constantine, which changed Christianity forever. The simplicity of history lends to the idea that in the blink of an eye, Constantine saw his vision of the cross and the Roman Empire was now a Christian one.

But as mentioned, the religion had grown all throughout the empire for almost 500 years prior to his epiphany. The writing of the New Testament, the works of Augustine, and the political power of Pope Leo, who had negotiated with Attila, all served to make the Christian, _nee_ Catholic Church, a powerful social force. Just as the fall of the Berlin Wall was not an isolated incident, coming after years of struggle, so was the world "ready" for Christianity when Constantine declared that he was a Christian. Thus was the empire under his command.

Constantine decided to build a new capital at Byzantium, an ancient Greek town at the entrance to the Bosporous, 800 miles east of Rome. It was on a point of land jutting out from Europe, at a point separating the Sea of Marmora on the west from a long, natural harbor called the Golden Horn on the east. Constantine had attempted to invade Byzantium during one of his earlier campaigns. He knew it could be easily defended. Construction began on the western wall in 324. Six years later he dedicated the city "new Rome," but it soon came to be known as Constantinople. It would endure for 1,123 years, but not as he had envisioned. Constantine saw the new city as a center of Christianity, but also of the arts, culture, tourism, trade and intellect. It would endure as a center for all of those things, with the exception of Christianity. Constantinople would become a multi-religious capital, and eventually a Muslim city.

Constantine died in 337. After his death attacks were waged against Constantinople. The Visigoths crossed the Danube to escape the advancing Hun, but quarreled with the empire's officials. They set out to capture Constantinople, but eventually a treaty was signed with them. It was in Constantinople that the first real problems with Christian hierarchy were exposed. A Spaniard named Theodosius was named Eastern Emperor, placed in charge of Constantinople. He forbade any religion in the city except Christianity, and decreed that it be taught only as established Church doctrine, not as the evangelical word. Those who did not accept the strict adherents of the Church teachings were branded heretics. Now, the Church had real political power. One can only imagine what Jesus would have said had He appeared at this time. He would have lectured Theodosius and condemned the kind of power plays that His religion was now being subjected to. With power come problems.

Theodosius was the last emperor to control the entire empire, which occurred when the Western Emperor passed away in 392. When he died, barbarian invasions by the Visigoths, Huns and Ostrogoths in the fifth century were the final blows that ended Roman rule worldwide. Italy was overrun, and in Europe a Germanic group called the Vandals swept down from the north, took over Gaul and Spain, and conquered Rome in 455. Then they moved on to Africa. When the Vandals took over Africa, they controlled the sea lanes from Carthage, which hurt commerce in Constantinople. This caused a division between east and west. Religious struggles ensued over Nestorianism and Monophysitism. Religious crises erupted in Egypt and Syria, where the leaders sided with Rome and the Church, but the mass of people were not Christians and demanded independence. Thus, the great divide of culture between east and west had begun. It still stands as a major difference separating the peoples of the world.

Constantinople remained a Christian city. Byzantium became an empire in the east. A different kind of Christianity developed there than in other parts of the world, particularly in the west. There's would be an eastern influence, reflective of eastern culture, ecumenical tradition, and ethnic heritage. A long struggle ensued between churches of the east and the west. This weakened the Byzantine Empire. In the 11th Century, the empire lost Asia Minor to the Turks of the Seljuk tribe. In the 12th Century, Thebes and Corinth fell to Norman invaders. The silkworm trade dried up. The Crusaders passed through on their way to Palestine and conquered parts of Turkish-held Asia Minor. Independent kingdoms emerged in Antioch and Edessa. Italian ships subsequently carried trade, which cost the Byzantines the tax levy.

Italian traders moved in to Constantinople and became rich at the expense of the local community. This caused an uprising, which resulted in still more Crusaders, who were sent by the Catholic Church in Rome. The Vatican branded the Orthodox Christians of Byzantium as heretics. In 1204 Constantinople, the city built by Rome but eventually controlled by the east, was swarmed and held by Christian soldiers fighting for Rome. What goes around comes around.

Christian soldiers swarmed Constantinople, looting and killing in an orgy of violence that would have sickened Jesus. Priceless treasures were destroyed. The victors attempted to create a Latin empire with Constantinople as its center-city. The Crusaders were unable to maintain control, however. After they withdrew the Byzantines divided themselves into Epirus, Trebizond and Nicaea. After 50 years of struggle, they re-captured Constantinople under the leadership of Michael Palaeologus. Over the next 200 years Byzantium shrunk as a world power. When the Seljuk Turks collapsed, the Mongol hordes entered. Then the Ottoman Turks attacked and on May 29, 1453, the last of the Christians defenders prayed that Jesus would have mercy on them, before falling by the swords of the Muslim hordes. Constantinople had spread Christianity throughout the east, yet Roman Catholics had branded them heretics. In the end were unable to finance their defense against the latest invaders.

The Byzantine period also dates the beginnings of Russian history. Prior to that, Herodotus, the Greek explorer, found settlements on the Black Sea. He set up trade with the Scythians, a nomadic tribe living on the plains that stretched thousands of miles to mountainous Asia. The Scythians were pushed out by the Sarmatians, who were pushed out by the Goths. They in turn were eliminated by the Huns. The Huns threatened as far east as Constantinople and as far west as Rome. The Huns conquered Slavic tribes. Their leader, Attila, was betrayed by his wife, a girl whose father had been killed during a Hun invasion and who had been picked out of a slave existence to be Attila's woman. His death broke the Hun and the tribes went free. A shifting of populations occurred. The Slavs are first seen in history on the Vistula River. It is believed that Slav means slave, as in slaves of the Hun. But when the Huns broke up after Attila's death, the Slavs shifted into western regions of what is now Poland, Czechoslovakia and south, where they mixed with Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians, and Slovenes. But the largest number of Slavs settled in the forested areas of the east and became Russians.

In the middle of the seventh century, a nomad tribe known as Khazars controlled the area. The Slavs were forced to pay tribute to them. Jewish tradition in Russia started because many Jews had been expelled from Constantinople. The Khazars took them in, and in time the Khazars converted to Judaism. Arab Mosels had overrun Persia, marched to Russia and defeated the Khazars in 737. The Slavs no longer had the Khazars to trade with. They began trade with the Vikings, who were in the north. They also became friendly with the Varangians.

Wandering Asian tribes, European Slavs and Vikings founded villages and traded through water routes on the Black Sea and on the Dnieper River. About 878, a large army of Finns, Varangians and Slavs, and their leader, Oleg, held up the small son of Rurik, named Igor. They announced, "This is the Prince of all the Russians, Rurik's son."

Oleg then sailed to Kiev, and set up trade with the lands to the south.

"This shall be the mother of all Russian cities," he said.

Nobody really knows where the word Rus, or Russian, comes from. Perhaps it is from the Finnish "Ruoysi," meaning "those who rowed." Current Russians, however, do not believe this theory. Russia gained in economic strength through trade with Constantinople. When Oleg died Igor had grown to become a warrior. He attacked Constantinople in 944 with a fleet of 1,000 ships. The attack failed. Years later, though, Igor's wife, Olga, visited Constantinople and became a Christian. Olga's son, Vladimir, later went on a quest for religious knowledge. He was unimpressed with the Jews, who he saw as wandering nomads. He felt that God must have punished them banished them from Palestine for a reason. He studied the Christianity of Germany and Central Europe. He found "no joy" in it, but like his mother, he found the true "presence of God" in the Eastern Orthodox Christianity of Constantinople. This became the mode of religion in Russia. Jews would always live in Russia, but Vladimir's view of their plight as nomads would prevail in viewing them as inferior citizens.

Once Russia became Christian, it gave them the imprimatur of legitimacy among other countries. Marriages strengthened bonds with countries like Poland, France, Hungary, Norway and the Byzantine Empire. Russia faced devastation after Constantinople fell to the Crusaders in 1204. Mongol hordes swept across the plains, destroying Kiev and plundering Russia into turmoil. It would not be the last time these hardy people would be forced to come back after devastating loss.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE MIDDLE AGES

Islam is a relatively new religion. Judaism almost seems to transcend the history of Mankind. Hinduism, Confucianism and Buddhism seem to be part of the mystical East. When one thinks of the East, one conceives of civilizations that go beyond ancient. Christianity is pretty new, especially when one considers that the Roman Empire had been going strong for centuries before Christ was born. The Greeks, with their wars and philosophies, preceded Jesus by 300 to 400 years, too.

But Islam did not come around until 571 A.D. Today, with all the problems in Islam, what with the question of Palestinian freedom under the yoke of Israeli administration, and the extremism of Muslim terrorists, this religion appears to some to be archaic, out of date, part of a time so ancient as to be irrelevant if it was not so dangerous. Islam is neither out of date, irrelevant or dangerous. There is a dangerous strain to it, to be sure, but this is based on the misinterpretations of a relatively misguided few. Islam is a religion with many beautiful concepts. Adherents of its faith are among some of the kindest and finest people in the world. It is called the "religion of peace." The ugly murderers who bring shame to this precept will not erase the moniker.

Mohammed was born in a humble household in Quraysh, in Mecca, in what is now Saudi Arabia, in 571 A.D. He was soon orphaned and raised by his grandfather. He became a shepherd and traveled to Syria and Yemen. At 25, he married a wealthy widow. In a culture where men took multiple wives, Mohammed never had another one. He also spent time listening to Jews, Christians and pagans. He determined, as the Jews (and, depending on the interpretation), the Christians did, that their was one true God. He called him Allah, after Allah Taala, the Most High God of the Kaaba.

Allah prayed that God would appear to him, as He had to the Jews and Christians. An angel appeared, and urged him to speak out. Mohammed became the prophet of Allah. He called the religion Islam, which means "surrender" in Arabic. Followers are called Moslems, or Muslims.

Mohammed's message was similar to the Old and New Testaments. There is one true God, people who obeyed God's laws would go to Heaven, while those who did not would go to hell. But he was mocked when he preached to the people. In particular, the officials of Mecca tried to quiet him because if this Allah were found to be a false god, then tourism to Mecca would dry up. Mohammed kept at it. In 620 at the Mecca fair, he managed to convert a group of pilgrims to Islam. Mohammed attempted to get the Jews to convert to Islam. They pointed out errors that he made in his interpretations of the Old Testament and refused to convert. Mohammed did find converts among the pagans, the poor and the dispossessed. In order to feed some of his people, Mohammed led a group of men on an attack of a rich caravan. His scheme was known ahead of time, however, and the Moslems were surrounded. Mohammed proved to be an adept military commander who led a group of men who were filled with fury. In the Battle of Badr, as it came to be called, Mohammed had won a victory. The fact that Mohammed led a violent charge is the first reason some have called him a terrorist. His actions were no more violent than numerous Jewish kings and generals who resorted to fighting in order to bring freedom to their people. Jesus has no record of such violence, although he did create a ruckus in the temple when he went into a fury over the business that was being conducted in the holy place.

Mohammed did assume a military rank, although it should be pointed out that the Moslems were under attack. A Meccan army, led by a defector named Abu Sufyan, badly wounded Mohammed. Mohammed decided that the defection was because his men drank wine, so he forbade drinking as a rule of the religion. Sufyan mounted another offensive, but by this time Mohammed had joined forces with the Persians. They succeeded in creating a defensive barricade at Medina. The local Jews aided the attack. After its failure, Mohammed ordered the slaughter of 600 able-bodied Jews. The rest of the Jews were exiled. Still another group now hated the Jews!

Mohammed was unable to convince Jewish and Christian clerics of his visions. He tried to demonstrate that his readings of the Old and New Testaments contained errors. The Jews and Christians therefore did not recognize him as a legitimate religious visionary. Mohammed decided that Judaism and Christianity were enemies. He decided that Moslems would pray on Fridays, called by a man standing on the top of the tallest building, and not a trumpet. Mosques were building to effectuate this.

The Moslems waged war on caravans moving through their territory, enriching themselves. Eventually Mohammed forced the Quraysh leaders to accept a peace treaty. The Bedouins joined his ranks, and Islam grew. An uneasy peace existed in Mecca, until a skirmish between armed Meccans and Moslem Bedouins gave Mohammed the excuse to break the peace with the Quraysh. In 630, during the month of Ramadan, he led a force of 10,000, armed with swords and spears. They overwhelmed Mecca, taking it for themselves and proclaiming it the holy city. His supporters called for mass executions. Mohammed kept the killings to a minimum, preferring instead to consolidate power by drawing his ex-enemies in. He sent armies to take over Taiuf and gain control of the Arabian Peninsula. Christian and Jewish settlements were surrounded, but Mohhamed spared them when they paid him off. Mohammed was admired as a warrior and politician who had consolidated the varying tribes in a way not even the Roman Empire had done.

Mohammed called for an annual pilgrimage to Mecca every March. In 632 he fell sick after his return to Medina and died in June of that year. Mohammed was a warrior and a politician who practiced violence. The enemies and critics of Islam have used this to identify the religion as a destructive one. This explains why so much violence always has and continues to emanate from its practitioners. In recent times, Christian pastors like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have pointed out the facts outlined herein, regarding Mohammed's leading of troops into battle. They have gone so far as to call him a terrorist.

While Jesus somehow resisted any use of violence to promote His cause, He is the great exception. Violence was almost impossible to avoid during Mohammed's day. Wars, plunder and conquering armies took what they needed as a matter of routine. The question is whether Mohammed was a divine being, as his followers claim, or just a great leader of a movement. Either way, once he had established peace, Mohammed lived an ordinary life, eschewing the riches that could have been accorded him as a king. He preached kindness, particularly towards orphans, the poor, the weak, the unprotected, and women. He had about a dozen wives, including a Christian woman named Mary who gave birth to a child who died shortly thereafter. Of all his women only one bore him children. Only one of them, Fatima, outlived him. He dictated his thoughts to his secretary, and this was translated into the Koran. It actually contains many of Mohammed's interpretations of the Old Testament. Despite being rebuffed by the Jews, Mohammed was greatly influenced by the Hebrews. He also mentions the "prophet Jesus" among his stories and characters from the New Testament. Mohammed himself never called himself divine. He simply saw himself as an apostle. Among his teachings were the Five Pillars of Islam, which involved laws regarding diet, prayer, alcohol, charity and pilgrimage to Mecca.

The religion deals harshly with theft, by slicing off the hand of the robber. Any disrespect toward the religion is cause for the death penalty with the person sentenced to eternity in hell, which the Koran pictures as a pit filled with flames. Heaven, or Paradise, on the other hand, is pictured as a cool mountaintop. The Moslem approach towards punishment and the call for death to any who disrespect the religion are seen as the genesis for and justification of violence towards any "infidels." These are basically anybody who is not a true-believing Muslim. Jews and Americans are easily identified as being infidels. The religion calls for "no mercy" to those who do not believe in Allah. The conflict in this view is the interpretation of Allah. Since Muslims believe in "one God," it is therefore a reasonable explanation that the major religions – Judaism and Christianity – believe in the same thing. The Jews certainly believe in "one God," too. Christians believe in "one God," but they see this as a tri-partite God that is encompassed as One, composed of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Muslim extremists have decided that belief in one God is not good enough; the belief must come equipped with all the tenets of the Koran. If not, death must come to those who fail to observe these tenets. Moderates are willing to accept the concept that the "one God" is a God of all people on Earth. The Koran, however, leaves little out for moderation. It says that the "people of the Book" – Jews and Christians – are to be given a chance to accept Islam. If they refuse they are to be branded pagans, and therefore subject to _jihad._ Moderate readers of the Koran have said that _jihad_ is some kind of interpretation of one's mind, meant to free the soul. There is little to dissuade the general language that indicates _jihad_ is a call to kill Jews, Christians and everybody who is not Muslim.

I would like, at this point, to tell a personal story that concerns the Moslem religion. In the late 1980s, I was in the United States Army. In my unit was a young man, whose name I cannot recall, but he was a Muslim with a Middle Eastern surname. This fellow was as American as I was. I do not know if his parents were from the Middle East, but this guy was from Cerritos, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. He was into all the things that any other young guy was into: Girls, music, sports, partying. He was a nice guy and a good-looking kid with an engaging personality. He liked to laugh and joke around and was popular. Then one day the subject of Salman Rushdie came up. Rushdie was the Iranian writer who had recently written "The Satanic Diaries". The Ayatollah Khomeini had issued a _fatwa_ in which all Muslims were expected to kill Rushdie if they found him. This young man, a member of the U.S. Army, very casually remarked that he would kill Rushdie if he had the chance.

I was stunned. He said it the way he might say he would go see a Dodger game if he could get the tickets. I did not get into an argument with him, preferring to let it pass. I do know he was not joking. I cannot say I really think he would have killed Rushdie if he suddenly appeared in front of us, but it had a profound effect on me and my view of Moslems.

It was not the first time that I had heard such intolerance. In 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated. She was an Indian Hindu. I knew an Indian woman who was Muslim. She was relatively attractive, had a good personality, and worked as a customer service representative for the discount brokerage firm, Charles Schwab & Co. She jumped up and down, clapping and hollering, when she heard of Indira's death. It was the same reaction a Georgia football fan might have when the Dawgs scored a touchdown. It was disgusting.

The Moslems developed into fierce desert warriors, able to defeat large, well-equipped European armies because they were used to the hardships of the desert. They were often nomads with little of their own, able to attack and take rather than hold and defend. Moslem armies spread throughout the Middle East. Eventually, the religion had splits and varying sects. The Moors, for instance, were Moslems who invaded and captured Spain. While the violent strains of Islam – the call to _jihad_ , the frequent use of the death penalty, violence against the bodies of law-breakers, and the fierceness of its armies – have never gone away and, in fact, have grown, there are many splendid aspects of the religion. It does call for a fair share of morality and compassion towards the poor. Tourists have often remarked at the kindness of these people, who are known to be hospitable hosts. It is too simple to just disregard Islam as violent extremists. There must be some acknowledgement that they were at times forced to fight for themselves, and they fought well. In the current context, Islam is a religion that needs to evaluate itself, just as Christianity went through a long, long period of violence themselves. The Christians evaluated themselves after the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, through Vatican councils and Protestant Reformations that forced them to be honest about who they were and what they stood for. The Christians certainly did make adjustments. Even today they will have to make more adjustments, since it is becoming increasingly obvious that Catholic requirements of chastity and bachelorhood for priests has created a breeding ground for sexually disturbed people.

By 1099, Christianity was more than 1,000 years old. Islam was approximately half a century old. Throughout the 11th Century, the divided Arab Empire became weaker, while Christian lands to the north became strong. The Christians were alarmed at the language of Islam, the _jihadist_ call for their deaths, and the growing strength in numbers and fighting ability demonstrated by its adherents. Decisions were being made, and history has debated the events of the Crusades. Were they violent wars of aggression committed by intolerant Christians? Were they justified acts of unilateral war, meant to stop the Moslems before the Moslems could kill them? Or were they brought about by violent wars wrought by Moslems? The answer, like all answers in history, is not one answer, but rather the answer to many questions that events brought about.

Christian armies snatched back Arab-controlled lands in northern France, Sicily and southern Italy. The fact that the Arabs had ventured to Europe and enslaved entire populations offers some evidence that the Crusades at least started from a defensive posture. The Pope called on European rulers to unite in rolling back the Muslim invaders. It would drag on for two centuries. In 1099, Frankish troops captured Jerusalem, the original Christian city of Jesus. In 1187 Saladin re-captured it. By the time the Crusades were over, the Moslems had repelled the Christians from all of the Middle East, except for Cyprus.

During the middle of this terrible division between the Christian and Moslem worlds, a new enemy emerged who terrified Arab and European alike. His name was Genghis Khan. The Mongols of Genghis were very much like the Arabs of Mohammed – nomadic horsemen, and tough fighters. The Mongols had long raided Chinese farmlands along the northern frontier where the Great Wall stood. The Chinese paid them off with bribes, until Genghis Khan came along. Using cavalry tactics and sheer terror, Genghis cut a swath through Asia, Eastern Islamic territories, and Eastern Europe. After capturing the Chinese capital of Peking, Genghis advanced on the Islamic Khwarizmiam Empire, causing the occupants to flee. Genghis died but his sons carried on his bloody rampages. By 1258, Mongol hordes had enlarged China, captured parts of Russia, streamed into Europe and Mesopotamia, destroyed the Abbasid caliphate, and sacked Baghdad.

But the Moslems re-grouped. Two years later a Mameluke _jihad_ stopped the Mongols' westward expansion in Syria. What happened after that was a great victory for Islam. Moslems, Mongols and Christians mixed together. Marco Polo visited the Chinese ruler, Kublai Khan, and the Middle East almost became "officially" Christian. Ghazan, a Mongol khan, became a Moslem and proclaimed Islam the new religion of the Mongols. After all the fighting and bloodshed, the Koran triumphed.

Unfortunately, the Mongol/Moslem world was not peaceful for long. Mongol fighters spread out and conquered Afghanistan, Persia and Kurdistan, leaving severed heads piled to the sky. Baghdad fell in 1393. Mesopotamia was overrun, and eventually Moscow was occupied. Fighting spread across north India, and in 1400 Timur, a claimed descendant of Genghis, sacked Aleppo in Syria. He left 20,000 severed heads, destroyed Damascus, and returned to Baghdad to kill some more. He piled up an additional 120 mounds of heads there. In 1402, Timur invaded Asia Minor, crushed the Turks, then returned to China where he finally was killed fighting in 1404.

Think his soul ascended to Heaven? Some people just have to be stopped, and some times war is the only way to stop them.

With Timur finally gone, the way was open for new rulers in the Arab world – the Ottoman Turks. The Turks were related by blood to the Mongols. The Moslems originally victimized them, when Arab armies overran their Central Asian homeland in the eighth century. But the Turks could fight, and they were made a part of the Moslem fighting force. They adopted the religion and became integrated into it. A Turk tribesman named Seljuk led a large conversion to the Sunni creed of Islam in the 10th Century. The Sunnis then went on a rampage of conquest themselves. The fighting crossed western Asia and, in 1055 Baghdad, which seems to fall a lot, fell to them.

Christian Armenia fell, and in 1071, the Byzantines fell, too. Seljuk Turks took parts of Asia Minor, and what is now modern Turkey was now within their control. The Seljuks enjoyed maximum power from 1072 to 1092, but when they employed foreigners to fight their battles, they grew soft and they lost to the Mongols at Kozedagh in 1243. But the Mongols divided lands among themselves. Eventually Turkish _emirs_ created independent power structures. One of the _emirs_ was named Othman. He declared holy war on his Christian neighbors bordering in and around the Byzantine Empire. By 1400, the Ottomans, named after Othman, had conquered Macedonia and Bulgaria, and swept the Teljuks aside. Then the Ottomans were crushed by Timur at Ankara. Civil wars raged for 10 years, but Sultan Mohammed united the Ottomans again. Turkish armies under his command marched on southeast Europe. Allies of Rumanians, Hungarians, Poles, Germans and even the French met them and halted their advance in 1443. In 1448 the Ottomans beat back a Christian attack in Serbia. With Constantinople by this time virtually undefended, the Ottomans seized on this prize. On May 29, 1453, Turkish gunners knocked down the city walls and went on a slaughter. Sultan Mohammed entered the city, ordered the rampage to stop. He took possession of the Church of St. Sophia, and with it, Constantinople. The last real stronghold of Christianity in the region was now Moslem.

Now masters of Asia Minor, the Ottomans pushed east to the Persian Gulf, taking Armenia and Iraq. In the 16th Century they added Persia (now Iran), Syria, Egypt and western Arabia to their domain. Under Suleiman the Magnificent, who reigned from 1520 to 1566, the empire grew to include Morocco in North Africa, and most of Hungary. A siege was laid on Vienna, Austria. Suleiman ruled from Budapest to Baghdad, from Crimea on the Black Sea to the Egyptian Nile.

The Turks assaulted Vienna again in 1683, but could not quite capture the city, withdrawing from Western Europe. Eventually they created alliances with the Austro-Hungarians. In the 18thCentury, France, England and Austria began plans to grab parts of the empire. In the 19th Century wars broke out. Various deals were struck, with the Ottomans finding themselves on the wrong side of history. Thinking the Austro-Hungarians to be the strongest military force in the world, because of their alliance with an emerging unified Germany, the Ottomans cast their lot with them. When World War I broke out, they found themselves dragged into the conflict. When the Central Powers lost, their empire, already reduced to a shell of its old self, officially ended in 1922. By that time, Constantinople's name had been changed to Istanbul, but the Turks did not even choose Istanbul as their capital, choosing instead Ankara.

Britain carved up the Ottoman Empire. It was too expensive to hold after World War II. They relinquished it, including Palestine, to the dispossessed Jewish Holocaust survivors. Today, the region is control by autonomous governments. To the extent that there is any hegemony, the United States is the most influential overall player.

Those who have not studied history look at the modern day Middle East and see a Third World wasteland that has value only because of an accident of fate. The accident of fate is that automobiles were invented, they needed oil, and the region has most of the oil. A racially tinged bias has emerged, in which the Muslims are dismissed as "rag heads" and "camel jockeys." They are viewed as the violent progenitors of a religion that modernity has passed by. The uninformed view Arabs as dusky and stupid. History has favored the West, and the losers are in the Middle East. The Arabs threw their lot in with the Soviets, and that gamble went badly. They are made to look backward and dumb in comparison with the brilliant success of Jewish Israel. These concepts have not been developed out of nowhere without reason. However, to dismiss the Arabs, the Persians and the Moslems world as "rag heads" is not accurate. It does not do justice to their contributions to the world. Mohammed used violence and there is a strong strain of violence and intolerance within the tenets of Islam, but violence and intolerance are part of the history of man. Singling the Moslems out for the violence and intolerance within their ranks is not entirely fair. It is, in fact, hypocritical. Western politicians who reach out to moderate elements within the Moslem world are choosing the only sane course. Friendship and human understanding stems from the realization, as John Kennedy said, that "we are all mortal." This is the common bond between us.

The Middle East is a cradle of civilization. Great contributions to medicine, mathematics, architecture, astronomy, literature and the decorative arts have been made. While Europe tore itself up through constant fighting, Moslem scholars preserved the ancient world.

A few centuries after the Crusades, Europeans came back to the East. This time, they did not come by horseback. They arrived in India by way of ships. Instead of plunder, they sought trade. Instead of conquering the sub-continent, these Europeans wanted control of the seas that surrounded it. A new kind of "technology" had taken over. The Europeans had mastered it.

In 1498, just six years after Christopher Columbus set sail for the New World, Vasco de Gamaset set sail from Portugal. He went underneath Africa, and landed at the port of Calicut, South India, in search of "Christians and spice."

The development of naval fleets was a matter of necessity. Throughout the Middle Ages, Europe had depended on the East for silk, precious stones, and spices, especially pepper. The only way to get them to the "civilized countries" was to carry them through Moslem territories. The shipments were subject to Moslem looters. The Turks held up shipments, and after a while they realized it was more profitable to take bribes than to simply steal what they came across. The Portuguese outsmarted the Moslems by building sea-worthy ships that could evade Turk blockades and set up a sea route to India. They also wanted to subvert the Eastern religions by bringing Christianity to India.

Portugal did well in their efforts, although they were a small country without the resources to maintain control of India. Christianity was popular amongst the lower castes in Hindu society. The tenets of the new religion made all humans equal in the eyes of God, instead of inferior by religious fiat, as Hinduism proposed. Other European countries arrived to make trade with India, and settlements were established. By 1707, the British had secured Madras, Bombay and Calcutta as _de facto_ colonized cities.

The mysterious East

The story of Indian colonization, and the growth of the British Empire, is reserved for later chapters. Staying within the context of the Middle Ages, we now go back in time, and further east, to China. This vast East Asian land is named after the first family of emperors, the Ch'in. The Ch'in brought the country together under one government and built the Great Wall to keep out northern barbarians. In 206 B.C., however, the Ch'in were overthrown and replaced by the imperial Han family. They ruled for two centuries and then, after a break in their rule, returned to rule again, until 221 A.D.

The Buddhist religion came to China from India roughly 100 years after the death of Christ. Around 105 A.D., the Chinese invented paper. One problem remained consistent throughout early Chinese history, and that was in the area of money, taxes and government corruption. A system that would create a strong Chinese economy eluded the country, despite intellectual strength, work ethic, and natural resources, particularly crop-growing.

Peasant rebellions ensued, and in putting the rebellions down, Chinese generals gained all the power in the country. The three states into which China were split divided into even more divisions. This turmoil began around 220 A.D. The Six Dynasties era lasted from 220 to 589. During this time six families controlled the capital, Nanking. Nomads rolled across the north Chinese plain. The Huns were joined by their relatives, the Mongols and the Turks. Many Chinese fled the invaders. After settling south of the Yangtze River, the population grew at an incredible pace. This simple fact of population growth eventually proved overwhelming to foreign invaders.

Taoism spread among the upper classes. This religion borrowed its practices from Buddhism. Confucians turned to Taoism. Taoism borrowed from Buddhism. Buddhism was the one religion that dealt with spiritual matters of life after death. Buddhism emerged as the dominant religion. It is a matter perhaps unique to the Chinese mind, and to Chinese philosophy, that many Chinese regarded themselves as a Taoist, a Confucian and a Buddhist all at the same time. Europeans would never accept the concept of being "a little bit Jewish and a little bit Christian." Moslems essentially sentenced to death anybody with the temerity not to be a Muslim. The divided Chinese mind was very much a part of the Nixon-Kissinger strategy when China was opened up to the West in 1972. It was felt that the Chinese would be open to being "a little bit capitalist while being Communist" Today they are more and more capitalist.

In 589, a warlord named Sui Wen Ti conquered the last dynasty in the south and became emperor of China. The Great Wall, which had fallen into disrepair, was built back up. Armies were sent to Vietnam and central Asia. Sui died mysteriously, probably murdered by his son, Yang Ti. He was a tyrant, and the people rose against him, killing him in 618. Li Yuan was enthroned, and he began the T'ang Dyansty, which reigned until 907. A court system was enacted with an elaborate code of etiquette. Government officials were paid the most money in China. Governmental service was considered honorable work, and those who held the jobs were honored. The ability to read and write, which resulted from the fact that the Chinese devised a system of printing on paper using unique letter-characters, was the greatest factor in a candidate's ability to work in these jobs. Great writers, poets and philosophers emerged. The propensity of the written word, however, caused many who could read to have grandiose ideas. One man, who had failed government exams, was educated enough and knew enough to foment a revolution in 879. He succeeding in sacking Canton, then capturing Ch'ang-an, forcing the emperor to flee to Szechwan. This was put down by General Li K'o-yung in 884.

Barbarians threatened the Sung Dynasty between 980 and 1279, known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era. The Sung Dynasty never achieved the cohesion of the Han or T'ang dynasties, but literature and the study of history continued to flourish. Beautiful artworks and silks emerged from this period. The repression of women also increased during the Sung Dynasty. China had always considered women inferior. Baby girls were killed at birth, and wives were considered mere slaves to their husbands. The practice of foot binding in upper class families produced girls who could not walk due to this crippling effect. It was still being practiced in the 20th Century.

In 1135, Hangchow became the capital of the Southern Sung, but out of Mongolia came Genghis Khan. Before Genghis died in 1227, he had crushed the Shi Hsia and, after joining forces with Sung, ended the Chin faction. Civil wars and backstabbing occurred. After much in fighting and various battles, Kublai Khan, a descendant of Genghis, emerged as ruler of China. His was a military rule, and created hatred and animosity among the educated Chinese populace, who viewed these Mongols as loathsome.

China was also swarmed with various foreigners, among them Christians and Moslem traders. One of these foreigners was Marco Polo of Venice, who entered the service of Kublai Khan in 1275 and stayed in what Europeans called "Cathay" for 17 years. When he returned, he opened the eyes of the world to this exotic place, writing wild stories about "black stone" (coal" which were burned for fuel). "Snakes" could be boiled and eaten. They were actually noodles. Marco Polo had held his feelings close to the vest, though. He told his people that Kublai Khan was despised by the people, who he had enslaved through hard labor and military rule. Marco Polo correctly predicted that the Chinese citizenry, because they could read and therefore communicate amongst themselves, would end Mongol reign. In 1368 the scholar-officials united to chase them out of the country.

This brought in the hallowed Ming Dynasty of the old order, which lasted from 1368 to 1644. Pirates and barbarians threatened the Ming Emperor. Japanese pirates raided Chinese junks, and Japanese emissaries were found to be double-dealing in the "tributes" they paid to the Ming Court. The Japanese looked down on the Chinese, figuring they could lie to them and get away with it because the Chinese were inferior. Because of their distrust of the Japanese, the Chinese employed a new policy of distrust of foreigners. Possibly they had learned that Marco Polo, after working in the "service" of Kublai Khan, had then written disparagingly of the Chinese government upon his return to Italy. While the Mings had no love for the Mongol Khan regime, they decided that being open to foreigners was a poor idea. When Portuguese merchants in search of trade and Christian conversion arrived, the Chinese massacred them.

The Ming government began to weaken between 1552 and 1560. Subsequent Portuguese were allowed to settle in Macao. From there, Jesuit missionaries spread out, at last reaching Peking with their message of Christ. The scholars who controlled the government were so impressed with the missionaries that they put them in charge of the Bureau of Astronomy. Corn, sweet potatoes, peanuts and tobacco were introduced to Chinese farmers. From 1573 to 1620, the emperors lost touch with the people. State business went into disarray, and eventually rebellion occurred. A man called the "Dashing General" raised an army. He captured Peking in 1644, causing the last Ming emperor to commit suicide. But the "Dashing General" was met by treachery among various rebel leaders who had helped secure his victory. He was forced to leave and later hunted down and killed. General Wu San-kuei worked with the surviving Manchu to wipe out the last of the Mings in a 30-year operation.

Now we turn to the Japanese, which consists of four large islands and many smaller ones rising out of the Pacific Ocean to the east of China and Korea. They long ago named their land Nihon, or Nippon, "the source of the Sun." The Chinese, on the mainland, noticed that the Sun often appeared to rise from out of the islands. Thus it became known as the "land of the rising sun." Japanese history goes back to 3,000 years before Christ, to periods that archeologists call the Tomb Culture. It became a formal nation some 660 years before Christ, although much of this period is shrouded in myth. The Greeks created mythologies, but the Japanese seem to have really believed that their various Sun gods and goddesses were real people who form the hierarchy of Japanese royalty. A Sun goddess named Amaterasu and a mischievous god named Suano-o rose together to the Plain of High Heaven, and from there spawned a group of gods and goddesses who in turn spawned further grandchildren. One of these descendants was Jimmu, or "Divine Warrior." He raised an army of gods and sailed up the Inland Sea to the plain at the other end, on Honshu. In 660 B.C. he conquered the local gods and established the Japanese state in the part of the Nara Plain called Yamato. Jimmu's descendants have ruled Japan ever since.

Very little is known about Japan until 400 A.D., when Korean scribes were brought in and began to record events. People could speak Japanese, but not yet write it. Their religion was Shinto, but this was based on the man-god concept. They gradually borrowed Buddhism from the Chinese. Shinto became a special religion reserved, for the most part, for high aristocracy. From 587 to 838 A.D., the Japanese braved high winds to sail to China and learn the arts of literature, mathematics, language, art, architecture, and all other forms of societal evolution. Students were sent to learn and bring back the knowledge that they gained. The result was the Nara government, which was a small-scale copy of the T'ang government in China during that time.

Between the ninth and 12th Centuries, Japan developed slowly. Official knowledge-gathering missions to China were ended, because the Japanese had their hands full implementing and digesting what they had learned up to this point. Thus began a period known as Japanification. Japan was ripe for takeover from within or without, but the culture of the Japanese people had developed to the point where their people were respectful and not the kind of folks who tended to rebel. Their isolated island geography also made it almost impossible for invaders to threaten them. Even if such an invasion were to take place, the country was so mountainous that the government could probably evade attack. Invaders would have difficulty navigating the natural terrain for food and resources.

Culture spread in Japan. Wealthy people maintained scholars in their employ to teach them how to patronize the arts. Of all the Kyoto noblemen, the richest were the Fujiwara family. For three centuries members of this family controlled Japanese government. The period 857 to 1160 is known as the Fujiwara Period.

The Fujiwaras did not bribe emperors. Honor and loyalty, not corruption, was respected in Japan. The Fujiwaras got their way because they supplied brides to the emperors. Eventually Emperor Uda took exception to the practice of "brides for emperors," because he did not want to be told what to do. A power struggle between Uda and the Fujiwara family took place toward the end of the 11th Century. The struggle lasted for hundreds of years. The result was that imperial government lost power.

The age of innocence and politeness had ended in Japan. While Japanese aristocracy was divided, a _Samurai_ culture developed in which bravery was coveted above all. The Samurai began as protective guards, hired by the wealthy to protect their estates. In time they developed into a cult all their own. Like their counterparts in Europe, the Samurai wore coats of armor, rode horseback, and became skilled with bows, arrows and swords. In 1156, two rival armies of knights clashed in Kyoto. It was a bloody clash, and the losing side was all executed. These knights were not Buddhists, and were not burdened by the moral quandaries of taking lives. More bloody battles ensued, on the Kanto Plain. In 1192 a warlord named Yorimoto was named _Seii-tai-shogun_ , "Barbarian-Quelling Generalissimo." For the next seven centuries, Japan would have two rulers, an emperor and a shogun.

From 1203 to 1333, the emperor of Japan was supposedly running the country, but the situation was complicated. The supposed ruler of Japan had lost control to a regent, who had lost control to a retired emperor, whose power had been taken by a shogun, who lost his power to a shikken.

Through all of these machinations, the Hojo family ruled Japan. In 1266, Kublai Khan started sending Chinese ambassadors to Japan with demands that the emperor pay tribute. The shoguns refused. In 1274 Kublai sent 25,000 Mongol and Korean troops to Hakata Bay in North Kyushu. The Japanese, now a warrior nation because of the shoguns, cut them to pieces. The Chinese were forced to get back in their ships and take to the sea in the middle of a howling storm.

Kublai sent more Chinese ambassadors demanding tribute. The shogunal regent had their heads chopped off. Kublai sent 140,000 Mongols, Chinese and Koreans to Japan in 1281, possibly the largest armada until D-Day. The Japanese had built a wall around Hgakata Bay. This kept the invaders pinned down on a narrow strip of beach. Japanese archers picked them off.

The battle waged for two months, until a typhoon destroyed much of the remaining Mongol fleet. The surviving fleet escaped to China. Next came Emperor Go-Daigo, who in 1331 had a dispute with his son over who should succeed him. The shogunate ruled against Go-Daigo, so Go-Daigo began a rebellion. He was captured and exiled, but a powerful warlord brought him back. In 1333 the Kamakura general sent to re-capture him joined forces with him instead. Together they took Kyoto. Another turncoat general joined in, and the Hojo family was exterminated.

These events began a period of two and a half centuries of unrest, lasting from 1336 to 1573. The general who joined in with them was Ashikaga Takaiji. He became the founder of a new line of shoguns, the Ashikaga shoguns. This shogunate lasted from 1336 to 1573, but the old genteel ways were no more. They were not even-handed. At first constant fighting between supporters and rival emperors marked the regime. A broken promise by Ashikaga with the Yoshino emperor ended the Go-Daiga's hope for the throne. Japan had one emperor now.

From 1392 to 1467 they held rule, but from 1467 to 1573, disaster reigned upon them. A ruinous war between warlords stripped the Ashikagas of much of their power. After another century the last Ashikaga was stripped of his title, in 1573. The shogunates no longer held power. The power and face of Japan was that of assorted warlords, pirates, merchants, Buddhist monks, architects, actors, and others.

Portuguese traders and missionaries reached Japan in the 16th Century. Despite cultural differences, many Japanese converted to Christianity after meeting the Europeans. The success of Christianity combined with trade created jealousy on the part of the Buddhists. The warlords were angered at what they saw as foreign profit and exploitation of Japan. They decided to cut Japan off from the rest of the world by 1641.

After Rome: Is war the true nature of man?

We now move back to the West in our examination of the Middle Ages. The "beginning of history," that is, the efforts to break from the Roman Empire and cultivate a history of Europe apart from that empire. It starts with the most successful opponents of the Romans. These were the Visigoths, who were German barbarians. The study of Germany has led many to conclude that there is a warring strain that runs through German blood. This helps "explain" German aggression that started World Wars I and II. If this warring strain is real, then it starts with the Visigoths. The Visigoths were not as cultured as the Romans. They did not build roads and buildings, and create alliances and political factions like the Romans. But from the standpoint of bravery and fighting skill, even though outnumbered, they were the equal of the legion. It has been pointed out that the spread of Christianity created a sense of peace and love that helped end the Roman Empire. There was still a willingness to wage violent war. The savagery of the Visigoths certainly played a key role.

In 378 A.D., the Visigoths met the Romans at Adrianople and killed 40,000 in a lightning "sneak attack." Among the dead were the grand master of the infantry and cavalry, the count of the palace, 35 commanders of horse and foot corps, and Emperor Valens. It was the beginning of the end.

Rome controlled Italy, Spain, Gaul (modern France), Switzerland, Belgium, large swaths of Britain, Germany, Austria, the Balkans, Greece, Asia Minor, the Near East, Egypt, and North Africa. Legions guarded the colonies. Roman justice prevailed in the courts. Roman custom was admired and copied. A succession of weak emperors had not broken the empire. The Visigoths were just one of a number of tribes, recognized as early as 50 B.C. by Julius Caesar, to be dangerous. The stated policy of Rome in the years hence had been to keep the tribes of Ostrogoths, Franks, Alemanni, Burgundians, Lombards, and Vandals from ever crossing the Rhine or the Danube Rivers. The various barbarian tribes might have been absorbed into the empire if not for a savage nomad group, the Hun. The Hun swept West from the Asian steppes, pouring across China, central Asia, Russia and into Europe. Attila was their leader. It was the Hun who scared the Visigoths the most. To escape them, they asked Emperor Valens if they could settle in the empire. He told them they could come in through northern Greece, but they had to provide hostages and surrender their arms. But bribes of Roman officials left the Visigoths with a cache of weapons. When the Romans cheated them by charging high food process, the Visigoths rebelled.

The Visigoths under Alaric attacked Constantinople, failed, but then marched on Italy. Meanwhile, the Vandals, having ravaged Gaul, attacked Spain. The Franks, Burgundians and Alemanni spread throughout Germany and Gaul. Rome was being encircled. Christianity, by now the official religion of the Romans for about a century, was questioned. Much hand wringing among Church officials concerned the question of whether they had committed sins that were now coming back to haunt them.

Alaric sacked Rome in 410, but died a year later. Unable to occupy the city, a deal was worked in which the Visigoths were given south central Gaul. Eventually they spread to Spain. In 455, Rome was again attacked and burned, this time by the Vandals. The Vandals destroyed so many priceless works of art and public buildings that the term "vandals" is ascribed to them. Frontier territories were broken up. The Lombards held the northern area of Italy, the Visigoths Spain and southern Gaul, Salien Franks had central and northern Gaul. To the east of them the Ripaurian Franks and the Alemmani controlled the territory. The Rhine fell to the Burgundians. North Africa, the land of General Hannibal, was in Vandal control.

Savage Picts, Scots and Saxons overran Britain. The Britons were unable to defend themselves. Central Roman control disappeared, and with it the economy. The roads were in disrepair, commerce and trade were at a standstill, and entire towns and provinces were abandoned. Families were massacred, crops rotted, schools shut down, and churches ceased holding services. Britons escaped to the mountains of Wales, or Brittany.

Brigands roamed the countryside throughout the empire. Starvation ensued. The Dark Ages, to last for 400 years, were upon Europe. Amid all of this carnage, the Salian Franks crowned a king. Clovis ruled over people who had settled in central and northern Gaul. After his crowning, Clovis set out to conquer, then unite a country that made up the basis of modern France. He changed the religion of these people from German paganism to Christianity. When that happened he gained the support of the Christian populations of Western Europe and the Church hierarchy.

Christianity saved and re-formed Europe. Beautiful monasteries were built. Christian writings were translated into various languages, copied by hand. Most kings were unable to read or write. The only ones who could read and write were scholarly monks or priests. They became important advisors.

Charles Martel, known as "The Hammer," tried to unite Frankish nobles under his leadership, but he was resisted. The Pope supported him, though, and in 752 his son, Pepin, at Soisson, was crowned. The first Western king anointed by a Pope was the true founder of the Carolingian dynasty. His son, Charlemagne would emerge as the greatest European leader since Julius Caesar. Charlemagne was of German ancestry, and he had a Germans' fighting spirit. He ignited 54 campaigns against the Lombards, the Saxons, the Frisians, the Danes, the Avars, the Salvs, the Gascons, and the Moslems of Spain and southern Italy. His wars extended and defended French land, creating further Christian conversions.

Charlemagne's army fell in Spain, where he had hoped to push the Saracen Moslems out. In 778 he led two armies over the Pyrenees, but failed to capture Sragossa. His rear guard was destroyed by Basques. Eventually, Charlemagne made another "Spanish March," and was able to encircle an empire under his control. He was crowned by Pope Lei III and became Emperor of what would come to be known as the Holy Roman Empire. This essentially was the new Vatican-controlled Catholic Church. Despite his long military track record, Charlemagne was a strict Christian. He devised laws throughout his lands intended to instill justice and reduce corruption.

The system that developed was one in which the King, who divided them up among noblemen, controlled land. The workers of the land were called serfs. They were supposed to be freemen, but the economic system forced them to pay the noblemen and they rarely ascended above serfdom. They could be called into military service and few ever escaped their burdens. This system came to be known as feudalism.

Feudalism had devastating economic consequences on the country, and the result was in fighting and a civil war, which resulted in Charlemagne's descendants dividing the nation. Lothair became Emperor after the Treaty of Verdun. The three regions that had been divided included the East-Frankish kingdom (Germany), the West-Frankish kingdom (France), and the middle kingdom (Rome, northern Italy). The Treaty of Verdun ended a unified Europe.

From 8 14 to 1042, Norse Vikings attacked Britain so savagely that standard prayers in the Church of England called for deliverance from the "Northmen" all the way into the 20th Century. The Vikings were finally driven out of Catholic Ireland by the Irish chieftain Brian of Munster at Dublin. The Vikings finally became a Christian people in 1000 in Iceland. Danish Vikings took over eastern England and a Dane sat on the throne, but in 871 King Alfred the Great of Wessex, the West-Saxon kingdom, united his people in stopping the Danes and pushing them out of most of Britain. They settled in eastern Britain, an area known for some time as Danelaw. In 940, King Athelstan succeeded in winning Danelaw back into British hands, but the Danes came back in 980. For years after, the Danes raided the British. In 1016 they regained the throne, but the British would not give in. In 1042 they won the country back again under Edward the Confessor.

The Vikings, tired of British resistance, invaded Paris and tried for 10 months to starve the city. Charles the Fat bought the Norsemen off by giving them Burgundy, earning the hatred of Burgundy. The Vikings, who must liked the mild temperatures, attractive women and natural resources of Western Europe, refused to return to their frozen homeland. They settled in Normandy. Christianity turned them from savages into citizens. Within 100 years, the Norsemen were Frenchmen.

In an effort to slaughter non-believers, Moslems from North Africa, Crete and southern Spain poured into France and Italy in 1849. They were turned back in most of their efforts, but managed to hold Sicily for two centuries. The Moors, as they were known, were humanized in Shakespeare's "Othello".

Wars, internal struggles, feudal disputes and great conflicts created the "castle and manor" period of 900 to 1300. Lords built castles to keep themselves safe from the hordes. Hunting and farming techniques improved. The knights and nobles were created out of a new code of chivalry. Brave soldiers who fought to keep safe their people from invaders were honored. The knights put on extravagant tournaments, the English version of the Colloseum games, while fairs were established to bring the people together for trade and amusement.

The Catholic Church had become the pervasive, all-powerful common denominator of governments and nations. In 1077 in Tuscany, Henry IV, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, had to beg Pope Gregory to lift his ex-communication of him in order to restore his power. The Church had stripped that power because Henry did not acknowledge the Pope's authority to appoint his own bishops.

Henry's begging for forgiveness lifted his ex-communication. He then reverted to his usurpation of Papal authority, which had been the central conflict of feudal Germany, dominating the politics of the region from 936 to 1250. Thus no longer banned from the Church, Henry returned to Italy and supported Duke Rudolph of Serbia against Gregory. But Duke Randolph refused to turn against Pope Gregory. Gregory led an army to Rome, driving Gregory into exile.

Struggles between German kings and Popes continued for many years. In 1122, a compromise was drawn up. The Concordat gave the Church the right to name its own bishops and archbishops. Kings kept the right to invest them with their lands and fiefs. In 1152, Frederick I of the Hohenstaufens became German emperor. His son, Henry, was married to Constance, heiress to the throne of the old Norman kings. This added Italy and Sicily to his empire. German monarchs controlled Rome and the Holy Roman Empire after his death, until Italy broke away in the 13th Century.

In feudal France, Charlemagne's empire became weak after his death. After some years began the line of Capetian kings. They worked out a deal with the Church which kept their support of French Monarchy against feudal lords for hundreds of years. To the extent that France was a country, this notion was vaguely defined. The Church and the various empires that had risen in the aftermath of the breakup of the Roman Empire had created controlled lands more than individual governments controlling countries. For instance, the Ile de France was a small, compact area surrounding Paris. Lawless vassals controlled it until King Louis VI brought them to justice.

In 1066, William, the duke of Normandy, crossed the English Channel and conquered England, naming himself king. In 1151 the grandson of an Englishman named Henry became duke of Normandy, inheriting the French duchies of Anjou, Maine and Tourraine. His estates were bigger than the existing kingdom of France. In 1137, King Louis VII married Eleanor of Aquitaine. They divorced in 1152 and she married Henry. This shifted great power to Henry. A year later he was named King of England and called himself Henry II. He now controlled almost two-thirds of France. Very complicated.

Henry founded a line of English kings known as Angevin kings, but for 300 more years the Capetian line held their power bases. Eventually the Angevins were pushed out of France. It was during this time that the real French nation was created. Phillip Augustus, the son of Louis VII, took the throne at the age of 14 and reigned for 44 years.

Richard the Lion-hearted was the first of Henry's sons to become King of England. Phillip and Richard joined the Crusades, journeying to the Holy Land in the effort to bring Christianity, once and for, to the Middle East. Phillip then returned to France and found himself embroiled in internecine family feuds. He survived them and enlarged his territories. He welcomed construction of towns and monuments. Phillip's greatest popularity, which he cultivated, came from rural towns that he built, more so than Paris itself. He built a 28-foot high wall around the city. He began construction of the Louvre, a palace where French kings would live for centuries. Border and territory squabbles ensued with the English. At the beginning of the 13th Century, only Aquitaine, south of Loire River, remained in English hands. Various religious sects were also put down as heretics if they differed in their views from the Catholic Church.

Phillip's grandson, Louis IX, took the throne in 1226. He was the only monarch of the Middle Ages who practiced Christianity not just symbolically, but as a humble man. He did not swear or gamble, ate and drank simple meals, and expressed great concern for his subjects. His love of peace did not stop him from participating in the Crusades. In 1248, he went to the Holy Land but was captured by the Turks. He was returned for a "king's ransom." He made a second crusade in 1270, but died while on campaign. The Church made him a saint in 1297.

English history is at once violent, brilliant, strange, and wonderful. It is filled with amazing turns of events that may have the reader saying things like, "I never knew that." It is a country that has emerged from conquest, and its first major period was 1066 to 1265.

On October 14, 1066, a new era in English history began with the Battle of Hastings. The battle was one of ambition. Duke William of Normandy was out to win a kingdom. He was the son of a Viking pirate chief, which is part of the "I never knew that" part of the weird history of Europe, and of England particularly. Through arranged marriages, accidents of birth, or re-locations, people from one country found themselves kings of other countries. Strange dialects and accents prevailed. Names indicated one nationality while belonging to people of another.

William inherited the duchy of Normandy in 1035. He saw in England a loosely knit, rural land, still reeling from Viking raids. Ripe for the picking. Anglo-Saxon chiefs had been absorbed by King Canute. Edward the Confessor was a weak ruler, so Harold Goodwinson seized power. Duke William then crossed the Channel with 5,000 men, landing on Pevensey Beach. He faced no naval force because the men who made up the English Navy were landowners who tired of waiting for the battle. They had gone home for the Fall harvest. King Harold's men blocked the road and met him six miles from the town of Hastings. They fought a battle that saw many twists and turns. Just before night fell, he was killed and the nine-hour fight was over, won by the Norman invaders.

William led the Normans to London. The people there surrendered upon his arrival. Many nobles even welcomed him. On Christmas Day, 1066, he was crowned King. Under his role, the feudal system prevailed, but he maintained a strong hand. He also struck a deal that was very important. He gained control over the Church, able to appoint bishops and abbots. Nobles and court members in William's court spoke French ("I didn't know that"), but the countrymen spoke what was called Anglo-Saxon. Gradually, French and Anglo-Saxon merged and became Middle English.

William ordered the "Domesday Book", a compilation of his accomplishments. It contained an invaluable social record of the countries' treasures. He changed English history, but in 1087 at the age of 64 he was killed in a horse-riding accident. His son, William the Red, was a poor ruler and was assassinated in 1100. His brother, Henry I, took over and organized the Chancery, and the Exchequer (treasury department). Between William and Henry, England had devised effective methods to collect taxes, determine wealth, and maintain accurate accounting records. After Henry's death in 1135, however, there was a power vacuum and the nobles brought in a period of unrest lasting 19 years.

In 1154, Henry Plantagenet of Anjou became King. He was the man who married Eleanor of Aquitaine after her divorce from Louis VII of France. Early in his reign, he appointed Thomas Becket, an educated churchman, as his chancellor. Beckett was an indispensable member of the realm. He earned a promotion to Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England. Henry hoped to control the Church. Becket, his close friend – a hunting and drinking buddy – took his Church loyalties seriously, however. At the heart of the disagreement that divided them was the right of the Church to place clergymen on trial in its own courts, punishment, and Papal appeals.

A six-year struggle for control finally resulted in Becket fleeing to France. Henry then sent word that the Pope had asked them to make peace, and Becket returned. The arguments started right up again.

"What cowards I have about me that no one will deliver me from this lowborn priest," cried Henry.

Four of Henry's knights thought that this was a coded message ordering Becket to be killed. They found Becket celebrating mass at the high altar in the Canterbury Cathedral. With their swords they murdered him. Henry was horrified by the news. His words had been uttered in pain and frustration, but were not orders for a "hit." The Church intervened, placing the duchy of Normandy under interdict, which had the virtual effect of placing all the people there in excommunication. Henry then had to do the same thing the German King Henry had been forced to do. He journeyed to Canossa and begged Church forgiveness and the lifting of his excommunication. The English Henry went before the Church, bore his back, and allowed himself to be flogged by a monk before the high altar. He agreed to allow the Church to put on trial and punish its clergy, and that the clergy would have right of Papal appeal.

Becket was canonized within two years, his place of death – the Canterbury Cathedral – a place of pilgrimage. King Henry VIII later had it destroyed. The rest of Henry's reign was turbulent and shrouded by shame. His son, Richard the Lion-hearted, ascended to the throne. In his 10-year reign, he was known as a courageous battlefield warrior. Domestically, though, England suffered during his reign. Richard, as mentioned earlier, went on the Crusade to free Jerusalem from Saladin. Upon his return he was captured by Leopold of Austria, who turned him over to Henry IV of Germany, an ally of Phillip Augustus of France. Taxes had to be levied on the people of England to pay the ransom demand. As soon as he was released and came back to England, Richard began plans for war with France. He led England in siege, but was killed in battle.

Richard's brother, John, took over in 1199. He was not to be trusted. Events occurred during his reign, however, that had the effect of being a silver lining within a dark cloud. Most of the English possessions of France were lost, events that had been set in motion by his now-deceased brother. These events seemed calamitous at the time. However, it had the effect of getting the government to concentrate on developing their domestic economy, instead of overseeing lands across the Channel. The result was that the economy grew. The English character was shaped, transforming the population from Saxons or Normans into Englishmen.

The English population, discontented by John's leadership and the heavy tax burden that started when they had to ransom his older brother, demanded civil liberties. The nobles and the Church began to form a plan. Eventually they presented King John with a petition called the _Magna Carta._ On June 15, 1215, it was affixed by his seal in a meadow outside London called Runnymede. The document contained 63 separate chapters, granting certain rights to the people and limited royal power.

"No free men shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed, or outlawed or banished, or in any way destroyed...except by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny, or delay the right or justice," was its most important statement. The _Magna Carta_ was of benefit to English nobility, and foreshadowed an English constitution. King John acknowledged in signing it that the King was subject to the law. Still, rebellion did follow. John had to put it down. He died apparently after drinking too much cider. His son, Henry III, became King. Nobleman Simon de Montfort called representatives together in 1265. The result was England's first parliament.

England's _Magna Carta_ and the formation of a political system were the result of several things. The Democratic philosophies of the Greeks, which had great influence even on the Roman Senate, had spread throughout Europe. The break-up of the Roman Empire had given individual countries the desire for self-rule. But the Christian church was the most influential factor. Again, the power of Christ would prove to be more powerful than armies and kings.

An example of the power of the Church occurred in Chartres, France in 1134, when the cathedral burned down. Bishop Theodoric rose large sums of money to re-build it. In so doing he won the support of the people and nobles alike.

"...Kings, princes, mighty men of the world puffed up with honors and riches, men and women of noble birth," an eyewitness wrote, helped in the work and pulled wagons. The building of the church at Chartres is said to have caused "peace,"  
in which "hatred is soothed, discord is driven away, debts are forgiven, unity is restored." This single incident, which was identical to similar incidents all over the Christian world, tells the story of how this remarkable religion had more to do with the formation of Democracy than any other event or force. When the cathedral at Chartres burned down _again_ 14 years later, the same process repeated itself. It remained a masterpiece of Gothic architecture and monument to faith in the Middle Ages. Statues, icons and great buildings depicting Christ, the Virgin Mary, the disciples, prophets, angels, devils, kings and queens were erected.

At the heart of the power of the Catholic Church was the teaching that Adam had sinned and been cast out of the Garden of Eden. All Mankind was tainted by original sin. Man was helpless to save himself, but grace and salvation came with the death of Christ. The Seven Sacraments bestowed grace on humans: Baptism, confirmation, penance, the Eucharist, or Lord's supper, extreme unction, and holy orders. Failure to obey "God's law" resulted in excommunication of individuals, or interdict of entire communities, which condemned souls to hell.

The Catholic Church achieved a completely international, or universal, power. It operated on its own financial system and laws, not subject to those of any single country. St. Peter had been the first Pope. Rome was the accepted center of Catholicism. Below the Pope were cardinals, and below them archbishops. They headed ecclesiastical provinces. Provinces were divided by dioceses, headed by bishops. These clergy members were usually the most educated members of communities. This made them powerful political figures and indispensable advisors to nobles, kings and military leaders. The great struggle of the Middle Ages was between Popes and kings, and the rights to appoint bishops.

The Benedictine order was founded in 529 at Monte Cassino, Italy. This monastery was still in operation when the Nazis occupied it during World War II, and American Catholic fighter pilots had to bomb the place in order to drive the Germans out. The Benedictines gave purpose to the monk movement, a sect of Catholicism based on inward devotion and meditation not unlike the Hindu's. Reform movements involving the monks occurred in 910 in Cluny and again in 1112, when the Cistercian order preached the second Crusade.

The Friars appeared in the 13th Century, They relied on charity and did not have strong government or central support. The Franciscans were founded by St. Francis of Assisi, a gentle monk whose peaceful admonitions are to this day used as examples by those opposed to military action. Born in 1182, the son of a successful merchant, Francis hailed from the village of Assisi, Italy. He was more interested in poetry than military skills. During a battle, he was captured and imprisoned, and almost died. When he was released, he decided to dedicate his life to God. He helped the poor and sick, whom he saw were ignored and whose numbers grew when men engaged in war. He emulated Christ in every way that he could, and developed a following not unlike Jesus.

The Dominicans also became a widely known mendicant order, founded by the Spanish monk, St. Dominic. The Dominicans were devoted to battling the concept of heresy. The Catholic Church allowed few criticisms during the Middle Ages. The Church reaction to heresy was typical of the kind of human problems that bedeviled Christianity. just as humans have polluted the purity of Islam and other religions. Instead of simply promoting the great message of love and peace that Jesus had done – and as St. Francis of Assisi did – the Church became a political structure. It was too powerful and too vindictive of those they deemed to have strayed from their view of Christianity. The Dominicans were formed to help the Church deal with heretics in a more humane manner, insisting that through the teaching and education of learned, well-educated preachers, the beliefs of the Church could be explained more easily to the people. Therefore, heresy would be stopped.

In the 13th Century, heretics became organized, namely the Waldensians and the Albigensians. The Waldensians took their ideas from the New Testament. They criticized the morals of the established clergy, saying they were too involved in governments and the military, thus subject to corruption and politics. They were absolutely right. They were the first Protestants would have great influence in France and among the Hussites of Bohemia. They urged a return to the purity of Christ, saying the Church needed to be devoted to helping the poor and saving souls, not forming worldly alliances. One sees their influence in the separation of church and state doctrine of the American founders.

The Albigensians of southern France were full of some very interesting ideas, which I happen to believe have great relevance in the 20th Century. They believed that Satan, an "evil god," was in conflict with the "good God." While some day the "good God" would be victorious, until that day the world would be ruled by Satan. They also said that the Catholics were in league with Satan. The Church and France combined to wipe them out. Their ghosts may have been whispering in Dostoevsky's ear when he wrote about the Grand Inquisitor. Horrible suffering caused by two world wars, a Holocaust, Communist gulags, Cambodian re-education camps, Rwandan genocide, and Muslim terrorism tend to tell me that they may have been on to something.

The concept of Catholics "in league" with Satan has the ring of conspiracy. This historian rejects such an out and out concept. The devil does not work that way. He weasels his way in. He paves his way through "good intentions." The Catholic Church believed in Christ during the Middle Ages, and desired to save souls. Being comprised of humans, they made mistakes. They were subject to corruption and deception. It was in putting down heresy that the Church did the devil's work, unwitting as it may have been. In 1229, the Council of Toulose established the Ecclesiastical Inquisition. Pope Gregory created a Court of Inquisition. The result was that many accused of heresy found themselves burned at the stake. One finds it very difficult indeed to conceive that the Lord Jesus Christ would have approved of taking humans beings, tying them to a stake, putting kindling underneath them, and lighting fires that first tortured them with searing pain before causing their horrible deaths! Just a guess.

As a result of the battle against heresy, and as an offshoot of the rise of monks, sects and orders, institutions of learning rose. This gave rise to the creation of universities. Men needed to be trained in law, administration and church doctrine. Thomas Aquinas was one of the first great professors. The theories of Greek thinking were taught along with arithmetic, astronomy, Latin, grammar, music, law, and medicine. The University of Paris specialized in theology. The University of Bologna specialized in the law. The University of Salamanca in Spain was renowned for the study of medicine. Other universities rose in Oxford, Cambridge, Prague, Leipzig, and Heidelberg.

The Crusades and the political militarization of Catholicism

A "great schism" did occur in Rome, where the Italian people demanded an Italian Pope. For more than 40 years, two Popes reigned. The split lessened the power of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe. A Counciliar Movement resulted, but failed to reorganize and reform the Church.

The Catholic war against heresy was no more arrogant than the Crusades, which lasted from 1096 to 1260. Reports had filtered in of new, strange religions in the Middle East. The Church may not have considered these religions to be a threat, except that the Middle East was considered the Holy Land, the birthplace of Jesus. Something had to be done. The Church made the Moslems out to be savage barbarians. While some persecution of Christians occurred, and the _jihadist_ nature of their edicts to kill non-Muslims increased this view, the fact is that they did not wage major interference with the Christians of the Holy Land.

This book is written from the standpoint of showing that Manifest Destiny of civilized peoples has been justified by history. The European explorers had the "right" to venture to the New World. The American government had the "right" to expand to the West. Certain conflicts were inevitable and unavoidable. I do not count the Spanish Inquisition or the Crusades as "unavoidable." These events are to be condemned. They also are to be viewed with an understanding of the times, not simply through the 20/20 hindsight of the historical lens.

Pope Urban, a Frenchman, made speeches espousing grave concern over "an accursed race, wholly alienated from God," that he said had "violently invaded" Christian lands, committing rape, pillage, plunder, and torture. He demanded that the holy shrines of Jerusalem, Nazareth, Gaza and Damascus be protected. When the Romans left, the Holy Land became part of the Byzantine Empire. In 638 the Caliph Omar had defeated a Byzantine army and gone on to conquer Asia Minor. For four centuries, they did not interfere with Christian tradition or European pilgrimages to the Holy Land, until 1070, when the Turks took Jerusalem and persecution of Christians began.

This was the situation that drove Pope Urban to address the issue. He urged his followers to "let hatred, therefore, depart from among you; let your quarrels end. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchur; wrest that land from a wicked race, and subject it to yourselves..." With these words, the Pope was urging Christians to unite against a common enemy.

"It is the will of God!" cried the people in response to the most important speech of the Middle Ages.

The Pope went on a campaign to build support. He joined forces with Alexius Comnenus, the Byzantine Emperor of Constantinople, who asked for help in turning back the Moslems. Politics played a role in the Pope's crusade. He was in a power struggle with the nobles of Europe. He knew that if he built up a coalition, led by himself, he could consolidate his position.

Crusaders, dressed with heavy helmets and suits of chain mail for protection, adorned with the Christian cross for insignia, were sent 12,000 strong in 1096, across the Danube and through the Rhine valleys. Along the way, they persecuted Jews. By the time the ragged mobs reached Constantinople, they were starving. They looted and pilloried the city, to the horror of Comnenus, who had asked for their help. He managed to restore order, and then sent them by ship to Asia Minor. The Crusaders were supposed to wait for reinforcements. They became restless and marched against the Turkish capital of Nicaea, where they were defeated.

Four main armies of Crusaders came the next year. This time they brought much of their civilization with them, including families and rear guard support. A clash of cultures ensued. The elegant Byzantines were shocked by the crude manners of the Europeans. Comnenus' rule was threatened. He furnished the Crusaders with bribes and supplies to enlist their allegiance. Then, a force of 30,000 Crusaders advanced on Asia Minor, taking Nicaea. The Crusades continued in to Syria. At Antioch they won a seven-month battle. By the time they reached Jerusalem in 1099, there were only 12,000 Crusaders left. The battle was awful. Soldiers waded through blood up to their ankles, looting the city and leaving piles of heads, hands and feet.

Again, the image of Jesus Christ must be considered. He must have cried, seeing the terrible carnage wrought in His name, just as He must have done when he saw the burnings of the Inquisition.

The Crusaders divided the territory into the counties of Edessa and Tripoli, the principality of Antioch, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1144, Seljuk Turks captured Edessa. King Louis VIII of France responded by sending new armies. German forces were destroyed. The French units were unsuccessful in linking up with coalition allies, while English and Flemish armies never even reached the Holy Land.

In 1174, Saladin became ruler of Egypt. He formed a _jihadist_ coalition from Cairo to Baghdad, wiped out the Christians in the east, took Nazareth, then Palestine and, in 1187, overtook the Christian defenders of Jerusalem. Saladin's actions make him a revered leader and hero in Moslem culture. It was a desire to be like him that has driven many Muslim military leaders ever since. The megalomaniacal Saddam Hussein saw himself as a "modern day Saladin." Saladin is also a figure of respect in the Christian world. He did not slaughter the Christians of Jerusalem. Despite his generosity to the defenders of the city, a Third Crusade was launched, led by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, King Phillip Augustus of France, and Richard the Lion-hearted of England. It was called the "Crusade of kings."

This one failed. Barbarossa drowned in Asia Minor and his troops turned back. Richard and Phillip could not get over their life-long enmity. After some successes at Acre, Joppa and Ascalon, Phillip returned home. Richard fought bravely but could not wrest Jerusalem from Saladin. Saladin died, not having eliminated the Christians from the Holy Land, but he managed to keep them in the minority.

The Popes refused to give up. Pope Innocent III called for another invasion, this time to travel by sea instead of land. Venetian merchants entered a complicated political deal involving the Byzantine Empire. They calling for the sacking of a Christian city in Hungary that had nothing to do with the mission to liberate Jerusalem, then the sacking of Constantinople. This became the locus for the saying that anything with many twists and turns is "Byzantine."

At Constantinople in April of 1204, the Venetians sacked the city in one of the worst riots and plunder in history. The original idea of "Christian soldiers" was completely negated. The warriors were nothing more than thieves and murderers. In the end, the Byzantine Empire was divided with the Crusaders. The enormous riches of Constantinople were sent to Venice.

The "children's Crusade" took place in 1212, when children from France and Germany had marched southward to the Mediterranean Sea, thinking it would open up for them like the Red Sea had parted for Moses. This flight of fancy resulted in most of the kids being sold into slavery.

Another Crusade occurred in 1218. It failed, too. In 1228, Frederick II, excommunicated by Pope Gregory, attempted a "political Crusade." He entered an agreement with Egypt, who wanted to avoid war, and allowed Frederick to be crowned as king of Jerusalem.

In 1244, St. Louis of France went on Crusade. He was captured by the Turks and ransom was paid to free him. 16 years later he tried again only to die at Carthage. By the end of the 13th Century, the Holy Land was in Moslem hands, amid the "Byzantine politics" that had been played out. The Crusades failed to turn the Middle East into a Christian region. They did figure in weakening European feudalism, thus strengthening the monarchies. It also opened up trade routes and developed culture with the East. This created a new merchant class. Venice had made themselves rich by financing one of the expeditions. Businesses flourished after the Crusades, with medieval fairs opening up to display exotic arts and crafts. The universities began to churn out men of medicine. Pharmacies and alchemists made improvements in the treatment of the sick.

One thing continued to be a recurring event of history. Men, kings, governments and countries continued to go to war with each other, usually in search of riches and conquest, sometimes to spread religion, most often based upon the belief that they were in the right and therefore their "opponents" were not worthy. Despite the spread of Christianity, respect for human life was modest at best. Both the Christians and the Muslims perpetuated terrible atrocities. The Jews of the Middle Ages were too busy being persecuted and made to live like nomads to do much persecuting of their own. They had engaged in their share of wars prior to the Romans and the birth of Christ.

The Hundred Years' War and Joan of Arc

One might have thought that the Crusades would have ended and ushered in some kind of peaceful period. Instead, the next thing on the horizon was the Hundred Years' War. This was a long struggle between England and France, and it lasted more than 100 years. It was a series of battles and uneasy peace lasting from 1338 to 1453. It started because England held the Duchy of Aquitaine in southwestern France. In Flanders, the English had a strong economic interest in the wool trade, and the English were convinced the French would launch an amphibious invasion from Flemish ports. France aided the Scottish independence movement.

In 1326 the Count of Flanders arrested all the English there, on the orders of King Philip VI of France. Edward III of England struck back. He received the support of the Flemish wool traders who hated being under Philip's thumb. Edward took the title of King of France. It was only a title. In 1340, the French met the British landing at Sluys, but were wiped out. England controlled the seas for 30 years. In 1346 the English hit Normandy and defeated the French at Crecy, using a new method of attack, the longbow. French Knights in heavy armor were no match. Siege at Calais followed, and by 1347 it was an English colony.

The plague then hit Europe. People called it the Black Death. It disrupted the war until 1356. France's King John II was then captured and brought to London, but he lived...like a king: Gambling, partying and sampling British wenches. English raids combined with a French peasant uprising set the French back even further. John finally arranged an enormous ransom, said to be worth the equivalent of $30 million, to return to France. A treaty was signed at Bretigny in 1360. Edward gave up the throne but retained a large swath of land. Charles V of France organized a command that regained much of the land from England. In 1415 Henry V was King of England and France was torn by civil war. 12,000 men, including 8,000 archers, hit Normandy. They were met at Agincourt. The French had learned nothing from earlier battles with archers. They were cut apart. Normandy fell to the English. The Treaty of Troyes was signed in 1420. As part of the deal, Henry married Catherine, the daughter of Charles VI. The French were so weak, however, that the English felt no compunction about breaking the Troyes agreement. They lay siege on Orleans on the Loire River, 80 miles south of Paris. Orleans fell, leaving nothing to stop the English from taking Paris.

Then God spoke to a farm girl in Vaucaouleurs named Joan. She could not read nor write. She helped her parents herd sheep. Saints appeared to her and told her to seek out King Charles, take him to Rheims to be crowned (France had not recognized him as King because the King must be consecrated in their cathedral there). Oh, and another thing. The voices told Joan to drive the English out.

This went on for quite some time, until Joan approached the commander of the Vaucouleur garrison. He laughed at the girl. She persisted until she was given an escort to Chinon, where Charles held court. This trip was a 300-mile jaunt through heavily English-controlled territory. She was dressed in soldier's clothes. Charles was impressed by her sincerity. After she was put through intensive religious interrogation, it was decided to send her to the troops to give them some inspiration. She joined the army at Orleans.

Normally she would have been hooted out of town, but the French were desperate. She was viewed as a saint. In 1429, she fearlessly led a bold French charge that completely surprised the English forces, capturing Orlean and forcing English retreat. She led more victories that consolidated the Loire valley back into French hands. The commanders now wanted to fortify Paris. But Joan insisted that Charles be brought to Rheims for formal consecration. Joan then informed Charles that she would drive the English out of France. Charles wanted to negotiate a deal with the English, saying war was just too costly. He betrayed her, giving her the command of forces, but with none of the flanking support she thought would come with it. At Compiegne, her forces were surrounded and she was captured.

She had embarrassed the English. The only way to save face was to demonstrate publicly that they fought on the side of Christ, while France fought on the side of Satan. Therefore, Joan had to be shown to be a witch. She was placed on trial at Rouen, but put up a strong argument. The Church officials said nobody except priests could communicate with God, as she said she had. The old heresy laws were applied. For 10 weeks she was questioned. She held to her story. The deal offered was that if she confessed, she would be spared her life and not excommunicated. They threatened her with torture or burning at the stake. She finally signed her confession, but the next day loudly disowned it, saying it was signed out of fear and fatigue. On May 30, 1431, she was burned at the stake while calling out to Jesus. English soldiers who saw the spectacle were convinced that she was a saint and that her execution doomed them in the eyes of God. They were right.

In 1456, the Church re-examined the trial and found that she was not guilty of witchcraft or heresy. In 1920, she was declared a saint. Spurred by her memory and martyrdom, the French rose again and re-captured Paris. In 1449, with new artillery, they drove the English back to Calais. In 1453 the Hundred Years' War ended. France became unified late in the 15th Century. When France was able to do this, it began the process of nationalism. Prior to the Hundred Years' War, their people did not think of themselves as members of a nation. The Church divided people, by feudalism, and of course so many different wars, battles, confrontations and campaigns took place that ordinary people were simply subjects of whoever was in power at particular times. Armies represented kings, lords and noblemen, not the people. Joan of Arc helped to inspire ordinary Frenchmen to believe in France. It was only when the English saw the French rising up as a unified people that they were frightened enough to fold their tents.

Nationalism occurred in England, too, after the War of the Roses from 1455 to 1485. The name came from the emblems of the two families that fought to rule England. The emblem of the house of York was a white rose; the emblem of the house of Lancaster was a red rose. The war was the result of years of internecine squabbles, land feuds, and a weak monarchy. The Yorkists won a bloody battle at St. Albans in 1455, but were unable to push out Henry VI. Five years later, he went into exile. Battles were fought, and different kings ascended and fell from the throne. King Richard III took the throne amid great intrigue, supposedly after smothering the two young boys who were in the line of succession. Shakespeare depicted him as wicked, but later historians found evidence that he may not have murdered the children. Richard lost control to the barons who opposed him. Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond, led a revolt against him. Richard was killed. The Battle of Bosworth ended the War of the Roses. The people were tired of fighting causes for noble families or merchants. They strove to gain independence from the universal Catholic Church. The aftermath of the War of the Roses was a new society that would change Europe and create a sense of national pride in England, France and other nations.

CHAPTER NINE

THE RENAISSANCE

The Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment came about in the aftermath of major events. Christianity; the fall of the Roman Empire; the _Magna Carta_ and civil liberties; nationalism; the end of the Crusades; the creation of trade routes and the build-up of wealthy economies; the resolution of the Hundred Years' War; the ending of the Black Plague and the Dark Ages; and the creation of great universities; all these events brought it about.

The merchant-rulers of Venice had pulled a major coup in financing a Crusade, which resulted in their obtaining great wealth. They helped to pull Italy back from the ruins of their fallen empire. The new age did not just occur over night, and pointing to its origins is complicated. It came about during a time of turmoil and after a period of war, disease and suffering.

Italy had of course seen great turmoil throughout their history, but the Church was centered there. The Holy Roman Empire and the realm of Christendom would usher in the Renaissance. In 1300, a conflict occurred between the Church and rulers, who were backed by merchants and nobles. Unrest in Rome forced Popes to live in Avignon. They remained there for about 100 years. When they returned, a new St. Peter's Church was built. Business people held on through The Plague, and eventually kept the business of Europe running. When The Plague ended, scholars emerged to teach Greek and Roman concepts that man is not born noble, but becomes noble. The "first man of the Renaissance" was Francesco Petrarch, a self-made scholar who preached that the great learning and beauty of Rome and Greece was more valuable than merchandise. The Medici family, the richest bankers in Europe, turned Florence into Italy's capital of art, learning and finance.

The artists who served the Pope and created the new works of architectural and artistic greatness became the stars of their day. They were honored guests of kings. Each court employed men of learning. Education replaced birth, or military skill, as the mark of a gentleman. Courtly behavior began to replace the bad manners of Europeans, making them more similar to the courtly Byzantines. For all of the new beauty, the old passions and ways still had their place; intrigue, poison, daggers, double-dealings.

Governments became less willing to use large masses of the population as conscripted cannon fodder. More and more of the population had achieved education. Now they represented important members of the community. Therefore, armies were more and more mercenary in nature. In Italy, these people were known as _condottieri_. War now required professionals, and that is what they were. They were hired by governments and princes to protect territories and interests. They ranged from noble warriors to murderous killers.

Businessmen became rich by dint of their hard work, creativity, and ability to meet the needs of the buying public. They began to replace those who had simply been born to important families. No where was this more so than in Florence, a city run by commoners. Around 1330, the city's merchants commissioned Giotto da Bondone, who broke all the established "rules" of painting. He painted scenes that looked real and full of life. He was the first great artist of the Renaissance era. Dozens of painters, sculptors, goldsmiths, and architects were put to work. They followed Giotto's example, depicting life as it really is. Young Masaccio made paintings that went one step beyond the Greek and Roman statues, showing the strength and action of life without portraying his subjects as godlike. Andrea del Castagno and Paolo Uccello made pictures of buildings that stood on their foundations instead of lying flat. Master sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti spent 20 years working on two pairs of bronze doors for the baptistery of the cathedral. The metal panels were covered with lifelike figures that set the standard for all who followed in this craft. Donatello and Brunelleschi designed sculptures, domes and great architecture.

While capitalism grew, problems – the problems that Marx and his ilk would try to "fix" – became evident. The rich got richer and the poor often remained poor. Those who took advantage of educational opportunities and developed skills prospered. The lazy, the stupid and the uninspired became more obvious and separate from those willing to work and improve their lot. Those who lived in poverty were increasingly treated with disdain. Beggars had always been tolerated as part of society. Now the general feeling was that opportunity existed for them to pull themselves out of this kind of existence. To fail to do so was now cause for criticism. As money became the driving force of society, corruption and exploitation reared its ugly head. Renaissance scholars have pointed this out, but the corruption and exploitation that resulted from the new capitalist class was no more corrupt or exploitative than the dictators who had ordered their people into conscription, slavery, forced taxation, or worse, for time immemorial.

In Florence, riots and murders marked elections. Losing candidates found themselves sent into exile. Street fights were common. Cosimo de Medici became a populist. He was a wealthy merchant who developed communications with the common people, who asked him to lead a campaign against the merchant-princes. Realizing the power of a restive populace, he immediately was identified as an enemy of the state. He was exiled, and his name grew in legend. For 10 years, the cause of giving the people greater political say and more financial opportunity was strengthened by his absence. When he returned, he was very powerful. His family would go on to control Florence for 300 years.

Florentine politics were different from previous governments. It was a mixture of business and public duty, all somehow masked to make it seem that it was not "rule" at all. This is an observation, and may not be fair, but it seems to me that the political structure of Florence under the Medici family reign is similar to that of _La Casa Nostra_. The family ruled most often behind the scenes, controlling appointed political figures while staying in the shadow. The key is that the city prospered. Cosimo Medici chose to live plainly, rather than incur the envy of the public. Instead, he hired architects to put their talents to work on churches and public buildings. This included the magnificent Duomo, which rose above all of Florence. He also kept scribes busy, consistently recording the progress of the city. The best professors educated the populace. The first public library in Europe was opened. Different artistic styles were encouraged and flourished.

When Cosimo died, a period of intrigue began. His son, Piero took over the government, but he had rivals. His son, Lorenzo, married Clarice Orsini, whose ancestry was Roman. Her uncle was a cardinal, her father a general. The marriage was one of political alliance. When Lorenzo's father died, he took over the government. In 1478 the Pazzi Conspiracy was plotted against him. The plot was the work of the Riarios, power-hungry nephews of Pope Sixtus IV. They obtained the help of Archbishop Salviati of Pisa, a lifelong foe of Lorenzo.

At an Easter party, a hired assassin would stab Lorenzo while Francesco Pazzi and his friend Bernardo Bandini attacked his brother Guiliano. The plan went awry, starting when Giuliano injured his knee and did not attend the party. The killings were postponed until Easter Sunday. The assassin, however, refused to perform his task in a church. Thomas Becket would have been spared, perhaps, if the King's men had been so inclined. Two monks volunteered to do it for him.

At the church, Lorenzo arrived, but again Giuliano was absent. Lorenzo and Bernardo went to his house and convinced him that his injury should not prevent him from attending Easter services at the Duomo. When Giuliano bowed his head during the appointed moment during Mass, Bernardo stabbed him in the back. Francesco jumped to finish him, but injured his leg in the process while stabbing. The two monks were slow. Lorenzo escaped with but a cut. A phalanx of supporters formed as his bodyguards, leading him to safety.

Jacopo de' Pazzi, thinking the deed had been accomplished, rode about the city announcing that liberty had been restored to the Republic. But word of Lorenzo's safety already had reached the citizenry. Things started to go bad for the Pazzi's. Archbishop Salviatti was placed under arrest. He had allies to prevent this, but they had _accidentally locked themselves in a room._ An angry crowd formed in the square. Salviatti was hanged. His henchmen were tossed out of a window. Francesco was dragged to the square and hanged, too. 70 men were executed over four days. Eventually, hundreds died. News reached Rome, to the Riarios and Pope Sixtus. They ordered the Florentines to send Lorenzo to him. When they did not, the Pope excommunicated the entire city. He ordered the city destroyed, and forbid any trading. King Ferrante of Naples, a warring city by tradition, marched his army to Florence and trampled over Medici's poorly trained defenders.

Lorenzo knew he could not hold out against the onslaught. A year later, he undertook a daring plan, traveling to Naples and allowing himself to be taken prisoner. King Ferrrante admired Lorenzo's courage. A deal was struck not to attack Florence, despite the Pope's order. Pope Sixtus was not happy, but he had enough trouble. The Turks were attacking Asia Minor. Lorenzo returned to Florence a hero. Having survived this treachery, Florence continued to lead the transition from the Dark Ages and medieval ways into the Golden Age (1469 to 1498).

The love of art, books, music, poetry and women that Lorenzo espoused were trademarks of his city. Sports and hunting became pastimes. He became known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, receiving ambassadors in princely splendor. The Old Market became a center of commerce. The city boasted 50 public squares and 140 gardens. Dice and chess were popularized. Italian men would sing, enchant and flirt with pretty passing girls. Clothing was billowy, colorful and emblematic of the gaiety of its people. The problems of capitalism did continue. Laborers and ragged men lived on the "wrong side" of town. Beggars huddled in doorways.

Artists came from all over to train in Florence. The better ones were accepted as apprentices of a master. These apprentices learned the skills of mixing colors, carving in wood and stone, decorating, glazing pottery, jewelry making, and furniture upholstering. It often took 20 years for the apprentice to be admitted to the artist's guild and allowed to set up shop. The best artists, however, achieved guild status at a young age. One of them was named Leonardo da Vinci.

He was a natural painter who studied under a master named Verrochio. Within a short time, it was obvious that the student had surpassed the teacher. Leonardo openly expressed a desire to "work miracles." By this he meant to advance man to a higher level; to give reason to their thoughts, expressions, movements. He was fascinated by nature, and asked questions, like why hills formed ridges, why water flowed a certain way, what the movement of the wind through grass and trees was. He became adept at light and shadow. He quickly filled up 5,000 pages of notes and drawings. Once he felt he had an understanding of nature, he became an inventor of machines. Da Vinci designed drawbridges, mechanical diggers, and even a parachute. He designed a life-jacked filled with air. He made designs of flying machines, and his theories of man-made flight were said to be the basis of the Wright Brothers first airplane. His notebooks of flying machines showed what looked very much like helicopters.

At first, though, his inventions were too far ahead of their time. People only paid attention to his marvelous paintings. The problem was that painting was not his first love. He would start a work without finishing it, tinkering instead with inventions. He was not a well-rounded scholar, poor in Greek and Latin. The concept of the "Renaissance man" during Lorenzo's time was that a great artist had to be well rounded. Da Vinci felt Lorenzo was too wrapped up in old books instead of seeing the future. Tired of waiting to be commissioned by Lorenzo, Leonardo went to Milan instead.

Meanwhile, Lorenzo did settle upon a young artist who was more to his liking, named Michelangelo. He sponsored the destitute Michelangelo, giving him a room in the Medici palace. Lorenzo became a true Platonic, discussing in Socratic ways philosophy while sipping wine on a pleasant hillside with his band of scholars, poets and intellectuals. It was under Lorenzo that Marsilio Ficino had translated Plato's works into Latin. During this time the Germans invented the printing press, and books now proliferated throughout Europe. Some Latin scholars were aghast, saying that the printing oppress now made it possible for the most "stupid thoughts" to be spread, willy-nilly, around the world. Oh well.

Lorenzo was so pre-occupied with the arts that business began to suffer. Competition emerged from traders in England and Flanders. A hue and cry began to emerge from the lower classes, who were the first to feel the sting of economic downturn. A monk named Savonarola led them. He was a medieval churchman who preached of sin, plague and gloom. Lorenzo tried to mediate with Savonarola. Savonarola only predicted Lorenzo's suffering, for his "sins." Savonarola was prescient. Lorenzo, who had gout anyway, became sick and died a painful death. As he lay dying, Medici called Savonarola to his bedside. Before he would bless Lorenzo, the friar made three demands. He had to repent his sins, give up his riches, and turn over political power away from the Medici family. Lorenzo agreed to the first two demands, but could not accede to the third. Savonarola let him die, his sins unforgiven. According to legend, lightning struck the Duomo the day of Lorenzo's death. Piero Medici took his father's place. In 1494, French troops marched in Tuscany. Piero gave the troops a fortress and gold, and sent them to Naples instead of plundering Florence. Seen as a weak leader who gave away the city, Piero was booted out of power.

Savonarola then took over. He ordered all of the joyous fun, the books, the learning, and the great achievements of Florence, to be banned as "vanities." Much of the great artwork and priceless treasures of Florence were burned by his edicts. Artists like Botticelli, who specialized in depicting large-breasted nymphs, tried to paint preacherly works. Artists and rich people went to live in monasteries. The Middle Ages seemed to have descended once again. Then the Pope ordered Savonarola to stop his preaching. The people began to complain, and one of Savonarola's followers agreed to meet a Franciscan monk in a trial by fire. If he walked through fire unharmed, Savonarola's claims would be deemed true. If he burned, he would be seen as false. Much argument ensued over the rules of the trial. Then it rained, and it was decided the trial should not be held. The crowd heaped scorn on Savonarola. He was arrested, hung and burned, but like Joan of Arc, proclaimed faith in Christ to the end. Savonarola was an example of all that is both good and bad about the Church. He tried to help the poor and bring about justice, but he was an extremist, and most extremists are just...too extreme. Moderation, as they say, in all things...whether it be sex, alcohol, or religion. A philosopher might say that in trying to do good, he might have done evil. This is not the kind of thing that can be definitively answered by mere mortals. Did the Florentinians hang and burn a true prophet of God?

Regardless of the actual answer to that question, the Renaissance did return to Florence. Leonardo returned from Milan. He and Michelangelo were hired to paint huge murals. Florentine citizens soon became fans of either da Vinci or Michelangelo. That two such enormous talents lived and worked at the same time and the same place is the mark of the Renaissance and Florence as its home. Then the Pope called Michelangelo to Rome. Da Vinci's experiments with plaster failed when the colors streaked, so he went to work on the portrait of a merchant's wife, Madonna Elisabetta. He called it "Mona Lisa". Once finished, he too journeyed to Rome. Merchants and patrons of the arts were now spread to Rome, Venice and as far away as Paris. When the two great stars of the art world left, the Golden Age of Florence left with them.

Milan, Italy was a dusty, smoky city known for its armor craftsman, who made the finest protective military clothing in the world. The Crusaders picked up their chain mail there. The politics of the city reflected the craftsmen. It was a warlike city, ruled by an iron fist. If Florence was the Athens of its time, Milan was the Sparta. Tyrannical dukes ran Milan. The rich Lombardy landscape attracted farmers and conquerors alike. Revolts did occur among the populace, but they were put down. Pageants demonstrating military might were put on to scare would-be revolutionaries. The main families of Milan were the Viscontis and later the Sforzas.

The Viscontis, whose emblem was a viper, filled its treasury with gold. They gained full power in 1277 when they persuaded the Holy Roman Empire to name Matteo Visconti as Count of Milan. For 100 years, the family was embroiled in squabbles, conspiracies, murders, and treachery. But the family also controlled Pavia, where Gian Galeazzi (a Visconti) ruled. He tried to bring that area into the Renaissance through patronage of the arts, and marrying his children into royalty by paying enormous dowries. The difference between Milan and Pavia engendered a rivalry amongst the family.

Gian Galeazzi was said to be a coward. When he went on a pilgrimage, he hired German bodyguards. When he passed Milan, he was afraid to enter the city. His brother, Bernabo, a ruthless man, ruled Milan. He learned that his brother was on the outskirts of the city, afraid to enter. He rode out to scorn Gian. Then the bodyguards surrounded Bernabo and his sons, taking them prisoner. Gian had shown himself to be a true Visconti, after all. He then took over Milan, and the populace, tired of the iron-fisted Bernabo, welcomed him. The city grew prosperous and strong. Eventually, Gian dreamt of conquering all of Italy.

As they say, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This statement rings true throughout history. Only the Americans seem to have figured out a way to falsify it.

Gian's plans were struck down by the plague. Disloyal generals and his children divided his dukedom. Harshness returned to Milan. Filippo Maria, Gian's son, was fat and ugly, but ambitious. He tried to consolidate power and win back the dukedown through military force, but knew that he lacked the charisma to inspire troops under his command. Therefore, he was constantly afraid of plots underneath him. One general under his command was Francesco Sforza, known as a tough _condottiere._

Sforza's father had been a commander, and Francesco had trained under him as a youth. Francesco was a mercenary in search of political power. He immediately plotted to take Filippo's rich dukedom. He did this by courting his favor, then asked for Filippo's daughter's hand in marriage, trying to work his way in that way. The Duke refused to allow the marriage, so Sforza offered his services to Florence. None of the Duke's commanders matched Sforza's skills, however, so he was forced to cut a deal. He allowed the marriage to go through and hired Sforza to command the Milanese militia.

But when Filippo died, the Milanese people wanted self-rule. Francesco bided his time, knowing that the people would need military rule to protect them from invaders. When the Venetians marched into Lombardy, that is what happened. They made him the Duke of Milan. Francesco turned out to be a just ruler. However, his son, Galeazzo Maria, was taught in the ways of Visconti's – double-dealing and intrigue. When he inherited the dukedom, he returned to the old ways. Citizens were tortured in public squares, and the duke made a big show of his power. In 1476, three students stabbed him to death in a church.

A power struggle followed that event, with Lodovico, known as "Il Moor" (The Moor) taking over. He imprisoned the deceased duke's mother and ordered the beheading of old Secco Simonetta, the ducal secretary. Once he had cleaned up using ruthless methods, however, he turned out to be wise and merciful. He held fashionable balls, sponsored trade, improved farming, and turned into a skilled diplomat. His nephew married Isabella of Aragon, who ruled Naples. He himself married Beatrice d'Este, daughter of the duke of Ferrara. Lodovico commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to paint a picture of Christ and His apostles at the Last Supper.

The ruling family of Milan then found itself quarrelling with France and the rest of Italy. Lodovico signed a pact with France, who had long claimed Naples as part of France. The Italians felt betrayed by Lodovico. In 1494, French troops invaded Italy. They marched unopposed past Milan and invaded Naples. But Lodovico betrayed France when he felt he no longer needed their protection, and France fled. They returned two years later. This time they targeted Milan. Lodovico had no allies, his past double-dealings leaving him friendless. He had to give up and escaped to Germany. The French ransacked Milan. Lodovico returned with a hired army, but he could not afford to pay the mercenaries who turned on him when he ran out of gold. He died in 1508, in the custody of the French. The weakening of Italy left it open to the interests of the Spanish and Germans, too.

Another splendid city of Renaissance Italy was Ferrara, the most magnificent court in the country. The d'Este family ruled them. The city belonged to the Catholic Church, its duke paying annual tribute to the Pope. Ferrara was a city of money, art, collected manuscripts, and great beauty. The Palazzo de Diamante had outer walls covered with 12,000 diamond-shaped pieces of marble. Schifanoia was the Summer place of the Dukes Belriguardo. Poetry was the favorite form of entertainment in Ferrara. "Orlando Furioso" was a fanciful take that would become Italy's all-time favorite book of tales. The age of chivalry, it was said in Ferrara, was dead. This meant that in modern Italy, good horse skills, a noble title, and proper manners no longer won one success. But the people liked to pretend it was still so, even though reality by 1400 was that money, contacts and the right kind of advice were the keys to success.

Duke Niccolo III helped the d'Este's gain a fortune. He also brought in educators to teach his children and others about the Romans and Greeks. He obtained the services of Guarino da Verona, a noted professor of Greek in Constantinople. Students flocked to Ferrara to learn under this modern day Socrates. Under this tutelage, Niccolo's sons grew up wise and educated. One of his grandsons, Alfonso, was very interested in matters of government. He chose as his bride Lucretia, the charming, golden-haired daughter of Pope Alexander VI. When Alfonso became duke in 1505, he gave Lucretia important governmental duties. His specialty was warfare, hers the arts. Niccolo's granddaughters were lovely real-life fairy princesses.

One of the sisters, Isabella, was a true noblewoman who could write poetry, essays in Latin, talked politics with diplomats, and painting with artists. She could sing, dance and play musical instruments. In those days, girls like Isabella, the daughters of dukes, were committed to marriage as early as six years old, and made to be ladies-in-waiting until they reached age 16. Isabella was committed to Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, the son of the Marquis of Mantua. Eventually, she became the ruler of Mantua, and attained the title _la prima donna del mondo,_ the "first lady of the world."

In Mantua there was a "School for Princes." Vittorino da Feltre was the schoolmaster, charged with teaching the best and brightest Latin and Greek, the poetry of Homer, Petrarch, and Virgil, Demosthenes' speeches, plus religious training, among all the other disciplines. These were the first men known as "Renaissance Men." They were taught the virtues of honesty, mind, body and spirit, under the Greek ideal. The leaders of Italy were taught there for 20 years.

Not all the Renaissance Men were honest. Sigismundo Malatesta, who became the lord of the state of Rimini in 1432, was an educated charmer. He had all the qualities of a poet-warrior, but he came from a long line of Italian liars. In fact, the name Malatesta was meant "evil head." He cheated employers, seduced women, and portrayed himself, inaccurately, as a religious man. As lord of Rimini, he taxed his people unmercifully (so he was a Democrat!), and filled a cathedral with works of art that quickly made people realize it was meant not to glorify God, but Malatesta. Eventually, the Pope excommunicated Sigismundo. He said he was "the evil spirit of Italy, and the disgrace of our time."

Urbino was governed by a generous noble, Duke Federigo da Montefeltro, a product of the "School for Princes." He built a fabulous library in Urbino. His son, who inherited the dukedom, continued his gentlemanly ways. Baldassare Castiglione, a military officer who was injured and sent to the Duke's palace to recover, ending up in the court there for 11 years. He wrote a book describing the beauty of da Montefeltro's Urbino in "The Book of the Courtier". The book detailed what was said to be the mark of a true gentleman during that era, and this included noble birth (but not required), skills in the art of war, expert sporting skills, and a classic education. The book was the best seller of its day, translated into French and English. It sold throughout Europe after its publication in 1528.

Unfortunately, this Italian Camelot went the way of most of the small city-states of Italy. Unable to protect itself, and not part of a confederated country, it fell to invading armies.

Decisions had to be made on how to protect one's political base. In the preceding years, lying, double-dealing nobles had fared no better than exquisitely honest ones. Who could provide the right kinds of policies that would create stability? It was during the search for this kind of "answer" when Machiavelli entered the picture.

A dissection of his book, "The Prince", has already been offered, but this chapter offers more light on what motivated him to pen this book. Like everybody else in Renaissance Italy, he had found himself adrift in the changing tides of politics. For 14 years he had been an officer of the Republic of Florence, but when the Medici's had returned with the Spanish Army, he was a nobody.

Cesare Borgia took Machiavelli's advisements to heart. Borgia was a gentleman of the da Montefeltro style, but he was also said to have murdered his brother. His father had been the Pope who consolidated Borgia states under Church control. By the age of 27, in 1502, Borgia had taken control of a dozen cities. He was a successful _condottiere_ , charging for his military services then taking over politically when he was strong enough to do so. He had earned the friendship of Urbino's elite, then borrowed their cannon to help conquer the city. He outwitted plots to murder him and had his would-be assassins strangled.

Borgia dreamt of a new Roman Empire, with himself as Caesar. When his father died, the new Pope was a bitter family rival. Borgia asked for help from his allies, but offered nothing in return. He had forgotten, or failed to make provisions, based on one of Machiavelli's principles, which was that a prince loses power when she tarts asking instead of giving. Borgia was killed in battle.

In 1492, Lorenzo Medici had left Florence to journey to Rome, where he was made a cardinal. He was only 18 when his family's power collapsed. Rome had known so much history that it was now a city of great intrigue. Medici would have to make his way in a city that featured scholars, scoundrels, diplomats, spies, millionaires, fortune hunters, priests, and professional murderers. Italy was a country controlled by families, each employing "armies." One can easily see how the Mafia grew out of this situation. Rome, in the years after the empire collapsed, was the Cold War Berlin of its time. The rise of the Catholic Church and the new architecture of the Renaissance replaced the ruins of ancient Rome and the burned-out buildings that had been destroyed in family battles. The Pope operated out of the Vatican Palace, and St. Peter's Cathedral was built as a splendid monument.

The Popes of the Renaissance were much different than the modern Popes. They were scholars, men of the world, and political animals. Today, Church politics and intrigue exist, but it is much more about Christian doctrine. Popes of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance were products of military coups, political and business deals. They had to be diplomats who coordinated a coalition of churches, cities, states, governments, armies and disparate groups that make Dwight Eisenhower's job during World War II look simple.

Pope Nicholas V was a scholar and chief librarian of Cosimo Medici's clan. Pius II was a brilliant and ambitious man who came to power in 1458. Paul II was an elegant Venetian, bejeweled and well turned in the finest clothes. Pope Sixtus IV was a plotter and tyrant. He had conspired to overthrow Lorenzo the Magnificent in an effort to control Central Italy. The people overthrew him and demanded a peaceful man, and thus were given the aptly named Pope Innocent III, who was the one who made Giovanni Medici a cardinal. By the time he arrived in Rome, however, Pope Innocent was dead and replaced by Alexander VI, who was said to be most un-Godly. Even Machiavelli thought him more devious than most.

Alexander ascended to the Papacy and held it much like a modern Caesar, throwing wild spectacles. His son was Cesare Borgia, and he pinned his hopes on his son leading armies that would make him a real Caesar. But the Borgia's were murderous and their ways became known to their friends and allies. Their popularity did not last. As more and more of their rivals were killed, it became obvious who was behind it. The Pope's daughter, Lucretia Borgia, is infamous for her use of "slow poison," which she mixed in the food and drink of rivals who she seduced into her inner circle using sex as an enticement. The rivals would appear to be all right, then die a few days later. History has never truly proved all the stories about Lucretia, but neither have they been disproved.

Alexander and Cesare came down ill at the same time. Rumors abounded that one or both of them had meant to poison the cardinal, that the butler had accidentally served them the tainted wine, or that Lucretia had poisoned them. They may very well have come down with malaria, which afflicted Rome that year. Either way, the Pope died 13 days later. Romans celebrated in the streets, beginning a legend that a little devil was seen scampering into the Vatican to collect his soul. The Catholics had veered far from the original work of Jesus. Some of the most important members of the Church indeed were doing the work, wittingly or unwittingly, of Satan.

Cesare Borgia died in battle, and again the search went out for an honest Pope. Cardinal Julius della Rovere was chosen in 1504. He turned out to be more of a military man than a man of God. As an Italian his main agenda was to drive foreign forces out of Italy. Instead of paying heed to Christian concerns in Rome, he put on a suit of armor and led a force into the field to drive the French "barbarians" out. He began a 10-year war, and managed to free the peninsula of the French and other foreign forces. This strengthened the Church and created the "five powers" of Italy.

When he returned from the battles, he set out to build up Rome. He was a major figure of the Golden Age. He tore down the crumbling Basilica of St. Peter, and chose Donato Bramante to construct a new St. Peter's. He hired the artist Raphael to paint over all the main rooms. This included his masterpiece, which depicted Plato and Aristotle, among other works showing saints and apostles; poets and musicians; and lawmakers. Raphael changed the nature of Renaissance art, which had previously been somber and made by artists who spent much time pondering and laboring over their work. He was a lively artist who painted scenes that showed life as a celebration.

Michelangelo was still working. He was in contrast to Raphael; moody, ill tempered, brooding. His statue of the dead Christ and his mother, the "Pieta", made his name for him. He then sculpted the magnificent "David", That led to a call from Pope Julius. The first project was a statue of Julius himself, and after that the Sistine Chapel.

It was thought that Raphael was the man for the Sistine project. He was the painter, and the mural of the ceiling was a painting. Michelangelo was a sculptor. But Julius insisted on Michelangelo. The artists complained, stalled and said he was not in the painting trade. The Pope insisted. It took four years and the work was agonizing and slow. Michelangelo painted 10,000 feet of ceiling, much of it on his back. He painted 343 bodies, 343 heads, nearly an acre of background, and let no assistants touch an inch of it.

Throughout this time, Julius would demand, "When will it be finished?"

"It will be finished when I shall have done all that I believe is required to satisfy art," was Michelangelo's reply. In October, 1512, Michelangelo pronounced the work complete. The painting told God's story; of Adam receiving the life-giving touch of the Creator, then of Noah and Moses, the prophets, Jewish military triumph, the birth of Christ, the Prince of Heaven. The Sistine was completed as Pope Julius was completing his last successful military campaign. In 1513, his life seemingly complete, he died having done much for Rome and Italy.

Giovanni de Medici, 37, took over at the Vatican. He became Pope Leo X. The University of Rome became a first class institution of learning during his reign. He brought a cosmopolitan air to the Papacy. He oversaw the completion of the new St. Peter's. Michelangelo was so tired and worn out from his Sistine project that he was happy to just fade away. Raphael emerged as the leading artist of the Leo era, but then he died suddenly at 37 in 1520. His funeral was a major event, and demonstrated the reverence Romans felt for great art.

Pope Leo then put his mind to the work of building peace after Julius' warring rule. He was a good diplomat, and he had to be. The world was in turmoil, the conflicts involving the Spanish, French, the Netherlands, and warring Italian city-states. He wed his nephew to a French princess in 1518, but the couple both died young, leaving a baby named Catherine. He turned to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and Lord of the Netherlands, to quiet a Church squabble in Germany. A German monk named Martin Luther was trying to install reforms.

Luther was fed up with the Vatican – the politics, the greed, the wars and violence. He was tired of the Church system. It essentially rewarded rich men with the "access" to God. Poor people did not have access because they could not afford to pay – bribe – the Church with "indulgences" that were rewarded with pardons for sin, which amounted to letters of admission to Heaven. These letters were literally peddled by corrupt churchmen. Men would simply commit some sin or another and then purchase the letter, "assuring" them of acceptance to Heaven when they died. Despite doubts that the letters were worth the paper they were printed on, Ledo allowed the practice to go on. It was too prosperous to the Catholics to end the practice.

Leo simply did not want some monk telling him how to run his business. Luther was threatened with excommunication, and his church was taken from him. He was thought to be just another radical like Savonarola. Leo ordered Charles to attack the new Lutherans, but Charles did not want to get involved in a religious dispute. Being closer to the scene, Charles understood that Luther had a very powerful hold on his followers. Various military and political moves ensued, involving a Spanish-German force that was sent to successfully fight the French, and a German promise to censure Luther. Leo died in 1521, but Lutheranism did not die.

The beginning of the Reformation, of Protestantism, did much to expose the corruption of the official Catholic Church. It also created a new evangelical Christianity. The concept said that man could communicate by prayer with Christ, directly, spiritually, at any time or any place. It had a universal resonance, and its message is as strong today as it was in the 1520s.

Pope Adrian VI was from Germany. He directed an end to the Church's practice of acting like a corporation. Many of the artists commissioned by the Vatican were put out of work. In 1527, Rome fell to an army of German and Spanish troops, who sacked the city unmercifully. Many of the Germans called themselves Lutherans. Their violence was intense, because they were not mercenaries but rather religious zealots who felt they were fighting a false religion, Catholicism. The Pope at this time was Clement VII. He surrendered the city and was taken prisoner. What happened next may or may not have significance to those who believe Catholicism is the one true religion. The invaders were struck by natural illness, and 10,000 of them died of sickness.

Next came the French, again, but during their peninsula campaign they, too, were struck by illness – plague and malaria – caused apparently by swampy conditions and heat. Eventually, the Medici's ascended again to power in Florence. Merchants again tried to create power bases. Years of scandal, war and uncertainty robbed them of their vitality as a national people. Art reflected the period. Paintings no longer tried to capture Truth, but rather tried to depict an imaginary world in which the reality of life could be put someplace else while people dreamt.

Michelangelo still was around. A legend, he had survived all the turmoil and was more renowned than ever. Ordinary Popes came and went. He finally was commissioned – against his wishes, of course – to create the St. Peter's Basilica on the behest of Pope Paul III. He actually died before its completion, but the work continued and was finished in 1588. It was a symbolic end to the Renaissance.

Venice had been a city that tried to stay clear of the wars and turmoil of the Renaissance, while maintaining the great artistic advancements of the age. It was built on a natural lagoon, which was considered a defense from invaders. Its canals made it difficult for any armies to come in and take over. Venice had been a seaport and launching pad of the Crusades. Through shrewd maneuvers its merchants had benefited from the riches plundered during those Holy Wars. They built mighty ships and benefited from trade routes. This marked Venice for 800 years. Genoa twice tried to invade. The lagoon and the Venetian marines stopped them cold both times, eliminating the Genovese as rivals. By 1400, Venice "owned the sea," but by trade, not naval success. In 1405, Venice went on a land campaign to capture riches that they could not obtain by trade. They succeeded.

In 1453 Constantinople was lost to the Turks, and in 10 years they threatened Venice. While Venice did not fall, it was a costly campaign to keep the Turks out. The city continued to be known for its fineries, which came to them both via trade and by local craftsmen. The aristocracy ran the city sternly. Despite its impressive beauty, it was not a Democracy. Its government was much like the Roman Senate. Citizens deemed enemies of Venice were given no rights, and often just disappeared into dungeons.

Art in Venice had more of an Eastern flavor to it, because of its ties to the Crusades, the plunders of the East, and its dealings with the Turks and Constantinople. All things considered, though, if one were wealthy, life in Venice was joyous.

Italian customs spread throughout Europe during the Renaissance. This was partly due to the influence of Francis I, King of France, who collected all things Italian. England, Spain and Germany all reflected Italian art and manner, too. This did not stop Louis XII of France from trying to conquer Italy in 1499. He laid claim to Milan, capturing it from the Sforza's. Louis brought much confiscated Italian art back to Paris, and wanted to pilfer the "Last Supper". His advisors talked him out of it. Various invaders all seemed to feel the same. Once they took their territories, they fell in love with all the art. Finally, Francis I simply paid Leonardo da Vinci a salary of 7,000 pieces of gold to come back to France and paint for the French. Da Vinci was happy to do so. He brought the "Mona Lisa" with him for placement in the royal art collection. The Louvre was built on the banks of the Seine River, and the Chateau Chambord was rebuilt. The poet Francois Rabelais' poetry was popularized.

The last French campaign in Italy, led by Henri II, was a miserable failure in 1557. He was forced to make a peace that kept the French on their side of the Alps, but he did get a bride out of it, Catherine de Medici. The reign of Catherine and her three children, after Henri's death, was fraught with religious turmoil. This ushered in the age of the Bourbons, and under this regime France became united. Thus began the Age of Reason.

The Renaissance in Spain and the north were ushered in via trade that brought them the luxuries of Asia. Business dominated the scene. In 1440, Johann Guttenberg invented the printing press. Paintings in the north were symbolized by the work of Hubert and Jan Van Eyck. Gradually, artistic techniques of the northern and Low Countries blended with the styles of the Italians.

In 1517, a Dutch scholar, Erasmus, began the study of humanism in the form of artistry. Erasmus was said to be a great influence on Martin Luther. In Spain, the Moors were driven out, but the Dark Ages seemed to descend once again when they reverted to the practice of burning so-called heretics. Spain was the country of Cervantes, whose comic knight, Don Quixote, captured the imagination with his windmill-jousting pursuit of the "impossible dream." But the Spaniards were the Inquisitors. They took their Catholicism very seriously. The Inquisitions of the Spanish churchmen essentially contributed to the end of the Renaissance. A period of harshness and religious zeal took over, much of it backlash against the growing Lutheranism. As Spain grew in power and created their armada, they spread this zeal far and wide.

Queen Elizabeth had taken over England after much turmoil, and her own early years on the throne were filled with as much intrigue and behind-the-scenes dealings as the merchant squabbles of the Italian city-states. When she would finally establish her secure reign, it ushered in what would be known as the Elizabethan Age, the British Renaissance. She was 25 when she took the throne, presiding over a country torn by religious and civil troubles. Poverty had taken over the countryside. Her military was not strong. The Church of England had split from Rome, and both Spain and France threatened attack. Elizabeth's father was the tempestuous King Henry VIII. She was popular with her people and made herself available to them. She spoke Italian, and therefore was popular with the diplomats who paid visits to her court.

The art of Elizabethan England was embodied by the greatest playwright ever, the incomparable William Shakespeare. Nobles and commons alike flocked to see his works at the Globe Theatre. Shakespeare's works told tales of French battlefields, Spanish courts and Italian love affairs. He brought the country together in a way not seen since the Greek tragedies. Playwrights such as Lyl, Kyd, Greene, Peele, Marlowe and Ben Johnson spun fabulous tales, too. Queen Elizabeth gave great credit to the actors, lifting their place in society for the first time. Composers such as Campion, John Dowland, William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons wrote great music that was heard throughout Europe.

The architecture of the Renaissance would reverberate forever. Thomas Jefferson's Monticello was designed in the Renaissance style. The art and architecture of the Renaissance is still a tremendous influence.

CHAPTER 10

THE FORMATION OF WESTERN EUROPE

Queen Elizabeth died on March 24, 1603. She ushered in a new age in England and Europe. The century following her reign, which was started by her, marks the great change in Western Europe that formed the modern age. This modern age ultimately became the age of America.

The United States learned from history. This book demonstrates that it is a history of religious conflicts, misunderstandings, constant war, conquering empires, strong, weak and bad leaders, and a wide range of political philosophies. Christianity began with a man of great peace. Once it became a dominant religion, it was perverted by an Inquisition and the politicization of Catholicism by venial Popes and dictators. A Reformation took place in which Christian leaders took a hard look at this religion. Thus began the process of coming to grips with what was wrong with organized religion. The Middle East was shaped forever by the Crusades, creating a friction between Moslems and Europeans that is as real today as it was during the time of Saladin.

The transformation of Elizabethan England into a modern power

The 17th Century was the era of modernization in England. It was the era in which the British would strengthen and develop another great empire. Britain would develop into the dominant nation and culture in the world. The laws and customs of Britain would form what eventually became the U.S.

The early 17th Century began with the accession of King James, who united the crowns of England and Scotland. In 1707, Parliament achieved a more solid union between the two entities. The King James Bible translated the New Testament into a readable work that made religion more understandable for millions. In 1714, George I took over the throne with the ascent of Parliament. The century began at a time in which medicine was crude. People believed in superstitions and ghosts. Over the next 100 years great strides in real knowledge were made.

Parliament took over control of the finances of Britain, which early Stuart Kings had thought to be their sole domain. A _laissez-faire_ economic principle succeeded regulation in most spheres. This brought about the Bank of England. The 17th Century saw England go from being a second-rate power to the world's greatest power. Colonization of American began during this period. Under Queen Anne, a large empire spread to Asia and Africa. The East India Company was formed and became the most powerful corporation on Earth. Merchants became as wealthy and important as noblemen. The English diet changed from root crops to vegetables, meat, potatoes, tea, coffee, chocolate, sugar and tobacco. Port and gin drinking became national habits. For the first time, the citizenry began the regular practice of eating three meals a day – breakfast, lunch and dinner. Clothing styles became modernized. Pottery replaced pewter and wood. Families began to use knives and forks. Some households even developed a system of running hot and cold bathwater. The Plague was a constant worry at the beginning of the century, and was non-existent by the end of it.

In 1603, heretics were burnt at the stake and traitors were tortured. By 1714, Protestant dissent was legally tolerated, and torture was illegal. Church courts lost their power to civil courts. Under Charles I Archbishop Laud ruled the land. Under Anne it was considered a sensation when a bishop was appointed to government office. Under the early Stuarts Justices of the Peace were subject to the direction of Whitehall and had to answer to a Star Chamber. Eventually country gentlemen and town oligarchies took over local government functions. Judges could be dismissed by fiat in James' time. By 1701 they could be removed only by both Houses of Parliament.

When James was King, it was felt that he ruled by Divine Right. It was argued that all property was his. By the end of the century, property rights of individuals were respected. Astrology, fairies and alchemy no longer held sway with the populace. Modern science became triumphant. The laws of Newton were written. No longer did the people believe that the Earth was literally at the center of a Universe in which God and the devil intervened in all manner of human action.

Historian Christopher Hill said that Richard Cromwell, who had been born under Charles I, "had seen the end of the Middle Ages, the beginnings of the modern world...Between his birth and his death the educated person's conception of nature and of man's place in nature had been transformed."

Poets like Donne and Traherne wrote for the first time of metaphysical forces. Language went from crude to refined, embodied by the works of Bunyan, Swift and Defoe. Operatic performances and virtuoso violinists and singers thrilled public audiences. The 17th Century set England on the path to parliamentary government, economic advance, imperialist foreign policy, religious toleration and scientific progress.

The struggle for constitutional government was the main question when King James I took over. The question was whether the King ruled the people as God's representative, or whether he should submit to the control of national representatives. In France, the Estates General met in 1614. Thereafter their King made laws without the advice of any political body. Despotic powers were generally exercised on the Continent. James I his and son, Charles I, would gladly have exercised the same control themselves.

James I was the first of the Stuarts to take the throne. He was the son of Mary Queen of Scots, and known in Scotland as James VI. His reign ushered in a political deal consolidating England and Scotland. In practical terms, relations between the people of the two countries did not get much better for many years to come, however. James was a learned man, but his rule was not much more effective than the unschooled Henry IV of France. Henry VIII had been heartless. His daughter, Elizabeth had been enlightened; both understood how to make themselves popular among the people. James was not adept at public relations. Shakespeare had written many of his plays prior to Elizabeth's death, but "Othello", "King Lear" and "The Tempest" proved highly prescient of James' rule. Francis Bacon was a philosopher and statesman who did much to advance scientific research based upon his study of Aristotelian logic.

Charles I had married a French princess, Henrietta Maria, the daughter of Henry IV. He proposed to aid the Huguenots in their efforts at La Rochelle. He decided he needed a military victory to increase his power base, and hoped to prosecute a war with Spain. He bucked Parliament and did it. The expedition and the aid to the Huguenots both failed. Charles then proposed that the citizenry _lend_ him money for his war efforts with no guarantee that he would pay them back. Some gentlemen refused to make these payments. They were arrested, therefore bringing to a head the question of royal vs. civil authority. In 1628 the Petition of Right essentially outlawed similar actions by future kings.

Religious problems cropped up because Charles had married a Catholic princess. A growing inclination to revert to Catholicism alarmed the English Protestants. The Commons was resolved to maintain the Anglican sentiment. For 11 years beginning in 1629 no new Parliament was summoned while the differences were addressed. Further civil trials were held regarding the King's ability to tax the citizenry. Each case further weakened despotic rule.

In 1633, Charles made William Laud the archbishop of Canterbury. He set forth a "middle course" that lay somewhere between Rome and Calvinistic Geneva. He made it clear that humans should be free to make conscientious choices as to the nature of their religious beliefs. The conflict came within official Church circles. The new Protestants still clung to certain practices of Catholicism while rejecting the Mass and the Pope as their titular head. The Low Church party, known as Puritans, considered such practices as superstition. The Presbyterians joined forces with the Puritans in demanding a more Calvinist style of church government.

Various separatists emerged. Some felt the need to flee the country. Some went to Holland. They established a community at Leiden, then dispatched a ship called the Mayflower to the New World in 1620. In 1640, Charles found himself at war with Scotland over church issues. English forces felt little compunction to fight the Scots over issues they had no palpable disagreement with. The result of the conflict was the formation of the long-overdue session of Parliament.

The House of Commons was offended by Charles' impositions. The Long Parliament found the King's religious ministers guilty of treason, resulting in executions. Civil war ensued. The Cavaliers (aristocracy, Papists and members of the Commons fearful of Presbyterianism) supported Charles. Parliaments' supporters were called Roundheads. Oliver Cromwell represented them. His men were forthright and fought well against forces the King joined with northern and Irish forces. In the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, the King was defeated. Charles was found to be conspiring with foreign forces in France to fight. Eventually he was turned over by his Scottish protectors to Parliament. Great turmoil took places between all the religious and civil factions of England. Eventually, Charles was beheaded at Whitehall in 1649.

The House of Commons was now called he "Rump Parliament." They proclaimed England a commonwealth. Cromwell took over as the real ruler of England. There was still the matter of Charles II, the son of the executed King and heir to the throne. He faced much difficulty. The nobles and Catholics in Ireland proclaimed Charles II as King. Ormond, a Protestant leader, formed an army of Irish Catholics and English royalist Protestants with the hope of overthrowing the Commonwealth. Cromwell set forth an army to Ireland. After taking Drogheda, he slaughtered 2,000 "barbarous wretches." Much cruelty marked the campaign. In 1652 Ireland surrendered.

Charles II went to Scotland. Cromwell subdued their army, too. He also was involved in a war with the Dutch, fought over commercial interests involving trade routes. Alliances ensued and Cromwell managed to come out of his skirmishes with his power intact. England gained Dunkirk and the West Indies. After some consternation, foreign monarchs came to realize Cromwell was indeed the legitimate leader of a nation. He died of natural causes in 1658.

His son, Richard, succeeded him but lost control of the country to the military. They formed an alignment with Charles II, which marked the Puritan revolution and Restoration of the Stuarts. Various religious sects were established in response to Charles' ascendancy. He managed to work with the Parliament and create an air of moderation in England. The conflicts with Holland continued. Charles seized more of the West Indies and Manhattan Island, populated by Puritan pilgrims and now made into colonies in the New World in 1667. This deal was made with the help of the French, who secured English alliance. Eventually, however, England and Holland made up their differences and formed an alliance against Louis XIV of France.

Charles II died in 1685. His brother, James II, a Roman Catholic, succeeded him. His wife, Mary of Modena, was also Catholic. James attempted to bring England back into Catholic control. The Anglicans created rebellion at this prospect. The Duke of Monmouth emerged as a Protestant claiming to be the legitimate successor to Charles II. He had the backing of the Dissenters, but he was captured and executed. More than 300 were hung as conspirators, and over 800 sold into virtual slavery in the West Indies. Lord Jeffreys orchestrated these acts, and he was made Lord Chancellor. He openly espoused Catholicism. The Dissenters gave him no support.

The King was getting old, and his daughter was a Protestant. Mary, James' daughter by his first wife, had married William, Prince of Orange, the head of United Netherlands. A son was born to his second, Catholic wife. Messengers were dispatched to William and Mary, inviting them to come to England and rule.

William arrived in 1688 and received support from English Protestants. James opposed William, but his army would not back him up and his courtiers deserted him. He abdicated and went to France. The "Glorious Revolution" did crown William and Mary, but passed a Bill of Rights that placed authority with Parliament in 1689. This Bill of Rights became the model for the American Declaration of Independence, the bill of rights in varying state constitutions, and the U.S. Constitution in the first 10 amendments. The Toleration Act followed, granting the right of public worship to Dissenters. Liberty of the press was emboldened.

France struggles under the Catholic monarchy

Under Louis XIV, France had great influence in European affairs. After the wars of religion were concluded, Henry IV had established a royal authority. Richelieu had solidified the monarchy by depriving the Huguenots of privileges granted them by Henry IV. Cardinal Mazarin died in 1661, leaving the monarchy to Louis. France had come out of the Thirty Years' War with enlarged territory and increased importance.

Louis' court at Versailles was known as the model of princely splendor. He also felt the same way James I had felt; that the throne was his by Divine Right. French people were simply not as advanced as the English when it came to the concept of self-rule. The French were more likely to accept the notion that if the King was just, it was because they had earned the goodwill of God. If the King was cruel, they had somehow sinned and were being paid in kind. They relied on a powerful King.

Louis XIV was all-powerful, but he did accept the advice of courtiers. He did not allow a dominant advisor such as Richelieu. The financier Colbert discovered stealing and waste among Louis' court. He was able to reform the bookkeeping methods. New industries were established in France, and medieval guilds were reorganized. Art and literature of the era was magnificent, as portrayed by Moliere, Corneille, Racine and Madame de Sevigne. The French Academy was encouraged. A magazine, the _Journal des Savants_ , promoted science. An astronomical observatory was built in Paris. 16,000 volumes graced the Royal Library.

Unfortunately, Louis XIV made a number of questionable attacks on his neighbors. He decided to re-capture various lands that had been lost in battles going back to the time of Gaul and the Roman Empire, involving among other places Alcase, the traditional "bone of contention." He attacked the Spanish Netherlands and threatened the entire Spanish monarchy. Eventually, a Triple Alliance composed of Holland, England and Sweden was organized to make France sign a peace treaty with Spain. Louis eventually broke up the Alliance through an arrangement with England. He seized the duchy of Lorraine. 100,000 Frenchmen crossed the Rhine in 1672 to conquer southern Holland. William of Orange opened the dikes and flooded the country, checking the French before Amsterdam could be taken. England deserted Louis and made peace with Holland. The result was that France pulled out, retaining only Franche-Comte. Louis established courts to settle disputes between Germany and France over territories, but vestiges of the old feudal entanglements played out in to the treaties of Westphalia. Then the Turks attacked Vienna.

Religion was dealt with in a brusque manner. Out of 15 million Frenchmen, there were about 1 million Huguenots. They were very successful in acts of enterprise. The Catholic Church still practiced a suppression of heresy. Protestants were subjected to serious persecution. Children were authorized to renounce Protestantism at the age of seven. Offered a sweet or a toy to say "Ave Maria" (Hail, Mary), they might be taken from their parents and raised by Catholic families. Protestant families were pitilessly broken up. In 1865, the Edict of Nantes was revoked, outlawing Protestantism. The result was that many Protestants of great skill, including Huguenots who made up some of the best business minds in France, fled the nation. This caused a "brain drain" that had a major negative impact on the nation. The revocation of the Edict caused disturbances with international repercussions. This occupied Louis' government for a number of years.

The King of Spain, Charles II, had no children or brothers. When he got sick, Europe was abuzz with rumors of his realm upon his death. Louis had married one of his sisters, and Emperor Leopold I another. The two of them wanted to divide Spanish possessions between the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs. Charles II left this mortal coil in 1700, leaving his 22 crowns to Louis' younger grandson, Philip, on the condition that France and Spain not be united.

Should Philip accept the hazardous honor, he would be King of Spain. Louis' family would control all of southwestern Europe, from Holland to Sicily, as well as much of North and South America. It would be the establishment of a mighty empire. William of Orange did not want to see this kind of French sphere of influence. He formed a new Grand Alliance in 1701, consisting of England, Holland and Emperor Leopold. The English general, the Duke of Marlborough, and an Austrian commander, Eugene of Savoy, carried out the long War of the Spanish Succession. The war was wide-ranging. There were even skirmishes between French troops and English colonists in America. This became known as Queen Anne's War. The entire operation lasted about 10 years, and went against the French. Peace was arranged in 1713.

The Treaty of Utrecht had the most influential on Europe since Westphalia. Much of the Spanish holdings were split up between combatants. The Bourbon Philip V retained Spain and its colonies, the condition being that Spanish and French crowns could not rule. The Spanish Netherlands went to Austria, forming a barrier between Holland and France. Holland was given control of fortresses to secure itself. The Spanish possessions of Naples and Milan became part of the growing Austrian Empire. Austria would retain control of Italy until 1866. England took Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the Hudson Bay region from France This was a major part of important English influence in North America that would create ill feelings on the part of the French. When the American Revolution came about some 60 years later, the French remembered and helped us against the British.

England also gained the island of Majorca and the fortress at Gibraltar. The various treaties of this period of history created well-defined international laws, which mark Louis XIV's reign. The rights of ambassadors and vessels traveling in international waters were addressed. This followed up a treatise on international law published by Grotius in 1625, following the horrific Thirty Years' War. After centuries of war, men of law were beginning to emerge who had some new, amazing idea – can you believe it? – in which nations could solve their differences _without fighting_. The ideas purported by Grotius' "War and Peace" (not the Leo Tolstoy version, although that would have its influence) and Pufendorf's "On the Law of Nature and Nations" (1672) laid down rules of settling conflict that are still in use today.

The failure of the French Revolution, the "reign of terror," and the Napoleonic wars

Louis XIV outlived his son and grandson, leaving a demoralized Kingdom to his five-year old great-grandson. This was the beginning of the end for the French monarchy. Louis XV (1715-1774) headed a nation whose national treasury was virtually bankrupt. His army was of no force. The English dominated the rest of the 18th Century, until they lost the Revolutionary War in America. Even that was just a blip on the radar screen of their growing empire.

Over time, criticism of the French monarchy grew to unprecedented levels. The reign of Louis XV discredited the old regime. Fiscal mismanagement marked the century in France. The Roman Catholic Church, closely associated with the King, practiced terrible bigotry and intolerance. Eventually, an intellectual class emerged in France, characterized by Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau, and Mably. They made acidic commentary on the growing resentment of the masses, a hungry class whose hatred of the nobility grew and grew. The movement in France also grew because a middle class developed in France, and they wanted governmental power. In some ways, the Renaissance pushed the French Revolution. The world had become a place in which men of learning had become indispensable to the engines of commerce. Kings had to rely on an increasingly educated populace to handle banking, the school system, transportation, and all the other necessities of society. These people were independent thinkers, as are most people who have broken out of the yoke of ignorance. In France, they recognized what was happening, and wanted a say.

Everything came to a head during the financial crisis of 1787-88, resulting in the opposition of the Parlement of Paris to royal policy, Louis XVI's weakness. France had fought another war, with England, from 1778 to 1783. This had not gone any better than earlier ones. Bankruptcy ensued, owing to the refusal of the privileged classes to give up their tax exemptions. The King did not take a stand. Then the King tried to levy taxes on the ever-poorer populace. He finally called a meeting of the States-General of the realm on May 1, 1789.

Grievances were prepared, and the middle class demanded major tax reform. The States-General assembled on May 5, 1789 at Versailles. The Third Estate, the bourgeoisie, had numerical superiority with 621 deputies, mostly lawyers. They coordinated the nobles, the clergy and the Third Estate at the National Assembly, despite opposition from the King's Court. The King agreed to some demands. Summer was approaching and with it the heat. Poverty and hunger overtook Paris. Rumors of a _coup d'etat_ caused riots. The old city prison, the Bastille, was stormed on July 14. Throughout July and August attacks on chateaux' occurred. In October, a crowd of women marched on the Palace of Versailles and forced the King to return with them to Paris.

During the next year and a half, the National Assembly reorganized the French nation. A Constitution was drafted in 1791, establishing a limited monarchy in which the King lost legislative powers. Church lands were seized. The bourgeoisie did not make a good relationship with the Church. The King attempted to flee the country but was stopped. He opposed the new Assembly. The Jacobins and the Girondists represented the Left and right wings of the revolutionary party. The Girondists emerged as the power group and entered into a war with Austria, designed for political purposes to discredit the King. Prussia was allied with Austria. It ruined the monarchy, as expected, but was of no help to the country. Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette were the subject of mob hatred. The people blamed the royals for the prospect of foreign invasion. Radicals took control of municipal government. The Prussians then proclaimed that they were invading France to restore the monarchy. This created an explosion among the populace. The palace was stormed, and the King fled. A republic was proclaimed, and a massacre ensued. Several thousand royalists were held in jails.

The actual invasion was checked at Dumouriez at Valmy. Elections were held, but the Constitution drawn up in 1793 was never put in place. The revolution, inspired by the success of the Americans a few years before, and by the influence of Franco-philes like Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, had failed. The great works of Voltaire and the rest had quickly been forgotten. These men of conscience go down in history as forgotten figures, instead of the great minds of American history, whose ideas were put in place. It was most unfortunate, and also rather ironic. French assistance of the American revolt, plus their own war with England, had played a major role in reducing their treasury to the point where the hunger crises brought about the cycle of hatred, hence the uprising.

Counter-revolutions rose up. Virtual anarchy reigned. A group calling itself The Mountain brought about the King's execution on January 21, 1793. A coalition of Great Britain, Spain, Holland, and Sardinia joined with Austria and Prussia to commence war, hoping to restore the monarchy. The French military hero Dumouriez, no longer favored by the revolutionists, fled the country. The Catholics revolted. Everybody was in revolt against everybody. In the countryside, local rebellions clouded the picture further. Lyons, for example, defied Paris. There was no real government in Paris anymore. A Committee for Public Safety was formed. This became the most influential branch of official France. Radicals controlled it. Its mission was to rigorously exterminate all enemies of the revolution. Thus began the "reign of terror."

The United States had the Philadelphia Summer of 1787, which created the Constitution. France had the "reign of terror." The subsequent history of these two countries can be summed up and explained by this simple disparity.

Rump trials pronounced everybody guilty. They faced immediate death by virtue of a new head-chopping machine, the guillotine. The Americans created the Supreme Court. The French created the guillotine.

Military men were used to help, and therefore military men became the controllers of France. Robespierre was arrested and executed in 1794, which might be comparable to the Americans turning on Thomas Jefferson and killing him. This was the last straw. Various attempts to create Republican legislative bodies were attempted. Eventually the "reign of terror" ended. A bicameral body called the Council of the Ancients and the Council of the Five Hundred was created. This body managed to survive for four years. It was an entirely corrupt organization. One of its members was Napoleon Bonaparte. America gave the world George Washington. France's contribution is Napoleon.

France faced military opposition from European allied forces. Remarkably, despite the pressures on the home front, they fought well and induced Prussia to make peace after the conflicts of 1794-95. Spain, Holland and Tuscany soon followed. Napoleon had risen almost out of nowhere, by virtue of his brilliant military mind. In his Italian campaign, beginning in 1797, he forced Austria to sue for peace. Great Britain remained an enemy. Napoleon then went to Egypt in 1798 to threaten British security in India. The expedition failed. The failure, however, was somehow kept quiet. When Napoleon arrived in France in 1799, he was hailed as a great conqueror. He quickly overthrew the Directory on November 10, becoming virtual dictator, and officially ending the French Revolution.

Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769 in Ajacio, Corsica. His mother was of Italian descent, as were many Corsicans. The people of this island are known for their fiery personalities. Napoleon would be presented to the French as a man of the people. His men called him "the little corporal" because he mixed amongst them. This would aid in his public acceptance. But Napoleon was not a product of the huddled masses. His father was the royal assessor of Ajacio, and through his position attained educational favors for his children. Napoleon attended the College of Atun, then entered the military school of Brienne, where he studied from 1779 to 1784. He was a "foreign boy" from Corsica, which hindered his social progress, but he did well with his studies and was awarded with an appointment to the Ecole Militaire. He was a mathematical whiz, and graduated at age 16.

Napoleon was an artillery lieutenant, and in the five years prior to the revolution he studied the works of great philosophers and generals, namely Julius Caesar. At first, Napoleon did not associate himself with the reform movement, reconciling himself as a Corsican. He waited in the wings.

Bu 1793, with the Revolution in full force, he was a captain. He earned high marks in helping expel a British expeditionary force. He joined the Jacobins, casting himself on the side of Republican France. He gave up any patriotic association with Corsican Independence, which had marked his father's early career. He was made a brigadier general in preparation for the Italian invasion, but he was rebuffed by Censure because he had reconstructed a fortress destroyed by the revolutionaries in Marseilles. Augustin Robespierre secured his release. He was also friends with Maximillian Robespierre. When the two brothers were executed, Napoleon was arrested again. His name was removed from the list of French officers, but a military conspiracy was discovered to restore the monarchy. The Convention entrusted Napoleon, the Corsican, who had strategic knowledge of Paul Barras, commander of the "army of the interior," to defend against the effort. Napoleon crushed the insurrection in 1795.

He then took over the Italian Campaign. He immediately achieved a series of brilliant victories against Austria and Piedmont, which contrasted with French losses on the Rhine. He conquered northern Italy and some satellite republics, then showed great diplomatic skills in the aftermath of fighting. Austria ceded Belgian provinces to France in 1797, and to the French, occupation of the western bank of the Rhine from Basel to Andernach, thanks to Napoleon.

Napoleon talked the Directors into authorizing his Egyptian campaign, hoping to disrupt English colonial control in that region of the world. He took the island of Malta, then captured Alexandria in 1798. He had not secured the seas of the Mediterranean. British Admiral Horatio Nelson cut off his naval forces at the harbor of Aboukir, east of Alexandria, which was the telling blow that made his campaign a failure. Napoleon did proceed to Syria and won battles against Turkish forces. He did not have communication with France, and lack of knowledge of the overall picture restricted him. He left his army and returned to France in 1799.

There he found a reeling government that had been rocked by attempted _coup d'etats_ , thus nullifying their Constitution. Napoleon and his brother Lucien orchestrated another _coup_. He then declared himself First Consul of France.

He immediately made it clear that he was the undisputed emperor, and made a number of military moves that directed central control of the country to himself. He put down attempts to bring back the monarchy, then directed his attention to the crisis of the Second Coalition. Various treaties and disengagements followed involving Czar Paul I of Russia and other European powers, recognition of new territories, the arbitrary use of sea power, and the Louisiana Territory. The Treaty of Amiens in 1802 between Great Britain and France was signed, but the two old rivals were geared up for each other like never before. The treaty would not last.

Napoleon immediately set his designs on the Low Countries and surrounding nations. In 1803 war began again. At home, Napoleon reconciled with the Catholic Church, creating a system of effective reforms that helped France recover from the ravages of the 10 years between 1789 and 1799. He then sold Louisiana to the U.S., and created the Napoleonic Code in 1803. Napoleon actually made himself, officially, Emperor of the French, in 1804. With that, freedom of speech and dissent became greatly reduced.

The Third Coalition of Great Britain, Austria, Russia and Sweden was formed, but Napoleon allied with Spain, defeating the coalition, all except Great Britain. He defeated Austrian and Russian forces at Austerlitz in 1805, thus gaining territory in northern Italy. He created the Confederation of the Rhine, which drew Prussia against him, but they were destroyed in 1806. Napoleon overran Prussia and took over Berlin. Then he pursued the Russians, forcing Czar Alexander into a treaty in 1807.

This increased Napoleon's political influence in Eastern Europe. Jerome Bonaparte became ruler of the Kingdom of Westphalia. Poland was under his sphere of influence, and Prussia was now a third class power. Next came the Iberian Peninsula. The French occupied Portugal. Joseph Napoleon was installed as King of Spain. British trade was closed from Gibraltar to Russia. By 1808 Napoleon had reached the zenith of his power. One chink remained in his armor: Admiral Nelson. The British had the greatest navy in the world, and he had led them to victory over the French at Trafalgar in 1805. This gave the English a beachhead of hope that they could resist the Napoleonic Empire.

From 1808 to 1812 Napoleon controlled more geography than had Charlemagne – Northwestern Italy, Belgium, Holland, the North Sea, the Danish coast, Illyria, Corsica, Spain, Switzerland, most of the Italian peninsula, the Confederation of the Rhine, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, Prussia, Austria, Russia, and alliance with Denmark. Satellites, alliances or direct occupation marked the French Empire. The Napoleonic Code ruled all of these regions. In the Low Countries, he regulated commerce but ceded farming control to the peasants, adding to his "man of the people" reputation. This created loyalty from the peasant class.

Two things began to break up hi empire. First, central control was unwieldy and could not be sustained through self-sufficient economies. Second, Great Britain could not be put off as a threat, through treaty or other threat. Napoleon was in control of too many sovereign states that bucked his conquest and were biding their time until the right situation could be created.

It started with a war on the Iberian Peninsula. Napoleon tried to fight the Spanish using young conscripts, because his veteran forces were spread too thin. It lasted five years and was inconclusive. He had to draw his veterans to the Iberian conflict, and replaced them with mercenaries. The French throughout this period had employed a huge mercenary force. Now he had to use them more and more, relying on their loyalty, which was not to his favor. The mercenaries were with Napoleon the conqueror, but had no political affiliation with him should he fail. In 1809 he embarked on the War of the Fifth Coalition, attempting to subjugate the Austrians. They had been inspired by British success in Portugal and Spain. The Austrians massed into the Tirol and Italy, causing Napoleon to take personal command. He was successful, and forced Archduke Charles into retirement at Eckmuhl. By this time, Napoleon's wars of conquests were no longer the kinds of political campaigns that had, for the most part, marked European warfare in post-Roman history. Battles were fought by professional militaries, with casualties, or collateral damage to civilians, kept to a relative minimum. Even foreign control over territories was met by a kind of acceptance by populations. These countries changed power often. Certain places like Alsace-Lorraine, Normandy and the like had come to take these occupations in stride. Now Napoleon had risen beyond the usual power-hungry kings. Masses of people had grown to hate Napoleon. He was beaten at Aspern and Essling, but recovered in a two-day struggle of great blood at Wagram. The Treaty of Vienna in 1809 forced Austria into a hated alliance with him.

In 1812, the War of the Sixth Coalition took place when he took after Russia. He broke his Treaty of Tilsit, on shaky ground since 1807. Napoleon had not let the Czar take Constantinople. Napoleon had 600,000 men, but only one-third were Frenchmen. This put him in a vulnerable position, whereby the Russian Winter would have a devastating effect on men fighting without real loyalty. The Russians retreated and retreated, drawing Napoleon further in. Finally at Smolensk, after facing scourge, rain, tempest and famine, the Grand Army engaged the Russians. Good weather was still at hand, but it was now September when Napoleon decided to press for Moscow without supply lines. 80,000 died at Borodino, but Napoleon prevailed and made it to the capital by September 15.

Moscow was abandoned and he occupied the Kremlin. Then the Russians attacked from their hiding places, encircling the French invaders and setting fires to the city. His men scattered to the countryside. Napoleon fought off the Russians, mistakenly thinking he had them beaten and ready to capitulate. The Russians were just waiting for the Winter. By October the weather was already bad. Napoleon knew he had waited too long and been drawn into a quagmire. He retreated, but the Russians had a plan, which was to block him in the south, forcing his men to retrace their steps. Suffering from cold, disease, holding off waves of Cossacks, they retreated and suffered brutal losses. At Berezina, French engineers saved them from complete annihilation by constructing crude trestle bridges during a thaw. Equipment and horses were lost. Discipline was replaced by anarchy. 250,000 died in Russia. 100,000 were prisoners. 150,000 were wounded or deserted. Napoleon abandoned his men and made for Paris, leaving his stragglers to pathetically reach Novno on December 16.

Word of one of the worst military disasters in history reached Napoleon's enemies, encouraging them greatly. Prussia wanted revenge and to regain power. They entered a pact with Russia, which by virtue of this victory was emerging as a power after years in darkness. One could say that their victory over Napoleon changed history. It emboldened the Russians into become a militarily adventurous people and country. Napoleon was not through. He defeated the Prussians in Silesia in 1813. He was still a military genius with a strong cavalry and a valorous cadre. But he could not crush his opposition. He left his enemies with the will to fight. Austria joined the coalition and Napoleon was beaten in the Battle of the Nations at Dresden. He was forced to retire across the Rhine. The Grand Coalition offered him a treaty of boundaries on the Rhine, the Alps and the Pyrenees, but Napoleon refused. Three allied armies invaded France. Napoleon fought brilliantly, winning many battles, but he had to retreat, abandoned by his marshals. He retired to the island of Elba, and Louis XVIII was restored to the throne.

Napoleon plotted from Elba and made an amphibious landing at Cannes in 1815. He went to Paris, where Louis fled upon hearing the news. Napoleon rallied an army, and went after the coalition. They met at Waterloo, Belgium on June 18, 1815. Napoleon might have won the battle against the English general, Arthur Wellesley, the First Duke of Wellington (usually known as Wellington or Lord Wellington). His Prussian allies were beaten and forced into retreat. Napoleon was on the verge of a victory that might have given him 10 more years of Empire. Then, before night fell, the Prussians returned. Wellington had counted on this strategy, believing in the honor of the Prussian commander. He had drawn Napoleon in. Getting too far in, as he had in Russia, was Napoleon's military Achilles heel. The Prussians attacked his flank and the battle was lost. This time, everybody made sure Napoleon would not be heard from again. He was exciled to St. Helena in the mid-Atlantic, where he was a prisoner of war. He died six years later at the age of 52, lonely and embittered.

What did the Napoleonic Wars mean? Where do we start? France never recovered. They became a country of revolution again. The nation fell prey to radicalism, anarchism and liberalism. They were entirely unprepared for the unified Germans who attacked them in 1870, 1914 and 1940. Saved by twice by England and particularly by the U.S., France is now a second-rate country with little power or influence. They are left only to magnify past victories and pretend their many defeats did not happen. They are forced to re-write history as best they can, in order to put forth the myth that they were not beset by traitors, racists and collaborators. They are wrought with jealousy, having been left behind by history.

Great Britain recovered from the loss of the U.S. colonies and entered into their fabulous Victorian Age. Their empire grew to the point where the Sun never set on it. They were victorious in two world wars and, even though the empire ended and their economic power was reduced, they allied with the U.S. They landed on the _right_ side of history by design. Now they are a model for Churchillian Democracy with a military and friends to back it up.

Prussia emerged as a survivor, and built on their alliances to become a country of statesmen, which led to the unification of Germany. Unfortunately, their military success promulgated the strain of war that some say runs through their blood. They of course took it too far and lost two world wars, placing themselves roughly with France, on the wrong side of history.

Austria emerged as a very powerful country. The Austro-Hungarian Empire developed in the 19th Century into a center of culture and eventually into what (mistakenly) was believed to be the dominant military power in the world. World War I proved this to be false.

The Middle East was shown to be a sticky place for white soldiers to be, as exhibited by Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. He had announced that the French were not there as conquerors. Events forced him out of this region, and the Ottoman Empire went on to control it for another 120 years. White soldiers just took their place, and it is still a sticky place for them to be.

Spain found itself a pawn of geo-politics, and continued to be until World War II. Since then, they have been less than that.

The United States? They managed to stay out of the conflict, free to build a nation on their own terms, which did not come without bumps in the road. But they had been allied with France and could have been drawn in. The fact that they remained in isolation was the right move at the right time.

Napoleon's effect on history can be discerned in some cases, less so in others. Europe erupted in revolutions in the mid-19th Century. These events were directly related to the break-up of Napoleonic France. The revolutions were the pre-cursor of Marxist thought, which in turn led to the Russian Revolution, and Communism. If the time traveler could go back and try to change history for the better, he would first try to make the French Revolution go smoothly.

If the French could have pulled off a transition in government that had been a decent shadow of the American version, history would have been amazingly better off. First, Napoleon would not have emerged as the "savior" that France made him out to be. They cut him out of prison and put him in charge of the Italian Campaign. Instead of spending all their time and money on prosecuting wars, France should have been re-building a great nation. Had they done this, they could have legitimized the poor and suffering of France by giving them Democracy. Instead they opened the floodgates for a "reign of terror" that was just dress rehearsal for V.I. Lenin, Joe Stalin and Feliks Dzerzhinsky. If France had avoided Napoleon and followed the path of modernization and freedom, the virtues of capitalism could have spread throughout Europe. Instead, fractious mass movements of dispossessed mobs created 19th Century revolutions and the Russian one, as well.

A country that had based its new self on the ideas of Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson had lost its big chance. Once Napoleon took over, they were doomed historically. When he left France, the country and Europe was infected by near-inoperable cancer. The only way to avoid Marx would have been for the French Revolution to have worked. Marx was part of a sickness that just grew until it took over everything. The fact that the U.S. finally ended it is admirable. Communism, however, was too horrible and too huge to be seen as anything other than a plague, spreading and spreading and spreading. It was contained perhaps, but it exploded in the deaths of so many millions as to be a virtual Apocalypse.

The trickier question about the French Revolution and Napoleon is the issue of Nazi Germany. It is not an easy correlation to say that because Prussia joined with England to stop him at Waterloo, Prussia was emboldened to become a military machine. The Austro-Hungarian Empire did become a military power, in alliance with Bismarck's unified Germany. This was more of the result of European alliances and military campaign mentality that emanates from the Roman Empire. In other words, Napoleon is a product of the Roman Legion, and so is Hitler. Hitler is not a product of Napoleon.

To the extent that Great Britain and the United States are a part of Napoleon's history, there is a subtle but direct chain of events that can be argued. Great Britain emerged as the dominant world power after Napoleon. Even though they were not an ally of the United States at the time, our common language, the commonality of Democracy, and the sheer _intelligence_ of our combined people's made us unique. Great Britain and the U.S. remained independent of the mob revolutions of Europe. In time this developed into an inseparable partnership. Furthermore, the lessons of Napoleon taught us what had to be done when the Kaiser, Hitler and the Soviets played _their_ Napoleonic cards. Thank God we had emerged as strong and reliable enough so that our inseparable partnership held the better cards when it counted.

The failure of France led to events that played themselves out, primarily in one important year (1848). Social revolutions marked the years just before and after that. France had gone back to the monarchy after Napoleon. This makes all the death, the destruction, and the "reign of terror," little more than gratuitous violence. They gained _nothing_. France just went back to a king, just like they had done. The fact that this nation eventually became Democratic owes nothing to their horrible mistakes. Modern Democracy in France owes itself to the tides of capitalism, trade, the Industrial Revolution, and the need to stay closely aligned to successful nations like England and America.

Dress rehearsal for Communism: 19th Century social revolutions

In 1848, King Louis Philippe was on the French throne, waiting to die. His death was predicted to signal another revolution. Conspiracies to kill the king were afloat, supposedly in the works for seven years. Germany was in revolutionary form, too. Giuseppe Garibaldi was in South American exile, said to be waiting for the Italian revolution that would bring him back to power. In Austria, their monarchy hung on Viscount Metternich. They waited for news of the king's death. In the end, Philippe hung on for two more years. The revolutions his death were _supposed_ to kindle in the rest of Europe had fizzled out. The uprisings failed, this time. Revolutionary spirit would burn, in Marx's "Communist Manifesto", and in Eastern Europe. Had World War I never happened, Marx's revolution would likely have fizzled just as the 1848 uprisings did. Never underestimate the power and effect of war, especially major war, on social upheaval. The fact that no major wars catapulted the movements of the 19th Century makes this a historical period for discussion among historians. Most people, however, read this and ask, "There were revolutions in 1848?"

Philippe did get ousted, so he had to die in England. Paris was in a state of consternation, enough so that they would let a _Bonaparte_ take over again. What a country! That a nation with this kind of history has the _Gaul_ , to substitute/use a French word based on what their little "nation" used to be called, to lecture Democracies in the modern age is breathtaking.

Germany's university students disassembled, as did Italian and Hungarian patriots. There was bloodshed, though. In this case, there is little consensus on what it was all about. Was it Marxism before Marx? That is too simple an analysis. King Louis Philippe had been a "law and order" monarch, which made sense considering recent French history. Both Germany and Italy were still divided into smaller states. Therefore, their revolutions did not have locus on a national government. Even Prussia was not yet ready for the nationalism that would come to Germany a few years later. Revolution broke out in Naples, under a Bourbon throne, resulting in a new constitution there. Neapolitan politics, however, had become a matter of little interest to anybody outside the region.

Discontent reigned throughout the Austrian holdings ruled by the Hapsburgs – Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, northern Italy, and a swath of Poland. Vienna was ruled by an unmodern regime. Liberals throughout the world kept their eyes on Poland, northern Italy and Ireland. The Treaty of Vienna, signed in 1815, had placed restrictions on European countries that not only stifled governments, but also made a repeat of a major 1789-style revolution very difficult to coalesce.

Great changes in industry had created an exploited working class. A potato famine was occurring in Ireland. The Treaty of Vienna not only put a stranglehold on governments, but created difficulties for business, which in turn were felt by the workers. A lot of resentment brewed. The question among this new, modern class was what rights to afford the proletariat emerging from the factories and the mills. Masses of people were doing the work for larger companies; sweaty, dirty, dangerous, work that replaced many individual forms of employment. Machines were being developed that could do the work of 100 people, marginalizing the lives of the workers. Questions of whether these people should be given the vote were offered. This is not so hard to imagine since Europe is a continent based, in part, on the works of Plato. Plato, for all his talk about equality, endorsed a system that allowed slavery as natural and reduced the vote to a relatively select group of Athenians.

The men in high position worried that the people would use votes to make precarious the systems that allowed them to make a living in the first place. The Germans considered a class of potential voters, called _selbstandig_ , who were felt to be independent enough to be given such a vote. They argued that what made men free was economic independence, not the polling place. The proletariat was, to governments, a fearsome mob to fear.

Nationalism was a stirring force in 1848. Germany and Italy were still not ready, but the idea of powerful, autocratic states did not offer fear. It would have had people been able to glimpse the future. France even debated the idea of carrying still more military campaigns, as if they had not learned their lesson. This time it was to "help oppressed peoples" of other nationalities. Austrian politicians knew only that they ruled people of different races and religion. They did not understand the nationalism that lay at the heart of their complaints.

In 1848, some groups were calling themselves "conservative socialists." This sounds like a Presidential ticket of Jesse Jackson and Barry Goldwater. Suffice it to say, they did not know what they wanted. Real Democracy was so new then that there was no real template. If this is what the French had in mind when they began their great failure, it must have been a scary concept for anybody contemplating such an "experiment" in 1848. Of course, the English were well on their way. The tides of history were by then demonstrating that the English were, and there is just no better way to put it, quite simply _advanced_ , like a straight-A student in a class of D students, in the Europe of the mid-19th Century.

Democracy represented a foreign concept, but psychological and economic obstacles presented themselves, too. It was more of a foreign concept than the idea of Democracy in Eastern Europe after the fall of Berlin Wall. It was more like Democracy in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. What brewed in the working class was a notion. Call it utopian. The intellectual class would be generous about social reorganization. What makes this so unrealistic, in looking back, is that lines of demarcation were thoroughly drawn among social classes. Even in England, for all of its success, the lower classes had very, very little in common with their upper counterparts. Any reader of Dickens could attest to this. The "socialists" of this era were decidedly white collar; they were the liberals of their era, and history tells us that they were of a class of individuals who _probably had never gone so far as to shake hands with a factory worker._ They were the first of this group of elitists. We find them today on college campuses, the salons of the East and West Coasts, in Hollywood and within literature circles. They have simply _decided_ that they are so damn superior, so intellectually _able_ , that they have to make the decisions for that mass of great unwashed who do not how to do this on their own. It was the affirmative action of 1848.

The social revolutions they espoused were not coming from Marx. They were of a political nature. They shared an allegiance with the modern Left in that they felt they had prescriptions for the common good, but only if they had power. In 1848, and in the years after that, some of these socialists discovered that they actually feared the people they were trying to benefit. Marxism "worked," eventually, when the workers found this out.

Romantic nationalism involved the revival of long-dead traditions and stressed military glory, even in nations like France that had achieved their nationhood. Balkan nationalism had no main character. It was characterized by rivalry. The German character was taking shape in a way that told its leaders that patriotism was more important than civil liberty. Hungarians and Irishmen wanted only freedom from oppressors, not real power. Power was empire building. The Slavic peoples turned from cultural change to political ambition. The question among many was whether loyalty was owed to his class or to a nation, a very tricky concept indeed. Americans observed this history of Europe in the making, and made a big point of trying to learn from it. Richard Rush was the minister to Paris, and he recognized the Second Republic. William Stiles told Prince Schwarzenberg that the Austrian Navy could sink an American frigate, but they could not catch her. Andrew Jackson Donelson requited himself very well as head of the Berlin legation. Giuseppe Mazzini escaped from Italy using a passport issued to him by the American Consulate.

But the Americans were so innocent. They cheered "people's victories" over vicious governments, but failed to understand the importance of class distinctions in Europe. All they could compare anything to was the U.S. There were no real lower classes here, like the huddled masses of Europe. They scorned the capitals of the Old Country as places of degradation.

Alexander Herzen was a socialist from Russia who came to Western Europe in 1847. When he saw death and destruction amid a Parisian rebellion, he voiced pathos like that of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, instead of the easy dismissals of the Americans, who just placed themselves above the whole mess. A Russian could understand the soul of struggle. The American Revolution had not been like any other. The difference between Herzen and the contemporary American diplomats tell a story that resonates to this day. It is the story of a people (Americans) who are unlike any other. Understanding them, and being understood by them, is to this day a trick not unlike the mysterious relationship between men and women.

"We are a predestined generation," the great French writer Victor Hugo ("Les Miserables") wrote. "We have bigger and more frightening tasks than our ancestors. He have not time to hate each other."

Does Hugo sound like an American?

The Third Republic was ushered into France after the events of 1848 by Adolphe Thiers. Bismarck unified Germany, and Cavour the same in Italy. Deak won autonomy for Hungary within a dual monarchy. Serfdom ended by decree of the Russian czar. The People's Charter in Great Britain freed the manufacturing class. But revolution as class struggle failed, for the time being. The biggest reason for this was because groups within the movements differed with each other. The importance of a coherent unit striving for a main aim was made obvious, to be learned eventually by the Communists, the Nazis and the Western liberals. Forces were typified by Louis Blanc, Heinrich von Gagern, Robert Blum, Lamartine, the Reading Club and the Aula in Vienna; between Deak and Kussuth, Cavour and Massini. In countries like Italy and Hungary, the struggle against a foreign oppressor was screened by a conflict among classes. Cavour thought that as class distinctions were wiped away, modern societies would strengthen. Violence from the underclass's in the years following 1848 indicated that this was not an idea whose time had yet come. Eventually hope of compromise was replaced with mobilization of the violence.

"The brutality which is present in higher circles filters down, and this brutality which above lives only in thoughts, below takes the form of action," said Karl Vogt, the biologist in the Frankfurt Assembly. "I have heard hundreds and hundreds of times expressions like `The whole bunch ought to be knocked out with grape shot,' `the agitators deserve to be hanged all together.'...Such expressions are mostly used by people who are fanatics of order and who make it their business to preach order and peace." This statement was made prior to the most aggressive police violence. As the historian Priscilla Robertson wrote, "A modern psychologist might speculate, where Vogt could not, that unconscious as well as conscious hatreds were bound to pervade any society held together with such rigid and arbitrary bonds as Europe in the mind-19th Century. The mass of the people were kept down not only by laws but by customs, by studied arrogance, by pious sanctions."

Ms. Robertson seems to be referring to the modern movements of nationalism, Communism, socialism; the new phenomenon of _people's revolutions_. Aside from Jewish Exodus and possibly Christianity, and a very few other examples, this was a new form of politics. It replaced empire building, power building, the religious coalitions, and the quest for wealth, territory and security that marked history. What she says is that in the 19th (and 20th Centuries), Europe made the big leap from the 12th Century to the new age. Such forces could not be let loose without, as Lenin supposedly once said, "breaking a few eggs." It is out of this mass of movements that great heroism conflicts with great villainy, and separating the characters makes for men of giant stature, good and bad.

The nations of the modern Middle East should study Europe of the 19th Century. It is there that they may find real parallels to their current predicaments. Some have, and the result is not what many Western "liberals", i.e., Democracy advocates, would like to see. The leaders of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other "friendly" Arab states may in fact have learned some of the lessons of Europe. When the upper classes dared to give more equality, the process brought to the surface their greatest fears. So let's say it: The Middle East is a place where history could repeat itself, and that history is Communism. Not the kind of atheistic Communism of Russia. However, the autocracies of the Middle East resemble the Czars. If the dispossessed lower classes of the Arab world break free of that yoke, history will repeat until it rhymes. The U.S. never had to face these kinds of hatreds. Assimilation has taken care of those seething feelings. But in the Middle East, the same class distinctions roil within the underclass's that stirred the proletariat.

So what lesson is to be understood? It is the lesson of social upheaval brought about by war. Communism could come back, in the Middle East, if a war were to ravage the region and get out of hand, like World War I did. This is not to say that Israel and the United States should not have a military presence there, and should not make war when circumstances dictate it. What it does say is that these wars had better be won by the right people. The peace had better be won, too. It is worthy to point out that there are no V.I. Lenin's in the Middle East, although the C.I.A. may have a list of such "types." But it is also worth noting that many political parties in the region are or were drawn on the Marxist-Stalinist model, including but not limited to the Ba'ath Party of Saddam Hussein and Moamar Qhadafi in Iraq and Libya, respectively. Saddam modeled himself after Stalin. Saddam would never have led a real Communist revolution, but he could have been the perfect groundbreaker for the Communists of the future. Unrest in the region is not just about anarchy. It can coalesce into something history has shown us. The study of 19th Century Europe, therefore, is more than just an exercise in intellectual curiosity. It is a cautionary tale. The greatest mistake the United States can make is to declare the "end of history." Our youth and our success make this a _hubristic_ possibility.

Hersen noted a Russian writer, of all people, who said that Americans learn notions of law, justice and equality in the cradle. In other words, asking these Europeans of the 19th and early 20th Centuries (and Third World countries of the 21st) is tantamount to asking a person to learn a foreign language. It can be done, but it requires intelligence, perseverance and motivation.

The Europeans of the upper classes, throughout the ages, had simply felt that the lower classes were not _capable_ of learning this "language." Then there were the philosophers, discussed earlier in this book. Massimi d'Azeglio at the time of the revolutions questioned the very human ambivalence towards freedom. Eric Fromm in "Escape from Freedom" showed that from the time of the Reformation, freedom was a burden, a threat, and most men were not prepared to accept its responsibilities. America enjoyed a tremendous advantage from the beginning. We are a country founded from its very beginning by men who openly sought and risked everything, for freedom. This was was a completely alien concept to most of the men on Earth.

"The gift of liberty is like that of a horse, handsome, strong, and high-spirited," wrote d'Azeglio. "In some it arouses a wish to ride; in many others, on the contrary, it increases the desire to walk." As Priscilla Robertson wrote, the French voted for Napoleon's offspring because he would restore "order." This is like Eastern European countries that still vote for Communists, 14 years after the fall of Communism. Prussians were still paying their taxes after their parliament had been dissolved. Hapsburg's subjects also chose to let somebody take power over them even when a vacuum in power existed. Moderates accused radicals of destroying order. The radicals were stopped, but they did not go away. Some, like Mazzini, were stopped by foreign intervention, giving them a martyred status that allowed them to fight another day with increased stature. The civil war of Paris' June Days made radicalism appear hopeless. Frederick William said soldiers were the only cure for Democrats.

This lack of desire for freedom marks the big difference between European socialism and American Democracy. The (non-British) Europeans did not have the gumption to go all the way. Their half-measures ended up being their disaster. When the European middle classes got what they wanted, they found themselves giving up their newfound liberties so as to create equality with the lower classes. This is the precise opposite of conservatism, whose motto is "a rising tide lifts all boats." It is at the heart of a modern liberalism that believes in some kind of fuzzy, outcome-based result. It is the kind of thought that gave us affirmative action and school systems that do not flunk F students.

An old proverb tells the story of a man who is asked if he could have anything in the world, provided his worst enemy gets the same thing. He says he wants one blind eye. Marx saw this, and he exaggerated class conflict. No soft socialists like Louis Blanc, no turncoats like Lamartine. Marx saw the violence that nations make on each other, and turned that inward. French radicals wanted to march into Savoy or the Rhineland. The Germans wanted to march into Schleswig, the Italians to Radetzky. Disarmament was an eccentric notion of Karl Vogt, or Louis Napoleon, neither of whom were part of the spirit of the '48ers.

1968 may have been America's 1848, or as close to it as any year in our history. This was the heart of the Vietnam War, a year in which Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. Lyndon Johnson chose not to run for re-election. The French were cutting their own deals with the Soviets. The Cultural Revolution raged unabated in China. U.S. streets and college campuses were aflame with violent protest. American soldiers were getting cut up in the jungles and spat upon in airports. If ever the Democrats, socialists, Communists, liberals and radicals of these United States had the wind in their sails, it was in 1968. So whom did the American electorate choose? The most conservative Republican of the pre-Ronald Reagan era. The man who exposed Alger Hiss as a Communist spy and called Chairman Mao a "monster." If somehow Europe could have had a political party in 1848 as attractive as the Republicans, a movement with as much charisma as conservatism, and a candidate who gave voice to patriotism and freedom like Richard Nixon, then the continent may have been saved. This statement no doubt will be met with brutal distress from the intellectual elites, the book reviewers of the _New York Times_ , and the salons of liberalism. This does not have the slightest thing to do with the fact that it is true. The fact that this and other Truths simply _are_ is the secret weapon of the right.

Marx said nationality was a myth. He wanted one-world government, but Lenin and the Balkan leaders used nationalism as cover. Marxists felt that loyalty to class outweighed national patriotism. America may expose this as a lie more thoroughly than any single statement he ever made. Europeans simply did not believe that each man was created equal. They still had their barons, their dukes, their sirs and lords. The King of Prussia could still call working men an assemblage from the "gutter". Macaulay stood up in the House of Commons and said universal suffrage destroyed property, and thus, civilization. British Ambassador to Turkey Canning said he would not live in a world of "Reds and demagogues." Metternich, the great hero of Henry Kissinger, thought freedom of the press was impossible. A Viennese army officer threw his shaving water out the window, it hit a man in the streets, and when the man complained he was arrested. Guizot saw no correlation between the welfare of the lower classes with society as a whole.

These attitudes worked the other way, too. The movements were stalled much the same way women's suffrage took a long time to get off the ground. People did not think of themselves as equal to their masters. Therefore, if they could not share government with them, they had to kill them. George Orwell's "Animal Farm" explained this well. The American ambassador to Berlin, Donelson, thought the masses could not succeed because they seemed to accept starvation. Cavour said that the lower classes of the New World would have been shocked to see who their "counterparts" were. Is it any wonder that millions and millions immigrated to the U.S.? Kossuth called the peasants "you" people, instead of "us." Hitler would learn this lesson and call for _uber alles_ to fight together. When Italian revolutionaries pulled Count Hubner from his carriage, they did not presume to sit in it. Italians equated the word "Democratic" with shabby, a reflection of themselves.

So out of this came mass hypnotists, working their ignorant crowds like a snake oil man at the county fair. Then there were the Democrats who turned into autocrats. Religion played little role in Europe. It had been made to turn inward. The Catholics were disgraced by their bigoted empire. The Protestants were concerned with spiritual matters. In Garibaldi's guerilla army of Italy, a man might be a captain one day, a private the next. _L'Atelier,_ the French workers' newspaper, came right out and said they had to succeed and form a club "in order to become men."

Race and religion did not play major roles in the revolutions. Racial politics of post-World War II America tried to take on the same class distinctions of the Europeans of a century earlier, which was a mistake. What the racial protesters failed to understand was that they were not fighting mere prejudice, but class distinction. In so doing they failed to realize that in the U.S., class distinction can be eliminated the way Jackie Robinson, Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Barry Bonds eliminated it; through excellence. The European revolutionaries never looked at the world the way a little girl in the Birmingham, Alabama of the 1950s, Condi Rice, looked at it. For all the hatred of prejudice, the American ideal could not be denied. Even 100 years before those freed slaves were given 40 acres and a mule. With that came an independent spirit that immediately placed them above the shabby masses of proletariat who asked their European dictators to rule them with iron hands.

So, the squabbles of government went on after 1848. Prussia pressed for the Weimar Republic, and Kremsier addressed the problems of mixed populations under Viennese control. The politicians made all their moves without trusting the people. The people did not trust the politicians. Austria's serfs gained freedom, at the cost of repression for others. Italy made advances, but Germany was disillusioned and ready for military rule. The myths of Marx and Bismarck seem to have been the only immediate "victors" of the '48ers.

Confidence was lost. Idealism turned to cynicism. Power politics ensued. _Realpolitik_ was the new political phrase of the day. Totalitarianism, nationalism, Communism and militarism were the ruthless result of 1848. The formation of Western Europe in the 20th Century was complete. God help those had to live through it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A DIFFERENT KIND OF REVOLUTION

AMERICA FORMS A "MORE PERFECT UNION"

There is a well known phrase that says, "What goes around comes around." In a historical sense, this phrase applies to history, specifically American history. But this phrase applies in a way that will surprise some, especially considering that it is coming from a professed conservative. So here goes: America started Communism.

What could possibly be more outrageous a statement than that? The point I make is that the American Revolution opened floodgates that had never been truly explored before. The Greeks, the Roman Senate, the _Magna Carta_ and Oliver Cromwell's England; these were pre-cursors. The Americans created a concept of freedom that was, in essence, "power to the people." It was this power that fueled the French Revolution, and the uprisings of 19th Century Europe. Eventually, these events led to Marxism-Leninism. The American ideal was perverted beyond imagination, but it was the power of a popular movement that started in this country that spurred others to think that they could do the same. It was the baggage of history in these other nations that caused their revolutions to fail or to become something else.

The ride of Paul Revere

Now, let us look at our beginnings. The British troops held Boston, and to the English rulers, the breaking point had been reached. Their commander was General Thomas Gage. He had had it with the rebellious colonialists. He sent out a detachment of soldiers to put it down.

Somebody knocked on the door of Paul Revere, located in Boston's North Square, at 10 P.M. on April 18, 1775. The messenger whispered two words: "Dr. Warren."

Revere knew what the words meant. He left his home, making his way along the dark cobblestone streets toward Hanover Street. He reached the home of Dr. Joseph Warren, 34, a dapper and well-mannered man. Within the local Whig Party, Dr. Warren was considered the number three man behind Samuel Adams and John Hancock. For this reason, he was a marked man in the eyes of the British.

The Provincial Congress had adjourned in Concord. Both Adams and Hancock were at large. They knew that the Congress had attracted the attention of the British, thus making them marked men. In fact, they were in Lexington, at the home of Reverend Jonas Clark. They planned to stay in hiding there, away from the colony's military governor, until the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, scheduled for the following month. But Dr. Warren, despite the threat of hanging, had served as a link between the Whigs in Boston and these men. Now he had returned to Boston. He summoned Revere.

Revere was a surgeon-dentist. Such a position at that time was more of a mechanic than a doctor. Warren was a Harvard man of breeding. Revere was considered a member of the lower class. That is, he would have been had they been living in Europe in 1848. They never would have cooperated in that time and place. Their goals would have been completely different. They likely would have been enemies. Warren would have felt Revere to be below him. Revere would have envied and hated him for his manners and place in society.

But this was not a European revolution. This was a _different_ kind of revolution. They were equals. Revere had been doing "outdoor work," riding courier from Boston to as far away as Philadelphia. A vigilance committee had been set up on Boston's North End to watch the English Tories. General Gage had returned from England the previous year. He controlled 4,000 men. The Whigs now felt that Gage was going to take punitive action against them.

The colonists had a cache of weapons in Concord, 17 miles to the northwest. The weapons included muskets and cannon, musket balls and cartridges, hundreds of barrels of gunpowder, reams of cartridge paper, spades, axes, medicine chests, tents, hogsheads of flour, pork, beef, salt, boxes of candles, wooden spoons, dishes, canteens, casks of wine and raisins, and other war supplies.

The great fear was that General Gage was getting closer to the supplies. He had spies out and about. At midnight, British naval ships in Boston Harbor put their rowboats out to launch. This was a patrol of Gage's crack grenadier companies, heavy-duty and light-infantry troops. In other words, his special forces. Normally his exercises moved southward through Boston Neck. Any deviation from the norm would arouse detection. The question among those who saw the launch was whether Gage planned to move troops across Back Bay to East Cambridge, and from there by country lanes to Concord.

On Saturday night, the 15th, nothing more occurred. On Sunday morning, Dr. Warren sent Revere to Lexington to warn Adams and Hancock that this might occur. Revere wondered if Gage would post extra guards at the Charlestown Ferry and along the Neck, to prevent couriers from leaving Boston for the country. Revere turned toward Charlestown. He found Colonel William Conant and several others. The pre-arranged signal was that if the Redcoats marched over Boston Neck by land, Revere would signal with one lantern. If Gage's force should leave Boston by water, two lanterns. Revere wanted to reach Charlestown with details. Should he fail, hopefully his signals to Colonel Conant would be understood.

On Monday, April 17, amid the threat of rain, and on Tuesday, clear and cold, the British were quartered in private houses. Major John Pitcairn was actually staying next door to the Reveres in North Square. Nearby on Back Street were the Royal Irish and the 43rd. The fact they were getting ready for active march was obvious. At 10 o'clock on the 18th, Revere was waiting.

Warren asked him to make for Lexington, and Revere made for the Charles River. Two friends rowed him across. The Somerset-men-of-war were a bit to the west. The ship was winding. He landed on the Charlestown side. He met Colonel Conant, who said he had seen his signals. He got a horse, and then Richard Devens, who was one of the Committee of Safety, told him he had come down the road from Lexington at sundown. Devens had met 10 British officers, all armed to the teeth.

They had asked Devens where Clark's Tavern was. They thought Adams and Hancock might be holed up there. Devens then sent a warning to Jonas Clark that the patrol was seeking his place of business.

Revere mounted Deacon John Larkins' horse, warned by Devens of the British patrol. He took off through Charlestown. It was 11 P.M. He rode through salt marshes, clay pits, and scrubs. He could smell the sea. He bore left on the short road through Cambridge to Lexington, past the mummified body of Captain Coldman's Mark, who had hung in chains for 20 years after trying to poison his master. Then he saw two horsemen just ahead. They had British holsters and cockades. They approached. Revere spun about and galloped for Mystic Road, pursued by two British horsemen. He got cleared of them and went through Medford, over the bridge, and up to Menotomy. In Medford he woke up the captain of the minutemen. Then he alarmed every house he could in Lexington that the British were coming. John Buckman's tavern was alight at this late hour. The moonlight lit the village.

Revere flanked the common and went down Bedford Road a quarter of a mile to Clark's frame house, in a grove of trees. He found a militia guard at the door. William Munroe of the Lexington Minutemen had also seen British patrols on the road and assumed they were up to no good. He was there to protect the group at Clark's from a raid. He had eight other guards to assist him. Revere trotted up and asked for admittance, but Sergeant Munroe said the family was retired.

Revere informed him without worrying about whether he woke up the people in the house that the British regulars were coming. John Hancock did hear the noise.

"Come in, Revere," he said. "We are not afraid of _you_."

Sam Adams was there. The others in the house crowded about, wearing their nightclothes. Hancock immediately went for his gun to go after the British, a brave but foolish idea. Adams talked him out of. The Adams-Hancock partnership was another one that never would have been part of the 1848 revolutions. Adams was a failure in business, disheveled and seedy-looking. Hancock, a ship-owner, was one of the wealthiest merchants in New England.

After some consultation, Revere took the bit between his lips and entered the road again with another messenger, William Dawes. Dr. Samuel Prescott joined them. He had been, uh, "courting" Miss Milliken of Lexington until one in the morning. Revere was stopped. His horse was actually commandeered from him into the British military, but he was let go. The British advanced on the population. General Gage still did not think rebellion would break out. When he met armed rebels, he was surprised. Guns were fired, but nobody was killed. The Americans dispersed. When the British fired eight Massachusetts men were killed, 10 wounded, and one British regular had suffered a leg wound. Major Pitcairn's horse had been struck lightly twice. The British then marched for Concord. The Americans, alerted in time by Paul Revere, managed to get to their weapons cache. The American Revolution was on. Aside from the cache, all the Americans were hunters and owned guns, which came in very handy. History was changed forever.

Lafayette and the American-French alliance

In describing the formation of Western Europe, this book has heretofore described facts about France that does not place it in a good historical light. In recent years, the country has been the source of jokes. One wag said that, "France has always been there when they needed us." Another said the French national sport was "running away from the Germans." Another joke said that nobody knows what the best defense of Paris is, because it's never been tried." Barbara Tuchman in "The Guns of August" described Marshal Ferdinand Foch and the French military staff sitting around a dining table in Paris. German guns could be heard in the background. The Germans were battling the _British_ , who had traveled to the outskirts of the city to protect it. Foch and his staff were eating lunch and drinking wine.

France has a long history. They are an important European country. How important they are now is questionable. But before Americans waste too much time and energy making fun of their ways, we need to remember that they are a nation that is intertwined with ours. We owe them a debt of gratitude. In fact, as mentioned before, one of the reasons French history went awry was because they helped us. They fought a kind of "rear guard action" against the British while we were engaged in a war with them. They helped to finance our revolution. France overextended themselves. This was a cause – not _the_ cause, but a factor – in the economic problems that led to the French uprisings. Those uprisings all but ruined a great nation. First, they created a "monster" (Napoleon). Then a series of smaller revolutions helped usher in a socialist sickness that led to greater disaster throughout the entire continent.

In studying the French contribution to the U.S., we are led to one central figure. His name was Lafayette. Generations of West Point graduates studied Lafayette. General George Patton was an admirer of Lafayette and, because of him, he admired France as a country. He still admired him after their Vichy forces fired upon him when he arrived to fight Erwin Rommel in North Africa.

Lafayette landed on American soil at the little port of Georgetown in the southern Carolinas in the early Summer of 1777. He left France with a _letter de cachet_ amid much intrigue that had Versailles in great debate. He had been at sea for two months, eluding British cruisers, and never got over his seasickness. He then rode north to join forces with George Washington.

The members of the Continental Congress were unsure of the young Marquis. He was a man of title, wealth, privilege – and charm. All were traits not necessarily associated with the plainspoken colonists. After all, he came from a monarchical country, and we were fighting one of those. Lafayette was not yet 20 years old when he was commissioned a major general in the Continental Army. He was made a personal member of Washington's family.

Lafayette had distinguished himself in France as a captain in the Royal Guards. When the Bourbons began to consider whether they should aid the colonialists, Lafayette lobbied for a posting in America. He spoke baroque English. When he came to Washington, he was given command of troops down from Head of Elk to aid the Virginians. They had been harassed by raids by the traitor, Benedict Arnold, along the James River. Lord Cornwallis was said to have a large force marching up from the Carolinas. He was dubbed the Hannibal of America. Washington was still fighting Sir Henry Clinton's men on New York Island.

When Lafayette arrived in Virginia, it bucked up the almost-despairing Virginians. He had great enthusiasm, not just for the military adventure, but great love for the American cause of freedom. The new experiment, the audacity of a colony fighting back against the mighty Brits, was infectious. The Austrian Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus von Steuben, had been sent by Washington to teach the Virginians the soldier skills originally taught by Frederick the Great. Von Steuben was difficult. Lafayette was a breath of fresh air.

As Summer developed, Lafayette hung on Cornwallis' flank. He did not risk general engagement. A new style of hit `n' run warfare was being developed. Using the terrain (creeks, estuaries, winding forest paths) and the locals' knowledge of the land, Lafayette turned what might have been Cornwallis' triumphal march into a series of detours and about-faces. Over time, it became a virtual retreat. Seeing this, the Americans became encouraged. Washington sent Anthony Wayne and the Pennsylvania line to assist Lafayette.

A naval battle between French and British fleets off the Capes had Yorktown thinking that victory was in the air. Officers and men were making haste to Tidewater, Virginia to aid Lafayette's forces. Williamsburg, Virginia had been deserted, but now the allied armies were surrounding the area, bringing a sense of life back. Officers stayed at the local college. Men in uniform were everywhere. Anthony Wayne had been wounded, and von Steuben had the gout. Volunteers were joining up. Lafayette added the perfect mix of French pomposity, which the _esprit de corps_.

The American victory at Yorktown was significant to the French. They had suffered recent losses to the British in Germany, at Louisberg, and at Quebec. Lafayette's own father had been killed at Minden. After Cornwallis surrendered, Lafayette returned to Versailles. Word of his victory was a shot in the arm to the beleaguered Bourbons. The King draped the Order of St. Louis around Lafayette's neck. He was upgraded to _marechal de camp_ over older marshals, who called him the French Washington.

Lafayette was married and named a daughter, Virginie, after his American campaign. He almost took as a mistress one of Marie Antoinette's ladies-in-waiting. But his experience with American marriage, notably Washington's, changed his view of the institution. He began to understand that marriage is a partnership of love, not just an arrangement for the purpose of making heirs. He settled into marriage and did not become a _de facto_ Bourbon. He entertained American diplomats, their wives and merchants in Paris, and discussed philosophy with the likes of Diderot, Rousseau and Voltaire.

In 1784, Lafayette returned, arriving in New York. He was greeted by great joy from the militia, who fought a desperate, spirited fight. At Mount Vernon he met his idol Washington again. According to reports, he and Father of Our Country proceeded to a local hostelry for a bit of drunkenness. Then Washington made for a hard ride to Ohio. Lafayette went to Philadelphia. He joined with James Madison to the Indian territory in Virginia, where Lafayette was known as Kayewlaah. Madison talked Lafayette into using his position with the Bourbons of Spain to open navigation of the Mississippi.

French ships did great work at the harbor at Yorktown. Lafayette's personage grew to Churchillian dimensions in the American psyche. Then he returned to French, where he and Thomas Jefferson further rallied Bourbon support. Having lost his father, and still a young man, Lafayette was always searching for a father figure. He attached himself to Jefferson as he had to Washington. Times were changing in Paris. Lafayette was approached about addressing reforms. He set at first to create an atmosphere for religious toleration, which had so impressed him among the Americans.

The issue of slavery was foremost. Lafayette kept a framed copy of the Declaration of Independence on the wall of his study. He hoped France could achieve such a document for themselves. Jefferson made suggestions for reform of the Bourbon aristocracy. Lafayette used these in forming an outline. Jefferson, however, was not optimistic of the reform movement. He feared that Lafayette was feted in Paris as a man of nobility, so much so that he could not get a real pulse on the current of French feeling. Lafayette was close to the American ideal, but France was so different that he was not close to the psychology of ordinary people. Lafayette did make speeches exposing graft, which made him a dangerous man, earning him the hatred of Marie Antoinette. People advocating reform became known as _les Americains_. A rift developed between the royalists and those called the "conspiracy of well intentioned men."

In America, the war that Lafayette had helped to aid, militarily, diplomatically and spiritually, had been won. The Constitution was being written. But France was falling apart, and Lafayette could do little, much to his frustration. Jefferson was writing, urging the French to take up a version, of all things, the British limited monarchy. Despotism, he said, was dead.

Still, as late as April, 1789, Lafayette thought progress was being made. He remained an idealist. But violence, dreaded by Jefferson and Lafayette, was inevitable. King Louis was a drunk and a libertine. Marie Antoinette had no mind for politics or populism. The words of men like Jefferson and Lafayette were fruitless to them. They dug their heads in the sands. Shortly thereafter, they were forced to flee. Lafayette tried to placate the people, desperately trying to be a wedge between the masses and the Bourbons. Hunger was more powerful than political statesmanship. The mobs took over, and the "reign of terror" would follow. Lafayette, because of his place, was given a nominal place of leadership. His American friends remarked that it was most unfortunate that a man of his convictions should be embedded with such terror. Lafayette was caught in a tide of events well beyond his control. He spent all his fortune trying to fight the worst of the revolution. He was surrounded by madmen. He was given a military command, which kept him out of Paris.

Lafayette tried to arrange some kind exile for the King, but was unable to do so. Finally, he was made an enemy of the people, and forced to run. The Austrians captured him. He was imprisoned for some years by their Prussian allies. Eventually, with Napoleon in power and Lafayette released but stripped of power, he made appearances in Paris, like a ghost of the French past. In 1824 he made a final trip to America, but he died a tragic figure of history. Lafayette represents the best and most futile aspects of the French. He was a man who played an enormous role in America's success, but could not stem the tide of the worst in the French mindset.

No taxation without representation

John Adams once said that the history of the first war of America was different from the American Revolution. Adams said that the revolution was in the "hearts and minds" of the colonists before the war ever started. Watergate conspirator Charles Colson's cynical take was that "If you got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."

A _realpolitk_ statement, to be sure. When Adams was working for the revolution, it was not cynical, and there was no _realpolitk. Realpolitik_ would have been for the Founders, the merchants, lawyers and upper class landowners who made up so much of the uprising, to simply hold on to their own vested interests. Outside of some tax problems, they were doing just fine, thank you, under King George's rule. They were smart, educated men. They were not starving or particularly oppressed. They had everything to lose. They were perfectly capable of governing themselves. Theirs was a revolution of ideas and pure idealism. Nothing like it had ever taken place in the history of man. The colonies had started with Puritans who wanted religious freedom, and had left England to practice it in the New World. They were so good at making a new life for themselves in America that the English followed and colonized them. The revolutionary spirit that had led them to flee in the first place was in their blue blood.

This spirit lived in the English who had stayed at home and the English who had come here. Everybody was of English stock. Change had been brewing for the better part of 150 years. 150 years is longer than the time that has passed since the Civil War and my writing these words now. In this respect the concept of America as a "young country" can be revived a little bit. This country does not date to July 4, 1776. It dates to the years of religious upheaval in England. Sir Walter Raleigh attempted to establish settlements on the coast of North Carolina in 1585 and again in 1587, but failed. Still, he said all land vested in these attempts was made to the Crown.

The Puritans made for Holland. From there they sailed to America, under Dutch sponsorship, and landed at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 and Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. Of course, Christopher Columbus had made it known that such a continent existed. The Vikings had been here, too. John Cabot had made an exploration in 1497-98. The English laid claim to much of North America. The French explored the St. Lawrence region, the Dutch the Hudson River Valley, the Spaniards in Florida, Texas and New Mexico. But it was Englishmen who settled, and it was Englishmen who were colonized. When the revolution came, it was not some racial uprising by rabbles of dark-skinned natives against their white oppressors. The English gentlemen felt that the English of the colonies were not of the same stock, but among the nobility of the colonies, this was not a major bone of contention.

There were other differences, though. The colonists had begun to speak differently. The tongue of the American sounded different from the English. They dressed differently, worshipped differently, hunted and made military customs that were different. A religious radicalism had propelled the colonists' attitude, to be sure, but a frontier attitude had made for an entirely different kind of man. This was a new man, a man of the woods, a man who had dealt with the elements, grown crops, fought and made peace and broke bread with Indians. He was a rugged individualist. He was unlike anything ever seen in the Roman Empire, ancient Greece, or among the Byzantines, the Ottomans, the Moslems, the English, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch, or the German tribesmen.

Steps toward union had first started in 1643, when the New England Confederation of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and Rhode Island was formed for the defense against the Indians and the Dutch. Seven northern colonies met in 1754 in Albany, New York to discuss the idea. The movement to did not take hold. A plan was hatched in the conspiratorial minds of the leading colonists. The French and English were clashing. This would be resolved, and then it might be ripe for a movement. England defeated France in the French and Indian War of 1863. The English attempted to enforce the Navigation Acts. These acts had been passed a number of times over the years. They subordinated colonial trade and navigation to the imperial treasury and, after 1764, were used to pay war debts. The results of the acts reduced the entrepreneurialism of the colonists, and made them in effect employees of the King. They were very good employees. The colonists worked hard and were prosperous. They wanted to keep what they earned. They wanted to trade with whomever they wanted to trade with, and not be subjected to rules and regulations. Propping up British manufacturers and shippers, and paying off a foreign war debt, did not sit well with them. The English felt the colonists were ungrateful. The war had been fought to keep them free (they said) and England was their protector (they said). The products in question were mainly tobacco, sugar and indigo.

There were also frontiersmen who itched to explore inland. They were halted by royal proclamation in the Appalachian Mountains. The English also favored Indian traders in Quebec over Pennsylvania traders. The Stamp Act of 1765 created further open hostility to the British. This act was passed without consultation of the colonists, in order to raise $500,000. The colonists complained that there should be "no taxation without representation." Representatives of nine colonies met in New York and drew up declarations of rights and grievances. Colonial assemblies passed resolutions. Fiery newspaper articles and pamphlets spurred action by mobs, and the Sons of Liberty urged a nonimportation agreement.

The Stamp Act was repealed, and things might have settled down. But King George III was an inferior leader, very likely mentally unbalanced. In 1767, Parliament passed levies on tea, glass, paper and other articles. In Massachusetts they had to suppress opposition by firing into a crowd. This was called the Boston Massacre, and it served to get the rebels' blood boiling. The levy was repealed in 1767, and by 1773 most of the taxes were gone or were modest. Tea was still taxed, however. While this was not a problem, by this time the issue of taxation and representation were replaced by a guiding principle for freedom, its genesis being the loss of life in the Boston Massacre. So, it was decided they would not pay the tax. Disguised as Indians, a Boston group boarded ships in the harbor and threw cargoes of tea in the water. They called it the Boston Tea Party.

Parliament then passed the Intolerable Acts and closed the port of Boston. Revisions were made to the Massachusetts government that took rights away from the people. Further rights were extended to Catholics in Quebec, and extended boundaries to the Ohio River. The colonists then called the Continental Congress to meet in Philadelphia in 1774. The abilities and wisdom of the delegates to this convention may have never been matched, before or since. It is possible they were just very wise. It is possible that we were just very lucky that such men were assembled. It is, in my view, more likely that Divine Intervention imbued wisdom and guidance upon them.

After reiterating previous rights, declarations and grievances, this Congress decided to cease the importation of British goods until its demands were met. A second Continental Congress was called for May of 1775. The British simply increased the pressure in order to compel compliance. It was at this time that General Gage sent his detachment to Lexington and Concord to seize the military caches. On April 19, 1775, patriot militia fired on the British during their 20-mile retreat. When the Second Congress met, provisions were made to raise and supply an army for George Washington, the Virginia commander-in-chief.

For one year the colonists fought mostly rearguard actions. The political nature of their aims were limited. They simply wished to expand their rights as British colonists. At Bunker Hill, Ticonderoga and Boston, they demonstrated military skills. Then Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" was published, selling 100,000 copies. This book helped change the thinking of the emboldened colonists, who now were clamoring for outright independence. On July 4, 1776, the Second Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, written almost entirely by Thomas Jefferson. It may be the most important document ever written.

Lafayette, von Steuben, and the Pole Kosciusko joined the fray, but the movement was not 100 percent popular. Many "Tories," American royalists, remained loyal to England. The colonists lost New York and Philadelphia, but took a decisive battle at Saratoga in 1777, capturing General John Burgoyne and his entire army. Benjamin Franklin then went to Paris and secured French alliance in 1778, which provided for French financial aid, trained soldiers and sea power. The third phase had begun.

With momentum on their side, the Americans fought bravely, sometimes under extremely harsh conditions. They fought in the snow and in the cold. Victories and great leadership inspired them. In 1781, Cornwallis surrendered his army to Washington and a French fleet under de Grasse. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 marked the end of the war for the 13 states and gave the Americans all they wanted. Because of the efforts of Franklin and a British statesman, Lord Shelburne, the peace was relatively conciliatory on both sides. The British may not have been our allies in the succeeding years, but the kind of hatred that existed between victors and vanquished in wars throughout history did not exist after this conflict.

The experiment

The United States of America was born and its independence universally recognized, with borders fixed at the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River, and the northern boundary of Florida. The frontiersmen who had fought for the colonies were able to secure boundaries deep into the western territories. The statesmen of the new country declared that "all men are created equal" and that "government derived their just powers from the consent of the governed." Under Jefferson, the Virginia Bill of Rights was adopted, with a separation clause between church and state. Freedoms of speech, assemblage and of the press were enumerated. Nothing remotely close to it had ever been seen before, not the _Magna Carta_ or any of the writings of Cromwell's England.

In 1777, the Articles of Confederation had provided for a loose confederation of states. It was adopted by small states in 1781 in order to ensure that they would have the same powers as vast states in the west. After Cornwallis surrendered, returning veterans found it tough going. This is a little-known period of our history, and the perils were real. The soldiers had been promised land and money in return for their fighting. In most cases the promises were not kept. The economy relied mainly on European goods that were streaming in from countries happy to fill needs that we had not been meeting ourselves. The American work force had been pre-occupied with the war. While it caused domestic turmoil, in the long run the situation was good for the country. It established solid international relations that were necessary, and gave us instant legitimacy. Many Americans found themselves cut off from their British orbit, which they had considered "home." A trade imbalance developed. Mobs demanding remedies for debts and other miseries had to be dispersed. The Shays Rebellion of farmers in Massachusetts had to be put down with force.

By 1786, it was obvious that a strong central government was needed in order to make the American flag respected by everybody, and to help establish faith in a central bank that could establish money and credit. Radical and subversive elements were emerging. The first realizations that Democracy is a messy affair were making themselves apparent. Many felt that only a military government could survive. General Washington proved to be the most influential man. He had the respect of the common men who had fought in his army, as well as the wealthy landowners. Virginia called a meeting at Annapolis to discuss taxation and commerce. Five states sent delegates. Out of this meeting came the call for the Constitutional Convention, held in the Summer of 1787 in Philadelphia. All 13 states were assembled. Like the First Continental Congress, this Convention was marked by men of such greatness that words fail to adequately describe their abilities and contributions to Mankind. Again, one surmises that such abilities and such men, assembled in one place and at one time, in this small, rural land, was a matter of luck. Again, this is possible. It is difficult to dissuade ones' self from the increasing obviousness (upon study) that these men, and the document they produced, were Divinely Inspired.

They men drew up the U.S. Constitution, which remains the strongest legal document in the history of the world. It is the most copied, adopted and influential document among foreign nations ever written. Adoption of the Constitution solved the problems of preserving liberty and local autonomy while maintaining strong central control. The "great compromise" of the document replaced the old league of states in the Articles of Confederation, and replaced it with a Congress. The Congress was represented by all states, large and small. It created a House of Representatives that combined local autonomy with a larger power of big states, reducing each Representative to a certain portion of the population. The U.S. Senate gave equal power to each state, regardless of size. It was brilliant. An executive power was vested in a new leader, a President. Checks and balances were created in conjunction with a two-party or multi-party system. A separate judiciary was created. Ratification was in doubt, but Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay made great arguments to secure its passage. It was the first great victory of the new country. It showed that government could change by the Democratic process, not just by _coup d'etats_ , wars and Machiavellian double-dealings. 10 Amendments, The Bill of Rights, were added in 1791. The American Revolution had refuted all of the preconceptions and fixed ideas of politics throughout time immemorial.

The man at the head of the process was the man who had led the Continental Army to victory. He was the man who brought the landowners and the average people together. He was General Washington. Washington was offered a Kingship. Some wanted to give him virtual dictatorial powers. The long held idea that men wanted security, not freedom, had not completely died. But these ideas were not the popular view of the delegates. They certainly were not the view of the general. Washington was unanimously elected President, and inaugurated on April 30, 1789, in New York City, the capital for the first year. Washington was wise and mature. Members of the first Congress were also elected. Washington made Thomas Jefferson Secretary of State, and Alexander Hamilton Secretary of the Treasury. The capital then moved to Philadelphia, where it was for 10 years, but eventually it was settled on a Federal city, named after the general. It was called Washington, District of Columbia.

A census taken in 1790 showed that westward expansion had begun in earnest, with pioneers in Kentucky, Tennessee and the Ohio Valley. Hamilton called for a strong army and navy, and central bank. The two-party system was created out of the political cleavage that emerged between two irreconcilable factions, the Federalists and the Democrats-Republicans. At first, business elements were happy with the system, but farmers were not content. Jefferson became a spokesman for this group, who feared central government.

John Adams followed Washington, at a time when the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon were roiling our greatest ally and one-time sponsor. A wedge developed, between Jefferson, the Franco-phile, and Hamilton, who had sympathies for the British. For those who think current party politics are vicious, a trip back in time would surprise them. Hamilton and Jefferson were involved in vicious verbal attacks. Adams was attacked verbally, as well. In 1798, the Alien and Sedition acts were passed, aimed at French radicals in the country. A fear of the French, after word of the "terrors" had polarized the Americans, was strong. The period was marked by great fear of written and published documents criticizing the government. It was a major test of the young country and the freedoms it was built on. The Republicans, led by Jefferson and James Madison, argued for liberal freedoms. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions marked the acts as a dangerous invasion of freedom of speech, thus violating the Constitution.

The people went to the polls of 1800 amid these questions, in what would prove to be a decisive election. A three-way battle between Adams, Jefferson and Aaron Burr resulted in such a close result among the delegates that it was Hamilton's influence with the House of Representatives that proved the difference. The House selected Jefferson over Burr. Burr was made Vice-President, but he was so infuriated that he challenged Hamilton to a duel in which Hamilton was tragically killed.

Our Founding Fathers: George Washington

Who were these extraordinary men, the Founding Fathers? Let us start with the Father of Our Country, George Washington. The story of Washington chopping down the cherry tree, then admitting to it because "I cannot tell a lie," may or may not be apocryphal. It does reflect the basic idealism not only of Washington, but of the frontiersmen who made up the colonies. Machiavelli and other dark figures of history would have laughed at Washington and the other men of colonial America. They were "babes in the woods" politically. European history had been wrought by so many violent wars and power feuds that such idealism was virtually unheard of. It was the province of children. When a young man of promise reached majority age, he was to be instructed in the skills of deception and _realpolitik._ The colonies were far enough off the "beaten path" that this simply was not part of the culture. The people who inhabited early America were highly religious, and had left Europe precisely because they did not want to live in such an environment.

The colonialists were innocent creatures, but not uneducated. The Puritans were highly educated and immediately set up first-class schools, teaching the classics and history with a strong Christian worldview. Furthermore, because of the pioneering nature of living in the New World, children were taught how to use guns and how to defend themselves. When the English came and colonized the New World, many of the Americans were commissioned into the British military culture. Thus it was with Washington, who attained the rank of major, after service under his father-in-law, Colonel Fairfax. He was a public official and trusted man in the service of the King, but like all Americans, felt his allegiance just as much to his native Virginia.

The English had a different kind of colony on their hands in America. In their various adventures in Europe, they had to conquer territories held by other Europeans, then subjugate them under their control. Even among English-speaking peoples in Scotland and Ireland, this caused hatred. Among the French there was no real concept of colonization, just land to be held, plundered and made the most of for as long as they could, until the next war. In places like India, the native populations were looked down upon as dark-skinned products of a lower type of human. Eventually, some Indians were educated under the English system and attained positions of some honor and prestige as English subjects. They were never considered equals, as gentlemen, potential husbands of English women, or in all other ways. But the Americans were different.

The Americans were white, Christian, and of English blue blood. An Englishman could see his daughter married to an American. An American was welcomed in the English military service. The Americans were smart, educated, and showed great skill at business. They were a tremendous asset to the British Empire.

It was under this environment that Washington grew as a man and a gentleman. In 1754, he was given the rank of lieutenant colonel and led a British detachment at the Ohio River. Washington had an outnumbered force, but at Fort Duquesne, after some smart strategizing, he prosecuted a victory in which the French leader, Jumonville, was killed. It was his first battle of the French and Indian War. When Washington's superior, Colonel Joshua Fry, died, Washington assumed a full command. Virginia Governor Robert Dinwiddie was Washington's sponsor. In 1755 he appointed him to commander in chief of the Virginia forces. _The English were training cadre and officers in American military forces that later would be well prepared to fight them!_

Washington was promoted to brigadier, but after another successful expedition to Fort Duquesne, he resigned his commission and retired to his family estate at Mount Vernon, Virginia. For 15 years he lived the life of a country squire. He served as a member of the House of Burgesses, and kept up a social and political schedule. It was during this time that he engaged in a study of the British colonial system. He did it not for the purposes of fomenting revolution, but rather as an educational pursuit. His study resulted in the determination that the system was not an effective one. The colonialists were being taken advantage of.

Washington disapproved of the Boston Tea Party, but he did participate in acts and agreements that were in direct defiance of the British. He was then chosen as a Virginia delegate to the First and Second Continental Congress. That was Washington's "Rubicon." Shortly thereafter he was appointed commander of the independent militia companies, wearing the blue uniforms of the Fairfax company. He was later the compromise choice to command the Continental Army, which he led for eight years. Throughout this time, he had to contend with problems of recruitment, supply, equipment, weather, sabotage, espionage, and the fact that his opposition was the greatest military on Earth. Had the English captured him, he would have been hung for treason.

He successfully defeated the English in Boston, but when he went to New York was met by fresh British troops who dispersed him and put him on the run. Washington retreated, and with less than 5,000 men he slowly marched in foul weather from the Hudson River to New Jersey, across the state, and passed over the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. On Christmas Eve, his men freezing and hungry, the blood from their bandages leaving markings in the snow, he led them across the Delaware again, in a driving storm. They struck the British in a surprise attack at Trenton, then a week later at Princeton, thus dislocating the British line. He moved to Morristown, and from there posed a constant, unsettling threat to the British in eastern New Jersey. By immobilizing the British forces throughout the coldest part of the calendar, Washington had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. He placed his men in a position to make wholesale advances with the coming Spring. It was during this time that alliance with the French was made.

In the Summer of 1777, Washington marched to Chesapeake Bay to prevent the British from taking Philadelphia. He met two defeats, and was forced into another retreat, to Valley Forge, where he remained through the Winter of 1777-78. The Americans won at Saratoga, but there was a call for Washington to resign. When the French, who backed Washington, helped to move the British out of Philadelphia, Washington was retained. 1779 was a gloomy year. Early victories and advances seemed to have been halted, and Washington had to maintain the morale of his tired troops over a long stretch of inactivity. Finally, combined French and American forces made their New York campaign. After leaving a detachment there to protect the city, Washington met Cornwallis at Yorktown. The English were defeated on October 19, 1781, after a three-week siege.

After Yorktown, the war took on a political tone. British evacuations and the general war of attrition went in favor of the dug-in Americans, fighting on their home soil. The English finally surrendered on April 19, 1783. Washington resigned his commission. His desire was to resume life as a country gentleman. But he was constantly called on for his views, and offered the opinion that the Articles of Confederation needed revision. He attended the Annapolis Convention and was president of the Constitutional Convention. Washington's Presidency lasted from 1789 to 1797. He could have served more than two terms, but was determined to retire to private life, finally. Washington died in 1799 at Mount Vernon, and is remembered in the words of General Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee: "First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen."

Our Founding Fathers: Thomas Jefferson

President John F. Kennedy once held a state dinner at the White House, in which he and Jacqueline Kennedy hosted an astounding group of intellectuals, scientists and research experts. Kennedy remarked that never had so much brainpower been assembled in the White House, with the possible exception of those times in which Thomas Jefferson dined alone. In trying to decipher whether the Revolution was blessed with the great luck of having tremendous minds working on its behalf, or whether God actually was involved, the best argument that God was involved indeed comes in the person of Jefferson.

Jefferson, like Washington, was a Virginian. Many people have dismissed the Southerners who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War as "dumb rednecks." The fact is that they fought for a proud heritage. Because the South allowed for slavery, some have equated them with the Nazis. The fact is, they were equated with men of the intellectual heft and moral weight of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. It was the very intellectual heft of men such as these that _produced the Constitution that allowed for slavery to end, on our shores and, for all practical purposes, for all times._

The fact that Jefferson owned slaves is not disputed. Would he be a greater historical figure if he had not, particularly if he had been a major advocate of Abolition? Yes, he would. Of course, none of this reduces the fact that he is still one of the greatest figures in the history of Mankind.

Jefferson was a landowner and man of wealth. He was the recipient of a superior classical education, starting with private tutors and continuing at William and Mary College. He then apprenticed as a lawyer under George Wythe, and was admitted to the bar in 1767. His interests were widespread and included fine art, politics, sciences, and fluency in no less than six languages. He married in 1772 and had six children, but only two daughters lived to maturity. His wife was an invalid, and he reportedly had an affair with a slave named Sally Hemmings, who had his children, the line of descendancy alleged to still be in the U.S. In many ways, he was the "Father" of Our Country more so than Washington.

Like Washington, prior to the revolution, he planned to retire and devote himself to writing and farming. He was also an architect, and built the fabulous mansion at Monticello, on a hilltop overlooking Charlottesville. In 1770, he was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and the county lieutenant of Albemarle. He advocated freeing men from tyranny, a point of view his detractors say is hypocritical considering that he was a slave owner. However, all the facts point to Jefferson being a man who treated his slaves as employees and extended members of his family (which in some cases they actually were). He operated at a time in which slaves who lived on a benevolent plantation such as his were treated well. They were better off than they would be freed. It makes for a moral conundrum, but does not change the fact that those were the circumstances of his time and place. Jefferson was an early supporter of colonial politics and empathized with the cause of western farmers who were anti-British. He was not considered a great public speaker. His writings are his greatest legacy.

Jefferson helped to create the Virginia Committee of Correspondence, and published in 1774 "A Summary View of the Rights of British America". The book argued that the Brits should relinquish virtually all powers of colonial government. This earned him a position as a colonial leader. He was sent as a delegate to the Continental Congress of 1775. At the age of 33 he was chosen as chairman of the committee to draw up the Declaration of Independence. Much of it was based on Jefferson's reading of John Locke, centering on natural rights. He went back to the Virginia legislature in 1776, where he dominated that body. He worked on laws that abolished entails and primogeniture, established religious freedom (he said the state could not coerce the individual mind), and created a more Democratic form of education. His own schooling with private tutors and private college education was, he knew, a great privilege. Jefferson wanted to create a society in which more people could be subject to such advantage. He revised the Virginia criminal code, and was elected Governor, succeeding Patrick Henry. His gubernatorial years were not effective, however. He failed to properly coalesce the Virginia militia. The English invaded with little opposition. Jefferson abdicated military duties to others.

Jefferson returned to Monticello, and his wife soon passed. He went into a state of depression, and in order to stay upbeat wrote "Notes on the State of Virginia". In 1783 he returned to Congress, the year the war was officially won. He devised a plan for a decimal monetary system, drafted the Northwest Ordinance, and became the chief architect of Westward expansion. In 1784 Jefferson was sent to Paris to negotiate treaties with the Europeans. When Ben Franklin retired, he became Minister to France. He absorbed French culture and advised the French, albeit the royalists for the most part, on the revolution. Whether he meant to or not, his presence in France inspired many of the early revolutionaries, whose cause Jefferson tacitly agreed with. He never would have supported the outcome of the revolution, which of course was the "reign of terror." In the heady days of the mid-1780s, the American example was an intoxicating one. Regarding the formation of the American government, Jefferson advocated a strong national government and a newly adopted Constitution. In the1790s, he observed from afar the French Revolution, and despite its excesses mistakenly felt that in the long run it advanced the cause of humanity.

In 1790, Jefferson became Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Washington's first Cabinet. He attempted to secure boundary questions with England and Spain, but it was an uphill battle and he was unsuccessful. France and Spain went to war. Washington remained neutral, which caused some internal friction in the Cabinet. This manifested itself in a disagreement with Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, regarding neutrality rights. Jefferson opposed Hamilton's plan for a Bank of the United States, calling it a monopoly and un-Constitutional. In this, history favors the Hamiltonian view. The feud with Hamilton became a personal one. Jefferson formed the Democratic-Republican political party in opposition to what he felt were Hamilton's aristocratic tendencies. Washington supported Hamilton. Jefferson, who declined to run against Washington in the 1792 elections, resigned in protest in 1793. In many ways, party politics can be traced to Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.

Back in Monticello, Jefferson became an outspoken critic of Washington's administration. He was the candidate of his party for President in 1796, but lost to John Adams and was installed as Vice-President. In this capacity, he presided over the Senate. His greatest accomplishment was in fighting a wave of political support for the concept that criticism of the President should be outlawed. Jefferson was a free speech advocate of the first order. This period may come as some surprise to people who think of America as a place where dissent was always tolerated. It almost became something else. The reason dissent was saved for a future generation owes itself to Jefferson, who was himself a dissenter. He and James Madison were major advocates of states' rights. Since they were Virginians, a study of the Confederacy, which made as its major plank the issue of states' rights, can be traced to these two men. Hamilton, on the other hand, was a Federalist and may be seen as the spirit of Abe Lincoln's Union. Jefferson ascended to the Presidency on the strength of his platform in 1800, in an election that he called a "revolution." A crisis ensued around this election. When the Federalists gave up power peacefully, a major test of the young country had been passed. Jefferson held his government together through conciliation, keeping a number of Federalists in their offices. A war against Barbary pirates took up his attention. He negotiated the Louisiana Purchase with Napoleon in 1803. Napoleon needed the money to finance his war campaigns. Jefferson felt a quandary about the expansion of land that the purchase meant for his country. The land included Indian territories. It was a major advancement in what would come to be known as Manifest Destiny, the advancement of the American government further and further west. The people, however, heartily agreed with the policy. It propelled Jefferson to a big electoral victory in 1804.

Jefferson's second term was marked by growing pains. The trial of Aaron Burr, who had killed Hamilton in a duel, was very difficult for him. A dispute arose with Supreme Court Justice John Marshall. The question of the day regarded the power of the Court, and in 1803 it was decided that the Supreme Court was, indeed, the law of the land. Both France and England, engaged in Napoleonic wars, failed to heed to the rights of U.S. vessels engaged in the high seas. The situation had the virtual effect of making the U.S. the enemy of both England and France. It resulted in the Embargo Act of 1807.

Jefferson was pleased to see Madison elected as his successor in 1808. Madison and later James Monroe continued to seek the advice of Jefferson, who came to be known as the "Sage of Monticello." He was instrumental in the charter of the University of Virginia in 1819, and became involved in a wide variety of interests. Unfortunately, his financial situation declined, because he had devoted his life to public service and not the accumulation of wealth. He died, ironically, on July 4, 1826. His tomb reads "Author of the Declaration of Independence; of the Statute for Religious Liberty in Virginia, and Founder of the University of Virginia."

Our Founding Fathers: John Adams

Jefferson and Washington were part of the Virginia wing of American Independence, but John Adams represents the New England faction. Adams was a typically thrifty Bostonian who graduated from Harvard, considered the ministry, then studied law and became an attorney in 1758. He married Abigail Smith, an able woman in her own right, and one of America's first advocates of women's suffrage. Adams came to public prominence in his advocacy against the Stamp Act. While he did not advocate violence, he did defend radicals and supported the Boston Tea Party, leading him to be elected as a delegate to the first Continental Congress of 1774. Adams supported raising an army, and made himself a target and a leader when he openly advocated independence. It was largely through Adams' influence that Washington was named commander of the army in 1775. He was intricately involved in the Declaration of Independence. Throughout the war he served in Congress and on diplomatic missions. Adams experienced personal angst because he did not actually serve in the military, while others were fighting and dying. Despite his contributions to his country, he always questioned his own courage.

After two years in France, Adams returned in 1779 to draft a new Massachusetts constitution. Then he was sent back to France, from where he helped draft a peace treaty with Great Britain. He also secured financial backing from new European allies eager to do business with the promising new country. Adams quarreled with Benjamin Franklin and John Jay, but influenced the treaty in a big way, particularly as it affected his native New England. He was then given the difficult assignment of American Minister to Great Britain. The experience was not a pleasant one. He returned home and was elected to Congress in 1788, but instead of taking his seat in the House of Representatives, he was elected Vice-President under Washington. Where Washington was a tall, even-tempered man, Adams was a feisty sort. The political arena in Washington irritated him. He was capable of gregariousness on occasion, but was frustrated by the lack of power in the Vice-Presidency. He supported Federalist measures, but incurred the dislike of Alexander Hamilton. In 1796, he was elected President, over Jefferson.

His four years in office were disillusioning ones for Adams. He found himself opposed by Hamilton and Jefferson, and members of his own Cabinet split from him on various issues. The question of war with former ally France, now split by the revolution and becoming warlike with the rise of Napoleon, roiled Adams' administration. Hamilton wanted to go to war. Adams chose to deal with the issue via diplomacy. The rift cost Adams re-election. As his administration wound down, he supported the Alien and Sedition Act, but later regretted it. After his retirement, Adams restored his friendship with Jefferson. He lived to see his son, John Quincy Adams, become President. He died on the same day as Jefferson, July 4, 1826, a fact that lends more thought to the question of whether the events that brought us these men, in these times and under these circumstances, was an act of God.

Our Founding Fathers: Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton was not born in America. He came into this world on January 11, 1757 in the colony of Nevis, in the Leeward Island of the British West Indies. He was sent to New York at the age of 15 by relatives after his mother died and his father was away. He attended King's College, which is now Columbia. During this time he became a staunch supporter of the independence movement. Hamilton enlisted in a New York artillery company, quickly ascended to the rank of captain, was known as a good drillmaster, and became part of George Washington's staff. He served with General Washington from 1776-77 during the vital Trenton and Princeton campaigns.

Washington made Hamilton his confidential secretary at the tender age of 21. In this capacity, he was Washington's liaison with the political wing of the revolution. He also developed his own voice, which as noted insisted on a strong central government, with emphasis on military readiness. His writings, both professional and personal, are important documents that describe the nature of events and the meaning behind them. He was one of the early proponents of a Constitutional Convention. He also married well. His wife was the daughter of General Phillip Schuyler, one of New York's richest and most influential families. At Yorktown in 1781, Hamilton commanded an infantry regiment in General Lafayette's corps, and distinguished himself. It must have frustrated the Brits to know that important elements of the rebel militia were as young as Lafayette and Hamilton.

Hamilton returned to New York after the war and began the practice of law. He helped organize the Bank of New York, and served from 1782-83 in Congress before returning to the law. After a few years, he was called upon to lend his banking skills to the new nation. In 1787 he was elected a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and to the New York Legislature. From 1787-88, Hamilton wrote "The Federalist", which came to be known as "The Federalist Papers". In these documents is contained the most thorough and revealing enlightenment of the purpose of the Constitution and the vision of the young America as it exists.

Hamilton took over the Treasury in Washington's first Cabinet. It was a very important position that required Hamilton's skills in crafting and establishing currency, credit, a banking system, and the unification of Federalized states. As mentioned, Jefferson opposed Hamilton's Federalist policies. Hamilton won a victory of sorts when the Whisky Insurrection was put down in 1794. He retired from public life in 1795. He almost took over as a major general in a military campaign against France in 1798, but the country did not go to war. Hamilton returned to the law. He did conflict with Adams, through his prolific writings. Adams went so far as to accuse Hamilton as being under British influence. Hamilton said Adams was unfit for the Presidency. The ensuing rift eventually ended up causing his duel with Burr, who shot him dead.

Our Founding Fathers: Benjamin Franklin

Another of the Boston men of the revolutionary period was the redoubtable Benjamin Franklin, an older gentleman who had been born in Boston in 1706. He was an inventor, printer, author and diplomat. He dropped out of school at a young age, became a printer, then published his father's newspaper, the _New England Courant_. He quarreled with the old man, moved to Philadelphia and went back into the printing business. He spent a year in London, returned to Philadelphia, establishing his own printing business, and then started the _Pennsylvania Gazette._ Franklin's real education was only now beginning. He became profitable, and published "Poor Richard's Almanac" in 1732, advocating a New Englishmen's sense of thrift, industry and common sense. Franklin's mindset was very indicative of the average American in the late 18th Century. In many ways this remains our character today.

Franklin was self-taught, learning French, Spanish, Italian and Latin. He created clubs dedicated to debating morals, politics and natural philosophy. Franklin became a leader in his community. In 1752, after years of trial and error, he conducted experiments in electricity using a kite during a lightning storm that provided valuable information about the phenomenon of electricity, leading to study of this aspect of science. The eventual invention of electricity owes itself in small part to Franklin's experimentation. Franklin became a lecturer at Yale and Harvard, and founded the American Philosophical Society.

Franklin was involved in Pennsylvania politics, became postmaster of Philadelphia, a very important and influential position, and then became co-postmaster for the colonies from 1753 to 1774. He called for colonial unification in a war against the French and the Indians. He went to England for the second time in 1757, representing the Pennsylvania Assembly. All in all, he made a number of diplomatic trips to London. He became a very worldly, cosmopolitan man whose views were therefore given great weight. Franklin's diplomatic skills were sought and made by Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Jersey and Maine. He was not a provincialist, but rather a man who knew the ins and outs of politics at all levels.

At first, Franklin was a conciliator who aided William Pitt in the efforts to meet colonial demands. In 1775 he sailed from England, making for Philadelphia, ostensibly working for England as a liaison to the colonialists. But Franklin saw the nobility in the American cause, and adopted the revolutionary "spirit of '76." He became a member of the Second Continental Congress, and therefore no longer was conciliatory. He had much to lose for his views. He had become rich, famous and respected working with the English. He represents the uniqueness of this "different kind of revolution." Franklin sketched a plan for the new union of colonies, served as postmaster, and got Canada to join the revolt. He advised General Washington, and was a member of the committee that helped draft the Declaration of Independence. Congress sent him to France. He essentially became the man who "sold" America to the rest of the world.

"All Europe is on our side of the question, as far as applause and good wishes can carry them," Franklin wrote from France in 1777. "Those who live under arbitrary power do nevertheless approve of liberty, and wish for it; 'tis a common observation here that our cause is the cause of Mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending their own."

In reading these words, one is touched by a certain sadness. Franklin espouses sentiments that are at the core of men's hearts, and no doubt this accurately reflects what was conveyed to him at the time. Certainly it directly disputes the notions of Machiavelli, and the architects of anarchism, socialism and Nazism that operate on the reverse principle. But history proved that the beauty of these concepts was not something Europe, with all its years of baggage, could overcome. Only America was able to take these concepts all the way. It was not until America became a world power that these ideas were finally exported once and for all to Europe and the rest of the globe.

John Adams was not impressed with Franklin, however. He called him "old" and "infirm," but this image does not square with the Ben Franklin who loved to socialize and avail himself of the charms of the ladies. Adams went to London, and Franklin stayed in France. Meanwhile, the Americans were victorious at Saratoga. Franklin negotiated treaties with the French that had the effect of helping the war effort, and making for better conditions in a post-war environment. Franklin was a man of some controversy, and various charges of corruption were leveled at him. He eventually offered his resignation from Congress in 1781, but it was refused. Franklin then joined Adams and John Jay in negotiating a treaty with Great Britain in 1781, although English troops did not leave until two years later when the treaty was signed.

Franklin wanted to go into some kind of retirement, but Congress kept him in service until 1785. He returned to Philadelphia, and immediately was chosen to help frame the Constitution. He favored a single-chamber legislature and an executive board, while opposing salaries to executive officials. In this respect he was not of the Platonic school of thought. Franklin wanted a citizen political body, not the professional body that Plato thought could do the work of politics in the manner of an expert scientist. His efforts were rebuffed, and while the final document was not to his best liking, he gave it cordial approval. Franklin _was_ an old man by now, and his prestige lent much credibility to the convention.

Franklin stayed in Philadelphia and lived with his daughter the remaining five years of his life. His final act was to sign a memorial to Congress asking to abolish slavery. He saw George Washington inaugurated as President. Franklin was a patriot and a great American. He represented a group of men who rose above and beyond the normal expectations of humanity to create the greatest nation in the history of God's Earth. It says here that this was not a mistake. God imbued these men and this nation with Divine favor. I am completely aware that such a statement might be considered jingoistic or arrogant. I cannot prove it. It remains a feeling in my heart that endures despite the protestations of common sense or Earthly reality. As Shakespeare once said, "There are more things on Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than can be dreamt of your philosophy."

The Founders were Christians. They specifically created a nation that did not adhere to a single religion. They allowed for the free expression of ideas. When the natural prejudices of man reared their ugly heads, in the forms of racism, religious intolerance, and all other nature of evil, the laws of this nation had the strength of character and tradition to overcome them. This continues to this day.

The greatest point to be made is that throughout history, rulers and military men have said God was on their side. When they achieved power they attempted to strengthen it by saying they were given the right to do so by virtue of divine fiat. None of them had actual divine right. None of the Founding Fathers said they had divine right. Some were more humble than others. All of them achieved true greatness. It is a lasting greatness that overshadows all mortals who came before them, and the great majority who have come after them.

CHAPTER TWELVE

MANIFEST DESTINY

After frontiersmen crossed the Appalachian Mountain range, great land companies had speculated on the value of this land. The Ohio Company secured a grant at the forks of the Ohio, and the Transylvania Company sent Daniel Boone into the bluegrass region of Kentucky. This became known as the Wilderness Road. Settlements began there. These settlements grew so quickly that Kentucky became a state in 1792, followed by Tennessee in 1796 and Ohio in 1803.

The Louisiana Purchase increased the number of states, extending territory from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, and from the Mississippi River to the Rockies. Jeffersonian Democracy took root everywhere, spreading wherever it was introduced. The Lewis and Clark Expedition crossed the continent by following the Mississippi, Missouri and Columbia Rivers. Zebulon M. Pike was sent north up the Mississippi, west across the Prairies, and up the Arkansas River. Pikes Peak above Colorado Springs, Colorado is named after him. This marks the approximate western limit of his exploration.

After a corruption case involving the Louisiana Purchase (proving that corruption in Louisiana is truly a tradition that has existed there a long time), westward migration reached flood stage. Louisiana was admitted to the Union in 1812, and a new state was added each succeeding year through 1821. The new Cumberland, or National, Road linking the Ohio country with the east, along with steamboat development, pushed the movement.

The War of 1812 marked some halt to westward progress. It was foreshadowed in 1811 by the Battle of Tippecanoe in Indiana against Indians spurred on by British forces. General William Henry Harrison rode his fame from this battle to the Presidency a few years later. President James Madison was unhappy with the British searching our war vessels, impressments of Americans into seamen, paper blockades, and instigation of further Indian conflicts. The British had the greatest navy on Earth, although American ships demonstrated superiority. But the British had more ships and the Americans were forced to flee.

On inland waters, the Americans won more victories on Lake Erie (where Commodore Perry captured a British fleet, rare in English naval annals). On Lake Champlain, Commodore McDonough defeated a flotilla from Canada. At Detroit, General Hull crossed into Canada, retreated and surrendered. The British also repulsed an American invasion at Niagara. General Dearborn then captured the Canadian capital, York, but the English boldly invaded Washington and burned the White House to the ground. General Andrew Jackson's frontier army then marched on and defeated the British at New Orleans. The British sued for peace via the Treaty of Ghent. America's second military success against the vaunted British led them to believe in a sense of invincibility and destiny in themselves. This created a national confidence like no other nation.

The United States in the early 19th Century consisted of a few states, which were former colonies. Then the territory of Louisiana was bought from the French. What lay west was virgin territory. We knew that across the continent could be found the Pacific Ocean. We knew there were native Indians indigenous to the country. We knew about the Spanish lands that lay in the Far West and in South America. We knew little about what lay in between.

The "era of good feeling" began after the War of 1812. James Madison was elected President in 1816, and re-elected in 1820. He was the fourth Virginian to be elected to the White House. The great sense of political pride felt by Virginians would manifest itself in the heroic way they fought during the Civil War. Monroe had fought in the revolution and studied law under Jefferson. After the U.S. acquired Florida, the U.S. faced a diplomatic crisis because General Andrew Jackson cared little for international law in his prosecution of Indian Wars in the Pensacola region. After 300 years, Spain had lost its foothold in the Americas. She lost all her American colonies except Puerto Rico and Cuba.

Partly in response to the changing dynamics of the Americas, Monroe wrote the famous Monroe Doctrine. This was in response to the Quadruple Alliance, which after crushing revolutions in Spain and Italy planned to do the same in the American territories. But Britain, having learned the lesson of opposing America, left the Alliance. Britain suggested that the U.S. join in opposing interference in Latin America. Monroe discussed it with Secretary of State John Quincy Adams.

The Cabinet feared a Russian threat in Oregon. Monroe consulted Jefferson and Madison on the issue. Monroe issued his doctrine in the course of three statements to Congress on December 2, 1823.

"...The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered by any European powers." He went on to say that any attempt of Europe to extend their system to any part of America was "dangerous to our peace and safety." He said the U.S. would not interfere with existing European colonies in Latin America or meddle in Europolitcs. Britain supported our position, and Russia backed off. Chief Justice John Marshall laid down a series of judicial decisions that reflected this "national spirit."

The westward movement led to Texas. Trouble grew steadily between American settlers and the Mexican government. A Mexican soldier, Santa Anna, seized power in 1833. He overthrew the constitution and ruled by force. He inhabited all Texas and ordered the Texans to give up their guns. The Texans told him, in essence, could have their guns when he pried them from their cold, dead fingers. In 1836, Texas declared itself independent and Santa Anna invaded. On March 6 of that year he attacked a small fortified mission in San Antonio called the Alamo. Outnumbered 12 to 1, the Texans, led by Davy Crocket, fought until each American was dead. Among the defenders was Jim Bowie, inventor of the Bowie knife. Santa Anna then rounded up 500 Americans and shot 250 of them. His policy of terror backfired. When Americans heard of it, they cried "Remember the Alamo," which is precisely what they did. They exacted revenge in a systematic, efficient manner over the following years. At San Jacinto, Sam Houston's forces stopped the Mexican advance.

Manifest Destiny was a phrase used by leaders and politicians in the 1840s to explain continental expansion by the United States. The United States decided that to explore this territory was a mission. They were men of idealism and Democratic beliefs. However, Manifest Destiny as an idea, as a policy and as historical fact remains one of the most controversial parts of this nation's history. American Manifest Destiny does not approach the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, but in many circles is thought to be nothing more than an extension of it. To those who choose to criticize it, Manifest Destiny was just more whites of European ancestry raping, pillaging and plundering the indigenous peoples of America. To be sure, there was in Manifest Destiny evil, greed and racism of the worst kind. But the phrase itself, "Manifest _Destiny_ ," is a very telling one, which I happen to agree with wholeheartedly. Events of this period were inevitable. There seems to be no realistic alternative to it. The question, then, is not whether it was the right thing to do or not, but whether it was done rightly or wrongly. The gray area in between, where morality and moral equivalence live, is where judgment lies.

The main argument against Manifest Destiny is the fact that white politicians advocated it, but did not view non-Europeans as being incapable of self-government. There was virtually no conception of Native American as equal to whites in any way. They were not necessarily viewed as evil or barbaric (although in some quarters they were). Everybody operated on a premise. That premise was that the natives were not intellectually capable of equality.

The natives were seen as human. They were not entirely viewed from an unkindly angle. According to legend, the Indians had taught the Pilgrims how to grow crops using fish as fertilizer. They were guests at the first Thanksgiving. There is some question about this, however. These stories may have been invented or exaggerated by liberals who wanted to create the fiction that Indians were on some level worthy of equality with white settlers. But the point is that in the hearts of whites, there was universal hatred for the Indians. Christian charity was a strong concept. This concept drove many to spread Christianity to the hinterlands.

But the main political agenda, as the population of the original 13 Colonies and the economy grew, was the need for new land. Land represented potential income, wealth, self-sufficiency and freedom. To the rugged individualists of the new America, the Western frontiers meant self-advancement.

The United States had a high birth rate and an increase in population due to immigration. Agriculture was the main asset of family farms. The population went from more than 5 million in 1800 to more than 23 million by mid-century. Nearly 4 million Americans moved to Western territories between 1820 and 1850.

The United States suffered two economic downturns, in 1818 and in 1839. Frontier land was virtually free. The frontier created new commerce and initiative. Land, which was expensive in the cities, meant self-sufficiency. With that came some political power and independence. Maritime merchants also wanted to create new commerce by building West Coast ports leading to increased trade with countries in the Pacific.

The first obstacle was Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821. They experienced economic deprivation, and were unable to form a new government. Mexico found itself under emperor's rule, but in 1824, the monarchy was overthrown and a constitutional Republic was started. The Centralist, Federalist, Monarchist and Republican parties fought with each other, and divisions were created.

Mexico had won vast northern territories after its independence from Spain. They were underpopulated. Mexico wanted to colonize, but due to Mexican economics self-advancement in the frontier and relocation was more difficult. Mexican colonization was a governmental program. In the U.S. it was a popular movement. The Mexicans were scared of fighting the Native Americans. Their military system was not able to guard them.

The Catholic Church was also unable to exercise authority in the border areas. Since Mexico operated via central government, frontier expansion was virtually impossible to control. The Americans, on the other hand, were happy to expand. Their political system was popular with the people and there was no fear that distance would dilute its effect. In fact, the Americans found that the more individualistic and separated Americans were from the government, the more they supported a system that allowed them to be so free. There were no governmental entities showing up out of no where demanding inordinate taxes or collectivist yields. When the frontiersmen wanted government services, they requested it, and then they got it.

Frontier society was too informal, Democratic, self-reliant and egalitarian to satisfy Mexican political aims. Their frontier communities were at odds with the central government, which imposed restrictions that affected them in a negative manner.

American romanticism and European literature, namely by Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens, were popular in the United States. Many who went to fight Mexico had read them. The Age of Enlightenment had created the strongly held notion that change was inevitable, and that progress was good. The fact that progress was good was obvious on its face. Recent inventions and breakthroughs in medical science had made this an indisputable fact.

19th Century Americans were unlike anybody in history, except possibly the Egyptians who built the pyramids. They had unbelievable confidence in themselves and were convinced that they were capable of doing anything. In the 1830s and '40s America underwent drastic changes in every way. Industrial and technological advances made life easier than it had ever been before. Steam power and the locomotive railroad became a metaphor for American ingenuity. The rotary press in 1846 made production of newspapers cheaper than ever. It enabled papers to circulate in the national, not just regional, markets. The magnetic telegraph in 1844 was received as nothing less than a miracle. Journalist John L. O'Sullivan called it "Manifest Destiny." The phrase first appeared in print in July of 1845 in the _Democratic Review_ in reference to the Texas issue. O'Sullivan was defending the American claim to Texas.

To extend the boundaries of the U.S. was to extend "freedom." The fact that Democracy is the best form of government was no longer a question. It was now accepted fact. Therefore it was considered "God's plan" for Mankind. The concept that America, and American expansion, was endorsed by God was a totally mainstream idea at this time. People who feel this way do not just sit still, they take action. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote about a destiny that guides individuals, states, and nations. The U.S. was destined to become a world leader; in industrial development, commercial activity, the arts and sciences, and intellectual achievements. There were no limits and no boundaries.

When James K. Polk became President there were about 3,500-4,000 Americans living in the Oregon country, clamoring for a reunion with the United States. There were 800 or so Americans who moved into California and they wanted the same thing.

Passage to India and Asia for commercial enterprise was now possible. Oregonians and Californians thought of themselves as American citizens. They wanted laws codifying this.

All of this is the backdrop of the Mexican War, which was an example of boundlessness and reform spirit - a quest for a better place for the nation, a test of Republican Democracy in a crisis. The die was cast when the United States became a nation. An idea had been born. It was utterly inexorable. Even those who find fault with the expansion and the Mexican War agree that it was unstoppable. To the extent that the expansion can be found at fault is the fact that the ambition for land was insatiable. Lippman said that it was villainy clad in the armor of a righteous cause, to use an expression.

Walt Whitman stated, "What has miserable, inefficient Mexico - with her superstition, her burlesque upon freedom, her actual tyranny by the few over the many - what has she to do with the great mission of peopling the New World with a noble race? Be it ours, to achieve that mission!" Whitman, one of America's greatest poets, glorified equality. "For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you?" he wrote. "Whoever degrades another degrades me, and whatever is done or said returns again to me? I am vast, I contain multitudes."

Mexican intellectuals have admitted that they were a "backward and decaying people." Such thinkers as Mariano Otero and Carlos Maria Bustamante are considered exceptions to the rule. Weakness and underdevelopment marked Mexico in the 19th century, the product of long and complex historical forces. Some prominent white Americans who were vested in the expansion still found fault with American expansion into Mexican territory.

"I do not think there ever was a more wicked war than that waged by the United States in Mexico," said Ulysses S. Grant, one of the most prominent of American military men, and himself a participant in the war, in his memoirs. "I thought so at the time, when I was a youngster, only I had not moral courage enough to resign."

_Columbia_ became the great American angel or woman, floating over the plains of the West. Animals and Indians symbolically fled her. In her wake came farms, villages and homesteads and in the back are cities and railroads. _Columbia_ means the light of civilization dispelling the darkness of ignorance and barbarity.

In the painting, Native Americans have to be removed, symbolic of the thinking of 19th Century Americans. Another interesting symbol shows a railroad train coming out of the East with smoke billowing, bringing technological enlightenment with it. Civilization and technological development are seen as good things. The debate is whether this happened at the cost of spirit or morality. Were Americans of the Old West immoral? Is modern America, shaped by the emergence of the West, immoral? The short answer, since logic always reigns supreme, is of course _no!_ The greater question is not whether immorality marked the whole of the West, but rather whether certain events were immoral. Is immorality and progress mutually exclusive? Is change immoral? Or is it more realistic to simply observe as fact that, when change does occur, rivalries and conflicts are inevitable. When this happens, somebody wins and somebody loses.

Is it immoral that the Boston Red Sox cannot beat the New York Yankees? Both teams started in the American League in 1901. If one wanted to connect the allegory to U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Indian conflict, one would even give the edge to the Mexicans and the Indians. They had years to establish themselves as an entity prior to the establishment of the Americans. It would as if the Red Sox were a National League team, established in 1876 and therefore given a 25-year head start over the Yankees in terms of developing talent, hiring scouts and making for a better, more established organization.

The Red Sox and Yankees started in the same place and at the same. The Yankees simply established themselves as the better organization. They were just more excellent. Manifest Destiny is about the United States simply _being more excellent_ than the Mexicans and the Indians. Therefore, there are winners and there are losers. America was the winners. This sheds light on the facts and makes it easier to determine that what is a charge of immorality is more about envy.

Anglo-Saxon institutions were introduced into an area that was devoid of such enlightenment. With this unique experiment in the new world - this nation that prided itself upon its Democratic institutions - Native American people were forced Westward. Is there rationalization for this? The question then comes down to the usurpation of property.

One argument is that these poor Indians had to be moved in order to save them, but this is hypocrisy. Some Indians were relatively "sophisticated" and "civilized." Some intellectuals have written that the literacy rate of the Cherokee nation was higher than in the white South up through the Civil War. I do not have facts to agree or dispute this. All I have is a very strong suspicion, based on not being stupid and spending a lot of time attempting to gain knowledge, that it is false.

Either way, the tribes were not all barbaric all the time. In the Southeast some Indians were farmers, and "successful." They were moved to Oklahoma. In Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, Native American people were active in trade, were trilingual and very good entrepreneurs. They were forced to the plains of Kansas. Many of the people who went into the West became Native American pioneers. An interesting phenomenon occurred, however. Indian cultures in the East brought many tenants of American "civilization" into the West themselves. This created problems for officials in Mexico.

The U.S.-Mexican War was only one of a series of American expansions that took place in the 19th century. We expanded from coast to coast, into Asia, the Philippines, and in the Spanish-American War, Cuba. We became a power in Asia and in the Caribbean without occupying islands there, with the exception of the Philippines and Puerto Rico. Central America was a place where the U.S. exercised phenomenal political, economic and political control. Expansion was no worse than most European North Atlantic countries during that time. Colonies, empires and "spheres of influence" were the way of the 19th-century. If the U.S. had not kept up, they would have fallen behind.

The idea of Manifest Destiny was foreshadowed by some of the writings of revolutionary times. Canada was considered a "prize" in the period between the American War for Independence and the War of 1812. It rationalized the Louisiana Purchase and United States' support for Texas independence and annexation. This gives credence to the idealistic elements of the movement. The question is whether Manifest Destiny is an idea in and of itself, or whether we simply justified it. What remains as a concrete element of this subject is that if the U.S. had not gone West, either the Mexicans would have, the Indians would have simply stayed there, or other foreign powers would have done it.

This leaves basically four options. Which one is the best option? If Mexico had taken over what became the American West, would the region and the indigenous people's there be better off than they are now? I offer a tour of Tijuana, and then the short drive up Interstate 5 to San Diego, and leave it at that.

The second option involves leaving it to the Indians. This of course is specious, since nobody would have done that even if we had, but let us do it for the sake of argument. Do we help the Indians? Do the Indians ask us to help them build freeways? Do the Indians ask us to help them build hospitals? Is it possible to bring this kind of Western infrastructure into the Indian territories without dominating their society? What if the Americans simply had a "hands off" policy, and all the benefits of modern society occurred east of the Mississippi River? Then the Indians would have kept living in teepees in the West. They would have died of diseases, warred with each other using bows and arrows, starved, froze in the Winter, and done all the things that they always did. The Americans would have been excoriated as unfeeling for not going in and helping their red-skinned brothers.

If the whites never contact the Indians, then what happens to the Indians? What do they invent? If Indians had never been in contact with whites, since 1800 on, are they still living in teepees? Do they have houses with running water? Do they have ways of transporting themselves? Do they have phones? Do they have medicine (and I am not talking about _peyote_ )? I do not ask these questions to be mean or racist. It seems almost impossible to bring the subject up and expose it as obvious for what it is without being racist at some level. There simply comes a time when recognition of events, history and facts requires some reality in order to address ourselves truthfully.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe from 1800 to 2003 the American Indians would have invented aqueducts, irrigation systems, electricity, penicillin, airplanes, cars, roads...

I think they would have invented some things. They would have made advances in areas critical to their way of life; farming, hunting, warfare, religion and societal evolution. The most liberal of guilty whites, or the most radical _Chicano_ or Indian activists, must willing to look in his own heart. If so, can they say that the Indians, left to their own devices, would have invented or progressed 1/1000th of what happened as a result of Manifest Destiny? People can argue that they would have. The fact that they would not have simply falls within the province of knowledge.

Finally, had America decided not to go West, somebody else would have. That might have been the English, the French, and possibly the Spanish. The model of Spanish expansion is already historical fact. Is called the Inquisition. Is there some set of circumstances, some alternative universe perhaps, in which Spanish exploration of Latin America can be compared favorably with American exploration of the West? What probably would have happened is the European powers end up fighting territorial wars with each other. Just for the sake of discussion, the Mexicans retain San Diego. L.A. is a Spanish province. San Francisco is British, Oregon held by the French, but other parts of the Pacific Coast are considered Russian. Other states are split up in a hodge-podge manner, with wars being fought and re-fought over these areas, just as wars were fought for Normandy, Alsace-Lorraine, Sicily, Constantinople, and everywhere else in Europe.

Is this really the way we think history should have played itself out?

Winston Churchill once said Democracy was the worst form of government known to man, with the exception of all other forms of government known to man. I use this analogy in the American West. Manifest Destiny is the worst form of historical progress that could have happened there, with the exception of all other forms of historical progress that could happened there. This is the established premise.

Of course the U.S. _wanted_ the land. We wanted to justify our reasons for wanting it. But earlier in this book I made the point of describing the awesome amount of untrammeled land that dots the Western landscape. There was no tribe, no nation, no government, no country that owned all of it, lived on all of it, and controlled all of it. Human population made up a tiny percentage of the pristine, untouched countryside. Talk centers on overpopulation and the environmental concerns of man encroaching on Mother Nature. The eight-hour drive on many highways, traveling east, west, north or south, throughout states like Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and even California, the great mythically overstuffed desert metropolis, reveals that to this very day most of this land is _still_ untouched. Some telephone poles. A reservoir. Some fire roads. A diner. An occasional prison off in the distance. Up in the sky, maybe some Navy fighter planes or, who knows, a stealth bomber over Nevada. That place is so desolate that aliens might have a city out there, but we just do not even know about 'em.

As mentioned earlier, Bill Clinton, the Ambassador of Political Correctness, leads our "time travelers". His job it is to see to it that the U.S. settlers treat the Indians with respect when they encounter them. Picture "Slick Willie" crouched behind the wheel of the upturned wagon, two of his cavalry officers lying died with arrows through their necks, while the Indians circle the lot of 'em. Clinton's orders are the same as any other human beings, which is to "kill the bastards before they kill us."

Europeans did not fear the United States despite all our "dangerous" talking and writing about liberty. They certainly were not about to tell the U.S. they were wrong for doing what they had been doing. The Mexicans, however, were torn. They admired America, just as anybody who was not mentally unstable would. But they feared them. The Americans had proven a willingness to fight, and they were very good at it. There were border territories of dispute. They knew the Americans would fight for them. Any army that could defeat the English was formidable. Mexicans wanted prosperity, a good economy, and prosperous agriculture. But they wanted to do so without losing land in the process. The Texans, by revolting against Mexico, were doing practically the same thing that the Mexicans themselves had done when they revolted against Spain. Texans knew this.

Expansion was not 100 percent popular. Henry David Thoreau was an outspoken critic of the Mexican War. But critics had different reasons for opposing the policy. Thoreau was an anarchist and a liberal. He was uncomfortable with the exercise of mighty power. But others did not believe the United States could fail in self-government if it grew too large. This became a political position of the Whig Party during the 1840s, when they opposed war with Mexico. Others said a Democracy could succeed only if it were small and close to the people. This was a Jeffersonian ideal. But most saw greatness equated with growth and economic development. This was Hamilton's vision. Later, the Northeast and East Coast felt they would lose power if the United States admitted more states to the Union. Abolitionists were afraid that the conquest of Mexico would lead to the incorporation of more slave territory into the United States. There was sympathy with the Mexicans and some pacifist opposition to the war itself. President James Polk had to pay attention to these concerns.

Texas, however, was a state of strong American disposition. Their people were of rugged character, hard-charging entrepreneurs, men of legend and myth. Their annexation seemed to be a part of natural American expansion. It was a logical sequel to the Louisiana Purchase. John Quincy Adams, a member of the House of Representatives, however, thought Texas' annexation was a slaveholder's conspiracy.

By the mid-19th century, Mexicans had been living in Mexico for more than a century. Many citizens of the United States could be traced back one or two generations. The old European problems, the ancient hatreds and bones of contention, did not come into play. The Americans had no natural dislike of the Mexicans, although racism must be considered. Mexico's history during the period preceding the war was rife with turmoil and _coup d'états_. Mexico, therefore, was suffering from the social and political fragmentation resulting from the Spanish Empire, the war for independence, reorganization bankruptcy, and foreign threat.

The United States' conquest of the West had been going on since the time when the 13 Colonies were established. They had set their eyes on the northern territory of New Spain. In the early 1840s, many books appeared on the subject of California, emphasizing its richness, mild climate, beautiful and marvelous ports. This created a utopian vision. The U.S. had always wanted to trade with China. Polk made California a major priority. His election made the expansion a certainty. Mexico stood in the way. The Mexicans still use the term, "The U.S. Invasion." Different perceptions of the conflict are very real. The U.S. Congress authorized war against Mexico in 1846, saying the Mexican governments had left no alternative. Americans propagandized and justified. Mexico's internal situation between 1841 and I848 is critical. First, there was the Santa Anna dictatorship between 1841 and 1843. Then came the Centralist Republic, in power until December 1845. This was followed by the Mariano Paredes dictatorship, which lasted eight months. During this time, the possibility of a monarchy was once again discussed. The federal republican government was restored in 1847. Six presidents succeeded one another from June, 1844 to September, 1847. With the exception of Manuel de la Peña y Peña, the rest came to power as a result of popular or military uprisings against their predecessors. Thus, all confronted opposition forces that questioned their legitimacy and wanted to overthrow them. Texas and its annexation to the United States, as well as John Slidell's mission, became part of the debate.

In an article in the daily _EI Siglo XIX_ , the issue of Texas separation and the attempts to bring under Mexican sovereignty were discussed. It was used to enhance the reputations of important figures and political parties and to quell the "revolutionary" movement. In 1845 and 1846, negotiated solutions for avoiding the annexation of Texas to the U.S. and later, for the war, were denounced as acts of weakness and even treason.

The José Joaquín de Herrera administration had only precarious support for negotiating with the Texas government in April and May of 1845. They had a similar lack of support for receiving envoy John Slidell. Mariano Paredes confronted the same situation in 1846. In 1847, Santa Anna faced the suspicion of treason preventing him from establishing direct contact with Nicholas Trist after the Cerro Gordo defeat. The fragile state of authority was therefore an obstacle to any attempt at negotiated solutions. The political limitations characterizing the Mexican governments' negotiating capacity were even acknowledged by U.S. representatives beginning in 1844. Secretary Wilson Shannon reported the following to his government with regard to the Texas annexation:

"...Many intelligent Mexicans privately entertain and express opinions favorable to the amicable arrangement of the difficulties...But there are few who have the boldness to express these opinions publicly, or who <would> be willing to stem the current popular prejudice by undertaking to carry them out."

Constitutional changes made during this period imposed restrictions on the actions of those in power. Examples included an article added to the constitution prohibiting the transfer of control over territory; and amendments to the 1824 Federal Constitution, which were approved in 1847. It disqualified "the Executive from signing a peace agreement and concluding negotiations with foreign nations."

Mexico faced other problems with Texas. They asserted from 1836 to 1845 that the secession of Texas was illegitimate, and said it had the right to reincorporate this part of its territory. The Texans had gained the support of other countries. Mexican scholars have said that Mexico's position was similar to that adopted by the U.S. government when it faced the problem of the succession of its southern states years later. Texas was not the only problem state. The New Mexico and California territories were vulnerable, due to the intentions of Texas to define its border along the Río Grande and those of the United States to expand its territory to the Pacific Ocean. The Texans had not the slightest intention of reincorporating. Military submission of the rebels was already clear in 1843 when the Santa Anna government agreed to sign an armistice. Negotiations leaning toward recognition of Texan independence began to take shape. By that point the United States had already revived its old project of annexing the region.

From Mexico's point of view, the annexation of Texas to the United States was inadmissible for both legal and security reasons. When the Mexicans learned of the treaty signed between Texas and the United States in April of 1844, it reaffirmed the posture it had expressed a year before. Mexico would consider such an act "a declaration of war." When the Congress approved the joint resolution inviting Texas to join the United States, Mexico suspended diplomatic relations with its neighbor. Mexico asserted that the annexation of Texas - whether by treaty or in a U.S. Congressional resolution - was a violation of the 1828 border treaty. It had acknowledged Mexico's sovereignty over that territory. They said such acts were a violation of the principles of international law, establishing a dangerous precedent threatening their security. The premise could be used to annex other areas along the border.

The José Joaquín de Herrera administration attempted double-edged diplomacy. They denounced the U.S. Congressional resolution as illegal, and established negotiations with Texas. They wanted to avoid the annexation of Texas and elude an armed conflict with the U.S. The negotiations leaned toward recognizing Texas independence under the condition that it would reject annexation. British representatives in Mexico and Texas were brought in, to no avail.

The Mexican press divided between negotiating with Texas and supporting the government's actions. The opposition referred to themselves as "purists," insisting that Texas should be recovered through an armed expedition. The "moderates" originally supported a negotiated solution with Texas. They switched when Texas accepted annexation. Both sides chose war against Texas, not the United States. It was a huge miscalculation. Mexican journalists and politicians, regarding annexation, said Mexico had no other choice but "to impede the United States from appropriating Texas using all means necessary."

The Texas government had agreed to the annexation. On July 4, 1845, the Herrera administration ordered the mobilization of federal troops to protect the northern border. The order was in accordance with a decree approved by Congress exactly one month earlier, authorizing the government "within its full rights. To use all available resources to resist such an annexation to the very end." This was later reaffirmed in the bill presented to Congress on July 21, which maintained that the military mobilization was aimed at "...Preserving the integrity of Mexican territory according to the old borders recognized by the United States in treaties dating back from 1828 to 1836."

Thus, the order was given on July 23 to strengthen the defensive line along the bank of the Río Grande with the army's Fourth Division under the command of General Arista. The posture in favor of seeking a negotiated solution was, however, maintained. One month earlier the Mexican government's position was communicated by U.S. agent William Parrot to Secretary of State Buchanan.

"I have satisfactorily ascertained through the indirect channel of communication," it stated, " ...that the present government will not declare war against the United States, even if Texas be annexed.

Mexico's anti-belligerent posture in favor of negotiations was confirmed October 15, 1845, when its foreign relations minister, Manuel de la Peña y Peña, notified U.S. consul John Black

"...That although the Mexican nation was gravely offended by the United States due to its actions in Texas - belonging to Mexico - the government was willing to receive a commissioner who would arrive in this capital from the United States possessing full faculties to settle the current dispute in a peaceful, reasonable and respectable way," he stated.

Negotiations faced obstacles. There was opposition from public opinion and political interests to an agreement signifying recognition of Texas' annexation. The government lacked the internal consensus necessary to negotiate. U.S. proposals included instructions given to envoy John Slidell that did not have much to offer in terms of negotiations. Those instructions included the demand that the Río Grande serve as the Texas border. In fact, the Nueces River had always been defined as such. A demand for the cession of the territories of New Mexico and California was linked to claims that had been resolved since the signing of the Convention of 1843.

The Polk Administration accredited Slidell as a plenipotentiary secretary and not as an ad hoc commissioner. He was charged with initiating negotiations, as the Mexican government had agreed to. The Slidell mission was used to force the Mexican government into recognition of the annexation of Texas and the cession of the disputed territory. This last point was an obstacle for beginning negotiations and was an issue in the correspondence between the U.S. envoy and Ministers Manuel de la Peña y Peña and Joaquin Maria del Castillo y Lanzas between December 8, 1845 and March 21, 1846.

President Polk's intentions for the Slidell mission were understood by highlighting comments made earlier by William Parrot to Secretary Buchanan.

"There are other considerations important to the government and people of the United States, which incline me to believe that it would be far better that Mexico should declare a war now," said Parrot, "than that it should propose to open negotiations for the settlement of pending differences; among these, that of tracing certain geographical lines drawn upon the maps of the northwest coast of America, is not the least important; these lines could be satisfactorily run in a case of war; but not in a negotiation, now or at any future period."

Slidell's demands and the U.S. government's refusal to modify the terms of his accreditation were accompanied by the formalization of the admission of Texas to the United States. They were followed by the order given to General Zachary Taylor to occupy the territory between the Río Grande and the Nueces River.

A week after Slidell received his credentials and began his trip back to the United States, the troops commanded by General Taylor arrived at the Río Grande, across from the city of Matamoros. They occupied the territory in dispute, increasing the possibility of a confrontation. President Polk's provocation was acknowledged by John C. Calhoun, who had been the main promoter of the annexation of Texas. The Mariano Paredes government viewed the mobilization of the U.S. Army was an outright attack on Mexico's territorial integrity. It clearly demonstrated that the U.S. had no intention of subjecting itself to the terms of the 1828 border treaty. As a consequence, Mexico reaffirmed the instruction to protect the border located between the Río Grande and the Nueces River. This led to the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma.

President Polk had already decided to ask Congress to declare war against Mexico. The battles provided a pretext. He held that Mexico had crossed over the U.S. border and invaded our territory, shedding U.S. blood in U.S. territory.

This implied a unilateral definition of the border with Mexico. It was a clearly defined reason for the war as the defense of U.S. territorial security. Polk immediately ordered the occupation of the territory south of the Río Grande, as well as the New Mexico and California territories, and the blocking of Mexican ports. The question was and continues to be whether these were the actions in defense of U.S. territorial security, or the flagrant invasion of Mexican territory? From the viewpoint of Mexicans, the answer was that the U.S. government was not seeking to protect its territorial security. It was determined to take over a territory legitimately belonging to Mexico. The daily _El Tiempo_ stated, "The American government acted like a bandit who came upon a traveler."

The daily _El Republicano_ wrote, "No one has any doubts about the intentions the Washington cabinet has had for some time now with respect to Mexico...One fights in the name of usurpation; the other defends justice...the war has begun and the [Mexican] nation has a great deal at stake, since even if justice is on its side, that is unfortunately not enough to triumph and hold back the excesses of a powerful enemy. The war...has now begun, to our misfortune, and it is urgent that time not be wasted."

Most Mexicans believed war was the only option. On July 6, 1846, President Mariano Paredes enacted the Congressional decree that sustained such principles in the following terms:

"Article 1. The government, in the natural defense of the nation, will repel the aggression initiated and sustained by the United States of America against the Republic of Mexico, having invaded and committed hostilities in a number of the departments making up Mexican territory.

"Article 3. The government will communicate to friendly nations and to the entire Republic the justifiable causes which obliged it to defend its rights, left with no other choice but to repel force with force, in response to the violent aggression committed by the United States."

Mexican scholars say war was never declared against the United States. Reference was only made to the need for defending the country's territorial integrity and repelling the U.S. invasion. General Taylor's forces had crossed the Río Grande and seized the city of Matamoros. Mexican ports had been blocked. Captain John Fremont was promoting a revolt in California. Colonel Stephen Kearny had received orders to occupy New Mexico and California.

On August 8, 1846, President Polk asked the U.S. Congress for $2 million for the war. He said these resources would also be used to make adjustments in the border with Mexico. He made it clear he would use force. _El Republicano_ commented such motives were "unjust and barbaric, and those responsible should be considered enemies of humanity." A month later, they added, "A government...that starts a war without a legitimate motive is responsible for all its evils and horrors. The bloodshed, the grief of families, the pillaging, the destruction, the violence, the fires, and its works and its crimes...Such is the case of the U.S. Government, for having initiated the unjust war it is waging against us today."

The U.S. Army continued to advance during the second half of 1846 and the first months of the following year. On March 3, 1847, Congress approved a $3 million fund for allowing the President to reach a treaty of "peace, boundaries and borders" with Mexico. A month later Nicholas Trist was appointed to negotiate with Mexican authorities. But by this time a new offensive had been initiated under the command of General Winfield Scott. He was ordered to attack the territory between the port of Veracruz and Mexico City. The opinion shared by Mexican society and government was against signing a peace agreement in disgrace. After the first contacts between Trist and Mexican authorities, _El Diario del Gobierno_ stated, "[The peace] that could be established right now between the Republic of Mexico and the United States would be ignominious for the former, and would lead to so much discontentment toward other nations and such negative impacts within the country that Mexico would soon become a stage for war once again, and would disappear from the list of free and independent nations."

The Mexicans had to accept a difficult negotiation for the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Before signing the treaty, one of the Mexicans, Don Bernardo Couto, remarked to Nicholas Trist, "this must be a proud moment for you; no less proud for you than it is humiliating for us." Nicholas Trist replied "we are making peace, let that be our only thought."

"Could those Mexicans have seen into my heart at that moment," he later told his wife, "they would have known that my feeling of shame as an American was far stronger than theirs could be as Mexicans. For though it would not have done for me to say so there, that was a thing for every right minded American to be ashamed of, and I was ashamed of it, most cordially and intensely ashamed of it."

From the separation of Texas to the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico defended its territory. According to those who side with them in the historical analysis of this conflict, they did so in the defense of national security. Were they arrogant or irresponsible? Did the U.S. push them into a corner? The Mexican viewpoint is that the armed conflict between Mexico and the United States from 1846 to 1848 was the product of deliberate aggression and should therefore be referred to as "The U.S. War Against Mexico."

In the 1840s the national domain increased by 1.2 million square miles, a gain of more than 60 percent. One lesson of the times is that it was never a clearly defined movement, or one that enjoyed broad support. The Whigs vigorously opposed it. Even expansionist Democrats wanted to know what limits it would entail. The fact that the expansion included a war with a neighbor and eventually territorial claims in conflict with indigenous people is indicative of the fact that it was not simply a glorious undertaking. The champions of Manifest Destiny have been described as a "motley collection" of interest groups, motivated by varying objectives, not the least of which was greed. You are reading a book by a man who champions and loves America in the way a Christian loves Jesus, but as I have stated on more than one occasion in these pages, arriving at the conclusion of America's greatness is not done by ignoring its faults. Manifest Destiny, as I have advocated, was _going to happen_. The Americans, the Mexicans, the Indians or an assemblage of Europeans were going to make it happen. This is not a question. The U.S. recognized this inevitability early and left nothing to chance. Whatever "destiny" lay in store, Polk wanted that destiny to be in our best interests. We made mistakes and we are not perfect. We also handled the issue of Mexico and the Indians, in my humble opinion, better than any of our 19th Century European counterparts would have handled them.

Let it also be said that Manifest Destiny represents a remarkable _achievement._ Many Americans thought transcontinental travel, not to mention a Republic, was an impossible task. Vast distances were conquered by technological innovations. Steamboats had turned waterways into commercial thoroughfares. Railroads integrated the Eastern with the Appalachians. The telegraph ushered in communication. One finds it difficult to conceive that a nation of such advancement, of so many inventions and so much pure, unconditional _accomplishment_ would have reigned themselves held in. It was our _duty_ to expand. To not do so would be like Barry Bonds choosing not to play baseball because he did not want to make the other kids feel bad about not being as talented as he is.

Many who were prescient about this country determined that we needed to grow in order to survive. Thomas Jefferson viewed an abundance of land as the backbone of a strong Republic. He warned against the concentration of political and economic power. But urbanization and immigrants from Germany and Ireland made territorial growth a goal for future generations. Southerners wanted to enlarge the slave empire. The Panic of 1837 had resulted in huge surpluses and depressed prices for American farm products. Americans had always been suspicious of the British in the Western Hemisphere. Great Britain claimed the Pacific Northwest and had a close relationship with Mexico. Great Britain abolished slavery in its West Indies colonial possessions in 1833. In 1843, Southerners said that Great Britain was engaged in a plot to abolish slavery in North America, causing outcry in the South. They called for annexation of Texas. This created a militant strain in political circles. Democrat Polk was elected on a pro-expansionist platform in 1844. The expectation was that Texas would become the 28th state. Britain claimed Oregon, and Polk decided on a policy brinkmanship, hoping for compromise. Polk believed Great Britain was plotting war in concert with Mexico. History later showed this not to be the case. Critics accused him of a "wag the dog"-type scenario, manufacturing the British-Mexico threat in order to justify expansion and war. Polk thought about extending U.S. sovereignty over the Yucatan peninsula and Cuba, two regions where he saw English conspiracy behind every palm tree. Congress was not enthusiastic about these ventures.

By the 1850s, transcontinentalism was established. The United States no longer feared British activities. An important level had been reached, in both countries. The U.S. now was as powerful a country as England. This was an amazing considering how short a time it took for this to occur. England under Queen Victoria was in the throes of major human rights advancements. They abolished slavery and adopted Democracy with relish When Benjamin Disraeli took over this was complete. Manifest Destiny in the U.S. ran into internal divisions over slavery, and was interrupted by the Civil War. Southern extremists sponsored filibuster expeditions into Latin America with the objective of gaining new lands to extend slavery. Expansionism faded in the years prior to the Civil War.

Texas had fine agricultural products, cotton in particular, a major commodity, but California was the prize. Harbors on the Pacific meant a continental empire. New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Nevada all belonged to Mexico. These territories needed to be conquered. Mexico did not consider these lands of any great value, although subsequent events proved them to be. They did not represent immediate economic value in the 1840s. Texas was the key.

Mexico did not just see the conflict from the standpoint of Texas' agricultural and economic value. They felt the need to hold its northern frontier if for no other reason than to stop the U.S. from moving even closer to Mexico. They had legitimate fears (considering the military might of the U.S.) that America would march into, conquer, occupy and hold Mexico City. This is a very interesting point. If the U.S. had followed the example of all the European powers, that is precisely what they would have done. There would be no Mexico today. There was nothing to stop the U.S. from turning all of Mexico into a _Pan Americana._ Baja California, Sonora and the other Mexican states would be United States. So, too, would be Latin countries extending into Central and even South America. There was no military force in these regions capable of preventing this. All we needed was the will to do it. Julius Caesar would have done it. Napoleon would have done it. The English, the Germans and the Spanish, in their heydays, would have done it.

For that matter, much of Canada is not part of the United States for the simple reason that the U.S. decided to let it be Canada.

Take a drive to Mexico City and look around at the cardboard shacks. Then drink the water. Look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that Mexico would not be better off if they were not divided into two or three American states, or at least be protectorates like Puerto Rico.

Mexico actually was afraid of a kind of "domino theory" 100 years before Harry Truman. But the territories in question were remote. In 1821, when Mexico became independent of Spain, California was sparsely populated with something like 3,200 Mexicans. New Mexico, on the other hand, had a population of about 40,000 and was a dynamic northern frontier. Texas had about 2,500 Mexicans, living frontier "islands" - enclaves unconnected to one another, with no communication across the Southwest.

Mexico was little more than a collection of unrelated areas - New Mexico, California, Yucatán, Zacatecas, Oaxaca - distant and loyal not to Mexico but to regional governments. The Republic of Mexico had no king, nor the power of the Spanish monarchy. Revolts broke and weakened the country, as it was. There were revolts in Sonora (part of which is now Arizona), California, New Mexico, and Texas. Yucatán broke away but was brought back into the Mexican Republic. Mexicans were not loyalty toward Mexico. They were loyal to whoever "delivered the goods." Mexico could not defend most of their outlying areas with troops. They had a weak economy that was unable to furnish manufactured goods to the frontiers. Mexico was in chaos and the frontiers were neglected. There was no reason to be loyal to Mexico.

Californians sought an independent California, or alignment with England or France. New Mexicans also thought about independence. Some documents suggested separatism. Santa Fe was a 40-day journey from Chihuahua. From Mexico City, the journey was six months. New Mexicans wanted to sell products to the U.S. It was a 60-day trip across the Santa Fe Trail to Missouri. The trail was actually more level and safer than in Apache-infested northern Mexico. New Mexicans became quite dependent on the U.S. for goods, including manufactured metal hinges, hair pins and scissors, and inexpensive cloth made by superior machines in the U.S. (as opposed to handmade Mexican cloth). Silver was a commodity which Americans were drawn to, bringing it back into the U.S. in place of hard cash. Silver drove the Santa Fe trade.

New Mexicans were surrounded by hostile Indians - Navajos to the west, Utes to the northwest, Comanches to the northeast, Apaches to the south. These tribes could be broken into smaller entities - Gileños, Mimbreños, Lipanes. These totaled 20 or 30 different groups of hostile Indians that surrounded New Mexico. The danger of the U.S. was less than the danger of the Indians.

In the history of America, there are three "morally questionable" military events. These include the Phoenix Program jointly run by the CIA and the Army in Vietnam, the Indian Wars, and the War with Mexico. All three can be justified upon deeper review, although they are not the kind of "clean" operations that mark American fighting in Europe during World Wars I and II. Liberals and Mexicans have proposed the notion that the U.S. "stole" Mexico, "invaded" Mexican territory, and committed acts of "barbarism" upon Mexicans in an act of outright "aggression." The U.S. was aggressive. They did not merely attack a neighbor.

One of the little known secrets about the War with Mexico is how it started in the first place. It was not just The Alamo. There was much more to it than that. Mexico did indeed lay claim to certain locations that are now United States. They were sparsely populated. Mexico had virtually no control over these areas. The Mexicans who lived there were mainly farmers. Every year, local Indians would raid their farms and steal food. The Indians were smart. Instead of killing all the Mexican farmers, they let them live. They did not steal all their food. If they did, the farmers would starve and die. Then they would not grow food that the Indians could steal year after year.

Unable to provide military and police protection for the farmers, the Mexican government began a public relations and recruitment campaign in the United States. They hung up posters and put out the word, centering their efforts mostly on Southern states. This is where the frontiersmen lived; hunters, "mountain men," and backwoodsmen. Daniel Boone and Davey Crockett types.

The word was that "men with guns" were needed. Rugged, self-sustaining men who knew how to live off the land. Mexico offered them the opportunity to come to their northern territories in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and California. They would not be hassled. They could live free, with no government restrictions. They could hunt and trap, sell what they caught, and keep their profits. The catch was that Indians would try to steal from them. That is why they were told to bring their guns and ammo. Thy would have to protect themselves and their profits.

The frontiersmen came, in droves. They were driven by the usual romantic visions of _wanderlust_ and the uniquely American ideal of freedom in the wide-open spaces of the Old West. When harvest time came around, the Indians descended upon the farms and villages. This time, they were not able to freely steal from unarmed Mexican farmers. They were met by Americans who had guns and knew how to use them.

This story is the crux of the 1960 classic, "The Magnificent Seven". In the film, the _banditos_ were not Indians, but rather outlaw Mexicans, which was also a problem. Within a few years, the Indians knew better than to attack the settlements. They wanted nothing to do with the armed, crackshot Americans. What happened was that soon Americans equaled the Mexican population, then outnumbered them. They built settlements, raised families, and created institutions. Like the Jews who came to Palestine after World War I, the Americans were smarter, harder working and more successful than the "natives." They quickly became the dominant social force in the "Mexican North," which would be the American Southwest.

This was not "aggression" by the American government. No army was sent in, like Rome making a distant land part of its empire. Ordinary citizens were invited, they accepted, and they prospered. In Texas, they prospered nicely. By the mid-1830s, the Mexican government realized that the Americans were a powerful force of nature. They told them they were Mexican citizens and had to pay taxes to Mexico. The American frontiersmen wanted nothing to do with this concept. They had been invited in to protect the Mexican farms from violent, rampaging Indian marauders. They had lived up to their end of the bargain. They had been promised they could keep what they made and be left alone. Despite their independent natures, there was one thing these cowboys were. They sure as heck were not Mexicans.

_They were Americans._ These were the men who defended the Alamo in 1936. A few hundred Texans with rifles defended the fort for days against an overwhelming force of thousands. The Texans killed half the force before succumbing. They became legends. The rest of the country heard the story of the Alamo. After that, sentiment strongly favored bringing Texas into the Union, and going to war with Mexico.

Mexico had brought in men to defend themselves in these remote provinces, surrounded by Indians. Now they were calling them colonists. It would be like the French government of 1945 saying that the Americans who fought from Normandy to Paris were now French citizens.

These immigrants were _not_ going to come from Mexico. Central Mexico was too far away. As the Americans frontiersmen came in, the Mexicans were happy, but not because they loved _gringos_. Rugged, gun-carrying people were likely to help them fight Indians. Relations with Indians had worsened. Mexican settlers had begged the central government for military help. The legislature of the state of Chihuahua suggested that Mexicans in Chihuahua could not travel, farm or ranch and, in fact, they raised cattle and sheep for the benefit of Indians, who simply stole them.

Apaches boldly said that Mexicans raised sheep for them and that they did not take all of the sheep because the herds would be destroyed with no resources. That is, if they destroyed the Mexicans all at once, they would have no other food source, so they had to "carry" the Mexicans like a boxer holding up an opponent in a fight in which the winner only gets paid if the thing goes 12 rounds.

Mexicans looked at the cowboys of the West as gun merchants and protectors. But the cowboys had no reason to protect Mexico. They sold guns to Indians who used them to take Mexican cattle and horses, then to sell to the Anglo-Americans in exchange for ammunition. The Mexicans lost all real control over the frontier. It was a battle of the fittest, and they were low on the food chain. They had no control of the arms trade. The Indians found the stolen goods market to be lucrative. New Mexico braced for war with Navajos just a month before Stephen W. Kearny marched over the Santa Fe Trail to invade New Mexico. They were engaged in a two-front war.

There was an amount of accommodation with the Anglo-Americans moving in. Naturally they lived with Mexicans in New Mexico and California, and intermarried. The Anglos who left the U.S. with "racist" attitudes wound up as minorities in Mexican communities. Some became Catholics, spoke Spanish, and fell for Mexican women. There was considerable harmony even as there was conflict.

Under Spanish laws dating back to the 14th century, women were allowed to own property and dowries in their family name. The same practices also allowed women to retain their family names in marriage. Merchants and traders arrived from the United States, and they began to change the economics. Illegal immigrants from the United States came into Santa Fe, because of the need for manufactured items. Caravans out of Missouri to Chihuahua City were a positive development on the frontier.

In August, 1846, troops accompanied by Stephen Watts Kearney came into Santa Fe. He took down the Mexican flag and unfurled the Stars and Stripes, declaring to the people of the town, "we come to better your condition." Businesses profited when soldiers entered establishments to gamble and drink. Resistance fighters plotted to overthrow them. Their efforts went poorly and no unified effort against the soldiers succeeded.

Santa Fe was said to be "decayed," "dirty," and "mud-locked." Spanish-Mexican women were called "toilers," "slaves to the tyranny of their husbands," and "ugly, debased in all moral values." Soldiers would write home complaining about the West. James Josiah Webb had 20 years of merchandising experience in Santa Fe.

"The Pinos and Ortizes were considered the 'ricos' and those most respectable leaders in society and political influence, but idleness, gambling, and the Indians had made such inroads upon their influence that there was little left except the reputation of honorable descent," he said.

Diaries, memoirs and articles focused on the "poor" or "downtrodden" race. There was little discernment of "mestizos," or mixed-race (the majority were), Mexicanos, or Hispanos, even though color and class mattered very much to the Mexicans. Spanish-Mexican and Indian women worked for the conquering army and the merchants. Poor people flooded Santa Fe. Begging became common. People needed to work two or three jobs to survive. The U.S. census for Santa Fe in 1850 said that over three-fourths of the "Mexican" women named "laundress," "seamstress," and/or "domestic" as their job. Average household size grew larger and, like of northern Mexico, 90 percent of them lost land or property within 10 years of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. This conveys a bitter legacy.

The census placed Americans in one column, Mexicans in another. Indians, many of them carrying Spanish surnames, were all but invisible, although the Pueblo Indians surrounded the town of Santa Fe and worked for wages. New Mexico did not achieve statehood until 1912. "Fronteriza" Gloria Anzaldúa said that this was a place where the U.S. and México "rub against each other." Some said they were "sold" to the U.S.

Most Native Americans in the Southwest enjoyed autonomy. Spanish Indian policy was oppressive, but it integrated Native Americans into the socio-economic fabric of New Spain. The Roman Catholic Church provided protection from abuse. Tribespeople who did not reside in sedentary villages were not part of either Spanish or Mexican hegemony. The Pueblos were partially integrated into Mexico, but they held control. Pueblos who had "converted" to Catholicism integrated this Christian faith with older tribal religious traditions.

The Navajos and Apaches remained outside Mexican influence. The Navajos adopted herding techniques, but rejected Catholicism. Apaches were scattered across the Southwest. They were nomads and therefore not as affected by Mexico. Navajos and Apaches raided Spanish and Mexican settlements for booty. The Apaches were effective in their war with the Mexico. Mexico offered cash bounties for Apache scalps. This story was repeated for years, and eventually changed, saying it was _Americans_ , not Mexicans, who offered cash for the scalps. This was a lie.

In California, Native Americans resided along the coast from the modern Mexican border to the San Francisco Bay region, and in the interior valleys. These tribes became well integrated into the mission system. Historians disagree over the mission system. Some said it was oppressive. Missions were restricted to the coastal regions or the lower San Joaquin and Sacramento River valleys. Most tribes lived in the coastal range, the Sierras, or Northern California and remained outside this realm.

Texas was different. By 1793, Native Americans indigenous to southern Texas had declined or intermarried with the Hispanic population. The missions in Texas were secularized. By 1825, most Indians had disappeared from records. After 1836, a few Tonkawas and Karankawas roamed the land, but they were only refugees. Other refugees included Cherokees, Shawnees, and woodland peoples from east of the Mississippi who had been removed to Texas. They were forced out of Texas and into the Indian Nations. The Caddoes' and Wichitas' tribes once populated the Piney Woods and north Texas, but sought haven north of the Red River in Oklahoma.

The Comanches were formidable, but were at peace with Texas and New Mexico. After 1787, they still dominated the high plains of west Texas. After 1836, they faced more rigorous opposition from Texas Governor Sam Houston. Houston would negotiate, but his successor, Mirabeau B. Lamar, would not. In 1840-41, the Comanches lost battles at the San Antonio Courthouse; at Plum Creek, near Lockhart, and on the Colorado River. They fought back, but white Texas usurped their lands and hunted buffalo herds.

Elsewhere in the Southwest the end of the conflict marked a major period in North America. The Spanish and Mexican regimes were replaced by the Americans. New Mexico, Arizona, and California were no longer hinterlands. Anglo miners entered

California, Arizona and New Mexico. They posed a threat to Native Americans. The miners exploited the riches of the region, then settled regions where they could enjoy their prosperity. They had no permanent attachment to the land, but considered Native Americans as obstacles. Mining camps were violent. There were no churches, wives, or families at first. Miners were armed and they drank a lot. Violence was common. When miners became unemployed they became mercenaries in militia units which attacked Native Americans. John Chivington's Colorado militia attacked the Cheyenne and Arapahoes at Sand Creek. General James Carleton campaigned against the Navajos. The Indian population went from approximately 150,000 on the eve of the U.S.-Mexican War to less that 30,000 25 years later.

Indians in the Southwest found their lands invaded by miners digging for gold, silver or other precious metals. The Apaches and Navajos resisted. All were overwhelmed. Native American had been isolated in geographic regions deemed undesirable by Anglo-Americans. The U.S.-Mexican War destroyed much of Indian autonomy.

The United States had two armies during the 19th century. The Congress had authorized the U.S. Army in 1789. The "regular Army" were commissioned officers and enlisted men who joined for five-year stretches. In 1792, Congress created another army, an auxiliary called the militia. The regulars were a national force while the militia were armies of the various states. This was the pre-cursor of the Reserves and the National Guard. Congress stipulated that the militia could be called into Federal service to execute the laws of the United States, to suppress insurrections, and to repel invasions. This arrangement formed the basis of the American military during the War with Mexico.

Congress had authorized a strength of 8,613 men and officers. The actual number of soldiers in uniform was fewer than 5,500. Many regimental commanders had entered before the War of 1812 and were elderly. Companies were far below strength. Congress created a company of the U.S. Engineers and a new regiment of U.S. Mounted Rifles.

The United States Military Academy worked in favor of the U.S. Army. These officers, mostly lieutenants and captains, formed leadership that offset manpower. Their ranks included George G. Meade, Ulysses S. Grant, George B. McClellan, P.G.T. Beauregard, Braxton Bragg, Joseph E. Johnston, and Robert E. Lee, all of whom later went on to command in the Civil War.

The system was unreliable by the time of the War with Mexico and had undergone change. Many states prohibited their troops from participating in military operations on foreign soil. Militiaman could only serve for a period of 90 days, meaning that recruiting, training, and marshaling occupied most of a unit's time with little left over for campaigning. Congress created a subclass of volunteers who were not confined by these two restrictions. On May 13, 1846, Congress authorized President Polk to raise 50,000 12-month volunteers.

Regulars and volunteers were different and interacted very little. Most Americans did not enlist in the regulars. A large percentage of privates, corporals, and sergeants were foreigners. Aristocratic officers and foreign "hirelings" made for problems. Volunteers were spirited citizen-soldiers. Volunteers elected their own officers and were raised locally, allowing friends, neighbors, and relatives to serve together. They had home ties. The Democratic nature of the volunteers meant that discipline in this corps was more lax, but it created a culture of initiative that would become a dominant feature of U.S. military doctrine. In foreign wars throughout our history, the U.S. faced enemies who were rendered ineffective when officers were killed, because enlisted personnel did not know what to do and were not confident enough to lead. Americans at Normandy Beach, however, became separated from their units or saw officers killed in the first seconds of combat. Ordinary privates and sergeants routinely took charge and led men to safety - and victory. This kind of scenario played itself out thousands of times in many winning campaigns. With all due respect to American technological superiority, it may be the single greatest military advantage that the U.S. enjoys.

In 1846, Congress called for volunteers and a wave completed the duration of the war. On February 11, 1847, Congress created additional regiments of regulars. 26,922 regulars and 73,260 volunteers served during the War with Mexico. The majority were trained as infantry and armed with flintlock muskets. The regulars maintained two regiments of light cavalry called dragoons with a third created for the war. Several regiments of mounted volunteers were raised that served mainly with Taylor's Army of Occupation and Kearny's Army of the West. Artillery formed the third branch of service. Just prior to the outbreak of the war, the Army equipped several companies as "flying artillery" in which each cannoneer had his own mount. The innovation meant that the unit could gallop around the battlefield, using its guns to bear when needed. This was a strong feature in U.S. victories.

The Mexican-American War caused families to be split. When borders were created part of the family was on one side, and the other part of the family was on another side, creating enemies. It was also about language, culture, race, and religion. Consequences of that conquest have an effect today. Many say Americans have not come to terms with our history, which is that of a conquering nation. We do not know what it meant to be conquered and subjugated. The events of the Mexican-American War, Manifest Destiny, the Indian Wars, and the rise of the American Empire are as real today as any events in the 19th Century. The simple fact is that many cannot come to grips with our successes. The inescapable fact is that when America won, somebody lost. The fact that it was often an "us or them" situation does not negate the guilt that many white liberals feel about this.

The 19th Century wars against people of color created terrific angst for the liberals. The deaths of enormous numbers of white Southerners, and in later wars, Germans, offer no real angst. Killing Nazis was a-okay with liberals, but somehow dropping atomic bombs on Japanese to save American lives earmarked for the horrid invasion of Tokyo is an act of racial killing. Liberals say that our "gunboat diplomacy" against Chinese warlords and Communists, and our struggles vs. North Korean and North Vietnamese Communists, somehow reeks of racism. However, aside from mixed feelings regarding the Marxism they were taught at elite colleges, killing white Russians in World War III to keep them free would no doubt have been acceptable had Ronald Reagan not managed to get the job done without firing a shot.

These are the facts.

The United States "erased" the history of some people. In their place is struggle. But certain points must be discussed that shed light on this. In the case of Mexico, this was a country forged out of the brutal repression and religious brutality of Spain. To make this short and sweet, the fact is that the U.S. was a great nation and Spain was not. America's strength won out when it went against the influence of Spain. In the case of the Indians, they were not all peace-loving environmentalists as depicted in "Dances with Wolves". This book makes no effort to downplay the fact that their people suffered terribly, and in many cases unfairly. It does point out that the Indians were fighting guerilla wars against the Mexicans that at first had nothing to do with the Americans. Later it was the Americans who were called upon to protect the Mexicans who could not protect themselves. When the Americans proved themselves more courageous, more organized, and better able to govern the frontier, the Mexicans wanted them to lend their great talents, only under the Mexican flag.

Many Indians were farmers and hunters, and many were peaceful. Many were fierce killers, and to meet them was to face two options: Kill them or be killed by them. Many Indians were thieves and terrorists. These are the facts.

The call to understand what happened is a noble one, but the culture of educators who propose this notion is one that has decided it is the fault of the whites, who should be made to feel guilty. As Marlon Brando said as Colonel Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now", "there is nothing I hate more than the stench of lies." The story of the Old West has gone through two phases. Both are filled with lies. The first was the "John Wayne era," in which cowboys were simplistically depicted as the "good guys" and Indians as the enemy. In too many textbooks and movies of recent years, however, the lie has gone in the opposite direction. What is necessary is an objective view.

We assume that we all share one national history, but unlike a homogenous country like Japan, our histories might be different than our neighbors. The mestizo of Tejas, the Tejanos in Texas; the Nuevo Mexicanos in New Mexico, the Californianos in California and in other parts of what is now Arizona - these people were not claimed by either nation. National histories exclude people who were indigenous but are no longer here. They are not claimed by the United States or not claimed fully as citizens, and the are lost to Mexico. Violation of language made illegitimate cultural forms and formulations, sensibilities and aesthetics. They were demeaned, dismissed, discredited or delegitimized.

Catholicism brought European cultures, reducing the meaning of Indian religions. This of course can sound like an awful affront, unless of course one holds the notion, which a few do, that Christ is the Son of God and Christianity is the path to everlasting life. Was it forced upon the Indians? Yes. Would the Indians have become Christian had they not had it forced upon them? Probably not. Not all of them had it forced on them. Some thoughtful priests were missionaries who preached the word of God to thoughtful recipients of a better way. For their ancestors who practice the religion, in a society in which they are now free to choose, do they want to stay with Christ or go back to smoking peace pipes? Most freely choose Christianity.

Yes, there was violence. Some who prefer to maintain the status of victims say it has not healed. We live with our consequences, but we do live. The choice of how we live is ours. In America, we have that choice. Not everybody does. People lost their language, but history has always been about people losing their language. Much of the world once spoke Latin. Land was taken from people, but as previously discussed, much of that land was attacked by Indians, and could not be protected by its owners. Americans with guns and the ability (and willingness) to use them were called in.

People of Mexican origin or descent live these realities. That means affirming their history, their language and culture - individually, as a family, as a collective and as a people. It is a struggle. But affirmation of their history should be the real thing, because it is not fair to teach kids they are something, then have historians like myself come along with facts that do not make them feel good. The events happened. It is history, and much of history is clouded with interesting facts, tidbits and gray areas that allow for an interesting study without worrying about revisionism.

The United States' war with Mexico has been called the European conquest of the Americas. In some ways this is true, but America is so different from the Europe from which it sprung that this analogy has a short shelf life. The truth is, the Romans would have enslaved the Mexicans. Besides, the European conquest had already taken place when the Spanish arrived and spread throughout South America. The English came and tried to conquer us, but we _simply resisted and were strong enough to succeed._

Lives, cultures, languages, livelihoods, governments were altered, but change is the ever-present constant. The thing that will be resisted is the notion that the change brought about by the United States of America was evil. The U.S. did say to the Mexicans living within the new borders, "You are citizens," but did not treat them as citizens. They were denied the rights and privileges of full citizenship. But what the detractors do not acknowledge is that the system was in place to remedy these wrongs. Despite bad people, racist and violent, the system, the laws and sense of fairness that characterized the revolution eventually - not immediately, but eventually - spread to the whole of the citizenry.

Furthermore, if America was so demeaning, so racist, so violent, and so horrible, why - and this question is answered a million times a day because its evidence occurs right before our eyes - do Mexicans risk all to keep coming here?

Some say that violence is rooted in the development and establishment of Democracy, and that we live with the consequences of that violence. This is not an argument that carries weight. While Democracy came to America, its roots are in ancient Greece and even in Republican Rome. The fight with England was less about Democracy and more about independence. Democracy came later. Violence does not come from Democracy. It comes from expansionism, for one. It certainly comes from nationalism, Nazism, socialism and Communism. Yes, some insensitive Americans, even some men of high authority, dehumanized the people they conquered. I see no way around this issue except to say, "sorry." Such things cannot be justified, but they happened. People recover from dehumanization by making themselves strong. The Jewish survivors of the Holocaust were dehumanized worse than any group in history. Instead of wandering throughout Europe like nomadic ghosts, taking handouts from the Euro-gentiles who betrayed them, they took matters into their own hands. The result is the forging of the state of Israel. They offer the chance of statehood to the Palestinians. All indications are that those Palestinians, like not just a few others in this world, prefer victimhood. With victimhood comes a status that does not require full responsibility for their history and their actions. The best way to heal is to be strong, be excellent, and let these traits shine forth like a beacon of light.

Denigrators say that the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence were "purchased" with someone's labor. Somehow, they try to make the case that independence could not have been won had it not been for the toil of the slaves, which must have been big news to the guys crossing the Delaware and freezing at Valley Forge. The participation of the non-slave Northern states puts a crimp in this argument, which does not stand up. The word genocide has been used to describe what happened to the indigenous populations. To that I offer any of the Mexicans and Indians of the 19th Century every opportunity to trade places with the:

  11. Armenians under Ottoman rule.

  12. Jews under the Nazis.

  13. Chinese under Japanese invasion.

  14. Jews under Stalin.

  15. Chinese under the Red Guards.

  16. The oppressed of Bangladesh, Rwanda, or Bosnia.

  17. The Cambodians under Pol Pot.

  18. Somalia under the warlords.

  19. Iraq under Saddam.

Then we can start talking about _genocide._

Furthermore, if America was so racist, how come it went the other way? America has never had any lack of freethinking, free-speaking individuals more than willing to confront our "worst selves." Not just a few of them entered the national discussion throughout the period we call Manifest Destiny. Free people made the decisions. They were made after much discussion and debate, from all sides. Plenty of educated people anguished over the discrepancies between the ideals of the Framers and the reality of expansion. We do not sweep our history under the rug, simply to justify it, and make our "victims" out to be the ones at fault. We look at our problems, we put them in the storefront window, and open the discussion up to our worst detractors.

Perhaps America would have been more sensitive to the natives had we gone through our great immigration beforehand. As we embarked on Manifest Destiny, we were a nation primarily of English with a few Dutch and Germans. The Irish were of a more aristocratic class than the later victims of the potato famine. We were not yet blessed with Italians escaping the corruptions of the Old Country. Either way, to accuse Americans of not accepting their role as part of the "human family" is an unfair characterization. Even if we knew then what we know now, it would probably have happened. Maybe if we had "embedded reporters" back then, we would have made an extra effort not to make the war look like a racist "assault on Catholicism." But the _war aims_ would have still been the same.

The Mexican army of 1846 rostered 18,882 permanent troops (permanentes) organized into 12 infantry regiments (of two battalions each), eight regiments and one separate squadron of cavalry, three brigades of artillery, one dragoon brigade and one battalion of sappers. Supplementing the permanentes were 10,495 active militiamen (activos) apportioned into nine infantry and six cavalry regiments. Permanent army officers commanded them. They were a formidable force. Like most armies they were designed to break things and kill people. Their job was to kill Americans. Posted along the northern periphery, presidial companies (presidiales) reported 1,174 additional troops. The problem came because poorly trained units were too far removed to affect the unification of forces in the main theaters of war.

These standing formations existed among five territorially delineated military divisions and five commandancies-general. The general staff's duty was to coordinate brigade and division-size units to practice linear tactics. Regional dispersal impeded central military authority and created localism. Scattered formations did not form into single garrison divisions, and they were not under the supervision of experienced officers.

Instead, they made up extemporaneous assembled troops made up from conscripts pressed into service via the levy (leva). Desertion, mutiny and larceny hampered training and discipline, although they acquitted themselves well in battle.

Improvised Mexican units were not cohesive, and morale was low. In battle small unit leadership and individual initiative were discouraged. This was the opposite of the American approach which succeeded in Texas, San Juan Hill and the Argonne Forest.

Division General Mariano Arista commanded the 5,200-man Army of the North. After losing to Texas on the extended Río Grande frontier, they became Mexico's most experienced military formation. They engaged General Zachary Taylor's Army of Occupation in all four of the northern campaign's major battles. Redeployed to the Valley of Mexico in July, 1847, under the command of Division General Gabriel Valencia, the Army of the North fought fierce action at Padierna before ceasing to be a fighting force.

General Winfield Scott advanced into the heart of Mexico. The Mexican war ministry activated the Army of the East in March of 1847. Commanded by General President Antonio López de Santa Anna, this 11,000-man force was an amalgamation of units posted in central Mexico, fragments from the Army of the North and remnants of the defeated Veracruz garrison. Following its breakup at Cerro Gordo, the Army of the East was reformed under the command of Brigade General Manuel María Lombardini. The survivors of that battle and selected national guard ( _guardia nacional_ ) battalions. Comprised of both middle and lower class residents of the valley, these national guard troopers fought for their homes.

Responsibility for interdicting Scott's communications with Puebla and guarding the line from Acapulco to Mexico City was entrusted to the 3,000-man Army of the South. Commanded by Juan Álvarez, they were mostly a cavalry formation. They had little influence, until Molino del Rey, when Álvarez' unwillingness to commit his cavalry may have affected the outcome. 3,800 men were assigned to Division General Nicolás Bravo, rounding out the campaign's force. Called the Army of the Center, they were positioned to protect the Mexicalzingo-San Antonio line. Thereafter, elements of the Army of the Center participated in the Churubusco bridgehead fight and the defense of Chapultepec.

Mexican soldiers had to forage off the land because their supply lines were insufficient and their troops often went hungry. The army attempted to overcome this by allowing soldiers' wives and girlfriends ( _soldaderas_ ) to accompany each campaign, in order to perform essential sewing, cooking, maintenance, foraging and nursing duties.

15 writers created a book called "Apuntes para la historia de la guerra entre México y los Estados Unidos" ("Notes on the history of the war between Mexico and the United States"). They were young men who had participated in the war, serving in the National Guard and witnessing the capture of Mexico City. Ideologically, they were all liberals. It is a worthy point of discussion to make note of the fact that the U.S. captured Mexico City, but instead of simply holding it as a "colony" in our empire, we eventually re-patriated it.

After the U.S. Army occupied Mexico City, they fled to Querétaro with the provisional government. They documented causes of the war. It was, in effect, a post-mortem. They wanted to understand why Mexico had lost the war and the nation's "territory." This "Apuntes" provided information as an example of how to preserve the nation's future. Some of these writers entered politics and worked with Benito Juárez. This helped prepare them for the French invasion in the 1860s. They consolidated Mexico.

Some scholars have opined that the War With Mexico laid the groundwork for the Civil War, which would be make it a very costly experience, indeed. Mexico learned lessons about consolidating their nation. In the end, the conflict ultimately taught both countries that we are intertwined and affect each other. U.S. affects Mexico more, but having a strong neighbor is better than a weak one. This has been our predicament for 150 years.

President Polk said an illegal and un-Democratic government of Mexico had refused to negotiate pressing disagreements with the U.S. about debts, claims and boundaries, and then invaded Texas, which he called a part of the United States.

"As war exists, and notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself, we are called upon by every consideration of duty and patriotism to vindicate with decision the honor, the rights and the interests of our country," said Polk.

Most Americans accepted his interpretation. Not just a few scholars believe it could not be sold to the current public, who in the modern climate would consider it immoral. The fact is, few Americans know the first thing about this period in our turbulent history, other than watching John Wayne playing Davey Crockett in "The Alamo". There is evidence that Polk wanted Mexican territory, mostly California, and decided to take it by force.

To put it simply, we took it because we could, but could the issues have been resolved peacefully? There were linguistic, religious, and cultural differences between American migrants and ranchers, and Indian incursions made Mexico's situation unstable. Polk felt the Mexican government was stubborn. British territorial desires were an important consideration. Corruption in Mexican politics was a factor. Polk was convinced that Mexican officials were deceitful.

Polk was from Tennessee and disdained Spanish and Spanish Americans. He viewed them as liars. Polk believed in the threat of force, and was not big on compromise. The Mexicans were sensitive and had the concept of "death before dishonor." Polk risked a stalemate like France, when they had faced this predicament in trying to set up Maximilian as emperor of Mexico during the 1860s. He was not willing to let California grow and create an independent state that could join the Union on their own.

Modern Mexicans view their relationship with the U.S. to be a lopsided one. Losing a war to us is one reason. But even Mexican scholars agree that many Mexicans fail to recognize they were a new nation with the lack of capacity to populate her own territories in the 1820s. In other words, Mexico bit off more than she could chew. Mexico simply was unable to provide security on these frontiers. Furthermore, Mexicans were fighting each other at this time.

For the U.S., the war with Mexico provided the opportunity for troops to test their fighting skills, and for graduates of West Point to hone their leadership. Soldiers in the North and the South both felt confident. This created an atmosphere that helped make the Civil War attractive to far too many. Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott taught most of the future Civil War generals key elements of battle strategy. They knew no defeat.

Robert E. Lee, U.S. Grant, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, George McClellan, P.G.T. Beauregard, James Longstreet, Albert Sidney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, George Thomas, George Meade, Edmund Kirby Smith, Braxton Brag, Joe Hooker, and George Picket, are just a few of the generals who came of age in the U.S.-Mexico War.

Taylor was considered a "soldier's general." He was less a tactician and logistician. His men called him "Old Rough and Ready," out of respect. He was brave and shared hardships. He generated confidence from his men. Grant patterned himself on Taylor. Grant was not a "parade general." He dressed plainly and lacked pretense. He always maintained calm. Lee learned to be a skeptic who disdained frantic reports of enemy strength.

Scott was a tactician, full of conceit, pompous, often undiplomatic and abrasive. "Old Rough and Ready" and "Old Fuss and Feathers" might be compared to Omar Bradley and George Patton. Scott's biggest protégé was Lee. Lee's greatest successes were based on lessons learned under Scott. Lee was audacious, even in the face of overwhelming numbers. Stonewall Jackson was another Scott disciple who displayed what he learned in his classic Shenandoah Valley campaign, at Second Manassas and Chancellorsville. Grant, too, was willing to fight despite pessimism from others.

Scott delegated responsibility, a large part of U.S. doctrine. He planned an operation, acquainted his commanders with the plan, and saw to it that his troops were in at the right time and place. He left the fighting to his subordinates. Civil War commanders like Lee emphasized a trained staff and cadre of West Pointers. Lee, Grant, and Jackson all had excellent staffs.

Scott was big on reconnaissance. Advance work became an important part of later Civil War strategy. Scott mastered the flank attack, which he put to great use in the movement at Cerro Gordo. All who studied it marveled at it. Lee fashioned out of the Cerro Gordo experience the stunning success at Second Manassas and Chancellorsville. Stonewall Jackson was a flanker, too. Flanking had always been a big part of European doctrine, although in World War II generals like Patton, with new, faster mechanized weaponry at their disposal, no longer relied on it as near-Biblical military strategy.

In the march from Veracruz to Mexico City, Scott moved faster than his supply and communication. Lee copied this strategy in two invasions of the North. Grant did it at Vicksburg in 1863 and William T. Sherman marched through Georgia and the Carolinas.

The War with Mexico changed America forever. The _Democratic Review said_ in May, 1848, the war's end meant the "reduction of our enormous expenses by the withdrawal of the army, and the cessation with it of the excessive jobbing which has been so long going on...

"...A people...devoted to the arts of peace, possessing free political institutions, can vanquish a military people, governed by military despots," said _Merchant's Magazine_ in April, 1848.

Some said California and New Mexico would prove useless, offering little to the national treasure while draining us of needed resources. Some thought Mexico had gotten the better of the deal, unloading "worthless land" for the $15 million the U.S. paid them.

Vast new territories had been incorporated as part of the United States.

On July 4, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was ratified by the Mexican Congress arriving at the White House. That same day the cornerstone of the Washington Monument was dedicated.

"...The precise epoch at which we have arrived in the world's history and in our own history," said Robert C. Winthrop, Congressman from Massachusetts and Speaker of the House of Representatives. The "great American-built locomotive, 'Liberty'" moved "on the track of human freedom, unimpeded and unimpaired; gathering strength as it goes; developing new energies to meet new exigencies," with a swiftness that "knows no parallel."

"This great anniversary," declared one citizen, "has never come in, with more of enjoyment to be thankful for, and more of promise to cheer and encourage us."

The American Army brought forth memories in the Capitol of the struggles of the revolution. It was openly said to be the "founder of an empire" unlike anything the "world has heretofore produced."

The war was divisive for America in that it helped bring the slavery issue to play. More than 5,800 Americans were killed or wounded in battle. 11,000 soldiers died from diseases, in addition to others who succumbed from their war injuries soon afterward. The cost was estimated at more than $75 million. The discovery of gold and silver in California and Nevada was a great benefit that spurred Westward expansion. It also upset the balance between free and slave states, which helped bring on the Civil War.

For Mexico, besides thousands of military and civilian deaths, the war created thousands of orphans, widows and cripples. Artillery shelling and small arms gunfire caused destruction of buildings in cities, port facilities and roads. The naval blockade and movement of thousands of troops negatively affected their economy, disrupting trade. Conscription of peasants caused a decline in agricultural and mineral production. Political careers were lost. There was chaos in the national government - seven presidents and 10 different ministers of foreign relations during two years of war. A despotic regime led to another civil war. Psychological loss was palpable. Half of the national territory (counting Texas) was lost, shattering national dignity. Resentment toward the Yanquis has never gone away.

It was not America's greatest achievement. It was a war between two nations that wanted the same thing. Mexico's claim that the land was theirs fair and square does not hold up to the facts. If a country intends to use military force to achieve its aims, as Mexico indeed did do, then that country needs to be have a military that is stronger than their opponent. Mexico did not have a strong enough military. Spanish-speaking historians in Mexico are a good source, but they have their agenda, too. The war was multidimensional. It involved a division of opinion and a minority were opposed to the war. In Mexico, divisions of opinion existed. School is _not_ where to find the truth of history. There are many truths and valid points of view about a historical event.

Mexico developed an inferiority complex as a result of that war. Some refer to this as a "regional" war, despite its national affect. Some say Americans conveniently forgot it, ostensibly because it lacked "honor." Culpability exists on both sides. Many Mexicans stayed in the new U.S., where they could choose Mexican or U.S. citizenship. If they did not declare their choice, after a year they would automatically be citizens of the United States. Many became second-class citizens and found that laws were not extended equally to them. Many lost land rights and found themselves foreigners in their native land.

Indian Wars

Manifest Destiny did not end with the U.S.-Mexico War. The Indian Wars followed the Civil War. Indian Wars in the present-day United States began in 1540 when the conquistadors of Francisco Vazquez de Coronado clashed with Zuni warriors of the pueblo of Hawikuh. The wars ended three and one-half centuries later, in 1890, when U.S. cavalry troops almost wiped out Big Foot's (1825-90) band of Sioux at Wounded Knee. This was the struggle for possession of North America. Warfare, conquest, diplomacy, trade, disease, lies and assimilation make up this conflict.

Indian warfare marked the colonial experience. Spain established outposts in the Rio Grande area early in the 17th century, the goal being partly to bring Pueblo tribes to Christianity. The Pueblos rebelled in 1680, driving the Spaniards from the province for 12 years. In the East, English settlers dealt with (some say provoked) uprisings as they arrived on the Atlantic Coast. In Virginia in 1622 there was a bloody battle followed by the Pequot war in New England, in 1636-37. In most of the English colonies fighting alternated with war for a century and a half. King Philip's troops fought the bloody war of 1675-76 in New England.

The Indian Wars, like slavery, were started by the English and need to be viewed from this lens. When this nation came to be, conflict with Indians was a reality. The British and the French incited and led Indian allies against the other. By the middle of the 18th century conflict had spread beyond the Appalachian Mountains to the Great Lakes region. By this time it was Indian warfare and not alliances. The French had advantages in the French and Indian war of 1754-63, although England won. Pontiac's rebellion almost broke England's hold on the Great Lakes region in 1763. An alliance of Ottawa and other tribes stormed Detroit, but the garrison held. England then forbade all white settlement beyond the Appalachians.

During the American Revolution the British allied with Indians against the colonists. When settlers pushed west new fighting started. North of the Ohio River, in 1790 and 1791, Little Turtle led warriors of the Miami, Shawnee, and other tribes to victories over U.S. troops before the Indians were crushed by General "Mad Anthony" Wayne in the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. The Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, strove to forge a grand alliance of tribes west of the mountains. His dream was crushed by Indiana Territory Governor William Henry Harrison at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. Tecumseh fell in battle during the war of 1812. The Indians once again aided the British. In the South, Indian resistance collapsed after General Andrew Jackson defeated the Creeks in 1814 at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, located in present-day Alabama.

After the War of 1812 the U.S. government developed a plan to move eastern tribes to new homes west of the Mississippi River to make way for white settlement. Indian removal was achieved via nonviolent, though coercive, measures. An exception was Florida's Seminole wars (1817-18, 1835-42, 1856-58) and the brief Blackhawk War (1832) in Illinois and present-day Wisconsin.

In the mid-19th century the wars spread from the eastern woodlands to the plains, mountains, and deserts of the trans-Mississippi west. The territorial acquisitions of the 1840s brought new tribes within the limits of the United States and, when gold was discovered in California (1848), the "Permanent Indian Frontier" along the eastern edge of the Great Plains did not take place. Four decades passed, and new mineral strikes and economic opportunities pulled the frontier of settlement westward. Armed force alternated with negotiation until, one after another, the tribes were subjugated.

Keeping travel routes open and protecting the settled areas was the original policy. But military posts developed in response to Indian raiders. Tribal ranges invaded, attacking travelers and settlers. In the 1850s the military defeated tribes in the Pacific Northwest, defeating the Sioux and Cheyenne of the Great Plains, and battles with Kiowa and Comanche raiders along the Texas frontier and Apache raiders in the Southwest did not result in conclusive results.

The Civil War put some (but not total) halt to the Indian concerns, but the mobilization of armies gave the government strength. Between 1861 and 1865 volunteer forces conquered the Navajoes of the Southwest and fought with the Great Plains tribes. The Minnesota Sioux outbreak of 1862 savagely killed 800 settlers. At Sand Creek, in Colorado Territory, volunteer troops in 1864 barbarously killed black kettle's Cheyennes in retaliation.

The Indians were not an "organized" group. They still were tribes and fought under individual banners. But enough of them made the decision to fight towards the end of the Civil War that it could be considered a coherent "Indian decision." The Indians felt the Civil War had weakened the whites. It was "decided" to fight the whites and drive them to their knees. It was not a good decision.

Heavy fighting ensued highlighted by the Fetterman Massacre of 1866. A detachment from Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming was ambushed on the Bozeman trail and wiped out. A new government policy of "conquest by kindness" ultimately was adopted. This was part of President Ulysses S. Grant's "Peace Policy." Grant had seen enough of war and was not, despite his successes and the fact he owed his Presidency to war victories, fond of its realities.

Treaties in the late 1860s with western tribes promised to settle their people on reservations, but peace did not occur. Wars were fought to force tribes onto reservations they had already accepted or to return them to reservations that they had fled.

The Sioux and Cheyennes of the northern Plains, from 1876 through 1881, fought pitched battles with Federal forces, notably "Custer's Last Stand" - the Battle of Little Bighorn. More than 200 men under General George A. Custer died on June 25, 1876. But it was in many ways the "last stand" of Sioux and Cheyenne resistance. The surrender of the Sioux chief, Sitting Bull, took place in 1881. The Red River War of 1874-75 brought peace to the southern plains and Texas as Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes accepted reservation life. The Modoc war of 1872-73, in the California lava beds; the dramatic flight (1877) of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce from Idaho across more than 1,500 miles of the American Northwest, almost to Canada; the Bannock-Paiute uprising of 1878 in Idaho and Oregon; and the Ute outbreak of 1879 in western Colorado, made up other conflicts. The Apache wars of New Mexico and Arizona closed in 1886 when Geronimo surrendered. Wounded Knee, the clash of Sioux with U.S. troops in 1890, was the last battle.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn (June 25, 1876) was the final major Indian victory in the American West. The Sioux and Cheyenne peoples had resisted incursions of whites prospecting for gold on Indian land in the Black Hills of Dakota, beginning in 1874. In 1876 the U.S. Army sent an expedition to subdue Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. On June 24, Colonel George Armstrong Custer, commanding the 7th Cavalry, located their camp on the Little Bighorn River in Montana. He underestimated their strength and attacked with a force of only about 225 men. Custer and all of his men were killed. Despite their victory, most of the Sioux had been expelled from the Black Hills by the end of 1876.

In every major war, throughout the history of the United States, from the American Revolution through the Indian Wars, Native-Americans and African-Americans fought with and against each other. During the Civil War, some tribes fought for the South, such as the Cherokees. Others assisted the North, like the Seminoles.

Most Americans viewed the Indians as incorrigible and non-reformable savages. Frontiersmen wanted government protection at any cost. At the end of the Civil War, 186,000 black soldiers had participated in the war, with 38,000 killed in action. Southerners and Eastern populations did not want to see armed Negro soldiers in their communities. General employment opportunities in these communities were not available to blacks. Many African-Americans felt military service offered opportunity.

Congress reorganized the peacetime army in 1866, and recognized the military merits of black soldiers by authorizing two segregated regiments of black cavalry. These were the Ninth United States Cavalry and the 10th United States Cavalry, and the 24th, 25th, 38th, 39th, 40th and 41st Infantry Regiments. Orders were given to transfer the troops to the Western war arena, where they would join the army's fight with the Indians. In 1869, one year after the discharge of Cathay Williams, the female Buffalo soldier in disguise, the black infantry regiments were consolidated into two units, the 24th United States Infantry and the 25th United States Infantry. White officers commanded all of the black regiments at that time.

Over a period of time, since whites could get good jobs, recruiters increasingly enlisted blacks. The first African-American graduate from West Point Military Academy was also the first African-American officer. Henry O. Flipper was posted to the 10th U.S. Cavalry. Colonel Allen Allensworth was the first African-American chaplain, posted to the 24th Infantry. He was also founder of the first black established town just outside Bakersfield, California. __

Black soldiers who fought in the Indian Wars wanted to gain the respect and equality they never saw as slaves and rarely received as freedmen. In many cases they were mistaken. Regardless, these soldiers were relocated into hostile environments, and were engaged in major struggles. They guarded railroads and telegraph lines, stagecoaches, arms shipments, towns, homesteads, whites and Indians, often unaware of when they would be ambushed by foes, or the people they were protecting! Just by entering a town or saloon, a shoot-out could occur. There were snipers waiting to kill them. The murderers were not punished. The troopers always responded with a deadly intent of their own. When investigated by the military, troopers found guilty were punished inconsistently.

Death and torture at the hands of the Indians or death by exposure were the possible fate of the Buffalo Soldiers. Many influential blacks, such as Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce, continually spoke out for the Indians and against the United States treaty making and treaty breaking policies. The army supported segregation and maintained separate facilities. The Buffalo Soldiers built many forts but often could not use the facilities. The necessities of military life, however, sometimes forced white and black troops together. This had the affect of breaking down long standing prejudices. Lieutenant Charles J. Crane, who always believed in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race, resented his appointment to the 23rd Infantry, but in his autobiography he wrote positive descriptions of the Buffalo Soldiers under his command.

Indian foes gave them the name Buffalo Soldiers. Their commanding officer, Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson of Civil War fame, said the name was given because the Indians respected their bravery. The reference to the buffalo, an Indian icon, was meant as a compliment, although some say it was due to the similarity of the soldier's hair to that of the hair surrounding the buffalo's head.

The 10th had the lowest desertion rate in the Army, despite oft-miserable postings in the worst country in the West. They were subject to harsh discipline, racist officers, and poor food, equipment and shelter. White regiments were supplied with silk-embroidered banners. The government did not send them a regulation flag for many years. Still, morale was good. White commanders often praised them. 20 black soldiers of the Ninth and 10th Companies won the Medal of Honor, an astonishing accomplishment.

There were provocations toward the Indians by settlers, the U.S and Mexican governments, outlaws, officials, and the railroads. During the Winter, the Indian's did not counter-attack. When the Indians were placed on reservations without guns and ammunition, their food rations were cut to subsistence levels, forcing the Indians to go on raiding parties. After starvation came diseases.

The Plains Indians first accepted the arrival of the Five Civilized Nations as the government moved them onto the plains. With starvation and death in the reservations, however, the Plains Indians began to resent these tribes. The Five Civilized Nations had accepted the Plains Indian's land and were receiving adequate government food supplies, while the Plains Indians were hungry. Resentment to the Five Civilized Nations also occurred due to their adoption of white farming techniques, style of dress, and home building.

At Fort Arbuckle, Kansas in 1867, Indians killed seven Union Pacific Railroad workers. Company F, while trailing them, was attacked by about 200 warriors. After two hours of fighting, 200 more warriors joined the conflict. The fight lasted six hours more with many hostiles killed. Two Buffalo Soldiers were killed. They were Sergeant Christe and Captain Armes. Six horses were also wounded. In September, 1867, Sergeant Davis and Troop G of the Ninth U.S. Cavalry, 45 miles west of Fort Hayes, engaged, but was soon surrounded by, Indians. Running low on ammunition, Sergeant Davis and his men broke out of their deadly position and drove the Indians off. Private Randall and two citizens were wounded. Two other settlers had been killed prior to the attack.

Bill Cody, working for the Kansas Pacific Railroad, killed 4,000 buffalo in an eight- month period. He became famous as "Buffalo Bill Cody". The Treaty of Medicine Lodge was signed by the Southern Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Comanches, Kiowa-Apaches and the Kiowa tribes, a few bands of Kiowa and Comanches.

# CHAPTER THIRTEEN

# AMERICA: WHERE SLAVERY CAME TO DIE

When I was growing up, I loved America and was told all the usual tales of patriotism and valor that make this country the greatest in the world. But there was one big blight. That was slavery. How could a nation that valued freedom so much allow slavery to occur?

In 1997, I went to see Steven Spielburg's "Amistad", which told the story of a slave ship rebellion. Slaves bound for the Caribbean overcame the ship's crew, but after drifting at sea were picked up by the United States and brought to America. They stood trial for murder, among other charges, but were declared innocent in a court of law. They were eventually returned as free men to Africa.

As I left the theatre, a strange sensation overtook me. I had just watched depictions of Africans, shackled and abused on a hellish slave ship, abused and mistreated by racist whites (Europeans on the ship, then Americans). Spielburg no doubt meant such depictions to illicit shame and guilt from the white Americans in the audience. But I did not feel shame and guilt. Being a good, decent Christian who has only love in his heart for all Mankind, I began to question myself. Instead of shame and guilt, in fact, I felt pride and patriotism.

As Slim Pickens said in "Blazing Saddles", "What in the wide, wide world of sports is goin' on here?"

Then I realized that Spielburg, a master filmmaker, had crafted a tale not only of racism, but also out of patriotism. How could slavery be patriotic? The answer to that question lies in the trial and result of the slaves. They were declared innocent in an American court of law and allowed to go free. The legal result, however, was not just an isolated kind of event, or the result of a few brave people rising above circumstance to do the right thing. The fact is that it was the result of American laws, as outlined in the U.S. Constitution.

The story of slavery then opened itself up to me in its entirety. Undeniable facts became obvious on their face. The first of these facts is that slavery has existed for thousands of years. It not only existed, it thrived. It was a huge part of the economic dynamism of countries and empires for centuries. The Egyptian enslaved the Jews. The Romans enslaved most of the people they conquered. Slavery was never questioned in Democratic Athens. Genghis Khan enslaved those unfortunates who fell under his swath. There was scarcely a country in the world that had not benefited from, or at least at some time endorsed, slavery.

England was one of these nations. They came to the New World to establish colonies and brought slaves to do the work. It was not questioned, except by the Christian Americans in the Northeast. They despised the practice and kept it out of their communities. But slavery thrived in the Southern colonies. This was the situation that existed when America came to be.

Now, detractors point out (and they are most reasonable to do so), that the U.S. did form, and the Constitution was written, allowing for the "peculiar institution" of slavery. Fair enough. But the point is this. Slavery, an institution that thrived throughout human history, continued to thrive at the time of this nation's inception. Roughly four score and seven years later, slavery was gone!

How was it "gone"? Well, it was gone because America, after a terrible struggle, decided for it to be gone. It ended in America. Americans ended it. It was ended using American laws written by Americans. It did not end because some foreign power fought us, defeated us, occupied our nation, and told us to end it. When it ended, it never came back.

This may be a simple premise, but it does not change the fact that this is the simple truth. Yes, there are forms of slavery, sometimes called "white slavery," still in existence. Former Communists in the old East Bloc and, in Communist China and throughout Asia, formed criminal organizations that have morphed into the "business" of kidnapping and duping women into prostitution. This is little more than slavery. There are black Africans who keep black Christian slaves in Rwanda. But the kind of institutionalized slavery, sanctioned by governments and made part and parcel of trade between countries, is no more.

Had America not ended slavery, it seems unlikely that it would have ended throughout the rest of the world. The United States had enormous power, prestige and influence by the mid-19th Century. Many nations would have looked at us and said, in affect, "If they do it, so can we."

To demand reparations today is ludicrous. The descendants of Union soldiers who died to defeat slavery could ask for reparations. The descendants of the African chiefs who sold other Africans into slavery could ask for reparations. It is just as conceivable (and ludicrous) that the U.S. could tax the descendants of the slaves because we brought their ancestors here until shortly after the Revolutionary War. This practice stopped, and these descendants now enjoy all the benefits of American citizenship instead of dying in Rwanda, starving in Ethiopia, being imprisoned in Zaire, or the other regular and sundry horrors of everyday life in Africa.

Slavery most likely would have ended in the U.S. at some point, even without the civil war. When? Maybe not until World War I. If this had occurred, the implications for history would have been enormous. Jackie Robinson broke the color line. Brown vs. Board of Education, the Little Rock de-segregation, and James Meredith entering the University of Alabama provided educational opportunities. Martin Luther King's "Dream" and the Civil Rights Bill of 1965 turned the tide on racism. Athletes like Michael Jordan and Barry Bonds are multi-millionaire superstars.

If slavery had not ended until World War I, then all of these milestones could have been in jeopardy. History moves faster today than it used to. We have satellites, the Internet, and mass communications of all kind. So, if slavery had ended in 1918, it is not likely that progress in 2004 would be the same as it was 55 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. But if slavery had been allowed to continue, the ramifications for our place in the world would have been incredible. Our role as liberators around the globe, our alliances in major wars and conflicts, and our prestige and diplomatic might would have been drastically reduced.

If the Civil War had not been fought, or if it had ended differently than it did, or if slavery had been allowed to continue as part of some kind of peace treaty, the factors mentioned would have emerged and pushed political action on this issue. Again, when it would have happened is a guess.

With all of this mind, it is not just African-Americans, and not just Americans, but citizens of the world who owe the _Republican_ President, Abraham Lincoln, a debt of gratitude above and beyond our ability to express.

Most of the Founding Fathers were slaveholders, as were eight of the first 12 presidents of the United States. Slavery became the leading debate in American politics, and in the long run the insidious practice claimed genocidal numbers of victims, black _and_ white. The greatest nation ever conceived by man or God almost went down in flames because of it. Slavery and its cousins, racism and bigotry, in all their different forms, are most likely the most evil and effective tools the devil has ever put to use. But history has an odd way of working its way through situations. One of the distracting elements of history is that moral greatness and true heroism are often responses to crisis, usually of the evil variety. Liberals like the editors at _Time_ magazine do not wish to acknowledge that such things as evil, which requires that there in turn be goodness, are real and actual. They proffer the fiction that a relative moral equivalent like Albert Einstein, who did not believe in God until the end of his life and essentially struggled with science, not evil, was the "Man of the (20th) Century." This most likely is because most of the real candidates for such a title were, inconveniently, conservatives and/or Republicans who used force or the threat of force to defeat evil.

But slavery was evil. Evil slithers and slides itself around, using lies and justifications. Many of the men who owned slaves were, quite simply, very good men. Some of them were some of the greatest thinkers and contributors to the betterment of society of all times. Yet, slavery "escaped" their moral compass as it had Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (who thought it "natural"). To those like myself who believe in such things, the devil used slavery to corrupt greatness. There is nothing the devil cannot lie about, including religion. The fact that men like Jefferson and Washington could own slaves is the greatest proof that the complete man, the real intellectual, the moral seeker, must examine his conscience at the deepest core to find where the devil lurks. Vanity, opportunity or political justification, to name just a few things, are tools of evil.

A man like George Patton, one of my heroes, nevertheless was an example of such a flawed human. Patton was highly religious and moral. He was a brilliant, learned man of manners and custom. He was an American patriot, and understood his craft, soldiering, as well as any man before or since. Yet, it was just his dedication and will that made him vulnerable to the devil. As a soldier, Patton was in the business of killing people. I am not one to say that killing men in battle is immoral, because it is necessary. The morality of war is a question for God. The reality of it is one for man. But a man like Patton, in a business such as his, was vulnerable to the kind of excessiveness that, say, a computer scientist need not worry about. At some point, killing may have become an orgy for Patton. His heart may have been filled with murder, not love, lusting for the blood of the "Hun." It is my fervent posthumous prayer to a forgiving God that Patton, and other good men like him, were and are forgiven for these occasional forays into darkness.

Such is my way of explaining why my beautiful country, the land I love and whose history I am so proud of that, could do the work of the devil. It is to that same forgiving God that I pray for forgiveness for these occasional forays (and slavery is not our only sin) into darkness. But we put our scandals out front for all to see. We advertise them. We examine them like clinical psychologists. We are not hiders. We do our share of propaganda, but we know that the Big Lie is worse than the Big Confession.

A little known fact about slavery concerns the fact that the Founding Fathers allowed for it. Their deeds have been marginalized as the acts of "Dead White Males" by many who refuse to give them much credit, arguing that the codification of the "peculiar institution" overshadows all other accomplishment. The little known fact is that the Founding Fathers, even the ones who owned slaves, wanted to end slavery and they instituted a plan to do just that.

Throughout the ages, slavery had always existed and prospered based on two factors. The slaves were either imported, or they were enslaved from amongst the populations of conquered territories. Later, the Germans imprisoned and pressed into slave labor Jews and others in captured territories during World War II. Throughout all the years that man's inhumanity to man resulted in slave labor, the salves were worked literally to death. An enslaved individual was simply worked until he or she collapsed and died, or was killed. With few exceptions, notably regarding the treatment of the gladiators of Rome, the enslavers did not feed the slaves or provide them any kind of "benefit." Eventually, starvation, weakness and disease took its death.

Then came America. The English had instituted slavery prior to the existence of the nation. The practice was with us when we were born. It preceded us. Now we had to deal with it. Washington, Jefferson and the Founders came up with a plan. The slave states wanted to maintain slavery. In order to maintain the agricultural South, it was agreed to let them join the Union with slavery intact. Slaves were being imported from Africa at that time. The plan was to stop the importation of slaves around the turn of the 19th Century.

The Founders knew that for all times, when the importation of slaves stopped, eventually the existing slaves would grow old and die. Living in the bonds of enslavement, this had always come about quickly. Around 1808, the importation of African slaves was stopped. Within a certain number of years, those slaves would get old. Without replacements, the institution would die with them. The plan failed. There is no way to explain why it failed without making a controversial statement. It failed _because white Southern slaveowners treated their slaves better than any slaveowners had ever treated slaves in the annals of Mankind!_

The U.S. was a capitalist country, run by prosperous merchants, businessmen and entrepreneurs. Slaves were investments for them. They were treated poorly by the English, Spanish and Portuguese shippers who transported them to the States, because they had little incentive to treat them well. Some black revisionists have attempted to say that so many slaves were thrown overboard during the ocean crossing that the migration habits of sharks was changed forever. That is a lie. But they were treated poorly.

Once sold into slavery, however, most were treated humanely. The stories have been told and re-told, and part of the political agenda of African-Americans is to paint the worst possible picture. It was not a rosy scenario, but they were treated better than slaves had ever been treated.

They were fed, clothed, and housed. They usually had one day a week off. They were given medical care, and allowed to worship God. But the key, and this is why the plan failed, is that they were allowed to marry and have children. Their children were more often than not born healthy, raised as healthy children, and became healthy adults. They were allowed to marry and have more healthy children.

Because of this, slavery did not die out by the late 1820s. All those healthy children made for a more thriving slave institution. Some families were split up. Some slaves did die of disease. Slavery was a hard life, but it was better than slavery had ever been anywhere else. Slaves also became free on a regular basis. Sometimes they escaped, were let free by their masters, bought their freedom, or had it come about in some other manner.

In the 1820s, the United States transported freed slaves to Africa and sponsored the creation of a country called Liberia. It was one of the most thriving nations on the African Continent for over 100 years.

Like the War With Mexico and the Indian Wars, slavery involved an activity that saw the United States government make its share of mistakes and at times act in an immoral manner. It also represents the U.S. acting in a more moral manner than most other countries on the face of the Earth would have acted.

Unlike the War with Mexico and the Indian Wars, slavery was not "inevitable." These two conflicts involved policies that were in this nation's national interest. In looking back at slavery, there is only one answer to the question, "What should we have done?" That answer is to have ended slavery.

During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Northern states should have insisted that the South end the practice as a price of admission to the Union. Very likely, some (not all) of the former Southern colonies would have refused. Two separate nations would have existed. It is possible that, over time, the Southern states would have desired to be a part of the United States and acquiesced to the demand.

However, there is great irony in this speculation. If this course had been followed, slavery might have existed for many years longer than it did. Without the issue coming to a head and tearing the Union asunder, the Civil War most likely would never have been fought. Abraham Lincoln would not have become President. The Emancipation Proclamation would not have been enacted, and slavery might have gone on until... World War I.

The only viable alternative available to our team of time travelers, whose mission is to go back to the Philadelphia Summer of 1787 and changed history, is to convince the South to join the Union without slavery. If the rules of time travel are not to inform the principals of the consequences of their action - secession, civil war, misery, and the end of the institution on terms most unfavorable to them - then their mission becomes most difficult indeed. Who would we send? Bill Clinton? Jesse Jackson? Nix that idea.

But could the Southern delegates have been reasoned with? Could kindness and Christian charity have won the day in that sweltering hot room? I believe that the devil was counting on expediency; that good men would let evil perpetrate itself, to corrupt a noble cause so that a "deal" could be cut because the delegates were not willing to disband and let the convention fail, or to drag. The devil works that way. The lesson, if there is any, is that sometimes negotiations are better left to drag on in the hopes of achieving a better result.

Emancipation of the slaves was a noble act, but only the lamest of white aristocrats could look at it proudly and try to say that it "ended" anything. In most ways it was just a beginning. But just as men are great when they confront evil bravely and save others from its clutches, so are countries great for the way they confront the same things. There was more than our fair share of tentativeness and procrastination, first in ending slavery and then pursuing justice. But tentativeness is the touchstone of history.

Countries like Spain and France have histories of terrible moral failure, swept under the proverbial rug by their aristocratic elites. Today their excesses are far enough in the past that their people think they can take the moral high ground, judging the U.S. for doing the heavy lifting required in a dangerous world. Perhaps more unacceptable are countries like Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland, isolated by geography, racial homogeneity and neutrality. Occasionally a black jazz musician, for example, will venture to Stockholm to play a gig, and be received adoringly by genuflecting white men and seductive white women.

The Swedes and others like them congratulate themselves on their "wonderful enlightenment," and sneer at the ugly Americans and all of our "abominations." This is the worst kind of hypocrisy. They do not have the guts to address their own failures of omission. These little countries just stayed to themselves. They avoided conflicts, playing moral hit `n' run. Nations like America, Great Britain and...there must be others, I suppose...nations like America and Great Britain open their doors to millions of migrants of every color. We deal with all the natural human tendencies that happen when different people mix it up. We have gone out and about in the world. Call it colonization, imperialism or empire, but we have brought peace, goodness, liberation and yes, civilization, to countless countries. All of this has been done at the expense of inflaming the opinion of that impossible-to-avoid segment of every society that will hate you for your good deeds.

The Swedes and the Danes are so racially pure, not just in their demographics but in their morality, all the while living in splendid isolation. They call a jazzfest starring Clarence Clemons integration and wonder why the L.A.P.D. cannot be nicer to the Bloods and the Crips. So, yes, okay, we were a slaveowning nation. We owned slaves while we killed Mexican soldiers and occupied the land that they used to live on. But we _engaged_ , or as Theodore Roosevelt once said, we were "in the arena." The point is not just that slavery thrived on our shores. An equal point is that we overcame slavery's legacy, while it remained a crucial issue in our history. We did not hide it away.

Dutch traders brought 20 Africans to Jamestown, Virginia, as early as 1619. Throughout most of the 17th century the number of Africans in the English mainland colonies grew very slowly. During those years colonists experimented with two other sources of unfree labor: Native American slaves and European indentured servants.

Although some Native American slaves existed in every colony, the number was limited. Indian men balked at performing agricultural labor, which they regarded as women's work. The colonists complained that they were "haughty" and made poor slaves. Settlers found it more convenient to sell Native Americans captured in war to planters in the Caribbean than to turn them into slaves on their own terrain. Escape was easy and violent resistance a threat. Killing Indians or driving them away from white settlements proved incompatible with their widespread employment as slaves.

White indentured servitude consisted of poor Europeans who, desiring to escape harsh conditions and take advantage of opportunities in America, traded three to seven years of their labor in exchange for the trans-Atlantic passage. At first predominantly English but later increasingly Irish, Welsh, and German, servants consisted mostly of young males. Once in the colonies, they were temporary slaves. Most served as agricultural workers. Some, especially in the North, were taught skilled trades. During the 17th century, they performed most heavy labor in the Southern colonies and also provided the bulk of immigrants to those colonies.

When conditions in England improved, persons became less willing to sell themselves into indentured servitude toward the end of the 17th century. This occurred at the same time that the labor needs of the growing colonies increased, producing a labor crisis. To meet the need, landowners turned to African slaves. In the 1680s they began to supplant the labor of indentured servants. In Virginia, for example, blacks (the great majority of whom were slaves) increased from about seven percent of the population in 1680 to more than 40 percent by the middle of the 18th century. During the first two-thirds of the 17th century Holland and Portugal had dominated the African slave trade. The number of Africans available to English colonies was limited. During the late 17th and 18th centuries, by contrast, naval superiority gave England a dominant position in the slave trade. English traders (some of whom lived in English America) transported millions of Africans across the Atlantic.

The above paragraph should be studied as an example of my theory of good vs. evil. It reads benignly, like the detached records kept in Nazi concentration camps. Here is this New World, originally populated by Christian Pilgrims so idealistic as to be called Puritans. The paragraph describes how the slave trade inculcated itself into this New World the way any other public need manifests itself into economic market forces.

That is how the devil works. Through end runs, false "necessities," and moral equivocations that allow otherwise good men to justify their expedient means leading to insatiable ends. In the mean time, the reality is reality. In war, people die. In Communism, excellence cannot thrive. In slavery, people are chained and imprisoned. To many white men of the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries, the black Africans who made up the slave population were less than human. They were not civilized. The advancements of history had "proven" the manifest superiority of some races over others. This was seen as justification for their actions.

The trans-Atlantic slave trade produced one of the largest forced migrations ever. From the early 16th Century to the mid-19th Century, between 10 and 11 million Africans were torn from their homes. They were herded onto ships where they were sometimes so tightly packed that they could barely move, and deposited in a strange new land. (Since others died in transit, Africa's loss of population was greater still.) By far the largest importers of slaves were Brazil and the Caribbean sugar colonies. Together, they received well over three-quarters of all Africans brought to the New World. About six percent of the total (600,000 to 650,000 persons) came to the area of the present United States.

African legal status was not well defined. Some - like European indentured servants - managed to become free after several years of service. From the 1660s, the colonies began enacting laws that regulated slaves. Black slaves, and the children of slave women, would serve for life. When the American Revolution began, slaves made up roughly 40 percent of the population of the southern mainland colonies, especially in South Carolina, where over 50 percent of the population were slaves.

Slaves cleared forests, served as guides, trappers, craftsmen, nurses, and house servants. Mostly they were agricultural laborers owned by landowners who grew staple crops for market. The most important of these crops consisted of tobacco in the upper South (Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina) and rice in the lower South (South Carolina and Georgia). Farther south still, on Caribbean islands such as Barbados, Jamaica, and Saint-Domingue, sugar was a valuable slave-grown commodity. Slaves also worked on large wheat-producing estates in New York and on horse-breeding farms in Rhode Island. Climate and soil restricted the development of commercial agriculture in the Northern colonies. Slavery never became as economically central as in the South. Slaves in the North were usually held in small numbers. Most served as domestic servants. In New York, with its Dutch legacy, they formed more than 10 percent of the population, but in the North as a whole less than five percent of the inhabitants were slaves. The fact that the weather and the soil made owning slaves labor less important puts a crimp on the concept of Northern moral superiority, where the Christian abolitionism movement was so strong. This is how evil works, in this case making use of necessity. The South had the kind of soil that made farming a dominant part of the economy. Slavery was more likely to thrive there than in the colder climes of the North.

By the mid-18th Century, over 90 percent of American slaves lived in the South. In Caribbean colonies such as Jamaica and Saint-Domingue, blacks outnumbered whites by more than 10 to one. Slaves often lived on huge estates whose inhabitants numbered in the hundreds. In the Northern colonies, blacks were few and slaves were typically held in small groups of less than five. In the South, by contrast, slaves formed a large minority of the population (in some areas, of course, they formed the majority). Despite regional variations, most slaves lived on small and medium-sized holdings containing between five and 50 slaves.

The "Americanization" of masters and slaves among the English colonists occurred rather quickly, especially in the South. The environment was radically different there from Great Britain and New England. The people felt American. There was little speculation or "carpet bagging", whereby English investors sought to make fast money on planting ventures and then return to England. Absentee ownership was common in the Caribbean, but rare in the American South. Masters were active in running plantations. African-Americanization also took place among the slave population. When the revolution began, about 20 percent of American slaves were African-born (although the concentration of Africans remained higher in South Carolina and Georgia).

After the outlawing of new slave imports in 1808, the proportion of African-born slaves became tiny. The emergence of a native-born slave population emerged. African-born slaves (imported primarily for their ability to perform physical labor) included few children. Men outnumbered women by about two to one. American-born slaves were equally divided between males and females.

Slaves in the United States experienced "natural population growth." In Brazil, Jamaica, Saint-Domingue, and Cuba, slave mortality rates exceeded birth rates. The growth of the slave population depended on the importation of new slaves from Africa. When that importation ended, the slave population declined. Deaths among slaves exceeded births in the American colonies at first.

In the 18th century birth rates rose, mortality rates fell, and the slave population became self-reproducing. The result of this was that after outlawing slave imports in 1808, slaves tripled from 1.2 million to almost 4 million in 1860. By the beginning of the Civil War, slaves thought of themselves as Americans, not Africans.

Masters looked on their slaves (and themselves) differently as time and generations passed, to the detriment of the slaves. The masters who bought the slaves often saw them as important investments. They did not necessarily have great compassion for their humanity. They did wish to protect them as they would protect horses, cattle and other property. The slaves, born in Africa, were more likely to be defiant, even proud, some skilled in the art of war or hunting. Many second-generation masters, unlike their parents, grew up with slaves. They came to regard them as inferior members of their extended families. The slaves in turn fell in line with this view of themselves. The masters thought of themselves as "kindly patriarchs" who ruled firmly but fairly and looked after their needs. But such slave owners employed foremen, with no familial attachment to the slaves. They relied heavily on the lash (and other forms of punishment) for discipline. The kind of man who gravitated into this kind of work was simply more likely to have a brutal streak than the kind of man who became an engineer, a newspaper reporter, or other kinds of professions. The result was that slaves did not see their owners as kindly guardians.

Nevertheless, extreme physical abuse became less common for two reasons. One was that such abuse was not economically beneficial. The other was it became more apparent that to treat their slaves inhumanely was immoral.

The last third of the 18th century saw widespread questioning of slavery by white Americans. The American Revolution created a more egalitarian way of thinking. Many of the Founding Fathers, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, while slaveholders, were troubled by the practice. They initiated a series of acts meant to create a climate they thought would lead to slavery's gradual abolition.

In all states north of Delaware, slavery was abolished. A few states did away with it immediately. Pennsylvania passed gradual emancipation acts in 1780, where all children born to slaves in the future would be freed at age 28. In 1787 the Northwest Ordinance barred slavery from the Northwest Territory (which included much of what is now the upper Midwest). A compromise reached at the Constitutional Convention allowed Congress to outlaw the importation of slaves in 1808. A number of states passed acts freeing slaves by individuals. As a result, in the upper South huge numbers of slaves were freed. Tens of thousands of slaves escape from their masters during the war. The free black population surged.

The war appeared to have set the tone for a relatively quick abolition, but in the aftermath of fighting, as men made their way back to their farms and worked to build them back up to prosperity, the antislavery movement failed to make headway in Georgia and South Carolina. Planters imported tens of thousands of Africans before the 1808 cutoff. In the upper South, revolution-inspired egalitarianism was replaced by a defiant desire to maintain unique regional characteristics. This is a great American tragedy. If time travelers could have gone back to the 1780s and 1790s with an agenda for changing history, it would have been to somehow provide incentives from a central fund to Southern farmers that would have allowed them to build their crops back up without using slaves. The work of public relations propagandists should have been to infiltrate the South, through politics and newspaper editorials, and create a climate stressing Christian benevolence and respect for humanity based on the teachings of Jesus. To the highly religious Baptists and Methodists who made up this part of the new country, such a message would have been inspiring and might have saved this nation its greatest heartache.

Considering that such great and influential Americans as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were Southerners who were "troubled" by slavery, the failure to take advantage of this window of opportunity is even more tragic. So why did we fail in this endeavor? Obviously our priorities, in retrospect, were not in order. What were those priorities? One was to establish our prestige internationally, and some of our best minds (including Jefferson) were sent to Europe, where the slavery issue was ephemeral.

Another priority was to create a cohesive central government. In this endeavor compromise overshadowed the immorality of slavery. Surely, many political figures thought that they should "take care of business" first, and that there would be an opportunity later to address more high-minded issues. The fact that they were addressed at the barrel of guns at Manassas, Gettysburgh and Shiloh would have horrified them.

Because the slave population self reproduced, the end of importation did not undermine slavery, as many of the Founding Fathers expected. The ultimate result of the first antislavery movement was to make slavery a sectional, albeit thriving, institution.

During the antebellum (pre-Civil War) years, slavery was fueled by the world demand for cotton. Slavery spread quickly into the Southwest. Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana formed the heart of the "cotton kingdom." Between 1790 and 1860 about 1 million slaves (almost twice the number of Africans shipped to the United States during the whole period of the transatlantic slave trade) moved west, partly due to a new domestic trade from seaboard states to Southwest planters.

Slavery varied regionally. Various characteristics were associated with crops and size of holdings. On farms and small plantations slaves came in contact with owners. On large plantations, overseers dealt with them. These subordinates were sometimes slaves themselves. A few slave owners were black. A small percentage of free blacks owned slaves, in some cases "fictitiously" so that they could protect family members, but more often to profit, like other slaveholders, from unfree labor. Many slaves on large holdings worked in gangs, under the supervision of overseers and (slave) drivers. Some, especially in the coastal region of South Carolina and Georgia, labored under the "task" system.

They were assigned a certain amount of work to complete in a day, and received less supervision than gang laborers. They were free to use their time as they wished once they had completed their daily assignments.

In 1860 only about five percent of all slaves lived in towns of at least 2,500 persons. Some slaves lived on giant estates and others on small farms. About one-half of all slaves lived on holdings of 10 to 49, with one-quarter on smaller and one-quarter on larger units. Holdings tended to be bigger in the Deep South than in the upper South. Third, most slaves lived with resident masters. Absentee ownership was prevalent in the South Carolina and Georgia low country. It was less common than in the Caribbean. Most adult slaves engaged in fieldwork. Children, the elderly, and the infirm did "nonproductive" work (such as house service). Only wealthy plantations could spare healthy adults for specialized occupations.

Food, clothing, housing, and medical attention was generally better in the antebellum than in the colonial period. Although young children were occasionally malnourished, most slaves received steady supplies of pork and corn which, if lacking in nutritional balance (which Americans knew nothing about), provided sufficient calories to fuel their labor. In addition, slaves supplemented with produce raised on the garden plots that they were often allotted. Clothing and housing were functional - four coarse "suits" per year (pants and shirts for men, dresses for women, long shirts for children). They lived in small wooden cabins, one to a family. Wealthy slave owners provided physicians to treat ill slaves, ranging from various concoctions to "bleeding" a patient - often doing more harm as good.

Masters usually approved or disapproved of marriages. They might or might not direct, nag, threaten, or punish. Sexual exploitation of slave women was not habitual, but it was not rare, either. The slaves did not hate hard work. Africans had learned to work hard dealing with elements and wild animals on their homeland. Hard work was a way of life with virtually all Americans. Lack of freedom, over time, became the thing they despised the most. This works against the Machiavellian view that people will give up freedom for security. The slaves had relative security, but living in a country that was so deeply ingrained in the precepts of liberty could not help but rub off on them. Masters boasted about how well they cared for their slaves. Certainly if a master was a good and decent man, there was appreciation on the part of the slaves. But freedom was something they could see, not touch. If ever the expression, "so close and yet so far" is applicable, it was during American slavery. Resentment over autonomy manifested itself, especially when it meant that families were split up, or wives and daughters used as sex toys. This created a de-masculinizing effect. In a culture built on manly virtues in Africa, this is a great tragedy.

Slaves tried to live their own lives. They made friends, had sex, played, sang, told stories, cooked, joked, quarreled, and engaged in day-to-day chores, including cleaning, cooking, sewing and gardening. At the core of slave life was family and religion. Most slaves lived together in nuclear families - mother, father, children. No state law recognized marriage among slaves. Masters, not parents, had legal authority over children. Separation through sale, frequent in the slave-exporting states of the upper South, represented the worst of their fears. Still, families were the greatest source of moral strength.

Religion was secondary to family. In religion slaves found a conundrum. They were Christians and they loved Jesus, but there were nagging questions revolving around praying to a white God, adopting a white man's religion, and being promised certain things on faith while living a life devoid of freedom. Few slaves could read, so they could not actively study the Bible. They did hear the stories. Religion served as a source of strength, to be sure, but it was wrapped around irony.

African slaves had clung to their native religions, and many slave owners in the early colonial period were leery of those who sought to convert their slaves to Christianity, because freedom is such a central message of Christianity. During the antebellum years Christianity was increasingly central to the slaves' cultural life. Many slaves were converted during the religious revivals that swept the South in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Slaves typically belonged to the same denominations as white Southerners. Baptists and Methodists were the largest groups. Some masters encouraged their "people" to come to the white church, where they usually sat in a special "slave gallery" and received advice about being obedient to their masters. In the quarters, however, there developed a parallel ("invisible") church controlled by the slaves themselves. They listened to sermons delivered by their own preachers. Not all slaves had access to these preachers and not all accepted their message, but for many, religion served as a great comfort.

Families and religion helped slaves to avoid total control by their owners. As some had feared, these elements were the driving force behind any challenges to control through active resistance. There were limits to resistance. Slaves in Saint-Domingue rose up against their French masters in bloody rebellion and established the black republic of Haiti in 1804. Today it is one of the most impoverished, poorly run "countries" on the face of the Earth. American slaves who resisted were quickly suppressed followed by harsh repression designed to discourage repetition.

"Conspiracies" were aborted before any actual outbreak of violence in New York (1741), Virginia (1800), and South Carolina (1822). The most noted uprisings included the Stono Rebellion near Charleston, South Carolina (1739), an attempted attack on New Orleans, Louisiana (1811), and the Nat Turner insurrection that rocked Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831. The Turner insurrection included 60-80 rebels, resulting in the deaths of about 60 whites. About 100 blacks were executed or lynched afterward. It lasted less than two days and was easily suppressed. It caused great fear among whites and hurt the cause of abolition. It made many whites feel that blacks were violent savages, not the smiling dociles typified by many slaves.

"Silent sabotage," or foot dragging, by slaves who pretended to be sick, feigned difficulty understanding instructions, and "accidentally" misused tools and animals, had mixed results. It created the image of lazy Dumbellionites. Some slaves fought back physically. If successful, this action, while potentially dangerous, created a kind of respect on the part of a white Southern population that valued standing up for ones' rights as manly. If the treatment that caused the fight was unjust, there was a real chance that it would be rectified. Most commonly, though, resistance came in the form of flight. About 1,000 slaves per year managed to escape to the North during the late antebellum period (most from the upper South). For every slave who made it to freedom, several more tried. Other fugitives remained within the South, heading for cities or swamps, or hiding out near their plantations for days or weeks before either returning voluntarily or being tracked down and captured.

Slaves were as diverse as other segments of society. They identified with families, church parishes, residents of particular farms and plantations, and as exploited people. It was for this last reason that in later years Communists felt that blacks were their natural constituency. Religious ties, as much as any other reason, served to dissuade blacks from the Marxist message, which is one of the greatest characteristics to admire about them. They identified as African-Americans, and even as they were oppressed, the message of America could not help but give them an ironic pride in their country.

The separation of black from white approximated that separating slave from free. There seemed little difference between the relationship of slave and master and that of average whites to "free" blacks. Close association between slaves and free blacks existed. Virulent racism often marked non-slaveowning whites more than the upper classes who did own them. Slaves looked upon all whites as their oppressors.

Abolition of slavery in the North had begun in the revolutionary era and was complete by the 1830s, dividing the country into the "slave" South and the "free" North. This defined the South. To defend slavery was to be "pro-Southern." Opposition to slavery was "anti-Southern." While most Southern whites did not own slaves (the proportion of white families that owned slaves declined from 35 percent to 26 percent between 1830 and 1860), virtually all whites in the South supported the institution. The issue was the single brush stroke that the rest of world used to paint their pictures of the South. By the middle of the 19th century it remained only in Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Southern U.S. "Backward" and "repressive" were catch phrases of foreign association with the South. Many people correlated it with serf holding Russia.

The increase of cotton cultivation to meet demands of Northern and European textile manufacturers, however, made slavery a continually thriving part of the economy. Southern economic growth was agricultural, but the Industrial Revolution was transforming the North. Industry did not come to the South, which had remained almost unchanged since 1800. In 1860 the South was a rural population, with five Southern cities of more than 50,000 inhabitants (only one of which, New Orleans, was in the Deep South). Less than 10 percent of Southerners lived in towns of at least 2,500 persons, compared to more than 25 percent of Northerners. Modernities such as railroad construction, and even literacy and public education, lagged far behind. The aristocratic nature of the South was now a major disadvantage. In the North, egalitarianism had created a system where most people could read. Opportunity was available to a wide range of people. The average person could aspire to move beyond his "class." Class, in fact, was becoming an out-dated concept.

But the South was still a place where a small number of rich people had access to education, and people knew their "place" in society. This class structure had an effect on attitudes regarding slavery. Poor whites had somebody below them. The "dumbing down" of large segments of their society would prove a huge problem in fighting the war and becoming a mainstream part of the country.

Northern states abolished slavery and then saw the growth of an articulate abolitionist movement. Southern whites found themselves applying their intellectual capital to an issue that more and more people could see was not just immoral, but required a certain amount of ignorance, for lack of better word, to defend. As Southerners rallied around slavery, they became more and more despicable in the eyes of others. Some defenders tried to say it was a "practical necessity." Others went so far as to call it a "positive good." They pointed to the biblical "curse of Ham" to explain the origins of black bondage and portraying slavery as part of God's plan for civilizing a primitive, heathen people.

In this respect, the Southerners tried to entrench their philosophy. Today, in light of greater knowledge, such arguments seem stupid. As mentioned earlier, slavery was a thriving practice that had permeated virtually the entire world for time immemorial. The Greeks said it was natural. There was a great deal of "evidence" supposedly supporting the Southern argument.

During the 1840s and 1850s the South was harmonious, orderly and religious. The North was tumultuous, heretical, and mercenary, torn by radicalism, reform, individualism, class conflict, and abolitionism. Southern slaves allegedly treated better than Northern wage laborers, calling free-labor capitalism "wage-slavery" that was cruel, exploitative, and selfish. The degraded condition of supposedly free British paupers and Irish peasants was pointed out. Free-labor spokesmen argued that slavery kept the South backward, poor, inefficient, and degraded. Pro-slavery advocates said that only slavery could save the South (and the world) from the evils of modernity.

Beginning in the mid-1840s, and especially after the War with Mexico, slavery became the central American political issue. New Western territories were exclusively free, but Southern spokesmen wanted to expand slavery there. The Federal government was "meddling, a grave affront to Southern honor. In 1860 the election of Abraham Lincoln as President on a free-soil platform set off a crisis. Seven states in the Deep South seceded from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America. The United States and the rebel Confederates went to war in April of 1861, leading to the additional secession of four states in the upper South. Four other slave states - Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri - remained in the Union, as did the new state of West Virginia (which split off from Virginia.)

Just as Osama bin Laden's decision to launch planes into the World Trade Center on 9/11 resulted eventually in exactly the opposite of what he hoped to happen, Southern politicians supporting secession in order to preserve slavery found that their action led instead to slavery's death. Over time, Northern war aims shifted from preserving the Union to abolishing slavery and _reconstructing_ the Union. Two shifts began to take place. Southern blacks, seeing weakened authority at home, began to refuse to behave like slaves. Northern whites accepted the Radical Republican position that the war should result in abolition.

Slavery ended for hundreds of thousands of Southern blacks long before the war ended. The Union moved further into the South, freeing slaves along the way while others fled from their owners, seeking refuge within Union lines. Federal officials experimented with free and semi-free labor. Northern missionaries established schools to help turn slaves into citizens. The freed slaves showed enthusiasm for education, and Northern whites who saw this backed President Lincoln's "new birth of freedom."

The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863. Although it applied only to areas under rebel control, and did not end slavery in the United States, it was the turning point and marked the beginning of the end. The Proclamation now made the War Between the States a war for freedom. A Federal victory would mean the death of slavery. As slavery crumbled in much of the South, more than 188,000 African-Americans, both Southern and Northern, joined Union forces and fought, in a number of cases bravely and in important battles. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, passed by Congress in January and ratified by the states in December of 1865, completed the process, outlawing slavery everywhere in the United States.

Despite this great achievement, the future for former slaves remained murky. Freed slaves wanted economic security, social autonomy, and civil rights. Former slave owners were burning with animosity. Northerners argued over Reconstruction. The result was a national commitment to turn former slaves into citizens, anchored by the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution and the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 and 1868. Together, these measures provided basic civil rights to former slaves, enfranchised black males, and imposed a largely self-administered Democratization process on the former Confederate states, under Federal supervision.

Emancipation brought personal freedom that came with no longer being someone else's property, and the attendant hardships. But full equality was a myth. Reconstruction was in many ways a failure. African-Americans lived in poverty, were exploited, and were subject to violence at the hands of whites determined to reimpose black subordination. A variety of state laws instituted rigid racial segregation in virtually all areas of life. In violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments, it effectively disfranchised black voters. The struggle had only just begun.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

# THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;  
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;  
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;  
His truth is marching on.  
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!  
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

"I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps  
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;  
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;  
His day is marching on.  
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!  
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His day is marching on.

"I have read a fiery Gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;  
`As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal';  
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,  
Since God is marching on.  
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!  
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Since God is marching on.

"He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;  
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;  
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet;  
Our God is marching on.  
"Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!  
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Our God is marching on.

"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,  
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:  
As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free;  
While God is marching on.  
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!  
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! While God is marching on.

"He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,  
He is wisdom to the mighty, He is honor to the brave;  
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of wrong His slave,  
Our God is marching on.  
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!  
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Our God is marching on."

"Battle Hymn of the Republic"  
\- Written by Julia Ward Howe

Slavery was ephemeral to the Civil War at the beginning of the conflict. It was the central tenet of the war at the end. In 1861, great care was given to not alienating the border states and avoiding Northern dissent. In the early part of the war, one reasonable goal of Abe Lincoln was to achieve peace in return for saving the Union, while allowing slavery to continue.

In his inaugural address, Lincoln stated "...that the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially the right of each state to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to the balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend."

In July, 1861, a resolution introduced by Senator Andrew Johnson of Tennessee was adopted in the Senate by an almost unanimous vote, declaring that "the war was not prosecuted for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights and established institutions of the states, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and all laws made in pursuance thereof, and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality and rights of the several states unimpaired, and that as soon as those objects were accomplished the war ought to cease."

Christian abolitionists saw perfidy in Lincoln's stance. He had debated William Douglass, using fervent and sometimes religious phraseology that created the image of a modern day Moses, opening the floodgates of freedom and turning the prairies of America into a new Red Sea.

On February 9, the Confederate States of America were formed with Jefferson Davis as president. On March 2, 1861, two days before the inauguration of President Lincoln, and less than six weeks before the bombardment of Fort Sumter, Congress by a joint resolution had submitted to the states for ratification a 13th article of the Constitution. It provided that no amendment should be made thereto which would authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any state with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said state.

Lincoln stayed silent.

On April 10, 1861, Brigadier General Pierre Beauregard, in command of the provisional Confederate forces at Charleston, South Carolina, demanded the surrender of the Union garrison of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Garrison commander Anderson refused. On April 12, Confederate batteries opened fire on the fort, which was unable to reply effectively. At 2:30 P.M., April 13, Major Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter, evacuating the garrison on the following day. The bombardment of Fort Sumter was the opening engagement of the American Civil War. Although there were no casualties during the bombardment, one Union artillerist was killed and three wounded (one mortally) when a cannon exploded prematurely while firing a salute during the evacuation on April 14.

Civil War timeline

1861

April 17 - Virginia secedes from the Union, followed within five weeks by Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina, thus forming an 11-state Confederacy.

April 19 - President Lincoln issues a Proclamation of Blockade against Southern ports. For the duration of the war the blockade limits the ability of the rural South to stay well supplied in its war against the industrialized North.

July 4 - Lincoln, in a speech to Congress, states the war is..."a People's contest... a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men..." The Congress authorizes a call for 500,000 men.

July 21 - The Union Army under General Irvin McDowell suffers a defeat at Bull Run, 25 miles southwest of Washington. Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson earns the nickname "Stonewall," as his brigade resists Union attacks. Union troops fall back to Washington. President Lincoln realizes the war will be long. "It's damned bad," he comments.

July 27 - President Lincoln appoints George B. McClellan as Commander of the Department of the Potomac, replacing McDowell.

September 11 - President Lincoln revokes General John C. Fremont's unauthorized military proclamation of emancipation in Missouri. Later, the President relieves General Fremont of his command and replaces him with General David Hunter.

November 1 - President Lincoln appoints McClellan as General-in-Chief of all Union forces after the resignation of the aged Winfield Scott. Lincoln tells McClellan, "...the supreme command of the Army will entail a vast labor upon you." McClellan responds, "I can do it all."

November 8 - The beginning of an international diplomatic crisis for President Lincoln as two Confederate officials sailing toward England are seized by the U.S. Navy. England, the leading world power, demands their release, threatening war. Lincoln eventually gives in and orders their release in December. "One war at a time," Lincoln remarks.

1862

January 31 - President Lincoln issues General War Order No. 1 calling for all United States Naval and land forces to begin a general advance by February 22, George Washington's birthday.

February 6 - Victory for General Ulysses S. Grant in Tennessee, capturing Fort Henry, and 10 days later Fort Donelson. Grant earns the nickname "Unconditional Surrender" Grant.

February 20 - President Lincoln is struck with grief as his beloved 11-year old son, Willie, dies from fever, probably caused by polluted drinking water in the White House.

March 8/9 - The Confederate Ironclad "'Merrimac" sinks two wooden Union ships, then battles the Union Ironclad "Monitor" to a draw. Naval warfare is changed forever. Wooden ships are obsolete. The Peninsular Campaign begins as McClellan's Army of the Potomac advances from Washington down the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay to the peninsular south of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia then begins an advance toward Richmond. President Lincoln temporarily relieves McClellan as General-in-Chief and takes direct command of the Union Armies.

April 6/7 - Confederate surprise attack on General Ulysses S. Grant's unprepared troops at Shiloh on the Tennessee River results in a bitter struggle with 13,000 Union killed and wounded and 10,000 Confederates, more men than in all previous American wars combined. The President is then pressured to relieve Grant but resists. "I can't spare this man; he fights," Lincoln says.

April 24-17 - Union ships under the command of Flag Officer David Farragut move up the Mississippi River then take New Orleans, the South's greatest seaport. Later in the war, sailing through a rebel minefield, Farragut utters the famous phrase, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

May 31 - The Battle of Seven Pines as General Joseph E. Johnston's army attacks McClellan's troops in front of Richmond and nearly defeats them. But Johnston is badly wounded.

June 1 - General Robert E. Lee assumes command, replacing the wounded Johnston. Lee then renames his force the Army of Northern Virginia. McClellan is not impressed, saying Lee is "likely to be timid and irresolute in action."

June 25-July 1 - The Seven Days Battles as Lee attacks McClellan near Richmond, resulting in very heavy losses for both armies. McClellan then begins a withdrawal back toward Washington.

July 11 - After four months as his own General-in-Chief, President Lincoln hands over the task to General Henry W. "Old Brains" Halleck.

August 29/30 - 75,000 Federals under General John Pope are defeated by 55,000 Confederates under General Stonewall Jackson and General James Longstreet at the Second Battle of Bull Run in northern Virginia. Once again the Union Army retreats to Washington. The President then relieves Pope.

September 4-9 - Lee invades the North with 50,000 Confederates and heads for Harpers Ferry, located 50 miles northwest of Washington. The Union Army, 90,000 strong, under the command of McClellan, pursues Lee.

September 17 - The bloodiest day in U.S. military history as General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Armies are stopped at Antietam in Maryland by McClellan and numerically superior Union forces. By nightfall 26,000 men are dead, wounded, or missing. Lee then withdraws to Virginia.

September 22 - Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, "freeing" the slaves, issued by President Lincoln.

November 7 - The President replaces McClellan with General Ambrose E. Burnside as the new Commander of the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln had grown impatient with McClellan's slowness to follow up on the success at Antietam, even telling him, "If you don't want to use the Army, I should like to borrow it for a while."

December 13 - Army of the Potomac under General Burnside suffers a costly defeat at Fredericksburg, Virginia with a loss of 12,653 men after 14 frontal assaults on well-entrenched Rebels on Marye's Heights. "We might as well have tried to take hell," a Union soldier remarks. Confederate losses are 5,309. "It is well that war is so terrible - we should grow too fond of it," states Lee during the fighting.

1863

January 1 - President Lincoln issues the final Emancipation Proclamation freeing all slaves in territories held by Confederates and emphasizes the enlisting of black soldiers in the Union Army. The war to preserve the Union now becomes a revolutionary struggle for the abolition of slavery.

January 25 - The President appoints General Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker as Commander of the Army of the Potomac, replacing Burnside.

January 29 - General Grant is placed in command of the Army of the West, with orders to capture Vicksburg.

March 3 - The U.S. Congress enacts a draft, affecting male citizens aged 20 to 45, but also exempts those who pay $300 or provide a substitute. "The blood of a poor man is as precious as that of the wealthy," poor Northerners complain.

May 1-4 - The Union Army under General Hooker is decisively defeated by Lee's much smaller forces at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia as a result of Lee's brilliant and daring tactics. Confederate General Stonewall Jackson is mortally wounded by his own soldiers. Hooker retreats. Union losses are 17,000 killed, wounded and missing out of 130,000. The Confederates lose 13,000 out of 60,000. "I just lost confidence in Joe Hooker," said Hooker later about his own lack of nerve during the battle.

May 10 - The South suffers a huge blow as Stonewall Jackson dies from his wounds. His last words are, "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees." "I have lost my right arm," Lee laments.

June 3 - General Lee, with 75,000 Confederates, launches his second invasion of the North, heading into Pennsylvania in a campaign that will soon lead to Gettysburg.

June 28 - President Lincoln appoints General George G. Meade as Commander of the Army of the Potomac, replacing Hooker. Meade is the fifth man to command the Army in less than a year.

July 1-3 - The tide of war turns against the South as the Confederates are defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

July 4 - Vicksburg, the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River, surrenders to General Grant and the Army of the West after a six-week siege. With the Union now in control of the Mississippi, the Confederacy is effectively split in two, cut off from its western allies.

July 13-16 - Antidraft riots in New York City include arson and the murder of blacks by poor immigrant whites. At least 120 persons, including children, are killed and $2 million in damage caused. Union soldiers returning from Gettysburg restore order.

July 18 – "Negro troops" of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment under Colonel Robert G. Shaw assault fortified Rebels at Fort Wagner, South Carolina. Colonel Shaw and half of the 600 men in the regiment are killed.

August 10 - The President meets with abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who pushes for full equality for Union "Negro troops."

August 21 - At Lawrence, Kansas, pro-Confederate William C. Quantrill and 450 proslavery followers raid the town and butcher 182 boys and men.

September 19/20 - A decisive Confederate victory by General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee at Chickamauga leaves General William S. Rosecrans' Union Army of the Cumberland trapped in Chattanooga, Tennessee under Confederate siege.

October 16 - The President appoints General Grant to command all operations in the western theater.

November 19 - President Lincoln delivers a two-minute Gettysburg Address at a ceremony dedicating the Battlefield as a National Cemetery.

November 23-25 - The rebel siege of Chattanooga ends as Union forces under Grant defeat the siege army of General Braxton Bragg. During the battle, one of the most dramatic moments of the war occurs. Yelling "Chickamauga! Chickamauga!" Union troops avenge their previous defeat by storming up the face of Missionary Ridge without orders and sweep the rebels from what had been thought to be an impregnable position. "My God, come and see 'em run!" a Union soldier cries.

1864

March 9 - President Lincoln appoints General Grant to command all of the armies of the United States. General William T. Sherman succeeds Grant as commander in the west.

May 4 - The beginning of a massive, coordinated campaign involving all the Union armies. In Virginia, Grant with an army of 120,000 begins advancing toward Richmond to engage Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, now numbering 64,000, beginning a war of attrition that will include major battles at the Wilderness (May 5-6), Spotsylvania (May 8-12), and Cold Harbor (June 1-3). In the west, Sherman, with 100,000 men, begins an advance toward Atlanta to engage Joseph E. Johnston's 60,000 strong Army of Tennessee.

June 3 - A costly mistake by Grant results in 7,000 Union casualties in 20 minutes during an offensive against fortified rebels at Cold Harbor, Virginia.

June 15 - Union forces miss an opportunity to capture Petersburg and cut off the Confederate rail lines. As a result, a nine-month siege of Petersburg begins with Grant's forces surrounding Lee.

July 20 - At Atlanta, Sherman's forces battle the rebels now under the command of General John B. Hood, who replaced Johnston.

August 29 - Democrats nominate George B. McClellan for President to run against Republican incumbent Abraham Lincoln.

September 2 - Atlanta is captured by Sherman. "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won," Sherman telegraphs Lincoln. The victory greatly helps President Lincoln's bid for re-election.

October 19 - A decisive Union victory by Cavalry General Philip H. Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley over Jubal Early's troops.

November 8 - Republican Abraham Lincoln is re-elected President, defeating Democrat George B. McClellan. Lincoln carries all but three states with 55 percent of the popular vote and 212 of 233 electoral votes. "I earnestly believe that the consequences of this day's work will be to the lasting advantage, if not the very salvation, of the country," Lincoln tells supporters.

November 15 - After destroying Atlanta's warehouses and railroad facilities, Sherman, with 62,000 men begins the March to the Sea. President Lincoln, on advice from Grant, approved the idea. "I can make Georgia howl!" Sherman boasts.

December 15/16 - Hood's Rebel Army of 23,000 is crushed at Nashville by 55,000 Federals including Negro troops under General George H. Thomas. The Confederate Army of Tennessee ceases as an effective fighting force.

December 21 - Sherman reaches Savannah, Georgia leaving behind a 300-mile path of destruction 60 miles wide all the way from Atlanta. Sherman then telegraphs Lincoln, offering him Savannah as a Christmas present.

1865

January 31 - The U.S. Congress approves the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, to abolish slavery. The amendment is then submitted to the states for ratification.

February 3 - A peace conference occurs as President Lincoln meets with Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens at Hampton Roads in Virginia, but the meeting ends in failure - the war will continue. Only Lee's Army at Petersburg and Johnston's forces in North Carolina remain to fight for the South against Northern forces now numbering 280,000 men.

March 4 - Inauguration ceremonies for President Lincoln in Washington. "With malice toward none; with charity for all...let us strive on to finish the work we are in...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations," Lincoln says.

March 25 - The last offensive for Lee's Army of Northern Virginia begins with an attack on the center of Grant's forces at Petersburg. Four hours later the attack is broken.

April 2 - Grant's forces begin a general advance and break through Lee's lines at Petersburg. Confederate General Ambrose P. Hill is killed. Lee evacuates Petersburg. The Confederate capital, Richmond, is evacuated. Fires and looting break out. The next day, Union troops enter and raise the Stars and Stripes.

April 4 - President Lincoln tours Richmond where he enters the Confederate White House. With "a serious, dreamy expression," he sits at the desk of Jefferson Davis for a few moments.

April 9 - General Robert E. Lee surrenders his Confederate Army to General Ulysses S. Grant at the village of Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Grant allows Rebel officers to keep their sidearms and permits soldiers to keep horses and mules. "After four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources," Lee tells his troops.

April 10 - Celebrations break out in Washington.

April 14 - The Stars and Stripes is ceremoniously raised over Fort Sumter. That night, Lincoln and his wife Mary see the play "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater. At 10:13 p.m., during the third act of the play, John Wilkes Booth shoots the President in the head. Doctors attend to the President in the theater, then move him to a house across the street. He never regains consciousness.

April 15 - President Abraham Lincoln dies at 7:22 in the morning. Vice President Andrew Johnson assumes the Presidency.

April 18 - Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston surrenders to Sherman near Durham, North Carolina.

April 26 - John Wilkes Booth is shot and killed in a tobacco barn in Virginia.

May 4 - Abraham Lincoln is laid to rest in Oak Ridge Cemetery, outside Springfield, Illinois.

In May - Remaining Confederate forces surrender. The nation is reunited as the Civil War ends. Over 620,000 Americans died in the war, with disease killing twice as many as those lost in battle. 50,000 survivors return home as amputees.

The War Between the States tore America apart. Historical descriptions of the battles, politics, events, personalities – and ultimately the great tragic irony of the war and Lincoln's martyrdom - are all ingrained in our national conscience. The actual fighting remains anti-septic in our dispassionate analysis of what happened.

Each battle was bloody and tragic beyond the depth of words, some more fierce and horrible than others. Manassas I and Manassas II (otherwise known as the two Battles of Bull Run), Shiloh, Chicamauga, Antietam. Brothers killed brothers. Friends killed friends. A nation of white Christian European ancestry separated by a common language, placing in awful jeopardy the greatest political experiment in history. A repressed minority set up as scapegoats against a fabric of death, doomed to endure hatred for another 100 years.

The most difficult thing for people to square with is the role of the Confederacy and the men who fought for it. They have been vilified and made fun of, said to represent a "redneck" society of hillbilly's; ignorant white trash rendered stupid by years of inter-breeding. It has always been hard to admit to the fact that among the Confederate elites were men of enormous intelligence, bravery and honor. They represented a different time, a period of man's history that is "gone with the wind." Their chivalry and graciousness are less American and more part of Camelot, Shakespeare, English knights and European noblemen.

Battle of Gettysburg

The proud Confederates, demonized by their Northern brethren, won the admiration of Union soldiers in battle after battle. By the time of the Battle of Gettysburg, both sides were acutely aware that they were fighting an honorable, worthy and utterly professional enemy. Rarely in history have such top-flight, well-matched, well-led armies gone head-to-head. At Gettysburg the war was finally turned after a fight that goes down in the annals of war as one of the fiercest, decisive and most heart wrenching ever fought.

For nearly two months after Chancellorsville in early May, 1863 the Union and Confederacy maneuvered for strategic advantage in Virginia. Lee concentrated his forces for a thrust into the heart of the Union. By the end of June he had swung his three army corps, commanded by James Longstreet, R.S. Ewell and A.P. Hill, into Pennsylvania. Joe Hooker followed him. A parallel march ensued, which meant that the battle was well anticipated by the soldiers and the public.

Hooker's march along Lee's flank was meant to provide a show of defense against the city of Washington to the east. On June 27 Lincoln replaced Hooker with George Meade. Lee's great General J.E.B. Stuart had led his cavalry regiments on Union raids. It was apparent he would not be back in time for the coming battle, which left Lee without an important element of attack.

Lee lost track of the Union position. Intelligence was passed on through riders and spies who made daring runs through the lines. Knowledge was always colored by inaccuracies. Lee decided, without Stuart's cavalry and in a vulnerable position, to show initiative in an effort to catch the Union troops on their toes. He converged three columns on the town of Gettysburg, located approximately seven miles above the Maryland-Pennsylvania line.

Reconnaissance forces clashed with Union elements on July 1, 1863. Union General J.F. Reynolds lost his life when his men were overrun. Meade's army arrived that night and immediately found themselves on the defensive. They took up position on Cemetery Ridge to the south. Lee occupied the western valley on Seminary Ridge. On July 2, "Johnny Reb" made an all-out attempt to finish what they had started the previous day by making a furious, all-out charge against the 20th Maine. The Maine found themselves pinned down, with no place to go and under orders not to give up under _any_ circumstances. To abandon their territory, they were assured, would doom Meade's entire plan and give the day to Lee. While the boys from Maine were too busy thinking about sheer survival to contemplate it, if the battle went to Lee, the war just might turn for him, too.

Wars are decided in this fashion, although this may have been an example above most others, of how a small patch of land can have such huge consequences for the future. The patch of land that the 20th was charged with defending were two low hills called Round Top and Little Round Top. The Maine were led by Joseph L. Chamberlain, and his top aide was his brother. Chamberlain was a true believer, the quiet dean of a small liberal arts college, and a man not pre-disposed to the warrior's creed. He was quiet, scholarly, and completely convinced in the absolute rights of all men to be free. To him, the fight was about freeing the blacks for the betterment of Mankind.

Something happened on Round Top and Little Round Top on July 2, 1863. The men who made up the rebel and Federal troops up there were ordinary soldiers. They were made up of the usual cross-section of bravery and cowardice. But on this day, a fever swept through the greys who charged and the blues who defended. It was a fever to fight and win at any cost. With this fever all cowardice was lost on both sides. Sheer valor and gallant fight marked the battle. Both sides knew the importance of Little Round Top. It was as if the entire Civil War rested on the weary shoulders engaged in that day's action. Whoever lost knew that all would be lost.

The rebs came with blood-curdling cries through the woods. The Maine was out-numbered, in great peril of being over-run. They had little hiding space other than leaves, shadows and thin trees. But Chamberlain was a thinking man's commander. He had the ability, which training cannot really teach – which nobody can see ahead of time if you have it - to think in a pinch without letting fear or pain interfere. It is the clearness of a mind devoted only to the task at hand.

Chamberlain had been struck by rebel lead six times in Virginia, causing him to joke that he "was not of Virginia's blood; she is of mine." He somehow had not become intimidated by the prospect of being shot. Maybe, like George Patton after sustaining injuries on the French battlefields of World War I, he had come to realize that a man can still think, function and fight with bullets lodged in his body. This may have been a revelation to Chamberlain. This is just speculation. What happens in the mind of a man in such a crisis cannot be gauged or judge from afar.

Chamberlain steadied his shaking men. Without such a leader they would have turned and run. They did not. Spurred by Chamberlain, standing amid fire, moving from place to place to encourage, giving orders, to provide inspiration, the 20th Maine mustered enough lead to stop rebel advances.

The greys returned into the woods. The Maine cheered, but Chamberlain quenched the celebration with the quick admonishment that they would be back. They were in a minute or so. It was like that over six rebel charges. The boys from Maine switched positions, formed unorthodox firing lines, and kept their heads every time. The rebs retreated, re-mustered, and kept coming back. Their fierce cries pierced the air louder and more vociferously on each occasion.

Finally, after holding on through the worst of it, Chamberlain saw that the rebs had taken a pounding and lost their momentum. Instead of holding back for more of the same, he led the Maine on a fierce counter-attack. Using bullets, bayonets and fists, they finished the Confederate elements once and for all. The 20th Maine had won the Battle of Little Round Top. Chamberlain was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He is to American military history what men like Honus Wagner and Joe DiMaggio are to baseball history.

The rebels managed to take Culp's Hill on the Union right flank, but the next morning Federal artillery displaced them. In the afternoon, Lee amassed cannons on the Union center. His shots were returned in kind. Low on ammunition, Lee, the consummate aggressor, ordered an infantry attack. The result was the infamous "Pickett's Charge."

General George Pickett led 15,000 men across the open plain between the two armies. An insane charge followed, straight into the heart of Union artillery and musket fire. It was reminiscent of the famed British "charge of the light brigade," the kind of wave tactic that attempts to achieve objectives through sheer numbers, regardless of the human cost. Learning from events like this, the Americans decelerated this kind of action. The philosophy of the U.S. military, repelled by the casualty toll of charging actions, instead emphasized American commanders' respect for the lives of their men.

In World War I, the French, British and Germans still rushed into each other with horrible charges against new, modern weaponry. It created intolerable numbers of deaths. The Americans had already decided this was not an effective war tactic. When commanders allowed U.S. forces to absorb awful casualties during the Argonne Offensive, the commanders were criticized harshly. General John "Black Jack" Pershing's legacy was marred somewhat because he allowed it to happen.

In World War II, German and Russian officers felt no compunction with sending massive waves of enlisted personnel to sure death in these kinds of full-scale charges. The British, especially under General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, now disdained the practice in favor of a cautious approach. General Patton was not cautious, but he did not send his forces on any "Pickett's Charges." He emphasized instead that "no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country."

Pickett's men died for their Confederacy by the bushel. They managed to break the Union lines ("the high water mark of the Confederacy"), but with no support they were repelled amidst fierce fighting. Pickett's men retreated and waited for a counter-charge from the Union. They knew it would likely wipe them out. But they had inflicted so much pain on the Federals that no charge ensued. The bloody, wounded and dying just waited out the night amid screams of pain and suffering. All glory of war was gone.

The glory may have been gone, but the Battle of Gettysburg continued, in a way, when day broke. It continued in standoff. It was the Fourth of July, and neither side had the stomach to attack on our nation's birthday. It was not out of respect for the Declaration of Independence that kept the guns silent, but rather an acknowledgement on both sides that the battle was too close, and losses too great, to justify any more "Pickett's charges." The North and the South stared at each other across the green Pennsylvania field, occasionally shouting but mostly licking their wounds.

Lee was aggressive, but he loved his men. Their deaths tore him asunder. The day divided into night. Lee slept on it, taking advice from his aides and commanders. The rebs were fighters and ready to go back in. Lee's men cheered the old general, bringing tears to his eyes. Instead of hating him for leading them to their deaths, they knew he was a man of honor. He was one of them, and among his army were vast numbers of fellow Virginians. They saw themselves as the descendants of the fighting spirit of Washington and Jefferson, their cause as noble as the Founders.

On July 5, Lee the realist withdrew his troops toward the Potomac River, which he crossed eight days later. Military analysts point out that Gettysburg was the turning point of the war, the death knell of the Confederacy. But it was not, at least not yet. The Confederates were in full retreat, all of their initiative taken from them. But George Meade held back instead of taking flight and dealing them the crushing blow that would have ended the war then and there. Instead of ending the conflict in the Summer of 1863, the Confederates were allowed to live and fight another day. Those days totaled up until they had stretched all the way through 1864 and into 1865. Finally, Sherman destroyed the Confederates in his march through Georgia. Lee mercifully surrendered at Appomatox Court House.

In three days, 28,000 of Lee's 78,000 men were killed. Meade lost 23,000 out of 88,000 troops. It was not a matter of the Union really winning at Gettysburg, although repelling Pickett had been a victory. Lee needed a decisive victory and he did not get it. A "draw" just was a loss by attrition. Lee was further disheartened when he found out that a battle at Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River, had resulted in a Confederate defeat.

Gettysburg Address

A national cemetery was erected at Gettysburg, and Lincoln journeyed there for its dedication on November 19, 1863. According to legend, Lincoln was approached by an aide on the train to Pennsylvania and told that he should prepare a few remarks, and the President wrote a brief speech while traveling. Others dispute this, saying he put time and energy into his speech before departing. The fact is that he wrote must of it in Washington, worked on it on the train, completed it in Gettysburg the night before, and added a few key words ("under God") spontaneously while speaking.

The orator Edward Everett spoke for two hours. He then introduced Lincoln, who made what one would consider brief remarks. He received applause but not the kind of reaction to indicate he had said anything with tectonic significance. Considering the tragedy of the war and the loss of life at Gettysburg, Lincoln felt his words were empty, a "failure."  
But when the speech was published it was received as great statesmanship, and over time became known as a masterpiece. The speech is as follows:

"Fourscore and seven years ago our Fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

"Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place of those of who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting that we should do this.

"But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the Earth."

The historical context of the speech is enormous. The term "Civil War" may or may not have been used prior to the speech. For the most part it was known as the War Between the States or, in the South, the War of Northern Aggression (despite the fact the rebels shot the first volley and spearheaded it with great enthusiasm). Lincoln makes mention of the Founding Fathers forming a "proposition" which later developed into the idea of Democracy as a "great experiment." Lincoln is uniquely American in his statement that he had "poor power to add or detract" to the events of the battle. Leaders had always put themselves ahead of the people, mythologizing themselves by intertwining their "greatness" with the bravery of heroic fighters. Lincoln was humble, and in his humility he achieved greatness than no leader can declare for himself.

Lincoln also made reference to the hope that the dead had not died in vain. This was a new concept that flew in the face of men like Napoleon who would scoff at the idea of their men dying in "vain." They were, after all, simply expendable.

Finally, by adding "under God" (as if divinely inspired at that moment to veer from the written text), Lincoln started a new tradition of religious phraseology in political rhetoric. The original Americans made many, many references to God, with strong Christian overtones, in the various writings, official and unofficial. U.S. Presidents and politicians had not eliminated religious wording from public speeches in the years hence. In a very Christian nation, religion was of political value. But Lincoln was not a particularly religious man. Some have said he was an atheist, but it appears he really was just an intelligent man willing to ask questions that go beyond the superficialities of faith. By saying "under God," especially by saying it at the last minute without having planned it, he seems to have given in to an inspiration; a call to higher purpose, a spirit if you will, that is telling. Lincoln in this speech tells the story of an important man with the burden of the world on his shoulders. He understood that only by asking for God's help and forgiveness could he possibly tackle such a burden.

Lincoln's other famous phrases, "the better angels of our nature" and "with charity for all, and malice towards none" also shaped the American character. The Englishman Winston Churchill would echo Lincolnian themes when he said that the victors of war must maintain magnanimity. It cannot be stressed too much what a relatively new concept this was in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

U.S.-English relations were certainly strained after the Revolutionary War. Obviously, that conflict did not end in an American occupation of Great Britain or any English colonial holdings other than our own liberation. But we immediately sent emissaries to Europe to build support, and to repair our relations with the English. The ending of the war was a political arrangement, not a final conflagration of dead on a battlefield that forced a capitulation. That war was won in part by attrition, and support for the war dwindled in England until the government withdrew their troops. We maintained trade and business relations with the English. In 1812, events led to another short conflict; violent, spectacular, but limited. We maintained thereafter a strained diplomacy with them, exacerbated by the fact that England banned slavery to hurt us economically and portray themselves as morally superior. They had enthusiastically participated in slavery for centuries. Because of high birth rates, the Southern U.S. was able to maintain its slave population without foreign trade. The English no longer were in a position to make much economic hay out of associating themselves with American slavery.

American Democracy became very influential in England during the Victorian era. British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli was a contemporary of Lincoln's who ushered his country into the modern world, despite some flirtations with the Confederacy. Great Britain began its long "special relationship" with the U.S. during this time. Its alliances with us in World Wars I, II and subsequent wars strengthened that relationship to the point where Great Britain now has surrogate power and influence, in partnership with America, that gives it a place in the world order rivaling their once-great empire.

For all of the criticism about the war with Mexico and Manifest Destiny, these arguments are the failed efforts of blame-America types who portray us as a racist nation. If the U.S. were like virtually all other conquering nations prior to its existence, they would have occupied Mexico City instead of giving it back and keeping the land that was fought over, fair and square. In the case of the Indian Wars, detractors use the word genocide. That would have been the case if we had killed enough Indians to simply eliminate them from our presence. Think of the Ottoman Turks "cleansing" themselves of Armenians during World War I, for example. This is simply not what happened with the Indians. We killed Indians in battles then built reservations for them. It was clumsy and left much to be desired, but Indian re-settlement was at least the desire to provide a solution. The list of dictators, military leaders, countries and empires throughout the history of the world who would have handled Indian conflict and resettlement worse than the United States is too long to contemplate. The number of dictators, military leaders, countries and empires throughout the history of the world who would have handled Indian conflict and resettlement _better_ than the United States adds up to the number zero!

General Robert E. Lee

Defeating the Confederacy took every measure of the Union. The South had fielded one of the greatest armies in history. Their leadership was impeccable. Aside from the fact that they fought for slavery (which is not a small aside), they fought with honor. Nobody embodied that honor more than Robert E. Lee.

Born in 1807 in Virginia, he was the son of General Harry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee. Robert grew up in Alexandria, and was appointed to West Point, where he graduated second in his class of 1829. An engineer by training, he spent 15 years working on projects such as the harbor of St. Louis and the channel to the Mississippi. When war broke out with Mexico, he was assigned to General Scott for the Vera Cruz to Mexico City campaign. He distinguished himself with his reconnaissance work and was wounded at Chapultepec in September of 1847.

After the war he returned to Washington's Engineering Bureau, helping to build Atlantic Coast defenses. He also spent three years as the superintendent of West Point, was made a lieutenant colonel and sent to a cavalry regiment in Texas. He commanded a force gathered to suppress John Brown's insurrection at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. When the Southern secession movement occurred, Virginians called him to Arlington. Lee was offered succession to Winfield Scott, at Scott's suggestion, as commandeer of the entire Union Army.

It was a terrible and painful time for Lee, torn by loyalty to Virginia and loyalty to America. He crossed his personal Rubicon, resigning his commission and taking over as major general of Virginia state forces in 1861 should war commence. Lee spent some time in western Virginia. Technically he might have been considered a traitor because of his support of the "secesh" movement. In fact much hope was pinned on him by both sides. It was believed that he had the prestige to bring the conflict to a peaceful conclusion somehow. Even after the war started, some hope was held out that he might help bring it to a speedy end, but exactly who would benefit from this fanciful scenario was lost amid much confusion, jealousy and chaos.

Southerners were hot-blooded in 1861. Many protested that Lee was too close with his former Northern associates to wage real war on them. But Confederate president Jefferson Davis had full confidence in him. Lee stayed close to Davis in Richmond, the Confederate capitol, during McClellan's siege of the city. When Joe Johnston was wounded, Lee took command of the combat defense forces. Lee managed to halt McClellan, then took the war to the Union at Bull Run, before embarking on Maryland in a combination military-recruitment-political propaganda campaign. In Maryland, so close to the capitol, Lee built up his supplies and lent his personal prestige to a public effort at getting the state to join the secessionist cause in full. All the while. He recruited soldiers into his growing army. Lincoln was apoplectic over this threat. He could hear the sounds of war from the White House, nervously complaining about McClellan's lack of willingness to wield his forces in full measure.

McClellan and Lee danced around each other until September 17, 1862 when their forces met in the bitter, bloody battle of Antietam. Like Gettysburg later, it was a standoff with Lee in retreat, and the Union failing to make quick chase of him in a hunt-and-destroy mission that might have shortened the war. Lee's men took position along the Rapppahannock River, hunkered down for the cold Winter. General A.E. Burnside crossed the river and engaged, but he was thrown back with heavy losses. Lee held out the rest of the Winter. When Spring came around Joe Hooker took up the line and a battle of maneuver and position ensued. Lee outsmarted Hooker, achieving victory at Chancellorsville on May 6, 1863. Lee had originally wanted to return to Virginia. His ragged men had been camped near the river throughout the Fall, Winter, and now well into the Spring.

Stonewall Jackson's death had a deep effect on Lee. Possibly because of Jackson's death, Lee decided on a course of aggression that he knew would decide the war one way or another. It would end the kind of stalemate that he had found himself in ever since he ventured into Maryland. He marched on the Northern territories, causing Lincoln more nervousness. Lee crossed the Potomac with the intent of threatening targets of opportunity, depending upon the fluid nature of warfare. These targets included Harrisburg, Washington and Baltimore.

As mentioned, Meade rode his flank until Gettysburg on July 1-3, which was actually an unintentional conflict. After the defeat, Lee made the slow, sad retreat to Virginia that he had originally intended to make almost a year earlier.

The war dragged on, and in the Spring of 1864, U.S. Grant, fresh off of victories in Mississippi and Tennessee, was sent to Virginia to take on Lee on his home turf. Lee was, throughout the war, forced to employ jab-and-parry maneuvers with undermatched personnel. Under these circumstances he had not won decisive victories. His "victories" had been in avoiding massive losses. But Grant came at him with everything he had. He had twice as many men as under Lee's command, with superior material.

On May 4, 1864, the Northern army began moving across the Rapidan River. A two-day battle ensued with heavy losses on both sides. Lee managed to push Grant off course. In wilderness fighting Grant suffered further losses. But Lee, who had lost Jackson at Rappahanock, this time saw James Longstreet meet the similar dubious end, which was to be shot by accident by his own men. Longstreet did not die, but he was lost to Lee. Flanking maneuvers followed. Grant refused to give in despite the losses. With superior numbers Grant knew if he maintained his will he would win. His troops eventually managed to force the Confederates back through the Spotsylvania Court House, across the North Anna River, to Cold Harbor on the north of Richmond and across the James River to Petersburg, 30 miles below Richmond. Lee held, but with Grant began a siege of attrition. Northern politicians were horrified at the reports of Grant's losses, and the weak-hearted questioned whether it was worth it.

"I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all Summer," Grant said, and he was absolutely right. The war raged amid hot and cold weather, misery, starvation, disease of the worst possible kind, and an inhumanity that must have made the devil smile. This went throughout the Summer, Fall and Winter. In February, 1865, Lee was made Commander in Chief of all the Southern armies, which is like being named manager of a baseball team that is 20 games under .500 with 20 games to play. On April 2, Lee's army began leaving its stench-filled lines in front of Richmond, heading westward towards Lynchburg. They needed to do this to meet new supplies that otherwise would not make it to the lines unless they took the chance of going out to get them. Lee decided to take "advantage," if the word can be applied, of the forced situation to take his last stand. Grant mustered his forces in a final show of force. Lee's battalions were all but slaughtered. Grant took Richmond, the capitol of the Confederacy, a city that had hovered on his horizon for the past year – so close and yet so far. Sherman's juggernaut steamrolled through the Carolinas to junction with and support Grant's army. The end was at hand.

Robert E. Lee proudly offered up the surrender of the Virginia army at Appomattox on April 9. 30,000 starving men were under his final command. 100,000 of Grant's warriors held the boot to their neck. The Confederacy surrendered shortly thereafter. President Johnson, a Southerner who ascended to the Presidency after Lincoln's assassination, issued proclamations of amnesty to Confederate officers of rank. The amnesty did not extend to Lee, who along with his officers had been allowed to keep sidearms and horses by Grant. The scene at the courthouse and throughout those days was melancholy. The respect for Lee and his army was genuine. Lincoln's call for "malice towards none" was generally the attitude of the North. The South was too tired, defeated, starving and ripped asunder to muster animosity. Everybody just wanted to go home. A half-hearted attempt to indict Lee for treason never went anywhere. He was then made president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee). Lee helped maintain order in the South until his death in 1870.

History, as has been mentioned, is a funny thing. There are some people who seemed destined for greatness. Lee was one of those. His father was a famous military man and he sprang from aristocratic loins in a place of extraordinary heritage \- the Virginia of Washington, Jefferson and other great thinkers and leaders of the American Revolution. Lee was an academic ace, schooled in the classics. He was a man of privilege and learning, of honor and, to be sure, he was the very picture of the "Southern gentlemen." He was a star at West Point, targeted for greatness by all who knew him. He groomed under Winfield Scott. His men loved him, his manners were impeccable, and he extended courtesy in every sweep and gesture of his being. As if touched by God, he was the right man in the right place when one of history's greatest confrontations seemed to call for him, like a god being asked to materialize from Mt. Olympus to lead mortals in their strife. Amid the pomp and circumstance of the South's early foray into the war, Lee rode astride a cause we know to be on the wrong side of history. At its core it was immoral, but in the way Satan disguises his agenda, it was made to look like the most honorable of adventures, led by the most honorable of men. The devil does it that way sometimes.

Therefore, Lee's surrender at Appomattox was the final act of a real-life Greek tragedy. Lee had read Plato and Shakespeare's adventures of the human spirit – King Lear, Macbeth, Henry V. He must have recognized he was great man in great times, living out these kinds of dramas.

Ulysses S. Grant

Then there was Ulysses S. Grant. Grant was not like Lee. He was a second-rate student, a drinker, a plain man of the Midwest, and little in his background suggested destiny. Comparisons are not easy to make. Grant was like the plain Harry Truman while Lee was like the imperial Douglas MacArthur. The Truman-Grant comparison is fair, although Lee was not Napoleonic with self-grandeur like MacArthur. Others might make the George Patton (Lee)/Omar Bradley (Grant) comparison. Grant and Bradley have their similarities. Lee was not as self-congratulatory as Patton, who was not far from employing an enlisted man to whisper in his ear to remind him he was mortal.

The point is that Grant and Lee, inextricably linked by the War Between the States, had little in common other than their military backgrounds and West Point degrees. U.S. Grant was 15 years younger, born in Ohio in 1822. He was the progeny of an undistinguished puritan tanner father, and a pious, hard-working mother. Grant's father had little education and determined that his son would be schooled. The boy attended school, but was not exempt from hard work. Grant despised the tannery. He was "farmed out" to plow the ground and drive wood teams, which gave him a fondness for horses and outdoor activities.

At around the age of 17, Grant's father, who had managed to obtain a reputation of some note as a successful tanner, was able to obtain from Congressman Thomas Hamer an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy Academy at West Point. Congressman Hamer erroneously wrote on the application that Grant's middle name was Simpson (his mother's maiden name), although he had been christened Hiram Ulysses Grant. His name was entered on the rolls as Ulysses Simpson Grant. Grant accepted the new name because he had never liked his old initials, H.U.G. U.S. Grant, on the other hand, had obvious value to a prospective United States Army officer.

Legend has it that Grant graduated last in his class at the Point, but the "last in his class" moniker was George Custer's, not Grant's. Grant was not a great student, but he was average and graduated in the middle of the pack. He wanted the cavalry but was sent to the infantry. He went to Texas with General Zachary Taylor, and was with Scott on the march to Mexico City. Grant was not extraordinary, but he was brave and earned medals for gallantry under fire. He married a Missouri planter's daughter and they set up housekeeping at Sackett's Bay, New York. When he was transferred to the Pacific Coast, Grant became intemperate of habit because he missed his wife. He got in trouble with superiors and resigned his commission. From 1854-60, Grant was an utter failure at farming, real estate sales, and clerking. Virtually destitute, his two brothers employed him out of mercy in their leather goods store in Illinois. Back to the dreaded tanning business.

Then war talk started. U.S. Grant realized he was not going to be selling belts any more. He volunteered to drill a local militia in Illinois, then wrote to the War Department and the Governor of Illinois, asking for an appointment. Hostilities began. He was made a colonel of a mutinous regiment of volunteers, rising to brigadier general under state command on the Illinois side of the Ohio River.

Grant was nobody's favorite at first, but he won victories at Forts Henry and Donelson, earning him Lincoln's attention. Now a major general, he found himself caught off guard at Shiloh and men died in heavy numbers because of it. Grant could be morose, he could drink, and he could be hard on himself, but he only allowed for self-criticism during the off-hours. The next day Grant's mind was clear. He met Confederate moves with intelligent counter-measures, and the rebels withdrew. Complaints came in to Lincoln about Grant's drinking and his mind. Compared to the sharp, sometimes-brilliant men who made up much of the officer corps, the taciturn, unglamorous Grant was too ordinary to meet challenges such as command against the likes of Lee, Jackson, Johnston and the "geniuses" who commanded the grey.

Grant was not from the right family, had not married well, lacked grace, was ordinary looking and gruff. In other words, he was just like Lincoln. The term "uniquely American" may be overused, but it is applicable to be sure in the way that these two men of the plains came together to save the day.

At Vicksburg, Grant led a brilliant victory. Lincoln gave him command from the Allegheny's to the Mighty Miss. Braxton Bragg was no match for him at Chattanooga. Now Grant found himself in charge of the entire Federal force, headquartered with the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln's armies were coordinated under one command. In the Spring of '64, Sherman was sent to the west, and Grant to the east, where the inevitable match with Lee loomed sooner or later. His forces suffered high losses but he pressed on. Patton commanded in the Grant style during World War II, telling those advocating pullbacks and re-grouping, "I don't like paying for the same real estate twice." Grant lacked Pattonian flair for ironic statements. He just drank his whisky and said he had no intention of quitting. Lincoln said he wanted to know what Grant was drinking so he could serve it to all his generals.

Nobody argued Grant's effectiveness when Lee and later Joe Johnston offered the final surrender. Made Secretary of War _ad interim_ by President Johnson, Grant leaned towards the Radical Republicans. He had supported Lincoln's reconstruction plan, but the Senate failed to confirm his appointment replacing Edward M. Stanton. Grant took umbrage and broke his pledge to Lincoln. For four years, Grant was a feisty character, but he was popular and in 1868 was elected as a Republican President.

Grant was a poor President who favored friends with blatant patronage, tried to run the country like the Army, had little political tact, and proved to be a bad judge of character. New York publishing magnate Horace Greeley had once urged "Go west, young man" while he made a fortune staying in the East. He had been an advocate of abolition and opposed Grant in the 1872 campaign. Despite his incompetencies, Grant was too popular a war hero and was re-elected. He presided over an economic panic, scandals unfolded under his nose, fraud ran rampant, and while Grant's personal integrity was not questioned, his loyalty to others was his undoing. His one accomplishment was true partnership with Great Britain, secured by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish.

Grant was willing to run for a third term but the party opposed him. He retired and toured Europe, where he was well received. Upon returning he found his family finances in shambles. He tried to run for President in 1880 mainly because he needed the income that came with the job. His nomination at the Republican Convention went nowhere. Friends helped him out for a period of time. When his hardships were made public, Congress initiated a bill to make him a "general for life" with the assured income of that rank. His Presidency and had made him too many enemies in the North, while the Old South was not sympathetic. The measure failed until it went through in the last year of his life. Now dying and with a limited amount of time left, Grant furiously wrote his "Memoirs". He died without seeing its publication, but it was a best seller and kept his family out of the poor house.

President Abraham Lincoln

Just as Grant was a plainspoken Midwesterner, so too was Abraham Lincoln, although his Midwestern roots did not begin at birth. Lincoln created an American tradition of "folksy" politicians, breaking from the aristocratic, be-wigged images of most of the Founders. His style was carried on notably by the likes of Harry Truman and, to a lesser extent even by George W. Bush.

"Honest Abe" is a nickname which embodies the greatest compliment Americans bestow upon their leaders. This was in stark contrast to the vast majority of leaders history had foisted upon the world up to that time. Disraeli in England was an honest man, too; a contemporary of Lincoln's. A new age had been brought forth by America, adopted eventually by the English, and eventually by much (but not all) of the world. It was no longer an age in which great men possessed the divine right of kings, sanctioned by God at the expense of common people. Humility in the eyes of God now replaced the bluster of propped-up buffoons. Freedom, the "dangerous concept" that every Machiavellian had always feared the most, was the guiding aim of Lincoln. With preservation of the Union and emancipation of the slaves, Lincoln had further pushed open the floodgates of the new ideas that propelled the "great experiment" of Democracy.

Lincoln was elected by the voters and directed a Democratic army to victory. The revolution might have been an uprising, and the Mexican War a desire for territory. But Lincoln led the Army of Democracy to victory. It was the first tried and true example that the words, images and high brow statements of intellectuals and politicians could be translated into a motivating force. It kept soldiers fighting despite terrible hardship. Lincoln led a cause that asked ordinary men not to fight solely for their families, their homes, or selfish interests, but instead to travel great distances to fight for an idea. The fact that the idea was believed wholeheartedly is his greatest legacy.

Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Kentucky on February 12, 1809. It has been extremely interesting to me, as I research history and famous people, to note the enormous numbers of great men who were born in January and February (particularly February). Lincoln's parents were all-but illiterate. His family had Quaker roots, but Lincoln was not raised in a particularly religious manner. The family moved to Indiana when Abe was seven. They built a cabin to live in. Lincoln's mother died during the hardships. Lincoln worked extremely hard farming and splitting wood to maintain simple survival. Although he studied under local schoolmasters, his chores took up too much of the daylight hours for him to get a real formal education. Lincoln inherently knew that to make a better life for himself he would have to attain that education. He begged, borrowed and stole books to read by candle light on cold frontier nights.

The books included the Bible and accounts of the American Revolution, plus Shakespeare, and other works that some of the intelligentsia recommends as important reading. He husked corn for the loan of one book and walked 18 miles to obtain another. He taught himself mathematics, grammar, history, and surveying. He read "Pilgrim's Progress", "Aesop's Fables", and "Robinson Crusoe". As he gained confidence, Lincoln developed a gregarious nature and joined the debating society. He became a champion wrestler and weight lifter. He spent much time in a neighborhood store where men gathered to discuss politics.

As Lincoln developed into manhood, he traveled, took odd jobs, and experienced failure in business. This put him in debt. He took the study of law, reading Blackstone at night. Despite his failures he became a community leader, which led to his being elected captain of a volunteer company from Salem, Illinois that fought in the Black Hawk Indian War. When he returned, his service was central to his election to the state legislature of 1834.

He was 6-4, rugged, but not handsome. In all ways he maintained the image of the woodsman, which in later years was a political benefit but in all ways was a real trait of his personality. He also possessed the gift for oratory. His folksy style was just the ticket. He quickly became known for his honesty, which could border on bluntness diffused by a flair for diplomacy. His politics were that of a minority Clay Whig. Lincoln's law studies were successful and led to his completion of the educational process, then admittance to the Illinois bar in 1837. He moved to Springfield to open a practice. He met and married Mary Todd, and became a successful attorney. He formed partnership with leading lawyers in Illinois, including Congressman John T. Stuart. In 1843 he became associated with William Herndon. Eventually he represented leading corporate interests in the railroad and harvesting industries.

In 1846 Lincoln was elected to Congress. He refused to support slavery, an institution that was "founded on both injustice and bad policy," he said. He opposed the Mexican War, but once the fighting began approved all supplies for troops. He did challenge Polk's assertion that U.S. soil had been invaded. Lincoln was independent and courageous by virtue of his taking on the unpopular role of opposition to Polk. He paid for it when the Democrats swept the 1848 elections. Lincoln announced his retirement from politics.

Lincoln's legal practice took him before the Eighth Judicial Circuit for six years. During this period he developed excellent debating skills while confronting as part of his practice issues involving slavery in the region. But until the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Bill, his interest was relatively passive. After this practical repeal of the Missouri Compromise, opening the way to a possible vast extension of slavery, Lincoln found his earnestness. While still a Whig, he answered Stephen A. Douglas on the slavery question in his "Peoria speech." He denounced slavery. It played well in Peoria, and foretold much of the state's attitude. However, the Whigs were unable to muster enough support to put Lincoln over the top in his Senate bid.

When the Republican party was founded to oppose the Democrats, its number one initiative was to end slavery. Lincoln was attracted to their superior policies. In 1856 he delivered a masterful speech at their convention in Bloomington. This earned him national attention and eventually 110 votes for the Vice-Presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention, and unquestioned leadership of the Illinois Republicans.

After the Dred Scott decision of 1857, Lincoln turned all his attention to the question of slavery. It is very instructive to study his strong attention to the goal of ending slavery, from 1857-60. When he became President he did not immediately advocate abolition. His critics have made much of this fact, not giving credence to the necessities of diplomacy and compromise in his efforts at maintaining the Union. When he later made abolition a prime focus of the war, some said it was opportunistic, but Lincoln's pre-Presidential rhetoric puts the lie to that talk.

In 1858 he stated, "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all another." Lincoln engaged in seven debates with Douglas during his Senate campaign. The debates, along with his "house divided" speech, were published throughout the country. Even though Douglas won the 1858 Senate election, it was Lincoln who emerged as a national figure.

Lincoln was conservative. Now that he was the front-runner for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1860, he tried to formulate a policy that would have national consensus in a country in which slavery was popular in a large portion of the nation. He did not advocate outright abolition, preferring instead to tailor his rhetoric to the Scott decision. He maintained his statement that the practice exist in all the states, or none of the states. Lincoln would _not_ stand for slavery in all the states.

Lincoln campaigned in his base, the Midwest, throughout 1859. He took his case to the opinion centers of the East in 1860. He was formally introduced to the Cooper Institute in New York City. His official campaign was amazing. Lincoln did not appear at the nominating convention in Chicago. His supporters were there, and in three ballots he went from 102 votes to 173 for William Seward, to a landslide for Lincoln on the third ballot. He then went to Springfield and remained _silent._ His silence frightened the South. They were unaware of his intentions, but the lack of rhetoric raised hopes that peace might prevail. Lincoln defeated Douglas, John Breckenridge and John Bell, winning the White House without a single Southern electoral vote and less than a majority of the popular vote.

Between the election and inauguration day, the South seceded from the Union. Lincoln maintained silence. His plans regarding slavery, war and compromise were not made public. In private correspondence he revealed a determination to "hold or re-take" Federal property. He took on a very conciliatory tone, not promising to end slavery, in an effort at stopping secession.

The new Confederacy rendered his efforts at compromise moot by firing at Fort Sumter. Lincoln returned fire. He blockaded the South, suspended _habeas corpus_ , and took on near-dictatorial powers that history has shown were necessary to maintain order in Washington and the surrounding areas. Despite his powerful position, Lincoln, unlike so many others who became drunk with power, remained modest and kind.

Lincoln appointed rivals and men from "enemy" territory to his Cabinet. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase was obviously hoping to become President himself. Abolitionists made immediate demands and thought Lincoln to have abandoned them when he refused to immediately "free" the slaves. Congress meddled constantly in military affairs. He had difficulties with his generals, all of whom seemed to be politicians in their own right. George McClellan, Irvin McDowell, John Pope, Joseph Hooker and George Meade all were either failures or failed to fulfill all the potential that the Union Army had. When he appointed Grant, he was criticized. Grant's performance was suspect for a long time before it paid off.

Lincoln's great desire to save the Union was criticized, too. When he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, it was said to carry little weight. His plan to compensate slaveowners in states that remained loyal was excoriated.

In 1864, Lincoln still thought he would lose re-election. Some advised that the election be postponed. Lincoln said that such a thing would give his enemies a victory. McClellan ran against him on the Democrat ticket. Horace Greeley used his New York publishing empire to mercilessly criticize Lincoln, starting a long tradition of liberal bias against Republicans. Lincoln's war aims were proved to be the successful course, thus identifying and exposing the lies of Democrats and their media brethren, starting still another tradition. In November he won re-election.

As Sherman marched through Georgia, 1864 turned into 1865. Lincoln began the process of reconciliation, but on April 14, John Wilkes Booth, an actor sympathetic to the Confederacy, assassinated him at Ford's Theatre in Washington. Jefferson Davis may have expressed the country's attitude best when he said that the South had suffered a second tremendous loss by Lincoln's death.

Lincoln remains a personal enigma, his speeches parsed for clues as to his belief in God or his own greatness. He was to the end a man of amusement and self-deprecation. He suffered depressions and personal tragedy. His sons died of illness, and his wife was more or less nuts, spending money as if it was going out of style. Not to mention she was a Southerner and a political liability. Lincoln probably suffered from clinical depression. He told ill-timed jokes in an effort to relieve his own tensions. Few ever felt he achieved real happiness in war or peace. One finds comfort in the knowledge that upon ascension to Heaven, Abraham Lincoln found everlasting peace.

All that was left after Lincoln's assassination was Reconstruction, which lasted until 1877. Lincoln's plan was based on his plan for West Virginia, which had split from the Confederacy. Lincoln had appointed Andrew Johnson military governor of Tennessee after Nashville fell in 1862. As Confederate strongholds fell in New Orleans, Arkansas and North Carolina, the President appointed military governors. On December 8, 1863, Lincoln offered "amnesty and reconstruction" to all Confederates, except for the highest-ranking military and civilian officials. If Lincoln could get 10 percent of the Southern voters of 1860 to sign, he hoped to start a new state and recognize it.

This program was criticized and ridiculed by economic interests who wanted to exploit the South and politicians fearful of restoration of their power. Lincoln vetoed the Jacobin's Wade-Davis bill, which required 50 percent of the South taking an oath of allegiance to the U.S. before re-admittance to the Union. Republicans opposed early formation of state governments. The issue of Negro suffrage was tantamount. Lincoln maintained a moderate approach.

Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, had worked with the Radicals, who expected him to surrender most of the control to Congress. In the Summer of 1865 Johnson appointed provisional governors and brought the Wade-Davis Bill back into play. He hoped to create an egalitarian society by handing power to poor whites, farmers and mountaineers. Many of the lessons of the American Revolution were ignored. The mistakes of Reconstruction, when compared with the brilliance of the revolution, is one reason I propose the notion that the Founding Fathers were divinely inspired. Sides were taken and splits emerged in the government, amid immediate troubles in the old Confederacy. Radicals refused to recognize Southern Senators and Representatives. The treatment of blacks became an exploited political issue. The so-called "race card" was played out for the first, but not last time.

Nobody could agree on much. Johnson vetoed a bill to give blacks full citizenship. Race riots broke out. "Black Codes" became the pre-cursor of Jim Crow. The military took control of the Southern states again. States were admitted piecemeal. Carpetbaggers entered, creating an atmosphere of corruption, extravagance and ineptitude. Native whites found themselves excluded from voting while blacks stuffed the ballot boxes. Negro education and civil rights bills were proposed, but white resentment and intimidation became violent with the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. Control escaped the Federal government, and with it black hopes were dashed. Slowly, all the states were "redeemed" under white leadership, barely loyal and full of contempt for Washington. All glorified the memory of the Confederacy.

President Rutherford Hayes ordered Federal troops removed. The last soldiers left in 1877. Much has been written about the failure of diplomats to maintain an international peace between Germany and the world between World War I and World War II. The failure of Reconstruction had terrible consequences of a longer-lasting nature. Sickening heartache marked the period right up until the day – like Lincoln's assassination it happened in April – when Martin Luther King died in 1968. The way political forces splintered apart, compared to the way they had been kept together by Lincoln, did as much to point out the martyred President's greatness as any other example.

There is no doubt that Southerners were going to resent the freed blacks among them. The South was humiliated, but instead of being given a chance to save face, central to Lincoln's vision, they had their noses rubbed in their defeat by corrupt white carpetbaggers and "uppity" blacks, dressed in fineries. They rode about the countryside like royalty. Blacks got the vote and whites had it denied them, creating ludicrous black "elected officials." Blacks robbed, looted, and raped white women. The Southern men had their concept of blacks as animals and wild creatures of low morality "confirmed" in their eyes. They vowed revenge that lasted a century.

It should have been handled in such a way that the South could have been brought back into the fold in a coherent manner, without the "in your face" attitude of black resentment to further the hatred. To deny former slaves the ability to gloat and lord over their former masters would have been a monumental task, like trying to keep the French from spitting on collaborators, or asking Holocaust survivors to be benevolent in their views of Nazi war criminals. But vision is the mark of great politicians. No one had the vision and foresight to see a future that should have been obvious. If they did, their voices were drowned out.

Retribution and revenge replaced education, conciliation and compromise. All it created was a vicious cycle. The European powers learned nothing from it at Versailles. Horribly, and unbelievably to me, America had not learned from the failure of the French Revolution. Those who do no remember the past are condemned to re-live it.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

# A MODERN WORLD POWER

"The man in the arena"

\- Speech by Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne, Paris, France

April 23, 1910

"Strange and impressive associations rise in the mind of a man from the New World who speaks before this august body in this ancient institution of learning. Before his eyes pass the shadows of mighty kings and war-like nobles, of great masters of law and theology; through the shining dust of the dead centuries he sees crowded figures that tell of the power and learning and splendor of times gone by; and he sees also the innumerable host of humble students to whom clerkship meant emancipation, to whom it was well-nigh the only outlet from the dark thralldom of the Middle Ages.

"This was the most famous university of medieval Europe at a time when no one dreamed that there was a New World to discover. Its services to the cause of human knowledge already stretched far back into the remote past at a time when my forefathers, three centuries ago, were among the sparse bands of traders, ploughmen, wood-choppers, and fisherfolk who, in hard struggle with the iron unfriendliness of the Indian-haunted land, were laying the foundations of what has now become the giant Republic of the West. To conquer a continent, to tame the shaggy roughness of wild nature, means grim warfare; and the generations engaged in it cannot keep, still less add to, the stores of garnered wisdom which where once theirs, and which are still in the hands of their brethren who dwell in the old land. To conquer the wilderness means to wrest victory from the same hostile forces with which Mankind struggled on the immemorial infancy of our race. The primeval conditions must be met by the primeval qualities which are incompatible with the retention of much that has been painfully acquired by humanity as through the ages it has striven upward toward civilization. In conditions so primitive there can be but a primitive culture. At first only the rudest school can be established, for no others would meet the needs of the hard-driven, sinewy folk who thrust forward the frontier in the teeth of savage men and savage nature; and many years elapse before any of these schools can develop into seats of higher learning and broader culture.

"The pioneer days pass; the stump-dotted clearings expand into vast stretches of fertile farm land; the stockaded clusters of log cabins change into towns; the hunters of game, the fellers of trees, the rude frontier traders and tillers of the soil, the men who wander all their lives long through the wilderness as the heralds and harbingers of an oncoming civilization, themselves vanish before the civilization for which they have prepared the way. The children of their successors and supplanters, and then their children and their children and children's children, change and develop with extraordinary rapidity. The conditions accentuate vices and virtues, energy and ruthlessness, all the good qualities and all the defects of an intense individualism, self-reliant, self-centered, far more conscious of its rights than of its duties, and blind to its own shortcomings. To the hard materialism of the frontier days succeeds the hard materialism of industrialism even more intense and absorbing than that of the older nations; although these themselves have likewise already entered on the age of a complex and predominantly industrial civilization.

"As the country grows, its people, who have won success in so many lines, turn back to try to recover the possessions of the mind and the spirit, which perforce their fathers threw aside in order better to wage the first rough battles for the continent their children inherit. The leaders of thought and of action grope their way forward to a new life, realizing, sometimes dimly, sometimes clear-sightedly, that the life of material gain, whether for a nation or an individual, is of value only as a foundation, only as there is added to it the uplift that comes from devotion to loftier ideals. The new life thus sought can in part be developed afresh from what is roundabout in the New World; but it can develop in full only by freely drawing upon the treasure-houses of the Old World, upon the treasures stored in the ancient abodes of wisdom and learning, such as this is where I speak to-day. It is a mistake for any nation to merely copy another; but it is even a greater mistake, it is a proof of weakness in any nation, not to be anxious to learn from one another and willing and able to adapt that learning to the new national conditions and make it fruitful and productive therein. It is for us of the New World to sit at the feet of Gamaliel of the Old; then, if we have the right stuff in us, we can show that Paul in his turn can become a teacher as well as a scholar.

"Today I shall speak to you on the subject of individual citizenship, the one subject of vital importance to you, my hearers, and to me and my countrymen, because you and we a great citizens of great Democratic Republics. A Democratic Republic such as ours - an effort to realize its full sense government by, of, and for the people - represents the most gigantic of all possible social experiments, the one fraught with great responsibilities alike for good and evil. The success of Republics like yours and like ours means the glory, and our failure of despair, of Mankind; and for you and for us the question of the quality of the individual citizen is supreme. Under other forms of government, under the rule of one man or very few men, the quality of the leaders is all-important. If, under such governments, the quality of the rulers is high enough, then the nations for generations lead a brilliant career, and add substantially to the sum of world achievement, no matter how low the quality of average citizen; because the average citizen is an almost negligible quantity in working out the final results of that type of national greatness. But with you and us the case is different. With you here, and with us in my own home, in the long run, success or failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average women, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries which call for heroic virtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our Republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average citizen is kept high; and the average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher.

"It is well if a large proportion of the leaders in any Republic, in any Democracy, are, as a matter of course, drawn from the classes represented in this audience today; but only provided that those classes possess the gifts of sympathy with plain people and of devotion to great ideals. You and those like you have received special advantages; you have all of you had the opportunity for mental training; many of you have had leisure; most of you have had a chance for enjoyment of life far greater than comes to the majority of your fellows. To you and your kind much has been given, and from you much should be expected. Yet there are certain failings against which it is especially incumbent that both men of trained and cultivated intellect, and men of inherited wealth and position should especially guard themselves, because to these failings they are especially liable; and if yielded to, their - your - chances of useful service are at an end. Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware of that queer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to others as a cynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to whom good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twister pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities - all these are marks, not as the possessor would feign to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The role is easy; there is none easier, save only the role of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride of slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not exactly what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who `but for the vile guns would have been a valiant soldier.'

"France has taught many lessons to other nations: Surely one of the most important lessons is the lesson her whole history teaches, that a high artistic and literary development is compatible with notable leadership in arms and statecraft. The brilliant gallantry of the French soldier has for many centuries been proverbial; and during these same centuries at every court in Europe the `freemasons of fashion' have treated the French tongue as their common speech; while every artist and man of letters, and every man of science able to appreciate that marvelous instrument of precision, French prose, had turned toward France for aid and inspiration. How long the leadership in arms and letters has lasted is curiously illustrated by the fact that the earliest masterpiece in a modern tongue is the splendid French epic which tells of Roland's doom and the vengeance of Charlemange when the lords of the Frankish hosts where stricken at Roncesvalles. Let those who have, keep, let those who have not, strive to attain, a high standard of cultivation and scholarship. Yet let us remember that these stand second to certain other things. There is need of a sound body, and even more of a sound mind. But above mind and above body stands character - the sum of those qualities which we mean when we speak of a man's force and courage, of his good faith and sense of honor. I believe in exercise for the body, always provided that we keep in mind that physical development is a means and not an end. I believe, of course, in giving to all the people a good education. But the education must contain much besides book learning in order to be really good. We must ever remember that no keenness and subtleness of intellect, no polish, no cleverness, in any way make up for the lack of the great solid qualities. Self-restraint, self-mastery, common sense, the power of accepting individual responsibility and yet of acting in conjunction with others, courage and resolution - these are the qualities which mark a masterful people. Without them no people can control itself, or save itself from being controlled from the outside. I speak to brilliant assemblage; I speak in a great university which represents the flower of the highest intellectual development; I pay all homage to intellect and to elaborate and specialized training of the intellect; and yet I know I shall have the assent of all of you present when I add that more important still are the commonplace, every-day qualities and virtues.

"Such ordinary, every-day qualities include the will and the power to work, to fight at need, and to have plenty of healthy children. The need that the average man shall work is so obvious as hardly to warrant insistence. There are a few people in every country so born that they can lead lives of leisure. These fill a useful function if they make it evident that leisure does not mean idleness; for some of the most valuable work needed by civilization is essentially non-remunerative in its character, and of course the people who do this work should in large part be drawn from those to whom remuneration is an object of indifference. But the average man must earn his own livelihood. He should be trained to do so, and he should be trained to feel that he occupies a contemptible position if he does not do so; that he is not an object of envy if he is idle, at whichever end of the social scale he stands, but an object of contempt, an object of derision. In the next place, the good man should be both a strong and a brave man; that is, he should be able to fight, he should be able to serve his country as a soldier, if the need arises. There are well-meaning philosophers who declaim against the unrighteousness of war. They are right only if they lay all their emphasis upon the unrighteousness. War is a dreadful thing, and unjust war is a crime against humanity. But it is such a crime because it is unjust, not because it is a war. The choice must ever be in favor of righteousness, and this is whether the alternative be peace or whether the alternative be war. The question must not be merely, Is there to be peace or war? The question must be, Is it right to prevail? Are the great laws of righteousness once more to be fulfilled? And the answer from a strong and virile people must be `Yes,' whatever the cost. Every honorable effort should always be made to avoid war, just as every honorable effort should always be made by the individual in private life to keep out of a brawl, to keep out of trouble; but no self-respecting individual, no self-respecting nation, can or ought to submit to wrong.

"Finally, even more important than ability to work, even more important than ability to fight at need, is it to remember that chief of blessings for any nations is that it shall leave its seed to inherit the land. It was the crown of blessings in Biblical times and it is the crown of blessings now. The greatest of all curses is in the curse of sterility, and the severest of all condemnations should be that visited upon willful sterility. The first essential in any civilization is that the man and women shall be father and mother of healthy children, so that the race shall increase and not decrease. If that is not so, if through no fault of the society there is failure to increase, it is a great misfortune. If the failure is due to the deliberate and willful fault, then it is not merely a misfortune, it is one of those crimes of ease and self-indulgence, of shrinking from pain and effort and risk, which in the long run nature punishes more heavily than any other. If we of the great Republics, if we, the free people who claim to have emancipated ourselves form the thralldom of wrong and error, bring down on our heads the curse that comes upon the willfully barren, then it will be an idle waste of breath to prattle of our achievements, to boast of all that we have done. No refinement of life, no delicacy of taste, no material progress, no sordid heaping up riches, no sensuous development of art and literature, can in any way compensate for the loss of the great fundamental virtues; and of these great fundamental virtues the greatest is the race's power to perpetuate the race. Character must show itself in the man's performance both of the duty he owes himself and of the duty he owes the state. The man's foremost duty is owed to himself and his family; and he can do this duty only by earning money, by providing what is essential to material well-being; it is only after this has been done that he can hope to build a higher superstructure on the solid material foundation; it is only after this has been done that he can help in his movements for the general well-being. He must pull his own weight first, and only after this can his surplus strength be of use to the general public. It is not good to excite that bitter laughter which expresses contempt; and contempt is what we feel for the being whose enthusiasm to benefit Mankind is such that he is a burden to those nearest him; who wishes to do great things for humanity in the abstract, but who cannot keep his wife in comfort or educate his children.

"Nevertheless, while laying all stress on this point, while not merely acknowledging but insisting upon the fact that there must be a basis of material well-being for the individual as for the nation, let us with equal emphasis insist that this material well-being represents nothing but the foundation, and that the foundation, though indispensable, is worthless unless upon it is raised the superstructure of a higher life. That is why I decline to recognize the mere multimillionaire, the man of mere wealth, as an asset of value to any country; and especially as not an asset to my own country. If he has earned or uses his wealth in a way that makes him a real benefit, of real use \- and such is often the case - why, then he does become an asset of real worth? But it is the way in which it has been earned or used, and not the mere fact of wealth, that entitles him to the credit. There is need in business, as in most other forms of human activity, of the great guiding intelligences. Their places cannot be supplied by any number of lesser intelligences. It is a good thing that they should have ample recognition, ample reward. But we must not transfer our admiration to the reward instead of to the deed rewarded; and if what should be the reward exists without the service having been rendered, then admiration will only come from those who are mean of soul. The truth is that, after a certain measure of tangible material success or reward has been achieved, the question of increasing it becomes of constantly less importance compared to the other things that can be done in life. It is a bad thing for a nation to raise and to admire a false standard of success; and there can be no falser standard than that set by the deification of material well being in and for itself. But the man who, having far surpassed the limits of providing for the wants; both of the body and mind, of himself and of those depending upon him, then piles up a great fortune, for the acquisition or retention of which he returns no corresponding benefit to the nation as a whole, should himself be made to feel that, so far from being desirable, he is an unworthy citizen of the community: That he is to be neither admired nor envied; that his right-thinking fellow countrymen put him low in the scale of citizenship, and leave him to be consoled by the admiration of those whose level of purpose is even lower than his own.

"My position as regards the moneyed interests can be put in a few words. In every civilized society property rights must be carefully safeguarded; ordinarily, and in the great majority of cases, human rights and property rights are fundamentally and in the long run identical; but when it clearly appears that there is a real conflict between them, human rights must have the upper hand, for property belongs to man and not man to property. In fact, it is essential to good citizenship clearly to understand that there are certain qualities which we in a Democracy are prone to admire in and of themselves, which ought by rights to be judged admirable or the reverse solely from the standpoint of the use made of them. Foremost among these I should include two very distinct gifts - the gift of moneymaking and the gift of oratory. Moneymaking, the money touch I have spoken of above. It is a quality which in a moderate degree is essential. It may be useful when developed to a very great degree, but only if accompanied and controlled by other qualities; and without such control the possessor tends to develop into one of the least attractive types produced by a modern industrial Democracy. So it is with the orator. It is highly desirable that a leader of opinion in Democracy should be able to state his views clearly and convincingly. But all that the oratory can do of value to the community is enable the man thus to explain himself; if it enables the orator to put false values on things, it merely makes him power for mischief. Some excellent public servants have not that gift at all, and must merely rely on their deeds to speak for them; and unless oratory does represent genuine conviction based on good common sense and able to be translated into efficient performance, then the better the oratory the greater the damage to the public it deceives. Indeed, it is a sign of marked political weakness in any commonwealth if the people tend to be carried away by mere oratory, if they tend to value words in and for themselves, as divorced from the deeds for which they are supposed to stand. The phrase-maker, the phrase-monger, the ready talker, however great his power, whose speech does not make for courage, sobriety, and right understanding, is simply a noxious element in the body politic, and it speaks ill for the public if he has influence over them. To admire the gift of oratory without regard to the moral quality behind the gift is to do wrong to the republic.

"Of course all that I say of the orator applies with even greater force to the orator's latter-day and more influential brother, the journalist. The power of the journalist is great, but he is entitled neither to respect nor admiration because of that power unless it is used aright. He can do, and often does, great good. He can do, and he often does, infinite mischief. All journalists, all writers, for the very reason that they appreciate the vast possibilities of their profession, should bear testimony against those who deeply discredit it. Offenses against taste and morals, which are bad enough in a private citizen, are infinitely worse if made into instruments for debauching the community through a newspaper. Mendacity, slander, sensationalism, inanity, vapid triviality, all are potent factors for the debauchery of the public mind and conscience. The excuse advanced for vicious writing, that the public demands it and that demand must be supplied, can no more be admitted than if it were advanced by purveyors of food who sell poisonous adulterations. In short, the good citizen in a Republic must realize that he ought to possess two sets of qualities, and that neither avails without the other. He must have those qualities which make for efficiency; and that he also must have those qualities which direct the efficiency into channels for the public good. He is useless if he is inefficient. There is nothing to be done with that type of citizen of whom all that can be said is that he is harmless. Virtue which is dependent upon a sluggish circulation is not impressive. There is little place in active life for the timid good man. The man who is saved by weakness from robust wickedness is likewise rendered immune from robuster virtues. The good citizen in a republic must first of all be able to hold his own. He is no good citizen unless he has the ability which will make him work hard and which at need will make him fight hard. The good citizen is not a good citizen unless he is an efficient citizen.

"But if a man's efficiency is not guided and regulated by a moral sense, then the more efficient he is the worse he is, the more dangerous to the body politic. Courage, intellect, all the masterful qualities, serve but to make a man more evil if they are merely used for that man's own advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights of others. It speaks ill for the community if the community worships these qualities and treats their possessors as heroes regardless of whether the qualities are used rightly or wrongly. It makes no difference as to the precise way in which this sinister efficiency is shown. It makes no difference whether such a man's force and ability betray themselves in a career of moneymaker or politician, soldier or orator, journalist or popular leader. If the man works for evil, then the more successful he is the more he should be despised and condemned by all upright and far-seeing men. To judge a man merely by success is an abhorrent wrong; and if the people at large habitually so judge men, if they grow to condone wickedness because the wicked man triumphs, they show their inability to understand that in the last analysis free institutions rest upon the character of citizenship, and that by such admiration of evil they prove themselves unfit for liberty. The homely virtues of the household, the ordinary workaday virtues which make the woman a good housewife and housemother, which make the man a hard worker, a good husband and father, a good soldier at need, stand at the bottom of character. But of course many others must be added thereto if a state is to be not only free but great. Good citizenship is not good citizenship if only exhibited in the home. There remains the duties of the individual in relation to the state, and these duties are none too easy under the conditions which exist where the effort is made to carry on the free government in a complex industrial civilization. Perhaps the most important thing the ordinary citizen, and, above all, the leader of ordinary citizens, has to remember in political life is that he must not be a sheer doctrinaire. The closest philosopher, the refined and cultured individual who from his library tells how men ought to be governed under ideal conditions, is of no use in actual governmental work; and the one-sided fanatic, and still more the mob leader, and the insincere man who to achieve power promises what by no possibility can be performed, are not merely useless but noxious.

"The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able to achieve them in practical fashion. No permanent good comes from aspirations so lofty that they have grown fantastic and have become impossible and indeed undesirable to realize. The impractical visionary is far less often the guide and precursor than he is the embittered foe of the real reformer, of the man who, with stumblings and shortcoming, yet does in some shape, in practical fashion, give effect to the hopes and desires of those who strive for better things. Woe to the empty phrase-maker, to the empty idealist, who, instead of making ready the ground for the man of action, turns against him when he appears and hampers him when he does work! Moreover, the preacher of ideals must remember how sorry and contemptible is the figure which he will cut, how great the damage that he will do, if he does not himself, in his own life, strive measurably to realize the ideals that he preaches for others. Let him remember also that the worth of the ideal must be largely determined by the success with which it can in practice be realized. We should abhor the so-called `practical' men whose practicality assumes the shape of that peculiar baseness which finds its expression in disbelief in morality and decency, in disregard of high standards of living and conduct. Such a creature is the worst enemy of the body of politic. But only less desirable as a citizen is his nominal opponent and real ally, the man of fantastic vision who makes the impossible better forever the enemy of the possible good.

"We can just as little afford to follow the doctrinaires of an extreme individualism as the doctrinaires of an extreme socialism. Individual initiative, so far from being discouraged, should be stimulated; and yet we should remember that, as society develops and grows more complex, we continually find that things which once it was desirable to leave to individual initiative can, under changed conditions, be performed with better results by common effort. It is quite impossible, and equally undesirable, to draw in theory a hard-and-fast line which shall always divide the two sets of cases. This every one who is not cursed with the pride of the closest philosopher will see, if he will only take the trouble to think about some of our closet phenomena. For instance, when people live on isolated farms or in little hamlets, each house can be left to attend to its own drainage and water-supply; but the mere multiplication of families in a given area produces new problems which, because they differ in size, are found to differ not only in degree, but in kind from the old; and the questions of drainage and water-supply have to be considered from the common standpoint. It is not a matter for abstract dogmatizing to decide when this point is reached; it is a matter to be tested by practical experiment. Much of the discussion about socialism and individualism is entirely pointless, because of the failure to agree on terminology. It is not good to be a slave of names. I am a strong individualist by personal habit, inheritance, and conviction; but it is a mere matter of common sense to recognize that the state, the community, the citizens acting together, can do a number of things better than if they were left to individual action. The individualism which finds its expression in the abuse of physical force is checked very early in the growth of civilization, and we of today should in our turn strive to shackle or destroy that individualism which triumphs by greed and cunning, which exploits the weak by craft instead of ruling them by brutality. We ought to go with any man in the effort to bring about justice and the equality of opportunity, to turn the tool-user more and more into the tool-owner, to shift burdens so that they can be more equitably borne. The deadening effect on any race of the adoption of a logical and extreme socialistic system could not be overstated; it would spell sheer destruction; it would produce grosser wrong and outrage, fouler immortality, than any existing system. But this does not mean that we may not with great advantage adopt certain of the principles professed by some given set of men who happen to call themselves socialists; to be afraid to do so would be to make a mark of weakness on our part.

"But we should not take part in acting a lie any more than in telling a lie. We should not say that men are equal where they are not equal, nor proceed upon the assumption that there is an equality where it does not exist; but we should strive to bring about a measurable equality, at least to the extent of preventing the inequality which is due to force or fraud. Abraham Lincoln, a man of the plain people, blood of their blood, and bone of their bone, who all his life toiled and wrought and suffered for them, at the end died for them, who always strove to represent them, who would never tell an untruth to or for them, spoke of the doctrine of equality with his usual mixture of idealism and sound common sense.

"I think the authors of the Declaration of Independence intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal -equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all - constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and, even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, everywhere.

"We are bound in honor to refuse to listen to those men who would make us desist from the effort to do away with the inequality which means injustice; the inequality of right, opportunity, of privilege. We are bound in honor to strive to bring ever nearer the day when, as far is humanly possible, we shall be able to realize the ideal that each man shall have an equal opportunity to show the stuff that is in him by the way in which he renders service. There should, so far as possible, be equal of opportunity to render service; but just so long as there is inequality of service there should and must be inequality of reward. We may be sorry for the general, the painter, the artists, the worker in any profession or of any kind, whose misfortune rather than whose fault it is that he does his work ill. But the reward must go to the man who does his work well; for any other course is to create a new kind of privilege, the privilege of folly and weakness; and special privilege is injustice, whatever form it takes.

"To say that the thriftless, the lazy, the vicious, the incapable, ought to have reward given to those who are far-sighted, capable, and upright, is to say what is not true and cannot be true. Let us try to level up, but let us beware of the evil of leveling down. If a man stumbles, it is a good thing to help him to his feet. Every one of us needs a helping hand now and then. But if a man lies down, it is a waste of time to try and carry him; and it is a very bad thing for every one if we make men feel that the same reward will come to those who shirk their work and those who do it. Let us, then, take into account the actual facts of life, and not be misled into following any proposal for achieving the Millennium, for recreating the golden age, until we have subjected it to hardheaded examination. On the other hand, it is foolish to reject a proposal merely because it is advanced by visionaries. If a given scheme is proposed, look at it on its merits, and, in considering it, disregard formulas. It does not matter in the least who proposes it, or why. If it seems good, try it. If it proves good, accept it; otherwise reject it. There are plenty of good men calling themselves socialists with whom, up to a certain point, it is quite possible to work. If the next step is one which both we and they wish to take, why of course take it, without any regard to the fact that our views as to the tenth step may differ. But, on the other hand, keep clearly in mind that, though it has been worth while to take one step, this does not in the least mean that it may not be highly disadvantageous to take the next. It is just as foolish to refuse all progress because people demanding it desire at some points to go to absurd extremes, as it would be to go to these absurd extremes simply because some of the measures advocated by the extremists were wise.

"The good citizen will demand liberty for himself, and as a matter of pride he will see to it that others receive liberty which he thus claims as his own. Probably the best test of true love of liberty in any country is the way in which minorities are treated in that country. Not only should there be complete liberty in matters of religion and opinion, but complete liberty for each man to lead his life as he desires, provided only that in so he does not wrong his neighbor. Persecution is bad because it is persecution, and without reference to which side happens at the most to be the persecutor and which the persecuted. Class hatred is bad in just the same way, and without regard to the individual who, at a given time, substitutes loyalty to a class for loyalty to a nation, of substitutes hatred of men because they happen to come in a certain social category, for judgment awarded them according to their conduct. Remember always that the same measure of condemnation should be extended to the arrogance which would look down upon or crush any man because he is poor and to envy and hatred which would destroy a man because he is wealthy. The overbearing brutality of the man of wealth or power, and the envious and hateful malice directed against wealth or power, are really at root merely different manifestations of the same quality, merely two sides of the same shield. The man who, if born to wealth and power, exploits and ruins his less fortunate brethren is at heart the same as the greedy and violent demagogue who excites those who have not property to plunder those who have. The gravest wrong upon his country is inflicted by that man, whatever his station, who seeks to make his countrymen divide primarily in the line that separates class from class, occupation from occupation, men of more wealth from men of less wealth, instead of remembering that the only safe standard is that which judges each man on his worth as a man, whether he be rich or whether he be poor, without regard to his profession or to his station in life. Such is the only true Democratic test, the only test that can with propriety be applied in a Republic. There have been many Republics in the past, both in what we call antiquity and in what we call the Middle Ages. They fell, and the prime factor in their fall was the fact that the parties tended to divide along the wealth that separates wealth from poverty. It made no difference which side was successful; it made no difference whether the Republic fell under the rule of and oligarchy or the rule of a mob. In either case, when once loyalty to a class had been substituted for loyalty to the Republic, the end of the Republic was at hand. There is no greater need today than the need to keep ever in mind the fact that the cleavage between right and wrong, between good citizenship and bad citizenship, runs at right angles to, and not parallel with, the lines of cleavage between class and class, between occupation and occupation. Ruin looks us in the face if we judge a man by his position instead of judging him by his conduct in that position.

"In a republic, to be successful we must learn to combine intensity of conviction with a broad tolerance of difference of conviction. Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth. Bitter internecine hatreds, based on such differences, are signs, not of earnestness of belief, but of that fanaticism which, whether religious or antireligious, Democratic or anti-Democratic, it itself but a manifestation of the gloomy bigotry which has been the chief factor in the downfall of so many, many nations.

"Of one man is especial, beyond any one else, the citizens of a Republic should beware, and that is of the man who appeals to them to support him on the ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the Republic, that he will secure for those who elect him, in one shape or another, profit at the expense of other citizens of the Republic. It makes no difference whether he appeals to class hatred or class interest, to religious or antireligious prejudice. The man who makes such an appeal should always be presumed to make it for the sake of furthering his own interest. The very last thing an intelligent and self-respecting member of a Democratic community should do is to reward any public man because that public man says that he will get the private citizen something to which this private citizen is not entitled, or will gratify some emotion or animosity which this private citizen ought not to possess. Let me illustrate this by one anecdote from my own experience. A number of years ago I was engaged in cattle ranching on the Great Plains of the western United States. There were no fences. The cattle wandered free, the ownership of each one was determined by the brand; the calves were branded with the brand of the cows they followed. If on a round up an animal was passed by, the following year it would appear as an unbranded yearling, and was then called a maverick. By the custom of the country these mavericks were branded with the brand of the man on whose range they were found. One day I was riding the range with a newly hired cowboy, and we came upon a maverick. We roped and threw it; then we built a fire, took out a cinch-ring, heated it in the fire; and then the cowboy started to put on the brand. I said to him, `It's so-and-so's brand,' naming the man on whose range we happened to be. He answered: `That's all right, boss; I know my business.' In another moment I said to him: "`Hold on, you are putting on my brand!' To which he answered: `That's all right; I always put on the boss's brand.' I answered: `Oh, very well. Now you go straight back to the ranch and get whatever is owing to you; I don't need you any longer.' He jumped up and said: `Why, what's the matter? I was putting on your brand.' And I answered: `Yes, my friend, and if you will steal for me then you will steal from me.'

"Now, the same principle which applies in private life applies also in public life. If a public man tries to get your vote by saying that he will do something wrong in your interest, you can be absolutely certain that if ever it becomes worth his while he will do something wrong against your interest. So much for the citizenship to the individual in his relations to his family, to his neighbor, to the state. There remain duties of citizenship which the state, the aggregation of all the individuals, owes in connection with other states, with other nations. Let me say at once that I am no advocate of a foolish cosmopolitanism. I believe that a man must be a good patriot before he can be, and as the only possible way of being, a good citizen of the world. Experience teaches us that the average man who protests that his international feeling swamps his national feeling, that he does not care for his country because he cares so much for Mankind, in actual practice proves himself the foe of Mankind; that the man who says that he does not care to be a citizen of any one country, because he is the citizen of the world, is in fact usually and exceedingly undesirable citizen of whatever corner of the world he happens at the moment to be in. In the dim future all moral needs and moral standards may change; but at present, if a man can view his own country and all others countries from the same level with tepid indifference, it is wise to distrust him, just as it is wise to distrust the man who can take the same dispassionate view of his wife and mother. However broad and deep a man's sympathies, however intense his activities, he need have no fear that they will be cramped by love of his native land.

"Now, this does not mean in the least that a man should not wish to do good outside of his native land. On the contrary, just as I think that the man who loves his family is more apt to be a good neighbor than the man who does not, so I think that the most useful member of the family of nations is normally a strongly patriotic nation. So far from patriotism being inconsistent with a proper regard for the rights of other nations, I hold that the true patriot, who is as jealous of the national honor as a gentleman of his own honor, will be careful to see that the nations neither inflicts nor suffers wrong, just as a gentleman scorns equally to wrong others or to suffer others to wrong him. I do not for one moment admit that a man should act deceitfully as a public servant in his dealing with other nations, any more than he should act deceitfully in his dealings as a private citizen with other private citizens. I do not for one moment admit that a nation should treat other nations in a different spirit from that in which an honorable man would treat other men.

"In practically applying this principle to the two sets of cases there is, of course, a great practical difference to be taken into account. We speak of international law; but international law is something wholly different from private or municipal law, and the capital difference is that there is a sanction for the one and no sanction for the other; that there is an outside force which compels individuals to obey the one, while there is no such outside force to compel obedience as regards to the other. International law will, I believe, as the generations pass, grow stronger and stronger until in some way or other there develops the power to make it respected. But as yet it is only in the first formative period. As yet, as a rule, each nation is of necessity to judge for itself in matters of vital importance between it and its neighbors, and actions must be of necessity, where this is the case, be different from what they are where, as among private citizens, there is an outside force whose action is all-powerful and must be invoked in any crisis of importance. It is the duty of wise statesman, gifted with the power of looking ahead, to try to encourage and build up every movement which will substitute or tend to substitute some other agency for force in the settlement of international disputes. It is the duty of every honest statesman to try to guide the nation so that it shall not wrong any other nation. But as yet the great civilized peoples, if they are to be true to themselves and to the cause of humanity and civilization, must keep in mind that in the last resort they must possess both the will and the power to resent wrong-doings from others. The men who sanely believe in a lofty morality preach righteousness; but they do not preach weakness, whether among private citizens or among nations. We believe that our ideals should be so high, but not so high as to make it impossible measurably to realize them. We sincerely and earnestly believe in peace; but if peace and justice conflict, we scorn the man who would not stand for justice though the whole world came in arms against him.

"And now, my hosts, a word in parting. You and I belong to the only two Republics among the great powers of the world. The ancient friendship between France and the United States has been, on the whole, a sincere and disinterested friendship. A calamity to you would be a sorrow to us. But it would be more than that. In the seething turmoil of the history of humanity certain nations stand out as possessing a peculiar power or charm, some special gift of beauty or wisdom of strength, which puts them among the immortals, which makes them rank forever with the leaders of Mankind. France is one of these nations. For her to sink would be a loss to all the world. There are certain lessons of brilliance and of generous gallantry that she can teach better than any of her sister nations. When the French peasantry sang of Malbrook, it was to tell how the soul of this warrior-foe took flight upward through the laurels he had won. Nearly seven centuries ago, Froisart, writing of the time of dire disaster, said that the realm of France was never so stricken that there were not left men who would valiantly fight for it. You have had a great past. I believe you will have a great future. Long may you carry yourselves proudly as citizens of a nation which bears a leading part in the teaching and uplifting of Mankind."

Teddy Roosevelt's "The man in the arena" speech may be the most complete description of the American character ever made. It was given in the middle of the Industrial Revolution, the height of European immigration to the United States, and just prior to World War I. It summarized Roosevelt's Presidency, in which he ushered the U.S. into a position as a modern world power. It came on the heels of a century of European revolution, American transcontinentalism, Reconstruction and Manifest Destiny. There is little ground that T.R. fails to cover.

The speech is remarkably prescient in its combination of approach and warning against socialism (Communism), despotism and totalitarianism. It contains fabulous religious philosophy, explanations of capitalism, nationalism, patriotism, internationalism and militarism, all expressed in high minded, moral terms. It provides a thorough plank of modern Republican (conservative) thought, and warns us to beware of people like the Clintons, described in detail by Roosevelt 83 years prior to their ascent to power. It is just as foretelling in its description of the media, and of course provides its greatest service in putting words to a philosophy that can be summed up as, "Criticize, but in so doing, offer solutions."

The speech describes individualism and civic duty. It is important to understand that in 1910, Freud was very influential. Roosevelt's combination of rugged self-expression in combination with Platonic notions of goodness mixed with the "warrior spirit" stand in stark contrast to the modern negativity of Freud.

Roosevelt also demonstrates admirable diplomatic deft in the "arena" speech. Knowing that socialists in Europe, not to mention American Democrats would hear him, he espoused notions found in the Founding Fathers aspirations for a two-party system of "checks and balances." T.R. plainly states that good ideas should be listened to, instead of holding a rigid line against the "egalitarianism" of pre-Soviet Russia.

Spoken by an American to an intellectual audience of elite French graduates, the speech incorporated the essence of education, which is to learn from the past. T.R. brilliantly demonstrated that the runaway success of America, so apparent at that time, was the result of overcoming the mistakes of the centuries.

Like so many great speeches, it is best regarded for what was ignored in it. Considering the events of the next 35 years, much of the world did not adhere to Roosevelt's creed.

The Old West

The business of America, it has been said, is business. Business suffers during wars, although there are exceptions to this rule. There is and always has been a military industrial complex that goes hand in hand with war. Dwight Eisenhower warned against it when he left office in 1961. The Leftists of the 1960s, emboldened by America's difficulties in Southeast Asia, attempted to demonize American corporations who supplied war material to the military. This led to a re-birth of socialist thinking that identified big business, especially oil companies, as being exploiters of the poor.

The economy did quite well during Vietnam, due in no small part to the need to supply the war and prepare for the threats imposed by Communist monoliths in China and the Soviet Union. But economies do their best work during peacetime, particularly during periods following wars. America's Roaring '20s followed the Great War, and we made unprecedented financial progress in the years after World War II.

The United States prospered after the revolution, but made amazing strides once the War Between the States was concluded. The Industrial Revolution had begun. War, for all of its horrors (or more precisely military necessity), creates advances in creative production. The space race, for instance, was responsible for many modern conveniences, just a few of which include cable television, cell phones, microwave ovens, and computers.

But the industrial North that supplied the Federal Army quickly turned its attention to the business of re-building America. This effort ran into problems early on in the South, because the Reconstruction was a rocky, 12-year experience. Some honest Southern farmers proposed agricultural projects that would have expanded acreage, employing thousands of former slaves, providing badly needed foodstuffs to a starving populace, giving the region a psychological shot in the arm. This would have provided a desperate stimulus to the area. Unfortunately, Northern banks simply refused to loan money to Southern business. Carpetbaggers who lacked the expertise or the "landscape" were the only ones allowed to do business. They provided no good service to the South.

Eventually Southern farmers were able to borrow money based on a scheme called crop mortgage. Sharecroppers emerged, and while they were not able to become independent, they did survive. Prejudice against the South gradually gave way to the obvious fact that they had the best soil and climate for agriculture. Yields were needed everywhere. As the South regained a toehold on the manufacture of its staple, cotton, they were able to work their way out of their war and post-war debts. New machinery was bought and made manufacturing much easier and more profitable. However, there is a terrible irony in this. The need for slavery would have dwindled greatly had these manufacturing tools come along without the war, and the war had been fought over slavery. The devil works like that.

As mentioned, the end of slavery had the war not been fought is pure conjecture. I have posited the notion that only major social events like the World Wars might have forced slavery to an end. This is based on social tradition and Southern stubbornness. This scenario may be revised based on the new advances in farming technology, embodied by the cotton mills that came about in the late 1870s. Cotton mills in New England eventually closed shop and moved to the South, the land of King Cotton.

Tobacco manufacturing rose in the South, as did iron and coal. More importantly, with the rise of business, a new class replaced the old one. The old aristocrats, educated only in the arts of fine wines, hunting, riding, and other non-essentials of life, were replaced by entrepreneurs and men of training and production. Politically, the South was virtually 100 percent Democrat, because Lincoln had been a Republican. They remained that way until the 1970s.

In the West, there had been a Gold Rush in 1849. California was a loyal contributor to the Union, but its distance from the battlefields was so great that it was not terribly affected. After the war, as the Indian battles were fought and more and more land became available for settlement, another migration of ex-soldiers and adventurers came West to mine for gold, silver, copper, lead, coal, iron and quicksilver. Every kind of thief, murderer, desperado, lady, prostitute, child, lawyer, Christian, Indian, Chinaman, Spaniard, Negro, gambler, sharper, coyote, poet, preacher, jack rabbit and soldier inhabited the small towns of the West. The new big city of the Barbary Coast extravaganza was San Francisco.

Easterners called it the Wild West. The great writer Mark Twain came out to emblazon his words across the landscape, memorializing forever the mystique of this new land. Lawlessness threatened to make life in the settlements all but impossible, but the American spirit also required order. Honest men were found and recruited to take jobs as sheriffs. They hired vigilantes to do battle with gunslingers, claim jumpers and all form of desperados. These men were often judge, jury and hangman all in the field, and they won the West.

When lawlessness was defeated, a new brand of horseman emerged; often ex-soldiers who knew how to ride and fend for themselves on the prairie. They were cowboys. This rugged breed was a type never seen before in any country. In many ways, the cowboy represents America more than any other symbol. The reality is, of course, not the same as the legend, but legends like this are based on more than a little bit if truth.

Cowboys tended to be honest, hardworking, rugged, and individualistic. They were athletic, folksy heroes, not burdened by the racial baggage of the Negro issue that permeated society east of the Mississippi River. Women fell for them, and children idolized them. Stories of cowboys were told in Europe and throughout the world, creating a positive image of America that was beyond the value of money.

Cowboys helped to develop the West, and engaged in cattle drives that were the foundation of our beef and leather industry. Improved refrigeration turned ranching into one of our most successful businesses. Cowboys may have shed themselves of the divisive slavery issue, but their legacy is not perfect. They fought the Indians and created the infamous phrase, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." Hollywood made many "cowboys and Indians" movies, depicting courageous white men defending women and children from savage tribes. When children played "cowboys and Indians," the kids always wanted to be the cowboys, not the Indians.

These are based on stereotypes. It is instructive to point out a few things. One is that stereotypes are almost always based on some truth, the amount of which differs from case to case. The other is that the winners write history. In every way – ethnic, religious, political, and national – I am a member of the "winning" class. My account of history can be read and understood that it comes to you through such a lens. Fair enough. I recognize this. I make the best effort I can to write a truthful account of history based on my research. I have a strong point of view, an agenda, if you will, and freely admit that. But I also know that a depiction of white settlers as genocidal murderers is fictitious.

The whites did do things that were morally questionable. The buffalo had supplied the Indians with much of their food, clothing, skins for teepees and string for their bows. In the early 1870s, millions roamed the plains. In 1869, the Kansas Railroad had to wait eight hours while a steady stream of buffalo poured across their tracks. In 20 years, the whites killed most of them.

This was one of the most heart-breaking aspects of Indian conquest. The American government faced difficult choices. They knew that settlement was inevitable, conflict with Indian tribes unavoidable, and they wanted to do the right thing. Something had to give. As with all events in which technologically advanced people meet backward peoples, the backward people lost. But the government did not just leave the Indians to their own devices. In 1887, the Dawes Act provided for dividing up the land by members of the tribes held in common, into individual farms. This made it easier for Indians to obtain ownership of their land. Any Indian who wished was _given_ 160 acres for free, which they could sell if they so chose. Indians were given American citizenship. Many profited. White farmers were happy that they were no longer subject to scalping parties.

Government welfare increased to the Indians every year. Indian population has steadily gone up from what it was when they were fighting against the Army. Much of the land they were re-settled on, however, was not prosperous soil. Disease and alcohol became major problems, which can be related to a lack of pride. This was the result of their heritage as braves coming to an end. The government financed Indian schools. Many Indians were not motivated to learn the new tenets of education.

The legacy of Indians is a mixed one, as it is with African-Americans. The question remains, in both cases, whether they would have been better off left untouched. An African-American in 2003 probably does not engage in such philosophizing. This does not change the fact that had their ancestors never been brought here on slave ships, they may not be alive today. Their ancestors likely would have died of starvation, famine, disease, genocide, tribal warfare, or cruelty at the hands of a despotic African dictator/warlord in Africa. Had those ancestors not died that way, and they survived to live in modern day Africa, they very likely would be living under an unjust regime. They probably would be mired in poverty, and if given the chance to come to America would jump at the chance. Instead, they are already imbued with full U.S. citizenship. This may be a simplistic view and considered outrageously politically incorrect. It does not change the basic premise of truth that lies at the heart of the theory.

The same applies to Native Americans. If the whites had simply left them alone, huge numbers would have died of diseases and in inter-tribal wars. They had been fighting amongst themselves for centuries. Had the whites never interfered with them, they would be excoriated for neglecting the Indians by not providing all them modern amenities. Had the whites never come to the West, there would be an enormous clamor to bring roads, hospitals, medicine and a better way to the natives.

Sometimes, you cannot win. You just stay the course as best you can.

Farming, finally, ended the Wild West period. The creation of barbed wire made it possible to fence in grazing lands and prevent cattle from trampling crops. Stagecoach, pony express mail carriers and telegraph invention made communication between the East and the West common. Railroads, however, truly bridged the great divide. For some time, railroad travel was still subject to robbers and Indian raiders. Eventually travel between the coasts was no longer a military-style incursion into "enemy territory," but rather an adventure that even families could engage in.

Two companies, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, built transcontinental railroads. The Central Pacific joined San Francisco with the Great Salt Lake. The U.P. ran from San Francisco across the Platte Valley to Omaha, Nebraska. Thousands of Chinese coolies were brought in to work the railroads. The story of the Chinese, like that of other minorities in this country, is instructive and worth shedding some truth to.

Not long ago I saw a documentary on the early Chinese. It was a typical depiction of how the Chinese were hated, exploited, discriminated against, and attacked by racist whites in the U.S. It was made to sound like life here for them was similar to a Russian Jew forced into starvation on a collectivist farm by the Stalinist _gruppe._ This went on for an hour or so. Then the documentary switched over to descriptions of what the Chinese went through to get here. For years and years, as generations became new generations, Chinese men, women and children spent their entire life savings; begging, borrowing, stealing, and placing themselves in indentured servitude, to keep coming to the U.S. They hid in cargo ships. They endured starvation, disease and terrible hardships that cannot be imagined by modern people, all to come to the U.S.

_Res ipsa loquiter_ ("the thing speaks for itself").

Two important things must be noted in studying the American West. First, it was a movement unlike any other in history. Second, it represented achievement unparalleled by man.

The Old West was populated by settlers much the way the former Mexican territories had been populated by frontiersmen, invited by the Mexican government to help protect their villages from savage Indian marauders stealing their harvests. Virtually all major expansion, with a few exceptions (such as Jewish Exodus), had been the result of government fiat. Empires would send armies to do battle with indigenous defenders. Once the wars were won, expansionism was safe to proceed.

The U.S. government did indeed encourage settlement of the West. The Lewis and Clark Expedition was sponsored by Washington. But the settlement was different in that ordinary citizens, not the Army, started it. It was only after enough citizens populated the West, and began to out-number the Indians and Mexicans, that the military was sent in to protect their interests.

Furthermore, "how the West was won" represents monumental achievement. No other country on the face of the planet was capable of achieving what the U.S. did, in so short a time. Thomas Jefferson predicted that Americanizing the West would take well over a century. It took less than half of one.

The building of the transcontinental railroad over the Rocky Mountains was mind blowing in its scope. It was the result of technology, will and hard labor never seen before, with the possible exception of the Pyramids. Like much of the West, Chinese immigrants built it in large part. When the job was done, they were dismissed and given little credit. The Chinese are the forgotten workers of the West. They had come to pan for gold after it was discovered in California. They were shoved to the least-productive sites. By dint of sheer hard work they created a living. They eventually made up generations of Chinese-American culture that is part of the rich cultural diversity of California. Today, their ancestors are among the most successful students and professionals in the country.

The Industrial Revolution

As the country grew, big business grew. America became a land of enterprise. The simple fact is that we became very good at it. The freedoms and opportunities of the United States created great wealth and entrepreneurial spirit. The nation was rich in natural resources and trade flowed in and out of our borders. Governments at the national, state and local levels encouraged business without heavy interference or taxation. Tariffs protected us from foreign competition. Americans were hard workers, and our population was chock-full of skilled, educated people and eager laborers. American invention was an eye-popping success. Technological progress eclipsed accomplishments in other parts of the world. Our leaders were smart visionaries.

The steel industry emerged as the biggest in the country. Steel was used to build railroads, skyscrapers and machinery. It was cheap and plentiful. Prior to the Civil War, cast iron was used, but it broke easily. It was actually an Englishman, Henry Bessemer, who created an inexpensive way to refine and harden steel. It was Andrew Carnegie, a Scotch immigrant, who organized the industry. Growing up and working on the Pennsylvania Railroad, Carnegie saved several thousand dollars by the time he was 24, and he saw the future. He joined up as a partner with Bessemer. In the Panic of 1873, when business came to a near-standstill, Carnegie made his move. With thousands of men out of work and willing to work for cheap wages, he opened a steel mill in Pittsburgh, made contracts with the railroads, and spread his mills throughout the nation.

Oil was discovered in northwestern Pennsylvania, which farmers used to skim and grease their wagon wheels. Some saw future value in it, and began to refine it. Oil was also created from coal. While the Civil War was still raging, prospectors flocked to Pennsylvania to drill for oil almost in as many numbers as they had traveled to California for the Gold Rush. John D. Rockefeller invested in refineries. He formed Standard Oil in Ohio. He had made a fortune selling groceries to the Union Army. As he drilled and refined for oil, it became a hot commodity. To buy Standard Oil stock early without selling it meant automatic millionaire status. Rockefeller was a hard-nosed businessman and he cornered the market. When the automobile became popular, oil became more than just big business. It became a bonanza with enormous social and political implications.

Meatpacking became a huge industry. Westinghouse invented the airbrake, allowing trains to stop without the help of brakemen. Signals were developed which allowed train engineers to know if the track ahead was unclear. Legal arrangements were made to ensure the safety of business, in the form of corporations, shareholding, partnerships and trusts. Eventually, trusts grew into monopolies. Standard Oil managed, through a monopolistic trust, to control 90 percent of the oil business in the U.S.

In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, which attempted to eliminate trusts. It went too far and business lawyers found ways around it. Holding companies were created out of the antitrust situation. Rising from this period was J.P. Morgan, who revised the banking and manufacturing industries. Morgan went into business with Carnegie, and with Carnegie's retirement Morgan built United States Steel into the world's first billion-dollar corporation. By 1900, the U.S. was the richest nation on Earth. It had taken 124 years.

As stock trading increased, various unfair practices emerged. Problems with the stock market occurred. "Watering down" a stock or selling with insider information became common practice. The oil and railroad business joined together to create lower costs for themselves. But the benefits of big business far outweighed the few public affronts. By and large, the complaints were those who had not been able to succeed in competition with those who worked harder, came up with better ideas, and acted on their discoveries faster. If one wished to work hard and had the right stuff, they might not necessarily become a major captain of industry, but they could succeed beyond the wildest dreams of businessmen throughout history. The dream became known as the American Dream.

Rockefeller and others created jobs and wealth. This in turn created medical research, education, religious institutions, halls of academe, charities and philanthropy on a scale never before imagined. In 1946, Rockefeller's son simply wrote a check for $8.5 million so the United Nations would have a headquarters building in New York City. Stock ownership became a staple of average American portfolios. In its own way it has provided as much freedom to people as the Constitution or other liberties.

Socialists would have you believe that Carnegie, Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, so-called "robber barons" like Leland Stanford, Jr., and others had monopolized wealth in America at the expense of the "little guy," who was simply exploited by them. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The rise of big business gave rise to millions of small businesses, all working side-by-side with their larger contemporaries, in a beautiful system that combined competition with cooperation. The American capitalist system functioned to near perfection. The _rising tide lifts all boats._

Despite the wealth of the huge corporations, Rockefeller, Carnegie and Vanderbilt accounted for a mere _two percent_ of American product. This puts the lie to claims, on-going today and just as much a lie now as they were then, that the rich just get richer while the poor get poorer.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

By 1919, when big business reached its zenith, there were 175,000 manufacturing plants, mostly small. They turned out $5 billion worth of product. By 1930, there were 1,550,000 retail trade stores, 1,300,000 of which were independent. These were not famous companies, headline makers, or movers and shakers. They were just ordinary Americans taking care of their families, making their communities better, and passing on a legacy for the future. Every one of them, by their daily existence and success, places the words _liar_ on every picture ever published of Karl Marx.

This is not to say that every worker was rich. A fireman working for Commodore Vanderbilt, whose fortune was worth $104,000,000, made $41 a month. He had to pay his bills out of that. But if he worked hard and improved himself, he could make himself relatively indispensable. Instead of just being a hired hand performing the same dull task every day without desire to improve and move up the ladder, he had a chance to get into management and become most profitable. There were cutbacks, layoffs and other unfortunate setbacks, but the working man always had a place in the system. The working man with a desire to be more than that had a chance to become an important part of the system.

That being said, wage earners before 1900 made much lesser by comparison with wage earners today. Health care, unemployment and retirement needs were often not met. So many people poured into America in pursuit of opportunity that workers were easy to find. Many employers were not concerned with their personal needs. The workers began to demand the opportunity to bargain collectively, which is an interesting concept.

In the Bible, it is said of Caen and Abel that "I am not my brother's keeper." Jesus said we are all brothers and sisters, with a responsibility for each other. The question is, does this responsibility extend to employers and their employees. Christ was not making reference to workers' compensation, health care, and unemployment benefits. What everybody owes everybody is to treat each other with respect, to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

If a company can afford to provide benefits that create some security for their workers; and they can do so while still maintaining a healthy bottom line; and if the benefits they provide are, in the long run, going to make better, happier workers who in turn make the company better...then they should extend those benefits and securities. Today, most companies of decent size and repute provide benefits because they have found that it is of value to the company to do so. They have discovered that it does make for happier workers. The PR value within the community is often worth the costs involved. But as unions developed and tensions grew between workers and employers, many of the "victories" won by employees were in fact coerced or extorted from on companies.

The concept behind labor movements is more a social theory than an economic one. It is one that opened a hornet's nest of problems. Like affirmative action, an idea with some good precepts that in practice became unfair and quickly spun out of control, the worker-employer relationship is one that, when manipulated beyond a simple work-for-pay idea, spun out of control. A man is worth what he produces, in an open market. That day's work is what he is worth for that day. It does not, and should not guarantee, payment for the next day if on the next day he is unable, for any reason, to produce the work or similar results.

If a man suffers a non-work related injured and cannot work, the employer is not and must not be responsible for paying him. If the injury does occur on the job, the employer bears a certain responsibility. It must be restrained within the parameters of what the worker did, his value, production, and legitimate relationship to what his future value and earnings would have been. The responsibility of the injury to the employer must be judged fairly, based upon degrees of criminality, duty of care, or accident.

In "The Grapes of Wrath", which I thoroughly acknowledge to be one of the most well-written novels of all time, the blatantly socialist author John Steinbeck paints a grim picture of Okie migrant farm workers who are exploited by California farm bosses. Because there were more Okies than were needed to work the jobs, the employers were able to pay them less and less. If an Okie did not wish to work for what was offered, another Okie was. Steinbeck depicts this as crass unfairness and exploitation. The picture deserves to be looked at from an angle other than Steinbeck's.

The farm owner makes a profit, and Steinbeck takes exception to the fact that he makes this profit while the worker only makes a day wage. This does not take into account that the owner paid money for the farm, takes a financial risk in operating it, and takes on all the economic and legal responsibilities therein. Steinbeck also does not acknowledge that the owner ascended to this position, most likely, because he became educated, acquired skills, rose up through the ranks, separated himself by excellence, or any of the other ways that men of desire and hard work achieve success and freedom. Steinbeck would have you believe that all such men got to where they were because their fathers owned the farm (which, if this is the case, they probably acquired through hard work), or they are somebody's brother-in-law, or some other form of nepotism. Steinbeck seemed to be the kind of man who, if somebody else had written his books, would not admit that the books sold well and created wealth and fame because they were simply better than other books competing for space in bookstores. Rather it was because a rich man's son who knew the right publishers wrote them.

Steinbeck also makes little reference to the low skills of the Okies. They have no education, no real skills, and little background for much of the work they find in California. They dragged their families out West, placing their women and children in jeopardy. Steinbeck would place responsibility for the welfare of sick children and pregnant girls on the owners of farms who employ unskilled people to do jobs of limited duration. He also seems to find no understanding of basic business principles. The Okies had to leave their farms because they could not pay their debts to banks. The land was theirs, but they did not make much of the land. In order to survive they had to take loans from the banks. When they do not pay the loans back, Steinbeck just wants the banks to forgive all the debts, somehow not acknowledging the chaos that would cause if banks did this regularly. He never states the truth that there was never any law, rule or mandate that said those Okies had to take those loans.

The book creates sympathy for the families. A person would be heartless and unfeeling if he reads this work and does not feel sympathy. A thinking man would read Steinbeck and endeavor to create a system that addresses the problems described. But the key to understanding Steinbeck's work in context is to realize that at the heart of the book is _guilt._ Guilt is, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, a good thing. Guilt is what makes us do the right thing, to repent our sins, to moderate our behavior, and to right our wrongs. We feel guilt because we have been taught the difference between right and wrong. When we find ourselves on the wrong side of the moral equation, whether it is treating our mothers poorly or stealing, guilt plays upon our conscience.

But guilt _imposed_ upon us by others is much trickier, and needs to be judged in context. Steinbeck takes advantage of a relatively narrow set of circumstances. His great literary skills give us a one-way guilt trip without balance. Guilt and moral indignation are powerful because they are emotional, and place the recipient on the defensive. Most recipients of the guilt trip simply do not possess the skills, intellect and reasoning capabilities to accurately address the imposed emotional guilt, as I, for one, endeavor to do herein.

Anti-war protestors have taken a cue from the Steinbeck model, by lavishing outrage over civilian casualties, children killed by bombs, and hospitals filled with the victims of the American military. These depictions cause guilt and conscientious objection to any person with compassion. The anti-war crowd will have you think that if you are for war, you therefore are a warmonger, a person who enjoys violence, and has a contemptible lack of compassion for whatever victim class they adopt.

What these emotions are meant to evoke is a question, followed by a realization, that if you disagree with them you do not possess as much humanity as they do. If you enjoy seeing civilians, or anybody, getting killed wholesale, then you do lack humanity. But people have one real truth that is theirs, and that is what is in their hearts. The man who wanted to bring freedom to the people of Iraq, but knew there would be "collateral damage," does not lack humanity if he made the calculation that a few deaths are better than Saddam Hussein torturing and killing hundreds of thousands over generations.

V.I. Lenin defended killing as a political statement; killing for effect; killing to educate; killing to re-make through terror a mindset that will accept a new order that is destined. He meant to kill in order to eliminate political enemies, because those enemies provided something worse than armies of opposition: An idea. Lenin knew an idea was the most dangerous opponent. He saw himself as a social artist, or a chef, and the new order of Communism he oversaw was, to him, an "omelet."

Of course, there is still just a common understanding of Lenin that goes beyond all the metaphors and attempts at understanding him, and that is that the bastard was a bad guy. Period.

Now, getting back to emotion, guilt, and the union movement, which became associated with socialism and Communism or, "Reds" in America, the question of responsibility lies at the heart of what the employer owes the worker. The worker, in my view, needs to understand that what _earns_ him his keep, what makes him worth more than what the boss _wants_ to pay, is to make himself _better_ than average, to rise above his circumstance. If possible, to become indispensable to the employer. Easy? No. Success never is.

The main point of this discussion is to point out that the way guilt and emotion is used by the Left to propagate unjust policies in the name of justice. The identification and exposition of their lies is not an easy investigation. The devil makes it that way.

The fact is that the majority of businesses in America treated their workers fairly. A few were on the wrong side of the moral equation. In 1915, the United States Commission of Industrial Relations determined that a number of employers were "totally unconcerned with regard to the working and living conditions of their men." There actually had been about 150 labor unions prior to the Civil War. Membership numbered 25,000. When they tried to strike, the public strongly disapproved. An 1842 case, _Massachusetts Commonwealth vs. Hunt_ , ruled that strikes were legal. Locomotive engineers, shoemakers and machinists joined national unions after the war. A single national union was proposed in 1866, with draconian measures that tried to put blanket rules on all businesses. This movement faded away. The Knights of Labor claimed 800,000 members by 1886, but they too went too far, trying to take over entire businesses and industries and newspapers. In fact they did succeed in doing that. Then the very rules they advocated proved to be too costly for their business enterprises, so they went bankrupt.

Samuel Gompers emerged on the scene and formed the American Federation of Labor. Gompers engaged in direct talks between management and union leaders, and kept his goals narrowly focused. His organization became the AFL-CIO, and is the model for the modern union system. After World War I, state laws passed laws to try and protect workers.

Bloody strikes occurred between 1880 and 1900. Employers hired replacement workers, and strikers began the practice of picketing establishments. Two big strikes were the railroad strikes of 1877 and 1886. In both cases the public sided with the strikers, because they disliked the railroad barons and blamed Wall Street for wage cuts. Pulman workers went on strike in 1894, and riots occurred. Eugene Debs led the railroad workers. He tried to avoid violence but the union workers were predisposed to it. Debs found himself in jail President Grover Cleveland had to send Federal troops to Cleveland to break up the violent, radical unionists. Debs served a six-month jail sentence. When he came out he showed the true colors of both himself and the unions by advocating Marxism, which he did in six Presidential campaigns – all rejected by America. Debs' Marxist inculcation of the American union movement ultimately proved a cancer on society and the otherwise-legitimate value of unions. Men like Debs were not out to create safer, better conditions for workers that would operate within the engine of U.S. commerce. They were out to bring the country down because they did not like people making a great success of themselves in the free market system. This was an affront to their anarchist viewpoints.

As business developed and the Industrial Revolution plunged inexorably forward, cities grew. Farmers dreamed of making enough to move to the city. Immigrants teemed into the cities. Between 1860 and 1900, New York City tripled in size and Chicago expanded by 1,500 percent. In 1790, only three out of every 600 Americans lived in cities. By the 1950s, 65 percent of the U.S. were city dwellers. Factories, businesses, transportation and communication facilities all centered in cities. The best schools and newspapers were in cities. Great churches and libraries were found in cities. People journeyed to cities to see the opera, the theater, museums, for amusement and to get an education.

With cities came corruption. The Democrat Party quickly became the embodiment of corruption. Fast-growing populations needed new public works, paving, sewers, streetcars, lighting, and water supplies. Millions of dollars worth of contracts to provide goods and services were on the line. With the death of Lincoln, the Republicans lost their spiritual and political leader. Power went to the Democrats, who controlled the cities by making promises to the poor and disenfranchised that they could not keep. Their constituents were gullible and easily fooled.

After Lincoln's assassination, in the period following the war, public morality was low and the Democrats prospered as a result of it. When scandals rocked the Grant Administration, the Democrats played upon the emotions of the voters by painting themselves as saviors. They took over the major city governments, which in the post-war era became very powerful. Letting contracts for public works open up created graft. The bidder could get the contract only by agreeing to split his profit with the ward bosses, who worked for Democrat political machines.

New York was the worst. The Democrat party there was ruled out of Tammany Hall by a group of plunderers known as the Tweed Ring. They were led by William M. "Boss" Tweed, a former prizefighter and saloonkeeper. He won election to a city council that became known as the "40 thieves," Democrats all. In 1868, he elected a Governor who gave him free hand in all of the cities' affairs. The courts, all run by Tweed-appointed Democrats, looked the other way. Tweed and the Democrats stole millions.

When New York City got its new courthouse, the architects planned a building that would cost $250,000. The Tweed Democrats ran up the bill to $12 million. The city paid $460,000 for lumber that was worth $48,000. One plasterer charged almost $3 million for nine months' work, the skim going to greedy Democrats. Thermometers cost $7,500, and through such fraud Tweed's Democrats wasted enormous sums of taxpayer money, therefore creating higher taxation of the populace. They pocketed the balance, and therefore set the city in debt by over 80 million 1870s dollars. Tweed blatantly registered ignorant Irish peasants to the Democrat party as soon as they got off the boats, which they did by the millions because of the potato famine. This is similar to the Clinton Administration, who signed up as Democrats millions of illegal aliens who were given "amnesty" by him, ostensibly in return for their votes. In the 2000 Presidential election, these people "voted" for the Democrat, Al Gore. Since few could read or write, much less read or write in the English language, many of their ballots in Florida, where a lot of them resided, were invalidated. George Bush's victory exposed this fraud and proved to a triumph of irony. History repeated itself.

The list of reasons why nobody should vote for Democrats because the Republicans are not just the better choice, but the only real choice, would fill hundreds of pages. Many of those reasons are found in this book. However, the facts outlined in the short paragraph preceding this one, and the fact that these events created a Democrat tradition that is prevalent today, is reason enough to give credence to the premise that the Democrat party should cease to exist.

American voters have been known to accept a great deal of public abuse. They view it as a tradeoff for the freedom of living here. But they do get angry, as was the case with Tweed when the cartoonist Thomas Nast began depicting him as robbing the city. Tweed offered Nast $1 million if he would stop drawing the cartoons. Nast refused it.

"I don't care about your newspaper articles; the people who vote for me can't read," Tweed said of his Democrat constituency, "but they can't help seeing them damn pictures."

Nast's identification and exposure of Democrat lies helped break up Tammany Hall. Tweed was arrested and fled to Spain. A Spanish official who had seen the cartoons recognized him. He was sent back to America, where he died in prison, disgraced and defeated. Democrats in other cities had crooked organizations that were very powerful. Most of their constituencies were too ignorant to fight them.

Immigration increased after the Civil War. Europeans, tired of the upheaval, turmoil and lawlessness of socialistic revolutions, saw America as the land of opportunity. Steamship and railroad service made passage possible, even affordable. Labor laws were created which allowed immigrants to contract to work the cost of their transportation off. Between 1860 and 1900, 14 million immigrants entered the United States. In the following 30 years, an addition 18 million came here. Before 1890, most new arrivals were from northern and Western Europe; the British Isles, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. The customs of western and northern Europe were similar to ours.

After 1890, new nationalities came from southern and Eastern Europe. Slavs, Poles, Serbs, Russians, Italians and Jews escaped the pogroms, the czar and anti-Semitism. The northern and Western Europeans had tended to find settlement in the country. The new, persecuted classed settled in the cities, and became easy prey to Democrats who exploited their "victim" classification. These people worked in mines and factories, which tended to be dangerous work. Many settled in Pennsylvania, where they dug coal and made steel. The Red unionists used them to foment anarchy and socialism.

Despite efforts by socialists, anarchists, Reds and unionists, immigrants came to love America. They overcome economic hardships and prejudice, and took advantage of the limitless opportunities available in this great nation – opportunities that simply put the lie to the socialists, anarchists, Reds and unionists. They rose like the phoenix bird above their situations to make better lives for their families. Victor Herbert of Ireland, Sigmund Romberg of Hungary, and Rudolph Friml of Bohemia became great musicians. Well-known conductors from Germany, Russia, Italy and Holland brought their culture to our shores. The great operatic tenor, Enrico Caruso, arrived from Italy. The world famous violinist Fritz Kreisler came from Austria. The sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens came from Ireland. Great scientists like the sea animal authority Louis Agassiz, engineers like Charles Steinmetz, and atomic scientist Albert Einstein found their way to our shores. The German émigré Carl Schurz became Secretary of the Interior. William S. Knudsen of Denmark became president of General Motors.

With the immigrants came a new societal problem, slums in the inner cities. The Democrats became the party of the slums. In big cities, immigrants living in poverty saw nice houses, rich folks in their fineries, and examples of American wealth. Class envy became the best weapon of the Democrats. As immigrants rose above their circumstances, they saw the Democrat ploys exposed for what they were. Success stories that make up the American tradition were not of great value to the Democrat political cause.

Health problems spread rapidly in the slums and the cities, but science saved the day. America offered the best and freest place for scientists to study and learn. Quickly, their work was shown to be of great value to pharmaceutical companies and hospitals, which were able to combine good medicine with profitability. In the Old Country, many top scientists worked only within the narrow prism of the government. Their labor benefited only the aristocratic class. In the U.S., scientists were financially rewarded for their work, and the fruits of their labor benefited all. Therefore, consequently, and as a result thereof, typhoid, small pox, cholera, yellow fever and other epidemics were brought to control by the American medical community, which had already established itself as the best in the world.

Millions of immigrants who never would have learned how to read or write received excellent public educations in American schools. As wages increased and life got better, parents no longer were forced to put their children to work. This freed them to get educations. In 1878, there were less than 10 million pupils in public schools. By 1898, there were 15 million. In that year, 200,000 students attended colleges. By 1950, enrollment was over 2 million, and there were nearly 30 million pupils in public and private high schools, taught by over a million teachers. Coeducation also became common, with women and girls learning right along with their male counterparts.

In 1880, there were 971 newspapers in the U.S. In 2000, there were 2,226. William Randolph Hearst was a millionaire Californian whose father had made a fortune in mining and railroads. When kicked out of Harvard for creating mischief, his father made him the editor-publisher of the newspaper I would eventually write for, the _San Francisco Examiner._ Hearst was a huge success. Then he came to the East in 1895, developing a national media empire that spread from San Francisco, Los Angeles and Atlanta to New York and Boston. In 1898, Hearst created a drumbeat of fever for war with Spain.

In 1892, the _Associate Press_ was created. They were able to collect news that could be printed in papers all over the world that contracted for their services, receiving the stories by wire. The _A.P._ helped create accuracy in reporting because they had to feed disparate newspapers and readerships. Magazines spread throughout the country as people hungered for information beyond their local territories. Literature made enormous strides. Henry George's "Progress and Poverty" addressed and analyzed poverty and sells well to this day. "How the Other Half Lives" by Jacob Riis gave vivid descriptions of life in the slums. From across the sea, Charles Dickens had enormous influence. "Bleak House", "A Tale of Two Cities", "Great Expectations" and "A Christmas Carol" were great works of adventure and fancy. They also addressed serious social concerns and the rift between the haves and have-nots.

Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel Clemens, wrote "The Gilded Age", dealing with business and corruption in politics. The title remains the lasting and memorable description of the last part of the 19th Century. Twain's great mark on the world came in the form of "Life on the Mississippi", "Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer". Twain shed important sympathy on the plight of slaves, but did it in a non-threatening way by writing stories of great adventure that captured the folksy side of Americana. Due to Political Correctness, millions of children have not read his great works because he occasionally wrote the word _nigger_ , which was in common usage in his time. In the context of his books, it was never uttered in a mean or spiteful manner.

Bret Harte wrote beautiful novels about the West, and Edward Eggleston described Midwestern life. William Dean Howells wrote novels about Boston and edited the _Atlantic Monthly._

George W. Cable became a great voice in the post-war South. Joel Chandler Harris penned tales of Negro life for children, in the process doing the beautiful work of teaching young innocents how not to hate. His stories included the character Uncle Remus and Bre'r Rabbit. "Ben Hur" by General Lew Wallace put a new face on Jews, who were seen as swarthy, mysterious and ungallant. In Wallace's tale, a heroic, athletic Jew, Ben Hur, wins a fierce chariot race in Rome during early Christian times. William Sidney Porter wrote the short story "O. Henry" _._

American architecture became a symbol of the country's power, growth, and audacity. Enormous skyscrapers, bridges, houses, monuments, and the like dotted the landscape like giants. Any potential foe who visited the United States and saw these unbelievable accomplishments, if he were reasonable, concluded that to attempt to defeat the U.S. in a military endeavor would be an exercise in folly. A country that could accomplish such engineering marvels could accomplish anything. This attitude was totally prevalent by the mid-1880s. It completely dissuaded any ambitions that may have emanated from the idea that, just possibly, the War Between the States had weakened us beyond the ability to defend ourselves.

The huge immigration from Europe helped to provide great culture to Americans, who spent money indulging in the arts, and created imagery with a unique American stamp. This included the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and perhaps the most incredible symbol of all, Mount Rushmore. It is worth pointing out that Cher, a beautiful woman and talented singer-actress who has been an outspoken critic of Republicans over the years, thought for many years that Mount Rushmore was a natural phenomenon. _Res ipsa loquiter._

Musically, American bandleaders like John Phillip Souza created songs with patriotic American gusto. Broadway became a place where American writers, actors, and musicians thrilled audiences with original works. Sports became a popular American obsession, with baseball establishing itself early on as the National Pastime. The first professional team opened for business in Cincinnati in 1869, followed by the National League in 1876, the American League in 1901, and the first World Series in 1903. College football became a huge success before the turn of the century. Boxing, popularized by the Ruffians of Europe, came to our shores with them, and was dominated in the early years by the Irish. It was too many slum-dwellers a way out of dire lives. Sports, as much as any other activity, had the effect of Americanizing immigrants and healing the wounds between the North and the South.

Jews, in particular, found sports to be the avenue to Americanization. Because they did not worship Christ, they were set apart by the predominantly Catholic Irish, Italian, and Slavic immigrants, and the predominantly Protestant English-Americans. But by understanding and loving baseball, Jews found common ground, heroes to worship, and teams (particularly the Brooklyn Dodgers) to root for. Identification with baseball teams became one of the single greatest American unifiers. In World Wars I and II spies were weeded out by questions such as, "Okay, wise guy, who won the last World Series?" or "Whose the manager of the New York Giants?" A German in 1944 might have guessed the New York Yankees had won the Series, because they won so many of them, but the answer that season was the St. Louis Cardinals. To say the manager of the Giants in 1918 was not John McGraw meant a quick trip to a prisoner of war camp. An explanation that one was an American but _not_ a baseball fan was an oxymoron.

William Jennings Bryan

Politically, no major stars emerged in the years immediately after Lincoln's assassination. In the late part of the century, two did. One was a Democrat, the other a Republican. At the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the party found itself in disarray, torn apart by the Pullman strike of two years prior. Delegates from the West and South hated Grover Cleveland, who had advocated maintenance of the gold standard. The common people viewed this as treachery. Cleveland had a long record of honest public service, which was of no value to the Democrats. They attacked the Supreme Court because they had resisted a Federal income tax, and threatened to reorganize the courts with activist judges who could push an agenda that they were unable to accomplish Democratically.

With no hope of winning the '96 Presidential election, the Democrats were dull and lifeless when a young lawyer from Nebraska named William Jennings Bryan appeared at the podium and said:

"I come to speak you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty – the cause of humanity...We are fighting for the defense of our families, and posterity... There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well to do prosperous their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will finds its way up and through every class that rests upon it...They tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country...Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify Mankind upon a cross of gold."

When Bryan finished, the delegates went wild. The next day he was chosen as his party's nominee. The speech became known as the "Cross of Gold" speech, and made Bryan a famous figure in American politics. The speech may look dated when reading it dispassionately, but Bryan had a magnetic personality and fiery speaking style. He was a devoutly religious man of the evangelical Christian variety; a real old school, snake-handling, speak-in-tongues tent revivalist who stirred an audience the way a great preacher can have a congregation in the spirit. To Bryan, politics and Christianity were one and the same. Everything was one in the same with Christianity to him. He was totally honest and a highly impressive individual, which was a distinct change for the corruption-plagued Democrat party.

Bryan had planned his appearance carefully, writing the delegates ahead of time and tailoring his letters to each one's individual political tendencies. He traveled throughout the Mississippi Valley, speaking for free silver in the manner of Lincoln speaking for abolition. His pre-convention strategy was based on Lincoln's success.

The Populists waited until the old parties made their nominations, then saw that Bryan's speech and work in the "smoke-filled rooms" had undermined any cause but his. The Populists then nominated Bryan. He now had the full strength of the party. The Populists ended as a party, but their principles were inculcated into the Democrat platform. Today, both the Republicans and the Democrats endorse many Populist planks from the 19th Century. Many of their initiatives are current law.

Bryan took his cause to the people during the general election campaign, visiting 29 states and traveling 13,000 miles. In 14 weeks, Bryan made 600 speeches. He had no money for speechwriters or newspaper publicity. His whirlwind evangelical politics scared the hell out of the Republicans. But East Coast newspapers hated him. The _New York Tribune_ called him a "wretched, rattle-pated boy, posing in vapid vanity and mouthing resounding rottenness." A Brooklyn minister told his congregation that Bryan's platform was "made in hell."

The Republicans beat Bryan by spending the enormous sums of $3,500,000. The East Coast population centers went for them, 271 electoral votes for William McKinley to 176 for Bryan. Considering that Bryan was all-but-unknown prior to the Democrat Convention, his performance ranks as one of the most remarkable in political history. He did not disappear from the scene, emerging time and time again as a front-runner, contender, dark horse and Trojan horse, but he never won the brass ring. In the 1920s, Bryan's public career came to an ignominious end of sorts when he was called upon by the state of Tennessee to prosecute a case against a teacher who taught evolution in a public school. Tennessee was just the kind of snake-handling, speak-in-tongues Christian state that loved the fiery Bryan, at least in the rural areas where the trial was held.

The case came to be known as the "Scopes Monkey Trial." The teacher, a man named Scopes, had taught that man had evolved from monkeys, instead of teaching the simplistic version of Adam and Eve. Clarence Darrow defended him. He made mincemeat of Bryan, who was made to look like a part of the 16th Century, not the 20th. Darrow's performance earned him longtime recognition as one of America's greatest trial lawyers. However, students of political science and the persuasive art of speechmaking have made Bryan a case study for over 100 years.

President Theodore Roosevelt

Republican McKinley was the President, but he was not the first big political star since Abe Lincoln. Another Republican, Theodore Roosevelt, was. Roosevelt is a giant in world history. His face is emblazoned upon Mount Rushmore, his visage one of the most distinctive in the world. He is the symbol of America's emergence from not only the richest country in the world to that of a major world power. He placed America in a position to become the single most influential country on Earth. He did not do this by accident. T.R. is also a tremendous figure in Republican politics, a man who to this day is the favorite pol and leader of many an elected official, business leader and military man.

Born in 1858 in New York City, he descended from a line of bluebloods that had been in New York for six generations prior to his birth. His mother had Southern roots. His father had accumulated a considerable fortune. Teddy was afforded a first class education from private tutors, but he suffered from ill health, which had a big effect on him when he grew into manhood. He tested himself against the elements of nature and war. After graduating from Harvard, taking some law, and traveling through Europe, Roosevelt became religious about physical fitness. This ended his days as a sickly youth. He married young but his first wife died in 1884, leaving one child, Alice Lee, who would someday marry Nicholas Longworth. In 1886 he re-married. Five children were produced out of this union.

Roosevelt took to writing, publishing his college thesis on the naval war of 1812, and a four-volume set on the American West. In 1881 he was elected to the New York State Assembly. He immediately made enemies that garnered him major attention. He was a Republican in a city dominated by the corrupt Democrat machine of Tammany Hall tradition. Exposing their corruption was obvious to him. Because he was already wealthy, Roosevelt disdained the bribes that lesser lights took. In his three sessions in the legislature, Roosevelt was a friend of good government. His independent spirit and moderate reform presence at the 1884 Republican National Convention made him equal parts powerful and disdained. This was in his own party. The Democrats despised him because he identified and exposed their lies.

At the convention, Roosevelt set himself against Grover Cleveland and came out on the short end. He decided to take an appraisal of himself. He retired and moved to North Dakota, where he lived as a rancher and hunter. Roosevelt lived amongst the roughnecks and cowboys, earning their grudging respect with his willingness to work hard and take on all the tasks of this hard life. Many of the cowboys he met in his two years in the badlands became lifelong friends.

In 1886, his "wilderness years" behind him, he returned to New York and lost a bid for Mayor. He returned to writing, and in 1889 President Benjamin Harrison appointed him Civil Service Commissioner. In 1895 he was named police commissioner of New York during a period of active reform. Roosevelt recognized that a growing underworld of organized crime existed in the city. He aggressively went after it. This made him a big name again. Roosevelt was one of the Republican voices that were able to mute Bryan's 1896 rhetoric. After actively campaigning for the successful McKinley Presidency, he was appointed to Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

Roosevelt became a national figure when he led the Rough Riders to victory at San Juan Hill, during the Spanish-American War of 1898. This war embodied the new prominence of the American nation in world affairs. The U.S. had proven to be a major political influence with its "experiment" in Democracy during and after the revolution. They had developed into a major economic power by virtue of Westward expansion, followed by the Industrial Revolution. They had shown a "new way" by fighting to overcome the burden of slavery. The only thing left was to demonstrate that the country deserved a place among the major powers of the world; not just as a moral, political and economic force, but as a military power, too.

The Virginius Affair and Spain's corrupt exploitation of Cuba and Puerto Rico resulted in world opinion going against Spain, in favor a Cuban independence movement. Grover Cleveland had managed to avoid going to war over the issue, but only with considerable effort. However, numerous American volunteers arrived in Cuba to fight for the nascent independence movement there. Cuba orchestrated a major insurrection in 1895, and the situation became extremely heated. Spain protested to the American government for our "failure" to prevent the shipment of arms and ammunition from our shores to Cuba by insurgent _juntas._ The Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers began a steady drumbeat of war talk, with stirring stories of General Weyler's _reconcentrado_ camps in Cuba, the de Lome letter, and then the sinking of the _Maine_ on February 15, 1898. On May 1, an American fleet in Manila Bay, Philippines, under Commodore George Dewey, destroyed a Spanish fleet. On July 3, Admiral W.T. Simpson destroyed Cervera's fleet at Santiago. Santiago surrendered his men to General W.E.R. Shafter on July 17. Forces under General Nelson Miles occupied Puerto Rico. Fighting eventually ceased on August 13, with America the clear victor. Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines all became independent U.S. protectorates.

Roosevelt had argued strenuously that we should go to war with Spain. He used his official position to prepare the Navy for the conflict. He was audacious, exceeding his authority, but he helped to create a strong fighting force. Once war was declared, Roosevelt did an extraordinary thing. He resigned his government position and, with his friend Leonard Wood, organized a cavalry composed mainly of cowboys and college athletes. This colorful group quickly became known as the Rough Riders. Roosevelt, who had no previous military experience, was made commanding colonel of the regiment.

To try and imagine how unusual this was, imagine that somebody like Donald Evans, George W. Bush's Commerce Secretary, went out and recruited a bunch of football players from Texas, the University of Southern California, and a few others schools; then mixed them up with a bunch of professional rodeo riders; thrown in some scoundrels and outlaws for good measure; formed a tank unit and went to Iraq, where they stormed one of Saddam Hussein's palaces against heavy Republican Guard resistance; overcame the resistance, and captured a key stronghold in Baghdad that led to a quick termination of the 2003 war.

Roosevelt showed absolutely no fear amid a hail of bullets. He led his men to a stirring victory. The newspapers glorified him, and he was suddenly an enormous political hero. Roosevelt returned from Cuba and was immediately drafted and thrust into the New York gubernatorial race, which he won easily. He returned to his reformist ways, but Roosevelt quickly alienated Thomas Platt, the state Republican leader, who thought the young commander could be controlled. Platt wanted to regain the power that Roosevelt refused to cede to him in the state. Platt then proposed that T.R. be put on McKinley's ticket as the Vice-Presidential candidate in 1900.

The McKinley-Roosevelt candidacy was victorious, but Roosevelt was immediately frustrated by his lack of power. That changed on September 14, 1901, when McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo, New York. Roosevelt had possibly enjoyed more luck and better timing than any politician in history. He was only 42 years old. He had served a few months in the military, yet during that time he was a colonel, a commander and one of the most famous, colorful war heroes in American history. His electoral career had consisted of a few terms in the New York Assembly and some plumb appointments. He was Governor for a short while until he was "kicked upstairs" and made Vice-President for a few months. Now he was President.

Roosevelt was forceful, vigorous and intelligent. He carried on the anti-corruption campaign that had marked his New York experience, when he had helped to clean up the city that had been made dirty by Boss Tweed's Democrat machine. Roosevelt created a respect for good, clean government that has marked the American political scene ever since. The United States has known its share of scandals, but for a country of its size and power has maintained a reputation for honesty unmatched in any country in the world. Roosevelt, the Republican from a wealthy family, nevertheless vigorously went after powerful corporations who were attempting to form an oligarchy of sorts. Roosevelt used his "bully pulpit" to preach a moral tone. His honesty backed up his words.

Roosevelt, who had lived out in the Wild West and developed a love for the land, became the first of the great environmental Presidents. He created beautiful national parks and preserves that are still enjoyed by millions today. But it is in foreign affairs where Roosevelt made his greatest mark. To strengthen the new protectorates won as a result of the Spanish-American War, he strengthened his military and made use of them. Roosevelt began construction of the Panama Canal. He exercised enormous influence on Latin America. This caused latent unrest, but those countries all paid their bills instead of being allowed to drift into debt.

Roosevelt inserted himself into the diplomatic resolution of the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, and used American military power to resolve conflict in Morocco. He sent a fleet around the world in 1907 and told them to, "Speak softly and carry a big stick." He also entered the U.S. into disputes in China, throughout Asia, and entered the discussion in an increasingly divided Europe.

Having won election on his own in 1904, Roosevelt imposed a personal term limit upon himself by choosing not to run again in 1908. The U.S. had expanded its territories, its power, its military threat, and its diplomatic clout. Any country with major designs, from territorial to world domination, knew now that if the United States opposed them, they would most likely not achieve their goals. The Germans drafted a plan to begin the Great War in 1905. Roosevelt's Presidency and aggressive policies no doubt led them to believe that it was not the right time. Roosevelt's Secretary of War, Republican William Howard Taft, was elected in 1908. His policies were Rooseveltian enough to keep the Germans from implementing their plans.

In 1910, Roosevelt was drafted to settle a dispute within the Republican party. The result was a strain in relations with his protégé, Taft. Roosevelt argued for a more nationalistic policy. His re-insertion into public life invigorated his supporters, who began a draft of Roosevelt for the 1912 Presidential campaign. He was defeated for the nomination at the convention, and then made the biggest mistake of his career. Roosevelt had made his point in opposing Taft. He should have settled back, knowing that he had enough support to influence Taft's policies. He had lost fair and square to the sitting President, but he became belligerent and formed the Bull Moose ticket, to run as an independent against Taft in November.

This created a disastrous split in the Republican vote, giving the White House to a Democrat pacifist named Woodrow Wilson. The Germans finally figured an American who would not stand up to them was in office. They prosecuted their invasion of Belgium and France in 1914. Had Roosevelt not broken up the Taft Administration, it is possible that World War I could have been avoided. This is not to say the war was his fault, or that his legacy is reduced a great deal, but there is no doubt that he came to a strange and, possibly premature, political end.

Roosevelt publicly advocated intervention with Mexico when Pancho Villa was raiding border towns. After Germany's invasion, he strongly supported U.S. entrance into the war. He attempted to form up another division of volunteers which he hoped to lead, _a la_ the Rough Riders, in Europe after Wilson entered the war. The President, not wanting to re-create Roosevelt's star, refused the request.

Roosevelt and his policies had expanded American foreign prestige. The U.S. took control of the Philippines, and ended the Boxer Rebellion in China. He had "set the table" for the United States to take on any challenge. Indeed, our greatest challenges lay ahead.

END OF VOLUME ONE

HISTORY LESSONS FOR A YOUNG AMERICA

VOLUME TWO

THE AMERICAN CENTURY:

A NEW KIND OF EMPIRE

PART ONE

# SUPERPOWER

Where there are winners, one finds losers. America is the ultimate winner. The U.S. has achieved this status at the expense of Germany. They have nobody to blame but themselves. It is to the great credit of the United States that today Germany finds itself not a loser, but a greater winner, because of its close alliance with America, than it ever would have been had they won World War II. World War I offers a different social, political and military theory. The 20th Century was the American Century. The United States' status is closely aligned with Germany. From a strictly military standpoint, Germany offered the greatest possible challenge. The defeated German _wehrmacht_ of World War II was likely the greatest military machine in the history of man. The eternal good fortune of humanity is that the only military that ever was better up to that time happened to be the American military in that same war. It was a battle of titans.

The German military offered a magnificent opponent. Greatness often arises out of rivalry. In sports, Notre Dame rose to greatness on the strength of their rivalry with Southern California. Bill Russell had Wilt Chamberlain. The Celtics had the Lakers. Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle competed for the role "baseball's best player" in the spotlight of New York City. In the parlance of military rivalries, the Romans knew the Carthaginians were great, the French gave the British all they could handle, and the Confederates were the toughest possible challenge for the Union.

Had Germany not attempted to attain world domination in two wars, the United States still would have been a superpower. They were the richest country in the world at the end of the 19th Century. By the time Teddy Roosevelt left office they were a major world power with empire status in Latin America, the South Pacific, and Asia. Had Germany not tried again in World War II, America's status would have been quite different in the world, as would the Soviet Union's. Where history would have taken us is interesting to ponder, but offers scenarios that seem to spin off in the Universe like a satellite breaking from a planet; seemingly a random act yet destined to land somewhere.

A peaceful 20th Century offers many wonders. All of those wonders include the U.S. being a world power. It is possible that even without war, history would record it as the American Century. America's role in economics, culture, Hollywood, diplomacy, politics, plus the _threat_ we would have posed militarily even if we had never put it to use, would have given us that kind of prestige. The rise of Communism, which was tied so closely to World War II, would not have gotten the toehold on more than half the world's population. China and Japan no doubt would have had distinctly different destinies. Gandhi and Indian independence would have been delayed, at best. Great Britain, not expending its economy to fend off two German wars, would resemble its colonial empire. Perhaps most important, without Germany starting two world wars, the Holocaust would not have occurred, Israel may not have become a state, and the Middle East would look a lot different.

The fact that Germany and the U.S. are so closely aligned seems almost an accident of history. Many Germans immigrated to the United States in the 19th Century. They made up a fair number of rural dwellers, and founded Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But Germany seemed to have little in the way of common interest with the U.S. The Reformation movement had started there, but American Protestantism descended from King Henry VIII in England. If we were going to fight another major world power, for many years it seemed that would have been England. But Victorian England in the 19th Century became a very different place. Politicians like Disraeli led them out of the wilderness into a style of Democracy that may not have been American, but was inspired by us. France was our natural ally, but their revolution had gone askew, leaving that country befuddled as to what they stood for. Still, Frenchmen were our kindred spirits. Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America", first published in 1835, is one of the great political books ever written. De Tocqueville captured the spirit and bounty of the young country, in the cities and the countryside. His beautifully written work describes the love affair that he and many of his compatriots had with America in those innocent days. Later, a French philosopher named Jacques Barzun came to America to see what all the fuss was about. He seemed to have picked up on the spirit as accurately as de Tocqueville with the modern observation that, "If you want to know the heart and mind of America, you had better know baseball." Teddy Roosevelt's awesome "man in the arena" speech was, after all, directed to French graduates of the Sarbonne.

It was our "special relationship" with France that began our journey towards confrontation with Germany. Their harsh language and militaristic past had never much bothered us, but it was these characteristics that many them easier to demonize when the time came.

Germanic tribes had bedeviled the Romans, but the wild-eyed Goths of the medieval period had materialized into a people of great intellect and culture by the 19th Century. Modern German history dates, I suppose, to October 18, 1813, when the Prussians sent Napoleon to defeat at Leipzig. Still, Austria and Prussia opposed German unity. As a result of the Congress of Vienna from 1814-15, and in the aftermath of Prussia helping Wellington to again defeat Napoleon, this time in his final battle at Waterloo, Germany still found itself reduced to 38 states. Under this situation, they could not attain the kind of powerful status of England. They were not as influential as France prior to their demise at Leipzig, Moscow and Belgium. Even America, still a small country, had unity in their Federal system that that allowed the kind of "nationalism" that still eluded Germany.

But a unification movement was afoot in Germany. In 1815 a loosely organized confederation was organized. The confederation was presided over by one of histories great diplomats, the Austrian Prime Minister, Prince Klemens von Metternich, over a 15-year period. Von Metternich combined the European concept of _realpolitik_ with a diplomatic vision and ability to compromise through strength. It was his career that inspired Henry Kissinger's. But small incidents led to unrest, and after the French Revolution of 1830, Austria and Prussia remained stable. Brunswick and Saxony were forced to grant new constitutions, diminish censorship, and deal with student rebellions.

Liberalism spread throughout the German states until Frederick William IV became King of Prussia in 1840. He was unable to maintain order in light of more unrest in France and its recurring effect throughout Europe in 1849. Demands for more religious toleration and abolishment of feudal restrictions, spread throughout the states. This eventually forced von Metternich to leave Vienna. Liberalism led to street violence, protest, anarchy, and all the other things that liberalism always leads to. There was no real strength in the land. Various regional disputes prevented all the parties from coming together. The coups of Louis Napoleon, in 1851 and 1852, and the developments leading to the Crimean War eventually created an atmosphere in which Prussia and Austria cooperated diplomatically. The Progressive Party advocated German unification between 1850 and 1860; a common currency, postal system, commercial code, commercial treaties with other states. A reciprocity agreement with France, signed in 1862, made this eventuality more likely.

Eventually, King William I considered abdication. Upon the advice of his ministers, he called upon Otto von Bismarck to head the ministry of foreign policy. Four years later, Bismarck dealt with the confederated Diet in a defiant manner. He stated flatly that "Germany's" problems lay with their liberalism in allowing all the speeches of the revolution to take place instead of dealing with them with "blood and iron." The beginning of the German militaristic state, the one that would terrorize a world, had begun.

With the succession of Christian IX to the throne of Denmark in 1863, the question of Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburg once more awakened nationalist fervor. The claims to the duchies of the German duke, Frederick of Augustenburg, were revived. When Austria and Prussia declared war, Christian was forced to sign the land over to them. Bismarck contemplated war with the Hapsburg empire. Austria was dealing with revolts from her Italian possessions and Hungary. Bismarck forced the Convention of Gastein in 1865, with various neutrality agreements and territorial appeasements signed over. In 1866 Napoleon III thought he had achieved peace for France at Biarritz. He would ultimately be as successful as Chamberlain at Munich.

Internal frictions, broken agreements, worries over possible British intervention, and troop movements marked this period. As Prussia grew in power, Austria resisted and a war was fought between the two states in 1866. Austria fell in seven weeks. King William and Helmuth von Moltke advocated annexation of Austria. Bismarck forestalled French and Russian intervention, preventing a hard peace from being imposed on Austria. But Hapsburg Austria was expelled from Germany, and the old confederation was dissolved. Prussia annexed Hesse-Cassel, Nassau and Frankfurt-am-Main. They now controlled two-thirds of the Germanic lands, exclusive of Austria, and 21 states north of the Main River agreed to join a North German Confederation under a Prussian presidency from 1867 to 1871. Further political machinations followed, until Napoleon III made successive bids for compensations in the Rhenish Palatinate, in Belgium, and in Luxembourg. Bismarck, who now had the upper hand, thwarted them all.

Now, Bismarck's path was clear: German unification. This was the single military state that would form the Teutonic conscience over the following 77 years. He felt a good way of achieving his goal was to coalesce all the German states in a war against Napoleon III. Napoleon prepared for defeat only of the Prussians that would recover all or part of the Rhine frontier. Bismarck did give diplomacy a try. Russia and Italy were brought in to press their concerns with France regarding the Crimean War, the Polish Insurrection and the War of 1859. Great Britain, always concerned with French emperors named Napoleon, pressured France regarding their true intention in the persistent bone of contention, Belgium. In 1869, Spanish Liberals offered the throne of Spain to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a Catholic relative of King William I. Bismarck insisted that Leopold take the offer, knowing Napoleon would protest.

Diplomacy followed, but Bismarck spun the report to make it look as if Napoleon and his ambassador had insulted the Germans. This in turn created a scenario whereby the French felt insulted, too. It was a war premise, brazen and full of perfidy, enough to make the Gulf of Tonkin look like child's play. Bismarck not only had his war with France, he had France declare it on July 15, 1870. Bismarck had full cooperation from the south German states. Having been in war preparation for some time, they quickly set his new nationalized army on the march. Germany won a decisive battle at Sedan on September 1-2, 1870, orchestrated a brilliant encirclement of Paris, captured Napoleon, and forced surrender by January. France ceded to Germany Alsace, except Belfort, and eastern Lorraine. They agreed that a German army might occupy northern France until it should have paid an indemnity of five billion francs. The events of Bismarck's unification, the small wars, and the Franco-Prussian War reduced the hope that perhaps Europe had moved past war. It helped bolster the still-credible notion that war is the natural state of man.

William I became the proclaimed German emperor in a ceremony held audaciously enough at Louis XIV's palace at Versailles. French hatred for the English was now replaced by hatred for the Germans. Bismarck became chancellor and consolidated his empire, bringing in all elements of religious and political power in the states to form legal, financial, railway and military reforms. He eventually feuded with the Catholics, and the Jesuits were expelled. Relations with the Holy See were severed. The huge war indemnity imposed on France helped have an inflationary effect on the German economy. The emergence of Marxism resulted in two attempts on William's life in 1878. Socialism was outlawed, but as a compromise measure the country instituted national insurance. This move was meant to steal the thunder of the socialist movement. Over time socialists returned to positions within the German Reichstag, but always under minority status.

Germany became a thoroughly modern state by participating fully in the Industrial Revolution, which because of its landlocked geography and lack of natural resources created the need for colonization. Protectorates in Africa and Oceana were established in 1884 and 1885 to provide the country with raw materials, which increased not only the military, but created a thriving capitalist-style economy, turning the nation into a major power. Austria and Russia found themselves drawn to King William. The Three Emperors League was formed in 1872-73. Warmongering again reared its head, with a desire to take another bite out of France, but Bismarck squelched it.

In 1878, Bismarck sided with Austria-Hungary in a territorial dispute in the Balkans. This angered Russia and was the beginning of the dispute that would eventually lead to World War I. The Three Emperors League lapsed and was replaced by the Dual Monarchy. A few years later Italy, looking for an alliance to deal with their dispute with France over Tunis, signed on and thus was created the Triple Alliance. Bismarck did manage to revive diplomacy with Russia in the mid-1880s, but their agreements were shrouded in secrecy.

Frederick III succeeded his departed father in 1888. He had liberal sympathies. In the case of Germany, a country that tended to favor the iron fist, those liberalisms might have saved the country. But he died unexpectedly. His son, William II, was a militarist of the Bismarck influence. William was strong-willed and wanted control Germany. Bismarck used his strong military, in practice and in threat, but there is nothing to suggest that he would have advocated the Great War. However, he had set in motion the events leading to it. Now Germany was in the hands of a man who liked the military, wanted little in the way of political challenge, and apparently did not have advisors to steer him clear of major blunders. An authoritarian Reich ensued. Diplomatically William's desire to give Germany a "place in the sun" set it on a course that could not be fully controlled.

By 1900, Germany had exceeded the industrial might of Great Britain. Under William II the population in the German Empire grew from 40 to 65 million. Foreign investment grew to $6 billion. The German merchant marine carried an enormous trade route. Strategic island purchases from the ailing Spain increased its holdings. This led the way to a powerful Navy. Diplomatically Germany had influence as far away as China and Mexico. Germany became the controlling railroad operator of Europe, and their military became one of the most powerful in the world.

Still, socialism grew in Germany. Bitter internal disputes combined with regional complaints involving Poles, Danes, and the French-German population of Alsace-Lorraine plagued the government. France, isolated by Bismarck, became a sympathetic country in alliance with Great Britain. The perceived threat of Kaiser Wilhelm, as he was now known to the world, grew. The Kaiser refused to renew the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia, even though Czar Nicholas was his cousin. _Rapprochement_ occurred between old enemies, Russia and France. Germany had favored Russia in their 1905 war with Japan, but Russia was involved in Balkan rivalry with Austria. Germany patched up its on-again, off-again relationship with the German-speaking Austria, causing further rift with Russia. Germany attempted to strengthen diplomatic ties with England, but did so in a clumsy manner. They more or less tried to bribe the British through closer ties in trade that failed to take into account British desires for a peaceful Europe.

Factional disputes arose everywhere. Italy and Austria fought a small war in 1912. The Austro-Hungarian Empire created an alliance that more or less merged their empire with the Ottoman Turks. This in turn made Turkey an ally of Germany, creating the Central Powers. Germany prevented the French from occupying Morocco in 1906. Further re-grouping of European plans occurred when the Moroccan crisis came to a head again in 1911. It was revealed that Italy would be neutral if Germany attacked France. A triple entente of Britain, France and Russia was formed to dissuade German adventurism. In 1912-13, the Balkans exploded in unrest, creating anarchy that reached out and touched all of Europe, which existed now in an "armed peace."

German public opinion makers alarmed the citizenry with the proposal that an "iron ring" of envious powers was encircling the Fatherland, thus preventing further colonial expansion. A "secret war" against France and Russia, if such ludicrousness can be imagined, was contemplated. Rampant nationalism swept Germany and all the surrounding countries. Every economic, imperial, propagandistic and political complaint was aroused.

World War I

Much has been made of the von Schlieffen Plan. Field Marshall Alfred von Schlieffen's blueprint for the invasion of France via Belgium was implemented and began World War I. The von Schlieffen Plan was actually a re-organization of the "great memorandum," written by Helmuth von Moltke (the younger) in 1905. It called for the Germans to proceed through Belgium with "the right sleeve of the last soldier brushing the Atlantic." History has made this plan out to be proof of German perfidy in all the years leading up to the Great War. Kaiser Wilhelm made thunderous speeches advocating the imposition of German culture on the "immoral" peoples of Germany and France. It is highly plausible that the "big stick" Presidency of Teddy Roosevelt followed by his protégé, Taft, influenced Germany's decision to "hold off" on the war.

However, it is instructive to know that all European powers had a "war plan" in 1905. It was tantamount to what we now call war games, but none were integrated into a modern version of "national security policy." War plans were secret and kept close to the vest of only the highest-placed military leaders and top government officials. They were not actively debated and shared with the political class. Today's policies are, more or less, available in _Jane's_ magazine. Even inter-service secrets were kept. In 1915, for instance, the Italian Navy was never told in advance that the Italian Army was going to attack Austria.

The von Schlieffen Plan would prove to be the most important document t of the first part of the 20th Century, and perhaps of the entire century. It was carried out with high hopes and those hopes were dashed. It set in motion a series of events that are still resounding to this day. Bismarck's unification, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the rise of Germany and militarism under the Kaiser, would all have been bluster without the von Schlieffen Plan and the will, not to mention the stupidity and lack of foresight, that went into carrying it out.

Von Schlieffen wrote the plan. Implementing it was left to the Kaiser in league with the German General Staff in June and July of 1914. The plan called for a quick victory in a short war. When the initial, abortive clash of arms between combatants did not result in a clear winner on either side, the action could have been ended. Because of the geographic location of the plan's called-for execution, the pregnant nature of spin-off possibilities, and the innate flaws inherent in failing to understand the political repercussions, the plan became the blueprint instead for protraction.

Much has been learned by the plan's failure. Putting these lessons into practice has proven to be a tougher challenge. No doubt Hitler's generals studied it and learned from it prior to invading Czechoslovakia in September of 1939. The Great Unknowns still presented themselves in an unfolding manner over the next six years: Invasion of Russia followed by the Russian Winter; Pearl Harbor; American intervention in North Africa and Europe; the atomic bomb. What Nostradamus in military clothing could predict such eventualities?

The U.S. likes to enter military engagements with "overwhelming force," which in recent times has come to be called "shock and awe." There is little of this seen in the defensive actions we took to defend South Korea when the Communists crossed the 38th Parallel in 1950. In a policy statement shortly before the June North Korean invasion, the State Department did not even list South Korea as a place we planned to use military force to protect. Harry Truman's Presidency found itself caught completely off guard by the Chinese entrance into that war. Vietnam was a piecemeal operation; slowly but surely advising the French, watching them bug out, sending in special forces, declaring a "war," and fighting it by inches.

Nixon tried to implement "shock and awe" by bombing key Communist strongholds, but the all-out effort needed to secure victory was politically unavailable to him by 1969. Only in Grenade (1983), Kuwait (1991) and Iraq (2003) have the U.S. implemented a plan to perfection from start to finish. These were battles against opponents who had no chance against out great power and were, for all practical purposes, great training exercises.

The biggest error that von Schlieffen and all the other European countries made was a failure to understand modern technology and escalation. The wars of Napoleon were over. European military doctrine was still based on Napoleonic concepts. Officers charged masses of enlisted personnel, whose lives were little more than cannon fodder, into the heart of the guns in an effort to overwhelm the enemy. Great emphasis was made on the protection of flanks. There was very little in the way of shifting formations, which gave insightful commanders the ability to wage destructive force on the enemy with smaller numbers. This is an interesting aspect of European stodginess, since von Clausewitz and Lafayette had advocated and helped implement this successful strategy in America's revolutionary victory. Lee had used similar tactics, not in victory but to avoid brutal defeats, at Antietam and Gettysburg. The flank, the flank, the flank. It was George Meade who did not wage war on Lee's flank, but paralleled it and forced his army away from D.C. and into the Pennsylvania countryside in 1863.

Von Moltke was not merely a military man, but being the son of von Moltke (the older), he was well versed in the political machinations of warfare. His plan allowed for strategy that veered fluidly from rigid discipline to adjust to diplomacy. Von Schlieffen's plan did not. Von Schlieffen believed in force. In this way he represented a shift in thinking as the Kaiser became more belligerent. The young Kaiser's repudiation of Bismarck's "reinsurance" treaty with Russia in 1890 was ill judged. So was holding Russia to neutrality with Germany unless Germany attacked France; and German neutrality with Russia unless it attacked Austria-Hungary, Germany's ally. The plan allowed von Schlieffen, upon ascending to chief of staff, to give his preoccupation forces the go ahead.

Von Schlieffen saw a simple set of equations. France was weaker than Germany but protected by forts (that could be overcome). Russian was weaker than Germany but protected by geography and weather (the Napoleon lesson, which was still not fully learned). Austria was a paper tiger, thought by some to be a great military power but known by von Schlieffen to really only be a distraction against Russia. Russia was hostile to Austria as a result of Balkan nationalism. A weaker Italy was allied with Germany and Austria but could not be trusted in the slightest way. Finally the great, enormous, terrible mistake of all mistakes: Lack of interest in Britain because von Schlieffen thought of them as a sea power and he planned a land war. Such consequences as a Dardanelle rearguard action, Canadian and Australian alliance, the Russian Communist Revolution, and the overwhelming entrance of American soldiers who would look like supermen to emaciated German defenders, did not enter into the initial equation.

Germany and other countries have been shown to be unenlightened by the new realities. Von Schlieffen also lost sight of an old European military strategy, the one old doctrine that might have saved the awful pain. Possibly, American military success had influenced von Schlieffen, although this is only a speculation. Wars in Europe had always been one part of the chess game, fought by a relatively small population of soldiers for limited ground. They often resulted in treaties and alliances of marriage. But the U.S. had a different view. The Americans fought the English all the way, resisting any diplomacy short of all-out victory. The War Between the States had been fought the same way by both sides, despite the existence of compromise scenarios. The von Schlieffen Plan called for a similar "victory or nothing."

The Great War was also a war that brought forth the full force of the Industrial Revolution. The expansion of business, economies and technology was far ahead of communications, transportation and medicine. The War Between the States had demonstrated this, too. Europe seemingly took no notice. Now men had devised ways to kill each other in greater numbers and from farther away than ever before, but they still huddled in trenches, traveled by horse cart, and often communicated by carrier pigeon. Meanwhile, they killed each other by heavy artillery and eventually even mustard gas.

Historians have speculated on the theory of a German attack on the east, instead of the Franco-German frontiers. This was relatively unimportant territory that was more a source of pride than real political value. The war not only could have been won, but the face of history would have been changed by immeasurable leaps and bounds. A German victory over Russia would have "solved" the Balkan nationalism problem and puffed Germany with pride. They would have have been hard to live with and used it to make for better treaties, but it beats the alternative. It likely leaves France and England out of the conflict. It may have stopped Soviet Communism before it started. It likely leaves Adolf Hitler a Viennese street urchin. Communism in Germany never takes root. The Ottoman Empire is not broken up, England does not carve up Mesopotamia, and the Zionist movement is stopped in its tracks. World War II? Japan's invasion of China? Probably not affected. To continue is to continue and continue.

The Germans made the decision early not to shrink from the violation of Belgian-Luxembourg neutrality. The plan called for mobilization to the French frontiers by the 22nd day, the Somme and Meuse Rivers in one month's time, and envelopment of Paris. This was to be followed by a great semi-circular pincer action that would close in on the French Army with a 400-mile circumference "fold and march" campaign. They would destroy advances from the Alsace region. A Napoleonic march (modernized by takeover of the railways) to Russia was planned. Kaiser's men, fresh from eating train meals and sleeping in the cars, would disembark and inflict a crushing defeat on the forces of Wilhelm's cousin, Nicky.

What made the Germans think Great Britain would stand idly by is a bit of a mystery, unless one believes that they really thought all the English were was a sea power. It relies on the belief that the English were unable to mass a land invasion or defense. If this is truly so, chalk it up not just to miscalculation but ignorance with the worst kind of consequence. If the Germans were so hell-bent on Russia, why not attack the Czar first? The calendar plays an important role in any consideration of Russian military adventures. The Germans planned a campaign that, if it went completely without hitch (assuming it started when the war actually did, in late July) did not allow for attack on Russian forces until September. This meant driving through defensives, covering the endless terrain, and then what, invasion and occupation of Moscow? It needed to be accomplished by mid-October, before the cold set in. The image of Napoleon's ghost in the Kremlin, staring at a burning Moscow and encircling Czarist troops with Winter coming, rears its head.

Von Schlieffen died in 1912. He was a technical military historian who thought he knew more by looking at a map than by understanding the spirit of soldiers or the reasoning of governments. He was pre-occupied with battles that may have offered lessons (the tidbits of which were put into practice by generals like Patton) but not practical blueprints. This included the battle at Cannae, when Hannibal encircled the Roman legions in 216 B.C. It cannot be repeated too often that the war started as if the Lancers of the Guard were riding in on horseback to do battle with the Charge of the Light Brigade. Guns that could destroy hundreds of men in a single blast were arrayed against each other.

There were plusses and minuses in the von Schlieffen Plan. The changes made to it by von Moltke, who ascended to Chief of the General Staff in 1906 and was charged with implementing it, were cut, changed, sped up and and forced to implement on the run by the unforeseen developments of June, 1914. Serbian nationalist propaganda against the Austro-Hungarian monarchy grew unrestrained. A group of conspirators planned the assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand. Ferdinand visited Sarajevo, Bosnia, and on June 28 a youth named Gavrilo Princip attempted to shoot him and his wife. He failed, and escaped to a drinking establishment where he quickly got drunk, filled with morose over his "failure." The Archduke, startled by the assassination attempt, told his driver to take a different route than the one they had planned. He feared that other would-be killers might be lining the road. In taking the alternative route, the Archduke's carriage ended up right in front of the drinking establishment where Princip was, just as Princip emerged in a drunken stupor. Princip could hardly believe his eyes, which revealed the Archduke. He pulled out his revolver and killed Ferdinand and his wife. It was the "shot heard 'round the world."

The comedic element of the Princip folly, and its tragic irony, somehow remind me of the theme which I have made a recurring one throughout this book. That is the possibility that the devil has kept playing his hand in the affairs of man, pushing and prodding him when he wavered. His Satanic spirit may have imbibed Princip's drink on that day, filling him not with the melancholy of insobriety but the hatred of "drunken bravery." For all of the events that led to World War I, we still see in the folly so many opportunities for history to pull back and lay down its swords. That the young nationalist could fail the first time (and the Serb government knew all about the plot long in advance), then be given this second chance, is another in a long line of evil and irony.

If one accepts the notion that good and evil are not simply ephemeral concepts of the after-life, in which the good go to Heaven and the bad go to hell, but rather an on-going chess match, using humans and our instruments as pawns, one then tries to make better sense of the big picture. I have proposed that God "created" the United States to protect the interests of good. Satan tried to weaken "God's country" through slavery, but the "better angels of our nature" prevailed on the strength of our martyred President Lincoln. Satan then drew back, but saw a triumvirate – industrialism, nationalism, and German militarism – and said that this would be the weapon that would propel his biggest offensive in centuries. An expanding war that would bring the whole world into armed conflict. It would create disease (the flu epidemic of 1918), revolution (the Communists, emboldened by the Czar's weakened military), depression (in Germany and the U.S.), and moral laxness (Berlin became a homoerotic sex orgy, the U.S. a free spending speakeasy, French existentialists rejected God, England lost a generation, its spirit sapped). In the end acrimony, accusation and hatred created scapegoats and the seeds to do it all over again 21 years later. Ignore my theory at your peril.

After the assassination, the Austrians determined to crush Serbia. The Germans already had their plans to invade Russia, Serbia's ally. While the Archduke's assassination spurred the war, it would be foolish to suggest it would not have happened anyway. Germany felt the Serbian war could be localized and they could still proceed with their France-first plan. Diplomacy was tried. German-Austrian demands were made for Austria to be allowed to join forces with Serbian officials to quell the nationalist rebellion. The Serbs were belligerent. Austria-Hungary declared war on them on July 28, 1914. The Russians thought a showdown with Austria was a good idea, and secured French backing. The Russians mobilized. The Germans declared war on Russia, which occurred after the exchange of familial letters throughout July between Czar Nicholas and Kaiser Wilhelm. The von Schlieffen plan, set in motion by events, tinkered with since 1905, was set in motion by von Moltke. It sent the Germans into Belgium on the way to Paris on August 4. Britain mobilized for an immediate march to the countryside outside of Paris, with the goal of stopping the Germans before they could repeat the 1870 encirclement. The "great memorandum" was already in disarray. It did not plan for Balkan nationalism involving an ally (Austria) fighting a "localized war." The biggest misconception was immediately brought to light by English aggressiveness.

British Labor leader John Burns predicted the war would last three years, cost his country 1 million men, at the expense of $35 billion, and end in world revolution. Wow. Everybody else thought it would be short and sweet and their side would win. The devil works that way. Propagandists immediately entered the picture. Stories of German soldiers bayoneting Belgium babies horrified the Allies. The stories were untrue.

The Central Powers held an advantage on land from 1914-16. The Allies had the advantage on the seas. Italy refused to stay aligned with Germany-Austria because they were the aggressors. The Russian Army was a facade, huge in numbers, but weak in leadership, equipment and morale. Germany knew that the Allies had superior resources that would only be important if the war dragged on. They knew they had to force a decisive end quickly.

The Germans began a defensive war on Russia and a lightning march on France. They met forts at Namur and Liege, which only took a couple of days to break through, but gave the British just barely enough time to move 160,000 men across the channel into Belgium while the French assembled three armies. Barbara Tuchman's terrific book, "The Guns of August" was very influential in John F. Kennedy's handling of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. In it is the description of Marshall Foch, sitting down with his staff, all in full dress uniform, at their picnic-style lunch, complete with wine served by uniformed waiters. In the background can be heard the German guns. The English traveled across the channel to defend the French, who ate _foi gras._ This event is the 21st Century in a nutshell.

The Allies were forced into retreat at Mons. By early September General Alexander von Kluck's forces were 25 miles from Paris. The Allies behind the Marne River were extended from Paris to Verdun. French General Joseph Joffre massed a defensive line. The Germans knew it was now or never. They brought everything they had on the Marne between September 6-10, knowing that if they broke the Allies Paris was theirs, and the war could be forced into a political peace. But several divisions the Germans needed had been sent to the Russian Front. It was just enough to weaken them and prevent the breakthrough. General Ferdinand Foch digested his wine and _foi gras_ in time to brilliantly attack and force back General Max von Hausen's forces. The Germans retreated. They stabilized at the Aisne River. The English Channel, and its ports, were under Allied control. The Allies re-grouped.

Had the Archduke not been assassinated; had Austria and Serbia not declared war; had the Germans not begun a defensive war with Russia; had these events not taken place, perhaps a settlement of withdrawal could have been reached. The Germans realized their plans, based on lightning victory, had not been reached. The war was now a wild card. They did not retreat. Instead, trenches were dug and a line running from Nieuwpoort, Belgium, south to the area of Compiegne and Soissons, France, then east to around Verdun, south to the St. Mihiel salient, then southeast to the Swiss border, was established. Millions of men manned this 600-mile landscape for four horrendous years.

German Generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff drove a wedge between the bloated Russian forces at Tannenburg in August, 1914. The Czar's forces were forced out of East Prussia. The Austrians could not repel a Russian advance at Galicia, and they lost many prisoners. The Allies began to think they had the upper hand fighting on their home turf. They began to enter into plans to divide up the war spoils. Then Turkey joined forces with Germany in October. The war was no longer a European one, but a world war. It would get bigger still.

The British met defeat at Ypres, Belgium in the Spring of 1915, where poison gas was used for the first time. Young Winston Churchill, in charge of English naval strategy, endeavored to drive a global encirclement action on the Germans. He would attack Turkey, taking Constantinople, driving over the steppes, and joining Russian forces on the front. British and Australian forces were slaughtered horribly at Gallipoli instead. Generals August von Mackensen and von Hindenburg drove the Russians out of Galicia and most of Russian Poland, costing the Czar 1 million men in prisoners and 2 million in casualties. Bulgaria declared war on Serbia. Soon Serbia, Montenegro and Albania were overrun. Romania was conquered, and a "Balkan flank" attacked Italy.

The British, however, controlled an empire and the sea. They used its resources to keep France supplied. The U.S. began the supply of the Allies in 1917. German colonies fell, which brought their economy and supply resources to a halt. The Germans and English fought a naval battle to standstill off the Danish coast in 1916. Germany never again exercised sea power. The British had not abided fully by international maritime law, but their violations involved allowing neutral countries and shipping in neutral waters to supply war materiel. The Germans blatantly killed civilians, such as when they sunk the Lusitania, a British passenger ship with many Americans on board, in 1915. When that happened, the pacifist American president Wilson found himself facing an inflamed public demanding our entrance into the war.

On land, the Germans exercised full frontal assaults on French positions at Verdun. The French held amid shouts of "they shall not pass." Germany gained 130 square miles of muddy land, none of which was of much value, at the cost of 300,000 men. The French suffered massive casualties. In July, 1916, the British counter-attacked at the Somme. By the end of 1916 1 million men were dead, the Germans had held the Somme, and stalemate marked the war.

In Mesopotamia, at Kut al Imara, the British suffered defeat at the hands of the Turks in April, 1916, losing 13,000 men in surrender. By the beginning of 1917, everybody knew the war was a mistake. Nobody knew how to get out of it. The machine gun had changed everything, but most important was the all-consuming nature of the new warfare. Civilians were conscripted or mobilized to provide services behind the lines, so that all of society was geared to war. The British estimated that they spent $1 million per hour. 8 million died during the war. Efforts at peace were rejected, despite efforts at conciliation by President Wilson. Had peace been accepted, which the German government wanted but their military, still confident of victory (especially at the Russian Front) rejected, Russia may have been saved before the Communists took over. The peace talks were so convoluted, however. They involving splitting many territories and divisions. Should they have been signed into treaty, it is highly possible that wars would have broken out in the years following their signing. When Wilson saw that his efforts went for naught, he entered the U.S. into the fray in April, 1917.

The American entrance as an ally of England and France did not come as naturally as one might suppose. Irish-Americans hated England. Many German-Americans favored Germany. But the Democratic principles of England and, to a lesser extent France, swayed opinion to sympathize with the Allies. The Americans wanted to keep the Atlantic Ocean open for shipping, hoped to make trade safe with England, and were unhappy with German intervention in relation to Mexico's _guerilla_ attacks on the U.S. border. When the Communists took over in Russia, the U.S. reached a fever to fight a "war to end all war" and "make the world safe for Democracy."

In March, 1917, the Czar lost all command of his forces. The soldiers turned on their officers, killing them in the roads. When Nicholas abdicated the throne, a provisional government withdrew. The Bolsheviks signed a truce with the Central Powers. With the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia abandoned claims to Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Livonia and Finland. The U.S. entrance in the war coincided with Central Power victory on the Eastern Front. Despite the increasing desperation of the Allies, General John "Black Jack" Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, refused to enter the Yanks into combat until they had gone through extensive training in France. When the Americans entered the fray and the Russians went Communist, all of the war aims changed. The last vestiges of a European or continental war were gone. It was now a truly World War, with dire consequences for humanity, Democracy and freedom. The Communist Revolution in Russia offered a huge wild card that nobody could quite figure out yet. If the Germans won, they would not merely have the kind of victory that came to them during the Franco-Prussian War. Rather, they could achieve the all-inclusive world victory that Napoleon had aimed for. In his case it required many wars spread over thousands of miles over many years. With all of these chips on the table in one major theater of operations, their was no longer a real chance for anybody to sue for peace. It had become too important for that.

Because of the desperation and suffering, there was at first much consternation regarding the Americans. They were not considered battle-tested. Compared with the sallow-faced, hungry French and British fighters, strung out after three years of intense battle, the Yanks were fresh-faced, well fed and full of a gung-ho enthusiasm. This was invigorating yet, because they had not fired a weapon in anger yet, contemptible to the French citizens and the soldiers who wondered when they would help. The Americans were made up of many farm boys. On weekends they ventured into Paris on leave. Paris had never felt the real sting of battle, although the Germans had hauled out a giant gun that fired salvos her way. Café dwellers sat drinking wine and coffee while the war could be heard in the countryside. The Americans were a randy bunch, drinking and taking much liberty with the French _mademoiselles_ , which the French men did not appreciate. A saying came out of this. "Once they see Paree, they ain't gonna go back to the farm." In many ways, this was the first international experience of the new power. The sights, sounds and experiences of war, Parisian life, and the romantic adventure of it all changed the very character of the American psyche.

The romanticism quickly dissipated when Pershing finally ordered the Americans into battle. Aside from not letting them fight until he was satisfied that they had been fully trained, he also insisted that they not fight under any flag or command other than American. This was quite galling to the French – and less so to the Brits. At Belleau Wood, the Marines won a battle against German forces that was not strategically important, but proved to friend and foe that U.S. forces were battle-worthy.

On March 21, 1918, the Germans attacked the British line in the fog at St. Quentin. It forced the English almost to Amiens, which would break their contact with the French positions. With the fate of Calais and Boulogne in the balance, the British knew that a defeat here could not be accepted. General Sir Douglas Haign emphasized that surrender was not an option. He filled them with the fury to fight to the "last man." If forces know they cannot surrender, they fight harder, more relentlessly than if they think surrender or retreat, however dishonorable, is acceptable. At St. Quentin, the motivation worked.

The French elevated Foch to Commander in Chief of the Allied Armies, the position held by Dwight Eisenhower in World War II. American forces still did not fight under his direct command, or under a French flag. In May, the Germans launched an offensive against the French in the south. The line was pushed back to Chateau-Thierry, and with the Germans at the Marne, 37 miles from Paris. The conflict reached stalemate in the trenches. It was a war of attrition, but both sides were losing the attrition. When the Germans aimed long range artillery at Paris, French defeatism reared its ugly head. Premier Georges Clemenceau gave public speeches of Churchillian eloquence to keep up the spirits of his frightened people.

The German barrage, however, was a bluff. In extending themselves they outran their supply lines. Disease and starvation ran rampant along the German lines. 1 million Americans helped guard ports, keeping the Germans from getting ships docked to supply their armies. The Germans were not through yet. In mid-Summer, they pushed hard at the Marne again, but this time the Americans met them with increasing force. The American presence gave Marshall Foch the courage to make a fateful order for counteroffensive in the Argonne Forest.

The Americans and French linked up and attacked at Chateau-Thierry from the west and east. On August 2 Soisson was taken. The German gamble had failed. They were in retreat. Now they shifted their war aims to holding the Argonne and suing for a reasonable peace. The English and French were too tired, in spirit, in physical actuality, and too beat up by the war to prevent German occupation of the Argonne. But the Americans would prevent the political reality of an Argonne/peace.

Count von Hertling, the German chancellor, thought the Allies would make peace proposals in September. Ludendorff, who had won victories on the Russian Front, refused to see the handwriting on the wall. He thought outright victory could be had. But Austria had been thrown beyond the Piave River with 150,000 casualties. This resulted in desertion of the minorities that made up their empire – Poles, Czechs, and Yugoslavs. Bulgaria collapsed. Hungary threatened to invade Austria. The English had air power and were bombing towns on the Rhine. Germany's dissatisfied civilian population infected their troops. The British stepped up a propaganda campaign to undermine German resolve. President Wilson began making speeches absolving the German civilian population of war guilt. His 14 Points speech helped to establish American statesmanship and political power on an international stage, enunciating a wide variety of hoped-for arrangements, territorial relaxations, economic and trade freedoms, liberations, free elections, and the like. It was an ambitious plan. It was one of the first times that such concepts had ever been applied to certain places in Europe, places that had always lived under monarchies, dictators, and occupying forces. Populations had always been political pawns, never free Democracies. Wilson was a visionary and an idealist. He was a good man who was probably ahead of his time.

The Allies began a major offensive to push the Germans out of the Argonne before Winter set in. They employed a new weapon called the tank to attack new positions. The entire western front went into motion, with the Americans taking the St. Mihiel salient that had been in German hands for three years. The Germans installed a new government, under the moderate Prime Minister Prince Max of Baden. He was to negotiate a peace, principally with Wilson. While talks dragged on, the Americans pushed relentlessly. A major rule of diplomacy was put in place. Kissinger and Nixon would use it to successfully negotiate an end to the Vietnam War. Negotiate through strength.

Americans passing retreating French forces were warned not to "go in there." The Americans did just that. When asked where they were going, brash Americans told the French "where the bullets are flying."

With all due respect, the French were tired from having been in the trenches for three years before the fresh U.S. troops arrived on the scene. But there is doubt that the French and English had what it took to outright defeat Germany on their own. The Americans saved the day. Wilson demanded that the German people renounce their government, giving rise to Democracy. Their negotiators balked at this. The German cabinet feared a French-style revolution. They preferred to fight the war to a terrible end instead of meet a "reign of terror" from an unleashed populace.

The Americans sent one battalion into the Argonne in early October led by Major Charles Whittlesy. Whittlesy was a Harvard lawyer, a Wilsonian pacifist who practiced law in New York City. He had joined the Army because he heard that enlisted personnel were sent to die by unfeeling officers. He wanted to try and change that. He led his men into the Charlemagne Valley, which was the last, deepest, most entrenched stronghold of the German Army. If the Germans could hold there, they could sue for an acceptable (to them) peace, denying the Allies the outright victory that the world demanded of a four-year global war.

Major Whittlesy was sent on what he himself thought was a "suicide mission," which he accepted reluctantly. He was told that he would get back up, and resolved that the only chance that his men had to survive was to hold out until replacements arrived. His top aide was Captain Charles McMurtry, another Harvard man. Unlike Whittlesy, McMurtry was a "regular Army" hard-liner. They clashed over Whittlesy's pacifist views. McMurtry worried that Whittlesy would not have the stuff to lead the men when the fighting got severe, which it promised to become. This promise was realized quickly when the battalion was pinned down and surrounded. They became known to the press, covering the war, as the "lost battalion." They were never really lost. They were encircled. The American reinforcements could not get to them. Actually, they could have been saved the ordeal they went through, but Whittley's commander had not been honest with him. There was no link-up, as Whittlesy thought there would be. They had been sent into the fray knowing they would draw the Germans out in the open to fight and kill them. This would then allow the American artillery to pound the Germans into submission. The "lost battalion" was sacrificed as "bait," for all practical purposes. Except that Whittlesy had no intention of sacrificing his men, many of whom thought of themselves as "Jews, gangsters and criminal element" from New York City. They were immigrants and the sons of immigrants, full of American bravado, itching for a fight and anxious to prove themselves not just for, but to, their country.

The early dismissal of Whittlesy as an aristocrat faded when the action started and the major showed no fear in the face of the worst danger. Better yet, his keen legal mind transferred perfectly into clear understanding of how to handle the fluid, constantly-changing military situation. McMurtry gave him his undying loyalty, as did everybody else. They would die for him, and many did. Day after day, night after night, the "lost battalion" was attacked, subject to flame-throwers, artillery, and infantry charges from Germans in the heavily forested woods. The attacks could come at any minute, and the men could not relax for a second. They were not able to sleep. They ran out of food, water, ammunition and medical supplies.

The Germans constantly enticed them with surrender offers. Whittlesy responded by ordering vicious counter-attacks unlike anything the Germans had ever seen from the other Allies. When the Germans captured some of Whittlesy's men, the soldiers smiled at their enemy, disdained food and coffee (despite their starving condition) in order to bluff the Germans into thinking they had plenty of everything. In fact, they had nothing. It was a huge poker game of life or death consequence.

Despite their bravery the battalion was ready to fall when a small detachment of men, not backup but another lost group that was trying to find their way through the woods back to the rear, stumbled upon them. Captain Nelson Holderman, a handsome, cocky Californian who had also gone to West Point, led them. They were just the breath of fresh air that Whittlesy and McMurtry's battalion needed. They pumped each other up with bravado and macho courage.

An American plane managed to spot their position just before getting shot down by the Germans, but he identified the enemy position for U.S. artillery. However, when the guns fired, the coordinates were off and they shelled the "lost battalion." The battalion had two courier pigeons, there only hope for communication. The Germans shot down the first pigeon. The second, nicknamed Cher Ami, managed to fly to the American lines with a note begging them to stop firing, which they did but not without causing numerous casualties via "friendly fire." More desperation followed. Whittlesy, McMurtry and Holderman inspired their men in the most dire emergencies. Finally Whittlesy knew he had to make his situation known to rear guard replacements. A kid named Abe Krotoshinsky volunteered to try to run through the German lines and find American units. It seemed impossible, but Krotoshinsky told Whittlesy that when he was growing up in Chicago, he had learned how to run, dodge and hide to avoid getting beat up by Irish gangs, which brought a smile to McMurty's face.

Krotoshinsky was sent on his famous run, and managed to live up to his word. He found the Americans, who at first thought the disheveled, dirty soldier was a German until Krotoshinsky gave an accurate description of how the Chicago White Sox had won the 1917 World Series, which included an infamous rundown play involving a player named Heinie Zimmerman. His enthusiasm for the ChiSox could only come from a Chicagoan. He was asked how his unit was doing.

"Well, we haven't eaten, slept, or drank anything for eight days," he said breathlessly. "We're surrounded, the Krauts shoot flame-throwers and throw grenades at us all the time, and when they don't do that they rush us with infantry or lob artillery shells, and when they don't do that our own guys bombed us. Our wounded are just about dead, and we gotta lotta dead, and we got guys dyin' out on the perimeter callin' for their mamas and we can't help `em so we just listen to `em, but other than that we're doin' pretty good."

Word went out to headquarters. Once they knew exactly where in the Argonne the "lost battalion" was, reinforcements routed the Germans and saved the battalion. It was the last straw for the Germans. They retreated, and the Argonne belonged to the American Army. The war was all over but the shouting. Whittlesy, McMurty and Holderman are three of the most revered winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but Whittlesy is a tragic figure. The government sent him on a tour to raise money for war bonds. He had seen too much carnage, and blamed himself for the deaths of the men under his command (despite having saved so many more) that he committed suicide in the 1920s.

In Germany, reserves refused to return to the front, and the public knew that out-and-out abdication by Wilhelm meant victory. They rebelled against him. Italian armies finally routed Austria. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was _kaput_. Emperor Charles told the Kaiser he was negotiating a separate peace armistice.

Sentiment to replace the monarchy with the Hohenzollern dynasty was whipped up. As October turned to November, the war still dragged on and the German people lost interest quickly in any kind of imperial rule. When Wilson refused to bargain with the Hohenzollern's, their hopes of returning to power were dashed. Meanwhile, the German Navy mutinied at Kiel. The Kaiser left Berlin like a thief in the night on October 29. Large numbers of Germans wanted to become Communist, like Russia. In fact, when Russian soldiers surrendered on the Russian Front, there had been wholesale celebrations involving Russian and German soldiers, involving a kindred spirit of socialism among the enlisted personnel. They were dirty, hungry and not of a mind to have respect for autocratic authority, imperialism or any of the high and mighty "principles" that propelled both of these countries into the costly war. Democracy was a foreign concept to the Russians and to average Germans.

A Republic was proclaimed in Germany on November 9. Wilhelm found exile until his death in Holland. The Armistice was made effective on November 11, the 11th day of the 11th hour of the 11th month of 1918. Alsace-Lorraine was freed into French hands. The Germans were forced to surrender their enormous weapons cache, prisoners were freed, the German naval and merchant fleet went to Allied control, and the "victory" over Russia was nullified by virtue of renouncement of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. Wilson's 14 points did not survive French demands for humiliation of the Germans. Germany had their peace dictated to them.

Lawrence of Arabia

Before moving on to the Treaty of Versailles, the peace conference that "failed" and is blamed for giving the world Adolf Hitler and all the attendant horrors that attend his legacy, it is important to note the "forgotten war" within the Great War. It was fought on and about the Arabian Peninsula. The history of the world owes much to the events of this time, and is particularly instructive today. Unfortunately, like so much of what happens in the Middle East, the story of the Great War in the Holy Land is not and probably never will be complete. Winners write the history. This fact colors all narratives. There did exist enough of a free press, scholarly thirst for knowledge, and widespread information, pursued unhindered, to depict such events as the American Revolution, the Napoleonic era, the War Between the States and the Western Front, to create an honest body of data.

Germany under the Nazis, of course, revised the history of the Great War. In fact shameful revulsion about their warring past is so prevalent in Germany today that while the history is not actually obstructed, it is rather hidden, reduced to whispers or rumors. But there is no active effort to change the facts. The Communists made a study of the Eastern Front of the Great War much more difficult to assess. The two "losers" of that conflict fought it. World War II did nothing to change this situation. For years, all anybody ever read of official accounts were "glorious victories" and "peoples uprisings" that repelled "imperialist invaders" and varying forms of garbage. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, much has been made available for the historical record, but the lack of a free press in their history still shrouds events like the Great War in semi-mystery.

No place is more mysterious than the Middle East. The English were victorious there, and giants of journalism such as Lowell Thomas and the _New York Times_ (presumably before they sold their souls for the Democrats) joined with British and Muslim press and scholars in hashing out the events there. The actual straight facts are not so colored by ambiguity; rather, it is in the margins that the battle against the last of the Ottoman Turks and its after-effects become difficult to nail down. Today in the Middle East, and this is a sad fact that works to the terrible disadvantage of millions of Arabs and Persians who live there, Truth is a prisoner of war. Truth will come to the Middle East, sooner rather than later. This shall happen because of five simple words: The United States of America.

The recent Iraqi War for freedom made this more plain than ever before. Despite the utterly horrible rule of Saddam Hussein, enormous majorities of everyday Arab citizens were shocked to the bone by the sight of Iraqis kissing and welcoming _en masse_ U.S. soldiers and Marines. Americans might have anticipated this with a little nervousness, but they knew, because we have access to Truth, that it would happen. Since the Information Superhighway opened its ramps for business, we have lived under an illusion. We said that a Hitler, for instance, could not rise because of the Internet, cable television, cell phones, satellites, massive newspaper exposure, telephones, fax machines, and all our other modern conveniences. Now we know that Al-Jazeera can spread lies and disinformation with a modern style that would make Joseph Goebbels envious. This offers a great challenge to people like me. I sit at my computer pounding out words like the ones you are reading right now, more or less so that the most possible readers know the simple dissemination of Truth (with the most possible royalties coming to me for the effort, thank you).

In the case of the Middle East, and this has been going on since the Crusades but for now let us concentrate on the period during and after the Great War, so many things obstruct Truth that it is not of great value to try and list all them. Religion and culture are shrouded there. But for all the mystery, people who live there are human beings, endowed by the same Creator of you and me (whether the Muslims want to believe it or not), and the principles of Jefferson and Adams still apply. They want to be free because God endows them with that natural right. Machiavelli would have made a nice living as a modern day political consultant to the Syrians, Iranians, Palestinians, Saudis, Yemenis, Libyans and...the list goes on. His theories, and the theories of Hitler (their hero for killing Jews) and Stalin (their hero for surviving so long and for killing Jews) are prevalent among a dictatorial class that emerged out of Soviet client states during the Cold War. Machiavelli said that people want security, not freedom. Again, in the 21st Century, and this is a promise, we will see freedom replace all of these despot systems. Again the reason for that is five words: The United States of America. But jingoistic love-it-or-leave-it American patriotism, as much as it gives me a near-sexual charge, does not help when it comes to the hard work of understanding the Middle East.

After 9/11, many conservatives railed against the idea of "understanding" the terrorists. To do so was to engage in moral equivalence when all that was required was to hunt them down and turn them into fire, courtesy of the red, white and blue (with a little help from the Bechtel Corporation). But we do need to understand them. Understanding the Middle East is imperative. The West has been there for many years, and done some nice work that we should be thanked for, which too often does not happen. But mistakes have been made there, no question.

Some of the nice work and some of the mistakes revolve around the man who represents as good a starting point as any in studying modern Anglo-Arab relations. His name was Thomas Edward "T.E." Lawrence. The world knows him as Lawrence of the Arabia, immortalized forever by David Lean's stunning direction and Peter O'Toole's boffo acting in the 1963 film classic. Lawrence was not an English aristocrat, although his manners were upper class. He was a "bastard" child, born in 1888, but his educational acumen combined with a talent for audaciously ingratiating himself with the right people, led to the opportunities for advancement that a free country offers. Thus, he was able to attend Jesus College and Magdalen College at Oxford University, the pinnacle of the English gentleman's peerage. An archaeologist by training, he immediately went on an excavation expedition to the Euphrates River from 1910 to 1914. He took part in a survey of the North Sinai in 1913-14. When the war broke out he tried to enter the service. His short height was given for his rejection, so he went to work in the geographical division of the British War Office.

It was there that Lawrence worked his way into General Kitchener's good graces and talked himself into an intriguing assignment with British Intelligence in Cairo. He somehow overcame the height restriction, securing a commission. In 1916 he was granted permission to go to Arab with Feisal, son of the Sherif of Arabia. The assignment might have been considered a "throw away" of sorts. Lawrence impressed nobody as a great military officer. He was not disliked, but not highly respected. His constant obsequiousness and pushy ways made him the kind of guy who gets passed along from one assignment to the next, mostly to get rid of him. But Lawrence had been in the desert since prior to the war. He knew by training the geography, and had a unique "feel" for the people. Because he was a bastard, he had never quite fit in as an English gentleman, but he was too well bred by education and temperament to be a commoner. He identified with misunderstood people. The Arabs were misunderstood by the English, who at turns thought of them as lazy, liars, savages, terrorists, good fighters, cowards, and all things in between. Think of the Americans and the Indians in the 19th Century, and throw in the history of the Crusades, Muslim _fatwas_ and _jihads_ , and mutual mistrust for 800 years. This is where the common interpretation of Lawrence of Arabia usually ends in Western scholarship.

The English were as much a mystery to the Arabs as vice versa. In Lawrence they found an egotist who could be very self-deprecating; most likely a homosexual with a pendant for young Arab boys; a pacifistic gentleman who developed a thirst for blood; and a diplomat who respected Arab culture while understanding that tribesmen enjoyed wealth as much as Englishmen. Many of the Arabs who came in contact with Lawrence must have thought he was representative of the white man. For the most part they were disappointed when they found out he was not.

Once Lawrence was dispatched on his mission, he could have disappeared into the sands and hardly been missed. But the campaign against the Turks was not a major success. The Dardanelles disaster was a terrible setback, not just in terms of men, materiel, the planning and hopes of linking with Russian allies via the Turkish route and the capture of Constantinople, but also as a psychological blow. The press got hold of the story, and in Great Britain and Australia, the citizenry was aghast at the near-wipeout, which sounded like "Custer's last stand." The English military had gotten used to winning regularly. Getting their hats handed to them by the _Turks_ , of all people, was highly unsettling.

Not that anybody pinned hopes on Lawrence embodying hero status at a time when heroes were not in short supply. But living, non-crippled ones who led the Brits to big victories were. In Arabia, Lawrence faced a Herculean task. The English never would have assigned anybody with real standing, somebody who was accustomed to being accorded high hopes, to a job that was doomed to failure. Success would simply be an unexpected bonus. Feisal was the king of disparate peoples. While he and his monarchy thought of themselves as rulers of a single important country, the land was dispersed with numerous and sundry tribes. Each tribe had their own leaders, customs, religious differences, and goals. Few were commensurate with each other. Lawrence was supposed to round these people up and get them to fight for Britain against the well-armed Turks. The Turks were notorious for their reprisals and were at that time doing a very efficient, Hitleresque job of trying to eliminate all Armenian humanity from the face of the Earth. The English gave Lawrence some fuzzy orders about blowing up bridges. At first the fey, blonde-haired, blue-eyed English gentleman was laughed at. He possessed none of the self-righteous bluster of British officers that the Arabs either expected or had come to know. Lawrence respected individual Arabs and paid homage to tribal leaders. He took the time to understand their customs and to try and speak their language. But most important, he was a natural politician who was able to bring all the tribes together, convinced that their common goal was to defeat the hated Turks. He made some promises he knew he could not keep, but he earned the respect and understanding of the Arabs. In many cases, he was revered as a god, and to those who only heard of him, he ascended to mythic status.

Lawrence organized the tribes into a cohesive fighting unit. Politically, he was Manna from Heaven for Feisal, who had never been able to get all the different elements together in Arabia. Thanks to Lawrence he was now the leader of a powerful, burgeoning "nation."

The first order of business was the capture of Damascus. Along the way, Lawrence managed to blow up 74 bridges, disrupting Turkish supplies, communications and railroad transportation, preventing Turks from getting to battle theatres, and creating panic and terror among the Turk soldiers.

Lawrence came up with an idea that was one of the best in military history, involving the taking of Aquaba, a seaport. His audacious plan ranks along with MacArthur's invasion of Inchon in its breathtaking brilliance. The Turks held Aquaba, and had huge guns pointed at the sea. Behind them lay a virtually impossible desert stretch of land for an army to cross. For an army, with supplies and logistics, to cross it, then still be able to fight when they finished, was not plausible. The Arabs scoffed at the idea. Lawrence led them. To those who balked at the concept, he promised gold and treasure for the looters of Aquaba. The rag-tag fighting expedition did cross the desert. They caught the Turks completely off-guard, slaughtering them to the dismay of Lawrence, who loved the adventure but was torn when it came to killing. He hated it, but he also loved it.

Lawrence was once caught by the Turks, who did not know who he was. He persuaded them that he was a Circassian, was given a beating and sent on his way. Lawrence endeared himself to the Arabs by wearing traditional Muslim dress, instead of English Army issue. When he returned to Cairo after sacking Aquaba, he showed up unwashed and dressed in full headdress. The stuffed shirts in the officers club tried to throw him out. When they discovered who he was they thought he was a traitor, a spy or nuts. Then Lawrence demanded an audience with General Edmund Allenby, the theatre commander. When Allenby was finally convinced who Lawrence really was, and that Aquaba had been taken, and that it was all on the level, Lawrence became a national hero. He was already a national hero in Arabia, and became known as Lawrence of Arabia, a romantic figure.

This is the Western vision of Lawrence. The Arab point of view is different, and in understanding how this is so, important lessons are learned in dealing with the region. At Aquaba, the treasures he promised did not materialize in sufficient quantities, and Lawrence placated some tribal leaders with IOUs from the British Crown. The IOUs were either not met or not met to the satisfaction of the Arabs. Lawrence was the product of a modern, complicated political process, which for lack of a smaller word can be called Democracy. He had superiors, in the military, political and diplomatic realm. During his time with the Arabs, Lawrence became "one of them." That created for him a simplistic worldview in which promises are kept, and honor is achieved through old and noble exploits going back to Platonic descriptions of the "warrior spirit." Lawrence, being the "black sheep" going back to his childhood in England, identified with the simple view, sharing it with the Arabs. When the Arabs discovered they were not equal partners with the English, Lawrence himself was deeply disturbed. Surely he could not have been so naïve as to believe post-war politics would be complicated and veer towards British interests above all else.

Lawrence was invited to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. When most of his promises to Feisal were not met, he refused a peerage and returned all the medals he had won. He was sought out, however, for the stewardship of Arabian Affairs of the Middle East Division, British Colonial Office. Lawrence helped establish Feisal as King of Iraq. He wrote an account of his Arabian experiences in 1926 ("The Seven Pillars of Wisdom"), among other works. He lived the life of an English gentleman, albeit a curmudgeonly one who alternated between anonymity and fame, until dying in a motorcycle accident in 1935.

The fall of the Ottoman Empire: Lessons of the Middle East

The Paris Peace Conference was held in 1919 and resulted in five treaties. The Treaty of Versailles was signed with Germany on June 28. There was also the Treaty of Saint-Germain with Austria (September 10), the Treaty of Neuilly with Bulgaria (November 27), the Treaty of Trianon with Hungary (June 6, 1920), and the Treaty of Sevres with Turkey (August 10, 1920), modified in 1923.

The defeated countries viewed Woodrow Wilson as the great hope. Lloyd George of England and Clemenceau of France were considered hard-liners. They were forced by public opinion to adhere to a vengeful peace. The Americans, while suffering plenty of casualties, came out of the war relatively unscathed compared to the massive loss of life, limb, hope, idealism, material, natural resources and wealth of England and France. Especially France. World War I was the last straw for this old country. After centuries of fighting with the English, Napoleon's failed attempt to conquer the world in her name, two wars with Germany in 44 years, the new realities of modern warfare changed the nature of the country. She was now subject to the protections of allies. Her people had lost the itch for expansionism. Clemenceau was quoted saying that war was now too important for the generals, which was his admission that militarism had to be replaced by statesmanship. War now involved more than just soldiers on isolated fields of battle. Entire countries were ravaged by war, which like a cancer ate at every fabric of society, leaving starvation, disease, death, refugees and massive loss of wealth in its wake. The devil works that way.

Wilson asked for universal disarmament. In compromising to get his dream, the League of Nations, off the ground he agreed to only the disarmament of the Central Powers. Had Wilson had his way, France, England and the U.S. would have been helpless instead of "ready" to meet the German challenge 20 years later. Germany was limited to an army of 100,000 men. Compulsory service was eliminated, voluntary enlistment was limited to 12 years, a limited navy was permitted, with submarines and aeroplanes not allowed. The other defeated countries, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria, faced similar restrictions.

Clemenceau and Wilson opposed Clemenceau's plan to annex the Left Bank of the Rhine as a security zone rich with coal mines and industry known as the Saar. Wilson said that millions of Germans lived in this area and it would cause great dissension. Wilson signed an agreement with France and Great Britain to guard against German aggression for 15 years. Italy was awarded Trentino, Trieste and a large portion of Istria, which placed a large number of Adriatic Slavs under their control. Yugoslavia was formed. Immediately disputes between the inhabitants and Italian "adventurers" ensued. Germany lost all her colonial possessions, which were added to the British Empire and included parts of East Africa and the Cameroons. German New Guinea and Samoa were added on to British West African and Pacific colonies in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Various other territories went to France and Japan.

The Ottoman Empire was carved up after centuries of rule. The Turks had an uprising under Kemal Pasha. Secret treaties were signed, permitting Turkey to retain Asia Minor, Constantinople, and Adrianople in Thrace. Armenia was returned. Syria went to France. Great Britain took over Mesopotamia, Transjordan and Palestine. Italy received the Dodecanese Islands and the Aegean. Hejaz on the Red Sea, Arabian territory, remained independent.

Wilson's great Democratic ideal, which over the century would be viewed as the greater vision, was for more self-determination than was allowed. He saw the post-war territorial agreements as simply colonization, which caused nothing but problems. Wilson had a modern view of people being able to rule themselves, which had still not sunk into most European or even Middle Eastern, and certainly not yet African mindsets. Particularly countries populated by people of "color," "natives" or whatever pejorative applies were not viewed as "advanced" enough to rule themselves. But Wilson's American idealism was based on the desire for freedom. He felt that this yearning beat in the heart of all men and would overcome any lack of "advancement."

Japan turned out to be the recipient of little-known peace dividends, despite having not really participated in the war. Her acquisition of Shantung, China angered Wilson. One lesson of major wars is that countries that are not major players in the conflict can emerge as world powers in the peace. Japan benefited from the Great War. After World War II, the Soviet Union and China emerged as powers. In these cases, both countries participated in the war, although in China's case their participation was scattered; part Communist Revolution, part _guerilla_ war, part nationalism, part cowardice and part bravery. The point is that the U.S.S.R. and China were rather backward nations prior to the war, and were movers and shakers after it. Meanwhile, traditional powers like Britain and France, victors in principle twice in the 20th Century, saw their power and influence cut in half or more. The U.S. participated in World War I, but only at the end, yet came out of it a superpower. Even though they did not start fighting at the beginning of World War II, they came out of it a mega-superpower. Territories that seemed unimportant, even unknown, became major battlegrounds after wars.

North Africa became the prize after World War I. More and more exploration showed the area to be full of natural resources. The Korean Peninsula and Southeast Asia (Indochina, Laos, Cambodia) could not have been less prominent prior to World War II. We know all about them now.

Wilson wanted the "colonies" to be entrusted to the administration of the League of Nations. They would be known as mandates. Wilson also had the vision to oppose punitive indemnities and reparations on Germany. The Europeans provided a laundry list of damages. By 1921 that figure had reached $33 billion. This was imposed on Germany and caused a terrible economic depression, which led to their great unrest. In later years this figure was reduced and finally canceled. By then much of the "damage" had been done. While the vision of magnanimity seems obvious in retrospect, the fact is that Germany did wage an aggressive war on the rest of Europe. The cost was immeasurable, even if confined to pure dollars and cents. The desire of the Allies to repair their economies with German money was all but irresistible at the time.

Poland, which had begged Napoleon for independence and tried to woo him with sexual inducements for this right, was restored. The question of the "Danzig corridor" came up, because it cut off the old East Prussia from the rest of Germany. Baltic states Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland emerged. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was divided into Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia and an enlarged Romania. Yugoslavia was made up of old kingdoms, Serbia and Montenegro, part of Bulgaria, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and part of the Banat of Temesvar. Austria, thought by some to be an even greater military power than Germany before the war but exposed as 19th Century cavalry-heavy, was left with a small state of 6,500,000. Vienna was impoverished. Hungary was reduced to 8 million people. The nationalistic aspiration of varied small countries fulfilled some of Wilson's desire to create self-determination. Old hatreds, fears, and ethnic rivalries rose in their stead, creating a very messy peace. Wilson's League of Nations was supposed to provide the security to take care of these kinds of regional flare-ups. It looked promising, with four operating groups, a secretariat, council, assembly and international court of justice. It was supposed to prevent war, keep security, provide justice, and handle medicine and food shipments.

Germany provided the first spoke in the wheels of the League by refusing to sign on to it because it did not adhere to Wilson's 14 points. They eventually came on board. The League went into operation at Versailles' Hall of Mirrors on June 23, 1919, where Bismarck had proclaimed German empire in 1871. France came out of the war a paper tiger resembling Austria before it. They built fixed fortifications to keep out future invaders, as if they were still living in the age of the Mongol hordes. George Patton said the fortifications were a "tribute to the stupidity of man."

"If oceans and mountain ranges can be overcome," Patton said, "so can anything built by man."

Spoken by a true American in light of the transcontinental railroad, Panama Canal, re-building of San Francisco after the Great Earthquake, Mount Rushmore, Hoover Damn, the TVA, plus bridges connecting Brooklyn, Manhattan, San Francisco, Oakland and Marin County. These accomplishments were all the warning any potential warriors of the past 65 years should have had that involving themselves in war with the U.S. was the worst possible idea with only one conceivable outcome: Total defeat.

Any modern army could punch through French fortifications. Still, France and some other dreamers held to the fiction that as late as 1937-38, France had the most "powerful" military in the world. Indeed, they may have had more men officially in their army. Their state of readiness had been destroyed by the war and they would never possess the will to restore it.

Britain was a huge diplomatic power who had increased its colonial holdings in an era in which holding colonies were as much a burden as an asset. The reality of Britain is that they were gravely impaired by the lavish expenditures of the war, not to mention the loss of the flower of an entire generation. Most monarchies were eliminated. Modern economic internationalism replaced old feudalism. The U.S. came out of the war the big winner, but there were even chinks in their armor. Wilson became gravely ill and was incapacitated towards the end of his Presidency. His wife, Edith, handled the affairs of state in his place. Partly for this reason, the U.S. Senate refused to ratify American participation in the League of Nations.

Events in the Middle East took shape during the post-war 1920s and 1930s, shaping our world today. Certainly, these events have more real relevance to the 21st Century than Europe, where peace was finally secured once and for in the west in 1945, and in the east in 1989-91. But the Arab world is a powderkeg. Iran, not an Arab country, is Persian. Its residents speak Farsi. Iranian forces fought in the British force during the Great War, but their highest-ranking officer, Riza Khan, in 1919 joined with Sayyid Zia Tabatabai to overthrow the corrupt government. It had essentially become a bribe-taker of the English. Riza's _coup d'etat_ resulted in his deposing Ahmed Shah and installing himself as a military dictator/king. He hired Americans to modernize the Iranian economy, and modernity came to the country. In 1932, Riza canceled oil concessions with the West, causing internal dissension. Riza's rule became ironhanded. Germany made overtures into Iranian trade, but the result was that Iran became isolated and backward.

The Ottoman Turks had ruled Iraq, the so-called "cradle of civilization," beginning in the 19th Century. In 1899 a Turkish-German construction contract had cemented the eventually disastrous alliance of the two countries. Germany built a railway running through Turkey and Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf. This caused a threat to British interests at the Suez Canal, resulting in the Anglo-Indian Mesopotamian campaign in World War I. Modern Iraq dates to May, 1920 when Great Britain accepted the invite of the League of Nations to serve as the mandatory for Iraq. It was classified a Class A mandate, meaning it was ready for independence and self-government after brief rehabilitation and administrative training.

Great Britain promoted Emir Feisal as King of Iraq in 1921. Immediately disputes arose between the King, Britain and the nationalism movement over the length of time the country would be in mandate status. In 1927, Britain recognized an independent Iraq. This led to membership in the League of Nations as a constitutional monarchy. However, Britain maintained a force in the region because Iraq did not create a defensive force that could protect itself against hostile neighbors. As oil was discovered in the region the country increased in importance. Border disputes were settled with Saudi Arabia. The monarchy was divided when they tried to re-unite with Turkish tribes in an effort to restore some of the lost Ottoman power. King Feisal supported a modern economy. He had Iraq headed in the right direction, under the rule of his son Ghazi I, when he died just before World War II.

Exiled from Jerusalem since its fall to Rome in 70 A.D., the Jews had never given up hope of returning to the Promised Land. Jesus Christ had been the hoped-for Messiah who would lead their armies in shaking the yoke of Rome. In 132 the Jews had revolted militarily, without success. For centuries, the Jews wandered the Middle East and Europe, facing persecution. In 1897 a Zionist movement began, leading thousands of Jews to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. "The Jewish State", published in 1896 by Dr. Theodor Herzl, gave great international impetus towards creating an independent country. Russian and Polish Jews fled the Czar. Palestinian Jews petitioned Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany to help in this endeavor, but were rebuffed.

The Balfour Declaration was issued by occupying Britain on November 2, 1917. It constituted the first internationally recognized step towards establishment of Palestine as the Jewish home. After the war, the mandate of Palestine was allotted to Great Britain, thus strengthening the Balfour agreement. The League of Nations approved the Palestinian mandate in 1922, with ratification by 51 nations plus the U.S. Congress.

In the 1920s and '30s, the British changed their "Jewish policy" from favoring re-settlement to a halt to Jewish immigration. Arab resistance, in a land that by 1939 was rich with oil, was viewed by the English as a key geo-political part of future strategy against Germany. It left the English thinking that it was better to avoid major controversy until the German question could be dealt with. The Arabs had rioted against the Jews from 1936-39, causing the British to cancel implementation of the Royal Commission's partition doctrine. The British White Paper of 1939 decreed an end to Jewish immigration with the exception of 75,000 cases over five years. When World War II began, the entire question was put on hold.

The Ottoman Turks had taken control of Saudi Arabia in 1517. From then until 1901, it was nominally subject to Portuguese, British and Egyptian interests. In the 18th Century, a violent form of Islam entered into the culture when the Wahabi Arabs initiated a conservative religious reform movement, contemplating an independent Arabia. They inculcated the land with a strain of religious fervor that favored the concept that all infidels should be slaughtered, women given no rights whatsoever, issued numerous _fatwas_ calling for violent torture and death for even minor offensives, and _jihads_ that perverted the original concept of the term. The _jihad_ is a term that we have come to associate with a call to arms and violence, mainly aimed at Christians, Jews, the Great Satan (America) and all infidels (non-Muslims). In reality, the _jihad_ is supposed to be a personal "invoice," a meditation based on improving the life of the individual through introspection and self-awareness. In this respect, it goes to the traditions of the Hindus and Greeks. The Wahabis helped to de-legitimize a term that in fact is a beautiful notion practiced by millions of peaceful Arabs and Muslims the world over. To put Wahabism in terms that might be better understood, think of them the way one might think of the Ku Klu Klan, who called themselves "Christians" while trying to drive out blacks, Jews, and Catholics. The difference, however, is that the Wahabis actually could find language in the Koran "justifying" their violence. No such language can be detected in the Old or New Testaments.

The Ottoman sultans put down Wahabi independence in the 19th Century. It somehow found a voice, which played to the devout Muslims who saw the more secular Turks and Westerners as the infidel invaders. The fact that Saudi Arabia is the home of Mecca seems to play into this fundamentalism. Ibn Saud became the 20th Century Wahabi leader. He and his father had been exiled at the court of the sheik of Kuwait. When Germany tried to create a terminal point for the Berlin-to-Baghdad railway, Ibn Saud inserted himself in the rivalry between Turkey, Great Britain and Germany. Saud created alliance with the English against the Turks. In 1901 he led a successful attack that captured Riyadh. He held the territory, resisting the Turks until World War I.

Ibn Saud and Britain had a marriage of convenience during the Great War. The British also did business with his rival, Husein ibn Ali of Hejaz. When the Turks crumbled in 1918, Husein lost the "game." After proclaiming himself king of the Arabs, the French and British withdrew support for him. This was because Husein wanted the French to leave Syria and for the Balfour Declaration to be annulled. Ibn Saud took advantage in Husein's loss of control of his own people. They had forced him to abdicate while proclaiming himself caliph of Islam in 1924. Ibn Saud consolidated with the Hejaz (Husein's power base) and the Asir. The modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was established in 1932. Three often-conflicting tenets immediately marked Saud's rule. This was cooperation with the U.S. and other Arab states, while opposing the Israeli state.

Ibn Saud created arbitration treaties with Transjordan and Iraq. After a conflict with Yemen, he created friendship with them. They established friendship with Egypt in 1936. During World War II Ibn Saud was a spokesman for the region. Jealousy over the size, power and semi-hegemonic influence of Saudi Arabia began developing in the 1930s amongst its neighbors.

In 1914, when the Ottoman Turks took up their ill-fated alliance with Germany, negotiations started between the British and Grand Sherif Husein ibn-Ali of Mecca regarding Arab participation in the war. Arab independence would result when the Allies won. Husein was promised Syria, except for lands west of Damascus and Aleppo but including Palestine. In 1916, however, France and Great Britain signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement, giving control of the Syrian coast to France. The agreement is a major bone of contention in the history of Arab-Western relations. It created distrust among the Arabs. Syria was given only control of northern interior territories. The Balfour Declaration followed, causing more unrest. If that was not enough, the Bolsheviks, no longer representing a Russian ally but an enemy who wanted to make in-roads in the Middle East, disclosed to the Syrians the Sykes-Picot arrangement. The British still maintained "dedication" to Arab independence. President Wilson strongly favored it, which is indicated as part of his 14 Points. The Syrians did not trust the English.

However, they despised the Ottomans more. Therefore they fought alongside General Allenby in the successful capture of Damascus in 1918. Syria found itself under joint British, French and Arab rule. At the Paris Conference, Wilson advocated Syrian independence under a constitutional monarchy, part of the Feisal umbrella. It was ignored. Instead, at San Remo, Syria was assigned to France, cut off from Transjordan and Palestine. An agreement was reached whereby Feisal accepted the crown of Syria while the country stayed under French administration. He refused a number of French demands, however. The French then invaded Damascus. Hatred of the French ensued.

Wilson had wanted to provide independence to Syria as early as 1919-20. France insisted on virtually looting the country, then invading it militarily. This set the table for the modern "hate the West" faction of Middle East politics, not to mention French violence and heavy-handedness in other parts of the area. It is truly ironic to see that today it is the U.S. trying to make up for all these early mistakes while France sits on its hands, criticizing us for our efforts in cleaning up their mess. The same thing would happen in Vietnam. _Sacre blueu!_

The French administered French law to Syria, vainly trying to create an organic system. "Greater Syria" was carved into Lebanon, Latakia, Jebel el Druz, and Syria. Latakia and Jebel el Druz were merged into "greater Syria" in 1936. Some local autonomy prevailed, but the French administered poorly. A rebellion was immediately fomented in the name of the People's Party, advocating French withdrawal. The French quelled all the rebellions with as much overwhelming force as possible, bombing Damascus after a sizable French force was roundly defeated.

France kept Syria under siege and imposed draconian policies. Then they tried to create rump elections that were little more than smokescreens for a Franco-Syrian treaty, allowing France to stand down. But France refused to deal with the Syrian delegations honestly. Their lies were exposed and known to the Syrians. Nationalist political factions made a consolidated Syrian system impossible. A general strike occurred in 1936 at the failure of France to grant independence. It looked like an acceptable solution had been reached when Syrian leaders were invited to Paris to negotiate and sign a treaty granting freedom to Syria, providing for certain French participation in the country for 25 years. It was a hopeful document.

The French government rejected its ratification. Then World War II started. The Middle East was left to fester over French perfidy. The mess was left for the U.S. to try and clean up.

The good old French were all too happy to bomb and strafe Arabs countries who were not strong enough to fight back. They did not do so to liberate or free Arabs from despotic regimes. During the years between the two wars, they did it to conquer and enrich themselves. They engaged in more military adventure than any other non-Oriental country that later fought in World War II. One would think they would have had the "edge" to take on the Germans when France was attacked in 1940. Alas, they reverted to their post-World War I "we're tired of war" stance, leaving the fighting to the English, the Yanks, the Australians, the Canadians, the New Zealanders, and the rest of the men.

Aside from Syria, the "brave" French had gone in and "conquered" the Algerian coast in 1930. Just as the Syrians were able to defeat the French in battle, so were the Algerians. They held off the great French soldiers until 1947 when France, who had expended no energy fighting the Nazis, had enough left over to mop up the Algerians. Of course, they could not hold Algeria. French history is all anybody needs to know about why they are what they are.

Jordan was included in the unified Arab state promised to Grand Sheriff Husein ibn-Ali for his participation in the Arab revolt against the Turks during the Great War. It was originally a part of the Syrian state proclaimed from Damascus by a congress of Arab notables. Husein's son, Feisal, was chosen King. French forces compelled Feisal to quit Syria. The French never occupied Transjordan. British Army officers administered the country in the 1920s. Winston Churchill and T.E. Lawrence advocated Transjordanian independence. Lawrence came to the country to advise on this. All was going well, with Great Britain agreeing to finance the nation's startup with 200,000 pounds. In 1922 the Wahabi Arabs mucked up the works by invading. The English forces had no choice but to defend themselves and the country. With the mechanized advantage they repelled the invaders. The English set up a military base in Transjordan. Modernization occurred until the 1931 Haddfa Agreement established a common frontier with Iraq. This was the pre-cursor of the Arab League.

With the French causing unrest in Syria, many Syrians arrived as refugees in Transjordan. The English plans to leave were delayed by the instability, requiring their presence. During this time Transjordan went from an English mandate to a protectorate, with foreign relations handled by the English. An uneasy peace ensued throughout the 1930s, until the outbreak of World War II.

Armenian genocide

Perhaps the most tragic part of World War I, other than the larger evil of Communism that arose, was the fate of Armenia. Armenia had undergone a renaissance of nationalist revolts from 1894-96, resulting in large civilian massacres orchestrated by Turkish sultan Abdul-Hamid II.

The Young Turks imposed forced marches upon the Armenian population over the period 1909-15, sometimes taking on Middle Eastern similarity to the later Bataan Death March. This is was a product of the Ottoman imperial policy, carried out as a continuation from previous atrocities. This escalated because the "mask" of war provided the Turks a cover that allowed them to carry on genocide under the guise of "military necessity."

The Russians had viewed war in the Caucasus Region to be romantic in nature, celebrated by the writings of Pushkin, Lermontov and young Tolstoy, just as British adventure in Afghanistan and India was turned into lyrical poems masking the death of many a British soldier in the field. These "romantic adventures" actually resulted in bitter oppression, massacre and deportation. 450,000 mountaineers were deported in and around 1864. Atrocities were committed against "outside Turks," as Turkish nationalists liked to call them. These people included Arabs who were not Turks, Muslim Kurds, Syrian Arab nationalists, and various martyrs. An effort to draw these disparate groups in "holy war" by Turkish caliphates during World War I was resisted.

The Turks attacked the Russians in the Caucasus at the beginning of Winter, 1914, with temperatures in the 20s in the lower passes. Their commander, Pasha Enver had 150,000 men to the Russians 100,000, with a defective supply line. At first, the Russians were drawn in and took huge losses. The plan was to then strike behind them and draw them further to Erzerum and Lake Van. This was the territory of the Seljuk ancestors of the Ottomans. They had won victory over the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071, marking the "dreadful day" from which their decline to extinction at Constantinople in 1453 dated. The Ottoman Third Army brought 271 pieces of artillery and moved slowly. Half of their 8,000 men died of frostbite in one division in four days. On December 29, 1914, Russian General Mishlaevski counter-attacked, forcing surrender of the Turkish IX Corps. Only 18,000 Turks survived the campaign. 30,000 were said to have died of the cold at elevations of 6,500 feet.

Among the troops employed by the Russians was a division of Christian Armenians, mostly disaffected Ottoman subjects. Under Russian sponsorship, they committed massacres when given the chance. This was used as justification by the Ottomans to scale up the on-going Armenian genocide campaign of 1915-17. It led to the deaths of 700,000 (maybe more, maybe less) men, women and children, forcemarched into the desert to die of starvation and thirst. This aspect of the Armenian marches is separate from previous actions against them. It was "undeclared," which combined with the fog of war gave the Turks just enough of a deniability clause to dispute the claims of the Armenians. This part of the war was fought in terrible conditions in mountain passes, in a part of the world where the _New York Times_ and the _Guardian_ had no reporters (as opposed to the press coverage of T.E. Lawrence in the warm, wide open spaces of Arabia). It was virtually "secret." Because of the political realities of post-war Armenia, the genocide faded into history. However, over the years historians have verified the events. Now it is undisputed fact. Nevertheless, to this very day, the secular government of Turkey wavers somewhere between outright denial, partial acceptance of its past, and no real apology to Armenia and Armenians.

The Armenian genocide proceeded the Holocaust. It may have been in the mind of Dwight Eisenhower when he ordered photographers and journalists to record the discoveries at the death camps. He knew that, amazing as it was, these kinds of crimes could be covered up, as had happened to the Armenians. The Ottomans never faced war crimes tribunals or international courts. They basically skated. Now the blame that falls on modern Turks is not any more favorably received than average white Americans being blamed for slavery. The devil works that way.

World War I may also mark the beginning of the Holocaust. Mostly unchronicled were the deaths of between 100,000 and 200,000 Jews and 600,000 expelled from the villages, by Russia. S. Ansky (1863-1920), a Russian-Jewish journalist and playwright, was commissioned to organize wartime relief efforts for Jews in the Russian-occupied territories. He witnessed pogroms that started under the Czar and were enthusiastically carried out by the Communists. They felt the old regime's treatment of Jews was the only "good work" they had on their record. When the Russian Army entered towns, they immediately gathered all the Jews, who were shot, beaten and had their shops looted. The culture of Jewish attitude in Russia was that "all Jews are spies" or war profiteers. These pogroms were responsible for a huge number of Russian immigrants to the United States. It is very important to note that Adolf Hitler did not _start_ persecution of Jews; he in fact was merely carrying out the "work" of others before he came along.

When World War I ended, President Wilson ordered a mandate for greater Armenia, administered by America. A brief independence did occur, but it did not take. The Bolsheviks began Sovietizing Armenia between 1918-20. Turkish revolutionary movements under Kemal Turk refused to accept Armenian independence outlined by the Treaty of Sevres on August 10, 1920. Squeezed between the Soviets and Turks, Armenia was obliterated as a country. Marxist factions infiltrated the population. By 1921 they were part of a Transcaucasian Soviet Socialist Republic, which included Georgia and Azerbaidzhan. The Soviets and Turks sealed Armenian fate by treaty in 1921, and established friendly post-war relations that gave Armenia no chance of breaking out of the yoke.

Armenian desire for freedom never waned, despite its awful fate under the Ottomans and the Communists. Eventually it was swept up by events of World War II. For this reason, Armenians have always loved the U.S., and successfully immigrated here. Many of them are Christian. They have succeeded in great numbers in America, where their political influence is very strong. Many Armenian-Americans have risen to high places in our society, including two-term California Governor George Deukmejian (1983-91).

The Russian Revolution

The U.S. entered a period of isolationism after Wilson left office. They tried to stop Communism before it started. In this, Wilson was very prescient. With troops in Europe and the Bolsheviks in power in the newly formed Soviet Union, Wilson ordered U.S. forces into Russia to assist the "White Russians," loyalists to the murdered Romanoff royal family, in their counter-rebellion against the Communists. However, the Whites were unable to mount a real military offensive. The Americans found themselves mainly playing the role of advisors to an attack that never came. The Americans drank and partied heavily, making their presence known in the rural towns where they were headquartered. The local Russians looked at these tall, fresh-faced doughboys with a combination of admiration and dismay. Admiration at their confidence and utterly American bravado; dismay at the naivete they seemed to have in a world that, for the Russians, was almost entirely miserable. The Yanks pulled out of Russia and never returned as a military force. This little known history offers some real enticement to our time traveler. What if the U.S. could have been convinced to give this effort real muscle? What if they could have stopped V.I. Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and the rest of their Marxist vermin before they built their security apparatus, terrorizing the citizenry and creating a dominating military?

This question goes far beyond the Cold War. A series of events that wrap around each other emanate from this scenario. First, if Russia had not gone Communist, furthermore if they had been denied Communism by an invading American military that gave their country real freedom in the 1920s, _Nazi Germany never rises._ Hitler raged against the Jews, but that was social propaganda. He built Germany's military because he hated Communism. It was to the East that he directed his first salvos. If an American-occupied Democratic Russia, allied with the U.S., was up there, Hitler never attacks.

Now, if Hitler still attacks Russia in May of 1941, Russia as an American ally still fights back, only this time with all the help we can provide. Assuming the result of the war would be relatively similar (defeat of Germany), the peace obviously would be different in that Russia would not have been a Communist empire. They would not have swallowed up Eastern Europe like USC's football teams of the 1960s and 70s rolling over their opponents.

The reality of the Soviet Union is what we are dealing with here. In studying who and what they were, and what they created, I repeat the phrase, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

When an African-American athlete like Charles Barkley says something like, "I don'need ta know history I know now," which is what he told talk show host Michael Savage on MSNBC, he does not merely expose himself as a member of the Dumbellionite Class. A black man who does not know history is even more vulnerable to real danger. Slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and in his case a vanguard of athletes like Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby, forged careers for black athletes. They paved the way for the Charles Barkley's to become multi-millionaires. These are just a few of the more obvious reminders of history that he needs to know, and not just to pay homage to his ancestors. Social conditions in America will never allow for Jim Crow laws again, but we live in a global community. Rwanda happened in 1994. The chances that somebody related by blood to Charles Barkley was one of the 1.5 million Africans hacked to death by Africans is what Charles needed to _know now_. If 1.5 million Jews were rounded up in concentration camps in Europe and put to death in 1994, I guarantee that Sandy Koufax, Steven Spielberg and other prominent Jews, no longer in danger of being deported to death camps, would do more than to say that they need do not know history because they _know now._

History repeats itself. Sometimes it rhymes. The regularity with which events repeat, in different forms but the "same thing," is utterly remarkable. There is a pattern and flow to events. These patterns and flows have a way of developing after cataclysmic times. A major war, for instance, has a way of unraveling social patterns that manifest themselves in five-, 10-, 15- and 20-year periods. The so-called "blacklist" of the 1950s can be traced to a shift in political attitudes emanating from emboldened militarists, patriots and their conservative brethren. Victory in the Cold War, followed by two amazing military victories over Iraq, created a similar social situation.

We have delved into Karl Marx and Emma Goldman, and given the intellectual side of Communism, anarchy and their place in late 19th Century/early 20th Century modernism. Now it is time to put the rubber to the road, and see how these ideas, principles, theories and concepts played themselves out when applied to countries, militaries, governments and real people. Marx and Goldman are not to be let off so easily, dismissed as mere thinkers. Just as Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and Hamilton are responsible for their wonderful ideas, so are Marx, Goldman and V.I. Lenin. They are worthy of derision that cannot be heaped upon them for too long. They are horrors of history.

Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle were thinkers who posited notions of Democracy that did not entirely pan out in their time, but lived long after them. The "revolutionaries" proposed ideas about the nature of man. These revolutionaries were eaten up by their own failures. This led them to deliver prescriptions for society based upon darkness, sickness and perversity. They allege that we who live and breath _do not_ want to be free, _invite_ despotism in the name of security, and _reject_ the sweet breath of the Lord Jesus Christ. These "men" must be identified and exposed for their _lies._

Here is the thing, _mi amigos._ This is not about history. Some people believe in reincarnation. George Patton, a Christian, was one of them. _There are more things on Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than can be dreamt of in your philosophy._ The Bard lives with us today, not because he wrote some stageplays in an English language that few of us can understand, but because he captured _genius_. His is the kind of genius that some new thinkers occasionally stumble upon. This genius is that people are always the same. The same Englishmen, Danes, Moors, Italians, and Venetians who populated Shakespeare's mind are the same people who populate books about the Civil War, the Great Depression, the Nazi concentration camps, and the local bar. They are the people of honor, of capriciousness, of evil, of droll ordinariness. That is what this is about.

So, we return to Communism, that part of history that we are told has been relegated to the dustbin. We have our images; the Berlin Wall being torn down by leather-clad Teutonics, a mob stringing Ceausescu and his bitch up in Romania, even Boris Yeltsin standing up to a tank that did not have the gumption to step on the gas and roll over progress.

This is not about a bunch of plastic Chinamen still clinging to their Red Guard phraseology while reading textbooks from the Stanford Business School. It is not about a terrorist in Cuba living out his last days, or a big-haired pizzant in North Korea, or even the poor peasant folks of Vietnam, who battled _one thousand years_ , finally prevailed, and a found themselves on the wrong side of history. Talk about Shakespearean tragedy!

No, this is about the fact that the people who turned Russia into the U.S.S.R., and Germany into a 12-year Reich, did not just turn up, live out their pitiful destinies, and fade away. They are part of a _strain._

There is a strain of people everywhere, all the time, who are anarchists or racists or just plain evil. They are not constrained by countries, borders, language, governments or time periods. The people with pink hair and nipple rings who protested the recent Iraq War are the anarchists. I am not talking about all the protesters. Some had legitimate conscientious objections. Some just had political axes to grind against George W. Bush. But the hardcore among them are eternal. The anarchists are different from the racists and the other evil ones. What drives the anarchists is obliqueness, a lack of nobility, a failure to exceed or excel or strive beyond the most ordinary mundanities. This is the state of many of our Earthly creed, which is just fine. If everybody were excellent those of us who are would not stand out. So thank you. But the pink hairs, the anarchists, the yellers, screamers, sit-downers and road blockers are driven by an envy of success. Success and the striving behind it by virtue of example serve to simply identify and expose them for their marked inability to succeed and strive. They are infuriated by accomplishment. _Res ipsa loquiter._ The 18-year old pink hair sees the 18-year old Marine, so fit and respectful, so brave and handsome, so accomplished, _and he just can't stand it!_

In most countries, they are constrained by society or, in some cases, government censorship. We see them in America because we are free. We welcome them with a sigh, even they have always been the people who were the engine of anarchism, socialism, revolution and, ultimately, Communism. By the time Communism got serious about itself, they were eliminated with everybody else. They had done their work. Now the truly evil ones, waiting in the wings for the road to be paved, stepped forward to build their secret police apparatuses, their spy networks, and their armies. The racists happily joined forces. This was Soviet Communism. The devil works that way.

But _these same people_ are everywhere. The freer the society the more obvious they are. This is a fabulous side benefit of American freedom. In the U.S., they cannot help themselves. They see no roadblocks to their screeds. There are no camps, gulags, or dungeons. They find their faithful followers and fellow travelers. They are emboldened to advertise themselves on CNN. The job of people like me is to identify and expose them for what they are, by shedding the anti-septic light of truth on them. But it is not so easy. The people may be the same, but the game changes. The phrases are different. An Oscar statuette may replace the hammer and sickle. Differentiating the anarchists and the useful idiots from the truly evil is a tricky task.

So the photos of Stalin's statue toppling do not reflect the end. Movements as huge as Communism could be defeated, but the minds that perpetuated the crimes will never go away. This is so important that I cannot possibly emphasize it more than I am. This is evil and it must be confronted, defeated over and over again. The racism that propelled six million Jews to concentration camps is more obvious on its face, easier to find, identify and put in its place. The Jewish people are intellectuals and protective of their traditions. They have effectively forced the vermin out of their holes. But Communism was more benign, not couched in the identifiable hate speech of Hitler. To those who are seduced by such prescriptions, it lives in the guilty mind like a salve, taking away the pain just enough so the sick do not even know they have cancer.

So, America and the world, heed my words and go forth knowing that the "revolutionary spirit" that killed 100 million lives and breathes. Shall we forget? As my hero, President Ronald Reagan once said, "Not on my watch."

The Czars of Russia were a pretty rotten bunch. They did not care much about the people. Medieval Russia continued to exist in practice and concept right on into the 19th Century. When the rest of Europe developed new societies and modern practices, enlightenment did not find its way to this enormous, beautiful, tragic land. The Czars were inept. Their attempts at reform were inept. The weakness of Russia was exposed in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War. Under the shadow of the war, the first aborted attempts at revolution failed.

Czar Nicholas II lived in luxury in the Kremlin and country _dachas_. An elite minority in the business, imperial and military classes enjoyed the good life. A Russian aristocrat, however, was not _trained_ for anything practical. Military officers were knowledgeable of military history, could handle a sword and ride a horse. They were sometimes related by blood to the royal family or had some other peerage. They were not just average Russians who wanted to make a career in the army. They were not highly skilled in the arts of modern war. By 1900 they probably knew more about how to counter a Napoleonic end run than dealing with a Japanese naval blockade or a German machine gun nest.

A businessman in Czarist Russia was just a rich guy by inheritance. There were no markets, no classic corporate models, and no great inventions to market. Therefore, the needs of the people were not met.

The imperial family consisted of brilliantly educated idiots. They could discuss Plato without the slightest conception that their people were the living embodiment of the cave allegory. They spoke foreign languages, could choose French wines, and danced the waltz divinely. They had no skills translatable to making a living in the real world, such as the man that Teddy Roosevelt spoke of in his "arena" speech. In the 1920s and '30s, Russian royal family members living in Paris, London and New York found themselves working as butlers and doormen at fancy hotels. They had no other resume.

The street revolutionaries were unable to get off the ground. Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin, who emerged as their intellectual spokesman and fiery leader, was eventually forced into exile. It fomented barely under the surface of Russian society for 12 years. The spirit that infected the peasants during this time was not the evil I write so passionately about. The peasants were starving, exploited and treated brutally. They were too uneducated to know what was being done in their name. They knew only that some kind of utopian "workers' paradise" awaited them if they succeeded in toppling the Czar.

Russian military officers thought nothing of sending massive waves of enlisted personnel straight into German machine gun nests in World War I. Having Russia as an ally was not much more beneficial to the English and French than having no ally. When it was obvious the Russian Front would be lost to the Germans, the March Revolution of 1917 developed out of strikes, food queues, and a mutiny in Petrograd (eventually Leningrad). The Duma dissolved on March 12 and was unable to re-orient itself to the changing circumstances. The Duma had actually been attempting progressive policies that would grant national rights to citizens and a constitutional monarchy addressing the rights wide suffrage. However, it feared becoming radical, for conflicting reasons. It wanted to address the concerns of the 1905 revolution without starting another one.

The Soviet of Workmen's Deputies was constituted, and a provisional government was formed. From March to November of 1917, Russia was in a relatively peaceful revolution. There was sporadic violence, but hope was held out that a Duma-formed Provisional government would hold formal responsibility, while the Petrograd Soviets would hold the real power. The military was no longer able to protect the old guard. The lower ranks waited to see what would happen.

Czar Nicholas II abdicated for himself and his son, Alexis, and proclaimed his brother, Grand Duke Michael, as his successor. He did not accept until the new constitution was adopted. The imperial family was put under arrest. Prince Georgy Lvov was named Prime Minister, and Pavel Milyukov was named foreign minister. The Soviet refused to enter the cabinet. Soviets were formed throughout the country. Order Number One from Petrograd undermined the armed forces by introducing soldiers' committees. Nationalities broke away, especially Ukrainians and Poles, first asking for autonomy then for independence. The Petrograd Soviet ordered a continuation of the war only for defense of the revolution, and for the purpose of achieving annexations, indemnities and self-determination in negotiation with the Germans, who may have won the battles but were far too busy fighting on the Western Front to administer a peace.

England and France recognized the Provisional government, but Milyukof refused the order to continue fighting. A struggle between the Soviet and Provisional government resulted in the Soviet winning out. Guchkov and Milyukov resigned. Prince Lvov attempted to negotiate five portfolios with the Soviet, but Alexander Kerensky, the war minister, became a leading figure of the period. He ordered an offensive against the Germans. It failed in June and July, precluding any hope of achieving favorable peace aims with the remaining Entente (England and France). The Provisional government crumbled. Enter V.I. Lenin. He had come back on April 16, 1917, and immediately called for a full Soviet, not a coalition government. The Bolsheviks attempted a coup in mid-July, but it failed. Lenin escaped, but Leon Trotsky was arrested.

The Bolshevik aggression led Kerensky to call the Moscow Conference in late August, trying to appeal to a wide array of classes. The Bolsheviks spurned this. Concern over the military created a general consensus that to appease the army the government would have to move to the right. A reorganization of the government giving power to General Lavr Kornilov was conceived. Kerensky saw this as a threat to him. He ordered the general arrested. The "military option" collapsed in mid-September. Kerensky saw that the future of Russia was on the far Left. However, his efforts at gaining support at the Democratic (Socialist) Congress on September 29 and the Council of the Republic on October 20 were rebuffed.

The Germans advanced on the Baltic. Petrograd, an important industrial center, was in danger of capture. Saarema fell on October 12. Panic in Petrograd led to a desperate plea to the Bolsheviks to seize power with an iron hand. Having infiltrated the Soviet, the Bolsheviks did just that. They managed to secure the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets. They seized military control on November 4, in lieu of the Congress of Soviets set for November 7. On the night of November 6, the Bolsheviks orchestrated a _coup d'etat_ to depose the weak Kerensky government. Kerensky tried to get the army to back him but failed. The Congress of Soviets approved the Bolshevik takeover. While the events of November 7 had been coming since at least March, the entire country was completely changed overnight.

Lenin was installed as the Premier because he was acceptable to enough of the revolutionaries. Trotsky was named commissar of foreign affairs. Joseph Stalin was made commissar for nationalities. The Council (Soviet) of Commissars was formed. The Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-Revolution (later known as the G.P.U. and later the N.K.V.D.) was established to crush dissent or any vestige of Democratic thought. The Bolsheviks numbered about 200,000. They decreed distribution of large estates to the peasants. Banks were taken over and debts forgotten about. 225 Bolsheviks ascended by decree to the Constituent Assembly. Remaining governmental elements on January 18, 1918 refused the Soviet of People's Commissars. The Red Guards simply arrested everybody and the Communists approved themselves in the Fifth Congress on July 10, 1918.

Trotsky signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. Despite having abandoned the Alliance, the Communists hid the full indemnities of Brest-Litovsk while hoping to lure the English and French into signing a general peace. By that time they had the Americans on their side and had decided to fight to complete victory. The Germans were still a threat until the Great War's guns would go silent. Much consternation resulted from the situation in the Ukraine, veiled German domination over Russia, Lenin's acceptance of the situation, Petrograd ceasing to be the capital (Moscow now was), and a switch from Trotsky as war commissar to Grigory Chicherin.

The Bolsheviks, now fully known as the Communists, immediately advocated a worldwide revolution. Civil war ran rampant throughout Russia. It was not an organized military operation. Essentially, terrorists roamed the streets committing atrocities. Whoever committed the worst atrocities, creating the most fear of fighting back, won. This was the goal of Saddam loyalists working against the reconstruction of 2003 Iraq.

Assassinations were rampant, and all foreign emissaries were subject to death, torture, jail, and the like. Liquidations went on and on and on. The Communists rounded up the Czar and his entire family and shot all of them, including the children, in the head. Myth has it that one of the daughters survived, but this is not considered a reliable account. When the Great War ended, the Germans went home and were no longer a threat to Russia.

Ironically, the Communists owe the English, and particularly the Americans, for defeating the Germans and making it safe for them to foment Communism. The devil works that way.

The Allies did try to fight the Communists. They did little more than blockade the sea-lanes and send troops to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk to protect Allied war supplies from being carted away by the Germans. Communist takeover of all of Russia created a 20 per cent drop-off from pre-war industrial production and a 50 per cent drop-off in agriculture. Peasants and labor immediately realized they had been lied to and went on strike. Famine spread throughout the country. The Communists appealed to the conscience of the West, who responded with food shipments to keep millions from starvation.

On March 17, 1921, the Communists met to address the complete failure of Communist policies. Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and the rest enjoyed power and decided to keep it, introducing a propaganda campaign to romanticize the revolution and mask the famine. In the mean time, millions kept dying. A New Economic Policy, which might be called the first of the five-year plans that were instituted every five years of Soviet history to address the failure of each preceding five-year plan, was instituted with a grain tax substituting for a food levy. Free trade was finally allowed the peasants to dispose of their surplus because it was the only way to keep enough of them alive to produce crops needed in Moscow. Eventually, great industries, utilities, and mines were opened again and nationalized. Workers, whose pay had been just what they produced to eat and survive, received pay if they worked overtime.

The Russian Revolution makes the French Revolution look like Las Vegas after everybody wins the lottery. It was a complete disaster and spread evil on a scale never before known by man. Every single thing Karl Marx had advocated was proven to be a lie within months. But it occurred during and right after World War I. The rest of Europe was too tired and too concerned recovering themselves. Germany had nothing left. The U.S. entered into disastrous isolationism under Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. They should have instead taken the bull by the horns and sent troops to Russia (like Wilson had done before taking ill), sending Lenin, Stalin and their ilk to the dustbin of history long before any of them became household names. The devil works that way.

There was one lone voice calling for just such military action in the mid-1920s. His name was Winston Churchill.

The Allies should have let Germany stay in Russia. They could have put down the rebellions and annexed all or part of the country. Had they done so, Hitler may not have risen. A Greater Germania might have, but this is something that could have spun in many different directions.

Without the Fox News Channel showing dead children by the hundreds of thousands scattered across the Russian countryside, up-close accounts of assassinations by the thousands, and detailed email and chat room discussions of terror beyond the realm of then-known imagination, it was left to the West to hear the scattered reports of atrocities. The Russians and their witting accomplices disputed them. One such clown was a "man" named John Reed, the author of "Ten Days That Shook the World", his 1919 "account" of the Russian Revolution. Reed was an effective reporter, a dedicated radical, and a romantic. He voted for Wilson in 1916, and joined the Socialist Party in 1917. He reported on the Mexican Revolution and thought that Pancho Villa, who raided U.S. border towns to kill Americans, was doing excellent work. He was one of those Americans who looked at all the success of the United States and thought it simply had to be too good to be true. He did not think one nation should have so many successful people. Surely successful people could only be successful if lesser lights had what was theirs taken from them. He did not see the value of goods and services that the public wants, thus driving the economic engine of capitalism. He was an intelligent man, but whether it was genetic or some defect in his upbringing, Reed was that breed of individual who does not see the reasonable, the obvious, the good. Religious values were worthless to his type. He saw in goodness only conspiracy.

Reed found himself in Europe covering World War I. He worked his way into the inner circle of the Communists, who fed him their version of events. With "Godspeed" these found their way into his dispatches to the rest of the world with nary a correction. When he returned to the United States, he was met by those who had inside information about what had really happened in Russia. Therefore, they had knowledge of Reed's lies. The government arrested him for sedition. The U.S. had been in Russia fighting the Whites. Mostly, Reed's love-in for all things Communist meant by organic nature a hatred for all things American. He was protected by the First Amendment until he advocated "one world government," the Communist goal. This was deemed to be enough to send his sorry self back to Russia, where he was an international delegate of the Communist Labor Party. The U.S. did not give him permission to return.

Reed and the playwright Eugene O'Neill were fellow travelers. O'Neill was too consumed with drinking and hatred of his father to take on the duties of real Communism. Lenin viewed Reed as a colleague. He was honored in Moscow, where he died of typhus because the Soviet medical system had no cure for such a thing, which would have been cleared up had he been in an American hospital. His grave is now alongside the Kremlin wall. His soul...?

Warren Beatty lent his considerable talents to Reed's story in the 1980s film "Reds", starring Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson as O'Neil. It is long and a bit slow, but nevertheless an excellent work that Hollywood showered with praise. The film is worth watching and no doubt enjoyed by all except the unfortunately small number of informed citizens who recognize that it is a pack of lies. You are now thus informed.

These descriptions of Reed are no doubt tinged by some bitterness and what might be considered journalist _hubris._ It certainly cannot be considered traditional balance. Granted. But people like Reed, who take all of their education, training and persuasive abilities to a foreign land to shill for murderers not of hundreds or thousands, but millions, are not worthy of the "objective view." They are what they are, and I am willing to say it. I do not pretend to understand what mental defect allows these kinds of people to romanticize and idealize the doctors of death on. These people do not end with Reed. They are a strain of society. The makers of "Reds", those who visit Fidel Castro to drink and chase whores with him, and those who turn their backs from the evils that America fights, are and always will be with us. Vigilance must be maintained not in shutting them up, but in identifying who and what they are.

In the 1920s, dominant reactionaries had their way in Russia. The ill-fated attempts to partition parts of Russia by the Allies had the awful effect of getting scared peasants to side with the Bolsheviks. They did not understand freedom. The Communists put all of their economic strength into building an army to keep their power structure secure. It was used to smother rebellions, revolts, and civil unrest. Poland and Russia fought each other, with Poland retaining considerable sections of territory inhabited by Ukrainians and White Russians.

The Russians drove the Whites out of Mongolia, thus enslaving the people's of that area. They could not push the Japanese out of Vladivostock. The Americans managed to get the Japanese out of the coastal regions to avoid what they perceived to be an unsteady world situation. Russia established buffer states against the Chinese frontier. The Communists eschewed capitalism but their attempts at reform never worked. As a matter of pure survival they relaxed agrarian codes and land statutes just enough to make some profit and grow foodstuffs. A currency based on gold was necessary when their printed money quickly became useless. Pillage of farms and captured territories helped prop up the government. The death of Lenin in 1924 created a crisis of intrigue, resulting in more assassinations, coups and terror.

Stalin and Trotsky were rivals to replace Lenin. Trotsky advocated a relaxation of the strict Communist monetary policy, seeing that occasional relaxation and forays into capitalism resulted in gains that he wanted to build on. Stalin had no desire to save the lives of peasants, saying that the radical movement had to hold steady. With lies and propaganda the truth about Russia could be kept from the world, and romantic Westerners like Reed could paint a picture that would lead people to accept the revolution. He said that if Russia went to any kind of market economy, it would lead to trade. Then the meshing of foreign economies would give international opinion the idea they were only succeeding because they had scrapped the plan and gone to capitalist methods. Stalin was an isolationist. Trotsky wanted to spread the revolution to the world. He thought it could only be done by meshing with the world economy. Stalin won out. In 1926 he had Trotsky expelled along with his Politburo supporters. Eventually Stalin's agents murdered Trotsky in Mexico.

Germany accepted Russia's international status. After other countries did so, the British Labor party recognized them. The U.S., God bless 'em, refused until the Democrats came to power. China and Japan recognized them.

The first attempt to spread the revolution occurred in Germany. It failed. Elements of Communism had taken root there and would still be there when World War II ended and East Germany began. Elements in China found Communism appealing, but Chiang Kai-shek expelled them. China and Great Britain then severed relations with Russia because of espionage and sabotage activities. In the late 1920s, Russia, so poor that they could not defend themselves, became an advocate of disarmament that was very popular among a large group of countries. They were deceived by their plan to take the sting away from their neighbors should they ever want to attack.

Stalin was constantly paranoid that capitalism would sprout in Russia. He knew that if this happened people would taste freedom, and this would lead to his demise. He had one big trump card, and the operative word is _big._ Russia was so huge geographically, had so much in the way of natural resources, and so many people, that they could not help but produce enough to survive. No matter how many died, there were always enough to keep the nation going. But Stalin needed an army. The only way to get one was through industrialization, the great tower of capitalism.

The original "new economic plan" had not been called a five-year plan. The first identified five-year plan began in 1928. This included collectivization, which resulted in further famine. Stalin allowed the farmers to starve, but not enough of them died to get the population down to food production levels. He then sent people to _kulaks_ to die out of general sight. His collectivization was supposed to start an industrial boon, but there is no evidence why he thought this would happen. Certainly it did not in fact happen. But when the Nazis came to power, and the Japanese seized Manchuria, Stalin knew he needed an army more than ever.

His answer to the crisis was purge trials. Stalin killed everybody he did not like, suspected of being popular or not supporting him, and most of his officers. He wanted nobody who could lead an uprising against him; no gallant military men who might charismatically lead men in uprising. Stalin's ghost was whispering in Bill Clinton's ear when he wrote the Arkansas ROTC commander that he "loathed the military."

Why Stalin thought killing all the officers was the answer to Nazi and Japanese threats is not known. The "obvious" conclusion that he was stupid might suffice, except that Stalin had not risen to his place and stayed there through stupidity.

As the Axis of Germany, Italy and Japan formed and represented a threat, Stalin began a propaganda campaign. It was supposed to spur the people to martial fever based on patriotism for Mother Russia. He saw Jews as threats to this patriotic concept of "Russians," so he had a couple million of them killed. Huge numbers of them had already died in the collectivist _gruppes_ by starvation, along with non-Jewish farmers. Had Stalin kept the Jews around and stirred them to hatred against the Nazis, based on their atrocities, he might have had a more formidable force when the Germans did attack.

Russia had entered the League of Nations and made alliance with France and Czechoslovakia. Through this forum he was able to organize a united front of countries in opposition to the Nazis. He admitted to his inner circle that Russia was "50 to 100 years behind" advanced countries and needed to make up the difference in 10 years. Otherwise Japan would attack and crush Russia from Manchuria. The Nazis would do the same from the west. In part because of the Nazi threat, the U.S., seeing that Russia might have to be an ally, recognized the country. By hook and crook, Stalin was able to beg, borrow and steal from his new "partners." He increased industrialization and modernization in anticipation of war. The Soviets were kept out of the Munich Conference.

V.I. Lenin

Karl Marx gave voice to the "Communist Manifesto". Vladimir Ilyich "Nikolai" Lenin, known as V.I. Lenin, put Marx's vision into practice. He was born in 1870, in a small town on the Volga River. The Czar ennobled his father, a public school teacher. His mother was a physician's daughter, a well-read musician. He was a happy, middle class youth who succeeded in school. His father passed away but the family continued to receive a pension. Lenin's life changed forever on March 13, 1887. His beloved older brother, Alexander Ulyanov Lenin, a student in St. Petersburg, was arrested as a member of a revolutionary group that plotted to kill Alexander III. After a trial, Nikolai's brother was hanged, a little more than two months after the crime. Lenin vowed to avenge his brother by bringing down the regime that was responsible for his death. Of such things the world turns on. The devil works that way.

Lenin entered law school but was expelled for participation in a political demonstration. He was banished to a small town where his family owned land. He lived there under police surveillance. In the late 1880s he was allowed to return to law school, and studied German in order to read the works of Marx and Friedrich Engels. He also studied economics. Fluent in English, French, German, and able to read Polish, Italian and Swedish, he passed his law exams and went into practice while studying Marxism. Then he moved to St. Petersburg, joined the People's Party ( _Narodniki_ ), and became a professional revolutionary.

While most revolutionaries believed Russia would remain an agrarian country, Lenin saw a future industrial Russia. In that transformation he envisioned a proletariat workers' class.

"The Russian worker rising to the top of all Democratic elements will overthrow absolutism and will lead the Russian proletariat (side by side with proletariat of other countries) by a direct road of open struggle toward the victorious Communist revolution," he blathered.

It is instructive that Lenin, aside from a short time in Samara, never had a "job," so to speak. He was a student reactionary and a professional revolutionary. Jesse Jackson must have had the same guidance counselor.

Anyway, Lenin learned Marxist dogma backwards and forwards and became a skilled debater. In 1895 he came down with pneumonia and almost died. He traveled to Switzerland, Paris and Berlin after getting better, making contact with Russian revolutionaries in these locales. When he got back to St. Petersburg, Lenin organized a group called The Union for the Liberation of the Working Class. As I say, this shows some real _chutzpah_ coming from a guy who had not really worked. Apparently, he was on the party dime or inherited dough from his imperialist father, and gotten some of the pension the Czar sent his family. Lenin may have been the model for the despised man in Roosevelt's speech at the Sarbonne, in which he states that a man must take care of his family before he can hope to espouse high notions. At least Marx wrote books and put himself out there in the publishing world.

Lenin met his wife, but shortly thereafter was arrested. He read extensively in prison, including "The Development of Capitalism in Russia". He wrote a party program, and when he was released was exiled for three years to Central Siberia. He studied there, and his martyred status worked to his benefit, helped in part by his fiancée keeping the flame alive. But she was jailed herself, and exiled to Siberia, too, where the couple were married.

In his three-year exile, Lenin became the man who would lead the revolution. He had access to numerous magazines, books and newspapers, corresponded voluminously, and wrote a book on capitalism. After his exile, Lenin went to Germany, obtained a false passport under an assumed name, and published a Marxist newspaper in Munich. The paper was smuggled into Russia and became an important underground tool of the revolutionary class.

Lenin printed more pamphlets, then moved to London, all advocating strict adherence to Marxism. In London, the Communists met, taking advantage of the freedoms provided by England. Russia and Belgium had kicked them out. They split into a Majority (Bolsheviks) and a Minority (Mensheviks). Lenin returned to Russia in 1905 under an assumed name. After the failed revolution that followed the Russo-Japanese War, he began publication of _New Life_. At a Stockholm Communist conference he urged violence and anarchy as legitimate means of struggle. He had to cut his public appearances down because his assumed names were no longer shielding his real identity, and eventually moved to Finland.

During his years in Finland, Lenin changed his opinion regarding radicalism. He came to the conclusion that the Bolsheviks should work within the Duma's system, instead of from outside it. When he found out he was being spied on, Lenin moved his act to Geneva, and began publication of _The Proletarian_. His book, "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism", appeared in 1909. He journeyed to London to study museum culture, then went on to Paris. During all this time his mother supported him. In 1910 in Copenhagen, the minority Communists attacked him. He returned to Paris to start a school for revolutionaries. In Prague in 1912, Lenin, by this time a world traveler with a huge following, formed a Central Committee of the Bolsheviks. He launched _Pravda_ in St. Petersburg, and began plans for the big revolutionary push.

He was near the Russian border in Poland when World War I broke out. The Austrians arrested him as a spy. He had socialist friends in Austria who helped him get a release after 11 days, and was deported to neutral Switzerland. From Bern he launched a manifesto to all the revolutionaries in the belligerent countries, appealing to workers and soldiers fighting in the "imperialist" war. During the war he wrote, agitated and spoke in Switzerland, reiterating an anti-war, pro-revolutionary stand. His views meshed with the anarchists of that era, too.

When the March, 1917 revolution took fruit, Lenin knew his time had come. He arranged to travel to Russia through Germany, arriving in Petrograd on April 16. He spoke to a crowd of the faithful, and put forth his 21 theses. He demanded transformation of the _bourgeoisie_ into revolutionaries. He took over the Bolsheviks but had to go into hiding. He managed to publish another book, outlining the Bolsheviks immediate plans, and lay in wait while the October-November revolution took its place in history. He then arrived at military headquarters in Smilny, directing the uprising. Shortly thereafter Lenin became the first chairman of the Soviet of People's Commissar's.

In 1918, Lenin arranged to continue receiving aid from the Allies, helping the Bolsheviks while civil war still was going on. He moved the capital to Moscow. He helped orchestrate the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, and in August escaped an assassination attempt with serious inures.

Communist policies resulted in famine that was so bad the Americans sent aid to feed starving Russians. Lenin adopted in 1921 "short cut" methods of capitalism. He had a stroke in 1922. That was followed by several more until he died in 1924. Lenin was a cosmopolitan intellectual who studied history, traveled, spoke foreign languages, and was dedicated to his ideals. He advocated violence in pursuit of his goals. Many people died following his orders. Lenin saw only failure when his Marxist policies were instituted between 1918 and 1924. Having resorted to hated capitalism to avoid further starvation of the masses, he refused to see that he had been wrong. Lenin should have been a human being instead of a revolutionary. He should have made a public announcement by 1923 at the latest proclaiming that all his prescriptions had failed, although Stalin and Trotsky would not have allowed it. Admitting that the revolution was, at the least, headed in the wrong direction, Russia might have saved itself before more tragedy ensued.

He did not do it.

The "lost generation"

In many ways, World War I spawned more change than any event in history, with the possible exception of the life of Christ. The war resulted in:

  * Soviet Communism.

  * e took overHe The German Depression.

  * Nazi Germany.

  * World War II.

  * American superpower, equal to if not greater than Great Britain as the two most powerful countries in the world.

  * French withdrawal from the kind of influence and global prestige endemic in a world power, instead taking on the inward qualities of artistic introspection and national tragedy.

America was effected by the war by virtue of the following:

  * Political isolationism was juxtaposed with individual internationalism, as thousands of doughboys stayed or returned to Europe, becoming cosmopolitans instead of returning to the farms. They were marked by the "lost generation" of artists and writers who began a new strain of cynicism and reality, replacing the old idealism of American literature.

  * The suffrage movement, led by Carrie Nation, brought the vote to American women.

  * Prohibition, brought about by American women with new political power with the men at war, ushered in organized crime and brought the Kennedy's to power.

  * Joyous peace ushered in a huge economic boon known as the Roaring '20s.

The "lost generation" was marked by the work of American writers who journeyed to France to write in the 1920s. They included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein, who once said of Oakland, California, "There is no there there."

Hemingway was a reporter for the _Kansas City Star_ , a man's man of gruff, Midwestern sentiment. He came from a family of some local prominence. Perhaps because he did not face great hardships growing up, he felt the need to test himself. In this regard, Hemingway and Teddy Roosevelt have much in common. Hemingway went looking for his manhood in World War I and found it. The experience formed him. He saw action fighting alongside the Italian allies and sustained wounds. According to his own account, he had a "life-after-death" episode. While recovering, he fell in love with a pretty American nurse. When the war ended the romance did not take, in part because Hemingway had a stubborn streak of jealousy. But he used these events to launch a career of great works, writing in a tone of melancholy wistfulness, imbued with American patriotism and the manly need to face danger, romance and adventure with courage and idealism, tinged by ironic cynicism.

"A Farewell to Arms" was his semi-autobiographical account of World War I, including his lost love with the nurse. Hemingway captured the "lost generation" in "The Sun Also Rises", which detailed American ex-patriates in Europe who were mentally and physically scarred by the Great War. His main character is unable to consummate a relationship with a beautiful woman who pines for him, because he sustained injuries in the war that prevent him from sexual functioning. The woman goes on to a career of carnal conquest with a variety of men, none of whom fulfill her. Amid much drunkenness and debauchery, the book addresses anti-Semitism, a relatively new theme in the 1920s, although Hemingway is not wholly sympathetic to Jews. When the book was made into a film in the 1950s, Daryl F. Zanuck cast a handsome young Jewish man, Robert Evans, as a Spanish bullfighter. When Evans approached "Papa" Hemingway at Yankee Stadium, the old man rebuffed him. He was furious that one of his beloved characters, a Spaniard, be portrayed by an American Jew.

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" is based upon Hemingway's support for the anti-Communists fighting in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. He and many other Americans went over to fight in the war, which some say was a "dress rehearsal" for World War II. It did not materialize into the kind of idealized Spanish government that many had sacrificed for. The fascistic Francisco Franco ended up ruling an isolationist Spain until the 1970s. While the nation is now Democratic, the Franco regime was the final event that took Spain from greatness to mediocrity. Hemingway also wrote a stageplay about the Spanish Civil War called "The Fifth Column".

Hemingway's themes of manliness and adventure were also outlined in novels about African safaris and Cuban fishermen. He lived in Cuba, where warm breezes, randy drinking partners, fast women and Latino _machismo_ were perfect matches for his personality. "The Old Man and the Sea" is a short, sweet classic about a Cuban fisherman who makes the catch of a lifetime. In rowing the fish back to shore, sharks take so many bites out of it that it is gone when he arrives, therefore rendering him unable to prove to his detractors and a boy who wants to admire him, of his accomplishment. The novel is filled with metaphor about irony, but real-life irony entered Hemingway's life when his beloved Cuba was taken over by Fidel Castro's _Communistas_. Two years later he committed suicide.

Fitzgerald was a different breed of cat. He was from a moneyed family, and experienced personal troubles and a strange marriage to a delicate woman named Zelda. He was a bundle of psychoses, and embodied modernism, especially in his exploration of analysis, probably of the Freudian school. Fitzgerald's seminal work was "The Great Gatsby", which also involved the theme of post-war angst. Set in the Roaring '20s, the main character, Jay Gatsby, is an ordinary man who serves as an officer and decides to re-invent himself. Gatsby makes some brilliant business decisions in the bootlegging industry, becoming a _nouveau riche_ star of Hamptons society. His background is shrouded in mystery, which creates suspicion among the Old Money that turns to jealousy when the women fall for his charms.

"The Great Gatsby" is a perfect model for the new form of East Coast liberalism that emerged after World War I. It is in response to America's meteoric rise as an industrial, economic and military superpower. This troubled some who felt guilt that this country could become so much better than all the other nations so fast. Fitzgerald describes the "idle rich," people who either inherited millions and do not have to work, or who own companies that make so much money they do not need to work. The idle rich do not have any real values. They are not religious, brave, patriotic, idealistic, faithful or chaste. They are immoral debauchers, utterly cynical, and have so much of everything that nothing can excite them any more. This is Fitzgerald's view of himself. He is consumed by guilt because of it. Instead of acknowledging that these are faults he possesses, he wrote books that transfers his insecurities upon America. It is a classic "misery loves company" animus that took hold of an entire political class – the liberal elite – that lives today. These are the people who are jealous of those who exhibit greatness through bravery, hard work and struggle. These people do not exhibit these traits. Instead of admiring those who are better than they are, they use their wealth and influence to bring them down. The devil works this way. It is necessary to identify and exposed their lies.

Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer" was a biographical novel of his years as an ex-pat in Paris. It includes tremendously creative, wonderful writing, but in the light of retrospection much of it is reduced to gratuitous pornography. When it was written in the 1930s, Miller's graphic sexual content was considered _avant-garde_ , shocking and artistic. It was banned for this reason until 1961. This was the best thing that could have happened to Miller and the book, creating a _cause celebre_. But reading it in 2004, it is rather incoherent and, if it came out today, it would not hold up to scrutiny the way Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe stand the test of time. Miller's "cancer" appears to be a cancer of the soul. His descriptions of Parisian life in the 1930s - the whore houses, the scum, the thieves, liars and morally corrupt - describe an eating away of goodness, the way real cancer eats away at bone, skin and body. Reading Miller, one wants to shout, "Get this man to a church." Liberals would excoriate this sentiment as _judgment_ , which of course has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the one thing that could have saved Miller from his moral atrophy is and always will be the Lord Jesus Christ!

Sinclair Lewis exposed the corruption of Christian ministers in "Elmer Gantry". This work was centered on a flawed evangelical in the Midwest who believes in God but still uses His name to better himself. It might as well be a parable for the corruption of the Vatican until the post-Reformation period, when Catholicism finally recognized its many mistakes and began to make changes.

The Roaring '20s

The 1920s were a strange time. John Reed's "Ten Days That Shook the World" reached a large audience in the United States and internationally. Many wanted to know why an entire planet could be thrust into war. In an attempt to address that issue, some decided that nationalism, governmental agendas, _realpolitik_ , racism, class warfare, capitalism, Democracy, and corporations in bed with politicians and militarists were to blame.

Nationalism was part of it. German unification and Balkan nationalism played a role. Governmental agendas and _realpolitik_ always have played a role in conflict. Since Communism addressed the concept of "one world government" and a "world without borders," some concluded that Communism offered the answer to these problems.

Racism was never an original part of the war, but would emerge as an ugly by-product. The Turks unleashed an open can of worms resulting in "ethnic cleansing" and genocide pitting Christians against Muslims, Turks against Arabs, secular vs. religious. In Germany, an easy scapegoat began to emerge: The Jews. Lies began to spread that Jewish banking interests profited from the war. In the American South Jewish influence was an affront to their sensibilities. The Ku Klux Klan rose again after a period of dormancy. The KKK's "mandate" pitted them against a "worldwide Jewish conspiracy" somehow in league with Papal domination. They said Catholics pledge allegiance not to the U.S., but to the Vatican. But few Catholics and fewer Jews lived in the South. Many blacks did. They were becoming a more prominent segment of society. Blacks were emerging as professional athletes in the Negro baseball leagues, and as musicians in the jazz world. As they asserted themselves, this infuriated the white underclass.

But the most pernicious thing that emerged out of World War I were Westerners who believed that the war had occurred because of the failure of capitalism, Democracy, and corporations who were in bed with politicians and militarists. When Reed's book came out, a segment of society allowed themselves to believe that the new political system in Russia should be given a chance. Communism became "the answer" to society's many problems, including racism and poverty. The failure of Communism, already evident by 1920, was not exposed to the world. Reed either chose not to write about the thousands and thousands of famine victims, the secret police, the crackdowns and forced marches, the banishments, assassinations and disappearances, or he was controlled by the hierarchy, and not allowed to see it. He probably did not want to see it. He had found his story and he was going to stick to it. The great failure of the free press, of governments and political figures, of humanists and truth-seekers, was the failure to pin Russia - Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and the rest of them - down before they became too powerful. To expose them for what they were.

A class of writers stepped up and opposed the kind of bigotry that reared its ugly head in the 1920s. Southern writers became a breed unto themselves. Erskine Caldwell described the hardscrabble life of "Tobacco Road". William Faulkner wrote about violence and sin in the Old South, although his verbiage is very difficult to follow. Thomas Wolfe infuriated Southerners with his rejection of their ways, but ultimately his work in "Look Homeward, Angel" pays ironic homage to his roots. H.L. Mencken, editor of the _American Mercury_ , became a leading voice of crabby intellectual conservatism, ridiculing prejudice and ignorance. Robert Frost wrote poems that put readers in New England autumns.

The model T became popular, and people became car owners. Radio was invented, allowing sports and news to be broadcast. Hollywood emerged as the dominant form of entertainment. The airplane became a common sight in the skies. In 1927 Charles Lindbergh became the first to fly across the Atlantic, piloting his Spirit of St. Louis from New York to Paris. The Scopes "monkey trial" featuring Darrow and Bryan, who appeared as an expert witness interpreting the Bible, had enormous impact on people who "modernized" their view of Christianity. Political corruption reared its ugly head, resulting in President Warren Harding's downfall after the Teapot Dome scandal. Speakeasies dotted the larger cities. Even though alcohol was prohibited, folks drank and partied like never before. Women's fashions changed. Girls began wearing fashionable "flappers" that outraged the conservatives, but gave new vitality to a libidiniousness embodied by Fitzgerald's books.

Al Smith became the first Catholic to run for President. Herbert Hoover beat him in 1928. Al Capone and the mob became a dominant economic force in Prohibition America, first taking over the bootlegging industry, but eventually spreading their scourge into prostitution, gambling and, worst of all, drugs. _La Casa Nostra_ was an organized criminal syndicate that came to America's shores from Sicily and Italy. Its origins go all the way back to the post-Roman Empire period, when Machiavellian elements ruled feudal Italy. Each city – Florence, Venice, Milan, etc. – were ruled by powerful families that controlled banking interests. Everything sprang from there. Backstabbing, double-dealing, betrayal, and the delicate art of lying became art forms among the Sicilian and Italian power families. These traits became endemic in the business of the country, which was controlled by the families. Political reformers tried to clean up the country. The families remained as the real power behind the scenes. When Italians and Sicilians moved to the New World, the _Mafia_ came with them, to protect the new immigrants in a land where the laws and courts were mysteries to their sense of justice. The Mafia had been in the U.S. ever since the first wave of Italians emigrated, but Prohibition was the vehicle to truly bring them into prominence. Capone was their first media star.

The Great Depression

In the 1920s, business boomed in every sector of the economy except farming. Numerous soldiers, after having seen "Paree," refused to return to the Spartan life. Technology made old-fashioned farming methods obsolete. Wild business speculation occurred, and stocks sold wildly on Wall Street. Borrowing became a way of life. Families bought cars, radios, washing machines, and electric refrigerators on installment plans. Advertising made the buying of products more enticing. Salesmen dotted the landscape pushing a myriad of products. Appliances were not the only things bought on the installment plan. Stocks were bought on margin.

Brokers lent money to buyers. $1,000 worth of Radio Corporation of America stock bought in 1928 sold for $6,430 in 1929, a huge increase. When Herbert Hoover took over the Presidency in March, 1929, business was still going crazy. "Gamble your way to prosperity" was a legitimate advertising tool. But in 1928, construction of new buildings and highways, a key indicator, had slowed down. The steel industry followed building and auto manufacturing into the decline, but the market kept on its "bull run."

Bankers began to express concern over mounting debt, with millions not scheduled to make payments for six months to a year. The slowdown in big business meant many would not have jobs at that time, and would not be able to make the payments. Banks held stocks as security on loans, but many banks had put much of their own money in stock, too. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had broken up, and this created tariff laws that interfered with trade. The U.S. had failed to collect on loans made to the Allies, and Germany had been in a terrible depression. Europe paid for goods with bonds that were sold to American banks. Investors would stop buying U.S. goods.

Some saw the future. The financial editor of the _New York Times_ warned investors of a possible slump. Boston financier Joseph P. Kennedy had inside information that the bubble would burst. He warned nobody. Kennedy had made a fortune in the illegal bootleg whisky business, signing a deal with Canadian Club that gave his family a cut of every bottle of Canadian Club whisky sold in the United States to this day. Instead of warning the public with what he knew about the impending stock market collapse, he bought millions of dollars worth of stock "short," meaning that he was betting on them all losing money. He was right. He went from being very rich to incredibly rich. The devil works like that.

Res ipsa loquiter.

Such public figures as Cal Coolidge, Hoover, and Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon all predicted that stock prices would remain high. The National City Bank of New York assuaged doubts in early October, 1929, stating that the fundamental principles of the market and the credit business were sound.

On October 24, 1929, a date known as Black Monday, the bubble burst. People became frightened and tried to sell. 13 million shares were exchanged on the New York Stock Exchange. People jammed brokerages trying to sell. People began to jump out of windows, their entire life savings lost in a single day. In five days, 16 and a half million shares dropped $30 billion. Where did the money go? To "men" like Joseph P. Kennedy.

Retirees living comfortable lives were suddenly on the street. Paper fortunes were gone. Kennedy's family lived in luxury, and Joe Kennedy's children were quoted in later years saying they had heard about the Depression, but never experienced it. The stock market crash did not cause the Great Depression by itself, but it played a major role. Banks went out of business. Business came to a standstill. Millions were unemployed.

Hoover was politically destroyed by the crash. The Republican party was almost destroyed by it. They had unwisely promised a strong business cycle, and failed to deliver. They had not dealt with low farm prices, overbuilding, overproduction, speculation and installment buying, loss of foreign markets, and other causes of the Depression. Hoover had only been in office only eight months when the collapse occurred.

While the economic downturn of 2000-2001 cannot be compared to the Great Depression, it is not entirely unfair to make mention of the fact that failing to deal with similar issues - overbuilding, overproduction, speculation, loss of foreign markets - and modern causes endemic to the 1990s, particularly the overpriced stock market/Internet revolution, marked the second term of Bill Clinton's Presidency.

The fact is that economics, as much as any political/social phenomenon, is something that runs in cycles. The Great Depression, however, was more than a cycle. Economists have tried to accurately explain what happened. There are as many complicated theories for it as there are economists. What I can say, and I am not an economist, is that the Republicans made major mistakes, which they have learned from. They paid for their errors, losing the White House for 20 years. Like Christianity they were forced to take a long, hard look at who they were and what they stood for. That said, I will state this:

  1. The Republicans were not solely to blame for the crash or the Depression.

  2. The crash and the Depression definitely did not prove that Communism, socialism or anarchy were better forms of government than Democratic capitalism.

So what did happen? The business cycle generally runs over seven- to 10-year periods. The down cycle begins with stage one, when factories and farmers turn out large quantities of goods. In so doing they go into debt to pay for production costs because they were operating on the belief the "good times" would not stop. They pay high prices and wages until a boom develops, which is stage two. Eventually, a surplus of goods is created, and banks are unwilling to loan money. This creates the third stage, crash or panic. Business failures increase, and factories close, leading to depression (stage four).

At this point, some businessmen increase production because they believe in the system and have the wherewithal to see it through. They borrow money at low interest, buy supplies at low prices, and hire employees at low wages. When stage five, recovery, begins the cycle starts again with an uptick. This cycle is easy enough to explain in retrospect. Predicting it is the hard part. Some economists say it is based on oversaving, but not individual savings. Rather, this theory says that investors and businessmen build too many factories and expand production faster than consumers can buy and use goods.

During the Depression, there was a good deal of overproduction, which means that too many goods slowed down sales; this slowdown meant less buying power, which led to closing factories. Other factors included technical improvements where machines replaced men. This had a particular affect on farmers, where a company could buy a farm, replace men with machines, and make a profit that families could not make. This factor, combined with unusual weather conditions (lack of rain, locusts, and other natural phenomena) caused a Dust Bowl in Oklahoma and throughout the Southwest and Midwest. Eventually, men found work _repairing_ machines, but a confluence of circumstances came at the wrong time.

While Franklin Roosevelt definitely instituted laws in the banking and brokerage industries that helped to change the possibility of further depressions, it should be pointed out that education played a major role in the Great Depression. Many workers in the 1920s and '30s were uneducated and had little in the way of job skills beyond menial labor. Once out of work, they lacked skills, contacts and the ability to make an effective job search finding other employment.

Compare the Great Depression with the recession of 1991-92, which cost George H.W. Bush his job but only lasted a short time. This recession came about for three reasons.

  1. It was bound to happen after a long up-cycle (1984-91).

  2. The Cold War was won over the period 1989-90, and this had the effect of reducing the production of the Military Industrial Complex.

  3. The workers in the Military Industrial Complex, unlike Depression-era workers, were educated, savvy to the ways of the marketplace, and had the technological skills to be the backbone of the Information Superhighway. That started in 1993 and saw its greatest boon in California, where most workers of the old Military Industrial Complex lived.

Hoover came up with some good ideas to combat the Depression. He asked Congress for money to build roads, public works, buildings, and other necessary improvements to America's rural infrastructure. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was set up. Money was lent to banks, railroads, factories and insurance companies. Many firms were saved from bankruptcy. But in order to finance these operations, the Republican-controlled government went into debt, which the Democrats made hay out of. When the 1932 campaign rolled around, the RFC had not yet had time to make a major dent in the economy, and the Depression raged. The Republicans might have held on had they nominated a different candidate, but they stuck with Hoover. Hoover made the mistake of advocating the continuance of Prohibition, but the nation wanted none of it. They needed a drink!

Hoover became a pessimist, and Franklin Roosevelt was full of enthusiasm. Their campaign song was "Happy Days Are Here Again". Roosevelt also campaigned on one of the greatest lies ever delivered in the history of the Democrat party. He promised that if elected, the Federal government would drastically _reduce spending!_

Roosevelt called his program the New Deal, which mixed the phraseology of Theodore Roosevelt's Square Deal and Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom. Roosevelt made no explanation of how he would accomplish his New Deal, but the public was sick of Hoover. Roosevelt won by almost seven million votes. The greatest winners of the 1932 Presidential election were the American people. In Roosevelt, they had elected a man whose legacy can be debated, but his skill, passion, leadership and place in history are impressive. He won in 1932 because he believed in this country. Roosevelt's optimism won out over Hoover's pessimism, a lesson not lost on a young athlete growing up in the Midwest named Ronald Reagan. Roosevelt made promises he knew he could not keep, but he knew that America's strength would save her – and him. The system, of capitalism, freedom, and Democracy, combined with the skills and hard work of average Americans, would not be brought down.

Many Americans would continue to buy the romantic lies about Communism. Combined with the terrible times in the U.S., they began to believe in the Soviet system as the superior model. However, the enormous majority refused to believe the propaganda about Stalin, whether it came from Russians or Stalin apologists. The first stories about his brutally repressive regime were leaking out. To anybody with common sense and a love of country, the idea of Communism was abhorrent and utterly anti-American.

Herbert Hoover did not merely fade into history. He returned to his alma mater, Stanford University, and created a conservative think tank, the Hoover Institute, which today is one of the most respected research and policy organizations in the world.

Roosevelt's inauguration in 1933, when the Depression was at its worst, gave America a view of his greatest asset. Roosevelt, like Winston Churchill, was an inspiring public speaker.

"This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper," Roosevelt said in his speech. "So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror that paralyzes efforts to convert retreat into advance."

Roosevelt went on to make a very important point, which is that the U.S. did not need a "change in government," which had been "inherited from our ancestors," a pointed remark aimed at those who would urge the U.S. to adopt Communist or socialist models. He urged a change in business practices, and immediately ordered the closure of banks to allow Congress a chance to enact some regulations. This single act made Roosevelt a hated figure by many, many American families. To this day, grandfathers bitterly recall how entire savings disappeared when Roosevelt closed banks. Roosevelt had a plan, forbidding the hoarding of gold and silver. Roosevelt did at first cut spending, reducing pensions and salaries in the Federal government. He said that in 1933 he would cut a billion dollars per year, but it did not materialize.

He ended Prohibition, and in his first 100 days his New Deal passed many laws aimed at overall recovery, relief for the needy, and reform of business. In doing this, Roosevelt immediately veered from his austerity promises. Congress spent unprecedented amounts to push his policies through. Most of it was borrowed. Roosevelt also endeavored to create legislation to help farmers. His policies created taxes on manufacturers to pay for farming relief. He paid cotton farmers to destroy one-third of their crops in 1933, then paid them higher prices for what they did grow. This policy had mixed results, and created higher prices for consumers. Eventually, the Supreme Court declared it un-Constitutional, but Roosevelt was able to get around the court's decision by making additional payments to farmers who cut down production.

The government more or less got in the lending business, providing money for growers until 1938 at low interest. The result was that the farmers could buy supplies, but they could not make a profit on the foreign market. Exports dried up. However, the Agricultural Adjustment Act led farmers to diversify their crops. When World War II came around, the farmers found a huge market for their products, and their diversification was a Godsend.

Anti-trust laws were enacted to create an atmosphere of fair competition, but small businesses suffered. Roosevelt's chief enforcer of the National Industrial Recovery Act, General Hugh "Old Iron Pants" Johnson, resigned in disgust. Regulations had mixed results. Abolishing terrible child labor and sweatshops was good. Codes that strangled businesses with taxes, paperwork and difficult-to-abide-by rules were bad. Unemployment still did not go down, and the Supreme Court called the NIRA un-Constitutional, too.

The New Deal created relief checks. The Public Works Administration, started by Hoover, went into operation. New buildings were built on college campuses, but in the interim the Federal Emergency Relief Administration gave money to the states. The Civil Works Administration put 4 million men to work on roads, playgrounds, and drainage projects.

The Civilian Conservation Corps put millions of young people to work planting trees, building dams and bridges, and fighting forest fires. The CCC turned out to be a great training ground for the Army, since many of its workers went straight into World War II. In 1935, Congress created the Works Progress Administration, furnishing money for laborers, writers, artists, actors and musicians. Harry Hopkins was put in charge of the WPA. A close friend of Roosevelt, he spent enormous sums of money, was Roosevelt's constant companion, and reached the point of becoming one of the most influential people in the country. Conservatives disliked and distrusted him, though, and found that he was involved in illegal campaign fixing. Later he was exposed as a Communist spy.

The New Deal caused much angst among Republicans, who said it was not achieving much. In fact, the programs did not improve the economy, improve the tax base, or in any way end the Great Depression. It did provide for work, and this led to votes. The conservatives demonstrated that the jobs were "make-work" that they called a "boondoggle." Roosevelt's vigorous attacks against Hoover for running the government into debt were now turned on him.

The dollar found itself devalued. Social Security went into effect, based on four tenets. It was set up to be an old age and survivors' insurance, unemployment insurance, old age assistance, and aid for dependent children and needy blind.

Many homeowners were unable to meet their tax or interest bills. Congress created the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, which took over many mortgages and gave homeowners time to pay off debts. It also made it easier to borrow money at low rates for repairs and upkeep.

The National Housing Act of 1937 addressed the need to provide housing to poor people, mostly living in the cities, and helped to provide decent homes for minorities, particularly African-Americans.

The 1930s were a time of great unrest in labor relations. Broad reforms aimed at strengthening organized labor were enacted. The National Industrial Recovery Act tried to guarantee workers the right of collective bargaining and to join unions. The Supreme Court called it un-Constitutional. Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which guaranteed workers freedom to join unions, required employers to bargain collectively, and set up a national labor board. The result of this made unions very strong and hurt business. Employers could not sue unions, but unions could break contracts. Employers were not allowed to hire non-union workers or even talk to employers about unions.

Eventually, entire industries were organized into labor groups, creating the CIO and the AFL, massing steel, auto and factory workers into single national organizations. Other working professions were added over time. The result of this was massive strikes for higher wages, which employers could not afford in the business climate of the 1930s. But the Federal government now favored labor. Business was between a rock and a hard place. Auto and steelworkers simply took over plants and would not let employers in the gates. All the courts said it was criminally illegal, but Roosevelt backed them because there were more workers (votes) than employers (who tended to vote Republican anyway). His failure to handle union strikes properly is a black mark on his Presidency. He created a climate for class warfare and envy that the Democrats exploit to this day.

The Democrat Congress heaped more rules against the beleaguered business community, imposing the 40-hour week that mandated if a man worked more than 40 hours, he be paid overtime. Minimum wage was affixed.

The Roosevelt Administration made many mistakes and can rightly be accused of its share of perfidy, but credit will be given where it is due. After the stock market crash, stricter regulations replaced the _laissez faire_ practices of the 1920s, so the Banking Act of 1933 was enacted. Known as the Glass-Seagall Banking Act, it set up the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, whereby the government insured deposits up to $5,000. It is still in place today for much higher amounts.

The Securities Act forbade the sale of stocks or bonds not registered with the government. In order to register, corporations had to provide detailed information about the condition of their businesses. The Securities and Exchange Commission registered new securities, and forbade "insider trading" (unfortunately four years too late to put Joe Kennedy in a Federal prison). Power companies were Federalized, too.

The Federal government also took control of utilities. An interesting film that depicts one of the reasons this was necessary was Robert Towne's classic screenplay, "Chinatown", directed by Roman Polanski and starring Jack Nicholson in his absolute prime (1974). The backdrop of the story is how the city of Los Angeles was built. In the 1900s, L.A. was a sleepy Spanish pueblo, not comparable as a city to its glamorous northern sister, San Francisco. A group of "city fathers" traveled to the Owens Valley, on the lower East Sierra Mountains, and arranged to build a canal that funneled water from dams built in the mountains down to Los Angeles. The leading politician who made this happen was William Mulholland.

In "Chinatown", Towne tells the story of a _privately owned_ L.A. Department of Water and Power. Set in the 1930s, at that time L.A. only consisted of defined city limits south of the Santa Monica Mountains. Farmers in the San Fernando Valley did not have enough water, as a result of a drought, to make ends meet. The politicians and private "water pirates" then buy enormous tracts of land in the valley, which because of the lack of water is cheap. However, they orchestrate annexation of the valley to the city, therefore diverting water to the valley and making their cheap land into virtual gold mines. This is how Los Angeles was expanded and built. It was this kind of corruption that FDR's administration wanted to eliminate.

This did not occur without a fight. The Tennessee Valley Authority was built to improve living conditions along the Tennessee River and included parts of Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Kentucky. This part of America was still reeling from the Civil War. It was still a backward place, filled with uneducated "white trash." It was highly inhospitable to black Americans who populated the rural areas. The government started to build a power plant at Muscle Shoals, Alabama to produce nitrates, but the work was not completed until after the war ended. One group wanted the TVA to develop power to build cheap electricity, but another wanted to privatize it.

Roosevelt suspected that even worse corruption among private power companies existed in the Tennessee Valley than the L.A. pols in "Chinatown". In some ways, the TVA was a "one size fits all" measure. Parts of the valley were corroded by floods and badly needed damming. Forests were cut down and not grown back. Farming methods were primitive. But other areas in the valley were quite prosperous, and not in need of the Feds' "helping hand." When all is said and done, the TVA saved land and improved lives. The experience would resonate in the Southern states resisting Federal encroachment in their lives during the civil rights era of the 1950s and '60s.

The "dust bowl" that swept the Great Plains ruined many farms and uprooted thousands of Oklahomans and others. They migrated to California, where they met harsh conditions trying to get limited work in the San Joaquin Valley. In 1936, the voters supported the New Deal, but Republicans did not buy Roosevelt's government lock, stock and barrel. They said that normal business practices would end the Depression on the same time schedule, but FDR's populist agenda was the right one for the times.

Despite Roosevelt's popularity with voters, hardcore conservatives found him utterly detestable, the worst kind of "ward healer." In 1934, a tiny cabal of Republican businessmen who did business with German firms saw that Hitler had revived that country's economy. They felt that Hitler's policies were beneficial to business, and they were disgusted with FDR. They decided to attempt a military _coup d'etat_ to replace Roosevelt.

The military hated Roosevelt for two reasons. First, he gutted them, forcing retirements, stifling promotions and careers, reducing strength, and eliminating programs to build weapons to keep up with the mounting German-Japanese (and even Russian and Communist Chinese) threat. Many World War I veterans were homeless. They rioted in Washington when Roosevelt broke up their shelters and tried to scatter them. Roosevelt ordered MacArthur and Patton to aggressively attack and break their will, which was highly distasteful to these officers. The soldiers did not blame MacArthur and Patton nearly as much as Roosevelt.

The Republican businessmen thought they had the right man when they found a highly decorated Marine, Smedley Butler, to organize the military removal of Roosevelt. Butler played along with the plotters, but he never had any intention of carrying it out. He turned the plotters in and the coup never materialized.

Roosevelt's policies had the "Robin Hood effect" of robbing the haves and giving to the have-nots – classic re-distribution of wealth that has marked Democrat politics ever since. This oddly contrasts with Roosevelt's patrician class standing. He has his fans and he has his detractors, and both have valid points. He presided over a country in desperate times, and he took desperate measures. He closed banks that effectively stole the life savings of many people. He taxed and regulated businesses out of business. He did what he did because he thought it was best for the country. He dominated American politics. By 1937, he and the Democrats had firm control of all branches of the government, and business began to improve. Factory orders went on the rise.

"We planned it that way," Roosevelt announced.

Then in six months the economy went back to 1932 levels. By this point, the Democrats' New Deal had been in place for four years and they could no longer blame Hoover. But with Congress in his corner, Roosevelt was able to "pack" the Supreme Court. They had overturned some of his pet projects in his first four years. Roosevelt then hoodwinked the American public, announcing that district courts were too burdened by cases. He asked his new Congress to let him appoint extra justices in each Federal court. These courts all, "coincidentally," were presided over by jurists who were more than 70 years old and had been appointed by Republicans. His supporters called this measure "dictatorship." Even New Dealers broke with Roosevelt, who in 1937 may not have envisioned staying on beyond this, his second term. He was a polio victim who could not walk, although the public in these pre-television times was largely unaware of this. Perhaps he just wanted to get as much power as possible and leave a lasting legacy. Eventually, the Judiciary Committee did not support his plan to pack the courts. The Senate did not pass it, even though his party was in the majority. It was, in fact, a good example of Democracy in action, a President's own party going against a man who was trying to grab too much power.

Not in America, baby.

The Republicans thought Roosevelt was vulnerable when they gained seats in the 1938 mid-term elections, but FDR managed to get some of his justices on the court when the elderly Republican appointees retired.

In 1940, the Republicans ran Wendell Wilkie against Roosevelt. He had been the president of a Southern power company that was hurt by the TVA. He represented the interests of businessmen who had been badly hurt in a capitalistic sense by FDR. World War II broke out in 1939, and Roosevelt decided to become the first President to seek more than two terms. He let the Democrats draft him at their Chicago convention. Talk of "dictatorship" again surfaced. Roosevelt's friend, Ray Clapper, wrote in his newspaper, "Something has gone out of American life this week. At least I have lost something. It was faith in President Roosevelt."

Wilkie gave FDR a run for his money but lost. Roosevelt entered his third term. The nation had experienced much since he first took the White House, but he had not solved the economic problems he inherited. He led a nation that was still young and idealistic, a country that 20 years prior had ascended to the status of a superpower. Events in and out of the United States had taken place in the 1930s that had greatly weakened this power.

On December 7, 1941, Roosevelt had still not ended the Great Depression. This fact quickly faded from the public consciousness. Our superpower status would be put to a deadly winner-take-all test.

PART TWO

MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR CHRISTENDOM

" _He never went to church, but he read the Bible every day and regarded himself as one of the world's two great defenders of Christendom."_

\- "American Caesar" by William Manchester

William Manchester's observation that General Douglas MacArthur believed that it was his destiny (along with the Pope) to protect, defend, and make the world safe for Christendom, is a very telling one. It says much about the grandiose, Napoleonic view that MacArthur had of himself. It certainly is not something that Dwight Eisenhower or Omar Bradley might have said. In retrospect it has the touch of accuracy from where I stand. MacArthur and this country faced a task of unbelievable difficulty, and foes so strong, so evil and so frightening that they are almost relegated by defeat to comic book stature.

In Hollywood, when a script comes in that describes "bad guys" who do great evil, it is often dismissed as containing "comic book characters," because they are simply too awful to be believed by the audience. Television shows like "Get Smart" and "Hogan's Heroes" depicted the "funny Nazis" (Siegfried in "Get Smart" was probably more an East German Stasi character). In Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, and in Tojo's Japan, the U.S. faced such unspeakable evil. It was all-too-real, an everyday reality check. A third evil of equal horrendousness, Stalin's Soviet Union, also stood astride a world that had become a mountain of terrors.

For those of us born after we won World War II, it is comparable to our mothers telling us they almost lost us during pregnancy, or some other near-disaster averted without our having experienced it. We are glad it turned out well, but we cannot feel the emotions of it. However, to not know of events prior to our birth is to remain forever children. History and history books serve the purpose of trying to make history come alive.

This book has attempted to demonstrate two things by retracing the steps of history. First, it attempts to debunk moral relativism by establishing a central Truth, which is that good is always good, and bad is always bad. This is because there is an eternal concept of good vs. evil. In my personal opinion it is not merely an ephemeral concept of the afterlife. Rather, my philosophy holds that God and Satan are in constant battle with each other. This battle plays out like a giant chess match, with humans as the pawns. This battle goes on and on and on. Someday, it will reach its conclusion. The importance of how God "wins" is beyond our ability to understand. Suffice it to say, however, that Satan _must not_ prevail. God has the advantages, but Satan cheats, Truth is perverted, lies are weapons, and God's ultimate victory is not assured. Humans must recognize this eternal struggle, and remain vigilant so as to identify the works of Satan.

It is my further belief that God made a decision to "adopt" a country, by blessing it with divine inspiration; a nation not burdened by all the mistakes of human centuries, a country of strength, natural beauty, and national purpose. This nation is the United States of America. I propose that Satan immediately decided to poison this veritable Garden of Eden with the terrible sin of slavery. In overcoming slavery this country resolved to win a great test of its goodness.

Satan attacks in different ways. Sometimes he uses sly methods that are hard to recognize; methods of deception and betrayal. At other times, when he believes his forces are arrayed in a strong enough matter, Satan attacks with full force. This he did when he managed to turn a struggle over Balkan nationalism and a "short" German war that was meant to result in a quick political treaty over disputed territory into the worst conflict in human annals.

Satan, having tasted carnage and stirred up ancient hatreds beyond all prior passions, knowing that the technological advancements of civilization could be turned against man in the most deliciously ironic way, re-grouped and came back again with a stronger charge than ever.

MacArthur, in his statement about defending Christendom, seems to acknowledge this concept. He was intelligent, a bit over-hyped perhaps, but a man who had a similar vision about the nature of evil. Surely, he knew that World War II was not merely a war like other wars; chivalrous adventures that played themselves out on Elysian Fields of manly strife. Not any more. The stakes were too high.

My theory that Satan weaves in and out of our existence; that he positions himself next to our greatest good in order to effectuate his slice of influence, is reflected in the raw facts of our historical greatness. The U.S. is a wonderful country for many reasons, of course. But in surviving and making the world a safer place for our citizens, and citizens of the world, we have had to fight many a battle. In so doing, this raises a terrible conundrum. Since 1776, when the U.S. declared its independence, this beautiful country, endowed by a peaceful God, this nation of religious freedom and tolerance, has officially and in her name killed enough human beings to rank it among the greatest killers of the past 227 years. We had to kill Englishmen during the revolution and again in 1812. We killed slaves, although this was not "officially" in our name. We killed Mexicans during our war with them. We killed each other in order to save our Union and end the evil of slavery. We killed Indians in order to settle the West. We killed Spaniards, Arabs, Pacific Islanders, and Chinese protecting our interests in an expanding world. We killed Germans by the bushel - twice - along with Italians, and Satan must have delighted in how many Japanese met their ends at our hands. We killed North Koreans and North Vietnamese, and a few Cubans in Grenada. Finally, when we won the Cold War, Satan was foiled. We ended his evil partner's reign over half the world without forcing a shot. So he took his act to the Middle East, and back to his old stomping grounds, the Balkans, requiring us to kill Serbs, Bosnians, Iraqis, terrorists and Afghans.

How many have died at our hands? The fact that all these wars were necessary justified, and most likely unavoidable, does not change the fact that millions of human beings had to die. How many of those were unsaved souls, filled with hate and envy? How many Americans, caught up in the fury of war, lost their souls? What a payday for Satan!

It can be argued that the United States killed upwards of 50 million human beings since 1776, and that is just counting official or semi-official casualties in war or "more or less" sanctioned by the government. This does not count criminals killed by police, or those sentenced to death by our courts. Who has killed more people since then? Germany approaches and possibly exceeds our totals. They killed French in the Franco-Prussian War, plus Allied deaths in World Wars I and II, Jews and non-Jews in concentration camps, plus civilians. My guess is that they have killed fewer people than the U.S., mostly because the U.S. stopped them or killed them before they could kill more, of course. Napoleon's France killed many. This nation also killed French citizens, Englishmen, Germans, more French citizens, more Germans, Libyans, Lebanese, Algerians, Indochinese, and others. Varying European governments put down revolutionaries by force.

How about Russia/Soviet Union? Add their wars with Napoleon; putting down 19th Century revolutions and various conflicts; the Japanese in 1905; Germans and Turks killed in World War I; citizens during the Communist Revolution; the Jews, farmers, and "enemies of the state" under Lenin, Stalin, Kruschev, and subsequent leaders; plus Germans in World War II? But does the U.S.S.R. have to add to their total the dead who died in their name in "proxy wars" in China, Korea, Vietnam, Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere?

The Chinese killed Japanese resisting occupation beginning in the 1930s until the end of World War II, plus each other in civil wars, Americans in Korea, then citizens under Communist rule since 1949. They have their share of "proxy wars," too, mainly Vietnam. Most rate the Chinese, with roughly 65 to 100 million dead on their conscience, as the most prolific of historical killers.

The Japanese are relatively innocent. They have their Russians killed in 1905 and Americans, Australians, British, Chinese, New Zealanders and natives killed in World War II.

Let us not forget the English, who have to answer for the deaths of Americans, Indians, Africans, French, Arabs, Germans, Turks, Italians, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, the Falklands (Argentina), and Iraq?

When you add it all up, it is my guess that Russia follows China among the "killer elite." Communism as an ideology is attributed to official killing in the name of the Soviets, Chinese, North Vietnamese, Cambodian, Cuban, and Nicaraguan governments, just to name the usual suspects. What would Marx, sitting in his little room in London, mourning the death of his daughter from lack of proper medical care, have said if confronted by the 100 million-plus souls that perished in the name of his ideology? Upon his own death, what judgment was rendered upon his atheistic soul?

So what does all this mean? It adds up to a terrible dilemma. The peace activists ask us to "give peace a chance" and sing songs with lyrics like "War? What is it good for? Absolutely nothing." There is every reason to believe they are right. What has it all accomplished?

Well, order, freedom and opportunity has emerged, more than any other societal factor, out of all these deaths and wars. But these numbers, and this is only going back to 1776, seems to verify that Satan has created a system whereby war really is the natural state of man. How can this be? How can people choose war? If one buys my "influence of the devil" argument, he does not choose it, it is chosen for him by every conceivable means. The reasons for all these wars and revolutions are many and varied. There is no single reason why war occurs. Satan finds new and inventive ways of starting these things. The only way to defeat Satan is to end all the wars. In so doing, there are wars that have to be won. The Iraqi War was won with a remarkably low number of casualties, which no doubt pissed Satan off. The War on Terrorism is an on-going rear guard action, but in the early years of the 21st Century, the United States seems to have a pretty good hold on things. Peace exists, more or less everywhere, and there are no major confrontations on the horizon. No doubt Satan will try to polarize the Middle East and turn it into Armageddon. My guess is that two centuries of sending bad guys into what Patton called the "infernal regions" has taken most of evil's big guns out of its arsenal.

Can the U.S. say it is the greatest country on Earth, endowed by God Himself as the Chosen Nation to help Him defeat evil, if it has killed "more or less" 50 million people? Well, there is a flip side. How many have been saved? How many Americans have lived lives of peace and freedom because we defeated the English in the revolution? Can we say that blacks have been "saved" despite institutional slavery? No, but how many blacks have enjoyed the benefits of American citizenship because their ancestors were brought here, and because we fought a terrible war that freed them? How many Southerners have lived a better life because we kept them in the Union? Is anybody seriously going to argue that case? How many Americans have benefited from citizenship because we defeated Mexico? How much better off is the American West because we settled it? Were Cubans better off independent or under Spanish rule from 1898 until Castro? How many lives are better off in U.S. protectorates, or as U.S. allies, in the South Pacific, Caribbean, North Africa, and other one-time "hot spots?" Can anybody possibly say that despite all the Germans we killed in two wars, that nation is not better off than they would be had we not done it? Not to mention England, France, Holland, Belgium and other Western European countries whose peoples were saved by us! How much better off is Japan because we killed millions of Japanese? Is there supposed to be some alternate Universe in which an effective argument can be made that they are not? What about New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines and the South Pacific? What about Americans, Canadians, Mexicans and Latin Americans, who all would have been vulnerable, had the U.S. lost World War II or the Cold War?

How about Russians and other East Bloc countries? Would the people who live in these countries have been better off had we lost the Cold War? Is there some possible answer to that question other than "no"? _There is not._ Is Taiwan better off because we protect it? Yes. Is South Korea better because we fought a war for them and protect them? Yes.

So, let us take a quick look at our "failures." Vietnam was not fought to a victorious conclusion, resulting in Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge murdering over a million people. Today the "country" is a backward Communist outhouse forgotten by history. Had we achieved our objectives there, today it would be a thriving like South Korea or Taiwan.

We gave North Korea back after the Inchon invasion. Today it is one of the worst hellholes in the world, despite the extraordinary native intelligence and natural work ethic of the Korean people.

Finally, let us examine the places we have not fought. We have fought skirmishes and regional wars in the Middle East, but never the kind of all-out, society-changing conflagration that we have elsewhere. Absent the kind of American influence that exists in most of the rest of the world, this huge region remains today a bed of lies and treachery.

We never followed up on the Cuban invasion after the Bay of Pigs and the missile crisis. With Fidel Castro in power, no human who is not retarded can say this beautiful country is better off because of it.

China remains a trouble spot because we ultimately "lost" it diplomatically. How many lives were ruined because of this one big failure? Answer: 65 million, and those are just the dead.

I am not advocating fighting major wars in the Middle East, Cuba, North Korea, North Vietnam or China. These are places that will "come around" because we fought other wars and left them with no evil allies who can mount any real strength against us. Thank God for it.

The term "dealing with the devil" is not an outlandish one. How else to explain that the U.S. and Great Britain united themselves in an unholy alliance with a country, the Soviet Union, that between 1929 and 1953 sent 18 million people to slave labor camps (gulag _s_ ), resulting in millions of deaths?

How the devil must smile knowing that he has placed us in this position. Only by recognizing that this is how he operates, how he hopes to "win," can we defeat him. Yes, defeat him. I believe he can be beaten. I am an optimist.

The bottom line is that while 50 million people have died, _billions_ have been saved, courtesy of the red, white and blue! We now have the upper hand. Satan will try to find ways to usurp our victory. It is my faithful belief that I am not the only one who recognizes his ways and is working to actively identify and expose his lies so we can beat him back until Goodness prevails once and for all.

In the mean time, let me address this question: What is the meaning of life?

Well, many have tried to find that answer. They have journeyed to India, consulted gurus, dropped acid, smoked peyote, and engaged in myriad and sundry activities in order to seek the answer. I have the answer.

The answer is this: **Peace through strength!**

Never has "peace through strength" been more exemplified than the challenge of World War II. For all the talk about "killer elites," Germany and Japan take the cake. Left to their own devices, unchecked and not defeated, allowed to create atomic weaponry, all "records" held by the Chinese, the Russians and Communism would pale in comparison. The German and the Japanese were "stopped" by the United States before they could "get out of hand."

FDR met this challenge with good cheer and confidence in America and her allies. For political reasons, he did not address the issue from the altar of ultimate defense of Mankind. To do so would have frightened a good part of the citizenry. But the war was about just that and he knew it. That he could remain optimistic and keep a country optimistic, too, is to his great credit. Ultimately his political machinations, lies, deceits and policies of class envy are put someplace else. They are not forgotten, but they are allowed to rest while we judge his greater status as a true world leader when the world needed gods to lead them.

Judging Roosevelt requires, like much of history actually, a schizophrenic interpretation of his flaws juxtaposed with his virtues. In so doing, we start with an analysis of Roosevelt's failure to prepare this country for war despite an obvious and hideous threat. It is a realistic appraisal that had FDR maintained American readiness, World War II could have been avoided. Had he done this, he would not have been remembered as the American Churchill whose fireside chats and stirring speeches led us victory in that war. In Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", it is written that all wars are won before they are fought. FDR's greatest sin is that he allowed the U.S. to enter a war in which it was not known beforehand who would win. This is due to his failure to prepare for the war.

Did FDR allow the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on purpose?

It was not long after the first Japanese bombs fell on the American Naval ships at Pearl Harbor that conspiracy theories began to circulate, charging that Franklin Roosevelt and his chief military advisors knew of the impending attack well in advance. Robert Stinnett, who served in the U.S. Navy with distinction during World War II, examined declassified American documents and concluded that, far more than merely knowing of the Japanese plan to bomb Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt deliberately steered Japan into war with America.

Stinnett's argument draws on both circumstantial and actual evidence. In September, 1940 Roosevelt signed into law a measure providing for a two-ocean Navy that would number 100 aircraft carriers. American governmental documents offer apparent proof that Roosevelt sacrificed American lives in order to enter the war on England's side. Nevertheless, Stinnett concluded that Roosevelt's deception was necessary.

FDR faced opposition from isolationists. The Pearl Harbor attack was "something that had to be endured in order to stop a greater evil - the Nazi invaders in Europe who had begun the Holocaust and were poised to invade England," wrote Stinnett. He researched this subject for 17 years and used documentation obtained using the Freedom of Information Act. In November, 1940, FDR ordered the Red Cross Disaster Relief director to secretly prepare for massive casualties at Pearl Harbor because he was going to let it be attacked.

The plan was outlined in a U.S. Naval Intelligence secret strategy memo of October, 1940. Roosevelt implemented its eight steps, which included deploying U.S. warships in Japanese territorial waters and imposing a total embargo intended to strangle Japan's economy. According to Stinnett, this climaxed in the Japanese attack. Stinnett was a decorated veteran who served with then-Lieutenant George Bush (the future President). He substantiates his charges with a wealth of persuasive documents, including many government and military memos and transcripts. His premise is that strict Japanese radio silence was a myth. He shows that several Japanese naval broadcasts, intercepted by American cryptographers in the 10 days before December 7, confirmed that Japan intended to start the war at Pearl Harbor. Stinnett shows that the top U.S. brass in Hawaii - Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Husband Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter Short - were kept out of the intelligence loop on orders from Washington. They were then blamed for allegedly failing to anticipate the Japanese attack. In May, 1999, the U.S. Senate cleared their names. Kimmel moved his fleet into the north Pacific, actively searching for the suspected Japanese staging area. Naval headquarters ordered him to turn back. Stinnett's research raises ethical questions.

"I sympathize with the agonizing dilemma faced by President Roosevelt," Stinnett continued. "He was forced to find circuitous means to persuade an isolationist America to join in a fight for freedom." Explanation is not an excuse. Aside from sacrificing Americans at Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt is responsible for a terrible loss of ships, equipment, supplies, and mostly planes. It put this nation through its greatest day of anguish. While he no doubt did not think the damage would be as bad as it was, this makes his negligence worse. This also does not begin to describe the circumvention of Democratic principles inherent in such a betrayal. It adds to the question of his "dictatorship." Finally, it can be shown that FDR's example may have given another Democrat President, Lyndon Johnson, the precedent he needed to lead an unwitting country into war at the Gulf of Tonkin.

Stinnett established almost beyond question that the U.S. Navy could have at least anticipated the attack. He based his conclusion on archival research and interviews with surviving U.S. Navy cryptographers. Stinnett determined that FDR actually received the advice to "allow" the attack from his own Naval advisors. There are Roosevelt haters, past and present, who have enjoyed nothing more than to put forth the proposition that the man was somewhere between a traitor, a derelict, and a dictator. The evidence seems to conclude that the man wanted the U.S. to enter World War II, did not trust the Democratic process, and was caught off guard. There is no evidence that he was a traitor in the true sense of the word. FDR wanted what was best for America and the world. He knew that in that time and place, going to war was the best thing. His actions were colored by his political worldview.

Republicans were the ones who mostly absolved Kimmel and Short when the U.S. Senate posthumously cleared them. FDR had held them responsible for the Pearl Harbor debacle. There are academic historians and FDR supporters who are not convinced of the charges. Unquestionably, any historical assessment of Franklin Roosevelt is rife with political baggage.

It is also important to consider that despite the Freedom of Information Act, data is still not complete because official secrecy still exists regarding certain decryptions of Japanese radio communications. Stinnett reported that 13 messages from the Japanese commander, Admiral Yamamoto, to his attack force are missing from the American archive of decrypts. Stinnett interviewed radio intelligence officers who recalled locating the force as it crossed the Pacific, contrary to the conventional wisdom that it sailed undetected. Two weeks prior to the attack, the Naval base commander was ordered to stop patrolling waters north of Oahu.

Stinnett also declared that the Atlantic was a "vacant sea'' just weeks prior to the attack, with patrols forbidden in this area. Stinnett quoted a policy memo written by Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCullum. It listed eight actions designed to incite a military action by Japan, including such actions as the blocking of the sale of oil to the Japanese, maintaining a heavy U.S. Naval presence in the Pacific, and supporting Chiang Kai-shek in China.

With the Presidential election of 1940 at stake, Roosevelt's policy towards the war in Europe in 1939 was that of isolationism. He called Congress into special session and asked for the repeal of the embargo on the sale of arms to belligerent powers. This was part of the existing neutrality legislation. He based his appeal on the argument that this move would help to keep the United States at peace.

"Let no group assume the exclusive label of the 'peace bloc,'" he said. "We all belong to it ...I give you my deep and unalterable conviction, based on years of experience as a worker in the field of international peace, that by the repeal of the embargo the United States will more probably remain at peace than if the law remains as it stands today ...Our acts must be guided by one single, hardheaded thought - keeping America out of the war."

The President had opened up secret correspondence with Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty and later Prime Minister in the British government. Churchill's own memoirs inspire doubt as to whether its main purpose was keeping America out of the war.

Roosevelt painted himself as a champion of peace even after France had fallen. At this point, it was obvious that Great Britain could not win without the involvement of the United States and probably the Soviet Union.

"I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars," Roosevelt said at Boston on October 30, 1940 just before the election with Wilkie.

"I am fighting to keep our people out of foreign wars," he said at Brooklyn on November 1. "And I will keep on fighting."

At Rochester, New York, on November 2, he said, "Your national government ...is equally a government of peace \- a government that intends to retain peace for the American people."

On the same day in Buffalo he said, "Your President says this country is not going to war."

At Cleveland on November 3 he declared, "The first purpose of our foreign policy is to keep our country out of war."

American involvement in war with Germany, however, differed from his campaign promises. He exchanged American destroyers for British bases in the Caribbean and in Newfoundland in September, 1940. This was a departure from the requirements of neutrality and a violation of some American laws. Government lawyers at the time decided that the destroyer deal put America into the war, legally and morally.

He enactment the Lend-Lease Act in March, 1941, contradicting the Neutrality Act, making the United States an unlimited partner in the economic war against the Axis Powers all over the world. The Americans and British staff spoke in Washington in January-March, 1941 with great care taken to hide this from Congress. Despite implications, the Lend-Lease Act was not meant to promote U.S. involvement in the war. But a staff conference used the revealing phrase, "when the United States becomes involved in war with Germany." Naval patrols, the purpose of which was to report the presence of German submarines to British warships, began in the Atlantic in April, 1941.

American laborers went to Northern Ireland to build a Naval base, preparing for an American expeditionary force.

The U.S. occupied Iceland in July, 1941. Roosevelt and Churchill engaged in the Atlantic Conference of August 9-12, 1941. The conference considered the presentation of an ultimatum to Japan and the occupation of the Cape Verde Islands, a Portuguese possession, by United States troops. American warships were ordered to shoot at sight at German submarines on September 11, 1941. This symbolic date, 60 years to the day prior to the World Trade Center attack, may be the real opening day of America's involvement in the war. Authorization for the arming of merchant ships and the sending of these ships into war zones began in November, 1941. The freezing of Japanese assets in the United States began on July 25, 1941. This step was followed by similar action on the part of Great Britain and the Netherlands East Indies, amounting to a commercial blockade of Japan. Roosevelt very likely knew that it would push Japan into war.

"It was very essential, from our own selfish point of view of defense, to prevent a war from starting in the South Pacific," Roosevelt said. "So our foreign policy was trying to stop a war from breaking out down there....Now, if we cut the oil off, they [the Japanese] probably would have gone down to the Netherlands East Indies a year ago, and we would have had war."

Japanese Prime Minister Prince Fumimaro Konoye appealed for a personal meeting with Roosevelt to discuss an amicable settlement in the Pacific. This appeal was rejected, despite the strong favorable recommendations of the American ambassador to Japan, Joseph C. Grew. Secretary of State Cordell Hull's note to the Japanese government of November 26 came on the heels of consideration of a proposed compromise formula. It would have relaxed the blockade of Japan in return for withdrawal from southern Indochina and a limitation of forces in northern Indochina.

Hull dropped the idea after pressure from British and Chinese sources. He made an ultimatum on November 26, demanding unconditional Japanese withdrawal from China and from Indochina. This insisted that there should be "no support of any government in China other than the national government" (Chiang Kai-shek). Hull admitted that this made the Japanese-American relationship a military, not diplomatic, one.

Japan's negative reply was delivered almost simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor. General Short and Admiral Kimmel, commanders on the spot, were not aware of it despite the fact that it was expected and the clear picture of danger it painted. Secretary of War Henry Stimson said it was to maneuver the Japanese into firing the first shot. If Kimmel and Short had made major preparations, it may have scared off the impending attack by the Japanese task force, which was known to be on its way to some American outpost.

"Franklin Roosevelt repeatedly deceived the American people during the period before Pearl Harbor," said former Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce. "He was like the physician who must tell the patient lies for the patient's own good ...The country was overwhelmingly noninterventionist to the very day of Pearl Harbor, and an overt attempt to lead the people into war would have resulted in certain failure and an almost certain ousting of Roosevelt in 1940, with a complete defeat of his ultimate aims."

The justification for Roosevelt's lies are that the "masses" were not able to grasp global political politics and diplomacy. It sounds like the Roman Senate's disdain for the "mob." This is a view that has been attributed to the Democrat elite for years. They think they are so smart, so educated, so intelligent and informed, that it is they and only they who are capable of making decisions for the rest of us. As despicable as I find this notion to be (which is one of the top reasons among hundreds I am a Republican, not a Democrat), I still find that given the events of his time, there is some justification for FDR's deceits. I think, given all I know, I would not endorse it at the time. I cannot say this with 100 percent confidence.

Roosevelt's apologists point out that events were fluid. Much happened between November, 1940 and December, 1941 which justified a change in policy. The fact that the U.S. won the war certainly works out in FDR's favor.

The British Isles were not invaded in 1940, at the height of Hitler's military power. By 1941, England was far more secure. Secretary Stimson, Navy Secretary Frank Knox, and General George C. Marshall all had warned of the impending invasion of Britain in the first months of 1941. Winston Churchill wrote in his memoirs, "I did not regard invasion as a serious danger in April, 1941, since proper preparations had been made against it."

The American and British governments knew by then that Hitler was obsessed with the Soviet Union in 1941. However, as late as May 27, Roosevelt asserted, "The war is approaching the brink of the Western Hemisphere itself. It is coming very close to home." The President spoke of the Nazi "book of world conquest" and declared there was a Nazi plan to treat the Latin American countries as they had treated the Balkans. Then Canada and the United States would be "strangled." No evidence of this exists in the Nazi archives. Nazi invasion of the Americas seems only to be something that would have occurred after Europe was secure.

All official Japanese communications were in code. Diplomatic messages were sent in the Purple, Tsu, or Oite codes; naval communications in one of 29 codes called the Kaigun Ango, the most important of which were the 5-Num (naval operations), SM (naval movement), S (merchant marine), and Yobidashi Fugo (radio call sign) codes.

American cryptologists (codebreakers) had broken all four naval codes by October of 1940. American intelligence had broken Japanese diplomatic codes even before: Tsu in the 1920s, Oite in 1939, and Purple in September, 1940. As a result, cryptologists could intercept, decipher, and translate almost all Japanese diplomatic and military radio traffic within hours of receiving them. The decryption (decoding) and translating was done at three cryptographic centers; Station CAST on Corregidor in the Philippines; Station HYPO on Oahu; and Station U.S. in Washington. The resulting intelligence information was then sent to top U.S. military, Naval, and cabinet officials, including the President (about 36 individuals in all).

In addition to the interception and decryption of Japanese radio transmissions, most of the radio intercept stations were equipped with radio direction finders (RDF) which allowed trained operators to pinpoint the exact location of specific Japanese warships once their distinct radio call sign was identified. By means of RDF, naval intelligence experts were able to track the movement of the Japanese carrier force as it approached Pearl Harbor. Stinnett's findings confirm the claim made by the Dutch naval attaché to the United States, Captain Johan Ranneft, that while on visits to the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington on December 2 and 6 he saw intelligence maps tracking the movement of Japanese carriers toward Hawaii. His findings support the testimony of Robert Ogg who claims that while on assignment to the 12th Naval District in San Francisco he located (by means of RDF intelligence) the Japanese fleet north of Hawaii three days before the attack.

Perhaps the single most important document discovered by Stinnett was an October 7, 1940 memorandum written by Lieutenant Commander Arthur H. McCollum, head of the Far East desk of the Office of Naval Intelligence. McCollum's memo outlined a strategic policy designed to goad the Japanese into committing "an overt act of war" against the United States. McCollum wrote that such a strategy was necessary because "it is not believed that in the present state of political opinion the United States government is capable of declaring war against Japan without more ado."

McCollum suggested eight specific "actions" that the United States should take to bring about this result. The key one is "Action F" which called for keeping "the main strength" of the U.S. Pacific Fleet "in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands." McCollum concluded his memo by stating that "if by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better."

Roosevelt signed a bill authorizing a massive American Naval build up designed to create a two-ocean Navy. He required American companies to obtain a government license before selling any petroleum products or scrap metal to Japan. For the next 12 months, the administration readily granted export permits to American firms selling raw materials to Japan. Japanese oil tankers and merchant vessels could be seen loading up on scrap iron and petroleum at America's West Coast ports.

Meanwhile, American Naval intelligence, using radio direction finding (RDF), tracked the tankers to the Japanese Naval oil depot at Tokuyama. Roosevelt's strategists calculated that helping the Japanese build up a two-year supply of reserves would be about right. That way, if war broke out in the second half of 1941, the Japanese would run out of oil in mid to late 1943, just as American wartime industrial production would be at its peak and her carrier fleets would be ready. In July 1941, Roosevelt, together with the British and Dutch, imposed an embargo on the sale of petroleum, iron, and steel to Japan (McCollum's Action H). The trap had now been laid. The Japanese were not slow to fall for it.

"It was a pretty cheap price to pay for unifying the country," Lieutenant Commander Joseph J. Rochefort, commander of Station HYPO - Pearl, said in his post-war assessment of Roosevelt's "plan."

The fact that Roosevelt had to lie and deceive in order to stop Hitler is a perfect example of how the devil weasels his way into our truths. Paul articulated the Christian's response to this question 2,000 years ago.

"And why not say, 'Let us do evil that good may come'? – as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just." (Romans 3:8). It is with this in mind that we must remind ourselves that while we try to do God's work, we sometimes do the work of Satan. In so doing we are merely pawns in the Great Game.

Hector Bywaterhad had written a novel in 1925 called "The Great Pacific War" (featuring a surprise Japanese assault on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor). War gamers had as early as 1932 predicted the Japanese would attack during that year's Army-Navy football game. They overlooked Commander Minoru Genda, who used the Brits' victorious 1940 carrier raid against the Italian fleet in Taranto in his planning for Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's Pearl attack.

The March, 1941 Martin-Bellinger report showed that with U.S.-Japanese relations so tense by December 7, our carriers were reinforcing Midway Island with fighters. Our radar reports of huge numbers of incoming aircraft were not taken seriously.

Stephen Budiansky, author of "Battle of Wits", wrote that newly discovered "documentary evidence ... decisively refutes the claim that JN-25 or any other high-level Japanese codes were being read in the months leading up to the Japanese attack." David Kahn, author of "The Codebreakers", supports Navy cryptanalyst assertions that "no five-numeral messages were read before Pearl Harbor."

Robert Stinnett wrote, "Seven Japanese Naval broadcasts intercepted between November 28 and December 6 confirmed that Japan intended to start the war and that it would begin at Pearl Harbor." Countering other assertions, two specialists identified for him 129 radio intercepts proving that the Japanese First Air Fleet did not maintain radio silence on the way to its launch point. But when did such messages actually get translated from the Japanese after initial decoding?

When Stinnett requested original documents from U.S. government files, the Navy refused to declassify some. Attorney General Janet Reno denied access to others (still labeled "National Defense Secrets" in 1999) and many released under the Freedom of Information Act had portions removed or entire passages blacked out.

Roosevelt's "failure" to prepare for the Japanese attack can be attributed to politics. Opinion on this matter sways depending on one's discretion. Roosevelt's real "crime" may not be his deceptions, allowing Husband and Short to be caught off-guard in Hawaii. Blaming them for it is a different story. So is his failure to prepare the U.S. for World War II from a material standpoint. His New Deal drained the Federal government, feeding the trough of social programs. In the mean time, World War I vets were forced to beg in the streets. Roosevelt put down the resulting riots using Patton and MacArthur, leaving awful tastes in the mouths of august men.

During FDR's Presidency prior to the war, all services were virtually cannibalized. Promotions were almost non-existent. Officers were often reduced in rank. Enlistment and recruitment were deliberately brought to standstills. FDR wanted civilians joining civilian work forces likes the TVA, not the Army. Training was a joke. Soldiers often had no bullets and had to march using brooms or sticks. Morale reached an all-time low. Officers like Patton were beside themselves. Big programs like air power and tank building were put on hold.

There is little evidence that these conditions improved much even as we got closer to war. FDR did not want to arouse great suspicion. The fact that the military had to go directly into battle so ill-prepared (aside from the damage incurred at Pearl) when we entered combat operations in the Pacific, and met Erwin Rommel at Kasserine Pass, is nothing less than a criminal indictment of Roosevelt.

If this is not enough, Roosevelt had named Joseph P. Kennedy to the position of Ambassador to the Court of Saint James, i.e., Ambassador to England. Kennedy had bought his way in via campaign contributions and election manipulations (one of his specialties). He wanted the imprimatur of such a posting to benefit his children. Kennedy was a Nazi sympathizer who openly said that the U.S. could not defeat the Germans, so we should either join forces with them, or certainly do business with them. To do "business" with them would have been tantamount to allying ourselves with them. He was an embarrassment to Roosevelt. Kennedy never acknowledged that the countries' entrance into the war was the right thing to do. Instead, he just blamed Roosevelt for eventually getting us in the war, which killed his oldest son, Joe, Jr.

It is to the great credit of his children that, for all their faults, they resisted their evil, utterly Machiavellian old man. Joe flew important missions and died flying a secret one in connection with the Manhattan Project. John wrote a Harvard thesis, based on his experiences in England and traveling Europe during his father's ambassadorship. It became a book called "While England Slept". It warned that the U.S. needed to engage the Germans. He joined the Navy and was a decorated hero. Robert Kennedy even did a tour in the Navy before the war ended.

Adolf Hitler and the rise of Nazi Germany

The son of Alois Hitler (1837–1903), an Austrian customs official, Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in Austria. He dropped out of high school, and after his mother's death in 1907 moved to Vienna. He twice failed the admission examination for the academy of arts. His vicious anti-Semitism (perhaps influenced by that of Karl Lueger) and political harangues drove many acquaintances away. In 1913 he settled in Munich. On the outbreak of World War I he joined the Bavarian Army. During the war he was gassed and wounded; a corporal, he received the Iron Cross for bravery. The war hardened his extreme nationalism. He blamed the German defeat on betrayal by Jews and Marxists. Upon his return to Munich he joined a handful of other nationalistic veterans in the German Workers' party. They would become the NSDAP, or Nazi party. In 1923 he joined with Ernst Roehm, who had formed the paramilitary SA brownshirts in the Nazi Party. They sought to take over the Bavarian government in the Beer Hall Putsch of November 8-9. When it failed, Hitler served nine months in prison. He wrote "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle", dictated to Rudolph Hess). It emphasized anti-Semitism and the expansion of German living space.

At the completion of World War I, Woodrow Wilson argued for fair treatment of Germany by the Allied Powers. Wilson believed that a League of Nations was needed to prevent future wars. However, France and England wanted vengeance. Wilson was prescient. His policies were adopted by the likes of Churchill, Harry Truman and Doug MacArthur. He was ahead of his time.

Instead, the resulting Treaty of Versailles imposed terrible hardships on Germany. The treaty stripped Germany of its overseas colonies and its coal-rich Saar region. Germany was limited to a small army and was forbidden to build large ships. The treaty also forced Germany to pay England and France for the damage caused by the war.

The Weimar Republic had been set up in January 1919. It seemed like a new start for Germany after the revolution. This new Republic was a Democracy, chosen by the people. However, the Weimar Republic never took hold. The main trouble came from the Communists. In March they organized strikes, demonstrations, and riots, in Berlin. They tried to win power using the Bolshevik model.

The Weimar Republic sent in the Freikorps with orders to shoot anyone carrying a gun. Had Germany had an effective National Rifle Association, they might have resisted the despots who took control of their country. Instead, over just a few days, more than 1,000 people were shot dead. The Freikorps ruthlesslessly slaughtered 30 sailors collecting their wages.

The Independent Socialists had support in Bavaria but were not so strong nationally. They had set up a Republic of their own in November, 1918. In February, 1919, their leader, Eisner, was shot dead by a nationalist student. 100,000 attended his funeral in Bavaria. The Communists argued with the Democratic socialists and came out victorious. In March of 1919, Bavaria was made into a Soviet Republic. Under the new Communist regime, houses, food, cars and clothing were taken from the rich and in many cases given to the working class. The Bavarian Red Army was formed. The Weimar Republic opposed this and Munich was put under siege. Food was not allowed in and at one time giving milk to a person who was not dying was a criminal offence with death being the punishment. On May 1, the Democratic Socialists invaded, not sparing a single Communist. 600 men, women and children were killed in an attack that had been supplied by the Freikorps.

The Weimar Republic thought that Wilson's plan would be followed if they followed his admonition, which had been required of them, to replace the monarchy with a Democracy. Instead, some of the clauses in the treaty included the infamous War Guilt clause, the Reparations clause and the cutting down of Germany's army to such a small number that it could hardly police itself. They had not expected this and found that they had no say at Versailles. The German Navy scuttled their ships at Scapa Flow in protest. German citizens, however, felt betrayed as much by their own politicians as the allies. Those who had signed the armistice were now dubbed the November Criminals.

Germany had no choice but to sign. Had they not signed, the war could have re-started. General Hindenburg said Germas would be massacred. However, much of Ebert's government had resigned over the issue and Ebert had to form a new one. He did so and made the deadline set by the allies just in time.

Paul von Hindenburg was a German field marshal and president (1925–34). His full name was Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Hindenburg und Beneckendorff. He fought in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) and was appointed (1878) to the general staff. He retired after 1911, but was made commander in East Prussia early in World War I. General Ludendorff, who was his chief of staff throughout the war, was the real author of Hindenburg's victories. Victory in the Battle of Tannenberg (August, 1914) over a much larger Russian force was followed (1914–15) by German occupation of Poland and part of the Baltic provinces. As commander in chief of the German armies in the East from September, 1914, Hindenburg's prestige was greatly enhanced by these victories. In 1916, Hindenburg, by then a field marshal, succeeded General Falkenhayn as commander of all German armies. Ludendorff was made quartermaster general. Subsequently, the two men became virtual dictators of Germany, intervening in civilian affairs, regulating labor, and mobilizing the rest of the economy for total warfare. In the military sphere they stemmed the Allied advance in the West and consolidated the Hindenburg Line, running roughly from Lens through Saint-Quentin to Rheims. Romania was crushed, and Russia withdrew from the war (1917). From March to July, 1918, Hindenburg launched a costly offensive into France. The Allied counteroffensive, spearheaded by fresh American troops, led to the German defeat and surrender. Although Ludendorff was forced to resign in October, 1918, Hindenburg remained in office. After the overthrow of the Emperor in November, Hindenburg and the army swore an oath of allegiance to the Republican government. Although Hindenburg was to be tried as a war criminal under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the special German court at Leipzig never even indicted him. After the death of the German president Freidrich Ebert in 1925, Hindenburg was persuaded to run for the office by a coalition of nationalists, Prussian Junkers, and other conservative groups. As president, his powers were very limited. In 1932 he was re-elected with the help of his chancellor, Heinrich Bruning. Shortly after the election, at the instigation of his advisers, Hindenburg dismissed Brüning. Finally, in January, 1933, the nearly senile president, fearing civil war, gave in to his advisers and appointed Hitler chancellor. Hindenburg continued as a figurehead until his death.

The Nazi Party began in 1920 when the German Workers' party was renamed the National Socialist German Workers, or Nazi, party; in 1921 it was reorganized with Hitler as chairman. He made it a paramilitary organization and won the support of such prominent nationalists as Field Marshal Ludendorff. On November 8, 1923, Hitler attempted the "beer-hall putsch," intended to overthrow the republican government. Leading Bavarian officials (themselves discontented nationalists) were surrounded at a meeting in a Munich beer hall by the Nazi militia, or storm troopers, and made to swear loyalty to this "revolution." On regaining their freedom they used the Reichswehr (army) to defeat the coup. Hitler fled, but was soon arrested and sentenced to five years in the Landsberg fortress. He served nine months.

Under the tutelage of Hitler and Gregor Strasser, aided by Josef Goebbels and from 1928 by Hermann Goering, the party grew slowly until the economic depression, beginning in 1929, brought it mass support.

Forced to borrow vast sums of money from America in order to pay its war debt to England and France, Germany was unable to make its payments. This was one of the causes of the 1929 crash and subsequent Depression. America was unable to continue lending money to Germany during the Depression. Without the income from American loans, Germany was unable to pay its war reparations to England and France. The result was a severe depression in Germany. German money became close to worthless. The German people became angry with the Treaty of Versailles. Like France after their horrid revolution, they believed a strong leader could return their nation to greatness. In 1925, Hitler seized leadership of a reorganized and newly legalized National Socialist German Workers' Party. In 1929 Hitler led a political campaign against the Young Plan of reparations payments.

In the May 5 elections of 1932, Paul von Hindenburg defeated Hitler 53 percent to 37 percent for the presidency. There was no majority in the Reichstag for any party. In the July 31 elections the Nazis won 230 seats with 37 percent of the vote and became the largest German party. They dropped to 33 percent in the November 6 elections. On December 1, Kurt von Schleicher replaced Franz von Papen as Chancellor, but instability increased.

Hitler made Chancellor on January 30, 1933, with the help of von Papen. He sought revision of the Versailles system by immediately beginning a rearmament program with the support of industrialists such as Alfred Hugenberg and Gustav Krupp. By April it was agreed to remove Jewish workers from his factories. A public works program was announced at the February 11 International Automobile and Motorcycle Exhibition in Berlin, to build autobahns with 600,000 workers and make a Volksauto for less than 1,000 marks.

In the March 5, 1933 elections, the National Socialist German Workers' Party won 43.9 percent and 288 of 647 seats in the Reichstag. The Malicious Practices Act of March 21, 1933, began the mass arrests of Communists and socialists. The Dauchau concentration camp was set up on March 22 in a former powder milk plant. The Enabling Act of March 23 made Hitler dictator and eliminated other parties such as the pro-Catholic Zentrum. Radical books were burned on May 10.

These elections proved to be the ultimate cautionary tale, since Hitler was originally elected by Democratic means to be the leader of Germany. On September 27, 1933, the Nazis blamed Communists for the Reichstag fire. On October 14, 1933, Hitler withdrew from the League of Nations and the Geneva Disarmament conference. On January 26, 1934, Hitler revealed to a shocked Europe a 10-year nonaggression pact with Poland.

On June 30, 1934, the "night of the long knives," Hitler murdered Ernst Roehm and began to eliminate the SA. He replaced the old Nazi Party brownshirts with Heinrich Himmler's SS and Reinhard Heydrich's SD as state internal security forces. On August 2, 1934, Hindenburg died and Hitler became Supreme Commander of the armed forces. On March 1, 1935, the Saarland was officially reincorporated into Germany following the plebiscite vote of January 13, with 91 percent in favor.

In March, 1935 Hitler revealed to Europe his military programs. On March 10 Herman Goering announced the existence of the Luftwaffe. On March 16 Hitler announced conscription and a 36-division Wehrmacht, and on March 17 proclaimed "Heroes' Memorial Day" as the Beethoven Funeral March was played in the Berlin State Opera House.

On April 11, 1935, England, France, and Italy declared a Stresa Front to defend the boundary agreements of the Locarno Pact of 1925. It was toothless. On May 2, 1935, a Franco-Russian alliance was signed to defend against a resurgent Germany.

On June 18, 1935, the new British government led by recently-elected Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and Foreign Minister Samuel Hoare, preferring negotiation rather than confrontation, signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement to allow the German Navy parity at 35 percent of British Navy.

On September 10, 1935, the annual Nazi Party rally began at Nuremberg, featuring the first public display of the Wehrmacht. The announcement of the Flag Law replaced the Kaiser's black-red-white horizontal striped flag, with the swastika as the nation's official symbol. Announcement of the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws was made.

On March 7, 1936, the first German troops crossed the Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne. Hitler was addressed the Reichstag, and began reoccupation of the Rhineland. It was not quite the Rubicon, but he was getting there.

The swastika had been a symbol of the Teutonic Knights. It had been in use by Lanz von Liebenfel. Since 1905 Lanz had been the editor and publisher of the anti-Semite magazine Ostara. It was also the symbol of the Thule Society (the real inspiration of Nazism, founded in August, 1919, in Munich, as an offshoot itself of the German Order) and a number of Freikorps units.

Hitler had blamed Germany's problems on its weak government. He said Germany had lost the war because of "a stab in the back." He was charismatic, blaming outsiders for causing problems in the nation. He argued that if pure Germans known as Aryans controlled the destiny of Germany, it would return to greatness. The Jews were an easy target.

The Nazis focused on teenagers, and trained them to follow Hitler's beliefs. The Boy Scouts and other teenage organizations were outlawed. Teens were encouraged to join the "Hitler Youth." They chanted Nazi slogans and were taught that they had the power to fulfill Germany's destiny as a world power.

The Zionist movement

In analyzing the United States involvement in World War II, the rise of Hitler, and our peculiar isolationism, the issue of international Jewish politics is one that must be addressed. At the absolute least, the Jewish issue ranges from integral to dominating the world agenda, beginning with the British mandate of Palestine after World War I. Like so much of history, the "Jewish question" opened up a floodgate from which events flowed. This involved the Nazi propaganda against them before World War II; the Holocaust; the establishment of Israel; and U.S. support for them in the Middle East.

Joseph P. Kennedy was a bank examiner, speculator, board chairman, film producer, philanthropist, diplomat and Democrat kingmaker. He was also a rumrunner, noted philanderer, stock manipulator, Nazi sympathizer, Democrat and a man who participated in widespread vote fraud during a Presidential election. Kennedy, an Irish Catholic, was a man who did not have loyalty to the Pope or the United States. His entire loyalty ethic was to his family and its power. He was Ambassador to England from 1938-1940, despite his known violations of the 18th Amendment. He was not immediately fired despite unapproved meetings with German diplomats during the war. He had affairs with film stars Gloria Swanson and Marlene Dietrich, but left them with nothing but heartache when he decided to end the relationships.

Despite the fact that his father was a known anti-Semite, John Kennedy was probably the most popular President ever among the Hollywood elite. Joseph Kennedy was not the only important Hollywood executive to be labeled anti-Semitic. Howard Hughes, George Schaefer, Joseph Breen and Y. Frank Freeman are among those who were tainted by this label.

The persecution of Jews was closely felt in Hollywood, and would be the animus of much of that industry's propaganda to this day. The fact that in Germany Jews were treated as sub-humans, while in the U.S. they were increasingly more and more successful and powerful is a juxtaposition of history that is not without irony.

RKO production head George Schaefer refused Louis Mayer's offer to buy the negative of Orson Welles' masterpiece "Citizen Kane". Mayer made the offer to destroy the movie, which was loosely and unflatteringly based on the life of his friend William Randolph Hearst. Schaefer was the victim of a whispering campaign accusing him of anti-Semitism. He traced the rumors to a close associate of Mayer's.

Nothing "prevented the Hollywood Jews from practicing a reverse discrimination - ' Those goyim!' Harry Warner would yell in derision, or 'He's a nice fellow for a goy,' a Jew might say - but only in their inner sanctums, when they were safe among fellow Jews, and only verbally," wrote author Earl Gabler.

Joe Kennedy is described by biographers Collier and Horowitz as "Cheerfully anti-Semitic." Gabler called Kennedy a ". . .suspected . . .Nazi sympathizer. . ." Ronald Brownstein reported that Joseph Kennedy was remembered in Hollywood for several things including "his anti-Semitism." As an example of Joseph Kennedy's anti-Semitism, author Brownstein cites the "...1940 meeting where he warned studio executives that they would incite anger against the Jews if they continued producing films hostile to the Nazis." Collier and Horowitz go on to say that, "Kennedy was at least a casual anti-Semite..." Kennedy and his sons denied any such accusations, but truth has never been this family's strong suit.

"Kennedy's anti-Semitism...was real but reflexive, part of the ideology of the melting pot which he devoted his life to climbing out of," wrote Brownstein. It is also true that as an Irish Catholic he experienced prejudice himself, especially from Hollywood's Jews. His attitude and the attitude of those towards him were not unusual during that time. On the other hand, he was a Harvard-educated public figure, and part of an enlightened administration that was supposed to lift this country out of its archaic past.

Kennedy's position on World War II is where his anti-Semitism becomes part of the public discourse. His personal devotion towards power and protection of his family, above his country, exposes him as, at best, unworthy of public office. At worst, he was a traitor. Kennedy wanted to protect the lives of his own family (particularly his own sons) and his great fortune. He lost his eldest son (Joe) in the war, his eldest daughter's husband (Billy Hartington), and his second son (Jack) was injured. He had reason to be concerned about war, but so did everybody else.

According to documents, the written impressions of the German ambassador to England of conversations he had with Kennedy prior to the war were that Kennedy sympathized with the Germans, in part because of his animus against Jews.

Kennedy owned a movie studio in Hollywood at one time. His later appearance in Hollywood discouraged Hollywood Jews from making anti-Nazi films just prior to World War II. He opposed their efforts to produce movie shorts, newsreels and feature films that ultimately might help involve the U.S. more directly in the war. Kennedy regularly used coarse and inappropriate language.

While JFK did write a book contradicting his father on World War II, this was a Machiavellian act. Instead of a heartfelt narrative, it was merely "hedging a bet." If the old man turned out to be right, the book would be dismissed as a mere college thesis. If the old man turned out to be wrong, the younger man could be portrayed as idealistic, independent, and visionary.

JFK's war heroics with PT 109 are legendary, which is appropriate since the story is more legend than fact. JFK did act heroically, but he was inexperienced, leading to the loss of a boat that a better officer would not have allowed.

When the son was in prep school, he was warned by the head master for forming a club called the Muckers, and engaging in hi-jinks, sexual conquest, and drunkenness. Joe was called in and assured the head master that the boy would be meted out appropriate punishment. Once out of the educator's earshot, Joe laughed and told John, "If I had been in that club they wouldn't have been the Muckers." He would have substituted an "F" for the "M." The old man was reckless and he passed this trait on to his son.

J. Edgar Hoover's Presidential blackmail files revealed that he had to report to Joe that his son was having a long affair with Inga Arvad, a columnist and suspected Nazi spy, which probably drew FBI attention during Kennedy's Naval intelligence stint.

Franklin Roosevelt has been identified by history as having left European Jews hung out to dry. His legacy must answer to this because the Holocaust occurred on his watch. Palestine's Arabs revolted in vain against Britain after the Ottoman Empire was defeated, and British-yishuv relations deteriorated. Zionists looked to America. Roosevelt had his hands full with the Great Depression and turned his back on them, except for limited aid to the relatively few Nazi victims who escaped in time. Between 1917 and 1924 three American presidents and two Congresses supported heavy Jewish immigration into Palestine. Roosevelt did at first, but Americans repeatedly balked at the policy despite the severe persecution and genocide they experienced. The fact is, most Americans felt the Arabs of Palestine had a more compelling case than the Jews. It was not until the Truman Administration that this attitude was reversed by virtue of official policy.

The German situation made Zionists more determined than ever to create a Jewish state. Thus included most importantly American Jews. Heretofore, they had been indifferent to traditional Zionism. Jews poured into Palestine from Europe. For the most part they were wealthy because British-imposed quotas did not restrict those who brought enough capital. Non-quota immigrants brought total legal immigration between 1933 and 1936 to 164,000. Educated Jews with money created a strong economy in Palestine in the middle of the Great Depression! In reality, this fact is a tribute to their hard work and intelligence. In reality, the have-nots and ignorant Arab peasants used this fact as fodder for anti-Jewish sentiment. They tried to say this proved they were "profiteers."

By December of 1933 there were 236,300 Jews in Palestine. Three years later there were about 385,400, more than one-quarter of the populace. The success of Jews, in contrast to the failure of Arabs, was similar to the success of Americans, who made rich a land that the Mexicans and Indians had not done a thing with. The politics of envy, however, usually finds a majority.

Arabs made up 983,200 in 1936, almost a 50 percent increase since 1918. The Peel commission report stated in 1937 Jewish growth was immigration-related and consisted of entrepreneurs coming in to do business. Arab growth was based on high birth rates, i.e, "roughly nine-tenths of the growth has been due to natural increase." According to Roberto Bachi, the Israeli demographer, Arab immigration was 96.6 percent natural because the birth rate was higher than the death rate.

Prior to 1936 U.S. national elections, American Jewish leaders wanted Roosevelt to take strong action to help German Jews. In August he criticized British policy in Palestine. Then he urged London not to set tighter limits being considered for immigration there. He told Britain that America "would regard suspension of immigration as a breach of the mandate." Britain said they would study the matter.

"It is a source of renewed hope and courage," Roosevelt said in an open letter supporting a Jewish homeland, "that by an international accord and by the moral support of the people of the world, men and women of Jewish faith have a right to resettle the land where their faith was born and from which much of our modern civilization has emanated."

In this manner, FDR was able to work all the angles. Palestinian farmers had to sell their land to Jews to pay their debts. The beginning of the end had begun for Palestinians. In essence, the truth is that they lost the land because they were passed over by progress, which is the story of Mankind. It separates the successful from the unsuccessful. Many were manual workers in coastal cities or stuck in slums. The Arab culture admires lies and deception. What they do not admit to is that prominent Arabs secretly added to this situation by their own very discreet and profitable land sales to Jews through secret agents. They sold out their people.

Jewish owners who hired Jewish workers evicted Arab tenants. Leading Palestinian Arab families profited in these land sales that these families' leaders publicly condemned. The Arab land base shrank as their birth rates went up, a deadly combination.

The Arab Higher Committee, led by the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, called a six-month general strike. Armed Arabs conducted guerrilla wars. Palestinian Arabs widely supported it. Arab countries who had who for centuries never lent a hand to Palestinians were in an uproar now that they had the Jews to blame instead of the poor performance of Palestinians. Zionists dismissed the strike as unstable elements within Arab society and blamed Britain for not enforcing peace. Britain brought in troops from Egypt, and ended the strike.

British policy, based on a report made in response to the strike, was based on the Arab belief that neither side should dominate the other. This made some sense since the Palestinians had the higher population, but the successful people were Jews, despite making up only 20 percent and owning less than five percent of the land. David Ben-Gurion, head of the Jewish Agency's Palestine Executive, stressed that it was not Zionist policy to make Palestine a Jewish state. He said he recognized that Arabs lived there and that they did not want Jews to dominate them.

"Domination of others, the domination by the Jewish majority of the minority...is not our aim," he stated. "It was not our aim at that time and it is not our aim now."

Official Zionist "step by step" policy infuriated Ben-Gurion, but they presented a united front. By 1942 Ben-Gurion wanted all of Palestine to be a Jewish state. There were six million Jews who were said to be "pent up" in places they did not want to be. This may be the understatement of the century. Ben-Gurion had arrived at the conclusion that the only place they would be welcome was in a new state of Israel.

Grand Mufti Haj Amin testified to the royal commission that Palestine could not absorb the 400,000 Jews already there. As word of Hitler's Jewish Holocaust reached the Middle East, Arabs faced a dilemma. If Hitler could win, he would eliminate all the Jews, a popular notion among Arabs. There would not be enough living Jews to populate Palestine further. But if the Allies defeated him before he could kill the Jews, an unpopular notion among the Arabs, then there would be millions of Jewish immigrants. The Arabs rooted for Hitler. It would not be the first time they placed themselves on the wrong side of history.

The Peel Commission considered cantonizing Palestine, based on the Swiss model of a single federal government with highly autonomous cantons - regions based on ethnic diversity. Instead, the Peel report recommended that the mandate be terminated and the country be partitioned in such a way that, the partition would be practical, it would conform to British obligations, and it would respect the rights of both Arabs and Jews. The commission called for a Jewish state and an Arab state that would include Transjordan. The British enclave under permanent mandate would include Jerusalem, Bethlehem and a narrow corridor to the Mediterranean. The report urged that immigration be sharply cut while details of the plan were worked out. In July, 1937 Peel released the report with a map of its planned division. The report was rejected by the Arabs, criticized by Zionists, and questioned by the British government. The Zionists and the British accepted partition.

The 20th Zionist Congress voted to negotiate with Britain regarding its terms for a Jewish state. Arabs tried to reject the Peel plan and organized a pan-Arab congress, held in September in Bludan, Syria. It passed a resolution that it was the duty of every Arab to preserve Palestine as an Arab country. Rioting erupted and Britain's acting district commissioner for Galilee was assassinated. Arrests were made and Haj Amin fled. The Arab complaint was directed more against Britain than against Jews. Several thousand Arabs were killed.

82 percent of Americans opposed allowing many refugees into America in 1938. FDR knew that passing lenient immigration laws was politically risky. Bernard Baruch, a Jewish financier and sometime adviser to FDR, devised a refugee plan. The U.S. government would help Jews to resettle in underpopulated host countries in Africa that would agree to more immigrants. Baruch said his plan would leave U.S. immigration policy alone, put no strain on the U.S. economy or job market, and would not discriminate in favor of any particular group. Rabbi Stephen Wise, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Presidential adviser Felix Frankfurter disagreed with it. Russian Zionists 34 years earlier had opposed a national home for Jews in Africa because it would make it harder to expand to Palestine, the real aim.

The Jews, however, were unable to coordinate a strong political front. The American Veterans of Foreign Wars voted for a resolution which urged suspending all immigration to America for 10 years. London's conservative Sunday Express editorialized that "just now there is a big influx of foreign Jews into Britain. They are overrunning the country." Australia claimed they had no racial problem and did not want to start one. The Dominican Republic offered to provide land for Jewish refugee farmers, but Jews are generally not farmers. Even after the intensification of Nazi persecution and war, the Zionists still did not have a strong political lobby. They were set on Palestine.

Between 1936 and 1939, Jews started or bought out 55 more settlements, bringing total Jewish farm settlements to 252. They did this on their own, without any help from the U.S. or any other country. They did it without the official support of the British or any ruling political factions in Palestine. They did it because they were comprised of hard-working, successful people who simply achieved excellence.

Res ipsa loquiter.

British attempts to get the Zionists and Palestinian Arabs together were fruitless. Britain invited both sides to the London Round Table Conference, which began on February 7, 1939. Fears on both sides had created the worry on the part of both Arabs and Jews that the Brits would placate the other and leave the other in the road. They needed Arab support because they would need oil if war with Germany erupted. London threatened to impose its own solution, but talks ended with no solution. On May 17 Britain issued its watershed 1939 white paper. It stipulated that:

1. A single independent state should be formed within 10 years.

  11. 2. Jewish settlements would be completely prohibited in some areas and

restricted in others. Future land sales were to be severely restricted.

  3. A maximum total of 75,000 immigrants could enter Palestine during the next

five years. After March 1, 1944, immigrants could enter only with Arab

consent.

In part, the White Paper was designed to prevent Jews from becoming the majority within the 10-year period before statehood. It would prevent them from successfully voting that the single state would be Jewish. This insured the conundrum of a Jewish state with an Arab majority. It hurt British-Zionist relations for the remainder of the mandate. London claimed it merely upheld that part of the Balfour Declaration (and therefore of the mandate document) which stated that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." Thus Britain would do nothing to undermine the declaration's pledge to establish in Palestine "a national home for the Jewish people." Zionists were skeptical. Chaim Weizmann termed the paper a repudiation of the mandate. Ben-Gurion said "the greatest betrayal perpetrated by the government of a civilized people in our generation had been formulated and explained with the artistry of experts at the game of trickery and pretended righteousness." Several M.P.s agreed, calling it a breach of pledges. Parliament still approved it. Arab reaction to the paper was mostly negative.

After World War II began Britain issued no Palestinian immigration permits. Illegal immigration increased despite a British Naval blockade along its coast. Violence and arrests ensued, including 43 Hagana officers in late 1939. Weapons searches in Jewish homes and businesses occurred. In 1941 Lehi (the Stern Gang), a radical Jewish underground military-terrorist groups, tried to contact German diplomats in Beirut to propose that they work together against Britain, to the horror of most Jews. They considered Germany their enemy, but at that time and in that place, the Palestinian Jews saw Britain and the Arabs as the worse enemy. Ben-Gurion's policy was to fight the war against Germany as if there were no 1939 White Paper, and fight the White Paper as if there were no war. Representing the yishuv, the Jewish Agency offered to raise a division of Jewish soldiers to fight for the Allies. For several years Britain stalled on the idea. Unstated was the fear that the division would turn on British forces, causing further bitterness and a split at the end of 1941. Britain did accept individual Palestinian Jews into its military and eventually a 3,650-person brigade was formed.

Weizmann wanted to work with Britain and reconcile with the Arabs, mistakenly believing they were on the Allies' side in the war against Hitler, thus creating common cause. But when he spoke about the Jewish state in Palestine involving resettlement of at least some Arab Palestinians elsewhere, the plight of the Jews had increased the danger of Palestinian Arabs becoming refugees. In 1940 Ze'ev Jabotinsky died and Menachem Begin (1913-1992) became head of the revisionist party and its underground military-terrorist unit, the Irgun. He would play a significant role in creating the Arab refugees.

After the war began, mention of the Jewish tragedy was called "war-mongering." By early 1941, America openly supported the Allies, and this kind of attitude toned down. Emanuel Neumann, an official of the American Zionist Emergency Council (AZEC), resurrected the moribund American Palestine Committee (APC), a pro-Zionist organization of Protestant leaders. Senator Robert Wagner of New York became its nominal figurehead, recruiting 26 Senators, including both the Majority and Minority Leaders, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes and Attorney General Robert Jackson. The AZEC gave $50,000 of its own funds to the APC. APC prevailed on 70 Senators to sign an APC-sponsored declaration "to direct attention to the importance of Palestine in the solution of the problem of Jewish homelessness."

"...The tragic plight of refugees fleeing from persecution and finding no home," author Richard Stevens wrote, linked the refugee problem with Palestine as their only hope.

Americans did not support the creation of a Jewish state, but American compassion favored the Zionist cause. However, as events in Europe and the South Pacific unfolded, Palestine became a backburner issue. In December of 1942 Neumann organized the Christian Council on Palestine for pro-Zionist Protestant clergy, many of whom viewed Israel's restoration "in the light of Biblical prophecy."

British-Zionist relations worsened. Zionists were finding that they could "backdoor" Britain when the English were fighting the Germans, just as Gandhi was doing in India, and find sympathetic ears in the U.S. In early 1942 they turned more to America. From May 6 to 11, Weizmann, Ben-Gurion and some 600 delegates of Zionist groups primarily in the New York area met at the Biltmore Hotel to set goals and policy. They reflected Begin's militancy more than Weizmann. The Biltmore delegates voted to reject the 1939 White Paper. They demanded that Palestinian Jews be able to form a military force that would fight against Germany under the yishuv's own flag. They declared that the new world order that would follow the war "cannot be established on foundations of peace, justice and equality, unless the problem of Jewish homelessness is finally solved." The group urged that immigration to Palestine be opened and that the Jewish Agency be given control over it. They further urged that the Jewish Agency be given "the necessary authority for upbuilding the country, including the development of its unoccupied and uncultivated lands." Finally, they advocated that "Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth." The die was essentially cast.

Ben-Gurion's position had gained favor. U.S. Zionists decided that Zionists' rights superseded them. The Zionist Actions Committee adopted the Biltmore Program. European disasters made it plain that millions of Jewish refugees would want to move to Palestine. Then rumors of Hitler's "Final Solution" filtered out. Zionists realized that if this took place, there would be virtually no Jewish refugees left for Palestine. The Arabs were delighted at this prospect. But the emotional, politico-diplomatic value of the Biltmore Program grew stronger. The Palestine movement began to swing in the Jews' favor, eventually becoming U.S. foreign policy. In 1942, however, it was still not policy.

As reports of the Final Solution increased, the Balfour Declaration's 25th anniversary occurred. 68 Senators, 194 Congressmen, hundreds of community leaders, and public figures signed a statement published on November 2, 1942, which called for a Jewish national home. Both the State Department and Britain's ambassador criticized it because it complicated U.S.-British relations and the war effort. In reality, Churchill had his hands full, and so did FDR. The problem was an agency one, not an international one.

Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr. and FDR discussed the situation. Whether Roosevelt intended to create a new refugee group is not clear on the record. He was a master politician, and his word was only as good as it pertained to his political benefits. On June 15, 1943, FDR assured Saudi Arabia's King Ibn-Saud that "no decision would be reached altering the basic situation in Palestine without full consultation of both Arabs and Jews."

With immigration to Palestine limited, Roosevelt discussed opening up America to refugees. Zionists again opposed this. They were set on Palestine.

"It did not work out....the failure of the leading Jewish groups to support with zeal this immigration program may have caused the President not to push forward with it at that time," Morris Ernst, FDR's international envoy for the project, said. "I talked to many people active in Jewish organizations....I made clear that no Jews...would be compelled to go anywhere and certainly not to any assigned nation.

"...active Jewish leaders decried, sneered and then attacked me as if I were a traitor. At one dinner party I was openly accused of furthering this plan of freer immigration in order to undermine political Zionism. Those Jewish groups which favored opening our doors gave little more than lip service to the Roosevelt program. Zionist friends of mine opposed it."

FDR eventually told Ernst, "Nothing doing on the [Jewish refugee placement] program. We can't put it over because the dominant vocal Jewish leadership of America won't stand for it."

By August, 1943 Zionists now had support among American Jews and had a handle on steering U.S. public opinion. The militant Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver led American Zionists turning from "backstair diplomacy as the sole technique for achieving our goal" to adopting a "program of public relations designed to create national agitation for a Jewish Palestine." Silver wanted to "build upon the broad base of public sentiment, the approval of public opinion which in the final analysis determines the attitude and action of governments in Democratic society...appeal to the masses...talk to the whole of America...carry on an active educational propaganda in your circle....That will sustain them [the masses] when they come to make important decisions which may involve America's participation in the ultimate solution of the Palestine problem." It could be said that the vaunted "Jewish lobby" had taken root. Its effects were being felt in Congress.

Jewish leaders formed a veritable "kitchen cabinet" of advisors on how to help European Jews. Some plans were enacted with success, others less so because of high risk. Many Jews felt the world did not care about their tragedy and a loss of trust ensued. A "do-it-ourselves" attitude emerged. This was identical to the attitude that Palestinian Arabs were leaning towards. It did not help when a boatload of Jewish refugees were turned away by FDR's administration. These people were sent back to Europe, all to die in concentration camps.

In January, Senators Robert Taft of Ohio and Robert Wagner of New York sponsored a Senate resolution opposing the 1939 White Paper and calling for the constitution of Palestine as a Jewish commonwealth.

Roosevelt authorized American Zionists to say that the U.S. government had never officially endorsed the White Paper. FDR approved getting rid of the Taft-Wagner resolution. At the end of March Senator Harry Truman opposed raising the issue, stating "when the right time comes I am willing to help make the fight for a Jewish homeland in Palestine."

Zionists wanted to make the point that in the 1944 elections their vote was not automatic. They made both parties put pro-Zionist planks into their platforms, calling for opening Palestine to Jews. The European refugee issue was left void. Palestine, however, was now the only solution to the "national homeland" issue. In so doing, Jewish leaders were creating a "first things first" priority list. The first thing was Palestinian homeland, not the refugees. The refugee issue was considered more of a "worldwide" option. The political strength of the Holocaust, images of camps opened by the Allies, and all the evidence of what happened, were not yet a reality.

FDR won his fourth term. On his way back from the Yalta Conference, he met for several hours on February 14, 1945, with Saudi Arabia's King Ibn-Saud. Saud impressed him and persuaded him regarding America's need for Arab friendship. The King did not want Arabs penalized for European anti-Semitism. Apparently, the Arabs had decided not to root for Hitler anymore, possibly at such time as they saw that the United States had the strongest military in the history of time. Funny how that works itself out. One of the most far-reaching agreements ever made also came out of this relationship. It was agreed that Saudi Arabia would provide oil to the United States in perpetuity. In return, the U.S. would militarily protect Saudi Arabia...in perpetuity. The two most lasting recent events in the Middle East are this agreement and Jewish Israel.

The King felt that if a Jewish state must be created, it should be carved out of a section of Germany, not of Palestine. It was Germans, not Palestinians, who had killed so many Jews. Roosevelt only told Saud that the U.S. would consult all the parties. In an April 5 letter to Saud he reiterated this. He died a week later.

The Arab states had signed a document supporting the 1939 White Paper in 1944, after having rejected it in 1939. America's new power influenced this decision. They believed it established the rights of the Palestinian Arabs as far as Britain and the League of Nations were concerned. In March of 1945 Arab states formed the Arab League.

Roosevelt had assured Zionists and Arabs, telling Rabbi Stephen Wise he was for unrestricted immigration into Palestine, while telling Arab leaders that America would not support any change in Palestine opposed by Arabs. A British diplomat was allowed to see State Department files. He remarked that Britain was not the only country to promise the same thing to two different groups. David Niles, a Zionist and an aide to Roosevelt and Truman, opined that had FDR lived Israel would have achieved statehood.

The Holocaust changed the issue, however, from a political one to a moral obligation to accept them insofar as "the common good rightly understood." After mid-1942 free world leaders debated what was known as a "lifeboat situation," using this as an allegory for Jewish refugees. There was fear that spies could be planted among the refugees, but in upstate New York a camp had been set up and this issue had not emerged. Half of the 12 million people who died in Nazi camps were Gentiles. Some 50 million people died in the war. Several hundred million people were in danger. The Jews had suffered, but in their own way many had suffered right along with them. Between mid-1942 and early 1945 Jews were among the most endangered.

The Holocaust created a right to immigrate to Palestine with the intent of founding a Jewish state. The question is whether, in the light of hindsight, it was the right thing to do. Moral rightness and practical rightness are two separate issues. On the plus side of things, the Jews fulfilled a Biblical prophecy that pleased both Zionist and Christian interpretations of the Old Testament. If the war and the Holocaust were Armageddon, then the Deliverance of Jews to the Promised Land closed a chapter and fulfilled God's promise. But as this book has continually said, the devil is always trying to muck up the works. The simple fact is that the Muslim religion and the Arab people are not compatible with Judaism. Arabs have not fared well in the past 100 years. They have not emerged as a military or political power. They are not great inventors or leaders and do not generate a great deal of old-fashioned respect. Jews, whether one dislikes them (and many do) or believes the stereotypes about them (some of them are not 100 percent false), are successful, smart, and hard working. By sheer dint of accomplishment, they have made their mark on the world. The Arabs have made their mark only in the sense that they re-produce enough to make for a huge population. They make up an enormous religion that, despite any apologies for it, continues to cause problems. They just happen to be the indigenous inhabitants of a land where oil was discovered. The devil works that way.

Oil has changed the entire perspective. It is the Arabs' one trump card.

Getting back to the plus side of things, the state of Israel has provided the U.S. a wonderful ally in the Middle East; faithful, reliable and strong. The Israelis are a partner in espionage, have one of the best air forces in the world, and a strong army. They produce brainpower that is put to great use in solving joint Israeli-American problems. They are a fount of Democracy and freedom in a land of lies of deceit.

On the other hand, our relationship with them has caused millions to hate us. Wars have been fought, instability continues, and the unfortunate "citizens" of Arab Palestine live in brutal conditions. By no means do I believe that if Israel had not come into existence would the Arabs states have become Democratic. Terrorism and hatred would still have reared its ugly head. Fundamentalist Muslims would have contributed to world instability with or without Israel. In fact, had Israel not been put in place, the Soviets might have achieved their aims of turning the region from "client states" into a full-fledged Communist bloc.

The alternatives to Israel were discussed in light of Balfour and the White Paper, and include an African colony and a section of Germany. Neither fulfills the Bible. One possibility might have been to give the refugees a slice of Montana, Utah, Arizona, Nevada (Greater Las Vegas?) or some other sparsely populated American state. No doubt this would have created an uproar with anti-Semites. This kind of prejudice existed in spades among the white ranchers and cowboy mentality of the American West. But it just might have worked out.

Israel seems to have been the ultimate choice, if not the only choice. First, the Jews who escaped Russia were successful economically in the years after World War I. The Holocaust tipped the scales from a political to a moral equation, and Truman was willing to create his own legacy.

There remains a stubborn realization of the Arabs, and this is that these people are not prone to be friends of the United States. Americans are too honest, good-hearted, Democratic, Christian and intelligent to appeal to a strain of Muslim mentality that opposes our freedoms as immoral. This attitude would have been pervasive, especially as our power grew, whether Israel existed or not. At the end of the day, my conclusion is that Israel solves more problems than it creates.

It is in the creation of Israel that the greatest mistakes were made. Some policy addressing the common good of the Palestinians was not effectively established. A moral dilemma developed out of this predicament. No matter which way one slices it, Palestinians were asked to accept a situation that was to their disadvantage. People with better education's, good values, religious stability, and economic strength might have magnanimously accept the situation for the sake of the common good. Palestinians do not possess these qualities in large enough numbers to achieve such greatness.

Finally, it needs to be repeated that the Jews created a successful Israel out of an unsuccessful place. This is an enormous accomplishment. For centuries, Palestine was a hellhole. Palestinian nomads lived there. They did not live much better in 1920 than they had in 1520. Their Arab brethren looked down upon them as the lowest class of Arab.

Russia was filled with Jews. The Czars mistreated them, but life was tolerable. When the Communists took over, life became intolerable. They immigrated by the thousands to Palestine.

Within less than 20 years, by 1936, the Jews had turned Palestine from nothing into a thriving economy. They created jobs, industry, infrastructure, housing and success out of nothing. They were the minority people, but they were the majority employers and entrepreneurs. Naturally, this caused resentment, jealousy and hatred among the lesser lights that made up the Palestinian populace.

It is important to understand that the Jews who came to Palestine after World War I were not a bunch of Goldman Sachs traders, Harvard graduates and Manhattan intellectuals who had decided to move to Israel to "live as Jews." They were peasant refugees, whose lives had been ripped apart. They came to Palestine with three things and little more: Intelligence, capacity for hard work, and religious faith. Mountains are moved by such qualities.

Hatred for Jews is not about religion. A study of the Torah and the Koran reveal much in common. Mohammed respected Jews and Christians as "people of the Book." The hatred emanates from the fact that Jews attained excellence Arabs did not, and this fact became common knowledge.

The "four freedoms"

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, State of the Union message

January 6, 1941

""Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the 77th Congress:

I address you, the Members of the 77th Congress, at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union. I use the word `unprecedented' because at no previous time has American security been as seriously threatened from without as it is today.

Since the permanent formation of our government under the Constitution, in 1789, most of the periods of crisis in our history have related to our domestic affairs. Fortunately, only one of these - the four-year War Between the States - ever threatened our national unity. Today, thank God, 130 million Americans, in 48 states, have forgotten points of the compass in our national unity.

"It is true that prior to 1914 the United States often had been disturbed by events in other continents. We had even engaged in two wars with European nations and in a number of undeclared wars in the West Indies, in the Mediterranean and in the Pacific for the maintenance of American rights and for the principles of peaceful commerce. But in no case had a serious threat been raised against our national safety or our continued independence.

"What I seek to convey is the historic truth that the United States as a nation has at all times maintained clear, definite opposition to any attempt to lock us in behind an ancient Chinese wall while the procession of civilization went past. Today, thinking of our children and of their children, we oppose enforced isolation for ourselves or for any other part of the Americas.

"That determination of ours, extending over all these years, was proved, for example, during the quarter-century of wars following the French Revolution.

While the Napoleonic struggles did threaten interests of the United States because of the French foothold in the West Indies and in Louisiana, and while we engaged in the War of 1812 to vindicate our right to peaceful trade, it is nevertheless clear that neither France nor Great Britain, nor any other nation, was aiming at domination of the whole world.

In like fashion from 1815 to 1914 - 99 years \- no single war in Europe or in Asia constituted a real threat against our future or against the future of any other American nation.

"Except in the Maximilian interlude in Mexico, no foreign power sought to establish itself in this hemisphere; and the strength of the British fleet in the Atlantic has been a friendly strength. It is still a friendly strength.

"Even when the World War broke out in 1914, it seemed to contain only small threat of danger to our own American future. But, as time went on, the American people began to visualize what the downfall of Democratic nations might mean to our own Democracy.

"We need not overemphasize imperfections in the Peace of Versailles. We need not harp on failure of the Democracies to deal with problems of world reconstruction. We should remember that the peace of 1919 was far less unjust than the kind of `pacification' which began even before Munich, and which is being carried on under the new order of tyranny that seeks to spread over every continent today. The American people have unalterably set their faces against that tyranny.

"Every realist knows that the Democratic way of life is at this moment being directly assailed in every part of the world - assailed either by arms or by secret spreading of poisonous propaganda by those who seek to destroy unity and promote discord in nations that are still at peace.

"During 16 long months, this assault has blotted out the whole pattern of Democratic life in an appalling number of independent nations, great and small. The assailants are still on the march, threatening other nations, great and small.

Therefore, as your President, performing my Constitutional duty to `give to the Congress information of the state of the Union,' I find it, unhappily, necessary to report that the future and the safety of our country and of our Democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders.

"Armed defense of Democratic existence is now being gallantly waged in four continents. If that defense fails, all the population and all the resources of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia will be dominated by the conquerors. Let us remember that the total of those populations and their resources in those four continents greatly exceeds the sum total of the population and the resources of the whole of the Western Hemisphere many times over.

"In times like these it is immature - and incidentally, untrue - for anybody to brag that an unprepared America, single-handed and with one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the whole world.

"No realistic American can expect from a dictator's peace international generosity or return of true independence or world disarmament or freedom of expression or freedom of religion or even good business.

"Such a peace would bring no security for us or for our neighbors. `Those, who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.' [Benjamin Franklin]

"As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.

"We must always be wary of those who with sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal preach the `ism' of appeasement.

"We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests.

"I have recently pointed out how quickly the tempo of modern warfare could bring into our very midst the physical attack which we must eventually expect if the dictator nations win this war.

"There is much loose talk of our immunity from immediate and direct invasion from across the seas. Obviously, as long as the British Navy retains its power, no such danger exists. Even if there were no British Navy, it is not probable that any enemy would be stupid enough to attack us by landing troops in the United States from across thousands of miles of ocean, until it had acquired strategic bases from which to operate.

But we learn much from the lessons of the past years in Europe, particularly the lesson of Norway, whose essential seaports were captured by treachery and surprise built up over a series of years.

"The first phase of the invasion of this hemisphere would not be the landing of regular troops. The necessary strategic points would be occupied by secret agents and their dupes - and great numbers of them are already here and in Latin America.

As long as the aggressor nations maintain the offensive, they - not we - will choose the time and the place and the method of their attack.

"That is why the future of all the American Republics is today in serious danger.

That is why this annual message to the Congress is unique in our history.

"That is why every member of the executive branch of the government and every member of the Congress faces great responsibility and great accountability.

"The need of the moment is that our actions and our policy should be devoted primarily - almost exclusively - to meeting this foreign peril. For all our domestic problems are now a part of the great emergency.

"Just as our national policy in internal affairs has been based upon a decent respect for the rights and the dignity of all our fellow men within our gates, so our national policy in foreign affairs has been based on a decent respect for the rights and dignity of all nations, large and small. And the justice of morality must and will win in the end.

"Our national policy is this:

"First, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to all-inclusive national defense.

"Second, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to full support of all those resolute peoples everywhere who are resisting aggression and are thereby keeping war away from our hemisphere. By this support, we express our determination that the Democratic cause shall prevail; and we strengthen the defense and the security of our own nation.

"Third, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to the proposition that principles of morality and considerations for our own security will never permit us to acquiesce in a peace dictated by aggressors and sponsored by appeasers. We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people's freedom.

"In the recent national election there was no substantial difference between the two great parties in respect to that national policy. No issue was fought out on this line before the American electorate. Today it is abundantly evident that American citizens everywhere are demanding and supporting speedy and complete action in recognition of obvious danger.

"Therefore, the immediate need is a swift and driving increase in our armament production.

"Leaders of industry and labor have responded to our summons. Goals of speed have been set. In some cases, these goals are being reached ahead of time; in some cases we are on schedule; in other cases there are slight but not serious delays; and in some cases - and I am sorry to say very important cases - we are all concerned by the slowness of the accomplishment of our plans.

"The Army and Navy, however, have made substantial progress during the past year. Actual experience is improving and speeding up our methods of production with every passing day. And today's best is not good enough for tomorrow.

"I am not satisfied with the progress thus far made. The men in charge of the program represent the best in training, in ability and in patriotism. They are not satisfied with the progress thus far made. None of us will be satisfied until the job is done.

"No matter whether the original goal was set too high or too low, our objective is quicker and better results. To give you two illustrations:

"We are behind schedule in turning out finished airplanes; we are working day and night to solve the innumerable problems and to catch up.

"We are ahead of schedule in building warships, but we are working to get even further ahead of that schedule.

"To change a whole nation from a basis of peacetime production of implements of peace to a basis of wartime production of implements of war is no small task. And the greatest difficulty comes at the beginning of the program, when new tools, new plant facilities, new assembly lines and new ship ways must first be constructed before the actual matériel begins to flow steadily and speedily from them.

"The Congress, of course, must rightly keep itself informed at all times of the progress of the program. However, there is certain information, as the Congress itself will readily recognize, which, in the interests of our own security and those of the nations that we are supporting, must of needs be kept in confidence.

"New circumstances are constantly begetting new needs for our safety. I shall ask this Congress for greatly increased new appropriations and authorizations to carry on what we have begun.

"I also ask this Congress for authority and for funds sufficient to manufacture additional munitions and war supplies of many kinds, to be turned over to those nations which are now in actual war with aggressor nations.

"Our most useful and immediate role is to act as an arsenal for them as well as for ourselves. They do not need manpower, but they do need billions of dollars worth of the weapons of defense.

"The time is near when they will not be able to pay for them all in ready cash. We cannot, and we will not, tell them that they must surrender, merely because of present inability to pay for the weapons which we know they must have.

"I do not recommend that we make them a loan of dollars with which to pay for these weapons - a loan to be repaid in dollars.

"I recommend that we make it possible for those nations to continue to obtain war materials in the United States, fitting their orders into our own program. Nearly all their matériel would, if the time ever came, be useful for our own defense.

"Taking counsel of expert military and Naval authorities, considering what is best for our own security, we are free to decide how much should be kept here and how much should be sent abroad to our friends who by their determined and heroic resistance are giving us time in which to make ready our own defense.

"For what we send abroad, we shall be repaid within a reasonable time following the close of hostilities, in similar materials or, at our option, in other goods of many kinds, which they can produce and which we need.

"Let us say to the Democracies: We Americans are vitally concerned in your defense of freedom. We are putting forth our energies, our resources and our organizing powers to give you the strength to regain and maintain a free world. We shall send you, in ever-increasing numbers, ships, planes, tanks, guns. This is our purpose and our pledge.

"In fulfillment of this purpose we will not be intimidated by the threats of dictators that they will regard as a breach of international law or as an act of war our aid to the Democracies which dare to resist their aggression. Such aid is not an act of war, even if a dictator should unilaterally proclaim it so to be.

"When the dictators, if the dictators, are ready to make war upon us, they will not wait for an act of war on our part. They did not wait for Norway or Belgium or the Netherlands to commit an act of war.

"Their only interest is in a new one-way international law, which lacks mutuality in its observance and, therefore, becomes an instrument of oppression.

"The happiness of future generations of Americans may well depend upon how effective and how immediate we can make our aid felt. No one can tell the exact character of the emergency situations that we may be called upon to meet. The nation's hands must not be tied when the nation's life is in danger.

"We must all prepare to make the sacrifices that the emergency - almost as serious as war itself - demands. Whatever stands in the way of speed and efficiency in defense preparations must give way to the national need.

"A free nation has the right to expect full cooperation from all groups. A free nation has the right to look to the leaders of business, of labor and of agriculture to take the lead in stimulating effort, not among other groups but within their own groups.

"The best way of dealing with the few slackers or troublemakers in our midst is, first, to shame them by patriotic example and, if that fails, to use the sovereignty of government to save government.

"As men do not live by bread alone, they do not fight by armaments alone. Those who man our defenses, and those behind them who build our defenses, must have the stamina and the courage which come from unshakable belief in the manner of life which they are defending. The mighty action that we are calling for cannot be based on a disregard of all things worth fighting for.

"The nation takes great satisfaction and much strength from the things which have been done to make its people conscious of their individual stake in the preservation of Democratic life in America. Those things have toughened the fiber of our people, have renewed their faith and strengthened their devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect.

"Certainly this is no time for any of us to stop thinking about the social and economic problems which are the root cause of the social revolution which is today a supreme factor in the world.

"For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong Democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are: Equality of opportunity for youth and for others; jobs for those who can work; security for those who need it; the ending of special privilege for the few; the preservation of civil liberties for all; the enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.

"These are the simple, basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations.

"Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement.

"As examples:

  11. We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.

  2. We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care.

  2. We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it.

"I have called for personal sacrifice. I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call.

"A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my budget message, I shall recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying today. No person should try, or be allowed, to get rich out of this program; and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation.

"If the Congress maintains these principles, the voters, putting patriotism ahead of pocketbooks, will give you their applause.

"In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

"The first is freedom of speech and expression - everywhere in the world.

"The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way - everywhere in the world.

"The third is freedom from want - which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants - everywhere in the world.

"The fourth is freedom from fear - which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor - anywhere in the world.

"That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

"To that new order we oppose the greater conception - the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

"Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change - in a perpetual peaceful revolution - a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions - without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

"This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory."

The gathering storm

Adolf Hitler called his new order the Third Reich. He declared that, following the First Reich, or Holy Roman Empire, and the Second Reich, or empire founded by Bismarck, the Third Reich carried on the process of true German history. Like Benito Mussolini, Hitler took the title of leader, or, in German, the Fuhrer. With the authority he now possessed Hitler establish control over the whole of state and society. In the Spring of 1933 all political parties were disbanded. The Nazi Party was declared the only lawful political organization in the country. Labor unions were abolished and strikes were forbidden. The government assumed increasing controls over industry. While leaving ownership in private hands, Hitler needed the support of big business to launch his rearmament program. Churches, both Protestant and Catholic, were "coordinated" with the new regime. Their clergy were forbidden to criticize its activities. A Nazi Youth Movement, and schools and universities indoctrinated the young in the new concepts.

To assure his personal power Hitler established an elite corps, the SS (Guard Detachment). The SS began as a bodyguard whose members took the oath of personal loyalty to Hitler and swore to carry out without question any orders he issued. Into it were recruited the most vicious elements of the Nazi movement. They staffed police posts, both overt and secret, and gradually penetrated much of the party and state machinery. From their ranks were drawn the concentration camp guards and, during World War II, the mass murderers.

The advent of the Nazis to power led immediately to the issuance of anti-Jewish laws. These laws deprived Jews of German citizenship (and hence the protection of the state) and forbade them to marry "Aryans." Jews were beaten up, hounded, driven from public office, ruined in private business, fined as a community, put to death, or forced to flee the country after being stripped of all their possessions. These actions foreshadowed the wartime extermination of millions of Jews.

Hitler's main objective, once he gained dictatorial powers, was to give Germany a powerful armed force with which to conquer "living space" and subjugate the continent. Shortly after the Nazis came to power the Germany economy was put on a wartime footing. Production soared. Between 1932 and 1935 German steel production trebled. Hitler expected the armed forces and the economy to be fully geared for war by 1940.

During his first two years as Chancellor, Hitler pursued a relatively cautious foreign policy so as not to alarm Britain and France until he had solidified his grip on Germany and made progress with the secret rearmament program.

Hitler made his first overtly aggressive move in March, 1935. He formally denounced the disarmament clauses of the Versailles Treaty and introduced compulsory military training. This measure did not produce any response from Britain and France. In fact, Britain signed with Germany a naval agreement which, by establishing ratios of naval power between the two nations, legitimized Hitler's breach of the Versailles Treaty. One year later, German troops marched into the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland. Again nothing happened. Part of the French security system was destroyed. Historians have agreed that 1935-1936 were the years in which Hitler could have been stopped short of war. German troops marching into the Rhineland had orders to pull back in the event of French resistance. The French did nothing. Hitler completely violated the Versailles Treaty. German confidence increased.

Appeasement marked Allied policy towards Hitler. Perhaps the lesson of appeasement has been the most instructive of the 20th Century. Appeasing Hitler meant yielding to his demands in the belief that once these demands were satisfied he would turn into good a member of the community of nations. Appeasement did not work with Hitler, Stalin (or Communism) or Saddam. It is the policy of pacifism.

Half of all French males between the ages of 20 and 32 in 1914 had been killed in the first war. Another world war would destroy the nation, especially the civilian population. Pacifism became the dominant theme in Europe. It took root in many circles in the U.S., too. The thinking was that anything was better than to repeat the First World War. Oxford University issued the following resolution: "This House will under no circumstances fight for its King or country." Anti-war sentiment, believe it or not, was part of Hitler's game plan not just for the countries he planned to invade, but also pervaded much of German public opinion. Hitler's early popularity at home derived in large part from the fact that he achieved his aims by diplomatic pressure and not by war. Winston Churchill was the only Member of Parliament in favor of taking up arms against Hitler. His political capital was almost zero because he had authored the disastrous 1915 Gallipoli campaign. Britain stuck its head in the sand, not even spending money or preparing for war.

In 1935 Italy attacked Ethiopia from Italian Somalia, actions that were mainly symbolic and attempted to reflect some kind of re-enactment of the glories of the Roman Empire, when Rome and Carthage crossed the sea to do battle. The League of Nations condemned Italy and imposed economic sanctions that were never enforced. Italy and Germany joined forces. Mussolini spoke of a Rome-Berlin "Axis."

Civil war broke out in Spain. In July, 1936, a group of army officers, led by General Francisco Franco, invaded Spain from Morocco with the purpose of overthrowing a Left wing Republican government, which had recently won the elections. The Spanish Civil War was the most devastating war in all Spanish history. Over 600,000 died. It was marred by extreme cruelties. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy immediately aligned themselves with Franco and sent troops (the Italians over 50,000) and equipment. The Soviet Union lined up with the Leftist government. Thousands of volunteers of Leftist or liberal sympathy, from the U.S. and Europe, served in Spain with the loyalist Republican forces. The Spanish Civil War split the world into Fascist and anti-Fascist camps. The war ended in March, 1939 when Franco established an authoritarian, Fascist-type rule over the exhausted country.

In November, 1936, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, directed against the Communist International but actually a treaty of friendship. Italy signed a year later, and in 1941 the pact was renewed with 11 other countries also joining. Thus, while the Democracies were ineffectually trying to preserve peace at any price, a group of expansionist countries formed a counter-alliance. The successes of Nazi "diplomacy of blackmail" reached its zenith with the Munich agreement of 1938.

Hitler believed that the 85 million Germans had to acquire additional "living space," raw materials and foodstuffs, or face "extinction." He knew the only way to achieve this was through violence. War was inevitable. Germany would not attain peak military strength until 1943-1945. Hitler's immediate goal in 1938 was to annex Austria and destroy Czechoslovakia. Hitler used slogans of national self-determination, claiming he was bringing into the Reich the Germans who had been separated from it. This included the Austrians and the German minority in the Sudetenland.

The Austrian Republic came apart in March, 1938, by the combined pressures of Germany from without and a Nazi "Fifth Column" from within. The country, with its six million Germans, was annexed into a Greater Reich. The Czechs, unlike the Austrians, wanted nothing to do with Germany and resisted. They were still a Democracy in 1938, with a high standard of living. They were aligned with France and the Soviet Union. Soviet aid was made dependent of the functioning of the French alliance. Prague tried to meet the German demands, but each concession raised the stakes. Hitler brilliantly controlled the public relations campaign, declaring the Czech offers to be "intolerable."

Hitler invited British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the French Premier Edouard Daladier, and Mussolini to a meeting at Munich to deal with the crisis. Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union were excluded from the meeting. At Munich Chamberlain and Daladier accepted Hitler's terms and then put enormous pressure on the Czech government to yield. France repudiated its treaty obligations to protect Czechoslovakia, and ignored the Soviets, who had reaffirmed their willingness to aid the Czechs if the French acted. Germany was allowed to annex the Sudetenland. This area contained mountainous approaches and fortifications, leaving the country defenseless. Hitler promised to guarantee the integrity of what remained of Czechoslovakia. Barely one month after Munich, Hitler ordered the German Army to occupy the remainder of Czechoslovakia. The Republic, with no defenses or allies, could offer no resistance and capitulated in March, 1939.

Hitler turned his attention to Poland, demanding Danzig and a corridor linking Germany with East Prussia. The Poles refused to bargain. Britain and France saw that Hitler wanted to be the master of Europe. They "guaranteed" Poland's independence, but Hitler doubted that these pledges would be honored should he succeed in smashing Poland quickly. On April 3, 1939, he issued secret orders to prepare for just that.

Stalin realized that Hitler posed a serious threat to the Soviet Union, although despite this he proceeded to do some of the stupidest things in the history of military affairs. In the 1930s, Stalin assassinated most of his officer corps, because he was afraid of two things. One, a military coup against his regime, and two, he did not want charismatic, heroic officers developing their own cults of personality and creating potential political trouble for him. Hitler's threats of an anti-Communist crusade and the 1936 conclusion of the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan were direct threats to the Soviet Union. In the event of a combined German-Japanese attack they could not count on the support of any major power. In September of 1934 the Soviets had joined the League of Nations. In May, 1935 it had signed the previously mentioned treaties with Czechoslovakia and France.

Stalin was paranoid of Western appeasement of Hitler, thinking a plot was afoot on the part of England and France to buy their own safety by deflecting Hitler's ambitions from the West to the East. Munich and the occupation of Czechoslovakia "confirmed" this to him. Eastern Europe seemed to have been conceded to Hitler.

By early 1939, the Japanese and Soviets were clashing along the Mongolian border, alarming Stalin. On August 23, 1939 the Soviet Union and Germany signed a treaty of nonaggression. Kept secret at the time, it was agreed that in any future territorial rearrangement the Soviet Union and Germany would divide Poland between them. The Soviet Union would have a "sphere of influence" over Finland, the Baltic States, and Bessarabia (which had been lost to Rumania in World War I). In return the Soviets pledged to stay out of any war between Germany and Poland, or between Germany and the Western democracies.

Blitzkrieg

"I rode a tank, in a general's rank

When the blitzkrieg reigned

And the bodies stank..."

\- Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones), "Sympathy for the Devil"

The Nazi-Soviet pact stunned the West. Communism and Nazism represented a combined monolith. The fact that the United States (and her Allies) managed to defeat both of them is a monumental accomplishment, but such a prospect seemed dim in 1939. The Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. On September 3 Great Britain and France declared war on Germany and World War II began.

The invasion was a huge Nazi success. Using mechanized units to break through enemy lines, spread out behind them, and form vast "pincers" to isolate and trap large enemies units, the German blitzkrieg ("lightning war") reached Warsaw in a week. The Germans took 45,000 casualties but considered that light. On September 17 the Soviet Union entered eastern Poland to claim the territories accorded it by the secret agreement with Germany. Simultaneously, Soviet troops occupied strategic bases in the three Baltic Republics.

In October, 1939, when Finland refused Soviet demands for territorial concessions (Leningrad was only 20 miles from the Finnish border) the Soviet Army attacked. The Soviets were not much better fighters than the Czars' World War I troops, confirming the low opinion of their fighting capacity. Superiority in numbers eventually forced the Finns to capitulate in March, 1940, but they retained their independence.

The west during the Winter and Spring of 1939-40 came to be known as the "phony war." The British and the Germans simultaneously tried to seize Norway, but the Germans got there first with larger forces, occupying Denmark on the way in April, 1940. The Scandinavian campaign cost Germany most of its Navy. In July, 1940 the German Navy could only deploy for action three cruisers and four destroyers. All the other ships of destroyer size or larger had been sunk or damaged. This would prove to be a factor during the Battle of Britain.

The German offensive against France through the Low Countries began on May 10, 1940. Belgian fortresses were captured in a matter of hours by parachute units. Dutch cities were bombed into ruin. Rotterdam was leveled, killing in the process 40,000 civilians. Refugees were machine-gunned from the air to create chaos, clog the roads, and hamper reinforcements. The French and British sent into Belgium the majority of their forces. The Germans attacked through Luxembourg and the Ardennes Forest, long considered by the French to be impassable to tanks. The German divisions drove deep into northern France and cut off the Allied armies in Belgium. The Dutch and Belgian armies capitulated and a large part of the French Army surrendered.

The British barely evacuated their entire trapped expeditionary force, plus a considerable French contingent \- 338,000 men in all - through Dunkirk, but most of their equipment had to be left behind. On June 13-14 the Germans entered Paris. Shortly after, France signed an armistice. The country was divided into the northern zone, placed under German occupation, and the southern zone, established as a satellite state ruled from Vichy. The Republic was dead. The slogan "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" was banned.

Many French citizens took their French flags down and replaced them with German flags, which had flown during World War I and had been in safekeeping in case they were needed. A fair number of French women enthusiastically provided sexual favors to Germans officers. French cafes opened for the Germans, with French citizens drinking and partying with the occupiers. Many collaborated with them in military, counter-espionage and civilian tasks.

Mussolini attacked France on June 10 after Germany had defeated it. Then he invaded Greece and moved against the British in Africa. The Duce was now inextricably tied by fate to Hitler. The Germans were on good terms with Franco in Spain, and had a peace treaty with the U.S.S.R. They dominated the continent. Hitler put prisoners of war and civilians to work as slave laborers in his war industries.

The Battle of Britain

Britain and Winston Churchill, now Prime Minister, were alone. Churchill seemed to thrive under the pressure. The remarkable British people rallied around him. He announced that Britain would fight "if necessary for years, if necessary alone," until Germany gave up. The difference between the English and French people during this period is the factual difference between greatness and mediocrity.

Hitler prepared to invade Britain. The first phase was a devastating air campaign, its aim being to create safe transport of the invasion force across the Channel. The Luftwaffe, the German Air Force, launched its offensive against the Royal Air Force (RAF). British aircraft and training were slightly superior to Germany's. The British had broken the German communication code, and had the use of radar. The RAF managed a two to one kill ratio over German aircraft. If Germany had continued its attack on the RAF it would have succeeded in its plan to destroy the Royal Air Force, but their losses were too horrendous. In September it switched to daytime attacks on air installations, and nighttime attacks on cities. The intent was to destroy civilian morale and force peace. The British people, made of sterner stuff than other Europeans, simply would not give in. Hitler lost the Battle of Britain and English invasion never occurred.

By the end of 1940 everyone was arming now, including the United States. Hitler's advantage was narrowing. In September, 1940 Germany concluded with Italy and Japan a Tripartite Pact dividing Asia and Africa into spheres of influence. Italy was to have the Mediterranean, Japan southeast Asia, and Germany central Africa.

The Russian Front

In December, 1940 Hitler gave his General Staff instructions to prepare for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler's strategy was to launch a lightning offensive that would bring German armies in eight to 10 weeks to the banks of the Volga. The territories conquered were to provide Germany with food, raw materials, and slave labor, transforming German-dominated Europe into a fortress. Areas east of the Volga were to be left to the Russians. Once the Soviets were destroyed, the plan was to turn southward and take over the Middle East and North Africa. The Arabs, rooting for the Germans because of their hatred for the Jews, would have been wiped out faster than the Jews had this occurred.

The Russian Front was to be a war of extermination, clearing Eastern Europe of the "inferior races" for subsequent German settlement. The Germans about to invade the Soviet Union were given authority to kill Communists, "intellectuals," and enemy soldiers.

Scheduled for mid-May, 1941 it was postponed a month, which would have profound consequences The Italians bogged down in Greece. In April Hitler sent troops to bail them out. In the process the Germans also invaded and occupied Yugoslavia. On June, 22, 1941, three million German troops along with more than 500,000 soldiers of countries allied with Germany (and over 600,000 horses) made their Napoleonic spearhead into Mother Russia against the unprepared, unmobilized Soviets. Within six weeks the road to Moscow appear to be open. Only the amount of time it took to move an army and its supplies separated the Germans from the Kremlin. By the end of September the Germans had taken a toll of 2.5 million men, 22,000 guns, 18,000 tanks, and 14,000 planes. But Hitler, thinking he had learned from Napoleon, decided to postpone capture of the capital in to destroy what was left of Soviet armies and industrial resources in the northern and southern parts of the country.

This gave the Soviets two months in which to raise fresh troops in the east and organize, forcing the Germans to open the drive on Moscow at the onset of the Winter. They had not made provisions for this. While Hitler still had momentum and it appeared that the Germans would win, the first chink had emerged in Hitler's armor, leaving just a ray of hope that he could be stopped. The offensive resumed early in October. On December 2, the Germans penetrated the suburbs of Moscow, but were stopped.

Exhausted German soldiers were frozen in their Summer uniforms. Their motorized equipment stalled for lack of antifreeze. On December 5-6 the Russians counterattacked and by the middle of January, 1942 the German Army had been pushed 100 miles to the west of Moscow. Hitler was infuriated, relieved his top officers and assumed personal command.

The Soviets had national sentiment on their side. The population offered little resistance to the Germans, thinking it was just a continuation of the Great War. They had welcomed them. Living under Communism, even Adolf Hitler appeared to be a more benevolent ruler than Stalin. But Hitler made another fatal mistake. Instead of seducing the populace in order to make use of them, the SS began to shoot civilians and prisoners. They shipped people to Germany (ultimately over three million were sent as slave labor). Facing no alternative but death, resistance stiffened. Soviet military units refused to surrender, fighting to the last man because the alternative was impossible. Stalin gave up any pretense of Communist propaganda, knowing that his wicked political system provided absolutely no inspiration. But he did exhort the nation to fight for "Holy Russia," which was inspirational.

The "rape of China"

Imperialism was at the heart of Japan's emergence from isolationism at the beginning of the 20th century. One of the most overused and unintelligent phrases of the century is the term "imperialism" when applied to the United States. Imperialism is a word that directly applies to Japan, not America.

Nationalist and envy drove Japan. They desperately wanted to be taken seriously and to be respected by America. It is not fair to say the U.S. did not respect them, but that respect had its limits. Economics played a huge role. They needed to maintain access to the raw materials and markets of East Asia, which might be denied Japan if neighboring countries fell under the domination of one or another of the powers. East Asian political instability also entered the picture. In Korea and China, where Japan had the greatest economic advantage, old, ineffectual governments were being undermined by revolutions. Communism can be blamed for many things in the 20th Century. One of them is China's ability to defend itself in the late 1920s and early 1930s. However, like many things in the Orient, easy explanations are not available. Eventually, Communism during World War II was more efficient than the Nationalist government, and its forces more effective fighting the Japanese. But China's failure to repel Japan set in motion events leading to the spread of World War II in the South Pacific and the Orient. The collapse of Chinese and Korean governments had caused great distress in Japan, who feared that they would fall under Western control, or nationalist movements that would oppose Japanese security interests.

Prior to World War I, internationalist Asia was roughly equal. World War I changed this. During the war Japan seized German holdings in Shantung and German-held islands in the South Pacific: The Carolinas, Marianas, Marshalls, Palau, and Yap.

In 1911 the Manchu dynasty was overthrown and China underwent years of anarchy. Japan delivered in January, 1915, 21 Demands on China. The 21 Demands sought Chinese recognition of the transference of German rights in Shantung to Japan; the employment of Japanese as advisors to the Chinese government; Chinese purchase of arms from Japan; and permission for Japan to construct railways in China.

The response was an international uproar, interpreted as a unilateral departure from the system of understanding developed among the powers since the Chinese-Japanese War of 1895. It was the beginning of Japanese-American estrangement. The United States took on a protective role of the new Chinese Republic, which had come into existence in 1912. After negotiations with the U.S., Japan withdrew its demand for Japanese "advisors" to the Chinese government. This would have made China a virtual protectorate of Japan. China accepted the rest.

The issues between Japan and the U.S. reappeared at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Japan requested that a clause advocating racial equality be inserted in the League of Nations Covenant. The U.S. and Britain feared that this would mean that Asians would have to be admitted to their countries as immigrants on an equal basis with Europeans. They vetoed it. Wilson supported China's contentions that the war had canceled Germany's leasehold in Shantung and that the treaties Japan had forced upon her were void since they were obtained by coercion. Wilson capitulated when Japan threatened to walk out of the peace conference and boycott the League. These actions convinced the Japanese that they were still not accepted as equal partners by the West.

When World War I ended, the U.S., Great Britain, and Japan found themselves on the threshold of a naval arms race. The U.S. planned construction of 39 battleships and 12 cruisers. Britain and Japan would either have to expend vast sums in counter building or fall behind. The U.S. was uneasy about the British-Japanese Alliance (1905) and wanted a navy that could defeat the combined Japanese-British fleet. The British and U.S. publics were not willing to spend enormously on defense at that point. The Harding Administration called a conference in Washington in November, 1921. At the Washington Conference a 5:5:3 ratio in battleships and aircraft carriers for the U.S., Great Britain and Japan was set. Lesser craft remained unregulated. In return for Japanese acceptance of a smaller ratio, the U.S. promised Japan that it would not increase its military might west of Hawaii. Britain pledged not to increase them east of Singapore and north of Australia. The British-Japanese Alliance was terminated.

From 1928 to 1932 Japan faced a great depression and internal opposition to their relations with the West. The army became belligerent towards Manchuria. The Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party in China under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, embarked on a campaign of national unification. This was accompanied by radical anti-foreign outbursts and slogans demanding an end to the unequal treaties that the powers (including Japan) had forced China to sign. China was also weakened by the civil war between the Communists under the leadership of Mao Tse-tung, and the Nationalists.

The Manchurian Incident on September 18, 1931 precedes the Spanish Civil War, the Italian adventure in Ethiopia, and Hitler's re-armament as the "beginning" of World War II. Considering that this occurred prior to Hitler's first real ascension to power in Germany, a re-appraisal of Japan is in order. They have often been viewed as the "lesser" of the two evils. Considering when they attacked Manchuria, and the awful atrocities they committed long before most of Hitler's death camps were even built, Japan must be identified as at least the equal of German evil.

The Japanese used a small explosion on the tracks of the Japanese railway as pretext for attacking Chinese troops. They conquered all of Manchuria and established a Japanese puppet state, Manchukuo. When the League of Nations condemned Japan, the Japanese left the League. After decades of nationalism, the elites used education, the media, and a variety of organizations to mobilize sentiment among the populace in order to support industrialism and imperialism. They quickly found that they had taken actions that would lead them down a path they had not envisioned. Nationalism became a monster, and the civilian element within the government was too weak to control it. By 1936, the military controlled the Japanese government.

The Chinese people were collectively raped. After 1931 the Nationalist government gave up land reform policies, and terrible poverty pervaded the country. Chinese peasants paid about half of their crops to their landlords in rent. 50 percent of the land was owned by four percent of the families. Peasants were chronically underfed. Eggs and meat accounted for two percent of their food.

Japan abandoned cooperation with the West, choosing instead domination of East Asia in the manner of the Roman Empire. They called it an "Asian Monroe Doctrine," as if the other countries were unorganized non-governments in the manner of disparate Indian nomads. They pretended they had been "invited in to protect the land," as the Mexicans had done when they asked American mountain men to populate their claims ("and bring guns, gracias"), in order to fight off the Indians.

Japan maintained the military power sufficient for three major tasks: Defeating the Soviets, guaranteeing the security of the home islands against the U.S. Navy, and compelling the Chinese to accept Japan's position in Manchuria and northern China. Japan was never able to achieve these objectives

U.S. policy towards Japan during this time was pushed by isolationism.

A Gallup poll in 1937 showed that 64 percent of the country felt World War I was a mistake. A 1934 Senate investigation led by the isolationist Senator Gerald Nye of North Dakota revealed that vast profits were made by arms manufactures and financiers during World War I.

"When Americans went into the fray," said Senator Nye, "they little thought that they were . . .fighting to save the skins of American bankers who . . .had two billions of dollars of loans to the Allies in jeopardy."

Big business during the Great Depression was the Big Enemy in the eyes of many Americans, fed by Roosevelt's politics of class envy. War was thought to be the work of greedy bankers and industrialists encouraging or instigating international strife. As the years passed, it became clear that these views were fomented by the Soviet Union using agents in American labor unions and colleges. The great irony of Communism is that while it failed as a worldwide political system, it lives and thrives today as a viewpoint held by a small but consistent strain of society. They cling to the belief that "greedy bankers and industrialists" are happy war profiteers; universal health care is denied us because of the "unfeeling rich"; and tax cuts are "kickbacks to wealthy Republicans."

In July, 1937 the Japanese and Chinese troops fought in Peking. This came to be known as the "China Incident," broadening into a full-scale war by Japan in order to reduce China to a protectorate status. The "China Incident" caused President Roosevelt to be more internationalist. He wanted to keep the U.S. out of war, but the United States' interests in Asia and Europe were so important that while he told the people what they wanted to hear, he knew he would probably have to break his "word." This was never a problem with FDR.

Public support slowly developed for military action, and the State Department began to take on a hard-line approach with Japan. The Two-Ocean Naval Act of 1938 built up the Navy. Japan proclaimed in 1938 her plan for a "New Order" for East Asia, claiming that the Open Door no longer applied in China. The U.S. objected to the "New Order," indicating it would not leave China to Japan's tender mercies. The Pacific Fleet moved to Pearl Harbor as a display of American power. In 1939 the Japanese-American commercial treaty of 1911 was terminated, opening the way for economic sanctions against Japan.

Awakening the "sleeping giant"

Hitler's quick breaking of the Munich Agreement and war in Poland weakened isolationist sentiment. A Gallup poll taken after Poland fell showed that 84 percent of the American public wanted an Allied victory and 76 percent expected U.S. involvement whether they favored it or not.

The "Cash & Carry Act" followed, allowing Germany's resisters to purchase arms and other war goods provided they paid cash and transported their purchases on their own ships. The act still banned loans and prohibited U.S. ships from entering war zones. With the British ruling the seas, "Cash and Carry" benefited the Allies while giving Americans profits. It was the beginning of the end of the Great Depression. FDR's New Deal had not ended it. World War II would do for the U.S. what liberal economic policies could not.

Prior to 1940, the U.S. thought France would defend itself. In light of this assumption it was generally believed that Britain and France could repel Hitler on their own. When France refused to fight, allowing the Germans to enter their country via parade route, America was stunned. It now became apparent that many Americans would have to sacrifice themselves in order for France to survive. France had fought heroically in World War I, and Napoleon was a prominent figure whose military methods were not yet considered passe. When they were swept aside in a few weeks, the complexion of the European war changed completely and the face of France was changed forever. The question of Britain's fall, leaving no friendlies between the Nazis and FDR's unprepared America, was a cause of great consternation.

Aside from the disaster of war, U.S. trade would be restricted or terminated in Europe if Germany prevailed. If Germany defeated Britain, they would take over the world's strongest navy and control the North Atlantic. This threat to U.S. security and trade, with the Japanese looming in the Pacific, made many Americans look at a map of the U.S. and envision it as the fulcrum of a huge "pincer movement." People talked about setting up a "Central U.S.," defending Chicago and the Midwest while the enemy took over New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The Fascists threatened the entire globe. In America, the ideology of Fascism was spreading, meaning that the concept of liberal-capitalism was losing its influence. When the Germans struck in the West, the U.S. Army could field less than a third the number of divisions Belgium put in the field. There were all of 150 fighters and 50 heavy bombers in the Army Air Force. FDR had all-but committed dereliction of duty in his failure to defend this great nation.

FDR changed the public debate, portraying himself as the man with the experience and vision to see it through instead of the man whose lack of vision had made us vulnerable in the first place. He sought an unprecedented third term. Congress appropriated over $10 billion for military defense and passed the first peacetime military conscription law in U.S. history. The draft was extended in 1941 by only one vote. He brought two Republicans into his cabinet. Frank Knox, the 1936 Vice-Presidential candidate, was made Secretary of the Navy. Henry L. Stimson, the Secretary of State under Hoover, was made Secretary of War. Britain needed destroyers to deal with German U-boats. Roosevelt needed Republicans to fight the war. He still clung to the public lie that he could keep American boys out of harm's way.

"If we want to keep out of this war, the longer we keep the Allies going, that much longer we stay out of this war," Roosevelt said.

He tried to mollify public opinion, and in this effort made shipment of British war goods a secret. On September 2, 1940 Britain granted the U.S. long-term leases to six Western Hemisphere bases, and gave two others free, in exchange for 50 American mothballed World War I destroyers. London also announced that the British fleet would never fall into German hands. The eight bases from Newfoundland to British Guiana strengthened the ability of the U.S. to defend the Western Hemisphere. This marked the end of neutrality for the U.S., becoming a virtual war participant.

Polls still revealed that while four of every five Americans supported aid to England, 82 percent opposed entering the war. In the 1940 Presidential campaign, Republican Wendell L. Willkie questioned FDR's "promise to keep our boys out of foreign wars." Roosevelt won by a closer margin than in 1932 and 1936.

In December, 1940, FDR declared that the United States must become "the great arsenal of Democracy." The President proposed that material be transferred or leased to the Allies for payment in kind "or any other direct or indirect benefit" of value to the U.S. Clause VII of the Lend-Lease Act contained a blueprint for a post-war open-door designed to break down such barriers to trade as the British imperial preference system. On March 11, 1940 Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act into law. The country would expend around $50 billion under the act.

The U.S. was now in an undeclared war with Germany after the passage of lend-lease. Roosevelt began bypassing Congress. The U.S. seized Axis shipping in U.S. territory. The Navy patrolled Atlantic shipping routes reporting German U-boat sightings. American troops occupied Danish colonies in Greenland in April, 1941 and Iceland in July, to prevent Axis seizure. The American Navy convoyed ships loaded with lend-lease goods halfway across the Atlantic, doubling British efficiency.

In September, 1941 the destroyer the USS Greer was attacked by a German submarine as it broadcast the submarine's position to a British patrol plane. Roosevelt publicly called it unprovoked and the Navy was ordered to shoot "rattlesnakes of the sea." In October, the Germans attacked the destroyer Kearney and sank the Reuben James, spurring the public and Congress in November to permit the arming of American merchant ships sailing into the war zones. An undeclared limited naval war now existed.

The Japanese had amped up their war in China in the late 1930s, committing horrid atrocities to men, women and children in what came to be known as the "rape of Nanking." The China conflict lessened the Japanese threat to the Soviets on the Manchurian border and the American fleet in the Pacific. The Japanese suffered losses in fighting on the border of Manchuria and Outer Mongolia (the Nomonhan Incident). The Japanese wanted to keep America from attaining "naval hegemony" in the Pacific by 1942. They wanted access to the oil of the Dutch East Indies. Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, pledging to aid each other if attacked by a power not currently involved in the European war or the fighting in China. By doing this, Japan calculated that the U.S. would not attack them for fear of facing Germany in response. Japan eyed all the European colonies in Southeast Asia, where the resources it needed were. Then Japan signed a neutrality pact with the USSR in April of 1941, which is indicative of Stalin's duplicity. In July, 1941 Japanese troops entered French Indochina, thus "starting" the Vietnam War.

The U.S. banned the sale of aviation gasoline to Japan in July, 1940. They added scrap iron to the prohibited list in October, and in December gave Chiang Kai-shek a $100 million loan and promises of military aid. Roosevelt stationed the Pacific Fleet permanently at Pearl. The U.S. broke the Japanese diplomatic (and later naval) code so the U.S. knew Japan's goals. After the French Indochina invasion, all Japanese assets in America were frozen and trade ceased. An embargo of all oil exports to Japan went into effect. The British and Netherlands followed suit.

The oil embargo stunned Japan. They had a year's supply of petroleum, which meant they had to come to terms with the U.S. or strike for an independent supply. This would require a repudiation of their horrendous acts in China; in essence, an admission of their evil wrongs. A loss of face. In the Oriental culture, somehow having their lies exposed is worse than having lied in the first place. Now, having the world attain full knowledge of their atrocities was not acceptable to the Japanese. They adopted a policy of risk.

"It is impossible from the standpoint of our domestic political situation and of our self-preservation, to accept all of the American demands [a complete Japanese withdrawal from China and French Indochina]," one of their warlords told Emperor Hirohito. "If we miss the present opportunity to go to war, we will have to submit to American dictation. Therefore, I recognize that it is inevitable that we must decide to start a war against the United States. I will put my trust in what I have been told: Namely, that things will go well in the early part of the war; and that although we will experience increasing difficulties as the war progresses, there is some prospect of success."

The American government knew that Japan would attack. It appeared that the British-Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia were the most likely spot, but American territory was also at risk. The Philippines were also in their cross hairs. The surprise attack upon Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 removed all speculation. A Japanese carrier task force slipped undetected across the Pacific to unleash an aerial attack against the Pacific Fleet and nearby Naval and military installations. Five battleships, three cruisers, and lesser warships were sunk or heavily damaged. The Japanese destroyed 188 aircraft and killed approximately 3,000 men. Japan lost only 27 aircraft and six midget submarines. Fortunately for the U.S., the three American aircraft carriers stationed at Pearl Harbor were at sea when the raid occurred. Japan had crippled American Naval and air power in the Pacific and thereby gained time to overrun her targets in Southeast Asia.

Germany and Italy quickly declared war on the United States.

Dealing with the devil

In early 1942 the Allies decided to give priority to the European theater. Germany could take over the entire world if they turned the continent into a fortress. The United States had a huge advantage in terms of industrial might, population, raw material, natural resources, and best of all, the spirit of freedom. By the beginning of 1943 American production of armaments equaled that of Germany, Italy, and Japan put together. By 1944 it was double that. The consumption of men and machines in World War II was huge. During World War II the Soviet Union received from the U.S. over 400,000 trucks, 12,000 tanks, 14,000 planes, and a large quantity of other goods, totaling 17.5 million tons. The Soviets themselves built approximately 100,000 tanks, 100,000 aircraft, and 175,000 artillery pieces during the war. About two-thirds of this material was destroyed in the fighting and 20 million Russians died.

The German blitzkrieg penetrated the enemy front by a large force of tanks, closely assisted by ground-attack aircraft and followed by motorized infantry and artillery. This changed the old trench warfare strategy. Once through the lines, tanks pushed at high speed to the enemy's higher command posts and vital communications centers deep in the rear. They inflicted enormous damage behind the front, which would then collapse. The Germans would then take over and make use of all the rear supplies.

German forces inside the Soviet Union, however, began to face attrition. The Soviets simply made the defended territory many miles deeper, with successive belts of trenches, mine fields, bunkers, gun positions, and tank traps to slow down spearheads. The "moving" had a terrible effect on civilian populations. Countries from Germany eastward lost about 10 percent of their populations killed. The U.S. lost about one-half of one percent of its total population.

In 1943 and 1944 the Soviets incurred an 80 percent casualty rate. Officer casualties in the British and American armies in the rifle battalions that did most of the fighting were around twice as high proportionally as the casualties among enlisted men.

The British strategy was to confront Germany on the peripheries, bombing Germany itself, and encouraging resistance in the occupied countries. Churchill wanted continental Europeans to do their own fighting, but the French did not step up. The Americans felt that Europe was too big to "contain," and immediately set about a plan to take the fight directly to the German strongholds. Chief of Staff George Marshall thought the Red Army might be defeated, freeing the Germans to plunder all the iron ore and other materials that lay at the heart of their Russian strategy. Then the Germans would fortify Western Europe and make an American-British invasion that much more difficult. The "Asia-firsters" were also advocating that the U.S. concentrate on the Japanese, since they had attacked us.

Stalin sought relief through a second front in Western Europe. Churchill suggested an invasion of French North Africa. Roosevelt told the Soviet Foreign minister in May, 1942, that he hoped to launch a second front in Europe that year. The Soviets interpreted this as a promise for a second front in 1942. But the U.S. was not ready for this kind of mobilization. It lacked the necessary equipment for a European invasion, with green troops. German submarines were sinking allied ships off the North American coast in the first half of 1942. Getting supplies and men to Europe was too difficult. An invasion of France might mean defeat. The U.S. settled on North Africa. The Soviets were disappointed and suspicious. The Cold War had begun.

Operation Torch started in November, 1942 in North Africa. The plan was to beat back the Germans there, then take them on in Italy and Sicily in 1943. This would delay D-Day by a year without putting a major dent in the German forces, while leaving Russia to fend for themselves and get more suspicious. Perhaps because they knew they had to defend Mother Russia on their own, the Red Army, to use Winston Churchill's phrase, "tore the guts out of the German Army." The key battle was Stalingrad. The importance of Stalingrad was not so much strategic as psychological. As at Verdun in 1916, the two sides made this a supreme contest of will. After they were beaten, many Germans for the first time realized that the war was lost.

When the Russian Front resumed in the Spring of 1942, the Germans were in a strong position, controlling industrial and agrarian regions. They had suffered less than a million casualties, while inflicting 4.5 million casualties on the Red Army. They were entrenched near the Soviet Union's two major cities, Moscow and Leningrad. Hitler again decided to postpone the capture of Moscow. The "prize" was the Caucasus, where the richest oil deposits were. The Germans failed in this endeavor and became mired at Stalingrad. Hitler became obsessed with Stalingrad. They sent more troops in. The Soviets defended in a desperate situation. Stalingrad was named for Stalin because in 1919 he had played an active part in directing its successful defense against the White Army. The fighting was house to house. The Soviets lost more men in the Battle of Stalingrad than the United States lost in combat during the entire war.

On November 19-20, the Soviets launched a counter attack, breaking through the Hungarian, Rumanian, and Italian units guarding the flanks of the German Sixth Army. The German generals wanted to stage a breakout, but Hitler refused. Outnumbered, freezing, and short of food, the Germans held out for two months. In January, 1943, the Sixth Army surrendered. The Soviets captured 91,000 prisoners, 1,500 tanks, and 60,000 vehicles. The reprisals made the devil smile with glee.

The Germans retreated along the entire front, giving up most of the ground conquered the preceding Spring. It was "not the end, not even the beginning of the end, but possibly the end of the beginning," according to Churchill in November, 1942.

Hitler counted on Allied disagreement, trying to get a separate peace with the Soviets. He also had smart scientists working on new weapons like jet airplanes and the V-1 cruise missile, of which 22,400 were launched (many of which were shot down by Allied aircraft). Beginning in September of 1944, 1,115 V-2 ballistic missile fell on London, causing severe damage. As the Allied ground forces advanced, V-1s and V-2s were increasingly fired at Antwerp. Over 15,000 people were killed and more than 45,000 wounded from these rocket attacks.

In the east, the Germans undertook in July, 1943, a major offensive with 17 armored divisions. In the greatest tank battle in history the Soviets repulsed it, pushing the Germans back 200 miles. The Soviets had twice the manpower, and two to three times the weapons and equipment. Wherever the Germans went, Stalin ordered a "scorched Earth" policy of looting movable equipment while dynamiting or setting on fire what was left. This included ancient churches and historic monuments.

On June 6, 1944, D-Day, the Allied invasion of France through Normandy occurred. The Allies landed eight divisions (156,000 men) on the first day, five divisions from the sea, and three airborne divisions from the air. They brought across the Channel 5,000 ships and 12,000 planes. The Germans had 60 divisions, 11 of them armored, facing the Allies, but they miscalculated. Hitler insisted that the entire coast be defended, thinly dispersing the Germans. The Germans were certain the Allies would land their main army at Calais, leaving Normandy relatively unprotected. One week after D-Day the Allies had more troops in France than did the Germans. They also had complete mastery of the air. In late August the Allies took Paris.

After D-Day the goal was Germany. Beginning in April 1942 the British, and later the Americans, had begun the "mass bombing" of almost every major city in Germany. 593,000 German civilians were killed, and over 3.3 million homes destroyed. 46,000 British air crew were killed, and as much as one-third of British military and civilian manpower and industrial resources was devoted to supporting bomber command.

Air power became the domain of the U.S. In July, 1943 in a raid on Hamburg the Allied air forces started a firestorm that killed 40,000 people in about two hours. Horrific as this may sound, it has been estimated that had they been able to accomplish this terrible result every time, the war would have ended in six months, in the end saving millions of lives, most of them German. The devil works that way.

At Dresden in 1945, another firestorm killed 135,000. This has been characterized as an act of terror, and in part it was. It helped end World War II in Europe months earlier than it otherwise would have. The 135,000 dead of Dresden saved hundreds of thousands of other German men, women and children. They would have been caught in the crossfire of fighting had it continued through the Summer and Fall of 1945. Overall, the average result of a single British bomber sortie with a seven-man crew was less than three dead Germans - and after an average of 14 missions, the bomber crew themselves would be dead or prisoners. Moreover, since the damage was done over a long period of time, German industrial production for military purposes actually managed to continue rising until late 1944. The atomic bomb became attractive because it simply offered victory faster while in the end saving lives.

In July, 1944, a group of anti-Hitler conspirators attempted to assassinate the Fuhrer and end the war. A briefcase containing a bomb was placed at Hitler's headquarters. It exploded, but failed to kill Hitler. The Gestapo quickly rounded up and executed the conspirators.

The Allied advance was halted at the Battle of the Bulge in December, 1944, but they quickly retook the initiative, crossing the Rhine on March 7, 1945 at the Remagen Bridge. The Germans had failed to destroy it. At that time the Soviets, with 1,250,000 men, was poised on the Oder River, 35 miles from the eastern suburbs of Berlin. On April 30, 1945, Hitler committed suicide. Earlier that month, Mussolini, seeking to escape to Switzerland, was caught by a band of Italian partisans and shot. On May 7, 1945 Germany surrendered.

The Holocaust

Victory in Europe brought freedom and joyous celebrations to Europeans. Americans treated it like Mardi Gras, New Year's and the Super Bowl rolled into one. It was also tempered by the realization that the worst fears concerning the Jews had been confirmed. On the continent of Europe, Hitler's "New Order" started in late 1941, when Jews in German-held territories were herded into walled ghettoes and marked with the Star of David. After attacking Russia the Nazis began the annihilation of millions of European Jews. The SS rounded up the Jews. They were told they were being shipped to the east, where "employment" awaited them. They were shipped by cattle cars without food or water, causing many deaths. Once at the concentration camps they were divided into two groups. Able-bodied men and women were made to perform heavy labor on substandard food rations. The intention was literally to work them to death. When they collapsed they were returned to the extermination camp for slaughter. The other group, judged unsuited for work, included all children and elderly. They were sent directly to the gas chambers. The chambers were disguised as shower rooms. They were told to undress and wash. Once filled, the guards bolted the doors and poison gas was injected. For 15 or 20 minutes they shrieked in a scene that must be as close to hell as has ever been known on Earth.

The human mind is an incredible thing. Compassion and empathy are traits that good people possess, but these traits can be extremely unhealthy if not checked. For the human mind to contemplate such suffering is beyond imagination. All the terrible things that happen to people are simply too much for us to handle. So we are equipped with a mechanism that allows us to filter suffering, to distance ourselves from it. Some people are criticized as unfeeling, but the only way people can possess knowledge of events like the Jewish Holocaust and not go insane is to possess this "filtering" mechanism. Those who know about it and actually do not feel compassion are really and actually evil people. Perversely, they are often the ones who profess to have the most compassion. "I feel your pain," they say. Satan works that way.

When silence ensued in the gas chambers, the doors were opened and prisoners removed the dead. A search for valuables, often gold tooth fillings, was performed. The remains were cremated. There have been many dictators who would have gladly carried out this kind of killing throughout human history. Hitler was a 20th Century man with 20th Century technology at his disposal. The devil's greatest accomplishment is that the "progress" of Mankind could be turned on its head and used to push our humanity back into the Dark Ages. Auschwitz operated so efficiently that 10,000 persons could be killed without trace every day.

On the Russian Front, the Nazis did not set up the camps. The SS simply rounded Jews, and mowed them down with machine guns. Large pits were dug, victims lined up at the edge and shot. They fell directly into the mass graves. In Kiev over 30,000 Jews were massacred in one single day. People whose culture included Mozart, Brahms, Mozart, Beethoven, and Wagner did this. Hitler's "super race" did more to discredit the argument that white people are superior than any single set of circumstances in human history.

Between 1941 and 1945 the Germans killed an estimated six million Jews. One-quarter of them were children. This is the worst crime in history. In the U.S. and Great Britain, news of the massacres was discounted. This is probably because it was too much to believe possible, and also because the first priority was to defeat the German military before they could hope to save those imprisoned by them. Despite Hitler's warmongering, the actual facts of the Holocaust were too horrid to believe. Only seeing it in person, and uncovering the raw facts about it, which happened when the Allies won the war, made it a believable fact. Dwight Eisenhower ordered the townspeople to tour the camps, and brought in camera crews to record the event. He presciently said that if he did not record it thoroughly, history would deny that it happened. Despite the evidence, an enormous portion of the Arab world simply lives the lie that it was fabricated. They use this lie to press their own political agenda. The devil works that way, and I am happy to be one of those who identifies and exposes this lie. It is the least we can do.

The Danes managed to ferry most Danish Jews to neutral Sweden. In Hungary, Prime Minister Miklos Horthy refused to deport the Jews, which saved some 200,000 lives. 200,000 did perish in 1944 when the Germans invaded. The Bulgarians and the Italians resisted to the end.

Approximately 50,000 people participated. Only a small number were brought to trial for crimes against humanity. 500 were executed. The Germans by no means were the only ones who prosecuted the Holocaust. They had help from many foreigners, and not all those foreigners were "forced" to cooperate. Many willingly, in fact enthusiastically, participated in the slaughter. Thousands of years of pent-up hate for Jews was unleashed. The Middle East has faced a conundrum of sorts. On the on hand, millions of Arabs feel that Hitler was doing "God's work" in killing the Jews, but in cheering his memory they acknowledge that the Holocaust exists. Sometimes "his truth is marching on."

The United States allowed many Nazis to slip into civilian roles. They used them in their espionage struggles with the Soviet Union, in an effort to win the hearts and minds of West Germany. In the end, it has been left up to Israel and the Jews to constantly remind the world what happened. In so doing they have done a larger service. While they shed light on other horrors, they also remind us that despite warning that we must never let it happen again, it in fact does happen - again and again: Armenian genocide, the "rape of Nanking," Siberian gulags, the Cultural Revolution, Bangladesh, the Cambodian "killing fields," Rwanda, Bosnia and Iraq.

Holocaust time-line

1933

  * Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany, a nation with a Jewish population of 566,000.

  * 40,000 SA and SS men are sworn in as auxiliary police. Nazis burn Reichstag building to create crisis atmosphere.

  * Emergency powers granted to Hitler as a result of the Reichstag fire.

  * Nazis open Dachau concentration camp near Munich, to be followed by Buchenwald near Weimar in central Germany, Sachsenhausen near Berlin in northern Germany, and Ravensbrück for women.

  * German Parliament passes Enabling Act giving Hitler dictatorial powers.

  * Nazis stage boycott of Jewish shops and businesses.

  * The Gestapo is born, created by Hermann Göring in the German state of Prussia.

  * Burning of books in Berlin and throughout Germany.

  * Nazi Party is declared the only legal party in Germany. Also, Nazis pass law to strip Jewish immigrants from Poland of their German citizenship.

  * Nazis pass law allowing for forced sterilization of those found by a Hereditary Health Court to have genetic defects.

  * Nazis establish Reich Chamber of Culture, then exclude Jews from the arts.

  * Nazis prohibit Jews from owning land.

  * Jews are prohibited from being newspaper editors.

  * Nazis pass a Law against Habitual and Dangerous Criminals, which allows beggars,

the homeless, alcoholics and the unemployed to be sent to concentration camps.

  * The "night of long knives" occurs as Hitler, Göring and Himmler conduct a purge of the S.A. (storm trooper) leadership.

  * The S.S. (Schutzstaffel) is made an independent organization from the SA.

  * Jews are prohibited from getting legal qualifications.

  * German President von Hindenburg dies. Hitler becomes Führer. Hitler receives a 90 percent 'Yes' vote from German voters approving his new powers.

1935

  * Nazis ban Jews from serving in the military.

  * Nazis pass law allowing forced abortions on women to prevent them from passing on

hereditary diseases.

  * Nazis force Jewish performers/artists to join Jewish Cultural Unions.

  * Nuremberg Race Laws against Jews decreed.

1936

  * The German Gestapo is placed above the law.

  * S.S. Deathshead division is established to guard concentration camps.

  * Nazis occupy the Rhineland.

  * Heinrich Himmler is appointed chief of the German Police.

  * Olympic games begin in Berlin. Hitler and top Nazis seek to gain legitimacy through favorable public opinion from foreign visitors and thus temporarily refrain from actions against Jews.

  * Nazis set up an Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortions (by healthy women).

1937

  * Jews are banned from many professional occupations including teaching Germans, and from being accountants or dentists. They are also denied tax reductions and child allowances.

  * "Eternal Jew" travelling exhibition opens in Munich.

1938

  * Nazis prohibit Aryan "front-ownership" of Jewish businesses.

  * Nazis order Jews to register wealth and property.

  * Nazis order Jewish-owned businesses to register.

  * At Evian, France, the U.S. convenes a League of Nations conference with delegates from 32 countries to consider helping Jews fleeing Hitler, but results in inaction as no country will accept them.

  * Nazis prohibited Jews from trading and providing a variety of specified commercial services.

  * Nazis order Jews over age 15 to apply for identity cards from the police, to be shown on demand to any police officer.

  * Jewish doctors prohibited by law from practicing medicine.

  * Nazis destroy the synagogue in Nuremberg.

  * Nazis require Jewish women to add Sarah and men to add Israel to their names on all legal documents including passports.

  * Jews are prohibited from all legal practices.

  * Law requires Jewish passports to be stamped with a large red "J."

  * Nazi troops occupy the Sudetenland.

  * Nazis arrest 17,000 Jews of Polish nationality living in Germany, then expel them back to Poland which refuses them entry, leaving them in "no-man's land" near the Polish border for several months.

  * Ernst von Rath, third secretary in the German Embassy in Paris, is shot and mortally wounded by Herschel Grynszpan, the 17-year old son of one of the deported Polish Jews. Rath dies on November 9, precipitating Krystallnacht.

  * Kristallnacht - The "night of broken glass."

  * Nazis fine Jews one billion marks for damages related to Kristallnacht.

  * Jewish pupils are expelled from all non-Jewish German schools.

  * Law for compulsory Aryanization of all Jewish businesses.

  * Hermann Göring takes charge of resolving the "Jewish Question."

1939

  * S.S. leader Reinhard Heydrich is ordered by Göring to speed up emigration of Jews.

  * Hitler threatens Jews during Reichstag speech.

  * Nazis force Jews to hand over all gold and silver items.

  * Nazi troops seize Czechoslovakia (Jewish population: 350,000).

  * Slovakia passes its own version of the Nuremberg Laws.

  * Jews lose rights as tenants and are relocated into Jewish houses.

  * The St. Louis, a ship crowded with 930 Jewish refugees, is turned away by Cuba, the United States and other countries and returns to Europe.

  * German Jews denied the right to hold government jobs.

  * Adolf Eichmann is appointed director of the Prague Office of Jewish Emigration.

  * Nazis invade Poland (Jewish population: 3.35 million, the largest in Europe).

  * Beginning of SS activity in Poland.

  * Jews in Germany are forbidden to be outdoors after 8 P.M. in Winter and 9 P.M. in Summer.

  * England and France declare war on Germany.

  * Warsaw is cut off by the German Army.

  * Soviet troops invade eastern Poland.

  * Heydrich issues instructions to SS Einsatzgruppen (special action squads) in Poland regarding treatment of Jews, stating they are to be gathered into ghettos near railroads for the future "final goal." He also orders a census and the establishment of Jewish administrative councils within the ghettos to implement Nazi policies and decrees.

  * German Jews are forbidden to own wireless (radio) sets.

  * Warsaw surrenders; Heydrich becomes leader of RSHA.

  * Nazis and Soviets divide up Poland. Over two million Jews reside in Nazi

  * controlled areas, leaving 1.3 million in the Soviet area.

  * Quote from Nazi newspaper, _Der Stürmer_ , published by Julius Streicher - "The Jewish people ought to be exterminated root and branch. Then the plague of pests would have disappeared in Poland at one stroke."

  * Nazis begin euthanasia on sick and disabled in Germany.

  * Proclamation by Hitler on the isolation of Jews.

  * Evacuation of Jews from Vienna.

  * Hans Frank appointed Nazi Gauleiter (governor) of Poland.

  * Forced labor decree issued for Polish Jews aged 14 to 60.

  * Yellow stars required to be worn by Polish Jews over age 10.

  * Adolf Eichmann takes over section IV B4 of the Gestapo dealing solely with Jewish affairs and evacuations.

1940

  * Nazis choose the town of Oswiecim (Auschwitz) in Poland near Krakow as site of new concentration camp.

  * Quote from Nazi newspaper, Der Stürmer, published by Julius Streicher - "...The time is near when a machine will go into motion which is going to prepare a grave for the world's criminal - Judah - from which there will be no resurrection."

  * First deportation of German Jews into occupied Poland.

  * Nazis invade Denmark (Jewish population: 8,000) and Norway (Jewish population: 2,000).

  * The Lodz Ghetto in occupied Poland is sealed off from the outside world with 230,000 Jews locked inside.

Rudolf Höss is chosen to be kommandant of Auschwitz.

  * Nazis invade France (Jewish pop. 350,000), Belgium (Jewish pop. 65,000), Holland (Jewish pop. 140,000), and Luxembourg (Jewish pop. 3,500).

  * Paris is occupied by the Nazis.

  * France signs an armistice with Hitler.

  * Eichmann's Madagascar Plan presented, proposing to deport all European Jews to the island of Madagascar, off the coast of east Africa.

  * The first anti-Jewish measures are taken in Vichy France.

  * Romania introduces anti-Jewish measures restricting education and employment, then later begins "Romanianization" of Jewish businesses.

  * Tripartite (Axis) Pact signed by Germany, Italy and Japan.

  * Vichy France passes its own version of the Nuremberg Laws.

  * Nazis invade Romania (Jewish population: 34,000).

  * Deportation of 29,000 German Jews from Baden, the Saar, and Alsace-Lorraine into Vichy France.

  * Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia become Nazi Allies.

  * The Krakow Ghetto is sealed off containing 70,000 Jews.

  * The Warsaw Ghetto, containing over 400,000 Jews, is sealed off.

1941

  * Hans Frank, Gauleiter of Poland, states, "I ask nothing of the Jews except that they should disappear."

  * Quote from Nazi newspaper, Der Stürmer, published by Julius Streicher - "Now judgment has begun and it will reach its conclusion only when knowledge of the Jews has been erased from the Earth."

  * A pogrom in Romania results in over 2,000 Jews killed.

  * 430 Jewish hostages are deported from Amsterdam after a Dutch Nazi is killed by Jews.

  * Hitler's Commissar Order authorizes execution of anyone suspected of being a Communist official in territories about to be seized from the Soviets.

  * Himmler makes his first visit to Auschwitz, during which he orders Kommandant Höss to begin massive expansion, including a new compound to be built at nearby Birkenau that can hold 100,000 prisoners.

  * Nazis occupy Bulgaria (Jewish population: 50,000).

  * German Jews ordered into forced labor.

  * The German Army High Command gives approval to RSHA and Heydrich on the tasks of SS murder squads (Einsatzgruppen) in occupied Poland.

  * A "Commissariat" for Jewish Affairs is set up in Vichy France.

  * Nazis invade Yugoslavia (Jewish population: 75,000) and Greece (Jewish population: 77,000).

  * 3,600 Jews arrested in Paris.

  * French Marshal Petain issues a radio broadcast approving collaboration with Hitler.

  * Nazis invade the Soviet Union (Jewish population: 3 million).

  * Romanian troops conduct a pogrom against Jews in the town of Jassy, killing 10,000.

  * Himmler summons Auschwitz Kommandant Höss to Berlin and tells him, "The Führer has ordered the Final Solution of the Jewish question. We, the SS, have to carry out this order...I have therefore chosen Auschwitz for this purpose."

  * As the German Army advances, S.S. Einsatzgruppen follow along and conduct mass murder of Jews in seized lands.

  * Ghettos established at Kovno, Minsk, Vitebsk and Zhitomer. Also in July, the government of Vichy France seizes Jewish owned property.

  * Nazi racial "philosopher" Alfred Rosenberg is appointed Reich Minister for the Eastern Occupied Territories to administer territories seized from the Soviet Union.

  * In occupied Poland near Lublin, Majdanek concentration camp becomes operational.

  * 3,800 Jews killed during a pogrom by Lithuanians in Kovno.

  * Göring instructs Heydrich to prepare for Final Solution.

  * Jews in Romania forced into Transnistria. By December, 70,000 perish.

  * Ghettos established at Bialystok and Lvov.

  * The Hungarian Army rounds up 18,000 Jews at Kamenets-Podolsk.

  * The first test use of Zyklon-B gas at Auschwitz.

  * German Jews ordered to wear yellow stars.

  * The Vilna Ghetto is established containing 40,000 Jews.

  * Beginning of general deportation of German Jews.

  * Nazis take Kiev.

  * 23,000 Jews killed at Kamenets-Podolsk, in the Ukraine.

  * S.S. Einsatzgruppen murder 33,771 Jews at Babi Yar near Kiev.

  * 35,000 Jews from Odessa shot.

  * Beginning of the German Army drive on Moscow.

  * Nazis forbid emigration of Jews from the Reich.

  * S.S. Einsatzgruppe B reports a tally of 45,476 Jews killed.

  * Theresienstadt Ghetto is established near Prague, Czechoslovakia. The Nazis will use it as a model ghetto for propaganda purposes.

  * Near Riga, a mass shooting of Latvian and German Jews.

  * Japanese attack United States at Pearl Harbor. The next day the U.S. and Britain declare war on Japan.

  * In occupied Poland, near Lodz, Chelmno extermination camp becomes operational. Jews taken there are placed in mobile gas vans and driven to a burial place while carbon monoxide from the engine exhaust is fed into the sealed rear compartment, killing them. The first gassing victims include 5,000 Gypsies who had been deported from the Reich to Lodz.

  * Hitler declares war on the United States. Roosevelt then declares war on Germany saying, "Never before has there been a greater challenge to life, liberty and civilization." The U.S.A. then enters the war in Europe and will concentrate nearly 90 percent of its military resources to defeat Hitler.

  * The ship "Struma" leaves Romania for Palestine carrying 769 Jews but is later denied permission by British authorities to allow the passengers to disembark. In February of 1942, it sails back into the Black Sea where it is intercepted by a Soviet submarine and sunk as an "enemy target."

  * During a cabinet meeting, Hans Frank, Gauleiter of Poland, states, "Gentlemen, I must ask you to rid yourselves of all feeling of pity. We must annihilate the Jews wherever we find them and wherever it is possible in order to maintain there the structure of the Reich as a whole..."

1942

  * Mass killings of Jews using Zyklon-B begin at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Bunker I (the red farmhouse) in Birkenau with the bodies being buried in mass graves in a nearby meadow.

  * Wannsee Conference to coordinate the "Final Solution."

  * S.S. Einsatzgruppe A reports a tally of 229,052 Jews killed.

  * In occupied Poland, Belzec extermination camp becomes operational. The camp is fitted with permanent gas chambers using carbon monoxide piped in from engines placed outside the chamber, but will later substitute Zyklon-B.

  * The deportation of Jews from Lublin to Belzec.

  * The start of deportation of Slovak Jews to Auschwitz.

  * The start of deportation of French Jews to Auschwitz.

  * Fritz Sauckel named Chief of Manpower to expedite recruitment of slave labor.

  * First trainloads of Jews from Paris arrive at Auschwitz.

  * First transports of Jews arrive at Majdanek.

  * German Jews are banned from using public transportation.

  * In occupied Poland, Sobibor extermination camp becomes operational. The camp is fitted with three gas chambers using carbon monoxide piped in from engines, but will later substitute Zyklon-B.

  * The New York Times reports on an inside page that Nazis have machine-gunned over 100,000 Jews in the Baltic states, 100,000 in Poland and twice as many in western Russia.

  * S.S. leader Heydrich is mortally wounded by Czech underground agents.

  * Gas vans used in Riga.

  * Jews in France, Holland, Belgium, Croatia, Slovakia, Romania ordered to wear yellow stars.

  * Heydrich dies of his wounds.

  * S.S. report 97,000 persons have been "processed" in mobile gas vans.

  * Nazis liquidate Lidice in retaliation for Heydrich's death.

  * Eichmann meets with representatives from France, Belgium and Holland to coordinate deportation plans for Jews.

  * At Auschwitz, a second gas chamber, Bunker II (the white farmhouse), is made

operational at Birkenau due to the number of Jews arriving.

  * The New York Times reports via the London Daily Telegraph that over one million Jews have already been killed by Nazis.

  * Swiss representatives of the World Jewish Congress receive information from a German industrialist regarding the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews. They then pass the information on to London and Washington.

  * Jews from Berlin sent to Theresienstadt.

  * Himmler grants permission for sterilization experiments at Auschwitz.

  * Beginning of deportation of Dutch Jews to Auschwitz.

  * 12,887 Jews of Paris are rounded up and sent to Drancy Internment Camp located outside the city. A total of approximately 74,000 Jews, including 11,000 children, will eventually be transported from Drancy to Auschwitz, Majdanek and Sobibor.

  * Himmler visits Auschwitz-Birkenau for two days, inspecting all ongoing construction and expansion, then observes the extermination process from start to finish as two trainloads of Jews arrive from Holland. Kommandant Höss is then promoted. Construction includes four large gas chamber/crematories.

  * Himmler orders Operation Reinhard, mass deportations of Jews in Poland to extermination camps.

  * Beginning of deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto to the new extermination camp, Treblinka. Also, beginning of the deportation of Belgian Jews to Auschwitz.

  * Treblinka extermination camp opened in occupied Poland, east of Warsaw. The camp is fitted with two buildings containing 10 gas chambers, each holding 200 persons. Carbon monoxide gas is piped in from engines placed outside the chamber, but Zyklon-B will later be substituted. Bodies are burned in open pits.

  * The start of deportations of Croatian Jews to Auschwitz.

  * Beginning of German Army attack on Stalingrad.

  * 7,000 Jews arrested in unoccupied France.

  * Open pit burning of bodies begins at Auschwitz in place of burial. The decision is made to dig up and burn those already buried, 107,000 corpses, to prevent fouling of ground water.

  * Reduction of food rations for Jews in Germany.

  * SS begins cashing in possessions and valuables of Jews from Auschwitz and Majdanek. German banknotes are sent to the Reichs Bank. Foreign currency, gold, jewels and other valuables are sent to SS Headquarters of the Economic Administration. Watches, clocks and pens are distributed to troops at the front. Clothing is distributed to German families. By February, 1943, over 800 boxcars of confiscated goods will have left Auschwitz.

  * Himmler orders all Jews in concentration camps in Germany to be sent to Auschwitz and Majdanek.

  * A German eyewitness observes SS mass murder.

  * Mass killing of Jews from Mizocz Ghetto in the Ukraine.

  * SS put down a revolt at Sachsenhausen by a group of Jews about to be sent to Auschwitz.

  * Deportations of Jews from Norway to Auschwitz begin.

  * The first transport from Theresienstadt arrives at Auschwitz.

  * The mass killing of 170,000 Jews in the area of Bialystok.

  * The first transport of Jews from Germany arrives at Auschwitz.

  * Exterminations at Belzec cease after an estimated 600,000 Jews have been murdered. The camp is then dismantled, plowed over and planted.

  * British Foreign Secretary Eden tells the British House of Commons the Nazis are "now carrying into effect Hitler's oft-repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people of Europe." U.S. declares those crimes will be avenged.

  * Sterilization experiments on women at Birkenau begin.

1943

  * The number of Jews killed by S.S. Einsatzgruppen passes one million. Nazis then use special units of slave laborers to dig up and burn the bodies to remove all traces.

  * First resistance by Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.

  * Nazis order all Gypsies arrested and sent to extermination camps.

  * Ernst Kaltenbrunner succeeds Heydrich as head of RSHA.

  * The Romanian government proposes to the Allies the transfer of 70,000 Jews to Palestine, but receives no response from Britain or the U.S.

  * Greek Jews are ordered into ghettos.

  * Germans surrender at Stalingrad in the first big defeat of Hitler's armies.

  * Jews working in Berlin armaments industry are sent to Auschwitz.

  * The start of deportations of Jews from Greece to Auschwitz, lasting until August, totaling 49,900 persons.

  * In New York, American Jews hold a mass rally at Madison Square Garden to pressure the U.S. government into helping the Jews of Europe

  * The Krakow Ghetto is liquidated.

  * Bulgaria states opposition to deportation of its Jews.

  * Newly built gas chamber/crematory IV opens at Auschwitz.

  * Newly built gas chamber/crematory II opens at Auschwitz.

  * Newly built gas chamber/crematory V opens at Auschwitz.

  * Exterminations at Chelmno cease. The camp will be reactivated in the spring of 1944 to liquidate ghettos. In all, Chelmno will total 300,000 deaths.

  * The Bermuda Conference occurs as representatives from the U.S. and Britain discuss the problem of refugees from Nazi-occupied countries, but results in inaction concerning the plight of the Jews.

  * Waffen S.S. attacks Jewish Resistance in Warsaw Ghetto.

  * S.S. Dr. Josef Mengele arrives at Auschwitz.

  * German and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allies.

  * Nazis declare Berlin to be Judenfrei (cleansed of Jews).

  * Himmler orders liquidation of all Jewish ghettos in occupied Poland. Newly built gas chamber/crematory III opens at Auschwitz. With its completion, the four new crematories at Auschwitz have a daily capacity of 4,756 bodies.

  * Allies land in Sicily.

  * Two hundred Jews escape from Treblinka extermination camp during a revolt. Nazis then hunt them down one by one.

  * The Bialystok Ghetto is liquidated.

  * Exterminations cease at Treblinka, after an estimated 870,000 deaths.

  * The Vilna and Minsk Ghettos are liquidated.

  * The Danish Underground helps transport 7,220 Danish Jews to safety in Sweden by sea.

  * Himmler talks openly about the Final Solution at Posen.

  * Massive escape from Sobibor as Jews and Soviet POWs break out, with 300 making it safely into nearby woods. Of those 300, fifty will survive. Exterminations then cease at Sobibor, after over 250,000 deaths. All traces of the death camp are then removed and trees are planted.

  * Jews in Rome rounded up, with over 1,000 sent to Auschwitz.

  * The Riga Ghetto is liquidated.

  * The U.S. Congress holds hearings regarding the U.S. State Department's inaction regarding European Jews, despite mounting reports of mass extermination.

  * Nazis carry out Operation Harvest Festival in occupied Poland, killing 42,000 Jews.

  * Quote from Nazi newspaper, Der Stürmer, published by Julius Streicher - "It is actually true that the Jews have, so to speak, disappeared from Europe and that the Jewish 'Reservoir of the East' from which the Jewish pestilence has for centuries beset the peoples of Europe has ceased to exist. But the Führer of the German people at the beginning of the war prophesied what has now come to pass."

  * Auschwitz Kommandant Höss is promoted to chief inspector of concentration camps. The new kommandant, Liebehenschel, then divides up the vast Auschwitz complex of over 30 sub-camps into three main sections.

  * The first transport of Jews from Vienna arrives at Auschwitz.

  * The chief surgeon at Auschwitz reports that 106 castration operations have been performed.

1944

  * Soviet troops reach former Polish border.

  * In response to political pressure to help Jews under Nazi control, Roosevelt creates the War Refugee Board.

  * Diary entry by Hans Frank, Gauleiter of Poland, concerning the fate of 2.5 million Jews originally under his jurisdiction - "At the present time we still have in the general government perhaps 100,000 Jews."

  * Eichmann visits Auschwitz.

  * Nazis occupy Hungary (Jewish population: 725,000). Eichmann arrives with Gestapo "Special Section Commandos."

  * President Roosevelt issues a statement condemning German and Japanese ongoing "crimes against humanity."

  * A Jewish inmate, Siegfried Lederer, escapes from Auschwitz-Birkenau and makes it safely to Czechoslovakia. He then warns the Elders of the Council at Theresienstadt about Auschwitz.

  * Nazis raid a French home for Jewish children.

  * Two Jewish inmates escape from Auschwitz-Birkenau and make it safely to Czechoslovakia. One of them, Rudolf Vrba, submits a report to the Papal Nuncio in Slovakia which is forwarded to the Vatican, received there in mid June.

  * First transports of Jews from Athens to Auschwitz, totaling 5,200 persons.

  * Himmler's agents secretly propose to the Western Allies to trade Jews for trucks, other commodities or money.

  * Rudolf Höss returns to Auschwitz, ordered by Himmler to oversee the extermination of Hungarian Jews.

  * Beginning of deportation of Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz.

  * Jews from Hungary arrive at Auschwitz. Eichmann arrives to personally oversee and speed up the extermination process. By May 24, an estimated 100,000 have been gassed. Between May 16 and May 31, the SS report collecting 88 pounds of gold and white metal from the teeth of those gassed. By the end of June, 381,661 persons - half of the Jews in Hungary - arrive at Auschwitz.

  * A Red Cross delegation visits Theresienstadt after the Nazis have carefully prepared the camp and the Jewish inmates, resulting in a favorable report.

  * D-Day: Allied landings in Normandy.

  * Rosenberg orders Hay Action; the kidnapping of 40,000 Polish children aged 10 to 14 for slave labor in the Reich.

  * Auschwitz-Birkenau records its highest-ever daily number of persons gassed and burned at just over 9,000. Six huge pits are used to burn bodies, as the number exceeds the capacity of the crematories.

  * Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg arrives in Budapest, Hungary, and proceeds to save nearly 33,000 Jews by issuing diplomatic papers and establishing "safe houses."

  * Soviet troops liberate first concentration camp at Majdanek where over 360,000 had been murdered.

  * Anne Frank and family arrested by Gestapo in Amsterdam, then sent to Auschwitz. Anne and her sister Margot are later sent to Bergen-Belsen where Anne dies of typhus on March 15, 1945.

  * The last Jewish ghetto in Poland, Lodz, is liquidated with 60,000 Jews sent to Auschwitz.

  * A revolt by Sonderkommando (Jewish slave laborers) at Auschwitz-Birkenau results in complete destruction of Crematory IV.

  * Nazis seize control of the Hungarian puppet government, then resume deporting Jews, which had temporarily ceased due to international political pressure to stop Jewish persecutions.

  * Eichmann arrives in Hungary.

  * The last transport of Jews to be gassed, 2,000 from Theresienstadt, arrives at Auschwitz.

  * Last use of gas chambers at Auschwitz.

  * Nazis force 25,000 Jews to walk over 100 miles in rain and snow from Budapest to the Austrian border, followed by a second forced march of 50,000 persons, ending at Mauthausen.

  * Himmler orders the destruction of the crematories at Auschwitz.

  * Oskar Schindler saves 1,200 Jews by moving them from Plaszow labor camp to his hometown of Brunnlitz.

1945

  * As the Allies advance, the Nazis conduct death marches of concentration camp inmates away from outlying areas.

  * Soviets liberate Budapest, freeing over 80,000 Jews.

  * Invasion of eastern Germany by Soviet troops.

  * Liberation of Warsaw by the Soviets.

  * Nazis evacuate 66,000 from Auschwitz.

  * Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz. By this time, an estimated 2 million persons, including 1,500,000 Jews, have been murdered there.

  * Ohrdruf camp is liberated, later visited by General Eisenhower.

  * Allies liberate Buchenwald.

  * Approximately 40,000 prisoners freed at Bergen-Belsen by the British, who report

"both inside and outside the huts was a carpet of dead bodies, human excreta, rags

and filth."

  * Berlin reached by Soviet troops.

  * U.S. 7th Army liberates Dachau.

  * Hitler commits suicide in his Berlin bunker.

  * Americans free 33,000 inmates from concentration camps.

  * Theresienstadt taken over by the Red Cross.

  * Mauthausen liberated.

  * Unconditional German surrender signed by General Jodl at Reims.

  * Hermann Göring captured by members of U.S. 7th Army.

  * S.S. Reichsführer Himmler commits suicide.

  * Opening of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal.

1946

  * Former Auschwitz Kommandant Höss, posing as a farm worker, is arrested by the British. He testifies at Nuremberg, then is later tried in Warsaw, found guilty and hanged at Auschwitz, April 16, 1947, near Crematory I. "History will mark me as the greatest mass murderer of all time," Höss writes while in prison, along with his memoirs about Auschwitz.

  * Göring commits suicide two hours before the scheduled execution of the first group of major Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. During his imprisonment, a (now repentant) Hans Frank states, "A thousand years will pass and the guilt of Germany will not be erased." Frank and the others are hanged and the bodies are brought to Dachau and burned (the final use of the crematories there) with the ashes then scattered into a river.

  * 23 former SS doctors and scientists go on trial before a U.S. Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. 16 are found guilty, with seven being hanged.

1947

  * 21 former S.S. Einsatz leaders go on trial before a U.S. Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. 14 are sentenced to death, with only four (the group commanders) actually being executed. The other death sentences are commuted.

1960

  * Adolf Eichmann is captured in Argentina by Israeli secret service.

1961

  * Eichmann on trial in Jerusalem for crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Found guilty and hanged at Ramleh on May 31, 1962. A fellow Nazi reported Eichmann once said "he would leap laughing into the grave because the feeling that he had five million people on his conscience would be for him a source of extraordinary satisfaction."

The eagle against the Sun

After attacking Pearl Harbor the Japanese went on a successful campaign in the Pacific. By the spring of 1942 the Japanese controlled an empire of some 5,000 miles, 450 million people, and a self-supporting economy.

Their goal had been to weaken the U.S. and force them to agree to a peace treaty favorable to their national interests, which was essentially economic. Intelligence is a tricky business. Intelligence, as in information, and not just military or economic information, is essential to success. Admiral Yamamoto remarked out loud in the wake of the successful Pearl Harbor attack, that "I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant."

It seems obvious in light of 60-plus years of hindsight that his fears were well founded. The Japanese seem to have gone into this adventure wearing blinders. They saw that the U.S. had retreated into isolationism, and the polls told the world that a large majority favored staying out of the war. They saw that our people were suffering from a Great Depression that, in their minds, threatened our entire political system, leaving us vulnerable to the pernicious evils of Communism, socialism and big labor unions. They saw that we had elected a President who thought nothing of lying to the American public, He had left the once-mighty American military a mere shell of its old self. Morale was at an all-time low. They thought our wealthy classes were soft and unwilling to sacrifice. A typical example was Joe Kennedy and his family. Ambassador Kennedy advocated isolationism, trying to protect his spoiled children and family wealth from war.

There is a story, which may be apocryphal but is nevertheless telling, about a man who was born in Japan but moved to San Francisco as a child. In San Francisco, he found love and friendship, but also found prejudice and discrimination. His experience made him very aware of the full gamut of the American experience. As a high schooler, he returned to Japan, where his education made him a recruit of the Japanese intelligence community. He was trained and sent back to San Francisco as a spy in the late 1930s. The first thing he saw was the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, which is a double-deck span crossing seven miles of bay with a manmade island-turned-naval-base in the middle of the water.

This man sent a message back to his handlers that their judgment of the American people was not correct.

"If they can build such a structure" (in the middle of a Depression), he told them, "they can do anything."

This warning went unheeded. The Japanese failed to get a reading of American history, from our successful revolution against the greatest military in the world, to our trial by fire during the Civil War, to our unbelievable accomplishments during the industrial age. We dredged harbors, built bridges, skyscrapers, and the Panama Canal. They simply failed to understand that our hearts are strong, our will and determination greater than any people in history. They saw our liberalism, our freedoms, our comfortable way of life, and instead of calculating that we would fight for these freedoms with a greater intensity than any people, they thought these were our weaknesses. Has any calculation ever been more wrong, with more devastating results?

It is not just the attack at Pearl in which their calculations were wrong, but in their immediate war aims. The idea was that Roosevelt would acquiesce. We would not fight a two-front war and would give in to the Japanese in order to concentrate on Europe. Instead, we fought. We fought and fought and fought. Oh, man, did we fight!  
Having achieved their immediate objectives, the Japanese wanted maximum security and thought the U.S. would give in to them diplomatically. The U.S. responded by sending bombers to Tokyo to drop fire on the Japanese. Jimmy Doolittle's Raiders not only raised America morale, but also showed the Japanese that this country meant business. All of Japan's calculations had to be revised with the knowledge that now they were in for a fight to the bitter end.

Their predicament was similar to the one that Germany dealt with after the French fell. They had to expand while they were strong, seizing control of the eastern Pacific to deprive the U.S. of Naval bases, severing routes to vulnerable Australia and New Zealand. In May, 1942 a Japanese fleet including four large, modern aircraft carriers set sail for Midway Island. The task force was to lure what was left of the U.S. Pacific Fleet into combat, destroy it, and occupy the Aleutians and Midway.

The Americans had a much smaller fleet. They had broken the Japanese naval codes. In the first week of June the two fleets clashed near Midway in one of the decisive naval battles in history. American pilots sunk all four of the Japanese carriers. The U.S. lost one carrier, but had four remaining and 13 under construction. Japan's naval construction never matched the U.S. Japan commissioned 14 carriers, but the U.S. commissioned 104. At Midway Japan lost in the air and on the water. Their advantage in the Pacific was lost.

In August, 1942 American Marines attacked Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Only 15 percent of Allied resources were going to fight in the Pacific in early 1943. The Americans and the Australians began "island hopping" toward Japan, putting Japan on the defensive. A dispute between Army General Douglas MacArthur and Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz hampered the two-pronged attack aimed at the Japanese islands. The Army went to the south and the Navy went to the north. The southern islands could have been bypassed, but MacArthur had pledged that "I shall return" to the Philippines. The two axes of advance did make it difficult for the Japanese to block either one. The Americans succeeded in opening an enormous gap for the other axes to push through.

The Japanese found themselves sacrificing terribly. American firebomb raids brutalized the under-nourished and disease-prone urban population. An incendiary raid on Tokyo on March 10, 1945 killed over 100,000 people. American bombers virtually destroyed entire cities.

U.S. troops seized Iwo Jima and Okinawa, setting up a land invasion of Japan. The Allied command, on the basis of the experience gained in reducing Japanese-held islands where the Japanese fought to the death, estimated that an invasion and occupation of Japan would cost a million casualties.

In 1944 Japanese kamikazes began to fly suicide missions. By the end of the Okinawa campaign there had been 2,550 missions, of which 475 had secured hits or damaging near misses. The Japanese held back over 5,000 planes to meet the forthcoming invasion of the home islands.

By the Spring of 1945 they were desperate to end the war without being occupied. They put out peace feelers sent through the Soviet Union (then still at peace with Japan). Stalin never even forwarded them to Washington. At the Tehran and Yalta conferences between the "big three" powers, Stalin had promised that he would come into the war against Japan three months after the defeat of Germany. At Yalta, Stalin obtained from Roosevelt and Churchill Soviet possession of the Kuriles and southern Sakhalin, a naval base at Port Arthur in Manchuria, joint ownership and management with China of the Manchurian railways, and recognition of Outer Mongolia as a Soviet-controlled area. China also claimed the area. FDR promised to obtain Chiang Kai-shek's acceptance of these terms, but neglected to tell China.

Yalta gave the Soviets nothing they would not have taken anyhow, except possibly the Kuriles. Yalta ensured that the Soviets came into the Pacific theatre at a time most advantageous to the Americans.

President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, at Warm Springs, Georgia from a stroke, six months after his election to a fourth term. Vice-President Harry S. Truman became president of the U.S. FDR failed to keep Truman informed of his diplomacy and the development of the atomic bomb. The U.S. government began the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb in June, 1942 after refugee scientists told them that Germany was working to develop an atomic bomb. In July, 1945 the first atomic bomb was detonated in New Mexico. On August 6, 1945 the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. 87,500 people were killed in less than five minutes by a single aircraft carrying a single bomb. On August 9, another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Another 39,000 humans died. Between these two atomic raids the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, occupying Manchuria and Korea. The Emperor offered Japanese surrender. On August 15 he broadcast an imperial decree asking the Japanese to surrender peacefully. Relief and anguish conflicted when the U.S. came to occupy Japan. Never in their history had Japan had enemy soldiers in their borders.

The atomic bomb was militarily cost-effective and efficient. The lessons of Hamburg and Dresden taught us that mass killings, done cheaply and reliably, brought the enemy to surrender faster, saving more lives of the enemy and the Americans in the long run, by far. The Manhattan Project cost $2 billion, a fraction of the cost of trying to destroy cities using conventional bombs. The moral question must be addressed in light of the times. Japan has tried to historically revise themselves as the victims. Liberals, America-haters and foreigners who are not happy that the U.S. is powerful have tried to advocate this notion, too.

Many people still recalled the first Zeppelin raid of World War I. The week before the atomic bombings more than 100,000 Japanese had been killed in conventional air raids. It was predicted that America would suffer half a million casualties in an invasion of Japan. Atomic weapons were seen as a way to end the war quickly and save lives. It also had the side benefit of demonstrating to the Soviet Union that we were willing to use them.

History is written by the winners

60 million died in World War II. Europe, China, Japan and the Soviet Union were devastated. Europe's wealth and influence was virtually transferred to the United States.

World War II cost $560 billion and the national debt rose from $48 billion in 1941 to $247 billion in 1945. The cost of World War I was $66 billion. The cost of the Vietnam War was $121.5 billion. World War II ended the Great Depression and was an economic blessing to the U.S. Jobs became available. Wages rose 50 percent during the war and prices rose moderately.

The size of the Federal government grew from 1.1 million civilian employees in 1940 to 3.3 million in 1945. Americans built 96,000 airplanes in 1944. Henry J. Kaiser perfected an assembly line for producing simple freighters in the so-called "liberty ships." Kaiser shipyards built 10 million tons of ships during the war. Women held jobs previously held by men, beginning the trend of women moving into the labor market.

The armed forces and American society remained largely segregated, but labor opportunities for blacks changed the paradigm of society. By 1950, one-third of America's black population lived outside the South, creating racial tensions over housing and public facilities in cities. In 1943, violent racial riots occurred in Detroit, a center of war production. 500,000 newcomers, including 60,000 blacks, had moved in since 1940. In June of 1943, a fight between teenage whites and blacks ignited fighting and looting. 25 blacks and nine whites were killed, hundreds wounded, and millions of dollars of property lost.

Roosevelt's civil liberties record was good, but he was forced for national security reasons to detain and force the removal of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast to internment camps in the interior. German- and Italian-Americans also were interned, but in lesser numbers. They accepted it and have chosen over the years to move on rather than classify themselves as victims. The racial aspect of the Japanese made their situation a political issue. J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, emphasized in the strongest possible terms to FDR that internment camps were un-Constitutional and it should not be carried out. He was ignored.

112,000 people of Japanese decent were imprisoned. 71,000 of them were American citizens. In many cases, they lost their property (in all, $350 million worth). This is the most egregious aspect of the internment era. In Korematsu vs. United States (1944) the Supreme Court upheld the evacuation on the grounds that military leaders are justified in taking extreme measures against persons on account of race to protect national security. The situation was not serious enough to justify imposition of martial law. Not one act of treason was ever proven during the war against a person of Japanese ancestry living in America. 17,000 Hawaiian Nisei (American-born Japanese) and several thousand more from the mainland fought against the Germans in Europe with great distinction. In 1988 Congress formally apologized to the internees and paid each survivor $20,000.

With the war won and Roosevelt dead, his legacy seemed to be well protected. But J. Edgar Hoover had told his friends in early 1942 that FDR had known about the Pearl Harbor plan since the early Fall. Walter Lippmann wrote, "his purposes are not simple and his methods are not direct." Churchill wrote in his Nobel Prize-winning series on World War II that FDR knew about the Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor. On pages 602-603 of "The Grand Alliance" Churchill makes these points about his good friend and colleague FDR. He "accuses" him of de facto treason while knowing that the facts would eventually come out.

Cabinet Minister Sir Oliver Lyttelton had expressed on June 20, 1944, to the American Chamber of Commerce that, "Japan was provoked into attacking the Americans at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty on history ever to say that America was forced into the war. Everyone knows where American sympathies were. It is incorrect to say that America was ever truly neutral even before America came into the war on a fighting basis."

Churchill's memoirs recorded the following:

"A prodigious Congressional Inquiry published its findings in 1946 in which every detail was exposed of the events leading up to the war between the United States and Japan and of the failure to send positive `alert' orders through the military departments to their fleets and garrisons in exposed situations. Every detail, including the decoding of secret Japanese telegrams and their actual texts, has been exposed to the world in 40 volumes. The strength of the United States was sufficient to enable them to sustain this hard ordeal required by the spirit of the American Constitution.

"I do not intend in these pages to attempt to pronounce judgment upon this tremendous episode in American history. We know that all the great Americans round the President and in his confidence felt, as acutely as I did, the awful danger that Japan would attack British or Dutch possessions in the Far East, and it would carefully avoid the United States, and that in consequence Congress would not sanction an American declaration of war...The President and his trusted friends had long realized the grave risks of United States neutrality in the war against Hitler and what he stood for, and had writhed under the restraints of a Congress whose House of Representatives had a few months before passed by only a single vote the necessary renewal of compulsory military service, without which their Army would have been almost disbanded in the midst of the world convulsion. Roosevelt, Hull, Stimson, Knox, General Marshall, Admiral Stark, and, as a link between them all, Harry Hopkins, had but one mind...

"A Japanese attack upon the United States was a vast simplification of their problems and their duty. How can we wonder that they regarded the actual form of the attack, or even its scale, as incomparably less important than the fact that the whole American nation would be united for its own safety in a righteous cause as never before? To them, as to me, it seemed that for Japan to attack and make war upon the United States would be an act of suicide. Moreover, they knew, earlier than we in Britain could know, the full and immediate purpose of their enemy. We remember how Cromwell exclaimed when he watched the Scottish Army descending from the heights over Dunbar, `The Lord hath delivered them into our hands.'

"Nor must we allow the account in detail of diplomatic interchanges to portray Japan as an injured innocent seeking only a reasonable measure of expansion or booty from the European war, and now confronted by the United States with propositions which her people, fanatically aroused and fully prepared, could not be expected to accept. For long years Japan had been torturing China by her wicked invasions and subjugations. Now by her seizure of Indochina she had in fact, as well as formally by the Tripartite Pact, thrown her lot with the Axis Powers. Let her do what she dared and take the consequences.

"It had seemed impossible that Japan would court destruction by war with Britain and United States, and probably Russia in the end. A declaration of war by Japan could not be reconciled with reason. I felt sure she would be ruined for a generation by such a plunge, and this proved true. But governments and people do not always take rational decisions. Sometimes they take mad decisions, or one set of people get control who compel all others to obey and aid them in folly..."

"The Battleship Maine was sunk in Havana Harbor in 1898, and Washington used it as an excuse to declare war on Spain," wrote Vince Copeland, a known American Communist. "But Spain needed the sinking of the Maine like it needed the proverbial hole in the head. And U.S. big business needed a war with Spain.

"This is not to say that the December 7, 1941, attack was in itself a hoax or that the Japanese did not really kill over 3,000 U.S. sailors by sending them to the bottom of Pearl Harbor. They did. But some thoughtful people later considered it strange that the Japanese imperialists should have done something so 'stupid' as to bring the U.S. into the war against them just when they had their hands full in China and had taken over Indochina from the French imperialists.

"...Why on Earth would the Japanese want the powerful U.S. to make war on them at just such a time, when they needed U.S. neutrality more than anything else?" he asked.

"The fact is that the Japan-U.S. war was inevitable, given the U.S.-Japanese antagonisms over markets, possessions and economic colonies in Asia. But the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was not at all inevitable. It was not the inevitable beginning of the war.

"On the contrary, this attack was deliberately maneuvered by the politicians of big business, led at that time by Franklin D. Roosevelt."

The war with Japan was very much over oil, and in this regard must be considered a battle for what has emerged as the great prize of the 20th Century. Japan brutally ruled in Asia. Britain ruled India and Hong Kong. France dominated Southeast Asia.

The United States had taken possession of the Philippines, Guam and other Pacific islands during the Spanish-American War. From 1900 onward, Washington suppressed uprisings by the Filipinos. Hawaii itself had become an American protectorate by virtue of gunboat diplomacy.

The war between Japan and the United States "started" after World War I ended. At that time Washington became the senior partner in the U.S.-British-Japanese alliance that dominated China. In the book "A Political History of Japanese Capitalism," Jon Halliday wrote about the agreement signed at a 1921 Washington conference on China:

"The imperialist powers who gathered at Washington all agreed on one thing: That they should continue to plunder China and exploit the Chinese people. In [Japanese Premier] Saito's words, the arrangement 'which emerged from the Washington Conference could be said to be based on a new form of suppressing China.'"

Japan's "junior partner" status did not sit well with them. They had adopted an "expand or die" doctrine, leading them into open conflict with U.S.-British domination of the region and of China in particular.

"Although most of Southeast Asia was in the hands of European powers, Japan's key negotiations were with the United States," wrote Halliday. "This was not primarily because of America's colonial possession in Asia, the Philippines, but because of America's key role in Japan's trade, particularly in strategic raw materials.

"The United States began seriously to squeeze Japan in July 1940 when it introduced a licensing system for certain U.S. exports to that country. The two crucial items, crude oil and scrap iron, were added to the list after Japan occupied Northern Indochina in September 1940. A full embargo followed on July 26, 1941.

"The American embargo, particularly on oil, severely limited Japan's ability to maneuver," Halliday explained. "Much of Japanese diplomacy prior to December 1941 was taken up with trying to secure supplies of oil. ...Prior to Pearl Harbor, Japan had only about 18 months' supply.

"In November, 1941, when the talks with Washington were already well advanced, Japan proposed universal non-discrimination in commercial relations in the Pacific area, including China, if this principle were adopted throughout the world. To the United States ... this was 'unthinkable.'

"Japan was, on the whole, eager to reach a settlement and offered considerable concessions to this end."

Halliday concluded that, "America could certainly have reached a temporary settlement within the framework of an imperialist carve-up which gave Japan slightly more than it had been granted in Washington in 1921-22. It was America which turned down the Japanese proposal for a summit meeting between Premier Konoe and Roosevelt in the Autumn of 1941. And it was Secretary of State Cordell Hull's outright rejection of Japan's proposals of November 7, 1941, which brought negotiations to a halt."

Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire once wrote, "history is the lies that we all agree on." There is some truth, albeit cynical, to this statement. Of course, history is a friendlier subject to some countrymen than others. Frenchmen are not big fans of history. They feel the need to denigrate it. Accurate descriptions of historical fact therefore describe negative things about the French. The skeptics say that history is written by power elites or the "hacks" who keep them in power. This is partly correct. History is written by the winners. By that way of thinking, since I am writing history, I therefore am a winner. Fair enough. I am also a true blue American patriot who readily admits that he is proud to wave the flag for God, country and motherhood. I say that if loving America makes me a hack, then I am a hack. But I am not a stupid hack. By this point the reader should realize that I have made no attempt to hide America's faults.

The United States is an aggressive nation that has butted heads with other nations and cultures. We are smart, good fighters. We are organized. Therefore, when these head-butting episodes result in conflict, we emerge from these conflicts triumphant. Many do not like this fact, which of course does not change the fact that it is true. This country engaged in a war with Mexico. The result of that war was that territory that Mexico claimed to belong to them now belongs to us. We also conquered and occupied Mexico City, but gave it back. Our settlers advanced Westward. Indians stood in our way. We continued to advance until Indians no longer stood in our way. We expanded our economic interests before, during and after the Teddy Roosevelt Administration. In the process, we used our military to secure those interests when threatened. We did engage in gunboat diplomacy. FDR probably did "bait" the Japanese into attacking us, although he probably did not think the attack would be so devastating. If so, he did it, as he did many things, secretly and beyond Democratic processes. We made an agreement with Saudi Arabia that has kept oil flowing at cheap prices for many years. We dropped an atomic bomb on Japan. In the 1950s and '60s our CIA orchestrated elections, coup d'etats and public opinion in Third World countries. We engaged in an aggressive, violent war against a small, agrarian country (that was controlled by two giant Communist monoliths). We went to war against an Arab country in a region that was important to us for its oil reserves (the Leftists said to "colonize," but we do not). We went to war against the same Arab country again (the Leftists said to "colonize," but we do not). We declared war against a terror entity that, let us face the facts, is the product of the Muslim religion.

This country has done deals with the devil. We allied ourselves with Stalin, propped up Saddam, overthrew Allende and favored Pinochet. We let slavery rear its ugly head. We have favored big business and manipulated markets. We have made mistakes by the dozen. A few of them, a very few I think, were outright mistakes, obvious to those who made them when they made them. Most of them were done with good intentions. Some went terribly wrong. Others saved the world or a large portion of it. This is our legacy. It is not clean and perfect. You are reading the words of one patriot who knows this is our history and makes no effort to hide it. Instead I am willing to put them on the front porch and let the neighbors look at 'em. But to all the Communists, the liberals, the Leftists and blame-America-firsters who take our dirty laundry, air it out and say, "See, America is a lie," I say that we live in a dangerous world of lies. We live in a world in which it is has fallen upon us to do battle with Satan. In doing this we have not come out unscathed. We are bloodied but unbowed. To those who do not believe there is a Satan, a devil, an evil, then I say believe what you believe at your own peril.

Jim Marrs would appear to be one of those who blames America first. In "Rule by Secrecy" he says, "Secret societies not only exist, they have played an important role in national and international events right up to this day."

Marrs details modern public policy and political action groups of the "power elite" - the Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderbergers, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the Round Table Group, and the Order of Skull and Bones.

He says current world affairs are manipulated by the financial dynasties - the Rockefellers, Morgans, and Rothschilds, and their "private centralized banking cartel," the Federal Reserve Board.

"The concept of conspiracy has long been anathema to most Americans who have been conditioned by the mass media to believe that conspiracies against the public only exist in banana republics or Communist nations," writes Marrs.

"This simplistic view, encouraged by a media devoted to maintaining a squeaky clean image of the status quo, fails to take into account human history or the subtleties of the word conspiracy."

Marrs probes, as I do, the history of the 20th Century: Vietnam, Korea, World War I and World War II. He determines that Wall Street and London financiers were behind the Nazis, the Russian Revolution and the rise of Communism as well. While this is not my specialty, my response is that he is probably right. If so, I refer to the recollection of Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, of Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) in "The Godfather".

"Keep your friends close," Michael says the old man told him, "and your enemies closer."

Let me further state that I am damned glad those were London and Wall Street bankers instead of Russian, Chinese, Japanese or German financiers. If they were from those countries, then it would have meant that their political systems were elevated by history above all others. If so, the Holocaust would not just have been six million Jews, it might have been a couple billion men, women and children, from Chicago, Montreal, London, Sydney, and points due east, west, north and south. Capitalism, to paraphrase Churchill, is the worst economic system on the face of the Earth, with the exception of all other economic systems on the face of the Earth. The snipers and nitpickers hue and cry about the captains of industry with their "grubby" fingers inter-mingled with Russian militarists, Japanese warlords, Chinese political figures, Muslim fundamentalists, Arab dictators, and German industrialists. They are desperate in their awful, at-any-cost attempts to blame the "rich" for everything and say, "See, capitalism is immoral."

Wrong. It is the engine of freedom. In offering its inducements to the truly immoral, we give them a chance to redeem themselves through different means. It is working so far in China, where that government has decided it is better to do business with us than carry on a revolution against us. It worked with tinpot Latin American dictators of banana republics who were corrupt and stole from the people. Their association with capitalism did more good by accident than they ever would have done had they accepted Communism hook, line and sinker. Capitalism and Democracy are better systems on their worst day than all other systems on their best.

So, we have gotten our hands dirty trying to "do business" with thugs, dictators and those doing the work of Satan. We have done so trying to lead them, by whatever means available, into the community of nations. Most of the time it has worked out best for all involved. A few times it has not. Money was made by military industrialists, good ol' boys, corporate contributors, and all those despised by the Left. The Left complains about it, but offers no alternative.

Jim Marrs is one of those men who want to find a conspiracy of rich capitalists behind every rock. When he does not he just calls it globalization. It is not that these theories have no basis in fact. The movers and shakers of the world do organize and make agreements. They have done so, as Marrs points out, moving back through the War Between the States, in secret societies, through agitation, the Anti-Masonic Movement, the French Revolution, Jacobins and Jacobites, and the American Revolution.

Marrs points out that ancient secret societies like the Knights Templars, Rosicrucians, Assassins, Priory of Sion, and the Merovingians dominate world history. In supposedly connecting the dots all the way to America's secret negotiations with German companies, or Roosevelt manipulating America's entrance into World War II, a central idea is missed in favor of "gotcha." The central idea is that evil cloaks itself in many coats. In doing the work of God we sometimes find ourselves dancing with the devil. Let the Danes and the Swedes exist in splendid isolation, choosing not to deal with the devil, but choosing also not to take on the heavy lifting. They may have done good work protecting their Jews from Hitler, but it was our guys who kicked down the doors at the camps. In the mean time, countries like Sweden and Denmark are so busy congratulating themselves on their socialized medicine and so-called progressive social views that the devil may slip into their midst and take up residence long before they ever suspect his presence. He works that way.

Marrs concludes that the Tri-Lateral Commission, the CFR, and the Bilderbergers are out of control and unaccountable, "Which leads to the single most important question: If they do create a centralized one-world government, what is to prevent some Hitler-like tyrant from taking control?"

The answer to that question is found in these five words: The United States of America.

Japanese-American internment

"May it serve as a constant reminder of our past so that Americans in the future will never again be denied their Constitutional rights and may the remembrance of that experience serve to advance the evolution of the human spirit..."

\- Plaque at the Poston Relocation Center

"How could such a tragedy have occurred in a Democratic society that prides itself on individual rights and freedoms?... I have brooded about this whole episode on and off for the past three decades..."

\- Milton S. Eisenhower, "The President Is Calling"

In the entire course of the war, 10 people were convicted of spying for Japan, all of whom were Caucasian.

1912

Japanese Americans owned 12,726 acres of farmland in California.

1913

California Alien Land Law prohibited "aliens ineligible to citizenship" (i.e., all Asian immigrants) from owning land or property, but permitted three-year leases.

1920

California Alien Land Law prohibited leasing land to "aliens ineligible to citizenship." By 1925, it was also prohibited in Washington, Arizona, Oregon, Idaho, Nebraska, Texas, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, New Mexico, Minnesota, and Missouri. During World War II, Utah, Wyoming, and Arkansas also joined.

1922

In Ozawa v. U.S., the Supreme Court reaffirmed that Asian immigrants were not eligible for naturalization.

1939

Lists of "dangerous" enemy aliens and citizens began to be compiled in various government departments, such as the FBI, special intelligence agencies of the Justice Department, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and the Army's Military Intelligence Division.

1940

The census found 126,947 Japanese-Americans; 62.7 percent were citizens by birth. In addition, 157,905 were in the Territory of Hawaii, and 263 in the Territory of Alaska.

1941

The Hawaiian National Guard (made up largely of Nisei) was Federalized and later became the 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The Japanese Language School at the Presidio of San Francisco was formed. In the first class were 45 Nisei and Kibei and 15 others. It was moved to Camp Savage, Minnesota, renamed the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS) and later moved to Fort Snelling, Minnesota.

Curtis Munson issued his report on the Japanese-Americans living on the coast. Grace Tully (Roosevelt's secretary) told Henry Field (anthropologist and aide to Roosevelt) that the President was ordering him to produce, in the shortest time possible, the full names and addresses of each American-born and foreign-born Japanese listed by locality within each state. She told him to use the 1930 and 1940 census. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. A blanket Presidential warrant authorized U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle to have the FBI arrest a predetermined number of "dangerous enemy aliens," including German, Italian, and Japanese nationals. 737 Japanese-Americans were arrested by the end of the day. U.S. entered World War II. The FBI detained 1,370 Japanese-Americans classified as "dangerous enemy aliens." The Agriculture Committee of the L.A. Chamber of Commerce recommended that all Japanese nationals be put under "absolute Federal control." All enemy aliens in California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada were ordered to surrender contraband.

1942

Japanese-American selective service registrants were classified as enemy aliens (IV-C). Many Japanese American soldiers were discharged or assigned to menial labor such as "kitchen police."

"I do not believe that we could be any too strict in our consideration of the Japanese in the face of the treacherous way in which they do things," wrote Leland Ford, L.A. Congressman, in a telegram to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, asking that all Japanese-Americans be removed from the West Coast. The California State Personnel Board voted to bar all "descendants of natives with whom the United States [is] at war" from all civil service positions. This was only enforced against Japanese-Americans.

Attorney General Francis Biddle began the establishment of prohibited zones forbidden to all enemy aliens. German, Italian, and Japanese aliens were ordered to leave San Francisco waterfront areas.

"Unless something is done it may bring about a repetition of Pearl Harbor," said Earl Warren, California Attorney General, calling Japanese Californians the "Achilles heel of the entire civilian defense effort." The U.S. Army established 12 "restricted areas" in which enemy aliens were restricted by a 9 P.M. to 6 A.M. curfew, allowed to travel only to and from work, and not more than five miles from their home. Major Bendetsen was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. On February 14, he was again promoted to Colonel.

A Portland American Legion post urged the removal of "enemy aliens, especially from critical coast areas," including Japanese-American citizens.

The West Coast congressional delegation requested that the President remove "all persons of Japanese lineage...aliens and citizens alike, from the strategic areas of California, Oregon and Washington." The California Joint Immigration Committee urged that all Japanese-Americans be removed from the Pacific Coast and any other vital areas. The FBI placed 2,192 Japanese Americans under arrest. President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the Secretary of War to define military areas "from which any or all persons may be excluded as deemed necessary or desirable." The only significant opposition would come from the Quakers (Society of Friends) and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). Secretary of War Henry Stimson appointed Lieutenant General John DeWitt to carry out Executive Order 9066. The Navy ordered Japanese-American residents of Terminal Island, San Pedro, California, to leave within 48 hours to settle wherever they could. The House Committee on Un-American Activities released its 300-page Yellow Book, containing almost every possible charge against Japanese-Americans.

General DeWitt issued Public Proclamation Number 1, creating military areas in Washington, Oregon, California, and parts of Arizona and declaring the right to remove German, Italian, and Japanese aliens and anyone of "Japanese ancestry" living in Military Areas Numbers 1 and 2 should it become necessary. The Secretary of Treasury designated the Federal Reserve Bank of San Fancisco to handle Japanese-American property, while the Farm Security Administration was given control over Japanese American farms and farm equipment. Evictees were told:

"No Japanese need sacrifice any personal property of value. If he cannot dispose of it at a fair price, he will have opportunity to store it prior to the time he is forced to evacuate by Exclusion Order. Persons who attempt to take advantage of Japanese evacuees by trying to obtain property at sacrifice prices are un-American, unfair, and are deserving only of the severest censure."

However, there were no interventions to freeze unfair transactions by the Federal Reserve Bank and only one instance of intervention by the Farm Security Administration.

DeWitt issued Public Proclamation Number 2, creating Military Areas 3 to 6 in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Utah, respectively. Roosevelt created the War Relocation Authority (WRA). Milton Eisenhower became responsible for a plan to remove designated persons from the restricted areas. Congress imposed Federal penalties for those who refused to obey orders to enter or leave designated military areas. Manzanar, the first American concentration camp, opened. DeWitt issued Civilian Exclusion Order Number 1, giving alien and non-alien persons of Japanese ancestry one week to leave Bainbridge Island in Seattle's Puget Sound. Public Proclamation Number 3 included Japanese-American citizens among "enemy aliens" who must obey travel restrictions, curfew, and contraband regulations. Public Proclamation Number 4 prohibited Japanese aliens from voluntary evacuation of Military Area Number 1.2. Minoru Yasui violated the Portland, Oregon curfew.

WRA Director Milton Eisenhower asked the Governors and representatives of Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Washington, and Arizona to accept Japanese-American evacuees. Colorado Governor Ralph Carr was the only one to offer cooperation.

Ichiro Shimoda was shot and killed for trying to escape from Fort Sill. Gordon Hirabayashi violated Seattle's curfew and exclusion restrictions. Fred Korematsu was arrested in San Leandro, California for the exclusion violation.

General DeWitt announced completion of the removal of 100,000 Japanese Americans from Military Area Number 1.2.

Fred T. Korematsu was charged with violation of Exclusion Order No. 34 in U.S. District Court for Northern California. Dillon S. Myer replaced Milton Eisenhower as WRA Director. 1,600 inmates were sent from assembly and relocation centers to fill the sugar beet labor shortage in Oregon, Utah, Idaho, and Montana.

Mitsuye Endo filed for Writ of Habeas Corpus. Two ill prisoners were shot to death in the early morning at Lordsburg, New Mexico. The removal of all Japanese Americans (over 110,000) was completed in Military Areas Numbers and 2.2. The War Department assigned military area status to the four relocation centers outside the Western Defense Command. Roosevelt declared Italian aliens were no longer considered "enemy aliens."

The trial of Gordon K. Hirabayashi started in Seattle with Judge Lloyd L. Black. Over 8,000 prisoners were working to save the beet and potato crop harvest in various Western states. A Poston demonstration against the arrest of two prisoners's accused of beating an alleged "informer" occurred. A general strike followed, five days later. At Manzanar, arrests of prisoners accused of informer beating led to protests and violence. Military police fired into the crowd, killing two protesters and wounding at least 10 more. Military Intelligence Service (MIS) soldiers served in the Pacific Theater, translating captured communication, interrogating prisoners, broadcasting propaganda, and eventually working on the surrender, war crimes trials, and occupation forces.

Hirabayashi's conviction for curfew violation was reaffirmed by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

1943

Over 2,500 volunteered for the military as restrictions on Nisei service were removed. WRA began processing the loyalty questionnaire. The U.S. Army officially activated the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, composed of the 100th Battalion from Hawaii and Japanese-American volunteers from the mainland concentration camps. Nearly 10,000 Hawaiian Nisei volunteered for military service. Only 1,100 mainland prisoners volunteer. Seven months after it was filed, Mitsuye Endo's case was forwarded to the Supreme Court by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. An elderly man was shot to death at Topaz.

California Governor Earl Warren signed the prohibition of commercial fishing licenses from being given to alien Japanese.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed Hirabayashi's and Yasui's convictions, but it refused to address the question of Constitutionality raised in the Hirabayashi case. The WRA designated Tule Lake as a "segregation camp." A strike in Tule Lake followed the death of an inmate in a truck accident. Mass demonstrations were held in Tule Lake after it was placed under Army control.

The 100th Infantry Battalion fought in North Africa and Italy, joining the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in June of 1944. They fought in Italy, France, and Germany, rescued the "lost battalion," and their 522nd Field Artillery Battalion liberated the survivors at the Dachau death camp. Of the 10,000 volunteers for the all-American combat unit, 1,200 came from mainland U.S. concentration camps and the rest from Hawaii, where Executive Order 9066 did not apply.

1944

Tule Lake was no longer under Army control. Secretary of War Stimson announced that Japanese-Americans were eligible for the draft. A camp soldier shot Shoichi James Okamoto.

In Cheyenne, Wyoming, a Federal district court convicted 63 men from Heart Mountain of draft resistance and sentenced them to three years in a Federal penitentiary. Also that month, seven leaders of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee, along with newspaper editor James Omura, were arrested for conspiracy to encourage draft resistance. Federal Judge Louis E. Goodman dismissed indictments against 26 Tule Lake draft resisters, declaring "It is shocking...that an American citizen be confined on the ground of disloyalty, and then...be compelled to serve in the armed forces, or be prosecuted for not." James Omura was acquitted, but the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee leaders were sentenced to three years imprisonment for conspiracy.

Public Proclamation No. 21 was issued by Major General Henry C. Pratt (effective January 2, 1945), allowing evacuees to return home and lifting contraband regulations. The next day, two years and five months after it was filed, the Endo case was ruled on in the Supreme Court - the WRA cannot detain "loyal" citizens. Executive Order 9066 and the evacuation was upheld in the Korematsu case. Justice Frank Murphy disagreed:

"I dissent, therefore, from this legalization of racism. Racial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our Democratic way of life. It is unattractive in any setting but it is utterly revolting among a free people who have embraced the principles set forth in the Constitution of the United States."

1945

In Hood River, Oregon, the American Legion removed the names of 17 Nisei soldiers from the community honor roll. Japan surrendered. World World II ended.

1946

The Court of Appeals reversed the conspiracy convictions of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee leaders on technical grounds, but they remained in prison until March, 1946.

1948

In Oyama v. California, the Supreme Court struck down the Alien Land Laws as violations of the 14th Amendment. The Evacuation Claims Act authorized payment to Japanese Americans who suffered economic loss during imprisonment. With the necessary proof, 10 cents was returned for every $1.00 lost.

1952

The McCarran-Walter Immigration and Naturalization Act ended the racially based naturalization ban and the 1924 ban on Asian immigration.

General George S. Patton, Jr.

General George Smith Patton, Jr. was nothing if not complicated. He was egotistical, a self-proclaimed prima donna, yet still humble and intensely loyal. He was a jingoistic American who was still an internationalist. He spoke fluent French. He believed in reincarnation, and was a devout Christian. Born November 11, 1885 in San Gabriel, California, he carried ivory pistols and swore like a longshoreman, yet prayed on his knees. He literally loved and glorified war, yet cried like a baby over the deaths of his beloved men. His men did not love him. They feared him more than the enemy and fought for him with tenaciousness, a loyalty, and a pride unmatched perhaps by any commander in world history. If ever someone can be called a man of destiny, it is Patton. From the standpoint of pure battlefield generalship he is, in this writer's opinion, the greatest military man of all time. Patton was a disciplinarian first and foremost. He trained his men to achieve the highest standard of excellence.

Patton was raised from childhood to be a war hero. His ancestors had fought in the Revolutionary War, the Mexican War and the Civil War, all with distinction. He was in many ways a New Man of the American West. The Patton's were Southerners. In moving to California, where George was born and raised near Los Angeles, he was not made to associate with the Confederate cause. He was an American through and through. He represented the traditions of the old with the sensibilities of the new. He attended the Virginia Military Institute for one year and went on to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point on June 11, 1909. He was then commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the 15th Cavalry Regiment.

Patton married Beatrice Ayer, whom he dated while at West Point, on May 26, 1910. She was from a blueblood Boston family. In 1912 he represented the United States at the Stockholm Olympics in the first Modern Pentathlon. This event was a rigorous test of skills. Patton, 26 placed fifth overall in the multi-event sport, consisting of pistol shooting from 25 meters, sword fencing, a 300-meter free style swim, 800 meters horse back riding and a four-kilometer cross country run. He might have won, since he was in first place after the first day's events. Most chose .22 revolvers, but Patton chose his standard military issue .38. He missed the target, but said the lost bullet had passed through a large opening created by previous rounds from the .38, which left larger holes.

After the Olympics, Patton studied at the French Cavalry School and learned sword skills. In 1913, Patton became the first Master of the Sword at the Mounted Service School in Fort Riley, Kansas.

Patton served as a member of legendary General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing's staff during the expedition to Mexico. In 1915, Patton went to Fort Bliss near the Mexican border and led cavalry patrols. He and Pershing gained recognition from the press for their role in capturing the Mexican bandito, Francisco "Pancho" Villa.

Pershing promoted him to captain and made him Commander of his Headquarters Troop after the Mexico expedition. When World War I started in 1914, tanks were not widely used. In 1917, Patton lobbied the Army into establishing the United States Tank Corps. Along with the British tankers, he and his men achieved victory at Cambrai, France, during the world's first major tank battle in 1917.

Considered one of the leading experts on tank warfare, Patton organized the American tank school in Bourg, France and trained the first 500 U.S. tankers. He had 345 tanks, which he took into the Meuse-Argonne Operation in September, 1918. Patton operated on the front lines, maintaining communications with his rear command post by means of pigeons and a group of runners. He exposed himself to gunfire and was shot once in the leg. His actions during that battle were considered to be heroism above and beyond the call of duty. He was described as a "wild man" who not only lacked fear in the field of battle, but also simply thrived on it.

One story concerns Patton and a young General MacArthur, a few years his senior but considered a rival among the Army's blue chippers. On the field of battle, while shells exploded near them and their men cowered in the trenches, Patton and MacArthur are said to have carried on a casual conversation as if they were standing on the plains of West Point, seemingly oblivious to the fighting. It was described as a show of bravado, each not wanting to show fear to the other man or their troops. This story is almost an apocryphal story of America, a country of youthful exuberance and can-do spirit that simply overcomes all of the dark elements that have beset Mankind. Patton earned the Distinguished Service Cross for Heroism.

Patton saw the future of modern combat. Congress did not appropriate funds to build his tank force, but he studied, wrote, experimented, improved radio communications, and helped invent the co-axial tank mount for cannons and machine guns.

Patton held staff jobs in Hawaii and Washington, D.C., graduating from the Command and General Staff School in 1924. He was a distinguished graduate of the Army War College in 1932.

After war began in Europe, Patton convinced Congress that the U.S. needed an armored strike force, formed in 1940. He was made Commanding General of the Second Armored Division at Fort Benning, Georgia on April 11, 1941, and appeared on the cover of Life magazine. He was known by the infamous nickname "Ol' Blood and Guts".

By November, 1942, Patton commanded the Western Task Force landing for Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa. The invasion was fired on by Vichy French forces. When the task force fired their guns back the French quickly gave up. When the Americans landed, they switched their sympathies from the Germans to the Americans. Some U.S. officers wanted to capture the French as prisoners of war, but Patton admired them, having studied Napoleon and learning their language. He calculated that it was a better political and military move to embrace the French as allies.

After the Americans met defeat in their first disastrous battle against the Germans at Kasserine Pass, Patton was put in charge and picked up where British General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery had left off. He cut off a combined German tank and infantry advance commanded by Erwin Rommel, which proved to be the beginning of the end of Germany's North African campaign.

He then commanded the Seventh Army during the Sicily campaign in July of 1943. He earned much recognition, but his bold and aggressive moves were criticized in some quarters. Patton believed that "no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country." He felt that to strike hard and fast saved more American lives, even though it appeared reckless. He also sparred with his commanders and the British in an effort to liberate Sicilian towns before Montgomery. In this respect Patton's hubris represents American optimism. He was concerned with glory and recognition, as if victory over the Germans was a foregone conclusion. His attitude spurred Allied morale in the early days of a war that did not seem to be a slam dunk.

Patton did get in deep trouble when he slapped a soldier who was hospitalized for shell sock in Sicily. It appeared for a time that this incident would cause him to lose his command and be sent home, an incongruous idea to this man of destiny during a time when the entire world was at war. But the slapping incident served a greater purpose. It showed that American generals were not gods, and that our soldiers deserved respect and were not merely "cannon fodder."

By 1944, it was an open secret that the Allies were planning the invasion of Europe. The Germans were convinced that Patton, their best commander, would lead the invasion. They completely dismissed the idea that their top general would be dismissed merely for slapping a soldier. Dwight Eisenhower knew this. He created an operation revolving around Patton, whereby it would appear that he was commanding large "fake" divisions that gave the Germans the impression that the attack would take place at Pas de Calais or other positions on the French coast. While Patton chafed during this period of idleness, in fact the operation was a resounding success. The Germans indeed did spread their defenses over a wide area. When the Allies attacked Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, they faced a smaller defense than they otherwise would have.

Patton finally learned that he was to command the Third Army in France after D-Day. He had fought on French soil in World War I and was the perfect man to lead the charge through France and eventually into the heart of Germany. His troops dashed across Europe, exploiting German weaknesses with great success until December, 1944.

The Germans were losing the war and the Allies had become smug with success. Germany had not mounted a Winter offensive since Frederick the Great, but Patton prepared for just that eventuality. He was right, and thus the Battle of the Bulge was underway. The 101st Airborne Division was defending a Belgian town called Bastogne. Surrounded, tired, hungry and freezing, the Americans refused to surrender, knowing that the town represented the key to the battle. It was a center of communications, supplies and travel in the region. The Germans attacked relentlessly. When they demanded surrender, the U.S. Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Anthony McAuliffe, gave them a one-word American reply: "Nuts."

"A man that eloquent has to be saved," was Patton's grinning response when he was told of the "nuts" communication. The call went out for a commander to rally a force to fight their way to Bastogne, relieve the 101st, and capture the town. It was an enormously important and challenging undertaking. Montgomery was unable to meet the challenge. Patton did. He was already in the middle of a fight, but he managed to gather his troops, who were fighting in the snow with no hot food or sleep, march them 100 miles in the opposite direction against heavy resistance, and take Bastogne. It can be argued that Patton's discipline and training of his troops had created a force capable of doing something that the forces of Napoleon or any other unit had never been able to accomplish. His efforts won the Battle of the Bulge and broke the Germans' backs.

Patton then proceeded on the rest of his 600-mile advance, which had started in France. They liberated Belgium and Luxembourg, then moved into Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. When the Third Army liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp, Patton slowed his pace. He instituted a policy, later adopted by other commanders, of making local German civilians tour the camps. By the time the war was over, the Third Army had liberated or conquered 81,522 square miles of territory.

Patton returned home to California, where he made a speech to a crowd of 100,000 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He said that he and his troops had "seen hell." The magnificent anachronism of Patton's life was that he was a pure warrior, but the absence of war would destroy him. He became a symbol of the kind of soldier that the American public fawns over when they need him to fight for them, then likes to put in a closet like a crazy uncle once the war is over and his services are not needed until the next war. The Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men" was based on a composite of militarists, most notably Patton.

"Deep down in places you don't like to talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall...You sleep under the very blanket of freedom that I provide, then criticize the way I provide it," his character, Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Jessup, says.

In October, 1945, Patton assumed command of the 15th Army in American-occupied Germany. On December 9, he suffered injuries as the result of an automobile accident. He died 12 days later, on December 21, 1945. He is buried among the soldiers who died in the Battle of the Bulge in Hamm, Luxembourg.

His death was both symbolic and intriguing. That he could die so soon after his great triumphs, in a common auto accident after all he had gone through, was nothing less than Shakespearean. But conspiracists have pondered whether the accident was staged. Patton had forcefully urged the U.S. to maintain armed readiness, and in some cases even re-arm the Germans, in order to fight and defeat the Soviet Communists who shared victory with us.

His remarks were considered intemperate and undiplomatic considering the delicate nature of Anglo-Soviet relations at the time. History indicates that had Patton's will been effectuated, and the Americans had fought and beaten back Stalin in 1945, Eastern Europe could have been saved. Communism could have been halted. China would not have had a sponsor. The Korean and Vietnam Wars would never have been fought. The Cold War could have been won 40 years earlier.

The 1970 film, "Patton," starring George C. Scott, won seven Academy Awards, including Best Actor and Best Picture, and immortalized General Patton, Jr. forever.

General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell

World War II has produced many legendary military heroes. General Joseph Stilwell is not exactly unknown, but he is not on the same tier as Patton, Omar Bradley, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, and a host of others. He should be. Joe Stilwell, in some ways, is the most extraordinary and impressive military man this nation has ever produced.

Stilwell was charged with tasks that proved to be harder and more difficult than those asked of the commanders in North Africa, Sicily, D-Day and the drive to Berlin. The island-hopping campaigns in the South Pacific were no more an endurance test than what Stilwell was asked to do in China.

China was the "forgotten theatre" of World War II. Theodore White dispatched brilliant reportage from there. Time-Life publisher Henry Luce promoted Nationalism in China, and his wife, Congresswoman Clare Booth Luce, championed the cause, too. But the reporters stuck close to MacArthur and Ike. To stick close to Stilwell would have required getting much more up close and personal with dangerous combat and strenuous marches than most reporters ever wanted to do.

Stilwell was an ordinary American from the heartland. For decades, West Point had made a practice of admitting legacies; the sons of West Point graduates and military heroes. Patton and MacArthur were just such examples.

But after Teddy Roosevelt led the Rough Riders to victory at San Juan Hill, Congress decided that they wanted to change the admittance policies at the Point. Instead of the progeny of militarists, they endeavored to recruit the sons of Democracy. They went after excellent students, good athletes with great character, who had what it took. Such a recruit was Stilwell. The likes of Bradley and Eisenhower were cut out of the same mold. The kind of man who emerged from this class put a new face on the American military. Over the course of two World Wars, these were America's ambassadors, contrasting by example with stiff British Sandhurst graduates, the pompous French, and the warmongering Germans.

Stilwell had an independent streak. He tended to request assignments in out-of-the-way places that were not "glamorous." China in the early years of the century was such a place. Roosevelt's "big stick" policy had put America square into the Chinese chaos, protecting trade interests while the Boxer rebellion and other instabilities beset the nation. After centuries of isolation and colonization, China was utterly backwards. They were unprepared for the modern world.

Stilwell fell in love with China and the Chinese. He learned the language and became acquainted with its customs. He eventually did serve with distinction in France during World War I. In the 1920s, Stilwell emerged along with Eisenhower as one of the "stars" of the young officer class. He consistently graduated at the top of his class at the War College, the Staff College, and the various other trials that lead to high promotion. He was mentored by George Marshall, who admired him.

Stilwell returned to China, where the U.S. was beginning an unholy alliance with Chiang-kai Shek's Nationalist movement, which had emerged as the only voice of reason in a struggle between autocrats, war lords, the Chinese Mafia, and Mao Tse-tung's Communists.

The Japanese attacked China in the early 1930s, and Stilwell was brought in as an advisor to Chiang-kai Shek. Various "mercenaries" came to China to fight. Among them was a pilot named Claire Chennault. After Pearl Harbor, war was declared and the American Army was mobilized to fight the Japanese, who already controlled much of the vast nation. Stilwell was considered a strong candidate to take over command of U.S. forces in Europe. Marshall liked him and felt he was as qualified for the job as Eisenhower, but Stilwell's unique China connection made him indispensable to that theatre. He spoke the language, knew the players, the customs and the politics.

In the dark days of 1942, Stilwell demonstrated bravery, skill and leadership skills above and beyond the call of duty. He was forced into front line combat, unlike Ike and MacArthur, who for the most part remained in the rear with the gear. The Japanese attacked green American and futile Chinese troops with ferocity, driving Stilwell's men into a retreat. Stilwell told his troops ahead of time that they had to follow him. By the end of the journey, they would hate him, but he would get them out alive. He was right. Evading capture and annihilation, the U.S.-Chinese forces under his command fought, retreated and evaded the Japanese on a harrowing, weeks-long journey through the China-Myanmar-India hinterlands. At certain points, they were forced to travel on the sides of mountain ledges, walking sideways while their uniforms scraped the side of mountains. Equipment was abandoned. Food was nil. They starved and faced all manner of jungle disease.

Stilwell roamed the line, imploring American and Chinese alike. They hated him, but they fought and followed. Stilwell's journey can be compared to a jungle version of Hannibal crossing the Alps. In the end, he led his men to safety so they could fight another day, with minimal casualties owed almost entirely to his relentless leadership qualities. Those who experienced Stilwell's "touch" were devoted to him and would follow him into hell.

China was an utter quagmire. Chiang-kai Shek was an autocratic man with no people skills. His wife, Madame Chiang, was his political arm. She was a cross between a Hillary Clinton-style "dragon lady" and an Oriental seductress. Chiang-kai Shek and Madame Chiang had important boosters in the American media and government, as noted these being especially Henry and Clare Booth Luce. The Chiang-kai Shek situation was rather unique. For various reasons, he was China's only hope from an American perspective. It would be hard to compare this to any other set of circumstances. The only alternatives to his Nationalist government were Mao-Tse Tung's Communists, tribal warlords, and rich criminals. There was no Democratic tradition in China. Capitalism was not entirely unknown. The British had created strong trade routes, and of course Hong Kong was a thriving port. East Asia, especially the British colonies, was economically successful, but corrupt.

The Chinese were a conundrum. The average Chinese soldier was a tireless, brave fighter. Chinese possesses a work ethic that is second to none, as anybody who saw the building of the transcontinental railroad can attest. But they had little self-initiative. They looked for leadership, and if they found this wanting they withdrew. All discussions about Chiang-kai Shek and Madame Chiang's faults ended up in the same place. There were no alternatives. It would be as if Abraham Lincoln's only general was George McClellan, who would not fight and could not be replaced.

Chiang-kai Shek would not fight. He fell under the sway of Major General Chennault, who was put in charge of combined Marine and Army Air Forces. Chennault was a self-promoter who went behind Stilwell's back in an effort to usurp his command. He convinced Chiang-kai Shek that Japan could be repelled using air power alone. Chaing-kai Shek believed him and withheld his men from major ground operations. Stilwell was apoplectic. He ridiculed Chiang-kai Shek, calling him "the Peanut."

Stilwell was an honest man to a fault. After his first major campaign, in which he lead his men, literally, through the wilderness, reporters confronted him. The propaganda press had regaled the American public with glorious headlines depicting Stilwell killing "the Japs" by the bushel, pushing them back, and winning great victories. It was all b.s. When Stilwell finally made it to safety, weighing about 100 pounds, he was asked to comment on his "successes." He bluntly told the press it had been a great failure and things looked damn bleak. He considered himself to be at fault for failing to achieve initial objectives, instead of taking credit for being an American Moses.

Now, he turned his bluntness towards Chiang-kai Shek. Madame Chiang was an alluring intermediary, but her charms worked with less effect on the happily married Stilwell than other political dupes. Stilwell knew full well how the Chinese operated. They were liars. They told lies as if they were truths, with no compunction whatsoever. It was their nature and had been their custom for several thousand years. Stilwell understood and accepted it in peacetime. With the fate of Asia and the world hanging in the balance, with the lives of Chinese and American soldiers now his responsibility, he could not afford to play the "Chinese game." "Saving face" was no longer as important as winning the war.

Stilwell managed to achieve stunning victories, overcoming the infamous Hump, winning the brutal Burma Road campaign, and pushing the Japanese out of their stronghold at Mytikyina. But China was every bit as much a political battle as a military one. In this, he was either less prepared than Eisenhower in Europe, or not built for such diplomacies. It was a tangled web. Stilwell earned his nickname, "Vinegar Joe", because he was so blunt, honest and often vulgar. But he was a good man. He respected men who earned it, and his supporters believed in him 100 percent.

Stilwell was a conservative Republican, and had little respect for President Roosevelt. He was very professional about it and never let it affect his performance, but Roosevelt was acutely political and naturally pre-disposed to find fault with Stilwell. Marshall, whose politics were a mystery, was no FDR crony, but he maintained strict professionalism in the President's presence. A continent and an ocean separated Stilwell. Distance created suspicions and accusations.

Stilwell faced the Machiavellian parlor politics of Chennault, who had Chiang-kai Shek's and Madame Chiang's ear. Chennault wrote grandiose letters to Marshall, and to political sycophants in Washington, urging that he alone should command the China theatre. Like Chiang-kai Shek, Chennault was indispensable in his own way, since the air campaign that he orchestrated with terrific skill was a winning one.

As the war stretched into 1943 and 1944, a truly amazing fact began to make itself clear to Stilwell. Chiang-kai Shek was still the only "hope" for China, in that all alternatives to his cooperation with the U.S., and the future face of Chinese government represented chaos. This being said, Stilwell came into contact with the Chinese Communists, led by Mao and Chou En-lai.

There was nothing about Communism that remotely appealed to Joe Stilwell, but his sense of honesty could not dispute certain facts. Chiang-kai Shek and Madame Chiang were, like the Clintons 50 years later, utterly reprehensible, power-hungry political animals who represented a cabal of corruption. The extent to which they represented hope for a better China was coincidental to their selfish aims. Like military men appalled by the draft-dodging, pot-smoking Clinton, Stilwell was appalled that he had to work with them. His initial relationship with Madame Chiang had soured when she could not be relied upon to carry "Vinegar Joe's" water to her husband. Letters written by Stilwell, not to mention those written by Marshall, FDR and Secretary of War Stimson, were not read by Chiang-kai Shek. His aides interpreted them. They omitted bad news and orders that Chiang did not want to hear. Chiang-kai Shek's replies reflected this, causing confusion. Eventually, letters written in Chinese were hand-delivered by American emissaries so as to make sure Chiang-kai Shek read them. Even then, Chiang's obtuseness prevented him from actually accepting bad news or orders from anybody else.

A power struggle ensued between Chiang-kai Shek and Stilwell, not just for control of Chinese troops in coordination with American and British allies (the British, under Lord Louis Mountbatten were a barrel of worms as well), but for the very "soul" of the country. China was intertwined with the hopes and dreams of America. Suspicions abounded regarding American aims; a partner with a sovereign China, or another "white" colonizer?

To put it into perspective, imagine if Charles de Gaulle commanded large French armies in France (instead of their military giving up). After D-Day, the Americans are fighting the Germans tooth and nail through the hedgerow country. Their success is based on the ability to link up with de Gaulle's forces, but de Gaulle will not commit fighters. China might have been better off had Stilwell simply accepted that there was no Chinese Army, so the U.S. would then have had to do it all, with no other possibilities. But the quagmire of Chinese military politics made that virtually impossible. To assume such a "go it alone" stance in a country beset with the problems of size, Nationalism, feudalism and Communism, would have resulted in a victory that was a defeat.

At least in France, the white citizenry accepted the white liberators, no questions asked. China was a different paradigm. Our current efforts at hegemony in the Middle East should be attempted only by those who study Stilwell's frustrations with Chiang-kai Shek and the Chinese culture of lies.

What added to the stirring pot of problems was the fact that Stilwell was receiving accurate reports of Communist successes. Communism in China would be responsible for killing more people than died in all of World War II, but truth is truth. The truth is that during World War II, for whatever reasons, the Communists were idealistic and efficient while the Nationalists were corrupt and inefficient. Bad leadership can hurt great theory. The Clintons were an example, although by the 1990s U.S. institutions were too strong to be destroyed by them. But China had little foundation, and the Chiang-kai Shek/Madame Chiang cabal was too corrupt.

The Communists, survivors of the Long March, had created an alternate Chinese society. No doubt certain Leftist apologists were painting their agrarian reforms in glowing terms, but the honest Stilwell, who could smell a lie from 10 miles away, was getting relatively accurate accounts of their successful system. They were fighting a civil war against factions of Chiang-kai Shek's Nationalist government, but were also contributing to the battle to rid the nomination of the Japanese scourge. Mao was a good military strategist. He knew how to fight a guerrilla war. He had good commanders under him.

Stilwell wanted to make use of Communist elements in fighting together against the Japanese. Chiang-kai Shek was more afraid of the Communists than the Japanese, although history would prove he had reason for such prescience. Eventually, Stilwell and Chiang-kai Shek reached intractable differences. Stilwell became a political liability to FDR, and Marshall relieved him, ordering him to "muzzle" his commentary to an inquiring press.

Overwhelming American force and the atomic bomb overcame all differences when it came to driving the Japanese out of China, but the corruption of Chiang-kai Shek and his wife helped to destroy post-war China, which was lost to Mao Tse-tung following more civil war, in 1949.

In the 1950s, when the "who lost China?" argument was at its height, accusations of Communism were even leveled at Stilwell because of certain actions in which he cooperated with or advocated cooperation with Mao's forces. Even in the heightened frenzy of McCarthyism, who did find Communism in the Army, Stilwell's particular activities were exonerated. Later, when the Venona project was unveiled, FDR's aide, Harry Hopkins, was discovered to have been very influential in the handling of Chiang-kai Shek in regards to the Communist issue, both during and after the war. Hopkins had a Soviet handler and was instrumental in tipping the balance of power away from the Nationalists and to the Communists.

General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery

British General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery was educated at St. Paul's School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In the Great War he served with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. In 1940 he was made Commander in charge of the 3rd Division's evacuation from Dunkirk. In 1941 in North Africa the 8th Army was in disarray when he was appointed to its command. Monty, as he was affectionately and sometimes not affectionately known, was a man of unique British confidence. He well reflected on the battlefield and in the planning rooms what Churchill reflected in the salons of wartime politics. In this regard, the confidence and will to win that he instilled in his men and the nation he served, before the Americans came on the scene, are incalculable. No matter his faults, his eccentricities, or his chauvinistic national tendencies, the entire world owes this man a debt of thanks that can never be paid.

German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's vaunted Afrika Corps appeared unstoppable until Monty repulsed it at Alam Halfa in August and September of 1942. He then launched and won a set piece offensive at the battle of El Alamein in October, pushing the Germans back. These were the events, combined with the Russian victory at Stalingrad, and American raids by Doolittle and victory at Midway, which gave the free world hope.

In March, 1943, with the Americans now in the picture, he defended a counter-attack at Medinine and brilliantly outflanked the enemy at Mareth. Monty's forces followed this with a series of battles that drove the Axis Forces back to Tunisia, destroying the Afrika Corps. He was a great desert commander, but amid the mountainous terrain of Sicily later that year, he became cautious. Nevertheless, his forces, working in tandem (albeit not always in harmony) with Patton, Montgomery's subsequent activities in Sicily and Italy were victorious ones.

Patton, however, was the more brilliant commander when it came to striking in the rocky peaks and valleys of the Sicilian boot. His decisiveness separated him from Monty, caused friction between them. At times it forced Ike to choose between them (always leaving one of them to protest). Montgomery had become a political figure in Britain. The story of Monty and Patton is telling insofar as it speaks to the difference between our two countries. Patton was "only" a military man. Therefore his utility to the cause was relegated to the narrow confines of what skills he brought to the table as a general.

Monty, on the other hand, was a Sandhurst man at a time when the martial instinct, which is no longer alive in Great Britain, still evoked notions of Camelot. The beleaguered English people looked to him as a savior. Their hopes and dreams were wrapped up in his successes. The Yanks arrived with all their swagger and braggadocio, drinking in their pubs and taking liberties with their women. The British boys were fighting in distant lands. England invested national pride in Monty's successes. When the Americans began to pile up impressive campaigns, the English needed to believe that they had not entirely been "saved" by the Americans. Indeed, Monty had gone up against the best the Germans had and kicked his ass. Sharing the hero's mantel with Patton was becoming just as important as defeating Rommel.

In 1944, he was appointed Commander in Chief of the ground forces for the Normandy invasion. The planned breakout from the beachheads relied on Monty pushing through the hedgerow country, but he was wary and cautious. Omar Bradley brought in General Patton. He was prepared, having studied von Schlieffen's "pivot" plan from World War I. Montgomery deliberately attracted the German counter offensive to the British Canadian flank. In later years he claimed that this freed the American armored formations to inaugurate the breakthrough that became a joint drive across France and Belgium. Military historians would dispute it. At first it was considered a friendly disagreement between the victors. Eventually, Monty's views would become obsessions that darkened his relations with old allies and friends.

Montgomery led the British and Canadian 21st Army Group to victory across Northern France, Belgium and Holland. At Arnhem, Holland in September, 1944, he oversaw an uncoordinated attack that ended in disaster, as depicted in William Goldman's film "A Bridge Too Far". This setback interrupted a string of Allied successes. When Hitler sent "buzz bombs" into London, killing thousands of civilians, gasoline was diverted from Patton's juggernaut to Monty, who was tasked with destroying the launch sites.

Montgomery accepted German capitulation on Lünenburg Heath, and was commander of the British occupied zone in Germany (1945-46) and Chief of the Imperial General Staff from 1946-48. He was deputy commander of NATO forces (1951-58). His publications include "Normandy to the Baltic" (1947), his controversial "Memoirs" (1958), "The Path to Leadership" (1961) and "History of Warfare" (1968).

Monty eventually became somewhat reclusive, living quietly in the English countryside. He wrote a lot, including correspondence with Eisenhower. He recounted that his superior tactics won the day, which they often had. Ike wrote back in a friendly manner that Monty was taking too much credit, particularly relating to his generalship after D-Day. At first, the letters disagreed but were not disagreeable. Monty became more intransigent over time. Ike was a stubborn German-American from the Midwest who once proclaimed that the war was a contest between "Huck Finn vs. Alexander the Great." His easy American friendliness gave Montgomery much leeway, but he became frustrated with Montgomery's revisions of known history. Eventually, Ike cut off the regular communications.

The "desert fox"

The Germans of the Nazi era had few heroes who stand up to the test of moral scrutiny. However, they were a great fighting force. In this regard their conduct of the war with the Western Democracies was fought honorably. They were not guerilla _s_ or terrorists. They generally abided by the Geneva Convention as it pertained to the treatment of American POWs. The German Wehrmacht must be separated from the SS units who carried out the Holocaust, from the reprisal tactics of the Russian Front, the cruel Japanese, and from the megalomaniac Adolf Hitler.

Field Marshall Erwin Rommel was a terrific military leader, a moral man and tactical genius. He was feared and respected by his men and the opposition. Rommel's treatment of prisoners was humane. He ignored Hitler's orders to execute prisoners. This would have earned him a firing squad except he was indispensable to the war effort. He was accorded heroic status among the German people.

Rommel was born in Heidenheim, Wurttemberg on November 15, 1891. He joined the 124th Infantry Regiment at age 21 as a cadet. Within two years he had advanced to second lieutenant and received his commission at the Danzig War Academy.

In World War I, shortly after marrying Lucie Mollin, Rommel was called to the front lines. He earned the _Pour le merite_ for his service on the French, Romanian, and Italian fronts. At Kolvorat Ridge he took over 9,000 prisoners with only 150 men, six of which whom killed with another 30 wounded, all in just over two days.

After the war, Rommel became an instructor at the Dresden Infantry School. He wrote "Infantry Attacks". Rommel earned the rank of major in the peacetime German Army. In 1938 Colonel Rommel became commandant of the training facilities at Wiener Neustadt until he was assigned the protection of the march into the Sudetenland and Prague. Later he had the same assignment at the beginning of World War II and throughout the Polish campaign. His good work earned him promotion to major general, and re-assignment to the Seventh Panzer Division, which was responsible for the fall of France.

He was then given command of an infantry division in Libya, earning the rank of lieutenant general. Eventually he was given command of the famed _Afrika Corps_. In the June of 1942, with Rommel at the peak of his military career, he became the youngest Field Marshall in the entire German Army. He successfully defended Cyrenaica from the invading British Army, pushing them back as far Alamein, Egypt. Hitler turned down his request for reinforcements, so Rommel had to fight the English from a position of weakness. Despite this, he continued to experience success until shortly after the Battle of Maedenine on May 5, 1943, when he became ill and was forced to return to Europe. There he would take command of Army Group B in northern Italy and eventually become the Commander in Chief in charge of the German forces in a large part of Europe.

In 1944, the strafing fire from an Allied plane seriously injured Rommel. He was sent home to recover. In the Summer of 1944, Rommel, seeing that Hitler was leading his beloved country down the path of ultimate destruction, participated in a plot to kill the Fuhrer. On October 14, 1944, two generals arrived to investigate Rommel in the plot to kill Hitler. Rommel had never joined the Nazi Party, or supported Hitler. He opposed persecution of the Jewish people, had criticized Hitler's actions, and even ignored orders from Hitler (including the shooting of prisoners).

Instead of a show trial for treason, resulting in his family's "dishonor," Field Marshall Rommel was allowed to take a poison capsule. His family would receive pay and maintain their honor. The Field Marshall chose to take the poison and died. In so doing, Rommel took his place with the characters of myth and history written about by Greek poets and Shakespearean-inspired playwrights - a man of honor fighting an uphill struggle against the tides of evil. His body could not survive but his legacy would.

Patton and Montgomery considered him a formidable and worthy foe. Rommel's accurate prediction that the D-Day landing would be at Normandy was ignored by Hitler, who sent the troops farther south in part because the use of Patton as decoy fooled him (but not Rommel). While this book has continued to demonstrate that evil finds its ways into the affairs of men, Hitler's mistakes are "proof" that occasionally the "angels of good" intervene, as they may have done when the Americans were forging a nation and devising a Constitution. The fact that a real man of honor like Erwin Rommel could grow up, thrive and earn his place in history surrounded by the evil of Nazism, while never sacrificing his principles, is proof positive that goodness sprouts its wings in all manner of time and place.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Franklin Roosevelt was a patrician, related by birth (but not by politics) to Theodore Roosevelt. His father, James Roosevelt, and his mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, came from old, wealthy families. He studied at Groton, graduated from Harvard in 1904, then moved on to the Columbia University School of Law. In 1905 he married a distant cousin, the niece of Theodore Roosevelt (who definitely was not related to Teddy by politics). Her name was Eleanor Roosevelt. This inter-marriage of wealthy blueblood lines, connecting famous Presidents, when combined with FDR's record of holding the White House for parts of four terms, gives the man the heir of royalty. For this reason he has faced some criticism. It has come from sources one might not expect.

His politics of class envy, wealth distribution and populism fit the Democrat party, but he has been called a "traitor" to his "class." This actually is to his credit and says much about American politics. Whether one supports or does not support the man, he was true to his principles domestically at a time of great distress, instead of remaining "loyal" to the "rich." His secretive maneuvers before and during the war do call forth the shadow of "royalty" or "dictatorship" that has dogged his legacy. This book has given great attention to Roosevelt, and for good reason. He rates along with Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan as the most important and influential Americans of the 20th Century.

There are some complications that are admitted up front. This man was a liberal Democrat and a self-described conservative Republican is writing this. In exposing my political colors, however, it is my opinion that I do justice to history, and to Roosevelt, by letting the reader know in no uncertain terms what my agenda is. Above all, my agenda is Truth, which is not political. In determining what my attitudes are, I have made choices that are political. This book is for me a journey into a past meant to justify why I, and millions like me, believe what we believe. By turns it "shows" others that what they have believed may not be so. This is a somewhat black-and-white look at the world, which only a fool could justify. If this is also a mea culpa of sorts, let it be applied to a figure such as Roosevelt. There are those in my party who have derided Roosevelt as a "traitor," even a Communist. There are those on the Left who think he is a god. Let this conservative say that, after all is said and done, after exposing his crass demagoguery; his "theft" of millions of hard-earned dollars from American citizens who lost everything when he closed their banks; his failure to prepare for a war he knew we needed to fight; his allowing an enemy to penetrate our borders and kill our citizens; and the secretive ways he manipulated international and domestic politics like nobody before or since, Franklin D. Roosevelt is still a great man!

In acknowledging this, one acknowledges a conundrum of America itself, a nation of enormous faults and astounding goodness. Our achievements are of such awe-inspiring enormity as to dwarf our failures. This is Franklin Roosevelt, a man who very easily could be called a criminal, who did so much for the world that it is simply forgiven (although not forgotten). Teddy Roosevelt had spoken about being "in the arena." This tells much about politics and America. It speaks to a way of life. It is about a policy of engagement in a dangerous world. It places the politician and the country in the position of getting their "hands dirty." Only by mixing it up can one engage in the difficult work that must be done. FDR did this. In so doing he led us through the greatest test God and Satan have ever put us through. He was the captain of the Army of God. Like another flawed men chosen by Him - Moses - FDR parted the sea and led his people to the Promised Land.

Roosevelt had five children; Anna Eleanor, James, Elliott, Franklin D., Jr., and John A. Both Franklin D., Jr., and James served terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Unlike his English counterpart, Churchill, Roosevelt did not strive for the vigorous life of T.R. Churchill sought adventure in the manner that Hemingway later did, testing his resolve to prove himself to his father. Roosevelt was not of this mind. He was seemingly born for politics, which he entered in 1910 after five short years as an undistinguished lawyer.

He was elected to the New York state Senate and became the leader of an anti-Tammany Hall group who denied the machine candidate, William F. Sheehan, from being chosen for the U.S. Senate. Roosevelt was a reformist, which does provide some similarity to T.R. He supported Woodrow Wilson's quixotic campaign of 1912. When Wilson surprisingly won because T.R. split the G.O.P., FDR was named Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He served from 1913 to 1920. He showed intelligence and an able mind. Vice-Presidential candidates are often young politicos considered for future stardom. This was the judgment of the Democrats who placed FDR on the ticket with James M. Cox in 1920.

The Democrats should have had the wind in their sails in that election. Wilson had promised to keep America out of World War I, but when he did commit it was for all the right reasons ("making the world safe for Democracy"). Only the most partisan or pacifist could dispute that Wilson had been on the right side of history. Those who continued to argue against America entering and winning the war were reduced to the strain of anarchism that will always be with us.

"Red Emma" Goldman had been sent back to her homeland, Russia. She was shocked to find millions of men, women and children saved from starvation only by the benevolence of American relief missions. Anybody who acknowledged this kind of thing found himself at the tender mercies of Lenin's secret police. Meanwhile she was succeeded by the likes of Sacco and Vanzetti. When they realized that thinking folks understood their anarchist ideas to be abhorrent, they decided to kill people and blow things up instead.

The U.S. suddenly went from an economic world power to an economic, military, political and diplomatic superpower under Wilson. But Wilson became sick and ineffectual at the end of his term, just when he needed to lead the League of Nations. When the Senate failed to ratify our membership, this country seemed to be saying that it wanted a "return to normalcy," the political term my party applied to the 1920s. It was a terrible mistake.

Lacking the coherency to carry Wilson's place in history into the next decade, the Cox-Roosevelt ticket lost in 1920 to Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. In 1921, Roosevelt was stricken with poliomyelitis, paralyzing him from the waist down. He eventually recovered partial use of his legs, but remained crippled the rest of his life. FDR found his vigor in the waters of Warm Springs, Georgia, and in politics. He worked for the Catholic Democrat, Alfred E. Smith, in 1924 and 1928.

The Democrats might have succeeded in defeating Harding, an immoral and corrupt man, in 1924. He was beset by the Teapot Dome scandal, but died in office. "Silent Cal" Coolidge became President and won the election. By 1928 the Republicans were viewed as the party best able to handle the economy, which was booming. Herbert Hoover defeated the Catholic Smith, who faced enormous prejudice from the South, where the KKK had reared its ugly head. Southern politics had entered a more schizophrenic stage than ever. The Confederacy was morphed into the Democrat party, and all the years of Jim Crow lynchings and denial of voting rights to blacks occurred under the imprimatur of that organization.

Roosevelt was elected Governor of New York. In a Republican year, he was the hope of his party. The Governor of the Empire State in those days was an automatic Presidential contender. Roosevelt instituted Big Government programs - state action for general welfare including a farm-relief plan, a state power authority, regulation of public utilities, and old-age pensions. He infuriated the right and was considered progressive by the Left. Re-elected in 1930, he found himself on the front lines of the new economic Depression, which ostensibly had "started" on Wall Street the previous year. In 1932 he formed the Brain Trust, intellectuals and experts in many fields, to advise him on the issues he would confront in a national campaign. In an era of belt-tightening, FDR, like Joseph P. Kennedy, benefited from personal wealth, which he used to promote his political profile. The Great Depression was in full swing. When baseball great Babe Ruth was told he made more money than Hoover, he said, "I had a better year," which did not help Hoover. Ruth, like everybody else (except Joseph P. Kennedy) eventually did have to accept a reduction in his salary. In 1932, the Democrats chose Roosevelt. In November he defeated Hoover in a landslide.

"Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," Roosevelt announced. "This Nation asks for action, and action now. We must act and act quickly." During the famous "hundred days" from March to June of 1933, Congress passed a flood of anti-Depression measures, including finance and banking regulations, loosening credit and insuring deposits. The gold standard was eliminated and Big Government came into being. Banks and stock exchanges came under the control of commissions. The government developed the natural resources of the country.

The New Deal was fashioned by the Brain Trust, including counselors such as Raymond Moley, Rexford Guy Tugwell, and Adolf A. Berle, Jr. It also included Cabinet members Henry A. Wallace, Harold L. Ickes, Frances Perkins, Cordell Hull, James A. Farley, and Harry L. Hopkins. FDR's reassuring "fireside chats," broadcast to the nation over the radio, helped to create a mandate of the nation.

In 1936, Roosevelt defeated Alfred M. Landon, losing only two states. Conservative opposition turned bitter. Quarrels and division occurred. Creation of the National Recovery Administration and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration spurred the opposition and reduced the pace of reform. Roosevelt tried to reorganize the court in 1937. After failing he "packed" the court through roundhouse legislation and tried to "purge" members of Congress who had opposed the New Deal. Many were re-elected in the 1938 midterms.

After recognizing the U.S.S.R. in 1933, Roosevelt's foreign policy revolved around a "good neighbor" policy toward Latin America, which included reciprocal trade agreements with many countries. The United States refused to recognize Japan's conquest of Manchuria and opposed Japanese aggression against China. Negotiations with them went on while World War II was being fought in Europe. Roosevelt built an "arsenal of Democracy," although history shows that he started woefully late considering the threat. It is simply an incredible tribute to the U.S. that this nation was able to create the war machine that they did in the short time that it had to do so.

After the fall of France he created lend-lease legislation to aid the British. In the Presidential election of 1940 both major parties supported aid to Britain but opposed the entry of the United States into the war.

John N. Garner, FDR's Vice-President, might have been the heir apparent to the Democrat nomination, but he was alienated when Roosevelt chose to run for a third term. Henry Wallace, who was nothing less than a socialist, was his replacement. James A. Farley, who had advised in his earlier campaigns, also left. John L. Lewis, a labor leader, denounced Roosevelt. The President won anyway.

In August, 1941, Roosevelt met Prime Minister Churchill at sea to draft the Atlantic Charter. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt declared it a "date that will live in infamy." Roosevelt oversaw the rapid growth of American military strength and actively headed a nation. He became a world leader in the process. His diplomatic abilities were considerable. It is a combination of this and his inspiring speeches to the home folks that lift him from the grubby realm of politician to lasting greatness.

In 1944, Roosevelt had had enough of the embarrassing Wallace. He chose Harry S. Truman as his running mate. They defeated Republican Thomas E. Dewey, amid reports that the war in Europe was being won. He had a series of international conferences with Churchill, Joseph Stalin, Chiang Kai-shek, and others.

From January 14-24, 1943, the first war conference between the Allied Powers was held in Casablanca, Morocco. The Big Three meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin became a Big Two meeting when Stalin declined the invitation, since he was pre-occupied with the on-going German invasion. The Casablanca Conference was successful in setting the direction for the rest of the war.

No sitting President had ever been to Africa, nor had a U.S. President ever left the country during war. The conference demonstrated to the Axis powers that the Allies had a unified front. Wendell Willkie managed to play the critic, saying that the conference was not a success because Stalin was missing. Still, the Soviets were assured that the U.S. and Britain would fight to the end. It crushed any concept of Hitler negotiating separate peace negotiations.

The conference also brought together French leaders Henri Giraud and Charles de Gaulle. They issued a joint statement saying, "'We have met. We have talked. We have registered our entire agreement on the end to be achieved which is the liberation of France . . . This end will be attained by a union in war of all Frenchmen.'" The two French leaders, however, were still unwilling to cooperate. Despite the efforts by Roosevelt, Giraud and de Gaulle both refused to join together forming a single unified Free French command.

Had the Allies not insisted on total unconditional surrender, Hitler might have negotiated a peace settlement and could have continued to be in power and cause additional disasters. Historically, it was in some ways the last hurrah of the British Empire. They tried to assert itself over the United States but never would again. The decline of the British economy along with the increase in U.S. nationalism and the U.S. economy brought about the inevitable shift in power.

Subsequent meetings between the Big Three were attended by all, shaping the post-war world. Photos of FDR showed him to be in ill health. He died in April, 1945, shortly before Victory in Europe.

Winston Churchill

While Franklin Roosevelt is undoubtedly one of the most important Americans of the 20th Century, and naturally a giant of the world, the Right Honourable Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965), is along with Dwight Eisenhower one of the two greatest men of the century. Time magazine's choice of Albert Einstein for "Man of the Century" is little more than a joke, and an unmasked attempt by the liberal media to downplay the importance of greatness emanating from the winning of wars.

Churchill was the son of Lord Randolph Churchill and an American mother. He was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst. He sought action while serving as a young officer in the Army in India, finding it. He earned recognition that both launched his political career and earned the respect of his difficult father. He became a Conservative Member of Parliament in 1900, holding various high positions in Liberal and Conservative governments over three decades. Churchill was named First Lord of the Admiralty during the Great War. His future in politics, however, was put in jeopardy when he shepherded one of the most disastrous British campaigns of the war.

Churchill conceived of an amphibious invasion of the Turkish-held Dardanelles, principally at Gallipoli. British and Australian forces were charged with weakening the Central Powers by taking the fight directly to Constantinople, then crossing the Steppes and encircling German forces from the east. But at Gallipoli, the Allies were pinned down and eventually faced near-slaughter. The Dardanelles campaign never materialized. In failing to exert British forces from the east, the Russian Revolution was never counter-balanced by a Democratic force, which might have occurred had the English succeeded. This was the chief event on Churchill's resume until 1940, when he became Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. Churchill had been a lone voice warning the world against Hitler, urging the Democracies to take arms against him. Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy backfired. The French refused to fight, and the U.S. remained isolationist. But when Hitler attacked Czechoslovakia and Poland, there was no turning back. After the disaster at Dunkirk, Churchill and his country faced destruction.

However, Churchill inspired the English and the world with inspiring speeches. He hailed the bravery of English pilots fighting German Messerschmidts over the Dover coast, saying that, "Never have so many done so much for so few. This is England's finest hour," and announced boldly that, "We shall pursue Hitler at land. We shall pursue Hitler at sea. We shall pursue Hitler in the air, until we have rid the world of his evil menace."

Churchill was steadfast in his leadership of England, and proved to be a great diplomat in his dealings with Churchill, Stalin, and later Truman. He also wisely maneuvered the Allies through a thicket of potential disagreements over military policy, working closely with Eisenhower (whose office was in London) in allaying the concerns of Patton, Montgomery, Omar Bradley, and the various personalities of Allied leaders.

Churchill, believe it or not, was voted out of office shortly after the war ended, providing the ultimate cautionary tale to Western politicians who hope to ride to electoral victory on the coattails of military success. A similar fate befell George H.W. Bush in 1992. However, Churchill had developed a hardline response to Stalin, in part because Roosevelt's health diminished his vitality while the Soviets successfully planted spies and fellow travelers in the Democrat-controlled U.S. government. At Westminster College in Missouri, Churchill presciently told graduates that an "iron curtain" was descending on Eastern Europe, erasing all hopes for Democratic reform to shape post-war Europe within Stalin's sphere of influence.

He took over the premiership again in the Conservative victory of 1951 and resigned in 1955. He remained a Member of Parliament until 1964, when he did not seek re-election. Queen Elizabeth II conferred on Churchill the dignity of Knighthood and invested him with the insignia of the Order of the Garter in 1953. Among the other countless honors and decorations he received, he was made an honorary citizen of the United States by President John Kennedy.

Churchill's greatness lies not only in his inspiring leadership during World War II. If this were the only criteria, he would rate about equal with Roosevelt. He ascends to a higher place because of his diversity, honesty and foresight. His literary career began with campaign reports, "The Story of the Malakand Field Force" (1898) and "The River War "(1899), an account of the campaign in the Sudan and the Battle of Omdurman. In 1900, he published a novel, "Savrola". Six years later, his first major work was the biography of his father, "Lord Randolph Churchill". His other famous biography, the life of his great ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough, was published in four volumes between 1933 and 1938. Churchill's history of the First World War appeared in four volumes under the title of "The World Crisis" (1923-29). His memoirs of the Second World War ran to six volumes (1948-1953/54). After his retirement from office, Churchill wrote a "History of the English-speaking Peoples" (four volumes, 1956-58). His oratory exists in a dozen volumes of speeches, among them "The Unrelenting Struggle" (1942), "The Dawn of Liberation" (1945), and "Victory" (1946).

He was a fine amateur painter, and wrote "Painting as a Pastime" (1948) and an autobiographical account of his youth, "My Early Life" in 1930. Churchill was a military man, which FDR was not. He also is a symbol of determination, coming back from obscurity after Gallipoli and the isolation of the appeasers. Churchill rises above FDR in that he was stayed true to his principles, not currying the favor of political winds. He faced personal danger along with his people. He carried the Lincolnian message of magnanimity in victory, and was a humble man with personal flaws. He drank far too much and preferred to sleep in while working late into the night, putting him at odds with the disciplined schedule of Ike. But he was said to be a loyal husband and father whose personal virtues and flaws were not contrasted much from his public image. Winston Churchill died in 1965, and the world owes him its enduring thanks.

PART THREE

ASIA AND THE COMMUNIST MENACE

In October, 1949, the world turned on its head. The United States (along with the Soviets, the British, and our other Allies, namely the Canadians and the Australians) had defeated Germany and Japan in an amazing show of military might. It was a two-front war against massively powerful opponents, both equally evil and willing to go to any and all lengths to defeat America. In so doing, this country had suffered relatively low casualties in comparison with the rest of the world, which was in ruins. The U.S. had been left untouched, its beautiful landscape free for its citizens to play high school football, camp in the mountains, lounge by the beach, and do business in the cities. The United States found itself at the zenith of power, the ultimate superpower.

Only one thing opposed us: Communism.

Berlin airlift and the Marshall Plan

Churchill was 100 percent correct in his early assessment of Stalin, and his description of Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe as an Iron Curtain. The Soviets were aggressive from the beginning. In June, 1948, the Cold War formalized when the Soviets, claiming "technical difficulties," halted all traffic by land and water in or out of the Western-controlled section of Berlin. The only routes into the city were three 20 mile-wide air corridors across the Russian zone of Germany.

President Harry Truman faced a tough choice of abandoning the city to Communist takeover by attrition (starving) or attempting to keep their lifeline to the West by seeing to it that food and supplies would be made available. The only way to accomplish this Herculean task was by airlift. For 11 months this operation kept West Berliners 2 1/2 million residents alive. They called it Operation Vittles.

The U.S. Air Force C-47s carried 80 tons of food into Berlin. Navy and Royal Air Force cargo aircraft augmented this force. The Allies created the Combined Airlift Task Force under Major General William H. Tunner, USAF. The Allies sent three Strategic Air Command (SAC) bomb groups to Europe, placing Soviet targets well within B-29 range.

The pilots flew a rigid system of traffic control, requiring each pilot to fly an exact route at predetermined speed and altitude. If an arriving plane was unable to make a landing at Berlin on its first attempt, it had to return to its base in West Germany. The Soviets harassed the traffic by trying to jam radio channels, directing searchlights at aircraft taking off at night, the "buzzing" of cargo planes by Russian fighters, and barrage balloons allowed to drift into the air corridors.

At midnight on May 12, 1949, the Soviets reopened land and water routes into Berlin. The airlift saved Berlin and was the first tangible "victory" of the Cold War. There was no longer a question that Russia and Communism were not our allies, but our enemies.

America's second great "victory" in the war against Communism was the Marshall Plan, a rational effort by the United States aimed at reducing the hunger, homelessness, sickness, unemployment, and political restlessness of the 270 million people in 16 nations of Western Europe. Marshall Plan funds strengthened the economies of war-ravaged countries, first by kick-starting the iron-steel and power industries. The program cost the American taxpayers $11,820,700,000 (plus $1,505,100,000 in loans that were repaid) over four years. It was successful because it was aimed at an educated, industrialized people with capitalist and Democratic roots. The program's official title was "European Recovery Program." It increased production, expanded European foreign trade, facilitated European economic cooperation and integration, and tried to control inflation (not entirely succeeding in this area).

It was enunciated at Harvard University on June 5, 1947, and gave as its duration a four-year time frame, assuring taxpayers that it would not be an indefinite commitment.

Marshall Plan money stimulated European trade with the world and among European countries. It helped revive the tourism industry.

The Marshall Plan guaranteed investors would be able to convert their profits earned in European currencies into U.S. dollars. Grants and loans in U.S. dollars enabled managers in Europe to purchase American specialty tools for their new industries. Marshall Plan money paid for industrial technicians and farmers to visit U.S. industries and farms to study American techniques. Plan funds even paid the postage on privately contributed relief packages.

Marshall refused to call the idea the "Marshall Plan." He believed that his greatest contribution to the program was his 1947-48 nationwide campaign to convince the American people and Congress of its necessity. He did so in an effort not unlike a Presidential campaign.

One needs to multiply the program's $13.3 billion cost by 10 or perhaps even 20 times to have the same impact on the U.S. economy now as the Marshall Plan had between 1948 and 1952. On December 10, 1953, George C. Marshall received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. He accepted it, not as his individual triumph, but as the representative of the American people, whose efforts and money had made the program a success.

Marshall Plan Expenditures

Economic Assistance, April 3, 1948 to June 30, 1952

(in millions of dollars)

COUNTRY Total Grants Loans

Total for all countries $13,325.8 $11,820.7 $1,505.1

Austria 677.8 677.8 --

Belgium-Luxembourg 559.3 491.3 68.0 **a**

Denmark 273.0 239.7 33.3

France 2,713.6 2,488.0 225.6

Germany, Federal Republic of1,390.6 1,173.7 216.9 **b**

Greece 706.7 706.7 --

Iceland 29.3 24.0 5.3

Ireland 147.5 19.3 128.2

Italy (including Trieste) 1,508.8 1,413.2 95.6

Netherlands (*East Indies) **c** 1,083.5 916.8 166.7

Norway 255.3 216.1 39.2

Portugal 51.2 15.1 36.1

Sweden 107.3 86.9 20.4

Turkey 225.1 140.1 85.0

United Kingdom 3,189.8 2,805.0 384.8

Regional 407.0 **d** 407.0 **d**

Notes:

a. **Loan total includes $65.0 million for Belgium and $3.0 million for Luxembourg: grant detail between the two countries cannot be identified.**

b. **Includes an original loan figure of $16.9 million, plus $200.0 million representing a pro-rated share of grants converted to loans under an agreement signed February 27, 1953.**

c. **Marshall Plan aid to the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia) was extended through the Netherlands prior to transfer of sovereignty on December 30, 1949. The aid totals for the Netherlands East Indies are as follows:**

Total $101.4 million, Grants $84.2 million, Loans $17.2 million.

d. **Includes U.S. contribution to the European Payments Union (EPU) capital fund, $361.4 million; General Freight Account, $33.5 million; and European Technical Assistance Authorizations (multi-country or regional), $12.1 million.**

Statistics & Reports Division

Agency for International Development

November 17, 1975

George C. Marshall

George C. Marshall was not a scholar of military or political history, but he read widely and made a point of learning the lessons of history. His post-war policies were based on avoiding the mistakes he witnessed in World War I and its aftermath.

Marshall was disturbed after 1945 at what he called "a state of disinterested weakness." He believed the U.S. had international responsibilities for aid and assistance in post-war economic and political reconstruction, which they had not exerted after World War I.

In late November of 1945, Marshall planned to retire after 44 years of active duty. President Truman needed Marshall's prestige and skills to attempt to mediate the Chinese civil war and to take over from James Byrnes as Secretary of State.

Marshall's "failure" in China was the lack of determination of both sides to seek a military solution to China's problems. Marshall considered the Chinese Communist Party ruthless. They were dedicated Marxists who seemed to count on and encourage China's economic collapse as a way of winning. Chiang Kai-shek's government was a poor ally. The Nationalists rejected the domestic reforms that Marshall and others in the Truman Administration advocated.

Britain's economic weaknesses became more and more apparent after the war. With the fall of the British Empire, the Soviet Union hoped to fill the power vacuum. The U.S. helped the Greek government against the Communists, but the British notification that it had to relinquish its traditional role in Greece put pressure on Washington. Under the gun to act quickly, Republican majorities in both houses advocated tax cuts, economic nationalism, and government downsizing. Marshall resisted what he saw as renewed isolationism. Using a version of what would later be called the "domino thesis," Marshall asserted that a Communist victory in Greece would be a disaster.

"It is not alarmist," he said, "to say that we are faced with the first crisis of a series which might extend Soviet domination to Europe, the Middle East and Asia."

Marshall did not call for military action in defense of Democracy everywhere, or for an anti-Communist crusade. He aligned himself with that elite school of Democrats who advocated containment of Soviet opportunism in the face of British weakness. This was in accord with the policy strategist George Kennan. American assistance aimed at boosting public morale through financial and military equipment aid could do more good than war. There were opponents of containment, principally those who felt that while it had prospects for long-term success, it meant that multiple generations of innocent civilians would be abandoned to the tender mercies of Communism all over the world.

Congress ultimately appropriated $250 million for Greece and $150 million for Turkey, which was also being subjected to Soviet diplomatic pressure. Marshall did not want to put a "militant" public face on the U.S. response to the Greek situation. There was hope of agreement on the treatment of Germany and Austria at the up-coming Moscow Foreign Ministers' Conference. If the Soviet Union became aggressive, the United States was not prepared to offer major military resistance in Europe. Truman believed that strong anti-Communist rhetoric was essential to the aid bill's passage, despite Marshall's request for temperance.

The President's pronouncement had little impact on the Soviets at the Moscow Foreign Ministers' Conference. Marshall had frequent discussions with the British and the French. He was dismayed to receive a dire picture of Anglo-French economic and political problems.

Marshall saw similarities between the Soviet attitude toward German reconstruction and the Communist's attitude during his 1946 mission to China.

Marshall's second public address as Secretary of State came in an April 28 national radio speech on the Moscow Conference. Marshall still desired to avoid major confrontation with the Soviet Union, but he was enough of a realist to understand that it was unavoidable. Europe needed American help immediately or the Soviets would take advantage of the situation.

"Disintegrating forces are becoming evident," he remarked. "The patient is sinking while the doctors deliberate." He called for bi-partisan unity on the reconstruction of Europe.

Domestic politics encouraged the administration to caution. The Truman Doctrine, based on the theory that if one country became Communist other countries would fall to Communism, like dominoes, had generally been received positively. There was opposition to increased foreign aid, and not just from Republicans. Many Democratic Congressmen opposed a _fait accompli_ Greece-Turkey aid package. Marshall himself assured Senator Arthur Vandenberg that no huge budget programs were under consideration.

He took a low-key approach and built from there. Dean Acheson assured him that nobody paid any attention to what was said at commencements, but Marshall knew that Churchills's Iron Curtain speech had occurred at a tiny Missouri college. He knew that European leaders paid attention.

In Marshall's commencement speeches at the University of Wisconsin and Amherst College, it was quickly made evident that the United States could not wait long in dealing with post-war Europe. On June 5, 1947 at Harvard, Marshall gave a speech outlining his vision for what would be the Marshall Plan:

**"** I need not tell you gentlemen that the world situation is very serious. That must be apparent to all intelligent people. I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. Furthermore, the people of this country are distant from the troubled areas of the earth and it is hard for them to comprehend the plight and consequent reactions of the long-suffering peoples, and the effect of those reactions on their governments in connection with our efforts to promote peace in the world.

In considering the requirements for the rehabilitation of Europe, the physical loss of life, the visible destruction of cities, factories, mines and railroads was correctly estimated, but it has become obvious during recent months that this visible destruction was probably less serious than the dislocation of the entire fabric of European economy. For the past 10 years conditions have been highly abnormal. The feverish preparation for war and the more feverish maintenance of the war effort engulfed all aspects of national economies. Machinery has fallen into disrepair or is entirely obsolete. Under the arbitrary and destructive Nazi rule, virtually every possible enterprise was geared into the German war machine. Long-standing commercial ties, private institutions, banks, insurance companies and shipping companies disappeared, through loss of capital, absorption through nationalization or by simple destruction. In many countries, confidence in the local currency has been severely shaken. The breakdown of the business structure of Europe during the war was complete. Recovery has been seriously retarded by the fact that two years after the close of hostilities a peace settlement with Germany and Austria has not been agreed upon. But even given a more prompt solution of these difficult problems, the rehabilitation of the economic structure of Europe quite evidently will require a much longer time and greater effort than had been foreseen.

"There is a phase of this matter which is both interesting and serious. The farmer has always produced the foodstuffs to exchange with the city dweller for the other necessities of life. This division of labor is the basis of modern civilization. At the present time it is threatened with breakdown. The town and city industries are not producing adequate goods to exchange with the food-producing farmer. Raw materials and fuel are in short supply. Machinery is lacking or worn out. The farmer or the peasant cannot find the goods for sale which he desires to purchase. So the sale of his farm produce for money which he cannot use seems to him an unprofitable transaction. He, therefore, has withdrawn many fields from crop cultivation and is using them for grazing. He feeds more grain to stock and finds for himself and his family an ample supply of food, however short he may be on clothing and the other ordinary gadgets of civilization. Meanwhile people in the cities are short of food and fuel. So the governments are forced to use their foreign money and credits to procure these necessities abroad. This process exhausts funds which are urgently needed for reconstruction. This a very serious situation. It is rapidly developing, which bodes no good for the world. The modern system of the division of labor upon which the exchange of products is based is in danger of breaking down.

"The truth of the matter is that Europe's requirements for the next three or four years of foreign food and other essential products - principally from America - are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help, or face economic, social and political deterioration of a very grave character.

The remedy lies in breaking the vicious circle and restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole. The manufacturer and the farmer throughout wide areas must be able and willing to exchange their products for currencies the continuing value of which is not open to question.

"Aside from the demoralizing effect on the world at large and the possibilities of disturbances arising as a result of the desperation of the people concerned, the consequences to the economy of the United States should be apparent to all. It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. Such assistance, I am convinced, must not be on a peace-meal basis as various crises develop. Any assistance that this government may render in the future should provide a cure rather than a mere palliative. Any government that is willing to assist in the task of recovery will find full cooperation, I am sure, on the part of the United States government. Any government which maneuvers to block the recovery of other countries cannot expect help from us. Furthermore, governments, political parties or groups which seek to perpetuate human misery in order to profit therefrom politically or otherwise will encounter the opposition of the United States.

It is already evident that, before the United States government can proceed much further in its efforts to alleviate the situation and help start the European world on its way to recovery, there must be some agreement among the countries of Europe as to the requirements of the situation and the part those countries themselves will take in order to give proper effect to whatever action might be undertaken by this Government. It would be neither fitting nor efficacious for this Government to undertake to draw up unilaterally a program designed to place Europe on its feet economically. This is the business of the Europeans. The initiative, I think, must come from Europe. The role of this country should consist of friendly aid in the drafting of a European program and of later support of such a program so far as it may be practical for us to do so. The program should be a joint one, agreed to by a number, if not all European nations.

"An essential part of any successful action on the part of the United States is an understanding on the part of the people of America of the character of the problem and the remedies to be applied. Political passion and prejudice should have no part. With foresight, and a willingness on the part of our people to face up to the vast responsibility which history has clearly placed upon our country, the difficulties I have outlined can and will be overcome."

British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin heard a BBC report on Marshall's Harvard speech shortly after it was given. The next day he contacted French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault and arranged for a June 17 conference in Paris to consider the ideas Marshall had put forth.

Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov was invited to the Paris meetings, and some countries in the Soviet sphere of influence expressed an interest in "participating." Molotov walked out on July 2, however, labeling the Marshal Plan American economic imperialism. Soviet-dominated countries quickly fell into line. One scholarly estimate is that the Soviet Union _extracted_ some $14 billion from Eastern Europe between 1948 and 1953 while the U.S. was investing billions in Western Europe. The following were examples of the proposed plan:

(1) Pays freight subsidies for 16.8 million private voluntary relief packages to Europe.

(2) Funds building of a new wharf in North Borneo to help that British colony export vitally needed rubber.

(3) Assists building railroads and water systems in French North Africa

(4) $50 million for medicine to combat tuberculosis.

(5) Technical assistance program: Over 3,000 Europeans make six-month visits to various U.S. industries to learn new techniques; there was a similar program in agriculture.

(6) The Ford Motor Company in Britain receives funds to replace machine tools needed to produce cars, trucks, and tractors for export, thereby earning valuable foreign exchange credits.

(7) The Otis Elevator Company (U.S.) helps to modernize British factories, and its investment is guaranteed by ECA insurance.

(8) ECA money enables Portugal to purchase key equipment and materials to build a new hospital-tender ship for its cod-fishing fleet.

(9) The French aircraft industry is able to purchase propellers for the aircraft it is producing.

(10) An alcohol-producing plant in Scotland is granted $6.5 million, thereby reducing British imports and facilitating plastic, pharmaceutical, and rayon production.

George C. Marshall is one of the great American statesmen of all time. He dominated behind-the-scenes and eventually more visibly, international military and diplomatic affairs from 1939 to 1951, shaping the second half of the century. It was said that he was not a political supporter of Roosevelt. He never let that interfere with his duties under the President. At the same time, Marshall was a taciturn man not given to laughing at FDR's sometimes-ribald humor. He disdained a personal relationship with his Commander-in-Chief.

He chose Dwight Eisenhower to take over as Commander of European Allied forces and to the military personnel under his command. In essence, he was the boss of Eisenhower, MacArthur and Stilwell. His word had the same effect as those emanating from the Burning Bush. While he was a human being, he seems to have possessed so few faults as to appear perfect. When "loose cannons" like Patton needed to be disciplined, or complained about strategy, they were always mollified when told that Marshall would make the decision.

"He's a good man," Patton announced. "At least he's a fair man. I'll let it stand by him."

In 1945, he left the military. Winston Churchill called him the "true architect of victory" in the West European arena of World War II. He spent a year in China in 1945-46 as President Truman's representative, attempting - without success \- to bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict between the Nationalists and the Communists. He helped create the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949, achieving a balance of power in Europe that endured until the end of the Cold War. He oversaw the formation of international forces under the United Nations in Korea.

As great a man as Marshall was, and as great a success as the Marshall Plan had been, he also was associated with what was at the time considered a "failure." The success of the airlift and the Marshall Plan created security in Western Europe, but on the other side of the globe a "yellow menace" threatened to imperil the world.

Mao Tse-tung

Mao Tse-tung was the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. He proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. He had struggled several decades, first against the Japanese and then in civil war against the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang). Chinese history was changed forever, and so was the world. Truman, Marshall and Acheson were "blamed" for "losing" China. The world had not paid full attention to the goings-on in China. Respected journalist Theodore H. White, who spoke Chinese, had chosen to cover this vast country before, during and after World War II. For the most part journalistic, diplomatic, military and popular attention was focused on events first in Europe, and second in the Pacific. In this respect, China remained what it had always been, a mystery. But this nation has survived a turbulent history, and continues to do so.

When China went Red, it was the first in a series of events that in many ways verified the "domino theory." Suddenly, an enormous Communist monolith existed. It was not just starving Russia and the megalomaniacal "Uncle Joe" Stalin. It was not just the rest of Eastern Europe, which was becoming enveloped by Soviet domination. By 1949, there was little real hope that any resistance would succeed among these countries.

But China had resisted the Japanese. They had always been a part of our "sphere of influence." However, the "gunboat diplomacy" depicted in the 1966 Steve McQueen film "The Sand Pebbles" had created a backlash against American "imperialism." With the end of the British Empire, Anglo-American "empires" were no longer acceptable to many people who had struggled against a series of foes and now wanted some kind of independence, good or bad.

The American government had misinterpreted support for Chang Kai-shek and underestimated the power of Mao. The creation of the PRC foreshadowed the Communist world becoming atomic (and then nuclear). The Korean War, McCarthyism, Vietnam, a fissure in Sino-Soviet relations, the Nixon-Kissinger détente, was just to the right of center during the Cold War. China continues to be a sticky political thicket 15 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Few events have been analyzed more than their revolution and the question of how it succeeded. China has a conservative, Confucian tradition that stresses harmony. But it has always believed that individuals should accept their place in society. In this lack of individual autonomy is the perfect mindset for Communism. For 2,000 years China had avoided contact with the outside world. Rather, they saw themselves as isolationist, observers of an inferior outside world that changed while they remained the center of all things. To try and understand Chinese thinking, one must accept this concept. It is based on the idea that China is so old, with so much history and, therefore "wise experience," that they are like an elder who counsels a protégé. They do not see things in one-year, five-year, or even 20-year timetables. The Chinese conception of time is different from Westerners. They view events within 100-year periods. They view setbacks and defeats as strategy. The Chinese look at the United States, who dominated a world that they chose not to participate in; then dominated them; then became their enemy; and now dominates them again. Instead of accepting the fact that they are on the losing side of history, they consider it all some kind of 230-year plan.

Lenin once said that his strategy was to take "one step back and two steps forward." World War II changed the Soviet dynamic. It made them think they could take two steps forward without taking any steps back. In the end their boldness ended them. But China was not a victorious "conquering power." They barely emerged from the war, badly bruised in every possible way; raped, pillaged, plundered, used, humiliated. They had little capitalist history. The British and Americans did business there, but looked down upon them. They had no Democratic traditions. The remedies of the Marshall Plan were not applicable to China. Its people were peasants, warlords, and tyrants, not the educated, refined classes of Japan who took to MacArthur with admiration.

China might be like the proverbial ants that are said to be the only likely "survivors" of some future nuclear holocaust. This theory will only be tested by time. In the end Communism will fall in China because of two things. First, China will endure it. They shall outlast it just as they have outlasted all other forms of manmade control over its vastness. Second, Communism will fall because it is the opposite of freedom. The Machiavellians who advocate that man prefers security to freedom are simply wrong.

In the 1840s, Western powers considered the Chinese inferior and forced the country to open its ports to foreign commerce because of its vast natural resources. Change occurred quickly and in 1911 the ruling Qing dynasty collapsed. Over the next 37 years, there was no single political structure in the country. This alone was not cause for a major collapse, since it did not represent a huge break in China's past. The country was de-stabilized by World War I, but like Japan they were on the periphery of events. But the Japanese invasion and subsequent World War had repercussions great enough to rock even the placid Chinese.

Rival factions had struggled to assert control, causing turbulence and disruption. The two main rivals were the Nationalists, created by Sun Yat-sen in 1912, and led from 1925 by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Chinese Communists, led by Mao from the late 1920s. A short-lived alliance brought about the destruction of Chinese warlords (with the Northern Expedition). This broke down in 1927. The Nationalists were more powerful since the rich West, who saw them as the lesser of two evils, sponsored them. In the 1930s they formed the government. They maintained symbolic power, but not real power. They could not eliminate the Communists.

In 1931 the Japanese invaded Mainland China and occupied its richest provinces. In 1932 they took control of Manchuria (renaming it Manchukuo, installing the puppet Pu Yi as Emperor). After a full-scale invasion in 1937 they took Beijing, Shanghai and Nanking. Chiang's reaction was tepid. His policy was to "share" his huge country with them, subjugating those unfortunates who fell under their domination. The Japanese infused their attacks with an ancient history of the Chinese people. They felt about the Chinese much the way the Germans felt about Jews, Slavs and other "sub-humans." Chiang ceded the northern territories, then mounted resistance in the areas he chose to fight, invoking "local patriotism" within disparate groups.

In his 20s, Mao had envisioned fundamental change. He was a schoolteacher, labor organizer and eventually a military commander. He found in Marxism a system and an organization. He was not rigid to Karl Marx, however, allowing for adaptation on a regional scale. Like the Russians, his constituencies were the peasants. He saw them as an important class that made up 80 percent of the population. As a rebel leader in Jiangxi (1927-1934), he fought guerrilla warfare and carried out Stalinist, autocratic blood purges. Mao found no problem administering torture to achieve false confessions, followed by show trials and executions. "Counter-revolutionary" became the watchword for anybody who opposed him.

In carrying on the theme of this work, which is to dispel the idea that moral relativism is ever legitimate, let it be stated that by using these kinds of methods, Mao proved himself early on to be evil. Many of my conservative brethren insist that "understanding" such evil is an exercise in futility. While I agree in principle, I do not advocate a black-and-white approach that fails to study such activity. Mao made his choice when he adopted Marxism. From that point on, his "soul" was lost, the Rubicon crossed, and his brand of "evil banality" was inevitable. In other words, in the time and place he chose to make his historical stand, only treacherous Darwinianism could succeed. Mao had no chance of leading his people using anything less than terror. Had he chosen benevolence, he would have been killed and replaced. This is an example of being "swept up by history."

Mao is a character who benefits from the infamous "Chinese inscrutability." It is impossible to imagine Stalin growing up in England and thriving in British politics, or Hitler transformed to the American Midwest as Mayor of Peoria. They are easily dismissed as evil, any time, any place. Mao's supporters among the "useful idiot" class might say that he was just a kindly schoolteacher who did what he had to do, not giving any credence to traits of demagoguery, megalomaniacalism, and the kind of blind ambition that men like Mao had (and men like George Marshall did not!). What is important to understand in studying evil is that some of people would be imprisoned if their place was in America, but some "play the system," like the Clintons.

Mao was uncompromising in an uncompromising world. Americans lose track in their easy assessments of morality, trying to judge a man like Mao as one would judge Clinton, Franklin Roosevelt or George Bush. The standards are set higher for some societies than others. This is because the hills, streams, valleys and natural destiny of history has led to where we are today. In many ways, the results of history are like the landscape. In some places, mountains form. In others, great plains spread as far as the eye can see. Certain landscapes are more beautiful, and certain natural geographies offer more resources. Others are barren. In some ways, peoples are like this. Some are beautiful, and some are barren.

All human beings come from the same place. One can argue that this place is God the Maker, or some combination of Him and the gaseous masses of time. He, or something, created oceans, from which life evolved, eventually washing up on shore, and hence sprung hands, legs, eyes, the ability to figure out E equals MC squared, or to throw a perfect spiral into the hands of a sprinting wide receiver. Albert Einstein, at least until the end of his life when he came to believe in God, originally thought that man rose from the ocean strictly on his own, without God's help. However, this sounds like the wind and the elements creating various masses, throwing them in the air, and having them land as a perfectly formed jet aircraft. The concept that life is so random may be possible. However, it seems to my mind at least, so far from being possible as to be virtually impossible. But that is just me.

Some people evolved in Africa. Some crossed the Asian landmass. Some are from the cold north country. Either way, enough time has passed over the course of millions of years that people are what they are. Racial, physical, and societal traits are established, and after millions and then thousands of years, these traits are established as more fixed than the vagaries of prejudice or the whimsies of politics. Nations, societies and cultures are established over these thousands of years with fixed traits, endemic to some people which go back to the Middle Ages and before that. They are not changed by a 20th Century vote or plebiscite.

Which gets back to the point of Chairman Mao and the fact that he routinely tortured human beings in order to effectuate his mission, which was to spread Marxism-Leninism to China beginning in the 1920s and 1930s. What Mao was is not what the meaning of is is. He is what he, his society and his beliefs had evolved into being over the course of all human history. By the 1930s, it had come to pass that human beings who torture and kill are doing bad things. This was simply established as that with which is fact. No excuse is offered beyond that. Most realized this. Unfortunately, some people who were in power did not adhere to this philosophy at that time. Mao, Stalin and Hitler are three such people. Luckily for the world, people in power in London and Washington did not adhere to the "torture is good" philosophy. They decided to something about it.

It is not an accident that those who thought torture was a valid political tool, and rose to the heights in their countries, were Communists and Nazis, while those who do not were "small d" democrats. Furthermore, there is no culture that makes what Mao did okay.

Maybe in 1,000 years, torture will be considered a good thing, like giving to charity. It is because of such a possibility that vigilance for the doings of the devil must be maintained. It is with great relief that I am here to report that such vigilance is maintained as part of the official policy of the United States of America.

Mao has been described as a "remarkably tough and uncompromising leader." He was "schooled in adversity," making his "success" possible. In the film "Nixon", filmmaker Oliver Stone offers the following quote from Matthew 16:26: "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

There is no evidence that Stone is a Christian or religious. In this context he is proposing the idea that Nixon "gained the whole world" by becoming President, but in fighting the kind of world Communism that Mao and Stalin represented, he loses his soul. In a scene in which Nixon, Henry Kissinger and Mao meet in 1972, he makes a point of having Mao tell Nixon that they are both "evil," which Anthony Hopkins reacts to as if he is discomfited by this "fact." Under the Stone worldview, evil is a moral relative. The Quaker Nixon, raised by a Christian mother who spake to him in the "plain manner," is somehow as evil as Mao. Why? Because he campaigned aggressively against Helen Gahagan Douglas, bugged Watergate to find out if Ted Kennedy was going to run for President, and bombed Hanoi in order to keep the Communists from enslaving South Vietnam (and eventually turn Cambodia into a pile of 1.5 million skulls). Stone's film is a paean to moral relativism in its effort to equate the acts of Mao with the acts of Nixon. It is, therefore, as thorough a lie as has ever been exposed.

The important point is not a false attempt to portray all things American as good by portraying the evil of all things un-American. Quantrill's Raiders are just one example of American's, operating in a quasi-official capacity, who were evil and did evil things in the name of "patriotism." There are more than enough of these kind of examples that abound during the period of slavery, the War With Mexico, and in the terrible injustices, broken promises and ultra-violence that marks the "winning" of the American West.

These events are highlighted in books, movies, documentaries and the History Channel. Conscientious Americans have constantly studied these mistakes in order to avoid repeating them. Men like Quantrill and others like him have been identified as the bandits, immorals, and criminals that they were. In so doing, men who engage in these kinds of abuses are not elevated by American history to a place of honor. The ethics of Americana do not allow it.

But Chairman Mao was allowed to rise in China, to hold ultimate power, to be revered, and never forced to pay for his crimes. A "man" like Oliver Stone nevertheless portrayed Mao as a smiling, round-faced Buddha whose morality is somehow a historical "evil," on a scale no more or less than Richard Nixon. This is the kind of thing that makes the devil smile.

But not on my watch, as Mr. Reagan would say. Res ipsa loquiter.

After the Long March, Mao ruled in remote Yan'an (1937-1945), where he ensured his supremacy through terror and a wonderful new Communist technique called "brainwashing." This was his so-called Rectification Campaign. His policies resulted in poverty, but he was a survivalist.

In 1945 Japan was forced to abandon China. The revolution took on new urgency. A civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists resumed. The Nationalists were trying to encourage the economy and fight a war, all on the heels of Japanese occupation. They lacked popularity with the peasants, whose grain they had been seizing. After four years of fierce conflict the Kuomintang were defeated.

Joe Stilwell had heard the reports of Communist efficiency in farming, organization and military attack. While Mao had long been torturing enemies, real and perceived, apparently the danger of Japanese victory forced he and his men into becoming a strong, cohesive unit. They managed to maintain such cohesion in the civil war.

Chiang-kai Shek took refuge offshore on the island of Formosa (today's Taiwan). Mao and the Communist Party proclaimed the existence of the PRC and established control over the country.

Nixon campaigned against the Democrat Helen Gahagan Douglas in the 1950 California Senate campaign. Douglas, who was so liberal that Nixon called her "red right down to her underwear," excoriated him for stating the simple truth that "Mao is a monster." All of the millions who had been killed, tortured, imprisoned and destroyed by Communists over the previous 20 years were either known by Democrats like Douglas, or the information was readily available to them. They still tried to treat people like Mao as misunderstood. Their actions are somehow not judged, God forbid, by Christian moral standards. Communism is a political organization of evil. Nixon knew it. He and his kind opposed it until they had weakened it, created enough fissures in it to make it vulnerable, then made them think he was doing business with it. 18 years later, it was in the ashcan of history, and that is also what the meaning is is!

But in 1949, Mao's ruthless organization was in charge of a country of almost one billion people. Four years after defeating Hitler, the U.S. faced another enemy, potentially more formidable than the previous one. Mao famously wrote, "power grows out of the barrel of a gun." His finger was on the trigger.

Time-line of the Korean War

North Korea attacks South Korea (25 June 1950).

Task Force Smith at Osan, South Korea (5-6 July 1950).

Kum River Line defense (Taejon) (11-22 July 1950).

Pusan Perimeter defense (4 Aug -16 Sept 1950).

Inchon Landing (15 Sept 1950).

Liberation of Seoul (1st return) (21-30 Sept 1950).

Advance into North Korea (west coast) (1 Oct -27 Oct 1950)

Withdrawal to Ch'ongch'on River Defense Line and second advance toward the Yalu (west coast) (28 Oct -25 Nov 1950).

Landing at Iwon and race to the Yalu (east coast) (31 Oct -27 Nov 1950).

Withdrawal to Imjin River Line (west coast) (28 Nov-23 Dec 1950).

X-Corps withdrawal (east coast) (1 Dec-24 Dec 1950).

Withdrawal to Defense Line "D" (roughly along the 37th Parallel - P'yongt'aek [W] to Samch'ok on east coast) (26 Dec 1950-29 Jan 1951).

Advance to Line Boston (south bank of the Han River south of Seoul - I Corps) (18 Feb 1951-6 Mar 1951).

Advance to Phase Line Kansas (north of Seoul to just north of the 38th Parallel - east coast <2nd Liberation of Seoul>) (4 -21 April 1951).

1st Chinese Spring Offensive (22 -29 Apr 1951).

Defense lines Golden (I Corps) and No Name (IX & X Corps) (29 Apr 1951-19 May 1951).

2nd Chinese Spring Offensive (17-22 May 1951).

Advance to Phase Line Kansas (3rd Liberation of Seoul) (22 May 1951-10 Jun 1951).

Advance to Phase Line Wyoming (Imjin River in I Corps sector north of Seoul to north of 38th Parallel in IX Corps and X Corps sectors) (13 Jun 1951-4 Oct 1951).

Line Jamestown (MLR in I Corps Sector - West) (7 Oct 1951-27 July 1953).

Line Missouri (MLR in IX Corps Sector - Central) (23 Oct 1951-27 July 1953).

Line Minnesota (MLR in X Corps Sector - East) (16 Oct 1951-27 July 1953).

The "forgotten war"

The Korean Peninsula was divided after World War II at latitude 38 degrees into North and South Korea. The Soviets had accepted Japanese surrender north of that line while the U.S. accepted surrender south of it. Attempts at unifying the two halves failed, and the north became a Soviet client state. The U.S backed the south. In 1950, the Communist world decided to make its play. The Soviets had recovered from the Great Patriotic War, as they called the German invasion and subsequent Battle of Berlin. They had created totalitarian "hegemony" in Eastern Europe. The Berlin Airlift, the Marshall Plan, and Truman's support of anti-Communist forces in Greece had proven a setback to their propagandist aims at one-world government. China's new Communist rule coincided with development of the atomic bomb. Emboldened by this, it was decided that it was the right time to challenge the West. The forbidding landscape and weather challenges of Korea were where they did it. Dean Acheson had, possibly by mistaken omission, made a speech outlining the sphere of American military protection. Korea had not been included in the list.

When North Korea crossed the 38th parallel, the U.N. Security Council, minus the absent Soviet delegate, passed a resolution calling for the assistance of all U.N. members in halting the invasion. President Truman ordered U.S. troops to the assistance of South Korea. General MacArthur received a phone call informing him of the invasion. Long in the tooth, having faded from the spotlight, he told his wife that the invasion was "one last gift" to an aging warrior.

The North Korean forces drove the South Korean and U.N. forces to the southern tip of the peninsula. The brilliant tactics of MacArthur turned the tide in favor of the U.N. troops. They advanced to near the border of North Korea and China. Mao then entered the war, sending a purported one million Chinese across the Yalu River. MacArthur had taken re-captured Seoul after an amphibious invasion at Inchon that ranks as one of the most incredibly daring military moves of all time.

MacArthur's aides had told him that an amphibious landing at Inchon was impossible, because the water near the landing was nothing more than mud flats that would bog down the landing crafts. This would leave the men exposed to enemy fire like the British and Australians who were mowed down at Gallipoli. But MacArthur pondered the invasion further. He asked meteorologists if ever the tides were high enough to land ships. He was told that there was such a time, but the window of opportunity encompassed only a few hours every few months. The next high tide was on September 18, 1950. Military operations were subject to so many factors - the weather, espionage, sabotage, loss of the element of surprise, unforeseen mistakes - that to send a large force into such a potential quagmire on a precision schedule seemed beyond reasonable risk.

But MacArthur knew that the Communists were not prepared for an invasion at Inchon. He reasoned that such an attack would catch them by surprise, like Hannibal crossing the Alps, or Lawrence crossing the Sinai. He set the plan in motion. It worked to perfection, and the war appeared to be won. MacArthur issued a statement that the "boys would be home by Christmas," but when the Chinese crossed the Yalu, all bets were off.

The front line stabilized at the 38th parallel. MacArthur favored bombing China into submission. He was relieved of his command when he refused to accept Truman's order to retreat. Truman felt that full-scale war, like the kind waged on Japan and Germany, would aggravate a regional conflict into World War III.

Public opinion sided with the regal MacArthur, and Truman's popularity dropped so precipitously that he chose not to run for re-election in 1952. General Dwight Eisenhower was elected on the Republican ticket after promising to go to Korea and end the war. After the conclusion of an armistice, the front line became a de facto boundary between the two Koreas. The war resulted in the deaths of 1.3 million South Koreans, one million Chinese, 500,000 North Koreans, 54,000 Americans, and smaller numbers of U.N. forces.

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman was born on a farm near Lamar, Missouri, on May 8, 1884. The "S" in his "middle name" does not stand for anything other than "S." During World War I, he served in France as a captain with the 129th Field Artillery. He married Bess Wallace in 1919. He entered the haberdashery business in Kansas City, but failed. He did not possess formal education past high school, but was an avid reader of history. He possessed enough knowledge of the subject to teach at any college. Truman entered local politics for purposes of securing steady employment. He was sponsored by Thomas Pendergast, Democrat boss of Missouri, and held a number of local offices.

Truman's role in the Pendergast Machine is subject to some debate, as is his entire career. He preserved his personal honesty in the midst of a notoriously corrupt political machine, possibly the most crooked outside of Tammany Hall in the Boss Tweed era. Kansas City was entirely inundated by organized crime, and all public works were for sale. It was similar in nature to the political web of corruption that Bill Clinton grew up and thrived in during his Arkansas years.

Big city and Southern Democrat machines in these years were little more than fronts for organized crime, in one form or another. Boston under the Kennedys; Chicago under Richard Daley; Texas under Lyndon Johnson; Louisiana under Huey and Earl Long; all were corrupted to the high Heavens. All were Democrat.

Truman maintained some integrity during his years in Kansas City politics, which he should be commended for. However, he was "allowed" to do so, since the machine needed an "honest politician." In this respect, he was a token.

The 1939 classic "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" by Republican director Frank Capra is, for all practical purposes, the last film that ever portrayed Democrats as the "bad guys." Truman is a composite between Jimmy Stewart and the sitting Senator from Stewart's home state, who is controlled by a machine boss, based on Pendergast. By turns, Truman is both Stewart, who is upright and true, and the older Senator (Claude Rains, looking just like the real Truman). The actual Truman also lies somewhere in between. He was "upright and true," but that was because Pendergast needed one upright and true man in his pocket. Truman eventually became somewhat independent of Pendergast, earning grudging admiration from the old crook. When Pendergast went to jail for his crimes of graft and corruption, Truman defended him. He continued to pay lip service to his old boss right to the end, all the while excoriating Nixon as "crooked" and a "liar."

Truman's perfidy was exposed in the White House, where he oversaw one of the most scandal-ridden administration's in U.S. history. He managed to avoid any "smoking guns" implicating himself. He was run out of town strictly for political reasons based on his handling of the Korean War, and his firing of the revered MacArthur.

In 1934, Truman had been elected to the Senate and was re-elected in 1940. He supported the New Deal, but in his second term, as head of a Senate committee to investigate war production, he established a reputation for honesty, common sense, and hard work. For this, he won bi-partisan respect.

Elected Vice-President in 1944, Truman became President upon Roosevelt's sudden death in April, 1945. He was thrust into the last tumultuous days of the war and post-war adjustment. Truman attended the Potsdam Conference to discuss the plans for post-war Europe. He was informed of the existence of the atomic bomb. When given estimates by his most respected military experts that conventional fighting would cost far more American and Japanese lives than the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, he authorized the dropping of atomic bombs on those two cities on August 6 and August 9, 1945.

Truman advised the Japanese that they could not win, but did not inform them of the existence of the bomb prior to dropping it. He and his staff felt that the Japanese would not believe such a weapon existed. He chose not to "demonstrate" the weapon's prowess to the Japanese, theorizing that if he did they would either think it a hoax or still not believe the Americans would drop it on a population. After dropping the first bomb, surrender demands went out to the Japanese, who still refused to give in. This bolsters the premise that the warning or the demonstrations would indeed not have been effective. It further strengthens the premise that dropping the bomb(s) was necessary in order to end the war. Finally, after the second weapon was dropped, the Japanese saw the hopelessness of their cause and surrendered.

The dropping of the bomb has been a major source of criticism from those who dispute America's role in the world. This does not change the fact that had the Japanese or the Nazis gotten the weapon first, they would undoubtedly have used it ceaselessly until all enemy/Allied strongholds were reduced to rubble. Still, this was no longer a threat by August, 1945.

The entire premise for dropping both bombs lies in the fact that had they not, an Allied invasion of Tokyo would have taken place. This operation would have made D-Day, which occurred at a relatively rural beachhead, look small in comparison. My own father was an officer on an aircraft carrier steaming for Tokyo at that time, fending off kamikazes. Casualties - U.S. and Japanese military and Japanese civilian - would have been horrific. As President, Truman had a responsibility to keep American casualties to the absolute minimum. The fact that the Japanese had started the war with a sneak attack at Pearl has been argued by some as "justification" for the bombings, but this "revenge motive" does not hold water. It is right and proper that Japanese casualties were not the first concern of Truman. American casualties were. It is an indisputable fact that civilian deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved many more civilians in Tokyo and the rest of Japan. It also saved infrastructure and political institutions, allowing reconstruction to begin sooner. All of this rightfully weighed on Truman's mind. It definitely should not and was not his primary deciding factor. Ending World War II was.

There are those in and out of the United States who is not comfortable with the fact that one country is as powerful as America. For this reason among others they try to chip away at the "morality" of the atomic bomb. Much historical revisionism has taken place, not the least of which occurs in classrooms and school texts. Many American schoolchildren are led to believe, by inference and outright lie, that the A-bomb was dropped on the Japanese because they were Asian, and not on the Germans because they were white. Racism is the tool by which the modernists attempt to tear America down, desperately trying to throw a spear into our "Achilles heel."

The Dresden and Hamburg firebombings were not atomic, but the destruction wrought upon German civilian and military populations was so horrendous as to render the "racist" element of the decision meaningless. Patton, Montgomery and Marshall Georgi Zhukov defeated the Germans. Had they doggedly hung on like the Japanese, the A-bomb likely would have been used on them too. It would have been right to do so.

Many U.S. schoolkids still walk around blithely believing the fiction, taught by textbooks in use today, that the Americans wanted to drop the A-bomb on the larger population of Tokyo. The reason, they are led to believe, is that more dead Asians would occur, but this act was averted only because it was cloudy on that day. This is a lie.

Nevertheless, the atomic bomb is an example of the great conundrum of moral history. The fact is that this great nation is the country that dropped the most horrific weapon of all time on innocent human beings.

If ever evidence exists that the devil operates between the cracks, this is it. The great challenge to America is not just overcoming tyrants ranging from the Kaiser to Hitler to Tojo to Stalin to Saddam, but in doing so not becoming as bad as they are.

It is to God that we rightfully say thanks for the fact that it is indeed America who possesses the power, and not these tyrants. It is to this same God that we pray that we never have to use them again. If we do, we pray that we use as much restraint as possible. In seeing the A-bomb fall twice, Satan smiled. His armies had not triumphed, but he was still performing rear guard actions. He works that way. The question is often philosophized, "Would Christ have dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima?" All indications are that He would not. However, the blanket assessment that this is true is not as easy as all that.

If Christ were in power but stripped of "magical" powers, knowing that killing the citizens of Hiroshima would undoubtedly save many more lives in Tokyo and all points east, west, south and north, would He have ordered it? It only matters if Earthly matters matter. Christ might have said that whether the Japanese, the Nazis and the Communists turned the world into a concentration camp with nuclear rockets flying above our heads is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that when we die we either go to Heaven, hell or purgatory. If this is so, then the United States has expended all its energy for little purpose. This is possible. It is also unlikely.

Japan surrendered on August 14, signing the papers on the USS Missouri, docked in at Tokyo Bay in September. General MacArthur allowed General William Wainwright, who had endured the Bataan Death March, to accept the surrender.

From 1947–48 Truman put forth civil rights proposals. He outlined the Truman Doctrine to contain the spread of Communism, and the Marshall Plan to aid in the economic reconstruction of war-ravaged nations. His domestic plank was called the Fair Deal. It was socialistic in nature like FDR's New Deal. In this regard Truman can be said to have carried forth domestic plans that are still at the heart of the Democrat party. The changing situation after the war, however, allowed him to put a more business-friendly face on the Fair Deal. Truman was given general credit for dropping the A-bomb and saving American lives, but he paled next to the ghost of FDR. The failed haberdasher with the Midwestern twang did not seem to be of Presidential timbre. He was not expected to prevail in the 1948 election against New York's heavily favored Thomas E. Dewey.

Dewey was the Rudolph Giuliani of his day, having taken on the mob in New York City when they were at the height of their power. When Truman went to bed on election night, it appeared that he would lose. The Chicago Tribune printed a headlined reading "DEWEY WINS." Truman had won, and the picture of the smiling "Give 'em, hell" Harry holding the picture is iconic.

Truman implemented the North Atlantic Pact, the United Nations police action in Korea, and the vast rearmament program with its accompanying problems of economic stabilization. He began the process of desegregating the military, and dealt with the steel companies in a manner they had not come to expect from fawning administrations.

On March 29, 1952, Truman announced that he would not run again for the Presidency. He returned to Independence, Missouri, to write his memoirs. "Plain Speaking" is considered a classic, and over time Truman ascended from the unpopular President who would not have won re-election in 1952, to one of the most respected Presidents in history. Some feel that he prevented World War III by reigning in MacArthur instead of going for total victory. This may be true, but it also may be true that in not exterminating Communism in Korea once and for all, he sowed the seeds for a repeat adventure in Vietnam, enslaving the North Korean population to life under despotic rule that continues to this day. To say that he was mistaken in his policies is to take credit for omnipotence that no human has. To question the context of these policies is the job of historians. This much can be said, however. If by miracle North Korea were freed tomorrow, the citizens of that country could have little nice to say about Harry S. Truman.

Despite his ties to Pendergast and a myriad of scandals in his administration, Truman is considered an honest man. He was blatantly political in his criticisms of Nixon and other Republicans. His feelings about MacArthur (who was a Republican) bordered on hatred. He called the general a "four-star son of a bitch," and was infuriated that when he went to the war theatre to consult with "his highness," MacArthur was dressed in khakis and an open shirt like a "buck louie." When asked about John F. Kennedy's potential loyalty problem as a Catholic in 1960, Truman said, "I'm more concerned with the Pop than the Pope," in reference to the horrid Joseph P. Kennedy, who pulled the behind-the-scenes strings of U.S. politics in the 1950s like a grand puppet master. Truman passed away on December 26, 1972, in Kansas City.

American Caesar

Truman will always be associated with Korea (1950-53), called by some the "forgotten war," and with MacArthur. Korea did not capture the nation's attention as had World War II, nor did it arouse controversy as did Vietnam. Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) transcends his involvement in Korea, but the man is as close to a myth as any American. His legions (an appropriate Roman word) of followers revere his memory and despise the fact that the Missouri haberdasher sent the "old soldier" into retirement in such ignominious fashion.

They called him the American Caesar. His military service started in the 19th Century. His place in history often seemed to be as important to him as winning the war. George Patton had been promised by FDR a command in the Pacific once hostilities ceased in Europe. When Roosevelt died and the guns went silent there, Patton was asked about that promise.

"Doug MacArthur doesn't want me around," Patton told the press. Indeed, MacArthur turned down the services of the greatest field tactician this nation ever produced because he would steal some of his thunder. MacArthur was the son of another famous soldier, Arthur MacArthur II, who led troops in the Civil War, the Spanish American War, and in the Philippines. His family was politically well connected, and his mother was also ambitious for him. MacArthur entered the United States Military Academy at West Point and graduated at the head of his class in 1903.

MacArthur commanded combat troops in World War I, earning honors for bravery and leadership. After the war he served as superintendent of West Point, as Army Chief of Staff under Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, and as military adviser to the new Philippine Commonwealth. He retired from the U.S. Army in 1937, but went back to active duty after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. As Commander of U.S. troops in the southwestern Pacific, he conducted the drive to defeat Japan in their quest for Asian Pacific domination. At the end of the war he headed the military occupation of Japan.

By the time General MacArthur organized troops and supplies after the North Koreans attacked in June, 1950, South Korean forces were in the far southern tip of the Korean peninsula. MacArthur's Inchon landing turned everything around, and put U.S. forces far behind enemy lines. The North Koreans were routed nearly to China. China, fearing invasion by the approaching Americans, launched a full-blown counter-attack. The entrance of Red China, newly allied with the Soviet Union, and the advent of atomic weaponry, forced Truman into a stalemate at the 38th parallel.

Truman would not accept MacArthur's urgings to carry the war into China. MacArthur's dissatisfaction was made public and a power struggle culminated in the April, 1951 dismissal of MacArthur for insubordination. It was the most serious wedge between civilian and military authority since the Civil War, if not ever, and posed potential Constitutional issues.

MacArthur returned home a hero. Most historians have since determined that Truman was in the right, and that his fears of World War III were not unfounded. While this issue has been debated over and over, no true answer, even in now-opened Soviet archives, provides an answer to this what-if. The determination that one makes on this question also affects the historical view of Vietnam. If Pyongyang could have been invaded, captured, conquered, and occupied, as Japan had been, then Hanoi could have been subjected to the same thing. If The Americans had come out of Korea with "total victory," then Vietnam would not have occurred. If Truman was right, and full-scale war in enemy territory would have escalated into global war, then the Vietnam strategy under the Nixon-Kissinger plan is roughly the best this country could hope for. The lessons of Korea, however, did not seem to resonate in early military decisions regarding Southeast Asia. Korea dragged on until an armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, which ended the fighting and created a demilitarized zone between the North and South.

MacArthur was brilliant and brave; arrogant and self-promoting. It has been said he had little tolerance for criticism, but his Americanism tempers this statement. Arthur MacArthur had won the Congressional Medal of Honor. His son inherited his

legendary conceit and flamboyant persona. In answering a question from a woman admirer of MacArthur whether Dwight D. Eisenhower had met MacArthur, Eisenhower remarked, "Not only have I met him, ma'am; I studied dramatics under him for five years in Washington and four years in the Philippines." MacArthur was a showman who never met a newsreel camera he did not like. Ike was right. MacArthur was a method actor, who might as well have stood up in staff meetings and announced, "Friends, officers, Americans." He suffered his share of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

MacArthur's "island-hopping" strategy against Japan was a grand success. After the war, he was instrumental in reshaping the Japanese nation's political structure, its economic life, and even the Japanese people's relationship with their own Emperor. For all of his medals and brilliant military tactics, his deft political handling of Japan and Hirohito may be his greatest contribution. He had learned from the mistakes of Napoleon and the Versailles Treaty, from the wise actions of Abe Lincoln, and Churchill's counsel to be "magnanimous." He allowed Hirohito to "save face," while not placing him in a position of real authority. The kindness and decency of the American soldiers operating under the MacArthur plan helped create an atmosphere in Japan that gave the population reason to live and move on. In short order, all things about American culture became wildly popular in post-war Japan. MacArthur redeemed the brutally cruel Japanese. He was revered as a Christ-like figure. This analogy is not an exaggeration. He helped a country and its people to save its soul. The Japanese also loved baseball. They became fanatical devotees of the most American of games.

MacArthur had agreed that Korea and Manchuria might have to be "sacrificed" in order to draw Soviet participation in the war with Japan. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, MacArthur supported the division of the Korean peninsula into two occupational zones. He designated General John Hodge as head of the U.S Military Government in Korea, appointing him to command the USMGIK because Hodge's XXIV Corps was in Okinawa at the time. Koreans residing in the occupied zone were told that the goals of the USMGIK were to accept the surrender of the Japanese and to maintain religious and personal freedoms. National independence would be accorded them "in due course."

Thus, the Republic of Korea was created in the South, with President Syngman Rhee appointed to head the Seoul government.

"If Korea should ever be attacked by the Communists," MacArthur told Rhee, "I shall defend it as I would California." The U.S. began a de-militarization withdrawal, and in the corridors of Washington, Korea was not considered vital to American interests. In private, MacArthur concurred.

"Anyone who commits the American Army in the Asian mainland should have his head examined," MacArthur said to a reporter in 1949. At a press conference in January of 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson clearly stated, in no uncertain terms, that Korea lay outside the U.S. Defense perimeter and consequently did not constitute a national interest. Five and a half months later, war broke out in Korea.

When it looked as if the North Korean Army would unify Korea under Communism, MacArthur was sent to Korea in a "last-ditch" defense of the "Pusan Perimeter." The United Nations backed the U.S. in its defense of South Korea. MacArthur was appointed as the Supreme Commander of all U.N Forces in the region. He was given a mandate by the U.N. to drive the invaders north of the 38th parallel. After Inchon, the North Koreans retreated in rout. President Truman was assured by MacArthur that the Chinese would not intervene.

There is "very little" chance of that occurring, he told the President. On October 25, the People's Liberation Army of China attacked, dealing heavy losses to the U.N. Force and causing a costly retreat southward. MacArthur described the Korean War as "an entirely new war" now. With his background and experience he no doubt concluded that he and he alone was the one man who knew how to handle the situation. After all, he had boldly stated that he was destined to save the world for Christendom.

It is probably too simplistic to state that MacArthur was a 19th Century man confronted with 20th Century, and possibly 21st Century, weapons and geo-politics. The events of 1945-50 had seen the advent, use and spread of atomic bombs, and the creation of jet aircraft. While all of this obviously occurred in the 20th Century, the suddenness of technological advancement and the severity these events had on events meant a change so tremendous that it was as if 50 years had passed and a new century was upon these old practitioners of war and politics.

Truman, the Missouri haberdasher; MacArthur, the son of a Civil War hero whose romantic view of service was envisioned by the "plains of West Point;" Mao, the man of rural China; and Stalin, the Georgian peasant. They were now operating in the world of Robert Oppenheimer and Werner von Braun, who were carrying on the work of Albert Einstein.

Clemenceau had said, "war is too important to be left to the generals." Now it appeared that it was too important to be left up to any one President, premier or general. The scientists were the new gods of geo-politics. Oppenheimer, the University of California-Berkeley professor, was far too liberal for the liking of his Federal handlers, but he was too valuable to be let go. He was handled with "kid gloves." Knowing what he had unleashed on the world in the creation of the A-bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico, Oppenheimer eventually took it upon himself to share atomic secrets with Soviet scientists. This was not because he was a traitor to America, but because he felt that if the whole world had the bomb, nobody would be willing to use it.

Oppenheimer's premise mirrored the deterrence policy that became the cornerstone of nuclear politics. His politics mirrored Left wing world politics, which never wanted America to hold all the cards. Had the U.S. been able to maintain sole use of these weapons, Korea and Vietnam might not have happened. The West would have won the Cold War much earlier, saving millions of enslaved lives in the process.

MacArthur was not a proponent of atomic bombs, which offended his sense of battlefield decorum, but he had learned to love the concept of "total victory." If he had the A-bomb, he always possessed this advantage. Patton had shown outright disdain for the "secret weapons" that Hitler boasted of, and Truman used, deriding them as "push button weapons" that pitted faceless foes against each other from great distances with no "confirmation" or "glory."

"Just those who are left alive, and those who are left...dead," he said. "I'm glad I won't live to see them." He saw two of them, but he did not live much beyond that.

As the U.N. Forces neared the 38th parallel, MacArthur suggested that the solution in Korea was to bring war to China itself. President Truman may not have truly felt that such a widening of the war could induce an atomic reaction, although the Soviets had exploded their first A-bomb in 1949 (Mao exploded China's first in 1964). But he did fear the potential of it getting out of control. Five years after the worst conflagration in history, events were moving too fast for his liking: Two world wars within 21 years of each other, a Holocaust, new weapons of mass destruction, Communism replacing Nazism as an even bigger threat. Whether Truman recognized that dark forces were creating geo-political irony (a global war over a peace of real estate that Acheson had not even included on the "protected" list) may not have entered into the Missourian's "show me" mind. MacArthur's grand view of the world and himself as its savior might have brought about such considerations. The general may have believed that perhaps Armageddon was a battle that he could win "to make the world safe for Christendom."

When it was all said and done, MacArthur was not allowed to ride into Valhalla. Instead, he rode into Washington, where he addressed a joint session of Congress in April, 1951, and proclaimed famously that "old soldiers never die; they just fade away."

On May 12, 1962, MacArthur addressed the Corps of Cadets at West Point. His moving tribute echoed his love for the "long, gray line."

"The shadows are lengthening for me," he concluded. "The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished - tone and tints. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen, then, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll.

In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. But in the evening of my memory I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, honor, country.

"Today marks my final roll call with you. But I want you to know that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of the corps, and the corps, and the corps.

"I bid you farewell."

Melodramatic, yes, but I challenge anybody to imagine the old soldier addressing the West Pointers, many of whom would see service in Vietnam, and not fight back at least the first vestige of a tear for the nostalgic memory and idea of a man like General Douglas MacArthur. One thing is for certain. That is this country is fortunate beyond all comprehension that men like MacArthur are on our side.

The "soldier of Democracy"

If Doug MacArthur and George Patton reminded people of Julius Caesar and Napoleon, then soldiers like Omar Bradley and Dwight Eisenhower reminded people of U.S. Grant and Abe Lincoln. They were industrious products of the great Middle America, which is as much a state of mind as a geographic location. They were uniquely American, like cowboys of the Old West. MacArthur and Patton were faintly imperialistic and, in so being, slightly internationalist. Had they not been Americans, they could have been French Marshalls and Roman Centurions. While great Germans, Englishmen and Frenchmen have come from their farms and rural lands, membership in the right family, the right clan, the right political connections are extremely important in Europe. There is a sense in America that all things are possible. Guys like Ike were products only of their own impressive abilities. They rose from the heartland, fueled by ambition, intelligence and a capacity for hard work.

Born October 14, 1890, at Denison, Texas, third of seven sons of David Jacob and Ida Elizabeth Stover Eisenhower, the family returned to Abilene, Kansas, in 1892. Eisenhower graduated from Abilene High School in 1909 and went to work at Belle Springs Creamery from 1909-1911.

Young Eisenhower was handsome and athletic. He caught the eye of local political figures and was thus sponsored for entrance to the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York. He graduated in 1915, commissioned as a second lieutenant. Ike married Mamie Geneva Doud of Denver, Colorado in 1916. His first son, Doud Dwight, was born in 1917 but died tragically in 1921. His second son, John Sheldon Doud, was born on August 3, 1922.

Eisenhower served with the infantry from 1915 to 1918 in Fort Sam Houston, Camp Wilson and Leon Springs, Texas and Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. He served with the Tank Corps from 1918 to 1922 in Camp Meade, Maryland; Camp Colt, Pennsylvania; Camp Dix, New Jersey; Fort Benning, Georgia; and Fort Meade, Maryland. While he was promoted to first lieutenant in 1916; captain in 1917; major (temporarily) in 1918; and to lieutenant colonel (temporarily) in 1918, he was relatively obscure in the military hierarchy.

Patton and Bradley had attended West Point together, and were part of a  
"golden class" of cadets who would earn their chops in the First World War, then be in charge of prosecuting the second. Patton, in particular, had risen ahead of his class by virtue of his swagger, his participation in the Stockholm Olympics, and particularly because he had served next to Pershing in Mexico and France. He was the most innovative tank strategist, and by the end of the Great War was the young officer whose star was on the fastest rise.

MacArthur was senior to all of them; already a legend who attained a general's rank at age 30, although youthful promotion sometimes carried a star-crossed legacy. George Armstrong Custer had graduated last in his West Point class, but heroism at Gettysburg and other Civil War battles had elevated him to a general's rank by the age of 23. His _hubris_ , however, would be his ultimate undoing.

Eisenhower had been a good student, but not a great one. Where officers like Patton were military historians, Eisenhower had normal, but not extraordinary knowledge of such things. He served and rose in rank throughout World War I without serving a tour of duty "over there." He was efficient, loyal, intelligent, and easy to get along with. In the long run, these traits would be his wings, while the irascible Patton would have to struggle against his own overwhelming personality.

Eisenhower was reverted to the permanent rank of captain in 1920. This was a common practice after a war. Many officers were elevated to high rank in wartime, but were reduced in peacetime. This practice caused its fair share of low morale in the years between wars. The military felt they were being ignored and given little respect for their contributions. Eisenhower was promoted to major in 1920. He had volunteered to participate as a tank corps observer in the First Transcontinental Motor Convoy in 1919.

He was assigned as executive officer to General Fox Conner, Camp Gaillard, Panama Canal Zone, from 1922 to 1924, then served in various capacities in Maryland and Colorado until 1925. Eisenhower entered Command and General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1925, graduating first in a class of 245, in 1926. This raised his profile, and earned him a battalion Command of the 24th Infantry at Fort Benning from 1926 to 1927.

His assignment to the American Battle Monuments Commission in 1927 might have been a "wasteland" but-for the fact that it put him directly under General Pershing's command. Pershing was no longer the grand old man of the Army, but he still carried a lot of weight. He spoke highly of young Ike. From January to August of 1927 he served in the Washington, D.C. office, writing a guidebook to World War I battlefields. Then he spent a year revising military guidebooks in Paris. Graduation from the Army War College followed, and by this point Eisenhower had completed his military education. He was on the "fast track" in the Army, but with no conflicts on the horizon, a career in the military had the potential of being a dead end.

He served as the executive officer to General George V. Moseley, Assistant Secretary of War, from 1929 to 1933. This was a huge boost in his career. His proximity to politics and the halls of power - civilian and military - gave him a bright future. Then his real break occurred. He was made the chief military aide to General MacArthur, the Army Chief of Staff, from 1933 to 1935.

From 1935 to 1939 he continued on as MacArthur's assistant military advisor to the Philippine government, earning promotion to lieutenant colonel in the process. His many years with MacArthur provide for interesting asterisks to their careers. Ike was with MacArthur while Patton was doing important but obscure work in the California desert, developing U.S. tank power. Eisenhower was now in a position to establish genuine relationships, personal and professional, with influential men like MacArthur, George Marshall, and even Roosevelt. He was learning the skills of administration, diplomacy and organization, which would be the hallmarks of his career, instead of becoming the master of the killing fields, like Patton.

While technically MacArthur's command in the Pacific carried the same weight as Ike's would in Europe, the general emphasis was always placed first and foremost on the European theatre. In this regard, Ike would rise above MacArthur. MacArthur allowed his name to be put up for a draft for the Republican nomination for President from Wisconsin in 1948, only to have it shot down. Secretly, this was an affront to MacArthur, who must have thought the mere placing of his name in nomination would earn him accolades and the Presidency. Instead, he was given a rude awakening. But Eisenhower _was_ accorded such accolades when the Republicans made him their choice in 1952. When Ike won the election, MacArthur wistfully remarked that the younger man was, "The best clerk I ever had."

Eisenhower was assigned to General DeWitt Clinton, Commander of the 15th Infantry, for a short term in Fort Ord, California, and then permanently to Fort Lewis, Washington as regimental executive, in 1940. He was Chief of Staff for General Thompson, Commander, 3rd Division, Fort Lewis until March 1941, and Chief of Staff to General Kenyon Joyce, Commander of the 9th Army Corps, Fort Lewis, until June of 1941. Ike was then Designated Chief of Staff to General Walter Kreuger, Commander of the 3rd Army, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, June of 1941 to December 1941. He was promoted to colonel (temporary) on March 11, 1941, and to brigadier general (temporary) on September 29, 1941.

He was assigned to the General Staff, Washington, D.C., from December 1941 to June of 1942, and named Deputy Chief in charge of Pacific Defenses under Chief of War Plans Division, General Leonard Gerow, in December of 1941. In February of 1942 he was designated as Chief of War Plans Division, and in April was appointed Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of Operations Division for General George Marshall, the Chief of Staff. On March 27, 1942, he was promoted to major general (temporary). From September of 1941 to the Spring of 1942, with the advent and then beginning of war, Ike had risen meteorically. When the war started, he had been on General Gerow's staff. A little over six months later, he was for all practical purposes the most important general in the Army.

Ike conducted a mission to increase cooperation among World War II allies in London in May of 1942. He impressed everybody, and already was the "golden boy" of George Marshall. He was named Designated Commanding General, European Theater, London, in June, 1942, then Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces, North Africa, in November of 1942. Promoted to lieutenant general (temporary) on July 7, 1942 and to general (four stars, temporary) on February 11, 1943, he was appointed brigadier general (permanent) on August 30, 1943 and was major general (permanent) on the same date. In December, 1943 he was made Supreme Commander of Allied Expeditionary Forces. He commanded forces of the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944.

During the first six months of 1944, the United States and Great Britain concentrated land, naval, and air forces in England to prepare for Operation Overlord, the assault on Hitler's "Fortress Europe." While the Soviet Union tied down a great portion of the enemy's forces, the Western Allies marshaled their resources, trained their forces, separately and jointly, for the operation. They fine tuned the invasion plans to take full advantage of their joint and combined capabilities.

The 12,000 planes of the Allied air forces swept the _Luftwaffe_ from the skies, photographed enemy defenses, dropped supplies to the resistance, bombed railways, attacked Germany's industries and isolated the battlefield. The Allies' naval component was similarly active during the buildup. The Navy escorted convoys, patrolled and protected the English Channel, reconnoitered beaches and beach defenses, conducted amphibious rehearsals and organized and loaded a flotilla to land the assault forces in France.

Nine Army divisions (three airborne and six infantry) from the United States, Britain and Canada choreographed the operation. Rangers climbed cliffs, engineers destroyed beach obstacles, quartermasters stockpiled supplies and infantrymen waded through the English surf as each honed the skills necessary for the invasion's success.

Under Eisenhower were the Allied Expeditionary Naval Forces, commanded by Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay; the 21st Army Group under General Montgomery; the Allied Expeditionary Air Forces, under Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory; and U.S. Army and U.K. Land Forces. This included the First Army; the Second British Army; V Corps of the 1st British Corps; VII Corps of the 30th British Corps; 1st Infantry Division of the 3rd British Infantry Division; 4th Infantry Division; 6th British Airborne Division; 29th Infantry Division; 50th British Infantry Division; 82nd Airborne Division; 3rd Canadian Infantry Division; and the 101st Airborne Division. Air Forces included the U.S. and British (Eighth Air Force, 2nd Tactical Air Force, Ninth Air Force, Allied Expeditionary Naval Forces, Western Task Force, and Eastern Task Force).

The invasion itself gave prominence to land forces but provided major roles for air and sea components. Allied air forces carried three airborne divisions into battle, protected the force as it crossed the English Channel, and attacked targets throughout the invasion area before and after the landing in support of the assault forces. More than 5,000 ships - from battleships to landing craft - carried, escorted and landed the assault force along the Normandy coast. Once the force was landed, naval gunfire provided critical support for the soldiers as they fought their way across the beaches.

In the invasion's early hours, more than 1,000 transports dropped paratroopers to secure the flanks and beach exits of the assault area. Amphibious craft landed some 130,000 troops on five beaches along 50 miles of Normandy coast between the Cotentin Peninsula and the Orne River. The air forces controlled the skies overhead. In the eastern zone, the British and Canadians landed on GOLD, JUNO and SWORD Beaches. The Americans landed on two beaches in the west - UTAH and OMAHA. As the Allies came ashore, they took the first steps on the final road to victory in Europe.

The landing by regiments of the 1st and 29th Infantry divisions and Army Rangers on OMAHA Beach was extremely difficult. When the first wave landed at 6:30 in the morning, the men found that naval gunfire and prelanding air bombardments had not reduced German resistance. Along the 7,000 yards of Normandy shore German defenses formed the vaunted "Atlantic Wall." Enemy positions looked down from bluffs of 170 feet, with water and beach obstacles strewn across the narrow beach, stopping the assault at the water's edge for much of the morning.

Initial reports had Lieutenant. General Bradley, the Army Commander, considering pulling off the beach and landing troops some place else However, during these bleak hours, the bravery, initiative and unique qualities of America, Democracy and their juxtaposition with the military came to the fore. As soldiers struggled, one leader told his men that two types of people would stay on the beach - the dead and those going to die - so they had better "get the hell out of there," and they did.

Slowly, as individuals and then in groups, soldiers began to cross the fire-swept beach. Supported by Allied naval gunfire from destroyers steaming dangerously close to shore, the American infantrymen gained the heights and beach exits, driving the enemy inland. By day's end V Corps had a tenuous toehold on the Normandy coast. The force consolidated to protect its gains and prepare for the next step on the road to Germany.

The battle of Omaha Beach was telling, and described the difference between German troops (and other armies of totalitarianism) and troops from free countries. The Germans operated on a strict command structure. Their enlisted personnel were not only considered expendable, but given no decision-making command. If their officers were killed, chaos ensued. A German private or corporal had no capacity for battlefield leadership. Without being told what to do by a superior, the German was effectively rendered an object, fighting for his life but no longer part of an organized unit.

The American was different. Part of this was because of the way Americans are raised; free, entrepreneurial, and independent. But the "Democratic soldier" was a product of training doctrine, too. The Marines call it being able to "adapt and improvise." At Omaha Beach, many soldiers saw their lieutenants, captains, major and colonels cut down early and often by German machine gun fire. They were left to fend for themselves on the bloody sands. Instead of simply ducking for cover, running around like chickens with their heads cut off, many U.S. privates, corporals and sergeants gathered entire units, from the survivors of other units, men they did not know. They improvised depending on the circumstances. They picked up the radio equipment, established makeshift "command posts," and directed artillery and infantry movements based not on promotions or rank, but on a combination of common sense, survival skills, and the overwhelming desire to see victory at the end of the day. These were the men who were trained by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the ultimate "soldier of Democracy."

In the predawn darkness of June 6, the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were air dropped behind UTAH Beach to secure four causeways across a flooded area directly behind the beach and to protect the invasion's western flank. Numerous factors caused the paratroopers to miss their drop zones and become scattered across the Norman countryside. However, throughout the night and into the day the airborne troops gathered and organized themselves. They went on to accomplish their missions. They, too, did this in the manner of the others, not by rank or by new "orders," but by using common sense and intelligence. Ironically, the paratroopers' wide dispersion benefited the invasion. With paratroopers in so many places, the Germans never developed adequate responses to the airborne and amphibious assaults.

The 4th Infantry Division was assigned to take UTAH Beach. In contrast with OMAHA Beach, the 4th Division's landing went smoothly. The first wave landed 2,000 yards south of the planned beach - one of the Allies' more fortuitous opportunities on D-Day. The original beach was heavily defended in comparison to the light resistance and few fixed defenses encountered on the new beach. After a personal reconnaissance, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., who accompanied the first wave, decided to exploit the opportunity and altered the original plan. He ordered that landing craft carrying the successive assault waves land reinforcements, equipment and supplies to capitalize on the first wave's success. Within hours, the beachhead was secured and the 4th Division started inland to contact the airborne divisions scattered across its front.

As in the OMAHA zone, at day's end the UTAH Beach forces had not gained all of their planned objectives. However, a lodgment was secured, Most important, once again the American soldier's resourcefulness and initiative had rescued the operation from floundering along the Normandy coast.

The success of D-Day was primarily the result of Eisenhower's careful planning. He had given the "go" order despite reports of poor weather. Ike told everybody associated with him that if the mission failed, all responsibility fell on his shoulders. It was the single most important day of the 20th Century. The man behind it is, in this man's opinion, the single greatest man of that century.

As Spring turned into the Summer of 1944, Eisenhower urged Montgomery to take more aggressive action in the vicinity of Caen so that the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF) could move on to Paris by direct route. Montgomery operated defensive flanking maneuvers, tying down heavy German forces so the Americans on his right could break out of the beachhead.

In late July, General Bradley, now in consultation with the rehabilitated Patton, forced the breakout drive into France. Almost immediately Eisenhower was locked in another controversy with Montgomery. The British general wanted to lead a drive into northern Germany. Eisenhower wanted to maintain a broad front, with Bradley's Americans staying even with Montgomery. Montgomery was dealing with supply problems. SHAEF's major problem was the absence of deepwater ports. Ike felt that a thrust would be isolated and destroyed by the enemy. He was also dealing with Patton. It was the same old story as Sicily, where Patton and Montgomery vied to get to Messina, Palermo and other villages first, glorifying themselves as if they were the Phoenicians, Romans, Carthaginians, French and all the other conquerors who had subjugated the Sicilian boot. Now the stakes were Paris and Berlin. It was not just the U.S. and British forces at play. The Soviets were advancing from the east.

Montgomery, the British chiefs of staff, and Prime Minister Churchill all lobbied for Monty's plan, but Ike stuck to his guns. Marshall supported him, and it is a testament to the respect that man had that once this occurred the sniping died down. It was at this point that Eisenhower's confidence began to flower.

Once Patton was unleashed, SHAEF forces outrun their supplies in the Fall. When the Germans began the massive counterattack in the Ardennes, resulting in the Battle of the Bulge, Eisenhower (now wearing five stars) had confidence that Patton could cut off the Germans at Bastogne. He was right. After that Patton approached the Rhine along a broad front, destroying the bulk of the German forces in a brilliant campaign.

The question now concerned the direction the advancing forces should take. Churchill wanted Eisenhower to capture Berlin and hold it until the Russians made concessions on Poland and other political questions relating to the fate of post-war Eastern Europe. Eisenhower insisted that prior agreements between the Allied governments that had divided Germany into occupation zones and Berlin into sectors within the Russian zone made the question of Berlin's liberation meaningless. If the Americans took the city, he felt they would suffer up to 100,000 casualties and would then have to give up most it, plus the surrounding area, to the Russians anyway. He said there was no possibility of getting large Allied forces into Berlin before the Russians took the city. The alliance was strained, but Eisenhower held it together even while insisting on his own views. He sent his forces into southern Germany. His decision remains the subject of hot dispute, but it seems that had he taken Berlin a possible disaster could have occurred.

The Russians would have insisted on the occupation plan. Had the Anglo-Americans resisted their advance, war might have broken out. History teaches us that much might have been gained by defeating and weakening the Soviets in 1945, before the atomic and nuclear arms race, Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War could take shape. Patton advocated it. But in judging the only way that is fair, which is to determine what the best move was at the time it was made, the idea of a full-scale war with the Soviets, with all the attendant horrors that would bring, makes Eisenhower's decision the right one. Nobody could have predicted the way the U.S.-Communist conflicts, especially with the creation of Red China, would play out.

Generals complain that the "politicians always leave us with another war to fight." This is not an untrue theory. It is as much a strategy of the forces of evil as anything we experience. But there is also an indomitable hope that springs eternal in the human breast. This hope is that peace can win out over war. Furthermore, as it pertains to the decision by Eisenhower, Roosevelt and then Truman not to "take a stand" in Berlin, the Americans had the more powerful army. While this would have put us at an advantage in a Berlin/Soviet confrontation, it also gave the U.S. confidence that they could prevail in the peace, too. Furthermore, the U.S. and English would have broken agreements hammered out at Yalta, Tehran, and later Potsdam. The Federal government had broken promises to the Indians in the 19th Century, but incredible tides of settlement had rendered them all-but-impossible to uphold. The U.S. lives up to its word. In dealing with a dangerous, insane world, this country sometimes finds itself and its "perfect scenarios" compromised by events, but this government reflects the basic fact that America is the closest thing to Truth as exists under God.

Naturally, since the U.S. was dealing with one of the most notorious liars in the annals of recorded history, Joe Stalin, it can be argued that all bets were off and breaking agreements with him was simply doing business. All is fair in love and war, as they say. Perhaps this theory holds weight, but America simply holds itself to a higher standard than other human institutions. It is not unlike the way Israel conducts business amid the lies of the Arab world. They maintain aspects of justice that sometimes seem to work against their better interests. In the end run they remain above their enemies. So it is and always will be (God willing) with the U.S.

The Germans signed the unconditional surrender document on May 8, 1945. Eisenhower headed the occupation forces for six months, then went to Washington to succeed Marshall as chief of staff. He wrote an account of his war career and was approached by both major parties to accept a Presidential nomination. He insisted that he had no interest in politics and accepted the presidency of Columbia University. In 1950 he left Columbia to become supreme commander of the newly formed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces.

Prominent Democrats had tried unsuccessfully to draft Eisenhower for the Presidency in 1948. After he became NATO commander, both parties continued to query him about 1952. His popularity and aloofness from partisan affairs made him the perfect (anti)politician. Eisenhower's Midwestern values, his opinion regarding hard work and responsibility, combined with an entrepreneurial Texas spirit and desire to see better civil rights for blacks seemed, in his view, to be more Republican concepts than Democrat. He disdained Democrat policies promoting centralized government at the expense of individual liberty, which in view of Communism were close to being anti-American. He felt that with Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball, and the Army becoming de-segregated, blacks were in a position to make strides in a free society. FDR's simple welfare handouts retarded this progress.

Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio was the heir apparent to the Republican nomination. He was the son of President William Howard Taft, whose disputes with Theodore Roosevelt had split the G.O.P., causing it harm that many felt were still felt in 1952.

In 1976, Vice-Presidential candidate Robert Dole had remarked that the 20th Century was a century of "Democrat wars." He was strongly criticized for this remark, which has nothing to with the fact that he had a valid point. The German chief of staff had written the plans for the Belgian advance that started World War I, in 1905. It was not until the military-minded Roosevelt and his successor, Taft, were "safely" out of office and the pacifist Democrat, Wilson, was in the White House that the Germans carried out the plan. After FDR reduced the Army to training with brooms instead of guns, Hitler had invaded Czechoslovakia. After Acheson's speech, the Communists defied Truman in Korea. Would these wars have started with Republicans at the helm? Dole's remarks covered the start of Vietnam, which was as much a "Democrat war" as anything. After Watergate, the Communists trampled on Jimmy Carter as if he was a tourist in a red shirt at Pamplona. Cambodia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East followed. History seems to fairly obviously demonstrate that national security is not a Democrat strongpoint. The 1952 elections revolved around this question.

Taft, known as Mr. Republican, opposed lavish New Deal/Fair Deal programs at home and favored retrenchment of American commitments abroad. He was a traditional pro-defense Republican, and would have earned a high place in history had not he run smack dab into the Eisenhower juggernaut He was critical of Truman's aid for Europe (which he was wrong about) at the expense of Asia. He led the charge in the "Truman lost China" argument. He was a nationalist and correctly wanted to fight Communism by weeding out American subversives at home, and containing them overseas. His mistake was in hitching his wagon to the demagogic investigations of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin. He wanted to fight President Truman's Fair Deal and believed that the Republicans had lost the last three elections by pandering to the Left.

Eisenhower attached himself to the moderate Eastern wing of the party headed by Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., of Massachusetts. This later came to be known as the Rockefeller wing. The Barry Goldwater nomination and Reagan Revolution greatly reduced its influence. In 1952, however, it was a powerful force in the G.O.P.

New demographic factors were at play. For years, New York governors and the state of Ohio, which represented a large electoral base and symbolized rural Midwestern sensibilities, dominated Presidential politics. The West, however, had captured the imagination of the country and the world.

First the Gold Rush, then the cowboys and the Wild West stories had mythologized the region. After the Owens Valley was turned into a reservoir/canal feeding the Los Angeles Basin in the 1900s, L.A. and Southern California became an attractive locale for huge numbers of families and people of all stripe. The Rose Bowl football game had attracted millions of Midwesterners to Los Angeles. Intoxicated by 80-degree sunshine on New Year's Day, they stayed in droves. The Southern California-Notre Dame football rivalry had drawn attention to athletes who seemed to grow on trees. Eastern sportswriters like Grantland Rice saw the USC athletes as cowboy descendants. John Wayne was one of them. They were bigger, faster, and more handsome than the average American. The Sun and the oranges were given credit for this phenomenon. The 1932 L.A. Olympics combined with the advent of talking motion pictures from Hollywood to glamorize the West. Finally, millions of blacks came to California to work side by side with whites in the shipyards during World War II. Many more service members had fallen in love with California while traveling to and through it. By 1952, it was the prize state in electoral politics.

California was different from the rest of America. It had more moderate racial views. The Eastern Republicans, viewed as Bunker Hill and Philadelphia Main Line elitists, did not fit with the independent streak of its voters. Taft did not play well there. Navy personnel in San Francisco, Long Beach and San Diego, and veterans who had moved from Iowa to Long Beach, all "liked Ike." Eisenhower resigned as Supreme Commander and returned to the United States on June 1, 1952, to wage a five-week pre-convention campaign. Taft and Eisenhower were evenly matched but Southern and Western support worked in Eisenhower's favor. A number of delegates who voted for Ike preferred Taft but did not think he could win in November.

The California influence played itself out when Senator Richard M. Nixon was chosen as his running mate. Nixon was identified with Congressional investigations of Communists, but had successfully distanced himself from McCarthyism. However, problems arose over reports that the young Navy veteran and Los Angeles-area attorney, who had come from extremely humble roots, had been the recipient of a "slush fund" from wealthy Southern California businessmen. After years of staying above the fray of political discourse, within almost no time Ike found himself in the middle of tawdry accusations. He must have been asking himself what he gotten into.

Nixon went on national television and outlined all of his finances, which was embarrassing not because it revealed graft, but showed him supporting his family on a pedestrian income. When he teared up and told the story of how a supporter had given him a dog named Checkers, which his kids, "like all kids, love the dog," and he was not going to give it back, victory was his. After the Checkers speech, letters and telegrams poured into the Republican National Committee supporting Nixon. Nixon ventured to Wheeling, West Virginia, where Ike was campaigning. Nixon expected the man who had ordered the D-Day invasion to be decisive and keep him on the ticket. The general waffled. Nixon, a junior Senator still in his 30s, told the former Supreme Commander it was "time to shit or get off the pot." Ike was impressed by his forthrightness and declared that "Nixon's my boy."

Using television effectively Eisenhower met enthusiastic crowds. He easily defeated his Democrat opponent, Governor Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois, piling up a margin of 442 electoral votes to 89. In the popular vote, Eisenhower led Stevenson 33,937,252 to 27,314,992. The Republicans captured both houses of Congress, and for the first time, Eisenhower's patriotic appeal broke through the Democrat strongholds of the Jim Crow South.

For all of his military splendor, Eisenhower brought to the Presidency a _wariness_ of the Military Industrial Complex of weapons builders and contractors. He knew better than anybody that they were lined up at the troth of government waste, fraud, abuse and pork barrel spending. He had a talent for administrative efficiency that made him the perfect man to lead a bureaucracy. His military experience qualified him as a foreign relation's expert. He was an order giver who operated by chain of command, delegating responsibility. He was moderate in the area of race relations, feeling that radical action in this sensitive area could foment problems that would set the movement back. In time, he learned to be a partisan Republican. He was loved by big business. He played golf with captains of industry.

In many ways, Ike would not today get away with some of the things he did in office. His golf habit was criticized as elitist. The Democrats asked why he was not taking care of the countries' business. He sought consensus, and in this respect his Presidency was all together different than MacArthur's would have been. He was not bold or controversial. His Republican instincts were confirmed by a feeling that problems were best solved on the local level, not through Washington initiatives. It was not, over eight years, to his best benefit that his staff revered him so much that little dissent came from his yes men, even though Ike did not encourage such a response. Interestingly, Eisenhower might have had an even more successful eight years had he faced more controversy.

During the war, he dealt with diverse, convergent personalities: Churchill, FDR, Truman, Montgomery, Patton, Bradley, Marshall, and Charles de Gaulle. As President, he was fawned over by Republicans. The two-party system is better because out of arguments and conflicts come a middle road that, more often than not, makes the most sense for everybody. The key is who has the edge. The President and Congress either determine this, or they do not. Stalemate is the biggest potential flaw in the bi-cameral government. During Eisenhower's two terms, the Democrats did not indicate real disagreement with him until his second term.

Balancing the budget was Ike's first domestic issue. News flash: It is everybody's first issue. It will always be the first issue. I guarantee that in the year 2100, there will be headlines that say, "President urges Congress to balance budget."

Eisenhower wanted to institute a loyalty program that has been criticized, but in actuality it was designed to discourage the investigations of Senator McCarthy. Eisenhower was an outsider from the standpoint of Federal spending. His cutting off of the "sacred cows" that had always been off-limits caused wails of protest. Farmers, for instance, had been able to grow as much as they pleased while retaining high price supports. The Taft faction tried to cooperate with Eisenhower, but he soon died. The Republicans are an odd lot. They are historically not used to controlling Congress, and tend to think they only have a couple of years, so they try to pass 25 years worse of legislation in two terms. This causes obstruction, and it happened during Eisenhower's first term.

It took Eisenhower three years to balance the budget, amid mounting foreign aid and defense expenditures that soon produced a new deficit. He then he dealt with the 500-pound gorilla in the corner. At first, he was cautious in efforts to outflank McCarthy, but it was fruitless. McCarthy proved to be self-destructive, however, and in 1954 was censured by the Senate, causing his loss of influence. A mild economic recession broke up the economic boom that had been going on since World War II. Blame fell not on Eisenhower but on George M. Humphrey, the conservative Secretary of the Treasury.

Eisenhower's go-slow civil rights approach went into overdrive when the Supreme Court declared that segregation in public schools was un-Constitutional in May, 1954. It set no time schedule for compliance. Most northern African-Americans customarily voted Democrat. Southern blacks usually did not vote because Democrats in that part of America controlled the voting booths, were bigots of the KKK variety, and would not let them. How this historical fact has not driven blacks to the party of Lincoln is not beyond me, but it almost is.

One reason is because Eisenhower and other Republicans lacked the will to act boldly in dealing with these issues during the crucial period between 1954 and 1970. Had they been able to see the future and grab it, I believe this nation would have been so much better off as to be virtually incalculable. The "black issue" has been solely in the province of Democrats. Their tawdry prescriptions have been of such harm to minorities that words escape me. It is a tragedy worthy of tears. A true effort to bring blacks into the Republican party, and with it the schools, colleges, hospitals, country clubs, and businesses of white-dominated America, should have been orchestrated by the great Eisenhower. He was the man with the prestige to lead the effort in the 1950s. Instead, he let politics get in the way. Blacks think of the "good old days" of that decade as a time of oppression. Vietnam, hippies, free love, gay rights, women's rights and all the other messy doctrines of the 1960s became liberal issues, all handled badly. The Republicans could have saved blacks, and America, great heartache had they had enough vision to go with their gut instincts.

Ike temporized on the issue of _Brown vs. Board of Education_ and Little Rock, Arkansas' Central High (which took place in 1957) because he feared arresting the movement of Southern Democrats into the Republican party. This did not happen in any significant numbers until the period of 1968-72 anyway. History tells me, at least, that his waffling did not bring the South into the G.O.P. At the time, there was legitimate hope that they would. They would have come around by the time Nixon was President, even if Ike had been bolder regarding _Brown_ and Little Rock. As it was, while Eisenhower could have used his "bully pulpit" and the courts to press the civil rights case much harder than he did, the _Brown_ and Little Rock issues were legally resolved in favor of blacks. _Brown_ did desegregate schools, and later Central High was a successful test case thanks to Eisenhower employing the Army to protect the black students. It was not pretty, though.

The Republicans lost both houses in the off-year Congressional elections of 1954. This ushered in the era of Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson and House Speaker Sam Rayburn, two skilled legislators who knew how to outmaneuver Eisenhower. In many ways, the likes of Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian were easy for Ike to deal with in comparison to these two Texans. There were fissures in both parties, and sometimes Democrats supported Eisenhower while conservative Republicans did not. His mild proposals for a commission to study racial discrimination and for Federal aid to education were killed by Democrats. Unfortunately, white Americans were not motivated in large numbers to take on these issues. If ever great leadership should have been brought forth to make America sit up and take notice, it was in the 1950s. Eisenhower can be excused for not doing it in his first term, but not in his second.

Eisenhower had high hopes of ending the Cold War and the Korean War. He accomplished only the second. The first was an impossible order. As President-elect he went to Korea in December, 1952 to examine the military and diplomatic stalemate. Victory was impossible since Truman had ordered MacArthur to retreat. The brilliant Inchon invasion was wasted. After his inauguration, the cease-fire was a prelude to an uneasy truce rather than real peace. He secured the termination of the four-power occupation of Austria and the restoration of Austrian sovereignty in 1955.

Tension escalated between the United States and the Soviet Union. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles favored a firm stand against Communism. A plan was hatched to free oppressed people behind the Iron Curtain. The Central Intelligence Agency became the dominant tool of foreign policy. The domain of America's sharpest intellectuals, in its early days the CIA was worthy of a James Bond movie. Athletic brainiacs, seemingly without fear, had played sports at elite Ivy League colleges, then carried out daring missions as Army Rangers, Marines and covert commando operatives for "Wild Bill" Donovan's OSS. These "supermen" gave The Company a _cache_ , a bravado, which was worth as much in image value as in actual espionage. They were the gods of the New America. The CIA was the "church of America," where the secrets are kept. They operated on the premise that they could do absolutely anything, and that every inch of it was entirely good, decent and proper because. They were on the side of America and Christ the Lord, interchangeable parts in the fight against Communism and evil. This is an attitude that may not resonate today, but was full-fledged doctrine in the pre-Vietnam era, before John Kennedy's assassination.

Because the CIA is populated by human beings, it is subject to human mistakes. But the idealistic patriotism that they exuded (and still do, in a modified sense), while easily picked apart by the critics and scalpers who take advantage of the fact that perfection is unattainable, is something that Plato (speaking of trying to attain perfection) talked about. He wrote about the "warrior spirit," a god-like bravery and daring that spurs men into action and creates leaders that men will follow to the death. Plato was correct in identifying that this spirit _must_ be tempered by diplomacy, which was his prescient way of saying that military governments are not desirable. The CIA guys were tweedy in their double-breasteds and cardigans, smoking a pipe while pouring over Kierkegaard or even Ayn Rand in their libraries and dens. When the call to action came, off came the Clark Kent glasses and they were off to some Communist hot spot or Third World hellhole to do the work of Truth, Justice and the American Way.

This was the CIA of Eisenhower's era. They rigged elections, ran political campaigns, created PR agencies, and directed advertising imagery worthy of J. Walter Thompson. Men like E. Howard Hunt were station chiefs in the 1950s. Hunt was a Naval combat veteran and novelist who put his considerable skills as a writer and propagandist to work, selling America to the poor, disenfranchised citizens of faraway countries. It was a worthy effort and it worked.

The CIA propped up governments and turned enemies against each other. They looked at every disaster and mistake that occurred before their charter during the Truman Administration. The convinced themselves that had they been in charge, such things would not have happened. They were, above all else, created to prevent future Pearl Harbors, which is slightly skewed in light of the Stinnett revelations that Roosevelt knew about it in advance.

In Guatemala, for example, they saw that a Communist was going to be voted in, so they fixed the election. This was completely un-Democratic and "wrong." Many of these "Democratic leaders" were bad actors who committed human rights abuses. They simply committed _thousands less_ than the Communists and their Soviet handlers who otherwise would have been in charge. They did the dirty work of the Shah of Iran, and with it kept oil and other grubby business interests flowing in that part of the world. This of course is in contrast to the human rights, military and political disasters that would have occurred had they not done it (as when Carter stopped the practice and ushered in the Fundamentalists who have been in charge of Iran since the 1970s). In Cuba, they worked with Fulgencio Bautista, an unprincipled man who had turned his island into a Mafia protectorate. Corruption and graft in Cuba was rampant. Human rights were a joke. The poor had nothing. A teenage boy who wanted to take a teenage girl to a movie in Havana had little choice outside of pornography. Live sex acts were all the rage in casinos and nightclubs. The Central Intelligence Agency promoted and fought for it. Why? Because, since the 1920s, _Communistas_ had tried to take over the island. They knew that if these people, now backed by Russia, ever succeeded, the country would never have a chance to grow out of its immoral ways. Instead it would be one big gulag, with torture chambers, filled prisons, no hope, and hundreds of thousands of graves marking the genocide of an entire people. In other words, exactly what has happened under Fidel Castro. _That_ is why they let the pornography and the sex shows go on. All Christian decency aside, masturbation is not as great a sin as shooting someone's father, son, husband or brother in the head.

The CIA saw the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the Soviet collectives and their massive dead. They simply told themselves, "Never again." Do the ends justify the means? _You better believe they do!_

If it took a little chicanery, the word of a bad guy, some graffiti on the walls, control of a newspaper, or a thousand other things they did, then they did it. God bless them for it.

In the 1970s, a Democrat Senator named Church exposed it all, and a Democrat President named Carter took much of their power away, making them feel like chastised kids for the way they had kept the world safe while smoking their pipes and drinking their Cognac. The Cambodian killing fields, just the kind of thing they were charged with preventing, took place right afterwards. Whenever I hear John Lennon sing, "Give peace a chance," I say, "'Imagine' Pol Pot."

In the 1950s, with Eisenhower in the White House, the CIA was in its heyday. The "new look" in foreign policy involved an intensification of ideological activity. An effort to instigate Hungary's revolt against its Communist leaders was made, but the Soviets quashed it.

The Russians agreed to a Big Four meeting at Geneva in July, 1955. Eisenhower met with the leaders of the Soviet Union, Britain, and France, with an offer to permit aerial inspection of the United States by Russian planes if the Soviet Union would reciprocate. At a subsequent meeting of foreign ministers in October, 1955 it was obvious the two sides were far apart.

Then U.S.S.R. began to arm Egypt, which was engaged in an undeclared war with Israel. The next year, the United States declined to finance a huge dam at Aswan on the Nile River. Egypt accepted a Soviet offer to do so. Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal. On October 29, 1956, England, France, and Israel attacked Egypt. The Eisenhower Administration refused to support its own Allies. A shaky peace ensued, but the episode was the prelude to further Soviet adventure in the region.

The fact that Eisenhower told his own Allies to get out of the Suez is an excellent example of how the U.S. declined "colonization." Somehow in the world of lies and deceit that inundates the revision of Arab history, this does not get mentioned very much. It is the first of many examples of how the U.S. is not and never has been in the region strictly for oil or occupation.

Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in September of 1955 while vacationing in Colorado. When Vice-President Nixon was contacted, he was studying the Sunday baseball statistics in the _Washington Post._ By February, 1956 Eisenhower felt well enough to announce his candidacy for re-election. He had an operation for ileitis in June, 1956 but was again in good health by convention time. (He would also suffer a mild stroke in 1957, but it impaired his strength only briefly.) Eisenhower's health spurred a movement to drop Nixon from the ticket in 1956 on the ground that he was too partisan and abrasive. Eisenhower disagreed.

The Democrats again selected Adlai Stevenson. Eisenhower ran a relatively nonpartisan campaign. The Democrats were afraid to attack him personally or question his health. They engaged in a fruitless effort to portray the most able military man of all time as Nixon's "front man." The Democrats were frustrated because their policies were too closely aligned with the hated Communists. They were reduced to complaining about "Red baiters," which was tantamount to saying that too much criticism was being leveled at Hitler's concentration camps.

McCarthyism was dead, by virtue of Eisenhower leading the charge against it, but Democrats tried to make it the issue. They failed. Eisenhower won 41 states and 457 electoral votes. Stevenson won only seven states and 73 electoral votes. In the popular vote, Eisenhower led Stevenson 35,589,477 to 26,035,504. The Democrats regained control of both house of Congress.

Eisenhower struggled to maintain relations with the Democrat Congress in his second term, but they ignored him. Many Republicans also became obstructive. Welfare programs, which were taking hold in Europe, became the mantra of the Left. Great Britain, devastated by two world wars, was reduced to a handout state. Churchill's return to the scene was merely symbolic. Their empire was dead. France and the rest of Western Europe gave up on entrepreneurial ventures. Socialism reared its ugly head.

Sherman Adams, Ike's chief assistant and an influential adviser, was forced to resign because he had accepted gifts from a textile manufacturer and lobbyist.

Repercussions from the 1954 school desegregation decision of the Supreme Court took an ugly turn when a Southern mob obstructed token integration of Central High in Little Rock in 1957. His efforts to keep the issue local failed, so he dispatched military units to secure compliance with bayonets. Sullen whites discouraged Eisenhower from further integration. His indecisiveness on African-Americans was not helped by Republican Senators, many of whom voted with Southern Democrats to retain the rules permitting filibusters against civil rights legislation. Civil rights acts passed in 1957 and 1960 dealt ineffectively with voting rights. The G.O.P. missed their golden opportunity. The memory of Southern Democrats blocking civil rights was replaced by an effective effort to paint the Republicans as unfeeling. African-Americans became disinclined to support the Republicans. The G.O.P. suffered defeat in the 1958 Congressional elections as the Democrats sharply increased majorities in both the Senate and the House.

A Left wing revolution took place in Iraq. Eisenhower airlifted the Marines to Lebanon in 1958 to forestall a similar uprising there. The 1950s were the beginning of difficult U.S. foreign relations, in part because the French did not maintain order. Indo-china was a French colony and source of rubber that helped fuel the French economy. At Dien-bien Phu in 1954, the Communists attacked and the French cut and ran, leaving the mess for the Americans to sort out. Lebanon had been French, but it was quickly becoming a disaster. French Algeria was beset by terrorism.

These and other crises did not boil over during Eisenhower's tenure, but the Soviets created client states that deteriorated the American position in the Middle East. Communism was on the march every year. Vice-President Nixon was almost killed by a hostile mob in Caracas, Venezuela, during a goodwill tour. Anti-American feeling erupted in Cuba when the radical Fidel Castro seized power. This was the first rupture in the CIA, proving that they were not omniscient, and that Communism was a powerful opponent. Eisenhower ignored Castro's strident attacks but was criticized for tolerating it.

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev boycotted a projected summit conference at Paris in May, 1960. He claimed as the reason the shooting down of an American U-2 plane that had been photographing installations in the U.S.S.R. Democrats charged that the U.S. was falling behind the Soviet Union in the development of missiles and weapons of the space age. Secrecy in military planning, particularly regarding plans in Cuba, prevented Eisenhower from defending these charges. The Democrats put politics over national security and exploited the issue anyway.

Eisenhower had groomed Nixon as his successor. The Vice-President was given more important special assignments than any prior V.P. He commanded favorable publicity for it. The delegates enthusiastically ratified the choice. The Democrats nominated John F. Kennedy, the youthful Catholic Senator from Massachusetts, who combined personal appeal with Harvard eloquence designed to divert attention from his father's reputation as an Irish liar. The Nixon campaign wanted to make their candidate appear to be his own man, limiting Presidential participation. Eisenhower had a favorable effect on Republican prospects, but he was mistakenly limited in this effort. Then he made a huge _faux paux_ when asked by reporters to name one important policy decision in which Nixon had played a major role.

Nixon had been integrally involved in foreign policy decisions involving the containment of Communism in Europe and Latin America. He was a major part of the plans for the upcoming Bay of Pigs invasion, but Ike was not allowed to talk about it because of national security. Nixon had received kudos from both sides of the political fence due to his excellent handling of his duties when Ike was twice felled by ill health. He had done remarkable diplomatic work dealing with Nikita Kruschev. He had courageously helped to quell anti-American crises in Latin American.

For whatever reason, Eisenhower's mind did not respond to the question. He told the press that he needed a week to think of any major decisions Nixon had been involved in.

In the end, Eisenhower's personal popularity was not enough to deflect Kennedy's strong appeal. JFK emerged the winner. It was similar to popular Whig generals of the 1840's who won elections but could not transfer their popularity to the party.

In retirement, Eisenhower was healthy and active. Congress restored him to the status of a five-star general, colleges gave him honorary degrees, and he was bestowed numerous awards. President's Kennedy and Johnson sought his advice on international problems. He also established his papers at Abilene, Kansas and worked on his memoirs, while residing either on his farm at Gettysburg or in the Palm Springs area, where golfing is virtually a religion. True to his "Huck Finn" roots, he hunted and fishing, and in Churchillian style he also painted.

Eisenhower privately opposed Arizona Senator Barry M. Goldwater in the 1964 Primaries and convention, but endorsed him in the campaign against Johnson. He had a serious heart attack in 1965 and was hospitalized frequently during the next three years. He became an invalid after another heart attack in the Summer of 1968. He still endorsed Nixon's successful 1968 Presidential run, and topped the list of most admired Americans in a Gallup poll released in December, 1968. Eisenhower died in Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington on March 28, 1969, and was buried in Abilene, Kansas.

Dwight David Eisenhower is not only the greatest man of the 20th Century. Next to Jesus Christ, he is the greatest man of all times.

Joseph Stalin

Just as Dwight Eisenhower is, in my opinion, the greatest man of all time (outside deities), Joseph Stalin may be the worst man of the century and of history. It is not that Eisenhower is simply "greater" than all great men who came before him. Rather it is because he is the product of a tumultuous century that very likely will be considered the "turning point" in human history, even 500 years from now. There are many men, some living today, and many that have lived throughout the ages, who were as evil as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. If Genghis Khan had trains, gas chambers, and enough Zyklon-B, he happily would have gassed his enemies as Hitler did the Jews. In judging Stalin to be "worse" than Hitler, this is not some attempt to compare the darkness of their hearts. Rather, it is a practical matter.

Communism is "worse" than Nazism for two main reasons. First, it has had a longer time to commit atrocities, but mostly because it hides itself from its true reality. The Nazis were very easy to judge and hate. Hitler's "Mein Kampf" spelled it out clearly. It was just that nobody really thought it would happen, or was even possible. But the Nazi game plan was straightforward. They waged aggressive war in an effort to conquer the world, rounded up enemies (most, but by no means not all, Jews), and killed them. It is estimated that 12 million died in the camps. Half of those were Jews of German, Polish and other European ancestry. The other six million were Russians, Slavs, homosexuals, thieves, retards, gypsies, Communists, Catholics, dwarfs, dissidents, political opponents, etc., etc.

Stalin killed millions, too. In the end, he killed more than Hitler did. He just did not do it in as short a period of time, or in as efficient a manner. He did not kill as many as Chairman Mao. But Mao was doing Stalin's work. Without Stalin, there is no Mao. One can make the argument that while Hitler killed people he hated and considered enemies, Stalin was worse because he killed Russian heroes and military officers who served their country faithfully. They died because he viewed them as threats and potential threats. He killed millions of Jews, but he did not have the same hatred for them that Hitler did. This does not make the Russian Jews any less dead than the German and Eastern European Jews.

Nazism eventually opposed religion in Germany, but Catholic and Lutheran churches continued to operate despite Hitler's pronouncement that he, not God, was the only valid symbol of worship in Germany. Despite this, German Christianity maintained a toehold in the country despite its terrors. In post-war West Germany it was this rock that gave the country the moorings it needed to re-build.

Communism hated religion, officially and without apology. It was expelled and disallowed. Atheism dominated all aspects of Communist ideology. It was said to be the "opiate of the masses," invented by man as a crutch.

Stalin and Communism also have a "benign" face. The Nazis, embodied by the mustachioed Hitler, with their hideous symbols and shrill propaganda, were obvious threats and easy to despise. But Communism and its utopian "hammer and sickle" promise had the vague sense of justice that drew so many of the Left into its clutches. They did the work of this ideology, yet many remained dumbly unwitting. Many liberals hate religion, too, because religion requires judgment. It has the temerity to identify right and wrong, which is anathema to many of them. Liberal assertions for the separation of church stem from the atheistic prescriptions of Communism. Stalin, with his furry moustache as opposed to Hitler's little pencil shavings, was called "Uncle Joe" by the duped, who thought he looked like a big, friendly bear. A grizzly bear.

As ruler of the U.S.S.R. from 1924 to 1953, Stalin was in charge of Soviet policies during the early phase of the Cold War. Born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili on December 21, 1879, he adopted the name Stalin, which means "Man of Steel," while still a young revolutionary. What bullshit!

Stalin first rose to power in 1922 as Secretary General of the Communist Party. Using administrative skills and ruthless maneuvering, Stalin rid himself of all potential rivals in the party, first by having many of them condemned as "deviationists," and later by ordering them executed.

To ensure his position and to push forward "socialism in one country," he put the Soviet Union on a course of crash collectivization and industrialization. An estimated 25 million farmers were forced onto state farms. Collectivization alone killed as many as 14.5 million people. Soviet agricultural output was reduced by 25 percent, according to some estimates.

In the 1930s, Stalin launched his Great Purge, ridding the Communist Party of all the people who had brought him to power. Soviet nuclear physicist and academician Andrei Sakharov estimated that more than 1.2 million Party members \- more than half the Party - were arrested between 1936 and 1939, of which 600,000 died by torture, execution or perished in the Gulag.

Stalin also purged the military leadership, executing a large percentage of the officer corps and leaving the U.S.S.R. unprepared when World War II broke out. In an effort to avoid war with Germany, Stalin agreed to a non-aggression pact with Hitler in August, 1939.

When Hitler invaded the U.S.S.R. on June 22, 1941, The "man of steel" became the "man of stealth." He was not seen or heard from for two weeks. After finally addressing the nation, Stalin took command of his troops.

With the Soviet Union initially carrying the burden of the fighting, Stalin met with British Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt at Tehran (1943) and Yalta (1945), and with Churchill and Roosevelt's successor, President Truman, in Potsdam (1945), dividing the post-war world into "spheres of influence."

The U.S.S.R. joined the war against Japan in August of 1945, but Stalin insisted on expanding Soviet influence into Asia, namely the Kurile Islands, the southern half of Sakhalin Island and the northern section of Korea. Stalin wanted to secure a territorial buffer zone that had ideologically friendly regimes along the U.S.S.R.'s western borders.

In the wake of the German defeat, the U.S.S.R. occupied most of the countries in Eastern Europe and eventually ensured the installation of Stalinist regimes.

"Whoever occupies a territory also imposes his own social system," Stalin told Milovan Djilas, a leading Yugoslav Communist. He believed the Americans and the British would clash and eventually "socialism" would fill the void.

After initially approving the participation by Eastern European countries in the U.S.-sponsored Marshall Plan (1947), Stalin dropped out of it. He tried to influence Germany, and without access to the western German occupation zones, he agreed to the establishment of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in October, 1949.

Encouraged by Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War and the establishment of the People's Republic of China in October, 1949, Stalin gave the green light to North Korean leader Kim Il Sung to attack South Korea in June, 1950.

His confrontational foreign policy and his domestic terror regime (the "Stalinist system") had an impact on Soviet society and politics well beyond the dictator's death of natural causes at age 73 on March 5, 1953.

Kennedy and Vietnam

In his "History of the Peloponnesian War", Thucydides said people go to war over "honor, fear and self-interest."

"He might also have considered accident, political fog and deceit," wrote Francis G. McGuire in "How The First Helicopter War Began", which details the 10-year war in Southeast Asia that really started at the end of World War II. It was a "continuation" of Korea, picked up where the French dropped out, fulfilled (or so many thought) the Truman Doctrine and the Domino Theory, and was a continuation of a disturbing trend: White Americans fighting to the death against Orientals.

After saving the world, a technological and economic powerhouse, led for eight years by the most popular man of the century, at the peak of world power, goodwill and prestige, found itself squaring off against a primitive force from a place few Americans had ever heard of.

The United States did not lose the Vietnam War, but they did not win it, either. This begs one of the most perplexing questions in our history. How could it have happened?

The "all men are created equal" theory was put to the test in Vietnam. America did not fair well in this test. The men who ran the war, politicians and soldiers alike, did not believe the Vietnamese were their equals. Not the ones from the north, the south, the Communist regulars, the Viet Cong, the ARVN, the politicians or the peasants, Catholic aristocrats or Buddhist monks. 100 years earlier, Chinese coolies built the railroad that turned the U.S. into a continent and were then told they were unwelcome anywhere. The U.S. tried to convince itself that they were operating out of pure benevolence for Orientals who had barely advanced in a century from the Chinese immigrants of the Old West.

This kind nation, fractured by its own guilt - enslaved blacks, conquered Indians, Mexicans turned into foreigners on their homeland - had dealt with all of these prejudices. By the 1950s, they had kicked in the doors of the camps. Many of our fractures were slowly healing. In going to war, first in Korea and then in Southeast Asia, to help Asians achieve freedom, America thought they had overcome their own faultlines. But they still did not think the Vietnamese were their equals. This applied especially to the North Vietnamese. While this does not entirely answer the question - How did this happen? \- one part of that answer is that the North Vietnamese, for reasons that today are still not fathomable, were in some ways the equal to the Americans. They were just as committed and just as brave as the Americans were. This says more than can be imagined.

The Vietnamese call it The American War, just as the Soviets called World War II the Great Patriotic War, and the South still give lip service to the War Between the States. Some, humorously considering they started the thing, call it the War of Northern Aggression.

Some historians are now fairly sure that senior U.S. military officials consistently lied to President Kennedy because of his reluctance in sending ground troops to Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson wanted the war.

Vietnam ushered in the era of technology, airpower, the helicopter and new Special Forces. Jaunty green beret-wearing airborne soldiers embodied the new CIA/secret agent mystique of American status. They were employed in Southeast Asia and had a significant effect on political decisions and developments in Saigon, Hanoi, Washington, Beijing and Moscow.

"One raid each week" should do it, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara assessed. McNamara was in his 30s, a man with no military experience who for reasons that escape me rose to great heights at the Ford Motor Company despite the fact that he was the "father" of the Edsel, the worst auto disaster in the history of the American car industry. He was called a "whiz kid," the new breed of MBA-types who came to Washington with the Kennedy Administration. He brought with him a corporate mindset that seemed to think a war could be run like a company, a new line of automobiles, an advertising campaign. Everything came down to crunching the numbers and arriving at a pre-determined answer. "Gaming" all the plans was based on this "outcome." The question with these people was never the outcome, but what it would take to arrive at that outcome. Thus, when their estimates proved wrong, there was no real fallback position.

When Lyndon Johnson became President, he met with all these "best and the brightest." They were Ivy League, West Point, Madison Avenue, Wall Street and corporation superstars. They had all the polish and arrogance that these American pedigrees produce. They were in charge of the awesome might of the U.S. political, governmental, military and intelligence institutions. There was a sense that after the graft and patronage of Roosevelt, the Pendergast-sponsored Truman, and the grandfatherly Eisenhower, one of their own, the Harvard-educated Kennedy, was finally in. Now, these ultimate elitists were going to remake the world in their image. They were "smarter" than everybody, "qualified" to make decisions for everybody else. They had the morality, the vision and the idealism, and if they did not, they had the accounting skills, the technology and the power to make up the difference.

They dazzled Johnson, who had grown up poor in the Texas hill country, gone to a college nobody ever heard of, and started out as a teacher at a mostly Mexican-American school. Johnson told his pal, Speaker Sam Rayburn, just how impressive they all were with they slicked-back hair, the rows of medals on their chests, and their Ph.D.s.

"I'd feel a whole lot better about 'em," Rayburn told LBJ, "if just one of 'em had run for county sheriff."

Air power was the new mantra of this group. Nobody put more stock on it than McNamara, whose classic approach was efficiency of numbers. He explained to journalists the status of U.S. military aircraft inventory, capabilities with production numbers, time between sorties, budget dollars, payload fractions and other quantifiers.

Policy was set aside in favor of improved numbers, the new god of war. All discussions of policy rationale always came back to numbers. McNamara has been described as an "undeniable genius," which may be true, but the lesson of Vietnam and elitist politics is that genius does not make for great government.

Richard Nixon was one of the smartest men ever to occupy the White House. There are probably not more than three other Presidents who came to the job with better qualifications. George Herbert Walker Bush is one of them. Bill Clinton is a genius, a man with one of the most impressive minds of any President. He has a "steel trap mind" and retains all the information he reads. All three of these men had unsuccessful Presidencies.

George W. Bush is a simple Christian, a C+ student prone to verbal scofflaws. As of this writing, he is well on his way to one of the top Presidential legacies in American history.

Kennedy's mind was in the Clinton class. He had mastered speedreading and voraciously absorbed everything. His three short years in office were tragically cut short before his legacy can be judged in its entirety. But there is evidence in his handling of the South Vietnamese government he "inherited" and the coup d'etat he allowed to bring it down, that like Clinton he may have been too smart for his own good.

Johnson did not follow Rayburn's country wisdom. He was an able but not intellectual man. Had he followed Rayburn's instincts instead of letting himself be used by all the brass, his Presidency and the United States would have been spared much agony.

Intangibles were not factored into the McNamara plan. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy advised his staff to read Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August" so they would know how Europe had blundered into war.

"I don't ever want to be in that position," Kennedy said. "We are not going to bungle into war."

American involvement in what was then called Indochina did not begin in 1960, nor even 1945. It began on June 18, 1919, when a young nationalist named Ho Chi Minh (using a pseudonym) wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing to seek help in freeing his people from French colonial domination after the First World War.

"We count on your great kindness to honor our appeal by your support whenever the opportunity arises," wrote Ho.

It was not realistic of Ho Chi Minh to expect the United States to oppose France after fighting side by side with them in World War I. Ho's use of language gleaned from our own history of independence did not dissuade us.

On October 17, 1945, Ho Chi Minh cabled President Truman, seeking American support for Vietnam "to take part in the Advisory Commission for the Far East." Ho's appeal was again ill timed, coming on the heels of another war in and on behalf of our French allies. However, Roosevelt had urged an end to colonialism, at least the 19th Century kind. He pressured Churchill to get out of England's possessive territories. This had a major effect on India eventually breaking from the British yoke.

Seven months earlier, President Roosevelt told a senior State Department advisor he was "much concerned about the brown people in the East," noting that "there are 1,100,000,000 brown people. In many Eastern countries they are ruled by a handful of whites and they resent it. Our goal must be to help them achieve independence - 1,100,000,000 potential enemies are dangerous."

Roosevelt added that "Indochina and New Caledonia should be taken from France and put under a trusteeship."

FDR told friends that France had ruled Indochina for 50 years and conditions for them had never improved. However, the State Department took no official action because the bureaucracy favored French colonial continuation. Then Roosevelt died. The State and Defense Departments were also concerned that the U.S. had its own colonial possessions in the Pacific and Caribbean.

President Truman was unprepared by training, ideology or immediate circumstance to pay any real attention to Vietnam. Instead, by 1950 it was decided to finance the French military. Eisenhower had the tools to deal effectively with the situation, but Korea changed the dynamic. If he appeared "weak" regarding Asian nationalism, which was code for Communism, then the repercussions could be devastating. The French were exhausted and lacked the will to see the issue through one way or another. The last thing they were ready to do was to take a leadership role in moral diplomacy.

Advisors and money replaced diplomacy. Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist until rebuffed by the Americans in 1919, after which he went to Moscow and joined the newly founded Third International Conference of the Communist Party, also known as the Comintern. Until then, Ho had not even read any of Lenin's works. Judging him is less black-and-white than judgment of other Communists, like Lenin, Stalin and Mao.

Stalin and Mao, in particular, were devils in human skin. Ho is not so easily painted. First, he became a Communist after being rebuffed in his efforts to get U.S. support. There is evidence that he admired American ideals of freedom.

Eventually, he employed the worst kind of tactics in support of his cause. He allowed torture and pure evil to be done in his name. For this history must cast dark aspersions upon him. But it can also be said that he is a victim of Communism. While Stalin, Mao and Fidel Castro or men who would have taken the low road no matter what their circumstances, because that is the nature of their personalities, Ho could have been something else.

Eisenhower did not share FDR's fear of "brown people." Instead, he advised the French on how to suppress Vietnamese armed rebellion in 1946. He resisted direct military support to the French, however. Communism was a problem in Korea and Europe, in his view. In this regard, he did not advocate the Domino Theory.

The French had appealed to Roosevelt regarding Indochina. Charles DeGaulle proposed a "with us or against us" philosophy, saying that to not help colonialists would help the Communists. DeGaulle's argument managed to get Eisenhower's attention. General LeClerc and his top political advisor, Paul Mus, sent urgent messages to Paris that half a million men could not hold Indochina for France. Their prescient request fell barely short of the largest number of Americans ever in Vietnam - 543,000 - in 1969.

For some reason, career intelligence experts in Washington and Paris did not hold sway with their respective governments. There was an element of sympathy in the U.S. towards the Viet Minh as early as 1946. Opposition to them was a matter of loyalty to France more than disagreement with them prior to their becoming full-fledged Communist clients. Despite Ho's membership in the Communist party, he still had appealed to the U.S. for support that indicates he was not a "hard liner." He was fighting to get foreigners out of his land, a notion that appealed to Americans. This differed from Castro, a Cuban trying to overcome other Cubans for selfish reasons draped around false independence.

The Battle of Dien Bien-phu in May of 1954 was a disaster for the French. Their forces were overrun in that northern Vietnam fortress after a 55-day siege. U.S. General Matthew Ridgway had convinced Eisenhower to stay out of Indochina, which at various times flared in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos...or all three. There were reports that Vice-President Nixon urged consideration of "tactical" atomic weapons in his advice to Eisenhower. Eisenhower had clearly frightened the Chinese during Korea by not discounting the possibility that they would be used. There is no evidence that such a consideration was ever given serious credibility beyond using them as deterrence in creating a fear factor.

General Ridgway calculated what it would take to enter and win in the region.

It convinced Eisenhower to stay out of Indochina. Policy became subsequently muddled in Washington. Prior to his inauguration, Kennedy said he would not send military aid to Laos, where activity was heavy in 1960-61.

"Extrication would not be easy," he told White House aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Two weeks before his inauguration, however, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev made a speech supporting "wars of national liberation," naming Vietnam as an example. Eisenhower told Kennedy one day before the inauguration that military intervention in Laos might be unavoidable. This had not penetrated JFK's consciousness before, but combined with Kruschev's speech it created a whole new dynamic.

Ike was "offering his support from his farm in Gettysburg," wrote David Halberstam, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Vietnam war correspondent and author of "The Best and the Brightest". "But go to war over Laos? This from Eisenhower, that fumbling, placid man [with] lack of will and lack of national purpose ... "

Ridgway and Kennedy met. JFK then named General Maxwell Taylor as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Taylor did an about-face from Ridgeway, recommending that the U.S. commit 8,000 ground combat troops to Vietnam. General Taylor later denied this figure, but declassified documents show that he did. Taylor called them a "flood relief task force."

JFK refused, preferring a "show of force" instead. Marine Corps helicopters were moved to Laos in a CIA-directed operation code-named "White Star" for employment by U.S. Army Special Forces advisory operations. Some of these aircraft were manned by Marines, the rest by Army and Navy personnel. 300 Marines were assigned to Udorn, Thailand, for maintenance.

Instead of being cowed, the Communists went on the offensive. The White House, State Department and the Joint Chiefs found themselves dealing with a situation that had consistently not played out according to their prognostications. The recommendations of military men like Ridgway had been swept aside by the New Men of the Kennedy Administration, as if somebody like Ridgway was "old school." Regardless of any lack of coherent plan, these "whiz kids" felt they could "game out" a "computer simulation" that would achieve the desired effect.

To be fair, Vietnam built up under the radar because big things were happening elsewhere: World War II post-war reconstruction, Korea, Latin America, Cuba, and then the Berlin Crisis. The President still had to deal with the economy, civil rights, labor strife, agriculture and nuclear proliferation.

The State Department's Chester Bowles said the policy seemed to be "trying to turn Laotians into Turks." He fought intervention plans for Indochina. On May 10, 1961, the JCS went on record favoring the use of U.S. combat troops in Vietnam. Two years of policy planning ensued. According to declassified documents via the Freedom of Information Act, JCS Chairman General Taylor and the Commander of U.S. Military Advisory Command in Vietnam, General Paul D. Harkins, tried to falsify reports about U.S. success (and potential for success) in Vietnam. It appears that President Kennedy was duped on this issue. Still, JFK's inauguration speech, in which he had promised to "pay any price" and "oppose any foe" in the cause of liberty indicates that, unless these words were just great rhetoric from speechwriter Theodore Sorenson, he was prepared to take bold action. Vietnam required bold action. The debate of history is whether that bold action should have been military or diplomatic. In 1961, the revisionists would assert, diplomacy was still an option. However, Dien Bien-phu seems to be a Rubicon the Communists crossed. Once that happened the wheels were set in motion for violent further conflict.

JFK was like his father in that he was a pragmatist. The "liberalism" associated with his name is more the result of martyred sainthood and his brother Robert's 1968 Presidential campaign. Like Ike, he desired consensus, but this seemingly good characteristic can also lead to indecision. Eisenhower's desire for consensus worked in the relatively narrow framework of committed, all-out war. D-Day, for instance, was going to happen. Ike could get all the opinions within a timetable laid out in advance, and then heap all the responsibility upon his shoulders. In going to war in "pieces," as the U.S. did, Kennedy's insistence on popular support was something of an albatross. In the early 1960s, the public supported the war. Americans hated Communism, knew what it was, and wanted no part of it. But the administration was unwilling to jingoistically build support for this line. The charismatic war hero Kennedy, with the wind in his sails and history on his side, could have created the alliance, domestically and internationally, to take on Communism in Southeast Asia. Had he done so, he would have created a commitment of friends who would not have given life to the war's opposition, or been in position to be naysayers when the rubber hit the road.

America failed miserably at the Bay of Pigs. Khrushchev in Vienna schooled Kennedy like he was a schoolboy caught cheating at Groton. Some have called this the "the education of John Kennedy." The Presidency, and Democracy in general, require an amazing leap of faith. Kennedy had indeed been in Congress since 1946, and in the Senate since 1954. But he was a relative youth with virtually no record of legislative accomplishment. The point is not Kennedy, however. Anybody can be elected President. We have heretofore elected these people from the ranks of the Congress, the Governors or the military. In actuality a movie star (Reagan, for instance, although he was California's Governor for eight years), a singer, an athlete, a corporate executive, a religious leader, a leading literary figure, or a very rich guy who does a deal with Satan could, in theory, be elected.

The President and elected officials, oddly, go through no real vetting process that can overcome overwhelming popularity at the polls. The media is given this inconsistent assignment. The Secret Service and the FBI check out prospective judges, Cabinet members, aides, and people who get the plum jobs of patronage. Rising through the ranks of the State Department, the Pentagon or the CIA require years of painstaking accomplishment and expertise. Obtaining security clearance to classified documents is tedious and time-consuming, subject to numerous checks and balances.

Then we put it all in the hands of somebody who might be elected because he is handsome, popular, has a pretty wife, or is extremely wealthy. The fact that these factors all describe John Kennedy is not an attempt to smear him as unprepared for the job. He was an able man, highly intelligent, and he chose a staff of advisors considered unparalleled in American history. The point is about the nature of the office, not Kennedy's time in it. It is a matter of faith, then, that this country has enough safeguards to "save" it even if a nincompoop ascends to the White House.

But JFK, who was no nincompoop, did have to learn on the job. His first year was a brutal classroom. By December of 1961, he had absorbed the lessons of Vienna, the Bay of Pigs, and the forcefeedings of an aggressive military class led by Taylor and Air Force General Curtis LeMay. It was in that month that two helicopter companies arrived in Vietnam, followed by more. It was all done as secretly as a Notre Dame football rally.

Deaths followed, and with each incident it seeped into the public consciousness that stakes were getting higher. The government reassured the public in 1962, but today we view that as the last year of innocence. Two main problems had emerged by mid-1962. First, the North Vietnamese had demonstrated that they were an invasion force. Had they simply chosen Communism and let it be, the situation might have been stabilized. This might be wishful thinking. The U.S., being the way it is, probably would have felt the need to do something about that eventually. A country, no matter how small or rural that it is, that chooses an ideology responsible for 100 million dead people cannot expect to just be left alone. If a nation one day comes out and says that they are starting up again under National Socialism using the Hitler model, its neighbors will fret and the U.S. will get called in. Maybe because they knew this, mostly because their Soviet and Chinese sponsors backed them, the North Vietnamese attempted to subjugate South Vietnam into one Communist Vietnam. Cambodia and Laos were all part of the same goal. The road to Pol Pot, Hun Sen and the "killing fields" was being paved. The Kennedy Administration sensed it. The second problem is that the South Vietnamese were not good fighters.

"This is a new kind of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origin...war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins; war by ambush instead of combat, by infiltration instead of aggression, seeking victory by exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him," said Kennedy.

"One guerrilla can pin down 12 conventional soldiers and we have nothing to counter that," Kennedy told Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee (one of his best friends) and several others during a dinner party. This "new math" varied from one-to-eight to one-to-twelve, depending upon the source. This was the genesis of Kennedy's brainchild, the Special Forces, developed as a countermeasure and skilled in jungle fighting

By the Summer of 1963, President Kennedy was in a commanding position. He had handled the Cuban Missile Crisis brilliantly, and the 1962 midterms had gone relatively well. He had advocated tax cuts that had the economy rolling. His popularity was secure except for the Deep South. A new class of weapons was now available. Tests were conducted at New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range, California's China Lake Naval Ordnance Test Station and in the Pacific Ocean.

"No man is happy without a delusion of some kind," wrote Christian Nestell Bovee, a 19th century American author. "Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities." Francis McGuire used that quote to describe what he called the "fatal delusion" of Vietnam, applying the phrase to Lyndon Johnson.

"I have a great deal of love for the Army; not its bureaucracy," McGuire quoted former AH-1 Cobra helicopter pilot Jerome Boyle after his tour in Southeast Asia.

673,000 people were rescued by helicopters in Southeast Asia during the war, former Sikorsky president Gerald Tobias told the American Helicopter Society Forum in Washington, D.C. This nation entered the conflict with the bravest, most skilled fighters, with the best equipment in the world.

Oliver Stone's "JFK" (1991) posited the notion that had Kennedy not been assassinated, he would have withdrawn U.S. troops. This is a nice memory of the fallen President by many of his loving supporters, most of whom are converted doves.

"I think it is highly probable that, had President Kennedy lived, he would have pulled us out of Vietnam ..." wrote former Defense Secretary McNamara "In Retrospect". "I think he would have come to that conclusion even if he reasoned...that South Vietnam and, ultimately, Southeast Asia would then be lost to Communism...Kennedy would have agreed that withdrawal would cause a fall of the 'dominoes' but that staying in would ultimately lead to the same result, while exacting a terrible price in blood."

According to McNamara, at a "very important" National Security Council meeting on October 2, 1963, President Kennedy made three decisions: (1) to completely withdraw all U.S. forces from Vietnam by December 31, 1965; (2) to withdraw 1,000 U.S. troops by the end of 1963 to begin the process; and (3) to make a public announcement of this decision.

Kennedy told McNamara to prepare the orders for withdrawal and make a public announcement of the decision. "... and tell them that means all of the helicopter pilots, too."

McGuire is not the only historian to question McNamara's account. McNamara was an absolute advocacy of the war and its ever-growing build-up. It seems incongruous that JFK just called a meeting and made an announcement that everything they had built up was to be torn down. That all the policies advocated by his staff and the military were now obsolete. That his inauguration speech suddenly counted for nothing. That all of it was to be announced at a press conference, and oh, by the way, the helicopter pilots (and presumably his pet Special Forces) were just to be withdrawn.

As Shakespeare wrote, "There are more things on Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than can be dreamt of in your philosophy." Now, it is possible that Kennedy had an "epiphany," that he "saw the light," and that the "better angels of his nature" spoke to him. It is possible these "spirits" convinced him that the world was not endangered enough by the spread of Communism to justify the greatest military on Earth, entrusted by the world with protecting it from just that, to just pack it up and go home. Using the Shakespeare quote, and considering acts of God and miracles, McNamara's assertion is actually possible. It is just that, within the framework of the practical world, this is so far from being possible that it is, for all intents and purposes, impossible.

The available evidence is conflicted, which gives the "withdrawal theorists" the wriggle room they conveniently use. On October 4, 1963, a memo was written to the uniformed leaders of the four military services. The U.S. had 16,300 advisers in South Vietnam at that point.

"All planning will be directed towards preparing RVN (Republic of Vietnam) forces for the withdrawal of all U.S. special assistance units and personnel by the end of calendar year 1965," said the memo.

The memo also ordered the service chiefs to "withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963."

It was signed by General Taylor, and was declassified in 1998. The reality is that instead of carrying out the "order," units were re-assigned, re-designating personnel, other measures took its place, and Kennedy's order was rendered meaningless. No change occurred.

Now why did this happen? The same President had stood up to LeMay and the military hawks during the missile crisis. He was riding a crest of popularity and had found his stride. Now a memo, advocating his desire and putting it in order form, to withdraw forces from Vietnam, had for all practical purposes been ignored.

Consider a few things. This is the same man who had written "While England Slept" advocating American involvement in Europe while his ambassador father insisted on isolationism. This same father had been one of Joseph McCarthy's biggest financial supporters. His son Bobby worked for McCarthy. Yet, we would no longer "oppose any foe" or "pay any price" to oppose the Communist menace that obsessed this country a few years earlier? This President's brother had made his career out of going after the mob, yet the President himself palled with Mafia types, shared girlfriends and hookers with them, and did deals with them.

The point of all this? Just as Vito Corleone told Michael Corleone to "keep your friends close and your enemies closer," Joe Kennedy had many such talks with his children, giving them sage advice based on his years of successful insider trading, illegal booze smuggling, nefarious business transactions and manipulations of Hollywood. Is it possible he told his son to write "While England Slept" to "cover our ass" so no matter how World War II turned out, the family would be "protected"? There is schizophrenia in the Presidential-friend-of-the-mob with the crusading-against-the-mob-brother. There is more evidence of it when a Democrat gives money, makes friends with, arranges a job for his son with, the most conservative Republican in the country. But there is a method to the Kennedy method.

The "memo," the "order," the big piece of evidence that the Left has tried to attribute to the Kennedy's all these years could be a sham. Perhaps it was designed to give them a way out, a piece of evidence to use in case things went horribly wrong in Vietnam. The big wink, the knowing look.

Don't worry, it's handled.

Generals do not re-shuffle, re-assign, cover up and ignore Presidential orders. To suggest that Taylor and a few of his cohorts just kept the brilliant John Kennedy in the dark is ludicrous. It plays for the conspiracy theorists, but does not pass the smell test. What does rate as possible is that Kennedy just followed the lessons of his old man, and was doing the old "C.Y.A."

On November 1, 1963, the President of Vietnam and his brother were assassinated during a coup. David Halberstam and others uncovered the now-acknowledged fact that Kennedy had encouraged the coup. Sloppy, ambiguous secret cables were sent over a weekend coordinating the assassination. Kennedy reportedly sat in his office getting a play-by-play of the assassination as it was happening, like a baseball fan listening to the World Series.

This activity, and the "sloppy" cables that did not directly link the President to the act, vis a vis a "smoking gun," simply reek of the cover-up, play-both-sides-of-the-fence mentality that the Kennedy's had learned from their father. The act and its aftermath do not coincide with any plan that Kennedy actually had to withdraw troops. It certainly had the opposite effect.

Some historians contend that Kennedy's intention was to simply remove a very difficult President Ngo Dinh Diem, and that it got out of hand. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge had a birds-eye view of the whole event. Even if it had not been intended to kill Diem, once it was obvious that the President's life was in danger neither Lodge nor our military did a thing to prevent it. This was certainly not based on a decision by Lodge. He was in constant communication with Kennedy and operating under his instructions.

It has been written that Diem was "blackmailing" the U.S. into not withdrawing. What kind of blackmail was he using? Reminding Kennedy of the speech Sorenson wrote in January, 1961?

The assassination immediately empowered the Vietnamese military who took over the country. Their first act was to create a closer military alliance between South Vietnam and the U.S. This certainly does not seem to be the "Vietnamization" of the conflict that is inferred by the memos. These generals would have been consulted during the planning stages of the coup, if not by diplomatic means certainly through intelligence and probably military channels. If they were to be part and parcel of a plan to strengthen their own military while the U.S. decelerated, then it does not to stand to reason that the exact opposite is what actually happened.

Kennedy aide Kenneth O'Donnell, an old Boston friend who no doubt knew every trick in the Joe Kennedy playbook, said that he asked how Kennedy planned to pull out of Vietnam.

"Easy," Kennedy is supposed to have said, "we'll install a government in Saigon which will ask us to leave."

If this were true, Kennedy would have installed a Buddhist government in Saigon. A Buddhist monk had immolated himself in protest of the war. The Buddhist majority in Vietnam did not like the aristocratic, Catholic, French-influenced government that was kicked out. If O'Donnell's assertion that Kennedy had the "easy" answer is to be believed, which it is not, then JFK would have "installed" somebody other than the South Vietnamese generals. These people were not very Buddhist. Many had attended advanced training at American war colleges. They shared an esprit d'corp with their West Point colleagues, and were the last people in Vietnam to "ask us to leave." That is precisely the opposite of what they did ask us to do.

By November, 1963, John F. Kennedy knew darn well that if the U.S. pulled out of the south, the Communists, backed by China and the U.S.S.R., would rush right in. He knew the South Vietnamese did not have the military means to prevent it, and that it would be a holocaust. He may not have had nightmares that resembled the Cambodian killing fields, but he knew it would be something like that. He did not want that to be his legacy. The odd thing is that the revisionists of the Left somehow want that to be his legacy. If they are honest with themselves and think realistically about it, then the natural line of events lead to that. If the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam during the period 1963-65, then is there some reason to believe the events of 1975-78 would not simply have occurred 10 years earlier than they did? Those events, of course, are the toppling of Saigon, civil war in Laos, holocaust in Cambodia, and total chaos in the region. Had this happened in the 1960s instead of the 1970s, it would have combined with the utter loss of American prestige, acknowledgement that America does not keep its commitment, and in this historian's personal opinion, a possible Soviet attack that leads to World War III.

Many of the historical revisionists who want to promote the notion JFK would have kept the U.S. out of a major Vietnam "quagmire" did not arrive at that conclusion until 1968 at the earliest, when his brother advocated a unilateral withdrawal. His advisors certainly were silent on the subject during his Presidency. What is possible is that "passing remarks" in the hallway have been interpreted as "wishful" official propositions. Bobby himself tried to get appointed as Ambassador to South Vietnam in 1964, which certainly would have attached a Kennedy-Johnson approval to the war. Kennedy's approval of Ngo Dinh Diem's assassination because he may have sought an alternative peace with Ho Chi Minh behind America's back goes against the "withdrawal" theory. If Kennedy wanted out, what better way than for South Vietnam to do it for them? There is no logic behind the idea that Kennedy would support the Ngo coup, then abandon the successors to political and military instability. The coup was a fait acompli regarding the war, which John Kennedy signed on to.

Kennedy pulling out goes against all we know about his political character. He was a middle-of-the-road strategist. He was a Cold Warrior who did not back off confrontation, but took it on with moderation. His middle way approach failed at the Bay of Pigs but succeeded during the missile crisis. He also liked to buy time, such as in Laos, who he allowed to be neutralized. At the Berlin Wall he lined up troops to simply observe the Russians build the structure.

Kennedy likely would have rejected a Reserve call-up and heavy bombing in favor of limited bombing of the north with limited build-up in the south. There is little to suggest the Kennedy approach would have been much different from the Johnson

approach. Kennedy, however, might have made better use of the Marines and the Green Berets, and relied less on the "Vietnamization" policy of Johnson. He might have succeeded where Johnson failed.

So, I say to those who live in this Vietnam fantasy land, that if you are going to buy the "JFK was gong to pull us out of Southeast Asia" scenario, then you had better buy the disastrous results this scenario would have caused.

The fact is, Kennedy might have wanted to pull out of Vietnam, which is much different and more likely than truly planning to do it. The revisionists say that Kennedy

"planned" the withdrawal for after the 1964 election, so the Republicans could not attack him for being soft on Communism.

"I can do it after I'm re-elected," he is supposed to have said, "So we had better make damned sure I AM re-elected."

This creates another intriguing concept. Just for the sake of argument, if JFK was planning to get the U.S. out of Vietnam following the 1964 campaign, it still leaves events between November, 1963 and November, 1964 to deal with. The Communists continued to build their forces, and were creating a situation that every day made it more difficult to extricate American forces. It is not fair to Kennedy to say that he would have orchestrated the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which Johnson did in August, 1964. But it is fair to say that the same forces that drove the Tonkin incident would have driven JFK if he was still President. It is not fair to say that Oliver Stone's premise that it was all part of a vast right wing/conservative/military/Republican/Military Industrial Complex/ CIA/ Cuban/"black ops"/Mafia/Communist plot. Stone's vision is, and quite simply, garbage.

On November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

The preparation of a document called National Security Action Memorandum 273 was then in progress. It spelled out the U.S. intention to gradually withdraw from the war. When President Lyndon Johnson got the draft, he reversed the direction of NSAM 273, which was issued a few days later.

This document is further evidence, some say, that the U.S. was going to pull out of Vietnam. It is possible that such documents are the natural result of an eventual desire to get troops out of that country. It is difficult to believe such a thing was contemplated before that country was deemed secure. The escalation of Communist and Viet Cong insurgency that was occurring every day during this period simply makes it contrary to American tradition that this nation would have abandoned the Saigon government to the tender mercies of Ho Chi Minh's evil forces.

While this may sound simplistic, a possible "alternative" to the escalation vs. de-escalation debate is a "Korea option." Perhaps if Eisenhower had been President, or even Nixon, his protégé and a man who the Communists feared, a deal could have been worked out like the one Ike negotiated in 1953. The United States could have promised not to attack the Communists. They could have put a "police force" in Saigon to create and protect a "demilitarized zone" like the 38th parallel in Korea. We already were protecting Berlin, which was surrounded on all sides by the Soviets. This might not have been a perfect solution, and it certainly would have required more, not less, troops, but it theoretically could have worked and not produced the body bags, the "body counts," the tragedy and heartache that followed.

The Kennedys: American Royalty

"Joe Kennedy is one of the biggest crooks who ever lived."

\- Sam Giancana

"I helped Joe Kennedy get rich."

\- Frank Costello

"Joe always found great favor in Hitler. He would have loved to see him succeed."

- Morton Downey, Jr.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy is generally considered one of the greatest Presidents in American history. He consistently ranks with Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt in polling. His international standing is extremely high, too, especially in France and Germany. He is nothing less than an icon of the Democrat party. While it is understandable that average Americans are not familiar enough with Theodore Roosevelt, or consider Abraham Lincoln and George Washington to be "ancient history," it is nevertheless impressive that Kennedy ranks as highly as he does. Depending on the poll or who you ask, he is likely to compare with Truman and Eisenhower, who are relatively recent Presidents and heroes to many.

However, it is difficult if not impossible to judge Kennedy without judging his family. This applies to every member of the most famous clan in American history. All of them are inextricably linked to each other. Being a Kennedy has special responsibilities that come with enormous privileges. To be a member of this family and even the extended family of in-laws, inside friends and advisors, is to be privy to wealth, prestige, political influence and notoriety on a scale that no other family approaches. Some have used this privilege wisely. Others have abused it brutally. Many people have benefited from the Kennedy family. Many of have had their lives ruined. They are nothing if not scandal-ridden fodder for the tabloids, yet they have done much noble work.

There other dynasties in American history. There were the Adams's, the Roosevelts, and now the Bush family shows the potential to supplant the Kennedys in the 21st Century. But none ever has nor ever will capture the imagination - for good or ill - of the glamorous Kennedy family.

The Kennedy family does not start with Joseph P. Kennedy, but everything before flowed to him. Everything since emanates from him. The further a Kennedy can distance him or herself from Joe Kennedy, the better off they are. Joe Kennedy is very possibly the single worst American of the 20th Century. Bill Clinton gets some votes, but he was duly elected and has the imprimatur of the Presidency. The question of "worst American" is a subjective one, counting only people of prominence who were in a position of power, influence and were supposed to make use of their position in a legal manner beneficial to society.

Therefore, mob figures and serial killers are not eligible. But corporate tycoons, military men, religious figures, entertainers and politicians are eligible. Kennedy was a corporate tycoon, a politician, an entertainment executive who had de facto religious influence, and was also intricately involved in military affairs. He advocated keeping America military out of World War II. Two of his sons were military heroes. He orchestrated a public relations campaign that blew John's Naval experience so far out of proportion that it propelled him to the White House. Finally, unbelievably, a Navy destroyer was named after him. In addition, Kennedy was for all practical purposes a mob figure for decades, although his participation in Mafia activities was more carefully chosen than the Sicilian families who chose to do their business less publicly than Kennedy. When American boys were dying in World War I, Joe was enriching himself through deceptive business practices. He never served a day in the military. Americans lost everything in the Great Depression, while Joe enriched himself further through deceptive business practices that directly "benefited" from the losses of others.

The Kennedy's have experienced tremendous tragedy, some intensely personal, some part of the national experience. Many have labeled this the "Kennedy curse." If there is such a thing as a "curse," or "bad Karma," it can be attributed first to Joe Kennedy. In the end he was rendered helpless by stroke and forced to watch two of his sons felled by assassin's bullets. It is not my place to judge a human being, but I will consider that God may have rendered Earthly judgment for public consumption upon evil men. Joe Kennedy was an evil man. While many historians might be accused of rendering judgement on Joe Kennedy, I submit that the simple truthful description of his life is to describe evil acts, which is different from judgment. What is speculative is the considered possibility that the 20th Century "success" of the Kennedy's resulted from Joe Kennedy calling forth Satan and making a deal with the devil. This is entirely unproven, and in my opinion within all possibility. The following are excerpts from "The Sins of the Father" by Ronald Kessler and "The Kennedy Men: Three Generations of Sex, Scandal, and Secrets" by Nellie Bly:

"Joe's father, P.J. Kennedy, was a saloon owner who used his bar as a launching pad for his political career.

"In 1885, P.J. was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, due in large part to the strong backing he received from the liquor lobby which was worried about the temperance movement.

"P.J. would serve five terms as a state representative before being elected to the Massachusetts Senate. P.J. skillfully used his political power to enrich himself and advance the career of his son Joseph P. Kennedy.

"When Joe Kennedy was fresh out of college in 1912, his father got him a job as a state bank examiner. Here, Joe had access to useful information about the confidential affairs of companies and individuals who had credit lines with major Boston banks. He found out which companies were in trouble and which had extra cash, who was planning new products or acquisitions and who was about to be liquidated.

"A former Harvard classmate, Ralph Lowell, said, `That bank examiner's job took him all over the state and laid bare the condition of every bank he visited. He acquired information of value to himself and others.'

"Joe's strategy was to obtain inside information about troubled companies from banks, then drive their stock down so he could buy them more cheaply. While still on the state payroll as a bank examiner, Joe made an acquisition that was aided by inside information. He bought a Boston investment company called Old Colony Realty Associates, Inc. Joe turned the company from an old-line investment firm into one that made money on the misery of others.

"Under Joe's direction, the company specialized in taking over defaulted home mortgages. He would then paint the houses, and resell them at far higher prices. By the time the company was dissolved, Joe's $1,000 investment had grown to $75,000. <This sounds like Hillary Clinton's `cattle futures' deal.>

"Joe began cultivating strong alliances with members of the press, including William Randolph Hearst, who would print glowing stories about Kennedy's successes. In January 1914, when Joe was elected president of Columbia Trust, Hearst ran a series praising Joe as the youngest bank president in the country. The stories neglected to mention that Columbia Trust was owned by Joe's father and his friends.

"Joe eventually assumed control of Columbia Trust by borrowing money from other family members who were never repaid. Kerry McCarthy, Joe's grandniece who interviewed some of those people for a research paper, said, "I found money was loaned to him by family members and not repaid. Since it was family, he didn't feel there was a need to.

"In June of 1914, Joe married Rose Fitzgerald, daughter of Boston mayor John Fitzgerald. Joe would use this new connection for all it was worth. In 1917, with World War I already in progress, the United States government announced that young men would be drafted into military service, and that draft resisters would be executed. Although most of Joe's friends from Harvard had already volunteered to serve, Joe had no intention of fighting.

"Joe had already been placed in Class 1 and was subject to immediate call-up, when his father-in-law, Mayor Fitzgerald, acquired a job for him at the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation in Quincy, Massachusetts. Although Joe knew nothing about shipbuilding, he was made general manager, a job which effectively kept him out of the war. Daniel Strohmeier, vice president of Bethlehem Steel, said, `Joe was accommodated to skip the draft during World War I because of a lot of pressure from his father-in-law.'

Seven months after the armistice was signed to end World War I, Joe left the shipyard. Having avoided the draft, he had no more need to work there.

"Joe was given a job with the venerable Boston stock brokerage firm Hayden, Stone and Company, after Mayor Fitzgerald promised to swing business to the firm if they hired his son-in-law.

"Galen Stone, a friend of Joe's father-in-law, taught his protégé how to make huge sums of money off unsuspecting investors by trading on inside information. While the practice of using inside information was not then illegal, it was unethical. Stone breached his fiduciary duty to his stockholders, while Joe made money because of his privileged position at Hayden, Stone. Joe told one Harvard friend, `It's so easy to make money in the market we'd better get in before they pass a law against it.' It was easy, as long as one was willing to breach trust.

"Besides using inside information improperly, Joe made fabulous sums through what were known as stock pools. This was a way of manipulating the market by forming a syndicate and arranging for the members to trade stock back and forth. By bidding the price of the stock higher, the pool members created the appearance that the public was bidding up the price. In fact, the syndicate members retained the profits, and when the trading public bit by joining the action, the syndicate members sold out, leaving the public with losses. Joe called the practice `advertising' the stock.

"On January 29, 1919, the 18th Amendment was ratified. It prohibited the manufacture, sale, transportation, or importation of `intoxicating liquors' for `beverage purposes.' For Joe, the law represented an opportunity to make huge profits.

"He formed alliances with crime bosses in major markets, among them Boston, New York, Chicago, and New Orleans. These would come in handy years later when his son was running for national office. Among his mob associates was Frank Costello, former boss of the Luciano crime family, who bragged, `I helped Joe Kennedy get rich.' Sam Giancana, who would later figure prominently in Jack's presidency, called Joe `one of the biggest crooks who ever lived.'

"Joe bought liquor from overseas distillers and supplied it to organized crime syndicates that picked up the liquor on the shore. Frank Costello would later confirm that Joe had approached him for help in smuggling liquor. Joe would have the liquor dumped at a so-called Rum Row - a trans-shipment point where police were paid to look the other way - and Costello and other mobsters would then take over. They distributed the liquor, fixed the prices, established quotas, and paid off law enforcement and politicians. They enforced their own law with machine guns, usually calling on experts who did bloody hits on contract.

"Columnist John Miller wrote, `The way Costello talked about Joe, you had the sense that they were very close during Prohibition.'

"By the mid-1920s, Fortune estimated Joe's wealth at $2 million. Yet since Joe had left Hayden, Stone in 1922, he had had no visible job. While he made hundreds of thousands of dollars manipulating the market, only bootlegging on a sizable scale would account for such sudden and fabulous wealth.

"Joe used the profits from his bootlegging operations to fuel his continued stock market speculating, and finance his efforts in the film industry.

"By 1930 Joe had plenty to smile about. He had seen the Depression coming, and as Black Tuesday approached, Joe liquidated his longer-term investments while continuing to make money on the declining market by selling short.

"Selling Short \- Usually an investor purchases stock and later sells it, earning a profit if the stock has gone up. Selling short reverses the process. The investor who believes the price of a stock will go down borrows stock - say at $10 a share - from a broker for a fee. If the price falls to $8, he buys new shares at the lower price of $8 and gives them back to the broker to replace the shares he borrowed at $10. He then gets to keep the $2 difference as his profit.

"By selling short, Joe made sums estimated at more than $1 million and contributed to the eventual market crash by forcing prices down.

"The fact that the market was unregulated was largely responsible for the crash. Salesmen had made wild claims to a gullible public. Stock pools such as those perfected by Joe Kennedy had defrauded legitimate investors. Reporters and columnists had acted as shills for companies peddling stocks in return for payoffs.

"The crash set off a worldwide financial panic and Depression that would last for years. By 1932, 12 million Americans were jobless. Governments responded with strict tariff restrictions that dried up world trade. In Germany, where 5.6 million people were out of work, the depression contributed to the rise of Adolf Hitler.

"Considerably richer because of his short selling, Joe Kennedy gleefully told friends that he had sold off his Wall Street holdings before the bottom dropped out of the stock market. He said he was now waiting to pick up the pieces left by `dumb people.'

"Joe Kennedy's wealth was now estimated at over $100 million. By 1933, Joe was again manipulating the stock market to his advantage, even as Federal investigators were swarming over Wall Street trying to expose the conditions that had led to the crash.

"The stock market crash and resulting panic would eventually lead to the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to which Joe was named head <by the Democrat Franklin Roosevelt, which would have been like putting John Gotti in charge of a task force on organized crime>.

"By 1933 the states had also begun repealing Prohibition, and with his usual foresight, Joe could see it was only a matter of time before the 18th Amendment was repealed and liquor flowed freely again.

"Kennedy used his connections in Washington to obtain permits to import ridiculously large quantities of Haig & Haig and Dewar's as 'medicine.' He stockpiled the liquor in warehouses so that when Prohibition ended, he would have more high-quality liquor in stock than anybody else.

"Joe also took steps to make sure he had cornered the market in Scotch. In September, Joe invited the President's son, James Roosevelt, to join him on a trip to England. Joe used young Roosevelt to get access to those who controlled Scotland's distilleries. Returning with distribution rights to brands such as Haig & Haig, Dewar's scotch, and Gordon's gin, Joe proceeded to build Somerset Importers into a force in the liquor business. On December 5, prohibition was repealed and Kennedy was ready.

"Joe took steps to protect his fortune and the future of his children. He moved to establish a series of trust funds that would eventually make all his children financially independent. These trust funds would eventually guarantee each of his children, and their mother, over twenty million dollars apiece."

The following are excerpts from "The Sins of the Father" by Ronald Kessler:

"After making his fortune on and off Wall Street, Joe was one of the first Eastern businessmen to grasp the potential of the movie business. By the mid-1920s, the American film industry was turning out 800 films a year and employed as many people as the auto industry. This was `a gold mine,' Joe told several friends. After buying a chain of 31 small movie houses, Joe realized that the way to make real money was on the production side. Moreover, he was attracted to the glamour of Hollywood. Not only could he influence the way films were made, he could meet dazzling young women."

"Gloria Swanson

"While his wife Rose was in Boston, pregnant with their eighth child, Joe was in Hollywood engaged in his notorious liaison with the superstar Gloria Swanson.

"Swanson was by no means Joe's first extramarital adventure, but she was his first real affair. She was the perfect trophy to symbolize the great worldly success he had achieved.

"In 1926, Joe convinced a patron of his brokerage firm, named Guy Currier, to finance his plans to enter the movie business. Using insider information he received as a broker at Hayden, Stone, Joe bought the Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), sight unseen, from its British owners; and then received a commission of $75,000 from the trading company for the deal. Joe quickly changed the studio's focus to making cheap Westerns and dog pictures that could be turned out in a week for $30,000 to $50,000 each. Although they lacked artistic merit, the pictures sold, and FBO profits ballooned.

"The following year, Joe Kennedy used the profits from FBO to purchase the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) who had a new system for making motion pictures with sound. Now that Joe headed a studio, he wanted to buy a theater chain to distribute his pictures. This desire would eventually lead to the infamous 'Pantages Scandal.'

Kennedy purchased KAO (Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theaters Corp), a chain with 700 movie theaters in the U.S. and Canada, and more than 2 million patrons daily. Edward Albee, the founder of KAO, had initially refused to sell out, but when Joe promised that he would remain in control of the chain, Albee agreed to Kennedy's offer. But once the papers were signed and Joe was chairman, Joe said bluntly, `Didn't you know, Ed? You're washed up. Through.'

"In 1928, Joe was asked to serve as a special advisor on the board of Pathe Exchange Inc., a production company who produced a weekly newsreel. Joe soon became chairman of Pathe and began implementing his own ideas, beginning by slashing the salaries of the employees. The cost cutting applied to others, however, and not to himself - he was drawing a salary of $100,000 from Pathe.

"Later that year, Joe merged FBO with his chain of theaters (KAO) to form the famous RKO. Joe then had RCA trade its FBO stock for stock in the new company, a deal which brought him $2 million.

"Joe Kennedy had become so entranced by Gloria Swanson and Hollywood that when his father P.J. Kennedy died in May of 1929, Joe would not leave California to attend the funeral. Joe's cousin Joseph Kane later confronted him saying, `You son of a bitch, you didn't even go to your father's funeral. You were too busy on the West Coast chasing Gloria Swanson around."

"Joe replied, `I couldn't leave. If I left for two days, the Jews would rob me blind.'

"A friend, Kane Simonian, observed, 'Joe Kennedy didn't attend his father's funeral....When someone doesn't go to his father's funeral, you can believe he would do anything.'

"Indeed, nothing so much illuminates Joe's character as his decision to remain in California while the rest of the family and many of Boston's most notable citizens paid their last respects to the man who had been responsible for so many of Joe's early successes. From Joe's entry into Harvard, to his job as bank examiner and designation as president of Columbia Trust, P.J. had always been there to help his son. Now that his father could do nothing more to help him, Joe was too busy in Hollywood to say good-bye.

"In 1931, Joe Kennedy plundered Pathe Exchange. He arranged for RKO to pay Pathe insiders like himself $80 a share. The rest of the stockholders would receive just $1.50 a share. Favoring insiders to such a degree was nothing more than robbery. Since Joe had acquired the stock for $30 a share, he more than doubled his investment in fewer than two years. Stockholders filed suit, but nothing came of it.

"Since Joe was in a position to dictate the terms of the deal, he was able to craft the transaction to enrich himself. Moreover, he took advantage of privileged information from the files of major stockholders in the movie companies who were clients of Guy Currier, his partner at RKO. While Currier was on vacation in Italy, Kennedy pillaged his files for inside information such as the size of holdings of other stockholders and their financial condition. He then used the information to further his own interests. When Currier returned, he discovered that RKO's value had plummeted, and he and his fellow investors had been betrayed. Joe Kennedy `did not behave in an honorable way,' said Anne Anable, Currier's granddaughter. `Unfortunately, my grandfather didn't realize how corrupt Kennedy was,' she said.

"Years later, Wisconsin Congressman John Schafer took to the floor of the House to denounce Joe Kennedy as the `chief racketeer in the RKO swindle.' Another Congressman, William Sirovich of New York, said the `inside group at RKO had committed fraud by unloading their stock, making millions.' He called for an investigation of the movie industry, but by then Joe had become close to key Congressional leaders as well as to President Roosevelt, and the probe was mysteriously halted.

"In Joe's papers, Doris Kearns Goodwin found letters from anguished stockholders of Pathe. Anne Lawler of Jamaica Plain in Boston said she lost her life savings. `This seems hardly Christian-like, fair or just for a man of your character,' she wrote. `I wish you would think of the poor working woman who had so much faith in you as to give all their money to your Pathe.'

"Joe Kennedy had been chairman of FBO for two years and nine months, chairman of Keith-Albee-Orpheum for five months, special adviser to First National Pictures for six weeks, special adviser to RCA for two and a half months, and adviser to Paramount Pictures for 74 days. In all, Joe had made an estimated $5 million in the movie business."

The following are excerpts from "The Kennedy Men: Three Generations of Sex, Scandal, and Secrets" by Nellie Bly:

"Joe's oldest daughter, Rosemary, was considered shy and mentally limited - symptoms of what many suspect was dyslexia. For years the family had dealt with the problem by sending her away to various special schools and convents. By age 21 she had deteriorated greatly, giving way to tantrums, rages and violent behavior. Rosemary was beginning to understand that she would never measure up to her closest siblings, and the resulting frustration led to physical fights and, worse, long absences at night when she would be wandering the streets.

"Increasingly, Rosemary was seen as a liability to the family's political ambitions, and in 1942, Joe moved to deal with the problem. Without telling anyone, not ever her mother, he arranged for his oldest daughter to have a prefrontal lobotomy at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. The experimental operation was believed to work wonders with people who had emotional problems. In Rosemary's case it was a disaster and left her permanently disabled, paralyzed on one side, incontinent and unable to speak coherently. She was never allowed to return home, but instead was spirited away to St. Coletta's School in Wisconsin.

"Rosemary's fate and how it was handled was the ultimate Kennedy deception. As late as 1958 the family was maintaining the fiction that Rosemary had become a quasi nun in Wisconsin, content to renounce the glamorous world of her siblings to teach less fortunate children. Today the official family version is that she was born retarded, and that only her mother's Herculean efforts had made it possible for her to appear normal."

The following are excerpts from "The Sins of the Father" by Ronald Kessler and

"The Kennedy Men: Three Generations of Sex, Scandal, and Secrets" by Nellie Bly:

"How Joe Kennedy framed an innocent man

"In February 1929, Joe Kennedy made an offer to buy the Pantages theater chain, the second biggest in California, from its owner Alexander Pantages, a Greek immigrant who had built the chain from scratch into a multi-million dollar business.

"Joe's innate arrogance was now rampant, and when Pantages rebuffed his offers, Kennedy threatened him by boasting of his influence in the banking and movie businesses. Soon, Pantages found his theaters were being denied first-run blockbuster features from major studios, but that was only the beginning.

"On August 9, 1929 in Pantages's flagship theater, the Beaux Arts in downtown Los Angeles, an hysterical lady in red emerged from the janitor's broom closet on the mezzanine screaming: `There he is, the Beast! Don't let him get at me!' She pointed to the silver-haired Alexander Pantages in the office next to the broom closet.

"The girl, Eunice Pringle of Garden Grove, California, told police that she had come to Pantages looking for work as a dancer. Instead of offering her a job, he had pushed her into the broom closet, wrenched her underwear loose and raped her. Pantages insisted that he was being framed, and that the young woman had torn and ripped her own clothing.

"Poor Pantages was convicted and sentenced to 50 years, but the verdict was overturned on appeal, on the basis that it was prejudicial to Pantages to exclude testimony about the morals of the plaintiff. The court found her testimony `so improbable as to challenge credulity.'

"At the new trial, Pantages' lawyers reenacted the alleged rape and showed that it could not have occurred in the small broom closet the way Pringle had described it. The jury was also shown how athletic Pringle was, casting doubt on her claim that she could not fight off advances by the slightly built Pantages.

"The second jury acquitted Pantages, but because of the notoriety, his business had plummeted. A few months after Kennedy's final offer of $8 million, Pantages was forced to sell out to Joe's RKO for $3.5 million.

"Eunice Pringle

"Two years after the acquittal, Pringle told her lawyer she wanted to come clean. Stories began circulating that she was about to blow the lid off the rape case and name names. Suddenly, she died of unknown causes. The night she died, she was violently ill and red in color, a sign of cyanide poisoning.

"On her deathbed, Pringle confessed to her mother and a friend that Joe Kennedy had set up Pantages. In exchange for their perjured testimony, Kennedy had paid $10,000 to Pringle and her agent and lover Nicolas Dunaev. Joe had also promised he would make her a star. Pringle, however, never became a star, and Dunaev never gave her her share of the money.

Anti-Semitism, Hitler, and Joe McCarthy

The following are excerpts from "The Sins of the Father" by Ronald Kessler:

"One of Joe Kennedy's closest friends was Morton Downey, a night-club singer who later became a radio idol in the 1930s and 40s. As one friend put it, 'Mort did him favors in the department Joe liked best - girls, he knew chorus girls.' Furthermore, since most of the clubs where Downey sang were owned by the mob, Joe gained access to mobsters like Frank Costello who were critical to his bootlegging business.

"Besides their love of young women, Downey and Kennedy shared a hatred of Jews. As successful Irishmen, they needed another minority to ridicule. When Joe later went to Hollywood, he told friends he expected to wipe out the Jewish `pants pressers' who ruled Hollywood.

"`Joe Kennedy's feeling toward Jews was that the only way he could be a success was that every day when he got up, he would focus on one deal involving a Jew, and he would win the deal. That was his whole driving spirit,' said Morton Downey, Jr., quoting what his father had told him about Joe.

"Shortly after he became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Adolf Hitler began his campaign against the Jews. Hitler used Germany's severe economic problems to win support from extremists who had fomented violence. He claimed Germany had been `stabbed in the back' by the acquiescence of German leaders to the Treaty of Versailles. As scapegoats, he singled out Jews and Communists. They were responsible for Germany's economic plight.

"As the Nazi Party grew, Hitler destroyed the constitutional government. Squads of brown-shirted stormtroopers carted off critics and tortured or shot them. Over 4,000 people in public life were thrown in jail.

"On April 1, 1933, persecution of the Jews in Germany became official policy, beginning with a Nazi initiated boycott of Jewish businesses and shops. Nazi students and professors burned hundreds of thousands of books, including many written by Jews, as part of a `purification' of German culture.

"As Ambassador to England, Joe would later make clear that he thought the Jews had `brought on themselves' whatever Hitler did to them. During a 1938 meeting at the German Embassy in London, Kennedy assured the German ambassador that America only wanted friendly relations with Hitler. Joe said that Hitler's government had done `great things' for the country, and that the Germans were `satisfied' and enjoyed `good living conditions.' Joe told the ambassador that a recent report which said the limited food in Germany was being reserved for the army could not be true. After all, Joe said, the professor who had made the report `was a Jew.'

"Kennedy urged his friend William Randolph Hearst to help Hitler improve his image in the United States. Hearst agreed, and under his own byline he told his readers that Hitler had `restored character and courage. Hitler gave hope and confidence. He established order and unity of purpose.'

"Based on what his father had told him, Morton Downey, Jr. said, `I think if Joe had his way, Hitler would have succeeded in his annihilation of the Jews...He always found great favor in Hitler. He would have loved to see him succeed.'

"Joe Kennedy often professed admiration for the works of Brooks Adams, whose views on racial purity paralleled Hitler's. Joe accepted Adams as his intellectual guru, ratifying, as he did, the prejudices that Joe already had.

"An historian, Adams articulated a `survival of the fittest' theory much like Hitler's. Eventually, he wrote, the `energy' of a `race' is exhausted, and it must be replaced by the infusion of `barbarian blood.'

"In `The Theory of Social Revolutions' as well as other works, Adams maintained that American Democracy had inherent defects. Without near-dictatorial powers, Presidents cannot govern effectively. Ultimately, these defects would bring disaster to the country. Adams predicted England would fare even worse because the country was in a state of `decay' brought on by `high living, wasteful habits, and intellectual torpor.' In contrast, Germany had a strong military and a vigorous population that was better educated.

"Joe Kennedy, as a capitalist, liked Adams' theories because he saw himself as their beneficiary and they appealed to his prejudices. According to Adams, the `greedy' economic man or capitalist becomes dominant in society. Morality and ethics are of no value. Instead, `Men do not differ from the other animals, but survive, according to their aptitudes, by adapting themselves to exterior conditions which prevail at the moment of their birth.'

"Joe Kennedy's oldest son, Joe, Jr., absorbed his father's virulent anti-Semitism. During a break from school in 1934, Joe, Jr. traveled to Germany. By then, public eating facilities, theaters, and shops in Germany displayed signs saying `Jews Not Welcome.' Jewish mothers could not buy milk for their infants. Jews who were sick could not obtain prescriptions.

"Joe, Jr. wrote to his father that Hitler had taken advantage of a widespread dislike of the Jews, a dislike which was `well-founded.' He told his father that Hitler was `building a spirit in his men that could be envied in any country.' The brutality, bloodshed, and marching were necessary, he said, and the sterilization law was a `good thing.' `I don't know how the Church feels about it but it will do away with many of the disgusting specimens of men who inhabit this earth,' Joe, Jr. wrote."

(Author's note: Forgive me while I go throw up...this is America's "royal family?")

"To be sure, anti-Semitism in the United States at the time, particularly in Boston, was not uncommon. But while many were passively anti-Semitic, Joe Kennedy was rabidly so. Repeatedly and aggressively, he attacked the Jews, even suggesting to his son Jack that he incorporate a campaign against the Jews as part of his political platform.

"Joe Kennedy - Supporter of McCarthyism

"Like Kennedy, Joseph R. McCarthy was a bully, adept at creating suspicion and circulating rumors to smear people as Communists. Kennedy had contributed to the Wisconsin Republican's Senate campaigns, and invited him a number of times to Hyannis Port. McCarthy attended the wedding of Joe's daughter Eunice Kennedy, and was Joe's guest at numerous other affairs, where Kennedy introduced him as his `valued friend.'

"Although McCarthy was at first an undistinguished legislator, he captured national attention in February 1950 by arguing that the State Department was riddled with card-carrying members of the Communist Party. Shrewd at public relations and media manipulation, McCarthy intimidated his opponents and evaded demands for tangible proof as he developed a large and loyal following.

"McCarthy's activities gave rise to the term `McCarthyism,' referring to the use of sensational and highly publicized personal attacks, usually based on unsubstantiated charges, as a means of discrediting people thought to be subversive.

"In November 1950, Joe Kennedy spoke at the Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration, where he said that not enough had been done to get Communists out of the United States government. He professed his respect for Joe McCarthy, who was just beginning his witch hunt for Communists, and Joe said he `knew McCarthy pretty well, and he may have something.'

"Late in 1952, Senator Joseph McCarthy became chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Government Operations Committee. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. referred to McCarthy's anti-Communist activities as his 'jihad,' but Joe Kennedy admired his friend's stand. To Kennedy, Communism, not Nazism, posed the greatest threat. He was an old hand at spreading rumors himself.

"In December 1952, Joe Kennedy called McCarthy and asked him to give his son Bobby a job on the committee. In January 1953, McCarthy named Bobby Kennedy assistant counsel.

"Bobby appeared to be blind to McCarthy's demagoguery. `Joe McCarthy's methods may be a little rough,' he told reporters, `but, after all, his goal is to expose Communists in government, and that's a worthy goal. So why are you reporters so critical of his methods?'

"McCarthy's failure to substantiate his claims of Communist penetration of the Army in the nationally televised Army-McCarthy hearings finally discredited him. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to condemn him, 67 to 22. Jack Kennedy, Senator from Massachusetts, was the only Democrat who did not vote against McCarthy. Jack's failure to condemn Joe McCarthy would cost him the Vice-Presidential nomination in 1956.

"The family allegiance to McCarthy was demonstrated again when Bobby Kennedy attended McCarthy's funeral in May 1957.

The following are excerpts from "The Sins of the Father" by Ronald Kessler:

"Having made his mark on Hollywood and Wall Street, Joe came to realize that Washington was where the real power was. Joe had never been interested in the arduous way his father had achieved political power - through meetings in smoke-filled rooms and holding constituents' hands. Rather, now that he was one of the richest men in the country, Joe would simply buy his way into power.

"Joe Kennedy's entry into politics began when a mutual friend arranged a meeting between Kennedy and then-Governor of New York Franklin Roosevelt. Having just won re-election as Governor, Roosevelt was already being described as a contender for President. A pragmatist willing to obtain support from almost any quarter, he saw Joe Kennedy as both a potential source of major campaign contributions and someone who could swing Wall Street and conservative Democrats his way.

"At their meeting, Kennedy and Roosevelt forged a political alliance. Joe would contribute to his campaign and open doors to him on Wall Street; Roosevelt would bring Joe into his inner circle of advisers, and include him in his Cabinet.

"Once the campaign got under way, Joe not only contributed large sums of money directly to Roosevelt, but he also became Roosevelt's `money collector' or bag man, collecting cash from those who wanted to hide their identities.

"Joe was of further value to Roosevelt because of his close relationships with many newspaper publishers who could be critically important to an election. Not only could they support candidates in their papers, they often used their political clout to choose candidates in the first place. Chief among these media power brokers was Kennedy's friend William Randolph Hearst.

"Hearst owned 33 newspapers with a circulation of 11 million. He also controlled 86 delegates to the Democratic nominating convention, nearly all from the critical states of California and Texas. In a last minute move, Kennedy persuaded Hearst to back Roosevelt. Hearst not only provided a large campaign contribution, but he also swung his delegates to Roosevelt. Joe would later claim, justifiably, that he had won the nomination for Roosevelt.

"More than a year after Roosevelt was elected President, Kennedy was still without his promised Cabinet post.

"In June 1934, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was created, and Roosevelt appointed Joe Kennedy chairman. The appointment drew strong criticism from those who felt that Joe Kennedy symbolized everything the SEC had been set up to eradicate. Roosevelt, however, stood firm, telling one advisor that it `took a thief to catch a thief.' Roosevelt also knew that Joe's financial backing had been critical to his election, and he hoped that giving Kennedy the SEC chairmanship would secure his financial support for the next election as well.

"The SEC, under Joe's direction, went on to outlaw most of the practices that had made Kennedy rich, including a ban on short selling, one of Joe's favorite ways of making money.

"For nearly two years, a parade of Wall Street titans would march to the witness stand and describe their roles in the seamy dealings. But while records of Joe's unethical transactions were presented during the hearings, Joe was never called to appear. Joe would later pretend that he was innocent of any wrongdoing.

"In his book `I'm for Roosevelt', Joe wrote, `For month after month the country was treated to a series of amazing revelations which involved practically all the important names in the financial community in practices which, to say the least, were highly unethical.'

"Kennedy's condemnation of his former business associates came as little surprise to anyone. Joe was known both for discarding friends when they had served their purpose and for knifing in the back those who had helped him. As one Wall Street colleague said, `I don't know why Joe Kennedy turned on me - I never did anything to help him.'

"If one of Joe's failings was his lack of loyalty to those who had helped him, he now turned that trait to his advantage. He did not care if his former cohorts hated him because of his enforcement efforts. Joe had ambitions for himself and his sons that transcended the SEC. This would be a way for him to make a name for himself and for his family.

"Joe would later describe his work at the SEC as `forcing their mouths open and going in with a pair of pincers and just taking all the gold out of their teeth.'

"Joe Kennedy resigned from the SEC in September 1935.

"In 1937, Kennedy began hinting to Roosevelt that he still `deserved a reward' for his role in the election. Roosevelt, who had become mistrustful of Kennedy, chose not to give him a Cabinet post and instead appointed him ambassador to England.

"Kennedy's Ambassadorship coincided with the beginning of World War II in Europe; and throughout his three-year tenure, Kennedy argued against American and British involvement in the war. Even as the Nazis rolled into France, Joe expressed his support for Hitler and maintained a position of appeasement toward Germany.

"In May 1940, Winston Churchill was elected British Prime Minister. The rise of Churchill brought an end to appeasement, and hastened Joe's decline. When Kennedy publicly proclaimed that `Democracy is finished in England,' Roosevelt called for his resignation.

"Harvey Klemmer, who had been Kennedy's speech writer in London, would later complain that Joe had often given him assignments that were completely unrelated to his job. Besides spending inordinate amounts of government time securing precious cargo space for Joe's whisky shipments, he had also been expected to provide Joe with young women. One was a former French model known as `Foxy'."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Joe Kennedy was a monster. Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy was not an angel, but she seems to have been a good woman. It is because of her that the family retains a decent name, which is no small feat. It is doubtful her sons could have ascended to political heights without her to offset the enmity her husband created. She was very disciplined, a devoutly Catholic woman who bore nine children; four boys and five girls. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was named in honor of Rose's father, John Francis Fitzgerald, the popular Boston Mayor who everybody knew as "Honey Fitz". Jack was an unhealthy baby who suffered from whooping cough, measles, and chicken pox. When Jack was not yet three, he came down with scarlet fever. His father went to the hospital every day to be by his son's side. If he made any deals with God to keep his son alive, his subsequent activities suggest he probably did not hold his end of the bargain. Maybe he evoked other powers. About a month later Jack took a turn for the better and recovered. Jack's health was always an issue. The family joke was that if a mosquito bit him, the mosquito would die.

The family settled in Brookline, just outside of Boston. Joe became obsessed with making money and achieving power. As a student at Harvard, his Irish Catholicism had kept him out of the best fraternities and social circles. He determined to overcome prejudice by buying his way into a world he otherwise would have been excluded from, and using his paid-for prestige to open the doors for his children. It was always Joe's intention for his children to enter national politics, which he saw as the ultimate way to break down any remaining barriers.

His goal was to become a millionaire by age 35. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. In this regard he must be considered an American success story. His family had escaped the Irish potato famine on the 19th Century, settled in Boston and made a better life for each succeeding generation. But Joe's success was "amazing."

Aside from the Massachusetts abode, the family owned property in the exclusive enclave of West Palm Beach, Florida. The kids - Jack had an older brother, Joe; four sisters, Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, and Patricia; and a younger brother, Robert (Jean and Teddy had not been born yet) - were a bundle of energy. Nannies and housekeepers helped Rose run the household.

Summers were spent in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod where they swam, sailed, and played touch football. They played hard, and competed for everything. Joseph, Sr. encouraged this, almost pitting the kids against each other in Darwinian match-ups designed to toughen them up. It is true that while the children had everything, they were not spoiled by the easy life. The boys, especially, faced very high expectations in sports, school and all that they tried.

"When the going gets tough, the tough get going," Joe would tell them. The competition could be cutthroat. Joe, Jr. suggested that he and Jack race on their bicycles. They collided head-on. Joe emerged unscathed while Jack had to have 28 stitches. Joe, Jr. routinely beat up Jack, the only sibling who posed any threat to him. For whatever reason, the Kennedy men got all the looks. They were handsome beyond words, like matinee idol movie darlings. The girls all suffered from "map of Ireland" faces with thin lips and straight-up-and-down figures. The boys were the apple of every girl's eye in Boston and West Palm.

Jack attended Choate, a tony boarding school in Connecticut. He played tennis, basketball, football, and golf and read voraciously in those pre-TV days. He subscribed to the _New York Times_ , unusual for a teenage kid. The head master recalled that he had a "clever, individualist mind." He was not the best student, but he took it seriously, especially in history and English, which were his favorites.

"Now Jack," his father wrote in a letter, "I don't want to give the impression that I am a nagger, for goodness knows I think that is the worse thing any parent can be, and I also feel that you know if I didn't really feel you had the goods I would be most charitable in my attitude toward your failings. After long experience in sizing up people I definitely know you have the goods and you can go a long way...It is very difficult to make up fundamentals that you have neglected when you were very young, and that is why I am urging you to do the best you can. I am not expecting too much, and I will not be disappointed if you don't turn out to be a real genius, but I think you can be a really worthwhile citizen with good judgment and understanding."

Jack graduated from Choate and entered Harvard, where Joe was ahead of him. Like Joe, Jack played football. He was not a great athlete but he persevered until he ruptured a disk in his spine. His back bothered him the rest of his life.

Joe, Jr. announced as a young boy that he would be the first Catholic President. In the Kennedy world no one doubted him. Jack had the ambition of a second son, but was by no means a slouch. He was active in student groups and sports, excelled in history and government classes, but maintained only decent grades.

Late in 1937, Mr. Kennedy was appointed United States Ambassador to England. He moved there with his whole family, with the exception of Joe and Jack, who were at Harvard. Jack followed European politics and world affairs. He made a Summer visit to England and other countries in Europe, and reached some startling conclusions about Nazi Germany. At Harvard he tackled history, government and current events with renewed vigor.

The Ambassador sent letters with news regarding the possibility of full-scale war with Hitler's Germany, which was aligned with Mussolini and Italy. On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. Jack was a senior at Harvard and wrote his thesis on Great Britain's lack of preparedness. It was a good book called "Why England Slept", which was worthy of publication. His father made sure of it, arranging through contacts with a publisher. In June, 1940 Jack graduated from Harvard. His father sent him a cablegram from London:

"TWO THINGS I ALWAYS KNEW ABOUT YOU ONE THAT YOU ARE SMART TWO THAT YOU ARE A SWELL GUY LOVE DAD."

John Kennedy then headed to California, where he entered Stanford Business School. He drove a convertible, had reportedly been given $1 million by his father, and according to legend ran a swath through the female population of the West Coast from San Francisco to Hollywood. Handsome and adorably promiscuous, he tanned himself in the hot sun, partied heavily and lived it up. Then the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

It is to the great credit of Joe, Jr. and John Kennedy that they both joined the military after America entered the war. Neither had to do it. Joe had enough pull to keep his sons out. Jack, in particular, had enough physical ailments to get out of service, but he insisted on going in. They still could have been given non-hazardous duty, common for the sons of VIPs. Neither went that route.

Joe was a flyer, sent to Europe. Jack was made lieutenant and assigned to the South Pacific as commander of a patrol torpedo boat, the _PT-109_. The crew of 12 was tasked with stopping Japanese ships from delivering supplies to the islands they held. On August 2, 1943, the _PT-109_ was patrolling the waters when they saw a Japanese destroyer traveling at full speed straight at them. Lieutenant Kennedy tried to swerve out of the way, but the warship rammed the _PT-109_ , splitting it in half and killing men. Everybody jumped off the flaming boat. Kennedy injured his weak back. Others had terrible burns. Some were ready to give up. In the darkness, Kennedy managed to find Patrick McMahon, who otherwise would have died. He hauled him back to where the other survivors were clinging to a piece of the boat that was still afloat. At sunrise, Kennedy led his men toward a small island several miles away. Despite his own injuries, he towed McMahon ashore, a strap from McMahon's life jacket clenched between his teeth. Six days later two native islanders found them and went for help, delivering a message Jack had written on a piece of coconut shell. The next day, the _PT-109_ crew was rescued.

In later years, some have analyzed the _PT-109_ and determined that it was not all that it seemed to be. Lieutenant Kennedy was very inexperienced and perhaps should not have been given command of a PT boat. He apparently failed to adhere to established Navy procedures and training in his failure to steer away from and be hit by the destroyer. Many felt that only negligence could explain being put in such a position. When he returned home, Jack was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his leadership and courage. Joe, Sr. assigned publicists to embellish the story and it was a huge part of the Kennedy mystique, prodding his career from the Congress to the Senate to the White House. In 1962, Kennedy's friends in Hollywood made a movie about it. JFK himself handpicked Cliff Robertson to play him. The film, while entertaining and co-starring a number of excellent young stars, was basically a campaign commercial. Kennedy himself never tried to make more of it than it was. He joked that he had won the Navy Cross for getting his boat run over. He readily admitted that he could have avoided the accident, and was lucky that it turned out the way that it did. Regardless of his inexperience, any mistakes he might have made, or how his father and Hollywood embellished the story, John Kennedy showed enormous bravery and courage under the most trying of circumstances. He saved the lives of his men, who all idolized him after initially thinking him a "rich kid." None of them ever disputed his bravery and clear thinking. All things considered, JFK earned his medals and any kudos he received.

Jack's brother Joe was not lucky. A year later, he volunteered for a dangerous mission involving transport of materials associated with the Manhattan Project, the super-secret operation to develop the atomic bomb. The mission went awry and his plane blew up in the skies over Europe.

Jack came home a war hero and considered teaching or writing. He actually covered the 1946 opening of the United Nations in San Francisco as a reporter. But Joe's tragic death elevated Jack. He was now made the "hope" of the family for the White House. The path to the Presidency began in the 1946 campaign for Massachusetts' 11th Congressional district. Joe, Sr. spent enormous sums of money to assure victory for his youthful, inexperienced son. Jack, while not totally comfortable campaigning, demonstrated intelligence, an easy rapport. The women voters were crazy about him. He won easily.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

"Politics is like war. It takes three things to win.....The first is money and the second is money and the third is money."

\- Joe Kane (Kennedy's friend)

How Joe Made his Son President

The following is excerpted from "The Sins of the Father" by Ronald Kessler and

"The Kennedy Men: Three Generations of Sex, Scandal, and Secrets" by Nellie Bly:

"JFK's First Campaign

"Having tried and failed, Joe Kennedy knew he could never become President, but his sons could. He quenched his thirst for power through them.

"Joe had hoped that his eldest son, Joe, Jr. would fulfill his dream. That dream ended in August 1944 when Joe, Jr., a Navy pilot, was killed after volunteering for a dangerous secret bombing mission. Columnist and family friend Arthur Krock was convinced that the reason Joe, Jr. had volunteered for such a dangerous mission was to compensate for his father's reputation as a coward.

"In Palm Beach during Christmas of 1944, Joe gave his son Jack the orders: He was to take Joe, Jr.'s place and enter politics. In 1957, Jack described the event, telling a reporter: 'It was like being drafted. My father wanted his eldest son in politics. 'Wanted' isn't the right word. He demanded it.'

"Joe would later brag that 'I got Jack into politics. I told him that Joe, Jr .was deceased and that it was therefore his responsibility to run for Congress.'

"In 1946, Joe Kennedy decided that the 11th Congressional district of Massachusetts, with its high concentration of Catholic voters, would be the perfect launching pad for his son Jack's political career. There was only one problem: James Michael Curley, the former Mayor of Boston and Governor of Massachusetts, occupied the seat. Curley, however, was in danger of being indicted for mail fraud, and Joe decided that what the man needed most was some money.

"'Curley knew he was in trouble with the Feds over the mail fraud rap,' recalled Kennedy's friend Joe Kane. `The Ambassador paid him to get out of his Congressional seat...Curley figured that he might need the money.'

"Joe paid Curley $12,000 through his bag man Joe Timilty. He promised additional campaign help if Curley chose to run again for Mayor of Boston in the 1946 election, which Curley did. After being elected, Curley was sent to prison for mail fraud. He continued to serve from prison.

"To Joe, this was standard operating procedure, recalled Kane. `Everything he got, he bought and paid for. And politics is like war. It takes three things to win. The first is money and the second is money and the third is money.'

"On April 25, 1946, Jack Kennedy announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination to Congress. The next month, Joe founded the Joseph P Kennedy Jr. Foundation which began furiously pumping money into Catholic institutions in Jack's adopted district. The timing was not a coincidence, and led one Massachusetts Congressman to describe the gifts as `political currency.'

"Joe's main job now became running his son's campaign. In effect, he was the candidate, devising campaign strategy and making every financial and policy decision. To conceal his own role and the extent of Jack's financing, Joe paid for everything clandestinely and in cash.

"David Powers, who ran Jack's Charlestown headquarters described how Joe's aide would meet him `at the campaign's central headquarters, and then lead me into the men's room, where, putting a dime into the slot, he would take me into a closed toilet stall. Then, with no one able to watch us, he would hand me the cash, saying, 'You can never be too careful in politics about handing over money.'

"Joe also arranged for Jack to receive a salary from the Maine and New Hampshire Theaters Company, which he owned. Joe could then deduct it as a business expense. In addition, two of Joe's theater employees took care of all the campaign expenses. For example, if Jack needed a rental car, he simply charged it to Joe's theater company.

"Jack's opponent in the primary election was a legitimate politician named Joe Russo. To insure that Jack won the primary campaign, Joe Kennedy paid Joseph Russo, a janitor, to also enter the race. This effectively confused the voters, and split the votes for Joe Russo.

"Russo the janitor recalled how Joe's friend Joseph Timilty and another man had visited him one day and asked him to run. In return, Russo said, 'They offered me favors. Whatever I wanted.' In fact, he said later, he wound up getting very little - occasional payments of $50 in cash.

"'Even the aunt of the real candidate voted for the janitor,' recalled Joseph A Russo, the real candidate's son. 'They didn't leave anything unturned,' he said. His father claimed that Kennedy's people had also arranged for other bogus candidates to 'run in other areas to break up the Irish vote, or some other vote. They played for keeps.'

"After Jack won the Democratic primary, Joe sold Somerset Importers Inc., freeing $8 million to help Jack in his campaign and insuring that his liquor holdings would not become an issue.

"Just as he had done with the rent for Jack's campaign offices, Joe paid cash for Jack's advertising. John T. Galvin, who was in charge of the advertising, recalled that `It was handled so that very few people knew...There was a campaign law that limited campaign contributions. It didn't affect us very much.'

"Joe also received crucial support from his friends in the media. For example, William Randolph Hearst, who owned the Boston American newspaper, had one of his reporters check in at Jack's headquarters every day. No other candidate got such special attention. Joe also got Hearst to ignore Jack's opponent Michael Neville, the Mayor of Cambridge, and the paper would not accept his advertising.

"Joe spent $300,000 on Jack's first campaign, according to House Speaker `Tip' O'Neill, equivalent to $2.2 million today. O'Neill said that the sum was six times what he himself spent in the same district during a tough race six years later. In O'Neill's view, Joe was the `real force' behind the Kennedys.

`Joe Kennedy was an ongoing factor in Massachusetts politics,' O'Neill said. `Every time a Democrat ran for Governor, he would go down to see Joe, who would always send him home with a briefcase full of cash.'

"On November 5, 1946, Jack Kennedy was elected to Congress. Seven days later, he filed a report with the Massachusetts secretary of state certifying that no money had been collected for, or had been spent on his campaign.

"JFK's First Senate Campaign

"Having been elected to Congress three terms, Jack Kennedy began a race for the Senate in April 1952, seeking the seat held by Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

"The race was still a toss-up when Joe Kennedy learned that John Fox, owner of the powerful Boston Post, was in desperate need of money. The Boston Post, which had a circulation of over 300,000, had been credited with helping defeat Michael Curley in his last campaign in 1949, and with being responsible for getting Maurice Tobin elected Governor of Massachusetts. Under Fox, the Boston Post favored Republicans. The newspaper had endorsed Eisenhower for President, and was expected to endorse Lodge. Indeed, those close to Fox confirmed that he `hated JFK.'

"Fox had bought the Boston Post in 1952 for about $4 million. As a down payment, Fox had paid $2 million for the newspaper, but the IRS immediately took it for back payment of his own taxes. The publisher soon found himself unable to pay his bills.

"It was generally assumed that the Boston Post would endorse Lodge, but Fox was desperate for funds, and Joe Kennedy was only too happy to help out. Two days before the election, following a private meeting with Joe Kennedy, Fox gave a front-page endorsement for JFK.

"Former Massachusetts state Senator Robert L Lee said the Post endorsement of JFK was the `turning point' in the campaign. Lee believed that if Lodge had received the paper's endorsement, it `would have been sufficient to put him back in the Senate.'

"During a House subcommittee hearing in 1958, Fox admitted that Joe Kennedy had given him a $500,000 loan late in 1952. He insisted that he `repaid it with interest,' and that it had nothing to do with his paper's endorsement of Jack. Joe issued a statement saying that the loan - the equivalent of $2.7 million today - was 1purely a commercial transaction for 60 days only with full collateral, at full interest, and was fully repaid on time...'

"Raymond Faxon, Fox's friend and vice-president of the publisher's investment business, revealed the truth about the transaction for the first time years later.

"Faxon revealed that two days before the election, John Griffin, the editor-in-chief of the Boston Post, informed Joe that the paper was about to endorse Lodge. He also told him that Fox was desperately in need of cash, having been turned down for a loan by local banks. Joe called Fox and asked him to meet at a local club which Fox owned. In return for an endorsement of Jack, Joe offered Fox a loan that, contrary to what both men later said, carried no interest and was not fully collateralized. `Fox needed the money, and he got it from Joe,' Faxon said. It was $500,000. The whole thing was a payoff.'

Based on Faxon's recollection that a bank would have charged interest of about five percent at the time, the interest waived amounted to about $10,000, the equivalent of $54,000 today. Aside from that, making any loan to such a shaky financial operation without full collateral represented a bribe. `No bank would have made the loan,' Faxon said. The word 'payoff' was exactly what it was.'

"Riding the Boston Post endorsement, Jack won the Senate race, beating Lodge by less than six percent of the vote.

"Jack reported expenses for the campaign of $349,646. That amount would not have covered even the cost of the billboard advertisements alone. It was widely assumed that the true cost of the campaign was several million dollars.

"Now that Joe had gotten Jack elected to the Senate, he told his son to find a wife. In May 1952, Jack Kennedy had been introduced to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. When Jack brought Jackie to Hyannis Port in the Spring following the election, Joe decided she would be Jack's wife.

"Jackie had 'all the social ingredients that Joe Kennedy thought would help Jack achieve the Presidency,' wrote C. David Heymann in 'A Woman Named Jackie'. As usual, Jack did what his father told him to do, and on June 24, 1953 the couple announced their engagement.

"Jack's friend Lem Billings said, `Joe Kennedy not only condoned the marriage,

he ordained it.'"

"JFK's Presidential Campaign

"Jack, if you don't want the job, you don't have to take it. They're still counting votes up in Cook County."

- Joe Kennedy

"If Joe Kennedy had one area of expertise, it was manipulating the media. Long before spin doctors and political gurus talked of `packaging' Presidential candidates, Joe shaped Jack's image more effectively than any Madison Avenue executive. 'We're going to sell Jack like soap flakes,' Joe said.

"In fact, Joe routinely paid off publishers as well as public officials to get what he wanted. Thomas Winship, the editor of the Boston Globe, recalled that Joe routinely `gave cases of Haig & Haig Pinch Bottle Scotch to press people - to people at the Globe, to political writers, and to a lot of people in Washington.'

"Joe sent expensive jewelry to female columnists, a confidant said, and gave cash to others. `He distributed a substantial amount to journalists,' the confidant said. In addition, `Reporters took consulting assignments. Some of these guys were pretty amenable to consulting fees and gifts.' Columnists, especially, were `for sale' - not to mention politicians. For such purposes, Joe always kept large stashes of cash.

"Joe's friend and confidant Frank Morrissey recalled that Joe had once called him to Hyannis Port to help him move $1 million in cash from the basement of his home. `A big northeast storm was coming up, and the old man was afraid a lot of the cash would get wet,' Morrissey said.

"Already, Joe had persuaded a top television executive in New England to give Jack lessons in going before a camera. `He was consumed by the fact that TV would make the difference in the Presidential election,' the executive said. As one aide put it, `The old politicians relied on their experience, but Joe and his boys left nothing to chance.' Joe, it seemed, had `learned a lot of tricks from the movies' during his Hollywood days.

"Henry Luce, a long time friend and ally of Joe Kennedy, was editor-in-chief and principal stockholder in Time Inc. The founder of Time and Life, Luce was arguably the most powerful publisher in America, and Joe had cultivated their relationship since his Roosevelt days. For years, Luce had given Joe frequent and complimentary press coverage in the magazines he controlled, and Luce's equally favorable coverage of Joe's son had been critical to JFK's early campaigns.

"In 1956, Luce was vacationing with Joe on the Riviera when he cabled his editors and suggested they devote more space to Jack Kennedy, who `was emerging as a national figure.'

"In November 1957, Fortune magazine listed Joe Kennedy as one of the 16 wealthiest people in the country, with a net worth of $200 to $400 million.

"On December 2, 1957, Jack's smiling face appeared for the first time on the cover of Time magazine. As ordained by Joe, he had just begun his bid for the Presidency.

"George Smathers, a family friend and Senator from Florida, claimed that 'Joe had a good deal to do with getting Luce to put Jack on the cover of Time. Jack had not made any great record as a Congressman or Senator. It was nothing outstanding in terms of what others were doing. Lots of Congressmen had more legislative accomplishments than Jack.' Giving such prominence to a fledgling candidate was unusual, and the cover story which called Jack the `Democratic Whiz of 1957' gave him a tremendous boost.

"Just weeks before Jack appeared on the cover of Time, Joe had bragged to his friend Cardinal Spellman, `I just bought a horse for $75,000, and for another $75,000, I put Jack on the cover of Time.' Spellman recalled that Joe was `very proud of the fact that he had spent $75,000, and now he would not have to spend as much on advertising.' The sum was equivalent to $385,000 today. `He did not say whether he paid it directly to Luce,' Spellman added.

"Several months later when Jack learned that Life magazine was going to run a story saying that evangelist Billy Graham was coming out for Nixon, Jack called Luce to complain that the story would be unfair. When Joe called and put the pressure on, Luce ordered the story killed.

"During an interview on ABC-TV in December 1958, Eleanor Roosevelt said that `Senator Kennedy's father has been spending oodles of money all over the country, and probably has a paid representative in every state by now.' She said she had been told that Joe would spend `any money' to make his son the first Catholic president. Many people told her of money spent by Joe on Jack's behalf. `Building an organization is permissible,' she said, `but giving too lavishly may seem to indicate a desire to influence through money." <author's note: Do ya think?>

"Joe solicited author William Bradford Huie to distribute cash to politicians who would help Jack, according to what Huie later told a Time reporter. Huie said he routinely made payoffs of $1,000 (equivalent to $4,800 today), and promised he would reveal more details, but died before he could.

"Meanwhile, Joe cranked up the media campaign. In October 1959, Look began running a series of articles about Jack. Prepared with the family's cooperation, they may as well have been written by Joe himself.

"One article declared that Jack was in excellent health, when in fact he had been diagnosed in 1947 as having Addison's disease, a failure of the adrenal glands. When a Boston reporter suggested that Jack should disclose his health history, a Kennedy aide replied, `No, old Joe doesn't want that to be done. We can't do it now.'

"Another article tried to downplay Joe's role in the campaign, fictitiously reporting that Joe had little influence over his son and had no interest in spending money on political campaigns. `In political circles,' the article claimed, `the Kennedy's are not regarded as big spenders.'

"On January 2, 1960, Jack Kennedy formally announced his Presidential candidacy, and declared that the White House must be `the center of moral leadership.'

"Two months later, Jack began his affair with a former actress named Judith Exner. While seeing Jack, Exner was also seeing Sam Giancana, who was the head of the Chicago Mafia and a former partner in Joe's bootlegging business. Giancana, who was credited with at least 200 killings, was considered one of the most powerful men in organized crime. He controlled betting, prostitution, loan sharking, and owned interests in three Las Vagas hotels.

"Jack and Bobby identified the West Virginia Primary as key to winning the nomination. The state's nomination was 95 percent Protestant and a win there would convince convention delegates that Jack's Catholicism would not be an issue in the Presidential election.

"Jack's opponent in the Democratic primary was Hubert Humphrey, the Senator from Minnesota, who was beloved by West Virginia coal miners for his longtime union support and folksy, old-fashioned campaign style. But Humphrey's small-town ways were no match for the Kennedy bandwagon's deep pockets and high technology. There is no doubt that Jack's huge TV budget also helped.

"The Kennedy men were not content to rely on statesmanship alone. At Jack's request, Exner arranged a meeting for him with Sam Giancana, who agreed to use his influence with West Virginia officials to ensure victory there.

"Giancana sent his lieutenant, Paul 'Skinny' D'Amato, into West Virginia to get out the vote. D'Amato met with sheriffs who controlled the state's political machine. He forgave debts many of them had run up at his 500 Club in Atlantic City and handed cash payments to others.

"FBI wiretaps reveal that Frank Sinatra also distributed large mob donations to pay off election officials.

"Years later, in a People magazine story, Exner described how she had introduced Sam Giancana to Jack, who asked for the mob's help in financing the campaign. While it is not documented, it is clear Giancana gave money to the campaign. After the election, an FBI wiretap picked up Giancana talking with Johnny Roselli, a mob associate. He said his donation had been `accepted,' yet complained that Bobby Kennedy, whom Jack had appointed Attorney General, was cracking down on organized crime. He said he expected that `one of these days, the guy will do me a favor...'

"Giancana apparently had believed that in helping Kennedy's campaign, he was gaining a friend in the White House and protection from future prosecution by the government.

"Meanwhile, Joe was funneling money to politicians to swing the West Virginia primary.

"Tip O'Neill recalled that Eddie Ford, a Boston real-estate man, `went out there with a pocket full of money.' O'Neill said Ford would `see the sheriff, and he'd say to the sheriff, 'Sheriff, I'm from Chicago. I'm on my way south. I love this young Kennedy boy. He can help this nation, by God. He'll do things for West Virginians. I'll tell you what. Here's $5,000. You carry your village for him or your county for him, and I'll give you a little reward when I'm on my way back.'

"O'Neill said, `They passed money around like it was never seen.'

"One of the most important contributions Joe Kennedy made to his son's campaign was to create the Ken-Air Corporation, purchase for it a $385,000 Corvair twin-engine turboprop airplane, and then lease it to the candidate for the ridiculous sum of $1.75 a mile. Joe got a large tax deduction, while the plane gave Jack a tremendous advantage over Hubert Humphrey in the Democratic primary.

"While Humphrey either wasted time waiting around airports for commercial flights or lumbered about in his campaign bus, Jack Kennedy sped here and there in his private plane, covering more territory in less time and at less expense.

"In providing the cash for Jack's campaign, Joe Kennedy used the Catholic Church and, in particular, Cardinal Cushing. One of the couriers told author Peter Maas how it worked:

"`For example, if Boston area churches had collected $950,000 on a particular Sunday from collections, Joe would write a check for $1 million to the diocese, deduct it as a charitable contribution, and receive the $950,000 in cash. Thus, in this example, the church got a contribution of $50,000, Joe could deduct the entire amount on his income tax, and he could use the money to pay off politicians without fear that it would be traced.'

"'The cash is untraceable,' Maas said. 'Part of the money goes to the diocese. He gets a contribution from Joe Kennedy for more than what the cash is. It's brilliant. Nobody can trace the money.'

"In 1966, Cushing admitted that he had played a role in making payoffs to ministers. He told Hubert Humphrey, 'I'll tell you who elected Jack Kennedy. It was his father, Joe, and me, right here in this room.' Cushing explained that he and Joe decided which Protestant ministers should receive `contributions' of $100 to $500. As Cushing described the tactic, 'It's good for the church, it's good for the preacher, and it's good for the candidate.'

"Maas also recalled that as a writer for the Saturday Evening Post he interviewed a political operative in one dirt-poor town in West Virginia who told him his county was for Humphrey. `A few weeks later, I interviewed him again, and he said the county was for Jack. I asked what had changed, and he said with a smile, 'My workers each got $20, and I got $150. We're for Kennedy.'

"When Jack Kennedy narrowly defeated Hubert Humphrey in the West Virginia Primary, Humphrey withdrew from the Presidential race. It was the most important victory of Jack's campaign.

"On July 11 the Democratic National Convention nominated John F. Kennedy for President. Some party leaders were leery of Jack, however. Truman opposed him, telling reporters, 'I'm not against the Pope, I'm against the Pop.' Eleanor Roosevelt regarded Jack as one of `the new managerial elite that has neither principles nor character.'

"Meanwhile, Jackie had learned about Jack's philandering and developed a visceral dislike of politics. `She was ready to divorce Jack, and Joe offered her $1 million to stay until Jack entered the White House,' said Igor Cassini. 'He paid $1 million for her to stay with Jack until he was elected. He didn't tell me, but my brother and I learned about it.'

"On November 8, 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected President, defeating Republican Richard Nixon. Jack received 34,226,731 votes to 34,108,157 for Nixon. The popular vote margin, 118,574, was the equivalent of a win by one vote in every precinct in America.

"Kennedy's Electoral College majority was 303 to 219. The winning margin was provided by the state of Illinois, where in the 11th hour, the votes that came in from Cook County's mob-dominated West Side put Jack over the top.

"`Actually, and this goes without saying, the Presidency was really stolen in Chicago, without a question, by the Democratic machine,' recalled mobster Mickey Cohen. 'I know that certain people in the Chicago organization knew that they had to get John Kennedy in.'

"In the weeks before his inauguration, Jack began interviewing candidates for more than 70 key posts in the new administration. At one point he complained to his father, 'Jesus Christ, this one wants that, that one wants this. Goddamn it, you can't satisfy any of these people. I don't know what I'm going to do about it all.' Joe Kennedy replied, 'Jack, if you don't want the job, you don't have to take it. They're still counting votes up in Cook County.'"

Excerpt from "The Dark Side of Camelot" by Seymour Hersh (description from The Reader's Catalog):

"Investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh shows us a John F. Kennedy we have never seen before, a man insulated from the normal consequences of behavior long before he entered the White House. His father, Joe, set the pattern with an arrogance and cunning that have never been fully appreciated: Kennedys could do exactly what they wanted, and could evade any charge brought against them. Kennedys wrote their own moral code. And Kennedys trusted only Kennedys. Jack appointed his brother Bobby keeper of the secrets - the family debt to organized crime, the real state of Jack's health, the sources of his election victories, the plots to murder foreign leaders, and the President's intentions in Vietnam. The brothers prided themselves on another trait inherited from their father - a voracious appetite for women \- and indulged it with a daily abandon deeply disturbing to the Secret Service agents who witnessed it. These men speak for the first time about their amazement at what they saw and the powerlessness they felt to protect the leader of their country.

"Nixon said no to recount in '60" by Jack Torrey

Toledo Blade

November 10, 2000

"After the exceedingly close 1960 election, the New York Herald Tribune published the start of a series suggesting voter fraud in Texas and Illinois might have tipped the Presidency from Vice-President Richard M. Nixon to Democrat Senator John F. Kennedy.

"When the first four stories had been published, Nixon summoned reporter Earl Mazo to his office. `Earl, those are interesting articles you are writing,' Nixon said. `But no one steals the Presidency of the United States.'

"The Herald Tribune killed the rest of the series. It was the final act in a Presidential election every bit as close as this year's race between Texas Governor George W. Bush and Vice-President Al Gore. And just like this year's allegations of voter irregularities in Florida, reports swirled in 1960 that fraud in key states could have cost Nixon a majority in the Electoral College.

"While legal challenges are expected in Florida this year, Nixon met Kennedy one week after the election and made clear that he would neither demand a recount nor contest the election in court. Although Nixon's admirers consider his decision as one of his finest moments, his detractors dismiss it as self-serving, claiming a recount could have exposed as much Republican fraud as Democratic irregularities.

"But no matter what his reason, a divisive Constitutional crisis was avoided during the height of the Cold War.

"`Whatever Nixon's inner feelings about his just due, whatever his motives for not challenging the election returns, his decision was both personally unselfish and profoundly in the interests of the country and of the President-elect,' wrote former New York Times columnist Tom Wicker in his biography of Nixon, `One of Us'.

"In his 1978 memoirs, Nixon claimed that a recount would have taken more than a year and one-half `during which time the legitimacy of Kennedy's election would be in question,' which he claimed would be `devastating to America's foreign relations.'

"`And what if I demanded a recount and it turned out that despite the vote fraud, Kennedy had still won? Charges of 'sore loser' would follow me through history and remove any possibility of a further political career.'

"The Kennedy-Nixon race featured two young, aggressive candidates in what was the first modern TV campaign. The election was so close that Kennedy used to keep a note in his pocket with the numerals 118,574 - the number of votes by which he won.

"Kennedy won 303 electoral votes to Nixon's 219. But Republicans charged that that there was voter fraud in Texas and Cook County, Illinois, where the political machine was controlled by Mayor Richard Daley - father of Gore's campaign manager, Bill Daley.

"A shift of 4,480 votes in Illinois and 25,000 in Texas would have given Nixon the Presidency. Although voter fraud in those states has never been proven and there is every reason to believe Republicans were stealing votes in southern Illinois, Republican <author's note: There is no evidence Republicans were stealing votes; this is a desperate attempt by the Left to deflect the worst political crime in U.S. history> Senator Everett Dirksen, R., Illinois, campaign manager Len Hall, Republican National Chairman Thurston Morton, and longtime adviser Bryce Harlow pleaded with Nixon to challenge the result.

"But Harlow later told Wicker that Nixon simply replied, `Bryce. It'd tear the country to pieces. You can't do that.'

"Others were eager to avoid a messy fight. Former Republican President Herbert Hoover telephoned Nixon in Florida after the election and suggested a meeting with Kennedy. `I think we're in enough trouble in the world today,' Nixon recalled Hoover telling him. Kennedy, who worried that Nixon would demand a recount, flew from Palm Beach to Key Biscayne. While Kennedy relaxed on the porch of one of the hotels, Nixon went inside and fetched Cokes for both.

"`How the hell did you carry Ohio?' Kennedy joked, referring to Nixon's narrow victory in a state Democrats expected to carry.

"According to Nixon's account, the two never even discussed a potential recount. Instead, the discussion centered on whether Kennedy should bring Republicans into his administration and whether to recognize Communist China. When they emerged to meet the waiting reporters, a Kennedy quip made it clear there would not be a challenge. `I asked him how he took Ohio, but he did not tell me,' Kennedy joked. `He's saving it for 1964.'"

* * * * * * * * * * * *

"Sinatra and the Dark Side of Camelot" is a recent book by George Jacobs and William Stadiem. Jacobs was the personal valet of Frank Sinatra from 1953 to 1968. In the book, Jacobs writes that when Joe Kennedy visited Sinatra in Palm Springs, Sinatra "rolled out the red carpet for him," inviting fabulous and beautiful hookers. Sinatra called Joe "Mr. Ambassador." Kennedy "told nigger jokes throughout meals, he'd call Indians savages and blacks Sambos and curse the hell out of anyone who served him from the wrong side or put one ice cube too many in his Jack Daniels. 'Can't you get any white help?' he needled Mr. S. 'Aren't they paying you enough?'"

Jacobs, who is African-American, said Joe was "cruder about Jews than he was about blacks." He called them "sheeny rag traders." Louis B. Mayer was referred to as a "kike junkman."

"What's the difference between a Jew and a pizza?" Joe asked. "The pizza doesn't cry on its way to the oven."

These comments were made during the time his son was campaigning for the Presidency. Jacobs wrote that poor Sinatra, a fair man who fought for civil rights, cringed but held his tongue because he needed the Kennedy's for his own purposes. Jacobs was appalled at the man whose "craven appeasement of Adolf Hitler when he was Franklin Roosevelt's Ambassador to the Court of St. James."

Jacobs goes on to say that Kennedy's reputation as a "Boston Brahmin" patriarch was as far off the mark as saying "JFK was faithful to Jackie." "Joe was mobbed up to his collar pins," he writes, "with Sam Giancana at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago...with Meyer Lansky in Miami; with the one-armed bandit Wingy Grober in Tahoe. If anyone's fortune was tainted, it was Mr. Ambassador...His money was fuck-you money. Old Joe said fuck you to everyone."

Sinatra, who was connected to organized crime, too, wanted political power and thought the Kennedy's were his ticket. JFK dangled an ambassadorship to Italy, and spoke of his running for the Senate in Nevada. Sinatra was at first wary of the Kennedy's, who were associated with Joe McCarthy. Robert Kennedy had worked for him, and then gone after his friends in the Mafia with the McClellan Committee.

Sinatra's first connection to the Kennedy's was through his fellow "rat packer," Peter Lawford, who was married to one of Joe Kennedy's daughters. Peter was "whips-and-chains kinky and not the slightest bit ashamed of it," preferring hookers to the slutty groupies who made themselves to Sinatra and Kennedy. According to Jacobs, Lawford's wife, Pat, had sex with Sinatra.

Lawford and John Kennedy shared a love for prostitutes and cocaine. Jacobs also claims that Judith Campbell Exner was a prostitute who met Joe Kennedy first, before becoming the concubine of President Kennedy and Giancana. She would be the go-between that connected the Kennedy Presidency with the Mafia. Jacobs wrote that he could not understand why Joe Kennedy would favor hookers after having movie stars like Gloria Swanson. His son liked them despite the fact that he had affairs with sex stars of his era, like Marilyn Monroe.

Jacobs liked JFK.

"I want to fuck every woman in Hollywood," the Democrats' leading man told Jacobs "with a big leering grin." Kennedy asked Jacobs if Shirley MacLaine had a "red pussy," and confessed that Joe had arranged for Marlene Dietrich to masturbate him when he was a kid. He arranged to have Sinatra set him up with numerous Las Vegas showgirls, and was enthralled with women who shaved their private areas. He called it "naked lunch." Kennedy claimed to Sinatra, who hated drugs, that he only snorted blow because his back hurt.

Giancana preferred a Nixon Presidency, because actual law-and-order from the Republicans was better than actual criminals like the Kennedy's. He hated Bobby Kennedy, but Sinatra talked him into backing JFK, and helping with the vote fraud scheme.

The song "High Hopes", sung by Sinatra and used as JFK's campaign anthem, was Joe's idea. When Sinatra tried to produce "The Execution of Private Slovik", screenwritten by a Blacklisted writer named Albert Maltz, Joe went crazy.

"What's this Commie Jew shit?" he screamed at Sinatra. "You stupid guinea." Sinatra dropped the project. When Kennedy was elected, Joe did not allow Sammy Davis, Jr. to perform at the inaugural, even though Davis had campaigned heavily to help deliver the black vote at a time when it was still split fairly evenly between the Republicans and Democrats. Joe hated Davis for being a black who had succeeded against all odds. He considered him a "pushy nigger." Sinatra begged Joe to let Davis be part of the party, but the old man said no. He allowed Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte, Mahalia Jackson and Nat King Cole perform because they were "nigger niggers" who knew their place, but Joe called Sammy "the nigger bastard with the German whore," a reference to his white wife.

With his man in the White House, Sinatra waited for his hard work to pay off. He planned to host the new President in Palm Springs. Kennedy rebuffed him and stayed at Bing Crosby's instead. He had used Sinatra, and now was finished with him. Sinatra learned his lesson, cleaned up his own act, and became a Republican the rest of his life.

John F. Kennedy had served three terms (six years) in the House of Representatives. In 1952 he was elected to the U.S. Senate. He had been 36 when he married 24-year-old Jacqueline Bouvier, a journalist with the _Washington Times-Herald_. Early in their marriage, Senator Kennedy's back started to hurt again and he had two operations. While recovering from surgery, he wrote a book about several U.S. Senators who had risked their careers to fight for the things in which they believed. The book was called "Profiles in Courage", and he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1957. Kennedy wrote a fair portion of the book while laid up in the hospital. All the research and most of the writing was done by a young speechwriter, Theodore Sorenson, who was paid by Joe Kennedy. Joe then bribed the Pulitzer people into awarding his son. That same year, the Kennedy's first child, Caroline was born.

At the age of 43, Kennedy was now the youngest man elected President and the first Catholic. Before his inauguration, his second child, John Jr., was born. His father liked to call him John-John.

John F. Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States.

John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address

Friday, January 20, 1961

"Vice-President Johnson, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Eisenhower, Vice-President Nixon, President Truman, reverend clergy, fellow citizens, we observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom - symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning - signifying renewal, as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three-quarters ago.

"The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe - the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.

"We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans - born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage - and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

"This much we pledge - and more.

"To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do - for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.

"To those new States whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom - and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.

"To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required - not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

"To our sister Republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge - to convert our good words into good deeds - in a new alliance for progress - to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers. Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house.

"To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support - to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective - to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak - and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.

"Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: That both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.

"We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.

"But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course - both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of Mankind's final war.

"So let us begin anew - remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

"Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.

"Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms - and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations.

"Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

"Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah - to `undo the heavy burdens...and to let the oppressed go free.'

"And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

"All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

"In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.

"Now the trumpet summons us again - not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are - but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, `rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation' - a struggle against the common enemies of man: Tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.

"Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, north and south, east and west, that can assure a more fruitful life for all Mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?

"In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it \- and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

"And so, my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.

"My fellow citizens of the world: "Ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

"Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on Earth God's work must truly be our own."

The Proudest Boast

\- President John F. Kennedy, June 25, 1963

City Hall, West Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany

"I am proud to come to this city as the guest of your distinguished Mayor, who has symbolized throughout the world the fighting spirit of West Berlin. And I am proud to visit the Federal Republic with your distinguished Chancellor, who for so many years has committed Germany to Democracy and freedom and progress, and to come here in the company of my fellow American, General Clay, who has been in this city during its great moments of crisis and will come again if ever needed.

"2,000 years ago the proudest boast was 'civis Romanus sum.' Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is 'Ich bin ein Berliner.'

"I appreciate my interpreter translating my German!

"There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the Free World and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that Communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it's true that Communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. "

"'Laßt sie nach Berlin kommen.' Let them come to Berlin! Freedom has many difficulties and Democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. I want to say, on behalf of my countrymen, who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you, that they take the greatest pride that they have been able to share with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years. I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force and the hope and the determination of the city of West Berlin.

"While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it. For it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.

"What is true of this city is true of Germany - real, lasting peace in Europe can never be assured as long as one German out of four is denied the elementary right of free men, and that is to make a free choice. In 18 years of peace and good faith, this generation of Germans has earned the right to be free, including the right to unite their families and their nation in lasting peace, with goodwill to all people. You live in a defended island of freedom, but your life is part of the main. So let me ask you, as I close, to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today to the hopes of tomorrow, beyond the freedom merely of this city of Berlin, or your country of Germany, to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall to the day of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all Mankind.

"Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one, and this country, and this great continent of Europe, in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.

"All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner."

"I believe that this nation should commit itself...

\- President Kennedy

May 25, 1961

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth...

"No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish...

"But this is not merely a race. Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever Mankind must undertake, free men must fully share."

Kennedy's almost three years in the White House have been a called a "modern Camelot." This term only came about after his death. Jackie wistfully reminisced, in an interview with Theodore White, about what was and could have been. She referred to it as "Camelot" after the semi-mythological Court of King Arthur that seemed so promising in forming an English Republic of sorts, but fell apart when the King discovered his favorite knight, Sir Lancelot, was having an affair with his wife, Guinevere.

Kennedy and his socially conscious wife immediately set about separating themselves from the Boston Irish reputation that his horrid father had established. They held fancy dinner parties and invited the likes of Andre Malraux, French Minister of Cultural Affairs, Madame Malraux, and violinist Isaac Stern to help give them "class."

President Kennedy, together with his wife and two children, brought a new, youthful spirit to the White House. They celebrated American history, culture, and achievement with artists, writers, scientists, poets, musicians, actors, and athletes. Jacqueline Kennedy gathered the finest art and furniture the United States had produced. She restored all the rooms in the White House. Washington was enthralled. It was done at enormous cost to the taxpayers. When the bill was presented to the super-rich Kennedy, even he said it was more than he could afford. True to the Roosevelt/New Deal tradition he passed it on to the budget.

The Kennedy's two young children, Caroline and John-John, were often seen laughing and playing. After all their machinations, cheating, manipulations and public relations, Kennedy was faced with the actual task of the job. It is how he handled this task that he is able to crawl out of the corruptions that his father stood for. Nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union was a real threat. The Cold War, as it had come to be known, was unlike any other war the world had seen; a struggle between good and evil.

President Kennedy worked long hours and read six newspapers a day.

"I am asking each of you to be new pioneers in that New Frontier," he told his Cabinet. The New Frontier was both a place (outer space) and philosophy. He urged discoveries in science and in education, employment and other fields. He truly believed in Democracy and freedom for the whole world.

Kennedy created the Peace Corps. Through this program, which still exists today, Americans can volunteer where help is needed. They can help in areas such as education, farming, health care, and construction. Many young men and women have served as Peace Corps volunteers and have won the respect of people throughout the world.

President Kennedy's greatest accomplishment was launching the United States into the exploration of space. This program had actually started under President Eisenhower, with strong backing from Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson. After World War II, the U.S. had captured the top German scientists, including Werner von Braun. Combined with U.S. technological superiority, which had resulted in creating the atom bomb first, the U.S. led the way in the area of jet propulsion. In 1947, a homespun West Virginian with no college education, Chuck Yeager, broke the sound barrier above the high desert of California. Yeager had been a war hero in the skies of Europe, shooting down multiple German planes in pitched "dogfights."

Considered the "ace of aces" among the test pilots who had the "right stuff" at Edwards Air Force Base, Yeager was not selected for the space program because he did not have the college background required. After the U.S.S.R. launched Sputnik in 1957, the "space race" was on. Kennedy inherited it full throttle. He loved the romance of exploration, which tied perfectly with his vision of New Frontiers. JFK put Lyndon Johnson in charge of the program, which eventually re-located its headquarters to Texas.

The Soviet Union was ahead of the United States in its knowledge of space. President Kennedy was determined to catch up. He said, "No nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space." He asked Congress to appropriate $20 billion for the project, with the goal of landing an American man on the Moon before the end of the decade. The program was an enormous success. Alan Shephard became the first American in space in 1961. John Glenn became a national hero in 1962 when his craft had to land with possibly damaged heat shields that could have burned him alive. Gordon Cooper flew a perfect mission in 1963, and by the time the Mercury program was complete, the U.S. held the upper hand over the Russians. Kennedy's support is rightfully credited with giving the imprimatur of glamour and prestige to the program. It continued successfully (with a few tragedies) throughout the Johnson and Nixon Administrations.

History renders an incomplete judgment and analysis of President Kennedy's civil rights record. It is almost a miracle that John, Robert and Teddy Kennedy developed genuine compassion for minorities despite being the sons of Joe Kennedy. On the other hand, perhaps it is not so unusual. The children of post-war Germany had the Holocaust all but forced down their throats, and as a result developed ultra-liberalism, pacifist tendencies.

Early writings of Joe, Jr. indicates that he was more likely to follow his father's racist, anti-Semitic leanings. But the three surviving sons were fair-minded. Very little major civil rights legislation occurred under JFK's watch. This fact creates more questions than answers. Lyndon Johnson oversaw major accomplishments in this area. Many have discerned that he was carrying out the original intent of Kennedy. While in theory this is probably true, political realities intercede with the theory. American politics creates strange bedfellows. The two-party system, which requires compromise between liberals, conservatives and all other political stripe, makes for unpredictability. Politicians who are not likely to be their architects orchestrate many accomplishments of a groundbreaking nature. This has come to be known as the "Nixon goes to China" theory. It is as old as the "peculiar institution" language in the Constitution, the Jefferson-Alexander states' rights vs. central government argument, the Missouri Compromise, and as new as Bill Clinton's welfare reform.

Instead of calling it "Nixon goes to China," it could just as easily have been called the "Redneck Johnson is the friend of the black man" theory. Robert Kennedy took up the mantel of civil rights for blacks and Mexican laborers in the 1968 Presidential campaign, and Senator Teddy Kennedy has hitched his career to carrying on his brother's work. Because the Kennedy name is so intricately associated with civil rights, it is assumed by history that JFK was a leader in this area who would have led the way throughout the revolutionary 1960s. In 1960, he had scored major points by speaking out on behalf of Martin Luther King, Jr. and meeting the Reverend's wife, Coretta Scott King, after the civil rights leader had been jailed.

Vice-President Nixon made an enormous tactical error in refusing to act on King's behalf. He feared his base of white support would erode if he did this. The great shift of black votes, which had been Republican after Lincoln emancipated the slaves, began to move tectonically to the Democrats. Roosevelt's welfare state policies had started this trend, but Eisenhower had maintained respectable black support. He oversaw Truman's order to de-segregate the military, his administration supported _Brown vs. Board of Education_ , and he had sent troops to Arkansas to protect black students at Little Rock's Central High. Voters understood that Southern Democrats had blocked Ike's efforts at further reform.

But 1960 was a major turning point. Jackie Robinson is a symbol of the civil rights struggle, and his personal attitude is emblematic of the changes that occurred that year. Robinson grew up in Pasadena, California, and was a college man who starred in baseball, football and basketball at UCLA. During World War II, he served as an Army officer. He was handsome, intelligent, happily married and highly articulate. Branch Rickey, the owner and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, decided that he was the right man to break baseball's notorious color barrier. In 1947, Robinson endured abuse in his rookie year. He also became a hero to both blacks and whites who believed in the cause of equality, and went on to a Hall of Fame career.

Robinson was his own man. He settled in Connecticut, where he raised his family and supported the Republican party. He was a member of the moderate Eastern Taft/ Rockefeller wing of the G.O.P., and supported Nixon. But when Nixon failed to act on Dr. King's behalf after his 1960 jailing, Robinson withdrew his support. So did millions of other black Americans. By 1976, black Republicans like Wilt Chamberlain and Sammy Davis, Jr. were deemed oddballs among an electoral special interest group that voted 90 percent Democrat.

In 1962, Kennedy put his brother, the Attorney General, in charge of getting James Meredith enrolled at the University of Mississippi. RFK leaned heavily on Mississippi Governor Ross Barnes and Meredith entered. The issue of blacks enrolling at Dixieland colleges became a national emergency. In Alabama Governor George Wallace stated that he supported "segregation now, segregation forever." The Kennedy's set up task forces within the Federal Bureau of Investigation to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan, and actively met with civil rights leaders to promote the cause. They were popular with Hollywood _glitterati_ like Harry Belafonte, and the imprimatur of Kennedy glamour for the first time made racism something considered _uncool_ , passe.

That being said, the Kennedy civil rights record is incomplete for two reasons. The first is obvious. Because he was assassinated, and his brother left office a year later, the accomplishments of the Kennedy-Johnson years are credited mostly to LBJ. Nobody doubts that the Kennedy's were committed to this cause, but their geographical origins and family wealth hampered them. As Massachusetts Democrats, complete with _Haa-verd_ accents, they were easy symbols for Southern contempt; liberal Yankees determined to change the established traditions and way of life, all protected under the infamous guise of "states' rights."

Also in 1962, Kennedy sponsored legislation to cut income tax rates by 20 percent. He also proposed a 10 percent reduction in corporate income taxes to spur economic growth and job creation. Then Senator-Ted Kennedy voted for it. The cuts resulted in great success. Total national employment grew by more than 1 million jobs in four years. The economic growth rate climbed from 4.3 to 6.6 percent.

The cuts resulted in increased revenues, helping to balance the budget. Total income tax receipts grew from $48.7 billion in 1964 to $68.7 billion in 1968. This represented a faster rate of revenue growth than had been achieved in five years prior to the tax cuts.

"It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues too low," Kennedy told the Economics Club of New York in 1963. "An economy constrained by high tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance the budget, just as it will never create enough jobs or enough profits."

By virtue of this evidence, it is revealed that President Kennedy was a "supply side" President. As a result of the lower taxes that he achieved with the help of Republicans in Congress, Americans increased their work effort, businesses increased their investment spending, and the economy accelerated to a new level, as he predicted it would. Ironically, he did face some opposition from the G.O.P. on this most Republican of issues.

"Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other," Kennedy said. "It is between two kinds of deficits - a chronic deficit of inertia, as the unwanted result of inadequate revenues and a restricted economy - or a temporary deficit of transition, resulting from a tax cut designed to boost the economy, produce revenues, and achieve a future budget surplus. The first type of deficit is a sign of waste and weakness - the second reflects an investment in the future."

Kennedy never resorted to "rich-bashing," the common refrain of his modern party, led by his younger brother. His tax cuts reduced the top income tax rate from 91 to 70 percent, a 21-point cut in taxes on the rich. He also advocated reducing taxes on stock ownership, and vowed a reduction in the capital gains rate that he never pushed through because he was killed first.

"The tax on capital gains directly affects investment decisions, the mobility of and flow of risk capital..." he said, "the ease or difficulty experienced by new ventures in obtaining capital, and thereby the strength and potential for growth in the economy." The best means to grow the economy in 1962 "is to reduce the burden on private income and the deterrents to private initiative which are imposed by our present tax system - and this administration <has> pledged itself...to an across-the-board, top to bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes..."

These Reaganesque comments and official policy are very telling. First, it indicates that JFK recognized that the Keynesian economic model of Roosevelt's New Deal was a thing of the past. In building the Great Society, Johnson and the Democrats did a major about-face, refuting their previous President. Nobody has refuted him more than Teddy Kennedy.

Second, JFK's actions indicate that successful Democrat administrations enact Republican philosophies, while failed Democrat administrations do not.

Third, in the George W. Bush Administration, similar tax cuts have been enacted and proposed as a matter of gradual policy. Republican tax cut policies are not as "drastic" as JFK's were, yet the Democrats, particularly Senator Kennedy, vehemently argued against them despite their historic effectiveness. If anything, the Republicans would enjoy greater economic success if they would reduce taxes more, per the JFK model.

It was in an attempt to mend the broken fences that Kennedy ventured to Texas in November, 1963. He faced major obstacles. However, Kennedy played hardball politics and the South was still Democrat. I believe that he would have worked a series of political deals, in the wheeler-dealer tradition of Huey Long, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson, to orchestrate major legislation in his second term (1965-69). This is only a theory. It would have required commitment and political audaciousness on a par with any of the politicians Kennedy wrote about in "Profiles in Courage". He would have been involved in the Vietnam War and would have needed the patriotic, hawkish South to help him. It is not a surefire guarantee that major civil rights legislation would have occurred on his watch.

Johnson was the quintessential Southerner, a "good ol' boy" prone to use the N-word in private company. But he had grown up poor in Texas' Hill Country, painting himself as the former schoolteacher who had empathy for the Mexican immigrants in his classroom. Being the former "master of the Senate," he was the right man to twist arms and push his legislation through. He laughed at the ironic fate of his Presidency, which was that an old school type like himself would merge as the "friend of the Negro."

It was during the Kennedy years that thousands of Americans joined to peacefully protest injustice. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders did not feel President Kennedy supported them enough. The President did not favor the increasingly public protests and marches. By June 11, 1963, however, President Kennedy proposed a new Civil Rights bill to the Congress and he went on television in support of it.

"100 years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free," he said. "This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds...[and] on the principle that all men are created equal." This speech and his legislative proposal makes it clear that his heart was in the right place. The only question left regarding his legacy regarding this issue is whether he would have aggressively gone to bat for it, as Johnson did, and as it required. The bet from here is that he would have.

On November 21, 1963, President Kennedy flew to Texas on a strictly political trip. The next day, as his car drove slowly past cheering crowds in Dallas, he was shot and died a short time later at Parkland Hospital. Police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald and charged him with the murder. On November 24, Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald, silencing the chance to hear first-person information about the event. The Warren Commission was organized to investigate the assassination and to clarify the many questions that remained.

President Kennedy's death is the conflagration of disparate elements of the national consciousness. It rivals Lincoln's in its pure tragedy. The killing of a President in and of itself does not cause such sorrow. William McKinley had been killed, but there was no outpouring of grief to rival the Lincoln or Kennedy deaths. Kennedy was seen as the epitome of health and vigor, even though subsequent revelations indicates that his Addison's Disease was so severe that he was forced to survive on a terrible daily cocktail of drugs. The notorious "Dr. Feelgood," Max Jacobson, administered them. Questions have cropped up whether Kennedy was ever incapacitated enough by the drugs, the disease and the pain to effect his decisions. There is no evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, that this was ever the case. His back was consequently sore, and he lived in great pain. It is not entirely beyond belief that his love of extra-marital sex, including an affair with a teenage college intern, provided some therapeutic physical value for him. Seven times in his life, Kennedy had become so ill that a priest read him his Last Rites. He was prone to infections, and had a poor immune system. It is pure speculation, but Kennedy very easily might not have survived until January of 1969.

His assassination caused great disruption in America. Conspiracy theorists cropped up, with blame falling at varying times and from varying sources upon Fidel Castro, the Mafia, John Birch right wingers, rogue elements of the CIA, hawkish generals in league with the Military Industrial Complex, and Lyndon Johnson himself. Conflicting testimony, spotty films of the event, and questionable physical and forensic evidence has clouded the issue to the point where it is far more muddled today that when the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald was a Communist lone gunman.

The "Kennedy curse" became a popular refrain, especially among the families' numerous detractors. Various tragedies that followed over the years only reinforce this view. Atheists, agnostics, humanists and Democrats doubtfully give little credence to this theory, but those of us who believe in such things as God and Satan, good and evil, and the very real power of these forces of the Universe, consider the possibility that at some point in his life, Joseph P. Kennedy, wishing not to leave any stone unturned, called forth the presence of the devil and made the aforementioned deal. In his mind, not unlike "deals" he had made to acquire unlimited wealth, power in Hollywood, and political capital, this agreement was to "make my son the President of the United States."

Such a negotiation is bound to result in some serious "Bad Karma," and this no doubt is what he got, regardless of whether it happened for a reason, or was the result of plain, old-fashioned poor luck. If "my son" was supposed to be Joe, Jr., then Joe, Sr. was dealt a devilish blow when his eldest son was killed heroically, in a war he bitterly opposed, by a foe he advocated doing business with. Then he watched his next son move through the political travails with an ease and grace perhaps unmatched in American history, virtually gliding to victory after victory, eventually defeating a man, Dick Nixon, who worked, slaved and grinded his way up every inch of life's ladder.

No sooner did the old man accomplish his life's goal, the _magnum opus_ of his existence, than he was felled by a debilitating stroke that left him a mute spectator to the otherwise-glorious events he had painstakingly built. He was forced to helplessly watch his second son murdered in Dallas, and his next son murdered in Los Angeles, his own physical ailments making emotional outlet impossible. He simply had to endure the torture, to let it eat away at him from the inside out, without the ability to share his grief. The devil works that way.

The "bad Karma" may have resulted from Earthly acts of sin, as well. John Kennedy was born with wealth, looks, intelligence and connections. He suffered ill health, but cheated death over and over only to die by the gun. He was made to believe that he could have anything he desired. He took that premise to heart. He had any woman he wanted, with no regard for whether she was the wife of a friend, a Nazi spy, or the effect his cheating had on his own wife.

He ascended to the White House by virtue of the worst political crime in American history. Richard Nixon won the 1960 election. It was stolen from him by Joseph Kennedy, Mayor James Daley, and elements of Lyndon Johnson's Texas Democrats. Nixon was the son of a failed grocery store and gas station owner. His mother was a long-suffering Quaker woman. He lost two brothers to horrible diseases. He had fought for everything - grades, college, law school, a legal career, and the affections of his wife. He was a moral man with few vices and no desire to stray from his marriage. He was devoted to his children. He had parlayed his Naval career, hard work and political acumen into two terms in Congress, when he withstood the wails of the American Left in going after their slick Communist darling, Alger Hiss. He pursued and caught Hiss, creating the awful historical truth that, despite desperate attempts by the liberals to deny this truth, the government _was_ infiltrated by Red controllers,

His star rose under Eisenhower, and his ship apparently had come in when he entered the 1960 campaign as the odds-on favorite, the heir apparent to the Supreme Commander, and titular head of a great party. It was all stolen by a man who had been handed everything. On top of the election fraud, Joe Kennedy and his people had campaigned like nobody in history. Payoffs, bribes and corruption on a never-before-seen scale were the order of the campaign. Journalists were put on the payroll. The Kennedy's controlled entire newspapers. JFK's womanizing and ill health were off-limits. Nixon refused to stoop to the level of emphasizing these issues.

JFK, tanned and handsome, won numerous votes after debating Nixon on television after the Vice-President had been hospitalized and refused to use make-up to cover his five o'clock shadow. Nixon was in charge of an ambitious Eisenhower-Allen Dulles plan to overthrow Castro using Cuban exiles forces. It was top secret. Kennedy had been briefed on the classified operation and knew Nixon could not talk about it, so JFK made a big point of criticizing the Vice-President for not having the very plan he knew he had. Nixon, constrained by national security, was forced to hold his tongue.

It is ironic that Kennedy's greatest success, the Cuban Missile Crisis, was an event that never would have happened had Nixon been President. Kruschev knew Nixon all too well, and never would have pulled such a stunt with him in office. But he had sized up the playboy Kennedy at Vienna in 1961, determining that he lacked real strength and fortitude (which, for all his faults, were not things he lacked). The Kennedy style of playing both ends against the middle cannot be disassociated from his eventual fate, raising the specter that somehow in the end he played himself against both sides until these sides closed in against him. Remember that his father bought stocks short against the crash of 1929. He opposed the war in Europe, but his son wrote a book advocating just that very thing. He strongly backed Joe McCarthy and put his son to work on his behalf, yet the family is an icon of the liberals who most adamantly opposed McCarthyism.

Bobby went to work against organized crime on the McClellan Committee in the 1950s. He went head to head against Teamsters' leader Jimmy Hoffa, declaring war on the Mafia as Attorney General. Juxtapose this with the fact that Joe, Sr. was a member of organized crime; they were friends with Frank Sinatra, who introduced them to many "useful" mob associates; they did business with Sam Giancana and JFK shared Judith Campbell Exner with him. Add to that the fact that JFK wrote memos indicating a purported desire to withdraw troops from Southeast Asia just as the U.S. was escalating its involvement there. Finally, the Kennedy image is one of the most convoluted in history. They are a family of incalculable wealth who, to this very day, receives a percentage of every bottle of Canadian Club sold. Members of the family have been quoted saying that they virtually had no knowledge that the Great Depression was happening when it happened, because they lived the most privileged possible life during those years. Somehow, this family is associated with the most liberal issues of support for the poor, the dispossessed and the discriminated against.

There is, in viewing the Kennedy's, an inexorable feeling that they are very much style over substance, especially on social issues. They are the ultimate "limousine liberals," lending their Hollywood glamour and glitzy charisma to photo-op ghetto politics. The Republicans, with their tough-love, real-life policies of personal responsibility are painted as the unfeeling "bad guys." The Kennedy style was effective and worked for many years. In recent years the simple emergence of Truth has slowly but surely diluted and discredited this style.

JFK died violently in November, only a few months after the supposed suicide of Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn's ex-husband, Joe DiMaggio, immediately blamed the Kennedy's when he heard of her death. Marilyn had come under the sway of Frank Sinatra, who would fly her to the Cal-Neva Lodge at Lake Tahoe for wild orgy sex in which she reportedly was passed around from Rat Packer to Rat Packer. JFK most likely participated in these and other gangbangs. It was around this time that she and Kennedy began their affair. In May, 1962, Marilyn was poured into a skintight dress and carted onto a stage where she sang a breathy version of "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to Kennedy. This was the last straw. Everybody in the press knew JFK was sleeping with the sex symbol, but nobody wrote about it. Had Nixon been doing such a thing, it would have made every headline (although, considering his stuffy image, it might have helped him out). Marilyn's public crooning had the appearance of a stripper performing in front of a roomful of men stroking wood. The Kennedy's decided she was too much of a liability. Bobby was assigned to let her down easily. Marilyn threatened to go public, and Bobby gave her a "sympathy affair" in the vain attempt to mollify her. Desperate for attention, she continued to threaten to blow the lid off her relationship with not one but two Kennedy's. She died shortly thereafter.

There is evidence that Bobby, who was in Los Angeles when she died in August, 1962, communicated with her by phone on the night of her death. Officially, she took too many sleeping pills. The implication of numerous reporters and truth-seekers is that Kennedy had his minions snuff her dead. It has never been proven, but considering the Kennedy methods, it is a very likely scenario. The bottom line is that whether the Kennedy's murdered Marilyn Monroe or not, it is the kind of thing they _would_ do!

Finally, Kennedy allowed Diem to be assassinated in Saigon one month before his own death. Five years later, his father saw his brother, Robert, ascent to the precipice of the Democrat nomination for President. The issue is not without doubt, but the bet here is that had RFK lived, he would have beaten Richard Nixon in 1968. Absent Dallas, the Ambassador Hotel and Chappaquiddick, events that help make the 1960s look like a big Greek tragedy, old Joe very easily could have seen his sons control the White House from January of 1961 until January of 1985!

Were dark forces at work? Did the forces of goodness combat them? Who benefited from those forces? Eight years of Ronald Reagan and victory in the Cold War provide one potential answer to that question.

The Kennedy Assassination

John F. Kennedy visited Dallas on November 22, 1963. Despite reports of threats, tinged by racism as a result of his proposed civil rights initiatives, he was warmly welcomed. Kennedy and Governor John Connally boarded limousines leading the motorcade through the town.

When they arrived in Dealey Plaza at 12:30 in the afternoon, it turned right from Main to Houston Street and just seconds later it took the 120 degrees turn into Elm Street passing the Texas Schoolbook Depository.

After passing the Stemmons Freeway sign, Mrs. Connally heard a crackling sound. When she turned to look at the President, she saw him taking his hand to his throat covering a shooting wound. The next second Governor Connally felt a shot in his back.

"There were either two or three people involved or more in this or someone was shooting with an automatic rifle," Connally later was quoted saying.

Seconds later he heard a third shot. Mrs. Kennedy thought they were firecrackers from the motorcade. She turned to Kennedy and saw her husband being wounded by a headshot. This was the last and final shot.

The Secret Service was caught off guard. They received criticism when it was revealed that many of them spent the previous evening in The Cellar bar that was owned by an acquaintance of Jack Ruby.

45 minutes later, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in the murder of police officer J.D. Tippit. He was not provided a lawyer and was accused of murdering Kennedy. On Sunday morning, November 24, 1963, he was to be handed over to the state prison. In the garage of the police building, he was shot by Jack Ruby in front of hundreds of journalists and millions of TV watchers.

The Warren Commission was formed a week later and eventually concluded that Oswald acted on his own, shooting from the sixth floor of the schoolbook depository, using the found Italian Mannlicher-Carchano rifle. Witnesses offered differing versions from the Warren Commission. Many heard shots from the nearby Grassy Knoll, and said a cloud of smoke was visible in that area. Men with rifles were seen by people in downtown Dallas prior to the arrival of the motorcade. It has never been confirmed whether these "men with rifles" were mysterious Secret Service men in Dealey Plaza.

"We don't have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did," Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry admitted to newsmen. "Nobody's yet been able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand."

Oswald told Dallas Police he was eating lunch on the first floor of the depository in what was called the Domino Room at the time of the assassination. There is some evidence to back up his statement.

A third wounded man does not fit into the version of the Warren Commission. James Tague stood near the triple underpass ahead of the motorcade and was wounded by a passing bullet. Because the first shot wounded Kennedy's throat, the second Conally's back, and the third was the headshot, there must have been a fourth shot. This created the "magic bullet" theory. This bullet was supposed to cause the seven wounds of Kennedy and Connally.

Abraham Zapruder was a bystander filming the event directly across from the Grassy Knoll that day. His film shows the assassination in full length. It shows an opened umbrella of the "umbrella man" despite the shining sun and cloudless sky. More photos show two suspicious men behind the fence at the Grassy Knoll, one with a rifle. They have been called "Black Dog Man" and "Badge Man" because of their unknown identity. The Warren Commission never mentioned these men and never made any effort to find them.

In the three-year period which followed the murder of President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, 18 material witnesses died, six by gunfire, three in motor accidents, two by suicide, one from a cut throat, one from a karate chop to the neck, three from heart attacks and two from natural causes. In the late 1970s, the House Select Committee on Assassinations looked into the matter. The Committee was inconclusive, but the various discrepancies cannot help but raise disturbing conspiracy theories.

It was determined that Oswald was a Communist who killed Kennedy because of his Cuba policies. There is conflicting evidence whether Oswald really was a Communist, or had been been "set up" as one. Oswald was an ex-Marine, but he had lived in the Soviet Union and took a Russian wife. He returned to the U.S. with his wife. This set of facts is highly irregular.

Speculation could go on forever. The Kennedy assassination is the greatest unsolved crime in the history of America, if not the world.

Robert F. Kennedy

Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy was passionate, ruthless and idealistic. Somehow, he is everything to all people. He was his own man, breaking from the Johnson hawks in the Democrat party to oppose the Vietnam War in 1968. He is considered the ultimate loyalist, to his brother and his family. Despite being the son of a blatant racist and anti-Semite, he is a hero to African-Americans and Hispanics, whose cause he strongly took up in association with Cesar Chavez. Still, of all the Kennedy sons (Joe died too early to render real judgment), Bobby most closely resembles his father when it comes to playing hardball, hatchet politics. All of the acts that the Nixon Administration was found "guilty" of during Watergate - wiretaps and break-ins - were routinely ordered by Attorney General Kennedy. He authorized the bugging of Martin Luther King and Johnson continued the practice.

Kennedy's dirty campaigning and official tactics were the genesis of Nixon's justification for Watergate and the "dirty tricks" campaign of Donald Segretti. Nixon, having been burned in 1960, vowed never to let such a thing happen again.

Born on November 20, 1925, in Brookline, Massachusetts, the seventh child of Rose and Joseph P. Kennedy, "I was the seventh of nine children," he later recalled, "and when you come from that far down you have to struggle to survive."

He attended Milton Academy and, after wartime service in the Navy, received his degree in government from Harvard University in 1948. He earned his law degree from the University of Virginia Law School three years later. His real education was the Kennedy dinner table. Discussions of history and current affairs dominated.

"I can hardly remember a mealtime," Kennedy said, "when the conversation was not dominated by what Franklin D. Roosevelt was doing or what was happening in the world."

In 1950, Kennedy married Ethel Skakel of Greenwich, Connecticut, daughter of Ann Brannack Skakel and George Skakel, founder of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation. Robert and Ethel had 11 children. In 1952, he managed John's U.S. Senate campaign in Massachusetts. With his brother elected, he served on the staff of the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Kennedy's work confirmed reports that countries allied with the United States against Communist China in the Korean War were also shipping goods to Communist China.

When McCarthy's controversial tactics became a liability to his future, Kennedy resigned from the staff, later returning to the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations as chief counsel for the Democratic minority. Then he became chief counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee investigating corruption in trade unions, winning him national recognition for his investigations of Teamsters Union leaders Jimmy Hoffa and David Beck.

In 1960 he managed John F. Kennedy's Presidential campaign, and in this capacity history must hold him accountable for official responsibility in the most terrible political crime ever to occur in America. The stealing of the 1960 election no doubt emanates from the root of Joseph P. Kennedy. Attendant blame must be aimed at Mayor Daley, who orchestrated the fraud in Chicago (Cook County), Illinois. Lyndon Johnson must be held accountable for the "tombstone vote" in Texas. Illinois and Texas both went to Kennedy. Had these states been won by Nixon, as they really were, the Republicans would rightfully have won that election.

RFK, as the campaign manager, was the man where the "buck stopped." It was his responsibility to stop the fraud before it occurred, or to expose it once it became apparent. He failed in this responsibility. Of course, he was not going to expose a crime he was complicit in. Like his older brother, he was a man of enormous gifts, charisma and admirable quality. Like his older brother, he accomplished many things for America. But like his older brother, his ultimate legacy is tainted by scandal and a failure to follow the most basic premise of America, which is to play fair and square.

He was considered one of the most effective Attorney Generals in history. As titular head of the Department of Justice, he found himself at loggerheads with J. Edgar Hoover. He launched a successful drive against organized crime, and gained convictions against Mafia figures that rose by 800 percent during his tenure. He was committed to the rights of African-Americans to vote, attend school and use public accommodations. He carried the political water for his brother in this regard.

"We will not stand by or be aloof," he told the University of Georgia Law School in 1961. "We will move. I happen to believe that the 1954 [Supreme Court school desegregation] decision was right. But my belief does not matter. It is the law. Some of you may believe the decision was wrong. That does not matter. It is the law."

In September 1962, Attorney General Kennedy sent U.S. Marshals and troops to Oxford, Mississippi to enforce a Federal court order admitting the first African-American student - James Meredith - to the University of Mississippi. A riot followed, leaving two dead and hundreds injured. Robert Kennedy saw voting as the key to racial justice. He collaborated with President Kennedy in proposing the most far-reaching civil rights statute since Reconstruction. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, passed after President Kennedy was slain on November 22, 1963, is attributed to Johnson, but one of its architects is Robert Kennedy.

He was President Kennedy's closest advisor and confidant. He played a major role in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, developing the strategy to blockade Cuba instead of taking military action that could have led to nuclear war. Negotiations with the Soviet Union ensued on removal of the weapons. It was this episode in which RFK first broke from his father's shadow ("hatchet man" and "ruthless politician"). He became a "man of conscience."

After President Kennedy's death, Robert Kennedy attempted to integrate himself with the Johnson Administration regarding prosecution of the Vietnam War. He was too big of a political star. LBJ rebuffed this effort. RFK resigned as Attorney General and, in 1964, was elected to the United States Senate from New York. His opponent, incumbent Republican Senator Kenneth Keating, labeled him a "carpetbagger."

"I have [had] really two choices over the period of the last ten months," he said at Columbia University. "I could have stayed in - I could have retired. And I - my father has done very well and I could have lived off him...I tell you frankly I don't need this title because I [could] be called General, I understand, for the rest of my life. And I don't need the money and I don't need the office space...Frank as it is - and maybe it's difficult to believe in the state of New York - I'd like to just be a good United States Senator. I'd like to serve."

Kennedy, aided by President Johnson's landslide, won the November election by 719,000 votes. As Senator, he assisted underprivileged children and students with disabilities and the establishment of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation to improve living conditions and employment opportunities in depressed areas of Brooklyn. For well over 30 it has been a model for communities across America.

Kennedy realized during his Senate years the power of addressing the needs of the dispossessed urban poor, the young, racial minorities and Native Americans. He fought against poverty, journeying into urban ghettos, Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta and migrant workers' camps. There are two RFK's. On the one hand, Kennedy has been viewed as a disingenuous rich kid, playing the politics of white guilt that marks the 1960s. On the other hand, he lent his name, talent and considerable clout to issues long ignored by mainstream America. In the final analysis, it says here that Kennedy's social conscience is real, and his actions noble.

"There are children in the Mississippi Delta," he said, "whose bellies are swollen with hunger...Many of them cannot go to school because they have no clothes or shoes. These conditions are not confined to rural Mississippi. They exist in dark tenements in Washington, D.C., within sight of the Capitol, in Harlem, in South Side Chicago, in Watts. There are children in each of these areas who have never been to school, never seen a doctor or a dentist. There are children who have never heard conversation in their homes, never read or even seen a book."

He sought legislation encouraging private industry to locate in poverty-stricken areas, to make jobs for the unemployed, and stressed work over welfare. His human rights agenda extended to Eastern Europe, Latin America and South Africa, where he advocated the rights of people to criticize their government without fear of reprisal.

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal," he said in a 1966 speech to South African students, "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."

Kennedy will mostly be remembered for his controversial quest to end the war in Vietnam. He was one of the architects of the war, and in the Senate had originally supported the Johnson Administration's policies in Vietnam. But he called for a greater commitment to a negotiated settlement and a renewed emphasis on economic and political advancement within South Vietnam. As the war escalated, Senator Kennedy questioned President Johnson's prosecution of it. He finally broke with the Johnson Administration in February of 1966. His proposal was participation by all sides (including the Viet Cong's political arm, the National Liberation Front) in South Vietnam. Taking responsibility for his role in the Kennedy Administration's Southeast Asia policy, he urged President Johnson to cease the bombing of North Vietnam and reduce the war.

"Are we like the God of the Old Testament that we can decide, in Washington, D.C., what cities, what towns, what hamlets in Vietnam are going to be destroyed?" Kennedy asked in a speech. "Do we have to accept that? I do not think we have to. I think we can do something about it."

On March 18, 1968, Robert Kennedy announced his candidacy for the Democrat Presidential nomination.

It was "an uproarious campaign, filled with enthusiasm and fun...It was also a campaign moving in its sweep and passion," in the words of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The Kennedy campaign is considered a watershed aimed at ending complacency in America. He attempted to bring together the races, the poor and the affluent, the young and old, and operated a high-wire act that was part rock concert, part Greek poetry.

1968 was the season of discontent and violence in America, with war waging on the streets of the cities, the college campuses, and in the jungles of Vietnam. Kennedy won critical primaries in Indiana and Nebraska and was received like a god across the nation.

On June 5, 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, shortly after claiming victory in the key Primary that put him over the top on the road to the nomination, he was slain by a Palestinian named Sirhan Sirhan, who opposed his backing of Israel. He was only 42 years old.

RFK's speeches and quotes

Why?

"Some men see things as they are and say, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and say, 'Why not?'"

(after George Bernard Shaw)

Ripple of Hope

"Few will have the greatness to bend history; 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 thus 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 which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

(Day of affirmation address, University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966)

On the Death of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black...Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: `To tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.'"

(Statement on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Indianapolis, Indiana, April 4, 1968)

1968 Presidential Campaign

"I think we can end the divisions within the United States. What I think is quite clear is that we can work together in the last analysis. And that what has been going on with the United States over the period of that last three years, the divisions, the violence, the disenchantment with our society, the divisions - whether it's between blacks and whites, between the poor and the more affluent, or between age groups, or in the war in Vietnam - that we can work together. We are a great country, an unselfish country and a compassionate country. And I intend to make that my basis for running."

(California victory speech, Los Angeles, California, June 4, 1968)

Challenge

_"On this generation of Americans falls the burden of proving to the world that we really mean it when we say all men are created free and are equal before the law. All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don't. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity."_

(Speech, Law Day exercises of the University of Georgia Law School, May 6, 1961)

Citizenship

_"Since the days of Greece and Rome when the word 'citizen' was a title of honor, we have often seen more emphasis put on the rights of citizenship than on its responsibilities. And today, as never before in the free world, responsibility is the greatest right of citizenship and service is the greatest of freedom's privileges."_

(Speech, University of San Francisco Law School, San Francisco, California, September 29, 1962)

Democracy

_"Democracy is no easy form of government. Few nations have been able to sustain it. For it requires that we take the chances of freedom; that the liberating play of reason be brought to bear on events filled with passion; that dissent be allowed to make its appeal for acceptance; that men chance error in their search for the truth."_

(Statement on Vietnam, February 19, 1966)

The Democrat Party

_"And as long as America must choose, that long will there be a need and a place for the Democratic Party. We Democrats can run on our record but we cannot rest on it. We will win if we continue to take the initiative and if we carry the message of hope and action throughout the country. Alexander Smith once said, 'A man doesn't plant a tree for himself. He plants it for posterity.' Let us continue to plant, and our children shall reap the harvest. That is our destiny as Democrats."_

(Testimonial dinner for Lieutenant Governor Patrick J. Lucey of Wisconsin, August 15, 1965)

Dissent

"The sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country."

(Address, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 24, 1967)

Equality

"We must recognize the full human equality of all our people - before God, before the law, and in the councils of government. We must do this not because it is economically advantageous - although it is; not because the laws of God and man command it - although they do command it; not because people in other lands wish it so. We must do it for the single and fundamental reason that it is the right thing to do."

(Day of affirmation address, University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966)

The Future

_"The future is not a gift: It is an achievement. Every generation helps make its own future. This is the essential challenge of the present."_

(Address, Seattle World's Fair, August 7, 1962)

_"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 bold projects and new ideas. Rather, it will belong to those who can blend passion, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the great enterprises and ideals of American society."_

(Address, University of California at Berkeley, October 22, 1966)

Greatness

"Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly."

(Day of affirmation address, University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966)

Nations

"Nations, like men, often march to the beat of different drummers, and the precise solutions of the United States can neither be dictated nor transplanted to others. What is important is that all nations must march toward an increasing freedom; toward justice for all; toward a society strong and flexible enough to meet the demands of all of its own people, and a world of immense and dizzying change."

(Day of affirmation address, University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966)

Poverty

"I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil."

(Speech, Athens, Georgia, May 6, 1961)

Quality of Life

_"Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product...if we should judge America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children._

"Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."

(Address, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, March 18, 1968)

Violence and Lawlessness

_"What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet._

_"No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason._

_"Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded."_

(On violence, Cleveland, Ohio, April 5, 1968)

Voice of the People

_"All great questions must be raised by great voices, and the greatest voice is the voice of the people - speaking out - in prose, or painting or poetry or music; speaking out - in homes and halls, streets and farms, courts and cafes - let that voice speak and the stillness you hear will be the gratitude of Mankind."_

(Address, New York City, January 22, 1963)

Youth

"This world demands the qualities of 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."

(Day of affirmation address, University of Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966)

Teddy Kennedy

" Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law? Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty "

\- Senator Ted Kennedy, 1973

"Chappaquiddick has been called 'the most brilliant cover-up ever achieved in a nation where investigative procedures are well developed and where the principles of equal justice prevail, at least during some of those moments where people are watching.'"

\- "The Last Kennedy" by Robert Sherrill

"The mysteries of the case continue to haunt Ted Kennedy as well as the authorities who investigated them. Charges of ineptitude and lack of diligence abounded, as did insinuations that the machinery of justice crumbled beneath the power and prestige of the Kennedy family. George Killen, former State Police Detective-Lieutenant, and chief of a never-revealed investigation, lamented that the failure to bring the case to a satisfactory conclusion was `the biggest mistake' of a long and distinguished police career. Senator Kennedy, he said, `killed that girl the same as if he put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.'"

\- "Senatorial Privilege" by Leo Damor

Ah, Senator Edward "Teddy" Kennedy. Somehow, this man embodies, in one loud, drunken, righteous wave of indignation, everything that people love and hate about the Kennedy family. He is in many ways the "last Kennedy." Scandal and tragedy has not eluded them since Bobby's killing. In 1969, Teddy drove a car off a bridge in Martha's Vineyard, killing his female companion. One of Bobby's sons died of a heroin overdose. In the early 1990s, a Kennedy nephew sexually assaulted a girl in the families' West Palm Beach compound. The drunken Teddy entered the room dressed in a shirt and nothing else, lookin' for some "sloppy seconds."

JFK's son, John, Jr., by far the most honest and promising hope among the "new Kennedys," died in a plane crash in 1999. A nephew of Bobby's wife, Ethel, murdered a girl in Greenwich, Connecticut in the 1970s. Using his name and Kennedy imprimatur, Teddy-style, Michael Skakel evaded punishment for decades. New police forensics, orchestrated by an honest, discredited cop, Mark Fuhrman, secured his conviction.

Teddy was the youngest boy. Riding his older brother's coattails, he managed, beginning in 1962, to get himself elected to Congress and the Senate from Massachusetts. He has held his seat ever since. Unlike Joe, Jr., Jack and Bobby, (but like his father), he never served in the military. Of the three surviving sons, he most resembles his father as a liar and a cheat. At Harvard he paid others to take his tests, although he did not lack in the brains department. He graduated and then successfully negotiated the University of Virginia Law School, where his roommate was future U.S. Senator John Tunney (D.- California).

He was blessed with the Kennedy good looks and oratorical skills. He also embraced the philandering ways of his father in a manner that makes Jack look reticent and Bobby an outright monk. After Bobby's death, all the Kennedy hopes fell on his broad shoulders. Unlike Jack and Bobby, he had the husky look of the former football player he was. After the Ambassador Hotel shooting, he became the de facto Presidential hopeful of his family and his party. There was talk of nominating Teddy at the Chicago convention in 1968, and in retrospect that might have been his best shot at the White House. But everything came too soon that hot and violent Summer. The party stayed with Hubert Humphrey.

Richard Nixon was utterly and completely paranoid of the Kennedys and of Teddy. It was, above everything else, a desire to know inside information about Kennedy and his plans that drove the plumbers into the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate Hotel.

Everything changed for Ted Kennedy, his family, the country and the world, in July of 1969. Had Chappaquiddick not occurred, Ted very possibly would have been elected President. Chances are he would have run in 1972, and made it a close race that the popular incumbent, Nixon, would have won. With one national campaign under his belt, he probably would have won against Gerald Ford in 1976. If this happened, the Reagan Revolution might never have occurred. The history of America would have been much different. The concept of the Soviet Union folding under the pressure of the eight-year Reagan military build-up, in 1989, seems remote if Teddy holds office from 1977 to 1985.

Every Summer, the Edgartown Yacht Club sponsored the Edgartown Regatta off Martha's Vineyard. The Kennedys had been attending for years. It was at these events, in the heart of friendly "Kennedy country," that the family let their hair down most visibly. Reports of drunken orgies and gangbangs, with reports of broken furniture, women used like porn sluts, and a trail of littered cottages and psyches left in their wake, are legion. Bobby, the supposedly devout Catholic and father of 11, had reportedly done his most notorious sexual work in this atmosphere (if one discounts his short affair with Marilyn Monroe).

Two Kennedy boats, the Resolute and the Victura, were entered in the 1969 races. Ted Kennedy felt that the weekend was the right time to resume the sex parties that had been put on hold after Bobby's death the year before. Bobby's campaign staff had been known as the "Boiler Room Girls." They were known for their youthful sexuality and vivaciousness. Many female Kennedy staffers were expected to submit to the sexual advances of the family as if they were hookers. This was known ahead of time, the girls accepted and even welcomed it. If they did not agree to these conditions they could just work for somebody else, or become Republicans, God forbid! Because it was so well known, they did not complain and the whole situation was "understood."

Joseph Gargan, Ted Kennedy's cousin and lawyer, reserved rooms for the women at the Katama Shores Inn near Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard. Teddy and the men would stay at the Shiretown Inn. Gargan looked for a cottage on the water which would serve as the site for a party after the races.

Gargan settled on the Lawrence Cottage on the nearby island of Chappaquiddick, near the beach. It was separated from Martha's Vineyard by a narrow channel, accessible only by a ferry between the hours of 7:30 A.M. and midnight.

Gargan had become the man who "fixed" Teddy's problems, and they had been numerous.

"Joey'll fix it," was the common refrain whenever Teddy got too drunk, and went too far with a women. Gargan's ability to "fix it" was put to the ultimate test at Chappaquiddick. The party included Ted, his lawyer, cousin and co-host, Gargan. Other guests included Paul Markham, lawyer and former U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts; Ray LaRosa, former fireman and Kennedy campaign worker; Charles Tretter, a lawyer, head of the Boston Redevelopment Commission, and a Kennedy campaign aide; John Crimmins, Senator Kennedy's part-time chauffeur, and the Boiler Room Girls - Mary Jo Kopechne, Rosemary Keough, Esther Newberg, Susan Tannenbaum, Nance Lyons and Mary Ellen Lyons.

Senator Kennedy's wife, Joan did not attend the Regatta weekend because she was pregnant.

Following Bobby's death, Ted's drinking and sexing had been discouraged now that he was the hope of the family, and a major Presidential contender. Ted had increased his drinking after his brother's death, and was understandably troubled. He showed signs of recklessness beyond his previous exploits. Life writer Brock Brower concluded that Ted's fast living was an escape from his inevitable candidacy for President.

"Some thought his drinking had got beyond the strains it was supposed to relieve," he said. John Lindsay of Newsweek saw "an all too-familiar pattern emerging." Whether Ted's drinking was a "cry for a help," or even an unconscious attempt to create a scenario whereby he would not be required to run, or be, the President is a cause for speculation. It is understandable that he would fear the burden of leadership such a life would put him under. He also would not be human if he did not consider the very real prospect that he was the next target of an assassin's bullet. This is not a sympathetic assessment of Kennedy or his family, but it would be wrong to discount the effect of tragedy on his actions. Either way, by the Summer of 1969, Kennedy was slipping out of control.

Senator Kennedy's driver's license had expired on February 22, 1969 and had not been renewed. Driving with an expired license was only a misdemeanor. The license problem was "fixed" by officials at the Registry of Motor Vehicles, under the direction of Registrar Richard McLaughlin, before the legal proceedings began. Kennedy had a record of serious traffic violations. In 1958 he had been convicted for reckless driving.

Kennedy had previously been fined $15 for speeding in March, 1957. The interesting thing is that Kennedy repeated the same actions in 1958 as he had in 1957.

"And here comes the same car," the patrolman was quoted. "And to my surprise, he did exactly the same thing. He raced through the same red light, cut his lights when he got to the corner and made the right turn." Looking inside the car, now stopped, the officer discovered Kennedy, stretched out on the front seat and hiding.

Court officials never filed the mandatory notice of the case in the public docket. Kennedy's name had not appeared on any arrest blotter. Instead, a local reporter discovered the case when he spotted five warrants in Kennedy's name in a court cash drawer.

Three weeks after his trial, Ted was caught speeding again, still operating without a valid license. In 1959, Kennedy was stopped for running a red light and fined.

These offenses had occurred in Virginia, where he had been a law student, but he a Massachusetts driver's license. The family managed to keep the record off the Registry of Motor records. When he faced the court after Chappaquiddick, these records did not factor in the evidence to support a charge of manslaughter, which they undoubtedly would have.

"Any person who wantonly or in a reckless or grossly negligent manner did that which resulted in the death of a human being was guilty of manslaughter, although he did not contemplate such a result," describes manslaughter in Massachusetts at the time.

"It's automatic in Massachusetts when a person is killed in an accident for the prosecutor to bring an action for criminal manslaughter," said Gargan.

Less than a week after Chappaquiddick, the Oregonian reported an accident in Salem, Oregon, in which a car crashed through the chain on a ferry while crossing the Willamette River. A passenger riding in the car had drowned, but the driver escaped from the car and swam to shore. The driver was charged with negligent homicide.

The following is the written statement given by Ted Kennedy to Police Chief Dominick Arena on the morning of July 19, 1969. The Senator stuck to this version of events despite contradictory evidence and witness testimony.

"On July 18, 1969, at approximately 11:15 P.M. in Chappaquiddick, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, I was driving my car on Main Street on my way to get the ferry back to Edgartown. I was unfamiliar with the road and turned right onto Dike Road, instead of bearing hard left on Main Street. After proceeding for approximately one-half mile on Dike Road I descended a hill and came upon a narrow bridge. The car went off the side of the bridge. There was one passenger with me, one Miss Mary ________ <there was a blank space here because Kennedy was not sure of the spelling of the dead girl's last name, and instead offered a rough phonetic approximation>, a former secretary of my brother Senator Robert Kennedy. The car turned over and sank into the water and landed with the roof resting on the bottom. I attempted to open the door and the window of the car but have no recollection of how I got out of the car. I came to the surface and then repeatedly dove down to the car in an attempt to see if the passenger was still in the car. I was unsuccessful in the attempt. I was exhausted and in a state of shock. I recall walking back to where my friends were eating. There was a car parked in front of the cottage and I climbed into the back seat. I then asked for someone to bring me back to Edgartown. I remember walking around for a period of time and then going back to my hotel room. When I fully realized what had happened this morning, I immediately contacted the police."

Senator Kennedy said he was unfamiliar with the road. Earlier on July 18, he had been driven over Chappaquiddick Road three times, and over Dike Road and Dike Bridge twice. Kopechne had been driven over Chappaquiddick Road five times and over Dike.

In his statement to police, Ted Kennedy claimed that after escaping from his submerged automobile, he "repeatedly dove down to the car in an attempt to see if the passenger was still in the car." What he did was flee. Instead of finding immediate help, which might have saved her life, he made scarce, knowing that he was intoxicated and would be charged for driving in such a condition unless he could hide out long enough for the alcohol to leave his body.

At the inquest, the Senator elaborated on his story.

"I was fully aware that I was doing everything that I possibly could to get the girl out of the car," he stated. "And that my head was throbbing and my neck was aching and I was breathless, and at the time, hopelessly exhausted." When he abandoned his rescue attempt, he let himself float to shore.

"And I sort of crawled and staggered up some place and was very exhausted and spent on the grass," he said, indicating that he rested there on the banking for 15 to 20 minutes.

Kennedy always maintained that he delayed reporting the accident because he was "confused and in shock." The Senator's statements regarding his rescue attempts suggest that in fact he was quite aware that Miss Kopechne's life was in peril and that immediate action was in order.

He testified that after he regained his breath, "I started walking, trotting, jogging, stumbling as fast as I possibly could. It was extremely dark. I never saw a cottage with a light on." Kennedy said he walked back to the Lawrence Cottage in "approximately 15 minutes."

Sylvia Malm was only 150 yards from the scene of the accident. Her daughter had been reading under an open window facing the bridge until about 11:45 P.M., but did not recall hearing anything. The light burned all night at the back door of the house, visible from Dike Bridge. The Reverend and Mrs. David Smith were certain that they had left a light on in one of the bedrooms that was also visible from the road.

The Malm's and the Smith's saw no possibility that Senator Kennedy had not seen their lights. Had he sought their help after the accident, the girl may have been saved. Re-tracing Kennedy's walk, it was observed that Dike House was so close to the bridge, there was no way he could go down that road and not see that house. Several other houses along the road all had lights on. Kennedy avoided all of them like the plague, because his obvious drunkenness was still apparent. While Mary Jo Kopechne theoretically fought for breath in the murky water, Ted Kennedy waited out the night, desperately avoiding contact with anybody who could bring attention to him and his drunk driving.

It was estimated that had Kennedy immediately gone to the first house and alerted somebody, then the fire department could have been at the bridge in three minutes!

Detective Bernie Flynn eventually put together a scenario for the accident:

"I figure, we've got a drunk driver, Ted Kennedy," he said. "He's with this girl, and he has it in his mind to go down to the beach and make love to her. He's probably driving too fast and he misses the curve and goes into Cemetery Road. He's backing up when he sees this guy in uniform coming toward him. That's panic for the average driver who's been drinking; but here's a United States Senator about to get tagged for driving under. He doesn't want to get caught with a girl in his car, on a deserted road late at night, with no license and driving drunk on top of it. In his mind, the most important thing is to get away from the situation.

"He doesn't wait around. He takes off down the road. He's probably looking in the rear-view mirror to see if the cop is following him. He doesn't even see the fucking bridge and bingo! He goes off. He gets out of the car; she doesn't. The poor son of a bitch doesn't know what to do. He's thinking, 'I want to get back to my house, to my friends' - which is a common reaction <luckily, the crew members of PTA 109 were not skippered under Teddy Kennedy's command>.

"There are houses on Dike Road he could have gone to report the accident, but he doesn't want to. Because it's the same situation he was trying to get away from at the corner - which turned out to be minor compared to what happened later. Now there's been an accident; and the girl's probably dead. All the more reason not to go banging on somebody's door in the middle of the night and admit what he was doing. He doesn't want to reveal himself."

Richard McLaughlin, the Massachusetts Registrar of Motor Vehicles, previously known for his tough stance on drunk driving, actively participated in fixing the Senator's expired driver's license. Privately, he offered that leaving the scene of an accident and delaying a report for more than nine hours foreclosed a drunk driving charge.

"It effectively deprives officers of evidence of chemical testing and direct observation of the operator," he said. "So if you wanted to avoid a drunk driving charge after an accident - that's how you do it." Which is highly, precisely, and to quintessential effect, that with which Kennedy did.

When Kennedy reached his handlers, he gave them all the details. He was driving drunk with a single girl on his way to have sex. They immediately went to work "handling" the situation. Hillary Clinton modeled her "handling" of the destruction of her husband's women on their efficiency. Teddy's admission of guilt was never used against him because he invoked Kennedy lawyer-client privilege via Gargan and Markham, preventing them from giving any information to authorities. Senator Kennedy was not in a "state of shock." He was deliberate and calculating in his effort to cover up his involvement in the accident, while at the same time concealing the fate of Mary Jo Kopechne from those who could have saved her.

When the three men reached the bridge, Gargan recalled seeing the Senator's car upside-down in the middle of the pond. Kennedy guessed that it had been at least 45 minutes since the time of the accident. Gargan drove across the bridge and parked the Valiant on the beach side with the headlights shining over the water. Both Gargan and Markham stripped naked and dove into the water.

"All I was interested in was saving the girl," Gargan said. "I wasn't thinking about anything else."

A strong current was running through the narrow channel which made swimming difficult. The two men struggled against the current for some time, trying to find a way into the car. Gargan was eventually able to locate a door handle and yanked on it. The door wouldn't budge. He moved around the car until he found an opening he presumed to be a window. He pushed his body into the car, but was unable to see in the dark water and could only "grope around to see if I could touch anything." Gargan began running out of breath. In panic he pushed himself out fiercely, cutting his arms and chest as he exited the car.

"I found it hard to believe the Senator had been in a major automobile accident. His face bore no traces of any marks. He never sat down or appeared in any kind of physical discomfort. If he had been injured, in shock, or confused, nothing of it lingered in our meeting, to my observation."

\- Police Chief Dominick Arena

Kennedy wore a neck brace in subsequent public appearances, even though he had not suffered injury. The brace was designed to curry public sympathy. On Tuesday, July 22, 1969, Senator Kennedy wore it as he left St. Vincent's Church with his wife, Joan, after the funeral Mass for Mary Jo Kopechne.

Kennedy pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident. His sentence was suspended with no jail time. He walked, for all intents and purposes, scot-free, with the exception of the fact that his scumbag character became that with which was now known (or confirmed) by millions worldwide. The judge determined that the bad publicity and possible detriment to his political career "punished (him) far beyond anything this court can impose, the ends of justice would be satisfied by the imposition of the minimum jail sentence and suspension of that sentence - assuming the defendant accepts the suspension."

The proceeding took seven minutes. State law mandated a minimum of 20 days in jail for the crime he committed. The fact that Kennedy avoided even that small inconvenience was simply the overriding of law. The press immediately identified it as a show trial; a deal worked out in advance.

Mary Jo Kopechne was sacrificed at the altar of the Kennedy family, but in an ironic way she is a hero of the right. Had she not died, Ted Kennedy very likely might have been elected President of the United States. The perverted hopes and dreams of Joseph P. Kennedy would have been fulfilled - still and again.

Nevertheless, Teddy Kennedy continued to be elected every six years by the citizens of Massachusetts. He has been shown to be a drunken buffoon who drove his wife into a dizzying downward sexual and alcoholic spiral, the butt of tabloid covers showing her arriving at New York parties dressed like a prostitute. His sexual dalliances had none of the glamour of his brother's Hollywood-style escapades. Instead, existing in the "gotcha" atmosphere of the post-Watergate era, his acts were revealed in grainy photos depicting his naked body, looking like a beached whale, humping some floozy in a boat off the Florida coast.

When Alabama Senator Howell Heflin observed one of these National Enquirer covers, he remarked dryly, in the thickest possible Dixie drawl, "It appeahs that the Senatah has changed his position on off-shore drillin'."

Politically, Kennedy has maintained steadfast observance of all the far Left's most sacred principles, which by 2003 have, one by one, been shown to be either plain wrong or no longer of much political value. He is a staunch advocate of abortion. The fact that he is somehow allowed to maintain the fiction of Catholicism despite this advocacy is astounding. He is a complete welfare state liberal in an age in which every Democrat with the slightest need to maintain competitiveness has adopted a position that is more or less where the Republicans were 30 years ago. While there are still New Deal liberals, they commit political suicide on the national level.

Kennedy is an environmentalist and a taxer. These are issues that one can disagree on. His positions at least can be admired in that they seem to represent core principles, and core principles are something that can be admired. He remains an important member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and takes his job as defender of the abortion flame very seriously in this capacity. His muteness when Clarence Thomas faced sexual harassment charges from this committee was deafening, however. He has struck an odd kind of friendship with George W. Bush, who upon taking up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue invited Teddy to watch the Cuban Missile Crisis thriller "13 Days" with him. Whether this was strictly symbolic or not is in dispute. Both Kennedy and Bush are members of political dynasties. In this they have something in common that almost no other Americans can relate to. At this point, all indications are that the Kennedy dynasty is on the way out. The Bush dynasty is the one historians will say shaped the early part of the 21st Century. The second half of the 20th, however, was an age in which the Kennedy name ranks among any others in influence and importance.

All in all, Ted Kennedy remains a hero of liberalism and the Democrats. His popularity has been reduced mostly to the salons of Manhattan, Harvard Square, and the Left Coast bastions of Hollywood and San Francisco, though. In "fly-over country" he is a laughing stock. It is the specter of Kennedy that still drives Republican "stop Kennedy" fundraising drives. The fact that he is still so popular, and the fact that the Kennedy name is still magic within Democrat circles, offers undeniable insight into what makes the Democrats tick.

The story of this family is filled with contradiction. There is virtually nothing that Joe, Sr. offers history, and in fact it is possible that he is the most evil "legitimate" American of the American Century. But his two eldest sons were legitimate war heroes. John Kennedy's performance in the Cuban Missile Crisis is also heroic. He was not so heroic in his handling of the Bay of Pigs, but that mess started with Eisenhower and cannot be blamed entirely on JFK. Jack was a strong anti-Communist who met the early challenge of Vietnam. To theorize that he would have withdrawn the U.S. from the region is incomplete and, frankly, not likely. His civil rights record is promising and he deserves high marks. He also had no real, traditional morals and hurt people with little respect for their feelings. He benefited from too many advantages without counter-balancing it with humility, although he did possess a self-deprecating sense of humor. He probably had Marilyn Monroe killed. The coup he "allowed" in Saigon resulted in the death of a head of state. His own assassination martyrs him but considering everything on balance, there is a dark sense that what "goes around comes around."

Robert Kennedy helped orchestrated the "political crime of the century" in stealing the 1960 election from Nixon. He helped keep the world safe during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He did very good work in civil rights, as Attorney General, in the Senate and as a Presidential candidate. He was a staunch anti-Communist, but his record as a late-developing dove is incomplete due to Sirhan Sirhan. He stood up to the mob, but also was probably the guy who gave the nod to Marilyn's killing.

Ted was a drunken slob, but to his credit he has found a wife later in life, settled down, and appears to have licked alcoholism. His cowardice may have killed Mary Jo Kopechne. His lack of traditional morality is a disgrace. The mind's eye picture of him standing in his shirt with no pants or underwear while his nephew laid the groundwork for a tag-team sex party that became rape cannot be omitted. Still, there are central tenets of political faith that he truly believes in, and whether one agrees or disagrees with them. He has intelligently advocated on behalf of the dispossessed in the tradition of Robert's 1968 campaign.

John Kennedy, Jr. was, as best as anybody can tell, a good man without benefit of PR spin, which is quite the accomplishment. Had he lived, he may have used his name to accomplish great things. The guess here is that he would have. Whether this meant politics, and with his name, politics means the White House, is not known, apparently even by his close associates. In "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger poses the question, "Who killed the Kennedys?...When after all, it was you and me." Mick's premise is that dark forces destroyed John and Robert, ostensibly before they could give the world the full value of what they were capable of. The 1960s folk anthem "Abraham, Martin and John" offered a similar refrain. The death of John, Jr. works against the premise that the deaths of each of these Kennedy's "saved" the world from some kind of disaster their growing hegemony and power might have become. John, Jr. seems, and I must emphasize seems to lack the craven hardball, ruthless, cutthroat tendencies of Joe, Sr., Jack and Bobby.

If one wishes to continue with the metaphysical discussion of the "Kennedy curse," and why such fate befell them, as if loosed from Bobby's favorite Greek poet, Aeschylus, then it comes back to the root of their evil, the father. Remember the words of Harry Truman, who when asked if he feared that a Catholic President would adhere his faith more to the Vatican than the country.

"I'm more worried about the pop than the Pope," plain-speaking Harry replied.

The Kennedy story is one of near-misses, brushes with power that did not quite materialize, one shortened Presidency and two others that could have, but did not, happen. If the disasters, assassinations, scandals, the lobotomized daughter, the frauds and the crimes are part of some cosmic payback, then the payee is Joe Kennedy, Sr. He was a man who got away with all of his worst sins. Or did he? Possibly he was prevented by God and God alone from achieving the Presidency for himself, then made to pay by a laughing Satan when his innocent sons first fell prey to his kind of success, then "paid" for it with their lives and reputations. If the Clintons made a similar "deal with the devil," they learned to avoid the kinds of caveats that may have befallen Joe Kennedy's "contract."

So, with all of this baggage to unload and sort through, the question then comes down to their legacy and the meaning of their politics. The judgment of history does render greatness on Jack and Bobby, just as it does Franklin Roosevelt. FDR likely let the Japanese attack U.S. forces at Pearl to draw the country in to the war, then allowed Short and Kimmel to take the blame. He lied, he deceived, and he ran as close to a dictatorial Presidency as any man this Democracy has ever known. But the extraordinary times he lived in demanded what he had. He gave the full measure of it. Greatness is accorded him after a review of his career that is not unlike a criminal trial that goes back and forth and finally renders a "not guilty" verdict on the suspect.

Jack and Bobby are not part of the same grand adventure as FDR. They had looks, style, substance and an appeal that gives them real star quality, but is not enough to elevate them to political greatness. But they are popular and iconic parts of this nation's collective conscience. They represent something that many feel can never be attained again. Their deaths do for them something their lives may never have done. The prospect of their unfinished business remains intoxicating. The Kennedys are forever linked in opposition to Nixon. The first impression of this vision favors the Kennedys by a wide margin.

Everything that touched them seemed golden. Jackie Kennedy's life after JFK is questionable, at best, yet she somehow was a woman who held the wide admiration of that crowd of onlookers who seem to fill the grandstands at the Academy Awards every year. She loved Jack, but she was as calculating in her marriage to him as a political consultant. She calculated her social status the way the consultant calculates electoral votes. Her marriage to Greek billionaire Aristotle Onassis was a blatant money sham, yet she survived the obviousness of it, maintaining the fiction of class and propriety to her dying day.

To love the Kennedys and all they stand for requires not a leap of faith, but an acceptance of their sins. It is in this acceptance that the Democrats lay themselves bare in a way the Republicans never have, and likely never will. The Left counters that "Tricky Dick" Nixon remains a hero of the right. However, to compare his second-rate burglary with Illinois/Texas '60, the possible murder of Marilyn, Diem's killing, and all the other acts of Kennedy excess is not something the Left wants to do. They will lose that argument. Joe McCarthy's name may pop up, but the Left really does not want to get into that mess. It inevitably leads to the fact that their side really was infiltrated by, and did the bidding for, Joseph Stalin.

Now, with the ascendancy of the Bushes, the Democrats find themselves squirming at the comparison. The Republican Bush's may not be everybody's political cup of tea, and they do not fulfill the vicarious fantasy of wild sex with the likes of Angie Dickinson and Marilyn Monroe. But in all the ways that average people raising kids in average American cities and towns judge right and wrong, separating real heroism from an Alec Baldwin movie, the Bush family runs Texas circles around Joe Kennedy's clan.

When all is said and done, a true analysis of the Kennedys should leave the thinking Democrat with the difficult conclusion that in order to do and be a part of the right thing, he had best switch to the Republicans.

Lyndon Baines Johnson and Vietnam

Perhaps there has never been more of a political odd couple than Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy. Johnson suffers the comparison, but this is not altogether fair. Johnson was everything the Kennedys were not. He was a gruff Texan with a Hill Country drawl that could scratch wood. He lacked good looks. His appearance was that of a jowly puppy dog, or a cab going down the street with its doors wide open. He was not a man of "class" or sophistication, although his wife, Lady Bird, was a rather genteel woman. She was a more inviting presence than Jackie Kennedy.

Where Jack Kennedy accomplished little in the Senate, Johnson was the "master" of it as Majority Leader during the Eisenhower years. Johnson was chosen by Kennedy to be his Vice-President after the two battled for the nomination, after much angst and hand-wring. He admired Jack and was loyal, but he and Bobby either hated each other or were major rivals. When JFK was assassinated, LBJ angered Bobby by quickly assuming the powers of the Oval Office without the requisite servitude that RFK thought his slain brother's memory deserved. While Bobby might have been understandably upset, LBJ faced a big task and his desire to show strength quickly was not out of bounds.

Johnson did the heavy lifting of the Kennedy-Johnson years. He picked up the civil rights initiatives of JFK, which were by no means "slam dunks," and faced strong Democrat opposition in the Southern states. LBJ used his "persuasive" powers and the imprimatur of his Southern reputation to ram through the Civil Rights Act of 1965. He picked up Kennedy's Vietnam predicament, which at the time of the killing had the feel of a green beret adventure, and did what he felt had to be done. Communism has somehow been placed in part of the collective conscience that gives it the benign face of a wayward stepchild. This is one of the biggest mistakes that man can make. It has been said that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In my view the issue of Communism offers the starkest example of how this refrain should be adhered to.

Communism is the worst political system and philosophy of all time, worse than Nazism, for a number of reasons. Nazism was a special case, a peculiar sickness that rose out of the rather specific conflagration of German nationalism, post-World War I victimization, economic depression, and anti-Semitic scapegoating. Without one man, Adolf Hitler, it never would have risen. Anti-Semitism and racism always have and always will be part of the character of some men, but there is no reason to believe it will ever re-emerge as Nazism, with or without swastikas. Yes, there are numerous neo-Nazi groups in Europe. In the U.S., there has always been a fair share of racists and anti-Semites. Hitler and the Nazis had their admirers in the 1930s, among them Joe Kennedy. The American Nazi party, headed by George Lincoln Rockwell, got some attention. There are skinheads and various other members of the Dumbellionite Class. None of it has any chance of forming cogent political power.

Occasionally a politician or party comes along and people call them "Nazis." In France, Jean Marie Le Pen has been accorded this appellation. In the U.S., David Duke, the one-time Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, called himself a Republican and got a few votes in Louisiana. The G.O.P. repudiated everything about him and relegated him to Nowheresville, convicting him for sundry crimes. None of these people were Nazis. The word gets thrown around uncontrollably. Now, if a schoolteacher assigns too much homework she is called a "Nazi" or "Hitler."

Furthermore, the Nazis were so obvious and up front about what they were all about. They rounded up Jews and put them in camps. They built a world class army and set about conquering the world. There was no subtlety to their methods, no finesse in their offense. If they were a football team, their strategy was to have bigger linemen blocking up front and to roll down field on the ground, minus any trick plays. They were scary and would have succeeded had the United States not existed, but their straight-forward approach made it easier to deal with them instead of procrastinating and trying to understand them for half a century. The threat was met and defeated. 12 years after they came to power their Thousand Year Reich was over and done with.

Communism, on the other hand, despite its defeat, will not go away soon. It is a product of class envy, poverty, reverse racism and disenfranchised peoples. There is little evidence that any political, scientific, cultural or economic advances will eliminate it in the first half of the 21st Century, or any time after for that matter. It is a curious brew of Machiavellianism based on the horrid idea that man does not desire freedom, but instead craves security. It mixed with anarchism, espoused by the Frenchman Rousseau and the American Thoreau, embodied by the Germans Marx and Engels, and the Russian Goldman. Its roots, therefore, are international, not relegated to the narrow self-interests of a country like Germany. It favors man over God, an intoxicating prospect for humanists. It enslaves most men under a few. Justice and equality are sacrificed at the altar of a "bigger picture" that will never be achieved. Because its heroes are martyrs who were killed or tortured at the hands of the "rich," the "imperialistic" and the "greedy," it attracts that most vulnerable of the "great unwashed." This makes it more than dangerous. It is a pernicious evil that spreads through the streets, infecting the mobs. It started in Germany, spread to Russia, took root in the Orient, and still has a beachhead in Latin America. Worse, it flavors politics in the freest of countries. It empowers socialized medicine in Canada, a strain of America-hating in the U.S., and gives heart to one-worlders who hope that the European Union will create a single entity. Having lost political and military power of the old colonial variety, they will instead take two steps back in order to take the proverbial one step forward under the disguise of a new, post-modern Communism.

Communist organizations still fund peace protest rallies in Europe and in the U.S. The mainstream media does not report it. When conservative talk hosts bring up the subject there is the vague notion that to do so is to espouse "crackpot" notions associated with supposedly out-dated John Birch conspiracies. The only problem is that the rallies really and actually are funded by the new Communist organizations.

Communism killed more people and did more damage over a longer period of time than Nazism. It did so because it was more "benign" on its face. The average American schoolchild will look you in the eye and tell you some such garbage about how it "was a good idea but it could never work," or "its intentions were good." The fact that otherwise-normal humans, who go to high school football games and shop at the Gap, can make a statement like that about something that killed more or less 100 million living, breathing people with families, hopes and dreams is the essence of why it remains so dangerous.

The mixture of Communism and anarchism is the most evil combination of all times. Because it must include anarchism to fuel the popular notion of Communism, it can never exist as active government, which is both a saving grace but a dangerous undercurrent. Because anarchism is the romantic backbone of Communism, it failed in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. It is in the process of failing in China and what we have in Cuba, North Korea (and Vietnam on a lesser scale) is nothing less than a cancer patient on its deathbed. The fact that Communism has failed as a governmental, political or military system does not mean it is not a danger.

The anarchic strain is what fuels it. There will always be anarchists. In the United States, there are people who hate this country ostensibly because we are "too powerful," i.e., too successful. To use the sports metaphor, this is the same as people who hate the Yankees because they are the best team. Being the best would normally encourage admiration, but it instead creates jealousy. Fans of other teams, frustrated that they cannot beat the Yankees, would like to see some form of "fairness" applied to make it easier for their White Sox, Tigers or Rangers to win occasionally. The fact that every team starts out each season 0-0, and all the games must be won on the playing field using equal rules that never change, does not cause these people to admire the Yankees. They still hate them because of the frustration they feel at having the faults of their teams exposed by the excellence of the Yankees. These fans are the metaphorical examples of Frenchmen and Germans and others who do not challenge for the "pennant" anymore.

To further make an example that applies baseball to American politics, consider that in New York City, there are numerous Yankee-haters. These are people born and bred in the Big Apple, and yet they hate a team that was founded there and wears the "NY" that represents their city. Why? Consider guilt. They are not comfortable being a part of a group that overpowers others and demonstrates its superiority. Superiority by one, unfortunately, infers inferiority in another. This is the great anathema of liberalism. At its heart is a desire to camouflage personal failure by cloaking ones' self in a larger group of failures, embodied by the age-old liberal nostrum that "misery loves company."

The best way to mask failure is to mix everything up in a mass of disorder. This is the opposite of government, and is the aim of anarchy. Anarchy cannot exist as government, but it can exist to complain and protest. Communists cannot govern, but they can complain. It has naturally evolved as the opposite of American values, which espouse freedom, entrepreneurial spirit, and the simple desire to excel. This propelled the transcontinental railroad, the space program, and all the other things that America accomplishes and other nations fail at. Therefore, the marriage of anarchism and Communism is the one thing that lives on, beyond the fall of Stalin's statues. It will not be eliminated, but it must be exposed!

Which brings us back to Lyndon B. Johnson and the Vietnam War. Historians have bitterly denounced LBJ's escalation of our commitment to the war. He was venial and power-hungry. Johnson also knew what Communism was. He knew that, unchecked, Communism in Vietnam would mean the overrunning of Saigon. He may not have known the exact details, the names, the personalities and the faces of death. He did know that somewhere out there, under the guise of the Communist banner, were the Pol Pots, the "re-education camps," the "killing fields" and the holocausts that Eli Weisel was warning the world to never let happen again.

He knew, instinctively and by dint of historical fact, that if it was not for the United States of America, the world would have evolved into one big concentration camp, with warring factions of Nazis, Soviet Communists, Imperialist Japanese, and Red Chinese competing in nuclear turf wars. He knew that if it were not for this beautiful country, Hitler's "final solution" would have become the popular assignment of an enthusiastic Arab world, happy to carry on "God's work." He knew that Communism was the one threat not yet eradicated by America. He knew that it had to be. Evil cannot be compromised with. He understood that and so did his advisors. He knew it was a dangerous world confronting the United States, and the challenge of stopping this evil challenge was, at that time and in that place, in Vietnam.

Vietnam is the one single event in American annals that might be called a "failure." I disagree. It obviously did not go as planned, and had tragic consequences for the soldiers who fought there, the people who loved them, the country they represented, and the citizens of Vietnam. But it cannot be viewed as a black-and-white issue. There are many shades of gray.

In looking at the war, the key period is the transition between Kennedy and Johnson. There are those, including Kennedy's most recent historian, Robert Dallek, who believe that Kennedy planned to de-escalate, and that Johnson misread this intent. Others have said Johnson had his own agenda and was in league with powerful military, industrial and intelligence forces. There aim? To make the world safe from Communism? To make the world safe for capitalism? To make the world profitable for arms dealers?

The war did not achieve its aim, which was essentially to maintain the Democratic independence of South Vietnam. An ancillary benefit was to wipe out Communism in North Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia. The opposite happened. The period of 1963-64 needs to be studied and the question asked, What else should we have done?

The first possible answer to that question is for Johnson to have accepted a negotiated settlement to end hostilities and pull out. From where I sit, this would have resulted in the Communist offensive of 1974-75 simply occurring 10 years earlier. The next possibility is Vietnamization. It was tried, but done half-heartedly. Had it been made more of a priority, then the south could have defended itself. My feeling is that the north was backed by the two biggest Communist superpowers on Earth. We counter-balanced that. Had we left, the south would have been destroyed. They could not and did not handle such an onslaught on their own.

Then, should we have just abandoned the project? This would have greatly weakened U.S. world prestige and provided the Communists with an enormous military, diplomatic and public relations victory. So what? Read on.

Perhaps a major "hearts and minds" offensive, orchestrated by the Central Intelligence Agency, similar to the Guatemala and Iran campaigns of the 1950s, could have saved the north from the Communist threat. We certainly did orchestrate such a campaign, and even went so far as to endorse a coup to get rid of the Catholic president in favor of a Buddhist one. There was a major "understanding gap" between the CIA and South Vietnam in the early to mid-1960s, and it does not seem credible that such a behind-the-scenes manipulation would have stopped the tanks and troops that only soldiers could keep from advancing south.

Now, what did the war mean? Had America not stood up to the threat and did what it did, the Communists would have completely taken over the entire region by the early 1960s. Since they eventually did anyway, it might be argued that all our efforts were in vain. This is hogwash. The U.S. sent a clear message that it would not stand for the further spread of Communism. It forced the Communist world to pay an enormous price in money, blood and tragedy to promote its ideology. The war became the wedge that Richard Nixon used to orchestrate triangulated diplomacy pitting the Soviets against the Chinese, thus spreading the seeds for Cold War Victory. We managed to get the two biggest Communist monoliths to think we were "reaching out," doing business" and "legitimizing" them, when we were pulling their strings and getting them to do our bidding. Only Watergate Democrats mitigated the success of this brilliant plan.

The immediate result of the war's "failure" was the fall of Saigon and the south; the Cambodian "killing fields;" Communist intervention in Africa and backing of terror-client states in the Middle East; Marxist interventionism in Central America; and weakened American foreign policy under the Gerald Ford-Jimmy Carter Administrations. But the war's effects stretch farther than just these short-term events.

The Soviets and the Chinese might have been emboldened by the pullout of U.S. troops, but they had not been convinced that this meant America would not stand up to them in the future. There was no indication of a weakened American resolve in Europe, and the supposed "weakened" America actually gave the Communists the incentive to do some things that exposed them. Most important, backing the war was too costly to them in terms of money, which their system could not support.

When Ronald Reagan took over, the Communists were on the march in Afghanistan. Vietnam had given them the resolve to expand, thinking the Vietnam-stricken Americans would not respond. If they were to stay solvent, they should have laid low, not tried to outspend us militarily, and stayed with the original Leninist plan of "two steps back and one step forward." Instead, they tried to take two steps forward and no steps back. Faced with a renewed American strength under Reagan, they went to too far. They exposed themselves, failing in Afghanistan, losing influence in Africa, losing in Central America, and finding themselves condemned for their Middle East terror associations. They were made to look bad when compared with the beautiful Ronald Reagan. They lost everything.

It may not be major comfort to the families of dead soldiers, the physically and psychologically paralyzed boys who came back broken men, that they were pawns in the chess game of good vs. evil known as the Cold War. But they all deserve a salute and the understanding knowledge that for the reasons herein outlined, they contributed in the larger sense to the eventual victory over Communism. God bless every one of them! All of those combined who spat on them, hated them and protested against them are not collectively so much as a pimple on the buttocks of just one of those brave soldiers.

The Vietnam War created an entirely new language of strange-sounding acronyms and Asian pronunciations. The following are the most prominent:

Annam \- The central of the three divisions of French colonial Vietnam, it was also the largest in geographical area. North of Annam is Tonkin, to its south is Cochin. The major city is Hue. Nghe An Province in Annam is one of the poorest, most crowded regions in Vietnam, but its people were known as the proudest, most creative and most stubborn. Ho Chi Minh grew up in Nghe An.

Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) \- The national army of South Vietnam, often advised by Americans in MACV. By 1965, after several defeats by the Viet Cong at battles like Ap Bac and Pleiku, Americans called ARVN the "Ruff-Puffs" because it was so ineffective.

Binh Xuyen \- The Vietnamese Mafia, based in Cholon, the Chinese suburb of Saigon. Their leader was Bay Vien who controlled major brothels and casinos in Saigon. The Binh Xuyen also controlled much of Indochina's opium production. Corruption in South Vietnam reached new heights when the Binh Xuyen paid off Emperor Bao Dai, who made Bay Vien chief of police.

Cao Dai \- An eclectic religious sect in southern Vietnam that combined aspects of Christianity, Buddhism, and western movies. Along with Christ and Buddha, Cao Daists also prayed to figures like Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. Headquartered at Tay Ninh near Saigon, the 2 million Cao Dai had a private army of 25,000 troops and paid little attention to South Vietnam's official government.

Cochin China \- The southernmost of the three divisions of French colonial Vietnam. Saigon is in Cochin China.

Containment \- An American Cold War strategy developed in the late 1940s. Containment called for the preservation of post-WWII conditions. Under containment, the U.S. would not challenge nations currently in the Soviet sphere of influence, but it would also not tolerate any further Soviet or Communist expansion. Articulated by George F. Kennan, containment was meant to apply primarily to Europe. However, it is part of a chain of ideas that would evolve into the Domino Theory.

**Central Office of South Vietnam (COSVN)** \- Central Office of South Vietnam. Allegedly, this office controlled all Viet Cong operations. It is not clear that such a location really existed, but the American military continually searched for it anyway.

**Détente** \- Free of moral thinking and unwavering principles, détente was Kissinger's conception, a belief in cooperation and accommodation among the super-powers based on mutual self-interest.

**The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)** \- The demilitarized border between the North Vietnamese DRV and South Vietnamese RVN.

**Domino Theory** \- First articulated by President Eisenhower, the idea that if any nation fell to Communism, the surrounding nations would be likely to fall to Communism as well, starting a chain reaction in which nations "fell" like dominoes in a line. The Domino Theory was used to justify U.S. involvement in Vietnam. According to Domino Theory, if Vietnam fell, all of Indochina and more might fall.

**The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV)** \- Led by Ho Chi Minh, the Communist government of North Vietnam after Bao Dai's abdication in 1945.

**Hanoi** \- Major city in Northern Vietnam (Tonkin). Capital for the DRV.

**Hao Hoa** \- A southern Vietnamese organization that combined Buddhism and nationalism. One of their leaders, Ba Cut, sliced off the tip of a forefinger as a symbol of his hatred towards France. The Hao Hoa built a sizeable army and in the 1950s counted over a million people as members. The organization was primarily anti-Communist.

**Hearts and Minds** \- The concept that winning the population's allegiance to Communist or anti-Communist ideals, rather than controlling territory or killing the most people, was the crucial battle in Vietnam. The U.S. operated under this principal up into the mid-'60s.

**Hue** \- Major city in central Vietnam (Annam province).

**Indochina** \- French colonial term referring to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam (Tonkin, Annam and Cochin China). The region is so called due to Indian and Chinese influence on its history and culture.

**Military Assistance Command of Vietnam (MACV)** \- A group of American military advisors aimed to prepare ARVN to fight against the Viet Cong. MACV's numbers steadily soared through the 1960s as the U.S. became more fully involved in Vietnam. General Westmoreland became head of MACV in 1965.

**Mekong Delta** \- The fertile river delta in southern Vietnam. The rich alluvial soil deposits left by annual flooding made farming in south Vietnam easier and more profitable than in the north. As a result, throughout Vietnam's history the northerners viewed the southerners as lazy and soft.

**National Liberation Front (NLF)** \- Formed in 1960, a central organization offering structure and support to the formerly isolated cells of the southern Viet Cong, the NLF pursued the war against the U.S. right alongside the forces of North Vietnam.

**NSC-68** \- National Security Council Memoranda 68. Authored primarily by Paul H. Nitze, this 1950 document portrayed world Communism as a single-minded, calculating entity. NSC-68 advocated a tripling of the U.S. military. No longer differentiating between peripheral and vital interests as in Kennan's containment policy, NSC-68 was another step towards the Domino Theory.

**North Vietnamese Army (NVA)** \- The North Vietnamese Army.

**NVN** \- Abbreviation for North Vietnam.

**Pentagon Papers** \- Daniel Ellsberg photocopied top-secret government reports dubbed the "Pentagon Papers," and gave them to the press in 1971. Initially the _New York Times_ published the papers. After a Justice Department injunction stopped the _Times_ from publishing the papers in their entirety, the _Boston Globe_ and the _Washington Post_ picked up and finished the publication. The Pentagon Papers revealed that the U.S. government had lied about numerous secret operations in Vietnam. As a result, distrust of the government soared.

**Rolling Thunder** \- A sustained bombing effort against NVN between 1965 and 1968. Rolling Thunder necessitated U.S. air bases in SVN, which in turn necessitated U.S. garrisons to protect them against the Viet Cong. These garrisons were the first American ground troops to land in Vietnam.

**Republic of Vietnam (RVN)** \- The government of South Vietnam, which Ngo Dinh Diem proclaimed in 1955.

**Saigon** \- The French capital of Vietnam, and the center of South Vietnamese government.

**Students for a Democratic Society** \- Active protestors against the war in the 1960s.

**Search and Destroy** \- A U.S. strategy of field operations designed to locate and kill Viet Cong forces. The policy, instituted and supported by Westmoreland, stood in contrast to the previous American policy to protect only "strategic enclaves," those areas that the SVN government still held.

**SVN** \- Abbreviation for South Vietnam.

**Tonkin** \- In the 19th century, Tonkin was the northernmost of three divisions of French colonial Vietnam. Hanoi is in Tonkin.

**Viet Cong** \- Akin to the American slang word "commies," a derisive term for Communists in South Vietnam. A guerilla force hidden among SVN's population, the Viet Cong were extremely difficult to find or target. Also called the "VC", or "Charlie."

**Vietminh** \- In the first Indochina War with France (1945-1954), the Vietminh were the North Vietnamese Communist resistance forces.

**Bao Dai** \- The Vietnamese emperor. Educated in Paris, Bao Dai was well versed in French culture, language, and brothels. Bao Dai abdicated in 1945 when the Vietminh took over the government. After the Geneva Conference split Vietnam in half, the French installed Bao Dai as a puppet ruler in the south.

**McGeorge Bundy** \- Dean of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, Bundy became part of Kennedy's talented Cabinet as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs in 1961. Continuing in Johnson's administration, Bundy pressed for escalating the Vietnam War, although after leaving his position in 1966 he became critical of further escalation.

**J. William Fulbright** \- A Senator from Arkansas and a Rhodes Scholar, Fulbright was a leading critic of the Vietnam War in Congress.

**Ho Chi Minh** \- Vietnam's leading Communist, as well as a passionate nationalist and anti-colonialist, Ho Chi Minh was born to a life of poverty in Nghe An Province (Annam). From 1911 to about 1930 Ho traveled the world, spending considerable time in France, London, New York and Moscow, working various jobs such as waiter and cook and gaining exposure to Western ideas, including Communism. On his return to Vietnam, Ho founded the Indochina Communist Party in 1930 and the Vietminh in 1941. From its founding to his death in 1969, Ho was president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

**Le Duan** \- Following Ho Chi Minh's death in 1969, Le Duan became one of the dominant figures in the DRV Politburo. He primarily controlled domestic affairs.

**Le Duc Tho** \- Le Duc Tho succeeded Xuan Thuy as the head of DRV delegation to Paris. He was the leading DRV diplomat who (often secretly) interacted with Kissinger.

**Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ)** \- Lyndon B. Johnson was Kennedy's Vice-President and became President in 1963 upon Kennedy's assassination. Winning the election in 1964, Johnson remained U.S. President until 1968, when he refused to run again. Educated at Southwest State Teachers College, Johnson was an often confusing individual who played various characters, from a Washington insider to a good 'ol boy to a Texas populist. Though he often was jealous of his associates' educational and social pedigrees, Johnson was a complex and skilled politician. Where the specter of Joseph Kennedy's pro-appeasement stance forced Kennedy into tough anti-Communism, Johnson claimed to oppose Communism because not to do so would be unmanly; under his leadership, U.S. involvement in Vietnam rose drastically. Along with foreign policy, Johnson focused on domestic policy, particularly race relations, in his "Great Society" program.

**John F. Kennedy (JFK)** \- John F. Kennedy was U.S. President from 1961 to his assassination in November of 1963. President Kennedy's father, Senator Joseph Kennedy, had been a leading American spokesperson for appeasement before World War II. Throughout his career, JFK sought to prove that he did not share his father's views - after all, many believed (and still do) that if not for appeasement, Hitler would have been defeated more quickly. Kennedy's senior thesis at Harvard, "Why England Slept" was a treatise on the mistakes of appeasement. He maintained an anti-appeasement stance from then on. Because of his father's political mistake, Kennedy was particularly concerned with proving that he was a hawk who would never allow "evil" nations any concessions.

**Henry Kissinger** \- Henry Kissinger, a Harvard-trained historian and political scientist (and the last person ever to get straight A's as an undergraduate), was Nixon's national security advisor. Together, Nixon and Kissinger made many crucial policy decisions with little input from the State Department. Kissinger was famous as an advocate of "realism." Instead of basing foreign policy on axiom and unshakable moral principles, Kissinger's foreign policy was based on calculation. Kissinger believed that interest, not ideology, was the basis of sound diplomacy.

**Edward Lansdale** \- In 1954, Lansdale became the CIA station chief in Saigon. Lansdale initiated some mostly failed psychological operations against the Vietnamese Communists, and spoke in favor of Ngo Dinh Diem to U.S. policymakers.

**Robert S. McNamara** \- Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations (1961-1968). Before that, McNamara had been president of Ford Motor Company. Initially advocating increasing U.S. involvement in Vietnam, McNamara started to question U.S. policy by 1966. After leaving the Pentagon, McNamara went on to become president of the World Bank, a position he held for over a decade.

**Ngo Dinh Diem** \- Born in 1901, Ngo Dinh Diem came from a family that was both Confucian and Catholic. His Christian religion would help endear him to many Americans, but alienated him from much of SVN's Buddhist majority. Extremely religious, Diem studied at seminary, including three years at a seminary in New Jersey. Returning to Vietnam, the fiercely nationalist Diem became a member of Emperor Bao Dai's cabinet. After realizing that the emperor was just a French puppet, Diem resigned. Later, with American backing, Diem became the president of the South Vietnamese Republic of Vietnam, ignoring the agreements of the Geneva Conference which promised free elections in 1956. Increasingly paranoid, he gave his family members important positions of leadership in the RVN, which they abused. Diem and his brother Nhu were assassinated in 1963 as part of a U.S.-approved coup. Despite the corruption of Diem's regime, Diem himself was a sincere nationalist.

**Ngo Dinh Nhu** \- Diem's brother, Nhu became a warlord and head of the secret police while Diem held office. Brutal, exploitative, and corrupt, Nhu was universally hated by the South Vietnamese population. The excesses of Nhu were largely responsible for the U.S. backed coup of November, 1963, in which both Diem and Nhu were assassinated. Because Diem was celibate, Nhu's wife, Madame Nhu, served as an equally hated _de facto_ first lady.

**Madame Nhu** \- Wife of Ngo Dinh Nhu and _de facto_ first lady of Ngo Dinh Diem's South Vietnamese government, Madame Nhu was a hated figure and public relations disaster. A sort of Vietnamese Marie Antoinette, Madame Nhu cared nothing for the struggles of Vietnamese peasants, and displayed a fondness for all things French, the hated former colonial masters of Vietnam. After a Buddhist monk immolated himself in mid-1963 in protest of Diem's persecution of Buddhists, Madame Nhu made the fateful comment that that she was "willing to provide the gasoline for the next barbecue."

**Richard M. Nixon** \- Richard M. Nixon rose to power as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the 1950s. Nixon then served as Eisenhower's Vice-President, but lost in a Presidential campaign against Kennedy in 1960. Nixon finally gained the Presidency in 1969, which he resigned in 1974. Although largely remembered for the Watergate scandal, his administration skillfully handled foreign policy with regards to Vietnam and the Cold War.

**Vo Nguyen Giap** \- Ho Chi Minh's leading general from the earliest days of the Vietminh. A former lawyer and history teacher, Giap proved his military brilliance at the battle of Dien Bien-phu in 1954, where he defeated the French to end the First Indochina War and give Vietnam more power at the Geneva Conference bargaining table.

**William C. Westmoreland** \- In 1964, General Westmoreland replaced General Paul Harkins as the U.S. Commander of MACV. Westmoreland constantly pushed for more American ground troops in Vietnam. He believed a battle of attrition would win the Vietnam War and instituted search and destroy missions. His direction gave U.S. troops a new purpose, but also put them in far greater positions of danger.

**Dien Bien-phu** \- In 1954, the French attempted to lure the Vietminh into a trap at Dien Bien-phu, where a central base with an airstrip was defended by three surrounding artillery bases. French General Henri Navarre expected the Vietminh to attack the central base, and believed his forced could then mow them down by fire from the artillery bases. Instead, Vo Nguyen Giap had Vietnamese peasants bring his own disassembled artillery pieces into the mountains surrounding Dien Bien-phu. The parts were brought up on bicycle and on foot, piece by piece. In the mountains, the Vietminh reassembled the artillery, and used their elevated position to bombard the French airstrip, destroying the French supply line. Next, Giap's forces attacked two of the three artillery bases before defeating the French at the central base. The decisive battle of the First Indochina War, Dien Bien-phu gave the Vietminh better negotiating power at the Geneva Conference.

**Geneva Conference** \- Held in 1954, the Geneva Conference dealt with the future of Vietnam. Thanks to Vo Nguyen Giap's stunning victory at Dien Bien-phu and the skillful negotiating of Pham Van Dong, the Vietminh secured their own country north of the 17th parallel. Also, a Vietnam-wide election was promised for 1956. This election never occurred.

**Gulf of Tonkin Resolution** \- Passed by the Senate in 1964 in response to the North Vietnamese attack on two U.S. warships in the Gulf of Tonkin, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution granted U.S. President Johnson broad wartime powers without explicitly declaring war.

**Tet Offensive** \- Tet is the Vietnamese New Year holiday. On January 30, 1968, the Viet Cong launched a general offensive throughout SVN. Although it proved a strategic victory for the U.S. in that the Viet Cong lost 10 times as many soldiers as the U.S. while gaining no ground, the Tet Offensive had a profound effect on the U.S. media's portrayal of the war. After the Tet Offensive, the media began to declare the impossibility of winning the war, and an already weary America turned harshly against the war.

On February 1, 1964, LBJ approved the continuation of Plan 34A, Operation Ranch Hand, Operation Sunrise. After William Bundy replaced Roger Hilsman, Lodge was replaced by Maxwell Taylor as Ambassador to Vietnam. General Earle Wheeler became chairman of the JCS, and William Westmoreland replaced Harkins as MACV Commander. In March, the U.S. expanded its air war.

On August 2, the USS Maddox fired at three patrol boats after the Maddox reported 22 torpedoes were fired on them. This was the infamous Gulf of Tonkin incident, which Johnson and his military advisors have been accused of creating in order to justify the war. As a New Deal Democrat who patterned himself after FDR, Johnson may have been inspired by Roosevelt's tactics in "allowing" Japan to attack the U.S. in 1941 as his excuse for "drawing in" the Communists, starting the war in Vietnam.

He went on TV a couple days later and asked Congress to pass Bundy's resolution giving the President the authority to take "all necessary measures" to repel attack and prevent further aggression. The resolution was approved by 466-0 in the House and 88-2 in the Senate (except Ernest Gruening of Alaska and Wayne Morse of Oregon). LBJ did not seek declaration of war or total mobilization for victory, choosing to wage a "limited" war.

The combined vote of both houses of the U.S. Congress to go to war in Vietnam and fight Communism was 546-2. Many members of both parties wanted to "bomb them into the Stone Age." With this in mind, a very important point must be acknowledged. Great value is placed on prescience. Winston Churchill is considered great, above all other reasons, because he alone advocated doing what needed to be done before anybody else. History teaches us lessons that we must learn from. When wrong-headed decisions that smell wrong-headed at the time turn out to be a disaster, there must be accountability.

But the decision to go to war in Vietnam, regardless of the machinations of the Tonkin incident, were not wrong-headed. It is not conceivable that in a great Democracy, with a two-party system, 546 elected representatives, most of whom were well educated and accountable to their country and their constituencies, were all wrong-headed. In light of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao; the gulags of Siberia and the brutal repression of Eastern Europe; in a world that in 1964 saw the world's largest country, China, tip the scales of the "nuclear club" in favor of the Communists, the world's most powerful nation saw itself as the last bulwark against the worst threat imaginable. Because the battle ground was a small agrarian country, and so many of its victims were tiny, uneducated Asians who fit perfectly into the liberal vision of victimhood, America has been painted as a bully; an imperialist, colonizing power; a war mongering giant unwilling to let people determine their own fate.

But in 1964, the lessons of history painted a different picture. It is in understanding what we know at the time that we must judge the artists. In judging this issue, using these criteria, determining that the U.S. did the wrong thing in fighting there simply does not wash. Determining that the way we fought there was wrong does.

At Bien Hoa, night mortar attacks on November 1-4 killed American personnel and 13 B57 bombers were damaged, demonstrating that U.S. bases were vulnerable and more soldiers were needed.

On November 3, Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater with 61 percent of the popular vote, and 486 electoral votes. Liberal Democrats dominated the 89th Congress. For the first time since 1938, bi-partisan conservative power was broken.

The Rolling Thunder bombing campaign followed. Two Marine battalions arrived on China Beach at Danang. On March 30, 1964, the U.S. Embassy in Saigon was bombed, and 20 people were killed. 20,000 more troops were sent in, although CIA Director John McCone (a conservative Republican) opposed the plan.

Domestically, two main factions were beginning to make their presence known. The Students for a Democratic Society, founded 1962, had already staged a large anti-war protest in D.C. At the University of California-Berkeley, a student named Mario Savio started the Free Speech Movement. Songs by Phil Ochs, Barry McGuire, and Joe McDonald opposed the war.

At Johns Hopkins, LBJ rejected Communist demands to stop bombing and withdraw, in return for a political settlement.

"We will not be defeated," he told the students. "We will not grow tired. We will not withdraw."

It is fair to ask what would have happened had Johnson accepted the settlement at that time. There is no evidence that this would have stopped the Communist advance, which had escalated at Dien Bien-phu a decade earlier. The evidence overwhelmingly points to an offensive with Saigon as the target, and all of Southeast Asia (Laos and Cambodia) next. The idea that the Communists could be trusted is no more feasible than Teddy Kennedy's promise not to drink and fornicate.

Westmoreland demanded 41,000 more troops. LBJ made the key decision to escalate. Two terms crept into the jargon of the commanders - "firepower" and "attrition." The plan was to wear down the enemy, to use spectacular technology on the ground and in the air, but not engage in full-scale, "total war" attacks like those ordered by Patton in World War II. John McNaughton's plan to destroy North Vietnamese dams and irrigation systems, which would flood rice fields and starve civilian population as the Nazis did against the Dutch in World War II, was not approved. This was a key decision which was held throughout the war by LBJ and Nixon. In retrospect, it may have been the biggest mistake of the war. The bombing of the dikes would have brought the Communists to their knees by the mid-1960s. It would have had devastating consequences. It is hard to imagine that those consequences could have been worse than nine more years of war. Because it was a tactic employed by Hitler, it was distasteful to the Americans. Chiang Kai-shek had done it, ruining numerous rural villages but gaining little militarily. He engendered hate and distrust, which later worked against him in the civil war with Mao. In choosing not to do it, the doctrine of historical judgment based on events at the time, rather than hindsight, is applied to Johnson and later Nixon.

Westmoreland wanted to invade the north, but did not gain approval. Instead, Combined Action Platoons were deployed to fight small unit actions in South Vietnam rather than the MacArthur-type action favored by Westmoreland. This brought to mind the conundrum of Korea, where MacArthur's brilliant Inchon landing resulted in re-taking Seoul. Shortly thereafter, despite MacArthur's blithe dismissals, the Chinese had crossed the Yalu, 1 million strong. The Americans, who thought victory was at hand and their boys would be home by Christmas, instead realized around Thanksgiving that it was a whole new war.

Truman had made the tactical decision to reject MacArthur's pleas for "total war," which meant invasion and occupation of North Korea. He did it because he felt such an event would draw the Soviets into the conflict, and in direct alliance with China he would be facing World War III with atomic consequences. There is no real way of knowing, even after opening Soviet archives, whether Truman was right. It is generally felt that he was.

Now Johnson sat in Truman's hot seat, and the buck had stopped at his desk. The question applied to Westmoreland's demand for invasion, and whether the Chinese would have entered the war if the Americans marched on, and occupied, Hanoi. The Soviet question was different by 1965 than it had been in 1950-51. The Russians and Chinese had split in 1959. This makes it less likely that they would have joined a military force with Red China over events in North Vietnam.

Now a comparison between Johnson and Eisenhower is in order. Faced with a similar situation, Eisenhower decided against any "small unit actions" and instead just negotiated a stalemate. Knowing the Communists were utterly untrustworthy, he set up a military presence at the 38th Parallel which exists today. For all of its bulkiness it has maintained the peace and prosperity of South Korea while the north simply disintegrated into the netherworlds that Communism disintegrates into.

So, should Johnson have set up a military DMZ in Saigon like the one in Seoul, and ended it there? There is, in the Vietnamese mindset, reason to believe such a plan might not have succeeded. In one way or another, the Vietnamese had been fighting various wars for the better part of 1,000 years. It was a way of life with them. They were tenacious and dedicated far beyond anybody's expectations. It is this "failure" of intelligence, to identify this aspect of their nationalistic character, in which blame can be firmly attached. There is little evidence, however, to point out how they could have given our intelligence agencies a clear idea of why they were so dedicated. It is a mystery. In subsequent years, Vietnamese refugees came to America with nothing but the shirts on their backs. In one generation they have transformed themselves into thriving small businessmen and educational champions. There simply are differences between people. The Vietnamese possessed what can only be assesses as superior qualities.

It is in the battle for their "hearts and minds" that mistakes were made. These were not little people, unworthy of us, lucky to have the big brother Americans as their benefactors. They are entrepreneurs, straight-A students, and survivors. However, half of this country had succumbed to Communism. This is not the natural reaction of entrepreneurs and straight-A students. It is in going further back, to the colonizing French, that the roots of racism and oppression laid siege on the Vietnamese national soul. To far too many of them, the white Americans looked an awful lot like the white Frenchmen before us. To far too many Americans, the Vietnamese looked an awful lot like the Indians before them. It was a clash of cultures again.

Corp areas were established, based at Danang, at Cam Ran Bay, in Saigon and at Bien Hoa, and in the south at the Mekong Delta. After LBJ's speech on June 12, 1965 did not explain escalation of the troops or the cost of war ($3 billion per month), Time magazine ran a cover story stating that a "credibility gap" now existed. Operation Starlight began. On August 18, the Battle of Chu Lai on the central coast in northern Quang Ngai, involving the 3rd and 4th Marine Divisions, resulted in the discovery of an extensive tunnel system allowing the Communists to run supplies. Can Ne village was burned by Marines using Zippo lighters, all filmed by Morley Safer of CBS.

The Battle of Ia Drang was fought from November 14-18, 1965 in a dense jungle on Plateau Kontum, southwest of Pleiku. The 1st AirCav Division fought against the 1st PANV Division under General Chu Huy Man, and marked the first major battle of the U.S. regulars vs. North Vietnamese regulars, both using modern weapons - M16, M79, CH47 Chinook heavy cargo helicopters, and close support from B52s. The U.S. won a Pyrrhic Victory, losing 234 men and shaking McNamara, now unsure of the "cost of the victory." The North Vietnamese took heart in their "victorious defeat," and made a "clinging to the belt" decision that they would accept high casualties while keeping the enemy engaged.

Encouraged by the steadfastness of the North Vietnamese, the Soviets increased aid, sending 200 SAM missile sites and 7,000 AA batteries. The U.S. decided to up the "hearts and minds" campaign, as if the Central Highlands could be modernized like the Tennessee Valley Authority. They built 2,500 miles of paved roads, six deep-water ports, and imported ice cream from Foremost Dairies.

At Christmas, against Rusk's urging, McNamara ordered a halt to the bombing, but troop buildup continued during the pause to 184,300 by December 31, 1965 (with 1,369 dead up to that point).

In early 1966, a study by John McNaughton and Adam Yarmolinsky concluded that air strikes had been ineffective. "McNamara's wall" ordered electronic sensors and landmines proposed to stop infiltration. Operation Masher on the central coast destroyed 15 villages, growing the refugee population. Walt Rostow replaced McGeorge Bundy as the National Security Advisor, and urged "surgical" bombings of petroleum, oil, and lubricant sites. Air sorties increased from 25,000 in 1965 to 79,000 in 1966 to 108,000 in 1967.

The Fulbright hearings began on TV in February, 1966. When CBS ran "I Love Lucy" instead of George Kennan's criticism of LBJ's policy, Fred Friendly resigned from CBS and joined McGeorge Bundy at the Ford Foundation. Operation Attleboro in the Iron Triangle, 20 miles northwest of Saigon, commenced in September. By Christmas 380,000 U.S. troops were "in country." In one year, the death toll had increased from 1,369 to 5008. 2 million South Vietnamese civilians were now homeless. As Sonny and Cher said, the "beat goes on."

1967 began with Operation Cedar Falls in the Iron Triangle, in which civilians were cleared out and massive bombing destroyed North Vietnamese tunnel complexes. The entire village of Ben Suc was destroyed. Devastating Arc Light bombing raids followed, using six B-52s at 30,000 feet. This destroyed a 1.5-square mile area. In Washington, Senator Robert Kennedy decided the war required re-evaluation. McNamara ordered a study that came to be known as the Pentagon Papers; 47 volumes by 30 analysts, including an ex-Marine named Daniel Ellsberg.

At Guam on March 20, LBJ rejected Westmoreland's request for more troops. It might have been around this time that he understood Sam Rayburn's quip that he would have felt "a whole lot better" if a few of Kennedy's "best and brightest" had "run for county sheriff." A Harvard or West Point degree did not seem to create any Southeast Asian wisdom. Now McNamara was looking more like the "genius" behind the Edsel than the "whiz kid" who could put the war into a computer and create "spreadsheet victory."

At the Battle of Con Thien, 200 U.S. personnel died and 2,000 were wounded, resulting in a critical article in Time. McNamara resigned to join the World Bank. He was replaced by Clark Clifford as Secretary of Defense. This was the turning point. Clark Clifford was a respected Washington legal mind, and a close confidante of Lyndon Johnson. Clifford seamlessly switched from dove to hawk, with no real backbone.

Attorney General Ramsey Clark was part of a cabal of liberals who hated American power and set this country back. In the years since the war, Clark has further demonstrated his hatred for his country, all under the false guise of "dove" or "peacenik." He is the perfect example of the "blame America" anarchism embodied by Emma Goldman. Whether Clark's mind "went" is debatable. It is hard to believe such a man could have been the Attorney General during a time of war. His politics since Vietnam became radical, but is it feasible that those were not his politics during the war? There is no evidence that he was a Communist spy. There is no requisite case that can be made for bringing treason charges against him, but he did as much to hurt this beautiful nation as a paid Soviet infiltrator. Clifford undermined the war, operating as LBJ's "guru." The President began to look to Clifford and Clark, Rasputin-type characters worthy of a John Schlesinger movie. Ho Chi Minh could not have picked better men.

John McNaughton resigned from the State Department to become Secretary of the Navy, which is like leaving as coach at Notre Dame to go to Georgia Tech. Ellsworth Bunker supported the re-election of Thieu and Ky, even though they got only 34.8 percent of the South Vietnamese vote. So-called "pacification" programs under the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support - the Phoenix program - began. The "neutralization" and removal of Communist agents in South Vietnamese villages removed 19,534 people, and 6,187 were killed. The Accelerated Pacification Program to rebuild infrastructure and villages also began.

LBJ met with the "wise men" on November 1, resulting in continued support of the war. George Ball was the only one to oppose the policy. At Khe Sanh, reinforcements were brought in to oppose large North Vietnamese offensives. By Christmas, 427,000 U.S. troops were "in country." 9,378 boys were dead. 1 million additional South Vietnamese became homeless in 1967.

1968 was one of the most contentious, important and violent years in American history. It rates with 1776, 1865, 1945, 1989 and 2003 as watershed years. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. Johnson chose not to run for re-election. Richard Nixon tapped into the newly identified Silent Majority, who propelled him to the Presidency. Race riots rocked Detroit, Newark and other cities. War protests rocked college campuses from Boston to Berkeley.

It started violently when the Tet Offensive began on January 30 in Saigon and 26 provincial capitals. Named after the Chinese New Year, the North Vietnamese orchestrated what was basically a guerilla/terrorist campaign. Militarily, it was a defeat. Psychologically, it was a victory. The weak-kneed in America collapsed. Walter Cronkite decided it was time for America to get out. The peace movement began to dominate Presidential politics during the Primary season. The troops for the first time felt the wrath of the Left, who failed to support them. Morale went down drastically.

It must be understood what was happening, and to continually remind the world just what the country was fighting. The protesters made it out as America dominating a small, rural country. The press entered the picture and used every single opportunity to play upon the emotions of good and decent people. They portrayed American soldiers as horrible racists, baby-killers, murderers, arsonists, rapists and kidnappers. Depictions of Americans feeding villagers, saving lives, and helping people were dumped. They replaced them with rare, trumped-up depictions of burning villages, children running from napalm attacks, psychotics carrying de-capitated heads, and questionable episodes in which possible Viet Cong were killed and served to the U.S. viewing public as murdered women and children.

Every act that was photographed in Vietnam was a re-play of events in World War II and every other war. War results in such horrendous occurrences. But the liberal press had decided, and taken it upon themselves, that the U.S. was too powerful and too influential. They used their newfound powers to try to change that. They lost context.

While I (and others) have depicted many of these people as "America haters," it should be pointed out that this term needs to be understood in context, too. Many of them actually do not "hate" America. They want America to be great, but have a different vision of what greatness is. They want America to change. They are uncomfortable with American power, or want this power to be used differently. In this respect, they are part of the Democratic tradition of dissent. The fact is, they do serve a useful purpose. Varying points of view serve to moderate and balance ideas, so as to keep them from tilting too far one way or another, which is what happens in totalitarian countries.

The question is, What would America be without the Left? Would the conservatives "go too far?" What does that mean?

There are some ways to answer that question. Whenever liberals come to power, they quickly discover that they are unable to do what they wanted to do, because liberal ideas are not feasible in the real world. Liberals fail to understand the important point that the U.S. has an obligation to wield its power in a dangerous world. It would have been nice if the French could have dealt with Vietnam without our having to jump in. It would have been nice if the French and the English could have stopped Germany in 1914 and again in 1939, but they could not. It would have been nice if, say, Australia had said, back in 1950, "Hey mate, we'll take care of the Communists at the 38th Parallel, we owe you that one," and won the Korean War without us sending our guys in to get killed at the Chosin Reservoir.

It would have been nice if India had said in 1980, "You know, we appreciate you fellows keeping Communism from taking over, and since Afghanistan is pretty close to use, we'll support the Mujadeen until the Russians leave. Then, when the Taliban come to power, we'll take the blame and deal with the consequences."

The U.S. deals with dangerous people, governments and leaders. This is the price of freedom. Teddy Roosevelt recognized this. Instead of having us shrink from our responsibilities, he decided we would be "in the arena." This meant taking credit for our failures as well as our defeats.

A free press has a responsibility to report the truth. What came out of Vietnam was distortion. In so doing, the press and the protesters were marching \- usually unwittingly, sometimes wittingly - for Communism. This needs to be recognized. Had the press reported from Europe in the same manner, they would have been marching for Nazism and Fascism. The great lie of the late 20th Century is the one that says Communism is not as bad as Nazism and Fascism. Thank God there those who know it is, and they were usually the ones in a position to do something about it.

In March, 1968, Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy won 42 percent in the New Hampshire Democrat Primary against LBJ's 49.9 percent. This was a greater shock to Johnson than all the street protests. It gave huge impetus to the demands of the press and the anti-war crowds to end the war.

Knowing he no longer had the support of the country, LBJ refused Westmoreland's request for 200,000 more troops. With Kennedy becoming more and more outspoken against the war, Johnson now faced more opposition with his own party than the Republicans, who were steadfast in their opposition to the Communist threat. He withdrew from the Presidential campaign on March 31. For a brief time, freed from electoral considerations, Johnson decided his legacy would be to end the war before leaving office, but he went about it the wrong way. He stopped bombing North Vietnam the day after his withdrawal speech.

He should have increased the bombing, softening up the north, and followed that with a full-scale invasion of North Vietnam, with the aim of conquering and occupying Hanoi just as MacArthur had succeeded at Inchon. A lightning strike could have achieved this aim once and for all, saving in the long run many lives, freeing the north from the yoke of Communism while securing the independence of the south. It would have struck a knife in the heart of Communist hegemony. It would have been bold and unpopular at first, until the Americans started achieving full-scale military objectives and victory reminiscent of World War II - liberating towns and villages and allowing millions of Vietnamese to live freely. It would have risked military involvement from the Chinese and the Russians, which was a huge consideration.

Instead, the Paris peace talks began on May 13 between W. Averell Harriman, Xuan Thuy for North Vietnam, and Nguyen Thi Binh. It was the opposite of the later "Kissinger doctrine," in that the U.S. was not negotiating from a position of strength. Martin Luther King's assassination on April 4 and Robert Kennedy's killing in June had the effect of stirring an underbelly of discontent in America. The results were streets swelled with protest. The lack of support for the war was the cancer that prevented Johnson from taking decisive action in Vietnam. The military, once heroic figures, found themselves on the defensive, pariahs in a changing land of long hairs, hippies, drug addicts, and psychedelic sex, all spurred by rock music that culminated in enormous concerts acting as de facto anti-war rallies. A generation gap emerged in which patriotism and the New Left frowned upon traditional values of family and faith. The liberals spread throughout the streets in an orgy of self-expression, unable to contain their glee over the fact that their perversions were now all the rage.

There was one "problem," however. From one end of America to another, millions of citizens stayed in their homes, watching television and reading newspapers. They did not take to the streets, shouting, screaming and causing hue and cry. They knew what Communism was. Many had fought the Nazis and the Chinese. They believed in God and understood that America was the last bastion of safety against a world that would be a giant deathcamp if not for us. They saw what was happening to their beloved nation and they did not like it. They were the Silent Majority.

In November, these "silent protesters" left their homes and ventured to polling booths by the millions, voting Richard Nixon into the White House. 30 years later Hillary Clinton would call these good people a "vast right wing conspiracy."

By the end of 1968, 528,000 U.S. troops were "in country" and 13,615 had died. 4 million Vietnamese were now dead.

LBJ: The conundrum

Born on August 27, 1908 in Stonewall, Texas, both sides of his family were political, but Johnson did not come from wealth. Like most people in the Texas hill country, he had a Baptist background and grew up around preachers and teachers. Both his father and his paternal grandfather served in the Texas House of Representatives.

After his graduation from Southwest Texas State Teachers College, Johnson taught school for two years. He went to Washington in 1932 as secretary to Representative Richard M. Kleberg (D.-Texas). During this time, he married Claudia Alta Taylor, known as "Lady Bird". They had two children, Lynda Bird and Luci Baines. Johnson notoriously used his position to work his way into positions of power and influence. He was more of a politician than the Congressman he worked for. An unabashed New Deal Democrat, he made contacts within the Roosevelt Administration. In Texas he became administrator for the National Youth Administration. Two years later, he was elected to Congress as an all-out supporter of Roosevelt, serving until 1949. He was the first member of Congress to enlist in the armed forces after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was in the Navy in the Pacific and "won" a Silver Star. In reality, he saw no combat and his "service" was a sham

Johnson was elected to the Senate in 1948 after he had captured the Democratic nomination by only 87 votes. Charges of flagrant voter irregularity surrounded the 1948 election. He knew how to manipulate the system. In those pre-computer days, especially after the war in which many Texans had died in Europe and the Pacific, there were huge numbers of "tombstone votes." Johnson had mastered the art of getting multiple votes from dead people. It was this tactic which was used to give the Kennedy-Johnson ticket the edge in Texas over Nixon 12 years later.

In five short years, Johnson emerged as the Senate Democrat leader, in 1953. He suffered a heart attack in 1955 but recovered fully. He was possibly the most powerful Senate Majority Leader in U.S. history. Johnson worked constantly. He strong-armed opponents and allies in a manner never before seen.

At the height of his power as Senate leader, Johnson sought the Democrat nomination for President in 1960. He entered the Primaries as the favorite and gave short shrift to Kennedy, who he considered a pretty boy with absolutely no record. But in the television age, Kennedy's looks and charisma won out amongst Democrat voters. When he lost, LBJ surprised even some of his closest associates by accepting second place on the ticket.

Johnson was riding in another car in the motorcade when Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963. He took the oath of office in the Presidential jet at Dallas' Love Airfield.

Under his stewardship, Congress finally adopted a far-reaching civil-rights bill, a voting-rights bill, a Medicare program for the aged, and measures to improve education and conservation. Congress also began what Johnson described as "an all-out war" on poverty.

He garnered nearly 16 million votes in defeating Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona in 1964, one of the biggest landslides in history. It was a memorable and important election. Goldwater was the surprise Republican candidate. Nixon had been the presumptive head of the G.O.P., but had run for Governor of California in 1962. After being defeated by Edmund "Pat" Brown, Nixon had given his "last press conference," telling the press they "wouldn't have Nixon to kick around anymore." He effectively wrote what at the time was thought to be his political epitaph.

Nixon knew Kennedy would be re-elected in 1964 and never made any attempt to plan a campaign. When the President was shot, he calculated, correctly, that his successor would be invulnerable and continued to stay out of the race. The party favorite after Nixon was Nelson Rockefeller, scion of the oil tycoon and a man with virtually unlimited monetary resources.

Elected Governor of New York in 1958, Rockefeller was a moderate in a party that was being split between the old school Easterners and a new class of "young Turks" from the Western states. Post-World War II suburban sprawl and air conditioning had created an electoral juggernaut in the West. Nixon embodied the new breed; anti-Communist to the core, entrepreneurial, many of them appealing to the ranchers and cowboys that made up their constituencies.

One of this appealing new breed emerged Goldwater. A fighter pilot during the war, Goldwater was half-Jewish, but he worshipped in the Episcopalian Church and was appealing to the land-owing individualists of the Arizona sprawl. Goldwater was an avowed anti-Communist who warned of the dangers of that ideology every chance he got. He believed in low taxes to spur business and promote families. Prior to 1964, the conservative movement in America had been largely unorganized in the West, where voters felt conservative but their strength was not coalesced. The John Birch Society was a strong organization, but their main focus was fighting Communism. There was little political organization that addressed all the other areas of social and domestic policies.

William F. Buckley had written "God and Man at Yale", helped form the Conservative Party in New York that garnered many votes in the 1960s, and been part of the Young Americans for Freedom. But Eastern conservatives were still looked upon as a semi-cult, in part because much of their philosophy was based on an almost-mystical following of the objectivist novelist Ayn Rand. Rand had written "Atlas Shrugged". She toured the country giving seminars in which she compared Aristotle favorably to Plato, ostensibly because Aristotle was more in favor of free enterprise than his predecessor.

But Goldwater coalesced the large voting power of the West. His nomination was assured when California backed him, on the strength of the new, conservative base of suburban Orange County, just south of Los Angeles. Orange County, the birth place of Nixon and part of his old Congressional district, had sprung up almost over night from endless orange groves into clean, friendly, safe towns like Fullerton, Yorba Linda, Anaheim, Villa Park, Tustin, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Huntington Beach, Seal Beach, Newport Beach, San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano.

Disneyland had located itself there. It was a well-scrubbed place, filled with sunshine, pretty girls, and an endless strand of perfect surf beaches. Its new, modern houses were filled with large families. The high schools were new, great athletes seemed to fall from the trees, and the population was utterly invested in the American Dream. They were veterans of two wars, educated and full of hope that America would stop Communism as it had stopped Hitler. Naturally, they were the most solid Republican voting bloc in the nation.

Rockefeller had sunk millions of dollars of his personal money into the campaign, which was sleek and run like a well-oiled machine. But Goldwater had captured the spirit of the New America; an America that could not be broken up by Godlessness, drugs and the morally relative softness towards atheistic Communism. He had started the modern conservative movement. Orange County embodied it. It was Orange County that pushed him over the top in the primary, giving him the California delegation. Rockefeller's chances were also hurt by the fact that he had left his wife and married a new woman named "Happy", of all things. This hurt him with the conservative base.

Johnson immediately set out to destroy him. Goldwater had made a speech in which he had said that extremism in the name of liberty was not a vice. The Democrats twisted and perverted the phrase until they had convinced many Americans that Goldwater was an extreme racist who planned to plunge the country into an awful war.

Johnson ran an advertisement that showed a little girl picking daisies in a field, followed by the image of an atomic mushroom cloud. The controversial ad was meant to make voters fear that Goldwater would use nuclear weapons at a moment's notice. Goldwater ran ads that said, "In your heart, you know he's right." The Democrats twisted that into, "In your guts, you know he's nuts."

Johnson campaigned as a dove, promising to keep America out of a major Vietnamese War, which he said Goldwater would do. Once elected, Johnson did highly, precisely, and to quintessential effect, exactly what he said Goldwater would have done.

"Johnson ran on the premise that if I voted for Goldwater I'd get war," said Republicans. "I voted for Goldwater, and I got war."

Goldwater was a man of honor and integrity. He served in the Senate for years, gaining a reputation for bi-partisan cooperation that earned him the respect and friendship of many Democrats, and the devotion of Republicans. He did not go out of his way to second-guess Johnson with any "I told you so" comments. But had he been elected President in 1964, the chances are that he would have quickly escalated the war in Vietnam with a purpose and resolve that Johnson, forced to cater to the pacifist elements of the Left, was unable to do. Goldwater very likely would have called the Communists' bluff with a full-scale invasion of the North, followed by the encirclement, conquering and occupation of Hanoi. The Communists likely would have been as caught off guard as they were when Reagan upped the ante in the 1980s, resulting in their collapse a few short years later.

Goldwater could have accomplished this task in 1965. By the time Nixon was President in 1969, the political climate had changed. The Left had coalesced the students, the professors and the media, making the kind of bold offensives that were needed to win the war too risky because public support was lacking.

Instead of a Goldwater Presidency that might have been among the greatest in American history, Johnson presided over disunity. His other legacy is the Great Society, which was a larger coalition of his legislation in the areas of voting and civil rights; health care, affirmative action, housing and efforts to end racial prejudice and segregation.

Johnson had both houses of Congress on his side in 1965. He was carrying out the legacy of the beloved, slain Kennedy. He had the martyred President's brother there to urge passage. LBJ had the wind in his sails. He got everything he wanted. It was one of the most sweeping mandates in history, and a domestic victory that few Presidents have ever so completely attained.

38 years later, history is able to render its assessment of the Great Society. Like the New Deal, it can be said that its time had come, and at the heart of the Society was a noble purpose. But it was an experiment, with no practical road map, and no successful test case to demonstrate what it could accomplish and what it could not.

In 1965, a young sociologist named Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a paper for Johnson's Labor Department in which he pointed out a troubling trend among black families in the urban cities. Since World War II, when many blacks had moved to northern cities to work in the shipyards and in wartime factories, huge numbers of black children had been born out of wedlock. By the '60s, they were now making up a dangerous core of urban youth - dispossessed, prone to rioting, often career criminals, and not invested in America. Troubling high percentages of black men were not married to the women who bore their children, and had not made any effort to be a part of these new families. What made Moynihan's report so disturbing was that these facts represented not a phenomenon, but a new trend. Unless it was stopped, he predicted disaster for black America. Black America was no longer considered separate from the larger country. The new politics were that if it was a disaster for black America, it was a disaster for America.

After the Civil War, blacks had been freed, but once the Federal government ended Reconstruction in 1877, the white backlash in the South had been terrible. Scapegoating the former slaves as reasons for the Confederates' defeat, a de facto state of slavery existed for the better part of another century. Finally, in the 1950s with Brown, Little Rock, Jackie Robinson and the de-segregation of the military, blacks were beginning to attain real freedom. When this occurred, they began to travel more, and to branch out. Unfortunately, the result of this was the break-up of their families. Christianity and family had always been the thing that held blacks together throughout slavery and Jim Crow. Freedom broke these rocks of their society apart. This is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions.

Moynihan addressed the issue and used a controversial term, urging "benign neglect" as a government policy in the inner cities. What he meant was that government assistance would, in his view, turn the blacks into a dependent class. He pointed out that blacks had survived their worst crises through entrepreneurialism. They were farmers and small business owners, supplying their own communities with goods and services that the whites refused to provide for them. Out of this they had developed self-reliance, economic power, pride, and most important, family strength. A typical black-owned business was a family operation, with all the members pitching in for a common cause.

Moynihan feared that if government filled the needs of these small businesses, the fragile black economic base would crumble in the wake of handouts that, like Communism, had robbed people of their desire to work hard, produce and strive. His term, "benign neglect," did not mean to "neglect" blacks' needs, as his detractors said. Rather, it meant to augment the existing black base. Metaphorically, Moynihan wanted to put a safety net under the blacks, not lift them puppet-like by ropes from above.

Johnson's social engineers could not abide by the Moynihan view. At the heart of the Great Society was a victim mentality that refused to ascribe any blame or responsibility on the blacks. To acknowledge that millions of them had abandoned their families, and their off-spring were now doing the same thing, was a Politically Incorrect assessment long before that term came into being.

Rather, the powerful new mantra of the Left was that black plight had been caused by white prejudice, which could only be remedied by white, i.e., government largesse. The iron that stoked the fire was based on the emotional weight of guilt, as old as man and at the heart of Judeo-Christianity. While the fact that much black plight had been caused by white prejudice, the lessons of socialism were not yet learned. The Soviets and Chinese were still engaged in a massive PR campaign to convince the liberal West that their citizens were better educated and more productive than their capitalist counterparts. The concept that people should "hold their own weight," "pull themselves up by the bootstraps," and adhere to "personal responsibility," were considered the racist rants of Goldwater, his white Republicans and their lousy 39 percent of the vote.

The most frightening message that the Left strove to avoid in these pivotal hours of decision was that white prejudice had actually caused blacks to be productive. Out of hardship they had been forced to pull together. The idea that they had built businesses, provided services for their community, and maintained Christian faith in part because of Jim Crow simply could not be allowed.

A small number of blacks quickly realized the sham of the Great Society. Out of this was formed the Black Muslims. Led until his assassination by Malcolm X, the Black Muslims preached self-reliance, hard work and education. They adhered to the strong moral tenets of Islam, requiring them to avoid drugs and alcohol, and to abstain from adulterous sex in favor of marriage and family. Malcolm X had started off as a radical. He was taught Islam while serving a jail sentence. He had adopted it at first because it seemed to be the natural alternative to Christianity, the "white man's religion" that prayed to a "blonde-haired, blue-eyed God." Malcolm X had eschewed the Christian message of Dr. King. By 1965 had had a major change of heart. He now advocated working with Dr. King and the white community in a joint effort to bring all people together. His book, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X", is a classic, one of the finest books ever written and one that every schoolchild should be required to read and talk about at length.

Malcolm X would have been a great American. He was a man of growth, constantly evolving because he had an open mind and possessed real morality. For this, his own people assassinated him in 1965. The Black Muslim community still preaches self-reliance, education and hard work, and for this they should be commended. However, their leadership is utterly corrupt, filled with the vile hatred of America and Jews spewed forth by the despicable Louis Farrakhan. There is no reason this group should have made the determination to place itself on the margins. They have the power to do enormous good. Instead they represent more tragedy, their value outweighed by the cancer that spreads from within.

The other problem the Democrats had with Moynihan's message, and any attempt to inculcate self-reliance into the message of the black cause, was the dirty secret of liberalism. This "secret," of course, is now thankfully a well-known fact. In 1965 the strategy of the Left was political, not social. If blacks were set on the path to self-reliance in the new America, a country filled with as much promise and opportunity as any place on Earth, at a time when old racial barriers were coming down, then there would be an inevitable result. That result would be that enormous numbers of blacks would become successful. They would become rich entrepreneurs and businessmen. Their children would become doctors and lawyers. Education would be the cornerstone of their communities. They would develop into patriotic, invested members of the communities they lived in, and the country they thrived in. Their success would impress their white neighbors, who would lay down their old prejudices in favor of admiration.

All of this sounds great, but if the root of it was self-reliance, then these people would not feel the need to pay back the Democrat party. Worse, all of this success would mean that blacks would be more likely to love America, want their high tax bills lowered, thank God in church for their good fortune, and maintain good schools (mostly private) for their kids. God forbid any of that should happen, since all those concepts are family values, and family values are the basic tenets of, gulp, Republicans!

Johnson's people came up with a great catchphrase: War on poverty. Huge sums of the national treasure were spent trying to create equality in housing, jobs and civil rights. But it failed. Years after the war on poverty, the devastation of America's inner cities is testament to the simple, inescapable fact that Johnson's programs were the wrong approach.

Money spent on schooling has become a major debate. Conservatives suggest that a great deal of money spent on education is wasted in bureaucracy. Teachers unions have devoted themselves to job security above the student needs. Competitiveness, the bulwark of all good results, has been removed. Teachers need not compete to determine who is the better instructor. Schools need not compete to lure students. Students need not compete to move on. Everything in public education has been reduced to an outcome-based result in which the process of learning is replaced with a system designed to allow low achievers to success without their failures being compared to the successful students.

Home schooling and private education have been the successful conservative answer to the perils of public education.

Of all the bad liberal ideas of the Great Society, perhaps none was worse than busing. This concept entailed sending white kids from the suburbs to schools in the ghetto, and black and minority kids from the ghetto to schools in the suburbs. The minority kids certainly benefited from this system, getting the chance to go to clean, safe schools with better teachers. But the downside was horrendous. In essence, busing had the effect of families achieving the American Dream - a nice house in a safe neighborhood near good schools, the result of hard work and benefits earned - only to have the government penalize them for having the temerity of achieving things that contrasted with low achievers.

For black families who had worked their way out of the ghetto, it was a boondoggle in which, after all their efforts, they found their kids bused back to the neighborhoods they had escaped from. If busing was to work, the government should have simply built more schools in the suburbs and bused all the inner city kids in, without forcing white kids into the ghettos. But this would not have been a "fair" thing to do. It would have acknowledged that ghetto schools were bad, and the fiction of liberalism is that everything is "equal."

It should be acknowledged that somewhere in the racial politics of Johnson's Great Society is genuine hope. It was not entirely devised to enslave blacks to liberal prescriptions, and to create a 90 percent voting bloc. Johnson, the Southerner, deserves kudos for overseeing the first real governmental action since Reconstruction that addressed the plight of African-Americans. Furthermore, the rule of not judging history entirely by hindsight should be put into place here. It is only in viewing it through the lens of time that it fails. In understanding its failure, it is also instructive to note that Johnson's programs only passed because the Republicans got behind them by a large majority. Southern Democrats blocked all of it, and it was only with G.O.P. support that the Society came to be. Furthermore, many of the programs, which required years of study, staffing and development before they came into fruition, came into full enactment not under Johnson, but under Nixon.

Nixon, the conservative, was a politician living in, as the Chinese say, "interesting times." He was under pressure from the John Birch wing of the Republican party to disavow the Society, and he could have done so. But Nixon was not as socially conservative as his reputation might suggest. He did not benefit from Republican majorities in the Congress, and made the decision to compromise on a number of issues. He was bitten badly for this decision, but he did enact major programs in the area of medical care, cancer research, environmental protection, and other areas.

The Great Society was a huge program of disparate type. Therefore, judging it must be compartmentalized. Its environmental programs were needed at the time. Over the years, power was created and given to agencies that has been badly abused, making much of the modern environmental movement not advocates for clean air and water, but de facto collection agencies that hold businesses up like old-time gangsters robbing stores to pay for "protection."

Social security came about under Roosevelt, and at the time was a reasonable program. Now, it is bloated and corrupt, the very symbol of bad government. It is too powerful to be touched. The medical programs enacted under Johnson - Medicaid and Medicare - have done a great deal of good for people, particularly the aged.

The biggest complaint with the Great Society is in the social engineering aimed at improving the lives of blacks. Moynihan's warnings all came true. Black crime rose horrendously and continuously, along with the rate of single mothers. The break-up of the black family owes itself to the welfare state provisos that Johnson thought was compassion. The only thing that has saved blacks has been to move out of black neighborhoods where, residing amongst whites, they could not live in government housing. Instead, they had to compete for jobs in a world in which there are fewer excuses for failing to achieve productivity and excellence. But for those left behind in the cesspools of the inner cities, the welfare checks sapped people of hope and ambition. The worst part of this is that the result; lazy blacks, men pimping their women; prostitutes shooting up; babies on crack; black-on-black crime; violent, rampaging Negroes, armed gang wars, and humans living as animals; has had the awful effect of promoting the racist stereotypes of those who do not want them to succeed, anyway. It has also exacerbated the front-line tensions of urban blacks and police.

The police see life in these places, unfiltered by liberal spin, but raw and uncut. The cop's first job is to survive, and their survival mechanisms often result in menacing and intimidating behavior around the blacks. Many cops see blacks in their worst environment. They are not as likely to see the many blacks who live good, decent lives. Even black cops in the cities fall prey to this "us vs. them" mentality. Over time, being human, the cops cannot help but develop a military mindset in the "war zones" of our worst urban cores. Blacks and other minorities are to often pitted against them. The result of this can be violent and unsettling. It did not need to be that way.

The other failure of Johnson's Great Society is affirmative action. There are, essentially, two kinds of affirmative action. The first is the one that emerged from the Johnson years, which is an attempt by the government to correct past wrongs by assigning a quota of blacks and other minorities into schools, jobs, the government and other institutions without major regard for qualifications. The theory is that the qualifications cannot be fairly assessed, since minorities grow up in disadvantaged areas and attend poor schools. Their grades, test scores and other criteria are "culturally biased". This is inherently wrong for several reasons. First, not all minorities fall into the "disadvantaged" category, and second it is just plain unfair. The argument against this is that the modern unfairness tips the schools of past unfairness. There is some emotional resonance to this argument, but at the end of the day it causes more problems than it solves, on multiple levels.

The second kind of affirmative action is the one the Republicans eventually put into place, and it is of real value. This is the policy based on the concept that diversity is good; that the experience of different people working, going to school, and striving together for common goals, is a fine thing. The diversity argument does go too far, in education especially. For instance, it is true that it may be beneficial to society for a white student from Kalamazoo, Michigan to sit in a classroom with a black student from Detroit. Preferably, they will talk to each other, exchange ideas, maybe involve themselves in a group project. If everybody is lucky they will drink beer, go to football games together, and at the end of the year visit each other's homes. But it is not true that either the white guy or the black guy can get a quality education only if the dude or gal sitting next to him is a different ethnicity.

What is good is not quotas or lowered standards. What is good is recruitment. A school, a company, or some other institution may look at its roster and say to themselves, maybe with some incentive from the government, but not based on the threat of sanctions or fines, that their roster is heavily white, or perhaps heavily male. They may look about and say that it would be of benefit if they had more women, blacks, Hispanics, or other minorities, as part of that roster.

Then the organization makes the determination that they need a certain number of slots to be filled, either through expansion, or for some other reason. Next, they determine what it is they need to fill those positions; qualifications, experience, education, etc. Then they identify a series of minority candidates who have those qualifications. If they cannot find minority candidates to fill the positions, they fill them with non-minority candidates and keep looking. The process is no different that a football coach who needs two running backs for the next season. He scouts players, identifies a few who have what he is looking for; size, speed, strength, stats, experience combined with work ethic, attitude, and school success. He recruits them and offers scholarships. Some accept and some do not, and hopefully he has a winning season.

The biggest myth about affirmative action is that, without it, minorities will be forced back into their depressing, underprivileged environments. Take college, for example. Say the minority wants to attend a public college like UCLA. Fine school, great alumni contacts, and a place where a kid can drink a fair share of beer and have fun. But the minority does not have the grades to get into this very competitive institution. Does this mean he or she goes back "to the block" and opens a crack house? If the kid has what it takes to even be considered by UCLA, that person is not likely to open a crack house. The chances are the student goes instead of to UC-Riverside, or Irvine, or some other fine institution of higher learning in the UC system. Okay, so they do not get into a UC school. Crack house? Think again. There is nothing wrong with Cal State, Northridge, or Fullerton, or Cal State, LA.

Take the minority student in California, denied by the "system" the chance to get ahead through education. Denied by whom? Not by the system. The black kid growing up in Watts just has to stay out of trouble enough to graduate from Locke or Fremont or Dorsey High School. This is an act of self-reliance that is simply beneficial for society to impose upon the student. Maybe these are not great schools. Maybe it is not the same as attending Chadwick, a private school in Palos Verdes Estates, or Rancho Santa Margarita, a mostly-white school of affluence in Orange County. But it is a school, and if one wishes to learn, they can make it through. Challenges? Sure, but not insurmountable ones.

Now it is on to L.A. Southwest J.C., a junior college located in the general Watts area. Not glamorous, perhaps, but it is a school and the cost to attend is almost nothing. Two years at Southwest, and with a little determination that student can transfer to nearby Cal State, Dominguez Hills. It costs a few bucks to attend, but it is not impossible to contend with the situation. A part-time job helps, and some readily available financial aid is available. With some more determination, two or three years later, we have ourselves a college graduate, complete with cap, gown and dreams. All of it done without affirmative action.

Say the kid was good in numbers and graduated with an accounting degree. Will a Big Three accounting firm in the downtown L.A. financial district hire him? If he had good grades, presents himself well, and the firm is recruiting with an eye for diversity, there is a chance that will happen, but it is not likely in a competitive situation like that. Crack house? No way.

Our intrepid graduate calls Accountants on Call, or some other placement firm, and probably starts out with temporary assignments. Maybe he has to do something else to make ends meet for awhile, but he is invested and he is not going to open that crack house. Is this person going to succeed? The chances are he will. It will not be easy and he will struggle, but is this not the regular scenario?

Johnson's affirmative action policies did not take into account these kinds of storylines. Granted, the world was different in 1964-65 than it is in 2003. But the original quota system, that said that White Student was not admitted even though she had better qualifications than Minority Student, in the long run did not benefit most of the other Minority Students. Affirmative action failed to take into account the beauty of America's market place, where hard work and ambition are like cream, which rises to the top.

Johnson's Presidency has been judged to be a failure. His Vietnam policies proved to be a disaster. There are plenty of people on the Left who revere his Great Society, and by no means is this an attempt to defame the Society. The 1960s were extraordinary times. Up until that decade blacks in America had lived in a netherworld of poverty and racism. Something needed to be done, and LBJ took bold steps. Failures of his social policies that manifested themselves in the 1970s and '80s cannot be entirely blamed on what he was doing in the mid-'60s. Conservatives tend to a certain amount of smugness, which comes with being on the right side of history more often than not, but they are not infallible. A grudging admiration is due Lyndon Johnson. Most of the people who worked for him swear by him, especially African-Americans. Simply paying attention to blacks was something extraordinary at that time, and they were grateful for it.

Johnson was a man of huge ego and bluster. He wanted desperately to leave a Texas-size mark on history. His support for the space program is a shining star of his legacy, and the space center in Houston is named after him. Black-and-white images of LBJ are part of Americana. Thousands of college students marched and cursed him. There is a sense that the collective conscience of these people is tinged with some guilt for having done that, somewhat they way people felt badly about cursing Abe Lincoln when he was gone. LBJ was a good American put into a very difficult position, and represents an interesting aspect of history.

LBJ held all the cards in 1965. He had his electoral mandate, his party controlled the Federal government, he passed his social programs, the space program was flying right, and he had popular support for a war against an expansionist evil that was no longer a mystery. In four years, most of it went wrong.

Abe Lincoln, on the other hand, had assumed the Presidency in 1861 under conditions that required him to enforce martial law. He was reviled by his opponents, ridiculed by his supporters, and had no mandate. Out of this disaster he rose to greatness.

Was Abe Lincoln, by character and training, that much better than Lyndon Johnson? Yes and no. Lincoln was extraordinary, but he was a man of extraordinary times. Of course, Johnson faced extraordinary times, too. There is little to suggest that he met the challenge of these times as well as we wish he had.

Where is God in all of this? If America is indeed sanctioned by God, which is the theory this book promotes and is the thinking behind the CIA characters in Norman Mailer's novel, "Harlot's Ghost", then where was He from 1965-69? This was a period of test for this country, so confident and hopeful just a few years prior. There were lessons learned from this era, however, that in the end offer as much in value as an easy victory. It is most unfortunate that these lessons came with terrible personal tragedy that affected millions.

Finally, the strength of America emerges from the Johnson years as the ultimate survivor. This nation faced a near-civil war at home, but like in Lincoln's time, it held together. As for the war against Communism, the Vietnam War was a setback, but the Cold War was still won. Some have pointed this out and say that Communism was going to fall anyway, that Vietnam and all our machinations were unnecessary. I cannot disagree more. Anybody who studies Marxist-Leninist philosophy, and what came out of that, would be a fool to advocate such an idea. Communism fell because the U.S. defeated it. While his five-plus years in office might not be the shining light of this fight, Johnson nevertheless deserves his place with all the other Cold Warriors who stood toe-to-toe with the enemy, stared him in the face, and fought on behalf of this battered yet beautiful nation.

The pressures of public life took their tool on Lyndon Johnson. He retired to Texas. Without the Senate or the White House to preside over, he first died mentally. He was physically gone a short time later. On January 22, 1973, he suffered a heart attack at his ranch and left this mortal coil.

Vietnam and triangulated global diplomacy

By the time Richard Milhous Nixon took over as President of the United States on January 20, 1969, the Vietnam War was entirely unpopular at home, and had poisoned our relations with Europe. Nixon and his National Security advisor, Henry Kissinger, had a plan to use the war to turn the two rival Communist powers, China and the U.S.S.R, already at rift with each other, further into global rivalry. The U.S. plan was to place themselves into the role of arbitrators, using both of them for our own purposes. It was brilliant.

Nixon did not have the public support to fight the "total war" that was necessary to achieve ultimate victory in Vietnam. He had to make do with what he did have. Eight years earlier, Kennedy had stolen the election away from him with the Cook County and Texas voter frauds. This created profound changes in the global landscape.

In his first term, Kennedy had met Nikita Kruschev at Vienna. Kennedy, who had used his looks and charm to his advantage his entire life, entered the summit thinking he could do the same. He felt that reasonable argument would prevail, and made a major point of indicating to the Soviet Premier that if the two countries engaged in nuclear war, 70 million people would die. Kruschev just looked at him as if to say, "So what?"

Kruschev, the hero of Stalingrad, had seen more war than any man should ever see. He had no desire to see more. But he had decided to hard-line Kennedy, to make the young President think that no sacrifice was too great in the name of the Communist cause. This was the big trump card of Marxist-Leninist theory, the idea that people in the present were never more important than the goal, the plan, the future - some utopian land that everybody would occupy once "purification" had rent it of the bourgeoisie.

Kennedy had tried to convey a tough message in his Inauguration speech, espousing the idea that the U.S. would tackle any task, help any friend, and oppose any foe. But Kruschev knew that JFK was bluffing. At Vienna, he sized up Kennedy and determined that he was still a "boy," controlled by his father, part of a political philosophy that had aided and comforted Communism during the McCarthy era, and not willing to put his prestige on the line to oppose him.

This decision manifested itself in two areas: The Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam. After the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy was on his heels. He was not prepared to launch any military offensives against Communism after the Cuban fiasco. Kruschev knew it.

The question is, What would have happened if Nixon had been in the White House, as he should have been? Nixon was the most ardent, hard-line anti-Communist politician in America. While McCarthy was posturing, Nixon was detective work, rooting out Communists. His big prize was Alger Hiss, a top State Department aide to Roosevelt and one of the architects of the Democrats' post-World War II reconstruction strategy.

Hiss was an erudite Harvard man, the darling of the liberal Left. They protected him at every turn. Then Nixon came along; young, a Californian backed by the despised right wing of the post-war West. He was the son of a failed grocer who lacked the "class" and "sophistication" of the Democrat elites (Adlai Stevenson, Joseph P. Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt, et al).

Nixon immediately pointed out the truth, which was that Hiss was a Communist spy and there were many others like him in the government, in Hollywood, and on the college campuses. The liberals hated him for identifying and exposing their lies. When he nailed Hiss to a conviction for perjury, his triumph fueled their hatred.

Nixon used his notoriety to run for the Senate against Helen Gahagan Douglas, the wife of acclaimed movie star Melvyn Douglas. Mrs. Douglas was not a Communist, but she represented a Left wing Hollywood attitude that was an unwitting ally of Moscow. Nixon pointed it out and said she was "red right down to her underwear," and dubbed her the "pink lady." California was very conservative in those days, and Nixon's politics were electoral gold. He went up and down the state and called Chairman Mao a "monster," and after his election he quickly came to the attention of Eisenhower, who made him his Vice-President. After the Vietminh overran the French at Dien Bien-phu in 1954, Nixon proposed the use of atomic weapons to stop Communism in its tracks, perhaps once and for all. His proposal was not accepted, and in fact the Vice-President did not advocate it. But the fact that he even put it on the table for consideration indicated that Nixon was not a man to be trifled with when it came to the Communist threat. Nobody understood that better than the Communists themselves. Nixon learned a valuable lesson, too. His enemies (foreign and domestic) thought of him as slightly unhinged and more than a little bloodthirsty. Nixon did not try to play that image down. He let it work for him. In prosecuting war and peace with an enemy who respected only force, it was his best trump card.

Nixon stood up to Communists in face-to-face confrontations in Latin America, and earned heroic status for his bravery. He met Kruschev and debated him in Russia and the U.S., including the famous "kitchen debate" in which the two matched the relative merits of their respective systems while standing in a kitchen that they were touring. He was intimately involved in CIA plots to disrupt Communism in Latin America. He was the driving force behind the plans to invade Cuba after Castro's revolution, which were the early stages of the "Mongoose" plan orchestrated by Central Intelligence to eliminate the Cuban despot.

During the 1960 election, Nixon pointed out that 800 million people lived under Communism, and only 500 million lived under freedom. He lost many votes because he was unable to discuss the top secret plans to topple Castro, and when goaded by JFK about it he held his tongue.

Had he taken office, history may very well have been written much differently. First of all, the Bay of Pigs operation probably would have succeeded. Kennedy did not allow American plans to support the amphibious ground forces. Nixon had been part of the planning of this operation since its inception. He was behind it all the way, and the disruption between the Eisenhower team and the new Kennedy boys changed the direction of the plan. Nixon's entire political base was firmly behind removing Castro and doing whatever it took to destroy Communism. He would not have felt the need to kow-tow to dovish elements within his own party. As for the Democrats, they hated him anyway so he was not going to win with them no matter what he did.

If the Bay of Pigs had succeeded, Castro would have been removed and Cuba would have been free. It would have been a major victory for Nixon, the United States and the Republicans. The Cuban Missile Crisis never would have happened. Even if the Bay of Pigs had failed under Nixon, the Cuban Missile never would have happened. Kruschev, knowing that Nixon was the man who convicted Hiss, called Mao a "monster," talked about atomic bombs at Dien Bien-phu, planned CIA operations against Communism everywhere, stood up to it and was a heroic anti-Communist figure who had boldly taken the action to remove Castro, never in one million years would have put nukes on Cuban soil!

If Nixon had been President beginning in 1961, not only would the Cuban invasion have worked and the weapons never have been shipped to the island, it is very likely that Communist adventurism in Southeast Asia would have been curtailed. The decision to expand beyond Dien Bien-phu and to take bold military action into South Vietnam, most likely would not have occurred. This is, of course, historical speculation. The Kennedy Democrats no doubt hate it and will try to discredit it. Of course, none of that changes the fact that it represents an extremely likely scenario.

Finally, assuming everything did happen as it did, Nixon's military strategy around 1964-65, when the war escalated, most likely would have been bold, like Goldwater's would have been. Not held back by the constraints of his own party, he might have done the difficult, necessary work to get rid of Ho Chi Minh. He would have faced opposition from Democrats in Congress. Had he been in office for four years, chances are his coattails would have changed the political face of the House and Senate in the 1962 and 1964 elections, giving him greater G.O.P. support than the poor Republican representation that was there during this period.

It was during this pivotal time that he U.S. could have orchestrated victory there. Instead, Johnson went into the conflict, as Sam Rayburn bitingly said, "by inches." This strategy failed. By 1969 the kind of full-scale victory Americans were used to was no longer likely.

With Nixon in office, William Rogers replaced Dean Rusk as Secretary of State, Melvin Laird replaced Clark Clifford as Secretary of Defense, Henry Kissinger replaced Walt Rostow as National Security Advisor, General Creighton Abrams had already taken over from Westmoreland, and Admiral John McCain replaced U.S. Grant Sharp as the head of CINCPAC.

Nixon faced tough sledding because the media and the protest movement were in full force against Vietnam. Bobby Kennedy had changed the entire outlook on the war, advocating a complete withdrawal. The Left now demanded nothing less. Nixon's anti-Communist credentials were viewed as the archaic ramblings of a political dinosaur. Liberals wanted to end the Cold War and had adopted the politics of peace, love and uni-lateral withdrawal.

The Communists watched all of this from their perches in Beijing and Moscow, almost besides themselves over their good fortune. America seemed to be in a state of insanity. If they continued in this manner, everything they had worked for would be handed over to the Communists. The U.S. would cut and run from Vietnam. After that it would only be a matter of time before the Americans gave in over Berlin and Seoul. Had Bobby Kennedy been elected President in 1968, and there is little to suggest he would not have had he lived, then the damage done by unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam in 1969 would have been incalculable.

The question is again posed: What forces were at play? Were the Kennedy assassinations random acts of violence, or part of an ironic, cosmic plan? The idea that the uncharismatic Richard Nixon was by turns the victim of Kennedy avarice and the beneficiary of their murders is anathema to the liberal mindset. His eventual tragic fall via Watergate, when he was searching for dirt on Teddy Kennedy, caps a bizarre, 14-year period that changed America forever.

In 1969, the conservatives were in power, and Communists knew their window of opportunity had passed. Had Hubert Humphrey been elected, it would have been clear sailing for them. They would have just let the American Empire self-destruct right before their eyes. But it did not happen, thank God. Instead, the Nixons came in with a

"two-track" approach that separated military and political conflicts.

The plan was for Hanoi and Washington to negotiate a military solution, while Saigon and Hanoi negotiated political solutions. The "Vietnamization" policy was put into operation, aimed at transferring the burden of the war from the U.S. to ARVN. Kissinger created a "carrot and stick" strategy, deciding to always negotiate through strength. Nixon placated the anti-war crowd with a proposed "mutual withdrawal" of troops, and reduced the bombing of North Vietnam.

In the mean time, he ordered Operation Menu, the secret bombing of Cambodia beginning on March 18, 1969. The Communists had created bases, camps and supply lines in Cambodia. Nixon was not going to let them get away it. The bombings continued until 1973, with 16,527 sorties dropping 383,851 tons of explosives on Cambodia.

When the story leaked to the New York Times on May 9, Kissinger ordered wiretaps on seven NSC staff and four reporters. 241 U.S. soldiers died at "Hamburger Hill" in A Shau Valley on May 27, and after that 25,000 troops were withdrawn on June 8. The White House called this a "meaningful signal" that the war was winding down. They found themselves involved in a delicate situation. On the one hand, they were negotiating through strength with the Communists, bombing them into submission and making them pay for any deceptions. On the other hand, the Left had grown strong politically, and international support for the American position was in line with the Left. Nixon had little real support other than the Republicans, but they were increasingly marginalized. The Silent Majority was still with him, but their "silence" made it seem as if they did not exist. Nixon was determined not to commit national suicide. He knew that what he was doing was unpopular, but was as necessary as air is to a suffocating man.

In July, Nixon made his Pacific trip to meet with Thieu and Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. What emerged was the "Nixon Doctrine" promising that the U.S. would honor treaties and extend nuclear shield to allies, but not U.S. troops. The press dubbed this "global Vietnamization." Kissinger was engaging in the secret Paris peace talks at the apartment of Jean Sainteng. On September 2, Ho Chi Minh died. A Politburo committee consisting of Pham Van Dong, Le Duan, and General Vo Nguyen Giap replaced him.

Kissinger and Polish Ambassador Walte Stoessel proposed talks in Warsaw with the Chinese to begin in 1970. The national mood continued to swing further and further against the war. People did not see the delicate diplomacy of Kissinger. In October, a Vietnam Moratorium Committee was established and 250,000 marched in D.C. In November, one year after his election, Nixon made a direct TV appeal to the Silent Majority, asking for their support. A moratorium demonstration of 500,000 in D.C. on November 15 was the largest anti-war demonstration yet. As the streets exploded, the college campuses were rocked with anarchy, and the press raged against him. Nixon feared chaos and disorder.

Then Seymour Hersh published a story about the My Lai massacre of 500 civilians that had occurred on March 16, 1968, led by Lieutenant William Calley. This story had the effect of inflaming the anti-war populace beyond control. The My Lai case was an awful moment in U.S. history, but the way the press handled it was wrong. The Hersh story seems to be true, although the fog of war creates opportunities for mistakes in deed and interpretation.

It was portrayed as callous Americans murdering innocent civilians for little reason beyond the love of death. Two things were missed from the general public discourse surrounding My Lai. First, the "innocent civilians" of Vietnam were often Viet Cong guerillas. By not wearing uniforms or operating under recognized military command structures, they looked and acted like civilians. Many were running supplies to the North Vietnamese regulars. Worse, many were women and children. Combating them put the U.S. forces in a lose-lose situation.

The other fact of life that the press refused to address as a counter-balance to My Lai and other like stories was the torture and murder of American POWS by the Communists and the Viet Cong. The Geneva Convention was observed neither by the Hanoi government or their Viet Cong allies. American soldiers were forced to endure the mutilation of their buddies, and expected by liberals to treat the suspects like kindergartners. The torture of U.S. military personnel, particularly at the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison, is simple proof that the North Vietnamese Communists were evil, and they were part of a larger evil. They were no different than the Japanese who killed Americans, British and Australians during the Bataan Death March. There is no moral equivalency that excuses what they did and makes them any less horrid than Nazi concentration camp guards. The fact that average Americans, who otherwise might have been sunning themselves at the beach, going to college, or playing a little football, were thrust into a death grip with these animals and some of them snapped is not some proof that the Left is allowed to trot out as evidence that America is "no better" than anyone else. Not on my watch.

America is better. Call this jingoistic. Call it patriotic. Call it like it is.

As 1969 turned into 1970, Le Duc Tho replaced Xuan Thuy in Paris for the second round of talks lasting from February to April. They demanded an end to the "illegitimate" Saigon government. Emboldened by news of protests in the streets of U.S. cities, and by a withdrawal of support from such "allies" as France, the Communists invaded Laos and Cambodia. They defeated the Hmong army and capturing Plain of Jarres. The result of this was the creation of a new political party called the Khmer Rouge.

This was a major development. Now, the Communists had invaded sovereign neighbors. They were butchering and torturing thousands of civilians. The U.S. was the only force left to help these people. The Left painted our efforts to save innocent humans as the greedy, war mongering, heavy-handed designs of a conservative, colonial power. Outside of the rubber, there was little in Vietnam that a capitalist nation like America could "exploit," yet the protest movement and their liberal allies in the media made it sound as if pure greed drove this tortuous confrontation with the forces of Marxism.

The CIA managed to help foment a Cambodian coup on March, 18, replacing the neutralist Prince Sihanouk with the pro-U.S. Lon Nol. On April 25, Nixon screened the film "Patton". Spurred by its depiction of patriotism and American military power, he made the decision to meet the Communists head-on and invade Cambodia. 32,000 U.S. troops attacked the Fishhook and Parrot's Beak for two months, destroying North Vietnamese supplies and setting the Communist's back by two years. Instead of cheering the operation as the military success it was, the Left upped the campaign of hate.

At Kent State University, a demonstration on May 4 became heated. Untrained ROTC troops opened fire against them. Four students were killed. It was an act of heavy-handedness and stupidity on the part of the U.S. government that may be unmatched in our history. The soldiers should have been equipped with rubber bullets.

Campus demonstrations had gotten out of hand. ROTC buildings were being bombed and set on fire. Demonstrators were throwing bags of feces at cops and troops. The choice between order and anarchy was being narrowed. Nevertheless, the political fall-out of confrontation between armed forces and civilians was a disaster. The images were rife with all the symbolism of long hair, peace signs, free love, flower children, psychedelic folk music and general "coolness." On the other side were uptight, uniformed, armed, bulldog shorthairs. The media was entirely sympathetic to the "kids."

Actress Jane Fonda openly supported the Communists by flying to Hanoi to pose lovingly with North Vietnamese Army. The kids who chose not to demonstrate, and instead served, came back from their tours, sometimes maimed, missing limbs, in wheelchairs, or scarred by the experience of seeing their friends killed and tortured by the meanest of all possible enemies. They received nary an ounce of sympathy from the liberals. They were spat on by hippies and excoriated as criminals by the Fifth Estate. It was disgusting.

Nixon agonized over the state of his country, and turned to the lessons of history for guidance. Trying to imagine what "Honest Abe" would do, he woke up in the middle of the night of May 9, unable to sleep, and ordered his driver to take him to the Lincoln Memorial. He got of the car and walked up the steps, which were littered with sleeping student demonstrators. Slowly but surely, the kids began to wake up and recognized, in amazement, that the President was amongst them. They crowded around him, menacing but quiet. A dialogue began. Nixon, uncomfortable with his surroundings, tried to talk about subjects he thought would connect him to the students. He talked about college football and the perfect surfing conditions near his Orange County beachside mansion. The kids tried to change the subject to the war, but Nixon, the great debater who had impressed Kruschev and sold a nation on his sincerity with the Checkers speech, found himself face to face with the famous "generation gap." His Lincoln Memorial night jaunt was something between a disaster and an oddity.

The Democrats went to work undermining Nixon. The Cooper-Church amendment limiting U.S. troops in Laos and Cambodia passed the Senate by 58-37 on June 30. When Le Duc Tho met Kissinger in Paris for the third round of talks in June, he knew he had the upper hand of tacit Democrat support. Half of his enemies were his "friends." The Hatfield-McGovern amendment to require complete withdrawal from Vietnam was met by enough Republican opposition to prevent complete undermining of the Nixon-Kissinger plan. Kissinger traveled to Pakistan in October, and President Khan acted as the intermediary with new Chinese leader Chou En-lai. The U.S. gave aid to Khan in March, 1971 to suppress the Bangladesh revolt, but India defeated Khan and created Bangladesh in December, 1971.

From January 31 to February 2, the Winter Soldier investigation by John Kerry and the Vietnam Veterans against the War included 116 veterans testifying about atrocities committed by the U.S. in Vietnam. No mention of Communist decapitations, torture, murder and sundry acts of evil were allowed to offset the impression that the investigations were meant to convey. There was no mention of the Cultural Revolution going on in China at that time, in which 1 million humans died. There was no mention of the Siberian gulags. There was no mention of the tanks that the Communists had sent to Prague a couple of years earlier when some politicians decided to try "socialism with a human face."

It did not have a human face, and yet the great victory of Communism was almost at hand. A world in which their atrocities were forgotten, and a handful of crimes committed by troubled American citizens was, in this new upside down world, made out to be the moral equivalent of Dachau and Buchenwald. It was as if the Nazis had come out of World War II with a truce, in subsequent years had made people forget about the Holocaust, and now that they were on the march again, the Americans trying to stop them were suddenly viewed as worse than them. Only the thin green line of American conservatism stood between freedom and this disturbing new reality.

On February 8, in Operation Lam Son 719, the ARVN invaded Laos with U.S. air support but failed to close the Ho Chi Minh Trail, showing that Vietnamization had failed. Kissinger met with Le Duc Tho in further secret talks in a house on the Rue Darthe rather than the formal talks at the Hotel Majestic, in February. The south's failures had taken a crucial card from the NSC advisors deck. The talks stalled.

A ping pong team visited China on April 10, the first official exchange between the U.S. and China since Mao's revolution. The 21-year trade embargo was lifted in June. Nixon made his five-powers speech in Kansas City, outlining a world to be dominated by economic superpowers U.S., Russia, Western Europe, Japan, and China. This vision of the world might be said to be the "true fallout" of World War II, its effect having taken 26 years to take shape.

In June, while Nixon's daughter, Tricia, was getting maried at the White House, the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers. These papers were reams of data from military, intelligence, diplomatic and other sources in the Department of Defense. It was the result of years of analysis by various "think tanks" and research organizations throughout the country. The papers were by this time a few years old, somewhat out-dated, but quite telling. They showed that Ho Chi Minh had attempted to form a Democratic-style government, asking for Harry Truman's help. Each subsequent administration since World War II had re-buffed him because of alliance with the French. The general indication was that Hanoi only went Communist because the West did not ally themselves with them. This is probably a simplistic view which does not take into consideration the possibility of Hanoi playing both sides against each other, much as Castro did in Cuba, and other Third World countries had done.

The long history of warfare in Indochina was detailed. Assorted data regarding the politics of the region, the geographical terrain, and peculiarities of Vietnam were written about. One of the conclusions of the Papers was that an attempt to form Democracy and to deal with the country through a standard process was bound for failure. Vietnam was a country that could not be pigeonholed and included with Japan, Korea, China, Europe, Latin America, or any other place.

The damning part of the documentation was supposed to be the general conclusion that America could not win there, and that all the decisions to escalate "in country" were based on domestic and global politics, not the true realities of Southeast Asia. The Papers were indeed chalk full of information indicating that American military action in the region was bound to be dicey, at best.

I must admit, I have not read the Pentagon Papers. The Times printed excerpts from them, but the documentation was some 10,000 pages and reading it, absorbing it, and reaching a conclusion from it was a daunting task. With all due respect, however, I must say that to conclude the U.S. could not achieve its goals in Vietnam is something I do not accept. Yes, it is true that jungle and guerilla warfare are different. The U.S. is a country which had fought a two-front war against Germany and Japan that encompassed battles in the deserts of North Africa, the mountains of Sicily, the beaches of Normandy, freezing Winter in Belgium, the tropical jungle heat of the South Pacific, the countryside of Europe, the cities of Germany, both major oceans, and the skies above all these places, against the two greatest war machines previously devised by man. They had emerged from this challenge the complete victor. The challenges of Vietnam were daunting and involved the prospect of accidentally starting World War III. The whole effort was a political minefield that "required" fighting the war "with our hands tied behind our backs." It meant trying to win against an enemy we did not want to destroy, to avoid the kind of massive civilian casualties of World War II and Korea. It was as much a public relations campaign, or a battle for the "hearts and minds" of not only the Vietnamese but the media and world opinion.

Nevertheless, considering America's track record, I am not, and I think many agree with me, ready to concede that the U.S. simply had no way of "winning" in Vietnam. The judgment of this war, as always, requires an understanding of what leaders' decisions were based on what they knew at the time. 20/20 hindsight allows historians the advantage they did not have. Still, a series of events, mishaps, and ironic Shakespearean twists tell the story of our "failure" there as much as the supposed predictions of the Pentagon Papers.

One man who believed the Papers, or at least believed certain parts about them that fit his changing worldview, was Daniel Ellsberg. Ellsberg was one of the "best and the brightest," the kind of man Mailer wrote about in "Harlot's Ghost". He was Ivy League educated, had served in the Marines, and believed in the "church of America." This is a description that embodies a 1950s view of this country "sanctioned by God" to fight Communism and protect the Earth from evil. If there is any single casualty of Vietnam, it is the notion that this sanction was a discredited thesis. It has taken 30 years to restore belief in the sanction.

In the late 1960s, "God's sanction" did not seem to apply to My Lai, or the notion that Vietnamese villages needed to be destroyed in order to save it. That phrase is a typical example of distorted liberal reporting, from the likes of Halberstam, Cronkite, Hersh, Neal Sheehan, Peter Arnett, Dan Rather and Morley Safer. A reporter was at a village that had been burned, and an officer said, "It's a shame it had to be destroyed." Arnett changed the quote to, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The term became a catchphrase of liberal Democrats, with their long hair, their marijuana cigarettes, and their free love, sittin' around college campuses criticizing America while real Americans were in Vietnam fighting for other people.

Ellsberg was not one of these people, though, so he was the perfect spokesman for the New Left. He had been a researcher at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California. His task was to study wargames, and his take on history was that fear and intimidation were tools the U.S. needed to use in order to effectuate its political and military objectives in Vietnam. He had advocated the use of the atomic bomb in Japan on the grounds that it rightly saved more American and Japanese lives in the long run than it killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He used as examples to back up his ideas the Dresden firebombings of 1945, which through sheer terror inflicted on a civilian populace had helped to break the German spirit, leading to victory sooner rather than later. Ellsberg very well might have been on Henry Kissinger's staff, since it was the diplomatic tools he advocated, backed up by force, that Kissinger later used to end America's involvement in the war on terms favorable to the U.S.

But Ellsberg was sent as an advisor to Vietnam, where he went on patrols and observed the prosecution of the war up front. He saw draftees who were not committed and fell prey to drug use. He was influenced by diplomatic and journalistic contacts who did not back the war, tearing at his resolve. He found himself unable to handle casualties on the battlefield. When he returned home, he still backed the war wavered. His marriage buckled and he started a relationship with another woman. Ellsberg fell in with friends who had joined California's counter-culture of "swing party sex," drug and alcohol use, and became a hippie. He began to see a psychiatrist in Beverly Hills.

Ellsberg returned to the Rand Corporation, but now questioned the war more and more. He knew, from having contributed his theses to them, of the existence of the Pentagon Papers. He suspected that within its pages was information that would confirm his fears that the U.S. should no longer be in Vietnam. The Papers were classified, but his position at Rand had put him in a position to get them, which is what happened. Ellsberg read them, reportedly several times, and decided that within this work was the proof that the war was a mistake. The only "alternative" was immediate withdrawal.

He confided to his counter-culture friends the secrets of the Pentagon Papers. They all urged him to reveal them publicly. The law was very clear on this matter. To reveal such classified documents, especially ones as sensitive in nature tied to national security as the Pentagon papers, was absolutely an act of treason. But Ellsberg calculated that the media had become so anti-American that they would champion his cause. He reasoned that he might get away with it. He made copies of the documents, which was completely illegal, and gave them to the New York Times. The Times of course knew it was illegal for Ellsberg to do so, and it was illegal for them to possess the Papers. They knew that the laws were clear regarding publication of the papers, and that to do so was treasonous. Since they disagreed with Richard Nixon and were enthusiastic about the fact that the publication of the Papers would make America look bad, they decided to print it under the guise of the First Amendment. Like Elllsberg, they figured that the power of the liberal media would help protect them from fully paying for their crimes.

While publishing such classified material is not something I would do, I will say that I do not consider Ellsberg to be an enemy of America. The Left adopted him as their hero, and the right as an enemy. In many ways, he was a victim of a terrible war, a casualty if you will. He had grown up as an idealistic American and fallen prey to the cancer of the Left wing '60s. He thought he was doing a service for his country, but he was misguided. Eventually, the calculations of Ellsberg and the Times proved correct. Attempts by the government to prosecute and repress them failed. Ellsberg emerged an even bigger hero, and today is considered a nostalgic champion of the Left.

Ellsberg's actions opened the floodgates to one of the most contentious periods in American history. While the Pentagon papers were relatively old by the time the Times published its excerpts, the actual printing of the words was not what bothered the Nixon-Kissinger Administration the most. After all, it described mostly the "failures" of their predecessor, Johnson. But they came amid a series of terrible leaks in the administration. Almost nothing was secret in the first Nixon term.

With virtual civil war roiling the streets and the campuses, the press now openly hostile, the White House feared that they were entering a period not unlike the one Lincoln faced. Drastic measures, it was decided, were necessary. The first task was to plug the "leaks." The second was to discredit Ellsberg, whose lifestyle had deteriorated to the point in which truthful depictions of him would negate his position as an advocate of the anti-war position.

Thus was formed the "plumbers," a group of White House operatives, headed by G. Gordon Liddy and including a number of CIA veterans from the failed get-Castro years. Their job was to find out, through bugging and wiretaps, what reporters were talking to what administration sources. They also were sent to Beverly Hills to bug the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist, looking for damaging testimony from Ellsberg discussing having sex in front of his children, killing innocent civilians in Vietnam, taking drugs and engaging in acts of treason. The "plumbers" were the men who eventually would be caught at the Watergate Hotel.

Kissinger visited Peking on July 9 and shook hands with Chou En-lai (unlike Dulles, who had spurned him at Geneva in 1954). Now the U.S. supported admission of the People's Republic of China to the U.N., and began to remove U.S. troops from Formosa (Taiwan). At first, conservatives could not believe Nixon was seriously considering rapprochement with Red China. They had been our enemies in Korea, tortured and brainwashed POWS. Nixon himself had called Mao a "monster."

But the Chinese had split with the Soviets, and this was an enormous opportunity for the U.S. to fill the power vacuum of this event. Nixon knew that he and he alone had the "anti-Communist credentials" to pull this off. Any Democrat would be excoriated for being "soft on Communism." Eisenhower might have been a man who could have done it, as well as MacArthur had he been President. But no Democrat had the prestige to afford such a risk.

Nixon arrived in China on February 21, 1972, negotiating the Shanghai Communiqué with Mao and other Chinese leaders. Diplomatic relations with the P.R.C. were opened, and most important, the U.S. had created a fissure in the Communist monolith. Distrust was high between the U.S.S.R. and the PRC. The U.S. was in a position to negotiate separate, favorable deals with both, all of it setting the table for a peaceful withdrawal from Vietnam.

The North Vietnamese were not willing to go down, a mere pawn in the global strategies of Russia, China and America. They invaded Quang Tri on March 30, their largest offensive since Tet. Nixon responded with Operation Linebacker on April 6, resulting in bombing north of the DMZ, using B-52 raids on Hanoi and Haiphong. The North Vietnamese captured Quang Tri City on May 1. The South Vietnamese Army was now in complete collapse. Somehow, historians never speak of the utter failure of the ARVN when discussing the "inevitable" failure of Vietnam. After all the tragedy, pain and suffering, after the Pentagon Papers, the simple goals of the war are forgotten. It was deemed impossible in the minds of people to conceive that if the Communists could have been stopped from turning the south into their slaves, the objectives would have been attained. When it was all said and done, the South Vietnamese failed to defend their homeland.

Le Duc Tho and Kissinger met in Paris on May 2 for round four. Shortly thereafter it was decided to mine Haiphong harbor and blockade the North Vietnamese coast. Four aircraft carriers were added to the 7th Fleet - and a massive bombing campaign of "jugular diplomacy" proved successful. The Communists retreated on June 18 and Quang Tri City was re-taken.

Kissinger's global strategy with the other superpowers, and his decision to negotiate through strength with the Vietnamese, was now working. In light of the China trip, Nixon arrived in Moscow on May 22 to sign the SALT I treaty. Soviet leader Leaned Brezhnev agreed to help pressure the North Vietnamese. General Giap, now ill with Hodgkin's disease, and new military chief Van Tien Dung urged North Vietnam to return to the Paris talks and make a settlement that would give them time to recover losses.

Le Duc Tho and Kissinger met in Paris in the Summer and made progress. The Communists agreed to a coalition government. Kissinger agreed to allow their troops to remain in place, but the nine-point proposal worked out October 8-12 was rejected by Thieu. Nevertheless, in an October 26 peace conference, Kissinger announced that "peace is at hand."
On November 7, Nixon defeated the liberal anti-war Democrat, George McGovern, by the largest and most complete margin in the history of the United States. Le Duc Tho suspended negotiations because of Thieu's opposition, but Nixon's December 14 ultimatum to resume negotiations or "suffer the consequences" was followed by the "Christmas bombing" of December 17-30. It was the most intense bombing campaign of the war. The liberals hated it, but it ended the war.

In light of the bombing, Nixon threatened Thieu, on January 5, with the "gravest consequences." Kissinger's strategy was to play the role of peacemaker. Through carefully orchestrated placement of stories in the press and depictions of Nixon as a "madman," he managed to convince e the Communists that the President was willing to bomb them into oblivion, but was "held back" only by Kissinger's diplomatic skills. Nixon strategized it all.

Kissinger and Le Duc Tho signed the peace treaty on January 27 in Paris. The POWs were released in 60 days, a ceasefire under the International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICC) began, and a coalition government in South Vietnam was created to arrange elections, with the U.S. aid to the south continuing.

591 U.S. POWs came home. U.S. troops were withdrawn by March. In order to keep the Communists' feet to the fire, the bombing continued, but the Democrat Congress decided to stop pressuring them. They cut off funds for war on June 30, to become effective August 15. The War Powers Act was passed on November 7 over Nixon's veto.

By this time, Watergate had hit like a ton of bricks. The Democrats were much more interested in destroying Nixon than they were in securing the victory in Vietnam. Kissinger's diplomacy, Nixon's bombing and the sacrifices of the military had set everything in place. Their partisan, disloyal pursuit of this issue resulted in everything the U.S. fighting for in Vietnam being lost. The Democrat record of 1973-74 is nothing less than disgusting. The fact that the U.S. managed to win the Cold War anyway is a remarkable achievement that simply occurred despite them! The Democrats and their accomplices in the Washington Post went after Nixon with everything they had, which begs the question, Where were the Democrats, Ben Bradlee, Katherine Graham, and the Post when the Kennedy's stole the 1960 election from Nixon?

Res ipsa loquiter.

John Lennon sang "Give peace a chance," and Southeast Asia "imagined" Pol Pot

On August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned. Gerald Ford took over, but the Democrats controlled Congress and were bent on seeing to it that all conservative Republican nostrums regarding the concept of Communism being the enemy should be discredited. To take up the cause of anti-Communism would be to acknowledge that McCarthy had a point; that Nixon was a hero for nailing Hiss; that LBJ was right and Bobby Kennedy was wrong; and worst of all, that Nixon and Kissinger were brilliant global strategists. God forbid.

To accept the anti-Communist line would disrupt their own moral equivalencies. It would tacitly blame the liberals who apologized for Lenin and Stalin for 20 years, and the Hollywood "useful idiots" who had made movies glorifying these mass murderers and then, after being identified, getting Blacklisted. If ever free people actively chose to put themselves on a course that would prove they were on the wrong side of history, it was the American Democrats of 1973-74.

No longer constrained by the "thin green line" of conservatism, the Communists attacked Phuoc Long and started the third Indochina War. Without the Americans to preserve order and peace, the Khmer Rouge attacked Phnom Penh. Ambassador John Gunther Dean and 276 U.S and Cambodian personnel were evacuated. Saigon fell on April 30, 1975. Ambassador Graham Martin and 7,100 U.S. and South Vietnamese personnel were evacuated the next day.

The Cambodians were confused at the way the Americans abandoned the region. They were unable to understand the perfidy of one political party (the Democrats) willing to forego the most basic tenets of their nation's foreign policy loyalty in order to hurt a single man and his party.

Had the Democrats supported a widened war and further bombing of sanctuaries in Cambodia, the Commnunists might not have been in a position take over.

The Phnom Penh government misjudged the long-term American intent, failing to understand that the U.S. was on the decline in Indochina.

"I can't help a sad feeling that Cambodia is a little country that we have used and for which we must now bear a moral responsibility," reflected a senior American official with long experience in Indochina and intimate knowledge of the American-Cambodian relationship.

Norodom Sihanouk held the United States responsible for the downfall of Cambodia. He is right. The American Left deserves the blame. They joined forces with the street radicals and the liberal media when the world needed us the most. The invasion of Cambodia had upset the North Vietnamese supply network sufficiently to produce a lull that lasted until the big Communist offensive in the Spring of 1972. When Watergate hit the U.S. was not allowed to maintain vigilance. The Democrat Senate rejected a request for $266 million in additional military aid for South Vietnam by 43 to 38. For all practical purposes they sentenced to death millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians. The attack on the administration plan was led by Ted Kennedy, despite Defense Department warnings that refusal to grant the additional aid would have "grave consequences" for South Vietnam. Republicans warning the same thing on the Senate floor were drowned out by the outpouring of Democrat moral relativism. Senator Kennedy's amendment to the supplementary defense bill prevented additional funds for military aid to South Vietnam.

Senator Kennedy attacked the proposed accounting procedure as a "bookkeeper's sleight of hand" that would reward a "Pentagon mistake" by giving "back-door authority" to spend additional money in South Vietnam. But the main Kennedy attack was that with the military aid request the administration was continuing the war and "perpetuating old relationships and policies" in Indochina. In other words, continuing opposition to Communism.

Democrat Senator John C. Stennis of Mississippi, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, knew his party was doing the work of Marxism.

"We came out of there with our flags flying," he said. "I am not willing to turn my back" on the American soldiers killed or wounded in Vietnam. He described the increased aid as "an obligation to an ally" and "part of the process of winding down and getting out as fast as we reasonably can."

"How long are we going to hear that argument?" the disgusting Senator Kennedy shot back. "We have heard it long enough."

The U.S. military attempted to convey "assurances of President Ford's strong support in the determined resistance of the people of South Vietnam to the massive invasion by a North Vietnamese expeditionary corps in flagrant and cynical disregard of the provisions of the Paris agreement." Kennedy had the upper hand, however.

As a result of Kennedy's "leadership" and the like thinking of his ilk, "We enter Phnom Penh as conquerors," a Communist representative said. "We order the surrender of all officers and officials of the Phnom puppet regime under a white flag."

Mary Jo Kopechne would not be the last to die as a result of Kennedy's cowardice. The "killing fields" had begun. Forces led by Pol Pot took control of the Cambodian capital on April 17, 1975.

"We feel completely abandoned," Premier Long Boret said. "We have no more material means." The Communists marked Long Boret and other Cambodian leaders for execution.

Peter Arnett was among the newsmen remaining in Saigon to give voice to the Communists.

The White House announced that the United States would no longer back President Nguyen Van Thieu. The country began its death throes. President Duong Van Minh announced the unconditional surrender of the Saigon government and its military forces to the Viet Cong. Those were all the people who were depicted as the "innocent victims" of My Lai. President Ford had "no comment" on the surrender of Saigon. A White House spokesman said the surrender was considered "inevitable." The Viet Cong flag was raised over the presidential palace. Soon after, a detachment of Communist troops, led by General Minh, arrived. Thieu went on radio and blamed the United States cuts in aid for the debacle of his forces.

The American press immediately set about discrediting our involvement in Vietnam. In a news analysis for the New York Times called "Vietnam, Test of Presidents, Was Distant War and Battle at Home," Leslie H. Gelb wrote the following:

"Washington, April 30 \- In Franz Kafka's 'The Trial,' a priest sets out to explain the mysteries of life to a character called K. They discuss a parable of the law and disagree on its meaning.

"`No,' says the priest, `it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary.'

"`A melancholy conclusion,' K responds. `It turns lying into a universal principle.'

From Truman to Ford, six Presidents felt that they had to do and say what was necessary to prevent a Communist takeover of Vietnam. For all, perhaps with the exception of Mr., Ford, Indochina was their initiation into American foreign policy. While other threats to peace came and went, Vietnam was always there - a cockpit of confrontation, a testing place.

"And there were always two battles going on, for those 25 years: One out there and one back here.

"There, it was the Promethean clash of colonialism, nationalism, Communism and Americanism. Here, it was the clash of imperatives not to `lose' a country to Communism and not to fight Asian land wars - how to walk the line between not winning and not getting out.

"The battle would be endless in Vietnam until it finally was no longer viewed as necessary in Washington.

"Memo to Truman

"On the day after his inauguration, President Harry S. Truman received a memorandum from the State Department outlining the principal problems in the world.

The second item concerned France. It argued for restoring French morale even though the French have `put forward requests which are out of all proportion to their present strength and have in certain areas, notably in connection with Indochina, showed unreasonable suspicions of American aims and motives.'

On November 18, 1952, President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower was briefed by the outgoing Secretary of State, Dean G. Acheson, on `only the most important problems.' Mr. Acheson told the new President of the war weariness in France over fighting in her Indochinese colonies, of `the fence- sitting' by the people of Indochina, and of the fact that Washington was paying about half the cost of the war. He concluded, `This is an urgent matter upon which the new administration must be prepared to act.'

On January 19, 1961, the day before the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, Mr. Eisenhower told the new President of `the deteriorating situation in Southeast Asia.' He said that Laos was the immediate problem, that it must be defended, and that `our unilateral intervention would be our last desperate hope in the event we were unable to prevail upon' allies to join.

On November 23, the day after Mr. Kennedy's assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson listened to his new advisers and later wrote, `Only South Vietnam gave me real cause for concern.' They offered very different estimates of the situation there, but all agreed on the need for continuity of policy.

"President Richard M. Nixon had his Vietnam strategy worked out before he took office, but his first action on foreign affairs was to ask the bureaucracy for a detailed study of the prospects in Vietnam.

"It will be some time before the memoirs and documents of President Ford emerge, but from what is known Vietnam quickly became his albatross as well.

The historical forces that set the Vietnamese civil war in motion started over a century ago. As European powers sought new territories and France claimed Indochina as her domains World War II set loose many independence movements and, in Vietnam, the Communist laid claim to the mantle of nationalism. American Presidents pursued a course of diplomacy aimed at shaping the world in the image of American Democracy, or at least, making sure that it was not shaped in the image of Communist idols.

There was only a brief time in the beginning when this American impulse was not paramount. During the years right after World War II President Truman walked a tightrope between the French, trying to reassert their hold on the Indochinese colonies, and the Vietnamese - a collection of Communists and nationalists - fighting for independence. Only after the Communist take-over in China did he clearly choose sides.

"Essential to Security

"In 1950, soon after Moscow and Beijing recognized the Democratic Republic of Vietnam led by Ho Chi Minh, Mr. Truman recognized the French-controlled state of Vietnam headed by Emperor Bao Dai. Then after the outbreak of the Korean War, he cast the American security net over Indochina.

"The Presidentially-approved National Security Council policy paper of June 25, 1952, said it all. It called Indochina `of great strategic importance in the general international interest rather than in the purely French interest, and as essential to the security of the free world, not only in the Far East but in the Middle East and Europe as well.' The American object was `to prevent the countries of Southeast Asia from passing into the Communist orbit.' This thinking was not a secret, for President Truman had announced to the nation that the loss of Indochina `would mean the loss of freedom for millions of people, the loss of vital raw materials, the loss of points of critical strategic importance to the free world.'

"Five successive administrations were to pay public and secret obeisance to this Domino Theory - including that of Mr. Ford. Five successive Presidents were to seek an independent, non-Communist South Vietnam.

"This basic American commitment was set - in fact, although not in law - as early as 1950. Over the next two decades, American involvement would deepen in an effort to prevent a Communist takeover.

"The question of whether American leaders would have started down this road had they foreseen the loss of more than 50,000 American lives and the expenditure of billions upon billions is historically irrelevant. The point is that each President was prepared to pay the immediate costs.

"What drove them was a combination of three factors: A strategic mode of thought that held that peace was indivisible; a domestic paranoia centered around a right-wing McCarthyite reaction, and, in time, a bureaucratic monster that wanted to prove and improve itself and do the job of stopping Communism.

"President Eisenhower and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, fell into this pattern, although not completely. By 1954, the United States was providing almost $3 billion in aid to the war effort in Indochina, or about 80 percent of the total French cost. But Mr. Eisenhower faced his moment of truth in the Spring of 1954, when French forces were surrounded by the Vietminh at Dien Bien-phu. He knew that if the French garrison fell, the psychological shock would knock France out of the war.

"Only American intervention could save the French. Mr. Dulles, Vice President Nixon and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Arthur W. Radford, said go. Other members of the Joint Chiefs and a group of bi-partisan Congressional leaders, including Senator Lyndon Johnson, said no - unless America's allies would help and Paris would grant true independence to Vietnam. President Eisenhower tried to meet these conditions and failed.

"France then found a Premier - Pierre Mendes-France - who had the political courage to say `enough,' and thus began the Geneva conference. The conferees - France, China, the Soviet Union, the Vietminh, and Bao Dai's representatives, and the United States as an observer - divided Vietnam at the 17th Parallel, with the prospect of reunification - within two years through free elections. Neither Washington nor, in time, the new Saigon strongman, Ngo Dinh Diem, agreed to these political terms. Saigon and Hanoi held opposing positions and a new war was about to begin.

"From 1955 to 1961, President Eisenhower was to pour about $200 million in military aid into Saigon annually, making South Vietnam the largest recipient of American arms after South Korea.

"President Eisenhower left this legacy: He kept America out of war and put America into Vietnam. When President Kennedy took office, 685 American military men were in South Vietnam; when he died, 16,000 Americans were fighting a clandestine war there.

"During President Kennedy's Thousand Days American television viewers witnessed self-immolations by Buddhists in protest against the Diem regime; the United States almost sent Marines into Laos before a coalition government was established, and Indochina became steady front-page news, with Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, pointer in hand, explaining the maps on television, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk never tiring of warning of the Chinese Communist menace.

"It was the heyday of the Green Berets, for the young President saw them as praetorians against the new kind of Communist threat - guerrilla warfare. As President Kennedy privately warned of the hopelessness of a white man's war and kept calling it `their' war, he escalated American involvement and lent his public prestige to the cause.

Weeks before his assassination, he told a television audience: `I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake. I know people don't like Americans to be engaged in this kind of an effort. 47 Americans have been killed in combat with the enemy, but this is a very important struggle.'

"Basic Patterns Emerge

"It was during the Kennedy years that the basic patterns of the war were to emerge. The Saigon government and its military forces always were reported to be getting better, but they never got good enough. Something was wrong somewhere; something always was wrong. For military power without political cohesiveness and support proved to be an empty shell. The non-Communist groups could never unify and gain legitimacy.

"Hanoi and its Viet Cong allies in the south always were reported to be taking heavier and heavier losses, but they kept coming back. Something always went right for them. Their leadership remained unified, their nation and armed forces disciplined and organized, and it was they who held the banner of nationalism.

"Victory would have been theirs on many occasions except for the pattern of increasing American involvement. Whenever Saigon was in immediate danger of losing, America would do more to redress the balance.

"The upshot was a military stalemate. From time to time, negotiating efforts were begun. They got nowhere, underlining the fact that this was a civil war, a war that could not be ended by compromise, but only by force of arms. As each side tried for force, the other would match it, and death became a way of life in Vietnam.

"Back in Washington, the credibility gap was emerging. As President Kennedy's press secretary, Pierre Salinger, was later to put it, Mr. Kennedy `was not anxious to admit the existence of a real war.' Later President Johnson was not eager to tell Americans that the `light at the end of the tunnel' was very far away, though he and his aides were well aware of it.

"The basic policy problems that were to confront President Johnson were rooted in these patterns. They concerned how to build a Saigon government able to stand on its own and how much American military power to use in the war.

"President Johnson, like his predecessors, knew that the war could not be ended unless the Saigon government reformed, so he made reforms a condition for further American aid. But, again like his predecessors, he violated his own condition. The problem was this: If the United States did not deliver first and the situation further deteriorated, reforms would become academic. The more Washington did, the less Saigon would be likely to do. The less Washington did, the more likely Saigon would be to lose. In this way, it became an American war, and American planes began the bombing of North Vietnam and American troop levels climbed to a peak of almost 550,000.

As President Johnson and his advisers later explained, they felt that if they used maximum force and tried to end the war by destroying North Vietnam, they would run the risk of igniting World War III.

"A Middle Way Chosen

"If they were to deal with Vietnam as President Truman handled China in 1949, and let it fall, they would run the risk of another round of McCarthyite attack.

Mr. Johnson chose the middle way, a policy of gradualism, similar to that used in Korea. He would hope to outlast the adversaries, to get them to stay on their side of the line. To avoid the nightmare of world war and McCarthyism, Mr. Johnson chose prolonged limited war.

"The American public went along with this approach until the Communists launched their Lunar New Year offensive of early 1968. If Hanoi could launch such an offensive after so many years, more and more people thought, then America's Vietnam policy was a failure, and we had to get out. Thus began the agonizingly slow process of de-Americanizing the war. Under President Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger this policy - phasing out American forces slowly enough not to jeopardize the battlefield situation but rapidly enough to assuage American political opinion \- was labeled Vietnamization.

In January, 1973, after the war spilled over into Cambodia, and after Mr. Nixon ordered the mining of Haiphong harbor and the carpet-bombing of Hanoi, a peace accord was signed in Paris. The essence of this agreement was that all American forces were to be withdrawn in return for the release of American prisoners of war, and that Hanoi's forces could stay in the south.

"The accords also called for a cease-fire leading to free elections in South Vietnam. Few expected this would happen, and to insure against future American military intervention, Congress legislated a ban on American military reinvolvement.

"Little to Choose From

"Over the years, given the goal of a non-Communist South Vietnam, the United States faced three historical dilemmas.

"At first, American leaders realized that there was no chance of defeating the Vietminh unless France granted independence to Vietnam, but that if France granted independence, she would not remain and fight the war. So, the United States could not win with France and it would not win without her.

"Then, American leaders recognized that Mr. Diem was losing popular support, but that at the same time he represented the only hope of future political stability. So the United States could not win with him and could not win without him.

"Later, the leaders concluded that the Saigon regime of President Nguyen Van Thieu would not reform with more American aid and could not survive without American involvement, and that Hanoi's effort seemed able to survive despite American efforts. So again, the war could not be won with American might - but it could be lost without it.

When the last American soldiers left Vietnam, most analysts believed that it would be only a matter of time before the Saigon government collapsed. That time came in the spring of 1975. The Ford Administration pulled out all stops to avoid the collapse, with warnings of bloodbaths and falling dominoes. As one senior administration official privately put it, they tried to `feed the vegetable intravenously' with another dose of military aid. This time, entreaties to Congress were to no avail. The Saigon armed forces had lost the will to fight.

"Vietnam now will know a kind of peace. What will happen in the United States whether the nation will tear itself apart in assessing guilt or adjust with compassion and develop a new sense of purpose - is another matter."

Pol Pot was born on May 19, 1925 in Kompong Thom Province, Cambodia. Many liberals love to espouse the great "mysticism" and "humanity" of Eastern religions. Pol Pot lived in a Buddhist monastery for six years. He studied carpentry for one year at a technical school in Phnom Penh, before moving to Paris.

He returned to assumed the leadership role in guerrilla warfare under Ho Chi Minh, joined the Cambodian Communist Party, and engaged in revolutionary activities. Fleeing from Phnom Penh because police suspected his Communist activities in 1963, he built up the Cambodian Communist Party, serving as party secretary from 1963 to 1975. He led Khmer Rouge forces in the overthrow of the Lon Nol regime that year, and became prime minister of the new Khmer Rouge government from 1976-1979. He headed Khmer Rouge forces in the mountains of southwestern Cambodia against the Hanoi-backed government from 1975 to 1985. He was allegedly removed from military and political leadership of the Khmer Rouge because the crimes he orchestrated had become public throughout the world. Actual knowledge of Communist excesses was not of value to their cause.

Between 1975 and 1979 Pol Pot was prime minister of the infamous "killing fields" Communist government. His radical Maoist version of Communism centered on a return to a utopian agricultural society and rejection of modern urban life. The populations of Cambodia's cities were forced to evacuate, move to the countryside and engage in agricultural labor. In the forced mass exodus, the government caused the deaths of an estimated 2 million Cambodians through imprisonment, torture, overwork, starvation and execution. Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger were forced to watch this, unable to do anything because the Kennedy-led Democrats simply allowed it to happen. Jimmy Carter sat around and let it happen some more. Finally in 1979, a border dispute led to a Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. They overthrew Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge government and installed a regime friendly to the Vietnamese.

Pol Pot fled to southwestern Cambodia where he led a Khmer Rouge insurgency against the Vietnamese-backed central government. China and Thailand in the 1980s supported a three-party guerrilla alliance that included the Khmer Rouge and royalists against the Vietnamese-supported government of Premier Hun Sen. The government would not negotiate with the Khmer Rouge as long as Pol Pot remained its leader.

In 1991 the Khmer Rouge signed a peace treaty officially ending the Cambodian war. In 1992 Prince Sihanouk denounced the Khmer Rouge and allied with Hun Sen, upsetting the balance of power. The Khmer Rouge withdrew from the peace process, resumed fighting, and in 1993 boycotted a national election. Royalists won the election, a new constitution reestablished the monarchy, and Norodom Sihanouk again became King.

The Khmer Rouge split apart in 1996 and its moderate faction based in the north defected to the government. Hard-liners under Pol Pot stayed in their mountain jungle stronghold.

Pol Pot died on April 15, 1998 in Bangkok, Thailand, evading prosecution for the deaths of as many as 2 million of his countrymen.

Yale University catalogued millions of documents and photographs as evidence of one of the century's worst atrocities. Cambodian journalist Dith Pran barely survived the mass killings by the Pol Pot regime and was the central character in the 1984 Warner Brothers movie "The Killing Fields". Through New York Times journalist Sidney Bluementhal, his story was told. Incredibly, had it not been for a handful of men, this story might have flown under the radar screen of history. The fact that such a thing can happen while a country as powerful as America allows it, and the world populace yawns over it, is an example of the "banality of evil" used to explain how genocide occurs. Dr. Haing S. Ngor, the Cambodian actor best known for his Oscar-winning portrayal of Dith Pran in "The Killing Fields", was gunned down outside his home near the Chinatown section of Los Angeles in February, 1996. It may have been a political slaying. Ngor's wallet and money were not taken.

John Lennon of the Beatles was a leading voice of the Left throughout the Vietnam War. He sang "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine", which offered the image of a world without countries, and "no religion, too." The Left either recognized the approximation of these words with Marx's "Communist Manifesto" and liked it, or was too addled by drugs to recognize it. While Lennon wanted the U.S. to "give peace a chance," the Communists were torturing our POWs and continuing to aggressively spread war throughout the country. Lennon's vision of "peace" certainly was not the wholesale invasion of Saigon, which of course does not change the fact that this is exactly what happened when the Democrat Congress finally did follow his "advice." "Imagine" might have envisioned a world without the pesky judgments of organized religion, but Lennon's vision surely did not resemble the Year Zero "re-education camps" of the atheist, former Buddhist Pol Pot. Of course, this does not change the fact that the reality of Lennon's utopian vision precisely resembled the "killing fields."

May 13, 1978

Cambodian Refugees Depict Growing Fear and Hunger

By Henry Kamm

Special to the New York Times

"Bangkok, Thailand, May 12 \- A number of recent refugees from Cambodia report that their country, in its fourth year under Communist rule, is suffering continuing bloodletting, even among factions of the ruling party, and starvation, nationwide forced labor and regimentation.

"In view of Cambodia's almost total isolation from the outside world, refugees are the most significant source of information.

"In March, for the first time since the Communist victory in April 1975, a group of European journalists - Communists from Yugoslavia - were taken on a guided tour of the country.

"Only Implicit Condemnation

"One of them reported that they were appalled by much of what they saw, although, restricted by the conventions of Communist fraternalism, they said so only implicitly in their dispatches. Significantly, the Yugoslav reported, one television journalist who was preparing a documentary on the visit told Cambodian officials that filming of the vast use of child labor in rigorous agricultural tasks would make a bad impression on the outside world. The Cambodians, however, urged him to film it.

What is shown in the Yugoslav television film \- soon to be seen in the United States - and what scores of refugees reaching Thailand in recent months have related bear each other out.

"The refugees were interviewed in the police station in Trat, in southeastern Thailand, where nine who fled last month are being confined in a small cage; in a nearby refugee camp in Khlong Yai; in a large refugee camp in Surin, in northeastern Thailand, and in a disused prison in the nearby province capital of Buriram, where most Cambodians who have crossed since November 15 are being held as illegal entrants.

"The Yugoslavs and the refugees related the now familiar description of a nation in which cities and towns stand empty while the people, divided into labor brigades, till the soil and build a countrywide system of small-scale irrigation earthworks with rudimentary tools and under primitive conditions.

"The Yugoslavs, complying with implicit restrictions on Communist journalists working in other Communist countries, raised no questions about persistent reports of deaths on a great scale through political purges, which, in their wide sweep, recall Stalinist methods, about overwork and undernutrition, or about the almost total absence of medical care or medicine.

"Another subject not publicly raised by the Yugoslavs involved the reports of profound differences in living conditions between the sub-Spartan standards of the vast majority of Cambodians and the privileges of the select minority of government officials and soldiers.

"These subjects dominated the refugees' accounts. The hardships of their lives needed little underscoring. Most of the recent arrivals were emaciated, their hands worn and their feet - unshod since their last pre-`liberation' sandals wore out - calloused, scarred and soiled seemingly beyond cleaning. They still wear the poor clothes that they wore in Cambodia, tattered pre-1975 shirts and pants or almost equally ragged black uniforms of Communist issue.

"Their bearing and comportment recall concentration camp survivors in the Europe of 1945. They seem dazed and cowed by all who have not shared their experience. They find concentrating on any subject difficult, complain frequently of headaches, physical weakness and an inability to sleep soundly and consider their future a blank that they have not yet the strength to consider seriously.

"They are, in the vast majority, men of hardy peasant stock - illiterate, their knowledge of the world beyond the confines of their native districts minute. Most have left their wives and children behind, because undertaking an escape through the rugged and heavily mined border country burdened with children appeared doomed to failure. As it is, most of the refugees told tales of how members of their groups died on the way; how many whole groups of escapees fell victim to military patrols, mines, starvation and exposure cannot be known.

"Peril of the Educated

"Of more than 5,000 refugees confined in the places visited - only a few hundred of them crossed this year - fewer than 10 were found who spoke basic French. None spoke fluently. Under the previous regimes French had been the language of most schooling beyond the first few elementary years, and everyone with a high-school education spoke it more or less fluently.

"The absence of French-speaking people and the generally peasant character of recent refugees lent credence to reports that the Communist regime was methodically killing the educated classes and that the great majority of the millions of people driven from cities and towns after the Communist conquest had withstood the rigors of the new life even less well than the rural people.

"Apart from the continued killing of the educated, of officials down to the most minor in previous governments, and of former soldiers in the pre-1975 government, army and their families, the refugees reported that growing numbers of local Communist officials had been killed in what appeared to be an ongoing wave of violent purges.

"Local Knowledge Only

"The only clue to the nature of the purges, as well as corroboration that they were taking place, came from official government pronouncements that Vietnam, with which Cambodia is in a state of limited war, had tried to bring down the government of Prime Minister Pol Pot through internal subversion.

"None of the refugees questioned knew anything about purges above the level of their rural districts. In fact, none had ever learned the names of officials above that rank, except for President Khieu Samphan. They came from four of the provinces bordering on Thailand; none had ever known the name of a province chief.

"But all questioned were specific on the names of their village and district chiefs and the sequence of succession among them. Most reported that the new leaders had announced to the people at the frequent evening meetings that their predecessors had been killed as `enemies.'

"Sen Smean and Lem Loeung, who escaped at the end of January from the village of Kok Moun Om in the district of Ampil in Battambang Province, related that Nan, the district chief, had said at a Lunar New Year meeting in February 1977 that his predecessor, Tem, had been killed because those who came to power in 1975 were still under the influence of the regimes of Prince Norodom Sihanouk and his successor, Lon Nol.

"A Constant Purge

"The two refugees said that Nan himself had been replaced at the end of the year by Van. They said that Van had announced at a meeting that his predecessor had been killed as an `enemy' within 15 days of his removal from office.

"The refugees added that the changes of district chiefs were always accompanied by the disappearance of village chiefs and frequently of the small teams of soldiers who supervise the villagers' work.

"Similar precise accounts were given by refugees from the provinces of Siem Reap, Oudon Meanchey and Koh Kong. Analysts who gather refugee accounts on a regular basis consider them indicative of a constant process of purging. They speculate that if purges were so widespread in the areas most remote from Vietnamese influence, they were likely to be more frequent and extensive nearer to the war zones, where the suspicion of subversion was closer.

"Refugees from Siem Reap Province reported in separate interviews that the month of April last year had been marked by wide-scale purges of local officials and Communist soldiers which, for the first time since the victory of two years before, had led to open opposition.

"Met With Great Retaliation

"The incidents apparently were largely limited to clashes and killings among the soldiers. But a number of accounts of incidents have become known - incidents in which the public participated in attempts to give vent to their resentments.

"Tach Keo Dara, a 20-year-old former high school student from Phnom Penh, said that he had been in a crowd that had taken advantage of strife among the leaders in three villages in the Chikreng district of Siem Reap Province to kill eight soldiers. The youth, now imprisoned in Buriram, said that he personally had not participated in the killings, which he said were carried out with knives.

"The riots had occurred, he said, from April 11 to 17, and were followed by large-scale retaliatory killings. Refugees from the same province reported that these outbreaks of opposition had subsided as suddenly as they had sprung up and that the regime's hold over the province had never been threatened.

"The refugees reported that hatred of the Communist soldiers and officials was general and based on the privileged position they held. Accounts of continually diminishing food rations - thin rice gruel rather than boiled rice, which is Cambodia's staple, few vegetables, little salt, no fish or meat - contrasted with the better diet enjoyed by those who professed that the new Cambodia had created equality among all its citizens.

"By all accounts the soldiers who supervise the work day, which begins when bells are rung to awake the villagers at about 4 A.M. and often ends as late as 10 P.M., live separately from the people, cook for themselves and eat their meals in seclusion. They eat chicken and pork, many refugees said.

"`People do not dare to watch near their kitchen,' said Ok Eum, a 44-year-old former army sergeant. He explained that to have knowledge of the soldiers' privileges was dangerous in a country where power over the people was in the soldiers' hands and death appeared to be the only punishment.

"Receive Regular Clothing Rations

"Choun Sakhon, a soldier who defected last month, said that soldiers received clothing regularly and wore sandals made of used tires while civilians went barefeet. Many soldiers had the use of motorcycles in a country where people walk except on rare occasions when the very old or very young were transported in oxcarts to obligatory rallies at district towns.

"Refugees from various regions gave similar accounts of the apparent freedom of a soldier to choose any woman to be his wife without the women's consent. Referring to the Communist soldiers' privileges in this regard, Mr. Ok Eum related:

"`When a Khmer Rouge loves a girl, there is a village meeting. He asks her to marry him. She does not dare say no. Then they are considered married.'

"Civilians need the permission of their village chiefs to marry, except when the marriages are arranged by the authorities without either partner's consent. San Daravong, who is 26 years old, said that he and Kim Kolab, 24, were married although they hardly knew each other. But they said in Buriram prison that they loved each other now.

Marriage ceremonies always take place en masse, the refugees reported, and only once a year.

"Hunger and Death

"While accounts of many aspects of the new way of life have to be drawn out of the refugees through questioning, two subjects come spontaneously from them: Reports of mass deaths in their villages and of constant hunger.

"Malaria, cholera, diarrhea, tuberculosis and enfeeblement from pervasive malnutrition took a catastrophic toll in the district of Banteai Srei, the site of one of the most splendid temples of the Angkor complex, where Mona, a male former medical student from Phnom Penh, had been banished after being driven out of the capital with the rest of its people.

"The former student said that children, particularly infants, suffered the most cruelly from illnesses and died in frightening numbers. He said that infant mortality was particularly high because mothers, as a result of malnutrition, had little milk and no substitutes were available. His medical observations bore out accounts provided by all other refugees.

"Detailed narratives of mass killings of enemies gave rise to an impression that the regime had lost what inhibitions it may have had in its early stages and was conducting mass slayings without regard to the presence of witnesses. A number of refugees reported that officials were more and more openly speaking of a need to kill great numbers of Cambodians.

"Mr. Sen Smean said that Nan, the late district chief, had announced at a meeting early last year that of the 15,000 people of the district, 10,000 would have to be killed as enemies, and that 6,000 of them had already perished.

"`We must burn the old grass and the new will grow,' Nan said, according to Mr. Sen Smean.

"Slaying of Wives and Children

"Analysts have speculated on the number of Cambodians who have died during and after the war and occasional contradictory pronouncements by the present government have added fuel to such speculation, but no solid information has become available. However, refugee accounts since 1975 leave no doubt that the toll has been heavy and the birth rate exceedingly low. In 1970, the population of the country exceeded seven million.

"The principal targets for extermination, according to all accounts, continue to be former government employees, soldiers and those in Cambodia called intellectuals - people with higher education.

"A devastating new element that emerges from the refugees' accounts of the last year is that the regime now appears to be methodically killing wives and children, many long after the husbands were killed.

"Mr. San Daravong said that toward the end of last year he had witnessed the killing of 108 wives and children of former soldiers outside the village of Chba Leu, situated about 10 miles east of the town of Siem Reap, in the midst of the Angkor temple complex.

"Describes Soldiers' Retaliation

"He said that the victims had been led to a dike, their arms tied to their sides, and pounded to death with big sticks in groups of 10 by a small group of soldiers. Some of the small children, he said, had been thrown into the air and impaled on bayonets; others were held by their feet and swung to the ground until dead.

"He learned the exact number, he said, because villagers had been called to bury the dead. Kang Vann Dy said that he had decided to try to escape in February from the village of Roluos in Siem Reap Province because, after having killed former officers and sergeants, the Communist soldiers had come to the part of the village where he lived with a number of other former soldiers and had taken them and their families away. Mr. Kang Vann Dy hid. Later in the day, he found their bodies in a well. Asked whether he knew the names of the victims, he slowly called the roll, straining to remember.

"'Cheam,' he said. 'Kok Min. Phath. There were others, but I don't know the names.' Asked how many bodies he had counted, he painfully added up those of the wives and of the children he knew and said, `at least 19.'

"To stay alive himself he hid in the forest at the edge of the Great Lake of the Tonle Sap for two months, living from fish and from stolen food before making his way across the border.

"Mr. Ok Eum said that he came from the district of Siem Reap Province where former President Lon Nol was born. He said that to celebrate the second anniversary of their victory in April 1977, the Communists had killed the entire population of the former leader's village. The former soldier said that the district chief, Sun, who was later killed himself, announced that the villagers had been slain because all were relatives of Lon Nol. Throughout the district, Mr. Ok Eum said, about 350 families had been killed on that occasion, their family names recorded by authorities and displayed at the anniversary rally.

"`If the Communists continue, there will be no more Cambodians in the land of Cambodia,' Mr. Ok Eum said in a flat voice of despair."

May 3, 1979

Illegal Refugee Exodus Increasing, but Hanoi Denies Encouraging It

By Henry Kamm

Special to the New York Times

"Bangkok, Thailand, May 1 \- Refugees from Vietnam are arriving on Southeast Asian shores in record numbers. Ethnic Chinese are estimated to make up two-thirds to three-quarters of the total despite repeated denials by the Hanoi Government that it is abetting their departure.

"Vietnamese refugees packed aboard a barge are guarded by a police boat on June 6, 1979 at a special anchorage for refugees at the western end of Hong Kong. The Discovery Bay anchorage is crowded with over 30 Vietnamese boats waiting in line to unload their refugees into overbrimming refugee camps in the British colony.

"And this is happening despite Vietnam's agreement last month, in talks with the United States High Commissioner for Refugees, to facilitate legal emigration to stop the illegal flow.

"This illegal flow endangers the lives of the `boat people,' creates mounting political problems for Asia's non-Communist countries and strains their relations with Western nations to whom they look for relief from their refugee burden.

"Preliminary statistics indicate there were far more refugees in April than expected. More than 2,000 Vietnamese boat people reached Thailand, the largest monthly total ever. In Malaysia, the principal first stop for Vietnamese, more than 10,000 arrived, reversing a three-month decline.

"About 100,000 Vietnamese are now in limbo - on land and on ships that no one will let dock. In addition, more than 150,000 Laotian and Cambodian refugees have stolen into Thailand, and about 6,000 more arrive each month.

"In addition to the exodus of Chinese, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Vietnamese have secretly left their country since the Communist victory in 1975 because of the continuing war with Cambodia, tension with China and other political, economic and ethnic pressures.

"Later this month, representatives of the Southeast Asian nations that receive most of the refugee boats will meet in Jakarta, Indonesia, with the United Nations refugee agency and representatives of the United States and other countries to which Asia looks for a permanent solution.

"If the refugees were white, Asians say, the West would have accepted them long ago. A diplomat noted that a ship carrying more than 500 Vietnamese was towed out of Thai waters last week and has not been heard from since. He said that if those aboard were white, they would have become the object of an international search.

"Vietnam is also expected to attend the Jarkarta meeting. There are likely to be complaints that it is not living up to its promises to do all it can to reduce the refugee flow. Only last week in Hanoi in the presence of Secretary General Kurt Waldheim of the United Nations, Prime Minister Pham Van Dong reiterated his promises not to burden Vietnam's neighbors with a heavy flow of refugees.

"But the burden continues to increase. A camp for boat people near this town in southern Thailand was moved earlier this year to a larger site, but its inhabitants have already had to build new shanties. The barracks built when the population was little more than 1,000 are badly over-crowded now that the population is nearing 4,000.

"The great majority of refugees from Vietnam head for Malaysia, where nearly 60,000 wait in badly overcrowded island camps for countries to offer them asylum. On the grapevine in Vietnam, which is fed by letters from refugees and by foreign broadcasts, Malaysia is depicted as the best place to go. One reason is the mistaken assumption that departure for permanent asylum is quicker from Malaysia. A more justified reason is the prevalence of pirates in waters near Thailand.

"Most of those who land here made an error in navigation, or had mechanical troubles, or were towed in this direction by pirates who robbed them and often raped the women.

"Watches are rare among the refugees in Songkla, and jewelry on women is even rarer. The pirates also harvest most of the slim tablets of gold, each worth about $250, that constitute the traditional family savings in Vietnam. Most of the refugee boats have been robbed more than once as they approached Thailand.

"The consensus of refugees here, who include a number of highly educated and politically sophisticated men and women, is that the refugee flow will continue at a high rate, that Hanoi will continue to abet the flow of ethnic Chinese and that ethnic Vietnamese will continue to make their escape only at great risk and in defiance of the government.

"One educated refugee from Ca Mau, in southernmost Vietnam, reported seeing 12 to 15 boats under construction near the market in his town. It is generally believed that they are being built specifically for government-authorized refugees. They have portholes, indicating that they are meant for passengers rather than cargo. The man, who worked for American intelligence organizations for 10 years, said they would probably hold 200 to 300 people each.

"The refugees said the ethnic Chinese do not leave in secret. The boats are openly loaded not only with supplies for the trip but also with goods that will be needed in Malaysia. Because in Vietnam it is said that salt and building tools are scarce in Malaysia, sacks of salt and many hammers, saws and nails are loaded.

"Why Vietnam Releases Chinese

"Often, according to witnesses, relatives of those departing are allowed at pierside with their farewell gifts.

"The most politically sophisticated refugees say Vietnam helps the Chinese leave both to acquire their gold and foreign-currency holdings and to relieve the country of an economic class for which there is no further use.

"All refugees forfeit their visible belongings, particularly houses and lands, to the state. But the Chinese, a largely landless merchant and artisan class, have put their savings in gold. Vietnam, which is short of convertible currencies, gives the Chinese the choice of leaving for a price or being sent to new economic zones that have infertile land.

The refugees say the richest Chinese have probably left by now because the price demanded by Government agents has been dropping. Depending on the region, prices have averaged about seven tablets of gold, sometimes less.

"Police and Army Are Rivals

"Vietnamese who did not have important positions in the old regime can sometimes buy Chinese identity cards for two tablets of gold, refugees here said. Other Vietnamese benefit from the Chinese exodus by paying relatively small bribes to the security police handling departures.

"In addition to the "official" passage money, which is generally believed to go straight to the national treasury, minor officials profit from the trade whenever they can. As a result, according to well-placed sources here, rivalry between the police, who handle the transport, and the army, which has no share in it, is great.

"A source said this rivalry has been worsened by the fact that the police also round up young men for the draft. Sometimes this rivalry has led to refugee boats being sent off by the police only to be returned by naval patrols and held up until higher authorities order their release."

March 31, 1985

NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE

The Enduring Legacy

By Joseph Lelyveld

"'Young bronze god of war.' John Denton first heard that phrase in harangues and pep talks when he was going through officers' training as a Marine. It resurfaced in his mind a generation later at a sun-dappled Fourth of July family picnic. What brought it back was an encounter there with a young soldier who seemed as eager for action as Denton himself had been when he took command of his first platoon in Bravo Company, Seventh Engineer Battalion, at Danang, South Vietnam, in 1966. Denton, now an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, hadn't realized that soldiers like that were still being turned out. Trying to express how moved and transfixed he felt when he saw the young man, Denton described a vision: `He was 21, if that, and he took me right back to what I was. He was ready, and he was going to do it, almost to the point of saying, "I sure hope they've got a war going someplace." It made me feel good, but at the same time I wanted to go over and put my arm around him and say, `Hey, have you got about five minutes? I want to tell you a few things.' Denton never had that conversation. If he had spoken, he would have talked, he said, about the responsibilities rather than the glory of command, about the strength a leader derives from his men, about devotion to them as an element of valor.

"Instead, this FBI man was toiling late in the den over his garage in Knoxville, Tennessee, pouring it all into a novel - not about the country called Vietnam, or the questions represented by the war, or what happened to the veterans when they returned to an ungrateful, even hostile, nation. The country and questions and aftermath were all incidental. What he needed to explore was the nature of the camaraderie of men at war, almost to the exclusion of these other matters.

"Almost, but not quite, for Denton now has a 10-year-old son, and when he thinks of his boy, he does not think of young gods of war. In that context, Vietnam - everything about it - returns in a rush, and his tone of voice changes. Instead of the gentleness that is there when he speaks of the men with whom he served on Hill 55 and Marble Mountain, there is urgency, even resentment. '`Next time we're going to need a contract,' he says. `'I'm not saying I won't send my son - I probably would - but before we commit our sons, we better have full support, across the board, from every segment of society. Before I commit my son, I want these things addressed. I want a decision.''

"Nearly 10 years after the fall of Saigon - when the superpower of the Western world rescued its last representatives in Vietnam, helicopter by helicopter, from the roof of an embassy that had served as a viceregal outpost - this kind of double exposure on issues of peace and war has lodged itself in the consciousness of millions of Americans.

There is that instant when disbelief can be suspended and the righteous use of power again seems possible; and there is that equally emotional moment that follows, when disbelief returns in a clatter of old doubts and bitterness. Politicians and strategists still refer to the 'Vietnam syndrome' as if it were a lingering ailment in search of a miracle cure. Others, continuing the old Vietnam debate on a higher level of abstraction, contend that the war itself was a costly and wrenching cure for imperial delusions.

"But it was not ancient arguments I discovered in nearly a month spent wandering around the United States, trying to assay the feelings Vietnam still aroused, it was the voltage those feelings are still capable of delivering.

"I began with the notion that I might have to explain why I wanted to talk about the war at this late date but \- except when I was talking to members of the younger post-Vietnam generation, for whom the names of Vietnam battlegrounds like Hue and Khe Sanh carry no connotations at all - no preamble was necessary. The feelings required no excavation; they were available, still churning, the way they must have been in 1875, 10 years after Appomattox.

''`It seems like the American people can't get used to the past,' an autoworker in Detroit observed. 'They have it on the brain.'

"The feelings are still there and unsettled, but now they tend to be focused on the future. We want to give ourselves absolution, although we remain deeply divided - as individuals and as a people - over what it is we need to absolve (whether it is what we did fighting the war in Indochina or what we did protesting it at home).

"Even more urgently, we want to know how it will be if there is a next time, whether the use of power in a third-world setting would automatically reopen the old divisions.

"In other words, when we talk about Vietnam we are seldom talking about the country of that name or the situation of the people who live there. Usually we are talking about ourselves. Probably we always were, which is one conspicuous reason our leaders found it so hard to shape a strategy that fit us and our chosen terrain.

"Obviously, the war is not over for Americans like Scott Marr, who has had three operations in the last year at the Audie Murphy Veterans Hospital in San Antonio to have old fragments of shrapnel removed from his body; or Greg Nystrom, a waiter in Hollywood and aspiring photographer, who has not been able to banish the thought that a father shot down over North Vietnam more than 19 years ago might still be alive.

In less obvious ways, the war is not over for tens of millions of other Americans, especially those whose sense of their country and the world was shaped in the Vietnam era. If anything - with the passage of time, the need to reinterpret America's longest war to a younger generation, and its usefulness as a metaphor and touchstone for the debates on Central America - the Vietnam experience is reasserting itself. Suddenly with the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the mall in Washington, where it now outdraws every other monument but the Lincoln Memorial, Americans have settled on a new and more gratifying image of the Vietnam veteran. Instead of the incipient psychopath deserving pity, he is a patriotic symbol and something of a culture hero, often presented now as self-sufficient and irreverent, trusting only himself because his leaders and society let him down.

"Hollywood, as ready to exploit the new image as it was the old one, has dispatched actors Chuck Norris, Tom Selleck and Sylvester Stallone for a series of rematches with the old insidious enemy who now, 10 years after the war's end, is fully as fiendish and fanatical as our World War II enemies were in movies when our forces were still in the trenches. Action-adventure films that lead back to the jungles of Indochina seem to have only one subject - the search for more than 2,400 Americans who are still believed, as a matter of devout popular conviction, to be missing in action in Vietnam or Laos.

"In the intellectual sphere, the debate on the war still periodically flares, with conservatives launching sporadic raids to seize the moral high ground that those who opposed the war once confidently occupied. To the extent that it was the Left that introduced moral zeal into American politics while the war was being fought, it is providing models for today's right. Vietnam, exults the Committee for the Free World, is no longer an occasion for '`America-bashing.'

"Meantime, bumper stickers that cry 'No Vietnam War in Central America' are sprouting on California freeways. And across America, from lower Manhattan to Concord, California, Vietnam veterans go on constructing monuments to their dead. In all of this, Vietnam functions less and less as a real place than as a mirror to America, the way the polished black granite slabs of the memorial in Washington reflect the faces of the thousands who go there in search of one or another kind of catharsis.

"A New York Times poll taken at the end of last month indicates that Americans are more ready to agree with the assertion that their country's role in the war was 'immoral' or at least 'wrong' than with President Reagan's characterization of it as a 'noble cause.' It indicates, too, that they mostly subscribe to the view that we learned in Vietnam not to intervene in civil wars. But many who took these stands were also prepared to send combat troops to El Salvador to prevent a Communist takeover there. For many, then, it might be said, immorality had something to do with failure. What was true for these individual Americans was especially true for the United States Army.

"Traumatized by its failure to subdue the peasant soldiers of a poor Asian country and grieved by its losses \- of men, discipline and prestige - the Army tried at first to treat Vietnam like a bad affair whose lessons were all for the politicians. In officers' clubs and war colleges, the lieutenants who 'humped' with their men through rice paddies and highland forests schooled themselves to talk of almost anything else as they ascended to field-grade ranks.

"But as the Vietnam lieutenants became colonels, the military started to pick at the wound and assess its own failures: The divided command structure, short duty tours for field officers, lopsided imbalance of support troops to fighting troops, reliance on 'body counts,' systematic self-deceit and failures of intelligence. Studies by some of the Army's best thinkers, notably General Bruce Palmer Jr. and Colonel Harry G. Summers Jr., have erased the myth that the war was lost only because the politicians reined in the generals.

"Now commander of the Fourth Airborne Training Battalion at Fort Benning, Georgia, Lieutenant Colonel Leonard B. Scott was a 22-year-old lieutenant leading a Ranger patrol in the first company that went into northern Cambodia in 1970. With a picture of John Wayne as a cavalry officer on a shelf behind him, the colonel is the image of a tough airborne officer - trim, blond, suited up for the jump he will make before lunch. But when he gets on the subject of leadership and Vietnam, his eyes get wet and he has to look out the window to regain control. Only now does he find it possible to speak openly about the `hollow' and `sickening' feeling he had when he rotated out of his unit, `leaving guys I did not want to leave.'

''`The Army did not perform well in Vietnam,' this officer says, 'but that guy, that individual soldier, on the whole he did an outstanding job.'

"Scott's feelings had nowhere to go in the post-Vietnam Army so they flowed, like those of the FBI man in Knoxville, into a novel. Called 'Charlie Mike' and scheduled for publication this year, it is a hymn on the theme of valor - that of the American soldier and that of the North Vietnamese enemy as well.

"The experience of writing it has made the colonel feel, at 37, like a 'dinosaur.' The younger officers are sick, he thinks, of hearing about Vietnam. When the last battalion commanders with Vietnam experience are phased out, he says, 'some people will say, "Great! We finally got rid of the Vietnam mentality, the jungle-warfare mentality."' Then wars like Vietnam may look easy again.

"If Vietnam is remote to the younger officers, it is infinitely more remote to their troops, the newest of whom were getting ready for kindergarten when the American withdrawal began. If you are over 35 and want to feel like 135, try talking about Vietnam with a recent high-school graduate, someone like Susan Greene. If this were 1969, she would probably have found her way to Woodstock. With blond curls and an ingenuous manner, she is, at any rate, the image of a flower child of that era. Now, in another time, Susan Greene is preparing for airborne training in Colonel Scott's battalion. Asked for her opinion of the Vietnam War, Private Greene replies: 'It was stupid.'

''`Do you think you'd feel that way if we had won?' she is asked.

Her eyes widen. She looks a little confused. 'From the way I thought, we'd won the war,'' she says.

''1When did you find out we lost?'

''`Right now. Just now. I never studied it, you know.'

"Steve Holstein, a 20-year-old airborne recruit from Charleston, West Virginia, offers a more knowledgeable view. 'The Vietnam War is something our generation really takes seriously,' he maintains. 'It makes us want to prove something - that there's a younger generation now that isn't out to exploit each other or cut each other down.'

"Its spirit was captured for him, he says, in a World War III movie called 'Red Dawn', in which a group of high school students takes to the Rockies as guerrilla fighters after their Colorado town is falling to a joint Soviet-Cuban force. Soviet helicopters swoop down on the young insurgents the way American gunships assaulted Vietnamese in 'Apocalypse Now'. Private Holstein admits he cried at 'Red Dawn'. The Colorado guerrillas never had a chance against the Russians, of course, but they showed the merit of resistance in a 'no-win situation,' and now the young recruit applies that lesson to Vietnam: 'We proved that we were there for our allies when they are in trouble, even when it's a no-win situation.'

"However, his grasp of the Vietnam War is not quite as firm as his grasp of World War III. He plays along when I start to quiz him on some names from the Vietnam era, starting with that of a former lieutenant who once faced a court-martial at

"'Sounds familiar,' the young man replies.

'''My Lai?' He shakes his head from side to side. 'Tet?' Same response. 'Thieu and Ky?'

'''Doesn't ring any bells.'

Fascinated by the results, I try again a few days later with a Sunday school class of high school juniors and seniors at St. Michael and St. George Church in Clayton, Missouri, a comfortable suburb of St. Louis.

''McNamara?' I begin.

'''Some kind of politician.'

'''Ho Chi Minh?'

'''A city.'

'''Is that all?'

'''He was the head of something.'

'''Ho Chi Minh was a city, a trail and a guy,' says the teacher, a former Huey pilot and Cobra gunner named Donald Armstrong, who is now an Anglican priest.

'''Did he look Vietnamese?' asks a student who appears to be serious.

I try again. 'The Chicago Seven?'

'''Some kind of gang there. It's not Mafia or something, is it?'

Last round. 'Thieu and Ky?'

A young man closes his eyes and smacks his forehead; the answer drops out: 'Brothers! They were brothers who ran South Vietnam.' 'You're close, but I think you mean Diem,' I tell him.

'''Oh, yeah,'' he agrees. 'Diem Bien-phu.'

The quiz provokes a discussion. Asked by one of his students to explain how he felt as a Christian about the things he was required to do in combat, the priest responds by describing the experience of flying into a village in Cambodia where many inhabitants had been slaughtered by the Communist insurgents of the Khmer Rouge. 'As a Christian,' he says, 'what I used to think about was the people

''`Where does that turn-the-other-cheek thing come in?' a girl asks.

''`Some of those people had their cheeks cut off,' the priest replies in an even tone. The next question comes from a young man in a blazer and bow tie with a precociously stern voice: 'Where was the patriotic movement during the Vietnam War?'

''`The war got so emotional that it was beyond patriotism,' Don Armstrong, who is now 36, answers. 'Honor became how you dealt with your circumstances. If you kept your commitments, that was honor. If you stood up to the system, that was also honor.'

Chatting after class, the priest talks about the weird experience of coming home. One day he was flying a chopper under fire in Cambodia. Less than 72 hours later, he was sipping martinis in his parents' living room, where everyone was too considerate to ask about the war. What had been the entire context of his life for a year became his dirty little secret.

"Many veterans say it was years before they could sit calmly in a social situation. Don Armstrong was one of the lucky ones, a vet who could accept himself without flashbacks or remorse.

"The realization that there are well-adjusted, psychically whole combat veterans from Vietnam is only beginning to seep into the consciousness of many who opposed the war. Sometimes, Armstrong says, they resist it.

''`The country was suffering from a post-traumatic stress disorder, not the Vietnam veteran,' contends Barry Levin, a successful criminal lawyer whose combat decorations, including a Bronze Star Medal and three Purple Hearts, hang in a glass case in his penthouse office in Los Angeles. 'I am not ashamed to say that the best years of my life were in the military. I loved the war. I'm very proud to have fought in combat for my country.'

"Does he think such people should now feel some responsibility for what happened in Indochina after the Americans left? 'Sure, sure,' he replies in an offhand manner. In his mind, that conclusion is too self-evident to require spelling out. 'It's too easy in America,' he goes on. 'They're consumers of freedom, not protectors of freedom.'

The 'they' conveys an alienation the lawyer readily acknowledges: He has little use for contemporaries who didn't fight in the war, he says. Yet Vietnam veterans are divided like the rest of the population on questions of war and peace.

"In Santa Cruz, California, I visited VFW Post 5888, which has had its charter revoked by the national VFW for passing a resolution in favor of 'self-determination and nonintervention in Central America,' then conveying it to a Sandinista representative in Managua, Nicaragua. 'It's our duty to see Vietnam doesn't happen again,' asserts Lee Bookout, an angry transplanted Texan and former Marine who says he kept his feelings about the war so bottled up that 'I was married for years, and my wife didn't know I was a vet.'

''`Yeah,' says Richard Anderson, the post's commander, who fought in Vietnam during the 1968 Tet offensive as a member of a mortar platoon, 'that's how it was with me and my first wife.'

"The vets wear their Veterans of Foreign Wars hats. The hall they occupy has glass cases with souvenirs retrieved from the Spanish-American War. Anderson and Bookout are both heavy-equipment operators. Drafting manifestoes is not their line of work, but that is what they were doing when I got there - preparing their appeal to the national leadership of the VFW, which has proclaimed the organization's 'unanimous' support of the President's stand in Central America. A Harvard lawyer might have found it hard to improve on their draft, which says they had fought for the right to dissent.

The Santa Cruz vets have a vision of themselves as a 'first wave' of former servicemen who will join together in the cause of peace. Near San Jose, I encountered veterans of another kind, former peace activists who had leaped across the ideological divide - with no sacrifice of radical zeal, nor loss of belief that they are in confrontation with a decadent society. They are taking their stand with conservative Christians seeking to 'restore the strength of our nation,' as a brochure I was handed puts it, by placing it on 'a Biblical base.'

"If you are disposed to do so, you can write off Bill Garaway and Dennis Peacocke as cultural mutants, but they are earnest, hard-working individuals who are more conspicuously, at this juncture in America, part of a 'wave' than those who still identify with their former cause. If they are not typical, at least these 'Christian activists,' as they are pleased to be known, show how the zealotry of the 1960's Left has provided models for the 80's right.

"Garaway, now a successful contractor, was a leader of the draft-resistance movement in the Vietnam period; following two Federal prosecutions (and a featured role playing a character like himself in Antonioni's 'Zabriskie Point'), he went searching for a 'new consciousness' on a commune, winding up by himself in a tree house in the woods above Palo Alto.

"Peacocke, whose passage included the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley and the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party before he tripped off into LSD, black-belt karate and Zen, is now a pastor and leader of an evangelical movement in Northern California called the Covenant Outreach Ministries.

"Both men are heavily involved in the right-to-life movement and building support for a resolute American stand in Central America. Both are prepared to 'give witness' to what they regard as the moral failures and self-deception of the anti-war movement. 'Everything we were told wouldn't happen has happened,' Peacocke says. 'We were told it wasn't North Vietnam's war, but a "people's war."' Now we find out North Vietnam engineered the whole thing. We were told there would be no genocide and slaughter. There has been genocide and slaughter. What the people we did not trust said was true.' He adds, 'The Third World War started a long time ago, and we are losing.'

It is only among ideological converts, however, that this kind of confession from 1960's activists is apt to be heard. Probably because the war had been disowned by virtually every segment of American opinion by the time troop withdrawals began in 1969 and the Nixon policy of 'Vietnamization' was in place, the 'Who lost Vietnam?' witch hunt that stirred jittery premonitions in the Johnson White House never materialized. Periodically, however, intellectual disputes on the issue of intervention in the third world are enlivened by a suggestion from the side that jousts under the neoconservative banner that a little confession might be good for liberal souls.

"Writing in Commentary five years ago, a sociologist named Peter L. Berger asked whether the antiwar movement had been guilty of 'a moral failure of terrifying proportions' for neglecting to think through the consequences in Indochina of the American defeat. Only two months later, the same journal ran an article by Charles Horner pointing to the Khmer Rouge slaughters in Cambodia and the tragedy of the Vietnamese boat people as evidence that 'thousands, perhaps millions, had died because the American effort in Vietnam had been allowed to fail.' Finally, Norman Podhoretz, Commentary's editor, laid out the revisionist case two years later in his 'Why We Were in Vietnam,' which concluded that the war was honorable but unwinnable, then argued that 'the antiwar movement bears a certain measure of responsibility for the horrors that have overtaken the people of Vietnam.'

"The debate, when it is joined, gets a little intricate. The revisionists beg the operational questions, never saying that America should have stayed in the war with its men and its bombs. They also have to acknowledge that the continuing Indochina wars do not make a tidy allegory, for they have been among Communists - Vietnamese, Chinese, Cambodian - all of whom, without distinction, the United States thought it was resisting when it intervened in Indochina. Intending to withstand revolutionary Maoism, we ended up in a tacit alliance with the Chinese, who support the Khmer Rouge, the faction responsible for the worst genocide since Hitler. Paradoxes and counterarguments multiply, but among veterans of the antiwar movement it seems that there has been a noticeable aversion to engaging in a political post-mortem.

"This does not mean that Indochina has been ignored by liberal intellectuals. The New York Review of Books, which provided essential reading to serious-minded doves during the war, has probably followed the Vietnamese and Cambodian catastrophes in more detail than any other intellectual journal, including Commentary. The emphasis has been on eyewitness accounts, which has meant they were almost invariably by foreigners, starting with an article in 1977 by a French-Canadian priest, Andre Gelinas, who portrayed 'the New Vietnam' as a place of rampant corruption and random terror.

'We are all a little neo-something,' remarks Joseph Duffey, who ran for the Senate in Connecticut as an antiwar candidate in 1970 and now is chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. 'That was our time, and we should learn some lessons from it.' Expressing the lesson he learned, Duffey paraphrases Barry Goldwater. ''Extremism in politics is a vice,' he says, contending that the antiwar movement, by the 'virulence' of its attack on American values and institutions, may actually have prolonged the war. But Duffey does not feel he is responsible, as an opponent of the war, for what has happened in Indochina. What he feels is 'chastened.'

"John Froines, one of the Chicago Seven and a full-time peace activist for two and a half years, was similarly disinclined to plunge into the old debates when I visited him at the School of Public Health at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he is an associate professor, specializing in toxicology. 'For me Asia has faded,' he acknowledges. 'I'm more focused on molecules.'

"The scientist's opinions are now measured, detached. 'Everyone at a subterranean level tries to think through that period,' he says, 'but what's the take-home lesson?'

"The professor poses the question and answers it in a roundabout way that has meaning in terms of his own current preoccupations in the laboratory. It is that the Occupational Safety and Health Act was signed by a President named Richard Nixon, whom the movement reviled. Now, he says, the law is being undone by ideologues. 'I have a certain fondness for the Nixon Administration,' the toxicologist concludes. 'At least they were understandable. Nixon wasn't any more immoral than other American Presidents. He was just caught in the Vietnam web.'

"In the '60's, proponents of intervention used to argue somewhat wanly that we had to engage the realities of a complicated world; the opponents brandished moral principles and brushed aside complexity. In the '80's, I was beginning to conclude, it is just the opposite. But Daniel Ellsberg, a veteran of both sides, didn't fit into my paradigm. He had known Vietnam too well to be simplistic then and he was not inclined to waffle now. Over herbal tea in his hillside study on the outskirts of Berkeley, where he maintains a one-man think tank on issues of war and peace, Ellsberg read to me a passage from one of his official reports from Vietnam that he had published in 1972 without apologies. The Communists, he had predicted, would introduce 'forced- draft industrialization under totalitarian controls, capitalized by exploitation of the peasants and preceded by a blood bath to destroy or terrorize potential opposition.'

'''I did not take naive positions,' he says, marking the passage. 'There is a tendency now to stereotype the entire antiwar movement as pro-Hanoi. A stab-in-the-back legend is growing up.'

"Ellsberg argues that there is a peace movement in place now that is more broadly based, more knowledgeable about techniques of nonviolent protest and more disciplined than the movements of the '60's. It has shown itself in the campaign for a nuclear freeze. It will show itself again, he says, as the conflicts in Central America widen. The Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon are also better prepared, he contends. They have built airfields, made their logistical arrangements, sealed borders and eliminated the possibility of sanctuaries before running the risk of American casualties; they are also ready, he says, to limit television and press coverage. 'But if you think all we need is censorship, more air power and tougher police,' Ellsberg says, 'look at Russia in Afghanistan or Vietnam in Cambodia.'

"10 years later, we are talking about Vietnam again, but often as an analogy. What we really want to know is what we would do the next time. The question is put two ways. Positively: Have we regained our national will and purpose? Negatively: Are we about to tear ourselves apart all over again? The two concerns, it may be noted, are both self-regarding. They are also not mutually exclusive, as the Times poll shows. On Ash Wednesday, in Chicago's Loop, I found myself on the fringes of the first peace demonstration I had happened to witness in more than 13 years, a religious service conducted at midday in the lobby of the Everett Dirksen Federal Building by clergy and laity from Chicago churches that have pledged to serve as sanctuaries for political refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala. A 'statement of confession and concern' was read out, calling on the government 'to repent of its death-causing destruction and seek the forgiveness of God and the wounded children, women and men of Central America.'

Then, stepping forward, one by one, the 60 or so participants had the ashen mark applied to their foreheads and took a little extra carbon on their fingertips, which they then ran along the rough stone surface of the lobby wall, forming a faintly visible web of powdery black streaks, a symbol 'of death and repentance.' Like many demonstrations of the '60's, it was essentially a media event, affecting for those who took part but largely ignored by passers-by.

"It was familiar except for one crucial factor: The participants were so much older, which is to say there were hardly any kids. (Later, back in New York, I asked the Reverend William Sloane Coffin, a leader in the sanctuary movement as well as a leader in the early days of the Vietnam protests, whether this was typical. He acknowledged that it was, citing the absence of the draft as an explanation. 'Americans are not ready to have good Americans die bravely in a bad cause,' the preacher commented caustically, 'but they are ready to have almost anyone else die bravely in a bad cause.')

"Beyond the rejection of the Vietnam War itself, there is virtually no trace of the rebellious hostility to America - the 'mother country,' it was sardonically called - that ultimately cut off the protest movements of the Vietnam era from any chance of grass- roots support. At the last peace rally I can remember covering in those days, late in 1971, the government was denounced for 'war crimes' and 'genocide,' and debate centered on the question of whether American society as a whole should be resisted as 'evil.' Essentially this was a question of tactics; that it was evil was taken as a given.

Conveying the mood of disillusion that prevailed in that period to today's undergraduates is not much easier than conveying the mood of 17th Century Salem, Massachusetts. James Matray, a 36-year-old historian, participated as a student in the '60's protests. Today he teaches a course on the Vietnam period at New Mexico State University at Las Cruces to students he describes as being mostly 'tabula rasa' on the subject. Usually, he says, it is more difficult to explain to his students the position of those who, like himself, resisted than to explore the position of those who supported the war. 'What's so disturbing about the college students today,' he comments, 'is the absence of the moral yardstick that we applied.'

"What grips today's students about Vietnam is the experience of people who went through the war, the personal choices of soldiers, not Presidents. 'I have high respect for the people who went,' a sophomore named Diane Watts comments when I raise the subject of Vietnam at Southwest Texas State University, Lyndon B. Johnson's alma mater. 'It may not have been the right thing to do, but at least they gave their lives up for the government.'

"The most popular course at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where Vietnam is taught in the department of religious studies rather than history, focuses mainly on the nature of the decision to serve and its consequences. The 873 undergraduates enrolled in the course hear relatively few academic lectures. Instead, they are present as witnesses to encounter sessions at which individuals whose lives were shaped by the era - mainly vets - unpack their anger, fears and dreams.

"I heard about the course from John Wheeler, an official at the Securities and Exchange Commission whose own odyssey ran through West Point, business and law school, a staff job in Vietnam and a theological seminary, and who now has undertaken the cause of 'healing' as a moral avocation. When Wheeler lectured at Santa Barbara, he spoke about Vietnam as an experience of 'self-giving' on the part of the soldier but took what amounted to an agnostic position on the war itself. 'I don't think the jury is in on Vietnam,' he said, 'and I promise you that I don't think I know the answer.'

"His earnestness and tentativeness, or perhaps the combination, earned him an emotionally charged standing ovation lasting more than a full minute. At the next lecture, the Santa Barbara students did the same for a vet named Shad Meshad, whose testimony took them from his first confrontation with the war's brutality - a home movie shown by the instructor of Meshad's Reserve Officer Training Corps class featuring the instructor in the act of mutilating a Vietcong corpse - through the whole cycle of suffering and alienation. When he was through, dozens of students rushed to the stage to hear more.

A young woman told me it was the best lecture she had heard in the course. I asked what she liked about it. 'The gory details,' she replied, mentioning in particular the anecdote about the film. I wondered why this was. She found it hard to explain, so I'm still wondering. My guess is that her answer said nothing about politics, that she was expressing the emotions of fear and pity, which Aristotle said were appropriate to tragedy.

"It's not the students who speak of the 'lessons' of Vietnam. That's left to those who pursue the old debates. Was it that we limited our use of power, used it arrogantly or used it at all? Was the military kept from 'winning' the war, or did it lack a strategy? What did we mean by 'winning,' anyhow? It is a mark of how unresolved American feelings about the war remain that you get answers that are diametrically opposed when you raise such issues with the two members of the Senate whose political careers are most conspicuously rooted in the war.

"Jeremiah A. Denton Jr., an Alabama Republican, and John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, were both highly decorated Navy officers. Senator Denton, a career man shot down over North Vietnam on his 12th mission in 1965, survived more than seven years - including more than four years of solitary confinement punctuated by torture - as a prisoner of war. Senator Kerry, a lieutenant 19 years Denton's junior, became a spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

"The essential error on the American side, the Alabaman believes, was to fail to use decisive force early enough. 'If we were bombing Hanoi in July 1965, the month I was shot down, at one-tenth the level that we bombed it in December 1972,' he contends, 'the war would have been over.' The United States confronts a similar test of will in Central America, where, he says, 'unilateral war shouldn't be in the cards but may be necessary.'

"Senator Kerry, by contrast, describes his stand on Vietnam as 'a central part of my political existence.' The 'clear lessons' of Vietnam are apparent to the voters, he contends. Kerry had a landslide of his own last November in the midst of the Reagan avalanche. 'They have come to understand that we should not have been there,' he says. 'When we commit our forces, the goal should be achievable. When we do it, let's do it Democratically.' With Central America in mind, the freshman Senator is looking for ways to strengthen the War Powers Act of 1973, which was intended to check a President's ability to commit American power without Congressional approval.

Periodic attempts by the Reagan Administration to repeal the act have foundered because the very suggestion provokes fears of 'another Vietnam.' In what proved to be one of the most misguided assessments of the entire war, then-Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara wrote early on: 'The greatest contribution Vietnam is making - right or wrong is beside the point - is that it is developing an ability in the United States to fight a limited war, to go to war without the necessity of arousing public ire.' Now public ire is seen as a potential threat to any war effort. Hence the conclusion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Caspar W. Weinberger, the Defense Secretary, that we should only fight wars the public has endorsed, which makes the Joint Chiefs heirs to one of the main antiwar themes.

But then such paradoxes are part of the general inheritance.

"Dan Moore, a veteran now employed making Cadillacs at the Fleetwood plant in Detroit, readily acknowledges that he tried to avoid service in the war. He went, finally, but managed to stay offshore in the Gulf of Siam on a Navy oiler. He does not think the war was justified, but he now dwells on 'strength.'

'''I don't think we can spend enough time thinking about being strong,' Dan Moore says. 'I wish our President had acted when they bombed our embassy in Lebanon. He wasn't strong enough. And when they shot down that 007 plane, we did nothing. It sometimes makes my mind go on the blink to think if we're really, really ready.'

"Plainly, the revulsion from the Vietnam War and the chasm it opened in American society have made room for the prevailing mood of nationalism, but it can also work the other way. Paul Melhercik, the personnel director for an electronics company, also tried to avoid the war. He has a sports car in the garage of his home in a St. Louis suburb with the license plate OLDVET, but he says it stands for 'old Corvette,' not 'old veteran.' Melhercik voted twice for Richard M. Nixon, twice for Ronald Reagan, and believes in 'a strong military, a strong defense.' Yet he is dead set against intervention in Third World conflicts. 'What we learned in Vietnam,' he says, 'is we can't fight other people's wars. I don't know why, whether we don't understand their cultures or what, but we can't be the world's policeman. Another culture doesn't play by the same rules.' At which point Charlene Melhercik, his wife, interjects, 'You mean our rules.'

"In the American mind, there are, after all, two, three, many Vietnams.

"There is also the real country, which was always remote, even to many who served there.

'''You could lose all respect for the Vietnamese, till you fought beside them, touched them, lived with them,' remarks Alan (Doc) Cornett, whose experience of Vietnam comes as close as any American's to telling the story of the war.

"He can remember, when he was new to Vietnam, contemptuously hurling C-ration cans at the heads of Vietnamese civilians from a speeding truck.

But he had been trained in the language and two of its dialects, and soon he was operating on his own as a Special Forces medic attached to a South Vietnamese unit. His Vietnamese counterpart became his best friend and, over a period of three years, he grew attached to his friend's family, then engaged to his friend's sister. They were married in a Vietnamese ceremony, but then the colonel in command of Cornett's unit refused to process the papers necessary for the marriage to be recognized by the Army. Cornett had committed the sin of 'fraternization,' the officer said. He had 'gone native.' He would not be allowed to bring a Vietnamese 'prostitute' home. Instead, he was to consider himself confined to base.

"Not long after that, Cornett went home in handcuffs to a court martial and the stockade for assaulting his colonel. The Army, with Solomonic tact, having busted him to private for indiscipline, then brought his wife, Linh, to America, and they were married again. Cornett stayed in and now, a graybeard with 20 of his 41 years in the service, is a sergeant first class at Fort Benning. When he thinks of the war, he is one of the tiny minority of Americans who think first of the South Vietnamese. 'We deserted them, you know,' he says.

"Others still think of the Vietnamese with guilt and resentment, or a mixture, guilty resentment. In a long afternoon's conversation over beer at the VFW post in the Appalachian coal-mining town of Cumberland, Kentucky, the talk turned to hatred. 'We didn't like ourselves, we didn't like any people there,' said Sam Gilbert. 'We just built up a general hatred.'

'''Slant eyes,' another vet said, sounding nostalgic, as if he had remembered the name of a song.

'''Just about every Vietnam vet hated the Vietnamese,' remarked Eddie Sturgill, a union official, speaking in a sad, ruminating voice. One of the vets remembered how his unit used to fire rounds over the heads of peasants working in the paddy fields, 'just to see them hit the water.'

'''To see how big a splash they made,' another said.

'''You know, if we went to Central America, we'd hate those people, too,' Eddie said.

"'What concerns me,' he continued, 'is when people say, "You couldn't do it. You lost the war.'''

'''We didn't lose no war when I was there,' exploded Roy Tippett. 'We done our objective.'

'''Did they take it when you was there, Possum?' asked Ronnie Johnson, embroidering Tippett's point. 'Did they kick you out?'

"James Boggs, known as Possum, had to be treated for alcoholism and depression in a psychiatric hospital after he left the Army. Of the many terrible memories he has had to learn to accommodate, the worst was of the day in the A Shau Valley when a Cobra gunship, mistaking his platoon for North Vietnamese, dropped its nose and swooped down, killing eight. He answers the question with a noncommittal shake of the head. Later Possum says, 'I ain't got no feelings when it comes to funerals, cause of 'Nam.'

I went back to Washington at the end of my trip and spent three hours at the Vietnam Memorial on an unseasonably balmy Sunday afternoon. Specifications in the design of the monument required that it be apolitical, but the feelings it inspires may have political meaning for the American present. No doubt these are diverse, but I did not get a sense that many visitors find an explanation, let alone a justification, for the deaths. On the contrary, the impact seems to come from the names themselves: The remarkable particularization and specificity of the 58,022 names etched in granite and chronicled in directories the size of phone books (83 more names than were there when it was dedicated). From what I could surmise, most visitors come away with a sense of waste as well as sacrifice.

'''Sometimes,' said Bill Schorndorf, a former Marine who visits the memorial at least twice a week, 'I pick a name and try to imagine what he was like.' He wasn't the only one who seemed to be doing that. 'Look,' a man from Virginia said to his son, 'there's even a Yamashita.' I checked the directory. Five Americans named Yamashita died in Vietnam. (If there is a next time, probably there will be Troungs and Nguyens: 700,000 refugees from Indochina have reached America since the fall of Saigon.)

Nations don't build monuments to their defeated allies or victorious enemies, so there is nothing at the memorial to remind you of the Vietnamese. Of the people with whom I spoke when I visited the monument, only Bill Schorndorf even mentioned them, and then only after I had brought up the subject indirectly by asking whether he thought it had been a 'noble cause,' as President Reagan called it. 'The idea when we went in there was right,' he said, 'but I don't think the people wanted to be saved, at times.'

"A balanced historical judgment would have to be more exact. It would have to ask why, if that were the case, they didn't want to be saved. It would also have to ask whether there had ever been any real relationship between the wishes of the Vietnamese and our decisions. But if this was not a historical judgment, it seemed to be the judgment of many Americans. We seem to be inclined to forgive ourselves for having gone there; inclined also to say that if things didn't work out, it wasn't our fault. That may not be a balanced judgment but it is still, I thought, a recognition of history and of limits.

"That is what our supposed loss of innocence after Vietnam was said to have been all about, but we don't reward leaders who talk of limits. Five days after his enormous election victory last November, President Reagan spoke at the Vietnam Memorial and took up the theme of self-forgiveness. 'We can forgive ourselves for those things that may have been wrong in the conduct of the war,' the President said. His words seemed to have been chosen very carefully, and to imply that the results could have been different; that the mistakes were in the conduct of the war and not, as most of those who voted for him appear to believe, in the war itself.

"But even a President with a huge, freshly renewed mandate would not want to do more than touch on that theme. He had not got where he was by arguing over the past. So he spoke about 'healing' and moving forward, offering balm for wounds that still pain."

The age of Nixon

It is altogether fitting that the greatest "triumph" of Communism in the post-World War II era occurred because of and during the fall of the 37th President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon. Nixon was the most stalwart of opponents of this evil ideology. Liberals hated Nixon more than they hated Communism. In fact, many of them liked Communism, which seemed to operate in direct proportion to their feelings about Nixon. Somehow, being a "fellow traveler" was protected status, unlike being a Nazi sympathizer (with the exception of Joseph P. Kennedy, who somehow bought off enough newspapers to keep his love of Hitler from becoming big news). The Left found themselves faced with a conundrum. To admit that Communism was what it was, they would have to join forces at the hip with Nixon and admit their own complicitness with the movement. In the end, they chose to let Communism run wild in favor of the politics of personal destruction. It is due to luck, the American people, Ronald Reagan and, in my view, Divine Intervention that this trend was put to a stop and Communism was dealt its deathblow, despite its "victory" in the 1970s.

When Nixon died in 1994, a "Who's Who of American Politics" paid homage to him at his funeral in California. President Bill Clinton proclaimed the "age of Nixon." Nixon's career spanned a period of time from the 1930s, when he became a lawyer near Los Angeles, to the 1990s, when he was still a best selling author and elder statesman. But his rivalry with the Kennedy's - John, Robert and Teddy - following a friendship he had with Joe and John Kennedy resulting in Joe's financial contribution to his campaigns, defines his public life. This rivalry frames events that defy common politics and history. Greek tragedy and Shakespearean drama are filled with no less irony, twists and turns than the Nixon-Kennedy rivalry. It propels all the events of 1960s and '70s. Nixon and Kennedy were like "brothers" when they came up together as rookie Congressmen in 1946, but 1960 rent asunder their friendship. The events of that year's campaign taught Nixon the "lessons" that fueled his paranoia and worst mistakes.

Nixon will always be compared with another Republican contemporary, Reagan. Reagan, who was not considered to be of Nixon's political gravitas, is seen as the man who righted much of what went wrong under Nixon, in essence providing conservative justification for Nixon's "sins." In this regard, the amiable, handsome Reagan became what everybody wanted the difficult, homely Nixon to be. In bringing America together Reagan managed to represent the forces of both Kennedy and Nixon with the baggage of neither.

Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California on January 9, 1913. It must be coincidence, but for some reason a large number of America's most important people were born in January and February. Aside from Nixon this includes George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Babe Ruth, Ronald Reagan and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nixon's cabin is still intact and can be toured by visitors to his impressive library in what is now suburban Orange County, a freeway drive from downtown Los Angeles. The Nixon Library is probably the most historically interesting of all the Presidential libraries, in part because it offers an honest appraisal of the man, warts and all. His father, Francis, a rough-hewn man who believed in hard work to the end, built the Yorba Linda abode from scratch. It never "paid off," in the conventional sense, in his own life. Nixon was the second of Hannah and Francis Nixon's five children, all of whom were boys. Two of his brothers died deaths at the hands of tragic illness. Despite his rivalry with the Kennedys, he felt compassion for each successive Kennedy who survived the deaths of brothers. His mother was a devout Quaker who spoke in the "plain speech." Nixon was a believing Christian who grew up amid hardship, but believed that reward would come to him if not in this world, then in the afterlife.

The family faced terrible economic difficulties. Bad luck and the Great Depression combined to make life emotionally tense in the Nixon household. Francis bought a lemon ranch but it failed to yield. He owned a grocery store, but barely eked out a living. His gas station was a meager provider, but after it was sold oil was discovered under the land. Despite being poor, the family eschewed government handouts. Nixon's father was a staunch Republican. Young Richard told his mother he planned to become an "honest lawyer" and politician.

The Southern California landscape that Nixon grew up in helped shape his politics, too. Unlike growing up in the freezing cold, or in the tenements of New York, being poor in the wide-open spaces of Los Angeles' rural outskirts made one forget that they were economically deprived. The air in those pre-pollution days was clean and fresh. Acres of orange groves rent the sweet smell of fruit, dominating ones' senses. Warm sunshine permeated the consciousness 12 months of the year. Trips to the beach or nearby mountains allowed for occasional adventure. Nixon was popular with friends, teammates and pretty girls.

When his father owned the grocery store, Nixon was charged with driving daily at four o'clock in the morning to the Farmer's Market in Los Angeles to buy produce. Despite this regimen, he excelled in school and played on Whittier High School's football team. Nixon could have attended Harvard University, or one of the great colleges in the Golden State, Stanford or Southern California. But he was needed to work in the family business, so he had to stay close to home. He settled on Whittier College, where he "played" football at Whittier, but was little more than "cannon fodder" for the first string. He never complained or quit. He became involved in student government at Whittier, a Quaker school that prohibited dancing. Nixon was a Quaker, but his worldview was modern. He advocated lifting the ban on dancing, was successful, and earned popularity as a result. When Nixon graduated from Whittier, his older brother died of emphysema. Through a peculiar set of circumstances, this freed up money for him to attend law school.

He had seen a flyer on the bulletin board at Whittier College advertising a new law school at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, complete with scholarships for the academically worthy. He applied and was accepted with the scholarship in Duke's very first class. At times, he had to live in a shed with no bathroom or cooking facilities, studying Lincoln-style by candlelight. He engaged in lengthy, heated debates with his Southern classmates on the issue of racial equality, and advocated full civil rights for blacks.

The conversations had a lasting impression on Nixon. He argued passionately and intelligently. The Southerners respected his views while agreeing to disagree. The arguments were not hateful or vitriolic, but rather intellectually stimulating. It taught Nixon that the best tools of debate and diplomacy were facts and a calm demeanor. Throughout his academic career, Nixon was a member of debating societies. By the time he graduated (third in the class of 1937) and passed the California Bar exam, he was an expert in the art of advocacy.

Nixon's first effort after law school was an application to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He never heard back from them, assuming he had been turned down. Years later when he was in Washington, he mentioned this to J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover had his file retrieved and informed Nixon that he indeed had been accepted, but the letter either was never sent out or got lost in the mail. Had Nixon become an FBI agent, and possibly not been available to run for Congress in Los Angeles in 1946, many events that followed would not have happened. His life - and that of America's - would have taken a different course.

From 1937 to 1942 he practiced law in the Whittier area. During this time, he became involved in community affairs, and found time to perform in plays produced by the Whittier Playhouse. He met an aspiring actress, Patricia Ryan, who was a pretty student at the University of Southern California. At first Nixon offered to chauffeur Pat and other men on her dates. Then she started inviting him to the USC football games at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum. Nixon persisted, and eventually talked her into marrying him.

When World War II broke out, Nixon joined the United States Navy. At first he served as an attorney in the tire-rationing section of the Office of Price Administration in Washington, D.C. Then he served as a supply officer in the South Pacific. He was stationed on the island of Bougainville, which saw some of the most intense fighting in the war against the Japanese. In later years, he emphasized this point for political benefit, but in reality he was on a portion of the island that saw little up-close combat. Nixon learned how to play poker in the Navy, and became so good that he was able to send a considerable amount of money home to be used after the war, when he planned to start a family. He did not engage in heavy drinking like most servicemen, but as supply officer he was most responsible for providing liquor to the men, which he did in an efficient manner. For this, he was well liked.

When Nixon returned home, he was approached by local Republican leaders and asked to run for Congress in 1946 against the New Deal Democrat incumbent, Jerry Voorhis, in California's 12th District. The district included Whittier, Artesia, portions of Orange County, and extended into the city of Los Angeles. His candidacy was a longshot, but he had several things working in his favor. The war had created a conservative electorate, eager to see America assert itself as a world power. The popularity of the military made the Republicans strong. FDR's New Deal was now considered a thing of the past, and Southern California in particular was entering a very conservative era in its history. Nixon benefited from his Naval service, and he proved to be a skilled campaigner. Along with his campaign manager, Murray Chotiner, he proved willing to use highly aggressive tactics against Voorhis.

Nixon suggested that Voorhis had dangerous Left wing tendencies, and his "attack dog" methods have been called the beginning of modern campaign strategy. Nixon won easily, quite a feat for a rookie politician against a sitting Congressman. Communism was the overriding political concern of 1947. Defeating it was his biggest concern, and echoed the feelings of his increasingly entrepreneurial constituency. Los Angeles was growing by leaps and bounds, spurred by a friendly business environment that made it a patriotic, Republican stronghold.

Nixon was assigned to the relatively unimportant House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). He quickly attained national prominence by playing a central role in the committee's investigation of Alger Hiss, a former high State Department official accused of carrying on espionage for the U.S.S.R. during the 1930s. The Los Angeles Times under Otis Chandler was a conservative paper and they made Nixon their favorite. The Left for years disseminated a misinformation campaign on the American public, proffering the fiction that there were no Communists in government, in Hollywood and on the college campuses. After the Soviet Union fell, their archives revealed what conservatives had been advocating for years. Handlers were scattered through every section of American society. There were spies in the government and in the sciences. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were paid Soviet spies who provided Moscow with much the information they needed to create the atomic bomb. Spies and "fellow travelers" in the American atomic, hydrogen and jet propulsion industries were feeding the Communists with our most delicate national security secrets.

Hollywood Communists were making movies like "Song of Russia", using their powerful position as purveyors of national opinion to persuade the public that America was too powerful and Communism offered the answers to poverty, racism and social injustice. The Republicans knew that it was of vital importance to identify and expose the various and sundry lies of the Left.

Nixon's background as the son of a poor man enraged the liberals, who feel that a man from such an underprivileged background who works his way up the ladder of success is defying their prescriptions of governmental assistance. Compared with liberals like Hiss and, by extension, Kennedy - rich Harvard elitists handed their riches and then advocating that the public pay for everything - Nixon stood for everything they were against. Simply by existing and people having knowledge of his story, Nixon was the living example of why the liberals are wrong. They hated him for it. Going after Hiss drove them up the wall. He was their darling; a suave sophisticate, filled with all the false compassion of the New Deal Democrats. But he was beyond that. Hiss, for whatever reason, either believed Communism was a legitimately better government, or thought the world would be safer if America was not all-powerful. The Soviets, in many of these people's minds, needed to share a balance of the world's power in order to balance that power. He spied for Moscow, and all the time was extremely influential in FDR's diplomatic policies. Hiss all-but-drafted important documentation during the Big Three meetings the President took with Stalin and Churchill to develop post-war strategy. He was almost the James Madison of the original United Nations charter, authoring much of it.

At first, Hiss looked as if he would destroy Nixon, who would be forced to return to his L.A. law practice. Then a man named Whittaker Chambers emerged. Chambers was Hiss's opposite; frumpy, quiet and lacking charisma. Now a magazine editor, he had once been a member of a Communist cell controlled by the Russians. Hiss had been a member of that cell. Over time, two things happened. First, stories about millions dying in Siberian gulags and starving on Stalin's collectivist farms reached America. The Communists in Chambers' circle were forced to confront the news, and they handled it several possible ways.

Most were disgusted by it and became Americans.

Some were disgusted by it, but reasoned that in making Communism work, these people were necessary sacrifices of the world revolution.

Some simply chose not to believe it. Chambers at first chose not to believe it, but it kept him awake at night. He had become a Communist because he was concerned, after the stock market crash and the Great Depression, that America's capitalist system might be too flawed to work. Perhaps Communism was the only answer in an imperfect world. His motivation was a desire to see people fed, housed and given basic rights. A man who desires such things has a conscience, and as a man of conscience Chambers reached out for answers. This led him to the Lord Jesus Christ. As he learned more about Christ, Chambers came to understand that "the truth will set you free." With this in mind, he asked the difficult questions of Communism, exploring with the reporter's tenacity whether the stories from Russia were true. Now open to accepting the actual truth, he discovered Communism was the most evil concept he had ever known. He eventually became an ardent anti-Communist crusader, and identified Hiss as a Communist.

The liberal Democrats, who had no concern in finding the truth and instead wanted only to protect one of their own, attempted a discreditation campaign of Chambers that remains one of the most vitriolic and dishonest in history. Chambers, girded by the Lord and the truth, held fast. Nixon stuck with him. Chambers had evidence of Hiss's Communist affiliation. He had kept it for years. He had feared murder at the hands of his former Communist handlers. Now he feared the Democrats might ransack his house and steal it. He hid it in a pumpkin patch. At the critical moment, he produced it. Hiss was convicted. Nixon was a national hero.

Re-elected to the House in 1948, Nixon ceded some of the effort at rooting out Communist saboteurs to others, broadening his areas of expertise. He loved history and became an expert on foreign affairs. In 1950, party leaders urged him to make the most of his national reputation and run for the Senate. Against Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, he leveled charges not unlike those he had used to unseat Voorhis four years earlier. His tactics were just as successful. Now in the U.S. Senate, he was regarded as one of the brightest young stars of the Republican party. His youth, his oratorical skills, and his indefatigable speechmaking made him an extremely attractive figure. He almost represented the new power of Western politics. Earl Warren, the former Governor of California, had made a national name for himself and would become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. But most California politicians prior to Nixon were purveyors of provincialism. Senators from Western states represented ranching, mining and other narrow interests. They tended to be Republican and anti-Communist, but were not as erudite as their Eastern and Midwestern counterparts. National leaders tended to emerge from Ohio, New York and Massachusetts. At one point Virginia had launched heroic Americans, but by 1950 the South was a hybrid between the old Confederacy and the modern Democrats. They called themselves Dixiecrats.

Dixiecrats voted Democrat, but they disliked the liberals of the East Coast establishment. Nixon began to make alliance with them, using his experience debating his Duke Law School classmates. The conservative Communist hunter from California was palatable to them. He had not gone to Harvard but he could hold his own with anybody who did. His foreign policy skills and knowledge were very impressive. Nixon was a hard worker, not a quick study necessarily, but very thorough. As the G.O.P. began to strategize for the 1952 campaign, Nixon's across-the-board appeal was viewed as a major plus.

When Dwight Eisenhower defeated Robert Taft, the veritable "Mr. Republican" who had expected the nomination to be his, the choice of Vice-President was important not just to the campaign, but in bringing the entire party together. At age 39, Nixon was the one. The Democrats tried to bring him down with reports of an $18,000 "slush fund" that was said to "keep him in style," but the accusations lacked merit. Nixon's "Checkers speech" had the effect not only of coalescing the party behind him, but irritated the Democrats no end. His wife did not wear mink, he pointed out, but only "a respectable Republican cloth coat." The only gift that he had kept for himself was a cocker spaniel named Checkers. After Hiss, they had set their sights on putting him in his place. Defeating Voorhiss and Douglas by painting them as near-Communists infuriated them. Nixon seemed invincible. The Democrats decided he had to be dishonest. They started calling him "Tricky Dick".

The modern Presidential campaign was formed in 1952. Eisenhower adopted a statesmanlike pose, whereas Nixon once again employed the blistering anti-Communist language that had helped him gain national prominence. Eisenhower and Nixon swept into office by a margin of more than 6 million votes over the Democrat ticket headed by Governor Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois.

As Vice-President, Nixon did not have a close personal relationship with Eisenhower. Still a young man who had served as a junior officer in the Navy, Nixon did not feel compelled to even try and break into Ike's inner circle. He did not put the General on a pedestal, but he knew his place. That did not prevent Ike from putting him to work. He frequently represented the President at home and abroad. Nixon was a great sports fan, and in 1955 he was reading the Washington Post's Sunday listing of baseball statistics when he was informed that Eisenhower had suffered a heart attack. Nixon earned praise from both sides of the aisle for his even-keel performance filling in for him, but the Democrats still did not trust him. Seeing him a "heartbeat away" from the Oval Office scared them, especially during the Communist scares of the mid-1950s.

The Republicans were concerned that Nixon's enemies on the Left would make the 1956 campaign more contentious than it should be. Eisenhower was a shoe-in, and many felt they no longer needed somebody as partisan as Nixon. But Ike liked him and felt he was the future of the party. If he took him off the ticket, it would hurt his chances for 1960, and Eisenhower did not want that to happen. The Eisenhower-Nixon ticket defeated Stevenson again in 1956 by a landslide. In the next few years Nixon traveled widely. On a trip to Caracas, he was met by a howling mob of Communistas. In a scene that never would happen today, when politicians plan their public appearances with the choreography of the Chinese National Circus - bulletproof glass, handpicked friendly crowds, and "photo-ops" that keep dissent away from the cameras or the microphones - he and his wife were spat upon and faced direct physical threats. Nixon did not flinch. He put himself directly in front of them, calmly challenging thugs to debate him. He disarmed the Communists with his courage and intelligence under pressure. Is it reasonable to conclude Teddy Kennedy would have handled himself in such a manner? I do not need to answer that question.

In 1959 Nixon opened the American National Exhibition in the U.S.S.R. There, in a model kitchen, he engaged in a debate with Nikita Khruschev. This widely publicized "kitchen debate" enhanced Nixon's political stature.

Nixon was the logical Republican nominee in 1960. His campaigning got the best of him, though. Nixon had made a pledge to travel to all 50 states. In going all the way to Alaska, a Republican state worth few electoral votes, he wasted valuable time. Worse, he became literally sick and tired. He pulled himself from a hospital bed to debate John Kennedy, who was tanned, rested and relaxed after spending the afternoon with a prostitute provided him by his Democrat aides. He was so pleased with her that he told his staff that he wanted a prostitute to service him prior to all his debates.

The power of TV was demonstrated as never before. Listeners of the debate on the radio were polled and concluded that Nixon had won. But the huge TV audience, mesmerized by Kennedy's looks, said Kennedy had won. Prior to going on the air, Nixon had been asked if he wanted make-up since he had a "five o'clock" shadow. Nixon thought Kennedy had disdained make-up, and refused it. Kennedy in fact had gone in the backroom and secretly had some pancake applied. Nixon tended to sweat just above his upper lip. The close-ups captured this under the hot lights. When Kennedy accused him of not doing anything to get rid of Castro (knowing the plans were in the works and national security forbade Nixon from talking about it), the Vice-President held his tongue. Kennedy made reference to "getting America moving again," and offered himself as the symbol of a new generation. This theme worked well against Nixon, who was his age but represented a stuffy side of the American psyche that had liked the grandfatherly Eisenhower.

The two debated several times over the course of the campaign, and they are now considered legendary. Kennedy was no "empty shirt" as some Republicans and not a few Democrats had thought him to be. He was highly intelligent, an excellent communicator, and matched Nixon issue for issue. Nixon never had underestimated the Massachusetts Democrat. Indeed, he knew he would be a formidable opponent. The debates, unlike the controlled debates of the modern era, were freewheeling and pulled no punches. Overall, experts felt they came off as a draw. Since Nixon was considered the foreign policy expert coming in, the handsome Kennedy gained the most by showing himself to be worthy on an intellectual level.

Nixon knew Joe Kennedy well. He understood that the Kennedy's would play "hardball" politics. The sheer level of cheating, bribery, corruption and fraud employed by the Kennedy's shocked even the hardened Nixon, though. There has been some talk that there voter fraud was orchestrated by Nixon's people, but this charge appears to be nothing more than Kennedy efforts at lessening the charges against them in Illinois and Texas.

He lost the election by a little more than 100,000 votes, but refused to challenge the results because he felt it would be too disruptive to the nation. Nixon figured JFK had stole it from him fair and square. He did not want to cause the new President more troubles than he already had with the Bay of Pigs. Nixon did not wish to be seen as a "sore loser," knowing that such a label would destroy a future candidacy.

Nixon had come from humble beginnings. Aside from his years in practice in L.A. County, he had been a government employee for the better part of 18 years. His "Checkers speech" had been very embarrassing, since in detailing his finances he had shown how poor he was. After losing the White House, Nixon decided it was time to make some money. He was offered the job of Commissioner of Baseball, a dream job for a man who loved the game. But he decided to make the most of his California roots and legal training. Nixon, with the help of loans from business friends, bought a stylish home overlooking Los Angeles. His Beverly Hills neighbors included Gregory Peck and other famous movie stars. He took a job with a white shoe downtown Los Angeles law firm, Adams, Duke & Hazeltine. He was installed as a partner and "rainmaker," whose political contacts drew big clients to the firm.

Nixon penned the first of his many best selling books, "Six Crises". For two years he practiced law, but in 1962 Nixon reluctantly re-entered the political arena. Edmund "Pat" Brown, a self-made lawyer and former Republican, had become a New Deal Democrat. Brown and his son, Jerry (California's Governor from 1975-83) were the model for the Melvyn Douglas and Robert Redford father-son political family in the "The Candidate". Brown had been elected Governor in 1958, a big shift in a state that had been heavily Republican for years. His tenure in Sacramento is considered the most productive in the state's history. Brown created the successful University of California, California State University, and California Community College systems that have made higher education accessible to every citizen in the Golden State. He created highways that linked communities, allowing commuters to live affordably in the suburbs while working in the cities. He built an aqueduct that diverted water from Northern California to the deserts of the Southland.

Nixon balked at opposing Brown. He recognized that Brown was strong and popular. Furthermore, Nixon was a foreign policy expert. The arcane domestic issues of Sacramento did not interest him. However, as the former Vice-President, Nixon assumed that he could campaign above board, but Brown used his own tricks, painting Nixon as dishonest and even un-American. The Blacklist was over and Nixon's anti-Communism was now seen as a "witching," especially in a state filled with rich Hollywood types. The press turned on him. Even the reliable L.A. Times had backed off in its support. JFK's successful negotiation of the Cuban Missile Crisis was an enormous boost to the Democrats, and Brown defeated Nixon by a comfortable margin

At a Beverly Hills hotel on election night, Nixon gathered the press together for his concession speech.

"You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore," he told them, "because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference." It appeared to be his political epitaph.

Nixon needed a new challenge and decided that Los Angeles was too provincial at that time. He wanted to succeed on the "fast track" of New York City, and accepted a partnership with a tony Wall Street firm that allowed him ample opportunity to travel and make speeches. His frequent international junkets allowed him to draw foreign business to the firm while he visited diplomats and political figures in other countries. Nixon made an enormous sum of money, especially by his standards, and moved into an exclusive Fifth Avenue building that made him neighbors with none other than Governor Nelson Rockefeller.

He orchestrated major corporate business ventures by companies such as Pepsico into the Russian market. He brought companies like Studebaker onto his firm's client roster. But Nixon did not merely oversee highbrow business transactions. He did some very important legal work in the area of privacy. In one case he represented a client before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case remains to this day a landmark decision that says public figures must prove "malice aforethought" in bringing libel and slander charges.

The firm paid for his trips to Europe and the Orient. He met with the troops in Vietnam, with Southeast Asian politicians, and on one visit to Moscow asked his driver to take him to a non-descript address that reportedly was the home of the recently-deposed Premier, Nikita Kruschev. Kruschev had run afoul of the Politburo after being forced to remove missiles from Cuba. The apartment appeared empty, and Kruschev's virtual disappearance from the public scene emphasized to Nixon the fleeting nature of public notoriety.

Nixon also used his "wilderness years" to prepare for the Presidency. He read everything he could get his hands on, which included not just political briefings, but extensive writings on history, Greek poetry, Shakespeare's plays, and other great works.

Despite his "last press conference," Nixon's name was bandied about as a logical choice for the 1964 Presidential campaign. Nixon decided against it for two reasons. First, his loss in California had taught him that sometimes it is better to stay in the shadows than to put oneself into the spotlight. Second, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, he understood that Kennedy (and then his successor, Johnson) would not be beaten. He allowed Goldwater to coalesce the party's conservative base while falling on the electoral sword in November.

In 1966, Nixon toured the nation campaigning tirelessly for Republican candidates. Off-year elections traditionally go against the party in power, and never was this more so than in 1966. In California, an actor-turned-political-TV-spokesman, Ronald Reagan, ran against Governor Brown. The 1965 Watts riots in L.A., and the increasing agitation of anti-war protest on the campuses, had coalesced the electorate behind the law 'n' order issues that Reagan campaigned on. With his fellow Californian backing him, Reagan won big. So did numerous other G.O.P. gubernatorial, Senatorial and Congressional candidates. The '66 elections were a huge warning that Johnson was no longer in control of the political landscape, and provided hope that the Republicans could challenge him two years later. Nixon was the top contender, and his campaigning had laid the groundwork of chits and favors from state party leaders across the land.

The next two years were momentous and worked in Nixon's favor. 1967, the year Nixon declared himself a candidate, was the "Summer of love," and a cultural divide occurred. On the one side were the kids, the hippies, the protesters, the druggies and the New Age liberals who found their voice first with Senator Eugene McCarthy, and later with Bobby Kennedy. On the other side were the Silent Majority of World War II and Korean veterans, businessmen, churchgoers, housewives and patriots who backed Nixon.

Kennedy's name and rock star status was building momentum when he was gunned down at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, but the eventual nominee, Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota (Johnson's Vice-President) lacked that kind of support. Nixon still faced primary competition from Rockefeller. Reagan was already establishing himself as a national figure and his name was floated as a Favorite Son candidate from California. Nixon obtained the nomination on the first ballot after winning a series of Primaries.

The Democrats were bitterly divided over the Vietnam War. At their convention in Chicago, protesters took to the streets, throwing bags of feces at the Chicago police. Mayor Daley ordered his men to deal with the protesters in the most violent way, and scenes of brutal repression were all most Americans saw on TV. The result of the chaos was that the Democrats appeared to be a party in disarray. The "Chicago Seven," led by Tom Hayden (Jane Fonda's husband) and Jerry Rubin, became a symbol of Leftist protest. The Republican Convention in Miami Beach was a picture of order and civility.

Nixon held a large edge over Humphrey throughout the campaign. His staff was composed of TV-savvy advertising people from Los Angeles and sharp young politicos from USC and UCLA. They fashioned television "conversations" with Nixon engaged in question-and-answer sessions between Nixon and voters in which he vowed to "bring us together." He identified the Silent Majority that did not take to the streets but showed up on Election Day. With the streets in flames, America wanted his strong, conservative leadership. Nixon also made effective use of what came to be known as the "Southern strategy." The South was a Democrat lock and always had been. Earl and Huey Long had ruled Louisiana from the Governor's mansion and the U.S. Senate. They were New Deal Democrats, but broke from Roosevelt on a number of issues. Still, they were rare for white politicians of that time and place, in that they courted and did constituent work for blacks. For the most part, the South was still operating under the infamous Jim Crow laws that had been in place since Reconstruction.

Nixon offered an alternative. He appealed to their conservative side, and his strong approach to Vietnam was favored in the pro-military South. George Wallace, the controversial Governor of Alabama, had broken from the Democrats and run for President in 1968, garnering 13 percent of the vote. He was the most significant Presidential contender from the Deep South since Strom Thurmond, who had run as a segregationist "Dixiecrat" in 1948. Nixon courted the significant Southern voter base who knew Wallace could not win and wanted their votes to count. Liberals have cynically said that Nixon's Southern strategy was tacit racism, but in reality he used the Republican party to husband the South into modern America. Los Angeles Times sportswriter Jim Murray welcomed "Alabama into the Union" and announced that the "Constitution had finally been ratified." The fact that the G.O.P. appealed to the South proffered the fiction among liberal elites that the G.O.P. was racist, and that the South was backwards, filled with ignoramuses and Dumbellionite Bubba's. The growth, prosperity and success of the New South is the simple refutation of such drivel. Nixon's brilliant strategy effectively created what came to be known as a Republican "lock," and is responsible for the fact that the G.O.P captured five of six Presidential elections.

Still, Humphrey was a formidable campaigner. In an11th-hour surge he narrowed Nixon's final margin to less than one percent of the popular vote. In the end, however, Nixon was the one.

Nixon came to the Presidency with some of the best credentials of any man. This included not just his accomplishments and experience, but the lessons he had learned in two defeats and in eight years of reading and preparation for the rigors of office. He also disdained the "Harvard types." This stemmed from the fact that Nixon had been accepted to Harvard but was unable to attend because of family commitments. Kennedy and his people said Nixon had no "class," since he had not gone to Harvard.

Nixon's most brilliant early move was bringing Henry Kissinger into his cabinet. Nixon was a picture in contrast, bold yet also cautious, effective yet often inept. He forsook the anti-Communist policies that he had supported throughout most of his career in favor of détente with the U.S.S.R. and rapprochement with Red China. In 1969 he began the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) with the Soviet Union. In February 1972 he made a historic trip to Beijing (Peking), where he was received by Mao Tse-tung, reversing the U.S. policy of not recognizing the Communist government. In 1973, after four years of waging war in Vietnam, including heavy bombing raids on North Vietnam (1972) and the invasion of Cambodia (1970), the administration managed to arrange a cease-fire that lasted long enough to permit U.S. withdrawal from the Indochinese war zone. After the Arab-Israel War in 1973, the efforts of Kissinger led to a cease-fire and troop disengagement in the Middle East.

Nixon's domestic policy was called "A New Federalism." He tried to reverse the Big Government started by Roosevelt, shifting important elements of governmental power and responsibility back to state and local governments. He cut back and opposed Federal welfare services, proposed anti-busing legislation, and used wage-and-price controls to fight inflation. A combination of domestic and international developments, notably the quintupling of oil prices by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1973, led to the economic recession of 1974-75.

Still, Nixon was a pragmatic conciliator, and much of Johnson's Great Society was put into practice under Nixon, who could have adhered to the right wing and opposed it on principle. He was truly one of the hardest working public figures ever. His work ethic was legendary, and reflected his approach from his youth to his death. He also very moral man, a strong Christian who drank moderately (his detractors lied and said he drank heavily), did not smoke, and never strayed from his wife.

In 1972, Nixon swept to an overwhelming victory over Senator George S. McGovern of South Dakota. McGovern was a World War II fighter pilot, but he had advocated unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam. Teddy Kennedy had been considered a strong contender for the Presidency, but Chappaquiddick was too fresh in people's minds, so he never mounted a campaign. Edmund Muskie of Maine, Humphrey's 1968 running mate, shot himself in the foot. Standing in the snows of New Hampshire during the early Primary, he burst into tears over some obtuse accusation regarding his wife. When McGovern chose Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri as his Vice-Presidential running mate, it was immediately revealed that Eagleton had been under psychiatric care. The Democrats were so divided in 1972 that they made Chicago look like a unified front.

The day after the election, Nixon "fired" an enormous number of Federal employees. Many were "hired back," but the move was his attempt to re-shape government in the Republican image, downsizing it to manageable levels. Had Watergate not occurred, he might have accomplished this task. In succeeding years, no Republican President has managed to do this.

On the surface, Nixon appeared to be the most powerful President since Roosevelt, but the irony that pervaded his rivalry with the Kennedys would rear its head. In June, 1971, after the Pentagon Papers were published in the New York Times, the "plumbers" had been formed to plug "leaks" to the press. Ironically, it was Kissinger's idea, and eventually the plumbers found that he was one of the biggest leakers.

G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt led the plumbers. Hunt was a former novelist and C.I.A. station chief whose specialty was pro-American propaganda. He had been intimately involved in the Bay of Pigs operation and harbored strong resentment of Kennedy for not backing up his Cuban invasion force. Hunt had been out of major circulation for a number of years, but he had a hardcore group of Cuban veterans of the anti-Castro campaigns at his disposal.

Liddy was the patrician son of a Wall Street lawyer. He grew up Catholic in the 1930s. The family maid, a German émigré, had listened to Adolf Hitler's speeches with young Gordon until the father discovered and forbade it. Liddy, however, learned to speak fluent German. A sickly boy, Liddy was frightened by lightning and rats. He decided to confront his fears by sitting on the families' Hoboken, New Jersey rooftop during an electrical storm, then captured and ate a rat.

A brilliant student, Liddy ran cross-country at Fordham University, his father's alma mater. After graduation, he became an Army officer during the Korean War. Upon his discharge he attended Fordham Law School on the G.I. Bill. He turned down his father's offer to join his Manhattan law firm, entering the FBI instead. Known heretofore as George Liddy, he affected the appellation G. Gordon Liddy because of the cult of personality surrounding J. Edgar Hoover in those days. He was an innovative agent.

One fugitive was known to frequent a whorehouse in Wyoming. Liddy and his partner approached the madam, who told them to go fly. Liddy read in the local paper that a state wrestling tournament was being held in the town that weekend. He knew where the wrestling coaches would be at night. Liddy saw a car pull up. Four beefy men who could only be high school wrestling coaches got out and approached the bordello. Liddy approached them, identifying himself as a reporter for a local media outlet doing a survey on "whorehouses in the area."

"Why do you choose this particular whorehouse?" he asked the coaches. "Does this whorehouse offer services that cannot be found in competing whorehouses?"

The coaches turned as white as ghosts and sped off. The madam then approached Liddy, screaming loudly about the loss of business. Liddy informed her that if she would inform on where the fugitive could be found, he would leave her be. She immediately gave him up and Liddy had his man.

When Liddy was ready to get married, he had a background check run on his future wife. The low pay of an FBI special agent put a strain on Liddy and his growing family, so he took up his father's offer to work on Wall Street, but close proximity to his father did not sit well with him. He became the District Attorney of Duchess County, an affluent, Republican bedroom community of New York City. In 1966, a Harvard professor named Dr. Timothy Leary had taken up residence in a mansion in Duchess County. He was holding crazy sex parties there, inviting all the young girls of the area to partake in drugs and all attendant "activities." The local gentry demanded immediate action, and Liddy took to the task life a sheriff in the Old West.

When Liddy's men raided the mansion, he discovered Leary en flagrante delicto, wearing a shirt and nothing else (a la Teddy Kennedy). The arrest made Liddy into a national figure. In 1968, Liddy decided to run for Congress. A Republican, Hamilton Fish, already represented his district. Fish approached Liddy and made a deal with him. If he would decide not to challenge him in the primary, Fish would assure him a job with the Nixon Administration should he be elected. Nixon was elected and Fish lived up to his word, helping Liddy get a position in the Treasury Department.

When the Ellsberg case hit the world, Liddy was recruited to form the plumbers. Their first job was the Beverly Hills office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist, but they found little they could use. Washington columnist Jack Anderson hated Nixon and had revealed the name of a CIA agent, resulting in that agent being killed by the Soviets. Similar events were taking place, and the Nixon people realized that they faced a situation of unprecedented treachery from the Left. Liddy volunteered to "take out" Anderson, but it was not taken seriously. Discussions about bugging and wiretapping to combat leaks and gain knowledge of Democrat strategy began. The question of the legality or ethics of such a move was countered by knowledge that the Democrats had been doing it for years. Bobby Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson had routinely wiretapped Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other political opponents. In the radical "civil war" atmosphere of the early 1970s, in light of the fact that Nixon had the election stolen from him a decade earlier, the work of the plumbers was justified in their minds.

Nixon was paranoid about Senator Kennedy. He was determined not to get "rat-fucked," a term they applied to Kennedy's hardball tactics. Getting inside information on him was priority one for Liddy and his people. In addition to Liddy's work, the Nixon people began a series of campaign hi-jinks to offset the Democrats.

Dwight Chapin, Nixon's appointments secretary, recruited an old friend from the "USC Mafia" named Donald Segretti. Segretti, a native Californian, had graduated from the Boalt Hall School of Law in Berkeley and done a stint as a captain in the Army during the war. He was brought in to perform the kind of "dirty tricks" that he, Chapin and Ron Ziegler (Nixon's press secretary) had specialized in during the SC campus elections. His operations were known for their "wit and humor," and included press releases announcing Democrat rallies that did not exist, and the accusation, written on Hubert Humphrey's stationary, that Senator Scoop Jackson had fathered a "bastard child."

"At the very least it improved the man's image," Segretti quipped.

Liddy came up with a plan to employ prostitutes at the Democrats' 1972 Miami Beach convention, bug the room, and get them to draw Democrat bigwigs into confessing inside secrets. The plan was, like the Anderson "assassination," discarded.

In June, 1972, however, Liddy, Hunt and their Cuban operatives entered the office of Democrat National Chairman Larry O'Brien at the Watergate Hotel in Washington. They had previously bugged the office, but they wiretapped the phone of a secretary and got mostly unusable "love life" gossip and beauty parlor appointments. The decision to go back in to get more was made, but a security guard caught and arrested them.

One of the Cubans, Bernard Barker, had the phone number of the White House on his person. It was immediately called a "third rate burglary," and nobody could pin it to the President or attach great importance to it. Bob Woodward, a Republican former Navy officer, had recently joined the staff of the Washington Post. Assigned to the metro desk, he had done a series on restaurants that were operating below code, resulting in some shutdowns. He was anxious to crack a big story and hung to the Watergate case in a dogged manner. Veteran reporter Carl Bernstein, who had a reputation as a muckraker and self-promoter, joined him. Editor Ben Bradlee had been one of John Kennedy's closest friends.

In 1960, Bradlee, like Kennedy a Harvard man and typical of the far Left media elite, had known of the voter fraud in Texas and Illinois. Neither he nor any of Kennedy's other friends in the media chose to exert the slightest energy in getting at the truth behind the stolen election. Katherine Graham, the Post's publisher, was a Democrat. Exposing President Kennedy as the illegitimate recipient of his father's multi-million dollar electoral manipulations was the last thing that a newspaper in a Democracy should do if the bad guy was not a Republican. The wiretappings of Johnson might have been fair game for the Post to explore, but if they did that they would have to write about RFK. Therefore, they remained mum.

But Bradlee liked the idea of going after Nixon. Suddenly, he had a raison d'être, a justification for some real investigative journalism. He encouraged Bernstein and Woodward at every turn. At first, the odds were against them. Nixon was riding high, having recognized China and ending the Vietnam War. But the Democrats got hold of the Watergate issue and refused to let go. Their willing accomplices in the media put it on television, hoping to find disaster. When it was discovered that Nixon had ordered his own office to be recorded, the committee wanted the tapes. Nixon refused, causing a firestorm. Eventually, it was discovered that Nixon had attempted to thwart the investigation, leaving him and many of his key people open to charges of obstruction of justice.

When the tapes were finally played, a suspicious 17-minute gap of dead air was discovered during some key conversations. This has never been adequately explained to this day.

The Post built the story to a national crescendo. In writing about Watergate, as it came to be known, Woodward and Bernstein continually made reference to the Committee to Re-elect the President, which had been headed by former Attorney General John Mitchell. Mitchell, Nixon's Wall Street law partner, had been the first big name to go down in Watergate. Liddy had been transferred from Treasury to his group, and it was under Mitchell's orders that Liddy performed his nefarious tasks. In Washington, acronyms are common, and the acronym for the Committee to Re-elect the President had always been CRP. Under the Bradlee banner, the Nixon CRP became CREEP, even though it is not an accurate acronym. The implication helped the Post sell the image of crooks and creeps in the White House.

To make matters worse, Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew resigned in October, 1973 after he was charged with corruption that began during his tenure as county executive of Baltimore, Maryland. As the revelations of wrongdoing piled up, Nixon became preoccupied with preserving his Presidency. He jettisoned top assistants in the White House and fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. After the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, required that he supply Cox's successor, Leon Jaworski, with tape recordings of conversations with his advisors, the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend (July 27-30, 1974) approval by the full House of three articles of impeachment against the President. On August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned his office and was succeeded by Vice-President Gerald R. Ford, whom he had selected to replace Agnew. A month after Nixon's resignation, Ford pardoned him for any crimes he might have committed as President. Nixon accepted the pardon, but sought thereafter, with some success, to portray himself as an elder statesman.

A number of Watergate figures served time in prison. The scandal almost destroyed the Republican party. Combined with the recession, Ford was hurt badly and lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976. The party lost all its influence, and with the Democrats calling the shots Vietnam was abandoned to the tender mercies of Communism. The result was the death of millions after the fall of Saigon and the infamous Year Zero declared by Pol Pot, who tried to "purify" Cambodia in a manner similar to Mao's Cultural Revolution of 1966-76 in China.

Few Republicans emerged from Watergate successfully. Perhaps the one who benefited the most, ironically, was Liddy. Liddy had been the ultimate Watergate figure, the one who committed the actual crimes and handled the entire secretive operation from soup to nuts. Watergate figures "ratted" each other out left and right, "giving up" the President and others to save their own skins and receive lessened sentences. But Liddy's code of honor was to handle his punishment stoically and not betray his superiors. Knowing that he represented a political liability to the White House, he immediately offered to stand on a street corner and be assassinated. That suggestion was brushed aside.

He refused to talk to prosecutors or the Federal Judge, John Sirica. When asked to place his hand on the Bible and tell "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," he replied, "No." He was sentenced to a long sentence, starting at a dilapidated Washington prison where Lincoln's assassination conspirators had been hung. He was transferred to different prisons because he caused trouble wherever he went. When one warden opened his mail, Liddy sued him. In court, Liddy acted as his own attorney, and before questioning the warden, he told him, "You're in my courtroom now, warden."

Liddy had learned martial arts skills and proved himself capable of defending himself against the hardened criminals he was imprisoned with. Unlike other Watergate figures who did time in "country clubs," Liddy was in hardcore maximum security prisons. Liddy then offered his legal services to the other prisoners, who realized he was a man of toughness and honor. He became the de facto "king" of the prison population. President Carter pardoned Liddy, but he was barred from practicing law. With a wife and a large family, Liddy faced financial hardships, but he accepted every challenge exuberantly. His prison experience had been "one of the most interesting times of my life," he later said. His children had been raised to be tough. In Washington, they had gotten in many fights when teased by other kids for wearing short hair and having a father in prison. After beating up their detractors, the school tried to get them to stop, but Liddy made the point that in the 1930s French children had been taught to be pacifists while German kids were taught to fight.

"Considering that Germany took over France in a matter of weeks," Liddy said, "I prefer the German way." Liddy's children all have been successful - attorneys, politicians, Navy SEALS and Marine officers.

Liddy set about writing his memoirs. "Will" was a runaway best seller and made into a television movie starring Robert Conrad as Liddy. As part of his book tour, Liddy and his old nemesis, Dr. Timothy Leary, began touring college campuses, debating each other on the merits of conservative lawfulness vs. liberal radicalism. Liddy appreciated Leary's "Irish wit," and despite his tough guy image proved to be extremely personable, friendly, funny and sexy. Millions of Americans instinctively realized that Watergate had been railroaded down their throats by partisan Democrats, and that their party had done the same thing but gotten away with it. Liddy's "in your face" success made him a hero of the right, and drove the liberals out of their cotton pickin' minds!

Liddy parlayed his success into a successful stint as an actor. Among his roles, he played a bloodthirsty arms dealer supplying the Nicaraguan Contras on "Miami Vice". When asked by a character to prove he was who he said he was, he put a sack on a table, turned it over, and various items fell out.

"I anticipated your skepticism," he announced.

"What the hell are those?" he was asked.

"Ears," he deadpanned. "Sandinista ears."

Liddy became a Renaissance Man. He learned how to fly airplanes, and then became the host of a nationally syndicated conservative talk show, part of a phenomenal trend that has the liberals in a state of utter apoplexy. Liddy's daily rants against Bill and Hillary Clinton, prison guards, and other morally questionable lesser lights irked the Left even more than Rush Limbaugh. That a man who officially considered Democrats enemies has garnered legitimate hero status from millions of Americans who believe the same thing is something they cannot stomach.

As for his boss, Nixon went into seclusion at the former "Western White House" in the southern Orange County town of San Clemente. He wrote his "Memoirs", a 1978 best seller considered one of the top political biographies ever. That book, and his interviews with David Frost, were done in conjunction with Nixon's continued appearances at Anaheim Stadium, where he cheered the 1979 American League West Division champion California Angels. Over time, Nixon's "rehabilitation" as an elder statesman was complete. He moved to New Jersey, opened an office in Manhattan, and became a regular political advisor and pundit. Nixon was often seen at Yankee Stadium and Giants Stadium. In 1986, Newsweek announced that his exile was over, and his "Napoleonic" return was accomplished without any Waterloos. He wrote numerous successful books on history and politics, outlining the proper way to handle the fall of Soviet Communism. His recommendations all proved to be on the money.

Even the Democrats lost their hatred for him, perhaps because over time they instinctively realized they had gone overboard in destroying him and hurting the country in the process. Conservatives loved seeing Nixon on the public stage again, and considered this a vindication for the unfair treatment he received. Bumper stickers saying, "He's tanned, rested and ready: Nixon in '88" and later "Nixon in '92" became popular.

In the end, greatness eludes Nixon for two reasons. The first, obviously, is Watergate. The other is the fact that, for all of his accomplishments, he remained a divisive figure. Reagan overcame divisiveness and Eisenhower towered above it, but Nixon was a very partisan Republican. The most difficult dance of politics is to use the two-party system without being a slave to it. Nixon's "enemies list," his paranoia, and his penchant for self-destruction despite his careful planning were indications of a flawed and complex man. Interesting as all get out, but not great.

He died in New York City on April 22, 1994, and was buried at the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California. In 1995, Left wing filmmaker Oliver Stone produced the film "Nixon". Stone's animus toward Nixon, who he reputedly had said he would "take out" with a high-powered shotgun after he came home from Vietnam in 1970, made conservatives fear that the film would savage him. In reality, the movie was relatively even-handed, although not a propaganda piece for the controversial ex-President. Stone is a lot of things, and one of them is the best director Hollywood has seen over the past 20 years. He cast the English actor, Anthony Hopkins, in the lead and it worked. Stone himself even said that his study of Nixon led him to reach a favorable overall conclusion. The movie did have its conspiratorial elements, typical of the Stone genre. A group of John Birch Texans and Cubans are shown intimating to Nixon that they plan to kill Kennedy. Stone also uses powerful imagery to depict Nixon as "helped" by the forces of evil. If one looks closely, shadows depicting a Satanic figure are cast by Nixon while he questions who is helping him rise to the top over littered "bodies," including both dead Kennedys.

Henry Kissinger: "Dr. Stranglove", Republican Svengali, war criminal or diplomatic hero?

"There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full."

\- Dr. Henry Kissinger

Dr. Kissinger is both controversial and brilliant. He is a hero to many, and a war criminal in the minds of a few. Of all American political figures, he represents the American immigrant dream. A Jewish refugee of Nazi Germany, he rose to the highest positions of power and influence in this country, at its most critical juncture. His incredible accomplishments were undercut by Democrats, who failed to maintain the strength his agreements rested on. History accords him, at least in this writer's mind, heroic status.

Kissinger was born in Furth, located in eastern Germany, in 1923. His family immigrated to the United States in 1938, the year of Krystalnacht, barely in time to avoid the camps. He became a naturalized citizen in 1943. After studying accounting at City College of New York, he served in the U.S. Army as an enlisted man during World War II. A remarkable event of serendipity that shaped his life occurred towards the end of the war. A Harvard professor and expert on German affairs was brought to Germany to help begin the process of de-Nazification. The professor worked with town mayors and other citizens to restore stability to the country. The call went out to those who could speak German. Kissinger was chosen as an interpreter. The Harvard professor was impressed with Kissinger's intelligence and took him under his wing. Kissinger, despite his low rank and youth, was given tremendous responsibility. In an act of utter irony, he found himself in Furth, the town of his childhood. He still knew people in the town, and he found himself performing the virtual functions of mayor. He handled this role with youthful aplomb. High-ranking officers and officials dealing with the myriad problems of the post-war period sought out his opinion.

The Harvard professor told him that when was discharged he was to come to Harvard to study under him. Upon his release, Kissinger made his way to Cambridge, was put on scholarship, and studied as a protégé. His specialty was post-war politics, military strategy, diplomacy, history, and nuclear weapons; all important lessons that America needed to draw on in its new position as the world's greatest power. Kissinger earned his doctorate, began to write, and to teach at Harvard. Politically, he was a Republican, but he was not fanatical about it. Although Jewish by birth, he was not a regular practitioner of the faith.

Kissinger became director of the Defense Studies Program from 1959 to 1969. He also served as a consultant on security matters to various U.S. agencies from 1955 to 1968, spanning the administrations of Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. Kissinger's "Nuclear Weapons" and "Foreign Policy" (1957) established him as a leading authority on U.S. strategic policy. He opposed Secretary of State John Foster Dulles' policy of planning nuclear "massive retaliation" to Soviet attack, advocating instead a "flexible response" combining the use of tactical nuclear weapons and conventional forces, as well as the development of weapons technology in accordance with strategic requirements. That book and "The Necessity for Choice" (1960), in which Kissinger limited his concept of flexible response to conventional forces and warned of a "missile gap" between the Soviet Union and the United States, had a significant impact on the activities of the Kennedy Administration.

There is debate whether Peter Seller's 1964 title role in "Dr. Strangelove" was loosely based on Dr. Kissinger. The fact that Strangelove was a German émigré who warned of a "mineshaft gap" reminded some people of Kissinger's "missile gap." Screenwriter Terry Southern became a drug abuser before his death. Director Stanley Kubrick became an ex-patriate recluse before his death. This question remains inadequately answered.

Kissinger found himself on Governor Rockefeller's campaign payroll, with a reputation as a man willing to serve on either side of the political fence. When Rockefeller did not win the nomination in 1964, he began to shop around for the best "deal" for 1968. He stayed independent as long as he could, and finally hooked on with Nixon as assistant for national security affairs. He eventually came to serve as head of the National Security Council (1969-75) and as Secretary of State (1973-77).

He was the major influence in the shaping of foreign policy under Nixon and Ford. In 1973 he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace with Le Duc Tho of North Vietnam for their efforts to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the Vietnam War. The various winners of the dubious Nobel Prize include some of the worst despots from the world of international Communism and terrorism, however.

Kissinger emerged as the "star" of the Nixon Administration. A divorced bachelor, he gained a reputation as a ladies man. When Chairman Mao asked him his secret, Kissinger told him that power was the "ultimate aphrodisiac." He became close friends with the legendary movie producer Robert Evans. Needing a big publicity boost, Evans called Kissinger at the last minute to insist that he attend the premier of "The Godfather" in 1972. Kissinger told him he could not, but Evans begged and pleaded. Even though he was headed to Paris soon, and was in the middle of dealing with the mining of Haiphong Harbor, Kissinger's appearance at "The Godfather" premiere was the showy highlight the film needed to get off to a big start. When Watergate threatened to derail the administration, Kissinger was trotted out as their front man.

Chief of staff H.R. Haldeman had a reputation for anti-Semitism and was always trying to bring Kissinger down. Nixon, a complicated man whose tapes revealed a fair amount of derogatory commentary about Jews, respected Kissinger but did not fully trust him. There was always the underlying feeling that Kissinger was cutting separate "deals" with influential members of the press to maintain his own reputation, sometimes at the expense of his colleagues. In many ways, the lack of cohesion between Kissinger and Nixon, which created a "loyalty gap," if you will, proved to be a cautionary tale that the current Bush Administration learned from in preventing the breaking of their ranks.

Kissinger's major diplomatic achievements involved China, the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and the Middle East. He developed a policy of warmer U.S. relations with the Soviet Union, détente, which led to the strategic arms limitation talks (SALT) in 1969. He established the pro-Pakistan policy in the India-Pakistan War of late 1971, helped negotiate the SALT I arms agreement with the Soviet Union (signed in 1972), and developed a rapprochement between the United States and the People's Republic of China (1972). It was the first official U.S. contact with that nation since the Chinese Communists had come to power.

Various revisionists have tried to paint Kissinger as a "war criminal" because of the role he played in East Timor, which is typical of the blame-America crowd who are willing to excuse mass murderers from Third World countries because killing is part of their "culture." Such is sophistry.

Kissinger played a major role in Nixon's Vietnamization policy, which as mentioned did not work and was assured of never working when Congress cut off their funds. On January 23, 1973, after months of negotiations with the North Vietnamese government in Paris, he initialed a cease-fire agreement that both provided for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and outlined the machinery for a permanent peace settlement between the two Vietnams.

After the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, Kissinger used what came to be called shuttle diplomacy in disengaging the opposing armies and promoting a truce between the belligerents. He was responsible for the resumption of diplomatic relations between Egypt and the United States, severed since 1967. He remained in office after Nixon's resignation in 1974, directing the conduct of foreign affairs under President Ford. After leaving office in 1977, Kissinger became an international consultant, writer, and lecturer. In 1983, President Ronald W. Reagan appointed him to head a national commission on Central America. Kissinger's books include "American Foreign Policy", "The White House Years", "For the Record" and" Diplomacy".

When George W. Bush tried to place Kissinger on a commission investigating 9/11, vociferous opposition met the announcement. Investigating journalist Christopher Hitchens, who is liberal but is a man worthy of great respect because he appears to be rooted in actual honesty, wrote a book that led to a documentary called "The Trials of Henry Kissinger". The accusations against Kissinger are that he usurped the Democratic process and worked in league with despots, dictators, torturers and human rights abusers in the Third World. The U.S. during Kissinger's heyday was actively involved in the great struggle against Communist expansion in the Middle East, Latin America and Asia.

It is in assessing the accusations of Hitchens and the "Trials" documentary that the real philosophical differences of the West are exposed. Whether everything in these exposes is 100 percent true is not now, and may never be known. Kissinger has managed to maintain control of most of his "private papers," so the argument may be moot until five years after his death. However, assuming it is all true, this breaks the question down to whether it was "immoral," and whether Kissinger and the U.S. committed "war crimes."

Kissinger himself argues that as a public figure, working for the government during the confluence of "hot" and "cold" wars against a dangerous foe, the normal standards of ethics cannot be applied to him or others in a similar position. Others take umbrage with the notion that certain political figures are accused and convicted of war crimes (like Augusto Pinochet), but the U.S. is "exempt." The argument is a fractured one, but the theory behind it is so divisive that no "answer" will satisfy everybody. If one believes that America is immoral and commits atrocities to further its self-interests, then they are not likely to be dissuaded.

I am not one who believes this. I reach my conclusion not through blind loyalty or a jingoistic "my country right or wrong" mindset. You are reading a book that covers a lot of world history. I have written this book not just to educate readers, but to put myself through a re-examination of this country and my conscience. This is a nation of great principles, and there are many occasions in which those principles are compromised. It is an imperfect system, but the question I have to ask myself is if, at the end of the day, America is trying to do good work in opposing those who mean harm. This harm is not always aimed at America. In fact, usually the harm is aimed at some weaker country or sub-set of people.

Is America helping weak people who cannot help themselves, or are they furthering their self-interests (political hegemony, Big Oil, corporations)? The answer, most often, is a lot of both. In furthering our "selfish" interests, which empowers us, however, it gives us the upper hand in continuing to help the disenfranchised. In judging America and Kissinger, the key question to ask is whether we ever actively engage in activities that hurt a lot of people simply for the thrill of hurting people? The answer is an emphatic "no."

The more realistic question is whether we ever actively engage in activities that hurt a lot of people simply to further our crass, non-human rights interests? This answer is subject to a lot more "spin," and there are more than a few organizations, ranging from Al-Jazeera to CNN, who in one way or another answer it in the affirmative.

The "Trials" documentary makes the attempt to equate Kissinger's "complicity" with Pinochet and the Indonesian dictator Thojib Suharto, for instance, with war crimes. This is tenuous. In the case of Pinochet, he definitely committed atrocities and faced criminal repercussions when England arrested him a few years ago. While he owes much of his "opportunity" for being in that position to the U.S., it is moral relativism to a degree to say all he did flows from Kissinger, Nixon and America. Pinochet committed Pinochet's crimes. They may have been aided and abetted by his association with the U.S., but it is reasonable to conclude, in my view, that his crimes were separate in most instances from the goals of the U.S. A "blind eye" may have been cast away from his atrocities. America and Kissinger are not clean on this, but the whiff of "war criminality" and "crimes against humanity" do not stick to Kissinger.

In the case of Suharto, it appears that Kissinger and President Gerald Ford "signed off" on Suharto's apparently violent plans for East Timor. Apparently (and I really only have the anti-Kissinger view to go on), Suharto plainly told Ford and Kissinger he planned to deal harshly with the people of East Timor. The American response was essentially that he should "do what you have to do," without interference or judgment from us.

War crimes probably occurred in East Timor. At the very least, it was a violent confrontation and the facts appear to favor the view that many civilians were killed. It may not have been genocide, but it certainly did not fall into the category of "practical military necessities." Suharto probably would compare it to the "Trail of Tears" or other battles from the American Indian Wars that resulted in native devastations. I am no expert on Indonesia and have little knowledge of East Timor, so I cannot accurately speak to what happened. My feeling is that it was a Marxist insurrection at a time when the big picture made it obvious that Communism was on the march, and had to be stopped at any cost. Within the yoke of Cold War battles, I believe there may be some justification. To simply say that American policy regarding Pinochet and Chile, or Suharto, Indonesia and East Timor, was completely mistake-free, would be foolish. If we could do it again we probably would make major changes. 20/20 hindsight was not available at the time. Furthermore, in the case of East Timor, it seems to me that if "war crimes" were to be meted out, it would be levied on President Ford, not Kissinger. He was the higher-ranking man and knew what was going on.

In Chile, Kissinger definitely ordered the CIA to undercut Salvadore Allende. Allende eventually was killed, along with one of his generals, Rene Schneider. Schneider's assassination has been "linked" to Kissinger. While Kissinger "set in motion" the events that led to Schneider's killing, it is moral relativism also to charge Kissinger with it. Schneider's killing must be blamed on those who killed him and those who ordered it, if anybody. Men of power, like Kissinger, do indeed set forth events that have paradigmatic consequences, but to blame them for all the twists and turns would mean leaders cannot make any real decisions without fear of trial.

As for charging Americans with war crimes, a lot of people may not like this, but first of all our own justice system is pretty good at going after our own. Our political structure can make us a vicious bunch if the "criminal" is in a different political party. If an American is a legitimate war criminal he should be charged, but I must warn that the chances of politics coming into play here are very great. There are many who hate America, through jealousy, humiliation, second-rate status, lack of power, and a million other reasons. We are the target. Running around charging American officials with war crimes could get out of hand fast if left up to the wrong people, like the "reign of terror" in post-monarchical France, "show trials" in the Soviet Union or Germany, and ridiculous Red Guard "accusations" made by fanatical Chinese teenagers.

Finally, the "Trials of Henry Kissinger" looks at his role in the late 1968 peace talks carried out by the Johnson Administration with North Vietnam. Kissinger was involved, although his role was not what it would be when he worked for the Nixon Administration. The accusation is that Kissinger spied on the talks, relaying messages to Nixon in order to sabotage Hubert Humphrey's election chances. Humphrey moved up in the polls based on late rumors that the Democrats were close to a peace agreement. Kissinger is said to have "mucked up" the works by telling the Communists they could get a better deal out of Nixon, thus swaying the process and hurting Humphrey. If this happened as the documentary asserts, it was very bad form from both Nixon and Kissinger. If this is true, Nixon's already tarnished reputation deserves to be tarnished further, along with Kissinger. There is little doubt Kissinger was looking to "cut the best deal" with whoever was going to be the next President. He probably - shrewdly \- had ascertained that it would be Nixon. Frankly, I cannot say, from what I know of both men, that they were not up to doing such a thing.

However, this accusation has flown about for years and never really stuck anywhere, despite its obvious political value to the Democrats if they could have made people believe it. My feeling is that Kissinger may have overreached his authority and done some back channel negotiating, but such things are not unusual. Personal politics, intrigue and power moves happen all the time. The North Vietnamese made the decisions they made, and attributing everything they did to the "puppet master" Kissinger in 1968 seems unlikely.

In 1973, it was said that Kissinger's peace treaty was essentially the same that Johnson had the Communists agreeing to in 1968. This is an incomplete analysis. If it is so, many Americans and Vietnamese, not to mention other Southeast Asians, died in the intervening years for "nothing." This cannot be discounted. However, it applies the 20/20 test to Kissinger that cannot be done. The Americans surely thought they could get the Communists to capitulate and get a better peace than the one contemplated in 1968. The North Vietnamese proved to more incredibly stubborn, resourceful and brave than anybody would have really predicted in 1968.

But the main point is that while Johnson's "peace" may have been similar to Kissinger's, it did not inveigh the "triangulated diplomacy" of Kissinger. I have stated that Vietnam was part of the "chess match" of the Cold War, which is partly to assure the families of those who lost loved ones that they did not die in vain. Part of this is attributed to analysis of this issue. It was not just about Vietnam - Saigon, Cambodia, Laos, and the region - it was about world power. Acceptance of the peace agreement in 1968-69 would have been to the Communists' advantage, and likely would have resulted in more aggressive adventurism. Kissinger turned it around and managed to use the war to weaken Communism hegemony and make it a more distracted monolith. The documentary does not give him the credit he deserves for this.

The reason my conscience is clear, and why I accord heroism, not criminality, to Henry Kissinger is that my honest appraisal of the world is that it is and always has been one helluva a dangerous place. It has required dealing with the worst kind of evil, lies, conspiracies, wars, military threats and terrorism. Kissinger represents the mindset of his country, which has decided not to be Switzerland or Denmark, hiding its head in the proverbial sand. We "engage." We are "in the arena." We do the heavy lifting. In protecting the world from total disaster, we have to be the "bad guys" and the "heavies" sometimes. In defeating the real "bad guys," often people see only what we do in beating them down, not the threats we overcome, sometimes quietly, behind the scenes, or before they can materialize. Furthermore, we live amongst jealous people who are not comfortable with American success and power. We are the biggest game in town, and the biggest target.

So I conclude by saying, "bravo," Henry Kissinger, and God bless us, everyone.

PART FOUR

THE REAGAN THEORY

The Cold War defined almost every major aspect of international politics over 45 years. When it started is debatable. It could have been at any of the Big Three conferences between Roosevelt (later Truman), Churchill and Stalin at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam. Churchills' 1945 Iron Curtain speech is as good a starting point as any. America's secretive breaking of the "sound barrier" by Chuck Yeager in 1947, followed by the Berlin airlift of 1948, and "losing" China to Communism in 1949 cinched it. The Korean War was a distinctly "hot" war.

The question is, Would the Cold War have existed if not for World War II? The United States opposed Communism from its inception. Wilson sent troops to the Soviet Union in 1919 to fight it. The U.S. backed Chiang Kai-shek instead of the Communists against the Japanese before Pearl Harbor. But Russia was Communism Central. Stalin's backward country was little threat to America prior to the war. It was in defeating Germany that the Soviets rose to superpower status and became our great rival.

The roots of American involvement in the Cold War go back to the Spanish-American War, however. After the war in Cuba, Theodore Roosevelt aggressively used American military might to turn the U.S. into a modern global power. In so doing, the United States was accused of being a colonizer and an imperialist country. Imperialism was a phrase that defined Communist ideology. The Communists of Russia were fighting to getting out of the yoke of Czarist imperialism.

The Russians were technically allied with the Democracies of France and Britain during World War I, but after the Bolsheviks took over they withdrew. This occurred around the time the U.S. was entering the war, a fact of symbolic significance. The opposition to Communism went hand in hand with the end of isolationism forced upon the U.S. by World War II. As a partner in the Grand Alliance, diplomatic dealings with the Soviet Union inevitably sowed the seeds of the Cold War.

It is impossible to separate the international politics of the Cold War from the domestic. The Red Scare had started with immigrants coming to America. It had become associated with the anarchist movement. "Red Emma" Goldman had been deported back to Russia. The Sacco and Vanzetti case had inflamed passions. The Great Depression ushered in the union movement that many capitalists feared was stirred by the Reds. Communist parties across the globe sought to forge anti-Fascist alliance with liberals. The American C.P. swung its support behind the New Deal, which it saw as the best bulwark against the spread of Fascism in America. During the "United Front" period, the C.P. was not revolutionary, but reformist. At C.P. rallies in the late 1930s, one found pictures of FDR hung beside posters declaring, "Communism Is 20th Century Americanism." C.P. membership among Democrats skyrocketed in the late 1930s. Seattle and San Francisco were widely considered to be the strongest bases of C.P. support west of the Mississippi River.

During the United Front, Communists were elected to leadership positions in a handful of Left wing organizations. These groups were called "Communist fronts" because many members did not know the leaders were Communists. The American Communist Party suffered a tremendous setback in August, 1939, when Stalin signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Later that year, as Germany conquered western Poland, the Soviets invaded eastern Poland and all of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. The Soviet Union, once the most avowedly anti-Fascist nation in Europe, was now openly allied with Hitler. The fact that a large percentage of American Communists were Jewish created a conundrum in their ranks. After several weeks of confusion, the American Communist Party reversed its "line." Their previous support for war was changed to accusations of FDR's "war-mongering" and "imperialism." They denounced FDR's efforts to assist during the Battle of Britain. Many Communist-influenced unions lost many members but survived. C.P. membership declined by more than half in 1939 and 1940 as most party members could not stomach the new tolerance of Hitler and were repulsed by the C.P.'s willingness to follow a "party line" dictated in Moscow.

These were the people who left the party so embittered that they later testified against the C.P. during the late 1940s and 1950s. They welcomed the persecution of Communists. But the ones who stuck it out were genuine anti-Americans. The Nazi invasion of the U.S.S.R. in 1941 revived the C.P.'s call for a "United Front" and restored some of the party's popularity. Suddenly they urged FDR to increase aid to the U.S.S.R. and Britain. Many were disgusted by the C.P.'s second reversal of policy in two years. However, many Americans were impressed with the resolve of the Russians against Hitler. In those desperate times they welcomed any ally they could find.

The American C.P. toned down its social demands and concentrated on wartime production. They cooperated with employers to put down strikes and urged people to work long hours without pay increases. C.P. membership in Washington state rose, for example, but never again reached the plateau of the late 1930s. The Communist Party once again became influential in the Democrat party. Its efforts led to the election of a half-dozen Communists to the Washington state legislature on the Democrat ticket in the early 1940s. They had similar "success" in other states.

After the war, the C.P. resumed its advocacy of social reform and reclaimed its role as the Left wing of the Democrat Party. The strategy became untenable as the American-Soviet rivalry developed.

The Second World War ended the old diplomatic system of "great powers," replacing it with a polarized world of two superpowers. Germany, Japan, and Italy were occupied and demilitarized. France, Britain, and China were too weakened by the war to assume major roles. Much of the world's economies were a disaster. The Soviets had suffered over 15 million casualties and witnessed the burning and bombing of much of European Russia. But they had three things. One was the most powerful infantry in the world. The other was the indomitable spirit of Mother Russia. The third was virtually unlimited land and natural resources.

The U.S. was the world's most powerful nation, with the largest navy and air force, and a thriving economy. The U.S. had the atom bomb, but more importantly, they had demonstrated the willingness to use it. This fact cannot be stressed enough when considering relations between the "old" superpower (America) and the "new" one (the Soviets). It was part of George Kennan's containment policy, which worked in many ways because the Soviets were just plain scared of the United States.

FDR and Stalin's decision to partition Germany at the end of the war served as a model for the division of all of Europe into Eastern and Western "blocs." When the Soviets banned dissent against their Communist satellites, it was obvious that they they would not uphold the promises for free elections they had made to Roosevelt, Churchill and Truman. Roosevelt's former Vice-President Henry Wallace, who represented the Communist wing of the Democrat party, argued that the Soviets had been justified in snuffing out freedom in Eastern Europe. His theory was that they had been invaded from the West in the past three centuries, and their desire to create buffer zones was rational.

President Truman disavowed Wallace and accused the Soviets of expansionism. Many on the Left assumed the French perspective after World War I. Tired of war, they chose isolation and appeasement. Stalin had simply replaced Hitler in seeking world domination. Appeasement and isolationism had paved the road to World War II, and Truman understood that it would lead to Wold War III.

Truman accepted Senator Arthur Vandenburg's advice to "scare the hell out of the country" and tell the truth about Communism. In March, 1947 he spoke to Congress to request $400 million in aid for Greece and Turkey, which were fighting civil wars against Communist rebels. The Truman Doctrine was born, shaping U.S. foreign policy for the next 40 years. Truman saw no difference between Communism and Fascism. It was all "totalitarianism," he said. The world was divided between countries dominated by the "will of the people" and those based on the "will of a minority" enforced by "terror and oppression." In other words, good vs. evil. Sometimes the simplest concepts are the most brilliant. The Left had a difficult time with this concept, stating that it failed to understand the "enemy." The right replied that the Jews had understood the Nazis who sent them to the gas chambers, which of course did not save their lives.

America faced an uncertain world in which their allies were not perfect. Greece and Turkey had corrupt governments, Truman argued, but they were not dictatorships and they fought Communists. Therefore, he said, they deserved to be part of the "Free World" and worthy of American aid. The Truman Doctrine also gave birth to the "Domino Theory": "If Greece should fall, . . . disorder might well spread throughout the entire Middle East" and "free peoples" throughout Europe would be "discouraged and demoralized."

The Truman-Kennan containment policy initially relied on economic means. Truman sent rifles and money to Greece, not soldiers. The $20 billion Marshall Plan followed the Soviet blockade of West Berlin in 1948. This act "militarized" containment polices, and led the U.S., Canada, and 10 European nations to create the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Soviet explosion of an atom bomb and the Maoists' takeover in China in 1949 prompted the U.S. State Department to state that "this Republic and its citizens . . . stand in their deepest peril." In 1950 the State Department drafted NSC-68, persuading Truman that the "fundamental design of those who control the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement is . . . the complete subversion or forcible destruction of the . . . countries of the non-Soviet world." It recommended raising taxes and cutting spending on social programs in order to build hydrogen bombs, expand conventional forces, and the "intensification of . . . covert operations . . . with a view to fomenting and supporting unrest and revolt in selected strategic satellite counties."

While mulling over these proposals, North Korea invaded its southern neighbor. Truman assumed that Stalin had ordered the attack, and dispatched troops to South Korea. NSC-68 more than tripled its military budget during the Korean War.

Communist conspiracies masterminded by the Kremlin led the U.S. to further militarize its containment policy and allowed Senator Joseph McCarthy to rise to power. In February, 1950 McCarthy announced that Communists had infiltrated the State Department. For four years he made these charges until the Senate censured him in 1954. McCarthy was popular because he offered convenient explanations for the U.S. falling behind in the Cold War when in fact they were not losing the Cold War. But traitors were betraying them. In 1951, Ethel and Julius Rosenburg sold atomic plans to the Soviets. They were convicted and put to death. The Rosenberg revelations gave McCarthy credibility and standing. Truman's administration had used simplified international rhetoric in defining the "Free World" and evil Communists.

Fear of domestic subversion built to a head in the first half of the 1950s. The Supreme Court overturned many of the McCarthyist restrictions on Communists' liberties in the late 1950s and early 1960s. McCarthy's lack of personal credibility, which had been built on partisan politics as much as genuine fear of subversion, had the dangerous effect of "humanizing" Communism. In fact it was never any less dangerous than McCarthy had said it was. McCarthy, by acting like a buffoon and a demagogue, did great damage to America and helped the Soviets.

The Korean War started a period in which the U.S. interpreted every Communist insurgency as being under Kremlin control. The result was a strategy of fighting Communism wherever it was found. This in many ways played into the Russians' hands. American intervention became seen as heavy-handed interference with the "will" of small Third World countries. While the Soviets were in control of all Communist movements, it is also true that there was much homegrown Marxism.

America's view of "international Communism" made every nation vital, since failure to contain Communism would make America appear weak. Moscow respected only strength and became aggressive at any sign of weakness. The U.S. backed repressive anti-Communist governments in Iran, Pakistan, and most of Central America. American diplomats misinterpreted nationalist and anti-colonialist movements as Soviet-led ploys.

The Left identified these strategies as mistakes, and would charge that "propping up dictators" was wrong and led to the "quagmire" in Vietnam. These people fail to recognize that in Cuba, for instance, Fidel Castro actually was a Communist. For some reason, they sympathized with Vietnam as a country merely trying to form their own government. This of course failed to recognize that they invaded semi-Democratic South Vietnam, and were financed by Peking and Moscow. It is utter sophistry to characterize North Vietnam as an "independent" country.

That being said, the average North Vietnamese regular and Viet Cong was more dedicated to Ho Chi Minh than Mao or Kruschev. Failing to recognize this was a major failure of U.S. intelligence.

Many questioned whether there should even be a Cold War after the Tet Offensive in 1968. The Vietnam War eroded confidence in U.S. military and political leadership, reducing public willingness to support repressive regimes or to deploy U.S. troops abroad.

Vietnam convinced Richard Nixon that diplomacy could reduce America's dependence on military force. Nixon was the first to recognize chinks in the Communist armor. He understood that the Kremlin was not capable of achieving world domination as a monolithic force. The growing Sino-Soviet rift had been papered over while America dealt with Castro and his missiles, Berlin, Chinese hydrogen explosions, Vietnam, and the "Prague Spring" of 1968. But Nixon realized that the Cold War could be won over time by extending the Communists beyond their normal diplomatic and economic comfort zones. Nixon's deals with China placed pressure on the Soviets, making them more willing to seek détente - general relaxation of Cold War rivalries. In 1972 the U.S. and U.S.S.R. signed a treaty limiting the size of their nuclear arsenals and agreements re-opening trade between the nations. Both sides took advantage of détente by reducing their military budgets.

The Soviets were not easily dissuaded from their old ways, however. In the 1970s, they backed repressive Middle Eastern regimes against Israel, and became "adventurous," often using Cuban troops, in Africa. These policies did not have the result they had hoped for, however. They ran up against Fundamentalist Islam and African dictatorships that were too backward to even "benefit" from Marxism. Jimmy Carter was so different from Nixon that the Soviets convinced themselves they could regain their old glory. The result was the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.

Ronald Reagan's defense build-up in the early 1980s temporarily ended American-Soviet cooperation. After Reagan called the Soviets an "evil empire" in 1983, the Soviets realized they could not compete in a direct superpower confrontation with the U.S. Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika was the first major concession in Soviet-American relations. The Cold War finally ended in 1989, formalizing in 1991, when pro-Democracy uprisings in Eastern Europe and pro-independence movements in many Soviet republics led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence. The Berlin Wall fell and Germany became re-unified.

The U.S. fought the 1991 Gulf War with Russian approval. The power vacuum left in the wake of the Cold War created rival ethnic groups in the Balkans that resulted in various small wars in the 1990s. The U.S. and the U.N. took action. Today, the old Communist bloc is in the process of emerging as viable Democracies and economic powers. The reality of the 21st Century is that the old Soviet satellites are now counted among America's strongest friends. They understand better than most (who forget with time) what living under Communism means, and that it was the U.S. that saved them from it.

Time-line of the Cold War and Red Scare

Date International and National Events

1917 U.S. enters World War I; Bolshevik Revolution brings Communists to power in Russia.

1918 The Allies win World War I.

1919 Nationwide "Red Scare."

1920s Politically conservative climate.

1929 Stock market crash; start of Great Depression.

1933 Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany; Franklin Roosevelt becomes President of U.S.; unemployment reaches 30 percent; Communist Party grows slowly.

1935-36U.S.S.R. seeks "United Front" with capitalist nations; Communists in U.S endorse FDR's "New Deal" reforms; Communists begin cooperating with liberal wing of Democrat party; Communist Party grows rapidly.

1937-38Nearly 500,000 Americans join Communist Party; Communists have little power in national politics; Communists elected to various state legislatures.

1939 Hitler and Stalin sign Nazi-Soviet Pact; Germany and U.S.S.R. both invade Poland, starting World War II; American Communists oppose U.S. entry into war; disgusted by Communists' cooperation with Hitler, thousands leave Communist Party.

1941 Germany invades USSR; bombing of Pearl Harbor brings U.S. into war; U.S. and U.S.S.R. are allies in fight against Nazis; Communists wholeheartedly cooperate in U.S. war efforts; Communist Party grows again.

1942-43U.S.S.R wins important battles against Germany; U.S. wins important battles against Japan.

1945 Big Three Conference; U.S.S.R. and U.S. defeat Germany; U.S. defeats Japan; two atomic bombs dropped.

1946 U.S.S.R. blocks free elections in Eastern Europe; relations between U.S. and U.S.S.R. grow tense; Republicans win landslide victory with anti-Communist campaign theme; Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech.

1948 President Truman declares active role in Greek Civil War; Marshall Plan

announced; "Truman Doctrine" commits U.S. to contain world Communism Congressman Richard Nixon convicts Alger Hiss for lying about being Communist.

U.S.S.R. blockades West Berlin; Truman orders airlift of supplies into West Berlin to prevent Communist take-over of city; Truman wins surprising re-election victory; Communists take over Czechoslovakia.

1949 U.S. begins prosecution of Communist Party leaders for conspiracy to overthrow government; Communists identified on college campuses, in Hollywood, etc.; NATO ratified; U.S.S.R. explodes its first atomic bomb; Communists win Chinese Civil War.

1950 Communist North Korea invades South Korea; U.S. enters Korean War; Senator Joe McCarthy gains national attention by claiming Communists have infiltrated the government.

1950s McCarthyism at high tide - hundreds of actors, teachers, government officials identified as Communists, many lose jobs; increased military spending as U.S. fights Korean War; state legislatures require loyalty oaths for state employees and outlaws Communist Party.

1953 Ethel and Julius Rosenberg executed for selling atomic secrets to U.S.S.R.;

Korean War ends; various exposed Communists commit suicide.

1954 KGB established; CIA helps overthrow unfriendly regimes in Iran and Guatemala; Communists attack French at Dien Bien-phu; Army-McCarthy hearings lead Senate to strip McCarthy of power.

1955 Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer identified as having provided secrets to Soviets and is prohibited from speaking on some college campuses; professors challenge legality of loyalty oaths.

1956 Warsaw Pact formed; rebellion put down in Communist Hungary.

1956-59Anti-Communist fervor subsides; U.S. Supreme Court strengthens First Amendment protections; U.S.S.R. launches Sputnik satellite, "space race" begins. Kruschev demands withdrawal of troops from Berlin, visits U.S.

1959 Fidel Castro takes over Cuba and declares it Communist country.

1960 Kruschev announces "We will bury you" with shoe in hand at U.N.; U.S. spy plane shot down.

1961 Bay of Pigs.

1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty ratified; John Kennedy assassinated by American

Communist Lee Harvey Oswald.

1964 Vietnam War begins; China explodes hydrogen bomb; "backlash" against

McCarthyism takes root in American media.

1965 U.S. Marines sent to fight Communism in Dominican Republic.

1966-76Cultural Revolution in China.

1967 Che Geuvara killed.

1968 Czechoslovakia's "socialism with a human face" met by "Prague Spring" of

Soviet tanks; North Korea captures USS Pueblo.

1970s U.S. invades Cambodia, virtual "civil war" anti-war protests on U.S. streets, colleges; U.S. withdraws from Vietnam War; era of "détente" begins as U.S. normalizes relations with China, signs arms control treaties with U.S.S.R.

1973 U.S. keeps Chile from becoming Communist.

1975-79Communists take over Saigon; Pol Pot's "killing fields" in Cambodia; Soviets

back terror in Middle East, "adventurism" in Africa.

1979 SALT II signed; Détente ends as U.S.S.R. invades Afghanistan.

1983 Communist/Cuban take-over of Grenada thwarted by U.S.; Ronald Reagan calls Soviets "evil empire;" Reagan's proposed Strategic Defense Initiative alarms Soviets, U.S. builds up military.

1980s Détente resumes as U.S. and U.S.S.R. sign more arms control agreements; Mikhail Gorbachev begins perestroika and glasnost; Soviets pull out of Afghanistan.

1986 Iran-Contra affair uses Iranian money to fund Nicaraguan freedom fighters.

1988 U.S.-U.S.S.R. sign major missile reduction treaty.

1989 Tiannenmen Square riots put down by force by Chinese; Polish solidarity

successfully opposes Communism.

1989-90Berlin Wall falls; U.S. wins Cold War; collapse of U.S.S.R. as Soviet republics and Eastern European nations seek independence.

1991 Boris Yeltsin puts down "last gasp" Communist uprising in Moscow; U.S.S.R dissolves; Russia supports U.S.-led Coalition Forces in Persian Gulf War.

1990s U.S . cuts military spending, but continues global role in Persian Gulf, Bosnia, etc.; Chinese "copy" U.S.; re-unification of Germany.

2003 Former Soviet bloc countries back U.S. in Iraq War.

Glossary of Cold War terminology

Capitalism

An economic system in which the means of production (factories, printing presses, etc.) are owned privately and operated for profit. Under capitalism, prices and wages are generally determined in the market rather than by voters or government officials.

Communism

1. A system of political beliefs which advocates the abolition of most forms of private property and the creation of a society where property is owned in common, with all members of the community sharing in the work and the products.

2. The economic and political system instituted in the Soviet Union after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Also, the economic and political system of several Soviet allies, such as China and Cuba. These Communist economic systems often did not achieve the ideals of Communist theory. For example, although many forms of property were owned by the government in the U.S.S.R. and China, neither the work nor the products were shared in a manner that would be considered equitable by many Communist or Marxist theorists.

Cold War

The struggle between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies. The Cold War began shortly after the end of the Second World War and ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989-90. The Korean War (1950-53) and the Vietnam War (1965-73) were part of the Cold War. The Cold War had both a military and an ideological component. The military component consisted of an "arms race" between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. and also American and Soviet intervention in numerous civil wars in smaller countries. The ideological component consisted of arguments over whose economic system was superior and competition to be the first nation to achieve various technological feats (such as landing a man on the moon).

Conservative

1. Tending to preserve established political, economic, and social institutions; opposed to most forms of change.

2. A person who holds conservative ideas. American conservatives tend to favor the existing forms of American capitalism and Democracy and tend to oppose efforts to modify or reform them substantially. American conservatives are usually strongly anti-Communist.

Fascism

Although there is no single body of political theory associated with Fascism, it tends to include a belief in the superiority of one national or ethnic group over others, insistence on national unity under a powerful leader, and hostility toward Democracy. Fascism developed in Italy in the early 1920s. It became quite influential in several European nations in the 1930s, most notably in Germany under the Nazi Party.

Fellow traveler

A person who, although not a member of a given political group, cooperates with that group. This phrase was most commonly applied to the non-Communist supporters of the Communist Party.

"Front" organization

A political organization which is dominated by another political organization; a political group that is a "puppet" of another group. This phrase was most commonly applied to political groups whose leadership included Communists. Such groups were also called "fronts."

Left wing; right-wing

Terms used to define political ideas or people who hold such ideas. If the variety of political beliefs is thought of as a spectrum, the more liberal or radical ideas are Left wing, while the more conservative ideas are right wing. A direct correlation, and in fact historical cooperation, occurred between members of the American and Soviet Communist Parties and ordinary "liberals" and "Left wingers." No such trend was ever discovered between American or German Nazis, or European Fascists, with ordinary "conservatives" or "right wingers," with the exception of such tiny numbers of "crackpots" as to be dismissed. Efforts were made by the Left to associate conservatism with Fascism, Nazism and the racial politics of Adolf Hitler. This is a lie of. The political spectrum looks like the following:

(Fascism)

Communism

Socialism

Liberalism

Moderation

Conservatism

Therefore, one could say that Communism is to the left of liberalism, and so forth.

Leninism

The political and economic doctrines of Karl Marx as interpreted and applied by Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1924. Lenin stressed the need for a violent revolution to bring Communists to power. He developed specific strategies and tactics for bringing about such revolutions. Lenin also argued that Communist governments should not tolerate political opposition. Leninism is often used combined with other terms. Marxism-Leninism means the same thing as Leninism. Leninism-Stalinism means Lenin's doctrines as interpreted and modified by Joseph Stalin.

Liberal

1. Tending to favor Constitutional or legal reforms in the direction of greater freedom or Democracy. Favorable toward social and cultural change.

2. A person who holds liberal ideas. American liberals approve of many features of capitalism, but believe that government action is needed to regulate some aspects of the capitalist system. Specifically, American liberals tend to favor programs designed to guarantee individuals a minimum standard of economic security. American liberals generally prefer gradual reform to dramatic political or economic changes. American liberals also tend to believe that all groups should have full political and civil rights. In the 1950s, however, American liberals were divided over the issue of whether Communists deserved full political and civil rights.

Marxism

A system of thought based on the writings of Karl Marx (1818-1883). Marx claimed that all wealth was really created by workers, not capitalists. He argued that capitalism was wrong because capitalists controlled and profited from the products of workers' labor. He advocated a communist economic system where the working class would own and control the means of production (factories, printing presses, etc.). Marx believed that history followed a set pattern and that the working class would inevitably overthrow the capitalist class in a series of revolutions. Marxism and communism are not entirely identical terms. Many Marxists (followers of Marx) accept Marx's criticisms of capitalism, but reject his plan for a communist economic system. Thus some Marxists are not communists. Similarly, some communists are not familiar with or do not accept Marx's theories.

McCarthyism

1. A series of political attitudes and tactics associated with Joseph McCarthy, a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin from 1946 to 1958. McCarthyism is characterized by vehement anti-Communism and the use of tactics involving publicizing accusations about individuals thought to be subversive.

2. The "persecution" of Communists and suspected Communists in the United States after the Second World War. When used in this broader sense, McCarthyism is a synonym for Red Scare.

Nazi-Soviet Pact

A treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union signed in August, 1939. The two nations promised not to attack one another and agreed to cooperate in a simultaneous invasion of Poland. This invasion triggered the start of the Second World War. The Nazis broke the Pact by invading the Soviet Union in July of 1941. The American Communist Party was very unpopular while the Pact was in effect because Communists were seen as allies of Hitler. The Nazi-Soviet Pact is also known as the Hitler-Stalin Pact.

New Deal

The program of reforms advocated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s. These reforms included the construction of Federally owned hydroelectric dams as well as the creation of social security, unemployment insurance, the minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, and many other programs of economic security.

"Pinks" or "pinkos"

Derogatory terms for Communists and socialists.

Radical

1. Extreme; outside the mainstream; favoring sweeping political or social changes. When used in regard to American politics from the 1930s to the 1960s, radical most often refers to extreme Left wing views.

2. A person who holds radical views. In the United States, Communists, socialists, and anarchists are generally thought of as radicals.

Red

A slang term for Communist ideas or policies.

Reds

A derogatory term for Communists.

Socialism

1. A derivative of Marxist-Leninist philosophy often associated with liberal government policies (such as in Sweden) that do not advocate or use crushing Communist-style repression or completely disassociate private property and capitalism.

2. A theory or policy which advocates or aims at public ownership of land, factories, and a few other types of property. Most forms of socialism rely on a government to manage and distribute the property in the common interest of the community. American socialists have generally favored giving Democratically elected governments greater control over major industries. Socialism differs from Communism in its willingness to allow more forms of private property and in its greater commitment to achieving economic change through democratic means.

Stalinism

1. Support for the policies of Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union from the 1920s until 1953. Stalin was known for absolute intolerance for internal political opposition. Many thousands of Soviet citizens who opposed Stalin's policies were killed in "purges" during the 1930s and 1940s.

2. A particularly ruthless form of Communist theory or practice.

United Front

An alliance of Communists, socialists, liberals and Democrats during the late 1930s and early 1940s. These groups formed a United Front in order to oppose the spread of Fascism and to attempt to pass economic reforms to end the Great Depression. The American Communist Party supported the New Deal and reached the peak of its popularity during the United Front period. The United Front is also referred to as the Popular Front.

The gulags: Communism's holocaust

There are many names for them: Relocation centers, detention centers, labor camps, concentration camps, death camps, re-education camps. They were always cruel, and in the 20th Century they became the de riguer way of totalitarianism. They were found wherever the Nazis, the Soviets and the Red Chinese went. The sycophants of these evil empires, such as Pol Pot, enthusiastically made copies of the mold. In the Soviet Union, the camps were collectively known as the gulag (an acronym in Russian for the Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies).

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn alerted much of the world to the horrors of the U.S.S.R.'s gulags in the 1970s. It had no effect on the Democrat Party's decision to withdraw funding to prevent the ones that were being built at that time from going into operation. Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago" was masterful, but perhaps the West was just tired of fighting these evils. In succeeding years, Russian, French, and German scholars have added to Solzhenitsyn's work.

Oddly enough, American researchers have not led the charge of gulag research. It is a strange but noteworthy that the Holocaust fills the imagination. Books, movies and documentaries are constant reminders of the near-extermination of European Jewry abound. The gulags and the millions of ghosts they produced are almost forgotten. The Jewish memorialists, in fact, do as much to remind the world of the gulags as anybody, since they are in the business not simply of reminding people of their plight, but of similar plights. If ever we have found the way Satan does things, it is in these near-forgotten genocides and holocausts.

The Left in America and Great Britain went so far as to justify the gulags. The Right has failed to do the necessary work of real scholarship that these crimes deserve. Henry Wallace, the leader of the Communist wing of the Democrat party during the Roosevelt/Truman era, visited the brutal Magadan Soviet penal camps. Of the sadistic commander, Ivan Nikishov, Wallace said he was "idyllic."

The gulag's were under the control of the secret police (successively, Cheka, GPU, OGPU, NKVD, MVD, and KGB). A fair number of political figures in charge of modern Russia come from the KGB and therefore were part of the gulag administration. This would be the same as leading Hitler henchmen surviving the fall of the Nazis only to re-invent themselves as statesman in a new, socialist Germany. The founder of the Soviet secret police was Feliks Dzerzhinsky. His policy for the Cheka was expressed in 1918.

"We represent in ourselves organized terror \- this must be said very clearly," he said.

Soviet exile in Siberia was much worse than it had been under the Czars. The Soviet Union had hundred of these camps, far more than the Nazis operated. They had thousands of work camps, and 500 were considered ITL (for "ispravitel'no-trudovoy lager"), which were corrective labor camps and penal colonies. The first opened in 1917. They were geographically spread out from the Arctic to Central Asia.

"...From the Cold Pole at Oy-Myakon to the copper mines of Dzhezkazgan," wrote Solzhenitsyn.

It was an integral part of the Soviet economy, responsible for railroad construction, road building, canal building, forestry, mining, agriculture, and construction sites. The conditions were no better than Auschwitz or Dachau. Women shared the work with no social regard. Children, mothers with babies, homosexuals, retarded people, the sick, the deformed and others were put to work, too. Psychiatrically disabled were labeled as "enemies of the people."

When the "Great Patriotic War" began, the Communists introduced "katorga" (hard labor camp) within the ITL system. Prisoners assigned to a katorga were given extra hard work with almost no rations or medical attention. (The word "katorga" is a Czarist term). The katorga's were virtually identical in purpose to labor camps run by the Nazis.

Slogans were posted in the camps.

"Work is a matter of honor, fame, courage, and heroism." "Shock work is the fastest way to freedom." "No work, no food."

The daily ration was 400 to 800 grams of bread. Productive workers received some fish, potatoes, porridge, or vegetables. The U.N. World Health Organization sets the minimum requirements for heavy labor at from 3,100 to 3,900 calories per day.

Inmate were Christians, Muslim clergymen, "kulaks" (or independent farmers), political dissidents, common criminals, "economic criminals," former "elitists," Communists with a following, ethnic minorities, homeless, "unpersons," "hooligans," tardy workers, and others.

Political prisoners or counterrevolutionaries were "58ers" for having violated Article 58 of the criminal code. Common criminals were called "urki" or "blatnyaki." Less violent criminals accused of violating some aspect of the civil code were categorized as "bytoviki." Individuals accused of undermining Soviet economic laws were referred to as subversives or pests - "vrediteli" in Russian. Trustees or "pridurki" in the camps, those most likely to survive their imprisonment, acted as camp service personnel. All inmates were referred to as "zeki," the acronym for the Russian word for prisoner.

Naftaly Aronovich Frenkel was a Jew born in Turkey in 1883. After the Bolshevik revolution he moved to the Soviet Union. In Odessa he was an agent of the State Political Administration, responsible for the acquisition and confiscation of gold from the wealthier classes. Frenkel was arrested in 1927 for skimming gold. He was sent to the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON) in the Arctic. Frenkel had a talent for work efficiency and explained his ideas to Stalin personally. He linked food rationing to production and concluded that a prisoner was valuable for three months after captivity, but debilitated after that. The most effective thing was to kill them and replace them with fresh inmates. It was the opposite of the American treatment of African slaves in the Old South, which is why slavery thrived as an institution instead of literally "dying off." The Soviets did not have to worry about attrition; they always found slaves from among their huge population base.

When prisoners were called to fall into line, the last man to line up would be shot as a laggard ("dokhodyaga"), which created a constant flow of fresh labor, pleasing Stalin. Frenkel was made construction chief of the White Sea Canal project, and later of the BAM railroad project. In 1937 he was named head of the Main Administration of Railroad Construction Camps (GULZhDS), where he provide railroad transport facilities to the Red Army in the 1939-40 "Winter War" against Finland, and during the Second World War. He was awarded the Order of Lenin three times, named a Hero of Socialist Labor, and promoted to the rank of general in the NKVD.

Frenkel's became standard operating procedures in the BAM (Baltic-Amur Magistral) railroad project, the Dalstroy (Far East Construction), Vorkuta, Kolyma, Magadan, and countless other hellholes. Workers noted that the rails were marked "made in Canada," since they were part of aid given by the West.

300,000 prisoners were in Soviet labor camps in 1932, 1 million in 1935, and 2 million by 1940. Roosevelt extended the "hand of friendship" while millions starved in the Ukraine and Russia. 1 million inmates "served" in the Red Army, clearing minefields by walking through them at gunpoint. After the war, the camp population went up. Most soldiers who had fought or were imprisoned by the Germans were imprisoned for being exposed to Western thought.

The gulags filled with USSR's enemies: Finns, Poles, Germans, Italians, Romanians, and Japanese. Many of them were held for years after 1945. German prisoners were treated the worst. The death rate of POWs was excessively high. Most German POWs were shot out or mutilated. 95,000 German POWs were captured at Stalingrad, but 5,000 returned home. 40,000 died marching from Stalingrad to the Beketovka camp. 42,000 died there of hunger and disease. S.S. POWs and Vlasov forces imprisoned on Wrangel Island had almost no chance of survival.

Many Germans captured by the United States were held in Alabama, where they lived comfortably and were allowed many privileges.

The U.S.S.R. held 3.4 million German POWs at war's end. The Yalta Agreement (orchestrated by Alger Hiss) agreed to the use of German POWs in the Soviet gulag as "reparations-in-kind," instead of repatriation to their homeland. Germans were more productive than the other "workers." In an effort to get the most out of them, Stalin ordered that they be given food rations proportionate to their work. Still, almost a million German POWs died in the camps. The last of 10,000 survivors were released from the Soviet Union in 1955, after 10 years of forced labor. 1.5 million German soldiers are still "missing in action." 875,000 German civilians were abducted and transported to the camps. Half of them died.

After the war, British and U.S. authorities ordered their military in Germany to deliver to the Communists former residents of the U.S.S.R. This included men who had taken up arms with the Germans against the Soviets, prisoners of war, forced and voluntary workers in the German wartime economy, and numerous persons who had left. 4.2 million ethnic Russians and 1.6 million Russian POWs from defeated Germany were augmented by German POWs and civilians abducted or deported from Germany and Eastern Europe. Tens of thousands of Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians were sent to Soviet camps, replaced in their homelands by Soviet invaders. Most ethnic Russian women and children were reincorporated into the Soviet system. Russian POWs and the Vlasov men were put under the jurisdiction of SMERSH (Death to Spies), which sentenced about a third of a million to serve from 10 to 20 years in the gulag. In 1947, the gulag's held 9 million souls.

Under the direct supervision of secret police chief Lavrenty Beria, thousands of gulag inmates supported the Soviet nuclear bomb project, mining uranium and preparing test facilities on Novaya Zemlya, Vaygach Island, Semipalatinsk, and dozens of other sites. The Soviet Navy used gulag prisoners to rid decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines of radioactivity.

In 1953, the gulag's held 2.7 million prisoners. Danchik Sergeyevich Baldaev, an MVD major who worked in the Gulag from 1951 until his retirement in 1981, published a book depicting the post-Stalin Gulag - tortures, cruelties, sex, food and housing, climatic conditions, common and political criminals. The KGB allowed the barracks to be run by common criminals (murderers, rapists, and psychopaths of every variety), abusing the women and the weak. They called themselves "vory v zakone" (thieves within the law, an installed criminal leader deciding disputes and dividing spoils).

Women in the gulag were raped on the transport ship and in the railroad cars, then paraded naked in front of camp officials, who selected "promising" ones for easier work in exchange for sex. The officials preferred German, Latvian, and Estonian women, who would never see home again, over native Russian women, who might. Women not selected by the camp officials were left over for the barracks or lesbians. Starvation, work exhaustion, exposure to the cold, physical abuse, isolation, impalement, genital mutilation, and bullets in the back of the head were other common events in the gulag.

30 million prisoners entered the gulags during the Soviet era. Most who served their time were not allowed to return homes. They lived the remainder of their lives near the camps. Robert Conquest, a Western scholar, estimated that one out of every three new inmates died during the first year of imprisonment. Only half made it through the third year. Conquest estimated that during the "Great Terror" of the late 1930s alone, there were 6 million arrests, 2 million executions, and another 2 million deaths from other causes. By 1953, at least 12 million died there. The figure, according to Andrei Sakharaov, is much higher. Unlike the Germans, the Soviets were not as efficient at keeping records.

Wooden markers with the deceased's identification number were affixed to the left leg. Gold teeth or fillings were pried out. To ensure that the death was not feigned, the skull of the inmate was smashed with a hammer, or a metal spike driven into the chest. The corpses were buried in an unmarked grave.

Aleksandr Gutman produced a documentary film in which he interviewed four German women from East Prussia who as young girls had been raped by Red Army troops. They were then sent to Number 517, near Petrozavodsk in Karelia. Of 1,000 girls and women who transported to that camp, 522 died within six months of their arrival. These women were deported, with the acquiescence of the Western powers, as part of "reparations-in-kind" language, possibly written by Hiss, in the post-war charters.

"While the diary of Anne Frank is known throughout the world, we carry our memories in our hearts," one of the women remarked. When Gutman attempted to show the documentary in New York City, liberals were quoted as saying (and this is not made up), "He should be killed for making such a movie."

The U.S. Justice Department maintains the Office of Special Investigations, dedicated to the investigation, prosecution, and deportation of former Axis soldiers and officials. Most of those prosecuted were low ranking guards at wartime German camps. No American office was ever created to hunt out the officials who headed and ran the Communists' camps, even though Smirnov's "System of Corrective Labor Camps" lists more than 500 camps with their administrative officers through the 1960s.

Soviet gulags were mostly destroyed, and attempts to create museums, shrines and memorials have failed.

"People simply do not equate the ethical and moral horrors and shame of Nazism with those of Communism," said Yuri Pivovarov, director of the Institute of Social Science Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Many formerly high-ranking Communist officials are still in charge of modern Russia, including Vladimir Putin.

The Venona Papers

In February of 1943, the U.S. Army's Signal Intelligence Service, a forerunner of the National Security Agency (NSA), initiated a very secret program, later code named Venona. The object of the Venona program was to decrypt, examine and exploit Soviet diplomatic communications. The Venona Papers are the documents from this project. These papers are deciphered, intercepted secret Soviet communiqués between the United States and Moscow.

The Venona documents link the Rosenbergs and their Russian spy rings. The cover name for Julius Rosenberg was LIBERAL. Venona is the treasure trove of information that was uncovered in Soviet archives after the U.S. victory in the Cold War. The announcement for the Venona conference was a "scholarly conference on Soviet intelligence efforts to penetrate the United States Government during the 1940s and 1950s and U.S. counterespionage against such efforts."

The Venona Papers were given short shrift by the liberal media when they came to light in the 1990s, because they revealed that despite McCarthy's blunderings, the essence of his argument was true. There were Soviet espionage agents and traitors to the United States infiltrating every aspect of life in the 1940s and '50s. Many were identified and exposed. Many were protected by liberal Democrats and the media. They knew that the truth about them would indicate so many cases of treason against members of their political party that the effect would be even more disastrous than it was.

The Blacklist has been made out to be one of the worst events in American history. High school and college students are taught without question that it was a "witch hunt" with no basis in reality. Hollywood, the industry most effected by it, along with college professors, have engaged in a systematic campaign to discredit the Blacklist. The fact is, the Hollywood Blacklist meant little more than a relative handful of untalented writers and directors, who had failed to renounce Communism even after they found out that Stalin was a butcher (many of whom were spies or knew of spying activity), losing plumb jobs for a couple years. The dominant media culture would have us believe it was an "American Holocaust."

It is true that some lives were destroyed unnecessarily. It is true that not everybody accused was a Communist. But the backlash against the Blacklist has rent this great nation with a media culture that swung so far to the left in retaliation for it that there was, for years, little semblance of reality in the dissemination of information about it. Pure free market forces in recent years have created a balance to these media forces. For this reason Truth is no longer the casualty of liberalism it was for so many years.

For 60 years Left wingers said all the evidence of the infiltration of Communists into the American government was trumped up and fake. Helen Gahagan Douglas, for instance, had been described as a "victim" of the "lies" of Richard Nixon. The textbooks of any public school in the U.S. routinely proclaim that McCarthyism was nothing more than a right wing political ploy. As the Left became the dominant voice of education, the universities, television, the print media, and most of all the film industry, this fiction has become accepted "fact" by a population of people who do not care enough about history to identify and expose these lies. If ever a historical lie has been foisted on the world, the Blacklist, McCarthyism and the Red Scare are it. The Venona files, corroborated by Soviet files, help identify these lies.

The papers show that traitors were passing top secret American information to the Soviet Union as well as American atomic secrets. Lauchlin Currie was the personal aide and advisor to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a proven Soviet espionage agent by both the Venona files and the FBI

Albert Einstein, the famous mathematician who advised FDR of the possibility of building an atomic bomb was not a Communist, but his personal staff was Communist Party members. They were involved in espionage against the United States. It was all known by Einstein. In 1947 Einstein told the FBI that he had made a mistake coming to the United States! Time magazine liked this attitude so much they named him "Man of the Century."

Harry Hopkins was the most important assistant to FDR and in actual fact the "assistant President" while he lived. Against the advice of the entire American government he personally approved and demanded the shipment of 40 tons of uranium to the Soviets. Atomic bombs are derived from uranium.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was the head of the (Manhattan) atomic bomb project. He is mentioned frequently in the Soviet clandestine wireless transmissions as being a Soviet agent. They had a nickname for him. He was always suspected and his security clearance was removed when he was deemed a security risk! Before the release of the Venona files none of those suspicions were verified. Most of what is known about Oppenheimer leaves some doubt. At the very best, he was a "fellow traveler."

Their espionage, passivity in the face of knowledge of espionage, and the espionage of many others, resulted in the divulging of American secrets directly responsible for 45 years of the Cold War. Without such treason the Cold War might have been won without having to fight in Vietnam. Millions might have been saved in the U.S.S.R., Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia. None of the traitors were Republicans. Res ipsa loquiter.

Both Lauchlin Currie and Harry Hopkins influenced the Yalta and Teheran agreements. FDR was sick and dying. Alger Hiss wrote much of the Yalta agreement. Many Americans always said about Yalta, "How could Roosevelt have been so dumb?"

As a result of the Yalta agreement the United States stopped its penetration of Eastern Europe 90 miles away from the Soviet troops. The Soviet filled that 90-mile vacuum to seize the eastern nations.

The accumulated message traffic of Venona comprised a collection of thousands of Soviet diplomatic telegrams that had been sent from Moscow to certain of its diplomatic missions, and from those missions to Moscow. During the first months of the project, Arlington Hall analysts sorted the traffic by diplomatic mission and by cryptographic system or subscriber.

Initial analysis indicated that five cryptographic systems, later determined to be employed by different subscribers, were in use between Moscow and a number of Soviet overseas missions. It also became apparent that one system involved trade matters, especially Lend-Lease. The other four systems appeared to involve the Soviet Foreign Ministry in Moscow in communication with its missions abroad.

Further analysis showed that each one of the five systems was used exclusively by one of the following subscribers (listed in descending order according to the volume of message traffic which had been collected):

1. Trade representatives - Lend-Lease, AMTORG, and the Soviet Government Purchasing Commission;

2. Diplomats - i.e., members of the diplomatic corps in the conduct of legitimate Soviet embassy and consular business;

3. KGB - the Soviet espionage agency, headquarters in Moscow and Residencies (stations) abroad;

4. GRU - the Soviet Army General Staff Intelligence Directorate and attaches abroad;

5. GRU-Naval - Soviet Naval Intelligence Staff.

In October of 1943, Lieutenant Richard. Hallock, a Signal Corps Reserve officer who had been a peacetime archaeologist at the University of Chicago, discovered weaknesses in the cryptographic system of the Soviet trade traffic. This discovery provided a tool for further analytic progress on the other four cryptographic systems.

During 1944, the skills of other expert cryptanalysts were brought to bear on this Soviet message traffic to see if any of the encryption systems of the messages could be broken. One of these cryptanalysts, Cecil Phillips, made observations which led to a fundamental break into the cipher system used by the KGB, although he did not know at the time used the system. The messages were double encrypted and of enormous difficulty. Two years later, KGB messages could be read or even be recognized as KGB rather than standard diplomatic communications.

In 1945, in response to Venona amplifications, the FBI carefully questioned Whittaker Chambers, whose earlier efforts to disclose details about Soviet espionage in the U.S. in the 1930s had gone unheeded. Igor Gouzenko, a GRU code clerk, defected in Ottawa. In late 1945 Elizabeth Bentley, a veteran KGB courier and auxiliary agent handler, went to the FBI and named names. Gouzenko's revelations had no bearing on the Venona breakthroughs, but decrypts show the accuracy of Chambers' and Bentley's disclosures.

In the summer of 1946, Meredith Gardner, an Arlington Hall analyst, began to read portions of KGB messages that had been sent between the KGB Residency in New York and Moscow Center. On July 31, 1946, he extracted a phrase from a KGB New York message that had been sent to Moscow on August 10, 1944. This message proved to be a discussion of clandestine KGB activity in Latin America. On December13 Gardner was able to read a KGB message that discussed the U.S. Presidential election campaign of 1944. A week later, on December 20, 1946, he broke into another KGB message that had been sent to Moscow Center two years earlier. It contained a list of names of the leading scientists working on the Manhattan Project.

By 1947, Gardner was able to show that someone inside the War Department General Staff was providing highly classified information to the Soviets. U.S. Army intelligence, G-2, became alarmed at hundreds of covernames, many of KGB agents, including ANTENNA and LIBERAL (later identified as Julius Rosenberg). One message mentioned that LIBERAL's wife was named "Ethel."

General Carter W. Clarke, the assistant G-2, called the FBI liaison officer to G-2 and told him that the Army had begun to break into Soviet intelligence service traffic, and that the traffic indicated a massive Soviet espionage effort in the U.S.

In October, 1948, FBI special agent Robert Lamphere joined the VENONA Project full time as the FBI's liaison and case controller for the VENONA espionage material. The British joined the effort that same year, and the two agencies cooperated with each other.

The most alarming trend of the Venona amplifications was not that the Soviets were spying on the U.S. This was part of the "great game" of the Cold War. Rather, the most alarming revelation was that American and British citizens were spying for them for pure political reasons. They were people who loved Communism, hated America, or both. Their motivations were not money or blackmail. If they were not members of the government, they tended to come out of the academic world, were writers, artists or filmmakers. They used their positions to subvert the American Way and promote Communism. In America, they tended to be Jewish. All of them emerged from the liberal wings of the British Labor party or the American Democrat party.

While there were numerous people who fell into this category, there were many thousands more who were not active Communist spies, but they either were or had been members of Communist cells. They were people who loved Communism, hated America, or both. Their motivations were not money or blackmail. If they were not members of the government, these people tended to come out of the academic world, were writers, artists or filmmakers. They used their positions to subvert the American Way and promote Communism. In America, they tended to be Jewish. All of them emerged from the liberal wings of the British Labor party or the American Democrat party.

There were many thousands more who were not active Communist spies, and were not members of Communist cells. They were people who loved Communism, hated America, or both. They wrote articles and books, or made movies, glorifying Communism and depicting America as racist and capitalism as evil. Their motivations were not money or blackmail. If they were not members of the government, these people tended to come out of the academic world, were writers, artists or filmmakers. They used their positions to subvert the American Way and promote Communism. In America, they tended to be Jewish. All of them emerged from the liberal wings of the British Labor party or the American Democrat party.

These facts infuriate the Left, who are appalled at the fact that people possess knowledge of these activities. Of course, none of this changes the fact that it is true.

The Venona messages are filled with hundreds of covernames (designations used in place of the real names to hide identities of Soviet intelligence officers and agents - i.e., spies or cooperating sources - as well as organizations, people, or places discussed in the encrypted messages). A number of public figures were also designated by covernames. Others in that category appear in the text of the messages by their true names. The following are examples of covernames recovered from the Venona corpus:

Covername: True Name

KAPITAN: President Roosevelt

ANTENNA, later changed to LIBERAL: Julius Rosenberg

BABYLON: San Francisco

THE BANK: U.S. Department of State

ARSENAL: U.S. War Department

ENORMOZ: Manhattan Project/A-bomb

ANTON: Leonid Kvasnikov, KGB Chief of A-bomb espionage in KGB's New York City office

Arlington Hall and the FBI studied the covernames for leads to identities, grouping them into families of covernames. Some covernames came from mythology Some were Russian given names, and others were names of fish, etc. KAPITAN was easily identified from the context as a good covername for President Roosevelt, but his covername was, nevertheless, outranked by those persons of lower station, including KGB operatives covernamed PRINCE, DUKE, and GOD. Other KGB assets were just plain BOB, TOM, and JOHN. Elizabeth Bentley had the covername GOOD GIRL. Very rarely, the KGB was careless in choosing a covername. For example, the covername FROST was used for KGB agent Boris Moros. The Russian word for "frost" is "moroz."

There were about 2,200 Venona messages translated. The Venona translations are now released to the public. Almost all of the KGB messages between Moscow and New York, and Moscow and Washington in 1944 and 1945 that could be broken at all were broken. To a greater or lesser degree, between 1947 and 1952, this led to the uncovering of Communist activity in the U.S. in the 1950s. The serial numbers of the VENONA messages indicate that the KGB and GRU sent thousands of messages between Moscow and the overseas recipients. Arlington Hall made the VENONA breakthroughs through hard work and analysis. This is a direct reflection of America's superior intelligentsia. The people who performed these tasks are heroes.

Information in the Venona materials reveals KGB tradecraft (i.e., the practical means and methods of espionage and counterespionage) of the time in great detail. Most Venona messages concern operational/tradecraft matters. The sheer volume of data collected by KGB stations abroad was too great to be reported by telegram. The Venona messages indicate that photocopies of classified documents went to Moscow by courier. In one translation, which is currently undergoing declassification review, KGB in New York informed Moscow that it had 56 rolls of film from their agent, covernamed ROBERT. This trove of classified material was to be sent off by courier to Moscow Center.

Information in Venona translations describes the KGB's modus operandi in arranging meetings with their agents, with much attention given to the security of these secret meetings. Other messages describe KGB countermeasures against the FBI - countersurveillance, detection of bugging devices, and ensuring the loyalty of Soviet personnel in the United States. A particularly fascinating set of Venona messages described the KGB's efforts to locate Soviet sailors who had deserted from merchant ships in San Francisco and other U.S. ports. Some of the most interesting messages detailed KGB assessment and recruitment of American Communists for espionage work.

Over 200 named or covernamed persons found in the Venona translations, persons then present in the U.S., were claimed by the KGB and the GRU in their messages as their clandestine assets or contacts. Many of these persons have been identified. Many have not been. The majority of unidentified covernames in the New York KGB traffic appear three or fewer times. This means that a large number of "heroes" of the Left, "ruined" by McCarthyism only to be rehabilitated by Hollywood, the media or the academic community, may have been bona fide Communist spies. This would not have been known throughout their lives. In some cases these people are still alive, claiming to be "victims" of the right; still trotted out by the New York Times or The Nation for sympathetic reminiscences of the "American Holocaust."

These approximately 200 persons are separate from the many KGB and GRU officers who also appear in VENONA. ROBERT is found in Venona translations several dozen times. Other covernamed persons were found only a few times. Information derived from the Venona translations shows the KGB's extensive contacts with the American Communist Party. Many of the espionage activities by members of the American Communist Party are reflected in the Venona translations.

A number of sources outside of signals intelligence reveal that the KGB learned early on that the U.S. had begun to study Soviet communications. In late 1945, KGB agent Elizabeth Bentley told the FBI that the KGB had acquired some limited information about the U.S. effort in 1944. Kim Philby, while assigned to Washington, D.C. from 1949-1951, occasionally visited Arlington Hall for discussions about Venona; furthermore, he regularly received copies of summaries of Venona translations as part of his official duties. But if the Soviets knew something about what Arlington Hall was accomplishing, they could not, at any rate, get the messages back.

Venona translations that have been identified as associated with atomic bomb espionage messages are being released first. All but two of this group of 49 messages was KGB traffic; one is a GRU and one a Soviet diplomatic message.

These messages disclose some of the clandestine activities of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Harry Gold, Klaus Fuchs, David and Ruth Greenglass, and others such as the spy known by the covername MLAD or the equally important, but still unidentified PERS. The role played by the person covernamed VEKSEL remains uncertain but troubling. A number of other covernames of persons associated with atomic bomb espionage remain unidentified to this day.

Venona messages show that KGB officer Leonid Kvasnikov, covername ANTON, headed atomic bomb espionage in the U.S., but that he, like the Rosenbergs, who came under his control, had many other high-tech espionage targets such as the U.S. jet aircraft program, developments in radar and rockets. As with most Venona messages, the Rosenberg messages contain much information relating to KGB net control and tradecraft matters.

The Venona program concerned KGB and GRU messages that were available to Arlington Hall codebreakers. Most of the messages which were collected were not successfully decrypted, and, short of a release of the KGB and GRU archives from the period, full disclosure of KGB and GRU activities represented in the VENONA corpus of messages may never be known.

Eastern Europe under Stalinism

It is generally agreed that Joseph Stalin was not just paranoid, violent and power hungry, but mentally unstable. The threat of opposition and his need to suppress it offer some explanation as to why he cracked down on every aspect of Soviet society and turned all of Eastern Europe into satellites. The crackdown on any form of freedom is very much an aspect of Communist ideology, but the personal characteristics of Stalin himself offer as much historical explanation as Hitler's unique imprint on Nazi Germany.

Stalin was interested, first and foremost, in his own personal power base. Therefore, any good efforts by anybody else that might be recognized by the people was a "threat" to him. Unless it could be directly attributed to him, it did not exist. Since anything that the people liked was indicative of freedom, almost nothing they liked happened. Absolute control of all the countries surrounding the U.S.S.R. was necessary, in Stalin's view, since they were all a threat to his power. The history of Russia must be taken into account. The country has always been attacked by neighbors who cover its natural resources, and view its wide-open spaces as indefensible, therefore easy to take.

Stalin feared an invasion by the United States. The West usually considered this an unreasonable fear, but was it? The U.S. had the strongest military in history and possessed the most powerful weapon ever conceived. U.S. troops had occupied part of Russia after the Communist Revolution. The U.S. was a known expansionist power, having moved inexorably Westward in the 19th Century. Teddy Roosevelt had enthusiastically used U.S. military might to expand in the 1900s.

Stalin's brutality began with his use of the Soviet secret police. It was started by Lenin but expanded by Stalin. He used it to eliminate the slightest opposition or criticism to his leadership in the 1920s and '30s. In the 1930s, opposition of the kulaks to the collective farm system resulted in slaughtering their animals in protest of the first five-year plan. Stalin decided to eliminate the kulaks as a class. He "purged" all anti-Stalin or anti-Communist views, through expulsion but mostly by murder.

Stalin 's psyche explains his schizophrenic opposition to the Nazis, followed by his alliance with them, followed by his opposition to them, followed by his alliance with the West, followed by his opposition to the West. Alliance was impossible with Stalin, because it required power sharing. All of his foreign policy decisions were based on the "lesser of two evils" concept. Nazi Germany offered him something he could not refuse when they took control of areas of Soviet interest. They were willing to give the Baltic states and part of Poland to Russia. Russia moved into these areas quickly. Only when Germany reclaimed control of these areas did Stalin renegotiate with the West and form an alliance along different lines.

Stalin sided with whoever would help him. These alliances always split up when Stalin was asked to share military information with the West. After the war, Stalin wanted the world divided into spheres of interest with Eastern Europe and the Balkans under Russian control. The United States wanted Democracy in all of the states that Hitler had occupied. Russia promised Truman that this would occur and initially allowed a few moderate parties in the countries of Eastern Europe. But it quickly became obvious that would not square with the "world revolution" that was the goal of Communism. Stalin chose not to pursue Communism in Italy and France because it would have strained his resources. Instead he expelled "moderate" parties in Eastern Europe.

Stalin's "smartest" move was his alliance with the West. Because of the military alliance between Britain, America and the Soviet Union, he was given the imprimatur of statesmanship. This had the effect of legitimizing Communism with elements in the West. Consequently, he was given a "pass" for several key years after the war to impose his totalitarian expansion upon Eastern Europe, before America could mobilize against him.

Had Germany not invaded Russia, Stalin would have been marginalized. Germany still would have lost the war, and Russia would have been seen as their ally, not ours. As a victim of the Germans, the Soviets were able to make demands based on their contributions.

Economic turmoil was Stalin's greatest advantage. He found that it would be relatively easy to set up Communist regimes in the re-building countries. Stalin set himself up as a "big brother" and severed all previous ties with the anti-West propaganda.

Stalin had gone went into the Potsdam Conference hoping to be re-paid for the losses sustained during the war, and for Russia to have a barrier between the East and West, thus wresting control of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Eastern Poland, Bucovina, Besarabia, East Germany, and other smaller pieces of territory to the Soviet Union. He viewed these territories as a "shield" for Communism. Russian leaders had historically tried to create this for time immemorial. Weakened by the war and "abandoned" by the West as pawns in the Great Game, Eastern European fell to Communism.

Eastern Europe initially saw appeal in Stalin's promises after the tyranny of Hitler. Stability was the main hope of these peoples. In this regard, Machiavelli's theory, that man prefers security to freedom, comes closest to ringing true in the few years after the war, prior to their realization that Stalinism was as bad as Fascism.

At first, the Nazis were Stalin's great "ally," because they had been so atrocious that it did not seem possible that anything could be worse. It is a major "testament" to Stalinism and Communism that they actually managed to equal if not surpass the Nazis as an evil force. Redistribution of wealth held great appeal, and Stalin's persecution of Jews "justified" the crimes committed by many in Eastern Europe who had aided the Nazis in their efforts in this regard. Stalin's own hatred of Jews was transferred to the people of Eastern Europe.

This leads to an amazing fact of history. People who live in the West take it on faith that the Holocaust occurred, they have knowledge of the details of it, and are constantly admonished to "never forget." However, an enormous portion of the world knows almost nothing about the Holocaust. This includes Eastern Europe and East Germany. People who lived there after World War II were never taught about the Holocaust. After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, information about it became more readily available, but even today it is treated almost as a rumor, an aside, or an exaggeration.

Stalin did not emphasize the Holocaust in his administration of Eastern Europe. East Germans were kept especially in the dark about it. He preferred to emphasize the atrocities committed by the Germans on the non-Jewish survivors of Eastern Europe. He needed to make a "new Germany" out of people who were all too glad not to be reminded of their crimes against humanity, given instead a chance to re-make themselves in the Communist model. He preferred to remove Jews because their peculiar religious habits could not be allowed to thrive in his atheistic society. The same of course goes for Christianity, but there were simply too many "Christians" to kill. The fate of Jews under Communism is a great irony, since Jews were the early advocates of it. Jews in the West tended to associate with the liberal concepts that gave tacit "support" to it. Meanwhile, Stalin had Jews killed in a manner that approached Hitler. If ever sheep were led to the slaughterhouse, it was the Jews of Communism.

Stalin was good at propaganda. He used the "useful idiots" of the West by portraying the facade that Russia had "seen the light" and was willing to join them in an effort to sustain world peace. Humanitarian forces drove Stalin's supporters in the West, who forgave him the gruppe, the collectivist farms, the murders, the gulags, the Siberian death camps, the Jewish exterminations, and the famines of the 1930s.They were convinced that in battling Hitler he would be transformed into a kind of "forced morality." What these people did not realize was that Hitler and Stalin always admired each other.

What many do not realize is that Stalin felt strongly that Germany should never be re-unified. The unification of Germany under Bismarck had started their nationalistic and militaristic period. Stalin felt that a recovered Germany would again arm themselves and generate aggressive war.

In 1944, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill went to Moscow and offered Stalin the Balkans, in an ill-fated effort at "balancing" Soviet power. Roosevelt had gotten along quite well with the man dubbed "Uncle Joe," believing that pragmatic tactics would allow latitude at war's end. Roosevelt's strategy was to allow the Soviets control of the territory surrounding Russia. In maintaining friendship with the Soviets, goodwill could help maintain post-war order.

FDR's pragmatism was not blindness to Soviet power. The peace agreement at Yalta lacked specifics while laying the foundation for control of the United Nations. The hand of Alger Hiss is unmistakable in this regard. The British and Americans thought the U.N. would provide a forum for post-war cooperation, not confrontation.

Stalin was adamant in his demand for German reparations, but Churchill opposed the idea since he had seen how the Versailles Treaty had set back the peace after 1919. In the spirit of compromise, Roosevelt determined a sum of $20 billion, with half going to the Russians, to be made in materials, production, and provisions rather than gold.

The German and Austrian questions were resolved with designated zones assigned to each power. The framework of the Soviet "occupation" plan was based on their national security requirements, necessitating friendly governments along the western border. With the exception of Greece and Tito's Yugoslavia, Russian troops were positioned in the Balkans, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and an eastern segment of Austria, in addition to the division of Germany.

At first, troops returning to their native countries were greeted with thoughts of displacement and unemployment. The "guaranteed provisions" of employment offered by Communism were alluring, despite the strings attached. In the end, the U.N. was turned against the West, and the concessions made by Roosevelt and Churchill made Stalin's plunder of Eastern Europe possible.

As the 1940s turned into the 1950s, Soviet domination of all countries in their sphere of influence became total. Hungary's revolution was put down, as were all efforts at reform or resistance in East Germany and the entire East Bloc.

The U.N. was supposed to be neutral meeting ground. Each nation would send a permanent delegation to debate international issues, and, in the failure of diplomacy, a security council made up of the allied victors of World War II would be able to marshal economic and even military force to contain a war. It was supposed to enhance peace and national sovereignty.

Democrat Communists sell out Eastern Europe

The first Secretary General of the U.N. at its founding conference in San Francisco, June 26, 1945, was Soviet espionage agent Alger Hiss. His appointment had been approved by Stalin at the Yalta Conference. Hiss had served as "international organization specialist." Many Communists were among the American delegation. They drew excellent salaries from the U.S. taxpayers.

Harry Dexter White was the assistant Secretary of the Treasury. Laughlin Currie was the Special Assistant to President Franklin Roosevelt. Lawrence Duggan, Noel Field, Harold Glasser, Irving Kaplan, Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, Victor Perlo, and Julian Wadleigh were pro-Communist operatives who played major roles in planning the U.N. structure, along with Solomon Adler, Frank Coe, Abraham G. Silverman, William H. Taylor, William L. Ullman, John Carter Vincent and David Weintraub.

It was agreed that the Undersecretary-General for Political and Security Council Affairs, with direct control over military operations, would always be a Soviet. The U.N. was virtually overrun by Communists, according to Senator James O. Eastland's testimony to a Senate Committee in 1952

"I am appalled at the extensive evidence indicating that there is today in the U.N. among the American employees there, the greatest concentration of Communists that this committee has ever encountered," Senator Eastwood told the committee. "These people occupy high positions. They have very high salaries and almost all of these people have, in the past, been employees in the U.S. government in high and sensitive positions."

The U.N. has been described as a "Trojan horse" for Left wing ideology. In 1915, Lenin proposed a "United States of the World". In 1936, the Communist International proclaimed:

"Dictatorship can be established only by a victory of socialism in different countries after which the proletariat Republics would unite on federal lines with those already in existence, and this system of federal unions would expand...at length forming the World Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

The 1950 conviction of Hiss is a seminal event in American history. The fact that it occurred in the middle year of the century is symbolic. It served to divide the U.S. in a way that few events, if any, ever had. In some ways, the Hiss case was more divisive even than the Vietnam War. In fact the divisions in Vietnam can be traced to Hiss. Hiss and Nixon are inexorably linked. Nixon and Vietnam are, too. The entire nature of anti-war protest and media manipulation during Vietnam intensified upon Nixon's ascendancy to the White House. The prosecution of Vietnam by a Republican, in particular by Nixon, made the issue unbearable for the American Left. It all starts with Hiss.

The Hiss case changed everything. It preceded the Rosenberg executions and gave impetus to McCarthyism. McCarthyism, in turn, created the greatest backlash this nation has ever experienced. The backlash was so vitriolic because it had to be, in order to paper over the fact that McCarthy, for all his faults, was right. In disproving McCarthy, the biggest albatross around liberalism's neck is Hiss. To further infuriate the Left, the specter of Nixon never went away. The Left was forced to grind its teeth and watch "Tricky Dick" ascend to the Vice-Presidency, alongside the greatest hero of the century, if not since the birth of Christ - Eisenhower. Just when they thought they were rid of him after the Kennedy election and his "last press conference," Nixon reemerged, won an election after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, and then to their horror was put in charge of an anti-Communist crusade. The Left had done extraordinary work in discrediting McCarthy and seemed to have succeeded in this effort. In so doing, they put themselves between a rock and a hard place, which was to conclude the fiction that the Communism Nixon and McCarthy opposed was not so bad, after all. LBJ could be excused as an overzealous Texan, but Nixon threatened to explode all their myths. Therefore, it became imperative to discredit Vietnam. Between Hollywood and the press in the 1960s and '70s, they came pretty close. Again, their greatest enemy is the simple, inexorable availability, and ability, of Truth to rise above all lies in America. This is precisely what is happening as you read these words.

Alger Hiss was the Establishment Man from Harvard Law School and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He had the looks and erudition of Kennedy, wore perfectly tailored suits. His resume was backed by testimony from a "Who's Who of American Government".

His social class heard Jekyll-and-Hyde stories of a double persona of underground treachery. It seemed impossible to believe.

"If Alger could be a Communist, anyone could be," was a typical reaction. As the Kim Philby case and Venona proved, almost anyone could be. Unless they were Republican.

Res ipsa loquiter.

The Communists particularly went after people like Hiss precisely because they offered the perfect elegant image. It was in this elegance that the peculiar nature of guilt was found to be an exploitable personality flaw. There are different kinds of guilt. In the West, there is Jewish guilt, Christian guilt, white guilt and American guilt. Together, any one of these hybrids of guilt was benign, and even good. Judeo-Christian guilt, for instance, is one of the foundations of morality and conscience. It manifests itself in different ways. Men refrain from insulting their mothers or cheating on their wives. White guilt is the foundation for racial equality, operating as the voice in the back of men's minds telling them to treat black people as brothers, because racism is a sin. American guilt has its purpose, too. It provides the political framework that tells our politicians to use U.S. power to do good in the world, and not as a conquering force.

But combined together, all these guilts could be twisted and turned into something terrible. The right Communist handler could twist it into an argument that the Americans were too fortunate, their history tinged more by luck than accomplishment; a nation of rich white racists who improperly "used" God to convince themselves of their violent Manifest Destiny.

In the years since, many Americans discovered college friends, husbands, lovers, colleagues, and business associates who turned out to be Communists. Nobody ever failed to feel shock. The Communists did not go after the Whittaker Chambers' of the world - frumpy, inelegant fellows who looked they might just be Red. They went after men like Hiss.

Many Communists were good looking men and women leading double lives during the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations. Most people who succeed in Hollywood are good-looking, too. After Hiss, when the House Committee on Un-American Activities was exposing the Communist virus, liberals in and out of government, especially in the media, counterattacked against the anti-Communists.

In so doing, liberals placed themselves in jeopardy. Even if they were not Communists, spies or even sympathizers, in defending those who were they became tacit "fellow travelers" and "useful idiots." The chaos of uncovering who was a Communist and who was not created a split in the U.S. that was exactly what the Communists wanted.

The Hiss case, the issue of Communist subversion and espionage, all combined to assign culpability to the Left. The threat of this culpability cannot be understated. If Communism turns out to be what is it is suspected to be, and if an easily defined political ideology of the U.S. and the West is readily assigned to it, then that ideology, liberalism, is in grave danger. Therefore, consequently and as a result thereof, the Left put themselves through every possible gyration to prevent this. It required downgrading the threat of Communism, and discrediting the work of the right.

Martin Dies, the founder and first chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, wrote in "Martin Dies' Story", "Without exception, year in and year out, the American liberals have defended, protected, encouraged, and aided the Communists, both in the United States and abroad." Dies said that there is a "sympathetic tie between the ultra-liberals and the Communists. Actually, the ultra-liberals have always been socialists at heart."

Rooseveltian liberals were soulmates of Communism. It is only because of World War II that events shaped themselves in such a way that the military came to an appropriate place of leadership. This created a jingoistic, patriotic mindset that worked against the tacit, underhanded alliance between the American Left and Communism. American liberals simply decided that they would influence Communism, to "humanize" it, to bring it into the modern world. All they needed was time.

At the heart of this mindset was Alger Hiss, who is defended year after year to this day by political elements desperate to shed doubt on his guilt, because his guilt is their guilt. He exhausted his appeals and spent four years in prison. Subsequent revelations confirmed his guilt, proving that treachery and subversion were real. Still the liberals labor on his behalf.

Hiss drafted the United Nations Charter at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, giving the Soviet Union three votes in the U.N., while every other nation had only one. Poland, the first country to resist Hitler and supposedly the reason why the West entered World War II, was barred from the U.N. until Communists approved by Moscow replaced the legitimate anti-Communist government of Mikolajczyk. As this was not accomplished until the fall of 1945, Poland's seat was empty in San Francisco.

At Yalta Alger Hiss had been the chief aide to Secretary of State Edward Stettinius. In the telephone system set up for the U.S. delegation, Roosevelt was number one, Stettinius number two, and Hiss number three. Photos of Yalta indicate the hovering presence of Hiss.

Hiss's resulted in the New York Times headline, "Alger Hiss, Divisive Icon of Cold War, Dies at 92." He was an icon of the New York Times and the liberals, but an enemy of America.

Res ipsa loquiter.

An interview with Alger Hiss

They called him Communist chic long before Castro and Che. Allen Weinstein was a liberal who set out to prove his innocence in 1978. Using the Freedom of Information Act, Weinstein exhausted the evidence. He failed in any and all attempts to exonerate Hiss. Hiss's guilt was re-confirmed in 1993 by the release of the files of the Interior Ministry in Budapest, and again in 1996 by the release of the Venona Papers.

While Hiss's guilt is not in doubt, he did continue to live in America for many years. It is part of America's tradition of freedom of speech that he was allowed to defend himself. In the spirit of fairness, I present this excerpt of a Hiss interview conducted by Judah Graubart and Alice V. Graubart for their book, "Decade of Destiny" (Contemporary Books, Inc., 1978):

"Few people held as wide a variety of sensitive government positions during the '30s (and '40s) as Alger Hiss. Serving in the Justice Department, on the Nye Committee and in the State Department, he was witness to and participant in much of the formation of America's pre-war foreign and domestic policies. Indeed, it is Mr. Hiss's belief that it was because he was so integral a part of the New Deal era that he became the personification of it for Roosevelt's posthumous enemies.

"I think the extent, the depth, the fury of the Depression caught most people of my generation by surprise and taught us, more than anything else, the importance of politics. When I graduated from college, I paid very little attention to such matters; those who were in politics seemed to me rather grubby and corrupt people. But while at law school, and then immediately after, the Depression began, and it indicated that things were not right with our country. The collapse, the whole economic picture, was widespread devastation.

"In New York, the Hoovervilles were on Riverside Drive, in Central Park, everywhere. One couldn't move around without seeing them. On Wall Street, where I worked, the famous men who were too proud to beg were selling apples for a nickel apiece. Once employed, sometimes running their own businesses, they got steadily more and more threadbare. The soup kitchens were much too inadequate.

"In '33, after Roosevelt became President, I was invited by Jerome Frank, the general counsel to the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, to come to Washington. I was not carried away by the idea, because I had only very recently come to the job I had in New York and was in the middle of a case. But a telegram from my former teacher, Felix Frankfurter, who had influenced me in law school, sparked my decision to go. The telegram read: 'On basis national emergency, you must accept Jerome Frank's invitation.'

"Well, it was like a call to arms, being told that the nation was in danger. I think many of us who went down in those first few weeks thought of ourselves as civilian militia going down for the duration of a real emergency, as if we were going to war. Roosevelt, in his Inaugural Address, used the sacrifices of war as an analogy. I think we believed that in a few years the emergency would be met; I know I always expected to go back to civil law. Practically none of us were in the civil service. We were going to be there only a short time and certainly weren't interested in a government career as bureaucrats. Therefore, the furthest thing from our thoughts was retirement benefits at the end of lengthy bureaucratic lives, and all the people in government - the civil servants - recognized that in us.

"We formed a good working relationship with the civil servants, who, we soon realized, were as much in favor of personal self-sacrifice and of working long hours for the public good as we were. Whereas we found them to be invaluable because of their knowledge and experience, many of them regarded us as reinforcements, to use the military analogy, since all their bright ideas, not unlike ours, had been refused by the Republicans. Now came people who would be sympathetic, and they were cheered up.

"When the New Deal came in, we pretty much had a free hand. Things were not working out the way business leaders had been led to believe they would; so we had public support. Roosevelt said he would experiment and if one thing didn't work, he would try another. The whole thing was improvised. We had some success and we had some failures, but certainly the bitterness of the Depression was for millions of people ameliorated by the benefits paid to the small farmers by the Works Progress Administration, by the relief funds and by the Federal Emergency Relief Act. The whole spirit of the New Deal, of such people as [Harry] Hopkins, [Harold] Ickes and Miss [Frances] Perkins, was so idealistic, so humanitarian, I think the public as a whole felt as it has not felt since - that the government cared about its duties and about individual citizens. There was a genuine sense of participation in the farm program where I worked. There were county committees set up for the farmers that not only handled a great deal of the administration - checking the acreage and so on - but also sent recommendations for improvements. It was an extraordinary period of public confidence in the government.

"The incident with Senator 'Cotton Ed' Smith occurred while I was with the Department of Agriculture in an official capacity. I helped draft the cotton contract for reducing cost on acreage, and we had provided that some of the payments made in exchange for reduction of the acreage should go to tenant farmers when the farm involved had tenants as well as an owner. Senator Smith had expected that all those payments would go to him as the owner. He came to see me in my office and was very angry because the payments, as we had drafted them, applied to him as well as to his tenants and were to be made directly to them. He said something to the effect, 'You can't send checks to my niggers,' as if they were hardly human and sending payments to them would be like sending them to his horses or mules, who wouldn't know how to handle checks. I explained that this was what was required under the statutes and that I assumed that my superiors accepted this view or they wouldn't have approved it in the first place. I was as polite to him as I could be, but I was in no way frightened. It wouldn't have meant much to me if I had been fired; I could have gone somewhere else or back to practicing law, and this was a matter of principle. It just seemed to me to be no big deal. The New Deal was the big deal.

"I should add that a year later, when the purge over the cotton contracts occurred, not only Senator Smith but also the cotton producers and their representatives in Congress changed things. In the second cotton contracts, we insisted not only that the payments go to the tenants but also that the same number of tenants be kept on the farm. It wasn't going to help the country, and it wasn't going to be fair, if the owner, in order to get the payments himself, dismissed some of the tenants. This we lost out on.

"During the purge, Jerome Frank, my boss, was asked to leave, as were Lee Pressman and a number of others, much to their shock, for they thought Secretary Wallace was supporting their position. But, when push came to shove, Wallace felt that there was too much opposition to his position in Congress and, in effect, backed down and jettisoned them. They became not scapegoats but something pretty close to it. Other people didn't resign but were fired only a few days later. Since I was then mostly on loan to the Nye Committee on the Munitions Industry as their counsel, I had no occasion to get involved in the purge. Nevertheless, my interest in the Department of Agriculture lessened from day to day, since the people I had worked with were gone, as were the idealism and innovation they had supplied.

"The reason I had been sent to join the Nye Committee was that at least two of its members were on the Senate Agricultural Committee and so Secretary Wallace tried to do them a favor. The objectives of the former committee were twofold. The first was to limit the actual trade in arms, something that is of interest again today, though on a much broader scale. The arms trade was considered then, as now, immoral. It was also thought that the arms trade maximized the danger of warfare between small countries. We found, for example, that the salesmen for a great arms firm would do their best to convince the officials of, let's say, a Latin American country that a neighboring rival country had military designs against them, and would encourage them to buy. They would then run to the neighboring country and say, 'Look, your rival has just bought this much.'

"I remember a particular letter that came out in the hearings, in which a local representative of one of the American munitions companies complained that the State Department was 'fomenting peace.' We had always thought of the word 'fomenting' as being used for war, not for something desirable, like peace.

"The committee's second objective was to take profit out of war. In that effort, it was supported by the American Legion and other veteran associations, which felt that it was unfair for businessmen to make big profits while the individual soldier should be expected to give up a job, in which he might have been receiving increased pay, to run the risk of being injured or killed.

"We explored that. We found that after every major American war, even the Civil War, there had been Congressional investigations into the wastes, the corruption, etc. We found that war does tend to encourage and promote corruption, and certainly extravagance. After all, when the issue is possible defeat, money doesn't seem so important. On the other hand, a lot of people benefit corruptly and greedily at such a time. But we were unable to figure any way to take the profit out of war, and the reports I helped write said this just wasn't very likely.

"Yes, I was approached by one of the DuPont lawyers who told me that 'whatever you're earning here, you could earn more,' or something like, 'Your talents would be useful.' Certainly it was an indication that I could get a job and I suppose that they preferred that I got the job early, rather than after I'd continued. No, I never doubted that it was an attempt, as you put it, to 'bribe me'

"Senator Nye? He was a friendly man with Midwestern gusto, vigor and simplicity. Not terribly sophisticated, not very learned, easy to work with, and a man of a good deal of conscience. He came from the Dakotas, where isolationism was strong. Therefore he was a spokesman for what he grew up with. He felt that Europe was less noble, beautiful, and pure than the American Middle West. That part of Washington's Farewell Address that went "Do not get involved with evil designs of foreign powers" must have been inculcated in his own thinking. In that sense, of course, he was oversimplifying the view. I found him to be very pleasant, conscientious and well meaning, though he was not of the stature of Senator Vandenberg, nor did he have the intellectual quickness and charm of Senator Bone or the dignity of Senator Pope.

"The committee came to be known primarily as the Neutrality Committee after the period I was with it - the isolationists believed in neutrality - and it began to recommend that the United States should, particularly if war broke out abroad, refuse to trade with either side. Although when the Spanish Civil War broke out, the terms of that Neutrality Act, which were not meant to apply to a civil war, did seem to apply to Spain, and Nye was willing to revise his own act, because he did not think it was proper to refuse to ship to the Loyalist government, the legal government of Spain. I think the reason was that he came from a region where populism was strong, and most populists are liberals. They cared about the little man, about the underdog and about decency. And Nye had some of this populist tradition himself.

"In '36, I went into the State Department because of Francis Sayre, the assistant secretary in charge of the whole economic aspect of foreign affairs, including trade. I had been working in the Department of Justice to protect the trade agreements from attacks, alleging they were un-Constitutional. When his assistant, John Dickey, left, Mr. Sayre asked me to come and work on trade agreements in the State Department and continue to supervise the litigation aspect, which I did.

"Concerning the Spanish Civil War, I would say that the State Department was short-sighted. It was difficult for them to sense what that war meant to Italy and Germany. They took more seriously than I think was warranted the efforts of the British and French in the nonintervention treaty. And the British, and the French, too, I think, were weak-kneed. They did not foresee that this would be the first victory of the Axis, that this was the beginning of World War II. Now, of course, the State Department had the excuse of simply trying to help the British and French carry out nonintervention. That's why the neutrality approach toward Spain was allowed to continue, even though Senator Nye was so sympathetic to the Loyalists, he was willing to work for removal of the embargo.

"Regarding what was happening in Germany then, the State Department officials did not think that it was their duty to chastise the Germans. Any professional foreign office tends to feel that the domestic procedures of foreign countries are less important than the governmental relationships. From my own point of view, they were not aroused enough. I saw Nazism as a mortal danger. They tended to minimize the reports of what was going on in Germany. Of course, things were not as bad as they became later, but there was a tendency with State Department officials to say that the press was exaggerating what was happening there. The reason for my attitude was that I was more New Dealish than many people in the State Department. The New Dealers used to say that the writ of the New Deal ran everywhere except the State Department, which was more conservative and cautious. For example, if you look at the memoirs of George Kennan, who's almost exactly my twin in age, you'll see that he went immediately into the Foreign Service, and the Depression seems to have made no impact on him. His only complaint about it was his expression of annoyance with Roosevelt that the expense accounts of Foreign Service officers should be reduced as an economy move. Well, this was not the way people of the New Deal felt. We felt that this was a time of great suffering for the American people and everybody should pitch in and try to help. But the State Department was basically conservative; they came from a different medium. They had been protected all their lives.

"There were very few Jewish people in the State Department. Herbert Feis was the only one I can remember. I do not think the State Department favored Hitlerian anti-Semitism. The State Department's anti-Semitism may have been snobbish. That's possible. It was that kind of social fabric. But that's quite different from implying that the State Department as a whole or any official within it condoned the kind of brutality that Hitlerian anti-Semitism meant. Is that the idea of 'While Six Million Died'? I think that idea's very exaggerated.

"I also worked with Mr. Sayre in the Far Eastern Division. The American position was that Japan's aggression against China should not only not be rewarded, but that we should not continue our shipping of scrap iron to Japan, thereby facilitating Japan's access to the oil reserves of the Dutch East Indies, almost all of which were owned by American companies. So in order to free ourselves for discriminatory action - and it would take discriminatory action to say they could not get scrap iron but other countries could - we terminated the trade treaty guaranteeing equal practices.

"I always believed that war with Germany was inevitable, but not at all with Japan. I was conscious early in '35, certainly in '36, that we had reached a pre-war instead of a post-war era. I spoke to my college fraternity in Baltimore, saying that I thought war was coming in Europe. I saw that Hitler lived by expansionism, that this was the only way the Germany economy could keep going, and Hitler's power depended on his being a militarized and militaristic leader. So I thought we would be drawn into a war because Germany was strong and we would have to protect England and France, as we had in World War I.

"I felt quite the contrary about Japan. We never considered them a match for us, and they weren't. I don't think anybody in the State Department had anticipated the attack on Pearl Harbor. It seemed suicidal when it happened. If anybody would have said it would happen, we would have discounted it.

"No, I wouldn't say the New Deal ended abruptly with Pearl Harbor. It was under wraps, minimized in many respects, particularly those where it would come into conflict with business, as in wartime production. But those aspects of the New Deal that would facilitate production, such was the morale of labor, were treated with liberalism. I would say that the New Deal didn't really end until the Cold War began, and this was one of the functions of the Cold War and of McCarthyism - to discredit the New Deal.

"I never had any doubt as to the fact that McCarthyism was to attack Roosevelt indirectly. He was too popular, even when dead, to be attacked directly. If the New Deal could be attacked, if Yalta and his other policies could be attacked, then this was one way of removing the stigmata of Roosevelt from those policies. I've never doubted that one of the accomplishments of McCarthyism was to diminish sympathy for Roosevelt, sympathy for the New Deal, sympathy for the United Nations.

"But the New Deal will be needed when conditions get bad again. It only came to light when the traditional business hierarchy of leadership couldn't function anymore. That time will come again. Another Depression? I wouldn't go so far as to say that. But what I would say is that the serious malformations in the American economic and social structure with which the New Deal tried to deal, when not cured or corrected, were obviated by the war. The New Deal as an improvisation, as an experiment, never succeeded in making the major changes necessary to avoid the disasters of the Depression. Had it been thoroughly successful, we wouldn't have had the kinds of things that went on in the '60s, when the rigidity of American culture came up against the demands for major changes. The New Deal represented the same kind of attempt to break out of the rigidity that had led to the Depression and to the inability to change the format under which American culture had grown. I think the New Deal era and the '60s had some things in common, except that the New Deal was more restrained, had a better sense of history and was more practical. But the time will come again, I think, when those things will have to be combined for major changes, though I'm not sure that many people would agree with me."

"Disbarred from the practice of law, Hiss took a job as a salesman and wrote 'In the Court of Public Opinion', in which he rebutted the government's case point by point. He and his wife separated in 1959. He continued to assert his innocence, and over the years evidence surfaced to back his claim, including some 40,000 pages of FBI documents released to him in the 1970s. Based on information in the documents which indicated that the FBI hid evidence that would have helped clear him, Hiss filed a petition of coram nobis, asking that the verdict be overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct. The petition was turned down in Federal Court. Appeals were unsuccessful. In 1975, however, Hiss was readmitted to the Massachusetts Bar.

"Hiss married his second wife, Isabel Johnson, in 1986. Two years later, he wrote his autobiography, 'Recollections of a Life'. His grandson, Jacob Hiss, was born in 1991. Alger Hiss died at the age of 92 on November 15, 1996, still fighting for vindication. The release of information from Soviet and Hungarian archives disputed his claims, and the release of the Venona Papers, occurring near the time of his death, is the final nail in his proverbial 'coffin.'"

Hiss is a tragic figure. Why he did what he did is not well explained beyond the usual conjecture. It is sad that a man of such talents, education and ability did not make use of the opportunities available to him. One can only speculate the agitation Hiss must have felt when the U.S.S.R. dissolved, and he knew that, inevitably, espionage secrets would be made public. Then, what despair did Hiss experience when, after rehabilitating his image for decades, word came that the Venona Papers were discovered in the Soviet archives confirming his guilt?

East German uprising of 1953

On June 16, 1953, East Berlin newspapers printed a story about the poor handling of workers' rights by government officials. A rumor spread that quotas would be raised. Workers gathered to discuss their next meal, next paycheck, or day off. Construction workers marched to the Council of Ministers. Chanting, "We are not slaves," they carried a banner reading, "We demand lower quotas." They demanded to see Walter Ulbricht and other top leaders personally. These actions in Berlin led similar actions throughout East Germany. Soon, a full-scale protest of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist ideology was underway.

The Russians immediately blamed the CIA. They were right and they were wrong. The CIA indeed was all over Eastern Europe in the 1950s, fomenting revolution, protest, and distrust of the Soviets. However, they were dwarfed by actual people, numbering in the millions, who quickly discovered that Stalin's promises were empty. They soon came to hate Communism.

In Germany, Fascists, Communists, fighters for Democracy, and Nationalists march in the streets with the workers, who protested their lack of representation in labor disputes, collectivist agreements, and at party conferences.

"Socialization" had pushed the country to the edge of economic destruction. The failure of Communism as an economic system in East Germany was the first true chink in the armor. Russia had always been a poor country, its peasant serf classes living in squalor while a small number of elites enjoyed luxury in the cities and in their dachas. China, similarly, was a rural nation of uneducated peasants. But Germany was a different story.

Germany had been an economic power and an industrial powerhouse with a highly educated, efficient, hard-working populace. They had natural resources and an infrastructure. East Germany, and in particular East Berlin, was the "test case" of Communism.

By 1953, West Germany and West Berlin were starting to show distinct signs of life. With the advent of the Marshall Plan, Democracy and economic progress was proving to be a successful combination. If East Germany failed in direct competition with the West, the failure of Communism would be exposed.

Now, workers had no rights. Living conditions were abominable. Anybody who complained was deemed made political prisoner with no civil liberties. Life was intolerable. The unfortunate citizens of East Germany had gone directly from Hitler to Stalin. Seeking lower living costs, higher wages, and reasonable quotas, thousands poured into the streets against the Soviets.

The Communist Party (KPD) was unpopular, not just because of Stalinism but because the Socialists were still blamed for abandoning Germany in World War I. Red Army abuses during the end of World War II were impossible to forget. The only way to quell East Germany was to crush resistance beyond all possibility of success. Any hope that Communism would be accepted by a willing populace was discarded by the brutal reality that only force could keep freedom from emerging.

Support for socialization had begun in 1946, when the Russians called for the merger of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the KPD. The SPD was a Leftist party with large popular support, but was also a party that would not corroborate with the introduction of Communism. In March of 1946, 80 percent of SPD members voted no against a planned merger of the KPD and SPD. Moscow then announced "in the interests of working-class solidarity" that the KPD and SPD had been combined to form "a single proletarian movement" with the creation of the Socialist Unity Party, or the SED. The SED quickly developed into the sole political party of the German Democratic Republic. By June of 1953, the party was as unpopular as the KPD had been in 1946.

The Christian Democrat Union and the Liberal Democratic Party, although not officially outlawed, were officially noted as "bourgeois" parties and monitored by the state. In 1952, Foreign Minister George Dertinger of the CDU was arrested for "hostile activities," and Minister of Food Dr. Hamann of the LDP was imprisoned as a "saboteur." They were forced to sign dispositions backing the states' claims of their "treachery." Opposition to socialization became a virtual capital offense with party's outlawed and individual opposition prosecuted in show trials. Free will and political choice were eliminated. The workers had no alternative but the streets to express themselves.

The Second Party Conference employ Soviet-like five-year plans. In July of 1952, at the Second Party Conference in Berlin, Ulbricht declared the "establishment of socialism." Increased output without parallel increases in wages were demanded of industry. In 1936, production of ingot steel hit 1.2 million tons. Plans announced at the Second Party Conference called for production to reach 3.4 million tons in 1955 when it was almost at its capacity at 1.9 tons in 1952.

Quotas replaced incentive, with individual laborers ordered to reach a certain level of productivity. Retroactive enactment of the quota system resulted in smaller paychecks. Stores remained empty of the bare necessities. High reparations for damages incurred during World War II had sapped the economy. Heavy industry "replaced" consumer production, turning the country into a near-slave state working strictly for the Soviets, not unlike a giant concentration camp. No economic exchange between East Germany and Russia occurred, as it would in a normal, capitalist trade economy. Factories were completely disbanded and sent to Russia. The industrial capacity of East Germany was pushed to its capacity while consumer goods were not produced, resulting in food and clothing shortages. The GDR lacked basic essentials because all German goods traveled to the Soviet Union.

The political system stressed class destruction and "equality," resulting in East Berlin workers' pleas "to live like humans." Historian Rainer Hildebrandt described the life of Horst Schlafke, pushed into combat as a Hitler Youth at age 16. He was placed in Soviet re-education camps at 18, then pressed into three years of forced labor in the Ukraine. Waking up at 4:30 A.M. for the workday, he would be lucky to have a roll and a cup of coffee before a 10-hour shift on the Stalinallee construction projects. "Breakfast" might be "butter" on a roll. He "volunteered" on Saturdays to clean up rubble. He struck, along with others, in 1953. Berliners already resented the Russians because Soviet troops had rampaged the city for three days at the end of the war in what they called "the Great Rape." Life for East Berliners had become so bad that the threat of death did not deter them.

East Germans saw high-ranking party officials driving in the few cars of the GDR. They knew that the party officials had separate clothing and food stores available at their disposal, which contrasted with propaganda disparaging Western "class warfare" and "bourgeois ways". Communist lies were so obvious that the entire system would have been a big joke, if not for the deadly seriousness of it.

Party officials were dragged out of their cars and beaten on the streets during the uprising. Arrests followed, but when word spread a quasi-rebellion continued. It lacked a political cause or leadership, however. Instead, worker committees from cities attempted to individually bargain with local officials without an actual understanding of what others were attempting to attain. Solidarity failed to capitalize on the backing of the public by not addressing Ulbricht and the Soviets with one voice. No solid plan emerged and the strikers were left with no tangible goal to demand.

The workers believed that the demand for "freedom" would prompt America to assist the revolutionaries. Rhetoric from West Berlin was thought to be the approach of the Western Allies. Aside from low-level CIA covert operations, however, the hoped-for liberation did not occur. Kennan's containment policy was the order of the day, and besides, the U.S. was still handling Korea in 1953.

Concessions were made by the SED. The workers were not trust because they followed a history of lies. When it was obvious the Americans were not coming, workers returned to their work sites, loitered in the streets, or beat up party members, but nothing was accomplished. Realizing the SED had gotten the best of them, riots ensued.

Agitated workers emerged as "leaders" of small revolts. Without a central plan, the riots were spontaneous but sporadic. RIAS broadcasts advocated a workers' uprising.

Soviet tanks and troops soon rolled into the capital city and other areas where protests were taking place. All of East Germany came under martial law as the Soviets regained control. A sense of schizophrenia permeated the bizarre atmosphere. Individual Soviet Army soldiers fraternized and encouraged the workers, since the soldiers were intimately aware of how bad the Communist system was. But the military commanders put an end to that, ordering the crowds to be fired upon. 21 people died the first day. The crowds spotted and killed moles or supposed government spies. Immediate concessions were made such as lowering of quotas and releasing of some political prisoners, but the SED did not live up to its promises. The workers on Stalinallee who started the revolt were brought to trial the following year for sedition. The SED hardened its policies, and from that point forward, there was no chance that East Germany would be a real, autonomous nation.

McCarthyism created a fear and loathing of the Communism system, but the hysterical nature of the attacks failed to allow for a clear policy on how to handle it. Stefan Brant's critique of the East German system states, "The Plan demands great effort. Still man is but the means. And still achievement lags. The system fails...It has often attained the seemingly impossible. Yet it has failed. It has never achieved its end. It has changed the world but not man; it has transformed conditions of life but not life itself. The Plan has never conquered the individual."

Western historians used the uprising to make it out, cartoon-like, into what fit the Western model of "anti-Communism." The East German uprisings indeed were "anti-Communist," but they were complicated by side issues. For instance, the uprising did not gather into a mass revolt. Students were the only other group to consistently join in the uprising. Most people were too intimidated by the Soviets to join. Democracy and unification were what the West was told the workers wanted, fitting a romantic vision that failed to understand the more specific nature of their demands.

The middle class and farmers, for instance, did not strike. The workers made up the most adamant Communists, as they always had. Ella Sarre was a political instructress whose job was converting and propagandizing of local workers to Communist doctrine. As a member of the Free German Youth (FDJ), she had welcomed the Russian occupation. She worked on Stalinallee. Agreeing with the workers on many issues, she decided to join them on their excursion to the Council of Ministers.

Greeted by an ovation after tossing her blue FDJ jacket to the protestors and saying that the workers must unite to gain their demands, she evaded the secret police (Stasi) and was one of the few women protestors the next day at the Brandenburg Gate. A devoted Communist, she rose against the regime because she viewed it as having corrupted socialism. Her case is just one example of the vagaries of history, because her protest, like others, was not due to the "failure" of Communism, but regarded the failure to providing decent living conditions. The argument then comes down to whether the failure to provide decent living conditions is in and of itself the failure of Communism.

Western estimates of the revolt are that it took place in 274 towns, with 372,000 protesters encompassing about seven percent of the workforce. Eastern sources say it was in 270 towns, with 300,000 workers encompassing five percent of the workforce. Eastern estimates placed the non-work force involvement in the uprising at 40,000; Western estimates placed it between 70,000 and 80,000.

Certainly, unlike many events in the Iron Curtain, the East German uprising was viewed more closely because of the vantage point of West Berlin. Berlin remained the hotspot for the most intense activity; 61,000 protestors poured through the streets of East Berlin. Approximately one-fifth of the people revolting in the GDR did so in East Berlin. Leipzig had 20,000 protestors. Berlin was a town of great political activity - calls for government resignations, reunification, and parliamentary government. The rest of the GDR was more apolitical.

The strategy to make the strike a nationwide affair led radical workers to West Berlin and reached the Radio in American Sector (RIAS). "Thousands" were waiting to take down the government. The concept of an armed revolution was inspiring and frightening to U.S. policy makers. According to the RIAS East Germans had "city squares where they could meet." An interview airing on the RIAS encouraged workers not in Berlin to revolt in a violent and political manner, thinking that the Americans would come if there were "a crisis for freedom" (a term Willy Brant, West Berlin's Mayor, used).

Propaganda was undoubtedly a major part of the East German uprising. Extreme perspectives make it hard to create a balanced picture of life behind the Curtain. Surrounded by portraits of Stalin and Ulbricht, bombarded with Communist crap, German identity and culture failed to exist after 1945. East Germans had seen all the propaganda that any people could ever see. Between the Kaiser, Hitler and Stalin, they had lost hope. The natural sense of German patriotism and love of the Fatherland led many to hate the SED for "betraying" them more than the Soviets for occupying them.

The East Germans were the first in a succession, including the Hungarians and the Poles to rise up against the occupying forces of Communism. The Russians learned nothing from it, because the lessons were not what they wanted them to be.

Hungarian revolt of 1956

Hungary is bordered by Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Austria. Approximately 36,000 square miles, it has an arid climate with cool winters and hot Summers. Most Hungarians belong to ethnic groups known as Magyars. Magyars originated in the 800's A.D. from members of Turkish tribes mixing with Slavic Tribes. Budapest is Hungary's capital and largest city. It is divided into two parts: Buda and Pest, and visitors to these cities are stunned to discover some of the most beautiful women on the face of God's Earth. People in Hungary are mainly Roman Catholic. Since the fall of Communism religion has returned to Hungary. Years of repression have not zapped from the people their zest for life. Budapest has some of the best nightlife and most engaging people anywhere. That a country like this could have been held under Stalin's yoke is an unspeakable evil.

Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed on Stalin's "buffer zone" requirement, and Hungary fell under their control along with Albania, Bulgaria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Congress voted on the Policy of Containment. In 1953, Stalin died. The intense power struggle that followed produced Nikita Khruschev; rural, uneducated, moderate, and a war hero. The satellite countries thought Stalin's death meant more freedom and power. Hungary's citizenry was educated, erudite, somewhat aristocratic, and above all others in the orbit, they wanted complete freedom.

Hungary had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, chafing at Vienna's control. After World War I, they enjoyed a brief period of independence, but barely had time to recover from the Great War when Hitler went on the move.

In 1953, due to Stalin's death, the wave of protests and strikes, originating in Eastern Germany and going through to Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland, took fire in. Hungary protested even more than the other nations.

Imre Nagy was appointed as the Hungarian premier. Nagy was a moderate reformer, popular with the people. Kruschev, however, was trying to establish himself with a hard-line Politburo and rebellious satellites. The Stalinist crimes were being disavowed by all the same people who made them happen.

With the advent of nuclear weapons, the Western powers formed NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). The Soviets made the Warsaw Pact with its satellite countries. The treaty dragged Hungary into a pact for mutual defense they did not want.

On October 23, 1956, students and workers gathered near the statue of General Bem in front of the Polish Embassy, boycotting and demanding. They advocated for "A socialist Hungary, truly independent; Imre Nagy reinstated in his former office; the state established on a new economic basis; new leaders for the Party and government; those responsible for mistakes held accountable at a public trial..." (Radio Budapest).

Premier Hegedus lost control and the secret police, known as the AVO, tried to stop them with tear gas. Arrests were made, but the crowd tried to free the insurgents. The secret police opened fire on them. The Hungarian Police arrived, but gave up their weapons to the protesters after hearing of the AVO shooting. Now, armed students outnumbered the secret police. The Soviets were called in, declaring martial law.

The Soviet Army met resistance. Some soldiers even joined the resistance. The new Hungarian flag hung over their tanks as they fought with the people of Hungary.

On October 24, Nagy was named premier of Hungary in place of Hegedus. Nagy took the students and workers side. On October 27, Nagy announced a new government. On October 30, it went into operation. Nagy abolished the one-party system, in favor of something called The National Peasant Party. It was later renamed the Petofi Party. Their plank was economic reform with free elections, no Soviet troops, withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, and Hungarian neutrality.

The Soviets played along, took their tanks out of Budapest, and withdrew their troops. But withdrawal is not retreat. They did not go all the way back to the Soviet Union like they had promised. On November 3, reinforcements arrived on the Hungarian border. On November 4, 1956, the Soviet Army crushed the revolt.

"Soviet troops attacked our capital with the obvious purpose to overthrow the legitimate Hungarian Democratic government," Nagy announced on the radio. "Our troops are fighting. The government is in its place." It was his last speech to the Hungarian people.

Radio signals were broadcast all over the world pleading to "HELP HUNGARY!" The Eisenhower Administration, holding to the containment policy, did not intervene.

Many Soviet soldiers were told nothing about their mission. Some thought that they were in East Germany, or even the Suez Canal Zone. Only when they came in contact with the Hungarians did they know they were crushing a revolt against Communism. Once this happened, they lost intensity. Their intensity was "restored" when the Soviet generals ordered the executions of soldiers who did not carry out orders. A tank driver who took a detour to avoid driving over women and children blocking the street was murdered on the spot.

The Soviets captured the airports and major buildings, quickly installing their new government. The insurgents were determined to rid their country of Communism. Women, children and the elderly fought the Communists. The Hungarian people of 1956 proved themselves to be some of the most courageous the world has ever seen. Their "failure" is no more a failure than America's efforts in Vietnam. It was all part of the long struggle to victory in the Cold War. The Hungarian resistance never ended until 1989.

Over 20,000 Hungarians died and 200,000 rebels fled to the West. Those who could not escape were arrested and executed. Nagy fled to the Yugoslav Embassy where he was offered protection, but he was on a bus that was taken over by Soviets. Janos Kadar, Nagy's party secretary, replaced him as premier. No free elections or economic reforms were made. In 1958, Nagy was secretly tried and executed. The U.S.S.R sent natural resources into the country to keep the people "happy."

"We shall shut their mouths with goulash," Khruschev said.

Fall-out of the East German uprising in Poland and beyond

The East German workers' strikes were the first real chink in the Communist armor. The Hungarian Revolution was one of the most vociferous efforts at resisting it. The Communists needed scapegoats. Western agents were a favorite target. Open dialogue with the West was shut down. A period of isolated secrecy cloaked the 1950s. Walter Ulbricht emerged as the man in charge of East Germany, and subsequent "runaway socialists" taught Moscow that only trusted hardliners should be placed at the top of their satellite governments.

After Stalin's death, the West hoped for some thawing in the relationship, but there was little if any. The Soviets may have wanted to open dialogue, but they had too many "secrets" to contend with. They were dealing with open rebellions, and the public airing of Stalin's tyranny created a closed, "keep it in the family" mindset.

Germany's division was not intended to be permanent, because the Soviets at first deluded themselves into thinking the West would tire of defending West Berlin. Berliners wanted reunification, but only absorption of the east into the west, not the other way around. In 1953, Eisenhower suggested a possible détente. Winston Churchill followed up with a speech to the British House of Commons requesting a summit conference between the four great powers, "To resolve all matters of dispute between East and West."

On March 10, 1952, the Soviet Union had offered to discuss German reunification and rearmament, but the U.S. rejected it. When the West made offers, the Soviets and East Germans said no. Shifts in Soviet leadership had created paranoia in their relations outside the bloc. The West was accused of "warmongering" and sabotaging the GDR. There is some truth to this, since the CIA was actively working against the Communists night and day.

"In its capacity as the leadership of a Marxist-Leninist party the Politburo made its findings known in an official announcement, drew attention to the errors committed in the past year and recommended to the government a number of measures designed to correct those errors," was the official Communist statement. "...And at that very moment the Western agencies decided to mount their D-day in order to frustrate this initiative for improving living conditions in the German Democratic Republic."

The Allies wrote to their East Berlin counterpart, "You and the rest of the world are well aware of the true causes of the disorders which have recently occurred in East Berlin, and it is...unnecessary to tell you that the three powers in West Berlin had no responsibility whatever for instigating them." Eisenhower, in his July 23 letter to West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, declared that the actions of the East German leaders showed, "The political bankruptcy of the SED," while the Secretary of State declared the uprising, "Demonstrates that the people...want to run their own affairs and not be run from Moscow."

Ulbricht was compromised in the post-Stalin period since he was seen as part of the "hard line errors" of the past. In looking back at the 1950s, it is now possible to see that what was considered "hard line," or "secretive," was really an examination of what was obviously a failed system, and the desperate attempt to maintain it. Communism might not succeed, but the men in power did not for a second want to lose their power base.

Ulbricht defied both the Kremlin and his enemies by continuing the hard line as long as possible, claiming the East German economy was being destroyed by, "Sabotage, arson, and theft of documents." He faced a threat from Franz Dahlem. Two SED leaders rivaled Ulbricht, too. Minister of State Security Wilhelm Zaisser, and Rudolf Herrnstadt, editor-in-chief of Das Neue Deutschland, the official Communist newspaper of East Germany, both favored a new line and were close to Moscow, particularly the notorious Lavrenti Beria, Stalin's right-hand man.

"The majority of the Politburo sympathized with Zaisser and Herrnstadt," said Erich Honecker, who supported Ulbricht openly.

Ulbricht's survival is indicative of how difficult reform was to achieve in the Communist world. Realpolitik always took a backseat to survival, but when the rubber hit the road, sometimes politicians in this "Alice in Wonderland" world did the craziest things.

When East Berlin construction workers demonstrated at a time when the Politburo was meeting, it was reported that there were workers outside demanding the new quotas be revoked. A few hours later they agreed to take that action.

"The party is abandoning an admittedly mistaken road and taking the right one," Ulbricht said. Moscow did not like insubordination, which Ulbricht showed in his prior actions. Beria's post-Stalinist removal gave Ulbricht the "out" he needed, and kept his nose above water in his rivalry with Zaisser and Herrnstadt. In the "up is down, down is up" world of Communism in the days after Stalin, Moscow could rehabilitate and discriminate almost on a moment's notice. Shortly after the uprising, Zaisser and Herrnstadt suddenly were "Beria people." The death of a tyrant was their bad luck.

"The workers' revolt did not overthrow Ulbricht - it saved him," said Carola Ahern. "They had good reasons for doing this. His ouster was one of the workers' major demands, but after initial wavering the Kremlin decided that to surrender to this demand would involve great loss of face and might be interpreted as a concession made from weakness, leading in turn to new disturbances with even more far-reaching demands. The Soviet leaders imposed certain conditions together with their decision, of course: Ulbricht was to engage in 'self-criticism' of his previous conduct and he was to support the New Course wholeheartedly. Ulbricht was in no position to continue his resistance to the New Course after what had happened in the preceding weeks. He had learned only too well -from the revolt and from the fate of Beria - what was at stake."

"Ulbricht did not survive in spite of the weakness revealed by his government on June 17," said Baring. "He survived because of that weakness, because Moscow could not afford to take the risk of having him replaced. Instead of bringing about his downfall the protesting workers and conspiratorial SED functionaries unwittingly contrived to prevent it."

Ulbricht held power until 1971. He had the complete support of Moscow. Erich Honecker, who led East Germany until 1989, was his handpicked successor. If any lesson can be gleaned from the uprising in East Germany and other satellites, it is that it solidified Moscow on the concept of putting people they could easily predict in positions of power, and keep them there a long time. Not exactly a party of term limits.

Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, and Poland all picked up on the East German rebellion, and all felt the crackdown. Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha attended a meeting with the Presidium of the Soviet Communist Party and determined that there was unity, with Malenkov and Beria trying to establish a dominant position. Molotov held his peace. Mikoyan shouted. Bulganin swore. Each of these men found himself picked off in the struggle to succeed Uncle Joe.

When Lavrenti Beria was executed, it could have been a major moment in Soviet history, but the demise of the "monsters" was not an honest attempt at reform. Instead, it was nothing more than scapegoating in a society that needed a lot of scapegoating. Real reform went down the drain. Some scholars argue that Beria's "mistake" was arguing for a new understanding with America. The ascension of the greatest military leader in history to President of the U.S. made the Soviets feel very uneasy. It was threatening to them. In retrospect, Ike was a moderate who was less likely to use military force than most and was very happy to hold the Kennan containment line. But in "talking tough," which was a requirement of the conservative wing of the G.O.P., Ike had the Soviets scrambling. The Communists attacked at Dien Bien-phu the next year, which could have been a calculation on their part to test Eisenhower in a place that seemed relatively "safe."

In this atmosphere, the Soviets were dealing with their own "blacklist." The SED claimed to have a Russian memorandum showing Beria had carried "his desire for compromise to such lengths that his policies might have led to the abolition of East German socialism." These charges were reported in 1965. In 1991 it was determined that Beria, and possibly Molotov and Malenkov, had been "ready to virtually concede East Germany to the West." Khruschev acknowledged as much.

This is an extraordinary prospect. Is it possible that Beria, a man who rightfully goes down in history with people like Josef Mengele as one of the most evil human beings ever, was willing to "give back" the "hard won" enclave of socialist paradise that was East Germany? Mao, the man Nixon called a "monster" in 1950, opened China. Global politics makes for some strange bedfellows. It is also ironic that Kruschev, who emerged as the Politburo's hard-liner, later was purged for not being hard-line enough against the "boy Kennedy." The one thing that was a constant in Moscow was a hard-line Politburo.

The East and West just ended up digging in. It is probably a little unrealistic to believe they ever would have given up Communism in East Germany. Even if they had, Vietnam and the "space race" would have kept the Cold War going. East Germany was, in the end, too important. It was a symbol of the conquering Red Army, and contained all those smart, productive Germans (as opposed to the various Slavs that made up much of the bloc). The fact is, the Soviets had their own "domino theory" to worry about. East German independence would have fed a hunger for freedom that not only would have fueled the rest of the Warsaw Pact, but might have lit the American fire enough to get beyond Kennan's edict.

"America immediately placed her bets on Germany and made efforts to unite it, and if she had succeeded, a victorious Germany would have been created...10 times worse than it is now," former Polish Deputy Premier Jakub Berman remembered his party's opinion at the time. East Germany's Communist rulers were the most adamant against reunification, which is telling.

All politics aside, Beria had enemies, which happens when you kill a lot of people and spread terror for years. His demise without Stalin was inevitable. The shakeups in Hungary were the next crisis. When the Soviets invited a Hungarian delegation to Moscow, Jozsef Revai was not asked to attend. He was not a major player in Hungary, but his absence made it plain that Moscow was asserting its total control. Beria had welcomed Mátyás Rákosi, the President, secretary-general, and "wise father" of Hungary, by asking him, "Well, now, are you still around? Are you still the head of the Hungarian government?"

The Soviets informed Rákosi their economy was collapsing, which is indicative of central planning. Budapest apparently only could know what was going on in Budapest by being informed by Moscow. Industrialization was too rapid and collectivization of agriculture was to blame, they were told. Hungarians were "committing crimes against socialist law," ironically by following the Moscow line. The Politburo fired Rákosi, Revai, Mihaly Farkas, and Ernö Gerö, although Rákosi kept the title of General-Secretary (but not President). Economic Minister Gerö remained a party leader with no office. Nagy replaced Rákosi. Agricultural collectivization was a disaster. Nothing had been learned from past mistakes. Five-year plans just led to more five-year plans.

Nagy's attempted reforms were the genesis of the 1956 uprising and Soviet military intervention. East Germany was the "lesson" that led to action against Rákosi.

"The Soviet leaders could not believe the official explanation that these [East German] events were set in motion by 'provocateurs in the pay of the imperialists'," Meray states. "They must have been fully aware of the fact that the discontent of the masses...was the result of their own policies." Adam Ulam argued that Rákosi had to resign because the Soviets "insisted on the local Stalins being brought down a notch and on at least the appearance of collective leadership."

The Soviets wanted to avoid the "East German mistake" by making necessary changes in Hungary and elsewhere. The theory behind their largesse was to avoid repeated revolutions in other countries. They were partly successful. Czechoslovakia's uprising was in part the result of the East German strike, years in the making. Hoxha, Polish leader Edward Ochab, and Romania's Nicolae Ceauçescu all gave lip service to Moscow.

Czechoslovakia had a reasonable standard, as far as Communist countries go. Hard-liner Antonin Novotn was still in power as recently as 1967, with a statue of Stalin prominently displayed in Prague. Alexander Dubcek replaced him. Dubcek was the man who believed in "Socialism with a human face." He was vague, but by his time vagueness was the best the people could hope for.

Romania was the country most directly governed by Moscow, and therefore they were not as effected by the East German situation.

"There is no greater crime against the workers than that committed by Nagy and his accomplices...at the time when the Hungarian people had to stand the great trial of a counter-revolutionary rebellion," was the official Romanian line regarding Hungary, during the time of Nagy's trial.

Romania's Gheorghe Dej was not of an independent mind, but he was somewhat unpredictable.

"A chameleon," Enver Hoxha said of him. In the 1950s, Moscow was unpredictable, and therefore so was Dej. Nicolae Ceauçescu, who would go down with the wall and be a symbol of hated Communism, was actually an individual. He replaced Dej when he died in 1964, declaring "the international policy of our country is based on...the principles of...non-interference in internal affairs." He criticized the "Prague Spring" four years later.

"Since when have the principles of socialist Democracy, of socialist humanism, the perfecting of socialist relations...become a counter-revolutionary threat?" he asked. Ceauçescu's "independent streak" was actually just what Moscow needed, since it proffered the fiction to the Romanian people that they had a leader who did not toe the line. In 1953, however, the country was a mere puppet regime.

Albania was a tiny, isolated Stalinist country. Albanian leader Enver Hoxha made little reference to the East German situation in his memoirs. They broke with Yugoslavians, the Russians, and the Chinese, all because they were too moderate. Hoxha had respect only for Wilhelm Pieck. Of Ulbricht he said, "He was a haughty, stiff-necked German, not only with small parties like ours, but also with the others...However, while he received great aid...he was never ready to help others."

Hoxha ruled Albania with a steel hand. Ceauçescu would eventually use him as his model in Romania when trouble appeared on the horizon. Hoxha urged putting down Hungarian agitators four months before the situation came to a head in 1956. Hoxha opposed any reforms that came about because of East Germany or Hungary. He pulled his country from the Warsaw Pact in 1961, committed to Stalinism.

Bulgaria was staunchly loyal to the Soviets. Vulko Chervenkov and later Todor Zhivkov were Moscow's faithful servants. Zhivkov was named their leader in 1961 on the strength of his personal relationship with Kruschev. He ran Bulgaria for over 20 years.

He was "a worthless person, a third-rate cadre, but one willing to do whatever Khruschev, his ambassador, or the KGB would say," Hoxha said of him. Bulgaria, however, had little effect on much of anything. Ceauçescu never refereed to Zhivkov in his writings. Ulam's book does not mention any Bulgarian leaders, including Zhivkov. East Germany had no bearing on Bulgaria's place in the Soviet sphere.

Leaders in the Polish Communist Party were concerned about their economy.

"We had no guarantees [the imperialists] would not leap down our throats at any moment..." former First Secretary Edward Ochab explained. "The ones who organized the 1953 putsch in the GDR, for example. That's why, for all our poverty, we had to spend considerable amounts on national defense. We tried to explain to our allies that our situation at home was dangerous, but we did not always, or fully, succeed in cutting military spending. That was why even wage increases were not always sufficient."

Deputy Premier Berman estimated "around 15 per cent" of the national revenue went to the military. Poland dealt with strikes similar to East Germany. "In its passion for rapid industrialization-second only to that for power for the Communists - the Polish regime...placed heavy burdens on the working class: [including] The constant raising of work norms." Major strikes were common in Poland during Communism. The national character in this country yearns for freedom and independence. They were willing to strike any deal for it during the days of Napoleon, and sent their most beautiful maiden to his bedroom in an effort to secure it sexually.

In 1956 at Poznan, several protesters died when the Polish military fired on them. Ochab refused to blame the Poznan strike on the West, which was what Moscow had told him to say.

"I told them there was no proof, and that I could not make a claim of that kind at the Central Committee Plenum," he said. Polish leadership played a difficult game. They needed the U.S.S.R. to "legitimate" them, but as Jakub Berman said, "The Soviet delegation will always get its own way...Maybe they did not lord it over us as blatantly as they did elsewhere because we were more familiar with their little tricks, but we still preferred not to shoulder all the blame..."

In adhering to Moscow, Poles felt their government was weak, but in the atmosphere of the times, the alternative was anarchy. There is no evidence that the Americans were going to foment and finish any Polish revolutions. Party leaders were subject to miscalculation. After Poznan, strikes ensued in 1970, 1976, and 1980, all shadowed by the East German strike of 1953.

"December 1970, and in a much more massive way August 1980, witnessed revolutions in the classical Marxist sense..." Ulam wrote, "the only comparable action in recent time, and on a much smaller scale, had been the uprising of the East German workers in June 1953."

Poland faced recession in the 1950s, causing tensions over their contribution to the other Bloc nations. In 1956 a Warsaw Pact economic meeting was held. Hoxha recalled Ochab refusing to accept raising quotas in the Polish coal industry unless further investment in Poland was made. Arguments ensued. The nine East European countries, from Moscow to Tirana, were affected by the 1953 uprising, which created instability with a lasting effect. In the mean time, the Central Intelligence Agency was stirring up trouble every chance they could, God bless 'em. The East German strikers had demanded "free elections...free government...and a freely negotiated peace with [West Germany]." They finally got their wish 36 years later.

The "church of America": The CIA's covert actions in Guatemala, 1954

Oh, the Central Intelligence Committee. The statement "you either love 'em or hate 'em" is often used in describing their role in the life of America, America's enemies, and the world. To some, they were Ivy League supermen, willing America's greatness on the rest of the Earth, foiling those nasty Communists at every turn. To others, they were bigoted right wing zealots sticking their big snout where it did belong and was definitely not welcome. Some say they are a bunch of old white guys who let America down when she needed them the most on 9/11. Or they were demonic supremacists, desperate to stay relevant and willing to paint a portrait of enemies that only they could fight. Bad intel. Unsavory characters. Too secretive. Not reliable. Too insulated. Patriotic. Sanctioned by God. Take your pick.

The CIA, like America, is often a "bull in a China shop"; clumsy, too big, too obvious, unwanted, unneeded, and absolutely necessary. Like America, The Company reflects the basic premise of American foreign policy, which is engagement. There are many in the intelligence community who love to be engaged. Teddy Roosevelt talked about being in "the arena." While this statement referred to elected public figures, it also applied to U.S. foreign policy. He decided we should "walk softly and carry a big stick."

Over time, Roosevelt's "big stick" policies resulted in an America that became all-powerful. With that power came responsibilities. Many criticize America for our covert wars, black ops, propping up dictators, teaching the art of torture, sanctioning mass killing, subverting Democracy, and all the other things we do. Fine, criticize away. There is much to criticize. The rumors are true. The worst you do not even know about. But all of these underground adventures are not engaged in because somebody at Langley watched too many James Bond movies. The fact is, the responsibility is ours. There is a God and there is a Satan, and they are at war. It happens every day, 24/7. It would be nice if somebody else could handle our responsibility. Great Britain's MI6 does a fine job. So does Israel's Mossad. But in this world, that is not so much dangerous as it is evil, nobody else is capable of dealing with all the forces of chaos arrayed against goodness and order. It requires getting our hands dirty, "dealing with the devil," and sometimes propping up dictators.

From the safety of a Capitol Hill hearing room, the editorial suites of the New York Times, or the cafes of Paris, it is easy to criticize, hate and blame. To cry for the innocent victims of American over-indulgence. In "A Few Good Men", Jack Nicholson as Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Jessup says, "We live in a world that has walls, son. Whose gonna guard those walls, you?...Deep down in places you don't want to talk about at parties, you want me on that wall! You need me on that wall!

"...You have the luxury of not knowing what I know, which is that...death, while tragic, probably saved lives, and that my appearance here, while grotesque, saves lives! We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something...

"I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who sleeps under the very blanket of freedom that I provide, then criticizes the way I provide it..."

It is completely instructive to note that in the perfect world of director Rob Reiner and screenwriter Aaron ("The West Wing") Sorkin, before the audience can say, "Right on, Jack," Tom Cruise immediately exposes his character as a criminal. Reiner and Sorkin make a valid point in "A Few Good Men", the same point that Plato made in "The Republic" when he talked about tempering the warrior spirit with civilian caution. There is no doubt that there are Marine officers who sacrifice enlisted men in order to advance their careers. The point is that it does not happen much and is overshadowed by the sacrifice, honesty and sheer integrity of all the unsung heroes that they choose not to portray. Scandals and screw-ups are sexy.

The CIA was flying high in the 1950s. A new agency, they were born out of the swashbuckling OSS run during World War II by "Wild Bill" Donovan. These were the real "best and brightest." Most were recruited right out of Yale's "Skull 'n' bones," Harvard's frat row, or Wall Street's elite law firms. Young men, white, not just WASP in the traditional sense but believing Christians, wearing tweed sweaters, smoking pipes, readers of Nietzsche and Shakespeare.

These guys had broken the codes that beat Hitler and Tojo. Now they were in a full-scale jihad against international Communism. While the gulags were rumors to some, not believed by others, unimportant to most, these were the people who interviewed the survivors, the defectors and the true believers of Communism and anti-Communism. They knew about the death camps, the forced marches, the torture chambers. They knew these people were out to win. The CIA was the last line of defense, at least in their minds.

One of the early and successful CIA-orchestrated operations occurred in 1954. The Company overthrew Guatemalan ruler Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. This act is still viewed by America's detractors to explain why the U.S. goes too far. It caused unrest in Latin America and much hatred towards America, a country said to prop up "Banana Republics," that did little more than make it possible for U.S. business interests in the region. There is truth to this premise, but the flip side deserves its due, too. Communism was spreading. Wherever it spread, death, destruction, horror descended upon the people enveloped by it. Its greatest export was refugees. In trying to prevent it, topple it or undermine it, the CIA was not just making the road safer for capitalism (which, by the way, is a perfectly noble goal), but also improving the lives of ordinary people. Sometimes these operations went very smoothly, and other times they did not. Sometimes errors in the plan were identified and used by opponents for political purposes, years after the fact. The critics, for the most part, are those timid souls and countries that have stood on the sidelines of history, accepting a fatherly role when things turn out just right, and orphaning the inevitable failures, screw-ups and botches.

The overthrow of the Arbenz regime led to Civil War in Guatemala, a war that lasted 36 years and created more than 100,000 casualties and 1 million refugees. Many mistakes were made in Guatemala, but the CIA still used it as a "text book" example of how to run future operations. Critics point to Cuba a few years later as a repeat of errors, although the Cuba case is significantly different. The CIA believed that the Soviets were using the Democratically elected government of Guatemala to establish Communism in the Americas. Subsequent intelligence indicates that this may not have been the case, which does not mean it was not the case. However, the Left seized upon "evidence" that the Soviets were not fomenting Marxism-Leninism in Latin America and accepted it. Considering what their goals were, it was not unreasonable to assume they were, and in fact they may have been. The archives revealed much, but not everything. Much of the Cold War is likely to remain murky forever. Regardless of whether the CIA had "noble" intentions or not, the political reality of Guatemala was semi-disastrous. The overthrow of Arbenz resulted in worldwide political condemnation, and the damage to the U.S. in the region has had a lasting effect. All of this is for public consumption. Behind closed doors, America's strong stance against Communistas caused many a Latin American political and business leader to breathe a sigh of relief and say to Americans at cocktail parties, "By the way, I can't be quoted saying in the newspaper, but we appreciate what you did." The Alger Hiss-built United Nations howled in shocked indignation that the U.S. would try to remove an ideology responsible for more deaths than Hitler.

The battleground of the Cold War in the late 1940s, 1950s and beyond was the Third World. This was the undeveloped middle territory that was neither Communist nor Democratic. If it was Democratic it was so corrupt that it perverted the Jeffersonian ideals of Democracy. The Third World could be found in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and on native-populated islands. The people were brown-skinned, black, or some other variation thereof. They were never white, as in Western or Eastern Europe. The Third World was the perfect place to exploit. The Communists had all the cards. They could argue that the native people had been exploited and were the victims of racism. Colonialism had left ugly wounds, and the charges did not lack truth. Huge numbers of people lived in the Third World. They represented potential armies. Many natural resources were prizes of the Third World. Leaders in this part of the world tended to be corrupt to the gills and backed by Western business interests.

On March 12, 1947, President Truman told Congress "...that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." In August, 1949, the U.S.S.R. became a nuclear superpower and China was "lost." The U.S.S.R. backed the invasion of South Korea by the North Korean Army in 1950. Many thought war was inevitable with the Soviets. Considering this danger, revisionists who look back at this period and excoriate efforts to prepare for war, root out spies, create allies and gain an edge must be considered sophists at best.

In 1944, Guatemalans overthrew dictatorship. Jacobo Arbenz was a military hero in the Guatemalan Revolution. In 1949, he helped put down a rebellion led by Major Francisco Arana. In 1950 he detained Arana's protégé, Castillo Armas, for his role in a coup attempt. Armas used bribes (possibly paid by The Company) to get out of prison and fled for Honduras. In 1950, Guatemalan elected Arbenz.

The CIA then began planning Operation PBSUCCESS, a paramilitary and psychological campaign designed to overthrow the popular, elected Arbenz and replace him with the exiled Armas.

The results were disastrous. A peace treaty establishing a constitutional Democratic Republic was not ratified by the government until 1996. In the years in between, Guatemala suffered countless dictators and casualties. Armas was assassinated in 1957, after reversing many of Arbenz' progressive reforms implemented to help the people. After Armas, chaos reigned until the legislature appointed General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes president in 1958. Two years later, Fuentes faced rebellion when Fidel Castro tried to export his revolution to the rest of Latin America. The rebellion was put down and the fighters escaped into the mountains. They created the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR). Fuentes was kicked out in 1963, replaced by General Enrique Peralta Azurdia, who held the presidency for three years. Azurdia reigned over a when a terror group waged war against the FAR guerillas.

A puppet civilian government "ran" Guatemala from 1966 to 1970, but the military continued to prosecute their "dirty war" against FAR. The military controlled Guatemala from 1970 to 1982, while the FAR and PGT (Communist Party) coalesced into the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG). In 1982, a military coup installed General Efraín Ríos Montt as leader of the country. Montt offered amnesty to the URNG. URNG refused it and launched an intense campaign, ratcheting up the civil war, with disastrous consequences. The indigenous people were forced into labor in support of the military campaign. In the process more than 400 indigenous villages were destroyed.

Montt lasted until his military ouster in 1983. In 1985, civilian leadership (again "allowed" by the military) took over in Guatemala. Civil war did not end, and the military's terror campaign continued. In 1990, the U.S. cut off most of their military aid to Guatemala. Jorge Serrano Elías became president in 1991. He seized dictatorial control in May of 1993, but was forced to resign. In 1996, the government and the rebels signed a peace treaty ending the civil war. Now, there is a stable Democracy in Guatemala.

CIA Deputy Director of Plans Richard Bissell was the mastermind of the original Guatemala operation. He felt that it was a success when outlined against the larger battle with global Communism, and used it as a model for Cuba. The many mistakes in Guatemala were viewed from the short range, not the long view. In this respect, it might be considered a Pyrrhic Victory. On the other hand, despite the suffering, wars and torture in Guatemala, it is fair to ask what would have happened had the U.S. simply stayed out. A comparison with Cuba helps answer that question. Cuba under Castro has for 44 years been an "orderly" society, a country without civil war. Despite this, more people have died in Cuba. More people were tortured in Cuba. More people were imprisoned in Cuba. Today, Democracy is in place in Guatemala, and Cuba continues to torture and imprison another generation of political prisoners. In other words, the worst possible "anti-Communist" country is still better than a "model" Communist one.

The question is not whether the worst of something else is better than Communism. That is not a valid question. The question in Guatemala is whether the fear of it becoming a Communist puppet regime was real, and therefore whether the CIA's drastic actions were warranted. The bottom line argument behind so many individual "excesses" is whether Communism was the real threat. If it was, then anything to combat it is justified, and nobody else was equipped to do it. All the other nations could stand on the sidelines and keep their hands clean while the U.S. was rolling in the mud with one helluva an alligator.

"The language, arguments, and techniques of the Arbenz episode were used in Cuba in the early 1960s, in Brazil in 1964, in the Dominican Republic in 1965, and in Chile in 1973," said Marlise Simons. Years later, the CIA recognized flaws in the Guatemala model. A 1992 classified report published an in-depth look PBSUCCESS.

In Cuba, civilian uprisings twice counted on to overthrow Castro. Bissell expected the amphibious landings of Brigade 2506 to inspire them, followed by mass defections, combined with paramilitary support to the exile brigade and a follow-up force to topple Fidel. It was Bissell's understanding that this had been the model for Guatemalan "success." He therefore incorporated it into the permanent Company "playbook."

Later CIA reports showed, however, that while recruits joined the rebels, they did so only where they were not in danger of meeting military resistance. Once combat started, recruits were loath to put their lives on the line. This is an important lesson that to this very day is not understood well, and possibly never will be.

The United States itself was a country formed by rebellion, and thus revolutionaries had willingly put their lives in danger en masse to further an ideal. In the Civil War, both Union and Confederate troops did the same thing. Two world wars had created a romanticized "hero," a "freedom fighter" who was willing to die for a "cause." In the Cold War, it was much more complicated than that. The Communists were a dirty, filthy lot. Because of that, American intelligence saw a continuation of the "freedom fighter" mentality. This meant that those fighting for Communism would not have their  
heart in it, while those fighting against it would be willing to sacrifice in the noble effort to defeat it.

When put to the test, this theory did not play out down the line. First, Castro's revolutionistas fought hard. In Vietnam it was the Communists who were committed and the South Vietnamese who seemed not to have their hearts in it.

Exile forces in Guatemala had high desertion rates in combat, but Bissell's disregard of this factor played itself out again at the Bay of Pigs. The CIA was unable to maintain secrecy in the Bay of Pigs, a major public relations blow. Castro owes his early credibility to this. Castro had spies who reported to him on the training of anti-Castro exiles in Guatemala in the Fall of 1960. The New York Times, God bless 'em, ran a front-page story proclaiming "Anti-Castro Units Trained to fight at Florida Bases" a few days before the Bay of Pigs. Bissell, however, was not disturbed by the Times' exposure. In Guatemala, similar exposes had occurred. Bissell felt these stories worked in his favor by creating confusion and misinformation, since the stories were more often than not planted or incomplete. As part of PBSUCCESS, a double agent, for instance, gave details to Jacobo Arbenz. When Arbenz went to the press, Guatemalans thought it was planted to make Arbenz' reputation look like a sympathetic, besieged character.

The root of Operation PBSUCCESS was the CIA's belief that the Soviets were using the Democratically elected government of Guatemala as a Communist front.

The Guatemalan Communist party, Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (PGT), had less than 4,000 members and less than 200 active members in a country of nearly 3 million. PGT members held only four of the 61 seats in the Guatemalan congress. They held no more than six or seven sub-cabinet positions, heading the state's media and social security administration. They held no major military positions. Although the PGT held no positions in Arbenz' cabinet, Arbenz was close personal friends with a number of the PGT's founding members.

The CIA believed the PGT had a conjunctive relationship with the U.S.S.R. The land reforms enacted by Arbenz were, in their view, influenced by the PGT. It is taken as a matter of faith now that the PGT did not have such influence, and land reform was merely a populist political ploy. There is a "clean break from Communism" aspect to this concept that really does not hold water. The CIA had infiltrated Guatemala, the government as well as the peasants, the military and the opposition. If after all the "humintel" that resulted in this infiltration they were proven wrong, it shows several possibilities. One is overenthusiastic hubris on the part of The Company (very possible). Another is that the Communists fooled them to make them look bad (not a likely scenario and certainly not one that resulted in the prescriptions the Communists wanted). The reality is probably somewhere in between, with resulting events not being predicted ahead of time, in part because the commitment Bissell thought the "freedom fighters" had could not be counted on.

The land reforms Arbenz implemented have been characterized as similar what the U.S. sponsored in Japan and Formosa after World War II. Subsequent PGT documents showed no evidence that the PGT were influenced by the Soviets.

CIA historian Nick Cullather wrote in the CIA's report on PBSUCCESS in 1992, "The overthrown Arbenz government was not, many contend, a Communist regime but a reformist government that offered perhaps the last chance for progressive, Democratic change in the region." Piero Gleijeses, professor of American Foreign Policy and Latin American Studies at The School of Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University and author of "Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States", wrote, "The Guatemalan revolution - Jacobo Arbenz above all, with his Communist friends - challenged this culture of fear. In 18 months, from January 1953 to June 1954, 500,000 people (one-sixth of Guatemala's population) received the land they desperately needed. For the first time in the history of Guatemala, the Indians were offered land rather than being robbed of it. The culture of fear loosened its grip over the great masses of the Guatemala people. In a not unreachable future, it might have faded away, a distant nightmare."

All of this might be true, but in 1954 the CIA did not think Arbenz was a populist land reformer. They thought he was a Communist. Certainly America did not intend to do harm. This is such a key point that it cannot be overestimated. The U.S. does not intend to do harm. The harm it inadvertently does cause is tragic, is condemned, and is exposed for the entire world to see. The covert operation in Guatemala was not kept secret, and much enduring resentment manifested itself throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

"The Guatemala intervention shaped the attitudes and stratagems of an older generation of radicals, for whom this experience signaled the necessity of armed struggle and an end to illusions about peaceful, legal, and reformist methods," wrote historian James Dunkerly. Newspapers in Britain and Germany attacked America's "modern forms of economic colonialism."

The U.N. Secretary General said the U.S. had operated against their charter. The CIA's Guatemalan campaign may have spurred Castro from borderline Communism to complete partnership with Kruschev. The air bombings preceding the Bay of Pigs preceded Castro's announcement that Cuba was a Communist state on April 16, 1961. He signed a military treaty with the Soviet Union in 1962 and accepted Soviet SA-2 missiles. Was Guatemala (and Cuba) a self-fulfilling prophecy, the result of paranoia in Langley? Many think it was. I think to believe that is delusional.

McCarthyism

On June 29, 1940, Congress passed the Alien Registration Act, making it illegal for anyone in the U. S. to advocate, abet, or teach the desirability of overthrowing the government. The law prescribed that alien residents file a comprehensive statement of their personal and occupational status and a record of their political beliefs. 4,741,971 aliens registered in four months.

The Act's objective was to expose Communists and Left wing political groups. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was set up by Congress under Martin Dies in 1938 to investigate unpatriotic behavior. At a time when the world was at war, there was concern that people were trying to overthrow the government.

In 1947 HUAC, chaired by J. Parnell Thomas, began an investigation into the Hollywood Motion Picture Industry. HUAC interviewed 41 people who worked in the industry. The original witnesses attended voluntarily as "friendly witnesses," and in the course of their testimony, 19 Communists were named.

Bertolt Brecht, an emigrant playwright, testified before departing for East Germany. Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Albert Maltz, Adrian Scott, Samuel Ornitz, Dalton Trumbo, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson and Alvah Bessie refused to answer questions.

Known as the Hollywood 10, they claimed that under the First Amendment they were not required to answer these questions. The courts disagreed and all were found guilty of contempt of Congress, sentenced to between six and 12 months in prison.

Actor Larry Parks, who was not a star but was recognizable to the public, named 19 people. Parks gave evidence to HUAC, admitted that he had joined the Communist Party in 1941, leaving it in 1945. When asked for the names of other members of the Communist Party, Parks said, "I would prefer, if you would allow me, not to mention other people's names. Don't present me with the choice of either being in contempt of this Committee and going to jail or forcing me to really crawl through the mud to be an informer."

HUAC pressed Parks, and he gave the names of Communists. When this became public, Leo Townsend, Isobel Lennart, Roy Huggins, Richard Collins, Lee J. Cobb, Budd Schulberg and Elia Kazan revealed the names of people they knew to be Communists or members of Left wing groups suspected of being fronts for Communist or Soviet spy rings.

In 1950, three former FBI agents and Vincent Harnett, a television producer who did not like the rampant Communism he saw in his industry, published _Red Channels_. This listed 151 writers, directors and performers who they claimed had been members of subversive organizations before World War II but had escaped detection so far. The names had been compiled from FBI files, analysis of the _Daily Worker_ , the Communist newspaper, and information culled from the American Communist Party.

_Red Channels_ was widely read in the entertainment industry. American citizens did not want to spend money seeing movies starring, directed by, or written by Communists, any more than they would want to support the work of Nazis. The studios, recognizing the free market of public opinion, decided to identify and expose Hollywood's Communists. Those who were Communists did not want this fact to be known. A Communist could escape harsh treatment by appearing before HUAC and admitting that Communism was bad ("Stalin is not good," not unlike a Nazi saying something like, "I realize now Hitler was bad for Germany."). They were asked to identify other Communists. Those who did not cooperate lost for their jobs for a while.

Edward Dmytryk had been a Communist, one of the original Hollywood 10. Dmytryk decided that he was not a Communist anymore. On April 25, 1951, Dmytryk appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee and identified 26 people he knew to be Communists, or were members of Left wing groups thought to be fronts for Communism.
Dmytryk revealed that John Howard Lawson, Adrian Scott and Albert Maltz, among others, had pressured him to make films that glorified Communism. These facts justified much of the work and original suspicions of HUAC. It put the lie to the defense of most of the original Hollywood 10, who were suing their employers for firing them because of their Communist affiliations. The studios were in a difficult position. The public was aware that these people were Communists, and would boycott movies made by Communists, just as they would likely boycott movies made by child molesters, rapists, or any public figures who rely on their good reputations in the marketplace of expression.

People who refused to identify other Communists were added to a Blacklist drawn up by the Hollywood film studios. Over 320 people on the list did not work for awhile in the entertainment industry. This included Larry Adler, Stella Adler, Leonard Bernstein, Marc Blitzstein, Joseph Bromberg, Charlie Chaplin, Aaron Copland, Hanns Eisler, Carl Foreman, John Garfield, Howard Da Silva, Dashiell Hammett, E. Y. Harburg, Lillian Hellman, Burl Ives, Arthur Miller, Dorothy Parker, Philip Loeb, Joseph Losey, Anne Revere, Pete Seeger, Gale Sondergaard, Louis Untermeyer, Josh White, Clifford Odets, Michael Wilson, Paul Jarrico, Jeff Corey, John Randolph, Canada Lee, Orson Welles, Paul Green, Sidney Kingsley, Paul Robeson, Richard Wright and Abraham Polonsky.

By 1949, after the Berlin Airlift, the formation of Red China, the creation of an Eastern Bloc and international Communist hegemony between Russia and China, and the explosion of the atomic bomb by the Soviets, it was now factually known that Communism was as much an enemy of the United States as Nazism had been a decade earlier. It was also factually known that the Soviets had an active program of espionage and propaganda intended to subvert the security of America. Consequently, it was now decided to use the Alien Registration Act against the American Communist Party. Leaders of the party were arrested and in October, 1949, after a nine-month trial, 11 members were convicted of violating the act. Over the next two years another 46 members were arrested and charged with advocating the overthrow of the government. The heart of the cases was the advocacy, overthrow or disruption of the government or other American institutions. To simply be a Communist was not illegal. To be a Communist who actively worked to hurt the U.S. was a chargeable offense. An easy modern correlation is to say that to be a white racist is not illegal, but to be a white racist who plots the bombing of a black church is illegal.

Other high profile spy cases involving Alger Hiss, Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg confirmed the fear that Communism was not merely a liberal social philosophy popular among Democrats of the far Left. Rather, a Communist conspiracy was under way. All who denied that this conspiracy was real, then or now, were and are doing the work of America's enemies.

On February 9, 1950, Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy made a speech in which he claimed to have a list of 205 people in the State Department known to be members of the American Communist Party. The term "McCarthyism emanated from this speech. Hollywood has long associated its "victim" status with McCarthy, comveniently forgetting that the House performed the aforementioned work. McCarthy was a Senator, not a member of the House. Communist espionage and subversion was an established fact long before his speech.

The list of names was not a secret. It had been published by the Secretary of State in 1946. These people had been identified as Communists, Fascists, alcoholics and sexual deviants during a preliminary screening of 3,000 Federal employees. Had McCarthy himself been screened, McCarthy's own drinking problems (and possibly sexual preferences) might have resulted in him being put on the list. However, his drinking did not become exacerbated until later, and questions about his sexuality appear to be pure Leftist smear jobs.

McCarthy had been a local political figure in Wisconsin. When World War II broke out, he decided that it would be politically beneficial to have a war record. This was a common practice with a long tradition. Politicians had accepted various commissions, or enlisted, in the military during the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Sometimes the commissions were more honorary in nature and ensured that the recipient would not likely see real action. In other cases men put themselves in harm's way and some died. Military commissions were earned in varying manners up until World War II. Often, an officer's commission was awarded Democratically. Units were often made up of men from specific geographical locations. Thus was the case with Harry Truman, who despite no military training or a college degree, was elected by his fellow Missourians to lead his unit in World War I. Truman did so with great distinction.

Lyndon Johnson was politically connected and managed to "join" the Navy. His term of service consisted of little more than the usual Washington politicking and "fact-finding" morale junkets overseas. Johnson even decorated himself. He flew in a plane that briefly passed above a war zone and arranged for the Silver Star to be awarded to him. It has been described as the "least earned" medal in U.S. history. LBJ prominently displayed it throughout his Senate and Presidential tenure as if he was Audie Murphy.

McCarthy joined the Marines and went to the South Pacific. He was a tailgunner. His detractors wrote that he saw little or no real combat. The true story is that he sent reports of his exploits, puffed up and exaggerated, to newspapers in Wisconsin. They dutifully nicknamed him "Tailgunner Joe" and printed the reports with all the embellishments that McCarthy included. The embellishments, however, do not change the fact that he engaged in real combat and was in real danger.

With the war concluded, McCarthy returned to Wisconsin with the imprimatur of Marine war hero, along with the perfect macho nickname. He rode his popularity into the United States Senate. He was not an intellectual, but he was a bright man. McCarthy lacked the great intelligence, worldview and work ethic of another Republican of his era, Dick Nixon. He needed an issue. Anti-Communism suited him, his political convictions and Midwestern constituency perfectly.

McCarthy was a demagogue. What drove him or was in his mind is still a bit of a mystery. He seems not to be a man of great conscience. The fact that he was a Republican has done as much damage to the G.O.P. as anybody the party has ever had within its ranks. He was an alcoholic, although when this problem became acute is in some dispute. He certainly managed to drink himself to death quickly following his demise, but whether he was a genuine, full-blown drunk during all the years he was in the public eye is debatable. There is little real evidence, but some have suggested that McCarthy might have been homosexual or bi-sexual. This charge is based on the fact that two of his top lieutenants, David Schine and Roy Cohn, were supposed to be homosexual lovers. Cohn was gay, but Schine very likely was not. Others have speculated on McCarthy's sexuality because the anti-Communist FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, is reported (with much legitimate dispute) to be homosexual, too.

On the other hand, McCarthy debuted on the stage of anti-Communist politics at a time when Communism was one of the gravest threats this country has ever faced. Because Communism was eventually defeated, for all practical purposes, without fighting World War III, this threat has been downgraded by elements who benefit from downgrading it. But McCarthy had a real issue that indeed did need a leader, and he assumed that mantel. It was willingly handed to him and he was, for a while, extremely popular; seen as a hero. McCarthy is reputed to have "ruined" the lives of many people, but the truth of this statement is blurred by the facts. There is no doubt that Joe McCarthy hurt many Communists, some of whom hated the U.S. The fact that some of these Communists are considered heroes of liberalism is a fact that requires no real commentary beyond what it simply is. McCarthy does not have a long, distinguished record of great humanity, however, and in the end he lacked the reservoir of goodwill that comes with genuine good work, which he would have needed to overcome his critics.

J. Edgar Hoover began feeding McCarthy the names of Communists and suspected Communists.

"We were the ones who made the McCarthy hearings possible," said William Sullivan, one of Hoover's agents. "We fed McCarthy all the material he was using."

In Korea, U.S. troops were taking an early beating. Eastern Europe had all but fallen. China, the most populated country on the planet, had been "lost" by a Democrat administration. After supporting Chiang Kai-shek for so many years, and fighting to liberate their country from brutal Japanese repression, it was inconceivable that our good works and sacrifice had been rewarded with this kind of treachery. Many on the right wanted heads to roll. However, what drove the Red Scare and McCarthyism more than anything was the public. They felt genuine fear of Communism and internal subversion.

America in the early 1950s was not Heaven on Earth. It was a country with a long way to go. The South was roiling in terrible racial segregation, but Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier a few years before. In so doing he had opened the door for another, incredibly talented black player named Willie Mays, whose debut in New York was pending. Descriptions of 1950s America paint the portrait of a culture of unfulfillment. "The Man In the Grey Flannel Suit" starring Gregory Peck depicted a World War II veteran who is unable to find happiness despite achieving the outward American Dream of a wife, family, house and career. Women were expected to stay at home and raise children, which according to the "wisdom" left them yearning to do more. Communications were stilted, real conversations drowned out by the new invention of television. Culture became provincial, and a militaristic jingoism is said to have cast a black-or-white shadow of intolerance over America. Anybody who was "weird," wore their hair long, smoked reefer, enjoyed same sex couplings or expressed a pacifist viewpoint was easily labeled as a "commie." Promiscuous girls were called "sluts," as opposed to "good girls," and the worst part of it was they would get pregnant and go off to have illegal abortions. Family values and Christianity were in, at the "expense" of Judaism and experimentation. Books like "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Tropic of Cancer" were banned from schools by supposedly right wing zealots. A new form of music, rock 'n' roll, immediately had the clergy up in arms. They called it the work of the devil, designed to drive boys wild and, worse still, white girls into the arms of gyrating black men.

This is the Hollywood stereotype of 1950s America. This stereotype, like most stereotypes, was rooted in a certain amount of truth but was far from the entire, accurate picture. The fact is that Americans were very proud of themselves in the 1950s, and they had a right to be. American soldiers had fought bravely, stopping Hitler and Tojo. But there was more to it than that. By the 1950s, the "experiment" had shown itself to be successful. Democracy and the Constitution had survived all challenges. Other forms of government had been tried throughout the world. None of them held a candle to the American model. Monarchies, dictatorships and Fascism had all shown themselves to be no match for American Democracy. Now this "new thing" had come along. Communism. It seemed to hold the interest of a few fuzzy headed intellectuals in Hollywood and New York, but for the average American in the Midwest (or upstate New York, or suburban California, for that matter), it looked awful. The Communists had been our Allies, so we had cut them a break, but they had lied to "Give 'em hell Harry" at Potsdam. Now all of their lies and evil intent had been exposed. They had tried to starve the West Berliners, subjugated Eastern Europe, turned China Red, and attacked across the 38th Parallel in Korea. They had the bomb and they were dangerous sons of guns.

Americans in the post-war years enjoyed unprecedented prestige. Traveling in Europe, they were met by grateful Europeans. Dwight Eisenhower was a hero in every corner of the globe, a man of popularity that cannot be imagined in the modern era, when people think popularity is something attributed to Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera. Ike was a god to billions. No athlete, rock star or actor has ever approached such star quality.

There was another factor. Americans like capitalism. When Adam Smith was describing the new economics of an agrarian society moving into populated city-centers, capitalism still seemed a little bit experimental, like the political system it was being asked to support. But capitalism had fueled a mind-boggling Westward Expansion. It was the driving force behind utterly insane accomplishments, like the transcontinental railroad, the Industrial Revolution, and the Panama Canal. The astounding sight of not one but two bridges, the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge, that defied prior notions of engineering possibility, met visitors to San Francisco.

Capitalism, more than anything, had survived tests. It had survived, in fact thrived, through a series of wars. Wars in other countries left economies in shambles, created riots, depressions and wholesale revolutions. In America, the engines of commerce were unaffected. Furthermore, capitalism had survived the Great Depression. All the doomsayers had proven to be wrong. Capitalism, it had been said, was antiquated. Socialism and Keynesian economics were the only true safety nets. This frightened Americans, who saw the triumph of capitalism as justification for everything they held near and dear. Now, the system had produced an educated populace, with the finest colleges and universities in the world. The best medical research and the most innovative technological advances were almost exclusively taking place in America. Jet aircraft had been developed. The "sound barrier" had been broken by an American, and now we were talking about going into space, maybe even landing on the Moon. People thought about these concepts and their first reaction was that it was fanciful. Then, they thought about it for a second, and confidently told themselves that if Americans were put in charge of the effort, it was likely to happen, sooner rather than later. They were right.

So it was that Americans felt that this country was a pretty good place to live, to work and to raise a family. The idea that somewhere "out there" was a plot, a conspiracy, of foreigners who thought we had too much, and wanted to take what we worked hard for and spread it around to a mass of unwashed, undeserving peasants, was abhorrent. Americans had saved the world and were the most giving, charitable people on Earth. They would spread it around, but they would do it their way, not out of class envy or because some Communists told them they were bourgeois imperialists, which really frosted Main Street. Imperialists? We had gotten rid of the King. Money did not "get" to the needy in Communism. All of Stalin's collectivist-farm stories were well known by then. The best kind of program was run by the private sector, with the smallest amount of bureaucracy possible.

What McCarthy tapped into, however, went even beyond the fundamental principles of what Americans knew made their system better, or even the threat and the evil deeds of the Communists; their bombs, death camps and political crimes. Foreigners hating America was one thing, but McCarthy was talking about Americans! Red-blooded sons and daughters of America, born and raised in the heartland, recipients of all this great nation has to offer, often more privileged than most. These were people who had access to the information that Communism was evil, and tried to poison America with it anyway. It was the worst kind of treason. It was not even the usual treason. It was a new, insidious kind. Somebody who sells weapons or intelligence to an enemy, or takes up arms against his country, is indeed a traitor, but these Communists presumed to know what was best for us. They were a new form of elite, people who through education and a certain worldview that most of us could not understand, because we were too stupid and unenlightened, needed to be led like sheep to the trough of this liberalism and made to drink from it.

We were racists, of course, and only by subjugating ourselves to this Communist re-education could we purge ourselves of the old thinking. The blacks were told these new people were their "friends." Like characters in George Orwell's "Animal Farm", they only served a purpose because they would be dependent on an endless prescription of what would be doled out to them, piecemeal, by those and only those who knew what they needed. The Communists would tell them whom to worship and who to obey. God was evil, non-existent and little more than a drug for the masses. All things that emanated from Godliness, including respect for parents, family loyalty and traditional patriotism had to be re-taught from an internationalist point of view.

The Communists made two big mistakes in their effort to break into American society. First, it was too close to World War II. The Korean War increased our sensitivity toward the dangers of Communism and totalitarianism. But the biggest obstacle they could never overcome was that Americans are too smart, too well educated, and have too much access to Actual Facts to fall for the line that had pushed revolution in the streets of Europe.

In the beginning, McCarthy had an issue that resonated with millions. He was made chairman of the Government Committee on Operations of the Senate, charged with investigating Communist subversion. McCarthy took on this task for two years. He had seen how it had propelled the career of Nixon. The Communist issue was big in the heartland, the Midwest and West, where people tended to be religious and/or ruggedly independent, two traits that do not lead people to Communism. He scored solid support from Joe Kennedy, who despised Jews and was appalled that such a large number of Communists and traitors were Jewish. McCarthy hired Robert F. Kennedy to work for him.

They investigated various government departments and questioned many people about their affiliations. Some lost jobs after admitting they had been Communists. The issue for accused people was clear. People knew that Communism was evil, and to be a Communist was to be, if not evil, part of an evil organization. This meant that Communists had to hide their Communism. Exposure meant that people would judge what they did to be wrong. Communists, like anybody who is involved in bad activity, i.e., child molestation, rape, bigotry, etc., prefer not to be exposed. There were three options for the Communists. One was exposure. It is legal to be a Communist, but the fact that it is bad is known by others, which is not good for Communists in high-profile jobs like the government or the movie industry. The second was to hide, which might work but if exposed, these Communists found themselves in trouble. Either way, folks just did not like those who hated and worked against America. Some people are funny that way.

However, America is a forgiving country. People in the U.S., probably because many have been inculcated with the redemptive message of Christ, tend to forgive the sins of others, but they have to admit the sin and ask for forgiveness. Scorn is heaped upon those whose guilt is known, but they refuse to admit it. This brought up the third option, which was to admit to the fault and come clean. This was what the government wanted, and in pursuing this end they achieved the purpose of exposing espionage and subversion. This was the ultimate aim, since the issue was about national security. The fact that it was also about politics clouds the historical perspective of the issue.

Virtually all the people accused from 1947 until the early '50s were involved with Communism in some form. Not all were "card-carrying Communists," or spies, or "fellow travelers," or "useful idiots," or fit any of the terms used to describe the scourge. Some were just caring people who in the 1930s were concerned about starving peasants in Russia, and went to meetings ostensibly to raise funds for food shipments. Many used aliases. The problem is that this description became the one that everybody used. People forgot names or made mistakes. Innocents were mixed with the guilty. However, an honest assessment of ones' involvement, complete with full cooperation with the committee and a little humility, was all a named individual needed to put it all behind them.

The lie perpetrated by the Left for 50 years is that people who chose not to name others were heroic, loyal, and self-sacrificing. If one was named, they were asked to cooperate and tell the truth. The people who were hurt were Communists who did not tell the truth, and Hollywood has rewarded them by telling a fantasy tale. This fact simply is what it is.

Res ipsa loquiter.

What McCarthy wanted was for Communists to renounce their Left wing views by naming other members of the party. This has been called a "witch hunt" and "anti-Communist hysteria," shortened simply to McCarthyism. At first, McCarthy had many actual Communists to identify. Many were New Deal Democrats. It infuriated Democrats that so many of them were being exposed as Communists, especially by a "yahoo" like McCarthy. McCarthy and the Republicans had a field day showing that many in the other party were un-American. What was required of them, however, was restraint, and the Republicans showed little of it. They had been denied the White House since 1933. The G.O.P. had made some gains in Congress after the war, but overall they were the minority party and were desperate to regain power.

Harry S. Truman was President. Nobody accused him of being a Communist, but China had gone Red on his watch and the feeling was that this occurred because there were subversive factions within his administration. George Marshall and Dean Acheson were accused of being soft on Communism. History has not identified any "smoking guns" on why China was lost. The most consistent answer to this question is that the West miscalculated the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, overlooked the personal faults of Chiang and his "dragon lady" wife, Madame Chang, and gave too much credence to the Nationalist movement in China. Mao's "Long March" had been operating against Chiang for many years, but U.S. officials either dismissed Mao or thought he could be made part of a coalition. In retrospect, the only thing that would have stopped Mao seems to have been a major military commitment, the purpose of which would have been to wipe him out completely. There was not enough political will to do something that drastic in China, a mysterious, forbidding land where Americans had long been made to feel unwelcome. In the post-war era, an anti-colonial movement was afoot. The U.S. had long pressured England to get out of India, and the kind of support Chiang needed in China to prevail would have had all the earmarks of colonial expansionism with an American face.

Nevertheless, the Venona Papers and other documentation revealed that a number of highly placed Roosevelt and Truman Administration Democrats, including but not limited to Alger Hiss, Harry Hopkins, and Harry Dexter White, had manipulated events and perceptions in favor of Mao, during and after World War II.

The U.S. was committed to supporting France in Indochina, which was colonial enough. The decision to do this, and to spurn the entreaties of Ho Chi Minh, lay less in practical politics and much in an effort to let France "save face" after its humiliations under Nazi Occupation. With the 1952 Presidential campaign looming, the Republicans played politics and accused Truman of being dangerously liberal. Truman was in a poor position and the Democrats were on the defensive in 1952. Truman, after firing MacArthur, was so unpopular that he chose not to run. The Republicans were holding all the cards. They ran the great Eisenhower, and swept in with a Congressional mandate.

The lessons of 1952, and other lessons, need to be learned by the G.O.P. It is not entirely clear that they have learned. The Republican party has an amazing ability to shoot itself in the foot. They seem to hate prosperity. Whenever it looks like they have "won" the war, attained their goals, and ascended to the mountaintop, they manage to slip up.

In 1912, they presided over a peaceful America, a modern power with an expanding empire, all orchestrated by Teddy Roosevelt. But Roosevelt himself mucked the works by splitting the party into the Bull Moose ticket, giving Woodrow Wilson the White House. With the pacifist Wilson at the helm, Kaiser's Germany felt it could start a war in France by marching through Belgium, without fear of American intervention.

In 1932, the Republicans had held office for 12 years, but in that time they had become isolationists and their laissez faire economics had proved disastrous. The result was 20 years of Democrat rule. In '52, the party seemed to have everything in place. They had an icon for President, and the brightest young star of the electoral West, Nixon, waiting in the wings. They presided over Congress for the first time in years. Ike orchestrated peace in Korea, and they had the issue of the day, anti-Communism. McCarthy managed to ruin it for them. Despite Eisenhower's attempts to reign him in, McCarthy and his supporters failed to manage the issue with the proper political perspective. The remaining years of Eisenhower's Presidency saw a decline in party support. If they had handled all the issues skillfully, the Republicans could have turned 1952 into the beginnings of a political dynasty lasting into the 1970s. Instead, Congress went back to the Democrats. In 1960 the heir apparent Nixon was seen as a Red-baiter in the McCarthy mold, and managed to "lose" the election. It is extremely unlikely that Vietnam would have gone the way it went under Nixon's leadership from the start.

In 1972, the Republicans seemed to have taken control of the country again, but the clumsy Watergate affair had all the elements of a college football team full of All-Americans managing to lose to a weaker, undermanned squad because of pure arrogance. The Republicans, who always have the better message, always use that message to regain power, and the Reagan Revolution was another example of that. Rarely has a party been better positioned than the G.O.P. was heading into 1992. Reagan had established himself as one of the most popular Presidents in history. The Cold War had been won under his watch. His successor, George H.W. Bush, basked in the glory of the Berlin Wall's collapse and victory in the Persian Gulf. There was a point in the Spring of 1991 when the question of the Democrats' future was very real. Somehow, almost by ironic fate, which is a theme that is returned to over and over again in this book, the G.O.P. managed to blow it in '92.

Now, it is 2004 and the Republicans are poised to take a position of power over and above anything they have ever known. Time after time, the American electorate has tired of Democrats and voted the Republicans back in. Time after time the G.O.P. has failed to close the deal. Now, the Democrats appear to be close to splintering into something other than the traditional party they have always been. The Republicans are riding high, winners of impressive military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq, and de facto winners in the War on Terrorism. They turned the tide of history by winning both houses of Congress for the President's party in the 2002 off-year elections. The all-important economy is on the comeback. 2004 has the potential of seeing the Republicans turn the House and Senate into 60 percent majorities. The President could win by a larger margin than Roosevelt in 1936, Johnson in 1964 or Nixon in 1972. The country, for the first time over half Republican, could become more solidly conservative than ever. As the 21st Century develops, conservatism has a chance to be the ultimate historical champion. The Democrats could find themselves splintering into various small independent parties, making the U.S. a country ruled, for all practical purposes, by the Republicans. A G.O.P. Dynasty, very possibly one "headed" by the Bush family for the next 25 to 30 years, is very likely.

All of this sounds good for Republicans, and as a card-carrying member of the G.O.P. I am not rooting against it. But as a student of history, I urge in the strongest possible terms against arrogance, and to learn from past mistakes. The potential splinter of the Democrats could have a bad effect on America, since the effect of a vigorous loyal opposition is something the Founding Fathers favored. Mexico for instance, under virtual one-party rule (the P.R.I.) throughout the 20th Century, became a corrupt, Third World cesspool.

Of all the lessons the Republicans must heed, the lesson of McCarthyism is the most prevalent. McCarthy has distorted the history of America. If one were to go into any school in America and ask students to describe "McCarthyism," a show of hands and responses would be that, "McCarthy accused a lot of innocent people of being Communists, but they weren't Communists and their lives were ruined."

The great danger of Communism has been swept under the rug. McCarthy was destroyed and the Republicans forced to go into a defensive posture, but worse yet, a dangerous ideology has been allowed to foment. By taking the edge off of American Communism, liberalism was allowed to grow into radical liberalism. In the 1960s and '70s, this way of thinking exploded into a counter-culture of drugs, sex and perversion. Out of this, the pacifist anti-Establishment anarchism of Emma Goldman has taken root. At the heart of this movement is a worldwide distrust and suspicion of America that gives hope to terrorists and despots, and makes it harder for the U.S. to use its enormous power as the last, best hope for a truly peaceful world. Considering where America was after World War II, the effects of McCarthyism cannot be overstated.

McCarthy's opponents in the 1950 elections were soundly beaten, leaving him with the false feeling of invulnerability that is the worst kind of cancer an American politician can have. His actions in the Senate received little criticism.

"Attacking him in this state is regarded as a certain method of committing suicide," the Boston Post pointed out. One exception was Connecticut Senator William Benton, the owner of Encyclopaedia Britannica. McCarthy and his supporters "smeared" Benton, claiming that while Assistant Secretary of State, he had protected known Communists and that he had been responsible for the purchase and display of "lewd art works." Benton was accused of disloyalty because of his company's work printed in England. In 1952 he was defeated.

That year, McCarthy appointed Roy Cohn as the chief counsel to the Government Committee on Operations of the Senate. Cohn came with Hoover's recommendation. Cohn had done impressive work in the prosecution of the Rosenbergs. Cohn brought his best friend, David Schine, on board. Schine became his chief consultant.

McCarthy began making mistakes. Instead of doggedly going after the real subversives; the hardcore Communists and spies, he spread his accusations too wildly about. The result was that he made some non-Communists into sympathetic figures that allowed actual Communists to slip under the cracks. He went after anti-American library and schoolbooks. His researchers looked into the Overseas Library Program and discovered 30,000 books by "Communists, pro-Communists, former Communists and anti anti-Communists." A list was compiled and the books were removed from shelves, a terrible public relations disaster that reminded people of Hitler's book-burning rallies in the 1930s. A fair number of the 30,000 books were Communist propaganda, but they were mixed in with regular works that were just Left wing or irregular. Anything having to do with drugs, deviant sex, homosexuality or non-respectful attitudes towards God, family and country was lumped into the "anti-Communist" corner. Many authors and works that otherwise would have died in obscurity found enthusiastic new audiences because of McCarthy.

Instead of "discovering" 30,000 Communist books, McCarthy should have carefully picked out the real ones, then simply exposed them without banning them. Making them unavailable hurt his cause. Having ordinary people actually read them to understand what Communists were trying to accomplish would have had a much more positive effect. Various "hep cats", beats and others who espoused hypnotic new forms of creative behavior were gaining popularity. The accusers were starting to come off as staid, buttoned-up and uptight. It seemed incongruous to many that the new age modernists, jazz aficionados and rock 'n' rollers, were aligned with such distinctly uncool characters as Stalin.

McCarthy also tried to make the connection between homosexuality and Communism. While homosexuals have always gravitated to the liberal wing of the Democrat party, they were no more welcome in Stalinist Russia than they had been in Hitler's Germany. It was virtually common knowledge that Cohn was gay. Schine was described as his lover. He may very well have not been. Hoover's detractors have painted him as a gay cross-dresser, although this is far less substantiated than Cohn's sexual preference. In trying to connect the dots, some have suggested that Hoover and McCarthy had it goin' on.

The Hoover-McCarthy tryst is not an image most Americans care to fantasize about, but there are worthy psychological theories at play here. Some gays are known to assume a homophobic public stance in order to fend off the whiff of their own homosexuality. However, it goes beyond that. There may be some self-hating involved. Men like Hoover and McCarthy had grown up as "good boys" and "good sons," products of the Judeo-Christian ethic, promoters of patriotism, Mom and applie pie. It is true that these traits are not considered to be in sync with the gay lifestyle today, but in McCarthy's and Hoover's days they definitely were not. A man who otherwise buys the whole concept of America, God and family, but is tugged by homosexual tendencies, is likely going to search for a mechanism to dispute those tendencies. This mechanism could be the process of directly demonizing what they hate most about themselves. Without trying to get too Freudian, this is offered simply as a theory.

On the other hand, liberal claims about Hoover, Clyde Tolson and McCarthy have every conceivable chance of being damnable lies. In the case of McCarthy, they almost surely are. Furthermore, the Left missed something important. A straight McCarthy employed and entrusted gays and Jews on his staff at a time when conservative Republicans were "supposed" to disdain gays and Jews. McCarthy also employed blacks, and supported civil rights in Wisconsin. In many ways, he was progressive, to borrow a Leftist term. He gets zero credit for any of this.

Hank Greenspun published an article in the Las Vegas Sun of October 25, 1952, writing, "It is common talk among homosexuals in Milwaukee who rendezvous in the White Horse Inn that Senator Joe McCarthy has often engaged in homosexual activities."

McCarthy considered suing Greenspun for libel, but his lawyers advised that he would have to take the stand and answer questions about his sexuality. Forced to speak under penalty of perjury, even if McCarthy was straight, he may have had other peccadilloes that he would not have wanted to discuss. Maybe he liked to masturbate, dug pornography, hung out in the closet and watched two girls get it on, or any number of other charming things that the good citizens of Wisconsin would have been shocked to discover about their Senator. Of course, Greenspun knew McCarthy would have to take the stand if he were to prevail in a libel suit, so in some ways he had free reign to say what he wanted with little or no consequence. McCarthy's hiring of Cohn and (by implication) Schine, is offered as evidence of McCarthy's own lifestyle. If this is so, it tells much about his recklessness, since he must have known this would draw the kind of negative attention a conservative Midwestern Republican definitely did not need in 1953.

McCarthy married his secretary, Jeannie Kerr. The couple adopted a five-week old girl from the New York Foundling Home. The homosexuality rumors could have had two effects. The first would have been a "wake-up call" for McCarthy, making him realize he was involved in a dangerous game that was played for keeps. He could have re-grouped, declared victory in his efforts to root out Communists, or just concentrated on the true, hardcore Communist cases that had not been investigated because McCarthy had veered so far from the original purpose.

The second effect is the one that he took. McCarthy decided to attack his enemies more relentlessly. In the process he made and invented enemies who started out as tacit allies. In October, 1953, McCarthy began investigating Communist infiltration into the military. He went after Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens, drawing the ire of President Eisenhower. Ike was very upset, not just because men he knew to be good, decent and honorable were being caught up in McCarthy's accusations, but because the man was drawing terrible publicity for the G.O.P.

It is instructive to note that in the many Hollywood depictions of McCarthyism, McCarthy himself is almost never shown. The incidents are usually fictionalized accounts and show tight-lipped, screw-faced mean Republicans hammering away at some poor, honest writer caught up in the witchhunt. The reason they are generally fictionalized, instead of showing the "actual" McCarthy, is because these kinds of confrontations did not occur. McCarthy did indeed go after Communists, but Hollywood is loathe to portray the actual people with their actual names, because the historical record, unfortunately for them, can be checked and demonstrates these people really and actually were Communists.

The fact is McCarthy got in trouble not for going after Communists or accusing honest liberals of Communism. He got in trouble when he went after Republicans. It started with the Army-McCarthy hearings. The Army leaked to the press the story of Schine. First, McCarthy and Cohn had gone to extraordinary lengths to keep the young man from being drafted, but his number was called anyway. The story of Schine's basic training experience is as bizarre as anything that has ever occurred in the military, and for those of us who have actually gone through basic, it is the most preposterous set of circumstances imaginable.

Schine's "training" took place on a base near New York City. Schine was prominently seen, dressed in his Army uniform, at chic Manhattan nightspots in the company of beautiful showgirls. As Slim Pickens might have said, "What in the wide, wide world of sports is goin' on here?"

The first question is how a buck recruit could even get a weekend furlough, which is not a common practice. Apparently, some of his sightings were not even on weekends. Further reports indicated that Schine was staying off base, "commuting" to camp, or sleeping in at his leisure. The whole thing was as preposterous as a Bill Murray movie. Schine's publicized trysts with scantily clad glamour women added to the strange scenario. Could it have been staged to upset or embarrass the Army? Was Schine set up with these women in order to make him look like a heterosexual, off-setting the gay rumors swirling around the McCarthy-Cohn-Schine investigating team? Certainly there are many Army recruits who wish they could have spent weekends with girls who resembled Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. Drew Pearson published details of the whole story in December, 1953.

Cohn was a story in and of itself. He was the son of a prominent Jewish New York liberal. His homosexual acts have been depicted in a TV movie called "Citizen Cohn" starring James Woods as occurring in his parent's house and with their knowledge. The FBI is supposed to have known about his sexuality, too. Supposedly Hoover subpoenaed him for the purposes of having lunch. He was said to be a brilliant attorney, but utterly blinded by crass ambition. He was a complete mercenary, not driven by ideology but willing to promote any cause that promoted his name.

These three men were a rogue's gallery of unrepentant ambition. In the film "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962), a man who might have been based on Connecticut Senator William Benton has a conversation with Angela Lansbury. She is married to a drunken fool Senator obviously based on McCarthy, right down to the infamous lines about having in his possession the names of known members of the Communist Party.

The Senator tells Lansbury that "Senator Iselin" and "Iselinism" is not the joke everybody makes it out to be, but rather that if "Johnny were a paid Soviet agent, he could not do worse harm to this country than he is doing right now."

The punditry of the Left thinks that statement is based on the concept that McCarthy was a drunken, homosexual boob who made up the Communist threat in order to make political gains. But the statement has more weight than that, and reflects the threat of Communism that the movie's producer, Frank Sinatra, believed was valid. The harm McCarthy did was in taking a deadly serious threat, and managing to deflect so much attention to himself that the threat was discounted. In this respect, while there is absolutely no proof whatsoever to back this up, there is little doubt that in the final two years of McCarthyism, the man did so much good for Communism that he could have been a Russian spy.

The McCarthy-as-spy theory is, of course, an outlandish one. It would have to answer to the fact that when he started out he was identifying real Communists in the name of national security. On the other hand, the real Communists that he did nail were usually small fish, easily sacrificed as part of the big "conspiracy" that was McCarthyism.

Unfortunately, McCarthy is a cross that the Republican party has to bear. Eisenhower wanted him excised, like a cancer. He instructed Vice-President Nixon to attack him.

"Men who have in the past done effective work exposing Communists in this country have, by reckless talk and questionable methods, made themselves the issue rather than the cause they believe in so deeply," said Nixon on March 4, 1954. It was clear whom he was talking about.

The media had long opposed McCarthy but were frightened to speak out. Writers George Seldes and I. F. Stone (later evidence indicates he probably was a Communist agent), and cartoonists Herb Block and Daniel Fitzpatrick, began a campaign against him. Broadcast pioneer Edward R. Murrow criticized McCarthy on his TV show, "See It Now". Newspaper columnists Walter Lippmann and Jack Anderson began vitriolic attacks on McCarthy.

Liberal attacks have become common place, but in 1954 the media was not the Left wing Fifth Estate that it later developed into. Despite its power, media attacks on conservatives have had mixed results. Many Americans have long recognized media bias and backed Republicans who they felt were unfairly branded. If McCarthy was smart, he might have tried to back off and lump himself in with this group, maybe playing the "victim" like Nixon had done with the "Checkers speech." Instead, it was his own actions that were his undoing. The new medium of his day, television, was his enemy. The Senate investigations into the United States Army were televised.

"In this long, degrading travesty of the Democratic process McCarthy has shown himself to be evil and unmatched in malice," wrote the _Louisville Courier-Journal_. McCarthy has been described as a bumbling demagogue whose political skills were not good. His instincts for the public appetite, it has been said, could not withstand real scrutiny. Unlike men like Nixon and Kennedy, who had the ability to navigate hazardous political terrain, McCarthy only knew how to attack. His performance on December 2, 1954 earned him a censure motion condemning his conduct by 67 to 22.

None of this takes into account exchanges McCarthy had on the Senate floor in which he comported himself well. Some of the footage that makes McCarthy look the worst is like the Rodney King video that described the L.A.P.D. beating the hell out of a black man. In the King case, the entire video shows King, out of control on PCP, menacing the cops with very real violence and threat. By the some token, viewing the entire McCarthy footage (not just what the media shows) demonstrates a man who had excellent repartee skills and kept his cool despite being unfairly attacked.

Few politicians have risen faster than McCarthy. Few, if any, fell faster. He lost the chairmanship of the Government Committee on Operations of the Senate, which stripped him of power and access to the media. The Left jumped on him with everything they had, denouncing his "Communist conspiracy" theories as pure theatre.

"Most reporters just refused to file McCarthy stories," wrote Willard Edwards, "and most papers would not have printed them anyway."

Anti-Communist sentiment obviously did not end with McCarthy's demise, but the tide had turned. The McCarthy era (fueled by the Hiss case) produced a backlash that is the formation of the present political squabbles in this country. The divide created by McCarthy has thus far proven to be difficult, if not impossible, to bridge.

In 2003, Senate historian Donald Ritchie provided 4,000 pages of new data on McCarthy. Ritchie's editorial notes slam McCarthy, and the press picked up on them. But within the data are episodes that show how McCarthy was smeared. Annie Lee Moss was a famous "victim" of McCarthy. Mrs. Moss had been identified by FBI undercover operative Mary Markward as a member of the Communist Party in the District of Columbia. She had been a code clerk for the Army, handling sensitive information. Appearing before McCarthy in 1954, Mrs. Moss and others were identified as part of a spy ring. Mrs. Moss appeared frail and bewildered, denying it all. The suggestion played straight out of the Nancy Reagan story, in which she had been confused with a Communist who shared her then maiden name, Nancy Davis.

The Democrats all agreed Moss was the victim of mistaken identity. Edward R. Murow reported on CBS' "See It Now" that she was a pitiful little woman, smeared by McCarthy. Friendly Democrats asked Moss (who was black) if she knew who Karl Marx was. She scratched her head as if she was a plantation slave, trying to recall anybody she knew anybody named Marks or Carl. She played it ignorant, as scripted.

What history never told us (until now, really), is that she said one of the addresses she lived at was 72 R Street, S.W., in D.C. Four years later, the Subversive Activities Control Board found Communist Party records that described Annie Lee Moss of 72 R Street, S.W., District of Columbia as a member since the 1940s. While there were three Annie Lee Moss's in the D.C. phone nook at that time, only one was in the C.P.'s records, describing her accurately and providing her actual address. All Ritchie said about this is that it must be read with "caution" and that the SACB chose not to investigate, but he fails to mention that the SACB did not contemplate further investigation of Moss. They were investigating the veracity of Markward. They reached the conclusion Markward was credible regarding Moss's membership in the Communist Party. There was no evidence to charge her with espionage, but the "mistaken identity" ploy was shown to be a ruse. Simply being a Communist was not a crime. Identifying them was the key to the investigations.

Over time, however, history judged McCarthy as bearing "false witness" and accusing people out of mistaken identity on "flimsy" charges (like finding a person who worked with sensitive Army cables whose name, description and address are found in Communist Party records).

There had been a real name-identity confusion case regarding a Communist spy at a sensitive Army installation named Louis Kaplan. He took the Fifth Amendment rather than incriminate himself as a Red. Another Louis Kaplan was hounded by the FBI in the 1940s in a case that preceded and had nothing to do with McCarthy. When the case came to McCarthy's attention, he held hearings and cleared the innocent Kaplan's name. The Communist Kaplan had been involved in securing intelligence for Moscow that was part of the Rosenberg case. Nevertheless, Ritchie uses the Kaplan case as another example of the McCarthy "mistaken identity" allegations.

Aaron Coleman was a member of the Young Communists who worked with Rosenberg. McCarthy said agents had "raided" Coleman's abode. Coleman's roommate said it was not a "raid," but a "search." Ritchie says this is an example of "use of inappropriate or inflammatory words to characterize <witness'> testimony." Ritchie made no mention that Coleman had 43 documents stolen from the same facility where Kaplan had spied.

Regarding Communist espionage, Ritchie blithely stated that they had been our ally in World War II, which made subsequent espionage "superfluous." Apparently this is his attempt at making it on a par with Israeli espionage of the U.S. The FBI had investigated a number of employees at the Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey Army facility who signed petitions supporting the Communist Party. Ritchie dismissed them as "perplexed witnesses." This would be like Army personnel working at Strategic Air Command signing a petition supporting Al Qaeda, then being "perplexed" that they were being investigated for it.

Harry Hyman was found to be recruiting for the Communists through his union activities. He was involved at the Monmouth telecommunications lab, and was caught making 76 phone calls to another lab in order to get classified information. He took the Fifth repeatedly when questioned by McCarthy. Ritchie simply said that McCarthy unjustly questioned him about "union activities."

The fact is that "McCarthy convinced Middle America that FDR and Truman had been duped by 'Uncle Joe' <Stalin>," wrote Pat Buchanan, "had tolerated treason, and had blundered and lost in five years all the fruits of the victory won by the blood and sacrifice of the Greatest Generation in World War II."

McCarthy questioned witnesses in private before putting them on the stand, a standard Senate strategy designed to weed out the innocent from the guilty, and a tactic used by the likes of Watergate investigator Sam Ervin. He was pilloried for this practice as "secretive." Despite all the true facts we now know about McCarthy and heavy Communist subversion and espionage, the New York Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg wrote that documents "do not support McCarthy's theories that, in the 1950s, Communist spies were operating in the highest levels of government." This would be like Allied investigators coming across documents relating to the Nazi's Wannsee Conference plotting the Final Solution, writing that the documents "do not support the Allies' theories that, in the 1940s, Nazi authorities were planning the extermination of European Jewry."

In a way, McCarthy was a victim of his own success. Through the Venona project, in alliance with Hoover's FBI and HUAC, many spies had already been rooted out by the time McCarthy was making much of it public. Among these were Hiss and Lawrence Duggan, high ranking State diplomats who were Communist traitors and spies, found to have helped sign away Eastern Europe at Yalta and shape the U.N. in a Communist image.

Harry Dexter White had already written the International Monetary Fund and the "Morgenthau Plan," designed to destroy German industry still standing after the war. It was a Communist plot to de-stabilize the capitalist vestiges of the country, leaving them starving and helpless to Communist "solutions." White House spy Lauchlin Currie had been found out, as had William Remington at Commerce and Judith Coplon at Justice. The Rosenbergs were convicted, and Robert Oppenheimer's brother and wife were found to have been working with them. McCarthy enjoyed 50-29 favorable ratings from the public in January, 1954. He was going after elite liberals who had sided with Communism while Mao Tse-Tung was murdering his own people and American boys in Korea. Harry Truman was driven out of office by a public fed up with his "soft" approach to Communism. A Gallup poll in the mid-1950s, the so-called "height" of "anti-Communist hysteria" and McCarthyism, overwhelmingly supported McCarthy. McCarthy dated John Kennedy's sister before getting married, but the Left tried to say he was a homosexual. Roy Cohn was. David Schine may have been, but it is not known for sure.

Joseph P. Kennedy supported McCarthy (probably the worst thing I can say about McCarthy). Bobby Kennedy worked for him. John Kennedy considered him a friend and a fine patriot. At the 1954 Harvard re-union, somebody stood up and toasted the class for not having produced any Alger Hiss's or Joe McCarthy's. John Kennedy, a member of the re-union class, stood up and said, "How dare you couple the name of a great American patriot <he meant McCarthy> with that of a traitor <Hiss>." When he was elected President, JFK was asked about McCarthy, and he again remarked that he thought he was a great patriot.

McCarthy's tactic of questioning witnesses in private was used against him. Instead of embarrassing himself and the witnesses in public by engaging in sessions that could lead to places he was unaware of, he rightly wanted to sort out information as best he could ahead of time. The Left just accused him of being "secretive." McCarthy also stated on many occasions that there "may be" Communists in a department or industry, but often did not name names. The Democrats accused him of scurrilous behavior, a "whispering campaign." That was not accurate. McCarthy did not name names until he was sure a suspect was a Communist, so as not to ruin them (as he is so often accused of).

Voices of the Left and not-so-Left

While my research concludes that McCarthy is at the least a misunderstood figure and not the ogre he is painted to be, I realize he is a divisive figure. Just as I printed the Hiss interview to balance the perspective, I offer the following excerpts from interviews, letters and articles written by various people on the subject of the Red Scare, anti-Communism, McCarthyism and the Cold War:

**Freda Kirchwey** , _The Nation_ (October, 1939)

"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of Democracy. We have not gone to war, and no excuse exists for wartime hysteria. Neither Communists nor even (German-American) Bundists are enemy agents. They deserve to be watched but not be persecuted. The real danger is that general detestation of Communists and Bundists will lead to acts of outright repression supported not only by reactionaries but by disgusted liberals. Democracy was not invented as a luxury to be indulged in only in times of calm and stability. It is a pliable, tough-fibered technique especially useful when times are hard. Only a weak and distrustful American could today advocate measures of repression and coercion, or encourage a mood of panic. Now is the time to demonstrate the resilience of our institutions. Now is the time to deal with dissent calmly and with full respect for its rights."

**Freda Kirchwey** , _The Nation_ (April, 1940)

"At what moment does it become necessary to limit the freedom of everyone in order to suppress the danger lurking in a disloyal handful. The moment for drastic repression has not arrived, and the task of liberals in America is difficult but clear. They must fight to preserve the Democratic safeguards contained in the Bill of Rights, while applying to Nazis and their supporters the equally Democratic methods of exposure, counter-propaganda, and justified legal attack. Otherwise the Nazi invasion of Norway is likely to end in a victory for Martin Dies in America."

**Jessica Mitford** , "A Fine Old Conflict" (1977)

"The soil for the noxious growth of McCarthyism had been well prepared by the Truman Administration, and the anti-Communist crusade was well under way, long before the junior Senator from Wisconsin himself appeared on the scene. Joseph McCarthy was virtually unknown outside his home state until 9 February 1950, when he made his celebrated speech alleging that the State Department was in the hands of Communists, which catapulted him into the national limelight he enjoyed for the next five years.

"Some signposts on the road to McCarthyism: 1947, Truman establishes the Federal loyalty oath, barring alleged subversives from government employment. States and universities follow suit. The Attorney General, under authority of a Presidential executive order, publishes a list of subversive, proscribed organizations. 1948: 10 Hollywood screenwriters sentenced to a year's imprisonment for refusing to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities about alleged subversion in the film industry. Mundt-Nixon bill introduced in Senate, requiring registration of Communists and members of 'Communist fronts'. Henry Wallace's campaign for the Presidency on the Progressive Party ticket, into which the C.P. had thrown all its energy and forces, ends in disastrous defeat. 1949: 12 top Communist leaders found guilty under the Smith Act of conspiring to advocate the overthrow of the government by force and violence. Alger Hiss tried and convicted of perjury. Several of the largest left-led unions expelled from CIO.

"Four months after McCarthy's opening salvo, the Korean War broke out, bringing Truman's foreign policy into harmony with his domestic drive against the Left and furnishing McCarthy with more ammunition for his anti-Communist crusade. In this climate most liberals turned tail. Senator Hubert Humphrey proposed establishing concentration camps for subversives, and declared on the floor of Congress: 'I want them (Communists) removed from the normal scene of American life, and taken into custody.' The American Civil Liberties Union, supposed guardian of First Amendment rights, instituted its own loyalty purge excluding from membership those suspected of harboring subversive ideas."

**Archibald MacLeish** , letter to Paul H. Buck (January 1, 1953)

"My radio reports that various Congressional Committees plan to investigate colleges and universities to determine whether they are riddled with Communists. Senator McCarthy is reported as including 'Communist thinkers.' Since he has already told us that he regards Benny de Vote and young Arthur Schlesinger as Communist thinkers we have some notion of what that means.

"You will recall that I am to be away the second half year. You will recall also that Senator McCarthy has already attacked me as belonging to more Communist front organizations than any man he has ever mentioned. He - or one of the other committees - can be expected to attack me again when he or they get around to Harvard - should be early in the campaign. If I am away in the British West Indies at the time I should like you to have the facts.

"But before I set them down I should like to ask a question which must be in your mind and in the minds of many others. Has not the time come for the believers in the American tradition of intellectual liberty - above all the believers in positions of responsibility on the faculties of the free universities - to take a firm stand on the fundamental issue? There is no disagreement, I take it, on the issue of Communists in teaching. No man who accepts a prior loyalty to any authority other than his own conscience, his own judgment of the truth, should be permitted to teach in a free society. That view I take it, is held by those responsible for the selection of teachers in all colleges and universities in this country. It is also applied in the case of Communists at least - though it is notoriously not applied in certain cases at the other extreme.

"I have not been told what Communist-front organizations the Senator has in mind but I assume they include the League of American Writers and various other organizations of an anti-Fascist character to which I belonged at the time of the Spanish War and during the rise of the Nazi danger and from which I removed myself when I entered the Government as Librarian of Congress in 1939.

"My own personal position on the issue of Communism has been clear throughout, and the record is a matter of public knowledge. I was, I think I can say without immodesty, one of the first American writers to attack the Marxists. This was, of course, on the literary front since it was on the literary front I met them. In the early '30s the Marxist position was, as you know, a fashionable position among the critics. Attacks on Communism were not the pleasant and profitable exercises they are now when all politicians and most publicists fall all over themselves and each other to demonstrate their detestation of everything Communism is or stands for. In the early '30s, to attack the Communists was to bring the hornets out and the stings could hurt."

**Lee J. Cobb** was one of those who was originally Blacklisted but eventually agreed to do a deal with the HCUA.

"When the facilities of the government of the United States are drawn on an individual it can be terrifying. The Blacklist is just the opening gambit - being deprived of work. Your passport is confiscated. That's minor. But not being able to move without being tailed is something else. After a certain point it grows to implied as well as articulated threats, and people succumb. My wife did, and she was institutionalized. In 1953 the HCUA did a deal with me. I was pretty much worn down. I had no money. I couldn't borrow. I had the expenses of taking care of the children. Why am I subjecting my loved ones to this? If it's worth dying for, and I am just as idealistic as the next fellow. But I decided it wasn't worth dying for, and if this gesture was the way of getting out of the penitentiary I'd do it. I had to be employable again."

**Arthur Miller** , in his autobiography, "Timebends", wrote about the Blacklisting of Louis Untermeyer (1987)

"Louis Untermeyer, then in his 60s, was a poet and anthologist, a distinguished-looking old New York type with a large aristocratic nose and a passion for conversation, especially about writers and to become a poet. He married four times, had taught and written and published, and with the swift rise of television had become nationally known as one of the original regulars on "What's My Line?", a popular early show in which he, along with columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, publisher Bennett Cerf, and Arlene Francis, would try to guess the occupation of a studio guest by asking the fewest possible questions in the brief time allowed. All this with wisecracking and banter, at which Louis was a lovable master, what with his instant recall of every joke and pun he had ever heard.

"One day he arrived as usual at the television studio an hour before the program began and was told by the producer that he was no longer on the show. It appeared that as a result of having been listed in Life magazine as a sponsor of the Waldorf Conference (a meeting to discuss cultural and scientific links with the Soviet Union), an organized letter campaign protesting his appearance on "What's My Line?" had scared the advertisers into getting rid of him.

"Louis went back to his apartment. Normally we ran into each other in the street once or twice a week or kept in touch every month or so, but I no longer saw him in the neighborhood or heard from him. Louis didn't leave his apartment for almost a year and a half. An overwhelming and paralyzing fear had risen him. More than a political fear, it was really that he had witnessed the tenuousness of human connection and it had left him in terror. He had always loved a lot and been loved, especially on the TV program where his quips were vastly appreciated, and suddenly, he had been thrown into the street, abolished."

**Lillian Hellman** appeared before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1951, willing to talk about her own political past, but refusing to testify against others.

"To hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group."

**Budd Schulberg** was interviewed by Victor Navasky when he was writing his book, "Naming Names" (1982).

"These people (those he named), if they had it in them, could have written books and plays. There was not a Blacklist in publishing. There was not a Blacklist in the theatre. They could have written about the forces that drove them into the Communist Party. There was practically nothing written. Nor have I seen these people interested in social problems in the decades since. They're interested in their own problems and in the protection of the party."

**Whittaker Chambers** was one of those who helped provide evidence to support the idea of a Communist conspiracy. However, in a letter to Henry Regnery on January 14, 1954, he explained why he was having doubts about Joseph McCarthy.

"All of us, to one degree or another, have slowly come to question his judgment and to fear acutely that his flair for the sensational, his inaccuracies and distortions, his tendency to sacrifice the greater objective for the momentary effect, will lead him and us into trouble. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that we live in terror that Senator McCarthy will one day make some irreparable blunder which will play directly into the hands of our common enemy and discredit the whole anti-Communist effort for a long while to come."

**Max Eastman** , "The Necessity of Red Baiting", "The Freeman" (1953)

"Red Baiting - in the sense of reasoned, documented exposure of Communist and pro-Communist infiltration of government departments and private agencies of information and communication - is absolutely necessary. We are not dealing with honest fanatics of a new idea, willing to give testimony for their faith straightforwardly, regardless of the cost. We are dealing with conspirators who try to sneak in the Moscow-inspired propaganda by stealth and double talk, who run for shelter to the Fifth Amendment when they are not only permitted but invited and urged by Congressional committee to state what they believe. I myself, after struggling for years to get this fact recognized, give McCarthy the major credit for implanting it in the mind of the whole nation."

**Philip Reed** , head of General Electric, after a tour of Europe in the summer of 1953, wrote to President Dwight Eisenhower (June 8, 1953).

"I urge you to take issue with McCarthy and make it stick. People in high and low places see in him a potential Hitler, seeking the Presidency of the United States. That he could get away with what he already has in America has made some of them wonder whether our concept of Democratic governments and the rights of individuals is really different from those of the Communists and Fascists.

**Walter Lippmann** , _Washington Post_ (March 1, 1954).

"McCarthy's influence has grown as the President has appeased him. His power will cease to grow and will diminish when he is resisted, and it has been shown to our people that those to whom we look for leadership and to preserve our institutions are not afraid of him."

**Harry S. Truman** , _New York Times_ (November 17, 1953).

"It is now evident that the present administration has fully embraced, for political advantage, McCarthyism. I am not referring to the Senator from Wisconsin. He is only important in that his name has taken on the dictionary meaning of the word. It is the corruption of truth, the abandonment of the due process law. It is the use of the Big Lie and the unfounded accusation against any citizen in the name of Americanism or security. It is the rise to power of the demagogue who lives on untruth; it is the spreading of fear and the destruction of faith in every level of society."

**Dalton Trumbo** , speech to the Screen Writers Guild when accepting the Laurel Award in 1970.

"The Blacklist was a time of evil, and that no one on either side who survived it came through untouched by evil. Caught in a situation that had passed beyond the control of mere individuals, each person reacted as his nature, his needs, his convictions, and his particular circumstances compelled him to. There was bad faith and good, honesty and dishonesty, courage and cowardice, selflessness and opportunism, wisdom and stupidity, good and bad on both sides.

"When you who are in your 40s or younger look back with curiosity on that dark time, as I think occasionally you should, it will do no good to search for villains or heroes or saints or devils because there were none; there were only victims. Some suffered less than others, some grew and some diminished, but in the final tally we were all victims because almost without exception each of us felt compelled to say things he did not want to say, to do things that he did not want to do, to deliver and receive wounds he truly did not want to exchange. That is why none of us - right, Left, or center - emerged from that long nightmare without sin."

**Albert Maltz** , one of the Hollywood 10, was interviewed by the _New York Times_ in 1972.

"There is currently in vogue a thesis pronounced by Dalton Trumbo which declares that everyone during the years of blacklist was equally a victim. This is factual nonsense and represents a bewildering moral position.

"To put the point sharply: If an informer in the French underground who sent a friend to the torture chambers of the Gestapo was equally a victim, then there can be no right or wrong in life that I understand.

"Adrian Scott was the producer of the notable film 'Crossfire' in 1947 and Edward Dmytryk was its director. 'Crossfire' won wide critical acclaim, many awards and commercial success. Both of these men refused to co-operate with the HCUA. Both were held in contempt of the HCUA and went to jail.

"When Dmytryk emerged from his prison term he did so with a new set of principles. He suddenly saw the Heavenly light, testified as a friend of the HCUA, praised its purposes and practices and denounced all who opposed it. Dmytryk immediately found work as a director, and has worked all down the years since. Adrian Scott, who came out of prison with his principles intact, could not produce a film for a studio again until 1970. He was Blacklisted for 21 years. To assert that he and Dmytryk were equally victims is beyond my comprehension."

**Archibald MacLeish** , "The Conquest of America" (1949).

"Never in the history of the world was one people as completely dominated, intellectually and morally, by another as the people of the United States by the people of Russia in the four years from 1946 through 1949. American foreign policy was a mirror image of Russian foreign policy: Whatever the Russians did, we did in reverse. American domestic politics were conducted under a kind of upside-down Russian veto: No man could be elected to public office unless he was on record as detesting the Russians, and no proposal could be enacted, from a peace plan at one end to a military budget at the other, unless it could be demonstrated that the Russians wouldn't like it. American political controversy was controversy sung to the Russian tune; Left wing movements attacked right wing movements not on American issues but on Russian issues, and right wing movements replied with the same arguments turned round about.

"All this took place not in a time of national weakness or decay but precisely at the moment when the United States, having engineered a tremendous triumph and fought its way to a brilliant victory in the greatest of all wars, had reached the highest point of world power ever achieved by a single state."

Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution

The Cuban Revolution and the island's subsequent alliance with Communism and the Soviet Union offer a perplexing conundrum of the Cold War. It offers a glimpse at why the movement has not been as readily identified for what it truly is as would seem obvious to so many. Communism has many stories and sub-plots. In reviewing all of them it becomes more difficult to "cartoonize" its effect, and its personalities, with the kind of blanket evil that is easily draped over Hitler and Nazi Germany. What Communism is and was is somehow separated in the minds of some, therefore distancing it from Joe Stalin.

The best way to describe the phenomenon of Communist apology would be to imagine that World War II had ended differently. The scenarios are too many to try and compartmentalize here. The Joe Kennedy appeasement strategy is certainly one logical possibility. The point is, that war could have ended, or stalemated, without the U.S. and the Allies as clear victors. If Germany and the U.S. had developed the atomic bomb at roughly the same time, the two countries might have called it quits and settled into a different kind of Cold War. Perhaps the Germans might have obliterated London and the Americans returned the favor on, say, Dresden, or Munich, or even Berlin, and the result could have been a cease-fire.

Germany might have held Europe or most of it. Call it Germania. At some point, the West, or what was remaining of it, would have had to deal with Hitler, and the result might have been similar to the dealings with Stalin. This uneasy "peace" might have held, under the suspension of atomic, hydrogen and nuclear threat, for 50 years. Eventually Hitler would have retired or died. People in the U.S. would have advocated "peace," "understanding," "détente," "normalization," and all the other things the Left wanted during the Cold War with the Communists.

Liberals might view this scenario and say that under these circumstances they would have been the hard-liners fighting the good fight against Fascism, while Hitler's apologists would have been "right wing businessmen" vying to do business with the Germans. They would have "secretly and not-so-secretly" agreed that the Fuhrer was a bit extreme but basically "right" in his views about minorities.

Of course, like so much of liberal thinking, this scenario is utter hogwash.

First, there would be no reservoir of goodwill or admiration for a country we had fought a war with, with all the horrors that are associated with war. The Left might point to extremist organizations in the United States such as the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan, and say that from within these ranks would have emerged a groundswell of support for Hitler. This is incongruous. First, the American Nazi Party was a tiny, tiny group. George Lincoln Rockwell ran it out of his mother's house. It received attention because the press chose to spotlight it, but it was never a large movement. As for the KKK, the Left would have a hard time explaining these guys, who in the South were all members of the Democrat Party. West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, a longtime Democrat spokesman of major repute within party circles, was a Klansman. It is not a coincidence that the decline of the KKK in the South took place alongside the rise of the G.O.P. in the region. The old segregationist Dixiecrats were just spin-offs of the Democrats.

Southerners who made up the Confederacy and would be the presumed Hitlerites of this alternative Cold War would have been the highest percentage of those fighting against Hitler. That section of the nation always produces the most military personnel. Such circumstances would not produce friendship or kinship. The old Confederacy was still a Democracy, which revered the Founding Fathers, not just a few of whom were Virginians and other "sons of the South." These are not the kinds of people pre-disposed to accept and excuse totalitarianism, dictatorship or Fascism. The liberal analogy that conservatives are aligned with this kind of thought is simply that with which is false. They try over and over to do it. When Pat Buchanan advocates law 'n' order, some liberal columnist will surely say something stue-piidd like, "It sounded better in the original German."

No, the "party of Lincoln," freedom and peace through strength would have emerged as the last line of defense against Nazism in such a Cold War. One false argument is that the Nazis would have been opposed by the liberals more because a larger number of liberals are Jewish. Over time, however, thoughtful Jews would have transferred to the conservatives, which is what is happening in the real world anyway. The Left would have been taken over by the anarchist wing, as has happened, and they would be the ones appeasing instead of fighting. The Middle East situation is the best example, where strong American defense is the only thing protecting Israel. If the traditional Jewish wing of liberalism still held sway, the Left would not be appeasing Middle East terror. The bottom line is conservatives always have been the protectors of American values by protecting the world through a show of strength. Liberals always have been the blame-America crowd who would just as soon internationalize us.

The point of this Hitler/Cold War scenario, however, is to show that instead of the blanket condemnation of Nazism that is easily delivered from all, under different circumstances the view of Nazism would have been fuzzier. This explains why the view of Communism is fuzzier (on the Left; the right never wavered).

Hitler would have been portrayed by some as a "liberator." For instance, the survivors of Siberia, the gulags, and the collectivist farms had it so bad under Stalin that Hitler could have been made to look better. If you "do the math," it actually ends up this way, since in the "score" of murder, Stalin beat Hitler (Mao beat them both). Many tyrants, Communist and otherwise, might have been "replaced" by Hitler. Some Western pundits would have pointed out how Hitler and Fascism restored schools and health care. This leads us into the next point of discussion, Fidel Castro and Cuba.

No where is this example more obvious in the Communist world than Cuba. Cuba was a country of vast inequality and squalor, where a small segment of wealthy elites ignored the needs of the massive poor. It was corrupt and run by the mob. Havana was a virtual porn shop. Live sex shows were all the rage in Havana nightclubs.

Fidel Castro changed all of this. For these reasons he has been sensationalized by the Left, who for 45 years have tried to apologize for him. The only "explanation" of Castro is that he is a monster and an immensely evil human being. The people of Cuba, despite being in a very bad situation prior to Castro, were vastly better off then than they have been during his long dictatorship. That is not in any way an endorsement of Fulgencio Batista or the Mafia, but simply describes how brutal Communism is.

To an American who cannot comprehend such a thing, I offer that the poorest black person living in the worst, most violence-prone slums of Watts or Harlem, or in the most decrepit rural hovels of the old segregationist South, had it better than average people living in Communist Cuba. I have driven extensively through the slums of Los Angeles and other big American cities, and I have been to the old East Germany and seen it with my own eyes. There is no comparison.

The horrid slums of Latin America, where children prostitute themselves and are subject to the worst abuses, crimes, diseases and despair, approach but do not exceed Communism. In Chile, for instance, many live in squalor. In Cuba, everybody (except the Marxist elite) lives in squalor. The liberals somehow like the fact that all live in squalor instead of just some. As Dr. Zhivago (Omar Sharif) says to the apparatchuk when he returns from the front to find his beautiful apartment occupied by peasants, "It is more...just."

The Cuban Revolution did not just "happen." The U.S. is not an innocent by-stander of it. America propped up distasteful dictators there, just as they did in other countries. This was the result of a dangerous, imperfect world situation that we found ourselves engaged in. The balance between hegemony and justice, freedom and safety, political alliance and insecurity, can be difficult to maintain. There is a standard that the United States always strives for, every time. This standard is one in which people are free, politically and economically. Circumstances very often dilute our ability to uphold this standard. The result is that many people have found themselves to be pawns in an elaborate chess game. The line between intrusion and help is blurred. The Cold War combined with American military and economic power has made it easy to blame much of the world's woes on the U.S. In so doing, the "alternate Universe" is not seen. That is the Universe in which there is no United States. There are just these places, left to fend for themselves, subject to the whims of their own indigenous peoples, the "leaders" that emerge from whatever Darwinian systems they devise. They are at the mercy of whatever larger entities decide to take advantage of them, and must deal with issues like disease and overpopulation using whatever homegrown prescriptions they invent.

Is there some set of circumstances in which this alternate Universe, the one in which America is not a country, a system, an ideal, is a better place than the one in which America does exist? My contention is that the "alternate Universe scenario" is one that conjures up the continuing image of America sanctioned by God.

Doing "God's work" is not easy. The mistakes made are subject to plenty of criticism, some of it rightfully so. U.S. involvement in Cuba has seen its share of mistakes and successes. The struggle began against Spanish colonialism in the late 19th Century. According to some, "victory" was deprived from the people by a U.S. expeditionary force in 1898.

Cuban revolutionary Jose Marti visited the U.S. and wrote, "I have lived inside the monster and I know its entrails...Shall we bring the country dear to our hearts, virgin and fruitful, to this frenzied pack of rich against poor...white against black.... Shall we deliver it into this oven of wrath, into these sharp-toothed jaws, into this smoking crater?"

At the time of the Spanish-American War, colonialism was viewed much like Manifest Destiny had been; justification for expansion. The English poet Rudyard Kipling celebrated the event in a poem inviting the U.S. to "Take up the white man's burden." This is such a controversial concept, so easy to vilify today and yet, underneath its veil of racism and oppression, there is the nagging question, "What was the alternative?"

William Randolph Hearst led the jingoistic cheering for the Cuban war, but the free press did not fall in lock step with that way of thinking. Mark Twain wrote that the expedition's U.S. flags' stripes should be painted over in black and the stars replaced by a skull and crossbones.

Cuba became an economic colony of America. U.S. troops returned on several occasions to put down revolts. By 1920, U.S. business interests owned two-thirds of the arable land. In the 1930s, the Mafia moved in. Cuba became a playground, its beautiful women made available to fulfill the lustful fantasies of rich men. Prior to Las Vegas, Havana's gambling and tourist businesses were second to none. After World War II, Cuba became a way station for heroin shipments between Europe and the U.S., the infamous "French Connection."

In response to the economic inequities, Communism always had a foothold among the poor and the disenfranchised. Communists attacked the private homes of capitalists living in the country, away from the protection of the police and military.

Also, in the 1930s, Negro League baseball made its way into Latin America. Few people know that beisbol, which has gained wild popularity throughout the region, was started by black Americans who traveled south at the behest of Latin dictators. The Negro Leaguers, who needed to play year-round in order to make a living, took advantage of good offers and warm Winter weather. Dominican strongman Rafael Trujillo recruited Negro League all-stars, and warned them that if they lost any games executions would ensue. His team went undefeated. The teams often played for American companies operating in the region. Baseball found its way to Cuba, was a huge success, and soon excellent players emerged from the dusty fields of play.

Fidel Castro was a left-handed pitcher, reputed to have decent ability. According to some reports, the Washington Senators (an ironic twist) offered him a contract, but Castro was too involved in his law studies and radical politics to sign. What an interesting twist of fate this offers. If he had come to America and succeeded, his view of everything might have changed. Does former Senator southpaw Castro eventually attain American citizenship and get involved in the U.S. political scene? One can just picture Castro as a Democrat Congressman.

Castro did use beisbol to attract attention to his cause. As a young radical in Havana, he interrupted a game. Dressed in street clothes, he went to the pitcher's mound, took the ball from the pitcher, and motioned the batter to step up to the plate. The hitter was Don Hoak, who was a top third baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates during the regular season. The legend has it that Castro threw one right at Hoak's head.

On July 26, 1953, 160 young militants attacked the Moncada barracks in Santiago. Half of them died, most after being tortured. Many went to prison.

"It was not a putsch designed to score an easy victory without the masses," explained Raul Castro, Fidel's brother. "It was a surprise action to disarm the enemy and arm the people, with the aim of beginning armed revolutionary action it marked the start of an action to transform Cuba's political, economic and social system and put an end to the foreign oppression, poverty, unemployment, ill health and ignorance that weighed upon our country and our people."

Fidel himself was captured and imprisoned.

"History will absolve me," was his defense speech. Castro saw injustice in Cuba, and determined to change it with violence. Six years after the ultimate triumph of Gandhi, it seems that this educated man had learned little. Although he later held his Communist cards close to the vest, it seems clear even then that his role model was not the pacifist Gandhi, but the Stalinist Stalin. His goal was not equality for the masses, but power for himself. His early tenets are right out of the party line.

"The big landowners, reactionary clergy and transnational corporations represented by Batista," were the enemy in his eyes. "The national bourgeoisie, capitalists in contradiction with imperialism, but among whom only the most progressive would support a revolution." This statement indicates that Castro advocated class warfare against the successful; hoped to dilute faith in God; wanted to reduce international business; correlated making money with immorality; and tellingly implored the "useful idiots," or as he describes them "only the most progressive," to cheerlead for him.

The masses Castro hoped to reach were, "The 600,000 Cubans without work. The 500,000 farm laborers who live in miserable shacks, the 100,000 small farmers who live and die working land that is not theirs, the 30,000 teachers and professors, so badly treated and paid; the 20,000 small businessmen weighed down by debts; the 10,000 young professional people who find themselves at a dead end. These are the people, the ones who know misfortune, and are therefore capable of fighting with limitless courage."

The problem, as with all problems, is that while Castro effectively identified the problem, he never offered a solution. Were the "20,000 small businessmen weighed down by debt" better off when their small businesses were nationalized by Castro? Is it necessary to answer that question?

Cuba was run by a former Army Sergeant named Fulgencio Batista. Batista was a terrible ruler who was an open partner of the Mafia, who in turn co-existed with large corporations from the U.S. banking, telephone and agricultural industries. Batista saw that Castro had a following, and tried to evoke some "legitimacy" by releasing him, along with other Moncada survivors in May, 1955. Castro was more or less "exiled" to Mexico amid rising repression. In Mexico he met the Argentinean doctor, Che Guevara.

In November of 1956, Castro set sail by yacht for Cuba, proclaiming to his followers that, "We will be free, or we will be martyrs." 82 men waded ashore, and they were strafed by Batista's planes. Pursued by U.S.-supplied troops, there was betrayal within their ranks and they faced ambush.

12 partisans escaped and began guerrilla warfare in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra. On August 21, 1958, Castro ordered Che and Camilo Cienfuegos to lead two columns down from the Sierra Maestra. The story of Castro and Che, their close calls with planes, pursuit by American-equipped forces, betrayal by a guide, eventual escape and revolutionary existence in the mountains, began to take on legendary status. They were like ghosts, rebel images in the minds of a repressed people. The revolucion grew among the poor and the peasants. Castro's fighters took the town of Santa Clara, and word of his successes created a frenzy of excitement among the Havana citizenry.

On New Year's Eve, 1958, while Havana partied, Castro's forces made their play, catching Batista's army off guard. It was brilliant, executed perfectly, took a lot of guts, and was popularly supported. Few major events have taken place so quickly.

Batista fled Havana at 2 A.M., on New Year's Day, 1959, replaced by a military junta. Camilo and Che continued to lead guerrilla columns into Havana. Workers and peasants heeded Castro's call for a general strike, and he was able to seize power.

20,000 died in the revolution. On January 8, 32-year-old Castro entered Havana. He ordered 50,000 rifles and machine guns to be imported to defend the revolution. The rural Cuban population had an average annual income of $91.25 per person. 11 percent of Cubans drank milk, four percent ate meat, two percent had running water, and 9.1 percent had electricity. Three percent had intestinal parasites, 14 percent had tuberculosis, and 43 percent were illiterate. These figures indicate that in Cuba, capitalism had not succeeded, and the long-term goals the U.S. had for the island when they fought the Spanish had failed.

Of course, the conditions in Cuba at its lowest point were considerably better than the conditions of Stalin's collectivist farm population in the 1930s, when millions died. Nevertheless, Fidel Castro and his supporters were willing to embrace that political system with the hopes that it would succeed. In the beginning, they masked their intent just enough to raise the question as to whether they really were Marxists. Mistakes? To paraphrase Frank Sinatra, we made a few. Castro "went Communist" under the Republicans less than a decade after China had gone down the road to hell under the Democrats (albeit, Castro did not "officially" go to the Marxists until after the Bay of Pigs, a little over two years later).

The decision was made, to back Batista. Considering what history tells us about Castro's political jails, torture chambers and willingness to allow global military instability in order to gather attention for his ego, it appears unquestionable that Batista was the better choice. To use the old saw, he was the "lesser of two evils." Make no mistake, Batista was a bad guy, but if he had stayed there might have been hope on the island. Money, which was the corrupting force in Batista's life, also has the power to do good. Cuba was not a foregone conclusion. In fact, with all the rich Americans who were going there, the chances are very good that over time the poverty of Havana's streets would have become a major outrage. The forces of good that drive America would have demanded a change on those streets.

The Philippines is a country that liberals might point to as one "exploited" by America. It has been exploited to the tune of billions and billions of dollars transferred by us to them. A lot of servicemen have had a lot of uncommitted sex with a lot of Manila bargirls, which has made a lot of Filipino men mad at American men. Poverty is still rampant on their streets. The U.S. propped up a dictator named Ferdinand Marcos and his shoe-buying wife. But America also fought alongside the Filipinos like blood brothers against the Japanese. The Filipino people had ample opportunity to see examples of other countries' "exploitation." Our Naval base was a major boon to their economy, and when for political reasons we were asked to leave, we did just that. The relationship is not perfect, but there is no other major power on Earth that would have made a better partner for the Philippines than the U.S. The bottom line is that the Filipino people have resisted Communism, and now they are resisting terrorism, and when all is said and done they are happy that America has been with them, not against them.

Other Latin countries have had legitimate complaints with the U.S. The nature of our relationships with Latin America would be all but impossible to avoid complaint, but they have had the common sense to resist the alternative. Castro did not resist the alternative. His political message was not based on a desire to help the people of Cuba. He thirsted for power like a drug. He lacks morals, and at the heart of his revolution was pure class envy. He wanted to put the "high and mighty" in their place. He hated wealth and American success. He saw in the poverty of Cuba's indigenous population suffering, and determined that such a thing had to be blamed on somebody. Disease and economic deprivation, in his view, simply had to be the sole responsibility of Fulgencio Batista and criminal gambling interests, as if such quirks in the structure of society had never been seen in the history of Mankind. 45 years later, he his utopian vision has managed to create the equality he so desired. Now everybody has nothin'.

The first announcement of the new government was that 50-60 perfect of the casino profits would be directed to welfare programs, which must have made Meyer Lansky's day. "Land reform" was scheduled for May. That term had been the great bogeyman term in Guatemala, where the CIA mistakenly thought it was blatant Stalinist-type redistribution from the wealthy to the people (which in Communism means some apparatchuk). The Leftists, who after Guatemala (were beginning to hate the CIA more and more) said "land reform" was just sound economic policy. This time, "land reform" really did mean stealing.

Large estates were expropriated and turned into state farms. The American-owned

United Fruit Company was taken over with no compensation. As if no lessons had been learned from the Soviet gruppe, farms were immediately collectivized. The new government offered to let the Americans buy back the property that was stolen from them. The Eisenhower Administration told Castro to take a hike.

As in China, the big question was, How could this have happened? How could the CIA have allowed it? Who was this bearded son of a bitch, anyway? Recriminations aside, The Company knew that that their hardest work was now ahead of them. In 1959, they began monitoring telephone conversations of Cuban leaders, and transmitted subversive radio messages to Cuba from Miami, the Bahamas and Central America. Thousands of Cubans escaped the island, and immediately formed up to take it back. The face of Miami changed immediately, from a Southern backwater to a salsa town filled with the most anti-Communist people this side of Budapest. By 1960, saboteurs were operating inside Cuba.

My mid-1960, the U.S. sugar quota from Cuba was cut off. Castro nationalized the mills. In response, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that Ike launch a military invasion. Visions of the Normandy beaches danced in their heads. Richard Nixon, thinking that he would be President when the invasion took place, backed it 100 percent. The CIA and the military went into full-scale operation, training dedicated Cuban exile forces. During the first Nixon-Kennedy debate, having been briefed on the plan but knowing Nixon could not comment on it publicly, JFK charged the administration with negligence in failing to do anything about Castro. Nixon chose not to violate national security, and "lost" the debate (although those listening on radio thought he had won, as opposed to TV viewers mesmerized by Kennedy's looks vs. Nixon's "five o'clock shadow").

When Kennedy "won" the election, he was presented with the invasion plan. He was skeptical of it, and in fact already had healthy doubts about the military rooted all the way back to his Naval career. His Presidential experience would increase his doubts about the armed forces, particularly the top leadership. Negative feelings about the military would become a Kennedy and a Democrat doctrine. It all started with the Bay of Pigs.

As the invasion approached the Cuban coast on April 16, Fidel Castro announced that in fact Cuba was a Communist satellite. At 2 A.M. on April 17, 1,500 Cuban counter-revolutionaries landed at the Bay of Pigs. Castro directed a counterattack, using Soviet-supplied weapons. The Committee for the Defense of the Revolution rounded up thousands of anti-Communists.

The invading force suffered from bad planning, compromised intelligence and poor leadership. Some day documents may surface showing what Americans were spying for the Communists. Landing craft found themselves on the wrong beaches. Forces were stranded in the water, facing strafing fire while they slowly disembarked. In the end, however, the operation failed because Kennedy refused to provide air cover, which would have demonstrated what everybody knew anyway, which is that it was an American operation. It was not thought through. The force was destroyed in less than 72 hours, and the U.S. suffered a major defeat in the Cold War.

Kennedy took responsibility, which is fair since he was the President. After all, he wanted the job. Since it was not his plan, and he was only in office three months when it was put into action, it is fair to say that the blame should not be put entirely on his shoulders. However, it was too important an event, with such wide-reaching consequences, to not assess responsibility. It went so badly for so many people (in particular millions of Cubans imprisoned to this day), because of his failure to use the jets that would have turned the tide and allowed the force to succeed, that he must be blamed.

"The anti-imperialist, socialist revolution could only be one single revolution, because there is only one revolution," Castro explained, confirming conservative suspicion and adding to the laundry list of things liberals are wrong about. "That is the great dialectic truth of humanity: Imperialism, and, standing against it, socialism. I am a Marxist-Leninist and I shall be a Marxist-Leninist until the last days of my life." Castro then thumped the table in front, imitating Kruschev, who took his shoe off to pound for emphasis when he told the U.S. (at the U.N.), "We will bury you."

Liberals look at the "mistake" of the Bay of Pigs and proffer the fiction that we "turned Castro into a Communist," as if he was not one until we ruffled his feathers. This is ridiculous, and is instructive towards the modern argument that militarists in the U.S. "brought on" terrorism. Just as Castro was a Communist all throughout the revolution, a fact confirmed by thousands of witnesses, terrorists were terrorists before and after 9/11.

It has never been successfully explained why Communists call the U.S. "imperialist," other than it sounds like a good put-down. This, of course, like 99 percent of things Communists ever say, is simply that with which is a lie. The fact that it is a lie is knowledge possessed by millions. They still use the term. Imperialism is another word for monarchism, which the U.S. fought against to become a country. Its framework, which rewards hard work with success regardless of title, name or ancestry, is a major reason why monarchism has all but disappeared as a political entity. England, influenced wholly by America, first abandoned its colonial ambitions and thus its Empire, while reducing its monarchy to a mere formality. The single greatest influence in this turn of events was the United States. Certainly the Mafia influence that so infuriated Castro was anything but imperialistic.

With the Bay of Pigs a failure, The Company then stepped its operations into higher gear. Plans for economic sabotage, bacteriological warfare, economic blockade and repeated attempts to assassinate Castro were put into place, some carried further than others. Backed by Russia, Cuba was able to stay solvent during the Cold War. There is no doubt that Castro proved to be a charismatic leader in the face of tremendous pressure. However, he remains an example of how difficult it is to find great men in politics. A study of Castro cannot help but increase the admiration of other leaders who overcame adversity; like Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Unfortunately for the beautiful island nation of Cuba, Castro is in the end just another tinpot dictator.

In 1999, about 1,000 of Cuba's ruling elite, foreign diplomats and cultural personalities gathered amid massive security to view Castro's return to the scene of the crime. The event was extremely telling. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs had saved Castro. Those two conflagrations between Communism and freedom, occurring in Kennedy's first two years in office, were the best things that could have happened to Fidel.

The invasion had failed, hurting American prestige and making Castro a sympathetic figure; the lonely beacon of "socialist humanity" fending off the imperialists. Regardless of the lack of truth behind this premise, it is a wildly intoxicating image, and many in and out of the U.S. are uncomfortable enough with American displays of power to buy into it.

The missile crisis was so grave in its consequence that both sides were willing to compromise. America's end of the bargain, along with removing Jupiter missiles from Turkey (which we planned to do anyway) was to promise not to invade again. This fact of history has been overlooked by too many.

America promised not to invade. It was accepted, then, that we would not, because America is a country that has a reputation for living up to its promises. In reality, especially in the past 15 years, there has existed no entity to stop the U.S. from invading and conquering Cuba. The only thing preventing this was the decision by America not to do it, based on the principle that they gave their word not to. Had the Communists made such a promise, it only would have been kept by the vigilance of the U.S. military seeing to it that breaking the promise would not be worthwhile. Otherwise, any promises they made were no more believable than Stalin's assurances that Eastern Europe would have free elections.

Res ipsa loquiter.

When the Berlin Wall came down, many thought Castro would go down with it. His survival in the intervening years is an accomplishment. Castro's "popularity" comes from that wing of liberalism identified earlier as "Emma Goldman anarchism." There remains in America and the world a strain of anti-establishment thought that chooses to protest everything.

When America went to war with Iraq in 2003, large demonstrations were organized. The mainstream press simply chose not to tell the public this, but the Workers' World Party, a Communist organization, organized the great majority of the protests. This organization is a relic of the old Communist Party USA. They no longer espouse the straight Communist line, which is simply been proven too false even for them. But the radicals who loved Communism, or thought it was just some kind of normal human grasp for freedom and quality that went too far, were driven not so much by an ideology but by hate for America. The hatred for America stems from simply feeling that America is just too strong, too powerful, and too successful. These kinds of accomplishments are glaring examples of why they were wrong and the right was right. They are not yet at the stage where they can freely admit they were wrong, so they search for things to get mad about.

In 1999, this sentiment manifested itself when protests were organized against globalization in Seattle, Washington. The patron saint of these people is Theodore Kaczynsky, the Unabomber, who protested progress and technology.

Some anti-war protesters are average citizens who wish to avoid war, and in this respect their opinion is worthwhile and even admirable, regardless of whether one agrees with them or not. But the majority of the protesters are of the "professional" variety, motivated solely by envy. To describe them succinctly is to identify people who are offended by success, because success makes their failures more obvious. There is nothing admirable about that.

These people are the ones who deify Castro and hang up posters of Che. If they lived in Cuba, their unorthodox lifestyles and desire to make their feelings loudly, publicly known, would make them the first to land in political jails. To this day, Castro imprisons anybody who attempts even the slightest criticism of him, or tries to achieve any political power. My attempt to outline why people still admire Castro is feeble, because in actuality the thinking behind it is so irrational that nobody can really explain it.

Talk show host Michael Savage goes so far as to say it is a mental defect, an actual sickness. This at first seems to be typical right wing bluster, but if one were to take away the names, personalities and politics, he might just have something. If a scenario were presented, in which a man leads a revolution and then becomes so corrupted by it that he becomes a mass murderer and prison warden, the average person would quickly identify his evil. Castro's Cuba was George Orwell's "Animal House" after the fact. People who admire him should be viewed as oddities, like women who pine for imprisoned serial killers. Yet some of these people include major figures of the art world, such as Nobel laureates Gabriel Garcia Marquez of Colombia and Jose Saramogo of Portugal. Recently, Oliver Stone went to visit Castro and make a documentary. He determined that Castro is one of the wisest men on Earth. His portrayal was so flattering that HBO refused to produce it, since it in essence glorified a mass murderer. There is obviously something hypnotic about Castro, a la Hitler, which makes one think that maybe the devil is involved in this whole thing. While Leni Reifenstahl has been reviled her whole life for making propaganda films for the Nazis, a guy like Stone goes right out and makes something far more blatantly political than her purely symbolic, quasi-innocent works of the mid-1930s.

Castro's 1999 celebration of the 40th anniversary of the revolution had the odd appearance of a rogue's gallery of Mafioso celebrating the Appalachia conference in prison, or a bunch of murderers celebrating their tradecraft. Wearing his olive-green military uniform, Castro described his victory on January 1, 1959.

"I felt for a moment a strange sense of emptiness," he said, to leave behind the "hard, pure and healthy" life of a guerrilla to take over Cuba.

"I am not interested in power nor do I envisage assuming it at any time," Castro had lied to the crowds in 1959. 40 years later, he held as firm a grip of power on his country as any despot on Earth. In the early 2000s, some private dissent was allowed in Cuba, but in 2003 Castro decided to end it. He rounded up political prisoners, and as those words were spoken they languished in jails, just as Stalin's prisoners did. There was no opposition.

For 38 years, the U.S. had imposed an economic embargo on Cuba. There are many demands to lift it. Every administration has wisely chosen not to. Castro is evil, his ideology is evil and defeated, and he deserves to fall, not be propped up by the United States. There is little evidence that his Communist economic policies would allow for foreign money to be used effectively for the benefit of his people anyway.

Castro's admirers point out that illiteracy has been wiped out in Cuba, health care is available, the country has "excellent physicians," and it is a sports power. These are all admirable things, but with all due respect this information should be taken with a grain of salt. Reports of literacy, health care and such have the potential of being lies. Maids in hotels that cater to wealthy foreigners make far more money than doctors, so how can it make any sense that the "health care system" is any good? Liberals want to believe that a shack with sign that reads "hospital" on it is available for all, meaning they have good health care. If the medicine is scarce, the tools archaic, the doctors poorly trained and the Hippocratic oath an empty promise, then it is not good health care. As for its sports powers, numerous great baseball players from Cuba have been willing to brave shark-infested waters to come to America and play there. The fact that the populace is close to perpetual starvation is a fact that even Castro's PR people have not hidden. Literacy and "national health care" in Cuba would be 800 percent better off under free market capitalism, as they have been throughout the world.

Right now, the country, despite excellent natural resources, produces little and relies on the tourist trade. Castro, who dressed women in fatigues and propped them up as symbols of Western exploitation, "saved" by his revolution, now oversees a country where tourists can get any kind of action they want at the drop of a hat. In certain hotels, gorgeous Cuban women (and this country is famous for them) dress in sexy outfits and, for the price of a beer and a hot dog, readily perform hardcore sex acts worthy of the most extreme porn movies for these men. The aforementioned "maids" at hotels all happen to be in their 20s and are mouth-watering. The "services" they provide go well beyond cleaning the bathroom. Those who have been there and done that describe it as being like a "kid in a candy store." Is this part of Castro's "success story?"

If Fidel Castro had any decency, he would step down and allow an economic system to take over in which an attractive woman could be educated and use her brains to succeed as an entrepreneur or valuable contributor to a company, instead of a Latina sex fantasy.

In 2000, a young child named Elian Gonzalez was with his mother, who wanted to escape the island, getting on a boat to come to America. The boat went down in the Atlantic, the mother died, but Elian was saved. Castro carted out his father and demanded the boy back, as if living in a Communist hovel was better than staying with successful relatives in Miami. Bill Clinton decided to do Fidel's bidding, and sent Federal forces in to retrieve Elian. The photo of the frightened boy staring into the barrel of a weapon pointed at his eyes remains a fitting symbol of Bill Clinton's legacy.

Cuban exile leaders in Florida have come to despise Castro with an intensity rarely seen this side of Shiite Muslim Mosques. Recognizing that the Democrats were Castro's toadies while the Republicans held the line, the Miami Cuban community is now one of the most solid Republican bases in the country. During the 1999 Castro "lovefest" in Havana, exiles scorned the anniversary of "blood and tears," while reminding the world to remember nearly 400 prisoners of conscience who were Cuban prisons at that time. Reportedly, Castro has greatly added to that number.

The Third World still supports Fidel, as do Russia, North Korea and China. He is a hero in France. The French apparently love dictators as long as they hold their boots to the necks of someone other than them. Portugal and the Vatican sent messages to the 40th anniversary.

In the early 1980s, Castro embarrassed Jimmy Carter, who was pleased when Castro agreed to release all his prisoners. After Carter agreed to take them Castro sent his worst drug dealers, rapists, child molesters and various other charmers in what was called the Mariel Boat Lift. It was not an example the Democrats like to use in their book, "Successful Hard Line Policies of the Liberal Left" (one-half page from Piss Poor Press). In 1994 tens of thousands of Cubans crossed shark-infested seas to Florida in flimsy boats. Four years later, Pope Paul II came to pay his respects, which in light of recent Catholic Church revelations should raise serious questions about that organization's leadership. Hollywood star Jack Nicholson and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien arrived to kiss Castro's ring. The King of Spain, still smarting apparently from Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, has given Castro whatever little credibility his throne bestows, along with other Spanish-speaking heads of state who think their nation's peasants will give them some points for it. Occasionally something like the Ibero-American Summit in Havana takes place and Castro is carted out to speak to people who have decided that the only reason there is pollution and disease in the world is because of America.

What is forgotten by many is that the people who backed Castro in the revolution wanted Democracy. Instead, they got the motto, "Socialism or death," which does not sound very Democratic. Many got their share of death. Castro actually was a believer in Truman's "Domino Theory." He thought Cuban Communism would influence the rest of Latin America.

A few years ago, a group of women and their young kids were attacked by the Cuban coast guard because they were against socialism. The women begged for the lives of their children. The coast guard took a high powered hose and washed the people off the deck of the boat and into the water to drown.

College, technical school and specialized education is all free in Cuba. The problem is that these skills cannot be used by citizens to make worthwhile careers for themselves under their system. Public libraries are available in Cuba, but thousands of great books by Western authors are unavailable because they promote ideas that do not square with the Communist ideal. Castro claims that nobody living in Cuba is living in poverty, and only five percent of Cubans are unemployed. However, since virtually everybody lives in poverty by Western standards, but the poverty is spread equally, he calls this "no poverty." "Employment" is a title, but there is no money and little future in most Cuban occupations.

Cubans do not have the right to travel in and out of the country, without special permission from the government. They do not have freedom of speech, freedom of expression, or the right to own electronic or print media. Industries are run or owned by the government. Outside of a few old school Leftists, they are an international pariah. The choice to make the United States an enemy has cost this country and its people beyond the stated value of money. Castro's horrid atheism, officially imposed on this once-Catholic country, has caused even more deprivation. Cuba is a nation almost without a soul, robbed of traditional family values. Its people live day-to-day, starving for food, opportunity, money, respect and freedom. They are told that because they can get a shot at some free clinic they live in paradise. Fidel Castro is everything that American has always stood against, and because of that the world, thankfully, has very few Fidel Castro's. But for the people of Cuba, this is an ironic joke played on them every day.

Bay of Pigs

Vice-President Nixon opposed Castro from the beginning, and in April of 1959 it was becomingly patently obvious that he was an enemy of the U.S.

"If he's not a Communist," Nixon told the American Society of Newspaper Editors, "he certainly acts like one." Castro visited the U.S. as a guest, and was feted by Hollywood and Broadway celebrities and showgirls, surrounding him in Manhattan nightclubs, catering to his every need in one of the most disgusting displays this side of all their other disgusting displays. Castro's visit to America marks the real end of the McCarthy era and the beginning of a liberal backlash against it that continues to this day.

On March 17, 1960, President Eisenhower approved a CIA plan titled "A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime." Nine months later, official diplomatic relations were broken of.

The plan called for the creation of unified Cuban opposition to the regime; the development of a propaganda offensive for the Cuban people; the development of covert intelligence and action in country, in communication with the exile opposition; and a paramilitary of guerrilla fighters. The intent was to make all of it look like it was not part of a U.S. operation, which in retrospect seems to be the biggest mistake. Had the Eisenhower Administration identified him as a Communist, targeted him as an enemy, built support for an invasion, and gone in with a multi-national coalition, history would have been changed. Kennedy probably would not have been elected President, and there never would have been a Bay of Pigs or a Cuban Missile Crisis. But the CIA was golden in those days. "Covert Ops" was the new watchword. The feeling was that America could do whatever they wanted to in secret, without going through the process of creating Congressional or international support.

Eisenhower approved a $4,400,000 project; $950,000 for political action; $1,700,000 for propaganda; $1,500,000 for the paramilitary; and $250,000 for intelligence collection. The invasion would cost over $46 million.

On January 3, 1961, CIA Director of Plans Richard Bissell met with the President at the White House.

"The President seemed to be eager to take forceful action against Castro, and breaking off diplomatic relations appeared to be his best card," Bissell wrote in his memoirs. "He noted that he was prepared to 'move against Castro' before Kennedy's inauguration on the 20th if a 'really good excuse' was provided by Castro. 'Failing that,' he said, 'perhaps we could think of manufacturing something that would be generally acceptable.'...This is but another example of his willingness to use covert action - specifically to fabricate events - to achieve his objectives in foreign policy."

Although the plan was not carried out in the succeeding 17 days, by the time JFK took office on January 20, the plan was a fait accompli. Serious commitments were made to the Cuban exiles, and the issue promised to have major political repercussions. There is little doubt that the general consensus on both sides of the aisle was that Castro had to be removed.

Denials of any plans were made, even though on October 31, 1960, Cuban Foreign Minister Raúl Roa, in a session at the U.N. General Assembly, detailed the plan. The Communistas referred to the exiles as mercenaries and counterrevolutionaries because they were paid the princely sum of $400 a month to train, with $175 for their wives and children.

Trinidad, a city on the southern coast of Cuba near the Escambray Mountains, was the original landing point. Kennedy did not like the location, and also changed it from daytime to a nighttime operation in order to mask U.S. involvement. The Bay of Pig had an airstrip on the beach from which bombing raids could be conducted. The bay would be turned into a provisional command post by the exiles, followed by a new government. This new government would request military support from the U.S. immediately, which Kennedy wanted to justify lending U.S. troops to the fray.

"It is hard to believe in retrospect that the President and his advisers felt the plans for a large-scale, complicated military operation that had been ongoing for more than a year could be reworked in four days and still offer a high likelihood of success. It is equally amazing that we in the agency agreed so readily," Bissell stated.

An amphibious nocturnal landing, as opposed to a widespread daytime operation, reduced the possibility of a mass uprising, which was counted on and is considered one of the big mistakes of the plan. The Bay of Pigs location made retreat into the Escambray Mountains difficult if not impossible.

"Castro's fledgling air force was to be destroyed prior to the invasion," Néstor T. Carbonell described in his book, "And the Russians Stayed: The Sovietization of Cuba". "Enemy troops, trucks, and tanks would not be able to reach the brigade; they would be blasted from the air. To allay any fears of a Castro counteroffensive, the CIA briefer asserted that 'an umbrella' above would at all times guard the entire operation against any Castro fighter planes that might remain operational."

Various JFK-influenced memos and notes kept from meetings prior to the invasion warned of legal ramifications and subtly discouraged the plan. This would fall in line with the Kennedy M.O., which is to cover both ends of the argument. As President, such a policy can be disastrous. An op like the Bay of Pigs required full support in every way.

On January 28 the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that Castro's forces were too strong. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara questioned whether the plan would result in "the agreed national goal of overthrowing Castro."

On March 29 Senator Fulbright memoed JFK.

"To give this activity even covert support is of a piece with the hypocrisy and cynicism for which the United States is constantly denouncing the Soviet Union in the United Nations and elsewhere," he wrote. "This point will not be lost on the rest of the world - nor on our own consciences."

Fulbright's "conscience" never bothered him when he voted against civil rights and influenced his protégé, the "conscientious objector" Bill Clinton.

Under Secretary of State Chester A. Bowles wrote to Secretary of State Dean Rusk on March 31 citing moral and legal grounds in opposition to the plan. Arthur Schlesinger in "A Thousand Days" wrote, "Fulbright, speaking in an emphatic and incredulous way, denounced the whole idea. The operation, he said, was wildly out of proportion to the threat. It would compromise our moral position in the world and make it impossible for us to protest treaty violations by the Communists. He gave a brave, old-fashioned American speech, honorable, sensible and strong; and he left everyone in the room, except me and perhaps the President, wholly unmoved."

On April 12, Kennedy held a press conference, and in response to a question on Cuba said, "First, I want to say that there will not be, under any conditions, an intervention in Cuba by the United States Armed Forces. This government will do everything it possibly can, I think it can meet its responsibilities, to make sure that there are no Americans involved in any actions inside Cuba...The basic issue in Cuba is not one between the United States and Cuba. It is between the Cubans themselves."

"One further factor no doubt influenced him," wrote Schlesinger, "the enormous confidence in his own luck. Everything had broken right for him since 1956. He had won the nomination and the election against all the odds in the book. Everyone around him thought he had the Midas touch and could not lose. Despite himself, even this dispassionate and skeptical man may have been affected by the soaring euphoria of the new day."

In retrospect, both Bush Presidencies seem to have learned from JFK's mistakes. By making plans for foreign invasions well known ahead of time, they avoided the kind of secrecy that was said to discredit America during the Bay of Pigs operation. Perhaps because their idol Kennedy was such a profound liar, modern Democrats feel the need to inaccurately portray George W. Bush as one.

The counterrevolutionaries were known as Brigade 2506, assembled at Retalhuleu, on the west coast of Guatemala, where U.S. engineers fashioned a training base out of an airport. On April 14 six ships sailed from Nicaragua's Puerto Cabezas. They were given a cheering send-off by Nicaraguan president Luis Somoza. He reportedly asked for some hairs from Castro's beard.

Given the fact that the brigade departed from Nicaragua in a manner similar to Confederate troops leaving Charleston, it is not surprising that Castro knew an invasion was coming. The key in the planners' minds was not that he knew about it. The Germans knew about D-Day. The time and location were the operative factors in question.

U.S. B-26 bombers attacked four Cuban airfields at the same time on Saturday, April 15. The Cuban Air Force was dispersed and camouflaged, with unusable planes left out to draw the bombs.

The B-26s were disguised to look as if they were Cuban planes flown by defecting Cuban pilots. An exile Cuban pilot named Mario Zúñiga was photographed next to his plane, and the picture was distributed to the press. The "cover story" quickly unraveled. Many reporters had inside information and the truth was revealed.

CIA operatives had been sent to Cuba to prep for the operation ahead of time. They were supposed to aid the invaders, blowing up bridges and performing terrorist acts meant to spur the populace into supporting the exiles.

U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson rejected Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Raúl Roa's report of the attack. He presented a copy of the newspaper photo, but in the photo, the plane shown had an opaque nose, whereas the model of the B-26 planes used by the Cubans had a Plexiglas nose. Stevenson, apparently not in the loop, was to be Kennedy's "official liar."

Just before midnight on Sunday, April 16, a team of frogmen went ashore and set up landing lights to guide the operation. The force consisted of 1,500 men divided into six battalions, with Manuel Artime as the political chief.

Two battalions came ashore at Playa Girón and one at Playa Larga, but the razor-sharp coral reefs, identified by U2 spy photos as seaweed, delayed the landing. The air attacks the following morning were then exposed. Two ships sank 80 yards from shore. Heavy equipment was lost.

Cuban militia commander José Ramón González Suco was stationed in Playa Larga and he reported the invasion. On Monday, Secretary of State Rusk gave a press conference.

"The American people are entitled to know whether we are intervening in Cuba or intend to do so in the future," he said. "The answer to that question is no. What happens in Cuba is for the Cuban people to decide."

Operatives in country, some posing as students home on vacation, were unsure when the invasion would take place and were surprised to hear news reports of its beginning. Lacking coordination, they failed to blow bridges or carry out other assignments. Some of them drove to Guantánamo, jumping the fence to the U.S. Naval Base for sanctuary.

By Monday morning Castro had ordered successful air responses. Cuban pilot Captain Enrique Carreras Rojas sank the command vessel Maropa and the supply ship Houston.

Ambassador Stevenson was so outraged at being duped that he publicly urged the attack be stopped.

"Cuba is not alone today," Soviet Ambassador Zorin said. "Among her most sincere friends the Soviet Union is to be found."

Khruschev contacted JFK with a mid-day letter that read, "It is a secret to no one that the armed bands invading this country were trained, equipped and armed in the United States of America. The planes which are bombing Cuban cities belong to the United States of America; the bombs they are dropping are being supplied by the American Government.

"...It is still not late to avoid the irreparable. The government of the U.S.A. still has the possibility of not allowing the flame of war ignited by interventions in Cuba to grow into an incomparable conflagration.

"As far as the Soviet Union is concerned, there should be no mistake about our position: We will render the Cuban people and their government all necessary help to repel an armed attack on Cuba."

Expected U.S. air cover never came. Amid all the confusion and "fog of war," Kennedy was utterly defenseless. When Rusk advised that additional strikes would tilt international opinion against the U.S., Kennedy agreed.

"At about 9:30 P.M. on April 16," wrote L. Fletcher Prouty in "Bay of Pigs: The Pivotal Operation of the JFK Era", "Mr. McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the President, telephoned the CIA's General C.P. Cabell to inform him that the air strikes the following dawn should not be launched until they could be conducted from a strip within the beachhead."

"From its inception the plan had been developed under the ground rule that it must retain a covert character, that is, it should include no action which, if revealed, could not be plausibly denied by the United States and should look to the world as an operation exclusively conducted by Cubans," wrote General Maxwell Taylor in his report. "This ground rule meant, among other things, that no U.S. military forces or individuals could take part in combat operations."

JFK knew the hawks would have a field day judging his performance, so he decided to take some half measures. He authorized a limited air strike on April 19, but it resulted in the needless sacrifice of four American pilots. Most historians believe that the operation has been judged fairly, but it seems virtually impossible to believe that had Nixon been responsible for such a disaster, he would have avoided anything less than utter liberal piling-on. This is simply a fact of American life, identified and exposed to be what it is by those of us who have knowledge of it.

At 2:30 P.M., brigade commander "Pepe" Perez San Roman ordered radio operator Julio Monzon Santos to transmit a final message from brigade 2506.

"We have nothing left to fight with, " San Roman said. He was heart-broken. "How can you people do this to us, our people, our country? Over and out."

The survivors all felt the lack of air cover was the cause of their demise. 200 soldiers were killed and 1,197 were captured.

"There's no question that the brigade members were competent, valiant, and committed in their efforts to salvage a rapidly deteriorating situation in a remote area," wrote Bissell. "Most of them had no previous professional military training, yet they mounted an amphibious landing and conducted air operations in a manner that was a tribute to their bravery and dedication. They did not receive their due."

"The reality," wrote Schlesinger, "was that Fidel Castro turned out to be a far more formidable foe and in command of a far better organized regime than anyone had supposed. His patrols spotted the invasion at almost the first possible moment. His planes reacted with speed and vigor. His police eliminated any chance of sabotage or rebellion behind the lines. His soldiers stayed loyal and fought hard. He himself never panicked; and, if faults were chargeable to him, they were his overestimate of the strength of the invasion and undue caution in pressing the ground attack against the beachhead. His performance was impressive."

On April 20 Castro went on Havana's Union Radio and said, "the revolution has been victorious... destroying in less than 72 hours the army the U.S. imperialist government had organized for many months."

"We have always been in danger of direct aggression," said Castro in an April 23 speech, "we have been warning about this in the United Nations: That they would find a pretext, that they would organize some act of aggression so that they could intervene.

"The United States has no right to meddle in our domestic affairs. We do not speak English and we do not chew gum. We have a different tradition, a different culture, our own way of thinking. We have no borders with anybody. Our frontier is the sea, very clearly defined.

"How can the crooked politicians and the exploiters have more rights than the people? What right does a rich country have to impose its yoke on our people? Only because they have might and no scruples; they do not respect international rules. They should have been ashamed to be engaged in this battle of Goliath against David - and to lose it besides."

The irony of the atheist Castro using a Biblical tale to describe his own story is just one of the humiliations that America suffered with this event. The Bay of Pigs operation goes to the very heart of America's role in the world. This book argues that throughout history, evil has run unchecked. Wars and struggles resulted in monumentally inhuman acts committed by man against man. The British Empire helped to modernize and Christianize indigenous populations, but one of the enduring questions is whether this is a good thing or not. This is the focus of questions that address America's Westward Expansion, Manifest Destiny, and eventually intervention in countries like Guatemala, Iran and Cuba.

Getting back to the British Empire and Kipling's "white man's burden," it breaks down, quite simply in the end, to whether there is greater benefit brought to the indigenous populations by whites than there is disadvantage. The disadvantages are well chronicled, and include disease, exploitation and racism. Only a fool would argue that these are not legitimate arguments. The benefits are Christianity, capitalism, trade, medicine, freedom, Democratic political structures as envisioned by Plato, roads, technology, communications, telephones, air travel, cars, irrigation, effective farming techniques, and about six million, five hundred thousand, sixty-three other things - too numerous to list here.

Some fools argue that these things are not benefits, but in so doing they identify their foolishness, therefore rendering their arguments nothing more than synapses in the air. The real question comes down to how these benefits could have been imparted on the native lands without the disadvantages (namely, the racism, exploitation and disease). This hypothetical was posed earlier in relation to America's Westward Expansion. The parameters were based on the "time travel" fantasy, which allows man to go back to other periods in history, knowing what we know now and able to apply it to what was happening then, so as to effect the better outcome. I put ex-President Clinton, the man who presided over the Politically Correct 1990s, in charge of this monumental venture. Remember, the group only has knowledge, not technology or later inventions, at their disposal. They have to make do with what is available at the time they venture to. My hypothesis is that even if Clinton entered the Indian Territories, or tried to resurrect some more peaceful resolution to the Mexican-American conflict than what actually happened, he would have found himself frustrated like modern politicians who cannot understand why they are unable to "talk sense" to Hamas, thus preventing their terrorism from disrupting the Palestinian peace process.

I could be wrong. Maybe Clinton is such a skilled negotiator that he could have established lasting frameworks of peace that would have prevented the U.S. from fighting a war with Mexico, brokering some kind of equitable deal over California, Arizona and Texas. Or he might have been able to prevent the Trail of Tears. Maybe he and Hillary could have created peace treaties that would have lasted. Perhaps the Americans and the tribes would have been able to co-exist without wars, battles like the Little Big Horn, and men like Chief George could have kept his Nez Pearce in his beloved Oregon instead of becoming a fugitive in Canada.

A hypothesis is a hypothethis; that is, an "educated guess." The "time machine" hypothesis can be applied to the British Empire just as easily. No doubt the Labor party could find some bleeding heart who could go back and broker English interaction in 19th Century India, the Orient and Africa, all done in such a way as to prevent violence, promoting understanding, and preventing the spread of disease.

The conclusion that the 19th Century Clinton, or his English counterpart, fails to successfully carry out these missions of understanding and inclusiveness, in the end becomes something that is some form of racism or bigotry. The hope here is that the realization that it would be called racism, and the desire for it not to be that, somehow fulfills that desire. That is as hopeless as Don Quixote's jousting at windmills. All that is left is an honest appraisal of history.

One cannot have the modern benefits brought by the white man without the problems brought by the white man. The expansion of empire and colonialism was an inevitable clash of cultures. The real question is whether the natives would be better off not having come in contact with whites. If Hawaiians, for instance, had never seen whites, would that island be better off today? Would native Africans, with no access to whites, ever have developed medicines, planes, cars and the like? Would they be in better shape without these things? This is a question that to many seem utterly stupid to even ask. I include myself among those who think there is not a question that the answer is "no!" However, there are those who think otherwise. They are free to think that, and we are free to identify the stupidity of that thinking.

Is it possible that delegations of whites could have been brought in to teach natives how to read, then left them books on curing cancer, building bridges, constructing phone lines, and then expected that if they came back 30 years later these things would have been accomplished? Again, there are some who might like to think that. The actual answer is, No, it is not possible. Not even Shakespeare's Horatio could have dreamt of such things in his philosophy. One story out of Africa concerns English engineers who constructed a dam and an irrigation channel to help the natives conserve drinking water and create fertile farmlands. They left, and years later came back. The Africans had torn down the wood planks, sharpened them, and used them as spears to kill each other.

Call it white arrogance and bigotry, but strip away all these notions and it becomes that with which is, as opposed to that with which some people hope would be. This by no means is to say that whites have the corner on morality. The more legitimate argument available to the Left is that the natives do less damage to themselves as simpletons than the whites do with all their technology. The Civil War, the Great War and the Holocaust seem to bear this out.

In the 20th Century, natives have gained access to "white" technology and done some terrible damage. The invention of gunpowder no doubt became a tool that allowed Orientals to kill lots of Orientals, Africans to kill lots of Africans, and so forth. The Left might say that left to their own devices, not introduced to machine guns, land mines and other weapons of (mass) destruction, native peoples never would have found their "inner killers," and simply existed as happy peaceniks.

The problem with that is several thousand years of evidence to the contrary. The Incas and Aztecs, for instance, are often cited as examples of enlightened native cultures. They created pyramids of great architectural achievement, and made breakthroughs in irrigation and water usage. They also enjoyed taking virgin girls and cutting their hearts out while the girl was still alive, as an offering to their "gods." The morally relativistic argument that breaking things and killing each other is okay because it is part of their "culture" is that with which is herein identified as a lie.

American Indians fought horrendous wars with each other for centuries before they heard of George Armstrong Custer. Ethnic, tribal and religious strife among native populations in Africa, the Middle East, the Orient and throughout the globe resulted in horrendous violence and cruelty. Many, many cases no doubt abound whereby nuclear weapons would have been used if available.

These are the facts. The Left likes to say that this is just their "culture." Fine, but if ones' culture includes breaking things and killing people, it deserves to be identified for what it is, and not excused under the guise of moral relativism. So, dear reader, by this time you must be wondering about the author, no doubt run amok still again. Off on a rant. A tangent. Not so fast. There is a point, and it goes back to the Bay of Pigs, which is as good a place to use the example as any. I am getting to it.

It all comes down to the idea that God sanctions America. If you are among those who believe that the natives would have been better off without those nasty white explorers, settlers and traders, then the argument will carry no weight. It survives only if the cost-benefit analysis of white intervention is weighed and modernity given the nod. Once this is established (and their really is no "question" about it), then the idea of America's place in this brave new world comes into view.

The premise is that after thousands of years, the world essentially consisted of Europe (with England being the dominant country), while the rest of the world was more or less a mess. Even England had so much baggage, after fighting various wars and dealing with tyrannical Kings, that they were not in the moral position to take the next big step.

In the humble opinion of Yours Truly, God in his wisdom decided that He needed a country that would be so big, so powerful, so good and so successful that it could help Him win the fight against evil. Call it a cartoon if you like, but events of the past 228 years make it difficult to totally dispute the premise. That country is America.

Such an undertaking is not something that happens smoothly. There are bumps in the road. The first was slavery. When America was finished fighting and writing laws, they banished that peculiar institution into oblivion, seen no more outside of some Russian whorehouses, Chinese massage parlors and a few Arab sheikdoms. The sex trade, however, is a heck of a lot different than blacks picking plantation cotton.

Then America, almost by force of divine will (or perhaps actually by force of divine will), rose from a few agrarian states into a transcontinental power, with a military that stopped the Kaiser. The first time had to be luck, or so it was thought in the Reichstag. After sending Hitler and Tojo to the Infernal Regions, the luck question was answered.

By 1950, something was driving U.S. foreign policy, and it was not mere diplomacy, "peace through strength," or containment. The emergence of atomic, hydrogen and eventually nuclear bombs changed the dynamic. Why, for instance, had America been the first country to successfully develop the A-bomb? Hitler had brilliant scientists working around the clock with the "heavy water" project at Pennemunde, Finland. If Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union or China had developed the weapon first, the world would be one big concentration camp. But America built it, and as a result, freedom reigned. But why? Is God not involved? Is it all just breaks? Believe that at your peril.

With all the responsibility of protecting the world during a time when Communism and hydrogen bombs hung over our Cold War heads, U.S. policymakers began to feel that they were ordained by a greater power. MacArthur had said he was called to "save the world for Christendom." The CIA adopted a Puritan stance, creating a church-like reverence for the work they were doing. Not everybody saw the seriousness of it all. The "useful idiots" who were proved wrong by history would have you believe that the Communism they wanted to "get along with" was not so bad anyway.

20 million dead in the Soviet Union. 65 million in China. Millions more in Eastern Europe, Vietnam, Cuba and Cambodia. Communism was no mystery to the policy-planners of the 1950s. McCarthyism had rent great destruction to its support base, but there were enough vigilant Americans around to open their eyes to this international atrocity.

Now, with Communism in our backyard, spreading through Latin America, the American government decided that Castro had to go. Adlai Stevenson and his ilk could not see the nobility in this. He only worried about the diplomatic ramifications, and made the morally relativistic argument that if we invaded Cuba, it made us no different than the Soviets taking over Eastern Europe. It would render future U.S. treaties invalid.

In reality, the Bay of Pigs was a part of America's ongoing Manifest Destiny. I use it to make this point not because it was a shining example of American success, but for precisely the opposite reason. The world was and is a dangerous place, and each step to the road of worldwide freedom forged by America is earned by blood and sacrifice.

Cuba remains a sore spot, but America survived it just as we survived and overcame Vietnam. It is beautiful irony, in fact, that the two countries that thought they got the better of America ended up impoverished because the ideology they put their money on died an ugly death. In so doing, not only was Communism defeated but the "victory" of the Left was denied them, as well. Satan is still out there, though, but like Middle Eastern terrorists, we have him on the run. He has dodged from Europe and Japan to the Soviet Union and China, but the U.S. has not allowed him to get a toehold. He put up a stand in the Middle East, but we have decided that enough is enough and are working on rooting him out of there, too. Now he roams freely in Africa, where AIDS and tribal wars have wrought the continent with some of the most awful horrors seen heretofore. When it is all said and done, it will be America who smokes him out of the Dark Continent. It was in this spirit that America was right to try to free Cuba, and for all the liberals who think Castro is a radically chic Robin Hood, put that in your pipes and smoke it.

What is left in Cuba is actually a parody, a joke. Free speech is a beautiful thing, but it works in odd ways. As Forrest Gump said, "Stupid is as stupid does." In this regard, America has reached the point where there is enough truthful information available. No longer do the biases of Walter Cronkite and Dan Blather influence the United States. Now, when liberals say unpatriotic or ignorant things, a large percentage of Americans have enough knowledge available to them to identify what they say as unpatriotic or ignorant. This beats heck out of being influenced by it.

The same thing applies to Castro. Whereby the Communist rulers of Vietnam and even China tend to keep their mouths shut on the international stage, knowing their Marxist slogans are the remnants of a defeated past, Castro has too much ego to go into his little corner. He and Kim Jong-Il do more to remind people of the stupidity of Communism by talking about it than by shutting it down. Both men are egomaniacs who are addicted to themselves

"Humble, honest blood was shed in the struggle against the mercenaries of imperialism," blurted Castro, still trying to identify a country that broke from imperialism in order to form themselves, as imperialists. "But what blood, what men did imperialism send here to establish that beachhead, to bleed our revolution dry, to destroy our achievements, to burn our cane? [In the account of the invasion published by Castro, it was estimated that the invaders and their families between them once owned a million acres of land, 10,000 houses, 70 factories, 10 sugar mills, five mines, and two banks.]

"We can tell the people right here that at the same instant that three of our airports were being bombed, the Yankee agencies were telling the world that our airports had been attacked by planes from our own air force. They cold-bloodedly bombed our nation and told the world that the bombing was done by Cuban pilots with Cuban planes. This was done with planes on which they painted our insignia.

"If nothing else, this deed should be enough to demonstrate how miserable are the actions of imperialism.

"No state or group of states has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatsoever, in the internal or external affairs of any other state. The foregoing principle prohibits not only armed force but also any other form of interference or attempted threat against the personality of the state or against its political, economic and cultural elements.

"No state may use or encourage the use of coercive measures of an economic or political character in order to force the sovereign will of another state and obtain from it advantages of any kind.

"The territory of a state is inviolable; it may not be the object, even temporarily, of military occupation or of other measures of force taken by another state, directly or indirectly, on any grounds whatsoever..."

Castro apparently forgot his own words when he sent Guevara to other Latin American countries to foment revolutions. He did the same thing in Africa in the 1970s, and in Grenada in the 1980s.

As for the Americans, the CIA and the Brigade, they were honorable men, not mercenaries. Interviews with former Brigade members indicate a very strong Christian identification. They knew first hand that Castro was performing vile acts on their country, and their decision to fight him was one that came from deep down.

The Americans who trained with them came to respect them immensely.

"We had lived with the Cubans for three months, and we were so close to them that their cause became our cause," recalled Joe Shannon, a colonel in the Alabama Air National Guard, and a colleague of the four dead U.S. pilots.

On April 20, 1961, President Kennedy went before the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

"...This was a struggle of Cuban patriots against a Cuban dictator," Kennedy lied. "While we could not be expected to hide our sympathies, we made it repeatedly clear that the armed forces of this country would not intervene in any way.

"But let the record show that our restraint is not inexhaustible...if the nations of this hemisphere should fail to meet their commitments against outside Communist penetration - then I want it clearly understood that this government will not hesitate in meeting its primary obligations which are to the security of our nation."

In "Cold War and Counter-Revolution: The Foreign Policy of John F. Kennedy", Richard J. Walton wrote, "Kennedy did not apologize; rather he issued threats. And he reiterated his amendment to the Monroe Doctrine; that Latin American nations were free to choose their own governments, but only as long as they were not Communist."

Castro ordered show trials for the 1,189 prisoners, sentencing all of them to 30 years in prison. "Negotiations" ensued. Ransom was more like it. In exchange for $53 million in food and medicine they were let go, another ironic fact, since if Castro had simply chosen not be a Marxist he easily would have gotten $53 million in food and medicine from a generous America. Two men, Ramon Conte and Ricardo Montenero Duque, were actually held for 25 years.

President Kennedy fired long-time CIA Director Allen W. Dulles, Deputy Director Charles P. Cabell, and Deputy Director Bissell. He then assumed full responsibility, but made sure his press handlers leaked his "secret" blame of the CIA. He ordered a full inquiry, which was written by CIA inspector general Lyman Kirkpatrick. Dulles' successor, a conservative Republican from San Francisco (how about that!) named John McCone, thought it was despicable. He ordered all but one of the 20 copies produced to be trashed. The report was classified until 1998.

According to Kirkpatrick, ignorance, incompetence, and arrogance were the hallmarks of the operation. While it was a flawed plan, the report seems intent on making The Company look bad and cleansing JFK's image. It paints a picture of a misinformed Kennedy and administration officials, poor planning, unverified intelligence and agency overreach.

"The agency reduced the exile leaders to the status of puppets," it read.

Whatever it was, it set the table for the next great Cold War confrontation, which would take place one and a half years later.

Recent Kennedy historians have "revealed" that JFK was willing to discuss a form of détente with Castro. Whether this is part of the Leftist attempt to paint Castro as less evil than he is, is not really known. What is known is that JFK and Bobby Kennedy engaged in plans that looked like anything but détente.

Code-named "Operation Mongoose," spurred by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, it was an attempt to eliminate Castro with "extreme prejudice." On the other hand, getting back to the Kennedy style of playing both ends, perhaps they were planning a "niceness" campaign in case the poisoned cigars and cyanide-laced liquor did not do the trick. It is also instructive to remember what and who the Kennedys were. The sons of Joseph P. Kennedy played to win. All the "moralism" that Bobby is credited with in advocating that the U.S. not invade Cuba to get the "missiles of October"; in helping Mexican farmworkers in California in 1968; or in giving peace a chance in Vietnam - all of this is strictly cold political calculation. The fact that they are is not a criticism of RFK. The fact is, being embarrassed by Fidel Castro made Castro an enemy of the first order, and in the Kennedy scheme of things they were going to see to it that the Cuban SOB got his. Castro knew this, and because he knows this, the argument that he was behind JFK's assassination is strengthened. Had Bobby been elected in 1968, the whole "get Castro" business would have started up again. Fidel blew a huge sigh of relief when Sirhan Sirhan killed Bobby, and he no doubt considers Mary Jo Kopechne to be a "hero of the Revolution." Politics works in strange ways.

"To understand the Kennedy Administration's obsession with Cuba, it is important to understand the Kennedys, especially Robert," Dick Bissell wrote. "From their perspective, Castro won the first round at the Bay of Pigs. He had defeated the Kennedy team; they were bitter and they could not tolerate his getting away with it. The President and his brother were ready to avenge their personal embarrassment by overthrowing their enemy at any cost. I don't believe there was any significant policy debate in the executive branch on the desirability of getting rid of Castro. Robert Kennedy's involvement in organizing and directing Mongoose became so intense that he might as well have been deputy director for plans for the operation."

An Army memorandum from March 1, 1962 titled, "Possible Actions to Provoke, Harass or Disrupt Cuba," outlined Operation Bingo, a plan to fake an attack on the U.S. base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, provide cover for a military strike on Havana. Operation Dirty Trick was to blame Castro if the 1962 Mercury manned space flight carrying John Glenn crashed. Operation Good Times included faking photos of "an obese Castro" with two voluptuous women in a lavishly furnished room "and a table brimming over with the most delectable Cuban food." The caption would read, "My ration is different."

According to U.S. News & World Report (October 26, 1998), an estimated 10,000 pages of previously secret documents were quietly declassified. Other CIA plots included hiring Mafia hit men to present a poisoned scuba suit to Castro. "Remember the Maine incident" was an effort to stir up a military attack, blame it on Cuba, and use it as an excuse for military intervention. Maybe that plan was kept around for the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Brigadier General Edward G. Lansdale, who asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff for their opinion on top-secret plans to eliminate Castro and concoct a military pretext, headed operation Mongoose. Records show that the Joint Chiefs of Staff endorsed the ideas as "suitable for planning purposes." None of them were ever carried out.

Cuban Missile Crisis

"We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked."

\- Secretary of State Dean Rusk

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the most dangerous ultimatum of the Cold War. Most accounts of it describe two nuclear superpowers on the verge of almost-unavoidable nuclear combat. Robert Kennedy showed a very clear head in arguing that an alternative to war could be found, and in so doing he is rightfully seen as the hero of the crisis.

While those of us who were not there obviously are not more insightful as to what happened than those who were, certain deductions can be made. From here, the prospect of nuclear conflagration is not nearly as unavoidable as it has been painted. Various scenarios have depicted the crisis as an escalating one, starting with an invasion of Cuba, followed by the Soviets "moving" on Berlin, followed by an "August of 1914"-style beginning of the Third World War.

The Bay of Pigs had been an international incident, but there was never much indication that the Russians were ready to get involved. Is it impossible to conceive that military action could not have been confined to Cuba? Are missiles flying out of silos and headed for D.C. the only alternative? What, really, does Berlin have to do with Cuba?

After all, the Korean War was confined to Korea, even after China entered the fray. The Vietnam War was confined to Vietnam and a few hamlets in Cambodia and Laos. Naturally, the existence of nukes in Cuba ups the ante, but Cuba is still a small island with no borders other than the ocean.

This commentary is by no means an effort to downplay the seriousness of the occasion or the fact that the Kennedys demonstrated leadership above and beyond the call of duty. They are what they are. Some of what the Kennedys are is rather despicable. Some of the things they did were shining moments in Presidential history. This was one of them.

On Saturday, October 27, 1962, Soviet ships were turned away by the U.S Naval blockade of Cuba, but the missile bases were almost operational.

"We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked," stated Secretary of State Dean Rusk.

A brief moment of "victory" was replaced by pressure on Kennedy to order an air strike or invasion. An American reconnaissance plane was shot down, the pilot killed.

A letter from Nikita Khruschev arrived on Saturday. He demanded that JFK remove Jupiter missiles from Turkey in exchange for removal of missiles from Cuba. The letter marked a downturn, since it represented a hardening from an earlier position. Khruschev had previously indicated a desire to resolve the dispute without removing the missiles in Turkey. The key, once negotiations began, was Washington's pledge not to invade Cuba. On Saturday evening, after much tenseness, President Kennedy decided to accept the terms of an earlier letter (the non-invasion pledge) along with further assurances not publicly formalized. Kennedy wanted to avoid the appearance of giving in to blackmail, which the "prisoners-for-medicine-and-food" exchange after the Bay of Pigs looked like. He tasked Robert Kennedy with transmitting the message and all "underlying meaning" to his "friend," Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin.

RFK handled his meeting well, but there is a question as to whether a quid pro quo on the Jupiter's was reached. Actually, Kennedy informed Dobrynin that the U.S. had planned to take out the missiles anyway. At this point, cooler heads appear to have begun prevailing. A realization that a lot of people could die, reinforced over many sleepless nights, no doubt was taking its toll. The events were not publicly disclosed until RFK's posthumous memoirs were published in 1969.

Khruschev's tape-recorded memoirs, smuggled to the West and published in 1970 after his death (further installments followed in 1974 and 1990), shed some doubt on Bobby's role in the process. Kruschev did not believe that Kennedy was facing a near-mutiny within his own military. This was the "dilemma" that has been painted more and more frequently by those who prefer to think the American military was a rogue outfit bent on overthrowing and assassinating the attractive young Democrat in the White House. The fact that this is a lie is knowledge possessed by millions. The "cabal" was supposed to be led by General Maxwell Taylor, who was apparently so willing to usurp the Democratic process through military takeover that Bobby later named one of his children after him.

"President Kennedy said that in exchange for the withdrawal of our missiles, he would remove American missiles from Turkey and Italy," Kruschev's posthumous memoirs recalled.

Secrecy was the key at the time. National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy and Secretary of State Dean Rusk publicly insist that RFK had simply made informal assurances, not specific promises regarding the American arsenal. After glasnost in 1989, Theodore Sorensen admitted that he had taken it upon himself to edit out a "very explicit" reference to the inclusion of the Jupiters in the final deal. The following are excerpts of recollections of the crisis by key participants:

Robert F. Kennedy

"I telephoned Ambassador Dobrynin about 7:15 P.M. and asked him to come to the Department of Justice. We met in my office at 7:45. I told him first that we knew that work was continuing on the missile bases in Cuba and that in the last few days it had been expedited. I said that in the last few hours we had learned that our reconnaissance planes flying over Cuba had been fired upon and that one of our U-2s had been shot down and the pilot killed. That for us was a most serious turn of events. President Kennedy did not want a military conflict. He had done everything possible to avoid a military engagement with Cuba and with the Soviet Union, but now they had forced our hand. Because of the deception of the Soviet Union, our photographic reconnaissance planes would have to continue to fly over Cuba, and if the Cubans or Soviets shot at these planes, then we would have to shoot back. This would inevitably lead to further incidents and to escalation of the conflict, the implications of which were very grave indeed.

He said the Cubans resented the fact that we were violating Cuban air space. I replied that if we had not violated Cuban air space, we would still be believing what Khruschev had said - that there would be no missiles placed in Cuba. In any case, I said, this matter was far more serious than the air space of Cuba - it involved the peoples of both of our countries and, in fact, people all over the globe.

"The Soviet Union had secretly established missile bases in Cuba while at the same time proclaiming privately and publicly that this would never be done. We had to have a commitment by tomorrow that those bases would be removed. I was not giving them an ultimatum but a statement of fact. He should understand that if they did not remove those bases, we would remove them. President Kennedy had great respect for the Ambassador's country and the courage of its people. Perhaps his country might feel it necessary to take retaliatory action; but before that was over, there would be not only dead Americans but dead Russians as well.

"He asked me what offer the United States was making, and I told him of the letter that President Kennedy had just transmitted to Khruschev. He raised the question of our removing the missiles from Turkey. I said that there could be no quid pro quo or any arrangement made under this kind of threat or pressure and that in the last analysis this was a decision that would have to be made by NATO. However, I said, President Kennedy had been anxious to remove those missiles from Italy and Turkey for a long period of time. He had ordered their removal some time ago, and it was our judgment that, within a short time after this crisis was over, those missiles would be gone.

I said President Kennedy wished to have peaceful relations between our two countries. He wished to resolve the problems that confronted us in Europe and Southeast Asia. He wished to move forward on the control of nuclear weapons. However, we could make progress on these matters only when the crisis was behind us. Time was running out. We had only a few more hours - we needed an answer immediately from the Soviet Union. I said we must have it the next day.

"I returned to the White House...."

(Robert F. Kennedy, "Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis", New York: New American Library, 1969, 107-109.)

Nikita Khruschev

"The climax came after five or six days, when our Ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin, reported that the President's brother, Robert Kennedy, had come to see him on an unofficial visit. Dobrynin's report went something like this:

"'Robert Kennedy looked exhausted. One could see from his eyes that he had not slept for days. He himself said that he had not been home for six days and nights.' 'The President is in a grave situation,' Robert Kennedy said, 'and does not know how to get out of it. We are under very severe stress. In fact we are under pressure from our military to use force against Cuba. Probably at this very moment the President is sitting down to write a message to Chairman Khruschev. We want to ask you, Mr. Dobrynin, to pass President Kennedy's message to Chairman Khruschev through unofficial channels. President Kennedy implores Chairman Khruschev to accept his offer and to take into consideration the peculiarities of the American system. Even though the President himself is very much against starting a war over Cuba, an irreversible chain of events could occur against his will. That is why the President is appealing directly to Chairman Khrushchev for his help in liquidating this conflict. If the situation continues much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power. The American army could get out of control.'"

("Khruschev Remembers", introduction, commentary, and notes by Edward Crankshaw, translated and edited by Strobe Talbott; Boston: Little, Brown, 1970; citation from paperback edition, New York: Bantam, 1971, pages 551-52.)

Theodore Sorensen

"...The President [Kennedy] recognized that, for Chairman Khruschev to withdraw the missiles from Cuba, it would be undoubtedly helpful to him if he could say at the same time to his colleagues on the Presidium, 'And we have been assured that the missiles will be coming out of Turkey.' And so, after the ExComm meeting [on the evening of October 27, 1962], as I'm sure almost all of you know, a small group met in President Kennedy's office, and he instructed Robert Kennedy - at the suggestion of Secretary of State [Dean] Rusk - to deliver the letter to Ambassador Dobrynin for referral to Chairman Khrushchev, but to add orally what was not in the letter: That the missiles would come out of Turkey.

"Ambassador Dobrynin felt that Robert Kennedy's book did not adequately express that the 'deal' on the Turkish missiles was part of the resolution of the crisis. And here I have a confession to make to my colleagues on the American side, as well as to others who are present. I was the editor of Robert Kennedy's book. It was, in fact, a diary of those "Thirteen Days". And his diary was very explicit that this was part of the deal; but at that time it was still a secret even on the American side, except for the six of us who had been present at that meeting. So I took it upon myself to edit that out of his diaries, and that is why the Ambassador is somewhat justified in saying that the diaries are not as explicit as his conversation."

(Sorensen comments, in Bruce J. Allyn, James G. Blight, and David A. Welch, editors, "Back to the Brink: Proceedings of the Moscow Conference on the Cuban Missile Crisis", January 27-28, 1989; Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1992, pages 92-93.)

McGeorge Bundy

"... Later [on Saturday], accepting a proposal from Dean Rusk, [John F.] Kennedy instructed his brother to tell Ambassador Dobrynin that while there could be no bargain over the missiles that had been supplied to Turkey, the President himself was determined to have them removed and would attend to the matter once the present crisis was resolved - as long as no one in Moscow called that action part of a bargain. [page 406]

"...The other part of the oral message [to Dobrynin] was proposed by Dean Rusk: That we should tell Khrushchev that while there could be no deal over the Turkish missiles, the President was determined to get them out and would do so once the Cuban crisis was resolved. The proposal was quickly supported by the rest of us [in addition to Bundy and Rusk, those present included President Kennedy, McNamara, RFK, George Ball, Roswell Gilpatrick, Llewellyn Thompson, and Theodore Sorensen]. Concerned as we all were by the cost of a public bargain struck under pressure at the apparent expense of the Turks, and aware as we were from the day's discussion that for some, even in our own closest councils, even this unilateral private assurance might appear to betray an ally, we agreed without hesitation that no one not in the room was to be informed of this additional message. Robert Kennedy was instructed to make it plain to Dobrynin that the same secrecy must be observed on the other side, and that any Soviet reference to our assurance would simply make it null and void. [pages 432-441>

"...There was no leak. As far as I know, none of the nine of us told anyone else what had happened. We denied in every forum that there was any deal, and in the narrowest sense what we said was usually true, as far as it went. When the orders were passed that the Jupiters must come out, we gave the plausible and accurate - if incomplete - explanation that the missile crisis had convinced the President once and for all that he did not want those missiles there.... [page 434]"

(From McGeorge Bundy, "Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years", New York: Random House, 1988.)

Dean Rusk

"Even though Soviet ships had turned around, time was running out. We made this very clear to Khrushchev. Earlier in the week Bobby Kennedy told Ambassador Dobrynin that if the missiles were not withdrawn immediately, the crisis would move into a different and dangerous military phase. In his book 'Khrushchev Remembers', Khrushchev states that Robert Kennedy told Dobrynin that the military might take over. Khrushchev either genuinely misunderstood or deliberately misused Bobby's statement. Obviously there was never any threat of a military takeover in this country. We wondered about Khrushchev's situation, even whether some Soviet general or member of the Politburo would put a pistol to Khrushchev's head and say, 'Mr. Chairman, launch those missiles or we'll blow your head off!'

"...In framing a response [to Khrushchev's second letter of Saturday, October 27], the President, Bundy, McNamara, Bobby Kennedy, and I met in the Oval Office, where after some discussion I suggested that since the Jupiters in Turkey were coming out in any event, we should inform the Russians of this so that this irrelevant question would not complicate the solution of the missile sites in Cuba. We agreed that Bobby should inform Ambassador Dobrynin orally. Shortly after we returned to our offices, I telephoned Bobby to underline that he should pass this along to Dobrynin only as information, not a public pledge. Bobby told me that he was then sitting with Dobrynin and had already talked with him. Bobby later told me that Dobrynin called this message 'very important information.'"

(Dean Rusk as told to Richard Rusk, "As I Saw It", New York: Norton & Co., 1990, pages 238-240.)

Dobrynin's Cable to the Soviet Foreign Ministry, October 27, 1962

TOP SECRET Making Copies Prohibited Copy No. I

CIPHERED TELEGRAM

"Late tonight R. Kennedy invited me to come see him. We talked alone.

The Cuban crisis, R. Kennedy began, continues to quickly worsen. We have just received a report that an unarmed American plane was shot down while carrying out a reconnaissance flight over Cuba. The military is demanding that the President arm such planes and respond to fire with fire. The USA government will have to do this.

I interrupted R. Kennedy and asked him, what right American planes had to fly over Cuba at all, crudely violating its sovereignty and accepted international norms? How would the USA have reacted if foreign planes appeared over its territory?

"We have a resolution of the Organization of American states that gives us the right to such overflights," R. Kennedy quickly replied.

"I told him that the Soviet Union, like all peace-loving countries, resolutely rejects such a 'right' or, to be more exact, this kind of true lawlessness, when people who don't like the social-political situation in a country try to impose their will on it - a small state where the people themselves established and maintained [their system].

"'The OAS resolution is a direct violation of the UN Charter,' I added, 'and you, as the Attorney General of the USA, the highest American legal entity, should certainly know that.'

"R. Kennedy said that he realized that we had different approaches to these problems and it was not likely that we could convince each other. But now the matter is not in these differences, since time is of the essence. 'I want,' R. Kennedy stressed, 'to lay out the current alarming situation the way the president sees it. He wants N.S. Khrushchev to know this. This is the thrust of the situation now.'

"'Because of the plane that was shot down, there is now strong pressure on the president to give an order to respond with fire if fired upon when American reconnaissance planes are flying over Cuba. The USA can't stop these flights, because this is the only way we can quickly get information about the state of construction of the missile bases in Cuba, which we believe pose a very serious threat to our national security. But if we start to fire in response - a chain reaction will quickly start that will be very hard to stop. The same thing in regard to the essence of the issue of the missile bases in Cuba. The U.S.A. government is determined to get rid of those bases - up to. In the extreme case, of bombing them, since, I repeat, they pose a great threat to the security of the USA. But in response to the bombing of these bases, in the course of which Soviet specialists might suffer, the Soviet government will undoubtedly respond with the same against us, somewhere in Europe. A real war will begin, in which millions of Americans and Russians will die. We want to avoid that any way we can, I'm sure that the government of the USSR has the same wish. However, taking time to find a way out [of the situation] is very risky (here R. Kennedy mentioned as if in passing that there are many unreasonable heads among the generals, and not only among the generals, who are itching for a "fight"). The situation might get out of control, with irreversible consequences.

"'In this regard,' R. Kennedy said, ' the president considers that a suitable basis for regulating the entire Cuban conflict might be the letter N.S. Khrushchev sent on October.26 and the letter in response from the President which was sent off today to N.S. Khrushchev through the US Embassy in Moscow. The most important thing for us,' R. Kennedy stressed, 'is to get as soon as possible the agreement of the Soviet government to halt further work on the construction of the missile bases in Cuba and take measures under international control that would make it impossible to use these weapons. In exchange the government of the USA is ready, in addition to repealing all measures on the "quarantine," to give the assurances that there will not be any invasion of Cuba and that other countries of the Western Hemisphere are ready to give the same assurances - the US government is certain of this.'

"'And what about Turkey?' I asked R. Kennedy.

"'If that is the only obstacle to achieving the regulation I mentioned earlier, then the president doesn't see any unsurmountable difficulties in resolving this issue,' replied R. Kennedy. 'The greatest difficulty for the president is the public discussion of the issue of Turkey. Formally the deployment of missile bases in Turkey was done by a special decision of the NATO Council. To announce now a unilateral decision by the president of the USA to withdraw missile bases from Turkey - this would damage the entire structure of NATO and the US position as the leader of NATO, where, as the Soviet government knows very well, there are many arguments. In short. if such a decision were announced now it would seriously tear apart NATO.

"'However, President Kennedy is ready to come to agree on that question with N.S. Khrushchev, too. I think that in order to withdraw these bases from Turkey,' R. Kennedy said, 'we need 4-5 months. This is the minimal amount of time necessary for the US government to do this, taking into account the procedures that exist within the NATO framework. On the whole Turkey issue,' R. Kennedy added, if Premier N.S. Khrushchev agrees with what I've said, we can continue to exchange opinions between him and the president, using him, R. Kennedy and the Soviet ambassador. ''However, the president can't say anything public in this regard about Turkey,' R. Kennedy said again. R. Kennedy then warned that his comments about Turkey are extremely confidential; besides him and his brother, only 2-3 people know about it in Washington.

"'That's all that he asked me to pass on to N.S. Khrushchev,' R. Kennedy said in conclusion. 'The president also asked N.S. Khrushchev to give him an answer (through the Soviet ambassador and R. Kennedy) if possible within the next day (Sunday) on these thoughts in order to have a business-like, clear answer in principle. [He asked him] not to get into a wordy discussion, which might drag things out. The current serious situation, unfortunately, is such that there is very little time to resolve this whole issue.

"'Unfortunately, events are developing too quickly. The request for a reply tomorrow,' stressed R. Kennedy, 'is just that - a request, and not an ultimatum. The president hopes that the head of the Soviet government will understand him correctly.'

I noted that it went without saying that the Soviet government would not accept any ultimatums and it was good that the American government realized that. I also reminded him of N.S. Khrushchev's appeal in his last letter to the president to demonstrate state wisdom in resolving this question. Then I told R. Kennedy that the president's thoughts would be brought to the attention of the head of the Soviet government. I also said that I would contact him as soon as there was a reply. In this regard, R. Kennedy gave me a number of a direct telephone line to the White House.

"In the course of the conversation, R. Kennedy noted that he knew about the conversation that television commentator Scali had yesterday with an Embassy adviser on possible ways to regulate the Cuban conflict [one-and-a-half lines whited out]

I should say that during our meeting R. Kennedy was very upset; in any case, I've never seen him like this before. True, about twice he tried to return to the topic of 'deception,' (that he talked about so persistently during our previous meeting), but he did so in passing and without any edge to it. He didn't even try to get into fights on various subjects, as he usually does, and only persistently returned to one topic: time is of the essence and we shouldn't miss the chance.

"After meeting with me he immediately went to see the president, with whom, as R. Kennedy said, he spends almost all his time now."

27/X-62 A. DOBRYNIN

(Source: Russian Foreign Ministry archives, translation from copy provided by NHK, in Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, "We All Lost the Cold War", Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994, appendix, pages 523-526, with minor revisions.)

Lebow and Stein comment

"We All Lost the Cold War" (excerpt):

"The cable testifies to the concern of John and Robert Kennedy that military action would trigger runaway escalation. Robert Kennedy told Dobrynin of his government's determination to ensure the removal of the Soviet missiles in Cuba, and his belief that the Soviet Union 'will undoubtedly respond with the same against us, somewhere in Europe.' Such an admission seems illogical if the administration was using the threat of force to compel the Soviet Union to withdraw its missiles from Cuba. It significantly raised the expected cost to the United States of an attack against the missiles, thereby weakening the credibility of the American threat. To maintain or enhance that credibility, Kennedy would have had to discount the probability of Soviet retaliation to Dobrynin. That nobody in the government was certain of Khrushchev's response makes Kennedy's statement all the more remarkable.

"It is possible that Dobrynin misquoted Robert Kennedy. However, the Soviet Ambassador was a careful and responsible diplomat. At the very least, Kennedy suggested that he thought that Soviet retaliation was likely. Such an admission was still damaging to compellence. It seems likely that Kennedy was trying to establish the basis for a more cooperative approach to crisis resolution. His brother, he made clear, was under enormous pressure from a coterie of generals and civilian officials who were 'itching for a fight.' This also was a remarkable admission for the Attorney General to make. The pressure on the President to attack Cuba, as Kennedy explained at the beginning of the meeting, had been greatly intensified by the destruction of an unarmed American reconnaissance plane. The President did not want to use force, in part because he recognized the terrible consequences of escalation, and was therefore requesting Soviet assistance to make it unnecessary.

"This interpretation is supported by the President's willingness to remove the Jupiter missiles as a quid pro quo for the withdrawal of missiles in Cuba, and his brother's frank confession that the only obstacle to dismantling the Jupiters were political. 'Public discussion' of a missile exchange would damage the United States' position in NATO. For this reason, Kennedy revealed, 'besides himself and his brother, only two-three people know about it in Washington.' Khrushchev would have to cooperate with the administration to keep the American concession a secret.

"Most extraordinary of all is the apparent agreement between Dobrynin and Kennedy to treat Kennedy's de facto ultimatum as 'a request, and not an ultimatum.' This was a deliberate attempt to defuse as much as possible the hostility that Kennedy's request for an answer by the next day was likely to provoke in Moscow. So too was Dobrynin's next sentence: 'I noted that it went without saying that the Soviet government would not accept any ultimatum and it was good that the American government realized that.'

"Prior meetings between Dobrynin and Kennedy had sometimes degenerated into shouting matches. On this occasion, Dobrynin indicates, the Attorney General kept his emotions in check and took the Ambassador into his confidence in an attempt to cooperate on the resolution of the crisis. This two-pronged strategy succeeded where compellence alone might have failed. It gave Khrushchev positive incentives to remove the Soviet missiles and reduced the emotional cost to him of the withdrawal. He responded as Kennedy and Dobrynin had hoped."

The Kennedy image was burnished in the 1980s by Robert McNamara and McGeorge Bundy, who felt President Ronald Reagan was embracing brinkmanship. They joined other former Kennedy aides warning that the Cuban Missile Crisis had not been resolved by America's nuclear superiority, but conventional superiority in the Caribbean, enabling restraint and quarantine to replace nuclear war.

Declassified U.S. government documents in the mid-1980s included notes and transcripts of Kennedy's top advisers, portraying a President devoted to peace in direct contradiction to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Led by Air Force General "Bombs Away With" Curt LeMay (who prosecuted the Dresden firebombings), the military was supposed to be itching to go to war. The chiefs could not guarantee the destruction through air strikes of all the Soviet missiles in Cuba. If JFK thought he could achieve through the crisis what he had failed to do at the Bay of Pigs, perhaps he would have endorsed a strike. But he faced, instead, the prospect of killing a lot of Russians and Cubans, creating a huge international imbroglio, and in the end not only failing to destroy the nukes but giving the Communists the excuse they wanted to keep them there.

In 1987 Dean Rusk revealed the proposal of a public Turkey-Cuba trade through the United Nations. Theodore Sorenson admitted that while editing "Thirteen Days" he cut references in RFK's diary to the Turkey-Cuba deal. JFK had dismissed such proposal as appeasement, attributing it to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Adlai Stevenson (who JFK disliked and called a "swisher" because he felt he lacked manly sexuality). A declassified cable from Dobrynin (published in the Cold War International History Project Bulletin) showed that RFK made the deal explicit, commenting to Dobrynin that such a document "could cause irreparable harm to my political career in the future."

Held between 1987 and 1992, a series of conferences were organized by James Blight and Janet Lang of the Thomas J. Watson, Jr., Institute for International Studies at Brown University. Many introduced revelations of "critical oral history," and included Kennedy aides, Soviet participants, and Cuban veterans (among them Fidel Castro). Along with intermediate-range missiles, the Soviet arsenal in Cuba included tactical nuclear warheads that might have been used if the United States had invaded. Cuba was apparently more in control of their destiny than originally painted, although Castro's survival and the downfall of the Soviet Union and their leadership allows him to create this picture more easily. He is supposed to have said to Kruschev "use 'em or lose 'em."

Most Soviet recollection was uncorroborated, diluted by age, or came from children, like Khrushchev's son. "One Hell of a Gamble" by Russian scholar Alexandr A. Fursenko and Yale University historian Timothy Naftali, cited quotations from still-secret Moscow archives, and were compared with new U.S. documentation.

The crisis was the beginning of the end of Kruschev, who was ousted by hard-liners in an October, 1964 coup. A military intelligence officer named Georgi Bolshakov reportedly met with Bobby Kennedy on a backchannel basis 51 times in 1961 and '62. KGB intelligence failed the Politburo. KGB station chief Alexandr Feklisov reported in March, 1962 that he had at least three well-placed sources whose names "the Russian government continues to protect." Wanna bet their Democrats? Despite this, the KGB ended up relying on inaccurate invasion tips from a bartender at the National Press Club!

Khrushchev ended up believing nobody. He dealt with a non-KGB inner circle and did not delegate authority or consult with his intelligence agencies, probably out of fear from his own experiences moving up the Stalinist ladder during the Beria era. The Politburo was infuriated at his habit of inviting prominent American businessmen visiting Moscow to the Kremlin, as if the head of Westinghouse could enlighten him as to U.S. military intentions. While trying to decide whether to place tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba, Khrushchev was visited at his dacha by the poet Robert Frost!

The Kennedy version of the crisis is designed to make them appear particularly heroic, saving the world from Armageddon. The odds of nuclear war have been said to be one in three. McGeorge Bundy said one in 100. That is quite a differential.

"In this apocalyptic matter the risk can be very small indeed and still much too large for comfort," Bundy added.

Much of the history related to the crisis centers on the aftermath of it, not the causes. Cuban leaders were expecting another invasion, and there is little doubt that they were going to get something - an invasion, an attempted assassination, a CIA-organized coup, or a combination of the above. Notably, former Secretary of Defense McNamara acknowledged in 1989, meeting with former Soviet and Cuban officials, that "if I had been a Cuban leader, I think I might have expected a U.S. invasion. Why? Because the U.S. had carried out what I have referred to publicly as a debacle - the Bay of Pigs invasion...Secondly, there were covert operations. The Cubans knew that. There were covert operations extending over a long period of time."

Kennedy had ordered a huge expansion over the Eisenhower military. Ike, the military man, knew about waste and corruption in the Military Industrial Complex. He purposely kept his forces low. Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric said that U.S. strategic forces far surpassed the Soviet military of that era, and nuclear first strike plans against the Soviet Union were considered viable. Throughout the '50s, military planners frequently used terms like "tactical nuclear weapons," "battlefield nuclear weapons," and other phraseology designed to give the impression that these bombs could be employed if necessary without the kind of "end of days" scenarios that were later attributed to their use.

The Soviets, products of a history of invasion and 19 years removed from Nazi attack, worried about worst-case scenarios. They saw in the U.S. a young country, inbued by the "cowboy" mentality handed down from Teddy Roosevelt; a nation almost untouched by war and misery, led by the swashbuckler Kennedy. The Russians and the Cubans were understandably nervous, which was the intent of U.S. diplomacy, but was a strategy that required a certain amount of delicacy.

Soviet placement of nukes 90 miles from Miami was risky and dangerous, but it did not foreshadow Communist intent to destroy the West. Make no mistake, if the Soviets thought they could have done it and gotten away with it (or incurred "acceptable" retaliatory damage), they would have bombed us to smithereens with as much glee as Hitler. But they did not have that capability. The missiles in Cuba were a clumsy diplomatic message, and despite the fact this episode cost Kruschev his job, it worked. Keeping the nukes there was not necessary to the message. The entire framework of Western thought regarding these weapons changed after October of 1962. No longer did people accept "battlefield nuclear" capability as anything but a lose-lose proposition. The American anti-war, anti-nuke, peacenik Left was thrust into action by the crisis. That was to the distinct advantage of the Communists. Once all the layers are stripped away, the world gained the in long-run advantage, too.

The "battle" between Kennedy and the J.C.S., the argument over use of these kinds of weapons, and the resulting split between hawks and doves, brings up some interesting points. Plato spoke about the "warrior spirit," and he appreciated the courage and heroism of soldiers. But he felt that government needed to be tempered by a civilian restraint. Stevenson has been depicted as the "coward" who counter-balanced LeMay in the struggle for Kennedy's soul. The Stevenson-LeMay points of view are emblematic of the larger struggle between conservatives and liberals in the West.

The Founding Fathers wanted this kind of argument to take place, figuring that the end result would be something in the middle, a moderate approach that might not satisfy everybody but would, after all the checks and balances, be the safest course. Occasionally, bold action is required. Kennedy himself wrote about this; politicians who "go against the grain," in "Profiles in Courage". The two-party system is meant to create advocates who occasionally venture towards extremism, but are tempered by a majority will in the end.

History has demonstrated that conservatives are in the right when it comes to the Cold War, the Great Society and most of the pressing issues of the second half of the 20th Century. There are members of the Left who have been shown to be outright traitors, like the Rosenberg's and Alger Hiss. Certain vitriolic haters, like Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal, seem to be nothing more than histrionic carriers of the Emma Goldman strain. These people, left to their own devices, would do things so drastically bad to America that their exposure and discreditation is much more than mere sociological bragging rights.

However, liberalism and the Democratic party, when presented as the loyal opposition in the proper spirit, offer much for America. Democracy is a fragile thing. The Framers wanted a two-party system because they wanted argument. Liberals have provided the civilian side to counter-balance Plato's warrior spirit, and the Cuban Missile Crisis is as good an example of this as we have seen. When America goes to war, flag-waving conservatives advocate patriotism, "coming together," politics ending "at the water's edge," and support for the troops. All of this is fine. Some of the anarchists whose protests are simple appeasement and moral equivalency are rightly identified and marginalized. But the liberal point of view - intelligent, reasoned, passionate yet still respectful - is not only allowed, it is necessary. The right does need counter-balancing. When properly reigned in, it does the work of greatness, but it can not always be counted on reigning themselves in.

The true "useful idiots" who have dotted the landscape for 50 years are a joke, and the challenge the Left faces is in not letting them take over. While Republicans might secretly (or not so secretly) root for this, since it means electoral success for them, America is better off with a few Adlai Stevenson's willing to stand up and offer enough alternatives so the entire gamut of decision-making is available.

Politicians are human and subject to irrational thought. In retrospect, the crisis saw its share of irrationality from all sides. It also pointed out some extremely important lessons, learned mostly by Nixon. The Communists may have been evil incarnate, the architects of mass death and horror. But the battle between the forces of good and evil were not to be won in one fell swoop. The "great game" needed to be played out, and the devil had to be dealt with. Any reader of Sun Tsu's "Art of War" knew this. The Soviets and Cubans needed to be manipulated before they could be defeated. Nixon learned how to play them against each other. It required a deft touch.

The crisis was not won by brinkmanship. It was won when Khruschev understood that events had the potential of spiraling beyond his ability to manipulate them. Mortality turned out to be our greatest ally. While the Soviets were evil, they pursued an evil of worldly creation. They had no Osama bin Laden-type desire to create a maelstrom, won by nobody. They wanted to rule the world, but there had to be a world to rule.

The crisis also proved the importance of executive leadership. Eisenhower was a "consensus gatherer" most of the time, but the most important decisions of his career were his alone. Kennedy easily could have deferred to the "best and the brightest." His old man no doubt would have said that he could blame the generals later if things went wrong. But for the first time, JFK made the tough decision, instead of waiting passively for the group to manipulate him.

The other lesson that may or may not be important is the value of first impressions. Kennedy came off as an inexperienced playboy when Kruschev met him in Vienna, and the Communists decided to test his resolve. However, Kennedy's growth as a man under fire dispels the concept that the first impression is a true harbinger.

Che Guevara

"Che was the most complete human being of our age."

\- Jean-Paul Sartre

"And our special warm salute from deep down our hearts, from the friendship that was born during our fight for the revolution; a salute to Comandante Ernesto 'Che' Guevara and all of his comrades wherever they are.

"The imperialists have killed, as they say themselves, Che lots of times at different places, but what we hope is that one random day, there where imperialism expects it the least, commander 'Che' Guevara will rise from his ashes as a phoenix: Trained and combative and healthy. And that one day we'll get much more concrete notes of Che."

\- Fidel Castro, January 1, 1967

Conservatives have said often that liberals prefer "symbolism over substance." In the modern political arena, both American parties employ their fair share of symbolic imagery, but the liberals do seem to attach themselves to this concept more. There is a sense that a Democrat is doing "good work" by visiting a black school in the ghetto, while Republicans propose Empowerment Zones to build businesses that people can use to grow their communities.

Che Guevara is the ultimate symbol. He was handsome and charismatic. He wore a dashing beret, was resplendent in his bandoliers, and wearing his fatigues, with his long hair and moustache was the perfect man of Hispanic machismo. The fact that, in another time and place he would have happily joined forces with Osama bin Laden does not stop liberal sentimentalists from hanging his posters in college classrooms and drinking establishments.

Ernesto Guevara was killed in the jungles of Bolivia in October, 1967. He was a legend in Latin America and a hero to the kids protesting the Vietnam War. His heroic status was promoted by Left wing college professors, desperate for an anti-dote to John Wayne. All the wonderful things that America stood for threatened to ruin the liberal message. They needed a handsome radical to try and make people forget America's greatness and decency. It worked with some people. It did not work with conservatives.

Che was an obscure Argentine doctor who abandoned his profession and his native land to "emancipate" the poor. As it has been said, the "road to hell is paved with good intentions." While Castro was purely power-hungry, Guevara has been described as a "true believer" in the people. If this is so, his story is a tragic one. If Che really wanted to help people, he could not have become a terrorist. But he was. If he started out with good intentions, something very wrong happened to him along the way. That is something that did not happen to Gandhi and M.L. King. It did not happen to Malcolm X.

In 1956, after having crossed paths with Castro, Che decided that Fidel was the man he would attach himself to. Together and with just a few others, they crossed the Caribbean in the rickety yacht Granma on an impossible mission. They landed in a swamp, most of their men were lost, and the survivors fought their way to the Sierra Maestra. For over two years they waged what in retrospect does not look like much of a revolucion. The guerrilla campaign allowed Che to demonstrate bravery and skill. He was named commandante. Fighting in the mountains might have done something to him. Being the target of Batista's army might have inculcated in Che the idea that killing innocent men, women and children was justified. This sorry attempt at "understanding" Che is just more moral relativism. The bottom line is that he was an educated man who had access to enough information to know that what he was doing was wrong.

After the insurgents took over Havana, Castro attempted to export revolucion to the Americas. Che was his point man. The image of him standing up to the Yanquis is the one that propels his legend, not his Communism. Che was a moral guru, a Cuban Rasputin of sorts, proclaiming that a New Man had emerged. The New Man had no ego, only "ferocious love" for the other. Like Pol Pot 15 years later, Che felt the new society had to be created from scratch out of force. It had to be created out of the ruins of the old one. Che was sick with asthma himself, and he struggled against what he felt was oppression and tyranny until his execution in Vallegrande at the age of 39. This had the effect of martyring him. He was laid Christ-like on a bed of death with his eyes open. His last words are supposed to have been, "Shoot, coward, you're only going to kill a man," but this was invented. He was buried anonymously, his hands hacked off. Why this was done is not known, but the mythmakers said it was because he was feared more in death than in life. He is a symbol of the defiant 1960s. Among the poor Catholics of Latin America, it was believed he would resurrect. Latino Communism always had that odd Christian element to it, despite the fact that Castro held firmly to the atheist line. Many Nicaraguan Sandistas of the 1980s were Catholics, too.

"No lo vamos a olvidar!" was shouted throughout the region when news of Che's demise made the rounds ("We won't let him be forgotten"). Unlike Castro, who was born to murder, the redemptive quality of Che is one that even a conservative American is willing to acknowledge. Maybe, just maybe, had he lived he would have had a "conversion" like the one that Whittaker Chambers had gone through. This is not just a moot point. For instance, are there any Nazis who we acknowledge as having the potential for "conversion?" Of course. But before answering the "Could Che have changed?" question with a dismissive, "Naw," the international, social side of Communism is one that allows for differences. It was meant to appeal to the poor and the dispossessed. People understandably, at first, did not know any better. So, was Che really just a mythical figure, the hero of the only kind of cause worth fighting for, the lost ones?

...Naw...

Che did tend to wounded enemy soldiers. He had a vulnerable side to counter-balance his warrior tendencies. He did not allow himself to fall in love with the women who offered themselves to him because he did not want to risk his effectiveness as a combat leader. He also ordered the execution of prisoners without trial. Che himself envisioned his own death as hatching "two, three, many Vietnams." Thousands of young men in Latin America took to the hills, trying to live like Che, and ended up slaughtered, tortured or jailed. Guevara was uncompromising, and this was the most unrealistic style of his struggle. Revolutions in places he would have found solidarity with - South Africa, Iran, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Democracy in Latin America, East Asia and the fall of European Communism - came about because the idea sucked or negotiations with opponents was inevitable.

"Always be capable of feeling...any injustice committed against anyone anywhere in the world," Che wrote in a good-bye letter to his children. Clinton probably cynically had this in mind when he told people he "feels your pain."

Che disdained material comfort and desire. He was the ultimate hippie. The Black Panthers, the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Weathermen and other radical groups patterned themselves after him.

Time announced the 100 most important figures of the century, and only two Latin Americans made the list. Che was one of them. But like Emma Goldman, in the end he offers nothing. His medical care, his attempts to feed the hungry, were only offset by the violence and damage he did. The lesson of Che is the hard lesson of 1960s radicalism, which is that when all is said and done, it is the establishmentarian system they "despise" that offers the best place to accomplish their goals. There is a certain sense to this. The Founding Fathers are not so easily dismissed. The framework they established does indeed work. Every other idea has fallen by the wayside. Che can be a romantic figure who made some female hearts flutter, but chances are he is all style, no substance.

Che was a dangerous man who is no longer a threat, one of the better ways to achieve "sainthood." How would he have handled the realities of modern charity? American gas companies who do business in indigenous lands provide more benefits for food, housing, medicine and the like for the natives than Che ever could have. These companies do so simply because they are rich and they can. The fact that their wealth is a derivative of corporate "greed" is the conundrum that Che could never come to grips with, but more important, he could never defeat it. How frustrating would this have made him?

Some sociologists believe that more than 3 billion human beings live on less than $2 a day. 40,000 children, which is more than one each second, die of chronic hunger. These appalling conditions are what Che thought Communism could address, and yet Communism just made it worse. Anarchism and terrorism have proven to be almost as hurtful. A silent holocaust such as this is too horrid to comprehend. The human mind imagines a savior, a romantic figure, a Cause and an Answer. The fact that the Chevron Corporation, the United Way and the United States government do as much to address these conditions as anyone does not fit into that romantic notion, which of course does not change the fact that these are the facts! When corporations like Chevron run ads touting their charitable contributions, cynics say it is like putting lipstick on a pig. The children who have drinking water, schools and medicine resulting from this kind of corporate largesse do not care if it is a tax write-off or not. Win-win situations that involve profits are just not part of the Marxist vision.

The romantic Che, embodied by the posters, coffee mugs and other symbols of iconography, are very telling. The past 100 years, give or take, have answered a lot of questions, and not all the answers are satisfactory to everybody. Cynicism, pragmatism and realism have replaced idealism. Much of this has to do with the new Information Age. What we did not know about JFK during his Presidency, we knew about Bill Clinton while he was in office (not to mention now knowing all about Kennedy). The veneer has been stripped away from corporations, the Catholic Church and other long-time institutions. Watergate, the Internet, cable TV, talk radio and other forms of information have made this the "gotcha" era.

But the bigger reason idealism has suffered is the death of Communism, and with it the demise of socialism. America always did place itself in the storefront window, its beauty and its ugliness exposed for all to see. To many, the ugly side, which some saw as nascent racism, greedy capitalism, and exploitation, made it impossible to credit America as the "shining city on a hill," as Reagan called it. There had to be something else. Symbol over substance. Caring. Che. Marxist idealism. Anything else.

The death of Che and the new realizations simply do not fit into what many folks want the world to be. It is difficult for many to come to grips with the fact that Mother Theresa, a devout Catholic who had no use for Communism, did much more to alleviate suffering than Che. It is even more galling that Mother Theresa was funded, supported and could not have carried on without the support of capitalist Christians and corporate contributions. This is, at least right now, as good as it gets. The answer, after the entire search for answers and meaning, is America. It is far from perfect, but even when we look to the future and envision a world in which technology, science and innovation provide the final end to suffering, poverty, disease and starvation, what bothers a lot of people is that it will be Western (mostly American) money that fuels these inventions and discoveries. It will be the U.S. space program, U.S. corporations, scientists and researchers. It will be U.S. charity. For those who still hang up Che's posters, who prefer to think that the suffering on this planet is because of the U.S., this prospect is a sour one. As the kids like to say, Get over it.

Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971)

Nikita Khrushchev was a tyrant who, if he had half the chance, would have blown up all of Western Europe and America, conquered it, and turned it into one big Communist gulag. He would have happily sent a billion of those pesky Chinese to Kingdom Come, after the break with Mao, if he thought he could have pulled that off. It is a testament to just how bad Communism is, and how awful Joseph Stalin was, that Kruschev comes off as a humanitarian in comparison. Some Soviet leaders were men that a few Americans said they could "do business with." Kruschev was not at that level, but there was pragmatism to him. The moral relativists would look at somebody like Kruschev and say that he was a product of the system he rose up in. They would say that an American politician would do the same if they were born in Russia. This misses the point. In order to "rise through the ranks" of Soviet Communism, a man had to demonstrate a willingness to do things that moral men are not willing to do. There were plenty of moral men and women who grew up in Communist countries. They were the ones who did not joint the party. They defected. If they were incredibly brave (or stupid) they were dissidents. Many ended up in the gulags. They did not "work the system." Kruschev did "relax" Communism, although the Hungarians of 1956 would argue that point.

He was born in the Ukraine on April 17, 1894, the son of a miner who rose from the working class. At 15, he was as a pipe fitter, which was necessary enough to the industrial effort that he was exempted from military service during World War I. Instead of getting blown up or gunned down by German machine guns, he was able to joined the "workers' struggle" that led to the 1917 Revolution. In 1918 he joined the Russian Communist Party (the Bolsheviks), and served as a political worker for the Red Army in the civil war. The following year he joined the Red Army and fought against Polish troops. This earned him admission to the new Soviet schools where he made his way through the Communist hierarchy. He was secretary of the school's Communist Party Committee, and by 1925 specialized in factory and mine conditions for the party. In this capacity he gained expert knowledge.

Kruschev gained a reputation for effectiveness and enthusiasm. Earning the Order of Lenin and appointment as the first secretary of the city of Moscow in 1935, by 1939 he was a member of the Politburo.

A few things saved Kruschev. First, he was uncharismatic; short, squat, with a peasant's potato head. His lack of charm meant that he did not have the potential for leadership that is often bestowed upon tall, handsome, elegant men. Stalin put those kind to death if it appeared they had any chance of developing a following. Also, since Kruschev had not served in a major military capacity during World War I, he was not fast-tracked as a military officer. Stalin also killed most military officers, because they offered political potential and, worse, could lead a coup.

When the Germans attacked, the Red Army lacked senior officer cadres. Many political figures found themselves making military decisions. Kruschev was sent to an almost-hopeless situation, Stalingrad, when things looked bleakest. He provided a pistol to the commander in charge, who he forced to shoot himself in the head rather than face a firing a squad. Kruschev then took over, and against all odds provided inspirational leadership to the Russian citizens and soldiers who outlasted the German assault, with the help of the bitter Winter. His heroic status in the aftermath of the war meant that he walked a tightrope. On the one, it made him vulnerable to one of Stalin's purges. However, he had enough public stature to be kept alive.

Khrushchev was put in charge of experimental agricultural campaigns, such as the Virgin Lands Project, which attempted to cultivate lands in the harsher climate regions of Kazakhstan and Siberia. He failed to collectivize Ukrainian farms, and Stalin demoted him in 1947. He was then made leader of the Moscow City Party two years later. Khrushchev wanted to consolidate his power, a risky, calculated decision based on his personal position and Stalin's age. He argued with Stalin's designated heir, Georgy Malenkov, over increased Jewish persecution that became official post-World War II policy. Khrushchev gained control of local party leaders after Stalin's death in 1953, and this allowed him to defeat Malenkov. In 1955, he took over the Soviet Union.

Khrushchev gained fame traveling throughout Russia and other countries denouncing Stalin. He ordered history books to be re-written with Stalin's crimes prominently exploited. Western liberals fell for this and announced that a new kind of Soviet Union had emerged. The ideals of Communism would now have an opportunity to be employed, with all the beauty and utopianism these people thought would be unleashed. With McCarthy's downfall, many wanted to demonstrate that Communism was not so bad after all. Khrushchev met with Eleanor Roosevelt in 1957 in Yalta. Mrs. Roosevelt had always been a Soviet apologist, but her views had been kept quiet during her husband's Presidency, because Americans with common sense who knew the truth about her would have been appalled. After FDR's death, she had become a strident, vocal liberal. Her lesbian affairs have since been exposed, and some historians have suggested that she and her husband had a "marriage of convenience," making some comparison to the Bill-Hillary Clinton cabal. She and her husband did have something of an arranged marriage, but in the beginning it was certainly a normal one by standards of that time. Some have suggested that she was a Communist, or spied for the Communists. This is probably an exaggeration. She is somebody who had love for America, but considering who she was and the access to information that she must have had, her opinions are difficult to respect.

People like Eleanor Roosevelt are not easy to explain. She was well educated and had real compassion for African-Americans, the poor and the dispossessed, all admirable qualities. Many on the right have little use for her kind of thinking and feel that the world is best conducted by conservatives free to implement their vision without the Eleanor Roosevelt's of the world hindering them. I disagree, with some reservation. Her views are worthwhile as a counterweight to hard right ideology.

If the world was run by unfettered conservatism, it would go relatively smoothly, and freedom would reign amid occasional heavy-handedness. The problem with people like Eleanor Roosevelt is that if her ilk were allowed to run the world in such an unencumbered manner, the result would be Apocalypse. The Bible does not recount any "winners" of the Apocalypse, but in the Eleanor Roosevelt Apocalypse, if there is a winner, it most assuredly is not the United States.

The New York World-Telegram hired Mrs. Roosevelt to interview Kruschev in 1957. They debated arms proliferation and the ongoing persecution of Soviet Jews, along with the violation of the Yalta agreements. In the end, Mrs. Roosevelt described the talk as friendly. Kruschev wanted to be able to tell the reporters that. Mrs. Roosevelt did and acknowledged that on some issues "we differ."

"At least, we didn't shoot each other," Khrushchev laughingly countered. Khrushchev came to the U.S. in 1959 and visited Mrs. Roosevelt in Hyde Park, New York, where disarmament dominated the conversation. This time they found less common ground. They both urged that they wanted peace in the world. Apparently Kruschev wanted peace in the world except in Hungary.

In contrast to the virtual lovefest that Kruschev and Mrs. Roosevelt had, Kruschev engaged in highly partisan, spirited debate with Vice-President Nixon. The two established a working relationship. Kruschev understood that Nixon was a serious man whose political base was anti-Communism, and that he would be President someday. Kruschev visited the United States, including Nixon's native California. Nixon visited Moscow. In both countries, the visiting politicians made trips to ordinary locations like factories and grocery stores. In Moscow, at a model kitchen that was supposed to represent the modern Soviet apartment, they got into a heated conversation known as the "kitchen debate." The two kept their respective cool, although Kruschev's "cool" had a different temperature setting. They both obviously had passion for their respective sides. Kruschev actually thought Communism was the better system. Nixon earned points with his reasoned debating style, learned discussing civil rights with Southern classmates at Duke Law School. His intelligence and knowledge of history gave him, in the general opinion of those who were there, the slight edge.

Kruschev adopted a brash diplomatic style. He did "rehabilitate" thousands of political prisoners, imprisoned by the prior regime in Siberian labor camps. He reduced the power of the secret police by replacing the NKVD with the KGB and outlawed torture. He still cracked down on religion, destroying and closing churches. He allowed a more open intellectual atmosphere in the sciences, though. He wanted the Soviets to accomplish big things that would demonstrate the "victory" of socialism. This began the "space race." In 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik, which was a capsule that orbited the Earth. In succeeding years, Kruschev desperately tried to defeat the Americans in space. He recklessly launched space flights long before they were ready, resulting in the death of numerous Soviet cosmonauts. The Americans, who did everything publicly, did not put their astronauts in needless danger. The Soviets managed to get Yuri Gagarin in space first, which they publicized. They kept all their failures, and the deaths of earlier cosmonauts, secret.

Kruschev strongly supported Castro's Revolution and resulting Communist government. He visited the U.N. and made a spectacle of himself with his shouting, screaming style. After the Bay of Pigs, with Cuba in the Soviet orbit, he blustered confidently about Communist superiority. After the Vienna Summit, he was confident of Soviet success, and this turned out to be his downfall. Lenin once said the Communists would take "Two steps back, and one step forward." After Sputnik, Gagarin, Castro, the Bay of Pigs and Vienna, he thought he was on a roll. His side had taken five steps forward and none backwards. JFK was a pretty boy, in his mind. Kruschev should have gotten better intelligence. The KGB apparently did not brief him on the Kennedy's competitive nature, or the brilliant minds of his Cabinet appointments. Thinking he could take bold measures, he put the missiles in Cuba. It has been pointed out that the overall effect of the Cuban Missile Crisis was not a total loss for the Soviets, since it inflamed the passions of the peacenik Left. This was an element of American society that played a major role in destroying U.S. military morale in Vietnam, and it started with the missile crisis.

But for Kruschev personally, the crisis was seen as a defeat (which in the shorter term it certainly was). The Politburo did not have the foresight to see its effect on the future. Kruschev had also presided over the break-up of Communist hegemony between China and the U.S.S.R. This was a huge disaster for both countries. Together, they represented a behemoth of military power, a massive population block, and control of geography that no U.S. planners could hope to overcome.

The Sino-Soviet partnership was also an important racial coalition, giving the impression that Communism was an attractive idea that crossed many boundaries. The Soviet had annexed a number of countries with substantial Oriental populations, and China gave them the imprimatur of partnership instead of oppressor. The two countries had impressive combined intelligence networks, and worked together during the Korean War on "brainwashing" techniques and other military-psychological projects with ominous potential for the West.

But Red China and the Soviet Union were tremendously suspicious of each other. Mao was difficult to deal with. Both countries had come to fear each other militarily as much or more than the U.S. The nuclear issue (Russia had the weapon, China did not, and Russia wanted it to stay that way) left the Chinese fearing attack. The split had a profound effect on geo-politics. Together, they had backed North Korea (with the Chinese entering the war). They had struck a blow against the mighty United States at a time when both countries were still poor and struggling to establish themselves. By forcing a truce at Panmunjon, they showed the U.S. was not infallible.

While both countries backed North Vietnam, their fissure had an effect on the Vietnam War. China was not willing to join the fight as they had in Korea, because they did not have Soviet backing. While the North Vietnamese did eventually conquer the south, they were unable to oversee Communist hegemony in the region that could have occurred had a powerful Sino-Chinese conglomerate stepped in, together, to control the situation. Instead, fractious wars between China, Vietnam and Cambodia resulted in chaos that killed millions and left Communism, as an ideal, the ultimate casualty.
Of course, the biggest result of the split was the triangulated strategy employed so brilliantly by the Nixon-Kissinger Administration in 1972-73. When the U.S. recognized Red China, opened business partnerships, and thus established credible influence, then immediately created détente and arms-control with the Soviets, the two countries were further pitted against each other. The seeds were planted at that point for the destruction of Communism.

Kruschev's legacy in all of this is that one decade prior to these events, he had his country were in the poll position, but he had failed to establish the kind of world dominance that the Politburo wanted. The splits that began under Kruschev's tenure were the ones that Kissinger used to further crack the monoliths apart.

"The Right Stuff"

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to Mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."

\- President John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961

"We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."

\- President John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962

The "space race" is just another in that long line of amazing, unbelievable successes of the United States that could not be accomplished by anybody else. Like all the other things the U.S. achieved, there have been countries that have forged a similar path, but only after copying the U.S.

The space program was started by Dwight Eisenhower and fostered by Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was as involved in it as anybody and deserves credit, but for reasons both symbolic and substantial, John F. Kennedy is the man responsible for it. Kennedy detractors are legion. JFK's role in the Cuban Missile Crisis is heroic, but the whole thing probably would not have happened had Kruschev not sized him up to be weak in Vienna.

The space program, however, had Kennedy's robust signature all over it. Like Kennedy, it was glamorous and sexy as hell. It was going to happen no matter who won the 1960 election. Richard Nixon would have made speeches calling for a man on the Moon, just like Kennedy. But the Kennedy style was perfectly suited to the imagery; huge, powerful rockets blasting and spewing into the atmosphere in orgiastic triumph!

Unlike the transcontinental railroad, which was actually completed by two competing U.S. railroad companies (a perfect example of competition in the capitalist system), the "space race" was a high-stakes battle for prestige and very real military advantage with a foreign adversary - the Soviets. America's victory in the race was a harbinger of its actual victory in the Cold War. Like the Cold War, an anatomy of the "space race" concludes that the U.S. was destined by every advantage to win it, but at its height the outcome was in doubt.

The U.S. space program, and the characters who gained fame within it, fall into the overused but nevertheless apt description of "uniquely American." Like Civil War generals, cowboys, and Teddy Roosevelt, they were the kinds of rugged individualists that would be hard to imagine being anything but Americans.

Flight always had the American stamp to it. It is not a coincidence that the first to achieve it - the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903 - were American. It is possible this achievement could have been the accomplishment of a German, a Frenchman or an Englishman, but (seemingly) like everything else really great in the 19th and 20th Centuries, it was American. The 66-year period from 1903 to 1969, when Americans landed on the Moon, encompasses the greatest period of advancement in the annals of Mankind, almost all of it of the red, white and blue variety. Theodore Kazcynsky would disapprove of this theorem. The fact that this "advancement" includes the development of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, which were used liberally (to coin a phrase) on humans, does not change the fact that Mankind benefited beyond words by these advancements. The reason Mankind advanced instead of descending into darkness at the hands of them can be described in five words: The United States of America. America's ability to stay ahead of the curve throughout each succeeding advancement is something that the world needs to thank God for, and the term "thank God" is one meant very literally. There were other countries with distinctly ignoble goals pursuing these advancements. America's divine sanction is verified by the vigilance that oversaw our ability to get their first and better time after time.

There are plenty of bad and evil Americans. In the battle for the world's soul that shadows America, from the Revolution to the Civil War, to two World Wars and the struggle against Marxism-Leninism, not all of our enemies have been easily demonized cartoon characters. The English we fought were the people we patterned our entire religious, economic, and legal society after. The Confederacy was filled with men of honor and extraordinary courage. It is not easy to find much humanity in the Nazi party, but it would be absurd to believe that every single German killed was sent straight to hell. The men who managed to climb the slippery slope of Communism needed to have an ability to shelve their morality in favor of power, but even among the political classes, there were those who realized they were part of the family of man. There are Americans - Joe Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, in my opinion - who have what it took to embrace whatever violent means necessary in order to succeed if they had been born in countries, and during times, when that was the only course of action available to them.

That being said, there seems to be a spirit in America that permeates us. It inculcates us with the spirit of love, goodness and a willingness to strive to be the best. This statement is laced with propaganda to the point of ridiculousness, and is dismissed as Pollyanna except for one small problem: It is actually true.

America produces a certain kind of hero. Tom Wolfe called it "The Right Stuff". It was a combination of heroism, bravery and valor. Nobody embodied if better than American astronauts. They had something special, something that really seemed to grow out of the American womb.

Flyboys always were a cut above the rest. They were the guys we sent up against the Red Baron in the skies of France during the Great War, and after Pearl, Doolittle's Raiders survived suicide missions to Tokyo.

Today, fighter pilots are manufactured from a "cookie cutter" process. They attend the Naval or Air Force Academy, or enter flight school after college. They are put through a battery of tests, physical, mental and emotional. Most "wash out" of the rigorous process. The Navy's Blue Angels are kept on a training program worthy of an ironman triathlete. The 1986 blockbuster "Top Gun" starring Tom Cruise, despite its Bruckheimer-Simpson glamorization, was an accurate depiction of who these guys are.

After Pearl Harbor, however, it was a different story. The Army Air Corps had shown an incredible lack of foresight and drastically reduced its training, bombing practice and research after World War I. A pilot and war hero named Billy Mitchell challenged them to up-grade the Air Corps. He warned that if the U.S. entered another war they would be dangerously unprepared as a result of their failures. He was court-martialed for his efforts. During FDR's first two terms, the military and particularly the Army, Navy and Marine Air Corps' were the last thing on his mind.

The Japanese managed to bomb a disproportionate number of planes at Pearl Harbor, since they were bunched right next to each other on the airfield. But the training of pilots and the building of better planes began in earnest right after that. America needed pilots and they did not have time to be choosy. They did not require college degrees. At Greenwich Country Day School in Connecticut, a 17-year old high school senior named George Herbert Walker Bush sat at his 1942 graduation commencement. He listened to the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, tell the elite students that they would benefit the country more if they went to college so they could be commissioned as officers. Most of the kids were more than happy to follow the advice. Bush, slated to go to his father's alma mater Yale, where he would play baseball, rush Skull 'n' Bones, then move into a cushy Wall Street job at Dad's brokerage firm, instead chose to become the youngest fighter pilot in the Navy. He was assigned to the South Pacific and spent the war dogfighting Jap Zeros. He was shot down twice, once rescued from shark-infested waters by his wingman. He fought off the Zero's trying to machine-gun Bush until a submarine came by. Bush had the Right Stuff. He was also, by standards of American flyboys, average. Most of them had it in spades.

African-Americans were at the bottom of the barrel in American society. The services segregated them and gave them jobs cooking and cleaning. But the need for pilots superceded race. The Army decided to give a few of them a shot at flying. They recruited the very best, brightest black students, mostly from black colleges like Spelman and Morehouse. While the white pilots faced lowered standards, the black pilot-candidates were put through the most rigorous screening process, meant to weed them out. The stricter standards were placed on them because the Army Air Corps did not want to face the added criticism of seeing blacks fail in large numbers in combat, knowing that if this occurred it would further the stereotype that blacks were inferior.

The Tuskeegee Airmen turned out to have the Right Stuff and more. Their rate of success in aerial combat with the Germans was among the best of any units in the Air Corps.

In the hollers of West Virginia, another young man had two things and two things only in common with the Tuskeegee Airmen and George H.W. Bush. He loved America and he was born to fly. His name was Chuck Yeager.

Born in 1923, he makes pains in his autobiography to mention that his folks were Republicans who did not take kindly to Democrats. Upon graduation from high school he enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps to serve in World War II.

He was shot down over enemy territory one day after his first kill in 1943, evaded capture and, with the aid of the French resistance, made his way across the Pyrenees to neutral Spain. Army policy prohibited return to combat flight by those shot down. Yeager personally appealed to General Dwight D. Eisenhower and the ban was lifted.

He flew 64 combat missions, once shooting down a German jet from a prop plane. When it was all said and done, he had downed 13 enemy aircraft, five in a single day.

After the war, Yeager became a flight instructor and test pilot in the new United States Air Force. In 1947, he tested the rocket-powered X-1 fighter plane. Nobody had ever broken the "sound barrier," and many did not think it could be done. Pilots who had tried had all crashed. Those who continued to pursue the effort were incredibly brave, but it seemed to many also incredibly stupid. Much conventional wisdom was that fixed-wing aircraft could not fly faster than sound, and a human pilot could not survive the experience. Flying out of Edwards Air Force Base in the high desert of California, Yeager proved the naysayers wrong on October 14, 1947, days after cracking several ribs in a horseback riding accident.

In 1952, he set a new air speed record of 1,650 miles per hour, more than twice the speed of sound. He flew test flights in Korea, and commanded a fighter squadron in Europe. Yeager's wife, Glynnis, had the looks of a lingerie model and his plane,  
"Glamorous Glynnis", was named after her. Yeager was a man's man of the first order. He loved to drink beer with his fellow pilots, and in his West Virginia slang would howl at the Moon, which he looked at and thought about flying to.

The "space race" began in earnest in 1956. Yeager commanded the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilots School, training pilots for the program. He supervised development of the space simulator and the introduction of advanced computers to Air Force pilots. Yeager was acknowledged to be the best pilot in the world, but because he had never gone to college he was passed over for service in space. Yeager trained almost half of the astronauts who served in the Gemini, Mercury and Apollo programs.

When other pilots expressed jealousy, Yeager backed the astronauts, who some thought were just "occupants" of capsules instead of actual pilots. Yeager pointed out that a man who volunteers to sit on top of a rocket that can explode deserves some respect.

In 1963, Yeager was flying the experimental Lockheed Starfighter at over twice the speed of sound when the engine shut off and he was forced to abandon the spinning aircraft. His compression suit was set on fire by the burning debris from the ejector seat, and he became entangled in his parachute. He survived the fall, but required extensive skin grafts for his burns.

After the Air Force space school was closed in 1966, NASA took over astronaut training. In Vietnam, Colonel Yeager commanded the 405th fighter wing out of the Philippines, flying 127 air-support missions, and trained bomber pilots.

In 1968, Yeager was promoted to brigadier general. In 1970, General Yeager served as U.S Defense Representative to Pakistan and supervised Pakistan's air defense in its war with India. He retired from the Air Force in 1975, but continued to serve as a consulting test pilot for many years.

In 1976, Chuck Yeager was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, presented to him by President Gerald Ford. President Ronald Reagan later honored him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. General Yeager's other decorations include the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star with V device, the Air Force Commendation medal, the Silver Star with oak leaf cluster, the Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross with two clusters, and the Air Medal with 10 clusters. His civilian awards include the Harmon International Trophy (1954) and the Collier and Mackay trophies (1948). He was the first and the youngest military pilot to be inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame (1973).

"The Right Stuff" (1979) by Tom Wolfe, and the popular film of the same title (1983) made Yeager famous. His autobiography was a huge best seller. He made his last flight as a military consultant on October 14, 1997, the 50th anniversary of his history-making flight in the X-1. He observed the occasion by once again breaking the sound barrier, this time in an F-15 fighter.

When Apollo II landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969, it was the greatest single achievement in the history of the world. It completely ended the "space race," leaving the Soviets in the dust.

"Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed," Neil Armstrong announced to the world. When Armstrong took his first steps on the lunar surface, he said it a "small step for man, a giant leap for Mankind." The national mandate of President Kennedy had been fulfilled.

Vice President Johnson, who decided to "shift our efforts in space from low to high gear" because he felt it was of military necessity, had chaired the Space Council. Johnson correctly pointed out that the Roman Empire had dominated because they were the first to build roads, the British had dominated because of ships, and the Americans had achieved superiority in the air. The Soviets threatened to take over in space, and LBJ fretted that they could drop nuclear bombs on us "like kids dropping rocks from a freeway overpass." Johnson's country hyperbole effused the program with enthusiasm and Yankee know-how.

"I for one do not intend to go to sleep by the light of a Communist Moon," Johnson told Eisenhower's aides while he was still Senate Majority Leader. A Presidential transition task force led by science advisor Jerome Wiesner warned Kennedy about the dangers of Soviet space domination. LBJ enthusiastically accepted his role as titular head of the program. Few V.P.s had ever been given such an important assignment. "Domination" of space was considered tantamount to nuclear superiority.

Kennedy, with his excellent political instincts, saw that the program had the potential to be much more than just another military endeavor. It had the power to engage an excited nation, while firmly establishing the U.S. as the world leader at a time when the Soviets were aggressively challenging that notion.

Kennedy had used an engaging phrase for his vision of the nation's future: The New Frontier. Space was the new frontier. In his second State of the Union message of May, 1961, he pledged the United States would land a man on the Moon, and asked the country to back this effort. He called it the "highest kind of national priority."

The program had its roots in the Manhattan Project. The Germans were trying to build an atomic bomb, too. They also had devised VX rockets, which they were sending to London to terrorize the civilian population. Called "buzz bombs," the rockets made a buzzing noise. When they stopped buzzing, that meant they were descending to the ground. They were powerful weapons, and Eisenhower made it his highest priority to destroy the rocket launching pads. Gas was diverted from George Patton to General Montgomery (to Patton's consternation) in order to spur Monty's operation.

When the war was winding down, German scientists did not want to be captured by the barbaric Soviets. A huge OSS operation was undertaken to find and capture German scientists. A Princeton-educated Jew named Moe Berg was one of the men sent to find and help bring to the West the German scientists. Berg was an amazing story. Aside from being an attorney who could speak five languages, he was a catcher for the Washington Senators in the 1930s. He was sent to Europe on an undercover mission that made James Bond look like a piker, and helped bring important scientists to the U.S. in the closing days of the war.

The Germans were stationed by the Army in Huntsville, Alabama. Werner Von Braun led them. When asked to identify certain Germans working in the Soviet space program, he informed Johnson that "our Germans are better than their Germans." He built upon the pioneering efforts of Robert Goddard, developing the Redstone rockets that were tested at Cape Canaveral Air Force base for structure and performance while Air Force personnel nearby worked to perfect the Atlas, the first U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

The U.S.S.R.'s German expatriate scientists worked on rockets and missiles, too. They helped them make an atomic bomb in 1949, long-range bombers in the early 1950s, and successfully tested an H-bomb in 1954. They mass produced medium-range ballistic missile and SS-3s. By 1957, they had fired an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of over 5,000 miles. The U.S. was amazed. They previously had thought the Russians to be backward peasants. When Sputnik, an artificial space satellite was sent into orbit with the same rocket engine as the SS-3 on October 4, 1957, America was utterly taken aback.

U.S. cities were now vulnerable and American officials began to clamor about closing the "missile gap" and getting something up there "quick and dirty," to coin von Braun's term. The Army launched a satellite but failed on a second try. They sent Explorer 1 up successfully in January, 1958, and President Eisenhower submitted a bill to Congress that was quickly passed and signed into law in late July, creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA's first goal was to put a man in orbit.

Project Mercury was the first series of planned manned space flight. In April of 1961, the Soviets beat us to the punch. They had recklessly sent several missions into space, only to see rockets crash and cosmonauts burn to death, all in an attempt to outshine the Americans. The first flight of Alan Shepard into space was well publicized, but the Russians managed to launch Yuri Gagarin in an Earth orbit a month prior. Despite the secrecy, the Soviet accomplishment was monumental and marked the second time they bettered the U.S. in four years. American talk about "Whose gonna be the first free man in space?" could not wipe the luster off the Soviet victory.

"This generation of Americans intends to be the 'world's leading spacefaring nation'," vowed President Kennedy. The space budget was double, and JFK upped the ante by making a manned Moonshot the new goal.

Kennedy's new space priority had a political edge to it, as well, inferring that Ike had not done enough about Communism, especially after Sputnik. The world was watching, and the Communist boast that their system was more productive did not look as far-fetched anymore. The stakes were enormous. Kennedy's Moon goal was risky. If the Soviets got there first and stuck a hammer and sickle on the lunar surface the imagery would be hard to overcome.

"It is vital to establish specific missions aimed at [building] national prestige," wrote Defense Secretary McNamara and NASA Director James Webb to Kennedy in May of 1961. After the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy and the country needed something like this. The Mercury program was a roaring success. After Shephard's successful flight, Gus Grissom went up, although his flight was marred by the loss of his capsule after an Atlantic splash landing. Grissom claimed that the hatch "just blew" open, allowing water to fill the interior and making it too heavy to be hauled away by helicopter, while Grissom himself had to be rescued from the sea.

John Glenn's flight was the most famous. Glenn was a Marine pilot who had flown with baseball great Ted Williams in Korea. Known as the "clean Marine," he was the poster boy of the U.S. space program. Most of the astronauts, despite their college boy backgrounds (most were graduates of the Naval Academy or had advanced degrees from elite universities), were cut out of the old school/Chuck Yeager cloth. They liked to drink, raise hell, and chase women (when they were away from their wives, which was often). Glenn was religious and faithful to his wife, Annie. He challenged the others to follow his example, leading to conflict. Annie and Glenn had been childhood sweethearts. Annie was educated, but had a speech impediment, made worse when she was nervous. The public pressure of the program caused her to withdraw. When Vice-President Johnson insisted on "consoling" her on nationwide television after Glenn's first flight was canceled, Annie refused and Glenn backed her up despite pressure from Webb.

Glenn's flight had to be shortened when a malfunction was feared. NASA debated telling him the condition of his craft, but the other astronauts insisted that as the pilot he must be told, which he was. Upon returning to the Earth's atmosphere, the possibility of the craft burning up in the hellish heat was very likely. Glenn knew this. He hummed the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" (his favorite along with the "Marine Corp hymn") during the four-minute descent through the ionization zone, emerging unscathed into national hero worship in the form of a ticket tape Broadway parade.

The rest of the Mercury astronauts completed their missions, each one accentuating the growing success of NASA, until an Oklahoman named Gordon Cooper, an Air Force pilot full of braggadocio, went up in May, 1963. Cooper liked to say to people, "Whose the best pilot you ever saw? You're lookin' at him, baby." He orbited the Earth seven times, and when he came back the Mercury project was over. The Soviets by this time were a distant memory.

Kennedy's assassination made the space program a sacred cow, and President Johnson pushed to accomplish the Moon landing in the slain President's name. Some skepticism began to grow regarding the program, with an emphasis on unmanned flights with more scientific purpose. Project Gemini husbanded NASA from Mercury to Apollo. Kennedy had insisted that a black astronaut be included, which caused a great deal of consternation in the program. There were no black astronauts whose tested qualifications approached the top white astronauts, and when some were pushed ahead of white candidates the "affirmative action" label created friction. Gus Grissom was killed in a 1967 fire, a tragedy that had many wondering whether the program was still viable. In 1968, a planned mission to the Moon headed by Frank Lovell got so close that the astronauts could see craters on the lunar surface, but technical difficulties forced them to return to Earth not having made the landing. A year later, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin manned Apollo 11 and accomplished the task. It was a hairy mission. Mere seconds' worth of fuel remained when the craft touched down, but after traversing the surface they found a landing spot. The return went off without a hitch. International television captured the Moonwalk, as it did space walks, all accompanied by a kind of cowboy banter between the astronauts and Mission Control in Houston. Tom Wolfe would later write that the re-assuring voices of American test pilots-turned-astronauts were the"same" voice we hear from the cockpit of every commercial airliner we ever fly. To return to an over-used yet applicable phrase, it is "uniquely American."

On Friday, April 13, 1970, Apollo 13 attempted a return to the Moon. It was an unlucky flight. A stir in the crio-system exploded and the mission had to be aborted. Lovell, who had come so close in 1968, again had to look out the window at an agonizingly close Moon before directing an impossible return to Earth's safety.

Von Braun had originally envisioned capsules with no windows, and the "occupants" would have no control of the vehicle. The men, in his German mind, were superfluous to the scientific and technological aspects of the project. The astronauts had lobbied for windows and pilot control, threatening to go to the press and reveal little problems that NASA wanted concealed. Their concerns were justified by Lovell's mission.

First, the Apollo 13 crew had to fashion makeshift equipment while operating on a bare-minimum amount of electrical energy just to re-orbit. Their ability to accomplish this was amazing and ranks at the top with all the glorious technological breakthroughs of the space program. In order to enter the Earth's atmosphere at the right angle and not burn up during re-entry (like Glenn could have), the crew had to visually line up a trajectory towards Earth and steer the ship manually. Von Braun's reliance on Houston computers would not have allowed for this possibility. Because they had to conserve energy, switches were turned off and the capsule was near freezing. Electrical shortouts threatened to explode inside the craft when switches were turned back on, and the crew was punchy from no sleep while holding on to each other to generate body heat while dreaming about the 80-degree tropical weather waiting for them.

Their amazing return to Earth was dubbed the "successful failure," but the public had grown bored after landing on the Moon in 1969. Apollo 13 was just another news story, but a Ron Howard movie starring Tom Hanks in 1995 told the story in great detail. If anybody ever had the Right Stuff, it was that crew.

The Apollo project continued. Alan Shepherd landed on the Moon in 1972, and the space shuttle program replaced the rocket-launched method of traversing space. Skylab docked with the Soviet ship Soyez, thawing the Cold War somewhat in 1975. NASA incredibly has sent craft to Mars, landing them and taking photos and samples from the Red Planet.

In 1986 and 2003 space shuttles exploded, causing loss of life. The Russians still maintain a credible program in conjunction with the United States. In the end, the space program did not accomplish everything it was supposed to, which was a good thing for humanity. Its original purpose was to give the U.S. the advantage in a nuclear war that was never fought. Technological advancements with great commercial and creative value inculcate our every-day lives, courtesy of the space program. Research on diseases, aging and food production has been invaluable.

While the program did not in and of itself end the Cold War, the Soviets were reduced to watching the United States in amazement, left to realize that the American future was inevitable.

The nuclear "arms race"

In 500 B.C, Leucippus postulated the theory of atoms and void. In the succeeding 2,400 years, men of science and learning tried to make sense of what made things' things. Particles, atoms, matter and mass were all discoveries and theories. Eventually the relativity of mass to space was conceived. How were things "created?" Was the Earth and everything on the Earth just "fallout" from some enormous celestial "bang?" If so, then everything - atoms, particles, matter - had some relativity to this bang. If that was so, then these Earthly atoms had the potential to explode. They just had to be coaxed into doing so.

In the early 1900s, Viennese scientist Albert Einstein studied this. The result was the theory of relativity. I make no pretense at understanding it at all, but a lot of scientists did understand it and went forth figuring it out.

In the 1930's, discoveries about the fissioning of atoms by Enrico Fermi, Otto Hahn, Fritz Strassmann and Lise Meitner laid the groundwork for the development of nuclear weapons in the next decade.

During World War II, the Manhattan Project built and tested the first atomic bombs. This was the beginning of the arms race, first with the Nazis, then the Soviets, and eventually much of the world. J. Robert Oppenheimer, along with Edward Teller, ran the Los Alamos facility where the atomic bomb was devised. Teller was a patriotic American whose main goal was to arm his country with a weapon that would could defeat the Axis powers and keep any future enemies from engaging in aggressive war against the U.S.

Oppenheimer was a horse of a different color. A prominent scientist from the University of California, he might be considered the first Berkeley radical. With war raging overseas, Oppenheimer battled his Army boss, General Leslie Groves, tooth and nail. The way Groves saw it, Oppenheimer's job was to build the atomic bomb and build it fast. Oppenheimer attached a psychological fixation to his creation, as if it was his child. He seemed to resent the fact that he was expected to turn it over to the government to do with it what they pleased.

Oppenheimer was a patriot, but his strong liberal views gave him pause. He questioned whether it was healthy for America to be as powerful as the bomb would make it. He had reservations about making the most destructive weapon in history, because he was not comfortable with the concept of warfare. The fact that using the bomb would save American lives did not deter his reservations. He agonized over the fact that German or Japanese lives would be lost instead. In many ways, Oppenheimer's liberalism was a good thing. The atomic bomb was too powerful, and using it was too serious an issue to simply be done without giving great and conscientious thought to the act. There were many in the U.S. who saw it simply as a military device, damn the consequences. Using it was not immoral. Using it without agonizing about it would have been.

Where Oppenheimer swayed from liberal to something else - not a spy, not a traitor, but decidedly more dangerous than a "useful idiot" - occurred after the war. The Soviets wanted to know how to make an atomic bomb. Oppenheimer told them. He did not pass them secrets the way Julius and Ethel Rosenberg did. In the post-war era, hopeful "cultural exchanges" were arranged by the embassies. Oppenheimer befriended Soviet scientists. In private they discussed the atomic bomb. The scientists "agreed" that the military and the politicians were crass, not morally capable of handling the responsibility of atomic weaponry. Oppenheimer was quickly identified as a soft target, and the "scientists" he casually spoke to at cocktail parties were Soviet intelligence agents. Over time, Oppenheimer told them enough for them to piece the puzzle together. In 1949, the Soviets exploded their weapon. This event, combined with China's Communist take-over, emboldened them to give the go-ahead to the Korean War.

In the 1950s, space travel and bomb shelters dominated the thinking. The United States built the first Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles in 1958.

In the 1960s, France and China joined the "Nuclear Club." The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world close enough to see the brink. This and the Vietnam War gave rise to social demonstrations across the Western world, demanding nuclear disarmament.

In the 1970s, the SALT I and Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaties opened the decade. The end of the Vietnam War was followed by the SALT II agreement. The tragic accident at Three Mile Island nuclear energy plant created added worry in the minds of Americans, who now feared not only nuclear war started by the Soviets or started by the Americans, but also fallout created by accident.

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan declared the U.S.S.R. to be the "the evil empire." Reagan's Administration engineered a massive build-up of nuclear arms. In 1985, Israel was found to have up to 200 nuclear weapons. Reagan began testing a program called the Strategic Defensive Initiative (SDI). Pundits called it "Star Wars." The Soviets called it quits. In an effort to keep up with the U.S., the Soviets simply bankrupted themselves. Communism was not able to sustain an economy that could compete with the Americans. Star Wars, even though it did not materialize into a viable shield against incoming nukes, so frightened the Soviets that they felt compelled to match it or declare defeat. By the end of the decade, they were defeated and the U.S. won Cold War when glasnost exploded into a mostly peaceful revolution across the former-Soviet block.

In the 1990s, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus chose to give up their nuclear arsenals, inherited from the former Soviet Union. Other nuclear weapons states did not follow suit. By the end of the decade two other countries, India then Pakistan, tested nuclear weapons.

In the 2000s, the U.S. again began the Star Wars program in an effort to shield the country from any future nuclear missile threat.

The creation and military use of the atomic bomb, followed by the "arms race," the "space race," the "missile gap," nuclear weapons and military build-up of the Cold War, has been the source of the greatest controversy in the world over the previous 60 years. It has been the driving argument of liberalism and the wedge that most separated the right from the Left, and the doves from the hawks.

The atomic bomb has been determined by history to be a weapon that was justified. Nuclear arms, despite their terrifying dangers, have helped save the world from World War III, and the existence of these weapons are the pre-eminent factor behind American Cold War victory. All of these statements have a certain jingoistic flavor to them. There are still nuclear, chemical and biological weapons available to terrorists, Communist remnants and rogue states. Something terribly wrong could still happen; an attack, a mistake, a miscalculation. If this happens, the "victorious" language that describes the "American victory scenario" will not sound so rosy. As of this writing, it is still just a scenario.

There have been nuclear disasters in the past, too. Vice-President Nixon advocated the use of tactical atomic weapons at Dien Bien-phu in 1954. Had we done this, the consequences could have been enormous. On the one hand, there would have been fall-out in Southeast Asia that would have killed many civilians far from the central battleground. The world would have judged the U.S. harshly for using these kinds of weapons against a Third World country. Our moral high ground would have been challenged.

However, there is a flip side to it. The Communists would most likely have been completely defeated and the Vietnam War would never have been fought. Vietnam would have remained a French colony, and hopefully over time earned independence on their own terms. The rest of the Communist world would have been shocked and angered. The sheer military power of the U.S., demonstrated so blatantly not just in the act but by having the will to do so, might have caused international Communism to crumble in the face of pragmatic reality - from Korea to Southeast Asia to China to Eastern Europe. The forces that brought revolution, Communism and missiles to Cuba may never have gotten off the ground. This is all hypothesis, and the truth lies somewhere in the murky never-know land of what-might-have-been.

Aside from the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, Three Mile Island demonstrated that nuclear fallout could be a dangerous hazard even without any, and in 1986 the Soviets experienced a meltdown of horrendous proportions at Chernobyl.

Nuclear arms have every appearance of being the devil's ultimate weapon. There is no guarantee that someday it will not prove to be just that. But the bottom line is that America made more of them, made them better, and used them, more effectively, than their adversaries. If God has sanctioned America, then one is obligated to thank Him for the science, technology and know-how that has allowed for a dominant United States, as opposed to a dominant "somebody else." Like despot Third World dictators propped up by the CIA, and questionable alliances America made to battle the greater evils of the world, nuclear arms are the dangerous "friends" whose reality we accepted in a dangerous world. We accepted those realities because they were going to be built no matter what, and if we did not build them better and faster than the "other guys," they would have been used against us.

The Germans had begun the program under Hitler. Had the U.S. not developed the atom bomb, the Germans would have and it would have been dropped on us, and our allies, with impunity. Even if we had finished World War II by conventional means, the Soviets still would have had some of those German scientists. Even if the U.S. never had the A-bomb, disdained hydrogen and nuclear research, and not engaged in a "space race" or "arms race," the Soviets would have developed the weaponry. It would have taken them longer to do it. Much of their research was based on secrets stolen, spied on or handed to them by American traitors. If such research were not taking place in the West, the Russians would have had to make their own research. Chances are this would have pushed them back for an unspecified time, say 20 or 30 years.

This brings up an interesting point, one the Left would like to believe. If nobody had the technology, and nukes were not created, how would the East-West military showdown have played out in Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, and Berlin? Without nuclear arms, are these showdowns just standoffs? Are they confined to "regional conflicts" when unrestricted by nuclear arms? Is it reasonable to believe that Europe would have avoided war if nuclear weapons were not aimed at both sides?

This question does not place all the onus of attack on the Soviets, by any stretch of the imagination. Strong U.S. military elements would have lobbied long and hard to effect a "first strike" option against the Russians, most likely in Europe. 11 Presidents, Democrat and Republican, with all the disparate elements of advice and pressure that their respective advisors have brought to the table in 59 years, would have been pitted against nine Soviet (and Russian) premiers. Without the threat of nuclear war, the chances that World War III would not have broken out are, in this man's opinion, not very good. The Left would like to believe otherwise. They have this right. I only thank God they did not have the power to preside over such a slippery slope of events.

The U.S., in accepting its responsibility - a responsibility charged to it by the Free World even if one does not believe in such a thing as God's destiny - has been forced by circumstances to mix it up with some very unsavory elements. We have not had the luxury of standing on the sidelines, our hands and conscience clean. The game is not played that way, and we had to learn how to play it better than anybody.

The arms race was the age of acronyms. MIRV, SAM, ICBM. The most famous was MAD, which stood for Mutually Assured Destruction. The fact that this dangerous philosophy was the cornerstone of eventual American triumph, and in particular was the backbone of the man ultimately responsible for that triumph, Ronald Reagan, does not change the fact that some luck might have been involved. Maybe it was not "luck." Maybe it was God's grace shed on thee. Who knows? Triumphal language written by the winners (that being Americans, and in particular conservative Americans) needs to be tempered by some deep prayer. That is just my opinion.

MAD was a philosophy; that both nations had the power to destroy each other completely in the event of an attack. The nations had enough weapons do destroy the other, could detect a first strike before it arrived, and were able to respond adequately before hit by the first strike. The invention and perfection of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) was the beginning of MAD. The ICBM was a creation of the space program.

The aim of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. was to decrease the amount of response time in the other's defense system. This created the tense practice of putting nukes in the others' "backyards." The Americans put nukes in Turkey, and the Soviets in turn tried to put them in Cuba. Both sites were dismantled after the '62 crisis. Had weapons been fired from either of these locations, response times in key cities like Washington would have been very short.

SLBM, or submarine launched ballistic missiles, were nukes that could be fired from undetected locations immediately off of the enemy's coastline. Admiral Hyman Rickover, the architect of the "nuclear Navy" in the 1950s, was most responsible for this set of circumstances. The prospect for destabilization was most unsettling. People worried about submarines; mobile, undetected, "silent killers" of the deep ocean. What if they crashed or were attacked? What if they were cut off from communication? The scenario of a sub, alone and unsure of what was happening on the Earth's surface, starting a nuclear war without access to the "big picture," was a nightmare scenario that had more reality attached to it than a Tom Clancy novel, and was the focus of the 1995 film "Crimson Tide".

My own brother was an officer on a nuclear submarine, and I can tell you that he was a special breed. The kind of man capable of living for extended periods under water, and in his case sometimes under the Arctic ice flow, is somebody who does not possess the normal fears and anxieties of the human condition.

The SLBMs were dangerous because they disrupted the concept of MAD. If fired effectively enough from a close enough range, they had the potential of de-stabilizing the enemy before they could respond effectively. This created two fears. One was that the Americans would think they could "win" a nuclear war launched from subs. The other was that the Soviet would try it.

Spy planes flew over Russia and photographed missile sites. Shortly after World War II, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down in Russia, having been photographing inside the country. It was surprised by a surface-to-air missile. The pilot was taken prisoner and the plane was dismantled for help in developing Soviet technology. In the late 1960s, the U-2 was replaced by the SR-71. It flew higher and faster than missiles. It could also fly higher along (but not supposedly not inside) Russia's borders, and had high-powered photographic equipment allowing it to take pictures over a large territory.

_Sputnik_ had been the first spy satellite. Satellites were an effective way of spying. International law protected them from destruction. They could fly anywhere and take pictures of nations. Satellites made spy planes obsolete. The fact that both the U.S. and the Soviet Union had satellites, oddly, had a calming effect on the Cold War. We knew they knew, and they knew we knew. It all had the surreal effect of being a big game, a chess match. Espionage, in Berlin, Prague, Washington, the United Nations, in Latin America and the Orient, all became part of this game. The satellite confirmed so much that espionage became an adjunct of the technology. One-upsmanship, confirmation, blackmail, double-crossing, counter-espionage, defections, and double agents were wrapped up in a weird new twi-light world in which everybody knew everything. The KGB and CIA knew the principals by name; all the secrets, the affairs, the homosexuality, the alcoholism, drug addiction, child molestation, gambling, debts, and bad marriages became pawns in this world within a world. Technology became king. Better photography. Satellite tasking. Eavesdropping equipment. Bugs and moles. Espionage, thanks to the technology, became its own means, and less the life-and-death affairs that marked state secrets. Satellites could read license plates on cars. Now, the technology is used for upper-atmosphere research.

MAD scared hell out of people, which in the long run is what it was supposed to do. It was a deterrent. A "hot war" was never feasible. It allowed the natural fruits of Western freedom, capitalism, technology and education, to rise up and manifest themselves as the superior entities that they were. The Soviet Union was reduced to the knowledge that they faced either capitulation or suicide. The key was to prevent the kind of elements taking over in their world that could accept suicide.

Beyond worrying about "mad" Soviet leaders and "cowboy" Presidents, another threat was not their use, but misuse or disposal. They could be accidentally fired or used in a state of confusion.

The U.S. began work to detonate an atomic weapon on the Moon in the late 1950s. Noted scientist Carl Sagan was a graduate student, asked to calculate the project. A fission devise in a missile was to detonate on impact with the Moon, clearly visible from Earth. The idea was that it would reassure Americans of superiority while further scaring some Jesus into the Soviets. The program did not materialize because of the fear that a missile could veer off course and explode on Earth. Scientists also could not accurately predict the effects on the Moon, whose rotation affects sea tables on the Earth.

Conventional warfare capability increased greatly throughout the "arms race." Fast-attack submarines could seek out and destroy big nuclear missile subs. Attack planes could combat enemy bombers. Anti-missile systems, such as the Star Wars laser concept, were tried in an effort to destroy incoming missiles prior to reaching their targets. Military budgets became enormous. Vietnam spurred the U.S. into developing "light-action" field weapons that would give America the advantage in urban and open combat scenarios where nukes were not an option. The extraordinary success of this has been demonstrated to great advantage in the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War I.

Could the Cold War and the "arms race" have been prevented? The roots of the conflict are found at Yalta. The influence of Harry Hopkins, Alger Hiss and other Soviet spies embedded in the U.S. government is debatable. Whether they influenced a dying FDR into "giving away the store" is a charge that conservatives may like to make. They may have a point, but the whole question is not one that can be answered succinctly. The concept behind it is one that says Communism could be "stopped," at least at the "water's edge."

Marxism-Leninism was a concept that was going to come. It was going to have its day. To "stop it" would have required a re-working of European history too enormous for any strategic planners, even time travelers. It was the result of centuries of European imperialism, colonialism, wars, poverty, racism and greed.

Given the nature of Communism and Stalin, the Soviets viewed expansion into Eastern Europe and beyond as their "manifest destiny." They justified it out of historical context, comparing it with American Westward expansion and the British Empire, all mixed with justifiable fear of invasion. Given these variables, blaming Hiss and Hopkins for Stalinist militarism is going too far.

History ebbs and flows in strange forms. Had the United States "hard-lined" the Russians in the postwar era, the Soviets might have been dangerously vulnerable along its borders. Isolated from Europe but armed with advancements in technology, the Soviet Union may have felt the need to use weapons of mass destruction to get what was "denied" them. This is just a theory, but if it holds weight it means that the subjugation of Eastern Europe meant all those people were "sacrificed" for the greater good. This is, of course, the great conundrum of war and history, from Troy to Baghdad. What calculations are feasible in determining how many must die so others may live?

World War II attached Russia to the European Continent. No longer isolated, it became the center of attention, instead of a distant prize for Napoleon.

Because Russia controlled East Germany and Poland, and found itself face-to-face with a Western Europe that was hegemonized by America, it also found itself in the odd situation of being "too close" to use its weapons. Not only were they close to weapons pointed at them, but also they were faced with the prospect of blowing up their "neighbors." A strange combination of fear and ethics entered the Cold War equation.

Nuclear weapons, like guns, became symbols of man's imperfections. Absent accidents at nuclear power plants, in silos or on subs, the weapons themselves were only as dangerous as the people who handled them. The greatest purpose of nukes was to create fear. Fear, in this case, was good, just as Christian guilt is good. Both fear and guilt were the stopgaps that prevented people from doing stupid, dangerous and wrong things.

The "arms race" created a new American Empire. Instead of colonies, spheres of influence were developed. Alliances have proven to be stronger than imperialist colonialism. In winning the ultimate battle for spheres of influence, the U.S. emerged as the most powerful empire in the history of Mankind.

The Soviets were at a distinct disadvantage in the battle for influence because they used Eastern Europe to create "buffer states." These buffer states found themselves being used as de facto hostages, as if the Russians were holding a gun to their heads and telling the Americans that if we fired, they would kill them. American influence succeeded because Western Europe and other allies did not view themselves as buffers between the U.S. and Communism. They did not want Communism, so the U.S. became their partner and protector, not their captor.

In many ways, the final chapter has not been written regarding nuclear weapons. Certainly, as regards the Cold War, they were a very big reason, if not the biggest reason, that we prevailed. A world in which the U.S. has them but nobody else does would be a very good thing. A world in which the U.S. and a few of our selected friends have them would be good, too. But this is not the case. Countries that we wish did not have them do possess them. Furthermore, terrorists may get their hands on them. This has the frightening prospect of being a "not if, but when" scenario.

Nukes are not the only weapons of mass destruction on the open market. Chemical and biological weapons that can poison the atmosphere, the environment and the water supply are out there. Some bio-weapons are so lethal that a few drops can wipe out large swaths of territory and population. While we are thankful that the U.S. has the so-called "upper hand" when it comes to research, defense, technology and intelligence, we are not invulnerable.

Nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction represent the conundrum of Mankind, and bring back a central point of this work. God and Satan are constantly at battle with each other. The way Satan gets his licks in is by making good men do his work. Good men like Edward Teller helped develop these weapons. Good men arm them, prepare them, and aim them at threats and potential enemies. Good men may have to use them. The genius and intelligence of America, which is responsible for doing so much good and inventing so many things that benefit humanity, also built these awesome things. They could wipe out all of our good work.

For now, there is little to "cheer" except that the U.S., not somebody else, got the upper hand when it came to nukes. This provides only limited comfort. However, if anybody is capable of "controlling" and creating a situation that makes the world "safe" from nukes in our lifetimes, it is the United States of America.

The Cultural Revolution, 1966-76

Mao Tse-tung (later some changed it to Zedong) began the Cultural Revolution in 1966. In 1968 he realized it had gone too far, but it had unleashed radically Leftist forces that persisted beyond his influence. The Cultural Revolution did not end until Mao's death and the fall of the Gang of Four in 1976. It was different from the so-called Great Leap Forward, which had been a political movement but did not create enormous official change in the economics of the nation. The 10-year period of the revolution was a real-life "Alice in Wonderland," Red Chinese style. Urban China became a nightmare. Agricultural China entered a period of stagnation, not quite as bad as Stalin's collectivist famines, but nevertheless enough to stagnate production. Life in China became 24/7 political indoctrination, as if meetings, show trials and demonstrations could feed the people. Amazing as it sounds, people got in their minds that if one was a good Communist, they could be a good doctor - even if they never went to medical school. It was close to being mass hysteria.

The mines and factories became completely taken over by "students," who were full-time demonstrators and no longer attended classes. Being 18-, 19- and 20-year old people, they were inculcated with all the brilliance, wisdom and life experience of 18-, 19- and 20-year olds the world over!

Transportation was brought to a halt due to the requisitioning of trains and trucks to carry Red Guards around the country. The lack of transportation and disruption of work caused shortages of raw materials and other supplies by students, who in turn blamed the workers. Arguing against the obvious was immediate cause for a show trial. Revolutionary committees, consisting of representatives from the party, the workers, and the People's Liberation Army, controlled the factories, too. All they knew was Karl Marx had written in "Das Kapital" and "The Communist Manifesto", which had nothing to do with running factories. Being put in charge of a tire factory was the same as being put in charge of a steel factory. Engineers, managers, scientists, technicians, and other professional personnel were "criticized," demoted, "sent down" to the countryside to "participate in labor," or jailed, if they demonstrated knowledge about their craft. The theory was that in learning about the craft, they had been subject to bourgeoisie ways that involved study, hard work, and knowledge that what they made would be needed by people. In other words, a "consumer society." Once removed, their skills and knowledge were gone, unrecalled. A 14-percent decline in industrial production occurred in 1967, after one year of the revolution.

Mao saw that he had created chaos and ordered the army to restore order in late 1967 and 1968. Growth rates followed, but imports of foreign equipment fell, resulting in technological setback. Xenophobic hysteria had taken hold of every part of society. Universities soon closed because educated people were considered dangerous. The reason for this was because in acquiring knowledge, they learned of Western accomplishments. The Communists did not want people to know facts about the West. To know facts about the West was to have knowledge of the West's superiority. They only wanted them to know the lies they taught.

The disdain for education, a staple of Communism (and most totalitarian regimes) is curious since "intellectuals" (as opposed to small businessmen, farmers, ranchers, lawyers, politicians, military men, scientists, educators and all other stripe of human endeavor who developed Western Civilization, particularly America) were the leaders of Communism. Marx, Lenin (not Stalin), and Mao were intellectuals. They did not tolerate other intellectuals who might be as smart as they were. The particular oppression of intellectualism of the Cultural Revolution was the pre-cursor of Pol Pot's "Year Zero" campaign, which started while the revolution was still occurring (1975). New technology and absorbed technology were halted due to the lack of education. Pol Pot was a Paris-educated intellectual, too. The world sure owes the French a debt of gratitude for the ideas they put in people's heads, don't we?

Mao thought the Soviet adage that "the West would sell us the rope we use to hang them" made sense, which was one of the reasons he allowed Nixon to bring in technology through trade starting in 1972. Mao and the adage were, of course, dead wrong. Nixon knew this, and U.S. imports to China simply strengthened the West, made China more dependent on us, and created admiration for Western know-how. But Mao was an intellectual.

When the Nixon Administration began making secret overtures, indicating recognition and an opening of trade routes, Mao and China realized they had to clean up their act. The West was going to see what was going on in China, a country that dwarfs the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in the area size and of murdered civilians. 65 million Chinese died as a direct result of Communism. Because the country was exceptionally closed - Russia was open in comparison - these horrors seem to have occurred almost under the noses of the world. It can be argued that Nixon saved thousands (if not more) lives by opening China simply by forcing the Chinese to put on a happy face in response to U.S. recognition. Nixon, as much as anybody, helped end the Cultural Revolution. This is the kind of statement that liberals and Nixon-haters will take great exception to, claiming it is political spin and historical revisionism, none of which changes the fact the statement is more true than false. Thus, and it is.

Political stability was gradually restored prior to, during and after Nixon's trip to China early in 1972. Premier Zhou Enlai (also Chou En-lai) encouraged coordinated, balanced development. The radical revolutionary committees had reduced the Chinese Communist Party to underling status. Skilled and highly educated people were allowed back into society, slowly. Universities reopened and actually required "students" to attend classes instead of holding show trials. Foreign contacts were expanded. The economy did suffer again when an imbalance between industrial sectors and agriculture occurred. Foreign investment ensued, which did more to improve China than 25 years of Communism. Chemical fertilizer production, steel finishing, oil extraction and refining were all up-graded by this investment. 13 of the world's largest and most modern chemical fertilizer plants were brought in. Industrial output then grew at an average rate of eight percent a year.

Poor weather affected agricultural production. Zhou Enlai called for the Four Modernizations at the Fourth National People's Congress in January, 1975. He emphasized the mechanization of agriculture and a comprehensive two-stage program for the modernization of the entire economy by 2000.

During the early and mid-1970s, the radical group later known as the Gang of Four tried to attain a power center through a network of supporters, including the media. Moderate leaders were promoting pragmatism and modernization, in contrast to the Gang of Four and media exemplars. Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping were attacked in the press and in political campaigns as "poisonous weeds." News organs advocated the Gang of Four's nonmaterialism, political incentives, radical reduction of income differences, elimination of private farm plots, and a shift of basic accounting procedures. They opposed central planning (breaking from a traditional tenet of Marxism) and criticized the new dialogue with the West. Foreign technology, in their view, was a tool for espionage. Interestingly, in this they had a point.

Contradictions and uncertainty as to who held real leadership in China caused political unrest. Paralysis set in and business slowed. The modernization program was badly affected. When Zhou Enlai died in January of 1976, the country became chaotic. Deng Xiaoping was "purged" in April. The Tangshan earthquake in July of 1976 further complicated the situation. With agricultural output slowed, China was forced to come to grips with reality. That reality was that the only they could survive as a country was to abandon traditional Communist principle, and for all practical purposes try to "copy" America. This is basically what they have been trying to do ever since. In September, Mao died, and a month later the Gang of Four was arrested. China then tried to re-write its history, as if Mao and his 65 million dead were a figment of the imagination. In reading the Western mainstream press, one would think it was. But not on my watch.

Prague Spring: 1968 Czechoslovakian Revolution

The events of 1968 were momentous in Communist retrospective. It showed a fissure in Soviet hegemony. It occurred at a time when media coverage was more broad and advanced than the black-and-white footage that emerged from East Berlin in 1953 and Hungary in 1956. It was more interesting and understandable than the strange goings-on in China, which was in the third year of the Cultural Revolution. It forced the Soviets to demonstrate that all they were was a hard-line military power, by virtue of its creation of the heavy-handed "Brezhnev doctrine."

The "Prague Spring," as it came to be known, did not have an immediate, enormous impact on the West. The press was focused on Vietnam and the terrible American unrest of that year. 1968 was, in many ways, the most tumultuous and social-changing year of the century. Other years saw events occur that changed everything. 1917-18 gave us the Russian Revolution and the end of World War I. 1945 marks the emergence of American superinfluence and Cold War division. 1991 (Persian Gulf War), 2001 (World Trade Center, Pentagon attacks) and 2003 (Iraq War and escalation of the War on Terror) combine to demonstrate the connective tissue of American Empire in the post-Cold War world.

1927 was a year of great events; Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs, Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic; and the Roaring '20s, which embodied the new influence of American culture on the world (Hollywood, jazz, society) reached its zenith that year. 1962 was a similar year, in which the 1950s met the nuclear age, but prior to JFK's assassination and Vietnam it was the last year of idealism.

1968 was everything 1962 was not. Idealism and innocence were gone. At least, they were replaced by a different kind of idealism, which had hair half-way down the back, a tie-died T-shirt and a joint hanging out of the side of the mouth. By 1968, the country had "tired" of Vietnam. At least, Walter Cronkite told us we were. Martin Luther King was assassinated in April, and Bobby Kennedy in June. The campuses erupted in violent protest, and the urban centers exploded in race riots. The Democrat party imploded and the Republicans came together as never before, creating political trends that last to this day.

The South began to modernize in 1968. The old "white-only" institutions, from water fountains to college football, started to change that year. Old allies began to fray. France and Charles DeGaulle had the gall to break from the U.S. and cut deals with the Soviets on their own. The Black Panthers and other post-Che revolutionary groups were highly visible in 1968. Drugs, sex, movies, music. Clothing and youthful irreverence took on totally new visages.

In the midst of everything that was going on, there was the sense that what happened in the Eastern Bloc was no longer as important. Many felt that the United States needed to clean its own house before they could address all the other problems in the world. Communism did not seem as important as racism, sexism, homosexual rights, free speech and the "generation gap."

Oddly, the street protests in America may have spurred a similar reaction in Czechoslovakia. White the Prague Spring ultimately failed, it did foretell Solidarity in Poland, which in turn foretold the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Events in Czechoslovakia originated with attacks on President Antonin Novotny at the Writers Union Congress in June, 1967. Student demonstrations escalated until, in January, 1968 Khrushchev supporter Alexander Dubcek was appointed President. His reform program was agreed upon by April 5, but ended by August 20-21 it ended with Soviet tanks and troops.

The 1956 Hungarian Uprising had been brutally suppressed, leaving the imprisoned citizens of the Warsaw Pact unwilling to dare make noise. Health and social programs were set up, and the cost of living was relatively low. The West was mesmerized into believing the socialist experiment actually had some merit. Revelations now show that these "achievements" were a show, like a giant-scale Potemkin Village. The fact that extreme hardships were reduced had more to do with natural recovery from World War II than Communist "success." However, the Orwellian world of Stalinism did end in 1953, leaving the people feeling like things were better.

By 1968, the modernization and reform was either too slow or non-existent. A new generation had grown up under Communism. They were privy by increasing media (plus the Voice of America radio broadcasts) to Western "good life." They began to demand something better. Their influences were not just the Statue of Liberty, Lincolnian idealism and other icons of American imagery. Blue jeans, rock music, Hollywood movies, smuggled issues of Playboy magazine and other indices of glamour gave the people a taste of bourgeoisie. They liked it just fine. The old authoritarianism no longer held any luster in Eastern Europe.

Novotny found no support in the Communist Party or the army. When First Secretary of Party Dubcek agreed to political freedoms, the people were ecstatic and the Soviets were horrified.

For four months Dubcek tried to get the Soviet Union to agree to Czechoslovakia's new forms of "independence," but did not advocate removal from the Soviet Bloc. Dubcek did not go so far as to advocate capitalism, but grievances over freedom of speech, religion and assembly were made with the hope that the Kremlin would understand the value of such things. The Kremlin did understand the value. The value would benefit only the West. The slightest freedom simply contrasted Soviet hardlining in opposition to American freedom.

Enthusiasm for something other than Soviet-style Communism scared the hell out of Leonid Brezhnev, who ordered the August invasion. Dubcek, realizing that resistance would be met by death and destruction, Hungarian-style, called upon the people to keep their powder dry. He was arrested and taken to Moscow, but not formally removed from office until April of 1969. He was expelled from the party in 1970.

His experiment was called "Socialism with a human face," which is very telling since it implies the simple truth that, despite the gushings of the Jane Fonda crowd, real Communism was inhuman. The fact that reformers could emerge from within the ranks of Communism is also telling. Not every Communist was evil. The system was evil, but people could emerge as greater than the system. The same may have held true if the Cold War had been between the U.S. and Nazi Germany, although it would have taken longer, theoretically. In the end, the fact humanity existed within Communism. It allowed the system to be brought down without the Americans forced to obliterate it militarily. This leaves some hope in the Middle East, where decent human beings exist within a system of lies, religious intolerance and hatred. While limited military incursions are necessary, it is not necessary to wage full-scale war on the Middle East. Patience, the greatest virtue, will win the day eventually. Belief in the ultimate goodness of Mankind is the hope that spurs Middle Eastern diplomacy. It was justified in the battle against Communism, despite the fact that it often looked hopeless.

"Reformists" within the ranks of the Communist Party showed that even indoctrinaires can see the light. Dubcek himself was a product of the Stalinist bureaucracy. He had been raised in the U.S.S.R., and had joined the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia in 1938. He was of the Sharansky/Solzhenitsyn school of "dissidence."

A similar intelligentsia-based (as opposed to working class) movement emerged in Poland in 1968, but did not grow to the level of the Prague Spring.

The aftereffects of Watergate: Détente; the appeasement of Jimmy Carter; the Cold War is "passe" on the Left; the Battle of the Third World; apartheid; the "eve of destruction"

An American folk singer named Barry Maguire had a big hit during the Vietnam War called "Eve of Destruction". A typical hippie peace anthem, it challenged fighter pilots to look into their souls, presumably because what they were doing was supposed to be immoral. The premise of the song was that America's efforts in Vietnam were the pre-cursor to Armageddon, which was the "destruction" in the title. There is nary a word about the 50 million dead during World War II, the 35 million who died under Soviet Communism, the 65 million under Chinese Communism, or the millions of other dead due to various other forms of Communism. Maguire was "right" despite being wrong. The bombings (performed by the "immoral" fighter pilots) pushed the North Vietnamese into a binding agreement that brought peace, not destruction, to Vietnam.

After Watergate, however, the Republicans lost all their Congressional power. With the Democrats in control, South Vietnam was thrown to the wolves. The wars, savagery, genocide, holocaust, misery, re-education camps, "killing fields," refugees and utter destruction that enveloped Vietnam, Laos and Pol Pot's Cambodia as a result of Democrat perfidy was highly, precisely, and to quintessential effect exactly that with which Maguire's song described. Maguire would presumably hate this assessment and claim it to be a lie. Liberals by the bushel will be outraged that such a thing should be suggested. None of this changes the fact that it is simply that with which is True. The fact that it is True is known by me, and by millions of others who can read and understand things!

The "brink" was not Nagasaki or Hiroshima. It was not the Cuban Missile Crisis or Vietnam. The brink occurred after August, 1974, when Richard Nixon resigned the Presidency. With Republican Gerald Ford in the White House and Henry Kissinger as Secretary of State, America "held the line" as long as she could, but in the words of Led Zeppelin, "when the levee breaks" the effect can be devastating. The "levee," in this case, was The Thin Green Line of funding keeping the North from invading South Vietnam. The Democrats said "no," and that was that. To those non-Communists who were there, what happened was Biblical. The effect was more far-reaching than Southeast Asia. Communist "adventurism," to use a word now attributed by liberals to make the Soviets look like modern day Teddy Roosevelts, or Winston Churchill testing his manhood as a young officer.

The term "traitor" is a powerful one. In many poor countries and criminal organizations, treachery is identified every day, and punished severely. But in America, with the Constitution, due process of law, the "court of public opinion," and the liberal media, such a post-McCarthyite phrase is deemed to be an overripe conservative term. The fact is, there are many who do things that are treacherous, if not meeting the legal definition. They are protected not only by the courts and the "guilty until proven innocent" premise, but simply by the power of America. It is to the great credit of this great nation that drugs, terrible Presidents, civil wars (both military and social) and really bad political philosophies have not destroyed us.

The "civil war" atmosphere of the 1960s saw students take to the streets and the campuses to protest and show what they claimed was not "hate" for America, but was something that sure resembled it. If one were to ask what was the biggest domestic threat to this country since the War Between the States, most would respond that it was the 1960s protest movement, or Nixon's Watergate scandal. They would be wrong. Watergate was a scandal that wounded American international prestige, but it was the aftermath of Watergate, prosecuted by the Democrat party led by Senator Edward "Teddy" Kennedy, that posed the biggest threat ever. The fact that this threat did not destroy the United States, any more than Bill Clinton's lies did, is a testament to the strength of the country. We have a built-in, systematic ability to withstand these things.

Still, the late 1970s were a time that, in retrospect, demonstrates that point in which the U.S. almost gave in and rescinded its role in the world. Since, as I believe, that role is sanctioned by the Almighty, such a thing could have had an effect of, well, Biblical proportions. It never got to that pitch. Ronald Reagan saved the day, simplistic as it sounds, with a Hollywood ending, but it was not looking good for a few years there.

Richard Nixon deserves his share of the blame. All of the comparisons with the Robert Kennedy/Lyndon Johnson/J. Edgar Hoover buggings do not make what he did right. The fact that Franklin Roosevelt's lies made Nixon look Mother Theresa also do not excuse Nixon. All of Nixon's "excuses" have been detailed herein. Nixon failed his country, and he paid an appropriate price for it. In the long run, he did the Republican party a favor, because the lesson learned by the G.O.P. is that we must hold ourselves to a higher standard. We have ever since, the public now recognizes it, and both the party and the nation are better off for it.

I am a political realist who understands the nature of American campaigning. The Republicans have taken advantage of situations in which the Democrats were vulnerable. Watergate provided the Democrat party a unique opportunity to strike major electoral blows to the G.O.P., first in the 1974 midterms and especially in the 1976 Presidential election. They had every right to pile it on. But in abandoning the fight against Communism in Southeast Asia, they allowed the murder of millions. It would be moral relativism to say the Democrats "murdered" all those people. The North Vietnamese, Chinese, and Khmer Rouge Communists did that, nobody else. The question is how foreseeable it was, and based on that foreseeability, what was the responsibility of the Democrat majority that held their fate entirely in their hands? I could provide allegories and examples for pages. Instead, I appeal in one sentence to the common sense of those who choose not to live a lie, and trust that in so doing a study of the facts places the blame on the Teddy Kennedy Democrats. The rest of the world had abandoned the Vietnamese, too, but the responsibility is America's. We are better than the rest of the world. You cannot choose leadership, you have to accept it. It was not America's finest hour.

The U.S. is the world's leading capitalist Democracy. Dealing with nations that were neither Communist, nor capitalist, proved to an exercise in clumsiness. In Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, which makes up the Third World then and now, doctrinaire Communist revolutionaries were trained, funded, and controlled by the Soviet Union. The locals who opposed them, more often than not, were unsavory. The question then came down to whether the Marxist-Leninist tide was greater than the danger of non-Communist despotism. This question had some relevancy. It was worthy of a Platonic discussion of "just cause" and the "ends justifying the means." All things being equal, foreign policy could have been decided on a case-by-case basis, weighing each country, situation, danger level, and the "unsavoriness" of selected militants, freedom fighters and dictators.

However, the Democrats could not enter into this discussion in such a manner. Their baggage was too heavy. McCarthy's accusations, Johnson's poor handling of Vietnam, and the fact that the hated Nixon had emerged as the geo-political thinker of the era, meant that the Great Threat had to be reduced. It had to be reduced not by our military, the intelligence community or by popular uprising - but by saying it never was what the conservatives said it was.

Liberals had, of course, been saying this for years. But the Silent Majority saw through them and refused to hand the country to them. Now, the Silent Majority's man had been felled by his own sword. The enthusiasm for defending our principles temporarily lost momentum. The Democrats jumped all over it. The official decisions they made from 1974-80 are very close to treachery.

Look at old photos from the 1970s. If you have a vague sense you are looking at something sick, it is because you are. The hippies, the most spoiled, over-indulged generation in history, were a group of people who knew they could never achieve what their parents had, which was overcoming the Great Depression and Hitler. Instead of trying, or expressing gratitude for these efforts, which of course gave them the freedoms they now had, they decided to "tune in, turn on, and drop out." They did have political passion over the war, misguided as it was. But the ragamuffins who followed the hippies in the 1970s were as unimpressive as any Americans who have ever lived. The photos show long-hairs who wasted God-given athletic ability, drug dealers and drug abusers, alcoholics, bad clothing styles, and disaffection. American kids had little respect for tradition. The excellent music of the 1960s was replaced by a funk sound in the 1970s that today is used mostly as a laugh track.

The 1970s were not all bad. The Major Leagues were golden, although the old-fashioned values that makes one a real baseball fan were lacking, and so attendance in the 1960s and '70s sagged. Pro football had a big decade, too, as did Hollywood. But the military was reduced to accepting criminals accepting service instead of sentences. The economy suffered. American prestige hit an all-time low.

Gerald Ford, a football star at the University of Michigan, was reduced to a Chevy Chase skit on "Saturday Night Live." Jimmy Carter became the "accidental President." Carter had graduated from the Naval Academy and served as an engineer in Rickover's nuclear Navy. After retiring, he became a peanut farmer in his native Georgia, but was bit by the political bug. He became the unlikely Governor of Georgia, one of the first tangible results of the Voting Rights Act. Carter eschewed the racist rhetoric of Southern politicians of that era, among them Lester Maddox, Ross Barnes and George Wallace. He received the "new" black vote, and was in actuality not racist. This is to his great credit, especially considering that he was a white man who grew up in the Jim Crow era. He was, and is, an evangelical, "born again" Christian, devout in his faith. His entrepreneurial background, heavy drawl and Naval career made him palatable to the "good ol' boy" network.

After LBJ, the South was not considered the best breeding grounds for Presidential candidates, but Nixon's "Southern strategy" in 1968 made it a battleground region that the Democrats needed to win. After Watergate, Ford's Republicanism destined him to lose. Carter changed the complexion of modern campaigning. He hired a pollster, Pat Caddell, who did groundbreaking work in the area of opinion gathering and making. Carter also started campaigning earlier than any other candidate. 1976 was the first of the modern "Primary campaigns." Carter endeavored to make the nomination his by virtue of winning in this manner, instead of focusing on the Summer convention and the "smoke-filled room" approach of canvassing and strong-arming delegates (which LBJ and RFK had mastered). He virtually lived in Iowa, site of the first caucus, and in New Hampshire, the all-important bellwether Primary.

Teddy Kennedy, all-powerful in the Senate, was still burdened by Chappaquiddick, whose seven-year old wounds were still raw. The old McGovernites were supposed to be too liberal. Hubert Humphrey would soon be dead of cancer. The old guard fell. The Republicans went with Ford, but Reagan made a strong run. He was still firing everything he had at the convention in Kansas City, but a sitting President is difficult to unseat as a party nominee.

History requires us to ask what would have happened had Reagan emerged as the 1976 G.O.P. nominee. He was identified with Nixon, being of the same vintage and a Californian, but he did not have Ford's pardon of him to overcome. Reagan proved four years later that he was a great campaigner, and for all practical purposes wiped the floor with Carter. But in '76, Carter did not have four horrible years attached to his record. Reagan was a conservative in a distinctly unconservative time; a Cold Warrior when the press no longer used the term, preferring to call it détente. Reagan's advocacy of a strong defense and justification for nuclear weapons would not have been a popular campaign approach. He called the Vietnam War honorable when few wanted to hear that. He called the Communists what they were when most just wanted to pretend they were not.

Had he won in '76, he might have been too late to prevent the "killing fields." North Vietnam would have invaded the south almost two years prior to his inauguration. The Pol Pot nightmare was two years old. Iran and the hostage situation, Africa and Afghanistan very possibly might have played out differently. Had Reagan lost to Carter, he still would have been viable in 1980.

The 19th Century confidence that the world would emulate America as a "beacon on the hill" was severely questioned, and at a certain point abandoned, in the 1970s. America lost confidence that Democracy would triumph as a universal system. Patriotism, love of country and old-fashioned flag waving were all but gone. It was a liberal time, and it was a terrible time. The breakup of Europe's colonial empires throughout Asia and Africa was a conundrum. On the one hand, the U.S. had advocated that Britain give up its colonies. Much of the Roosevelt-Churchill Grand Alliance was based on this implicit promise. The fact that it happened has left some historians questioning Churchill's legacy. In the modern era, Great Britain is seen as a loyal, yet relatively Leftist, junior friend and ally of the U.S. It is almost comical, with "page three girls" and eccentric unseriousness. English girls, once prim and proper, have developed a reputation for unbounding promiscuity, and the men enjoy drinking, wearing rubber suits and getting spanked. The royals are as vulnerable as Blanche Dubois in "A Streetcar Named Desire", devoid of any public power. Their affairs and scatological peccadilloes are tabloid fodder. Tony Blair was a '70s Mod with Pete Townshend hair who managed a rock group. Not exactly Churchill. These observations reek of sweeping stereotype, yes, and my love and admiration for the Brits goes above and beyond all foreign countries, but the point is this is not your grandfather's England.

This transformation was occurring in England in the 1970s, and it was also occurring in America. England had lost its political will. Instead of American-style freedom, the old colonies were now sore spots, hostile to the West and vulnerable to Communist takeover at the worst conceivable time. Vietnam and Watergate had robbed the U.S. of its political will, too.

The Democrats decided it was an opportunity, not a disaster. A hopeful view prevailed that the ex-colonies would choose Democracy and capitalism, and in so doing "vote the Soviet Union out of office."

This hope, in and of itself, was not something to blame the Democrats for. It has a distinctly conservative flavor to it, and reminds one of the famous Reagan optimism. These hope, however, were dashed. The Third World de-colonized, and were replaced by dictatorships and invitations to Moscow to come in and stick around for awhile. In the end, the real victim was the Third World itself. They were reduced to a battlefield. Before it was over, though, Left wing revolutionary movements threatened to overwhelm the U.S.

Washington had long regarded any anti-Communists as allies, regardless of criminality or instability. The fact that organized criminal syndicates are naturally anti-Communist, since they engage in pure profit motive, is summed up in "The Godfather", in which one family head says Don Vito Corelone must share the judge he has "in his back pocket."

"He may present a bill," the Mafia man says of Corleone. "After all, we are not Communists." The film, which came out in the 1970s, was part of a "new wave" of social cinema in which Francis Ford Coppola chose to make the mob out to be an allegory for capitalism in America. The subliminal message was that this beautiful nation is just a bunch of crooks.

This mindset quickly imbued the critics of American Third World policy. Our "allies" were a bunch of critics, and by the way, so were we. Unable to stand up to the exemplary image we had set for ourselves, how could we stand up as the moral and mortal enemy of Communism? How bad could Communism be? The 65 million dead Chinese was known to people at this point, but the question was asked anyway.

If one of our anti-Communist allies imprisoned some students, or tortured some terrorists, or salted some money away in a Swiss bank account, this automatically gave the media carte blanche to asses them as no better than those who ran the gulags and the re-education camps.

Worst of all, everything was now about "corporate exploitation" or "big oil," and these terms were suddenly just codes for racism.

President Harry Truman's Doctrine in 1947 proclaimed assistance to friendly governments resisting Communist aggression. JFK's 1961 speech famously reiterated it. By the mid-1970s, those concepts seemed archaic. If the U.S. were to abandon these principles, the results would be disastrous. Washington had actively exerted itself in Central America and the Caribbean for decades. To do so on a global basis opened this nation to international hatred.

The question, then, is what should we have done? This is the tricky part of the deal, the one the Left never has an answer for. What alternatives did we have? Criticism is easy. The liberals have developed it into an art form. This world would be one heckuva lot better if every time somebody aired public criticism, whether it is on "Meet the Press" or in the letter to the editor, they were required to then provide details on how they would do it differently. Not being the "right" answer would not discount a noble attempt.

The South Vietnamese government up until the Fall of 1963 had been Catholic and patrician in a poor, Buddhist country. Bad allies. Batista let Meyer Lansky run sugar into his country and open a few casinos. The shock of it all. Rafael Trujillo told the Negro Leaguers to "win or else." The Shah of Iran had little regard for the masses. South African politicians had the temerity to be white. Were all these people worse than the Communists? Instead of addressing this question, we were accused of "false realism" and "moral insensitivity."

"There is a disturbing tendency to view such regimes in caricature, regarding right wing governments as valuable friends whose repressive excesses must be ignored or excused, while perceiving Leftist insurgent movements and governments as mortal threats to America's national interest, justifying a posture of unrelenting hostility," wrote Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute in "The United States and Third World Dictatorships: A Case for Benign Detachment".

"For example, the Reagan Administration pursues a confrontational policy toward the Marxist government of Nicaragua, terminating all aid programs, imposing a trade embargo, and supporting rebel guerrillas. At the same time, Washington lavishes economic and military aid upon equally repressive 'allies' in South Korea, the Philippines, Zaire, and elsewhere.

"The consequences of this simplistic and morally inconsistent strategy are highly unfortunate. America finds itself involved far too often in futile or mutually destructive confrontations with Left wing regimes. Even worse is the evolution of a cozy relationship between Washington and a host of right wing authoritarian governments. A pervasive perception of the United States as the sponsor and protector of such dictatorships has undermined America's credibility as a spokesman for Democracy, caused Third World peoples to equate both capitalism and Democracy with U.S. hegemony, and established a milieu for rabidly anti-American revolutions. It is an approach that creates a massive reservoir of ill will and, in the long run, weakens rather than strengthens America's national security."

While Carpenter's assessment was written long after the 1970s, this mindset was in place during that time. Even in retrospect he does not offer the alternative. The alternative, my friend, was invasion and occupation, accompanied by a whole lot of death and destruction courtesy of the red white and blue. Instead of giving credit for choosing the more benign approach, we are accused of going too far, as if all of these cesspools have Daniel Webster and William Jennings Bryan waiting in the wings, only to be passed over by us in favor of Augusto Pinochet.

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had made the practical decision in the 1950s that the U.S. had no real choice but to choose sides in Asia and Africa. This might seem simplistic to the brainiacs of the moral Left, but simplicity is most often the best politics. In Dulles' view, neutrality always worked to the Soviet advantage. The understandable resistance to American efforts to "annex" allies could only be explained by pointing out that the Communists had no intention of recognizing non-alignment. Acrimonious competition between two alien superpowers. India, for instance, owed its independence as much to Roosevelt's urgings and American media sympathy as to Gandhi, but refused attempts to join forces against Communism. Its size, traditions, and military power made it naturally resistant to Communism on its own, but they were not a normal situation. It is understandable that they did not want to be the DMZ of the Cold War, but we could have used their help. Washington pressured Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, but never threatened to invade.

Furthermore, let it be stated that countries which made the conscious decision to align themselves with the freedom and Democracy of America were exercising far better judgment. They did much more good for the rest of the world than countries that either aligned themselves with murderous Communism, or turned a blind eye to it. That being said, the U.S did then and continues to direct enormous largesse on all these countries, regardless of affiliation. No other nation has provided these Third World countries more humanitarian aid and pure goodwill than America. Only certain, highly belligerent countries like Cuba were disaffected from this largesse. Even in Cuba's case it is likely that since the Russians abandoned them, the U.S. has (indirectly) given them more than any other country (despite the embargo).

When the Cold War shifted to Africa, both the U.S. and the Soviets found themselves in a sticky thicket where few of the modern rules applied. Angola was typical. The struggle was a myriad of language, tribes and economics. It was "an unprecedented Soviet geopolitical offensive," according to former Secretary of State Kissinger. Gerald Ford saw it as "pro-Communist" and "pro-West" forces. Former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick described Mozambique and Nicaragua as satellites of the U.S.S.R., with little national identity. President Reagan formed a bi-partisan commission on Central America to address the "geo-strategic challenge" there. Criticisms of these approaches assume some better alternative existed. Assuming the alternative is something other than invasion for the purposes of defending against Communist incursions, is it likely that our best plan would have been to ship a bunch of copies of the "Federalist Papers" along with a $1 billion check, and then let go? The phrase "we will let the West sell us the rope we use to hang them" emanates from the hope that American leaders would be fuzzy enough to do this. Some were. Jimmy Carter sure was. Others were too sharp. Nixon and Reagan were among the sharp ones.

To accuse the U.S. of failing to understand the complexities of the Third World is tantamount to saying we let the Jews get rounded up and sent to Auschwitz because we failed to understand the complexities of European schtetls. Elie Weisel had a point when he told the world to "never forget," and the decision to stop the spread of Communism in the Third World respected his warning. Carter's departure from this policy was a direct refutation of historical lessons.

On New Year's Eve, 1977, President Carter toasted the Shah of Iran, a man who had been a friend to America but not a caring leader of his people.

"Iran, because of the great leadership of the Shah, is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world," said Carter. "This is a great tribute to you, Your Majesty, and to your leadership, and to the respect and admiration and love which your people give to you. We have no other nation on Earth who is closer to us in planning for our mutual military security."

One year later, the Shah was ousted in a brutal Fundamentalist Muslim uprising. The years since then tell us that the Shah was much better for Iran than the Ayatollah Khomeini, just as Czar Nicholas was better for Russia than V.I. Lenin.

The CIA had warned Carter that the Shah lacked the popular backing to withstand a major revolution. Carter, a man who ascended to the White House with no foreign policy experience, thought wishful thinking would manifest itself. He was deluded. Liberals actually loved to see the Shah fall. He was a "right wing" autocrat, and therefore he and his country deserved what they got, in their view.

Vice-President George H.W. Bush said of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, "We stand with you sir. . . .We love your adherence to Democratic principle and to the Democratic processes. And we will not leave you in isolation."

Obviously, Marcos was no friend of Democracy, but he was a foe of Communism and provided this country with an important strategic toehold, in the form of Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Force Base. Eventually, his excesses became too much for us and his people. President Reagan oversaw his peaceful removal. The way Reagan handled Marcos was the way to do it. The way Carter handled the Shah was not. The philosophy that separates liberalism and conservatism lies at the heart of why Reagan succeeded and Carter failed.

Marcos had indeed suspended the national constitution, declared martial law, governed by decree, and imprisoned political opponents. Vice-President Bush knew these facts. Obviously, Bush's enthusiastic endorsement of Marcos did not sit well with those who opposed his autocracy. But there was prudence to the Reagan/Bush approach. Wild protestations of Marcos would likely have resulted in further repressions, and possible civil war. The result would have been loss of the bases and Communist takeover. Public posturing and private directives, which was the way Reagan approached Marcos, worked much better than anarchy.

Debating Walter Mondale in 1984, President Reagan defended America's handling of the Manila regime as the only alternative to Communism. The liberal media called it a "gross distortion of reality," which does not change the fact that Reagan was right. Whether or not full-scale Soviet-style Communism was waiting in the wings is not something that can be judged by the Monday morning quarterbacks. At the time (which is the framework in which leaders must be most accurately judged), Communist guerrillas threatened Manila (the "guerilla in Manila?"). Everybody who had been on the crew of "Apocalypse Now" in the 1970s could attest to the tenacity of Communist insurgency against the Marcos regime. It was these attacks which held up filming of the movie more than anything else in the agonizing four-year struggle to complete the project.

For over 30 years, the U.S. equipped the Somoza military in Nicaragua. Somoza was oppressive and he robbed his country. When Carter took office, he addressed situations like Somoza, aid to the Shah and to SAVAK, his secret police. Washington had been assisting Brazilian military governments, Guatemalan dictatorships, and military juntas in Greece from 1967 to 1974. In the post-Watergate era, the Democrat Congress felt that human rights were more important than anti-Communism.

In Iran, American patronage caused hatred toward us, but there is moral relativism at play here. Were viable Democratic alternatives available in Iran? The only alternative was Fundamentalist Islam, and the fact that this is a bad thing is simply obvious on its face. Our "propping up" the lesser of two evils in a less-than-perfect situation does not excuse the excesses of the Fundamentalists, yet there are many who proffer the fiction that Fundamentalists rise because of America, as if absent our presence the Iranians are a peaceful culture. Is there some Alternate Universe in which this is true? The answer is no.

Repudiation of American capitalism is supposed to be a response to having it shoved down their throats. The fact that American consumer goods have proven to be one of the major breakthroughs in overcoming these autocracies in succeeding years puts the lie to this premise, too.

"U.S. citizens see [capitalist Democracy] as having given them the highest standard of living and the most open society in the world," says historian Walter LaFeber of Central America. "Many Central Americans have increasingly associated capitalism with a brutal oligarchy-military complex that has been supported by U.S. policies - and armies." This statement may be true, but it does not address the responsibility of people in these countries. Are they not held to any kind of standard? The basic idea that America controls every aspect of their fate is simply international affirmative action. The people who live in Haiti, the Dominican Republican, Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico and other nations of Latin America, as well as Africa, have not proven that they can govern themselves left to their own devices. Not yet.

"Yanqui go home!" may be a popular refrain, but without the Yankees, carnage reigns. There may be implicit racism in our insertions into their affairs. We would prefer not to have to do it. It would be nice if these countries were like Belgium or Holland, independent, not particularly friendly, but safe. When the Cold War raged, there was no choice. Since the Cold War ended, the U.S. tried to let the people handle their own affairs. A look at Africa quickly leads to the conclusion that, for the most part, there are many who are unable to run their own countries in the modern world. The "white man" is easily blamed for having invented and imported gunpowder, weapons and disease. Would Africa, for instance, be better off if tribes fought wars with limited weapons that resulted in hundreds of dead (and they always have fought and enslaved each other, rather than live peacefully), instead of wars with lethal weapons that result in thousands of dead? Yes. Would they be better off without hospitals and roads?

Ferdinand Marcos, Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Chun Doo Hwan in South Korea were "capitalists." Their poor leadership led some in their countries to think Communism was a viable alternative. In Nicaragua, this thinking reached critical mass in opposition to the detested Somozas. Zaire was another example, in Africa, of a former colony (the Belgian Congo), taken over by a brutal yet anti-Communist dictator, that reached a boiling level in the 1970s and '80s. Guatemala seethed with anti-Americanism in response to the CIA orchestrations that led to their long civil war. As the Korea War generation grew older, South Koreans lost their appreciation for American protection.

"This will become one of the most bitter, anti-American countries in this part of the world," predicted Philippine National Assembly opposition member Ramon Mitra during the Marcos era.

Every case is different. There is no such thing as the "State Department playbook" for dealing with these countries. Our flexibility and intelligence in veering from pure doctrinaire approaches in favor of designer diplomacy separated us from the Communists, who tended to shove Marx down throats. Yugoslavia Premier Josef Tito broke with the Soviet Union in 1948, and we cultivated an important relationship with that country without fomenting revolution. Nixon's rapprochement with China was based on the success of the Tito policy. Co-existence with Marxist regimes was not our preferred policy, but it was unavoidable realpolitik. The key, as Kissinger understood and the liberals apparently do not, is self-interest. It has long been argued that we should relax our attitude toward Castro's Cuba, but such an act is pure unilateralism without regard to our interests. The argument, for instance, that Castro was a small "d" democrat, driven to Communism by American heavy-handedness, is a lie. Soviet defector Arkady Shevchenko said that in 1960 Nikita Khrushchev felt the American attitude toward Cuba would "drive Castro to the wall" when we could have accepted his regime under a normalization policy. We were "stupid," Khrushchev concluded. "Castro will have to gravitate to us like an iron filing to a magnet."

Castro's deprivations were far greater than Somoza, the Shah, Pinochet, Marcos and the rest of the "rogue's gallery" of propped-up U.S. "puppets." The difference between Castro and the others is that Castro stole from the rich. His reputation for "giving to the poor" is a propaganda lie. His "terrific health care system" is available only to Marxist elites. The reality, "ugly" as it may be, is that "right wing dictators" who allowed business to flow in their countries were allowing flowing of the spigots of commerce that kept their nations alive, despite repression. Castro offered only repression without the commerce. The fact that Castro is a hero to the Left, to this day, while the Pinochets and his ilk have met the fate of international tribunals (which he deserved) is a disgusting commentary on the reality of the Left.

Castro did interviews with the American media claiming not to be a Marxist, but these were lies. His revolution and subsequent actions were not those of a Democratic-style freedom fighter. Reagan was determined to learn from the errors of our Castro treatment. He did not give the new Sandinista government of Nicaragua time to establish itself. He identified them for what they were from the beginning: Communists. He isolated the Managua regime by imposing economic sanctions. He allowed for the "covert" funding of the Contra guerrillas. He lent his best rhetoric to their struggle. President Reagan called the Contras "the moral equal" of the Founding Fathers, which drove the Left to apoplexy but left them in a quandary. On the one hand, the Contras were not the moral equivalent of the Founders. But the Left had long been critical of the Founders as "Dead White Males" who owned slaves. They found themselves locked in by their own pernicious rhetoric, which either acknowledged the Founders as moral or tacitly placed greater credibility to the Contras, presumably based on their "people of color" status. In the end, they decided to disavow Reagan, the Founders and the Contras, preferring to legislatively side with the Sandinistas via the Boland Amendment.

Is the word traitor really so far from the truth?

They romanticized the Sandinistas' suppression of political dissent, rationalized its brutality (in particular treatment of the Miskito Indians). Fears that Nicaragua would become a Soviet satellite in Central America proved to be less than fully founded. An autopsy of Communism's final days shows that the Soviets were not capable of funding such an operation. But this was not known when the Boland Amendment was voted on. The "self-fulfilling" prophecy of "creating" Communism in Nicaragua turned out to be a farce. What did happen was Reagan found a way to overcome Boland, fund the Contras, and as a direct result the Communists were voted out in 1990. Of course they were. No Communists government has ever been voted in throughout Mankind. All of this history has lead to common sense about who was right and who was wrong. American hostility toward Left wing regimes in the Third World was correct, and in the cases where it was relaxed, anarchy and genocide followed.

Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh was ousted with the help of the CIA in 1953, allowing the Shah to establish his monarchy. Mossadegh had depended on Communist elements for support and opposed American business interests. The Shah's unenlightened administration and subsequent fall lead to the "conclusion" that the U.S. was to blame. Wrong. Had Mossadegh stayed in office, Communism may have enveloped the Persian Gulf by 1960. The liberal argument is based on the belief that "what we don't know can't hurt us."

The Jacobo Arbenz overthrow in Guatemala, in which the U.S. Ambassador is supposed to have said he had brought the counter-revolution to a successful conclusion barely "45 minutes behind schedule," was found by President Reagan's bi-partisan commission on Central America to be rife with errors and mistakes. CIA hubris has been detailed. The results of this adventure were fairly disastrous. Whether these results were still better than Castro-style rule is not known...but then again, sure they are.

The United States got rid of Patrice Lumumba, the first elected Prime Minister of the Congo (now Zaire), in 1960. Lumumba had solicited Communist support. In 1973, the CIA orchestrated a military coup to remove Chilean president Salvador Allende in favor of the military strongman Pinochet. Nixon's administration thwarted Allende's 1970 election, orchestrated rightist elements of the military, and destabilized Allende through economic means. National Security Adviser Kissinger authorized covert payments of more than $8.8 million to Allende's opponents for three years. Kissinger and Nixon said Allende's downfall was an internal matter. Allende was a Marxist whose economic system was a disaster for the middle class. Despite his Democrat status, he had quickly eliminated much of his opposition.

Allende was "not merely an economic nuisance or a political critic but a geopolitical challenge," said Kissinger. The Allende incident is considered a reprehensible interference in the internal affairs of Chile. It was indeed heavy-handed and other actions may have been the better plan. But considering that Allende was Marxist, and what we knew about Marxism-Leninism (lest I repeat the record of the Soviets, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Castro, et al), was the decision to "do something" about Allende so bad?

What if World War II ended in a stalemate and the Nazis were expanding to Chile? What if Hitler had taken over and filled the heads of the elites that they were the "master race" of Latin America, and elimination of all the "sub-humans" of majority Indian ancestry would solve all their problems. Would the Nixon-Kissinger coup look better under those circumstances? While Hitler-style holocausts did occur under Communism, in places where they were prevented, the reason they were prevented can be summed up in five words: The United States of America.

Or as country singer Toby Keith puts it, "Courtesy of the red, white and blue." Do not believe it if you do not want to. Hopefully you will never have to find out whether your life or the life of a loved can only be saved if my theories are valid.

Luumumba's ouster "gave rise" to Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire. Mobutu was corrupt and repressive. In 1974, when Muhhamad Ali fought George Foreman in the "Rumble in the Jungle," the rumor was that thousands of tortured political prisoners were being held in cells under the very outdoor stadium where the heavyweight championship of the world was held. If Mobuto's position mirrored the desire of the U.S., is it not worth considering what we wanted? Was Luumumba going to bring to Africa "socialism with a human face?" Did the U.S. "pick" Mobutu because we have a particular love for dictatorship? Luumumba had been not elected. He was not the "people's choice." Again, what about the people? Are their responsibilities in ruling themselves abrogated completely? So far most of Africa has only shown that warlords and old tribal factions have "what it takes" to attain power.

Allende has been given virtual sainthood by Western liberals. He was a complete authoritarian. His "election" was most likely rigged, and even so, the public did not know his Marxism at the time (but the CIA knew). He was the last in a four-decade succession of Democratically elected rulers. Pinochet was a brutalitarian.

The "change in government in Chile was on balance favorable - even from the point of view of human rights," assessed Kissinger. Was Kissinger blind, cynical, or speaking the truth? Kissinger was a realist who played on his own celebrity status. He was also a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany. He was as knowledgeable about history and the machinations of diplomacy as any American. He drew from Napoleonic military truces, and had studied every minutiae of the Vienna Conference. His knowledge of European revolutions was unmatched. He proved himself equally adept negotiating with Orientals, Europeans, Communists and Latinos. While it is true that he is capable of coloring history to justify his record, he is a man who's credible is not easily dismissed. If he says that Chile under Pinochet was better than Chile under Allende, this prospect cannot be discarded as pure political effect. His controversial use of force as a diplomatic tool, portrayal of Nixon as "crazy" (with RN's approval), and staunch anti-Communism during the most liberal era in U.S. annals combine with his enthusiasm for CIA adventurism. The advocacy of Kissingerr's position from a bona fide conservative such as myself comes with caveats. The only thing I can do is to ask that the record be examined with an open mind. My belief is that our actions did not always produce the results we coveted, but were almost always better than the alternative.

Access to natural resources combined with keeping markets open for capitalist trade was vital. State-run Marxist systems were antithetical to our interests. The big question is whether all these far-flung operations were vital to our strategic military and economic interests. This question goes back to the Teddy Roosevelt Administration, in which T.R. chose to wield the lumber of modern U.S. power to protect dominant market interests in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. In the years since the Soviets launched their most aggressive Third World campaigns, events have answered these questions. As it turns out, the naked truth is that Latin America, Asia and the Middle East proved to be vital, and Africa did not. The bald facts are that, because we fought for our interests in the former three but gave up on the latter, Latin America is a region of struggling Democracy and markets. Asia is the "tiger of the Pacific." The Middle East is kept from total conflagration by U.S. power. Africa, left to its own devices, is the new home of Satan.

An African-style disaster in Latin America would reverberate in our own "backyard," with consequences that would hit too close to home. If Asia had been "thrown to the wolves," Pacific Rim trade would have dried up, with results short of Japanese attack but not a lot better for the starving masses affected by it. Conflagration in the Middle East is not something to even contemplate, for reasons all people who are not members of the Dumbellionite Class understand.

Is the abandonment of sub-Saharan Africa a form of racial bigotry? There may be something to this, but certainly it goes beyond that. Africa was so tempestuous and uncontrollable that even the Soviets saw little of value there. It has all the natural resources needed to feed and fuel a world power, but the size of the place, the difficulties navigating the terrain, combined with the dangers inherent in dealing with the people and politics of the region, turned them back.

America let the place go because we had to deal with the rest of the Third World first. Now, in the 21st Century, Africa is the Next Big Challenge. If we do not meet the challenge, in the words of Robert Kennedy, "If not us, who? If not now, when?"

The other unanswered question is the one that, luckily, was never put to the test. The unpopular, unstable regimes that the U.S. backed were never asked to ally themselves with us in a shooting war. Certainly they proved to have excellent local intelligence, but Guatemalan security forces never had to join with the Marines to defend the region. The Shah's military never linked up with Special Forces to stave off a Soviet incursion into the oil rich lands of the Persian Gulf. Russian paratroopers never had to be fired at by Chilean defenders. Why? Was it because (a) the Soviets had peaceful intentions, (b) because we aligned ourselves with "right wing" governments who opposed them, or (c) because we had the superior military and they knew it? Guess what? There is no chance the answer is (a). The answer is definitely (c), and more than likely both (b) and (c). Liberals will tell you that these incursions weakened our security. They cost us too much money and stretched thin the "two-front war" theory. They loved the word "quagmire." They sleep under a blanket of freedom that lets them utter their criticisms.

The closest that the Left comes to having a really legitimate point is in casting suspicion on whether Left wing governments would be puppets of Moscow. Democracies succeeded militarist dictatorships in Portugal and Greece, despite great fear of Communist intervention. Leftist government subservience at the beck and call of Moscow handlers was assumed, but not assured. The belief in these horrors was based on McCarthy ideology of the 1940s and '50s. The pessimism of these theories had some validity. Over time it was thought to be headed toward obsolescence. China had broken from the U.S.S.R. Yugoslavia was reasonably "independent." Even Romania was a maverick of Communism, albeit more dark and horrible than the Soviet Union itself (which did not stop the Western press from calling it the home of "Marxist Balzac's" and the "Paris of the East"). All of this is fine for the "cocktail courage" crowd, but was it really so easy to forget Castro and the definitive Marxist expansions of Eastern Europe and Asia?

Reagan's commission on Central America concluded that Marxist governments would impede Caribbean shipping lanes if war broke out in the Middle East or Europe. This did not square with the facts unless one wished to stretch it beyond credulity. But economic factors were in play. While governments might be expected to operate according to self-interest, Marxist-run states have never provided viable economic plans.

In the 1970s, Iran and Saudi Arabia helped engineer OPEC's massive oil price hikes. Both were American allies, but did not forego economic gain even at the expense of the U.S. All this proves is that they were not "puppet" regimes, which the liberals said they were. They were independent and operated by the Kissinger "self interest" rule. Would Moscow have allowed a Marxist state to behave so freely? In 1980, President Carter imposed a grain embargo on the Soviet Union after they entered Afghanistan. The United States asked its allies to cooperate in the boycott. The Argentine military junta, backed by Washington, boosted grain sales to Russia. One could look at this and say it was an example in which our "allies" abandoned us. It also could be seen as an example in which those we "propped up" might not have really been propped up. Is financial help, cultural influence and examples of a Better Way "propping up?"

Not all Communist client states were embargoed all the time, either. Oil and mineral commerce with the Marxist government of Angola continued. Mainland China was an obvious example. This realpolitik paid off in that the U.S. knows that exporting Democracy often comes from exporting and importing goods and services. Commercial ties with the West proved to be a vital factor in America winning the Cold War. Economic boycotts orchestrated by the U.S. have usually been done only in the most egregious situations. The sincere desire by the American government for people to thrive, despite ties to strong-arm governments, has usually superceded all other actions.

The Reagan Administration did impose a trade embargo against Nicaragua. This proved to be good selective policy. Interior Minister Tomas Borge then charted a Marxist-Leninist policy, which failed like all other Marxist-Leninist policies. After Daniel Ortega was ousted in 1990 the embargo was lifted.

Embargoes offered the opportunity to identify the failure of Communism. In filling the void, like in Nicaragua, the socialist system was consistently proven to be joke.

The U.S. consistently offered a "carrot and stick" approach that left other countries with the inescapable conclusion that our way was not perfect, just the best. Marxist Mozambique looked to the Soviet bloc for assistance, but central planning was particularly inappropriate in this case. They turned, of their own accord, to the West.

It is true that "rightist" governments are not Jeffersonian, and Leftists not automatically "totalitarian." It would be a mistake to say that all "rightist" governments were backed 100 percent by the U.S., while all Leftist ones were put on an "enemies list."

"Traditional authoritarian governments are less repressive than revolutionary autocracies," said former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick. They are "more susceptible to liberalization," and are "more compatible with U.S. interests." Autocracies may offend American "sensibilities," Kirkpatrick says, but she clearly determined that they were better than the "revolutionary autocracies." Perfect examples exist today in Singapore, and in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt. The politics differ in all cases, but these countries do not offer traditional freedom. Compared to Iran and Hussein's Iraq they look like Nebraska.

Kirkpatrick's thesis is flawed only when liberals desperately try to go beyond the pale of reason to come up with apologist examples of Marxist governments that do not, as Ted Carpenter calls it, "eradicate all competing power center...'totalitarian' regimes are usually more efficient in institutionalizing their repression. Nevertheless, it is pertinent to observe that several former and current U.S. allies in the Third World have amassed appalling human rights records. Their brutality may be less efficient, but in many cases it is scarcely less severe."

In other words, the best case scenarios still offer up Marxist regimes that were "more efficient" in torturing its citizens, which means they should not have been identified as enemies because the governments the U.S. supports are not as good at killing their people. Even the Left concedes Leftist repression is worse than "rightist" repression. America has consistently faced the conundrum of participating in repression or pretending it does not exist. The alternative, as it has been mentioned before, more often than not, means military intervention. This is the way the Nazis and Soviets did it, every chance they got. While we have intervened, we have always tried to maintain it as the last option. Sending money almost always meant having it stolen by the despots.

Jeanne Kirkpatrick made the deductive observation that traditional autocracies often liberalize, while revolutionary socialist governments never have. Her examples have panned out over the years, and include Spain, Greece, and Brazil. "Rightists" removed Communists. Militarists have overthrown Democratically elected governments, but the cases are few and far between. In 1948, Czechoslovakia's Communists threw out a Democracy. Military coups overthrew Democratic regimes in Spain (1936), Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964), Greece (1967), the Philippines (1972), Chile (1973), and Argentina (1976). The natural assumption of critics is that the elections that brought in the previous revolutionaries were not rigged, and that the militarists always were worse than the revolutionaries. Considering Communist history, it is a stretch to imagine the radicals being the better choice.

Kirkpatrick's thesis exposes the "double standard" of American liberalism toward Third World dictatorships. The Castro example is glaringly obvious. In the post-Cold War atmosphere, the liberal agenda has become clear. It becomes less about Communism and socialism, and more about radicalism and hate of America. The Left does not like American success and power. While few know who Emma Goldman was, it is her legacy that remains more strongly held within anti-Establishment forces than Lenin. Selective morality is their credo. How else to explain the criticism of American allies in Southeast Asia in the 1960s, compared not just to silence, but outright outpourings of love and support for Hanoi? The fact is the Hanoi regime was every bit as evil as Hitler. Ho Chi Minh may not have started out that way, but hell hath no fury like that with which he wrought. This is simply the Truth. When Pol Pot came along, the Left was not just silent. It went beyond silence. It was as if he did not exist. The average American did not know what the "killing fields" were until the movie of the same name came out in 1985, and even that film spent the first half demonstrating that the Cambodians almost had a right to their atrocities in response to U.S. bombs.

Refugees told a different story. They eventually came to the West and told their tales. They are among the most pro-American people in the world. The Left demonized South Africa, which practiced white Apartheid against the black majority. The fact that the black majority was propelled by a Communist organization was conveniently left out of the argument. In the view of the Carter crowd, Chile was bad and Cuba was good. The Soviet Union was just a country who had chosen "another way."

Kirkpatrick and Reagan were willing to say that the "emperor has no clothes" when it came to elections. Elections in Nicaragua were called a "farce" because of restrictions the Sandinistas placed on their opponents. South Korea held elections shortly thereafter that were far from free and open, yet Reagan called it a "step toward full Democracy." The succeeding years shows that his patience in South Korea and opposition to Nicaragua paid off. Today, South Korea does have full and fair elections. Reagan was right. It was a "step." Other, better steps followed. U.S. support was 100 percent responsible. The implicit criticism of South Korea carried with it the unspoken idea that South Korea was somehow no better than North Korea.

Kirkpatrick favoring Somoza and the Shah because they worked with the U.S. is straight out of the Kissinger "self-interest" rule. The deposing of Marcos justifies this in simplicity. Somoza and the Shah were better than Ortega and Khomeini. Marcos was not better than Corazon Aquino. Liberals know these facts, and that they make sense. Since it renders their argument limp they choose not to accept it. This is fine. I accept it for them.

Some people who send their children to our colleges described America as evil. The marketplace of human choice exemplifies the promise of America every day. Refugees choose to come to our country all the time. They could go to many other countries. They choose America, often at great personal expense and anguish. Kirkpatrick, Kissinger, Alexander Haig, and George Shultz were criticized for hosting cocktail parties for military dictators who allowed torture and murder of political opponents at home. This was called a double standard. This criticism assumes a "perfect world" and conveniently forgets that we were allied with Stalin from 1941 to 1945. Everything comes down to the central argument that conservatives make, which is that Communism was as bad as Nazism. The Left has fallen for the Big Lie of Communism. Communism espouses the lie that it is for the "little guy," the masses, the peasants, the "great unwashed," the blacks, the "people of color," the "little brown people," and the minorities. The fact that it is responsible for the murder of more "little guys," masses, peasants, "great unwashed," blacks, "people of color," "little brown people," and minorities than any entity in history somehow does not seep into the liberal mindset. More "little guys," masses, peasants, "great unwashed," blacks, "people of color," "little brown people," and minorities have been saved by the United States of America than any entity. Based on this fact, the seemingly fatuous argument that Michael Savage makes, which is that liberalism is actually a mental disease, actually becomes something possible. If Communism's evil is not believed, then everything unravels from there.

It has also been born out that the human rights records of these dictators were constantly on the agenda of the Reagan Administration. It was conducted in private, not in the op/eds of the New York Times. The same situation now is in existence in the Middle East. The leaders in Egypt and Saudi Arabia tell the Bush Administration that if they liberalized, their nations would become anarchic. Obviously, those "waiting in the wings" are more similar to Osama bin Laden than Anwar Sadat. The criticism is always the same, in that it offers no solution. Our opponents have been Nazis (who killed millions), Communists (who killed millions) and terrorists (who have been kept from killing millions by us).

Carter was the man who tried to change policy. His approach to the Third World was called "sophisticated." Previous administrations were "unenlightened" compared to Carter.

"Being confident of our future, we are now free of that inordinate fear of Communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear," Carter announced shortly after taking office.

"Inordinate." Tell John McCain, Whittaker Chambers, Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel that fear of Communism was "inordinate."

The fact that Carter made human rights a determinant in whether countries would receive aid and military assistance was admirable. The fact that he characterized the Communist menace as an "inordinate fear" could have placed him in a category with Neville Chamberlain and Joseph P. Kennedy. It could have made him a character to be mentioned in the same breath as Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs. The man who defeated him, Ronald Reagan, saved Carter from this historical calamity. He managed to simply overcome all of Carter's perfidy.

"I was determined to combine support for our more authoritarian allies and friends with the promotion of human rights within their countries," said Carter. Make no mistake about it, Carter's intentions were good. We need people like Jimmy Carter. But when the Jimmy Carter's of the world are given the power of the Presidency, the results can be devastating. In Carter's case, his Presidency actually promoted America's victory in the Cold War. What? Here is how. He was so weak that the Soviets, who always operated on five-year, 10-year and Master Plans, saw in his weakness opportunities that seemed to be Manna from Heaven (if they only believed in Heaven). They put on a major offensive in the Middle East, Central America, Africa and the Asian Steppes. In so doing, they extended themselves beyond their plan. When Reagan was elected in 1980, this caught them off guard. They made the mistake of making their plans as if the "Carter way" was the "new American way." What they ran into after Reagan took office was a buzzsaw.

Carter tried to balance U.S. security with Communist aggression and human rights considerations. Carter saw human rights to be much more than free speech, political pluralism, and the discreditation of torture. Education, nutrition and housing were part of his agenda. The result was that Carter's meddling in the internal affairs of foreign nations became more pervasive than previous covert ops of the CIA. Chaos ensued.

"The fundamental weakness of the Carter approach was its attempt to graft concern about human rights to an existing interventionist foreign policy rather than reassessing the underlying elements of that policy," wrote Ted Galen Carpenter. "Administration leaders should have viewed human rights considerations as a rationale for reducing the level of American political and military involvement in the Third World. But to adopt such a course would have meant evaluating whether the preservation of various...autocracies was actually vital to American security, indeed, whether important American interests were involved at all in regions remote from our own homeland. Neither the President nor his subordinates were willing or able to make such a drastic reassessment. Consequently, the human rights issue became a vehicle for more rather than less intervention."

Carpenter recommended a policy he called "benign detachment" toward Third World dictatorships of all ideologies. The concept was "grounded in the indisputable reality that, for the foreseeable future, the United States will confront a Third World environment in which a majority of nations are un-Democratic." He acknowledged that simply wanting capitalist Democracies would not produce capitalist Democracies. He ended up promoting, after a long diatribe against the policies of Kissinger, Kirpatrick and Dulles, that the U.S. "coexist" with a variety of dictatorships. This is what Kissinger, Kirpatrick and Dulles advocated, so long as the dictatorships were not Marxists. His term "benign detachment" reflected the Daniel Patrick Moynihan recommendation of "benign neglect" of urban centers. Carpenter's piece was written during the Reagan era. Events since then are instructive. First, American policy toward dictatorships was more benign than the Left would think it was. We did actively work against Marxist governments, no question. We let authoritarian dictators operate without undue American intrusion. In Latin America, the Reagan policies produced peace and Democracy.

With the death of Marxist ideology, the dictators disappeared. The human rights abuses faded away. The approach reflects the fact that a "first things first" plan was in fact necessary. The first thing was to get rid of the Marxists. Then, and only then, could we address all the other things. It is totally similar to the Palestinian situation, in which the first thing that must be done is to get rid of terrorism. Then we can clean up the streets and allow for an independent state. In Iraq, security must come before installing a full-scale, sovereign government.

The blanket normalizing of diplomatic and commercial relations with such states as Cuba, Nicaragua and Vietnam would have been disastrous. Cuba and Nicaragua were belligerent enemies (until the Communists were tossed out in Nicaragua). Vietnam is thought to be benign.

China is a country where some historians say that American partnership prevailed over manipulation. In the 1950s and 1960s, isolation of the PRC supposedly "caused" the Cultural Revolution. Since Nixon opened up China, the country has become more open and progressive. But China is not a good example to compare to, say, Chile or Guatemala. First, it was already Marxist. Second, the isolation of the country helped to reduce their international influence at a time when worldwide Communism was on the march.

Deng Xiaoping welcomed Western trade and investment. Eventually, Chinese interest in high technology was exposed as espionage, destined to give them an economic and military advantage. The Chinese have reduced the Marxist model of central planning in favor of some private property and a market economy. Their civil rights record is still atrocious. Based on this fact, the old Carterites would have us isolating them instead of working with them. They are still Communists and would overpower the West if they thought they could do it. The Chinese are an ancient civilization who views history in chunks of centuries, not decades. They are not to be trusted.

The "church of America": Central Intelligence Agency and the Church Committee

"Our Presidents should not be able to conduct secret operations which violate our principles, jeopardize our rights, and have not been subject to the checks and balances which normally keep policies in line."

- Morton Halperin

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Affairs

"In its consideration of covert action, the Committee was struck by the basic tension - if not incompatibility \- of covert operations and the demands of a Constitutional system. Secrecy is essential to covert operations; secrecy can, however, become a source of power, a barrier to serious policy debate within the government, and a means of circumventing the established checks and procedures of government. The committee found that secrecy and compartmentation contributed to a temptation on the part of the Executive to resort to covert operations in order to avoid bureaucratic, Congressional, and public debate."

- The Church Committee

"The nation must to a degree take it on faith that we too are honorable men, devoted to her service."

\- Richard Helms, then DCI

April, 1971

On January 22, 1946, President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order setting up a National Intelligence Authority, and under it, a Central Intelligence Group, which was the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Since 1947, the CIA has involved itself in the politics and military affairs of over 50 nations. The main function of these activities usually involves propaganda, political action, economic activities, and paramilitary operations.

Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were successful examples of corporate structures set up by The Company. CIA airlines included Air America, Air Asia, Civil Air Transport, Intermountain Aviation, and Southern Air Transport. The CIA subsidized the National Student Association along numerous fronts to channel money, business, labor, and church groups; universities; charitable organizations; and educational and cultural groups.

"Black propaganda" was intended to hurt the image of the Soviet Union, sometimes using the Voice of America broadcasting station to secret CIA transmitters in different parts of the world. "White propaganda" was the dissemination of positive information about the U.S. and the West, which would otherwise not be heard in the Communist world. The CIA published newspaper and magazine articles, books, and even the memoirs of Soviet officials or soldiers who defected. They also used disinformation.

Covert political actions are attempts to change the structure and policies of other states secretly, going beyond propaganda but stopping short of military action. After Korea, the Soviets became as much a political threat as a military one. Covert CIA action was stepped up accordingly.

Subversive support to domestic opposition of unfriendly governments is known as "benign." Assassination of dictators unfriendly to the United States or its interests was carried out. Marxists like Castro or terrorists like Moamar Quadafi were targets but action against them either was not carried out, or failed.

While not every action the CIA ever took was justified, the bottom line in assessing them is this: Either the U.S. is a force for good whose cause is just, or it is just another country that engages in activities no different than their enemies. The U.S. engaged in espionage and subversion similar to and beyond the scope of what the Soviets were doing to the West, particularly after World War II. That is not the question. Either we were right in doing it, or we were not. If one says we were not, then the root of all political discourse regarding America's role in the world springs from this premise. You are currently reading a book outlining why, in my humble opinion, we were justified.

In 1975, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, headed by Democrat Senator Frank Church of Idaho, began hearings on the CIA. The Church Committee issued a 1975 finding entitled "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders." The CIA was involved in assassination plots against Castro, Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, and Ngo Din Diem of South Vietnam. They allegedly planned to assassinate President Sukarno of Indonesia and Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier of Haiti, but this was never proven.

According to Loch Johnson in "A Season of Inquiry", "In no case was an American finger actually on the trigger of these weapons. And even though the officials of the United States had clearly initiated assassination plots against Castro and Lumumba, it was technically true - as Richard Helms had claimed - that neither the CIA nor any other agency of the American government had murdered a foreign leader. Through others, however, we had tried, but had either been too inept...or too late to succeed."

The CIA helped countries become more economically efficient by urging them to adopt Democratic ideals that would lead to greater prosperity. Paramilitary operations were necessary and dangerous. Soviet domination of the Third World was too great a threat to stick with propaganda. Such ops were part of the 1954 Guatemala campaign, but Kennedy decided to adopt a policy of unconventional warfare capability to counter the Communist guerilla activity in Southeast Asia and Africa. Along with the new Green Berets, counterinsurgency prevented Communist military victories involving U.S.-Soviet conflict. Kennedy ordered the CIA to use paramilitary operations around the globe.

The decolonization of Africa separated that continent from the Middle Eastern Division. Growing Soviet presence there and in Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia, resulted in a four percent increase in the size of the Western Hemisphere Division between 1960 and 1965, including operations in Angola, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba. Fred Branfman, in a book entitled "Uncloaking the CIA", by Howard Frazier, recalls an episode that is indicative of the dangerousness of what America was involved in trying to defeat, and how in fighting "bad guys" it is impossible to avoid "fighting dirty."

"There are many stories I could tell about him, but I will tell just one. In the late 1960s a friend of mine was a pilot for a private CIA airline. The agent threw a box on the airplane one day and said 'Take this to Landry in Udorn.' (Pat Landry was the head of the CIA in Udorn, coordinating the Burma-Thailand-Laos-North Vietnam theatre). My friend started flying the plane and noticed a bad odor coming from the box. After some time he could not stand it anymore and opened up the box. Inside was a fresh human head. This was a joke. The idea was to see what Pat Landry would do when someone put this box on his desk. You cannot throw a human head in the wastepaper basket, you cannot throw it in the garbage can. CIA paramilitary activities were and are being carried out by people, like this agent, who have gone beyond the pale of civilized behavior. There are hundreds of these people now working in the Third World. This fact is, of course, not just a disgrace, but a clear and present danger."

The CIA developed darts coated with biological agents and different types of pills, and a special gun to fire darts to incapacitate guard dogs, enter the installation the dogs were guarding, and return the dogs to consciousness upon departure from the facility. Biological agents may have been used on crops and animals, according to the Church Committee.

President Richard Nixon renounced it. He ordered the disposal of existing stockpiles of bacteriological weapons and later included toxic chemicals in the directive. A CIA scientist ignored the order.

Project MKULTRA's purpose was:

"...To develop a capability in the covert use of biological and chemical materials...Aside from the offensive potential, the development of a comprehensive capability in this field of covert chemical and biological warfare gives us a thorough knowledge of the enemy's theoretical potential, thus enabling us to defend ourselves against a foe who might not be as restrained in the use of these techniques as we are."

86 universities were involved in Project CHATTER, which involved "truth drugs" for interrogation and agent recruitment. It ended in 1953. The hallucinogenic drug LSD was tested on human soldiers who volunteered. On November 27, 1953, Dr. Frank Olson, a civilian employee of the U.S. Army, died following participation in an LSD experiment, when he unknowingly received 70 micrograms of LSD placed in his drink by Dr. Robert Lashbrook, a CIA officer. Olson jumped to his death from a 10-story window.

The Senate Committees discovered that testing was performed on "unwitting subjects in social situations". Heroin addicts were enticed into participating. Most of the MKULTRA records were destroyed in 1973 at the instruction of then CIA director Richard Helms.

In 1949, the CIA founded the National Committee for a Free Europe and the Committee for the Liberation of Peoples of Russia. Radio Free Europe in Munich and Radio Liberation were started. Émigrés' broadcast to their countries in their native languages. Broadcasts inside the Soviet Union were in 14 different languages. Satellite countries of Eastern Europe were special targets. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberation weakened the Communist message.

The success story of Taiwan is due in large measure to the CIA. They pointed out the failures of the People's Republic of China compared to Taiwan. Technological guidance on modern farming techniques helped Taiwan prosper. "Miracle seeds" and chemical fertilizers further increased agricultural production. Around 1960, the U.S. decided to help the Chinese Nationalists of Taiwan set up food-growing demonstration projects in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. This economic aid program built prestige and political contacts for the Nationalist Chinese, and was an embarrassment to the Communists. Taiwan's enormous successes, compared to Mao's failures, were the best kind of propaganda: Simple true facts.

The Taiwan model was an even greater demonstration of capitalist and Democratic superiority than South Korea and West Berlin. Those two countries were roughly the same size as their eastern and northern rivals. But Taiwan, a tiny island, quickly emerged as the economic superior of the huge Mainland China. Ray Cline, a touring case officer for the CIA, engaged in "off the record talks with Chiang Ching-kuo, the savvy son of Chiang Kai-shek, who was perhaps the most far-sighted political leader in Taiwan."

"Ching-kuo grasped the concept immediately and saw the benefits, as did other Taiwanese foreign and agricultural policy officials," Cline added. "The program was organized by the Chinese with a minimum of American help and it worked well for about 10 years. In some regions, it continued to work even longer, and everyone has profited from the program."

When Castro took power in Cuba in 1959, the U.S. endeavored to eliminate him. According to Cline, who became Deputy-Director of the CIA, "The CIA had advocated the 'elimination of Fidel Castro' as early as December, 1959, and the matter was discussed at Special Group meetings in January and March of 1960. At an NSC meeting on March 10, 1960, terminology was used suggesting that the assassination of Castro, his brother Raul, and Che Guevara was at least theoretically considered."

In Cline's book, "Secrets, Spies, and Scholars", "There was almost an obsession with Cuba on the part of policy matters...that the assassination of Castro by a Cuban might have been viewed as not very different in the benefits that would have accrued from the assassination of Hitler in 1944."

His book explains further that, "The several plots planned at CIA headquarters included treating a box of Castro's favorite cigars with a botulinum toxin so potent that it would cause death immediately upon being placed to the lips; concocting highly poisonous tablets that would work quickly when immersed in just about anything but boiling soup; contaminating a diving suit with a fungus guaranteed to produce a chronic skin disease called Madura foot and, through an intermediary, offering the suit as a gift to Castro; constructing an exotic seashell that could be placed in reefs where Castro often went skin- diving and then exploded at the right moment from a small submarine nearby; and providing an agent with a ballpoint pen that contained a hypodermic needle filled with the deadly poison Black-leaf 40 and had so fine a point it could pierce the skin of the victim without his knowledge."

The CIA used underworld figures, too. In 1962, Attorney General Robert Kennedy stopped a deal between the CIA and the Mafia to murder Fidel Castro.

The CIA asked a mobster named Johnny Roselli to organize hit squads of Cuban exiles to infiltrate Cuba. Rosselli, Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana, and La Costra Nostra chieftain Santos Trafficante, were brought in. A $150,000 reward was offered for Castro's assassination, and the agency agreed to support the effort. The plan did not reach fruition, but strong ties between the Mafia and the Kennedy Administration were established. JFK carried on an affair with a woman named Judith Campbell Exner, who may have been a prostitute working for Sam Giancana. She had a relationship with Giancana, and became the main "go-between" of messages between Giancana and Kennedy.

CIA operations in Laos were known as the "secret army." For over a decade, over 100,000 men saw action there and extensive bombing operations took place in an effort to help the Laotians defend against North Vietnamese Communist attacks.

"It created an army of its own, an army paid, controlled, and directed by American CIA officials entirely separately from the normal Laotian government structure," according to Fred Branfman. "Some troops from every people in Southeast Asia were bought into Laos as part of what became known as 'the secret army.' The CIA trained the secret army; directed it in combat; decided when it would fight; and had it carry out espionage missions, assassinations of military and civilian figures, and sabotage."

Special photoreconnaissance teams determined bomb targets. Psychological warfare, designed to win the "minds and hearts" of the people, was instigated via land reform, education, and economic assistance. The Laotian effort was not successful. The people did not appreciate having their politics controlled by the U.S., and did not view the Communist North Vietnamese as being as much a threat as the Americans knew they were.

From 1962-1965, the CIA worked with South Vietnam's police and paramilitary. The CIA fought a "war within a war" throughout the entire conflict. The Phoenix Program, initiated in South Vietnam in 1968, was an attempt to "neutralize", assassinate, or imprison civilians of the National Liberation Front (NLF). The "Viet Cong infrastructure" was the target. The Communists had decided to use the civilians in two capacities. One, they disguised fighters as civilians and hid behind civilians, using them as shields. Two, they used civilians to run non-military tasks like supply operations, food chains, and other efforts. The Communists were successful in this because it forced the Americans to accept casualties inflicted by the civilian Viet Cong, but played on the natural good tendency of American soldiers not to fire at anything that looked like civilians. Further, any military action taken against civilians met with great anger by the unsupportive Left, who knew the facts but arrived at their opinions because they did not want the U.S. to succeed.

Military units carried out sweeps through villages. Most of the actual killing was carried out by CIA-led South Vietnamese soldiers, organized into Provincial Reconnaissance Units. The Phoenix Program ended because so many civilians were actually Viet Cong fighters that to kill them all was not something Americans were able to conscientiously do, despite killings and torture by Viet Cong applied to Americans. Identifying members of the NLF was also too difficult, since the killers among them included women and children. The U.S. made the decision that they were on the side of good, and therefore chose to accept higher casualties rather than make mistakes and kill innocents, despite the fact that the Viet Cong numbered hundreds of thousands. William Colby, the director of the Phoenix Program, testified before Congress in 1971 regarding American sponsorship of Phoenix.

"The Americans had a great deal to do with starting the program," said Colby. "...We had a great deal to do in terms of developing the ideas, discussing the need, developing some of the procedures, and so forth...maybe more than half the initiative came from us originally."

"The United States clearly set quotas in an attempt to force the GVN <Government of South Vietnam> officials into something they preferred not to undertake," said Fred Branfman. Vietnam Information Notes, published by the U.S. State Department in July of 1969, reported that, "The target for 1969 calls for the elimination of 1,800 VCI per month."

Assassinations and jailings of civilians occurred without judicial procedure, according to Colby. Despite cutting back, the Phoenix Program resulted in the deaths of 20,587 persons as of May, 1971, he said.

CIA involvement in Chile began in 1963, but events of 1973 became publicized. Covert assistance had begun for Eduardo Frei in his campaign for the presidency against the Leftist Salvador Allende. Frei won the election, and the United States decided to stay in Chile to run a propaganda operation. CIA station in Santiago placed notices in the Chilean media, maintained assets and agents on newspapers, radio, and television stations, and disseminated "black" propaganda. They supported the government via commercial television service, aired anti-Soviet propaganda on the radio news stations and in newspapers. Money was given to El Mercurio, a Santiago daily. The operation cost over $12 million.

They influenced elections, costing over $3 million. The agency fought Communist labor unions and returned universities to the nation after they had been taken over by "students." In 1970, with Allende having formed a government, Kissinger ordered the CIA and the State Department to reverse the election results. The CIA case officers offered resistance to the idea, but Kissinger particularly felt that an Allende-led Chile was susceptible to becoming a Soviet satellite. A coup was staged. The actual U.S. operation failed, but Chilean military forces did continue to work against Allende over the next three years. The CIA provided around $8 million to support parliamentary opposition to Allende and an opposition press. In 1973, he was overthrown in a non-CIA coup caused by anti-Allende forces. Kissinger, as has been stated, judged that the resulting Augusto Pinochet regime, despite committing atrocities, was better than the Allende government would have been. Despite the truth or non-truth of that statement, the Allende ouster is generally considered one of the big mistakes of American policy.

McGeorge Bundy, former Special Assistant for National Security Affairs to Kennedy and Johnson, has said, "While in principle it has always been the understanding of senior government officials outside the CIA that no covert operations would be undertaken without the explicit approval of 'higher authority,' there has also been a general expectation within the agency that it was proper business to generate attractive proposals and to stretch them, in operation, to the furthest limit of any authorization actually received."

This came to be known as the "blank check" policy. CIA officers came to the conclusion that informing the President disabled his ability to "plausibly deny" knowledge schemes.

Darrel Garwood, the author of "Under Cover", wrote, "'Plausible deniability' could be regarded as one of the most wretched theories ever invented. Its application ...was based on the idea that in an unholy venture a President could be kept so isolated from events that when exposure came he could truthfully emerge as shiningly blameless. In practice, whether he deserved it or not, a President almost always had to take the blame for whatever happened."

The 1986 "Iran-Contra Affair" was an example in which "plausible deniability" was exercised. The CIA itself was not directly involved in the operation, which was run by Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North out of the White House basement. The program carried out the "aims" of President Reagan without his direct knowledge, in direct contravention of the wishes of Congressional Democrats. It channeled funds from arms sales to Iran to the Contras in Nicaragua. Media attention and Congressional investigations showed that whether Reagan knew or not, he had to take responsibility, and the premise of "plausible deniability" would not hold up under public pressure.

The Church hearings resulted in Congress instituting stringent oversight during the Ford and Carter years. In 1981, Reagan relaxed the strictures and put the Agency under control of an "old-time spook," Bill Casey, who was a veteran of "Wild Bill" Donavan's OSS. Casey was excoriated because he used methods that violated the human rights of murderers and terrorists. However, an analysis of American success and prestige in the Ford-Carter period of 1975-80, vs. the Reagan/Bush record of 1981-89, indicates that the Church Committee did damage to the United States.

With the CIA unable to perform its usual functions, the Soviets moved swiftly throughout the Third World. When the CIA was restored by Reagan and Casey, Communism was rolled back in the 1980s. When Bill Clinton took office, he again emasculated the agency, with the result being a rise in post-Cold War terrorism. When George W. Bush took office, he gave "teeth" back to the CIA. So far terrorism, is being rolled back. This 30-year record is now complete enough to determine that, despite CIA excess, which produced a highly imperfect record that includes atrocities such as the Phoenix Program, a vibrant Central Intelligence Agency is of great benefit to the United States and the world.

Still, the CIA has modernized. Severe beatings and assassinations of dictators were measured in light of larger goals. Assassinations of heads of state are no longer legal in times of peace, although killing those not running countries is not illegal. The recent War on Terror makes it obvious that assassinations have a place. Under a state of war, assassination attempts against Saddam Hussein were justified. Nobody has argued the value of getting Osama bin Laden. Where terrain, geography or friendly states protect terrorists, assassination attempts by drone aircraft and "smart missiles" make all the sense in the world. Torture has actually been replaced by mind control, in most cases. The CIA has found that old torture methods are not particularly reliable, while sleep deprivation, disinformation, appeals to conscience, pitting terrorists against each other, using incomplete information, and so forth, are not foolproof, but are better tools.

Not all Democrats opposed the CIA. Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, once said, "No, Mr. President, we have not told the country, and I do not propose to tell the country in the future, because if there is anything in the United States which should be held sacred behind the curtain of classified matter, it is information regarding the activities of this agency...It would be better to abolish it out of hand than it would be to adopt a theory that such information should be spread and made available to every member of Congress and to the members of the staff of any committee."

Former CIA director Allen Dulles said before a Congressional committee, "Any investigation, whether by a Congressional committee or any other body, which results in disclosure of our secret activities and operations or uncovers our personnel, will help a potential enemy just as if the enemy had been able to infiltrate his own agents right into our shop."

"If you are going to have an intelligence agency, you have to protect it as such...and shut your eyes some, and take what's coming," said Mississippi Senator John Stennis.

Time-line of CIA covert ops, 1946-1984

The following is a partial list of United States covert action abroad to impose or restore favorable political conditions, 1946-1983. The list was prepared by Tom Gervasi of the Center for Military Research and Analysis in 1984, and it was compiled using information available in the public domain:

1946: GREECE. Restore monarchy after overthrow of Metaxas government. Successful.

1946-1955: WEST GERMANY. Average of $6 million annually to support former Nazi intelligence network of General Reinhard Gehlen. Successful.

1948-1968: ITALY. Average of $30 million annually in payments to political and labor leaders to support against Communist candidates in Italian elections. Successful.

1949: GREECE. Military assistance to anti-Communist forces in Greek Civil War. Successful.

1949-1953: UKRAINE. Organize and support a Ukrainian resistance movement. Unsuccessful.

1949-1961: BURMA. Support 12,000 Nationalist China troops in Burma under General Li Mi as an incursion force into People's Republic of China. Unsuccessful.

1950-1952: POLAND. Financial and military assistance for Polish Freedom and Independence Movement. Unsuccessful.

1950: ALBANIA. Overthrow government of Enver Hoxha. Unsuccessful.

1951-1954: CHINA. Airdrop guerilla teams into People's Republic of China. Unsuccessful.

1953: IRAN. Overthrow Mossadegh government and install Shah Zahedi. Cost: $10 million. Successful.

1953: PHILLIPINES. Assassination and propaganda campaign to overcome Huk resistance and install government of Ramon Magsaysay. Successful.

1953: COSTA RICA. Overthrow government of Jose Figueres. Unsuccessful.

1954: SOUTH VIETNAM. Install government of Ngo Dinh Diem. Successful.

1954: WEST GERMANY. Arrange abduction and discreditation of West German intelligence chief Otto John, and replace with Reinhard Gehlen. Successful.

1954: GUATEMALA. Overthrow government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman and replace with Carlos Castillo Armas. Successful.

1955: CHINA. Assassinate Zhou Enlai en route to Bandung Conference. Unsuccessful.

1956: HUNGARY. Financial and military assistance to organize and support a Hungarian resistance movement, and broad propaganda campaign to encourage it. Unsuccessful.

1956: CUBA. Establish anti-Communist police force, Buro de Represion Actividades Communistas (BRAC) under Batista regime. Successful.

1956: EGYPT. Overthrow Nasser government. Unsuccessful.

1956: SYRIA. Overthrow Ghazzi government. Aborted by Israeli invasion of Egypt.

1956-1957: JORDAN. Average of $750,000 annually in personal payments to King Hussein. According to United States government, payments ceased when disclosed in 1976.

1957: LEBANON. Financial assistance for the election of pro-American candidates to Lebanese Parliament. Successful.

1958: INDONESIA. Financial and military assistance, including B-26 bombers, for rebel forces attempting to overthrow Sukarno government. Unsuccessful.

1958-1961: TIBET. Infiltrate Tibetan guerrillas trained in United States to fight Chinese Communists. Unsuccessful.

1959: CAMBODIA. Assassinate Prince Norodum Sianouk. Unsuccessful.

1960: GUATEMALA. Military assistance, including the use of B-26 bombers for government of Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes to defeat rebel forces. Successful.

1960: ANGOLA. Financial and military assistance to rebel forces of Holden Roberto. Inconclusive.

1960: LAOS. Military assistance, including 400 United States Special Forces troops, to deny the Plain of Jars bad Mekong Basin to Pathet Lao. Inconclusive.

1961-1965: LAOS. Average of $300 million annually to recruit and maintain L'Armee Clandestine of 35,000 Hmong and Meo tribesmen and 17,000 Thai mercenaries in support of government of Phoumi Nosavan to resist Pathet Lao. Successful.

1961-1963: CUBA. Assassinate Fidel Castro. Six attempts in this period. Unsuccessful.

1961: CUBA. Train and support invasion force of Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro government, and assist their invasion at the Bay of Pigs. Cost: $62 million. Unsuccessful.

1961: ECUADOR. Overthrow government of Hose Velasco Ibarra. Successful.

1961: CONGO. Precipitate conditions leading to assassination of Patrice Lumumba. Successful.

1961: DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. Precipitate conditions leading to assassination of Rafael Trujillo. Successful.

1961-1966: CUBA. Broad sabotage program, including terrorist attacks on coastal targets and bacteriological warfare, in effort to weaken Castro government. Unsuccessful.

1962: THAILAND. Brigade of 5,000 United States Marines to resist threat to Thai government from Pathet Lao. Successful.

1962-1964: BRITISH GUIANA. Organize labor strikes and riots to overthrow government of Cheddi Jagan. Successful.

1962-1964: BRAZIL. Organize campaign of labor strike and propaganda to overthrow government of Joao Goulart. Successful.

1963: DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. Overthrow government of Juan Bosch in military coup. Successful.

1963: SOUTH VIETNAM. Precipitate conditions leading to assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem. Successful.

1963: ECUADOR. Overthrow government of Carlos Julio Arosemena. Successful.

1963-1984: EL SALVADOR. Organize ORDEN and ANSESAL domestic intelligence networks under direction of General Jose Alberto Medrano and Colonel Nicolas Carranza, and provide intelligence support and training in surveillance, interrogation and assassination techniques. Successful.

1963-1973: IRAQ. Financial and military assistance for Freedom Party of Mulla Mustafa al Barzani in effort to establish independent Kurdistan. Unsuccessful.

1964: CHILE. $20 million in assistance for Eduardo Frei to defeat Salvador Allende in Chilean elections. Successful.

1964: BRAZIL, GUATEMALA, URUGUAY, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. Provide training in assassination and interrogation techniques for police and intelligence personnel. Inconclusive.

1964: CONGO. Financial and military assistance, including B-26 and T-28 aircraft, and American and exiled Cuban pilots, for Joseph Mobutu and Cyril Adoula, and later for Moise Tshombe in Katanga, to defeat rebel forces loyal to Lumumba. Successful.

1964-1967: SOUTH VIETNAM. Phoenix Program to eliminate Viet Cong political infrastructure through more than 20,000 assassinations. Infiltrated by Viet Cong and only partially successful.

1964-1971: NORTH VIETNAM. Sabotage and ambush missions under Operations Plan 34A by United States Special Forces and Nung tribesmen. Inconclusive.

1965-1971: LAOS. Under Operations Shining Brass and Prairie Fire, sabotage and ambush missions by United States Special Forces personnel and Nung and Meo tribesmen under General Bang Pao. Inconclusive.

1965: THAILAND. Recruit 17,000 mercenaries to support Laotian government of Phoumi Nosavan resisting Pathet Lao. Successful.

1965: PERU. Provide training in assassination and interrogation techniques for Peruvian police and intelligence personnel, similar to training given in Uruguay, Brazil and Dominican Republic, in effort to defeat resistance movement. Unsuccessful.

1965: INDONESIA. Organize campaign of propaganda to overthrow Sukarno government, and precipitate conditions leading to massacre of more than 500,000 members of Indonesian Communist Party, in order to eliminate opposition to new Suharto government. Successful.

1967: BOLIVIA. Assist government in capture of Ernesto Che Guevara. Successful.

1967: GREECE. Overthrow government of George Papandreou and install military government of Colonel George Papadopolous after abdication of King Constantine. Successful.

1967-1971: CAMBODIA. Under Projects Daniel Boone and Salem House, sabotage and ambush missions by United States Special Forces personnel and Meo tribesmen. Inconclusive.

1969-1970: CAMBODIA. Bombing campaign to crush Viet Cong sanctuaries in Cambodia. Unsuccessful.

1970: CAMBODIA. Overthrow government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Successful.

1970-1973: CHILE. Campaign of assassinations, propaganda, labor strikes and demonstrations to overthrow government of Salvador Allende. Cost: $8,400,000. Successful.

1973-1978: AFGHANISTAN. Military and financial assistance to government of Mohammed Duad to resist rise to power of Noor Mohammed Taraki. Unsuccessful.

1975: PORTUGAL. Overthrow government of General Vasco dos Santos Goncalves. Successful.

1975: ANGOLA. Military assistance to forces of Holden Roberto and Jonas Savimbi to defeat forces of Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during Angolan civil war, and prevent MPLA from forming new government. Unsuccessful.

1975: AUSTRALIA. Propaganda and political pressure to force dissolution of labor government of Gough Whitlam. Successful.

1976: JAMAICA. Military coup to overthrow government of Michael Manley. Unsuccessful.

1976-1984: ANGOLA. Financial and military assistance to forces of Jonas Savimbi to harass and destabilize Neto and succeeding governments. Inconclusive.

1979: IRAN. Install military government to replace Shah and resist growth of Moslem fundamentalism. Unsuccessful.

1979-1980: JAMAICA. Financial pressure to destabilize government of Michael Manley, and campaign propaganda and demonstrations to defeat it in elections. Successful.

1979: AFGHANISTAN. Military aid to rebel forces of Zia Nezri, Zia Khan Nassry, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Sayed Ahmed Gailani and conservative mullahs to overthrow government of Hafizullah Amin. Aborted by Soviet intervention and installation of new government.

1980-1984: AFGHANISTAN. Continuing military aid to same rebel groups to harass Soviet occupation forces and challenge legitimacy of government of Babrak Karmal.

1979: SEYCHELLES. Destabilize government of France Albert Rene. Successful.

1980: DOMINICA. Financial support to Freedom Party of Eugenia Charles to defeat Oliver Seraphim in Dominican elections. Successful.

1980: GUYANA. Assassinate opposition leader Walter Rodney to consolidate power of government of Forbes Burnham. Successful.

1980-1984: NICARAGUA. Military assistance to Adolfo Colero Portocarrero, Alfonso Robelo, Alfonso Callejas, Fernando Chamorro Rappacioli, Eden Pastora Gomez, Adrianna Guillen, Steadman Fagoth and former Somoza National Guard officers, to recruit, train and equip anti- Sandinista forces for sabotage and terrorist incursions into Nicaragua from sanctuaries in Honduras and Costa Rica, in effort to destabilize government of Daniel Ortega Saavedra.

1981: SEYCHELLES. Military coup to overthrow government of France Albert Rene. Unsuccessful.

1981-1982: MAURITIUS. Financial support to Seewoosagar Ramgoolam to bring him to power in 1982 elections. Unsuccessful.

1981-1984: LIBYA. Broad campaign of economic pressure, propaganda, military maneuvers in Egypt, Sudan and Gulf of Sidra, and organization if Libyan Liberation Front exiles to destabilize government of Muammar Qaddafi. Inconclusive.

1982: CHAD. Military assistance to Hissen Habre to overthrow government of Goukouni Oueddei. Successful.

1982: GUATEMALA. Military coup to overthrow government of Angel Anibal Guevara. Successful.

1982: BOLIVIA. Military coup to overthrow government of Celso Torrelio. Successful.

1982: JORDAN. Military assistance to equip and train two Jordanian brigades as an Arab strike force to implement United States policy objectives without Israeli assistance.

1982-1983: SURINAM. Overthrow government of Colonel Desi Bouterse. Three attempts in this period. Unsuccessful.

1984: EL SALVADOR. $1.4 million in financial support for the Presidential election campaign of Jose Napoleon Duarte.

South African Apartheid

South Africa is a country that had been controlled since the 19th Century by Dutch Afrikaaners and the British Empire, which has resulted in a combination of languages, accents and some of the most stunning women anywhere. The British fought bloody wars against the Zulus. The Boar War (which produced the legendary nurse Florence Nightengale) was another horrid affair. No matter which way the struggle played itself out, black natives of South Africa were shunted to the lower rung of society by a racist institution known as Apartheid.

Even though Apartheid had been in place in this country for many years, it did not become an international cause celebre until the Civil Rights Movement of the U.S. in the 1960s. American black athletes like tennis star Arthur Ashe drew attention to Apartheid by refusing to play in tournaments in South Africa. Throughout the 1970s and '80s, white South African athletes in golf, tennis and the Olympics found themselves either banned or discriminated against, regardless of their personal views on Apartheid.

The American government found itself in a difficult situation dealing with the issue. First, Communism had spread in the 1960s, '70s and '80s throughout Africa. The white South African government was staunchly anti-Communist. The main arm fighting Apartheid was the African National Congress, a Communist organization. South African Apartheid also represented the great conundrum of racism. As decolonization occurred and black countries became black-ruled, a disturbing, obvious truth became apparent. That truth is that blacks living in the worst racist conditions of the Jim Crow South, under repressive white regimes in Africa, plus black populations in Europe, all lived much better lives than blacks living under black leadership.

Today, South Africa is black-ruled, although the white leadership is included. The result is a certain amount of anarchy, and most average black South Africans actually live in worse conditions than they did under white Apartheid. However, life for blacks in South Africa is paradise compared to African nations that are completely "ruled" by blacks.

Zimbabwe, once ruled by whites, has been taken over by the blacks. They stole the farms from the whites, and the country has descended into chaos. Most African countries - Mozambique, Somalia, Liberia, just to name a couple - have no real government, little diplomatic clout or function, are simply killing fields of civil wars; pitched battles between savages, war lords, drug dealers, slave traders, and other low lifes. AIDS has spread like wildfire and is used as a military weapon, as is rape, torture, mutilation and other charming actions. Zaire in 1994 and the Congo in 2003 have seen genocide that approached holocausts. There is every evidence that since Africa went from the controlled, racial politics of white rule to the rule of blacks, Satan has decided that this is his next battleground. The discouraging fact is that the worst racist whites are substantially better than black African "leadership." The term "lesser of two evils" applies here as well as any place, but the "most of all evils" is what history has determined to be Africa's fate. The devil has moved inexorably from Europe to Asia to the Middle East, and removing him from Africa is a job only one country has the resources to tackle. That country is the U.S.

In 1994, Nelson Mandela became president of the multi-racial South Africa government, following victory by the African National Congress in general elections. Mandela is a hero to many, but the reality of his life is mixed.

Mandela was a key figure in South Africa since the 1950s. Some questions have risen concerning the part that Mandela actually played. In 1948, Apartheid became law under National party leader Dr. Daniel Malan. He was a hard-line Afrikaner, and racial purity was his goal. This term, in wake of Hitler, caused much squirming, but Dr. Malan advocated roughly "separate but equal" conditions for blacks and whites. He was voted Prime Minister in 1948 at a time when white and black children played together. He felt this mixing was unhealthy. Apartheid was a vague policy at first. As it became a tightly controlled way of life, white domination replaced the fairly easy-going relationship that existed between the races. The blacks suffered under it. Blacks and whites were not allowed to marry. Blacks and whites who were already married had to split. The Population Registration Act 1950 registered people by race and borders. It was followed by the Immorality Amendment Act 1950, Group Areas Act 1950, Natives Act 1952, Native Laws Amendment Act 1952, and the Bantu Education Act 1953.

At first, the Apartheid movement was unopposed, since the blacks had no political power. The Communists saw that Africa was a natural battlefield. Their rhetoric, centering around re-distribution of wealth, played perfectly using race as a metaphor for the proletariat. They formed the African National Congress. The ANC did not advocate the violence of most Communist revolutionary movements of the 1950s. Martin Luther King used much of the ANC platform in forming his Christian organization. The ANC became a multi-racial, non-violent organization. The Pan African Congress, however, was all black and violent.

The Defiance Campaign protested Apartheid, using peaceful protests that included singing, clapping and civil disobedience, patterned after Gandhi. Mandela, an attorney, was the national volunteer-in-chief of the Defiance Campaign, addressing crowds in non-violent appearances. He was jailed in 1952 but the ANC numbers grew from 7,000 to 100,000. Mandela became President of the Transvaal ANC, but was banned from gatherings and ordered out of Johannesburg and to step down as head of the ANC.

In 1960, 69 people were killed and hundreds injured at Sharpeville. Many were shot while running away. The massacre was followed by a state of emergency in which the government gave itself de facto martial powers. The ANC was banned and the world press investigated Apartheid. U.N. Security forces urged South Africa to end the practice. The U.S.A. condemned it. Riots and the mass burning of passes ensued. Both ANC and PAC were banned. Mandela came to Sharpeville to speak on the issue. In 1961, Mandela was jailed again, this time for a period of almost 30 years, for planning guerrilla warfare and organizing invasion by foreign Communist armies

At Soweto township near Johannesburg in 1976, school children protested. 179 children were killed and thousands were injured when police fired at the peaceful gathering. More killings occurred in Soweto and elsewhere. Steve Biko died in detention from brain damage when his head was beaten by police.

At Robben Island Maximum Security Prison, Mandela endured hard labor. Every six months he was allowed to write and receive one letter. His wife, Winnie, was eventually allowed to visit, but she was not allowed to speak of her visits publicly. Mandela was not allowed to keep a diary or read newspapers. An "information network" eventually developed. Winnie was imprisoned for 491 days in 1982. Mandela was transferred to Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison until 1988, when he was hospitalized for tuberculosis. He was finally released shortly thereafter.

W.P. Botha had become President and he reformed Apartheid. Businessmen advocated the reforms because they needed a free, educated black labor force. Botha's Presidency ended Apartheid. Multi-racial facilities and black trade unions were legalized. In 1989 President Botha suffered a stroke and resigned and F.W. de Klerk became President.

The ANC and the Inkartha Freedom Party (Zulus) threatened security forces. White South Africans favored ending Apartheid, but the great fear was that if the blacks had political control, the country would descend into the chaos and murder that occurs most times in which blacks control countries. Fear of civil war was rampant. Blacks routinely engaged in a practice called "necklacing," which involved the act of throwing a tire around a man so he could not move his arms, dousing him with gasoline, and setting him afire. Blacks would gather around and watch these spectacles like sports fans. Winnie Mandela regularly ordered necklacing. She stole huge funds from ANC coffers and ordered men to be made her slaves, all under the control of security forces provided her as Mandela's wife. Whites did not approve of necklacing. They desired to live in a country in which the threat of being necklaced themselves would be reduced. The fact that blacks necklaced humans scared them. People are funny that way.

Ronald Reagan had been criticized for a "go slow" approach to South African Apartheid. However, Reagan knew that black-ruled African countries were embroiled in chaos and killing. He did not want to encourage such a thing, and helped husband the partnership between whites and blacks that eventually allowed South Africa to avoid the genocide of other African nations. He also did not wish to advocate legalization of the ANC, a Communist organization, fearing that the Communist Mandela would lead a Marxist revolution. Apartheid really ended when Communism died, and the threat of international Marxism in South Africa died with it.

In December of 1989, while the Berlin Wall was crumbling, de Klerk and Mandela met and the ban on the ANC was lifted. Bans were lifted on the PAC and 30 other organizations. Non-violent political prisoners were released. Death sentences were commuted. Mandela was unconditionally released after 27 years.

Mandela was horrified when he heard about his wife necklacing people, stealing funds and holding slaves. They were divorced in 1992. With her at his side, he would not have had credibility. She went to trial for murdering a black boy.

Mandela was voted President of South Africa in 1994 with 62 percent of the vote. If they had garnered 66 percent of the vote, their constitution would have been amended to eliminate whites from the government. Mandela breathed a sigh of relief, since he knew, as Reagan and others knew, that whites were needed to maintain order and stability. Otherwise, Mandela felt South Africa could plunge into hell like the other decolonized African states, and he would be blamed.

While Apartheid was a racist policy, South African blacks living under it lived better than African blacks in other countries. This is a statement that is unable to be couched in a manner that does not imply the racist view, but nevertheless remains that with which is true. South Africa became rich, prosperous, a major source of investment, and a travel destination. The switch to black-majority rule has not been smooth. Overall it has been a good thing only in theory. Actual people who live there \- white and black - do not live any better than before. Whites live decidedly worse. They live much better than everybody else on the African Continent.

Mandela, despite his Communism and marriage to a murderer, is an international hero to many. He is very critical of the United States, apparently unable to come to grips with the fact that if the U.S. did not win the Cold War, Apartheid may not have ended and American media played the biggest role in his eventual victory. The difficulties of his life allow for wide leeway in judging his choices, associations and statements. His intelligence and advocacy of non-violence in the Gandhi/King tradition were heroic, especially considering the violent tendencies of the people under his influence. Mandela gained the trust of white South Africans and partnered with them without holding a grudge. Had South Africa become an all-black government, the country would likely have seen the deaths of thousands, if not more. All those prevented deaths are attributed mostly to Mandela, and partially to de Klerk and Botha.

"I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination," Mandela said in 1990 upon his release from prison. "I have cherished the ideal of a Democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be it, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

Russia's "Vietnam": Afghanistan

In the 19th Century, the British Empire expanded to Afghanistan. At first, their superior military forces, intelligence and discipline gave them victories. They secured the ancient capital, Kabul. But over time, the forbidding weather, terrain and savagery of the Afghan opposition drove them out. The great empiricist author, Rudyard Kipling, wrote about the melancholy British experience in Afghanistan. Today, his romanticized accounts of death and suffering would be considered bad form, but Kipling's was a different time. He described in one poem the fate of British soldiers left alive but wounded on the Afghan battlefields. The Brits saw to it that they always had a weapon  
"in reserve" to kill themselves, because no fate was worse than to be captured by the Afghans. They had turned torture into an art form.

The Czars tried to conquer Afghanistan when they entered the "great game" with the British, but they failed. By the time the Soviets had been repelled in the 1980s, the legend had it that Afghanistan was impregnable. They were, until American technology simply became more impregnable. Precision-guided munitions, cruise missiles and high-tech weaponry allowed the United States to march carte blanche into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attack. The lesson of American post-Cold War military incursions (Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq) are that all the old lessons are out the window. The U.S. is the New World Order; new lessons, new rules of law. Studying World War II and Vietnam yield lessons learned only in contemplation of the events that occurred after that. The fact that the Soviet Union failed in Afghanistan was the first in a two-part process. The first part showed that they were vulnerable, and foreshadowed the collapse of the U.S.S.R. The second part was the naked contrast of American success in Afghanistan vs. Soviet defeat there. It spelled the final truth of the Cold War. It was instructive in showing who is the boss. If the U.S. and all other countries are football teams, then the U.S. is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers; the NFL and NCAA have been disbanded; the next best team is Santa Monica College.

Therefore, any retrospective of the Soviet-Afghan War is merely for purposes of telling the story of events. There are no more lessons from Kipling or Russian tank battles. The lessons now are all those being taught by the United States.

Guerrilla war marked the Afghan resistance, just as it did in Algeria and Vietnam. At this point, guerrillas and terrorists, who make up the last line of defense among America's enemies, are no longer the force they were thought to be. These people tend to be a thickheaded bunch. America may be required to continue turning them into fire for awhile before they come to the realization their cause is (a) hopeless and (b) unjustified.

In 1979, the Soviet Union mistakenly thought they were close then to where the U.S. is now. As it has been pointed out in this text, the Soviets were a force of evil by nature, prone to invading lesser countries for naked gain, regardless of death and destruction to said enemies. They never showed any regard for casualties in their own ranks. They follow in the dubious 20th Century tradition of Kaiser's Germany, Japan, Hitler's Germany and China. The Soviet-Afghan War was an enigma in the West, but to the Soviets it was their "Vietnam." America was too strong to be brought down by Vietnam. The U.S.S.R. was not strong enough to withstand Afghanistan.

They had engaged in military interventions in the Ukraine (1945-1951), East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956), and Czechoslovakia (1968). They were involved in efforts to put down nascent Polish Solidarity. Military attack had been as much a part of Soviet politics as the "advise and consent" powers the Senate has in American governmental affairs. Nuclear deterrence had kept the Soviets from fighting a world war they would have lost with the West. After Vietnam, in the midst of success in Africa and Latin America, regional conflicts were considered the new Soviet doctrine.

The invasion of Afghanistan was based on the Czechoslovakian model of 1968. It was assumed that Afghanistan was just a new satellite in the Soviet Empire. At the time, the consequences of Soviet hegemony in the Islamic world, with the implications on oil and Israel, were terribly frightening. The prospect of new Soviet sponsorship of the Arab/terrorist world in support of Communist aims was devastating. Now, with the Cold War won and liberals either saying after the fact that they were "Cold Warriors" or the Soviets were never such a threat, a brutal assessment is in order. Considering that the Soviets attacked on Carter's watch, following the establishment of his weak doctrine, it goes beyond partisan politics to address responsibility. It becomes the duty of historians to evaluate these events and learn the lessons therein. Had the Soviets succeeded in Afghanistan and continued their march throughout the region - India, Pakistan, Iran, and the rest of the Middle East, the consequences are too horrible to imagine.

The point has been made before but must be made again that wars start under Democrat administrations. Again, this is one of a long line of statements made throughout this work which (a) appear utterly political and is (b) simply true. Bob Dole's "Democrat wars" statement of 1976 was met by howling and screaming, and in the post-Watergate climate Dole and his party did not have the backing to hold the line. He would not have said it if it were not true in the first place.

The von Schlieffen Plan was written in 1905, but the Germans dared not attack with Teddy Roosevelt or William Howard Taft itching to get America into the role of international power. The pacifist Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected, and as if the whole thing was cause-and-effect, the Germans attacked with "the right sleeve of the last German brushing the Atlantic."

FDR's military was almost non-existent, giving Hitler and Tojo the courage to attack and start World War II. Who lost China? It is too partisan to "blame" the Truman Administration, except that the Venona Papers show the naked truth that American spies of Leftist bent worked to undermine the Chiang Nationalists. Cause-and-effect: The Korean War.

Eisenhower kept the peace, but Kennedy stole the 1960 election from Nixon. With Nixon in the White House, the Bay of Pigs probably succeeds, the Cuban Missile Crisis never happens, and Communism is probably stopped before it gets started in the 'Nam. Simple? Too easy? Way too Republican? Yes, but very likely. Instead, Vietnam is started under JFK and escalated by LBJ.

Do the Soviets invade Afghanistan with Reagan in office? Is there really any honest assessment of that question in which the answer is "yes?"

Initial resistance by the Afghans was a short firefight against the Soviet Spetsnaz 1 unit storming the Presidential Palace. Then the citizens armed themselves and began committing acts of sabotage against personnel, installations, depots and transport, using flintlock muskets. On the night of February 23, 1980, almost everybody in Kabul climbed on their rooftops and chanted "God is Great," a testament to the power of religion. The "warrior society" had been set in motion.

The Communists had orchestrated a bloody military coup in 1978. President Nur M. Taraki had been unable to develop support among the people, so they "invited" the Soviets to restore order. In September of 1979, Taraki's Prime Minister, Hafizullah Amin, seized power and executed Taraki. The Soviet Politburo decided the situation needed stabilization.

The invasion began on Christmas eve. Airborne and Spetsnaz forces seized the Salang tunnel, key airfields, government and communications sites in Kabul. Amin was immediately assassinated. The main cities were all conquered quickly and a puppet regime installed.

The Soviets expected the resistance to end. Massive firepower delivered from fixed-winged aircraft, helicopters, artillery, rocket launchers and tanks preceded all advances. Tanks and armored vehicles cautiously moved. The Soviets shot indiscriminately at any moving object without regard for civilian casualties. The Afghan freedom fighters were from the traditional warrior society. They proved highly resourceful by temporarily withdrawing from strike areas and returning in hours, days or weeks to strike back. The Mujajadeen morale grew over time.

The Soviets were hated immediately by the populace. Any captured soldiers were tortured using unspeakable means. The difference between the Soviet treatment and American treatment was profound. Even though Afghanistan is a Muslim country, Americans were viewed as Christians, "people of the book." Soviet atheism was considered the worst possible form of human evil. The psychological impact on the Russians made it very difficult for them. Americans were welcomed into homes and usually treated as heroes.

During the early and mid-1980s, the Soviets altered their strategy using air echelons. Failure to win early, however, allowed for a drain of their materiel and personnel. Combined with a drastic economic depression in the U.S.S.R., the war proved to be a microcosm of their eventual downfall.

Soviet dead and missing in Afghanistan amounted to almost 15,000 troops out of 642,000 Soviets, a modest number. 469,685 other casualties, 73 percent of the overall force, were wounded or came down seriously sick. 415,932 troops were diseased, of which 115,308 suffered from infectious hepatitis and 31,080 from typhoid fever. These figures indicate that Soviet hygiene, food and medicine were as big a reason for their failure as any other. This says much for the country as a whole.

Their forces were structured for nuclear and high-intensity war on the European plain. Unlike their fathers who fought the Nazis, returning soldiers were not respected.

The Afghan war was fought without consistent political leadership, either. Four general secretaries - Brezhnev, Chernenko, Andropov and Gorbachev, prosecuted it. Each successive leader was less invested in its success than the previous one. Think of JFK's lack of enthusiasm over the Bay of Pigs, multiplied. Gorbachev was credited by fawning Westerners with ending the war, but the bloodiest fighting still occurred on his watch from 1985-1986. Propaganda photos of happy Soviet soldiers building orphanages were clumsy and quickly backfired when the populace deduced that the children were orphaned because the Soviets were killing their parents. One might say the idea was not, uh, thought through.

By the end of 1983, the Soviet press reported six dead and wounded soldiers. Actually, the 40th Army had suffered 6,262 dead and 9,880 combat wounded. Finally, in 1986-89 under glasnost, the press began accurate reportage. The sudden shock of learning the truth about the war may have been worse than hearing about it gradually. The Soviets deluded themselves, often returning from a battle in which their forces had faced a route, only to act as if they had just won.

The Mujahadeen refused to dig in and wait for Soviet artillery. Tanks were of limited value, although helicopters were an asset. The guerrillas adapted, fighting at night to reduce the advantage. The guerrillas learned when the Soviets would attack and created ambush. Then came the stingers.

When everything is said and done, the Afghans won because of Ronald Reagan and the CIA. The U.S. provided powerful weapons to combat the helicopters. The Stinger shoulder-launched air defense missiles were very effective weapons against low flying aircraft. Use of the stingers by the freedom fighters heavily gave the edge to the Mujahadeen. Once the CIA entered the picture full-throttle, the Soviets never gained the edge back. Psychological and environmental conditions, combined with the stingers, were their final death knell.

Draft-age Soviet youth increasingly tried to avoid the draft. They were told they would be fighting Chinese and American mercenaries. When they got to Afghanistan they found themselves facing battle-hardened Islamic "soldiers of God" fighting for their homes and families. The English who tried to defeat the American Revolutionaries could have told them what a difficult task they faced. The difference between the Soviet and American experiences in Afghanistan is that the Soviets really did kill women and children. Despite Taliban rhetoric, the Americans did not. A certain amount of common sense mixed with facts quickly told the populace this was the case.

Armed with CIA equipment and intel, the Mujahadeen were a force. Reports of large bribes paid to safeguard the children of Communist bigshots further inflamed the situation. Many conscripts developed a narcotics habit, financed by selling equipment, ammunition and weapons. Violent crime was rampant. Soviets robbed merchants and passersby, stole luggage at checkpoints, killed civilians, and worse than any of it, raped Muslim women. Communist soldiers did so much raping in the history of the Soviet Union that they were, over 50 years time, an army composed of serial sex molesters.

Officers were scapegoated and fragged. Female PX cashiers, nurses and secretaries were the object of fierce male rivalries, inflamed by Vodka. Quarrels were settled with grenades and small arms.

Villages were razed, and each act of horror raised the enemy resolve. The Soviets were so hated that the locals became even more violent in their treatment of the invaders, and their tortures increased their morale, overmatching the Soviets. CIA operatives stoked the Mujahadeen using specific propaganda.

Lech Walesa and Polish Solidarity

Lech Walesa was born on September 29, 1943 in Popowo, near Wloclawek, Poland. His father was a carpenter. Lech received only primary and vocational education. In 1967 he began work as an electrician at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk. Food riots in 1970 killed police and a number of demonstrators. Walesa emerged as an antigovernment union activist when new protests against Poland's Communist government erupted in 1976. He lost his job as a result. On August 14, 1980, during protests at the Lenin shipyards over increased food prices, Walesa climbed over the shipyard fence and joined the struggle. The workers elected him head of a strike committee to negotiate with management, and their demands were met. Strikers throughout Gdansk asked Walesa to continue his strike out of solidarity. He headed an Interfactory Strike Committee that united the Gdansk-Sopot-Gdyni region, making bold demands, including the right to strike and form free trade unions. A general strike was proclaimed. In the face of national revolt, the Communists yielded to the workers' principal demands, and on August 31 Walesa and Mieczyslaw Jagielski, Poland's first Deputy Premier, signed an agreement conceding to the workers the right to organize freely and independently.

When 10 million Polish workers and farmers joined semiautonomous unions in response to the agreement, the Interfactory Strike Committee was transformed into a national federation of unions under the name Solidarity (Solidarnosc), with Walesa as its chairman and chief spokesman. The Polish government officially recognized it. Walesa led the federation through limited confrontations, wary of a possible Soviet military attack. On December 13, 1981, the Polish Communists imposed martial law and Solidarity was outlawed, with leaders arrested, including Walesa. He was detained for almost a year, and during this time was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for 1983. In those days, the Nobel Peace Prize actually meant something. He was criticized by the Polish government, and fearing involuntary exile, remained in Poland while his wife, Danuta, traveled to Oslo, Norway, to accept the prize on his behalf.

Solidarity went underground while Walesa was harassed. The economy got worse and worse throughout the 1980s. Labor unrest in 1988 forced the Communists to negotiate with Solidarity leaders. Their agreement restored legal status to Solidarity and led to free elections in the upper house of the Sejm (Parliament). Solidarity won an overwhelming majority in 1989. Walesa refused to form a coalition government with the Communists, so the Parliament was forced to accept a Solidarity-led government. Walesa refused to serve as Premier.

Walesa helped Solidarity colleague Tadeusz Mazowiecki become Premier instead, but he ran against Mazowiecki for President in 1990 and won Poland's first direct presidential election by a landslide. As President, Walesa guided Poland through free parliamentary elections in 1991. Succeeding ministries converted Poland's state-run economy into a free-market system. Walesa's plain speech and gruff style, along with his Catholic refusal to relax strict abortion laws, led to his loss in 1995 for re-election against Aleksander Kwasniewski, head of the Democratic Left Alliance.

Glasnost, perestroika and Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev was named Time magazine's "Man of the Decade" for the 1980s instead of Ronald Reagan. This is like naming Joe Frazer "Man of the Decade" in the 1970s because he lost to Muhhamad Ali a couple of times. There is no doubt, however, that Gorbachev was a "different kind of Communist." He did not necessarily intend to be, but give him credit for being smart enough to see that the Soviet Union was crumbling, and trying to do something about it. In letting the country be destroyed, he did more good for Russia and the world than if he had succeeded in propping up the system.

Gorbachev was youngish, attractive and media savvy, as was his equally attractive and personable wife, Raisa. Russian women were so ugly before her that words cannot describe them. Amazingly, after the country opened up, girls who looked like Anna Kournakova started coming out of the woodwork. What gives?

Anyway, in overseeing Communism's demise, the Gorbachev's were the best PR symbols for Communism. They left some people with the impression that Communism was not so bad. This book has made the case that Communism is as bad as Nazism. This argument seems to many a ridiculous one. Taking their argument, it seems wrong to compare the Communism of Nicaragua's Sandinistas, along with Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia or Hungary, to the Nazis. Many Communist rulers tried to extricate themselves from Soviet dominance. Many tried to impose reforms that would benefit the average people. Many were not bent on military domination and expansion. Certainly, there are examples of Communists with Hitlerian traits. Castro never put up Hitler's numbers. Perhaps 1 million died as a direct result of Castro, although they were not put to death as systematically as Jews at Auschwitz.

Ceausescu in Romania, and Communism in Albania and Bulgaria, imposed harshness on the people that was a mere extension of the Nazi rule that they replaced. Saddam Hussein in Iraq was not considered a Communist, but his Ba'ath party was a Stalinist model of socialism. His actions were most definitely Hitler-like. The North Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge definitely ran concentration camps that killed as ruthlessly as the Nazi S.S. Until China gives it up, their secrets remain, but 65 million killed dwarfs the 12 million concentration camp dead of the Germans. Chinese Red Guards can be compared to the S.S. in terms of ruthlessness. Of course, 50 to 60 million died as a result of the war Hitler started. Only the most ardent Soviet apologist would try to make the argument that the U.S.S.R of Lenin, Stalin, Feliks Dzerzhinsky, and Lavrenti Beria was better than the Germany of Hitler, Josef Mengele, Adolf Eichman, and Heinrich Himmler. The Gestapo or the KGB? Is there really a difference?

So why is Communism considered the more "benign" system? First, it is because the Nazi's were so "in your face" about it. They preached racial purity. The Soviets killed millions using race as an excuse, but never called it "racial purity," so the racist level that the P.C. crowd loves to hang on anybody they dislike somehow escaped the commies.

The Nazi symbols of jackboots and German superiority were easy to hate. The Communists professed a love for the "working class," which sounds like Huey Long. But the real reason the Communist image has been elevated over the Nazi image in the West (it is not in the former East Bloc, where the citizenry knows too well from living under both that the Communists were equally evil), is the passage of time and the stalemate nature of the Cold War.

After World War II, when J. Edgar Hoover had access to the Venona cables, conservatives like Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy understood that the Communists were every bit the threat the Nazis had been. They undertook to do something about it. The Kennan containment policy took effect. Absent some regional conflicts, the Cold War was a staring match and propaganda battle until 1989. We "learned to live" with the Communists. We "tried to understand" them. We "reasoned" with them. Eventually we defeated them.

However, it all could have ended much differently. World War II did not have to end with complete Allied victory. The Germans could have defeated the Soviets on the Eastern Front. They could have won the Battle of Britain. They might have developed the atomic bomb first. Any number of scenarios could have played out, in which the Germans and the Americans had agreed to a cease-fire, with Hitler holding a geographical territory similar to what we let Stalin keep. The Japanese war in the South Pacific and China might have looked very different. All the possibilities are too lengthy to summarize, but the point is a Cold War between the U.S. and Nazi Germany very possibly could have replaced the one we had with the Soviets.

A few years ago, a move called "Fatherland" starring Ruttger Hauer, examined this scenario. Set in the 1960s, it examined the reality of such a world, revolving around a peace treaty between President Joseph P. Kennedy and an aging Hitler. It spun off into a mystery about the Holocaust, which was depicted as a rumor, not unlike the gulag system that some Americans did not take seriously.

Had such a German-U.S. standoff taken place for all these subsequent years, it would have looked a lot like the one we did experience. Most of the time, it would have involved the valiant effort of us stopping the military expansion of them, all shrouded under the cloud of nuclear weaponry. Our CIA vs. their Gestapo. Imagine the Nazis making in-roads in Brazil, Argentina, even Mexico (their old World War I allies), trying to foment Nazi "revolution," pitting races and tribes against each other in various sub-sets of their "master race" theory.

Maybe the Germans would have rescued Japan from complete annihilation, leaving the South Pacific as an open German/Japanese/U.S. battleground. The Germans would have been opened with open arms in the Middle East, where their murder of the Jews would have elevated them to heroic status in the Arab world. Israel is nothing more than an Old Testament myth in this alternate Universe.

As time passes, things change. Hitler eventually would have died. Perhaps a reformation of German political structure might have followed Hitler's passing, like the Kruschev-inspired categorization of Stalinist "mistakes" of the mid-1950s. An examination of the Holocaust in moral, economic and international terms might have resulted in a "rehabilitation" of the Nazi party. No doubt, some people in the West would have happily accepted the slightest reforms as a sign of détente, calling for normalization, screaming that the arms race and the nuclear build-up was insane. The U.S. would have been pressured to unilaterally disarm.

At first Hitler's successors would have looked...like Hitler. But as the world modernized - movies, rock music, blue jeans, TV, computers, the Internet, etc. - Germany would have seen the need to offer "Nazism with a human face." U.S. Presidents, steeped in realpolitik, would have felt the need to "open up" Germany and to "do business" with them. Eventually, some handsome former soccer player with blonde hair and blue eyes, who Jane Fonda and Jessica Lange would have said was "dreamy," would have become Fuhrer. The New York Times and the Washington Post would compete with Time and The Nation in glorifying him. At some point, this Neo-Nazi would have announced reforms and modernization, ostensibly because they would have needed to establish trade with the U.S. in order to survive. Maybe they would have been kind enough to officially announce that it was no longer the policy of the Germanic Empire to regard Jews as sub-humans, or some other noble expression of their humanity.

How it all would have played out from there, who knows. Maybe somebody like Ronald Reagan (or maybe actually Reagan) would have come along to challenge them, outspend them, and prove that our way was better than their way.

The Nazis were defeated and the Cold War was not fought with them, so all these theories are just that, theories. But Gorbachev was not a theory. Does he deserve some credit for ending the Cold War? In the tradition of American magnanimity, yes, he does. But he did not set out to achieve that goal. He was on the losing end of a conflict with Reagan. Robert E. Lee, who quelled talk of a protracted Confederate guerilla insurgency, is certainly a nobler figure in defeat than Gorbachev is.

"Gorby" was born into a peasant family on March 2, 1931, near Stavropol. In his youth, he studied and farmed, and joined the Communist Party in 1952, while Stalin was still alive. The decision to do this is somewhat instructive. While Gorbachev was definitely a Communist who believed in Marxist principles and held atheistic views, as an intelligent young man who desired a career in the law, he knew the only way to attain an education and prominent professional position was through the party. He took law at Moscow University, earning a degree. In the 1960s he headed the agriculture department for the Stavropol region, and rose steadily to the top of the regional hierarchy.

Politburo members Mikhail Suslov and Yuri Andropov became his sponsors. He was elected to the Central Committee in 1971. In the 1970s, Gorbachev made a number of foreign trips because he was telegenic and PR savvy. In 1978 he became a member of candidate member of the Politburo, although his agricultural policies were not a success. Gorbachev knew the collectivist farming system was a disaster.

In 1980 he became a full Politburo member. He gained influence in 1982 when his mentor, Yuri Andropov, succeeded Leonid Brezhnev. Gorbachev boldly attacked corruption and inefficiency, which got him attention. I dare say, it begs slight comparison to Teddy Roosevelt, who exposed the practices of Democrats in Tammany Hall in 1880s New York.

Like T.R., he was in the right place at the right time, and a succession of deaths elevated him to the top party spot in March of 1985. Immediately, Gorbachev impressed everybody as a new kind of Soviet leader. When British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a staunch anti-Communist, said he was "the kind of man I can work with," the hopes of the world were thrust upon his shoulders.

He advocated and carried out significant reforms to make the system efficient and more Democratic. Two key phrases emerged. "Glasnost" meant openness, and "perestroika" meant reform. He attempted to shift resources to the civilian sector of the Soviet economy. When presented with evidence that Reagan was placing more arms in Europe, building technologically advanced weaponry in the U.S., and was conceiving of the Strategic Defense Initiative, which would create a "shield" against Soviet nukes, Gorbachev called for an end to the arms race with the West.

Gorbachev moved too fast for the glacial Communist establishment. The old hands knew that Communism was a failure. The only thing they cared about were their personal privileges. Gorbachev was their worst nightmare. By actually trying to make Communism work, they knew he would destroy it! If ever the old Vietnam saw about destroying the village to save it can be analogized to a country, it was the U.S.S.R. under Gorbachev. However, once he became the media darling of the West and popular among the Soviet citizenry, the old style of political change - a bullet in the back of the head or, if one was lucky, a silent coup \- was no longer an option. Gorbachev found himself in a tight squeeze. Radical reformers emerged in the U.S.S.R. who wanted to eliminate the one-party state and central economic planning.

Faced with Reagan building up U.S. defense forces but unwilling to accede to Gorbachev's demands for a weapons halt, the Soviets fell into economic crisis. In particular, Reagan would not give in on SDI. Gorbachev tried his best move at Reykjavik in 1985. With huge media coverage, he met with Reagan and agreed to all of Reagan's demands on proposed arms de-escalation. He played the Western press, leading them to believe that a major treaty was about to be signed. Then, at the very last minute, he presented a new demand to Reagan, in which he said that everything they had agreed upon was now dependent on the U.S. ending SDI research. Reagan identified the trick and refused to fall for it. It appeared that the summit had ended in recriminations and bad feeling. The Western media excoriated Reagan, stating that he had thrown away a golden opportunity to make the world safe in favor of militarism.

There may be no other time in which so many intelligent people with access to information have been so wrong. Reagan's hard line in 1985 was the quintessential moment in which the United States won the Cold War. Everything after that were details.

Gorbachev's big move was the only card he had in his deck. Failing at Reykjavik, he was faced with criticism from the Politburo, similar to what Kruschev dealt with after being schooled by Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The circumstances were reversed. Kruschev, the older man, had judged the young Kennedy as too weak to stand up to the heat. Gorbachev, the younger man, had judged the old Reagan to be weak enough to be fooled. In both cases, the Communists were wrong.

Then Gorbachev faced problems from the Baltic states. Other Soviet Republics began to call for independence. The nationalistic fervor created alarm bells not just in the Soviet Union, but throughout the world. Since World War I had started out spurred in part by these kinds of nationalist demands in this part of the world, concern over stability entered into the picture.

Glasnost allowed the people in the Baltics and the Republics to demand its twin, perestroika. Gorbachev's foreign policy successes were the result of Reagan's goodwill. Both men knew this. The key for Reagan was to stick with the long-term strategy of holding Gorbachev's feet to the fire, when most of the Western media demanded that he accede to Gorbachev's agenda. It would be incorrect to say that Reagan felt his policy would result in the fall of the Soviet Union. That was an event that took everybody by surprise. But Reagan did feel that he was part of a grand strategy that would oversee the fall of Communism. The fact that it almost happened on his watch (in reality, the Berlin Wall fell 11 months after he left office) was the result of his policy, the sickness of Communism, and Gorbachev's willingness to let freedom have its chance. He could have cracked down, as others had. Many say he opened a "Pandora's box." Hard-liners in the Soviet Union were not then and are not now his biggest fans.

This is the best compliment that Gorbachev can be given. He was a Communist, but he was far and away better than all previous Communist leaders. It is impossible to simply place Gorbachev into the same category as Stalin, Brezhnev, and the rest of them. He is a moral man, and in the end that is the most one can ask for.

Gorbachev's arms control agreements with the United States eased Soviet fears as well as American ones. The peaceful breakaway of Eastern Europe (civil wars followed his tenure, though), followed by German unification and NATO membership for the new Germany, were all great events in the history of the world.

In August of 1991, hard-liners made one last, desperate attempt to regain power. Gorbachev was on vacation in the Crimea. Militarists attempted a coup. They lacked public support, were led by incompetent officers leading incompetent troops, and were met by massive street protests in Moscow. The President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, who was no longer a Communist (and had never been on the fast track in the party as a younger man, anyway), met Soviet tanks in the streets in a show of great courage. The city rallied around him. Western media covered everything. In the old days, the Communists could put their foot down without a lot of attention. The coup failed.

Gorbachev was shaken by the event, however. The various Soviet republics were no longer within his control. On Christmas Day, 1991, Gorbachev went on worldwide television and announced that he was resigning as President of the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union was no more. It was just Russia. Since then, Russia has faced tough economic times. Their attempt to reform into a capitalist Democracy has not been easy, and probably will not see real success until a generation or two has passed, rooting all the old Communist elements out of the country. Gorbachev did win the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize. Historical analysis of his career has determined events shaped him more than he shaped events. Nevertheless, his place in the pantheon of 20th Century movers and shakers is on the side of good, not evil.

Margaret Thatcher: Britain's "iron lady"

There are a number of lies and myths that the Left attributes to conservatives. One is that conservatives are racist, and the other is that they are not in favor of women's rights. Whenever a "strong" liberal woman comes along and is opposed by Republicans, the liberals shout that the right is "afraid of a strong woman."

First of all, the Left says they are more favorable to women and minorities than the right, but they bristle when the right then says they are the more patriotic ideology, which they are. But the Left is not the friend of women and minorities. They use special interest women's and minority groups for narrow political purposes, but do not represent conservative women and minorities; they set themselves up as the mortal enemies of them.

Margaret Thatcher was a conservative woman. The love and support she received from conservatives in the U.S. and England is just one of many examples that put the lie to the Leftist complaint about conservative "antipathy" towards women. Margaret Thatcher could be my Prime Minister any time. Thatcher was a capitalist and a free marketeer who stopped the tide of socialism in Great Britain. Unfortunately, Europe continues to liberalize in the years since she occupied 10 Downing Street. The collapse of the Soviet Empire was accomplished in partnership with the "iron lady," and the "special relationship" that was forged between England and America in two world wars was revived under her.

Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts in 1925, the daughter of a Grantham shopkeeper. She needed scholarships and had to work her way through Oxford, where she took two degrees, in chemistry and law. She was elected to Parliament at age 34, in the Tory stronghold of Finchley, north of London. By the age of 44, she was a rising star in the Tory party. Her appointment in the Cabinet as Education Minister was said at first to be a "token" position reserved for women, but she asserted herself well beyond the traditional "role of women" in British politics. Luck plays a place in politics, whether one is studying T.R. or Gorbachev. In 1975 she challenged Edward Heath for the Tory leadership as a right wing replacement.

"You'll lose," was all Heath said to her. "Good day to you."

The British conservatives had seen enough, however. The British Empire was gone, and the country was a welfare state. Thatcher, advocating privatization and opposition to Communism, defeated Heath and became Prime Minister. Under her, open markets thrived, real debate was injected into English politics, and the alliance with the U.S. was revived. She battled the powerful trade unions, which were responsible for bringing British productivity to a standstill. Union privileges were exposed, and Thatcher asked the plaintive question, "Who governs Britain?"

Thatcher reformed the entire economy while the rest of Europe became more and more socialist and statist. Nationalized industries became private, earning profits, making people rich, and providing goods and services needed throughout the world. British Airways was made profitable. British Steel again became a success. As Reagan later said of her, "Her many achievements will be appreciated more as time goes on." At first she took a great deal of heat for her initiatives. But over time she was proved right again and again.
Thatcher set in motion a privatization movement that stretched to 50 countries on almost every continent. She offered public companies on the stock markets. Faced with the competition, they usually thrived. The British model under Thatcher became a study of how to govern best by governing least. In many ways, she was more successful as a conservative than American conservatives. Britain under her stewardship no longer had the world responsibilities that America has, and is a relatively small country. The effects of her successful innovations were felt in a widespread way everywhere in the country.

"Keynesian" economics, which was little more than Westernized Communism, was replaced by Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations". In 1982, Argentina tried to take over British territory in the Falkland Islands. Thatcher never hesitated to send in troops and win the war, securing the island and leaving no doubt that Britain was not a patsy.

Reagan adored her. His policies of deregulation, tax cutting and open markets were straight out of the Thatcher playbook. Reagan and Thatcher applied pressure on the Soviets, who had been led to believe Britain had abdicated its role as a Cold Warrior and America was close to doing the same. Thatcher encouraged Reagan's strong military posture. Having this capable British woman backing him all the way gave him added confidence that he was doing the right thing. Moscow was an "evil empire," she assured him. Reagan and Thatcher Thatcher's philosophies are, quite simply, the winning ideas of history.

President Ronald "Dutch" Reagan

I love Ronald Reagan. When it comes to Reagan, any objectivity I have left is thrown out the window. Reagan shaped the world I live my life in. I came of age during his Presidency. All of my optimism, patriotism and love of America stem from the Reagan years. As a child, I lived in the horrid post-Vietnam, post-Watergate malaise of Jimmy Carter. The ennui of liberalism, to use another liberal French word. Oh heck, they were just bad times. Alcoholism, drugs, bad music, bad clothes, bad hair, bad Karma. The patriots were outnumbered and afraid to make themselves known. The liberals, led by Teddy Kennedy, took over.

In my little league, the fact that my dad was a Republican attorney made us the object of snide class envy, which made zero sense since we lived in one of the most affluent suburbs in California. However, this was one of those affluent, liberal suburbs where everybody was racked with guilt because they were rich, white and successful. It was this confusing environment that I grew up in, which in the long run was very helpful to me. I had to develop sharp political instincts, like an American living on the "front lines" of Paris.

At home, my father taught me that the Republicans favored "small government," and that the money an American earned was his, not the governments. This made sense, but at school, it took all the common sense I could muster to keep from believing my old man was a liar. Between the textbooks, my teachers, the other kids, and especially their parents, all I heard about was how bad Republicans were. I would go to friend's houses, and their parents knew I was "that Republican kid." I was often treated as an outsider because of it, and sometimes not even allowed in. I was a Protestant, but I was invited to play in the Catholic Youth Organization basketball league. There, I was surrounded by Irish and Italian Catholics. One-fourth generation Italian-American woman asked me what my religion and ancestry was.

"I'm English and Lutheran," I replied. The look on her face was about the same as if I had said I worshipped Satan. When I told her my ancestors had come to colonial America and fought in the Revolutionary War, and another of them, a Captain Edgerly, had been a Civil War spy for Abraham Lincoln, I thought she was going to haul me before The Hague for crimes against humanity. The odd thing was, she lived in an exorbitantly expensive home and had her kids in private school. A real Sacco and Vanzetti.

At school during elections, Democrats were cheered and Republicans booed. Once, I met a kid in the rest room. Away from others, I asked if he was a Republican. He said he was, but looked around to make sure his secret was not revealed.

"Good man," I said. We shook hands as if we had just joined a secret society. My father was honest and, frankly, appeared to be a better person than most of the other parents. They all seemed to be divorced (my folks are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year), or living with somebody way younger. The fathers had bad gray hair that they let grow out, and I would see them wearing tie-dye shirts, waving peace signs (which is really Ike's, Churchill's and USC's "V for Victory"), living with some hippie chick. Or if they were still married, they were going to "key parties" on Saturday nights, where sex was a "pot luck affair." The Mrs. Robinson character from "The Graduate" must have been modeled on the mothers of my friends. Parents smoked pot and let their kids do that at home. Kids were getting in trouble and nobody was telling them they were wrong. They talked back to coaches and eschewed traditional activities like sports or scouting.

One promising tennis player's father was the district attorney. He ended up being the courier for the Colombian drug cartel, was sentenced to jail, and his children had to live with the embarrassment. This guy actually thought the drug dealer's were just victims of white repression.

We were taught to hate ourselves and to hate America. I was into sports and disdained drugs, alcohol or partying. I was shy around girls, even though promiscuity was rampant. I had the short hair and clothing of the jock I was. All of this made me a weirdo among the dropout set.

Like any child, I wanted to fit in. I considered whether all these people were right, and my family and I were wrong. I had not traveled. I had not been to the Midwest or the South. My only frame of reference was this "hot tub culture" in California. I thought long and hard about whether I was really the one who was out of step. I thought about it some more. I used my common sense. Then I reached my conclusion.

I was the one in the right. So was my old man. It was a very bad time, I did not like it, and I rejected it. In so doing, a conservative was born.

When Reagan was elected President, I saw America change for the better. Opinions I had were reinforced. It was a tremendous experience for me, one of vindication. Eventually, I entered college, traveled, and became part of the larger world outside that stupid rich suburb I had grown up in. Experience, knowledge, reading and a desire to know all contributed, step by step, to my conservatism. It happened under Reagan. He was wildly popular with the youth, of which I was one. We dug the guy. We saw America for what it was, and for what he said it was, the "shining beacon on a hill." He was the right man in the right place at the right time.

My years living behind a "liberal Iron Curtain" had been the best thing that could happen to me. Rather than having been led down a path of righteous agreement, I had been forced to analyze my views every step of the way. Each conclusion carried with it greater weight and strength, because it had been reached through a trial by fire. Now, as a young, still-impressionable man, I saw that America was the greatest nation on Earth. The United States had systematically defeated the enemies of freedom. The principles of free enterprise and capitalism were American triumphs. While civil rights were an on-going process, I could see that the myth of America equated with racism was hogwash.

As an athlete, I was fortunate to travel all over America and Canada playing baseball. I was surrounded by African-American, Hispanic-American and Latin American teammates. This experience was the best education a sheltered white kid could receive. In baseball, there was little room for elitism. Only what we accomplished between the lines counted for anything.

Reagan's triumphs were my triumphs. America's victories were my victories. I was living history. It was real, it was happening. Reagan was not a book, a documentary, an ideal. He was my President, in flesh and blood. I loved him and always will.

Why do I love Reagan so much? It is not just the homespun ways, the folksy manner, or the ability to spin old Hollywood stories. He may have been the "Great Communicator," but only because he had the right things to communicate. I love Reagan because he was one of the greatest Presidents this country ever had. I have previously identified Dwight Eisenhower as not just the "Man of the Century" but the "Man of the Millennium." Among 20th Century Presidents, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt were as influential and accomplished as much. Harry Truman presided over momentous times. Jack Kennedy had his moments. Richard Nixon shaped the world in a way that allowed Reagan to finish his good work.

Reagan was great, but the seminal act of his Presidency, the legacy he leaves the world, is a theory. Theories can never be given the weight of real success. However, this theory is so important, so monumental, as to give the kind of credence to Reagan that allows him to rise to the very highest level of Presidential excellence.

The name of this chapter is "The Reagan Theory." I have covered the Cold War in detail herein. The Cold War had been around for 35 years before Reagan took office, and those were eventful years. Now it is time to reveal what the "The Reagan Theory" is.

To describe the theory, I first must recount the events of World War II, in which over 50 million people died. The theory holds water only if one accepts as a premise that, despite this enormous cost, the political result of the war made fighting and winning worth it. In other words, opposing and defeating Hitler was better than letting him conquer the world. The cost-benefit analysis, if you will, tells us that more than 50 million would have died had Hitler succeeded, and that life for the survivors would have been a fate, in many cases, worse than death. This premise is certainly not a hard one to argue, and outside of a few Neo-Nazis and Arab extremists, it is one of the real Truths of the 20th Century.

This leads to 1983, and what I call the "Tom Clancy scenario." Reagan took office in 1981, and immediately ruffled feathers. He built up our military and changed the entire culture of our armed forces. When Carter was President, the U.S. Army was often a place where judges sent criminals, as in, "You got two choices, son. You can do time, or join the Army." Reagan ended that nonsense. He also went about shoring up nuclear missile defenses in Europe. The Left howled. They already considered him a "dangerously hawkish," almost "unstable" man. After his tough guy rhetoric as Cold Warrior and Governor of California, the liberals derided him as Ron Raygun and predicted that he would lead us into nuclear disaster.

In 1983, after years of _détente_ in which the press actually used the term "Cold War" in the past tense, several events occurred that horrified the peacenik crowd. They had been hoping (as if hope was the only thing they could do) that the U.S. and the Soviet Union would settle their differences like good little boys. They could not care less who was right and who was wrong. Every little thing that America ever did was used to tear down the U.S. in an effort to reach moral relativism with the Soviet Union.

The idea was that if the U.S. could be smeared badly enough, we would not look superior to the Communists. Lacking superiority (particularly of the moral variety), we would recognize that we were "all the same," and make peace with our fellow man. This is the dirty little secret of the Cold War. The rise of liberalism and media bias drove this concept. By the time Reagan took office, a lot of people took this view as gospel.

Stalin's crimes and the Korean War had exposed Communism for what it was, but after that public opinion shifted. In Vietnam, because we were so big and the locals were just villagers, the "David vs. Goliath" syndrome was driven home by a liberal media, and sympathy went to the Communists. The general public separated the aspirations of "average" North Vietnamese from the international goals of Mao and Moscow.

By the end of the 1970s, however, average _Americans_ were beginning to suspect something. They began to suspect that the fact that the Founding Fathers owned slaves did not make them despicable, despite what the historians were saying.

They began to suspect that the War with Mexico was a legitimate dispute over territory won by the better army after their people had been invited by the Mexican government to do their work, then been told they were Mexican citizens. All of this despite what schoolbooks told their kids.

They began to suspect that other things in those books were wrong. They had pride in the transcontinental railroad, and realized "how the West was won" was an accomplishment, not genocide.

They began to suspect that the generation that defeated Hitler was just like any other generation of Americans, and if that was the case, then maybe their generation had the potential to be great, too.

Then they saw things that went beyond what they had "begun to suspect." The North Vietnamese, left to their own devices, were not agrarian farmers. They were homicidal maniacs who killed thousands. Pol Pot's Cambodian Communists were worse, killing 1.5 to 2 million people.

The suspicion turned to realization, and the realization was that the benign liberal view of Communism, as demonstrated by Teddy Kennedy and Jimmy Carter, was dead wrong. So they did something about it. America elected Reagan. What happened was the conservatives decided it was time to move forward, and liberals decided to stay in the past. They are still living there.

Two and half years later, dicey events were taking place. Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko would hold the top post for short periods before dying, but Gorbachev was not yet on the world scene. Then a Korean Airliner, flight 007, departed Alaska with South Korean citizens on board, plus a few Americans. On its way to South Korea, it crossed into Soviet air space over the Salkhalin Peninsula. The Soviets scrambled their jets, but despite the fact that it was obviously a harmless passenger plane, the Soviets shot it down, killing everybody on board.

There was no defense for the act. It was utterly brutal and could not be explained. The liberal press did not excuse it, but they tried to couch their language in such a way as to not "inflame" the situation. Then Reagan came along and made a speech in which he called the Soviets what they were. He called them an "evil empire."

Everybody went bananas. The "evil empire" language connoted images of Darth Vader and "Star Wars," which led everybody to say that Reagan was reducing the U.S.-Soviet rivalry into a cartoon or a movie. Reagan had the temerity to say that the U.S. was right and the Soviets were wrong. The U.S. was good and the Soviets were evil. It was far too true for the liberals to deal with.

It was a calculated gamble by Reagan, who knew things from his CIA and security briefings that the citizenry did not know. He knew the U.S.S.R. was in trouble. They could not sustain their military expenditures much longer. Reagan decided not to coddle them or carry them. If they could not compete with us, then he was not going to be the one who kept them in the game. By calling them an "evil empire" he got them to come out of hiding and show what they were made of. If they did not have enough, which he knew they did not, it would lead to their downfall.

The critics said it would lead to World War III, which is precisely what the "Reagan Theory" is. World War III, under the "Clancy scenario" with modifications, begins in 1983 after that speech. The details are more complicated than I care to go into here. Frankly, Clancy expounds on the scenario much more artfully than I can. Suffice to say that in the scenario, the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. go to war. It was a conventional war. Nuclear weapons are, of course, aimed at one another, but Clancy's books demonstrate that World War III was likely to be fought conventionally, for many reasons. The most obvious one is the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine, which plays to the most basic instinct we have, which is to survive.

"World War III" lasts from 1983-89. It covers the entire world. It is a terrible, drawn-out war. In the course of fighting it, 50 million human beings die. Through superior technology, better leadership, attrition and perhaps a little divine guidance, the United States prevails. American forces under Reagan and his successor, George H.W. Bush, take the march to Moscow. Where Napoleon and Hitler fail, the U.S. succeeds. Moscow is captured. All of the Soviet Union is liberated and occupied by the U.S. and our allies. It is total victory. The Soviets sign the surrender documents in the late Fall of 1989.

Here is the key to the "Reagan theory." The political results of this horrific war are that the Soviet Union crumbles, the Eastern bloc breaks up, the Warsaw Pact is disintegrated, the Berlin Wall comes down, Germany is re-unified, and Communism becomes an outdated political theory. In the years that follow, there are "brushfires" in the Baltics, but America emerges as the sole superpower presiding over a peaceful world. In other words, the political result is exactly, completely and precisely what Caspar Weinberger, George Schultz, Ronald Reagan, George Bush and the heroes of 1981-93 _actually_ accomplished, only in this case without firing a shot!

Based on what the Soviets would have done in trying to fight and win this war, it is utterly credible to believe that if we fought such a war, that many people would have died. Say 500,000 were Americans, a figure similar to World War II, die. The result is what I describe. History would unquestionably state that it was worth it; a great victory despite its terrible price!

The Reagan Era changed the political landscape, because it gave conservatives something to be for and left the Democrats only with something to complain about. This is a dynamic that is never going to favor the complainers.

Reagan actually believed that the U.S. was "God's country." Liberals despised the concept. Reagan knew that the truth would set us free. Reagan was a Republican who actually practiced what the party preaches. He believed in small government. He battled Democrats in Congress who kept him from attaining all his goals, but his policies were wildly successful. His libertarian conviction was that the money people made was their money, not the governments. This seemingly obvious concept was off most people's radar screens before he came along and pointed it out. Under Reagan, citizens were told they were working several months at the beginning of each year strictly for the government. It was pointed out that if taxpayers were forced to write a check every month to pay their taxes instead of having it deducted from paychecks, there would be a revolt. Individuals know better what to do with their money, he announced, than the government. While it was called the Reagan Revolution, his theories were as old as the country itself. Jefferson said that government governs best that governs least. Reagan agreed. He was a true conservative.

Reagan favored school prayer and opposed abortion. His pollsters told him the abortion issue would kill him, but it never did. Since Reagan, Republican "pro choice" moderates have had less success than conservatives willing to call abortion what it is: The killing of a living human.

When former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, an accomplished writer, later asked him to sum up his Presidency, Reagan said of himself, "He tried to expand the frontiers of human freedom in a world at peace with itself."

Reagan was like Nixon in all the good ways, and unlike him in all the bad ways. Like Nixon, he was born into humble beginnings. The odd thing about class politics in the 20th Century (and the 19th, for that matter) is that the Democrat icons, who were supposed to be the "men of the people," often came from the most privileged backgrounds. FDR and JFK, the two most popular Democrats, were both from the highest echelon of privilege. Reagan and Nixon were nobodies.

Reagan was born above a store in Tampico, Illinois on February 6, 1911 (note the February birthdate, the "month of greatness"). His father's parents were Roman Catholics from Ireland. His mother was a Protestant of Scottish-English ancestry. At the age of nine, the family moved to Dixon, Illinois. Reagan was not raised in a strict religious household, but Christian principles were instilled. His father was like Nixon's old man. He lived a tough life filled with failure, and became an alcoholic. Reagan was a big man for his time, and blessed with extraordinary good looks. He worked as a lifeguard in the Summer time, developing a golden tan and a way with the girls. He played football and was an average student, but extremely personable and popular.

The Midwest has been romanticized as the Great Plains, but when Reagan was born, "There was nothing in those towns," he told Noonan. Reagan graduated from tiny Eureka College, then took a job as a sports announcer for WOC, a radio station in Davenport, Iowa, and later for WHO in Des Moines, with which WOC merged. He covered the Chicago Cubs. Reagan, sitting in a Davenport studio, would be informed of the action from Wrigley Field. Using props like "crowd noise," recordings of hot dog vendors, and using a ball and bat to re-create the crack of a base hit, Reagan thrilled baseball fans with "invented" descriptions of Gabby Hartnett and the great Cub teams of that era (yes, Virginia, the Cubs were actually good then).

Reagan recognized that he had special gifts, and took off for Hollywood during its Golden Age beyond. He would be the first person to admit that, like Teddy Roosevelt, he was lucky and blessed.

Reagan had the voice for radio, but he also had the looks for the camera. He had taken a trip to California in 1937 to cover the Cubs' Spring Training at Catalina Island, where owner Phillip Wrigley owned much of the land. While in Los Angeles, an agent from Warner Brothers studios signed him for his film debut as a radio announcer in "Love Is on the Air". Reagan stayed in Hollywood to make a career of it. He made more than 50 movies, including "Knute Rockne - All American" and "King's Row". In "Knute Rockne - All American", he portrayed legendary Notre Dame football star George Gipp. While the whole story was made up by Rockne to enthuse his team in a 1920s victory over Army, Reagan made the people believe that Gipp actually told Rockne, "Some day, when the chips are down, tell the boys to 'win one for the Gipper.'" Reagan-as-Gipp then passed away, in true tearjerker style. Reagan's acting career lasted until 1964.

When World War II broke out, Reagan was a big star after his "Knute Rockne" performance. Many Hollywood stars and directors were asked to contribute to the war effort. Frank Capra III, for instance, directed a documentary entitled "Why We Fight". Studio mogul Daryl Zanuck mobilized the community to make more movies that entertained the troops and kept up morale on the home front.

In 1942, Reagan joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. He served for three years as an officer, making training films. He was stationed at a special "base" in Culver City. The Hollywood cadre became known as the "Culver City Commandos." Discharged with the rank of captain, Reagan returned to acting but became a very political. In 1947 he was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild, a union representing Hollywood in affiliation with the American Federation of Labor. He was re-elected to five one-year terms, negotiating union contracts.

Reagan called himself a New Deal Democrat. As President of SAG, his politics began to change when it came to his attention that Communist spies, saboteurs and "fellow travelers" inundated the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations, as well as his own industry. He was approached by law enforcement, charged with finding Communist subversives, and learned many true facts about the extent of Soviet influence which the public was not aware of. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he became convinced that Communist infiltration was influencing, subliminally and sometimes obviously, what Americans saw in theatres. Still a Democrat, he realized his party was heading towards destruction because of its affiliation with Communism. His philosophies shifted radically.

Reagan stopped making movies for a long period, becoming a spokesman for the General Electric Company. He traveled across the country preaching patriotism and American ideology. In 1960, he headed an organization called Democrats for Nixon, and in 1962 officially joined the Republican party. Politics became the driving force in his life.

Reagan's first marriage had been to actress Jane Wyman. They were divorced in 1949 because she disagreed with his political involvement. They had two children, one of whom was adopted. After the divorce, Reagan received a phone call from an actress named Nancy Davis, who complained that she was on a list of actresses affiliated with the Communist Party. Miss Davis insisted that she was not a Communist, and in fact was a staunch Republican, thank you. Reagan was impressed with her strength and agreed to meet. It turned out there was another Nancy Davis who was a Communist. Reagan cleared up the situation, freeing Nancy to work without the stigma of disloyalty. They hit it off, and in 1952 they were married and had two children.

Reagan's real political star shone came when he campaigned for Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964. Although Goldwater was beaten badly, he stirred the conservatives in a way that no other Republican had ever done. The Vietnam quagmire of Lyndon Johnson later led many to believe that had Goldwater been elected, the U.S. would have overpowered the North Vietnamese with decisive action, instead of letting the Communists dig in by piecemeal method. Reagan went on TV for Goldwater and made a stirring speech at the Republican convention, held at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.

After hearing him speak, California business leaders urged Reagan to run for Governor of California in 1966. As would be the case throughout his life, he was the right man in the right place at the right time. Reagan's good looks matched the glamour of his former actress wife, which played well in California. By November of 1966, "the times they were a-changin'" in the Golden State. In 1962, Edmund Brown had handily defeated former Vice-President Nixon. He had put together an impressive record, especially modernizing the college system, highways and water circulation. But in 1964, the Free Speech Movement had begun at Berkeley. By 1966, most of the country was still firmly supportive of the Vietnam War, but the anti-war movement had taken root in the San Francisco Bay Area. Protests at the University of California, San Francisco State and other colleges were beginning to anger the populace. A new form of youth, the hippies, had hit the scene. They had long hair, developed from the style of the Beatles and British rock groups who had hit the American pop scene like an invading army. The hippies urged each other to "make love, not war." They wore colorful clothes, smoked pot, dropped acid, and showed little respect for American institutions. They were a hard contrast from their parents, who had struggled through the Great Depression and World War II. A large majority of Southern California was, and still is, very conservative. Many of its citizens are veterans. They have roots in the Midwest. The image of a freewheeling Hollywood or a laidback surf culture may have been the face the state projected to the world, but the voting electorate has always been family oriented and patriotic.

The protesters and New Agers alarmed the conservatives, especially in the Southland. The voters wanted a "law 'n' order" Governor who would not let its campuses become staging areas for un-American activities. Brown was viewed as catering to these oddballs. Where Nixon had been stiff and reactionary to Brown's aggressive campaign tactics, Reagan's acting background made him more flexible. He knew how to "ad lib" during speeches and debates, was willing to mix it up with hecklers without looking like an authoritarian, but was tough when called to be.

Reagan also disproved the accusation that, as an actor, he was unqualified for political office. His intelligence and knowledge of issues would be questioned by his opponents throughout his career, but later discovery of his numerous correspondences to friends and supporters put the lie to this charge. Reagan was not an intellectual and never claimed to be. Despite his Hollywood career, he was never part of the liberal elites who took over the industry in the years since Reagan left it. His religious values and patriotism were pure Midwest, or better yet, pure Orange County, or San Diego, or Inland Empire; all the places where Californians espouse traditional family values and vote by the millions.

Reagan read vociferously, but unlike many who inhabit the salons of liberal elitism, he did not trumpet his reading list to all he came in contact with. Years later, associates recalled that he usually excused himself right after dinner, and it was eventually discovered that in the hours before going to bed, he read and wrote for hours on end. He did this his whole life. He had core values, the most pressing one being the hatred he developed for Communism when he saw his beloved Hollywood infiltrated by Reds in the 1940s and '50s. He did not just rail against Communism. He studied Marx so he knew what his enemy was thinking. He understood the tenets of Communism's "useful idiots" in the West, and educated himself enough to de-bunk Keynesian economic theory and other Leftist dogma.

In 1966, a large portion of the U.S. was in step with the Southern California voters who elected Reagan. Nixon traveled across the country campaigning for Republicans, and Reagan benefited greatly from his help. A backlash against the Great Society was underway. Riots in Los Angeles had white voters fearing a race war. The Black Panthers came into existence in Oakland in 1966, and white voters in the Bay Area felt threatened. All across the nation, a conservative tide, started by Goldwater, reached ebb tide. Midterms traditionally go against the President's party. For the first time Johnson realized, after sweeping G.O.P victories in '66, that his Presidency could be in trouble.

1964 had been the first time that the myth of Republican racism began to emerge. Republicans were the "country club party" of Rockefeller, and symbolized the anti-Semitism that kept many Jews out of those country clubs. But it was Republicans who gave LBJ's civil rights initiatives the votes to overcome the Southern Democrats who opposed it as a bloc. Because the G.O.P. opposed race riots in Watts and other cities while espousing traditions that were insidiously associated with bigotry, the party was branded as racist. Hippies who lived in communes, mixing races in a quagmire of "free love," saw them as "up-tight" anti-Communists. The hippies thought the Communists were their kind of people, feeling that collectivist-farms were somehow spiritually akin to their commune lives. While the American hippies listened to Bob Dylan and smoked grass, the Soviet "residents" of the "Gulag Archipelago" were doing forced labor.

They were strange times, no question about it. There was much to misunderstand. Reagan was the ultimate Establishment figure. Hippies called these types "The Man," and spurned "working for The Man." Jim Morrison called it "trading your hours for a handful of dimes." The people preferred Reagan.

Reagan captured the Republican nomination over five other candidates with 64.7 percent of the votes, then defeated Brown by 1 million votes. Reagan identified campus radicals and welfare cheaters. Brown was the first of many professional pols to fail to take Reagan seriously.

Brown's defeat was the largest plurality by which a sitting Governor had ever before been defeated in American history. California was the most important political prize in the nation. It was a trendsetter in fashion and culture. Reagan returned it to the Republican ledger after a brief hiatus. It made Reagan himself an instant national figure.

Six of his eight years in office were spent confronting a hostile Democrat legislature. Reagan advocated cutting taxes and spending. However, compromise with the Democrats resulted in the state budget increasing from $4.6 billion to $10.2 billion. State revenues were raised, which relieved local governments of welfare and education costs. Local government budgets went from from $5 billion to $7.8 billion, but this allowed Reagan to lower of local property taxes. This made him a hero among homeowners, but opened him up to charges of elitism since renters did not benefit. Reagan felt that homeowners should benefit the most since they had worked hard to achieve the American Dream and were invested in the community. He did not view renters as living in that permanent status, but rather felt they were striving for home ownership in the future, as well. Reagan had found that California was "near bankruptcy" after eight years of Brown, and justified his first-year tax hikes (he never raised them again) for that reason. With due respect to Brown, he did spend a great deal, but he accomplished much (the U.C. and state college system, aforementioned aqueducts and highways).

Reagan managed to reform welfare in his second term after re-election over legendary state Assembly Leader Jesse Unruh in 1970. In 1961 about 620,000 people received welfare benefits in the state, but over the course of one decade that figure had grown to 2.4 million - one out of every nine people in the state. Reagan proposed a 70-point welfare and Medi-Cal reform package, fought the Democrat Assembly, compromised and signed the legislation. The caseload dropped, while benefits increased.

One of the first things Reagan did was urge the board of regents to fire the University of California president, Clark Kerr. Reagan felt Kerr was too lenient with student demonstrators. In recent years, it was revealed that Reagan worked closely with J. Edgar Hoover to undermine Kerr. Kerr was tainted by the suspicion from right wing circles that he was a Communist or sympathetic to the ideology. This was never proven and the overall assessment of Kerr is that he was not fairly handled. However, Kerr did unwittingly allow a great university to become the tool of radical elements, many funded by Communist fronts. The events at Berkeley gave aid and comfort to the North Vietnamese throughout the war. They showed footage of horrid demonstrations to Americans POWs being tortured at the infamous "Hanoi Hilton," causing more than a few to give in and confess to "crimes" while revealing tactics. When Vietnam was opened and retrospective interviews with generals and political leaders were conducted, the protests, particularly those at Cal, were pointed to as leading lights of inspiration to continue the struggle. This was all known by Hoover and Reagan at the time, and surely was known by Kerr, as well.

Reagan cut university funding by two percent until the protest movement withered. Then the higher education system received funding increases, doubling over what it had been in 1967.

Prior to the 1968 Republican Convention in Miami Beach, Reagan switched from "favorite son" status to full-fledged Presidential candidate. He received 182 delegate votes, 86 of from California. It had been a crowded, eventful Primary field including Nixon, Nelson Rockefeller and Michigan Governor George Romney, who had fallen after he referred to himself as having been "brainwashed." In light of a 1962 film called "The Manchiurian Candidate", starring Frank Sinatra, the term had very negative connotations.

Reagan never really considered himself a realistic 1968 Presidential candidate, but he definitely planned to be one in the future. Nixon had laid the groundwork for the nomination ever since losing to Brown in 1962. Nixon had traveled extensively, read and researched vociferously, campaigned tirelessly in 1966, and spent all of 1967 preparing. In 1968, his grass roots work paid off. He knew every state party chairman, every Republican Governor and political figure of importance. He had done all of them favors. It was all returned in '68. In a year in which the country fractured, the Republicans came together behind Nixon after his nomination. He was elected in the Fall. This ability to reach consensus proved to be the great hallmark of the G.O.P., which has made it the most powerful political party in the world ever since then. Nobody was a greater driving force behind this consensus than Reagan.

His second term saw many events that shaped the country and Reagan's future. Nixon opened up China, won the 1972 election by the largest margin in U.S. history, but Watergate brought him down. Reagan was badly derailed by Watergate, not because he had anything to do with it, but because as a Republican he found his political viability injured. Oddly, it was the Republican consensus that saved the party during Watergate. Rather than rallying behind Nixon to the bitter end, despite being in the wrong, the G.O.P. accepted its responsibility and urged their President to resign. While the fallout was tremendous, the damage was controlled enough to open the door for Reagan only six years later.

The 1960s and '70s were the greatest years in California history. The state became the undisputed leader. Los Angeles became the world's new glamour city, embodied by a new development located between Beverly Hills and Westwood with the futuristic name Century City. New York had to beg the Federal government for help to avoid bankruptcy.

The California image of beautiful surfer girls, endless Summers and dominating sports teams entered the national consciousness. The Dodgers and Giants had come West in 1958, and the "Taj O'Malley," Dodger Stadium, was filled every night by adoring fans rooting for Sandy Koufax, Steve Garvey and other diamond heroes. Another monument to sports, the "fabulous" Forum, housed the Lakers who, behind Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain, became the most dominant team in NBA history when they 33 straight games en route to the 1972 World Championship. The most famous stadium in sports, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, was home to the Rams during the heyday of coach George Allen. Up north, the Oakland A's won three straight World Championships from 1972-74, but the era decidedly favored Southern California in sports, politics and culture.

In the college ranks, the University of Southern California of John McKay and John Robinson was probably the most powerful football program ever over a 20-year period (1962-81). USC's baseball teams won the College World Series from 1970-74, and John Wooden's UCLA basketball teams, featuring Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton, won 10 of 11 NCAA titles between 1964 and 1975.

Hollywood put out a string of hits that transcended box office and turned filmmaking into the quintessential American art form. Producers like Robert Evans and new directors, including George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, William Friedkin, Steven Speilberg, David Lean, Stanley Kubrick, John Milius and Martin Scorsese scorched the screen with hits like "Spartacus" (1960), "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962), "Lawrence of Arabia" (1963), "Seven Days in May" (1963), "Dr. Strangelove" (1964), "Cool Hand Luke" (1965), "In the Heat of the Night" (1967), "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1968), "Patton" (1970), "The Godfather" (1972), "Chinatown" (1974), "Taxi Driver" (1976), "Marathon Man" (1976), "The Deer Hunter" (1978) and "Apocalypse Now" (1979).

Despite his Hollywood pedigree, Reagan was not popular among the new hipsters, whose work was not only tailored to appeal to a youth culture of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, but was creatively fueled by sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Reagan had dear old friends in The Business, as he called it. They included the venerable likes of Bob Hope and Merv Griffin, but the emerging crowd of rich elites spurned his "stodgy" Republican ways.

He was identified with the past. After Watergate, the Democrats were the party of Warren Beatty, Robert Redford and other heavyweights who gave them panache. It did not look good for him or the G.O.P.

Towards the end of 1974, Reagan decided against running for a third term. Ironically, Edmund "Pat" Brown's son, Edmund "Jerry" Brown, Jr., won the 1974 California gubernatorial election. Brown was the New Hollywood candidate. Attractive and filled with New Age wisdom, he sounded more like a guru than a traditional politician. A dropout from the Yale Divinity School, he dated pop stars like Linda Ronstadt and lived in the Hollywood Hills. Eventually, his "goofball" ideas earned him the sobriquet "Governor Moonbeam." That said, Brown is to this day actually a deep thinker whose political and social analysis bears listening to.

In the mean time, Reagan set himself up for a run at the 1976 Presidential election. Gerald Ford stood in his way. Ford had for years been the Republican standard bearer in Congress as a Representative from Michigan, which he was perfectly happy to be until retirement to a life of golf. The U.S. Constitution got in his way, however. First, Vice-President Agnew had been convicted of corrupt practices from his days as Governor of Maryland, propelling a reluctant Ford into the Vice-Presidency of the troubled Nixon Administration. When Watergate forced Nixon to resign, he did so only after cutting a controversial deal with Ford, the new President. The deal was that Nixon would be pardoned before facing criminal prosecution. Ford was well liked and respected, but the pardon was almost an impossible "sin" to overcome. He had lived a professional life of compromise with Democrats who he viewed not as enemies, but colleagues. As President this did not help him.

The Republicans had no trouble with Ford's pardon, but many hoped that he would "fall on his sword" for the party and not pursue the nomination. On the other hand, Reagan and the conservatives, despite their attractiveness, scared the party moderates. It was a very liberal time in American history. In retrospect, boldness was needed. In reality, timidness prevailed.

Watergate had not just damaged the Republicans, it had damaged the country and the Presidency. The Democrats had gleefully set about tearing down this country, like raiders setting fire to a village. It was stark evidence that they benefit when things go poorly in America, which makes bad things happening in America an actual political strategy for them.

Aside from selling out Southeast Asia and dismantling the CIA as best they could, the Democrats had written new campaign finance laws that removed Ford's advantage of incumbency. However, the laws benefited the challenger for party nomination, such as Reagan. Reagan, who had personal wealth from his long film career, had been able to campaign full time since leaving Sacramento.

The formal rules of the party now apportioned delegates in a way that favored a candidate with special appeal to the South and West, where Reagan already enjoyed icon status among Republicans. The Primary system worked to his advantage, and the old influence of party insiders was replaced by a populist system. Reagan fought a spirited Primary against President Ford, and carried the fight all the way to the convention floor in Kansas City. He fell only 60 delegate votes short of defeating the President.

Jimmy Carter had captured he Democrat nomination in a surprise campaign. Vietnam had splintered the party. The McGovern nomination four years earlier had an almost-suicidal effect. But Watergate and the Communist victory in Vietnam had energized the Democrats. The world was as close to their view of it as it had been in many years. Despite their strength, the Democrats did not have major candidates in 1976. Teddy Kennedy, their "perennial candidate," had not yet put enough distance between himself and the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. Carter's Southern heritage was the key, since breaking the Republican "lock" in Dixie was necessary.

President Ford's defeat against Carter was of great benefit to Reagan. It did not happen as automatically as some had thought. Carter entered the general campaign with the wind at his sails. However, he had started to campaign very early in New Hampshire and Iowa. He almost lost his momentum at the end of the Primary season. The rash of publicity he generated started to backfire. Stories about his "born again" Christianity and peanut farm background were wearing thin, especially with Democrats. When he did an interview in Playboy in which he stated that had committed adultery "in my heart," morality-challenged 1970s America was ready to move on. Ford had started the campaign way behind in the polls, but he made a big burst at the end and almost caught Carter. What destroyed Ford was the black vote. It was energized and came out for Carter with 90 percent, an astounding figure that has not veered greatly since. In 1960, blacks were fairly evenly split between Nixon and Kennedy, but the shift had taken place.

The Republicans had allowed a major voting bloc to slip away. They could not understand how they could have done that. The G.O.P. thought of themselves as the "party of Lincoln," and assumed that since all the segregationists of the Jim Crow South had been Democrats, blacks would respond by voting for the other party. It was a major tactical error.

Reagan began his campaign for the 1980 Republican Presidential nomination immediately, again benefiting from his financial status, which allowed him to campaign and fund much of the operation himself. However, he established a political action committee that quickly collected more than $600,000 to Republican candidates at all levels during the 1978 off-year elections, making him a self-sufficient entity. Reagan's efforts mirrored the Nixon strategy of 1966, and created a national network of loyalists. His 1976 campaign director was John Sears, who has been accused by some of being the infamous "Deep Throat" of Watergate. To date, "Deep Throat" has never been identified. I am quite close to believing Woodward and Bernstein made him up.

Sears' strategy was to make his man the de facto front runner, keeping him from engaging in petty party debates, which mark nomination elections in the non-incumbent party. Sears centered Reagan ideologically, a controversial but effective decision that worked only because of his party leader status. It allowed him to pursue the Reagan Democrats who would later be so instrumental to his success, and avoid the more extreme elements of Republican nominations. In other words, the general election against Carter had already begun.

Reagan declined to participate in debates held prior to the Iowa caucuses. Former U.N. Ambassador George Bush won and declared that he had "the big mo'" going for him. He declared Reagan's economic plan to be "voodoo economics." Reagan appeared in two debates in New England, and won the New Hampshire Primary. His economic plan would come to be called the "trickle down" theory, or "supply side" economics. The liberals and the Democrats called it stupid, and made fun of the moniker "trickle down."

In reality, it was brilliant and it would work, spurring one of the longest domestic economic upturns in U.S. history. The "supply side" aspect of the plan was to provide money for the Federal government as they went along, based upon current needs. This dovetailed from the longtime, Rooseveltian policy of baseline budgeting, where agencies provided wildly overpriced projections of future needs. Furthermore, the baseline plans, which were tailor-made for tax-and-spend Democrats, meant that if an agency head submitted a plan that called for, say, a $5 million increase over the previous budget, and Congress appropriated only a $4 million increase, the agency head called it a $1 million budget cut, instead of what it was - a $4 million budget increase.

This was revolutionary stuff. Nixon had tried to change the culture of Washington. He "fired" most of his administration the day after defeating McGovern, hiring most back, some at decreased salaries. His plan to re-structure the entire bureaucracy was an attempt to turn back Roosevelt's Federal growth. He never had the chance because Watergate ensued.

The "plumb" jobs, the cronyism and the patronage in D.C. is utterly staggering. 90 percent of institutional Washington is "yellow dog" Democrat, meaning they would vote for a yellow dog before voting Republican. Hinting at cutting back on bureaucracy, which is what happens when taxes are lowered and spending is cut, is cause for panic in the streets. The fact that the workforce of the Federal government could be cut by 70 percent or more with no visible effect on the United States does not change the Democrats from protecting their little world.

Reagan had the temerity to inform citizens of this bureaucratic spider web. He explained baseline budgeting. His tax plan was simple and easy to understand. The "trickle down theory" was devised in part by a USC economics professor named Dr. Arthur Laffer, who wrote it out on a cocktail napkin.

It required greater tax cuts for Americans who made the most money. Democrats howled that it was just a payback to Reagan's rich pals for propping him up. The fact is that Americans who do not make a great deal of money pay little in taxes, or get refunds. The rich pay 90 percent of the tax burden. Reagan and men like Laffer believed that if the wealthy were freed from paying more taxes, they would invest more money back into the economy through stock purchases, real estate, expanding business, buying goods and services, and hiring personnel. It was a theory, and it would be put to the test.

Amazingly, considering the Cold War and American attitude towards Communism, the tax system under a steady stream of Democrat Congresses had upped the rates to the point where, looking back, they compare with today's socialist Europe, which is not far from out-and-out Communism. Jack Kennedy had urged Congress to cut taxes in 1962. He had run into resistance, incredibly, from Republicans (proving they are not always on the right side of history).

The day Reagan achieved victory in the Winter snows of New Hampshire, he fired Sears and other aides. By bringing in William J. Casey, a New York lawyer and former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, to take over the campaign, Reagan was signaling a desire to play hardball. He was going to surround himself not with party moderates and their connections to Rockefeller, but to hardcore Western conservatives, mostly old California colleagues. Casey and Edwin Meese III, another longtime friend, rebuilt the campaign organization, redesigned the fund-raising apparatus, and encouraged the candidate to pursue a more vigorous campaign. Reagan won all of the Primaries but four. In caucus states, he won 400 of the 478 delegates. Bush was an impressive opponent with an incredible resume. Bush won the Pennsylvania Primary in April and the Michigan primary in May, but Reagan had locked up the delegates needed for nomination. Reagan was nominated at the Republican National Convention in Detroit by a vote of 1,939 to 55.

At Detroit, Bush was conciliatory and left no doubt he wanted the Vice-Presidency. For a brief time, a Reagan-Ford "dream ticket" was contemplated, but Reagan made a brilliant decision in going with Bush. Having a former President on the ticket may have taken away from Reagan's stature, and revived the old Watergate accusations.

Bush had the perfect background for national office, but he also met every demographic Reagan did not. Bush was young. Reagan's age was in question. Bush was a patrician Ivy Leaguer, most definitely part of the Rockefeller wing, which moderated against Reagan's cowboy image. But Bush, who had been raised in tony Greenwich, Connecticut, and had many Wall Sreet connections, had cut out for the Texas oil patch after graduation from college. His success in the rough hewn world of Texas oil gave him the imprimatur of toughness that made him seem acceptable to the Reagan Right.

Carter's economic policies were recipes for American-style disaster. Inflation was at 12 percent and 8 million people were unemployed. Interest rates rose so high that nobody could buy homes and cars. Housing prices skyrocketed beyond the ability of average Americans to afford (and attain the American Dream). Detroit experienced a terrible downturn in the car industry, and fell way behind the Japanese. Japan may have won World War II, if their 1970s economic superiority over America was any indication. South Korea and Taiwan looked like world powers. America's European allies suffered because we could not prop them up. England became a welfare state. The Soviets were totally emboldened by these turns of events.

Under Carter, the Army was inundated with petty and not-so-petty criminals. Carter's "get soft" policies in the Third World resulted in Somoza's fall in Nicaragua, followed by hardline Marxist Sandinistas. In Iran, Fundamentalists Muslims took over the country, then took over the American Embassy. They held hostages for well over a year while Carter did absolutely zero. When he tried to send a "rescue mission," the Carterized military was unprepared. The helicopters cashed in the desert. America was an impotent child under Jimmy Carter. It has been said in these pages that America needs liberals, and I believe that. We need different points of view. There is a consciensciousness to liberalism that does not hurt conservatives to hear in occasional doses.

Carter did not "hate" America. Not all liberals do. But plenty of them do hate this country. They blame this country unfairly for all the things that go wrong in the world, when in reality America is responsible for a huge percentage of what goes right. In so doing, liberals give aid and comfort to America's many enemies. They tacitly align themselves with these enemies, sometimes unwittingly, many times in a calculated manner. Time after time, the Left finds themselves doing the work of our detractors. As history continues to play itself out, and America becomes more powerful, more successful, and more obviously on the right side of so much of world history, these liberals find themselves on the wrong side.

There are sometimes liberals who "convert." They see their errors, they "see the light," and often they make the most rabid conservatives. Reagan himself was a Democrat, although no liberal. The fact that Republicans virtually never switch to the Democrats is proof positive that one side is right and the other is not. The Republicans are not the wrong side. Off hand, I can only think of a few Republicans who have "switched." Kevin Phillips was an economist who began to criticize the Republicans when the Bush policies veered from Reagan's, although I do not believe he ever switched parties. David Brock wrote scathing partisan articles for American Spectator, but later recanted. He claimed to have been manipulated by the right, but his story is very shaky. It turns out that Brock hid his gay lifestyle, and when he was outed he went through major psychological changes that, apparently, required him to declare some kind of solidarity with liberals. There must be more examples, but I do not know of them.

It is almost standard practice for youngsters to register as Democrats, go through college as "liberals," then after getting a job and paying taxes, switch to the Republican party. The progression of marriage, children home ownership, church membership and income increases usually results in voting for the G.O.P, if it has not already happened. Many do not bother to switch, but just vote for the Republicans. The ones who stay with the party are all too often, uh, not the most impressive members of our society. I am all for everybody having a political party to identify with, and simply allow this situation to exist with no comment necessary.

Winston Churchill said a young man who is not liberal has no heart, and an old man who is not conservative has no brains. All of these factors combine to endanger the future of the Democrat party. The years in which Carter was President, and the contrast with Reagan, first shown in the campaign and then in Reagan's Presidency, have much to do with this dynamic. Little has happened since then to change the dynamic.

Carter, knowing that he was going to lose on the issues, called Reagan "trigger happy" and said he might get the U.S. into war. Of course, had he been allowed to stick around, Carter would not have had to worry about our starting a war. Our enemies would have started one with us.

Reagan had a 15 percent lead in the early polls, but President Carter narrowed the lead as the election drew close. In later years, we discovered that the media, rooting for Carter, hid the fact that he was getting trounced in an effort to generate Democrat voters. America decided otherwise. Reagan pulled ahead decisively and won by a landslide. He received about 51 percent of the ballots (and 489 electoral votes) to Carter's 42 percent (49 electoral votes) and John Anderson's seven percent (no electoral votes). Reagan swept all but six states and the District of Columbia. Another incumbent had been turned out of office.

Reagan was barely in office a few months when an assassination attempt was made on his life. Despite his age, Reagan recovered from the gunshot wounds rapidly. His courage was infectious. On the way to the hospital he joked to Nancy, "Honey, I forgot to duck." At the hospital, he said to the assorted doctors, "I hope you're all Republicans." Americans were amazed at the old man's attitude and pulled for him.

Reagan was determined to reduce the growth of the national government, restore states' rights by making them less dependent on central planning, and by cutting the budget, thus reducing expenditures. His most controversial move was to expand the military and the defense establishment. He wanted to lower taxes, and quickly established a confrontational stance with the Communist world. Reagan dealt with a mostly friendly Congress until the 1986 off-year elections, in which the Democrats won a net gain of five seats in the House of Representatives, taking control of the Senate by a 55-45 margin.

"Reaganomics" consisted of large budget reductions in domestic programs and substantial tax cuts for individuals and businesses. Supply-side economics generated growth by stimulating a greater supply of goods and services, thereby increasing jobs. Control of government spending helped reduce inflation. Early budget cuts of $39 billion were followed by the passage of a 25 percent tax cut for individual taxpayers and faster tax write-offs for business.

Initially, Reagan faced setbacks to his radical agenda. Unemployment went to a disturbing 10 percent by the end of 1982. However, by 1988 it was only 5.5, and that accounted for a fair number of people who chose unemployment. The Carter inflation of 13.5 percent fell to between four and six. Aside from his defense build-up, Reagan's other area of criticism came from the fact that the Federal deficits skyrocketed, and the trade deficit with Japan and other "Asian tiger" economies grew.

Reagan had his justifications, however. He did build a large deficit, but in defeating the Soviets without firing a shot, it is difficult to argue with his decision to outspend the Communists. If, on the other hand, the Reagan Theory is not believed, then the deficits are just bad politics. The trade deficit slowly was bridged, in large part because the American car industry made a huge comeback. Lee Iaccoca of Chrysler helped saved his company and Detroit overall through a series of smart business decisions and better designs.

Reagan's economy grew and grew and grew. Wall Street became a financial bonanza, and there were abuses. Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken were just two high flyers who symbolized an era of insider trading. On October 19, 1987, the stock market plunged 508 points. However, the most impressive thing about the Reagan economy was the way the market bounced back within a year and with no damage.

Deregulation was criticized as creating public health and safety hazards. Shifting programs to states was said to be inadequate, but this came from the officials whose budgets were cut and were asked to be more efficient. Social programs were cut in favor of defense appropriations. The homeless population became a focus of the Left. Reagan was blamed for cutting treatment for the mentally disabled, which left them to the tender mercies of the streets. Much of what the public was told was exaggerated. The population of the U.S. grew, and many immigrants and illegal aliens crowded across the border. An increase in homelessness was unavoidable.

Many studies indicated that Reagan's strong economy created jobs that reduced homelessness. Others argued that many jobs were low-level positions in the food service sector. However, this does not hold up. American wealth and production improved enormously under his tenure.

Finally, it was revealed that "advocates" who made their living from the "homeless trade" trumped up the homeless statistics. These people were seen on the TV and heard on the radio talking about "millions" of homeless people. It turned out there were only thousands, and less in percentage terms than in previous American history. The Great Depression, for instance.

Reagan's second term focused on tax reform. In 1986 the Senate joined the House to pass a major tax bill that reduced the number of tax rates, removed millions of low-income persons from the tax rolls, and eliminated most deductions.

Reagan opposed abortion, but was unable to make any headway in ending the practice. However, his "bully pulpit" on the issue opened the door for a continuing debate that today makes abortion a less popular choice. Reagan was backed by the Christian Coalition, which became a major force for funds and support in the G.O.P.

Reagan and Bush were re-nominated at the 1984 Republican convention in Dallas. The Democrats responded with Walter Mondale, Carter's former Vice-President, and New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro of New York, the first woman ever nominated by a major party. The result was a Reagan mandate, by virtue of 525 electoral votes, the most ever. He won every state except the Mondale's Minnesota and the District of Columbia.

In 1987, Reagan tried to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. He was rebuffed by the Democrats, who turned back conservative University of Chicago law professor Robert Bork, 58-42. Ted Kennedy's Judiciary Committee found Bork too far to the right on the abortion issue. Bork correctly identified flaws in the 1973 Roe vs. Wade case out of Texas, in which the Supremes had determined a woman's right to choose rested on the privacy clause of the Constitution. Bork did not advocate the sweeping outlawing of abortion, but rather indicated that bad law simply had determined the issue. Many legal scholars have agreed with this over the years. Bork was truly qualified by dint of education, background and experience, but his rock-solid conservatism scared the Democrats. The way they blocked him was a major turning point in American politics. It has come to be called "Borking" a nominee for the courts or the Cabinet.

Adversarial "politics of personal destruction" have been the essential methods ever since. There have always been adversarial aspects to the American political scene, of course. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr dueled it out with guns. Abe Lincoln was lampooned as an ape. Grover Cleveland fathered a child out of wedlock and his opponents wrote poems about it. Richard Nixon vociferously went after Jerry Voorhis and Helen Gahagan Douglas. But the years since Bork have been different.

Bork's replacement was Douglas Ginsburg. He dropped out after it was revealed that he once smoked marijuana. The Republicans were more aghast at this than the Democrats, since the Democrats are the party of the 1960s. The G.O.P. holds itself to a higher standard, although at times it is frustrating to not "not get away with" things Democrats not only get away with, but celebrate. Smoking pot, dodging drafts and adulterous affairs with "women not their wives" are among this list. In the long run, the G.O.P.'s insistence on maintaining higher standards for themselves helps the party and the nation. Reagan's third choice for the vacancy was a Californian, Judge Anthony M. Kennedy. He was approved and follows in a long line of Republican nominees who tend to vote on the liberal side. I suppose that is how the Founding Fathers wanted it.

After the South Korean airliner shoot down in 1983, Reagan called the Soviets on their expansionist and interventionist policies in Afghanistan and Central America. The Soviets aggressively moved on El Salvador and Nicaragua. In El Salvador, a bloody civil war took place. In an effort to stop the spread of Communism, Reagan backed hard-line authoritarians. It was a controversial venture that aligned the U.S. with a regime that routinely practiced torture and repression. It was a re-run of the old arguments that had centered around Guatemala, Iran and Chile. El Salvadoran military officers were trained in "counter-insurgency" methods at the School for the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. This remains a very sore spot for many, since the methods taught by Americans did include techniques used to get information via torture, killing and other unsavory methods.

The very question of whether the U.S. condones such things, not to mention teaches them, is a moral quandary. In addressing it, it becomes necessary to ask whether Americans do it because they enjoy torture. The answer seems pretty obvious that this is not the reason we do it. The deeper question is the involvement of this country in a dangerous world, as opposed to an isolationist stance. If the Carter/Reagan comparison is worthy, then the morality of our methods is even more muddled. Carter resisted this kind of operation and made a point of making human rights his first priority. As a result, thousands were imprisoned and enslaved by tyrants of Communism and terrorism under his watch.

The question Plato would pose is whether torturing and abusing a select group of people who have been identified as enemy combatants, in order to save thousands of innocents, is better than sparing the combatants, only to sacrifice the thousands. Plato and Jesus are better, more moral philosophers than I am. They probably would find some alternative. I wish I were smart enough to find it on my own.

In El Salvador, Reagan's policies paid off. Eventually, Democracy replaced the tyrants, and Jose Napoleon Duarte, a graduate of Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana (which must have brought a smile the Gipper's face) came to power in 1984.

Reagan deployed intermediate-range missiles in Western Europe, and proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative. Meetings with Mikhail Gorbachev, beginning at Geneva in 1985, led to a historic treaty in Washington to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear forces. Reagan's famous statement was that he would "trust but verify" that the Soviets were holding their end of the bargain. In 1988, Reagan attended a summit in Moscow, and was cheered wildly by the populace. Gorbachev's appearances in the U.S. were met with much fanfare, too.

The rapprochement with the U.S.S.R. occurred only after Reagan had shown strength, arming Europe and defending against Communist and terrorist insurgency. In 1983 he ordered the invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada, after American medical students were placed in harm's way when Cuban militias tried to turn the island into a military staging area. Grenada was a successful two-day operation. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, however, Reagan shored up the alliance by sending in the Marines. A terrorist attack on the U.S. Marine barracks killed 241 men.

TWA Flight 847 was hijacked to Beirut in June of 1985. 39 passengers were released after 17 days, but a U.S. Navy man was murdered. U.S. intelligence determined that Libyan strongman Moamar Qhadafi was behind this and the majority of increased terrorist activities in the Middle East.

In 1981 two Libyan jets had been shot down by U.S. planes during military exercises in the Gulf of Sidra. In October of 1985 terrorists highjacked the Italian liner Achille Lauro and murdered an elderly American passenger because he was Jewish (the mastermind behind this episode was captured by the U.S. under George Bush's orders in 2003). The U.S forced an Egyptian plane carrying the hijackers to land in Italy. By December, Libyan involvement was established, as well as in bombings of the Rome and Vienna airports. American planes in late April attacked several sites in and around Libya's capital of Tripoli.

Reagan was determined to assist the Contras, who opposed Soviet-Cuban militarism and the backing of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. He tried to pressure the Sandinistas into holding elections. They did hold one, but observers said it was a complete sham. The American Left refused to back the Contras. The effort was said to be a "quagmire," like Vietnam (their favorite expression for all efforts to oppose tyranny). Congress debated humanitarian and military aid to the Contras, which means "opposition" in Spanish. The Republicans were fully behind efforts at thwarting Communism. The Democrats had given up that effort. Reagan could not state his ideal goal, which was to get rid of the Sandinistas. After the Bay of Pigs, Saigon and Allende, only a decade after the Church hearings, that kind of activity was frowned upon. Democrats argued that the Contras were thugs and stooges of American militarists, but their army grew and grew and grew from among the farmers and average people who opposed the Communists. Refugees left Nicaragua in droves, leaving the country to the opposing groups of Marxists and anti-Communists. The Democrats passed the Boland law outlawing further aid to the Contras.

Late in 1986 the administration admitted that it had been secretly selling arms to Iran, and converting the profits to the guerrillas in Nicaragua. It was an amazing story, rife with colorful characters and secret agent-style activity. The operation was run by a relatively small group of administration operatives. Reagan was "covered" by the old "plausible deniability" premise that the CIA had long and mistakenly thought would give President's political immunity. The most rogue of them all was a swashbuckling Marine Corp lieutenant colonel named Oliver North. North was handsome and charismatic, and the way he was handled was a microcosm of American values and differences.

North and his superiors, including National Security Adviser Vice-Admiral John Poindexter and Bud McFarlane, came up with what North called a "neat idea." Iran was our enemy since they had held hostages at the U.S. Embassy during the Carter years. But there were "moderate" elements within Iran that, by the mid-1980s, wanted to re-establish ties with America. Iran was mired in a horrible war with Iraq, led by the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein. Hussein was not yet the mortal enemy he would become. He was a secular leader, and in theory, opposing our enemy, Iran, made him our "friend." But he was so brutal that he could not be viewed as a legitimate ally of the U.S. in any way. Playing two brutal regimes against each other in the Middle East may have been cynical, but according to the principles of realpolitik, it made sense. The Iranians also agreed to arrange the release of hostages who had been captured by terrorist organizations.

North did most of the clandestine traveling and legwork. He and his fellow "conspirators" were devout anti-Communists who were appalled at the way Carter had handed the Communists much of the Third World. They refused to just give in to the new "live and let live" attitude that Democrats had taken regarding Communism. They were determined to keep the Contras operating as a viable force. The arms sales were made to the Iranians via middlemen, and the money then channeled to the Contras.

The operation was discovered and the Democrats went after Reagan with everything they had. Hearings were held, and North was called to testify in 1987. Dressed in his full-dress Marine uniform, North was the Democrats' worst nightmare. Hoping to embarrass him and the Republicans, it all backfired when a large portion of the nation backed North and felt it was a justifiable operation. North, a Naval Academy graduate, was polished, patriotic and PR savvy. He had served two tours in Vietnam, taking so much shrapnel that he could not walk through airport metal detectors without the alarm going off. He graphically described the entire operation, proudly exclaiming that as far as he was concerned, he had done the right thing. Technically, it was against the law, but the Democrats came off as liberal Communist appeasers. North came off as fighting for freedom in a dangerous world. He was battling Communism and terrorism, and required a security system at his home because of death threats from Middle Eastern terrorists. The Democrats hounded him for using taxpayer funds for the system. The majority of Americans sympathized with the bravery of a man who put himself and his family in harm's way to battle evil.

North's secretary was a very attractive blonde woman named Fawn Hall. She had helped North in his activities, and when the press discovered she had hustled classified documents out of the White House hidden in her underwear, the story became sexier.

Eventually, North was indicted and convicted for his activities. He was sentenced to community service, and ended up forming a charitable organization in which his service was converted into a major operation benefiting the needy. Later, his sentence was overturned, rendering him an innocent man. He became so popular that he was nominated for the United States Senate in Virginia, but lost the 1994 election. He has written a best selling book and become a successful conservative television personality, which no doubt drives the liberals as crazy as the great success of G. Gordon Liddy.

The public was not entirely enamored by every aspect of Iran-Contra, and Reagan suffered damage. The idea of selling arms to a terrorist nation, Iran, in return for the release of hostages, was debatable. On the one hand, it was good to get American hostages back, but it also flew in the face of stated policy, which was not to negotiate with terrorists. But the overall effect never reached the Watergate proportions the Democrats were hoping for. In analyzing the scandal and Democrat attempts to impeach Reagan and use it to destroy his Presidency, it is instructive to note that if they had succeeded, the Cold War might not have been won. With this in mind, it is entirely plausible that, had the Democrats not weakened this nation through Watergate, the Cold War might have been won 10 years earlier than it was. Using this logic, it becomes more and more realistic to assess that the Cold War was won, quite simply, despite the Democrat party. This is, like much in this book, a statement that no doubt infuriates the Left. It is also more true than false.

As for the Sandinista-Contra war, the Sandistas had been weakened enough by American aid to the guerillas that, in 1988, they agreed to a cease-fire. With the fall of Soviet Communism, they lost their sponsor and their Marxist ideal. A couple of years later, they were forced to hold elections, which they lost by a landslide. Freedom reigned in Nicaragua, thanks in large part to Reagan and, yes, Oliver North.

The United States had long used Panamanian dictator General Manuel Noriega in their efforts to fight Communism in Central America. This is an example of the well-debated practice of dealing with bad people to defeat worse people. The U.S. was well aware of Noriega's human rights records and drug trafficking, but chose to overlook this because he helped us fight the Cold War, particularly in aiding the Contras. By 1988, however, the Cold War threat had ebbed substantially. While the swift fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Empire could not be predicted, certainly not as soon as one year away, the need to prop up dictators like Noriega no longer was necessary. Therefore, he was indicted on drug trafficking charges, which he resisted.

Millions loved Ronald Reagan. When seven Challenger astronauts died in a disastrous 1986 space shuttle explosion, Reagan's eloquence went beyond the usual flowery language. His communications skills were heartfelt and the country identified with him. When he underwent a colon cancer operation in 1985 he maintained optimism. It was an infectious quality.

Some derisively called him the "Teflon President" because nothing bad ever "stuck" to him. The bottom line was that the things Democrats said were "bad" were often considered good by a patriotic majority. There is in this fact a lesson the Democrats have not yet learned. Unless they do they may cease to be a viable political entity well into the 21st Century.

Some have tried to say that Reagan's approach with the Soviets was a "bluff." While the deployment of Pershing missiles to Europe was no bluff, SDI had not yet been developed. But Reagan knew two things. First, he knew that American technology could achieve whatever it put its mind to, and the Soviets knew it, too. Second, he knew that his own personal credibility was such that they knew he would do what he said he would do. Reagan left them wondering what to make of him when he actually offered to share SDI technology with the Soviets. At the Berlin Wall, Reagan boldly stated, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

Margaret Thatcher said he "took words and sent them out to fight for us." The power of Democracy would prevail over the sickness of Communism, he said. Even anti-Communists like Nixon and Lyndon Johnson did not use language like that. Most American rhetoric settled on the threat of Communism, which became an old notion to many. But Reagan was willing to compare and contrast, knowing his way was the superior one. In electoral politics, he changed the landscape of campaigning. He did not use negative tactics, preferring to trumpet his own vision of "morning in America" and let the Democrats attack him. As Reagan's successes with the economy and in foreign affairs mounted, his opponents became increasingly frustrated. They were "forced" to try and tear him down. Thus was born the modern method of "negative campaigning" and "attack politics." This was the result of the American Left having nothing substantial and good to build on.

Reagan believed in "peace through strength," a concept I believe is so important that I call it, literally, the meaning of life. The sign on his desk said it can be done. When Natan Sharansky was freed after nine years in the gulag, he went to the White House and asked Reagan never to stop his hard-line speeches. Sharansky said news of Reagan's speeches was passed from prisoner to prisoner in the forced labor camps. In the end, the Kremlin wanted membership in NATO and the Berlin Wall fell.

Caspar W. Weinberger

Cap Weinberger is near and dear to my heart not just because he was the architect of Reagan's legacy of lasting peace, but because he is a close family friend. My uncle, Colonel Charles T. Travers, is one of his oldest confidantes and in many ways the man who started Weinberger's political career.

First, a little bit about my family and Uncle Charles. The Travers's are of English descent and came to colonial America, fought in the Revolutionary War, and settled in both the Boston area, and in Saratoga, New York, where they started the famous Travers Stakes horse race. In 1849, some members of the family came West on covered wagons for the California Gold Rush. They did not strike it rich with gold, but they did find success in San Francisco, where my great-grandfather was an attorney. Another relative, Captain Edgerly, was a Union Army officer who was President Lincoln's "personal spy." According to the legend, Captain Edgerly would infiltrate Confederate camps in surrounding Maryland and Virginia, reporting back to Lincoln on enemy conspiracies.

My grandfather, Charles S. Travers, was a journalist. He covered the 1906 Great Earthquake for the San Francisco Call, and later moved to Hollywood during the silent film era, where he started a trade magazine called Out and About in Hollywood. He wrote stageplays and became president of the San Francisco Press Club. His brother, Reginald Travers, was a famous Shakespearean actor.

My father, Donald Edgerly Travers, graduated from the University of California-Berkeley, saw combat as a Naval officer in the South Pacific during World War II, and became a legendary high school track coach in San Francisco. He attended the University of San Francisco Law School at night, and established a long-time practice in The City. He also taught business law at City College of San Francisco, and was Richard Nixon's San Mateo County Campaign Chair during the 1960 election.

My brother, Donald Travers II, graduated from California and served as a submarine officer in the Navy. My Uncle Charles was the first to graduate from California, and was an Army officer during World War II. He rose to the rank of colonel. Charles became vice-president of a major San Francisco construction firm, and was the driving force behind the Bay Farms project in Alameda, to the west of the Network Associates Coliseum in Oakland. He entered the political arena after World War II, and became a major player in the California Republican party. He was an advisor to U.S. Senator William Knowland, the former editor of the Oakland Tribune, and to Vice-President Nixon (who met with him at Blair House whenever he was in Washington). He was also as a top fundraiser for California Governor Reagan.

Charles was appalled at how his alma mater, California, had become a cesspool of Leftist rant. He did something about it. After years of contributing to Cal's sports programs (the Big Game Room at Memorial Stadium is named after him, and the training room is named after his late wife, my Aunt Louise), Charles started a wing of the political science department devoted to the "fair and balanced study of politics." No Communist's need apply, which meant most of Cal's history professors since the 1960s. The Travers wing of the poli sci department is today the most popular source of elective courses at Berkeley. Just in case anybody is looking, Cal is no longer filled with a radical student body. Today's students are looking to get an education. Many major in business so they can become entrepreneurs. It is true that the biggest club on campus is the College Republicans. The Truth, as they say, will set you free!

In 1952, Charles decided to run for the California Assembly from a "silk stocking" district in San Francisco. A young World War II veteran challenged him in the G.O.P. primary. He was an attorney named Caspar Weinberger. The winner of the Republican primary was assured of the election, which is a telling example of how things have changed in San Francisco.

Weinberger approached Charles and a deal was struck. Charles would drop out and become Cap's campaign manager. Once in office, Weinberger would make him a top advisor. This deal was very beneficial to Charles from a businessmen's standpoint, and he accepted. Weinberger was elected, and the two became lifelong friends.

Weinberger had been born in San Francisco on August 18, 1917, the son of a lawyer. He received bachelor's and law degrees from Harvard and entered the U.S. Army as a private in 1941. He was then commissioned, and served in the Pacific. Towards the war's end, he became a captain on General Douglas MacArthur's intelligence staff. Weinberger developed a particular admiration for Winston Churchill.

After the war, he clerked for a Federal judge and joined a San Francisco law firm. Elected to the California state Assembly in 1952, he served for three terms before running unsuccessfully for California Attorney General in 1958. In 1962, he became chairman of the California Republican Party. Governor Reagan named him chairman of the Commission on California State Government Organization and Economy in 1967 and appointed him director of finance in 1968. He moved to Washington in 1970 to become chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, serving as Deputy Director (1970-72) and Director (1972-73) of the Office of Management and Budget and as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (1973-75). After Watergate, Weinberger went to work as vice president and general counsel of the Bechtel Group of Companies in California for five years.

Weinberger's reputation was built on his administrative and cost-cutting skills, earning him the nickname "Cap the Knife". He was convinced that the Soviets had every intention of expanding, and was in sync with Reagan's conviction that the defense establishment needed to be modernized and strengthened. After becoming Secretary of Defense, he built the Pentagon through effective, efficient measures.

Weinberger fought for budget increases and then made the most of the money allotted the military. He sought a supplemental Defense appropriation of nearly $7 billion for 1981 and an increase of almost $26 billion over President Carter's proposed budget. Congress provided $175.5 billion for 1981 and $210.6 billion for 1982, an 11.4 percent real growth increase. For the next three years he increased the budget $20 billion or more in each successive year. From 1986 to 1988, when the Democrats were asserting themselves and Iran-Contra hit the news, the increases were modest.

Weinberger eventually had to fight Congressional reductions. In his own words he "acquired a reputation of being stubborn, uncompromising, immoderate and unpragmatic." He worked well with the military services, and presided over a period in which the military gained in prestige among the American public. The old days of "join the people who join the Army," which was tantamount to letting anybody in, was replaced by a new breed of soldier, educated and competent in technological skills.

Weinberger involved the Joint Chiefs in the comprehensive planning of military strategy, objectives, and policies. He urged them to assume a more integral role in budget planning. The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act (1986) strengthened the powers of the JCS chairman.

Weinberger followed Reagan's practice of delegation of authority to competent underlings, who included Deputy Secretary Frank C. Carlucci (1981-83), Paul Thayer (1983-84), and William H. Taft IV (1984-89).

Weinberger did not want to re-institute the draft. He increased the compensation and support of service members to retain personnel. Weinberger oversaw deployment of E-4B aircraft (airborne command posts) to serve the National Command Authorities in wartime; production of 100 B-1B strategic bombers, with initial operational capability in 1986; development of a stealth aircraft, with deployment at the end of the 1980s; development of the Trident II (D-5) missile, a larger and more accurate submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), to be deployed in 1989; production of 100 MX ("Peacekeeper") missiles, about one-third to be deployed in extra-hardened Titan or Minuteman III silos, and studies of other deployment schemes. These included enhanced air surveillance with improved radar, deployment of F-15 aircraft (as interceptors) and Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) planes, along with development of an anti-satellite system.

The MX missile was cause for debate. In 1983 Reagan appointed the Commission on Strategic Forces, headed by retired Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, to review strategic forces. The recommendation was to place 100 MX missiles in existing Minuteman silos, and designing a new, smaller single-warhead mobile missile, the Midgetman (15 tons compared to the nearly 100-ton MX) that could be ready for deployment in 1987. Weinberger opposed this "compromise," but Reagan endorsed it, working out a deal with Congress for funding for flight testing and production of the MX, in exchange for promises to negotiate arms controls with the Soviet Union.

The Strategic Defense Initiative tilted the balance of those negotiations in favor of the U.S. Reagan and Weinberger saw SDI as an alternative to the mutual assured destruction (MAD) approach. It immediately faced budgetary and other problems. Weinberger sought large annual appropriations for the program. Congress cut each request.

Weinberger and Richard N. Perle, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, favored a broad interpretation of the ABM Treaty, allowing for space-based SDI testing. In 1987 a statement by six former Secretaries of Defense, McNamara, Clifford, Laird, Richardson, Schlesinger, and Brown, urged Reagan to adhere to the traditional interpretation of the treaty. The Senate Armed Services prohibited tests that would violate the treaty. In the end, Reagan did not proceed with the controversial testing plans, choosing instead to concentrate on negotiations with Gorbachev.

Arms control was not a high priority for Weinberger in the beginning, but events turned the issue in favor of the Americans after SDI entered the picture. Weinberger and Perle were determined that the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) talks in Geneva during the 1980s resulted in agreements clearly in the national interest of the United States. The 1979 NATO "dual track" decision to begin deploying Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) in Europe in 1983 while seeking arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union created a stir among our allies, and with Democrats at home. Large protests throughout the world warned of a "doomsday" scenario. The "worst fears" of the "cowboy Reagan" were voiced.

Weinberger and Reagan embraced the "zero option" approach: If the Soviets would withdraw their SS-20 missiles (a mobile IRBM with three warheads, first deployed in 1977), as well as their SS-4, SS-5, and SS-23 missiles, NATO would not deploy the Pershing IIs and GLCMs. The Soviets rejected the proposal, but eventually came around and said they would withdraw some SS-20s if the U.S. would not deploy the Pershing IIs. Weinberger and the President demurred. When the United States began to deploy Pershing IIs and GLCMs in November of 1983, the Soviets walked out of the INF negotiations.

The deaths of Chernenko and Andopov changed everything. Gorbachev, the new leader was a "man I can do business with," as Prime Minister Thatcher said. Meeting at Geneva in November, 1985, Reagan and Gorbachev agreed to pursue an INF treaty. At the Reykjavik summit a year later, Gorbachev offered to eliminate all nuclear weapons. The United States put forward a plan to eliminate offensive ballistic missiles within 10 years, coupled with a pledge to respect the Antiballistic Missile Treaty (1972) for the same period. Gorbachev's insistence that the United States limit SDI testing initially stalled progress, causing huge criticism of the President. But by sticking to his guns, he kept the Soviets on the defensive. After more talks, Reagan and Gorbachev signed an INF treaty in Washington in December of 1987. Weinberger and Perle had left the Pentagon by this point.

Weinberger clashed with Secretaries of State Alexander M. Haig (1981-82) and George Shultz (1982-89), as well as with NSC adviser Robert McFarlane. The President had to occasionally mediate these disputes. Improved relations with Japan and China were very much a part of Weinberger's influence. He suggested that Japan assume responsibility for defense of its home territory, air space, and the sea lanes of the North Pacific. His proposals were accepted, thus lessening the American responsibility left over from the war and occupation. Japan bought the U.S.-built F-16 Falcons and agreed to provide the United States with technology derived from U.S. data on modifying the F-16 to meet Japan's needs.

The Reagan Administration developed military contacts with China. The United States continue to provide defensive weapons to Taiwan but did not upgrade U.S. arms sales to that nation, smoothing relations with the People's Republic. Weinberger went to China in 1983 and made arrangements for China's Premier and defense minister to visit Reagan, and for a reciprocal trip to China in 1984. A military technology cooperation agreement was signed. China became eligible for Foreign Military Sales cash purchases.

Weapon systems were upgraded and new ones brought on line under Weinberger, but the Secretary cautioned against committing troops to military action. He listed six major tests that ought to be applied when the United States considered the use of combat forces abroad:

(1) . . . The United States should not commit forces to combat overseas unless the particular engagement or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest or that of our allies. . .

(2) . . . If we decide it is necessary to put combat troops into a given situation, we should do so wholeheartedly, and with the clear intention of winning. If we are unwilling to commit the forces or resources necessary to achieve our objectives, we should not commit them at all. . .

(3) . . . If we do decide to commit forces to combat overseas, we should have clearly defined political and military objectives. . .

(4) . . . The relationship between our objectives and the forces we have committed - their size, composition and disposition - must be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary. . .

(5) . . . Before the U.S. commits forces abroad, there must be some reasonable assurance we will have the support of the American people and their elected representatives in Congress. . .

(6) . . . The commitment of U.S. forces to combat should be a last resort.

NSDD 238, a basic national security decision directive in 1986, adopted the last of these principles.

Weinberger did back the British in the Falklands, or Malvinas Islands, as the Argentines knew them. The United States provided missiles, aircraft fuel, military equipment, and intelligence information to the British government, however, and the Argentines surrendered on June 14, 1982. The new Argentine government was not hostile to the United States, and in later years British royalty knighted Weinberger.

In 1982, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) became involved in fighting with Israeli forces on the Lebanon-Israel border. Israel invaded and the United States, Italy, and France contributed troops to a Multinational Force (MNF). Weinberger had not favored participation. When the MNF left, Lebanon's president-elect was assassinated, Israeli forces returned and Lebanese Christian Falangists massacred Palestinians in Israeli-run refugee camps in West Beirut. Reagan agreed to another MNF entrance into Lebanon in late September of 1982.

Christian and Muslim factions clashed, along with the Israelis, Syrians and Lebanese factions attacking the MNF. On April 18, 1983 a bomb killed 17 U.S. citizens at the U.S. Embassy. Weinberger urged withdrawal, but Reagan's State Department and the NSC disagreed. On October 23, 1983, terrorists blew up the barracks housing U.S. Marines at the Beirut airport, killing 241. This led to eventual withdrawal of the U.S. MNF contingent in 1984.

Weinberger played a lead role in the 1983 Grenade invasion, dealing with the Moamar Qadhafi. On August 18, 1981, two U.S. Navy planes shot down two Libyan fighters that had threatened them south of 32°30'. Qadhafi declared the Gulf of Sidra closed, naming it the "Zone of Death." Libyans fired missiles at U.S. planes in the Gulf but missed. They blew up a discotheque in West Berlin, killing two persons, including a U.S. serviceman, and injuring 230 others, among them 50 U.S. military personnel. U.S. F-111s flying from bases in England hit pre-selected targets in successful retaliation. Iran seized U.S. hostages, and Iraq launched a 1987 missile attack against the destroyer USS Stark, killing 37 Americans. Iraq said it was an accident and apologized.

In 1987 Kuwait requested protection for its oil tankers in the Persian Gulf from Iranian attacks. Weinberger and Reagan agreed. When Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega became President of Nicaragua and Congress officially cut off U.S. military aid to the Contras, Robert McFarlane and Oliver North secretly agreed to send antitank missiles and other military equipment to Iran to release U.S. hostages, diverting the money to the Contras. Weinberger and Secretary of State Shultz opposed the program. Weinberger denied knowing the money would go to the Contras, although he agreed to a sale by DoD to the CIA of 4,000 TOW missiles, transferred by the CIA to Iran through Israel. He warned the administration that the direct transfer of arms from DoD to Iran would be a violation of the Arms Control Export Act. He was indicted on the recommendation of a special counsel for the Iran/Contra affair, but President Bush pardoned him in December, 1992.

His greatest protégé was Colin Powell, who Weinberger identified early as a future leader. After leaving the Pentagon, he became publisher and chairman of Forbes magazine, and wrote frequently on defense and national security issues. In 1990 he wrote "Fighting for Peace", and in 1996 co-authored "The Next War". Weinberger was as influential to Reagan's successful military strategies, resulting in winning the Cold War, as anybody in that administration. He is a genuine American hero.

The fall of the Berlin Wall

"Not with a bang, but with a whimper."

  * T.S. Elliott

T.S. Elliott's famous line is apropos to the fall of the Berlin Wall and Communism in general. After all the apocalyptic scenarios, it did not come down via war and bombs. It was mostly a bloodless revolution, although much blood was spilled by many in the years before it happened. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the defeat of Communism come with varying modifiers. Ronald Reagan is credited with winning the Cold War, but there are many who deny him this tribute. Bill Clinton said that crediting Reagan and his successor, George Bush, with winning the Cold War was like crediting the rooster with the coming of dawn.

Clinton is wrong as well as partly right. Communism was a diseased ideology that was going to fall, one way or another. At least, that is what Reagan said. This is a hopeful view, but Reagan was an optimist. Clinton's contention that the events of 1989-90 would have occurred in 1989 and 1990 no matter what are pure fiction, if indeed he meant that. When would they have happened? This is too difficult to say. The kinds of "what-ifs" that describe a Nixon Presidency instead of a Kennedy Administration, or a Cold War with Nazi Germany instead of the Soviet Union, are filled with real world scenarios that make this hypothesis easier to postulate.

Had the Soviets (and the Berlin Wall) not fallen from 1989-91, and if they had somehow found a way to revive themselves from the moribund state that Reagan and Thatcher led them to, this leads to complicated questions that involve Presidential elections and policy matters. With the Communists hanging on but still a threat, Bush might win the 1992 election instead of Clinton. If Clinton took power while the Soviets were weakened but still in power, he might have taken a dovish approach that allowed them to re-group.

The statement "defeat of Communism," "end of Communism," and "victory in the Cold War," are all modified by knowledge that officially, China, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba are still Communist. Nobody really gave any credence to the concept that "Communism" fell a little bit when Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003, even though he modeled his Ba'ath party on socialism and Stalinism. Hussein was never identified as a "Communist" or even a "socialist." His totalitarian regime had the brutality but lacked the "egalitarianism" of Stalin, Pol Pot, and Chairman Mao.

China still calls itself Communist, but they are either part of some thousand-year plan that is beyond the ken of Western understanding, or so confused themselves that nobody knows what they are. They simultaneously plot to make themselves just like us while trying to conquer us at the same time. Their "last hurrah" was at Tiannenmen Square in 1989, when Communist hardliners put down a pro-Democracy student rebellion. It was so heavy-handed and so out of step with the world that even the ChiComs understood they had a cancer growing from within. Their "plan" seems to center on industrial espionage, and is not a crazy idea. The combination of cheap labor and technology could, in time, give China a major economic edge that they may someday want to turn into a military one. The problem they would run into is that by the time they achieve the economic edge, they will have "joined us because they could not beat us," to turn the old expression around. The good news is that "beating" us in the sale of computers, cell phones and microchips is better than "beating us" with bombs. They will be hosting the Olympics soon, and the guess from this corner is that this event may coincide with a major announcement renouncing traditional Communism.

Cuba is a joke. North Korea wants the world to think they are a nuclear superpower, and while the situation requires watching, it is my best guess that if they launched a nuke at the West tomorrow, there is not enough electricity to raise the missile to launch status. Our defenses would likely shoot it out of the sky like a crack shot on the first day of duck hunting season. Our nuclear retaliation would probably end the existence of North Korea. They are well aware of that. Vietnam is a sad case. Since the end of war, they have tried to survive. The "guilty" West has endeavored not to investigate the human rights abuses of Vietnam since their struggles with the U.S., China and Cambodia finally came to a conclusion. Considering what they did in the past, it is likely that the citizenry of Vietnam has lived a horror story. The irony of Hanoi is that, after some 1,000 years of struggle, they finally achieved some degree of independence, only to have hitched their star to the most discredited, losing ideology of all times.

I have seen slums. I have been to the worst ghettos of East Oakland, South Central Los Angeles, and Harlem. I have been to the shantytowns of Mexico. The very worst of these places is far better than what I saw of East Berlin and East Germany when I visited there.

The air was foul. The rivers were rancid. There was no electricity. There were services. The cars were barely bigger than bumper cars at an amusement park, belching smoke and falling apart. People were totally unhealthy. 35-year olds looked to be 60. The water was undrinkable. Food was atrocious. There was not an ounce of joy d'vivre among the defeated population. Garbage lined the streets. I kid you not, there was rubble left over from World War II; buildings wrecked by bombs and never repaired.

Near the Brandenburg Gate, I saw a real "Potemkin Village." The buildings along the Embassy Row of various Soviet satellites were painted in various garish colors, many mustard yellow. They were made to look like ornamental palaces from the front, but by maneuvering to the side and the back, one saw decrepit relics. It was all a facade. John Madden would say, "It's a bluff!"

Dust was everywhere. The sky was so polluted it blotted out the Sun. Poor blacks in Watts or poverty-stricken Mexicans in Tijuana have it much better than the East Germans I saw. They reminded me of the zombie-like people bound and determined to keep working their way down in "The Poseidon Adventure". It is hard to really explain the place. It impressed me as being a place devoid of hope. I could feel the palpable hand of evil, as if life there sapped one of the prospects for goodness. I felt as if the ghosts of Nazism and Communism wafted about, shadowing the burnt-out walls and buildings, unable to find peace in death after experiencing the horrors of such a place. I was already a hardcore conservative when I went there, and one can argue that I saw what my political predilections told me I would see. The haughty, well-fed American taking a private victory lap. All I can say is that you had to experience it yourself to know exactly what I mean.

Propping up a political system and calling it a superpower in such a place is laughable. The conundrum of Communism is that it was so decrepit, and still so dangerous. It still does not describe the military system that threatened the West, or a very capable spy network. Both the KGB and the Stasi were worthy, intelligent foes of the Central Intelligence Agency. They did have nuclear weapons pointed at us. The fact that they could not feed or clothe the people because it all went into the weapons did not reduce the danger of the weapons.

Corruption was the order of Communism. No system so corrupt can sustain itself. The openness of the Western media has exposed a great deal of corruption in the U.S. government; Federal, state and local. Police departments are rife with corruption. However, compared to the rest of the Third World and Communism, the U.S. is as clean as a whistle. Countries like Denmark and Sweden are even more incorruptible, but it is not a fair comparison. Japan used to brag about being so much more honest, but in time that has been found to be mythologized.

"By the time Gorbachev came to power, he and his colleagues, who knew Eastern Europe well - many of them had spent time in Prague, like <Yegor> Yakovlev - realized that you could not carry on ruling the East European empire in the same way, that something had to change," said British historian Timothy Garton Ash. "And so, that was a specific cause of the change of their Eastern European policy to a more permissive policy...And that more permissive policy enabled the Poles and the Hungarians to make the opening which started the changes in 1989."

The Brezhnev doctrine had justified Soviet interference in the affairs of its Warsaw Pact allies. It was replaced, in the words of a wry Soviet spokesman, with the "Sinatra doctrine." The East bloc could now do it "their way." The fact that the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in February of 1989 may have been the last key event that made everything else possible. They were worn down, tired of keeping their fellow humans down, and in the process living like peasants. Where was the upside? Common sense was the great enemy of Marxism.

With revolutionary talk in the air in Hungary and Poland, the Communist government in Warsaw began round-table talks with delegates from the banned Solidarity trade union and the Roman Catholic Church. In Budapest, anti-Communist forces coalesced. Janos Kadar, Hungary's long-time Communist leader, departed. Hope for a new beginning took root.

By April, 1989, the Polish Communists agreed to June elections and the legalization of Solidarity. Solidarity candidates won big even though the elections were rigged against them. It was a sign of inexorable events.

In the upper house of parliament, Solidarity won 99 of the chamber's 100 seats. Tadeusz Mazowiecki became their prime minister two months later. In Hungary, Imre Nagy, the leader of the 1956 uprising, was given a state burial 31 years after being hanged for treason. Tens of thousands attended and it was broadcast live on national television. Opposition leader Viktor Orban called for free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops.

Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians across the Baltics marked the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-von Ribbentrop pact that had ensured their slavery under Nazism, Communism or both. National flags flew. Calls for independence were made.

East Germans began traveling to the West through the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. Authorities removed the barbed wire on their frontier. Gorbachev visited the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in October for the 40th anniversary of the country's founding. He saw a veritable opening of the human floodgate from East to West. Aside from the challenge of securing against such an exodus, it was an obvious indicator of the failure of what he and his party stood for. Tens of thousands demonstrated, chanting, "We are the people."

Gorbachev told the infamous GDR Communist leader Erich Honnecker that history does not forgive those who fail to move with the times. Honnecker was a hardline Communist, which is tantamount to saying he was a murderous thug. He knew that with the fall of Communism, he had no future. There was no forgiving his crimes. Men like Honnecker woke up every day and did what they did only if they could rely on two things. One, that Communism would protect them from the mob, and two, that there was no God to judge him upon his death. As Honnecker observed the events of 1989, listening to Gorbachev all but tell him to step down, he must have known the feeling Hitler had in the bunker. He was alone with his crimes. Contemplating the vengeful mob was bad enough, but if hell existed, he would gladly trade that for the mob. His participation in the 20th Century tragedy called Communism made him susceptible to both. It is not for me to say who goes to hell and who does not, however, it is also my belief that even men like Honnecker can save themselves if they accept God and ask for forgiveness. That is what I call a good deal, but it is just my opinion.

In Moscow, Russian politician Boris Yeltsin called for the removal of the Communist Party. 10 days later, Honnecker was removed. In November, crowds kept gathering without police resistance until the Berlin Wall came down. Thousands of ordinary Germans, bearing hammers and champagne, took turns pounding on the concrete until they had made holes in it. East Berliners crossed into the West jubilantly.

The GDR opened its border.

"Because we consider the present situation to be untenable...We have decided to adopt new regulations which will allow every citizen of the GDR to freely travel through all border points of the GDR," Politburo member Guenter Schabowski said.

On November 17, police beat students in Prague. Czechoslovakia's "Velvet Revolution" swept the streets. Vaclav Havel, who had celebrated New Year's Day, 1989, in prison, ended it as president of his country.

"What took 10 years in Poland, took 10 months in Hungary, 10 weeks in East Germany and ultimately 10 days in Czechoslovakia," said Garton Ash.

President George Bush met Gorbachev at Malta. The Soviets began the process of removing Soviet troops from Europe. The Cold War was over.

"We have renounced the monopoly of truth, and do not think that we are better than the rest and always right about everything, and that anyone who disagrees with us is our enemy," said Gorbachev. "Henceforth we are firmly and irreversibly guided in politics by the principle of freedom of choice, in economic life, science, and technology by the principle of mutual benefit and in the intellectual and ideological sphere by the principle of dialogue and acceptance of all that is applicable to our conditions and ought in consequence to be assimilated and utilized, for our own progress."

The man sounded like Thomas Jefferson.

Two weeks later, violent revolution in Romania, rife with bloody clashes, resulted in the people taking over the western city of Timisoara. On Christmas Day, Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were executed, much in the manner that Italian partisans had strung up Benito Mussolini and his mistress towards the end of World War II.

"What a fantastic year this has been for freedom!" exclaimed Margaret Thatcher. "1989 will be remembered for decades to come as the year when the people of half our continent began to throw off their chains.

Gorbachev, now a private citizen, said he intended only to reform Communism, not eliminate it.

President George Herbert Walker Bush

America's 41st President, George Herbert Walker Bush, was born on June 12, 1924, in Milton, Massachusetts, into a wealthy blueblood family. Bush had all the right "credentials." His English ancestry goes back to colonial times, even distant blood relations to the British royal family. He is appropriately Episcopalian. His family founded the prestigious, old money Wall Street brokerage firm Brown Brothers, Harriman and the Walker Cup golf tournament. Bush's father made a fortune on Wall Street, then served for 10 years as a U.S. Senator from Connecticut in the 1950s.

Bush grew up in the wealthy New York City bedroom community of Greenwich, graduating from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts in 1942. Secretary of War Henry Stimson spoke to his graduating class and urged that the seniors, the children of America's most prestigious families, not enlist in the military. He told them they would serve the country better by attending college, then going in as officers. George Bush did not heed Stimson's words.

He joined the Navy at 17 and become the youngest carrier pilot in Naval history. Bush was twice shot down by Japanese Zero's. Once, while clinging to the wing of his Grumman Avenger, a Japanese plane circled above him trying to machine-gun Bush to death. Bush's wingman dog fought the Jap plane to keep him from getting a bead on Bush. Finally a submarine arrived in the shark-infested waters to rescue him.

Bush served each and every day until the U.S. achieved victory in 1945. While still in the Navy, he married Barbara Pierce of Rye, New York. Bush was discharged from the Navy, having won the Distinguished Flying Cross and three Air Medals. No sooner was he out of the military than he began studies at his father's alma mater, Yale University. He went through special dispensation to enter the school as soon as possible, even though his military service should have pushed his starting date back. Bush was a man in a hurry, and he lived his life that way.

He studied economics at Yale, became a father, was a legacy in his dad's fraternity, was captain of the baseball team and graduated with honors, all within three years. When Babe Ruth appeared at Yankee Stadium, stricken with cancer, for a final farewell, Bush was selected to give The Babe a wreath from Yale. Bush was a slick-fielding, left-handed first baseman, but he his offensive production did not match his defensive skills. In 1947, Bush led Yale to the first-ever College World Series, but they were defeated for the National Championship by the University of California. In 1948, they appeared again at the College World Series, but this time were beaten by Rod Dedeaux' University of Southern California. He was offered a professional contract by the New York Yankees and other Major League organizations, but chose instead to embark on a different path. A lifelong Boston Red Sox fan, he idolized Ted Williams. He came to befriend Williams, who was a Marine Corps fighter pilot in World War II and Korea. Williams felt kinship with the fighter pilot Bush. As a conservative Republican, he supported his friend throughout his career.

Upon graduation, Bush's future was laid out for him. He and his young family would settle in his hometown of Greenwich. He would go to work for the family brokerage, Brown Brothers, Harriman. He would join all the right clubs and become a millionaire. Perhaps because he had already proven himself as a war ace, Bush was independent and desired to carve out a different niche for himself. His war experiences and his success at Yale had given him the confidence to venture on his own.

Bush took his family to several locations, including California, but eventually he ventured to the "badlands" of West Texas and began "wild-catting" in the "oil-drilling bidness." He co-founded the Bush-Overbey Company, Zapata Petroleum Corporation and Zapata Off-Shore, of which he also became president in 1954. Eventually, the company became successful enough that Bush moved from Midland to Houston, where corporate offices were established. He indeed did become a millionaire on his own terms. Describing Bush's rise in Texas oil as a singular accomplishment needs to be mentioned with the caveat that he indeed benefited from his family connections. It was money from his father and their Wall Street friends that funded Bush's start-ups. He was never in danger of ending up in the poor house. Had the companies failed, he would have been bailed out or taken over by a "friendly" family company. That said, he did succeed by virtue of smart business decisions and hard work. All the investors made substantial money.

In 1964, Bush decided to enter politics. He was motivated by a sense of noblesse oblige, the Latin for "noble obligation." As the son of wealth and privilege, he felt he had to give back to a country that had provided him so much. The Bush plan was part of a family strategy. His father had made his money first, served in the Senate for 10 years, and retired. Bush had his money, and wanted to make his mark. A staunch Republican of the moderate variety, Bush ran for the Senate in Texas. Republicans were still relatively rare in the South, but Bush sensed that the times were changing. Civil rights had pushed many Democrats away from the party's liberal agenda. The G.O.P. was in the process of trying to husband change in Southern politics by moderating between old school Dixiecrats and new style Republicans. It was in 1964 that South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond switched to the Republicans.

Thurmond, a World War II hero and respected intellect in his state, had opposed Harry Truman's civil right initiatives in 1948, choosing to run for President and gathering substantial votes. In 1957 he had filibustered the Senate floor to again oppose civil rights. Under the Republican banner, Thurmond would change and become the first Southern Senator to hire black staffers. His story is very much the story of the 20th Century. Bush did not back Johnson's Civil Rights Act, which he regrets. However, it was impossible for anybody to back that initiative and win in Texas in 1964. Bush lost his first campaign, but returned in 1966 to run for Congress in one of Houston's wealthiest districts. He managed to win the primary, which made him a shoe-in in the heavily Republican district.

Bush served two terms in the House. When Richard Nixon came to office in 1969, he quickly identified young Bush as a rising star in the party and a symbol of the new, more moderate South. Bush helped him get elected, part of Nixon's "Southern Strategy," in 1968. Nixon urged Bush to run for the Senate again in 1970 against the Democrat incumbent. In a strange twist of events, Lloyd Bentsen emerged from the shadows to defeat the incumbent in the Democrat primary. He posed an entirely different set of campaign problems for Bush, who had geared his strategy to dealing with an old school Southerner. Bentsen was young and moderate, and took away much of the argument. He defeated Bush.

Nixon had promised Bush an appointment if he lost the Senate race. It was the best thing that could have happened to him. Had he stayed in the Senate, he would have been typecast. Instead, he would upgrade his resume with a series of high-profile positions that gave him the experience and imprimatur of an international diplomat. A mere decade later he would consider himself Presidential timbre, and he indeed would become the Vice-President.

Nixon made Bush Ambassador to the United Nations from 1971-1972. During that time, he found himself in familiar territory, New York City - the city he had turned away from to make his mark in Texas. Nixon then asked him to serve as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1972-1973. It was a difficult job. Nixon saw that Watergate was on the horizon. He needed a man with an impeccably clean record of honesty and integrity to be the face of the party. Bush found himself forced to defend the Republicans and Nixon during a very tough period. The investigations began to heat up early in 1973 and continued unabated until Nixon's resignation.

In an effort to preserve Bush's political viability for a later time, it was decided that he should be distanced from the role of Watergate defender, and given further international prestige. Nixon had opened China. The U.S. was forming its embassy in Peking. Bush was named chief of the U.S. liaison office there, holding this key post from 1974-1976. He saw momentous changes in China during the last two years of the Cultural Revolution, including the trial of the Gang of Four. His close workings with the Chinese in the years right after Vietnam gave him valuable diplomatic expertise. In 1976, Gerald Ford needed a man with a superclean record to take over the CIA after the Church hearings. Again, that man was Bush. He was Director of Central Intelligence until Carter took over and replaced him with his own man.

Bush immediately decided that he would run for President in 1980. Like Reagan, he was independently wealthy and able to concentrate full-time on preparing a campaign. He knew Reagan would be his opponent, and that the Republican Primaries would be a showdown between his Rockefeller wing and the new conservatism embodied by Goldwater and Reagan. Bush did win the Iowa caucus, but Reagan had not chosen to participate. He lost in New Hampshire, which hurt because as a Northeasterner (at least by upbringing) he thought he had the advantage against the California candidate.

Despite a few harsh remarks about Reagan during the heat of campaigning, Bush was chosen as the Vice-Presidential running mate. He knew how important the job was to his future. Reagan was favored to beat Jimmy Carter. Reagan was an older man and Bush was a young politician. If he served the role faithfully, the White House could be his by succession in eight years.

As Vice-President during Reagan's two terms from 1981-1989, Bush changed the nature of the office. He was actively involved in all of Reagan's strategies, and as such was able to take credit for being a part of history as the Cold War was won. When the Iran-Contra scandal broke, wild stories broke depicted Bush traveling incognito to the Middle East, dressed in traditional Muslim headdress, to plan the conspiracy. Bush claimed he was "out of the loop." It is possible that North's "plausible deniability" protected Bush, but considering how active he was, it is not ultimately credible. What saved Bush from going down because of the episode was the general attitude on the part of the electorate that fighting Communism was a good thing, even if the Democrats had given up on the effort.

In 1988 Bush ran for the Presidency. The liberal press went after him, calling him a "wimp" despite his numerous air missions against Japanese pilots, his captainship of the Yale baseball team, or the respect he had earned from the hard-nosed Texas oil crowd. The possibility that liberal bias did not operate against Bush is so far from being possible that it is rendered simply that with which is actually impossible. Millions recognize this fact. He sustained a strong Primary challenge from the respected G.O.P. Senate leader, Robert Dole of Kansas.

Dole was a piece of work himself. He had served as an officer in the Army during World War II's Italian Campaign. Caught in fierce combat fire, he was badly wounded, spent well over a year recovering in a hospital, and lost use of one of his arms. He went on to become an attorney and then entered politics. He served in Congress, then in the Senate. He had been Gerald Ford's running mate in 1976. He was smart and tough, but had cultivated a "mean-spirited" reputation. Supposedly, those on his staff were sometimes subject to harsh language. Bush's position as Vice-President had given him the edge. He had spent years cultivating friends and colleagues throughout the national and local political establishments. He was seen, just as he had hoped in 1980, to be the natural heir apparent to the legacy of the great Reagan.

To win the general election, however, he had to overcome history. Vice-Presidents often got the nominations, but not since Martin van Buren in 1836 had one been elected to the White House. Bush faced Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, a traditional Boston liberal. Dukakis was a good man, and managed to pull out to a 17-point lead by mid-Summer. Bush declared at the Republican convention, "Read my lips, no new taxes," which energized the conservative base. He ran a commercial showing that under Dukakis, Boston Harbor had become a polluted cesspool, complete with pictures of the filthy waterway. He ran another commercial featuring a black prison inmate named Willie Horton, who had been let free on a weekend furlough designed by Dukakis. On that furlough, Horton had held captive and raped a white woman. The photo used in the commercial was a sinister mug shot. Bush was accused of inflaming racial sensitivities.

Dukakis, who was no friend of the military, made the mistake of visiting a military base and climbing on top of a tank for a photo-op. He was given a special helmet worn by tank crewmen. Smiling at the camera, Dukakis looked way out of place. The image of a pacifist liberal riding a tank contrasted him with tankmen like George Patton. The Republican Primary had featured the macho veterans Bush and Dole. This further served to make Dukakis look ridiculous.

During a debate, Dukakis, who did not favor the death penalty, was asked if he would advocate that punishment if somebody raped and killed his wife. The fact that he did not change his position is not what hurt him. Rather, he showed no emotion when discussing this horrible scenario.

Bush beat Dukakis 54-49, capturing 426 electoral votes (including the big prize of California). The Democrats retained both houses of Congress. Bush called for a "kinder, gentler nation," which was an effort to distance himself from the reputation the opposition had tried to pin on Reagan regarding his stand on tax cuts and the supposed effect on the poor. He vowed to be the "educational president," but made various gaffes. He said things that he thought were sound bite quality, like "Message: I care." At a supermarket he expressed amazement at the scanners used to price groceries, which was used to show he was not in touch with the people.

In 1990, Bush made his fatal error, the one that separates him from the true conservatives. He agreed to a compromise with Democrats to raise taxes, going against his pledge. This is a very important point, because it demonstrates not only the difference between G.O.P. moderates and conservatives, but Republicans and Democrats. While it is true that Reagan raised taxes as California Governor and early in his Presidency, his overall record was of tax reductions that resulted in strong economies. Bush's 1990 compromise was more of a surrender. It led to the 1992 recession that cost him his Presidency. It showed that Republicans hold themselves to a higher standard. Bush "lying" about taxes was unforgivable. Democrats do it regularly and constantly. It is simply expected of Democrats. While this may be a double standard, it ultimately works to the Republican favor because it makes them the more trustworthy party.

Bush was much more interested in foreign politics. He presided over freedom in Eastern Europe that left the United States as the only "superpower." Bush negotiated a continuation of arms reduction with the Soviet Union (including unprecedented cuts in nuclear arms). In 1989 he ordered the invasion of Panama to depose Manuel Noriega, who was convicted of drug trafficking.

In 1990 Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. "Operation Desert Storm," which liberated Kuwait, left Bush with an unbelievable 91 percent popularity. The chances of his losing re-election the next year seemed utterly improbable. However, Bush became the victim of certain ironies. In the Spring of 1991, Democrats who had opposed the Persian Gulf War were identified and badly hurt by their positions. The Democrats had no real candidates to challenge Bush. There seemed a very real chance that the Democrat party was headed towards some form of oblivion. Their biggest name was New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who had risen to prominence based mostly on a strong speech at the 1984 Democrat convention in San Francisco. But Cuomo's East Coast liberalism, contrasted with Reagan's Western conservatism, had hurt him. He seemed to be the "Hamlet candidate," never knowing "whether to be or not to be." He chose the latter.

Bush, who had lived such a charmed life, now found himself the victim of a success he had helped to build. He was very much a deserving member and partner of the Reagan/Bush policies that led to Communism's ultimate fall in the first couple years of his Presidency. This meant two things. First, without Communism as an "enemy" any more, the public no longer felt the Republican party was necessary to combat it. The perception, built over many years, was that the Republicans were better suited to handling the Soviet threat. It is entirely true that many dedicated Democrats contributed to the ultimate victory. While the Venona Papers showed that Communist spies helped undermine the position of Chiang Kai-Shek in China after World War II, President Truman nevertheless took the correct stance in dealing with Stalin and Mao.

John Kennedy was a true Cold Warrior. Robert Kennedy turned out not to be. Lyndon Johnson was maligned for fighting Communism. His intention was honorable, but he was a poor military strategist who should have deferred to his generals more instead of picking out bombing targets himself.

However, many Democrats worked against Republicans, giving tacit "support" to our enemies. The public came to recognize this. But in 1992, this issue no longer mattered as much in a peaceful world, described by some as the "end of history." By winning the Cold War, the Republicans took away their own best issue. They found themselves victims of their own success. In 1946, England had decided the wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was not needed without war. He was turned out.

The second point that surrounds Bush's failure to get re-elected carries out this theme. Throughout the Cold War, the Military Industrial Complex had thrived. Founded in part by Howard Hughes, it was for the most part a series of companies and contractors in Los Angeles, located along the 405 (San Diego) Freeway corridor that runs from Santa Monica south to Long Beach, eventually extending to Orange County and San Diego. Companies built planes, rockets, tanks, equipment and high tech weaponry used by the armed services in conflict after conflict. The Cold War fueled this industry. They were protected by the government and considered a "sacred cow."

The Military Industrial Complex was filled with dedicated, patriotic workers. They were highly skilled and educated. These people mostly voted Republican. They contributed to the atmosphere that had long made Southern California a Republican stronghold. When the Berlin Wall came down, the first series of stories appeared calling for a reduced spending on weaponry. This had long been planned anyway, what with serious arms reduction agreements signed by Gorbachev, Reagan and Bush. But the sudden fall of the Communist Empire created a huge "windfall" in the arms budget. Trillions of dollars earmarked for defense could go someplace else, and with Democrats in Congress the budgets for 1990, 1991 and 1992 reflected that new benefit.

The result was closure and reductions throughout the Military Industrial Complex. That meant Southern California. The economy in the nation's most populated state immediately went down as a result, fueling the recession. The economy had rolled along in continual growth mode throughout the 1980s. The cyclical nature of economies meant it was due for a downturn anyway. Bush's tax hike hurt, and reduced post-Cold War contracts made it worse.

Bush disdained the kind of retail politicking that Reagan thrived on, and it showed. Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton emerged as the Democrats' nominee. He formed a "war room" led by James Carville and George Stephanopoulos. They were brilliant campaigners who kept the candidate on the continual drumbeat theme that "it's the economy, stupid." For reasons that make no sense in light of what we know now, Bush took Clinton lightly. He was a formidable pol who made Bush look old and out of touch.

Bush's problems had started in February, 1992. Riding high after the Persian Gulf success, he looked to be able to oversee a world in which "peace was breaking out all over," thanks to America and the conservatives who had orchestrated events. His Presidency looked to have the feel of a pageant. Then the economy began to go down, slowly but surely. Still, attaching Bush as the main cause seemed a stretch, until conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan waged a high-profile challenge to the President in the New Hampshire Primary. Bush had not planned to spend money or energy on Primaries, but Buchanan blamed him for everything. Buchanan had been a speechwriter for Nixon and Reagan, and parlayed that into a gig as a co-host on CNN's "Crossfire". He regularly debated liberals on every possible issue. He was very smart and had an answer for everything. His true blue conservative credentials were contrasted to Bush's perceived Rockefeller ways. Buchanan hammered him over the 1990 tax hike.

Buchanan was unable to actually defeat Bush, but he did poll well over 30 percent of the vote, an astounding figure in an incumbent President's Primary. He could not sustain his candidacy and dropped out, but he had shown Bush to be vulnerable. It opened the door to Democrats (and others) who now had hope and, more important, fund-raising incentive combined with stronger grass roots support.

In April, 1992, an all-white jury in Simi Valley, California, north of Los Angeles, declared as "not guilty" a group of white L.A.P.D. officers who had been caught on videotape beating a black motorist, Rodney King, a year earlier. Blacks exploded into riots in Los Angeles. Superstar actor Charlton Heston, a longtime gun rights activist, started receiving calls from his Hollywood pals, who for years had advocated gun control. With violent, rampaging blacks taking over the streets of L.A., these people wanted to know if Heston could loan them guns to protect themselves. The riots never made it to tony Beverly Hills and Bel Aire, but Watts was a war zone. Bush called in the National Guard. Images of mostly white soldiers confronting black criminals were not helpful. Buchanan then fanned the flames at the Republican Convention at the Astrodome in Houston. He agreed to back Bush, but his speech was made to make the National Guardsmen look like Chamberlain's Seventh Maine fighting off Johnny Reb at Little Round Top. It played with the hardcores but added no new Bush votes. Liberals derided it as "sounding better in the original German" (which I have to admit deserves points for originality).

Bush could have survived Buchanan, the economy and the riots. What killed him was a pipsqueak Texas billionaire named H. Ross Perot. Perot was part myth and part character from a Burt Lancaster movie. Think of "Rainmaker" or "Elmer Gantry". He had, like Jimmy Carter, gone to the Naval Academy and served in Rickover's nuclear Navy. Tired of the regimen of military life, he opted out and went to work for IBM, becoming one of Big Blue's best salesmen. Seeing the future of technology, he then went on his own and formed a company in his native Texas that went off the charts. When some of his employees were captured by Iranian Fundamentalists and held for ransom, Perot financed his own rescue operation. It succeeded, making him a hero, and a movie called "On Wings of Eagles" featured Richard Crenna as Perot.

In 1992, Perot, who certainly was considered more of a Republican than a Democrat, and was by no means a liberal, went on the "Larry King Live!" interview show. He announced he was running for President as an independent. His candidacy built and built and built. At one point, it appeared he actually might have a chance. Perot was a phenomenon, but his inanities about "Looking under the hood to fix the engine," spoken in the most obnoxious Texas twang imaginable, did not cut ice with rock solid Republicans. He did make a huge dent among the questionable and the independents, which make up a huge swing vote in elections. Eventually, he became something of a running joke. He had big ears that made him look a taxi driving down the street with both doors open. But he was no joke to George Bush. Perot did not appeal to the Democrat base. He took his votes from Bush.

1992 also became the year of Political Correctness. It was a new, odd term that applied to anything that people were sensitive to, whether it is race, religion, women, homosexuals, language or thought. The "bad guys" of Political Correctness, or PC, as it came to be known were, you guessed it, white Republican men. What a surprise!

Two things were the genesis of PC. The first was the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991. Thomas was a black man from the most hardscrabble Southern poverty. Thomas seems to be of that tiny minority of blacks from the South (for reasons that still amaze me) who made the connection that the official bigots of Jim Crow, who kept blacks down for generations, were 100 percent Democrats. Thomas was bright and employed common sense. The result was that he determined not to be a Democrat. It seems as logical as a German Jew choosing not to join the Nazi Party in 1933. German Jews had about as much chance of voting in the 1930s as Southern blacks did in the 1950s.

Thomas looked around him and made some observations. He realized that his chances in the South were, uh, not good. But he was smart and ambitious. It occurred to him that the United States was a big place, and within its borders there was phenomenal opportunity. He just had to look a little harder to find it. Laws were written to help and protect him. Education was a weapon, hard work a tool. Thomas' story was remarkable, but he would be the first to say that it was just a matter of taking each careful step. Those steps led him to Yale Law School, where he was allegedly admitted via affirmative action. This is in dispute, and Thomas denies it. Thomas then embarked on a legal career that eventually put him in charge of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He discovered the greatest affirmative action there is, which is to be a black conservative. His supporters have tried to say that Thomas did not benefit from affirmative action or race preferences. He did. But this truth needs to be countenanced by the fact that he was going to succeed regardless. Whether he would have been head of the EEOC or a Supreme Court Justice is doubtful, but he was destined to achieve the American Dream in some capacity.

Thomas might not have gotten into Yale Law School, but had he gotten into, say, the Boston University Law School on pure merit, would his future have been so drastically different? Certainly there was a serendipitous element to the fact that he was a Yale man, and the President who husbanded his rise also was. But Reagan was a Eureka College man; Nixon a Whittier College alum; LBJ from Southwest Texas State. Those affiliations could have worked to advantages under the different circumstances.

Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court because Bush needed a black conservative to fill the vacancy. Bush, of course, did not say that. He said he was named on pure qualifications. That is the nature of politics and always will be. Colin Powell rose above West Point graduates because he was a combination of black and brilliant. Was making this combination public a bad thing? I do not think so. The kind of "affirmative action" that goes into choosing Cabinet members, Vice-Presidents, Supreme Court Justices and the like is different from quotas. It is an important element of the political landscape and should be encouraged.

But what the Democrats did to Thomas was unreal. The liberals are an amazing group. They mouth the most outrageous things. A woman's right to choose, for instance, definitely is not supposed to include the right to choose to have children if abortion is a "viable option." Feminists bristle at the slightest slight if it comes from a conservative, yet they avert their eyes when Bill Clinton rapes, fondles, assaults and threatens women, all in league with his wife and a cabal of "advisors" led by James Carville. Black conservatives are Democrats' worst nightmares. A black activist like Harry Belafonte actually thinks it is okay to call an accomplished black Republican like Clarence Thomas or Colin Powell "an Uncle Tom." The reality is, it is not okay, Harry. It is, and quite simply, that with which is disgusting. The fact that it is disgusting is recognized by me and millions like me. Therefore, it is.

Thomas chose not to buy into the liberal prescriptions for what they said ailed him. First, he escaped the Democrats who made it official policy to make him a second class citizen in Georgia. Once in the "safe environs" of the Northeast, he was supposed to thank the guilty whites for letting him have a chance. So what if he benefited from affirmative action in the 1950s or 1960s? Does that mean the prescriptions have not changed in the years since then? Thomas was supposed to think a certain way. Entrepreneurialism, individualism and capitalism did not figure in that way of thinking. He was supposed to be a product of the government. In a nation where individualism is one of our most prized attributes, liberals despise it if displayed in the "wrong way" by blacks. Liberals are all for blacks wearing funky clothes, singing crazy rap songs rife with swear words, graphic sexuality and cop-killing violence. That is all just fine and dandy, an "expression of culture." Let a black man pursue the American Dream by "acting white" and, God forbid, going conservative, and he is a target.

Bush nominated Thomas. No sooner had the hearings started than a black woman law professor from the University of Oklahoma made her presence known. What followed was one of the most bizarre theatres of the absurd in U.S. political annals. Her name was Anita Hill. She was pleasant looking and intelligent. She seemed to have achieved the American Dream in her own right. Supposedly, she came forward reluctantly. She had worked for Thomas at the EEOC, and had followed him to several different jobs. The story was that Thomas had made unwelcome sexual advances towards her. By 1991, this was known as "sexual harassment." For the previous 5,000 years it had been known as Life.

Lurid stories filled the Judiciary Committee hearings, where Teddy Kennedy sat in silence while the ghost of Mary Jo Kopechne hovered over his head. Thomas apparently had the hots for Anita. He apparently made some clumsy efforts at coming on to her. One story involved the "discovery" of pubic hair on a can of Coke. Some of it was probably true. Some of it was probably false. None of it sounded very remarkable. The Democrats treated Thomas as if he was Charles Manson. It was revealed later that Bill Clinton probably raped a woman when he was Arkansas Attorney General, used state troopers as pimps, and enjoyed pulling his manhood out of his pants because he expected blowjobs on demand. The Thomas-Clinton comparison in and of itself is enough to assert the superiority of Republicans over Democrats.

Liberals stuck "I believe you, Anita" bumper stickers on their cars. An overall, honest assessment of the hearings is that Thomas probably did "harass" her a little, but it was minor stuff. Hill most likely lied to enhance the effect for the cameras. Nobody has since really gotten to the truth of it since. Thomas looked to be toast until he broke his silence, denied the whole thing and said the Democrats were engaged in a "high tech lynching." His complete repudiation of Hill's testimony probably contained some lying on his part, but the nature of the accusations had cornered him into a place where he could not get away with something like, "Well, I guess I said that, but I didn't think it was such a big deal."

In the end, he was confirmed. His tenure on the Court has not found him to be the reincarnation of Learned Hand, nor the jurisprudential equal of his conservative colleague, Antonin Scalia. His style is to maintain silence instead of asking probing questions, which is within his purview. His critics contend that he is a barely functioning ignoramus. His votes against affirmative action are never given legal weight by the Left, who trot out his Yale admissions' status from the Jim Crow years, as if nothing has changed since. Thomas is merely competent, which makes him no worse than many other Justices over he years.

David Brock went to work on Anita Hill in the American Spectator after the hearings. He dug up "dirt" on her that showed she was something of a sex hound, calling her "a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty," which basically describes a lot of normal American women, not to mention men. In other words, she is a human being. One article was entitled "The Slutty Professor." Brock went through a metamorphosis of some kind. It turned out that he was gay but in the closet. When his homosexuality became known, he made some decisions about how that affected his politics, and decided he should be a liberal. He then made a round of media appearances claiming that most of what he had written about Anita Hill was a lie, manufactured by right wing conspiracists. In listening to him, he sounded fairly sincere, but he did not offer substantive facts to back up his claim and, overall, did not pass the b.s. test that thinking people apply to such things. He may be telling the truth now. It just does not seem very likely.

The Thomas hearings opened up a can of worms. A few years before, Bush had attempted to nominate a former Texas Senator named John Tower as his Secretary of Defense. Tower was a good ol' boy who liked to drink and have sex. Can you imagine that?

Apparently, he had brushed his arm or fondled an attractive female soldier standing at attention during inspection once, and had carried on affairs, partied hearty and made intemperate remarks. The Republicans eventually urged Bush to drop Tower, but only after the Democrats had forgotten all about the things John Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, Joe Kennedy, and Robert Kennedy used to do. Being Secretary of Defense is a very high-profile job, so keeping gropers and public Lotharios out of the job is understandable. The fact is the Republicans are better at just weeding out their own than the Democrats are at making hue and cry.

After Tower and Thomas, Democrat women saw a new issue. They then seized on some unseemly stories emanating from a long-held Naval tradition called "Tailhook." Tailhook is the name given by flyboys, who otherwise call themselves Naval Aviators. Immortalized by Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer in "Top Gun", these guys like to fly, drink and chase girls. They used to get together every year at a convention in Las Vegas, where they would...drink and chase girls. Most of the guys were in their 20s and single.

Apparently, a group of testosterone-fueled fighter pilots were drinking and standing around outside their hotel rooms when some attractive (?) women, some of whom may have been Naval officers, walked past a "gauntlet" of leering, jeering guys. Some hands made contact. A kiss or two was attempted. The word "baby" was uttered. A few "suggestions" were made.

All in all, the event sounds much like the experience of women walking through the streets of Rome since the days of Julius Caesar, or French women negotiating the Champs d'Elysee. Certainly some fines, notations and dressing-downs were in order. Colorado Democrat Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder rode it hard until careers were destroyed in a public spectacle. Liberals really have a problem with the kinds of people who do what they apparently would never consider doing, like perform heroic military acts in the service of their country. When she was done, pilots were grounded forever and one poor admiral committed suicide. Schroeder was not worth a pimple on that man's rear end.

The feminist Democrats then went after Oregon Republican Senator Robert Packwood. Packwood liked women. He kissed them. He hugged them. He made some suggestions to them about activities they might be able to do together. Apparently, sometimes these "activities" took place. It was all relatively harmless, although worthy of campaign fodder in Oregon. The femi-Nazis, as Rush Limbaugh had come to calling them, could not wait. They hounded Packwood mercilessly as if he had...spied for the Soviets and helped write the U.N. Charter in favor of the Russians. Of course, guys like Alger Hiss and Harry Hopkins were heroes of the Left, but Bob Packwood was a bad man! His career was dust when they finished him off.

All these factors were working against Bush as he headed down the home stretch of the 1992 campaign. California, reeling from recession worse than the rest of the country because they were hit hardest by the so-called "Cold War dividend," went against him. Nobody got 50 percent of the vote. Perot pulled enough of it to deny Bush. Had Perot not made himself a candidate, Bush would have prevailed despite everything. It was as if all the good fortune that had accompanied him throughout his life and career was overturned in one fell swoop in November of 1992.

The election came to be known as the Year of the Woman. In California, two Jewish Democrat women from San Francisco, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, were elected. It was a huge shift in power and influence that indicated the glory days of the Southland were over. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and Carol Mosely-Braun of Illinois were elected, too. Bill Clinton was the 42nd President of the U.S.A., and the dawn of a new age was upon us.

END OF VOLUME TWO

VOLUME THREE

AMERICAN HEGEMONY

CHAPTER ONE

THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

"Take up the White Man's burden-

Send forth the best ye breed-

Go bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives' need;

To wait in heavy harness,

On fluttered folk and wild-

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half-devil and half-child."

\- Rudyard Kipling, 1899

Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem "White Man's Burden" to "justify" America's military incursions into Cuba and the Philippines. A few years later, Mark Twain remarked, "What about the brown man's burden?" The history of interaction between white people and non-white people is a history of conflict. The most recent history concerns colonization and expansion of the British Empire and what must now be called the American Empire.

The British occupied much of Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, and points in between. The Americans first engaged in wars with Mexicans and Indians, then set forth on the de facto colonization of Cuba, the Philippines, China, Hawaii, and points in between. Most of the white European countries, however, have long histories of interaction with the "native lands." The Roman Empire. The Spanish Conquest. The Crusades. For a couple thousand years, armed whites have ventured into the land of the non-whites and done some serious damage. At this point, a very large portion of the non-white world hates the whites because of it.

The relationship of whites to non-whites is often characterized as being one in which the non-whites are disproportionately hurt, enslaved, exploited and destroyed by the whites. There is no question that in adding up the "score," whites have done far more damage to non-whites than vice versa.

The question, which is not asked without controversy, is whether the non-whites are better or worse off for having dealt with the whites. Any blanket "excuse" for white exploitation, prejudice and violence is easily dismissed as immorality. On the other hand, we live in a world shaped by Western Civilization or "Dead White Males" as some like to say, with a little bit of derision.

The great principles of Western Civilization have been left to roll around in messy confluence with the great evils of Western Civilization. Either way, the world has been shaped, for the most part, by Western Civilization. Western Civilization is not the only civilization. The ancient world includes the antiquities of the Middle East and the philosophies of the Far East and Near East. Europe has given us its fair share of major stinkers. The French Revolution led to a century of revolution, eventually resulting in the Nazis and the Communists. Nevertheless, the contributions of Western Civilization far outweigh the evils.

The age-old question again is asked. Are non-whites better off, or worse off, on the whole, for having been forced to co-exist with the white world? Are the ancestors of slaves better or worse off for having had their ancestors brought to America? These questions have an inherent controversy attached to them, because it forces one to address whether there was justification in what happened. Of course, there is no sense of moral relativism that can ever be used to give credence to slavery or any other evil. But just as American involvement with brutal dictators who opposed Communism must be viewed under the larger picture, so too is the convoluted, complicated relationship of whites and non-whites.

Today, Liberia is a country in West Africa that is rife with genocidal violence. Freed American slaves, under the dictates of President Monroe founded this country. The capital of Liberia, Monrovia, is named after him. Are the descendants of these slaves, who barely survive the day-to-day struggle against AIDS, war, anarchy, disease and evil, better off than descendants of slaves living in, say, Detroit, Michigan?

The black-white relationship in the U.S. is more complicated than in other nations. Great Britain, for instance, is so old that one simply accepts their past misdeeds. There is too much history to try to "explain" it. But America was founded on these enormous principles of goodwill and love for our fellow man. The contrast with treatment towards blacks is something that we do try to come to grips with. The beauty of America is that we do not sweep our problems and secrets under the rug.

The question goes back to our founding, when the Constitution was written in light of the "great compromise" between the Southern and Northern states. It is easy to make the argument that the ideals of this nation are counterfeit since slavery was allowed. A defense of these actions leads one to conclusions that the "victim class" would prefer to avoid. Despite everything, the principles of freedom prevailed. The Founders did in deed allow slavery, but they had a plan to end it. The idea was to stop importing slaves from Africa. Throughout history, countries that stopped importing slaves saw slave populations die out over a few generations. The Founders thought this would happen in America.

After the importation stopped, however, an odd thing happened. Slave populations grew. They kept growing exponentially. Eventually, so many slaves had been born in the South that the question of slavery became the overriding dispute in this country. The alarming truth is that the slave populations grew because American slaveowners treated their slaves better than any slaves had ever been treated in history. Slaves had always been fed poorly, treated poorly, and died young. American slaves, for the most part, were fed well, had adequate housing, married and had families. They were allowed to worship, and lived generally healthy lives. They were slaves, but not like any other slaves in any other countries. The inability to pin down all white people as devils in the issue of slavery and civil rights ultimately leads to the success of the civil rights struggle.

Slavery was discussed earlier. It was pointed out that American laws enacted by Americans "ended" slavery. There is a sense of patriotism to this fact. America is where slavery came to die. A man can still visit a massage parlor in most U.S. cities and find some poor girl from Vietnam, Hong Kong or the Philippines, who is in some kind of bondage, probably "paying off" her handlers by working in the sex trade for five years to "earn" her freedom. The Russian Mafia has specialized in this practice, too, throughout the old East Bloc. Still, it is correct to point out that the kind of actual slavery that was practiced in the Old South is no more.

The death of Abe Lincoln is particularly tragic because, had he lived, blacks might have been allowed real freedom, instead of being sentenced to another 100 years of de facto slavery. Many blacks in the South more than likely lived worse after the Civil War than they had when they were property. The Andrew Johnson and U.S. Grant Administrations were rife with corruption and ineptitude. Reconstruction, which had started with such high hopes, ended in the 1870s an abysmal failure. The South found themselves more resentful than ever. The easy scapegoats for their hatred were the poor blacks living within their midst. It was a recipe for disaster.

Maybe, had Lincoln presided over the first four years of Reconstruction, he would have demonstrated enough leadership to enact a real peace. Maybe he would have failed, and his legacy would have suffered because of it. Either way, what did come out of it was something called "Jim Crow."

The term originated in a song performed by Daddy Rice, a white minstrel show entertainer in the 1830s. Rice covered his face with charcoal to resemble a black man, and then sang and danced a routine in caricature of a silly black person. He called the character Jim Crow. By the 1850s, this Jim Crow character was a popular depiction of black inferiority.

There is no clear-cut explanation as to why this term was eventually used to refer to "laws" used to keep black people segregated. What is clear is that the laws were in place and used to subordinate blacks to the dictates of whites. Segregation took a clear turn immediately after the Civil War. Both whites and blacks instituted it. "Carpet bagging" whites did come to the South, "mixing" with Northern blacks. The populace quickly scorned this practice. Whites had no desire to share their lives with blacks. Blacks were not comfortable making any attempt to mix with whites.

The former slaves established their own churches and schools. Black Codes enacted to legally impose discrimination were short-lived, but the Federal government declared these "laws" illegal. The passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments, along with the two Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875, and various Enforcement Acts of the early 1870s, curtailed the ability of Southern whites to formally deprive blacks of their civil rights.

For a period of time, African-Americans made progress in building their own institutions, passing civil rights laws. They elected officials to public office. Secret organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan were created as a backlash. The result was brutalization and terror. Federal attempts to stop it were weak, in part because they feared starting a "second Civil War."

In 1877, Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes ended Reconstruction, essentially abandoning Southern blacks. This was not the Republican party's finest hour. In the 1880s, mob lynchings, a brutal prison system, and chain gangs were imposed upon the black population.

Blacks were required to sit in "The Jim Crow Car," even if they had bought first-class train tickets. Miscegenation laws banning interracial marriages were passed, although violence would likely meet people who dared such a thing long before they faced a court of law. The situation in the South began to take on more than just a "backlash" character. It had started as revenge for losing the Civil War and hatred for all things having to do with the Union. By the late 1880s, however, a disturbing religious character had seeped into the South. The concept of "white superiority" became more prevalent. Many felt it was a "sacred duty" of sorts to "save" the white race from the blacks. Mixing threatened the very survival of the superior white race, according to this logic. Southern states passed suffrage laws and poll taxes. Half the blacks of Georgia and South Carolina voted in 1880. Almost none could vote by 1888. Ballots were stolen, misdirected or simply not counted.

Mississippi disfranchised black males through literacy tests, poll taxes, and "white primaries." Actual laws replaced fraud and force. By 1910, the entire former Confederacy had adopted these laws. During slavery, blacks and whites frequently co-mingled, but now social contact became virtually non-existent. The result was total lack of understanding on both sides for the other. There was no empathy or understanding. For instance, the practice of white nurses volunteering to deliver children or tend to the sick in the black populations was outlawed.

Lower-class whites, who at one time had identified with blacks, now saw them as threats for what was left of society. They wanted to wrest political power from merchants and large landowners who controlled the vote of their indebted black tenants by taking away black suffrage. As time went on, a new problem emerged. Blacks born after slavery were referred to as "uppity" because they wanted full rights as Americans. More and more blacks learned how to read, and by reading the Constitution and related material, they came to realize they were being illegally discriminated against.

The religious context of "protecting" the white race was matched by a pseudo-science called eugenics, which used empirical evidence that showed black inferiority. With the Federal government again threatening to intervene, the South legally ending suffrage for blacks to keep Washington out of their affairs. The violence would also end. Some blacks were willing to sacrifice their right to vote in return for an end to terror.

Sharecropping left most blacks dependent upon planter-landlords and merchant suppliers. Any attempts at protest brought the threat of lynch mobs. Banks, merchants, and landlords made it institutionally impossible for impoverished, illiterate blacks to confront Jim Crow.

The Supreme Court sanctioned segregation by upholding the "separate but equal" clause of state laws in _Plessy vs. Ferguson_ (1896). It was the second time the Supremes had gotten it wrong. The Dred Scott case prior to the Civil War had sanctioned the view of slaves as legal property in certain states. The Federal government failed to enact anti-lynching laws.

By the 20th Century, blacks and private Northern white groups had started black colleges. Whites in the South had refused to build black public high schools until the 20th Century. Education became the only avenue for blacks. Their literacy nearly doubled from 1880 to 1930, rising from less than 45 percent to 77 percent. By 1910, segregated black institutions enabled a small, middle class of prosperous black participants who lived "behind the veil," in the words of the black intellectual, W.E.B. Du Bois. Southern blacks adopted appeasement tactics called "dissembling," or a psychological ploy that manifested itself as shuffling, feigning irresponsibility, and "turning the other cheek." African-Americans endured words such as "boy," "girl," "uncle," "auntie," and "nigger."

African-Americans resisted by mocking whites in song, jokes, and stories, called "putting on the man, " or playing Sambo to manipulate white masters and alleviate suffering. The result was mixed. Whites were too smart to be fooled by the mockery, which simply inflamed their anger more. But the worst part was that in playing, or actually being, the stereotype, blacks found that whites came to expect this docility. In later years, when the Civil Rights Movement picked up steam, the contrast between the Sambo caricature and serious petition became a culture shock for whites they could not handle.

Literature and film of the period immortalized characters like Uncle Tom, Uncle Remus, Jim Crow and "Old Black Joe". D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" (1915) depicted elected black Reconstruction Congressmen as ape-characters eating bananas on the House floor. Black film actors were cast as lazy, submissive, and docile.

Amid the disturbing realities of life under Jim Crow were acts of resistance. 4,000 African-Americans were said to be lynched, mutilated and burned alive from 1882 to 1968, mostly for challenging or breaking Jim Crow laws.

Owning a prosperous grocery store could make blacks stand out, therefore incurring white wrath. Prosperous blacks took to living in unpainted houses and maintaining "run-down" and unpainted businesses, avoiding new carriages and automobiles, so as to stay unnoticed. Black newspaper editors, church leaders, and civil rights' advocates were especially vulnerable.

By 1905, the debate on how to deal with Jim Crown was between the followers of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. Washington was born in slavery. He advocated segregation, farming and community support, choosing to "lay low" in order to avoid violent confrontation that he knew blacks would not win. He helped form the Tuskegee Institute, and discovered that there was a great deal of white goodwill and philanthropy. He chose not to antagonize his white sympathizers, realizing that his cause would never be won unless he had the backing of enough whites. He preached training in the arts of agriculture and teaching. Economic security, Washington said, had to be achieved before any other freedoms were possible.

Du Bois was a Harvard-educated, New England-born intellectual who said Washington was an appeaser. Du Bois insisted that Constitutional rights of citizenry come first, and that a talented elite of black Americans would lead the rest, making the fundamental decisions for the masses.

Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter founded the Niagara Movement, advocating activism over gradualism. The Niagara Movement eventually became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an interracial organization that emerged in 1909. In the 1920s, the NAACP filed numerous lawsuits and lobbied Congress to pass Federal anti-lynching laws. The nationwide laws never came to fruition, but the media exposure reduced the practice.

The philosophical divide between Washington-Du Bois also led to a disturbing trend in which "light skinned" blacks were favored by their own community over "African" blacks. Most of the black intellectuals had a great deal of white blood in them. They effected white hairstyles, called "conking." This was the practice of "straightening" the natural kinky hair of Africans into the long styles of Caucasians.

In the 1930s, the NAACP, under Walter White and Charles Hamilton Houston, challenged segregation and disfranchisement in the United States Supreme Court. This was the genesis for the Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court ruling of 1954. It was a landmark case that reversed the Court's support for the "separate but equal" doctrine, and opened the floodgates for the Civil Rights Movement

Organizations like the National Urban League, the National Negro Congress, and the Communist Party all were prominent in the Civil Rights Movement. Communist's, seeing racial inequality as a niche with which to gain a toehold in American society, defended the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930s and formed an off-shoot called the League of Struggle for Negro Rights. The Scottsboro case involved the trumped up convictions of nine black youths falsely accused of assaulting two white women. Rural African-Americans joined the socialist Southern Tenant Farmers' Union.

New musical forms of ragtime, jazz and blues were a reaction to repression. Jazz, which adapted African and plantation-based rhythms to European harmony, was a huge success with white audiences. It did as much to bring races together as any social factor. It defied old stereotypes of the "coon songs" and minstrel shows. New Orleans in the South and Harlem in the North became centers of black cultural experience. When the music was exported to Paris, it found enthusiastic acceptance there, too.

Sports became the other great avenue for black success. In the West, black athletes played side-by-side white teammates. The University of Southern California is a football power with one of the longest traditions in the nation. Their very first All-American was a black player, Brice Taylor in 1926. Negro Leagues were formed in baseball, and eventually all-star exhibitions were played between the Negro and Major Leagues, with the black teams faring at least on an equal footing, if not better.

Negro League barnstorming teams are responsible for the popularity of baseball in Latin America, where they played in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and other countries. Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo recruited Negro League all-stars to play for his national team in the 1930s, with the warning that they had better win "or else." Soldiers brandishing weapons hammered the point home. The team went undefeated.

In 1936, an Ohio State track star named Jesse Owens put on the greatest display heretofore seen in the Olympics, defying Adolf Hitler and the Nazis who hosted the Games. Boxing had always been a natural road for black athletic success, with mixed social results. Around the turn of the century, the greatest heavyweight boxer in the world was a black man named Jack Johnson. Johnson, however, was ahead of his time. He flaunted his money and fame, openly sleeping with white women. This infuriated white audiences, who howled for his come-uppance, which he defied by egging them on while defeating all challengers. Eventually, it caught up with him. Authorities used the Mann Act to drag him down. This law made it illegal to bring a woman, not ones' wife, across state lines for "immoral purposes." Inherit in the charges was the assumption that any white woman in Johnson's company had to be "immoral." Johnson set black-white relations back by turning whites against his race, reinforcing the attitude that blacks could not handle money or freedom.

Joe Louis was a great champion who in the 1930s fought the German champion Max Schmelling twice. Schmelling defeated Louis the first time, which was a big propaganda coup for Hitler. In the re-match Louis floored him. This was a big moment, because many white Americans rooted for the German, but Louis' defeat of him the second time helped bring the country together, recognizing the threat of the Nazis and the theories of racial superiority.

After World War II, many changes were in the offing. The biggest came when Jackie Robinson crossed baseball's color barrier. Robinson's success on the field and greatness as a man off it were of vital importance in the struggle.

Black protest literature reached full expression in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. "New Negro" poetry and literature emphasized self-respect and defiance. World Wars I and II cut off European immigration, creating a labor shortage and opportunity for blacks in the North. Cities like Detroit and Cleveland had huge increases in the black populations because of the factories. On the West Coast, Oakland and Los Angeles saw migrations of blacks to work in shipyards. They took advantage of less severe attitudes. The North was not the "Promised Land." Whites resisted the blacks, and race riots erupted in East St. Louis, Houston, Chicago, Tulsa, and many other places.

The NAACP and the National Urban League worked towards integration, but the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League took a different approach. Led by Marcus Garvey, they advocated self-help and black autonomy, which became the "back to Africa" movement. The movement did not materialize because many blacks came to realize that despite racism, America still offered the best opportunity in the world. U.S. laws, the courts and political system, the free press, economic opportunities, and a wide range of social factors combined to lead folks to understand that within the framework of America lay their best hopes.

Many blacks served as soldiers in the two great wars of the first half of the century. This experience had a two-fold effect. On the one hand, they were repulsed by further racism in the armed forces, reinforcing their desires to get out of the South upon discharge. On the other, they were exposed to American values, saw the need to defend Democracy, and in comparing the U.S. with her enemies, namely Germany and Japan, the realization that the U.S. was the greatest country in the world strengthened resolve to achieve social goals. At the end of the day, America was too great for social injustice to overcome it. We live in a world in which people of every color, nationality and religion comes here. Almost nobody ever leaves here.

African-American leader A. Philip Randolph had threatened in 1941 to lead 50,000 blacks in a non-violent "March on Washington D.C." to protest segregation in the military. President Franklin Roosevelt had already gained popularity with blacks by creating "relief" during the Depression. Blacks were astounded to find that they could receive checks from the Federal government for not working. Many found panacea in the Democrat party as a result. Eleanor Roosevelt was a passionate advocate for civil rights. African-American voter registration rose from 150,000 in 1940 to more than a million by 1952.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, stepped onto a city bus after spending a long day working as a seamstress. She took an empty seat in the "colored" section, but the "white" section in the front filled up. The white driver then told Parks to relinquish her seat. She said no. Rosa was arrested and put in jail. The act inspired the Montgomery bus boycott, and pointed out a truth about race relations. Whites were happy to take black's money, but "reserved the right to refuse" them service if the circumstances did not suit them. The Montgomery bus company made a significant portion of its income from black riders. The blacks realized that economic protest was a powerful tool. It was a successful non-violent protest, received national publicity, lasted a year, and ended with a Supreme Court declaration that bus segregation was un-Constitutional.

A new activism, now known as the Civil Rights Movement, also was called the "Second Reconstruction" because it completed Congressional action embodied in the 14th and 15th Amendments, passed in the decade after the Civil War. This movement also coincided with the fall of the British Empire. It drew inspiration from the de-colonization of non-white nations throughout the world. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had decided to pattern the movement on the non-violent tactics espoused by Mahatma Gandhi.

With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, legalized segregation and the disfranchisement of African-Americans came to an end. The improvements made in society since then have been so drastic that less than 20 percent of modern college students even know what "Jim Crow" means, associating it with a "vague notion" that it once had something to do with segregation, which to young people today is simply ancient history. Unfortunately, the enormous changes have left many young blacks ignorant of the sacrifices made by their elders.

American Gandhi: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

_"_ Non-violence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation."

\- Martin Luther King, Jr. 1946

He was born on Tuesday, January 15, 1929 (again, the great ones often seem to be born in the first two months of the year), at the family home in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the first son and second child born to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr., and Alberta Williams King. His paternal grandparents were sharecroppers in Stockbridge, Georgia.

Martin attended Atlanta public schools and advanced to Morehouse College, one of the leading black colleges, at the age of 15. He graduated from Morehouse with a B.A. degree in sociology in 1948, and studied at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania and the University of Pennsylvania. He was elected president of the senior class and delivered the valedictory address. King won the Pearl Plafker Award for the most outstanding student; and received the J. Lewis Crozer fellowship for graduate study at a university of his choice. He was awarded a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozer in 1951.

King took began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University, and studied at Harvard, earning his Ph.D. in 1955. Dr. King married Coretta Scott in 1953. Four children were born of the union.

He had entered the Christian ministry and was ordained in 1948 at age 19. He maintained pastorships at several churches in the succeeding years. In 1959, he resigned and to moved to Atlanta to direct the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. For the next eight years, until his death, he co-pastored with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church and was President of the S.C.L.C.

After Rosa Parks' started the Montgomery Bus Boycott from 1955 to 1956, Dr. King picked up where she had left off. He was arrested 30 times for his participation in civil rights activities. By 1960, King was a national figure who figured prominently in the Nixon-Kennedy election. Aside from Watergate, Nixon's greatest political mistake may have been failing to intervene in King's release from jail. Kennedy did, and the black vote, fairly evenly split between the two, went solidly to the Democrat. King was named Time's "Man of the Year " for 1963. That was the year he led the famous "March on Washington" and made his "I have a dream" speech. That speech is one of the most quoted in history. Ironically his language about judging "not by the color of their skin" but by the "content of their character" has become the cornerstone of conservative opposition to affirmative action. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He was, at 35, the youngest man, the second American, and the third black man to be awarded the Nobel.

Dr. King operated by a concept of somebodiness, which was meant to give every black and poor person the understanding that their lives meant something. It was the purest form of Christian message. It separated itself from politics and compromise. King knew that, in order to succeed, he would have to reach a substantial portion of white America. While he was an international figure, King did not fall into the trap of celebrity. He very easily could have cashed in on his celebrity status in exchange for money and the trappings of fame.

He realized that he lived in a great country and was determined to see America live up to its creed. The laws and traditions of freedom for his people were set in place. The most important work had already been set in motion by the Founding Fathers, in writing a Constitution just waiting for full ratification. Abe Lincoln had already led this country through a devastating Civil War to bring freedom to his people. Dr. King could have gone on an end run, choosing to use liberal political and foreign media outlets to make his points, leaving his people to fight in the trenches. Instead, King took his fight straight into the heart of the Deep South. He went face-to-face with the very people whose hearts and minds had to be changed in order for his dream to be fulfilled. It was an act of courage that ranks with anything in American history. King was in danger all the time, and he knew it. He never flinched.

He advocated the message of Christ, the most beautiful and irresistible Word in human history. He loved his "enemies." The hatred of Southern bigots could be turned into love by Christ's message, he said. The Christian theme played a huge part in the conversion of millions of whites to King's cause. The very white racists who spurned black freedom often were Baptists who went to church on Sundays themselves. They read the Bible, and had to face themselves and their consciences. In their hearts, one by one and by the millions, they had to admit that what was happening to blacks was dead wrong. King did not use the rhetoric of guilt to make his points. He used the language and examples of Christ. It worked.

What made King truly great, and what brought millions of whites to him, was his use of Gandhi's technique of non-violence. By the mid-1960s, radical elements had erupted in black America. The Black Panthers on the West Coast, the Black Muslims on the East Coast, and in between fiery speakers like Stokeley Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver ("Violence is as American as apple pie") were advocating virtual race war or self-imposed segregation. None of these ideas appeared very optimistic. King had faith in the white race, which came from his Christianity.

King was a great man, but a man nevertheless. He regularly had sex with the many women who made themselves available to him during his many travels. Some of King's own men were troubled by this. Overall, it was excused because he faced great pressures and needed an outlet. In later years, some of those aides publicly spoke about King's infidelities, and were excoriated by the black community, who preferred to maintain his image as a saintly one. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy used the same kinds of wiretaps to spy on King that G. Gordon Liddy used to spy on the Democrat National Committee. Kennedy discovered disturbing information, which was that Communists infiltrated King's organization. The information was presented to King, who unlike Nelson Mandela was never a Communist. King's main concerns were not focused on Cold War fears, although he did go out of his way to oppose the war in Vietnam. He was given the opportunity to clear the small Communist influence out of his organization, and did so, although it forced him to remove people he loved and trusted. Any Communist infiltration of the S.C.L.C. was peripheral to the goals of de-segregation, but he understood that if his movement was identified as a Communist front it would be hurt irreparably.

J. Edgar Hoover was no fan of King. He wiretapped him and had damaging information to use as blackmail if he ever felt he needed it. He was appalled at King's adultery, in light of his pious public statements. He said he was a "degenerate tomcat." The Communists in King's inner circle concerned Hoover, but the FBI director also knew that the man was developing a strong national following. He deferred to the politicians on the issue. Their stance was to present the evidence to him and let King handle it his way. That is what happened.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 went to Congress as a result of King's Selma to Montgomery march. In 1968, he traveled to Memphis and made his last speech. Amazingly, it appears now as if King knew his death was imminent. It the speech, called "I've Been to the Mountaintop," he all but predicted his own demise. He old the crowd that he had had a vision of sorts in which his dreams, and those of American blacks, were realized. His "Letter from Birmingham Jail" ranks among the important American documents.

James Earl Ray shot Dr. King standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968. Ray was arrested in London two months later and returned to Tennessee to stand trial. In 1969, before coming to trial, he entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary. In death, King became a martyred icon, although his greatness was the kind that would have shone through despite the vagaries of long life. King offered himself to Democrats and liberals, and no doubt leaned politically to the Left. He and Robert Kennedy are often identified for the idealistic statements they made. King was killed only a few days after LBJ announced he would not run for President in 1968. Had King and RFK not been assassinated, they no doubt would have formed a formidable combination, supporting each other during the 1968 campaign. It is highly doubtful that Richard Nixon would have won.

King did not suffer fool's easily. He was a serious man, but fair and driven by genuine Christian ethics. Over the years, as the face of America's social and political structures changed, it is my belief that he would not have maintained a lockstep approach to Democrat causes.

As affirmative action became a major debating point, King likely would have given reserved support for it, but his words on the Mall would have reminded him that while previous injustice gave credence to the principle of it, it also had the potential of becoming an abused concept.

King's public years were all spent working with Democrats, but he and Nixon would probably have formed a working relationship. King would have recognized honesty and decency, and he most likely would have worked closely with anybody, including conservatives, who did the right thing when it came to civil rights. This is a hopeful concept, but the reality is it may have been subjugated by political considerations.

The Democrats would have considered King a prize. He very likely would have been asked to run for President. He would have been a strong contender as early as 1972, but probably later. He might have been initiated by a Senate or gubernatorial run. King was an ambitious man with plenty of ego. He might have publicly demurred, playing the Presidential Hamlet while letting "the people" draft him in a traditionally populist manner, but if he could have been President, my bet is that he would have gone for it.

Once in the arena of electoral politics, King would have found himself playing to the traditional interest groups of the Democrat party. His womanizing would have become public fodder. His legacy may have been great and far-reaching, depending on how he navigated the roiling waters of the game, but King would have been hard-pressed to give credence to sensible conservative positions. Once his power base was firmly established, perhaps then, he would have been in a position to do so. One hopes.

King's legacy is, of course, the establishment of political and social change that has allowed black Americans (and by proxy blacks throughout the world) freedom to pursue lives without the stain of vicious bigotry. However, those who followed Dr. King were not so scrupulous. One finds it hard to believe that if he came back to Earth today and saw what Jesse Jackson is doing, King would approve. Surely he would lose any respect he ever had for Jackson, who was one of his "young Turks." Unfortunately, while others who fought with Dr. King have gone on to important careers, Jackson is the face of "black leadership." The setbacks of American blacks are in part his fault.

Jackson did good work in the years after King's assassination. In 1984 he ran for the Democrat nomination for President, and he provided a voice to the Walter Mondale/ Gary Hart race that needed to be heard. His message of personal responsibility, and advocacy for a life avoiding drugs, was true blue. But in the succeeding years, Reverend Jackson became a charlatan of the first order.

The Montgomery bus boycott showed that economic boycotts hurt the pocketbook, which hurts the most. Jackson learned how to use strong-arm tactics against American corporations to achieve his "goals." If, for instance, the Coca-Cola Company did not have enough black employees to fit Jackson's desires, he would organize strikes of his followers against Coke products, complete with pickets and major media. In return for avoiding such spectacles, companies learned to meet Jackson's proscribed quota's while paying off Jackson.

Jackson's brother murdered a man, but political pull has kept it on the quiet while the brother made millions involving himself in Jackson's scams. Jackson used his muscle to help a friend maintain a nightclub without adhering to fire codes. When the place burned down and people died, the press did not point these facts out. Jackson became

millionaire and involved himself In every quasi-legal race scam of the past 20 years. Jackson's original Christian ethics were perverted by years of alliance with the Democrat party. This led him from nominal patriotism to a place where he has now painted himself in the colors of virtual American traitor, kow-towing to terrorists, despots, Communists and, of course the liberal's favorite murderer and mass jailer, Fidel Castro.

Malcolm X

Malcolm X scared the heck out of white people in the 1960s. He was demonized by whites and blacks alike. Malcolm was a greatly misunderstood individual, but I highly recommend reading "The Autobiography of Malcolm X". Dr. King was a great man who is rightly given the honor of a Federal holiday, but Malcolm was his equal. Many white people who have a low or suspicious opinion of Malcolm would do well to study his work. It is my guess that upon doing this, they will come away with a new admiration of him.

He was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska on May 19, 1925, but grew up in Lansing, Michigan. The Ku Klux Klan burned down his house. His father was murdered for speaking out. Malcolm's mother was partially white, so much so that she could pass for white in certain circles. The stress of her life was too much for her. She ended up in a mental institution. Malcolm became troubled and spent his youth in detention homes before moving to Boston, where his sister resided.

Malcolm was convicted on a burglary charge and sentenced to prison. It was there that he was introduced to the Muslim religion. Islam grew in appeal among African-Americans, who could not reconcile with Christianity. To pray to a "blonde-haired, blue-eyed" God did not square with the prejudice they faced. Islam was considered the "black man's religion." Islam offered sanctuary to blacks who were caught up in destructive lifestyles. Malcolm drank, smoke, did drugs, fornicated, lusted after white women, ate any and all foods, and lived a slovenly life. His path was taking him to a bad place: More prison time; death from unhealthy treatment of his body; death at the hands of a jealous husband or vengeful white man; death at the hands of other criminals; or other low results.

In 1946, he was converted to the Black Muslim faith (Nation of Islam). The sect was technically part of worldwide Islam, but offered tenets unique to the condition of American blacks. The sect professed the superiority of black people and the inherent evil of whites, who were called "blue-eyed devils." He was released from prison in 1952, and immediately trekked to Chicago, where the Nation of Islam was headquartered. Elijah Muhammad ran the Nation, and immediately recognized that Malcolm was a serious young man with the potential of spreading the message.

Malcolm changed his last name to "X," since family names like Little originated with white slaveholders. Malcolm X spoke around the country. His natural intelligence combined with good lucks and charisma, which gave him political star quality. He possessed remarkable discipline, which contrasted with his previous life of excess. He spoke openly about his conversion, and inspired many blacks. Young men filled with anger and despair, living lives of crime and decadence because they saw little encouragement in a straight and narrow path, were turned around by Malcolm X. The movement grew. Nation members were polite, wore suits, abstained from any drugs or alcohol, did not swear, broke no laws, were encouraged to marry and have children, but to avoid casual sex. They worked hard and had discipline. Outwardly, there was nothing that white people could "pin" on them, which was the key to their success. If whites hated Black Muslims, it was pure prejudice, and could not be "justified" by a reaction to stupidity, criminal behavior, moral delinquency, or the other character traits that bigots attributed to blacks.

Still, the Nation was controversial. The religion itself was misunderstood, and certainly not Christian. America is, by and large, a "Christian nation." This strange, new religion raised questions in many people's minds. They also preached segregation from whites, in accordance with the concept of superiority over whites. Whites were kept out of their inner circle, the media given little access, and therefore the Nation was mysterious to most. Whites found them frightening, but at the same time, many were impressed that the blacks had found something to keep them on the straight and narrow.

In 1961 Malcolm X founded Muhammad Speaks. He was assigned to be minister of the Mosque Number Seven in Harlem, where membership was highest and influence most important. Malcolm outlined white exploitation, but found little to cheer in the traditional Civil Rights Movement embodied by Dr. King. He had no use for white liberals, many of whom were Jewish, who he viewed as carpetbaggers or race prescriptionists. He felt that offers of "help" from liberals did not give credence to black ability to help themselves. Acceptance of said help did little more than place blacks in 20th Century "plantations" of political welfare. Unfortunately, the Muslim's were pre-disposed to deride Jews, because of the solidarity they shared with their Middle East brethren. One pretty blonde college student approached him at a campus speech and told him she was not prejudiced, and wanted to know what she could do to help his cause.

"Nothing," was his one word answer.

While Malcolm's qualm was with traditional liberals who happened to be Jewish, since his time the Nation has become a despicable anti-Jewish hate group. Malcolm rejected integration and equality in favor of black separatism, pride, and self-dependence. He advocated the use of violence for self-protection, saying that blacks were justified in using "any means necessary" to carry out their policies. This is what scared whites, making him look like a zealot. Dr. King urged blacks to turn from his path and accept non-violence.

When President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, he was quoted saying it was the "chickens coming home to roost." Malcolm's comment infuriated America, but he had problems within his own community. The publicity he received was bothersome to Elijah Muhammad, who preferred that all homage be paid to him. Malcolm X accepted Elijah's admonition, and remained silent while going on suspension without pay. Then allegations were made from secretaries of Elijah that he had committed adulterous acts with them. A pregnancy had occurred. Elijah had promoted himself as the most pious of men, which was the cornerstone of the faith. Malcolm X revered him and could not believe the reports. He himself had a reputation for strict piety and faithfulness to his wife and children. But the reports were credible enough to be looked into, which Malcolm X did. He discovered that Elijah Muhammad was a liar and a cheat, and revealed these facts publicly.

Malcolm X was disassociated from the Nation, who then went on a full-scale campaign to smear him. In March of 1964, Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam and announced the formation of his own religious organization. He took a pilgrimage to Mecca. Meeting Muslims of all ethnic backgrounds, including blonde-haired, blue-eyed Muslims, Malcolm X had an epiphany. He modified his views of black separatism, declared that whites were not innately evil, felt world brotherhood could be achieved, and dedicated himself to working with Dr. King. In light of the rigidity of the Black Muslim world he had lived in, these revelations were enormous. In his book, he describes them in intelligent, yet humble terms. No longer wearing the face of intolerance and hatred that he felt was his only defense against white racism, Malcolm X was now a statesman. Elijah Muhammad was infuriated. After a period of feuding and threats, he was assassinated while speaking in a Harlem ballroom. Three Black Muslims were convicted of the murder.

"Roots" author Alex Haley, who had conducted numerous interviews with him just before he was killed, completed Malcolm's autobiography. The book was immediately recognized as a classic of black American autobiography. While Dr. King's death was a tragedy of enormous magnitude, it is this writer's belief that Malcolm X's death had an even more detrimental effect on African-Americans. Dr. King's dream, for all practical purposes, was achieved. Had Malcolm lived, the dream would have been more complete.

Dr. King wanted black people to be judged by the "content of their character." In the aftermath of the two assassinations, many blacks lost faith, either choosing semi-violent or militant means of expressing themselves, or dropping out of society, for all practical purposes. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's worst predictions came through. In the inner cities, black-on-black crime is an epidemic. Welfare, out-of-wedlock births, unemployment and an outright rejection of education as "acting too white" have left the movement far from its ultimate goals.

Had Malcolm X lived, he would have been a major advocate for discipline, hard work and achievement. His own life was a shining example for others. His death left far too many wondering if it meant anything. His successors have been, in far too many cases, frauds. Reverend Jackson was on the path of continuing the work of King and Malcolm, advocating education and responsibility. He became political and has completely separated himself from the foggiest hint of moral leadership in succeeding years.

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan sprung from the faction that murdered Malcolm X. He has preached some virtuous things about responsibility, abstinence from drugs and sexual promiscuity, while urging his people to be self-reliant. However, he is corrupt and venial, a terrible anti-Semite, and a hater of America far beyond mere lack of patriotism. His screeds against this, the greatest nation in the history of Mankind, are for all practical purposes treason. Governmental goodwill is the main thing that keeps him from being indicted. It is unfortunate that the Nation of Islam chooses a man like Farrakhan to lead them down this path. Malcolm X would have led the Nation to enormous popularity.

Whether Malcolm X would have gone into politics is questionable. Certainly, his attitude throughout his leadership years was not friendly to the U.S. political system, but he was moderating towards the end. Had he lived into the 1970s, '80s and beyond, the huge changes that he was so much a part of bringing about might have impressed him enough to put his faith in America.

Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad and other radical black leaders chose to stay and fight their fight in the U.S. This is very telling. They could have gone to a foreign country, most likely a Muslim one. Despite their obvious antipathy towards America, they chose to continue to make this their home and, to large and small extent, use this system to promote their goals.

George Wallace

George Corley Wallace was born in Clio, Barbour County, Alabama, to George C. and Mozelle Wallace. Clio is a rural southeastern county famous for producing politicians. Wallace was registered to vote in Barbour County his entire life. The Klan had a major presence in Barbour County throughout Wallace's life. In 1935, Wallace served as a page in the Alabama Senate. He was a bantamweight boxer and good at it. At the age of 18 in 1937, Wallace enrolled at the University of Alabama Law School. He was elected president of his freshman class, and in 1942 earned a law degree. .

That year, he met 16-year-old Lurleen Burns. After graduating, he enrolled in the U.S. Army Air Force. Spinal meningitis caused him to slip into a coma for a week. After recovering, he went on leave and married Lurleen. In 1944, their first daughter, Bobbi Jo, was born.

In 1945, now recovered from his illness, Wallace was ready to go into Officer Candidate School. However, his goal was to enter politics back home, and he made the calculation that more voters would be former enlisted personnel than officers. He opted out of the officer corps for a training program as a flight engineer.

Wallace flew nine combat missions over Japan before being medically discharged for chronic "severe anxiety." In 1946 he won his first election as a representative of Barbour County in the Alabama legislature. Much in the tradition of Louisiana populist Huey Long, Wallace was progressive and liberal in his dealings with and treatment of black Alabamans.

In 1948, Wallace won a seat as an alternate delegate to the Democrat Convention in Philadelphia. He opposed President Truman's Civil Rights Program, but did not support Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrats. In 1949 he was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Tuskegee Institute, a move he sought to actively court black votes. The record shows that while Wallace was a pure politician, he was moderate at a time and in a place where moderation in racial affairs was rare indeed.

In the 1950s, two more children were born to the Wallace family. He was elected judge in the Third Judicial Circuit Court. His nickname was "the fightin' little judge" in reference to his boxing days.

In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court called for an end to segregation in public schools in their ruling via _Brown vs. The Board of Education_. A year later Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery. Alabama's reaction was to outlaw the NAACP. When the Supreme Court ruled that buses must be integrated, Wallace found his moderate views to be out of step with the electorate. In 1958, incumbent John Patterson defeated him in Alabama's Democrat gubernatorial primary. Republicans were virtually non-existent in the Jim Crow South, a fact not unnoticed by two young citizens of the region at that time, Condoleeza Rice and Clarence Thomas.

The Klan backed Patterson while Wallace spoke out against the KKK, even after they offered its support. The "outlawed" NAACP endorsed Wallace. He lost by more than 64,000 votes. His infamous post-mortem was, "I'll never be out-niggered again."

In 1959 Wallace re-invented himself as a hardcore segregationist, refused to cooperate with the Civil Rights Commission designed to investigate voting rights abuses, and opposed Eisenhower's Federal attempts at reform. He surrendered local voting records to avoid jail time, but only after making his point.

In 1961, Janie Lee, the Wallace's fourth child, was born. She was named after Confederate General Robert E. Lee. A year later, running as a pro-segregation, pro-states' rights candidate, Wallace was elected Governor of Alabama by a landslide. His inaugural speech vaulted him into the national spotlight and infamy. Asa Carter, the founder of a KKK terrorist organization, wrote his "segregation now, segregation forever" speech.

In an ironic twist that falls into "only in America," 10 years later Carter moved to Texas, assumed the identity of Native American Forrest Carter, and wrote his "autobiography," "The Education of Little Tree".

Wallace became the face of the new segregationist South. On NBC's "Meet the Press," he discussed court-ordered integration of the University of Alabama. Wallace disabused the notion that he was a "wild-eyed" Southern bigot, ignorant and violent. He had supporters throughout the country, and not all of them were bigots. His call for states' rights and desire to keep the Federals out of his business struck a cord with conservatives and libertarians. Many excused his racial views in favor of his independence. He was a rebel in the Southern tradition, and he knew exactly what he was doing.

On June 11, 1963, Wallace stood in front of the admissions building at the

University of Alabama to block two black students from legally enrolling at the university. The footage of the event was broadcast on national television. It made him a hero to a few and a villain to many. As Tip O'Neill once said, "all politics is local." Wallace was a hero to the white voters of Alabama, who he cared about. He had taken his stand strictly for show, knowing he could not stop the entrance into the school.

The next day, NAACP worker Medgar Evers was murdered by white supremacist Byron de la Beckwith in Mississippi. On August 28, Dr. King delivered his "I have a dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial to the 250,000 people gathered for the peaceful "March on Washington."

On September 15, 1963, the KKK bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Four African-American girls died in the blast. Condi Rice knew them. The event sparked armed conflict and galvanizes the Civil Rights Movement. On

November 22, Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy in Dallas. President Johnson quickly called for integration in the South.

In 1964, with war just starting in North Vietnam, Wallace entered the Democrat Presidential Primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland, and Indiana, winning approximately one-third of the vote. His main planks were states' rights and anti-Communism.

On March 7, 1965, "Bloody Sunday," voting rights advocates marched from Selma to the state capital. Wallace ordered state troopers to hold them back with tear gas, clubs, and extreme violence.

A second Selma-to-Montgomery march was undertaken a couple weeks later under Federal protection. More than 25,000 marched to the Alabama Capitol Building to ask Wallace to allow black voter registration. The 15th Amendment prohibited racial discrimination in voting, but state laws and practices had been placed as roadblocks. President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Bill a few months later.

Wallace tried to get the Alabama state legislature to draw up an amendment to allow a sitting Governor to run for a second term, then forbidden. Unable to muster the votes, his wife, Lurleen, ran as his stand-in. She was quickly diagnosed with cancer, but ran anyway. Lurleen Wallace was elected Governor of Alabama in a landslide victory in 1966, with her husband the _de facto_ Governor.

In 1968, Wallace decided to run for President again. Dr. King was assassinated, and on May 6 Lurleen Wallace succumbed to cancer in office. Five weeks later, Wallace launched his anti-liberal American Independent party campaign. He shifted the focus from race to Communism following the passage of the Voting Rights Bill. Wallace asked conservative actor John Wayne to be his Vice-Presidential running mate, but The Duke was not a racist. General "Bombs away with" Curtis LeMay agreed to do it. LeMay had been the man behind the Dresden firebombings, had advocated invasion of Cuba in 1962, and was strongly pro-nuclear weapons. LeMay did not understand populist politics and did not help Wallace.

Wallace's presence in the race was the key to Nixon's Southern strategy. Critics have said that Nixon played racial politics, presenting himself as acceptable to white voters who wanted their vote to count. Nixon may have soft-pedaled the racial angle, but his strong anti-Communist credentials and plan for Vietnam were what gave him much of the electorate below the Mason-Dixon Line. However, Wallace took five states away from Nixon. In an election in which Nixon barely hung on to defeat Hubert Humphrey,

Wallace carried enough electoral votes to throw the election to the House of Representatives.

In 1970, Wallace was elected Governor again. President Nixon opposed him by backing incumbent Albert Brewer in the Democrat primary, and launching an IRS investigation of illegalities in the Wallace campaign. A Gallup poll showed Wallace to be the seventh most admired man in America, just ahead of the Pope.

In 1971, Wallace married Cornelia Snively two weeks before his inauguration. She urged him to soften his rhetoric and show a more sophisticated side. Shortly after, Wallace told reporters he had _never believed in segregation_.

In 1972, Wallace entered the Democrat Primaries. In Florida, Wallace defeated George McGovern, Humphrey, and nine other Democrats by an overwhelming majority, carrying every county in the state.

While campaigning in Maryland on May 15, Wallace was shot by 21-year-old Arthur Bremer, paralyzing him below the waist. Bremer's diary showed that he was motivated not by politics, but by a desire for fame. Despite the shooting, Wallace won in Maryland, Michigan, Tennessee, and North Carolina.

On July 7, confined to a wheelchair, he spoke at the Democrat National Convention in Miami. The party virtually imploded from within. In the end they chose the "poet-socialist" former fighter plot, George McGovern. He was completely overwhelmed by Nixon in November.

Wallace served out his Governorship, dispensing generous social programs. The shooting changed him, and he became a "born again" Christian, appearing on Jerry Falwell's "The Old-Time Gospel Hour." After Watergate, Wallace tried for the Democrat nomination in 1976, but his health and public image doomed his chances. He lost Florida and North Carolina to Jimmy Carter. The New South had risen and with it, old Wallace had fallen. Wallace endorsed Carter, trying to paint a picture of himself as making it possible for a Southerner to be elected to the White House.

George and Cornelia Wallace had a nasty separation and divorced. After a few years away from the limelight, Wallace made a phone call to civil rights leader John Lewis. Wallace had fully accepted Christ, and asked Lewis' forgiveness. Lewis and many African- Americans accepted his repentance.

In 1982, Wallace again won the Alabama gubernatorial election, this time with a large black majority. He appointed a record number of blacks to government positions, establishing the Wallace Coalition, which included the Alabama Education Association, organized labor, black political organizations, and trial lawyers. He addressed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and said his segregation past was "wrong." In 1986 he finally retired from politics.

In 1996, Vivian Malone Jones, one of the black students Wallace tried to stop from enrolling at the University of Alabama in 1963, received an award honoring her courage from a foundation bearing Wallace's name. He died two years later at 79.

Only Wallace, and those closest to him perhaps, could truly say what was in his heart, and whether it was genuine Christian charity that led to his repentance, or the desire to gain votes in a changing age. Likely, it was a little of both. Either way, by "changing," Wallace led the way for many others to change, too. For this reason, his final tally is a big comeback over what it would have been had he simply held the old line.

J. Edgar Hoover

J. Edgar Hoover is very much like Joseph McCarthy. He could have done what he did a lot differently, and probably better. He was a demagogue and abused his powers. He was also right on the big issues. We have allowed him to be tarred and feathered by the liberals. He was, if not a great American, certainly 10 times the American of most of his worst critics combined (not that this says all that much).

Somehow or other, somebody made up a cockamamie story about J. Edgar Hoover being a cross-dresser and showing up at a party in front of other people, i.e., witnessed, dressed in a woman's dress. Now, in the pantheon of possibility, I always defer to Shakespeare's famous quote, "There are more things on Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than can be dreamt of in your philosophy." In other words, if God gets involved, all things are possible. Water can be turned into wine. A man can walk on water. The sea opens up and swallows pursuing armies.

So, using the logic of miracles, and applying it to real life as if we are in a movie like "Oh God" or a "Twi-Light Zone" episode, it is actually, like all other things, possible that Hoover wore that dress. Within the confines of Earthly conception, bordered by the dimensions of sight, sound, touch and smell, however, it is actually so far from being possible that it is, simply rendered that with which is actually impossible!

Nevertheless, it has not stopped liberals, determined to besmirch a man who identified their lies and perfidies for decades, from spreading this filth. Not on my watch.

Hoover never got married, and he lived with a male roommate, Clyde Tolson. The word is that he was gay, except nobody ever proved it. This is also a possibility. The dress story not only goes against Hoover's personality, but is made exceptionally ridiculous because the guy was careful beyond the realm of the word. In the world he lived in, to be exposed to such an outrageous charge was utterly beyond chance.

Hoover made accusations and used homosexuality as a tool to get people he considered dangerous, through blackmail or other coercions. This is not an admirable fact. The liberals have used the tactic far more often. The idea is that if Hoover was gay then his accusations against bad people who were gay do not stick.

Hoover came off as deeply moralistic. This is just a guess, but I give great credence to the very real possibility that he and Tolson were asexual, which is not as unusual as it sounds. Some people (not very exciting ones, and Hoover was no Frank Sinatra) are like that. Hoover and Tolson may fall into that category, and found it convenient to share the expenses of a house where they could talk shop away from the shop. I would say it is a 60 percent chance they were simply non-sexual men, and 40 percent there was some kind of limited homosexuality going on. I give zero percent chance that they were involved in risky, transvestite, transgender, highly extravagant acts of cross-dressing.

Hoover has been reserved for the chapter on "The Civil Rights Movement". He just as easily could have been written about for his efforts dealing with anarchism, organized crime, Nazi espionage during World War, or Soviet espionage.

He was born on New Year's Day of 1895 in Washington, D.C., the youngest of the three surviving children born to Dickerson Naylor Hoover and Annie Marie Scheitlin Hoover.

In 1919 Woodrow Wilson's Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer, brought John Edgar Hoover in as his special assistant, launching a campaign against radicals and Left wing organizations. The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act 1918, laws emanating from the threats posed by World War I, had been enacted. Hoover avoided outward politics. Although he served Republican and Democrat administrations, it was hard to pin down where he was. All things considered, he seemed to favor Republicans. He helped Richard Nixon when he was trying to overcome the Kennedys. Whatever his actual party affiliation, Hoover was no liberal. He was not necessarily a traditional conservative, using today's definition of a free market capitalist. His conservatism was in his patriotism and desire to keep the country secure.

The Constitution is the favorite document of liberals because it leaves many of them with the impression that in this nation, they could do just about anything. They do, for the most part. But Hoover drew the line when it came to war, espionage, "aid and comfort" to foreign powers (especially enemy ones), subversion against our government, things that put American soldiers' or agents' lives at risk, and things of that nature. He was just funny that way.

Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were "beyond doubt, two of the most dangerous anarchists in this country," he said. Goldman had been born in Russia, escaped the pogroms and her "mean" father, came to New York City, and spent her life telling people how bad America was. That was not the problem. She organized mass anarchy, promoting the idea that our Constitution and form of government be replaced by a non-governmental entity that would, essentially, do the right thing (in her opinion) because people are prone to do that. That was not the problem.

The problem was when she started doing all of this during wartime. While Doughboys were getting massacred on the plains of France, Goldman was organizing resistance to the war. Not just protest, which is, of course, unpatriotic but legal. Goldman tried to keep troop ships from leaving, to disrupt supplies to our men, and various other wonderful things.

In 1917-18, when the Russians, our nominal allies against Germany, dropped out, she upped her efforts. Now, she advocated the greatness of the Bolsheviks, and attempted to paint a picture of Americans as war criminals. The U.S., she said, needed to do like the noble Communists and get out while the getting was good.

President Wilson, who was no jingoist, put Attorney General Palmer on the case. He told him that anarchism was a serious threat to national security and to do something about it so he could go about the business of "making the world safe for Democracy."

Hoover amassed evidence against Goldman and Berkman, presenting the case against them. Goldman easily could have been tossed in jail for years, but America is a very good-natured giant. Instead, she was deported to her native Russia, where she could get a first hand look at the "workers' paradise" that John Reed was writing so passionately about.

A few years later, Goldman admitted that Russia under Communism was hell on Earth. Life under the Czars was paradise in comparison. Episodes like this really do make one wonder what goes through the minds of these liberals?

Hoover took over the Bureau of Investigation in 1924. He had about 650 employees, including 441 Special Agents. He fired unqualified agents, determined to mold the organization in his image. Seniority was out, not surprising since the boss was 29. Agents were subject to constant appraisal. Field offices were inspected, not ignored. Recruited agents between were between 25 and 35. Hoover preferred Special Agents who had law degrees or were accountants. Hoover had a fine sense of public relations, too.

"The Agents of the Bureau of Investigation have been impressed with the fact that the real problem of law enforcement is in trying to obtain the cooperation and sympathy of the public and that they cannot hope to get such cooperation until they themselves merit the respect of the public," he said in 1925.

In 1935 Warner Brothers' produced "G-Men", starring James Cagney as a tough, honest Federal lawman. Hoover enjoyed the appellation "g-man," which supposedly was uttered by a gangster cornered by the Feds.

"Okay, you got me, government man," he said. "You got me, g-man, I say."

Hoover made his name, and a name for the Bureau, by going after notorious Depression-era criminals like John Dillinger, and Bonnie and Clyde. When Dillinger was captured, Hoover had the arrest put on hold until he could get there and do it himself. Bonnie and Clyde's bloody death, after years of bank robbing, was another major success.

The Sicilian Mafia was already a scourge by the 1930s. Prohibition had opened the door for Al Capone to rake in millions out of his Chicago operation. La Casa Nostra inundated the East Coast, took root in Cuba, spread to the Midwest (mainly in Chicago and Kansas City), and was making in-roads on the West Coast. Las Vegas would not become a mob stronghold until after World War II.

Under Hoover, Capone was finally brought to justice, not for his murders and rackets, but for tax invasion. He died of syphilis in prison. Hoover was criticized for not going after the Mafia more vehemently, however, especially at a time when the families' were strengthening their operations and entering the drug trade wholesale. Sicilian and Turkish connections had opened up access to the poppy fields. An elaborate network of couriers and "pharmaceutical plants" had created a lucrative flow. Hoover did not show great foresight in his vision of the drug trade. He fell into a common, despicable mindset of justifying drugs because it was, in theory, only being sold in black neighborhoods.

It was not until it was obvious that drugs were a problem beyond the borders of "colored" neighborhoods that the situation was thought to be serious. By then it was all-but-unstoppable.

Just as Hoover did not stop the drug trade, he either underestimated organized crime, or chose to underestimate it. Jailing Capone was a big splash, but he was simply replaced by a host of colorful Sicilian, Italian and Jewish gangsters. Hoover once responded to a question about organized crime by saying, "There is no organized crime."

He was technically correct. The families' operated a loose national and international network, with "buffers" protecting decision-makers - capo regimes \- from the actions of "button men," "hit men," "wise guys" and others who toiled for the Mafia. The "big picture" was difficult to ascertain. Traditional conspiracy theories did not work in detailing their crimes. A code of omerta (silence) made it harder to get inside and reach convictions. The Mafia was so wealthy that they could buy police, judges, politicians and juries. Americans saw a two-tiered justice system, in which powerful mob lords got off while ordinary people did time.

Hoover chose to avoid going after the Mafia, at least in the beginning, because he knew his bureau might not look good if they failed to convict high-profile mobsters.

". . .The Mafia is powerful, so powerful that entire police forces or even a mayor's office can be under Mafia control," wrote William C. Sullivan, Hoover's number three man. "That's why Hoover was afraid to let us tackle it. He was afraid that we'd show up poorly. Why take the risk, he reasoned, until we were forced to by public exposure of our shortcomings?"

When World War II started, Hoover had more important things to deal with than the Mafia. Mob bosses were capitalists with vested interests in the success of the U.S., economically and otherwise. As Sicilians and Italians, they had numerous connections in the Old Country. Many were used by the FBI and the OSS to help espionage operations in Italy. Furthermore, they controlled the docks in New York, Boston and other harbors. They helped detect spies who operated in these areas, and deals were cut with Mafia unions to keep the steady unloading and loading of ships without fear of hurtful strikes.

Hoover advocated for the civil rights of Japanese after Pearl Harbor. He understood the need for security that was behind the internment camps, but wanted it done legally and in accordance with the Constitution. There was, in his arguments with Roosevelt, a sense of compassion for the situation. More than 100,000 Japanese-Americans were rounded up and herded into these camps. Treasury Secretary Henry Morganthau, renowned columnist Walter Lippman, California Governor Earl Warren and President Franklin Roosevelt all called for it.

Hoover described it as "a capitulation to public hysteria," and told Morganthau that arrests should not be made "unless there were sufficient facts <probable cause> upon which to justify the arrests."

"The most serious discrimination during World War II was the decision to evacuate Japanese nationals and American citizens of Japanese descent from the West Coast and send them to internment camps," Hoover said. While it was necessary that they "had arrested the individuals whom it considered security threats, confining others was unnecessary."

During World War II, the Navy and other military intelligence services began to fear the Soviet Union was planning to cut a separate peace with Germany. They approached President Roosevelt, who chose not to believe it. The military mistrusted Roosevelt. They knew that he had let the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, then foisted the blame on General Short and Admiral Kimmel. They were determined not to let such things happen again. They did something that was probably illegal, was definitely patriotic, and ultimately may have saved America. They began to intercept Soviet cables. The project, as mentioned earlier, was called Venona.

They quickly heard amazing things. Alger Hiss, one of Roosevelt's most trusted foreign policy and defense advisors, was spying for the Soviets. So was his brother. So was a top Roosevelt aide named Harry Hopkins. The military presented the indisputable evidence to FDR, who twice told them to "Go fuck yourselves" (actual words).

Hoover, the Director of the FBI, was informed of this information and new everything as it was happening. He realized that a Soviet cabal had formed an indistinguishable alliance with liberalism in America. In the 1940s and 1950s, liberals did not dislike Communism. They looked at Communists the way one might look at artists or rock stars; a little odd but not dangerous. Hoover understood the Truth, which was that these Communists were as dangerous as the Nazis who we had to vanquish.

"I would have no fears if more Americans possessed the zeal, the fervor, the persistence and the industry to learn about this menace of Red Fascism," Hoover told HUAC in 1947. "I do fear for the liberal and progressive who has been hoodwinked and duped into joining hands with the Communists..."

These words of wisdom were then, and are especially now, considered by the Left to be a telltale sign of what a "fear-mongering tyrant" Hoover was. When the Rosenberg's were being tried for treason, Hoover was asked about revealing the Venona project to aid the prosecution. Leftists had taken up their cause all the way, and a conviction was not a sure thing. Hoover refused to give up Venona because it was so vital to national security. He risked an acquittal of two traitors who gave the Soviets atomic secrets. That was how vital Venona was. The same thing with Alger Hiss, a cause celebre among the liberal crowd. Secretary of State Dean Acheson put his entire reputation on the line defending Hiss.

Hoover knew from Venona that Hiss, like Hopkins, was a Soviet spy who had all-but written the U.N. Charter to favor the Communist world, which we are still paying for to this day. He also knew that spies had undermined Acheson's attempts to keep Chiang Kai-shek in power in China, and that Republican questions about "Who lost China?" were legitimate, not right wing rants. Hoover may very well have supplied politicians like Nixon with enough information to make these accusations stick, but ultimately he did not reveal Venona because he had to keep the Russians in the dark.

He took the secret to his grave, even though it would have explained so much that could have silenced his critics while he was alive. It could have made his legacy a shining one instead of the cloudy, post-Watergate morass that surrounded the years after his death. Venona was not unlocked until 1995 when Daniel Patrick Moynihan, bless his heart, saw that it was. Venona proved that the Democrats were protecting, harboring, sympathizing with and spying for dangerous Communists, and that the "evil" Joe McCarthy was as right as rain. Hoover let the political angles play themselves out. In so doing, he proved to be unbelievably non-partisan. In fact, in so doing, Hoover showed a remarkable faith not only in America, but in the Democrat party. He understood that despite the dangers that liberalism had produced, it was a free country and the two-party system, for all its faults, is one of our greatest strengths. But you will never hear the liberals admit this Truth about Hoover.

When Lee Harvey Oswald killed John Kennedy, Hoover quickly looked into the gunman's background. The man was a Communist. Unable to deal with the fact that a Communist killed their man, the Left has spent decades creating a cottage industry of conspiracy theories, none of which acknowledge Communism as the culprit.

Who killed Kennedy? It may be an enigma wrapped inside a riddle, but the chances are a lot better that it was Castro or the Mafia than it was Lyndon Johnson and a cabal of generals and Republicans.

Communism was what made Hoover obsessed with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was convinced, because he had the facts in front of him, that many civil rights organizations were fronts for Communism. As we know from his withheld Venona knowledge, he did not reveal classified information just to justify his cases, even if he faced criticism. He knew what he knew.

Hoover was not a highly enlightened man when it came to the issue of race. That said, the accusation of blatant racism does not hold up, either. Hoover was likely disenchanted with the "new Negro" who spoke his mind in the 1950s and '60s, but he was more disenchanted with the unpatriotic national security threats that coattailed legitimate civil rights organizations. Hoover probably had admiration for somebody like Jackie Robinson, a college man of great character who overcame long odds to succeed, and voted Republican to boot! He definitely had little use for blacks like Paul Robeson, who joined the Communist party and hated America. (Robeson eventually went to the U.S.S.R, and despite being treated like a hero, saw enough to come back and make a death bed confession that he was utterly wrong about Communism.)

Hoover listened to the tapes of Dr. King having "degenerate sex" with various road women in the 1960s. Interestingly enough this seems to be his biggest complaint with King. He did have a problem with King's Christianity, or the "mountain top" rhetoric. Of course, Hoover taped King on the orders of his boss, Robert Kennedy. Kennedy's concern was the Communist/political angle, since he was "in bed" with King and could not afford to have his man found out as a front for the Reds.

Hoover went out of way to discredit Dr. King. The FBI called Marquette University in 1964 to tell them not to award an honorary degree to him. Springfield College was told that the SCLC was "Communist affiliated." Marquette did, in fact, back out of giving King his honorary degree. In an act of genuine mean-spiritedness, Hoover mailed tapes of King's sexual affairs to his wife. He attempted to blackmail him, make him a political liability, and anonymously encouraged him to commit suicide. The Left heard about Hoover's actions eventually and went ballistic over the " disinformation" campaign, even though it was, basically, accurate. It was bad form.

Stories of Hoover's power over Presidents are legendary. He knew more about Kennedy's affairs than even the public now knows, all these years later. Hoover was terribly frightened that JFK's dalliances would lead to blackmail involving Russia, Cuba or some other foreign power. He had informed Joseph P. Kennedy that Jack was having an affair with a Nazi spy when the son was a Naval officer. He despised Bobby Kennedy, who was everything he liked least. Kennedy lorded over Hoover, making it clear that as Attorney General he was technically Hoover's boss. No Attorney General had ever taken such a tack. Kennedy installed a phone line directly to Hoover's desk, so he could not screen his calls via a secretary. Hoover seethed. He privately favored union boss Jimmy Hoffa, who had a "blood feud" with RFK stemming from the McClellan Committee. When Nixon decided to run for President, he came to Hoover looking for help, specifically to build a case against "little Bobby" Kennedy. Hoover considered Nixon to be useful. Some have tried to tie Hoover in with Nixon and the original Bay of Pigs operation, but this is a fuzzy area. The confluence of the Mafia, the CIA, and by extension the FBI, that has always been drawn around everything having to do with Cuba, is one reason. Another reason is because of Watergate, which involved former CIA men (E. Howard Hunt, Bernard Barker, Cuban exiles) and the ringleader (ex-FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy), operating as "plumbers."

"By God, he's [Nixon's] got some former CIA men working for him that I'd kick out of my office," Hoover told journalist Andrew Tully in the days before the June, 1972 break-in. "Someday, that bunch will serve him up a fine mess." Presumably, Hoover knew that Liddy was part of the operation.

Liddy was a Hoover man to the core. He had changed his name from George Liddy to G. Gordon in homage to J. Edgar, and had moved from Treasury to the Committee to Re-elect the President. It was under these auspices, headed by former Attorney General John Mitchell, that the plumbers did their work. Woodward and Bernstein's work concluded that the FBI either failed, or intentionally failed, to uncover the conspiracy once they were put on the case, but that was after Hoover's death on May 2, 1972. Perhaps information will some day implicate Hoover more deeply in Watergate. Certainly the ultimate goal, to find dirt on Teddy Kennedy, would have been appealing to Hoover. The greatest irony of it all, however, is that great dirt is found on Ted Kennedy by reading the Boston Globe or Congressional Quarterly. Oh well, that man is almost out of our hair now.

Had Hoover lived through the 1973-74 period, however, Watergate may very well have been covered up. Hoover would have used all his powers to protect the office, and he did have a sympathetic attitude towards Nixon. Nixon and Al Haig seemed to agree on this point. Haig called Hoover a "realist." All things considered, Hoover and Nixon were both cut from the same cloth. They were smart, dedicated, patriotic, and not entirely trustworthy.

Hoover sometimes invited athletes to FBI headquarters when they visited Washington. Two Los Angeles Angel pitchers, Dean Chance and Bo Belinsky, were the talk of baseball from 1962 to 1964. Not only were they stars on the field, but they had reputations for excessive partying and womanizing off the field. Theoretically, they would have been the last people that Hoover would have liked, but he called them when in town to play the old Senators. They were invited to headquarters.

At first Belinsky tried to figure out what Federal laws he had broken that made him the interest of America's "top cop." Once there, Hoover said he was a fan and just wanted to meet them.

"J. Edgar, man, he's a swinger," Belinsky told Sports Illustrated's Pat Jordan a few years later. "He let us shoot Tommy guns at FBI headquarters."

Could Hoover have been hoping the two guys wanted to get with he and Tolson...?! Nah!

Hoover was a devoted Mason, which some say is a Satanic conspiracy. If so, all my arguments about God and America go down the drain.

CHAPTER TWO

THE MIDDLE EAST

Israel

To paraphrase President Nixon, let me make this perfectly clear! I support Israel. I support Israel five thousand percent. I am one of those Christian "wackos" who happen to believe the Biblical prophecy of Israel as the Promised Land has validity. Christianity may have its differences with Israel, but the Judaic religion is the root of Christianity. They are completely inter-related. All of the best moral characteristics of Christianity are a gift from Judaism. Israel has the right to exist. I am not a religious scholar, but I find the Koran to have much in common with Judaism and Christianity, too. After all, these three "Great Religions" all sprung from the same place and learned from the preceding one. Muslims respect "people of the book," and consider Jesus to be a prophet worthy of great respect. My conclusion, based on this, is that problems in the Middle East are not entirely religious.

Israel is surrounded by a religion that calls itself the "religion of peace." A more scholarly religious student than I may be qualified to give real perspective to the validity of this moniker. What I do know, from reading, observing, and choosing to become knowledgeable of things, is that Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East are distorted and corrupted by events that have not have gone their way. Because of that, the Muslim Arab culture in the Middle East is one that is beset by lies. Lies permeate their governments, their news media and the religious autocracies that influence their masses. At this point, it is an exceedingly uphill struggle to deal with these perceptions. The only thing that keeps us strong is the knowledge that Truth is on our side, and that our side is not just Christians, not just Christians and Jews, but the whole world.

If evil chooses to embrace ideologies, in the 20th Century, those have been Nazism, Communism, and Fundamentalist Islam. It is extremely important to understand that this is not a sweeping indictment of Islam. It is an indictment of Fundamentalist Islam. People can corrupt religion. The great religions reform themselves.

Judaism was a violent, corrupt religion. It is thousands of years old, and the facts about its perfidies are relegated to scholars. It reformed itself.

Christianity was a corrupt, violent religion, too. The Crusades (which are not entirely a one-sided affair) were violent and not something to celebrate. Regardless of who was right and who was wrong, the Crusades were not something that Christ would have advocated. Many Christians say that military ventures engaged in by the United States go against the teachings of Christ, too. There is some validity to this. Naked power exercised in the name of Christ has the ring of perversion. This book, however, is an attempt to explain through history that to fail to maintain strength, often out of deference to the placid teachings of Christ, is precisely what the Horned One would have us do.

Catholicism became an international political organization, far removed from the teachings of Christ. Even today, the Catholic Church is demonstrating that it is in need of major reform. Christianity always has responded to its crises, and it will continue to do so. It has earned its place among that short list of Great Religions. Islam is not there yet. It is a relatively young religion, however, and it is a fervent prayer of mine that it will become a great religion. I am hope I live to see it.

When that happens, the Middle East can be the place everybody has always hoped it could be. Arabs who live there think that the West would have it convert to Christianity or, worse, Judaism. Nothing could be further from the truth. It must convert to Islam. Too much of it is not now real Islam.

Getting back to Israel, which has the right to exist, there remains a sticky little question. What if we could use that same time machine, the one that transported Bill Clinton to the 19th Century and made him Ambassador of Native American Relations, and go back to 1948? Would Harry Truman, knowing then what we know now, still transfer the Mandate of British Palestine into the hands of a small group of Holocaust survivors, and call it the Jewish State of Israel? Considering all the horrors, the wars, the terror, hatred and lack of humanity that exists in that part of the world, has it been worth it?

God bless Israel. They are our friends. They are there now and there is no turning back, but if we could, would we? Throughout history, there have been "movements" that killed millions. It is almost as if there is a beast living in our larger, unseen humanity. The beast has an appetite for destruction. It manifests itself through wars, pestilence and genocide. This beast found itself hungry and living in the Middle East, every day getting hungrier with hate and a desire to kill. The United States, through sheer power and resolve, has caged this beast. It never fed in that part of the world. If let loose, it would go on a frenzy of mass murder that makes the Peloponnesian War look like an Irish rugby match. Through a combination of power and love, the beast is still hungry but, through starvation, slowly dying. It never really dies, of course. It does move around. It is in Africa, too. The power of America and the miracle of love seem to be the only hope in Africa.

In the Middle East, however, there is still that hunger to kill. Something bloodthirsty has always run rampant in the human existence. Only the slaughter of thousands, then millions, seems to satisfy this craving. The Arab world has been denied the "opportunity" to kill millions. In its place is the desire to. This is quite a philosophy, but is there truth to it? Is it possible that Germany and Russia had such a killing desire, and it was only after they went on a bloody spree that they "sated" this desire? Is this a desire that curdles the blood of so many Arabs until it is given "expression?" Will it never go away? Why would some countries have this desire, but not others? Why has it never infected America, or Canada, or Australia, just to name a few? Christianity cannot be the only answer. Russia was Christian. Germany is Christian.

What would the Middle East look like if Israel had never existed? Interestingly, Truman's decision to officially create a Jewish state might not be the bottom line regarding this question. After World War I, many Jews escaped the pogroms of the Czar's and, finally, the bigger terror, Communism. They immigrated to Palestine. The place was a cesspool of nothingness. The Arabs who lived there had accomplished little of any consequence in the previous 1,500 years. The Jews who moved there were Russian schtetl dwellers. They were not the "Harvard Jews" of Norman Mailer's America.

Nevertheless, they quickly demonstrated that, well, they were...is there any way to say this?...better than the Palestinians. They built things. Schools. Businesses. Economy. Trade. Morality. Through sheer excellence, within less than 20 years, they were the largest employers of Palestine. This meant the "old money" Palestinians worked for the Jews, which was to them like post-Civil War black freemen employing most of the white folk of Savannah in 1877.

Houston, we have a problem.

This is the situation that existed when World War II began. The Holocaust then created a political sympathy for Jews that had never existed before, not in America and surely no place else. The Chosen People were not the Popular People. Hitler's ovens had not made them popular, but it did make them a Cause.

Increased immigration from Europe in response to the Nazis had made them a majority population. It was an unusual situation, not unlike the American West. Throughout history, especially within the framework of empires, armies had conquered territories, and the populations followed. In the U.S., the Army did not conquer the West. Ordinary people did. They moved there, succeeded there, and like the Jews of 1930s Palestine, became the dominant culture through sheer excellence. No Jewish army had taken over Palestine. Hard-working people did. The exuberance of these kinds of people, who make up Western Civilization and Judeo-Christianity, is a hard movement to put down. Some of the other cultures of the world ought to give it a try some time.

Eventually, the Palestinians took to guerilla warfare. Compromise and joining in on the new economic boom times was just too painful. By the end of World War II, the British were utterly exhausted. They had no more desire to put down uprisings from Indians, Palestinians, or any other savages. The world had turned, and the Sun was setting. The Jews looked to the United States.

Roosevelt had appeared sympathetic, but he had made a secret deal with Saudi Arabia before he died, promising to protect them from themselves in return for Big Oil. He ended up assuring the Arabs that the U.S. would not intervene. President Truman was also sympathetic. He was naturally pre-disposed to the "little guy," the "underdog," and saw the Jews in that light. Of course, from the standpoint of smarts, work ethic and morals, the Jews were the Yankees and the Palestinians the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Recently, some of Truman's diaries shed some light on his attitude. Being a Kansas City Protestant, he was not of that generation of people who naturally sympathize with the Hebrew persuasion. His diaries further reveal his irritation with the vaunted "Jewish lobby," who he said pestered and hounded him mercilessly until they got their way. Truman felt that the Jews were selfish, advocating their position with little regard for its effect on other people.

Nevertheless, he accepted the Balfour Declaration. He felt it was in line with Woodrow Wilson's "self determination" principle. The War and State Departments advised that if the U.S. did not make a play, a Soviet-Arab oil connection would fill the existing geo-political gap.

In 1946, the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry submitted recommendations that Palestine not be majority Arab or Jewish. Looking back, if these recommendations had been fulfilled to the letter, a secular state might have been better. The hope was to avoid civil strife. Two autonomous states were to be established with a strong central government to control Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the Negev, the southernmost section of Palestine. The idea was based a bit on the current split between Pakistan and India, although that is not exactly a success story.

Hard line Jews committed acts of terror in Palestine, which antagonized the British. By February of 1947, a virtual state of war existed. Britain asked the U.N. to intervene, an unheard of scenario in the old British Empire but a sign of the new times. The U.N. General Assembly set up the Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). The recommendation was that the British mandate end, replaced by two partitioned states. Most Jews wanted all of Palestine, but the general reaction was to accept compromise. The Arabs bluntly said no to the UNSCOP plan. The Arab League Council directed troops to the Palestine border. President Truman told the State Department to support the U.N. plan.

The 1947 U.N. Partition divided the area into three entities: A Jewish state, an Arab state (Transjordan), and an international zone around Jerusalem. On May 14, 1948, the Provisional Government of Israel was proclaimed. The next day, Arab armies invaded Israel. The following is a time-line of major events in Israel's history:

Time-line of major events in Israel's modern history

JULY 1882 - Beginning of First Aliyah, BILU pioneers arrive in Palestine.

1883 - Baron Edmond de Rothschild begins support of Jewish settlement in Palestine; Founding of Hovevei Tzion movement in Odessa.

FEBRUARY 1896 - Theodor Herzl's _Der Judenstaat_ , The Jewish State, is published

AUGUST 1897 - First Zionist Congress convenes in Basle, Switzerland; Creation of World Zionist Organization.

1904 - Beginning of Second Aliyah; Death of Theodor Herzl.

1909 - Founding of Tel Aviv - the first modern all-Jewish city.

1910 - Founding of Degania - the first Kibbutz.

NOVEMBER 1917 - British issue Balfour Declaration, recognizing the right to a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

DECEMBER 1917 - British conquest of Palestine.

1919 - Beginning of Third Aliyah.

APRIL 1920 - British Mandate over Palestine issued.

JULY 1922 - Churchill White Paper separates Transjordan from area designated for creation of Jewish homeland and links Jewish immigration to "economic capacity of the country."

1924-1932 - Fourth Aliyah.

AUGUST 1929 - Arabs riot in Jerusalem; Massacres of Jews in Hebron and Safad.

OCTOBER 1930 - Passfield White Paper limits Jewish immigration to Palestine and forbids Jewish land purchases.

1931 - Founding of Jewish underground organization, Irgun Zva'i Leumi.

1933-1939 - Fifth Aliyah.

1936-1939 - Arab revolt.

JULY 1937 - Peel Commission report recommends partition of Palestine.

MAY 1939 - MacDonald White Paper limits Jewish immigration and prohibits Jews from purchasing Arab land.

MAY 1941 - Creation of Palmach - early Jewish defense force.

MAY 1942 - At Biltmore Conference, American Zionists call for a "Jewish Commonwealth" in Palestine.

DECEMBER 1945 - Arab League Boycott established.

JULY 1946 - Irgun attacks King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

FEBRUARY 1947 - Britain refers Palestine issue to United Nations.

NOVEMBER 1947 - United Nations votes to partition Palestine into independent Jewish and Arab states.

MAY 1948 - Creation of the State of Israel; U.S. and Soviet Union extend recognition; Creation of Israel Defense Forces.

SEPTEMBER 1948 - Assassination of U.N. Mediator Count Folke Bernadotte by extremist Jews.

JANUARY 1949 - Israel War of Independence ends; Israel's first national elections.

FEBRUARY 1949 - Egypt and Israel sign an Armistice Agreement.

MARCH 1949 - Lebanon and Israel sign an Armistice Agreement.

APRIL 1949 - Transjordan and Israel sign an Armistice Agreement.

MAY 1949 - U.N. votes to accept Israel as a member state.

JULY 1949 - Syria and Israel sign an Armistice Agreement.

JANUARY 1950 - Transjordan annexes West Bank and renames area Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

JULY 1950 - Israel passes Law of Return.

JULY 1951 - Assassination of Jordanian King Abdullah by Palestinian extremists.

JULY 1956 - Egyptian President Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal.

OCTOBER 1956 - Israel, Britain and France attack Egypt.

MARCH 1957 - Israel withdraws from Sinai and Gaza.

OCTOBER 1959 - Creation of Fatah terrorist group under direction of Yasser Arafat.

MAY 1962 - Following his capture and a trial, top Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann is executed in Israel.

JANUARY 1964 - Creation of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), with Fatah as its main faction.

JANUARY 1965 - First PLO terrorist attack against Israel.

MAY 1967 - Nasser orders the withdrawal of U.N. forces from the Egyptian-Israeli border and initiates a blockade of Israeli shipping through the Tiran Straits.

JUNE 1967 - Six-Day War, Reunification of Jerusalem under Israel.

SEPTEMBER 1967 - At summit meeting, Arab states reject peace and negotiations with Israel.

NOVEMBER 1967 - U.N. passes Resolution 242, the basis for Israeli-Arab negotiations.

APRIL 1968 - Reestablishment of Jewish settlement in Hebron.

JULY 1968 - First act of air piracy against Israel; El Al airliner hijacked en route from Rome to Tel Aviv by PLO terrorists.

MARCH 1969 - Start of War of Attrition.

SEPTEMBER 1972 - PLO massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich, Germany.

OCTOBER 1973 - Yom Kippur War.

DECEMBER 1973 - Geneva Peace Conference.

JANUARY 1974 - Israeli-Egyptian Disengagement Agreement.

MAY 1974 - 23 children die in PLO terrorist attack against school in Ma'alot; Israeli-Syrian Disengagement Agreement.

OCTOBER 1974 - Arab recognition of PLO as representative of Palestinians.

NOVEMBER 1975 - U.N. General Assembly passes "Zionism equals Racism" resolution

JULY 1976 - Israel rescues hostages at Entebbe Airport in Uganda.

MAY 1977 - Likud comes to power led by Menachem Begin.

NOVEMBER 1977 - Anwar Sadat visits Jerusalem and addresses Israeli Parliament.

SEPTEMBER 1978 - Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt.

MARCH 1979 - Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty.

JULY 1980 - Basic Law on Jerusalem passed.

JUNE 1981 - Israel disables Iraqi nuclear reactor in Osiraq.

OCTOBER 1981 - Anwar Sadat assassinated by Islamic extremists.

DECEMBER 1981 - Israel officially extends Israeli law to Golan Heights.

APRIL 1982 - Israel completes withdrawal from Sinai.

JUNE 1982 - Attempted assassination of Israeli Ambassador to London; Israel invades Lebanon in Operation Peace for Galilee.

SEPTEMBER 1982 - PLO completes evacuation from Lebanon.

JUNE 1985 - Israeli troops withdraw from Lebanon; creation of security zone in southern Lebanon.

DECEMBER 1987 - Start of Palestinian intifada.

DECEMBER 1988 - Arafat begins process of renouncing terrorism and recognizing Israel.

AUGUST 1990 - Iraq invades Kuwait.

JAN-FEB 1991 - Gulf war; Scud missiles fall in Israel.

OCTOBER 1991 - Arab-Israeli peace conference opens in Madrid.

DECEMBER 1991 - U.N. repeals "Zionism equals Racism" resolution

JUNE 1992 - Labor Party leader Yitzhak Rabin elected Prime Minister.

JANUARY 1993 - Israel repeals ban on contacts with the PLO.

AUGUST 1993 - Announcement of secret agreement reached in Oslo between Israel and the PLO.

SEPTEMBER 1993 - Signing of Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles on White House Lawn.

DECEMBER 1993 - Israel and the Vatican establish diplomatic relations.

FEBRUARY 1994 - Jewish extremist kills 29 Muslim worshippers in Hebron.

APRIL 1994 - Hamas suicide bus bombings in Afula and Hadera.

MAY 1994 - Israel withdraws its forces from Jericho and Gaza.

OCTOBER 1994 - Kidnapping and murder of Israeli soldier Nachshon Waxman; bombing of bus in Tel Aviv; Signing of Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty.

DECEMBER 1994 - Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat awarded Nobel Peace Prize.

SEPTEMBER 1995 - The Interim, or "Oslo II," Agreement signed in Washington between Israel and the Palestinians.

NOVEMBER 1995 - Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin assassinated by a Jewish extremist.

FEB-MARCH 1996 - Islamic extremist suicide bombings in Jerusalem, Afula and Tel Aviv kill 59.

MAY 1996 - Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu elected Prime Minister.

SEPTEMBER 1996 - Palestinian violence erupts in response to Israeli opening of an exit to the Western Wall tunnel.

JANUARY 1997 - Hebron Redeployment Agreement signed.

1967 Six-Day War

In May of 1967, Egypt and Syria took aggressive action that convinced Israel that they were about to be attacked. On May 16, Egyptian President Nasser ordered a withdrawal of the United Nations Emergency Forces (UNEF) stationed on the border with Israel. This was the last bit of security between Egypt and Israel. This "buffer" state had been in place since 1957. On May 22, Egypt began a blockade of ships carrying vital goods to and from Israel through the Straits of Tiran. Israel had known for years that such an action would put them in grave danger ("is there any other kind"), and that it would require military action to free the access to the port of Eilat. Syria clashed with Israeli border forces. On the Golan Heights, mobilization began.

The Johnson Administration asked Israel to keep their powder dry, hoping to effectuate a diplomatic solution. On May 23, Johnson said that the Gulf of Aqaba was an international waterway, which meant that blockading Israeli ships was illegal. The Israelis agreed to withhold military action.

The U.S. lobbied for international forces to pressure Egypt to open the waterway. President Nasser and King Hussein signed a mutual defense pact. Nasser then signed a similar pact with Baghdad. Arab states were poised to strike, amid vile rhetoric that promised Israel's complete ruin.

Israel, its very existence on the line, mobilized and called up 80 percent of their reserves. A tiny country, this brought the nation to virtual standstill. Israeli leaders had a decision to make. The nature of their existence and a tacit agreement with the U.S. had created an unofficial "no first strike" policy. But if the Arabs struck, the civilian population lived only miles from the borders. The Arabs planned not only to strike strategic military targets, but to effectuate the greatest amount of terror possible by killing civilians. Their public utterances left no doubt that the military action was designed not just to take out the military, but to eliminate the country from the face of the Earth.

Israel decided they did not wish to be eliminated from the face of the Earth. In order to avoid this scenario, they launched a pre-emptive strike against Egypt on June 5. Israel proved to be as superior militarily as they had economically and morally in prior years. The result was a quick victory and capture of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. They all but begged Jordan to keep clear, knowing that if forced they would have to kill a lot of Jordanians that they did not want to. Jordan attacked and Israel killed a lot Jordanians. Jordan lost control of the West Bank and the eastern sector of Jerusalem. Israel captured the Golan Heights and declared victory.

The result of the Six-Day War was an extraordinary change in the balance of global power. Rarely has a short war in a limited geographical area had such wide-ranging effect. Israel demonstrated that they had a world class military, and were led by world class strategists. As America's stalwart ally, this made a great impression on the Soviets. They had to re-think their Middle East strategy. A formidable enemy would meet any attack or attempt to take over in the region.

The war also revealed fissures in international support. Gamal Nasser demanded that the U.N. withdraw from the Sinai, and the U.N. went along. The United States and Britain tried to get the Security Council to do the right thing. The U.N. proved itself to be a tool of America's enemies. Somewhere, Alger Hiss might have smiled to himself. Even after three Egyptian army divisions and 600 tanks rolled into the Sinai, Israel was left to fend for themselves. The U.N. did zero, despite such charming pronouncements as "All Egypt is now prepared to plunge into total war which will put an end to Israel" on Cairo Radio's "Voice of the Arabs."

The 1967 war served several other purposes. It left no doubt that enemies surrounded Israel. The Arab world played their hand and hit Israel with everything they had. A certain of amount of doubt - about Arab intentions, capabilities and Israeli strength - were answered. Arab rhetoric gave away all their cards. They said things they would only say if they were sure they would win.

On May 18, encouraged by the U.N.'s complete silence, "Voice of the Arabs" announced, "As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel. We shall exercise patience no more. We shall not complain any more to the U.N. about Israel. The sole method we shall apply against Israel is a total war which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence."

The U.N. responded with strong action, sending peacekeeping forces to keep the region from exploding into Apocalypse. _Not!_

President Johnson and Israel were more moral than the U.N. and the Arab world combined. Johnson identified Nasser's actions as arbitrary and dangerous, pledging American support. That was all the Israeli's needed to hear.

Syria's defense minister was the great statesman Hafez el-Assad. He announced that, "Our forces are now ready not only to repulse the aggression but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian Army, with its finger on the trigger, is united ..." The U.N. did _nada._

"Our basic objection will be the destruction of Israel," said Nasser. "The Arab people want to fight." Later he added, "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel." The U.N. did nothing.

On May 30, Jordan's King Hussein signed a five-year defense pact with Egypt and the two set up a joint command. The U.N. did not condemn it.

On May 31, the Egyptian newspaper _Al Akhbar,_ a real pillar of journalistic integrity, wrote "Under terms of the military agreement signed with Jordan, Jordanian artillery, coordinated with the forces of Egypt and Syria, is in a position to cut Israel in two ..." The U.N. had no response.

"This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948," said Iraqi President Rahman Aref on May 31. "Our goal is clear - to wipe Israel off the map." No U.N. representatives trekked to Baghdad to ask him to pray to Allah for peace.

As May turned into June, Nasser aligned with Syria, Jordan and Iraq, as if Israel were Napoleon's Grand Army and he were a Muslim Wellington. The U.N. Security Council responded by demanding that Israel accept a cease-fire demand. By this time, Israelis might have started believing Hitler's ghost was running the United Nations.

"Never in human history can an aggressor have made his purpose known in advance so clearly and so widely," wrote Samuel Katz in "Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine". "Certain of victory, both the Arab leaders and their peoples threw off all restraint. Between the middle of May and fifth of June, world-wide newspapers, radio and, most incisively, television brought home to millions of people the threat of politicide bandied about with relish by the leaders of these modern states. Even more blatant was the exhilaration which the Arabic peoples displayed as the prospect of executing genocide on the people of Israel...those three weeks of mounting tension people throughout the world watched and waited in growing anxiety - or in some cases, in hopeful expectation- for the overwhelming forces of at least Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq to bear down from three sides to crush tiny Israel and slaughter her people."

Maybe the lies, immorality and violence of Arabs and their U.N. enablers are a good thing. After all, by seeing so utterly despicable they are, they help the U.S. and Israel, who are so utterly honorable, What would be the use of being so _superior_ to others if everybody was this way? Just a thought.

Having kicked the Arab world's collective butts, Israel was then subject to intense international criticism, on the U.N. floor and in the so-called "media" that exists in various Arab hellholes. The thrust was that they had initiated the Six-Day War. This made as much sense as blaming the U.S. for starting World War II if Roosevelt had done something about what he knew, ordering Kimmel and Short to knock the approaching Jap fleet out of the water before they attacked Pearl.

The Golan Heights, 3,000 feet above the Galilee, had been a staging area for shelling innocent Israeli farmers and villages for years. When Nasser _ordered_ UNEF to withdraw after years of ineffective "presence," it was as if Patton had told the Big Red One to save the "bloody fighting bastards of Bastogne."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Nasser, we're right on it, we're outta here. Come on, fellows, it's Chardonnay time."

The use of the word "extermination" at least showed that these fine Arabs had been catching up on their "Mein Kampf" and researched PR from that great publicist Joseph Goebbels. As for the good ol' "religion of peace," Muslim leaders said absolutely _NOTHING!_ (with the exception of enthusiastic support for any and all mass murder of Jews).

"Our forces are now entirely ready...to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland....The time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation," was Hafez Assad's statement before the war. Iraq joined the alliance, while Damascus had used language indicating that their mission was a holy completion of the Final Solution that Hitler never had a chance to complete.

"...an apparently strong conviction that the struggle with Israel is no mere political or territorial dispute, but rather a clash of destinies affecting the fate and future of the Middle East," Ahmed S. Khalidi and Hussein Agha said. Syria remains "bound up with the view that force, whether active or passive, is the final arbiter of the conflict with Israel and the ultimate guarantor of any settlement in the area."

Amid all of this rhetoric, Israel was considered the "aggressor." Still, criticism in the post-1967 period led Golda Meir to choose not to exercise the lawful option of anticipatory self-defense in 1973. Israel almost paid for that decision with its very existence, not to mention the loss of 2,326 Israelis, nearly 10,000 injuries and hundreds of prisoners in the Yom Kippur War. The A'man's (Military Intelligence Branch) failed in 1973 to predict the Arab attack. This Mechdal, a Hebrew term meaning "omission", "nonperformance" or "neglect," caused the nation to up-grade their intelligence until it was the best in the world.

After all the things Arab "leaders" said about exterminating Israel, they were left completely exposed as terrorists and moral midgets, not to mention humiliated in every way, shape and form. The unfortunate part about this is that in the Muslim culture, such humiliation cannot be accepted. All lies, murders, and acts of terror are apparently "justified" in "avenging" such humility. There appears no way to avoid this fact of life in the Middle East. The Muslim religion is much different from Buddhism. The Japanese accepted their humiliation as a _fait accompli_ after World War II. Christianity allows for the same process. While nobody likes to lose, the Japanese and the Germans realized the benefit of moving on. There is a mechanism with Islam and the Arab world that somehow does not. Understanding this is the key to the region, but knowledge of it offers very few solutions.

1973 Yom Kippur War

Anwar Sadat replaced Nasser as Egypt's President. In 1971, he began the process that changed the nature of the Middle East, when he spoke of possible peace and recognition of Israel. While Sadat's conciliatory tone raised hackles among despots and the Arab street, it was also an example of realpolitik. 1971 was a year of great change. Henry Kissinger was involved in the Paris peace talks, discussing détente with the Soviets, and preparing for the recognition of Red China. It was a new era of diplomacy. Sadat, to his credit, decided at first to get on the winning side of it. Sadat was looking for a way to get the occupied territories returned by the Israelis. The Israelis refused. Sadat then found himself drawn into the vortex of war and hate that envelops the Arab world. He said war was inevitable, and that he was willing to sacrifice 1 million soldiers. Think about that!

Using the United Nations, which had continued to be an anti-Israel forum, Sadat made threats in an effort to get the Nixon Administration to force Israel's acceptance of the Arab interpretation of Resolution 242, calling for complete Israeli withdrawal from the pre-1967 territories.

Sadat maintained diplomatic aggressiveness on this issue with European and African states. He invited the Soviets to exert influence in the region. It is very important to understand the implications of this "invitation." Had Israel not demonstrated that they were a major military power, the Soviets likely would have already had tanks rolling through the area, exerting their unique form of "hegemony." The Soviets contemplated providing offensive weapons to cross the Suez Canal. Since Kissinger had them tied up with arms reduction talks, they had to scale their efforts back. Kissinger's ability to maintain the "10 ring circus" of multi-triangulated diplomacy, each deal affecting other deals, all in the best interests of the United States, remains the greatest act of pure diplomatic achievement in modern history. Thanks to the Nixon/Kissinger approach, the Soviets rejected Sadat's demands for arms. Sadat expelled about 20,000 Soviet advisers.

Sadat continued to threaten, but the Kissinger plan created complacency in U.S.-Israeli circles. In October, 1973, during Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar - Egypt and Syria attacked. Thousands of Israeli soldiers and civilians, fasting as part of the ritual and in peaceful contemplation, were rousted into action. The Egyptian-Syrian forces equaled all of NATO's manpower. They massed on borders. 180 Israeli tanks faced 1,400 Syrian tanks on the Golan Heights. 80,000 Egyptians at the Suez Canal attacked fewer than 500 Israeli defenders. The Yom Kippur War was a modern version of David vs. Goliath.

Nine Arab states and four non-Middle Eastern nations aided the Egyptian-Syrian attack. Iraq transferred a squadron of Hunter jets to Egypt while deploying a division of 18,000 troops with hundreds of tanks in the central Golan. On October 16 they attacked from there. Iraqi's Soviet-supplied MiGs flew over the Golan Heights.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait underwrote the operation and committed troops, including brigade strength of 3,000 sent to Syria, "defending" the literal "road to Damascus." Violating international law, Libya sent French Mirage fighters to Egypt. For two years prior, Moamar Qhadafi had provided Cairo generous funds to pay for Soviet weapons.

Algeria sent fighters and bombers, an armored brigade, and 150 tanks. 1,000-2,000 Tunisian soldiers occupied the Nile Delta. Sudan stationed 3,500 troops in southern Egypt. Morocco sent three brigades to the front lines, including 2,500 men to Syria.

Lebanese radar aided Syrian air defenses while letting Palestinian terrorists shell Israeli civilians. Palestinians joined the Southern Front with the Egyptians and Kuwaitis.

Jordan's King Hussein was an honorable man. Unfortunately, this is a rarity in Arab politics. He had been kept in the dark by his neighbors, but was "forced" to send the 40th and 60th Armored Brigades to Syria or face charges of "treason." If only that word, without the "t," carried weight in this part of the world. Alas.

Assisting the "road to Damascus," Jordan routed Israeli positions along the Kuneitra-Sassa road on October 16. Three Jordanian artillery batteries participated in the assault, spearheaded by 100 tanks.

For two days, Israel mobilized and repulsed the invaders, in the process counter-attacking deep in Syria and Egypt. The Arabs were re-supplied by the Soviets. Despite Kissinger's warnings, they thought the Arab attackers were sure winners and wanted in on the fun. This miscalculation is one of the most concrete, identifiable landmarks in the anatomy of their eventual loss in the Cold War. Golda Meir begged Nixon for help. The U.S. responded with an airlift of vital supplies and weaponry for their ally. This turned the tide. In the aftermath, Egypt's ally, the United Nations, did everything in their power to maintain the integrity of Egypt as a functioning diplomatic entity in the wake of defeat that could have made it something less; a rogue state, an anarchist state, or even an extension of Israeli territory.

The Soviets took a hard line when it looked like the Arabs would win. So did U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, who was a war criminal serving as a Nazi officer in the Balkans during World War II. The U.S. barred him from entering America. The U.N. loved him.

Res ipsa loquiter.

On October 22, with the Israelis now in a position to wipe out their enemies, the Security Council adopted Resolution 338 calling for "all parties to the present fighting to cease all firing and terminate all military activity immediately." Israeli forces had just cut off the Egyptian Third Army. The only thing saving the lives of thousands of Egyptian soldiers was the pure benevolence and goodwill of the State of Israel. Despite holding back even while fighting a defensive war, Israel achieved complete victory. For the Arab world, it was not just about the political ramifications. Israel is a tiny country that occupies a fraction of the Middle East. The small amount of land captured in 1967 and 1973 hardly makes much real difference. Palestinians are all-but despised by their Muslim brethren as stupid, lazy and incompetent nomads. They had achieved nothing for over 1,000 years in Palestine. In a little over 10 years Jewish refugees from Russia had become their overseers.

What infuriates the Arabs is that they have been shown to be inferior time and again, forced to wallow in their incompetence. Their great need to kill has been foiled by their superiors. It does not take Sigmund Freud to see why a confluence of events, circumstance and the nature of some men combine to make this place such a cauldron.

The Yom Kippur War is thought to be a victory, but in many ways it was not. Israel was no longer the "underdog," a role of great position in the international community. The United Nations would spend the next 15 years doing everything in its power to bring it down. Arab desire to achieve peace was virtually eliminated.

Menachem Begin, sixth Prime Minister of Israel

Menachem Begin, writer Sidney Zion noted in 1983, "was run out of Poland by the Nazis, imprisoned by the Soviets, hunted by the British and nearly murdered by the Jews. To have survived was impressive enough. To have flourished - Begin led the first [Jewish nationalist] revolution in nearly 2,000 years [and] signed the first peace treaty in Israeli history - ranks as something of a miracle."

He was an oppositionist and underground leader. To this day, some call him a terrorist. Not all of the "accusers" are enemies of Israel. The explanation of why Begin is not a terrorist goes to the heart of moral politics. Begin cannot be compared to non-violent revolutionaries like the abolitionists, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Those people inherently knew that those who opposed them were not evil, they just could not get past entrenched evil things. They knew that, within the very systems that oppressed them, were laws, religious morals, and a common sense that, if addressed correctly over time, would yield. They were right.

Begin was dealing with close to 2,000 years of Arab and Muslim hatred. In the belly of that beast he saw no Thomas Jeffersons, no Winston Churchills, no Abraham Lincolns. History will only determine whether the Arab world, like the American South, will someday discover the better angels of its nature. He knew, just as Lincoln knew, that peace and conciliation were not part of the agenda when he was dealing with them. He knew that this implacable world could no more be reasoned with than Hitler or Stalin. So he fought.

For close to 30 years, he was party leader, overseeing eight Knesset election defeats. He eventually became Israel's sixth Prime Minister. His strength proved to be what his little nation needed. Begin died in 1992 at the age of 78. His last wish was to be treated as a simple man.

Vice-President Dan Quayle, former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, were all planning to make state visits, but Begin's specific wishes were that his passing not be a thing of pomp and circumstance. The trips were canceled.

"His historic role in the peace process will never be forgotten," President Bush said. It shall not. 75,000 mourners closed traffic. Even Palestinians paid their respects. Begin had said he recognized their legitimate rights at a time when it was impolitic to say such a thing in Israel.

Begin guided Herut and Likud, the parties that he founded, on the precepts of Ze'ev Jabotinsky's Zionist Revisionist movement. He was the son of a Jewish timber merchant in Czarist Russia. He saw Communism and he saw the Holocaust, and forged Israel out of enmity for both. He signed Israel's first peace treaty with an Arab neighbor, in 1979. He also led his country into an unpopular war, the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

He was a native of the symbolic town of Brest-Litovsk, where the Russian-German peace treaty of World War I had been signed. Begin's parents and brother had died in the Holocaust after 5,000 Brest Jews were rounded up by the Nazis at the end of June, 1941, for forced labor. Most were immediately shot or drowned in a river. His mother died in a Jewish hospital, but there was never any record of his brother Herzl's fate. The entire ghetto he grew up in was completely liquidated by October of 1942.

He received a law degree in 1935 from the University of Warsaw. Begin had joined the Socialist Zionist youth movement of Hashomer Hatzair at 16. He embraced the ideas of the Revisionist Zionist Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky and the Betar Zionist youth movement in Poland. He was very militant, and clashed with Jabotinsky. In 1938, at the Betar convention, he advocated "conquest of the homeland by force."

In 1939, when the Nazis invaded, Begin fled to the Soviet Union, but was arrested in 1940 as a spy. He was sentenced to eight years in a Soviet gulag, but the Soviets freed him as part of an agreement with Poland, allowing the freeing of some 1.5 million Polish exiles.

Begin found his sister, who had survived. Together they illegally immigrated to Palestine. He joined the Free Polish Army, serving in Iran and Palestine. He learned English listening to the BBC and served in the British Army in Palestine as an interpreter until 1943.

At that time, he became the leader of the liberation movement Irgun Tzvi Leumi-Etzel, whose means were more violent than the mainstream Haganah, with which he disagreed over how to push the British out of Palestine.

In 1946, he organized the Irgun in a bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, where the British were headquartered. Approximately 90 people - Jews, Arabs, and British - were killed. This event has clouded Begin's life. Many are unable to get past this act, branding him a terrorist who was no better than those he fought against. The fact that his own people and the English died in the blast is not reconcilable. It was a terrorist act. That said, Begin's organization had warned ahead of time of the bombing. He had hoped to make it a symbolic act with no loss of life, intended to push for Jewish independence. He had failed. The British branded him a terrorist. Begin escaped by disguising himself as a bearded Orthodox rabbi.

Over the next two years, the political atmosphere in Palestine altered enough for Begin to emerge from the shadows. He helped found the Herut party in 1948, the year of Israel's "birth." Until 1967, he was the opposition leader in the Knesset. In 1969 he was named minister-without-portfolio in a national unity cabinet.

In 1977, the Labor Party lost its nearly three decade old grip. Begin's Likud won a surprise election. Begin was viewed by the populace as a cultured European lawyer. He became very popular. His opponents thought he was punctilious and fanatical. Begin had opposed David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister. He eventually became as influential in Israel as Ben-Gurion. He referred to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria, considering them integral. He declared the West Bank settlement of Ekon Moreh to be part of "liberated Israel." Jews began to move into the territories. Begin had no illusions about Arab intentions. He dealt with them as politicians who had interests at stake. He did not wax poetic idealism about "friendship" with the Muslims who wanted him dead.

In June of 1981, Begin discovered that Iraq under their dictator, Saddam Hussein, had built a nuclear reactor. He ordered that reactor, at Osirak, to be bombed. On Shavuot, Israeli planes flew below radar detection through Arab airspace and destroyed the facility. It was a beautiful move.

Begin visited Jimmy Carter in the United States, as well as Romania, which was communicating an invitation to Anwar Sadat to come to Jerusalem. Sadat did, making a historic visit in November, 1977.

Egypt initially demanded return of the Sinai and autonomy for the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. For 12 days, from Camp David, Maryland, where he was the guest of President Carter, Begin presented the peace treaty to the Knesset. Only 29 of Likud's 43 representatives were among the majority that approved the accords. In 1978, Begin and Sadat were honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. Begin developed actual friendship with Sadat, who was assassinated by Muslim Fundamentalists (who are opposed to general acts of peace) in October of 1981. Begin attended the funeral in Cairo, another historic act.

Begin's invasion of Lebanon was staged to root out Palestinian terrorists in Southern Lebanon. From their enclaves, they had been shelling northern Israel. Begin asked his countrymen to "show tolerance, rid themselves of hatred and show understanding of each other." He said that "differences of opinion were legitimate and should not lead to physical confrontation." Violence led to the killing, by Jewish demonstrators, of Emil Grunzweig, a Peace Now protester and perceived Lebanese sympathizer. Begin's wife, Aliza, died during the war, adding to his stress. In 1983, Begin stepped down as Prime Minister, and lived the rest of his life in near-seclusion.

Golda Meir

Golda Meir was born Golda Mabovitch in Kiev (Ukraine) in 1898. She moved to the Promised Land \- the United States - at age eight, growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she joined the Zionist youth movement and married Morris Myerson. In 1921, after the Russian Revolution had created an exodus of Jews to Palestine, she joined a Kibbutz Merhavia in Palestine.

In 1924 they moved to Jerusalem, where she became an official of the Histadrut - General Federation of Labor. She became a leading figure and held several positions in the organization for the next 30 years, involving herself in trade union and welfare programs, the labor movement, and important foreign fund-raising. Over time, she became less a functionary and more of a political figure, charged with increasing Jewish immigration. In 1946, the British authorities interned most of the political leadership, which put Golda Meir in a position to replaced Moshe Sharett as acting head of the political department until 1948. After the birth of the new nation, she was involved in internal labor issues and diplomatic efforts. She attempted to reach a secret deal with Jordan's King Abdullah prior to the 1948 Arab invasion of Israel, but the deal fell through and the war took place. The Israelis repelled the Arab advance and were able to maintain their fragile stability.

Meir was Israel's first Ambassador to the Soviet Union, for one year, before election to the Knesset in 1949 elections. She was Minister of Labor and National Insurance from 1949 to 1956, a period of growth and unrest in the young country. Huge numbers of Jews immigrated into Israel during this period. There were not enough jobs to go around. Her social welfare policies provided subsidized housing for immigrants and husbanded integration of the economy.

For 10 years she was Minister of Foreign Affairs, during which time Israel developed a cooperative relationship with recently de-colonized African nations, which is the model for policies that are in place today. She developed strong personal and national relations with the Johnson and Nixon Administrations. The Jewish refugee Henry Kissinger was enamored with her intelligence, and the two became a diplomatic force. Meir extended Israeli diplomatic overtures to Latin America at a crucial time, when Castro and Che Guevara were attempting to export Communism. She was Secretary-General first of Mapai and then of the newly formed "Alignment" (made up of three Labor factions). Meir was a symbolic figure in addition to her substantive accomplishments. Israel represented an oppressed minority, Jews, but the fact that they were aligned with the U.S. was important in demonstrating America to be a friend of minorities. This flew in the face of Castro/Communist assertions that the U.S. was nothing more than a rich, white, racist nation. As a woman, Meir represented another "minority." Her strong friendship with Kissinger and the U.S. was helpful to the American image, too.

Levi Eshkol died in 1969. Meir became the "consensus candidate" to succeed him. She led her party to victory, but inherited the "War of Attrition," which was low-level military activity along the Suez corridor, all an aftermath of the Six-Day War of 1967. Increased belligerence occurred until a cease-fire agreement with Egypt was reached, but Sadat broke the agreement consistently. Egypt placed missiles on the Suez front, and in 1973 the Yom Kippur War was fought. Thanks to a strong Israeli military, skilled military and political leadership, Kissinger's triangulated diplomacy and Nixon's supply of weaponry, the Israelis repelled the Arabs, leaving the Muslim world angry and utterly humiliated - again.

Prime Minister Meir was a skilled artisan of personal diplomacy, but broke new ground in the area of media manipulation. Margaret Thatcher's successful "Iron Lady" leadership in England was modeled in part on Meir. By the same token, Golda Meir was the Ike of Israel, a grandmother figure who spoke with gentle firmness. She oversaw Israel's rise from a Third World refugee camp to a world military power and economic superstatus. It is true Israel has always been helped greatly by American aid, which has allowed it to maintain such status. But the Israel economy, fueled by a phenomenal education system and a populace of highly intelligent citizens, has propelled the nation to a place among the world's elite. This has occurred next to floundering Arab states that, despite the advantage of thousands of years of tradition in the region, have stagnated and remained part of the Third World or barely better. This stark fact has further inflamed anger and resentment from the Arab street, humiliated by the sheer obviousness of their inferiority in comparison to the Israelis. This is, of course, inflammatory language, which does not change the fact that it is true.

Meir's strong hand during the Yom Kippur War has been immortalized in books and films, elevating her from a position as diplomatic and domestic maven to world leader. She stood firm in the aftermath of the war, when the United Nations tried to undo the victory through a series of measures, eventually even attempting to enact a law equating Zionism with racism. Again proving that all politics are local, Meir met a fate similar to Churchill in 1946 and George H.W. Bush in 1992, when internal inquiries examined her "failure" to prepare for or foresee the Yom Kippur War. Her party prevailed in the 1973 elections, but Meir resigned, ironically, around the same time that Nixon did, in mid-1974. Like Begin, she stayed out of the public eye, preferring to write her memoirs. She did come to the Knesset to greet President Sadat on his visit to Jerusalem in 1977, and died a year later at 80.

Ariel Sharon

Ariel "Arik" Sharon was born in 1928 in Kfar Malal. He served in the IDF for more than 25 years, retiring with the rank of major-general. He holds an LL.B in law from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, awarded in 1962.

Sharon joined the Haganah at 14. During the 1948 War of Independence, he commanded an infantry company in the Alexandroni Brigade. In 1953, he founded and led the "101" special commando unit which carried out retaliatory operations. Sharon was appointed commander of a paratroop brigade in 1956, fighting in the Sinai Campaign. In 1957 he attended the Camberley Staff College in Great Britain.

He served for four years as an infantry brigade commander and then Infantry School Commander. He was appointed Head of the IDF Northern Command in 1964 and Head of the Army Training Branch in 1966. He participated in the 1967 Six-Day War as commander of an armored division. In 1969 he was appointed head of the IDF Southern Command.

Sharon resigned his commission in 1973, but no sooner had he done this than he was re-activated to command an armored division in the Yom Kippur War. He boldly crossed the Suez Canal, leading Israel to the victory that convinced Sadat peace with Israel was the only option.

Based on his military fame from three major wars against Arab invaders, Sharon was elected as a hero to the Knesset in December, 1973, on the heels of the Yom Kippur victory. He resigned after a year to become security adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin from 1975-76, and again was elected to the Knesset in 1977 on the Shlomzion ticket. Menachem Begin made him Minister of Agriculture from 1977-81, during which time he pursued agricultural cooperation with Egypt.

In 1981 Ariel Sharon was named Defense Minister. He led forces in Lebanon which destroyed Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization terrorist infrastructure there. Sharon, picking up where Meir left off, counter-balanced Soviet efforts at African insurgency through diplomatic relations with the African nations. Ties had broken off during the Yom Kippur War and were all but lost to the West by Jimmy Carter's inept handling. Sharon was instrumental in repairing the damage done by the unholy alliance of Communism, the U.N. and Carter. In November of 1981, he brought about the first strategic cooperation agreement with the U.S. and widened defense ties between Israel and many nations. He helped free thousands of Ethiopian Jews through the Sudan.

From 1983-84, Sharon served as Minister without Portfolio, and from 1984-1990 as Minister of Trade and Industry. In this capacity, he concluded the Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. in 1985.

From 1990-1992, he served as Minister of Construction and Housing and Chairman of the Ministerial Committee on Immigration and Absorption. After the Soviet Union fell, he ushered in enormous immigration from Russia, resulting in the construction of 144,000 apartments. From 1992 to 1996, he served as a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. In 1996, Sharon was appointed Minister of National Infrastructure. In this capacity, he husbanded joint ventures with Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinians. He also served as Chairman of the Ministerial Committee for Bedouin advancement.

In 1998 he was named Foreign Minister and headed the permanent status negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, meeting with U.S., European, Palestinian and Arab leaders to advance the peace process. He advanced the Flagship Water Project to find a long-term solution to regional water needs, furthering cooperation between between Israel, Jordan, the Palestinians and other Middle Eastern countries.

With Ehud Barak's election as Prime Minister in 1999, Sharon became interim Likud party leader. In September of that year he was elected Chairman of the Likud. He served as a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

On February 6, 2001, Sharon was elected Prime Minister. Sharon has presided over Israel during a crucial point in Israeli and Middle East history. The 1987 Intifada was followed by near-peace in 1993, but talks broke down. Eventually, another Intifada followed, and Bill Clinton desperately tried to cement his legacy with a peace agreement.

Clinton's policies favored Yasser Arafat. An increasingly dovish Israeli electorate seemed to be on board. Eventually, security concerns were too strong to give the okay to the agreements. After 9/11, terror concerns increased, and a new conservative tide swept the U.S. and Israeli approach to Palestinian autonomy. Sharon, elected earlier in the year, refused to acknowledge Arafat, one of the world's most notorious terrorists. He was criticized roundly for his hard-line approach, but working with President George W. Bush, Arafat has strengthened his country and somewhat weathered a terrible storm of Palestinian terror.

Thanks in large part to Arafat, the Palestinian's shelved Arafat in favor of a moderate, Mahmoud Abbas, who negotiated with Sharon. Abbas, however, was upended by elements influential through Arafat. Despite constant setbacks, the latest round of negotiations is likely to result in a peace agreement granting Palestinian independence. Sharon, in the tradition of George Washington, Abraham, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, is as good an example as any figure in the past 200 years that a conservative approach to peace via strength is the only viable one to avoiding the suicide of capitulation.

Benjamin Netanyahu

Netanyanhu is a man who has built his career on the exact principles that Sharon has. He is a genuine international hero. Born in Tel-Aviv on October 21, 1949, Netanyahu grew up in Jerusalem, but was educated in the United States. His father was professor Benzion Netanyahu, who taught history in America. He returned to Israel in 1967 and enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces, serving in an elite commando unit.

Netanyahu served in an anti-terror unit of the Israel Defense Forces from 1967-72, participating in dangerous missions during the "war of attrition," which included the Beirut Airport operation. He helped rescue hijacked Sabena Airlines hostages at Ben Gurion Airport, getting wounded in the process. He was highly decorated for his service, and left the IDF in 1972. He returned for the Yom Kippur War, reaching the rank of captain.

Mr. Netanyahu earned a B.Sc. in Architecture and an M.Sc. in Management Studies from MIT. He also studied political science at MIT and Harvard. He worked in the American private sector, joining the senior management of Rim Industries in Jerusalem.

In 1979 he organized an international conference against terrorism through the Jonathan Institute, an Israeli organization not unlike America's Rand Corporation. It was named after his brother Jonathan, who died leading the rescue party at Entebbe.

He became associated with George H.W. Bush and George Shultz. Through this connection, Netanyahu established conservative political credentials in association with the Reagan Administration. He became an internationally recognized expert on combating terror.

In 1982, Ambassador Moshe Arens asked Netanyahu to become Deputy Chief of Mission in the Israeli Embassy in Washington. In 1984 he was appointed Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, serving for four years. He helped open the U.N. Nazi War Crimes Archives in 1987, returning to Israel in 1988, where he was elected to the 12th Knesset under the Likud banner, leading to his appointed as Deputy Foreign Minister.

During the Gulf War he was Israel's principal media spokesman, a role he was well suited for. Handsome, charismatic, well spoken with a touch of accent, he speaks perfect English. His military panache and heroic record have given the imprimatur Plato's "warrior spirit," mixed with erudite political instincts honed on a conservative worldview. Netanyahu has a love not just for Israel, but for his "adopted" second country, America, where his popularity is not colored by domestic political obfuscation.

In October of 1991 he was a senior member of the Israeli delegation to the Madrid Peace Conference, initiating direct negotiations between Israel and Syria, Lebanon, and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. Years of tough militarism had forced the Arabs to accept the reality of Israel. In 1993, he was elected Likud Party Chairman and the party's candidate for Prime Minister. In 1996 he was elected Prime Minister. He held this position for three years, but in the wake of Clinton's Presidency and a liberalization effort in Israel, was beaten in the 1999 elections. Netanyahu was seen as an obstructionist because he insisted on Israel's security instead of giving in to Palestinian demands. Eventually, even his liberal colleagues agreed, and a criminal's agreement between Arafat and Clinton was thankfully averted early in 2001. After 9/11, Netanyahu's and Sharon's hawkish policies have proven to be the only way to get the terrorists to accept their fate. When Palestine achieves independence it will be because of men like Netanyahu, not Clinton. In November 2002, Sharon appointed Netanyahu as Minister of Foreign Affairs, but with youth and a record on the winning side of history in his favor, he is likely to become Prime Minister again.

Anwar al-Sadat

Sadat is a man who history has bestowed greatness to. Much of his legacy is based on his position as a martyr for peace, although he is revered in Western circles as much or more than Arabic circles. It was, after all, the Arabs who killed him, which unfortunately says much about Arabs and their desire for peace. Gandhi was killed by a fellow countryman, as was Yitzhak Rabin and John Kennedy. Viewing Sadat as an exception to the Arab Muslim rule exception reflects negatively on Arabs.

Much of the citizenry of Arab Muslim countries desires peace. Islam is a religion of great potential, as is the entire region. As we enter the 21st Century, one of, if not the leading question, is whether freedom and Democracy can take hold in the region. There are optimists, mostly of a conservative bent, who believe it can and it will. It requires great vision, a very long vision, to embrace this concept. It will require recognition that victories are incremental in this process. Individual political figures must cede great glory in the realization that progress will be slow and setbacks many. A U.S. President like George W. Bush, for instance, may in eight years oversee replacement of the Taliban in Afghanistan followed by security, victory in Iraq followed by security, an independent Palestinian state, and uncertain American hegemony in the Middle East. That said, this accomplishment would be the result of many years of incrementalism prior to his term in office. It will ultimately be part of a bigger picture that, hopefully, will flower into a real victory for freedom long after he departs.

On the other hand, history sometimes surprises us. A turn of the tide could create a Cold Ware-style landslide that tips the balance quickly toward the Democratic forces. This is the hopeful vision, but not one that can be counted on.

This book has detailed, and shall continue to detail, lies and terror committed by Arabs. By going back a few thousand years, it has tried to show that these traits are part of a pattern that has permeated Arab culture so thoroughly that the ready-made excuses do not fly. Those excuses, part of the moral relativism that must continually be exposed as a lie, include falsehoods that say Arab perfidy is an understandable backlash against the Crusades, the British Empire, Big Oil, and something that Communists liked to call American Imperialism.

The fact that the prophet Mohammed led terrorist raids is something that can lead to a death sentence if uttered by a Muslim in a Muslim country. Arabs have presided over many great events in history, and are part of a cultural history that explains much of who and what we are as a civilized people. Exposition of their worst faults is not done to inflict pain on them or to besmirch their image. But in light of historical revisionism, and the importance of understanding history so as to learn from it and make better decisions in our future, it becomes absolutely necessary to be brutally honest.

There remains a great hope that Arabs will, to use Lincoln's words, discover the "better angels" of their nature. Islam is a relatively young religion. The great religions are those that address themselves. Christians reformed themselves, led by Martin Luther, and the Catholic Church addressed its abuses during the Spanish Inquisition, achieving "victory" over its sins in order to be better Christians. Just as America ended slavery using laws written and enacted by Americans (not because a foreign power ordered us to do so), Christianity has "won" by living up to its own creed. The current scandals embroiling Catholicism will result in more self-improvement. Judaism overcame a violent history, but they have had thousands of years to "mature." Islam has yet to achieve this. Until it does it will not be a great religion. It is my hope and belief that someday it shall.

"Victory" is a word that is often associated with Western Civilization. Very often the losing side has been part and parcel of the Arab world. This has had a cumulative effect. Victory is not a bad thing as long as the right people, nations and causes are the victors. After thousands of years of anarchy and genocide, the Almighty imbued this nation we live in with the power to see to it that this is precisely what happens. This not uncoincidentally is that with which has happened ever since America came to be. Therefore, consequentially, and as a result thereof, various evils such as slavery, nationalism, Nazism, Communism and terrorism have been, or are in the process of being, vanquished from the Earth. As each of these events is ticked off God's laundry list, various among his Christian soldiers, like Churchill and Ike (not to mention the USC Trojans after beating Notre Dame) will put two fingers together in a "V for Victory" sign. Victory is what is occasionally required. Thank God the right people have been achieving it in the past 200 years, with a few exceptions. Every time I see footage of John Lennon imitating Ike with a "peace sign" while singing "Imagine", I think, "Image Pol Pot."

The strong language attached herein, regarding the actions of Arabs, is by no means a blanket indictment of this race. It is not condemnation of them as being a hopeless case for all future times. It is also not an attempt to cartoonishly paint all right in the world as being the work of the West, and all wrong being the work of the "East." But official Arab doctrine has tried to paint this kind of portrait, only reversing the roles in their favor. An enormous portion of their citizenry buys this view.

The Information Superhighway, thought to be the conduit of enlightenment, has so far proven to be a tool of deception in the Middle East. The Internet and cable television in that part of the world have demonstrated that Hitler's Big Lie is alive and well. Until Truth seeps into the consciousness of this massive population, peace will be elusive. America will be forced to use a heavy hand to protect the innocent, sometimes from themselves.

Anwar Sadat was an Egyptian political and military figure. Egypt has a special "relationship" with the Jews, since it was the Pharaohs who enslaved them. Where America has owned up to its atrocious behavior towards blacks, vis a vis slavery and its aftermath, Arabs do not. The average Egyptian probably could not tell you anything about this history. Turkey still does not acknowledge Armenian genocide during World War I!

This was the culture Sadat grew and rose to power in. He did not rise up as a reformer. He came through the ranks, determined to consolidate Egyptian power as best he could, with little concern for the moral truths of the world he lived in. But God gives humans the capacity to grow, and with a little help from Henry Kissinger, _realpolitik_ and Jimmy Carter, Sadat came to a place that few Arab pols arrive at.

He was born into a family of 13 children in 1918, in the average Egyptian village of Mit Abul Kom, 40 miles to the north of Cairo. Sadat's father worked as a clerk in a military hospital. Egypt was a British colony after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. In order to pay off a huge debt, they sold its interests in the French-engineered Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean, to the British. The Suez had been the key to political control in the region.

A man named Zahran came from a small village. The British hanged him for instigating a riot in which a British officer had been killed. Zahran showed courage in the face of death, which Sadat admired. When Kemel Ataturk created modern Turkey after Ottoman rule, Sadat took notice of the fact that despite defeat in the Great War, Turkey had avoided becoming another British colony. Ataturk's civil service reforms were revolutionary by Arabic standards. Sadat made a mental note of this.

In 1932, Mohandas Gandhi toured Egypt, preaching non-violence in combating injustice. Gandhi influenced Sadat. Just when you are ready believe Sadat was the Arabic Jesus, get a load of this. His role model was Adolf Hitler, who controlled his country with an iron resolve that Sadat felt was necessary in the affairs of state. The fact that one of the Arab world's biggest influences were both Hitler and Gandhi is a microcosm of this utterly Byzantine place.

In 1936, the British and the Wafd party create a military school in Egypt. Sadat was in its first class. He trained in math and science, learning how to analyze battles. Sadat's specialty was the Battle of Gettysburg, where Lee had been paralleled by the Union forces into taking his stand north of his goal, Washington. Sadat learned from Gettysburg about the importance of alliances. A battle not fought was better than a lost battle. While this may have been drummed unto him in his studies of Robert E. Lee, the lesson goes back to "The Art of War".

Upon graduation, Sadat was sent to a distant outpost where he met Gamal Abdel Nasser. An alliance was formed. Nasser formed an officer's rebellion to overthrow the British. For his part in this coup, Sadat went to jail twice. While incarcerated, Sadat taught himself French and English. After prison, Sadat acted before entering business. He met his wife, Jihan and got back in touch with Nasser. The revolution had taken root and on July 23, 1952, the Free Officers Organization staged another coup to successfully overthrow the monarchy. Sadat became Nasser's public relations minister during the overthrow and abdication of King Farouk.

A period of nation building ensued, all under the cloud of Cold War rivalry. The debate amongst the Arabs was whether to align with the West, the Communists, or pursue an independent track. Arab self-determination was easier said than done, since alignment with the West meant tacit recognition of Israel. There was no such thing as real partnership with the Soviets, only enslavement. Egypt declared itself "non-aligned" in a manner like India, hoping it could play its best hand depending upon self-interest. Nasser's first test of post-colonialism was over the Suez. He nationalized it in 1956, drawing coordinated British, French, and Israel attacks in an effort to re-establish control over the profitable canal. Hostilities ended when Dwight Eisenhower told his old allies to withdraw. Eisenhower hoped to give Egypt and Nasser a sense of pride, hoping that American benevolence would be rewarded with friendship. Ike's plan was not a total failure, but not a total success, either. America was so rich, so successful and so powerful that small countries could not help but view it with jealousy, a very powerful and difficult human emotion to deal with. Alliance with Israel would make it worse.

Nasser was featured as a modern day Saladin until the Six-Day War, when the "lowly Holocaust refugees" proved to be the new military power in the world. The Egyptian air forces were destroyed on the ground. While Sadat may have studied Gettysburg, he should have studied Pearl Harbor and warned his boss not to keep his planes wingtip to wingtip. They were left as sitting ducks against fire from above. From the Sinai to the Suez Canal, Israeli forces routed his army and killed 3,000 soldiers. Devastation and near-bankruptcy was Egypt's post-war fate, leading to internal Arab arguments over Palestinian. Amid all of this, Nasser died in September of 1970.

Sadat was a mystery to the West, and considered untested by his countrymen. His first big move indicates that he should have learned more from Gettysburg. Lee should have ceded defeat then and there, saving the South from utter devastation and possibly avoiding occupation. Instead, he continued a rearguard action, always threatening to the Union, and eventually General Sherman advanced on Georgia and turned it into a killing field.

Sadat acted as if Lee should have re-grouped and attacked the Federal city of Washington. By instigating the Yom Kippur War, he left Egypt vulnerable to a brutal defeat that could have turned much of his country into Greater Israel. Political considerations and Israeli benevolence prevented Sadat from succumbing to this fate. That being said, Sadat was rushed into the Yom Kippur War by the tide of events. Arab rhetoric was shrill, and the need to maintain a strong face with his fiery neighbors was something he could not easily have avoided.

Sadat impressed Golda Meir and Henry Kissinger after the war, however. He showed, to use a Hebrew word, a lot of chutzpah. Sadat offered the Israelis a peace treaty in exchange for the return of the Sinai. He was playing to the goodwill of the West. Had the tables been turned, the Arabs gladly would have turned Israel into a re-enactment of Auschwitz. The West chose to overlook this and give peace, to give Lennon (not Lenin) his due, a chance.

The Egyptian economy was in shatters, but overtures towards the Soviets did not result in relief because Kissinger and Nixon had Brezhnev tied up with d'etente. Sadat basically said, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," expelling the Soviets to the delight of the Americans and Israelis. The Muslim Egyptians had never been enamored with the atheist Soviets, and the move was popular internally. Better yet, normalization with the West offered much more economically than with the ass-backward Communists.

Sadat began to think the unthinkable. Peace with Israel would provide a "peace dividend." Speaking to the Egyptian parliament in 1977, he affirmed a desire for peace. He invited himself to the Israeli parliament, if they would have him. In terms of impact, Sadat's intent was momentous, like the fall of the Berlin Wall would be momentous. Certainly, it can be compared, on its own scale, to Gorbachev's perestroika. The Israeli's, God bless 'em, immediately invited him to the Knesset. President Carter played a major role in bringing the parties together, culminating in the 1978 Camp David Accords and a 1979 peace.

Sadat won the Nobel Prize for Peace, one of the times in which the committee got it right. All politics being local, however, Sadat faced hatred at home from Fundamentalist Muslims. For two years, Sadat negotiated loans to support improvements in domestic life, hoping to alleviate criticism. He was forced to outlaw protest, declaring the Shari'a to be the basis of all Egyptian law. On October 6, 1981, Sadat died at the hands of Fundamentalist assassins during a military review celebrating the 1973 Suez crossing.

While it must not be forgotten that Sadat expressed a willingness to sacrifice 1 million Egyptians in order to destroy Israel, and no doubt would have burned Israel to the ground given the chance, he did reverse course. He could have just reverted to terrorism and jealousy like so many of his Arab brethren. The fact that he did not, and died for his efforts, places him among the more heroic figures of the 20th Century.

Black September: Yasser Arafat's murderers kill Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics

It is true that Menachem Begin planted a bomb at the King David Hotel, then warned the hotel of it so they could evacuate. The bomb exploded. There is no excuse for this action. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

It is true that Yasser Arafat made his career as a terrorist. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1936, Adolf Hitler hosted the Berlin Olympics. He used it as a showcase for his New Order, a launching pad, if you will, for World War II. In 1945, his Thousand Year Reich went down after 12. Under the enlightened leadership of Konrad Adenaur and Willie Brandt, West Germany worked its way back into the family of nations, as did its Axis partner, Japan. Tokyo felt comfortable enough in its skin to successfully host the 1964 Olympics. It was a great celebration and a chance for the world to get together and see the success of Democracy.

Germany wanted in, too. They were proud of the way they had rebounded to become a thriving economy, with tolerant racial and religious views, free elections, and partnership with the U.S. They were awarded the 1972 Games. The 1968 Olympics had been held in the thin air of Mexico City, with mixed results. Student uprisings shortly before the Games had to be put down. Revolution was in the air. It was not just Che Guevara's ghost or Castro's minions who made their presence known. It was the American Black Man.

Harry Edwards, a black sociology professor at San Jose State, organized a boycott of the Games by African-American athletes, protesting the exploitation of blacks in the land of the free. Among those who did not participate as a result were Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), the All-American basketball star at UCLA.

Many blacks did not choose to go, but boxer George Foreman won the Gold medal, then paraded around the ring with an American flag. He became an instant hero for not telling the world that he hated the White Man.

A couple of black sprinters had a different opinion. After placing one-two, they donned black gloves and lifted their fists in a head-down "black power salute" while the National Anthem played.

The Germans wanted nothing to do with politics four years later at Munich. They wanted to show the world happy, drunk Bavarians, as if to confirm that the Nazis really were an army full of Sergeant Schultzes. The last possible thing they wanted anybody to think about were Nuremberg rallies, Swastikas, and for God sake, not those pesky death camps.

Let the Games begin.

Munich was star-crossed. An America Jewish swimmer named Mark Spitz hailed from Carmichael, California and the University of Indiana. He had the looks of the Marlboro Man, and also happened to be the greatest swimmer in the history of swimming. He entered seven races, won seven Golds, and set seven world records. But strange things were happening. Another California swimmer, Rick DeMont had his Gold taken away because he had asthma. There was a mix-up over whether his medication was legal or not, and after he was tested his medal was confiscated. Another sprinter slept through his qualifying heats because his coach had not told him the proper starting time.

The American basketball team had their Gold medal stolen from them. A bunch of college kids, they faced the Soviets, who paid their players by making them officers in the Red Army, when all they did was practice and play basketball. The U.S.S.R. drew from the entire Soviet Empire. Excellent players were available from Lithuania, the Ukraine, the Baltic's, the Balkan's, you name it. Still, it was inconceivable that they could beat an American Olympic squad. Basketball was America's game, just like football and baseball. A guy named Hank Iba, however, coached the U.S. team. Iba looked like Dr. Naismith had taught him the game. Blessed with players of speed, agility and marvelous athleticism, he completely eliminated all those traits from his arsenal in favor of a four-corner stall.

The Soviets came out firing on all cylinders, blasting to a large early lead. In the second half, it looked as if all hope was lost, but the Americans did not have the foggiest interest in losing to a bunch of commies. They fought back in that way Americans fight back. Slowly but surely, they inched their way back into the game. With a few seconds on the clock, down by a point, All-American Doug Collins was fouled. In the most political two free throws in the history of sport, Collins sunk them both to give the U.S. a 50-49 victory.

There was about a second left on the clock, however. The Soviets positioned a man down by the basket and tried a desperation pass to him, but it went for naught, the buzzer sounded, and the U.S. had their Gold medal. A giant celebration followed. The boys headed off the floor.

Then a Bulgarian official stepped forward. He said the game was not over. The game was as over as over ever is over, but the people in charge of official decisions that day were Communists. You guessed it. It was not over.

The Soviets placed their man down by the basket again and attempted another long pass. First the Soviet fouled one American defender by pushing him the way Dick Butkus tackled ball carriers. He caught the ball. The buzzer sounded, ending the game. He pushed another American the way Lawrence Taylor tackled ball carriers. About two seconds after the buzzer sounded to end the game, with both Americans lying on the ground after having been fouled, the Soviet dropped the ball through the hoop.

The Communist officials in charge said the Soviets had "won," 51-50. It was the single worst moment in the history of sports. The Americans never accepted the Silver medals, and if you ever want to get a charge out of someone, go talk to one of those players and bring up the subject of Munich '72.

This was the situation on September 5. Politics and bad feelings, which is what the Games were supposed to avoid. It was too bad, but as Frank Sinatra said, "that's life."

At 4:30 A.M. on September 5, five Arab terrorists wearing tracksuits climbed the six and one-half foot fence surrounding the Olympic Village. Once inside, three others who had gained entrance with credentials met them. Within 24 hours, 11 Israelis, five terrorists, and a German policeman were dead.

Just before five in the morning, the terrorists knocked on the door of Israeli wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg. He opened the door, realized immediately something was wrong and shouted a warning. Weinberg and weightlifter Joseph Romano attempted to block the door while their members escaped. They were killed by the terrorists. The Arabs then rounded up nine Israelis to hold as hostages.

At 9:30 A.M., the terrorists announced that they were Palestinian Arabs, sent by the PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat. They demanded that Israel release 234 Arab prisoners in Israeli jails and Germany release two German terrorist leaders imprisoned in Frankfurt. They demanded their own safe passage out of Germany. Negotiations were struck with German authorities, who were willing to do anything to end the nightmare of Jewish hostages on German soil. A trip to the NATO air base at Firstenfeldbruck, by bus and then two helicopters was arranged, in order to board a plane for Cairo. German sharpshooters were standing by with orders to simultaneously kill all the terrorists without harming the hostages.

The plan did not work. The result was a bloody shootout between the Germans and Palestinians. At 3:00 A.M., the Palestinians set off a grenade in one helicopter, killing all aboard. Terrorists in the second helicopter shot to death the rest of the blindfolded Israelis. Three Palestinian were captured and held in Germany.

On October 29, a Palestinian who demanded that the Munich killers be released hijacked a Lufthansa jet. The Germans freed them, and they walked out with shit eating grins on their Arab faces. There are different ways to do things. There is the American way. There is the Israeli way.

Then there is the European way.

Arafat and Fatah, Arafat's faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), called themselves Black September, as if that hid the fact it was Arafat and Fatah. Munich has receded in memory, but the next time you see Arafat's reprehensible self (better yet, footage of Arafat's reprehensible self partyin' it up with Bill Clinton), remember this story. Clinton received Arafat as if he was a hero. No Republican ever did that before or after Clinton. Only after sidelining Arafat has a chance for peace become real. Recent events have demonstrated that Arafat refuses to cede power among the Palestinian political structure. Until he is permanently sidelined, real peace and independence for his people will not happen.

Salah Khalaf (aka Abu Iyad) officially headed Black September. The press played along, as if they really were separate. Abu Iyad's book, "Stateless", explained that Black September was tied to Fatah, but not part of it, as if these terrorist organizations have some kind of official capacity.

"Black September was not a terrorist organization," Abu Iyad said, "but was rather an auxiliary unit of the resistance movement, at a time when the latter was unable to fully realize its military and political potential. The members of the organization always denied any ties between their organization and Fatah or the PLO. I myself am personally acquainted with many of them, and can state with conviction that most of them belong to various Fedayeen organizations."

Hollywood responded to Munich with a nice little movie called "The Little Drummer Girl", starring Dianne Keaton. It tried to make terrorism look idealistic, like an ACLU lawyer defending a black couple from housing discrimination.

Abu Daoud admitted that he masterminded the massacre in "Memoirs of a Palestinian Terrorist", published in 1999. The press tried to say they were shocked that the PLO had actually been behind Munich. They had been promoting Arafat for the Nobel after he and Clinton put their act together beginning in 1993. What a pair.

In truth, Daoud told Jordanian police in 1972, "There is no such organization called Black September. Fatah announces its own operations under this name so that Fatah will not appear as the direct executor of the operation."

Golda Meir had her agents hunt down and kill those behind it. The U.N. condemned her for it. The Mossad initiated "Wrath of God" units operating through the Mossad channels while another unit recruited trained specialists, using covert means. The "normal" assassination teams failed in their mission, exposing the operation. The second team, however, killed five of the terrorists. Three were eliminated in joint Mossad-IDF operations, and got four more associated with other crimes against Israel.

Abu Daoud escaped, eventually claiming the terrorists did not mean to harm the athletes. He used the tried and true "blame the Germans" defense. They were "stubborn," he said. Daoud was awarded the Palestine Prize for Culture in 1999 for his book.

Amin al-Hindi, who heads Arafat's General Intelligence Service, is still at large. Arafat attempted to name Munich terrorist Mustafa Liftawi (Abu Firas) as Palestinian Authority police chief in Ram'Allah in 1995.

In 2000, the official newspaper of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida) begged Arab delegations to boycott the Olympic Games in Australia because a moment of silence was planned in memory of the 11 dead Israelis.

Res ipsa loquiter.

The Iranian hostage crisis

Another charming gift that the Middle East gave the world occurred on November 4, 1979. Islamic revolutionaries overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 60 Americans hostage.

"From the moment the hostages were seized until they were released minutes after Ronald Reagan took the oath of office as President 444 days later," wrote historian Gaddis Smith, "the crisis absorbed more concentrated effort by American officials and had more extensive coverage on television and in the press than any other event since World War II."

The hostage crisis destroyed any chance that Jimmy Carter might have had to be re-elected. It is easy to blame him. After the Church Committee hearings, the CIA was badly hurt, and Carter's policies were based on trying to make friends with bad regimes. He was more concerned with the human rights' of terrorists and narco-traffickers than he was in the success of the United States in the great battle of good vs. evil. He was a good guy, no question about it, but Carter lacked faith in the justness of the American cause. Men like Carter are needed in this nation. When placed in charge when leadership is required, they are disasters.

These pages are by no means a pamphlet for the Jimmy Carter Fan Club, but events are never cut and dried. Carter is not to blame for the Iranian Hostage Crisis. The Iranians are!

Oil was discovered in Iran in 1908. Tehran became a diplomatic hub. The British and Soviets jockeyed for position there for years. Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill met there to discuss the partitioning of the world.

In 1953, the U.S. went out on a limb to see to it that Iran be independent. They backed a young king, Reza Shah Pahlavi. Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh made overtures to Moscow, so the CIA did that thing they do. Their operation successfully removed the Prime Minister in favor of the Shah.

Oil flowed to America in return for military equipment, and Iran modernized. It was a virtual economic miracle, and one of the best, hopeful examples of how Middle Eastern countries can have a thriving economy. Iran is not cut from the same cloth as other countries in the region. It is an enormous nation. It is not Arabic, it is Persian. Their citizens speak Farsi. Iranians were known to be cosmopolitan, and loved to travel to the U.S. They have a reputation for enormous kindness and hospitality, traits that permeate much of the Arab world. The image of screaming mobs contradicts with the reality of individual Arabs.

Despite economic success, a growing underclass began to rail against Westernizing influence. The Islamic clergy attempted an uprising in 1963, but the Shah put it down. Ruhollah Khomeini was sent into exile in Iraq.

On New Years Eve, 1977, President Carter toasted the Shah at a state dinner in Tehran, calling him "an island of stability." In fact, Carter was getting CIA reports of growing unrest in Iran. The Shah's secret police, SAVAK, was rounding up dissenters. A series of protests denounced the Shah's regime as "anti-Islamic." The dissent was a popular refrain. Carter chose not to intervene, despite the de-stabilizing nature of governmental change in favor of Fundamentalist Muslims. On January 16, 1979, the Shah was compelled to flee to Egypt. Two weeks later, Khomeini returned to Iran after 14 years in exile. He was received with wild support. All hell broke loose in the country.

"President Carter inherited an impossible situation - and he and his advisers made the worst of it," wrote Gaddis Smith. Carter received conflicting advice. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski encouraged the Shah to suppress the revolution. The State Department made the mistake of advising Carter to support a "smooth transition" of the new government. The old Joe Kennedy trick. Appeasement. Chamberlain...Neville, not Wilt.

When Shah was diagnosed with cancer, President Carter adhered to his request to get treatment in the United States.

"He went around the room, and most of us said, 'Let him in,'" recalled Vice-President Walter Mondale. "And he said, 'And if [the Iranians] take our employees in our embassy hostage, then what would be your advice?' And the room just fell dead. No one had an answer to that. Turns out, we never did."

That is precisely what happened. "Students" (do radicals ever actually attend class?) overran the embassy, taking over 60 Americans on November 4. A similar mob had briefly done the same thing nine months earlier, holding the American Ambassador hostage for a few hours before Khomeini ordered him released.

In November, Khomeini decided to cross the Islamic Rubicon. He called the embassy a "den of spies," supporting the student demands that the Shah be returned for a "trial." They claimed he had stolen billions from the people.

In Beverly Hills, thousands of Iranian "students," living off the fat of the land and getting first-class educations at places like USC and UCLA, took to the streets in solidarity with their "brothers." Most chose to stay in the land of the Great Satan.

President Carter said that he was personally responsible. On November 11, he embargoed Iranian oil. On the 17th, Khomeini announced that female, African-American, and non-U.S.-citizen hostages would be released, because women and minorities already suffered "the oppression of American society." 53 non-oppressed Americans (including two women, Elizabeth Ann Swift and Kathryn Koob, and one African-American, Charles Jones) remained as hostages.

Carter eschewed military action, attempting to pressure Iran economically. He froze Iranian assets in the U.S., and put Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who had advocated appeasement, in the lead diplomatic position. Hamilton Jordan worked the back channels. Americans supported Carter. After a few months, however, it was obvious that the entire country was on hold because of this all-consuming issue.

"No one can know how much pressure there was on Jimmy to do something," Rosalynn Carter recalled. "I would go out and campaign and come back and say, 'Why don't you do something?' And he said, 'What would you want me to do?' I said, 'Mine the harbors.' He said, 'Okay, suppose I mine the harbors, and they decide to take one hostage out every day and kill him. What am I going to do then?'"

On April 11, 1980, after months of planning, Carter ordered a high-risk rescue operation called "Desert One." The mission was aborted due to three malfunctioning helicopters. Another helicopter crashed into a C-130 transport plane while taking off. Eight servicemen were killed and three were injured. Iranians took to the streets in celebration. The Democrats, led by Ted Kennedy and the Church Committee, had so thoroughly emasculated American military and intelligence capabilities in the post-Watergate aftermath that this great nation was a floundering giant.

Carter settled in to the realization that he was not able to do anything. The Iranians used the issue to play themselves as Middle East heroes, standing up to the Great Satan. In the Summer, they released hostage Richard Queen, who had multiple sclerosis. Media coverage was constant. Citizens put up yellow ribbons. Liberal American college professors excused Iranian "students" so they could spew hatred for America. The networks televised every word of it.

"Because people felt that Carter had not been tough enough in foreign policy, this kind of symbolized for them that some bunch of students could seize American diplomatic officials and hold them prisoner and thumb their nose at the United States," Carter biographer Peter Bourne wrote.

In September, Khomeini decided the issue had been played out to maximum effect. He needed the U.S. to lift sanctions and to address his economy. Rumors floated that Carter would pull an "October Surprise" and get the hostages home before the election. The other side worried that Ronald Reagan would pull the October surprise. Instead, negotiations dragged past the election, into January. Carter worked all night on January 19-20 to bring the 52 hostages home before the end of his term at noon Eastern time. The effort fell short. The Iranians released them minutes after Reagan was inaugurated.

On January 21, 1981, now former President Carter went to Germany to meet the freed hostages. Carter "looked as old and tired as I had ever seen him," recalled Hamilton Jordan.

1987 Palestinian Intifada and beyond

A certain uneasy stability hung over the Israeli-Palestinian predicament after the Yom Kippur War. There was a sense that the Arabs had taken their best shot and lost. Two invasions had been repelled. The terrorist actions at Munich had, despite the position of the United Nations, shed sympathy on Israel. When word leaked out that the Mossad had systematically tracked down most of the killers and turned them into greasespots, most people admired them for their resolve. Americans, living in the age of Watergate, the Church Committee, and the "golden years" of the Kennedy-Carter Democrat government, wished that we could do something like that.

When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, things began to change. It was not universally hailed as the moral thing to do, and was not compared to the necessary pre-emptive attacks that had been initiated to repel the Egyptians. When Ronald Reagan sent in the Marines and 241 died in a barracks' bombing, sympathy was mixed with questions about the rightness of the cause. In light of these developments, Palestinians began to sense that they were no longer complete pariahs in the West.

The Intifada that started in 1987 was violent. Television reported youths with rocks, making them look rather benign. In reality, over four years more than 3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 hand grenade attacks and 600 assaults with guns or explosives were reported by the Israel Defense Forces. Israeli soldiers and civilians were all targeted. 16 Israeli civilians and 11 soldiers were killed in the territories. Over 1,400 Israeli civilians and 1,700 Israeli soldiers were injured.

Throughout the Intifada, the Palestine Liberation Organization, led by Arafat, organized the violence. The PLO's Unified Leadership of the Intifada (UNLI) issued daily orders of attack. There was very little random about it, despite the reportage of CBS News. The Fundamentalist Islamic Hamas rejected all peace overtures.

In 1992 elections, a new Israeli governing coalition was formed, led by the Left wing Labor party. Tight security policies of the Likud were relaxed. Terror surged.

Palestinians who advocated peace were stabbed, hacked with axes, shot, clubbed and burned with acid by the PLO and associated terrorists. The New York Times of October 24, 1989 revealed "a cache of detailed secret documents showing that the PLO hired local killers to assassinate other Palestinians and carry out 'military activity' against Israelis." Arafat directed that the attacks be attributed to "fictional groups" to avoid disturbing dialogue with the U.S.

Arafat defended the killing of Arabs who were "collaborating with Israel." The future Nobel Peace Prize winner ordered executions by a PLO death squad. Arafat called the people he murdered "martyrs of the Palestinian revolution." What a guy.

Employees of the Civil Administration in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were considered justified targets by Arafat's hit men. Contact with Jews meant a death sentence.

From 1989-1992, nearly 1,000 Palestinians died at the hands of other Palestinians.

It was the "last straw" for most of the few remaining Christians still living in the Holy Land. They left in large numbers.

Moshe Arens succeeded Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the Defense Ministry in 1990. Through his leadership the Intifada was brought to an end. The Israelis made numerous arrests in the wake of the Intifada. World and Israeli public opinion and policy-making changed as a result of it, though.

With liberals in power in Tel Aviv and Washington, Arafat found himself in hog heaven in 1993. No longer a criminal terrorist, he was elevated to statesman.

Persian Gulf War

The Persian Gulf War has an interesting place in world history. It was the first post-Cold War conflict, and demonstrated the new political hegemony of the United States. It was a resounding and complete American victory. In its immediate aftermath it seemed to be the dawn of a New World Order, in the words of President George H.W. Bush. It created great optimism on many fronts.

Bush had 91 percent U.S. approval ratings after it. It appeared that he was a lock for re-election in 1992. He seemed on the verge of attaining a great Presidency, and the "table was set" for him to preside over a truly new landscape of peace and prosperity. "Peace had broken out all over," in Latin America, Africa and the Third World. Democracy seemed to be the wave of the future. American influence in the Middle East appeared to be strong. Terrorism was thought to be on the way out, and a peace between the Israelis and Palestinians on the way in.

The 1990s, however, seem to be a blip on the radar screen of history. Certainly, things did not go the way many thought they would. Bush did not pursue Saddam to Baghdad. Calling this a mistake does not give credence to the existing politics at the time, but it certainly proved to be one. Bill Clinton won an upset victory over Bush. The momentum of Cold War and Persian Gulf victories was stemmed. He chose to deal with Arafat, and peace did not come to Israel. With the Palestinian issue unresolved, terror reared its ugly head again The fall of the Soviet Empire left breakaway republics and regional wars in the Balkans and Baltic region.

For an eight to 10-year period, the events of 1990-91 almost seemed to have been put on hold. Only since George W. Bush ascended to the Presidency has the momentum been regained. Nevertheless, the modern state of the world can be traced to the combination of Soviet disintegration and American resolve in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

A coalition force of 34 nations led by the U.S. provided a decisive victory that drove Iraq out of Kuwait with minimal coalition deaths. Like everything else in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf War needs to be studied first by looking at the break-up of the Ottoman Empire. If ever a time machine could be put to good use, it would in going back to the end of World War I. Lawrence of Arabia and the English carved out the "modern" Arab world. Trying to correct any "mistakes" that led to the current "clash of civilizations" would emanate from this effort.

Before World War I started, the Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913 determined that Kuwait was an autonomous caza within Ottoman Iraq. After the war, Kuwait was ruled by the British, and eventually became an independent monarchy. Iraq felt that Kuwait was not legitimate, however.

Iran and Iraq fought a devastating war in the 1980s. The U.S. saw it is as too "bad countries" fighting each other. Iran was our enemy following the hostage crisis. Iraq became indebted to other Arab countries. They owed $14 billion to Kuwait. Iraq's plan for debt re-payment was to raise the price of their oil through OPEC. When Kuwait increased production, it lowered prices. The result of this was better leverage in a border dispute with Iraq. Iraq said Kuwait had drilled for oil and built military outposts on Iraqi soil during the Iran-Iraq War. Iraq's position was that they had fought on behalf of all Arabs against Persians, therefore providing a shield between the Iranians and the rest of the Middle East. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, said Iraq, had benefited the most from this "service." Therefore it was only "fair" that they cancel Iraq's war debts.

The U.S. had decided that they favored Iraq over Iran. There was no question that Saddam was a bloodthirsty tyrant. The Middle East, Africa and the rest of the Third World was filled with bloodthirsty tyrants. The U.S., dealing at the time with Communism and terrorism, made certain calculations. One of those calculations was that Fundamentalist Islam, as practiced in Iran, was a greater threat than Saddam's secular, semi-capitalist government. The Soviets had tilted towards Iraq. Saddam modeled his dictatorship on Stalin, but the Communists had scaled back their influence in the region. The Americans saw a slight chance that this void could be filled in the favor of American interest.

The U.S. extended good relations to Iraq, supplying Saddam's government with weapons and economic aid. However, the Reagan Administration decided to hedge its bets through the Iran-Contra operation, secretly selling illegal arms to Iran. The Iraqis viewed the U.S. as untrustworthy in light of this development.

After the Iran-Iraq War, with George Bush in the White House, Democrats in Congress led a move to diplomatically and economically isolate Iraq. Reports of human rights violations were coming out of Iraq. U.S. Senator Robert Dole said the reports were exaggerated. He visited Saddam and told him, "Congress does not represent [U.S. President George H. W.] Bush or the government." Bush, he said, would veto sanctions against Iraq.

In the Summer of 1990, Iraq moved troops to Kuwait's borders. American Ambassador April Glaspie was summoned for a meeting with Saddam Hussein, who detailed his grievances with Kuwait. Saddam said he would not invade Kuwait. He said he would engage in more negotiations with Kuwait before making such a move.

Glaspie told him that the Americans were concerned over the mass of troops on the border. Some historians have given credence to the idea that she did not stand up to Saddam, saying she was "enamored" by him. Most of these complaints have emanated from the right. This understanding of her performance is based on the events that followed, which many feel could only have occurred if she gave Saddam the express indication that the U.S. "[has] no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." This comes from the Iraqi transcript of the meeting, published in Sifry.

"James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction," Glaspie is supposed to have said. State Department policy often emphasizes a certain vagueness, which can be gleaned from Glaspie's words. Saddam knew that the U.S. was dealing with German reunification. He might have felt that an invasion of Kuwait would be viewed as a border dispute or regional conflict, not worthy of the full military and diplomatic attentions of the U.S.

Some scholars, like William Blum, advocate that the U.S. encouraged Kuwaiti provocations while appearing equivocal to the Iraqis. This was to encourage a war that they could come in and win, therefore increasing American hegemony. It would delay cuts in post-Cold War defense spending, which the Republicans knew would hurt the economy. It would blunt criticism of Bush after his tax increases in the middle of 1990.

If this is true, it offers several lessons. The war did increase American hegemony in the Middle East, which may have inflamed terrorists, but in the long run has made it easier to fight terrorists. The old state-sponsored terrorism has been dealt with and is replaced by rogue elements that do not have the resources to overcome American resolve.

On the other hand, the war was fought so quickly that the cost was relatively small. Defense cuts did occur anyway. The economy did falter as a result, and Bush did lose in 1992.

The Iraqis claimed to have found a memorandum regarding a conversation between CIA director William Webster and the Kuwaiti head of security. It read in part, "We agreed with the American side that it was important to take advantage of the deteriorating economic situation in Iraq in order to put pressure on that country's government to delineate our common border. The Central Intelligence Agency gave us its view of appropriate means of pressure, saying that broad cooperation should be initiated between us on condition that such activities be coordinated at a high level."

The CIA said it was fabricated, although there is some evidence that it may have been real.

Iraqi armor and infantry troops invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. They occupied the Emir's palace, looted supplies, captured and killed thousands of civilians, and took over the media. Westerners were held as hostages. Iraq installed "puppets" in a "liberated" Kuwaiti government. Eventually they declared that Kuwait was simply part of "greater Iraq."

The U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 660, condemning the invasion and demanding a withdrawal of Iraqi troops. This was followed by other resolutions placing sanctions and withdrawal deadlines on Iraq.

President Bush immediately mobilized two Naval battle groups, the _USS_ _Eisenhower_ and _USS Independence_ , to the area. 500,000 troops were sent to staging areas in Saudi Arabia, which became concerned that Saddam had designs on their country next.

Secretary of State James Baker assembled forces from Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Honduras, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, The Netherlands, Niger, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Korea, Spain, Syria, Turkey, The United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. American forces represented 74 percent of the 660,000 troops. A number of factors induced reluctant "warriors" to join in what they thought was an Arab affair. Baker promised economic aid or debt forgiveness to many of them.

Oil and jobs were obviously factors in the decision to get involved, as well they should be. Saudi Arabia wanted the U.S. to stabilize the situation. Anti-war protesters chanted "No Blood For Oil," but they were outnumbered by popular support for the war. Oil is such an important factor in the world economy, and in the stability of global trade, that not fighting over it is not an option.

Iraq's human rights abuses under Saddam combined with his potential for nuclear weapons were added justifications. Saddam had a nuclear plant in the early 1980s. It was so potentially dangerous that the Israelis had no choice but to bomb. He did possess chemical and biological weapons, otherwise known as weapons of mass destruction. Saddam used these weapons against the Iranians and on his own people, the Kurds, to put down an uprising. He had used "naked aggression" against Kuwait. Bush decided that "this will not stand."

Oddly, liberals saw the many justifications for war as diluting the overall justification. Somehow having seven or eight good reasons did not amount, in their logic, to having just one good reason. It was as if citing various good reasons meant the other good reasons were not good. Bush patiently listened to their gobbledy-gook, went about his business, and simply did the right thing because it had to be done. Republicans do it that way.

Citizens for a Free Kuwait was formed in the U.S., hiring the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton for about $11 million from the Kuwaiti government. They waged a campaign similar to the one the Allies waged at the beginning of World War I, when German soldiers were described as bayoneting Belgian babies. Reports of Iraqi soldiers pulling babies out of incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals and letting them die on the floor may have been false. Reports of Iraqis putting people in swimming pools of acid until their skin burned off were not.

A 15-year old girl testifying before Congress about Iraqi atrocities was revealed to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United States. The doctor testifying at the U.N. later admitted to having lied. When it came to Iraqi atrocities, however, truth was stranger than fiction. Hill & Knowlton was unable to make up Saddam's torture stories that were nearly as bad as Saddam's actual torture stories. Bush and the CIA knew all of it, and therefore proceeded to continue to oppose it.

Iraq tried to link withdrawal from Kuwait with withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and Israeli troops from the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and southern Lebanon. They miscalculated. On January 12, 1991 Congress authorized military force.

Four days later, one day after the deadline set in Resolution 678, a massive air campaign of more than 1,000 sorties per day was launched at Iraqi military targets and installations. Smart bombs, cluster bombs, daisy cutters, and cruise missiles had an immediate, devastating effect. The war was essentially won, although there was still much work to do. Within a few hours, it was obvious that the old Vietnam-era military was no more. Any future enemy contemplating activity that would draw the wrath of the United States had to observe this televised war and reach the conclusion that military action that involved the U.S. against them was _not_ any option. The simple fact was that U.S. technology had reached a point where if they wanted somebody or some thing turned into fire, all they had to do was press a button and it was done.

The "show" was impressive. There was a great deal of jingoistic rhetoric mixed in with genuine patriotism. It was a seminal moment in world liberalism, too. Europe realized they were no longer real partners with the U.S. America was so much more powerful than anybody else on Earth that "partnership" was now an antiquated term. Liberals in and out of the United States simply could not accept such power. It had to be "wrong." The only thing that prevented the United States from simply taking over the entire world by military conquest was the benevolence, goodwill and humanity of America. Liberals have a hard time understanding that America checks itself better than anybody else checks America. For this reason, America does not possess the political will necessary for such a power grab. The defining difference between conservatives and liberals was demonstrated during the Persian Gulf War. Conservatives trusted the U.S. to exercise restraint because it is the right thing to do. Liberals do not trust America.

Iraq launched Scud missiles into Israel, but the Israelis resisted getting drawn into the conflict. Most of the Scuds were knocked out of the sky by coalition air defenses. Allied air superiority was achieved very soon, allowing sorties to fly mostly unchallenged.

Iraqi Republican Guard units in Kuwait, air defense systems, Scud launchers, air forces and airfields, weapons research facilities, and naval forces, were systematically eliminated by Allied forces. Electricity production facilities, telecommunications equipment, port facilities, oil refineries and distribution, railroads and bridges were taken out. Two live nuclear reactors were destroyed, even though the United Nations had passed a law making this a violation. Electrical power facilities were destroyed. Major dams and pumping stations were bombed. Sewage flowed into the Tigris River.

Disease spread in Iraq as a result of the war. After the war, anti-war elements found a document that indicated the bombing campaign probably would create disease, and incorrectly attempted to paint it as intentional.

The Allies consistently avoided hitting civilian-only facilities, but it was impossible to wage an air campaign without hitting some. The Iraqis used "human shields" and placed them at military targets in civilian locations, like hospitals. The purpose for this was to prevent the Americans from bombing these targets, and if they did, to say that the Americans bombed non-military targets. It was quickly made obvious that this tactic was part of a web of Iraqi lies. The Arab media portrayed these lies as facts. Much of the Left-leaning American press gave credence to these lies, even though they possessed the information that they were lies. CNN's Peter Arnett, who had gone out of his way in Vietnam to depict American soldiers as barbarians, was identified by the Iraqis as friendly to their cause. He was led to a military installation that had been destroyed. Arnett reported the lie that it was a baby milk factory even though he knew it was a lie. Many Americans did not believe Arnett. His lie was confirmed later when an investigation indicated such.

The Iraqis launched missiles that fell short and destroyed their own civilian facilities. They reported these as American bombs. They bombed some of their own people to further emphasize this lie.

Actual mistakes, however, made determining what was true and what was a lie difficult during the "fog of war." On February 13, two laser-guided "smart bombs" destroyed an air raid shelter in Baghdad, killing hundreds. U.S. officials claimed that the bunker was a military communications center. Western reporters were unable to find evidence for this, and detractors have attempted to say that this is "proof" that the U.S. killed many innocent civilians because they could. One might speculate that they had intelligence that Saddam was in that bunker, therefore justifying such a bombing, but heretofore this is not known.

Iraq ineffectively launched missiles against civilians in Saudi Arabia.

On February 22, Iraq agreed to a Soviet-proposed cease-fire calling for withdrawal of their troops to pre-invasion positions and a cease-fire, monitored by the U.N. Security Council. The U.S. rejected it. Bush did say that if they retreated they would not be attacked. He gave them 24 hours.

On February 24, Operation Desert Sabre, the ground portion of the campaign, began. Plows were pulled along Iraqi trenches, burying occupants alive. Marines penetrated deep into Iraq. Thousands of Iraqis surrendered, ran away or gave up. If caught doing so, Saddam ordered them shot in the back. The U.S. girded for attacks from Iraq's chemical weapons arsenal.

Iraq realized that as devastating as the American attack had been, it was relatively mild compared to the full power the U.S. possessed. Civilian casualties were kept to a minimum and attacks against troops were scaled back once the battle was won. The Iraqis knew that if they unleashed their chemical weapons, it would justify a full-scale American attack that could level Baghdad and much of their country, leaving it wide open to American occupation without opposition. For that reason, they chose not to use their weapons. Something did get in the air, however, that has never been explained.

After the war, many soldiers developed a debilitating disease called "Gulf War syndrome." Possible reasons for this malady are that the Iraqis did unleash some chemicals; the Americans bombed chemical facilities, causing the ingredients to waft into the air; or oil fires caused soldiers to breathe in harmful fumes.

The ground forces moved faster than the U.S. generals anticipated. It was like when George Patton's men outran their supply lines after the Battle of the Bulge. Iraqi troops retreating out of Kuwait were ordered to set fire to Kuwaiti oil fields. Iraqi troops and Palestinian fighters along the main Iraq-Kuwait "highway of death" were attacked. 100 hours after launching the ground war, President Bush mercifully declared a cease-fire. Kuwait was liberated.

Journalist Seymour Hersh charged that two days later Barry McCaffrey's troops massacred retreating Iraqis and civilians. McCaffrey denied the charges, which were never proved. Presumably, if the story was true, McCaffrey's men killed the people for no reason other than because they had the ability to.

In an allied-occupied section of Iraq, General "Stormin' Norman" Schwarzkopf met with Iraqi representatives. He informed them of the conditions of their surrender, making clear that the discussion was not a negotiation. Any deviation from his orders would mean the "highway of death" would resume. The war was over.

Some had argued to President Bush that he should have carried the march to Baghdad. Events show that this is what he should have done, but he must be judged on what the circumstances were at the time. The U.S. had shown extraordinarily frightening power. He did not wish to flaunt our ability to impose violence any more than he had to. Bush's decision was in the American tradition of benevolence and good spirit. He was giving the Iraqis a chance to live. In return he hoped they would take advantage of his goodwill by disarming, ridding themselves of their weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical and biological), while re-joining the family of nations. Israel had done the same with the Egyptians, choosing not to massacre thousands of troops in the hopes that such kindness would be recognized at a later date.

Bush had a mandate from the U.N., which the coalition had fulfilled. The resolution called only for removing Iraq from Kuwait, not occupying Baghdad. This has been cited as the main reason for not fighting any more. It has some legitimacy. However, the United Nations has been so anti-American, so ineffective in dealing with terror and stopping violence, and such a morally illegitimate organization, that going beyond the resolution was a perfectly acceptable option if Bush so chose. The fact is that long before 1991, the United States had established itself as the only real combination of power, legitimacy and moral authority in the world. The Left considers this statement an abomination. It does not in the slightest way change it from being factual.

Iraq did retain the use of armed helicopters. They used them to put down a Shiite uprising in the south. Bush realized that Saddam had not learned his lesson. Allowed to stay alive by the U.S., he "defied" them, attempting to portray his humiliation as a victory. Bush had his CIA encourage the Kurds who occupied northern Iraq to rise up against Saddam. The Americans had gathered intelligence that led them to believe that if a strong rebellion were to take hold, Iraqi generals would abandon Saddam. A "people's uprising" began. The Bush Administration hoped it would trigger a coup. The Americans miscalculated. They had hoped the uprising would spread, and amid the resulting chaos they could come in and support the coup. The uprising did not get off to a good start. Saddam's forces were depleted but not gone. He still had strong elements of the Republican Guard, and was able to fight the resistance successfully. Seeing that, Iraqi generals did not take up arms against the dictator. Instead, they led the brutal crushing of Kurdish troops. Millions of Kurds fled to Turkey and Iran. This resulted in "no-fly zones," designed to protect them. In Kuwait, the Emir was restored, but a nascent pro-Democracy movement did not take root.

Coalition military deaths were estimated to be less than 400, with U.S. forces suffering 148 battle-related and 145 non-battle-related deaths. The largest single loss of life occurred when a Scud killed 28 in the military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. About 1,000 coalition forces were wounded. Iraqi casualties vary from the low thousands to 200,000. The general estimate of scholars is around 25,000 to 75,000. Since civilians were used as shields and mixed with military targets, it is difficult to gauge their number. Some estimates are that as few as 100 Iraqi civilians died, but that seems low. What is known is that through technology and respect for humanity, the civilian casualty rate was very light. The number of wounded is unknown. 71,000 Iraqis were taken as prisoners of war by US troops. The war cost $61.1 billion. Kuwait, Japan and Saudi Arabia paid two-thirds of that amount. Senator Everett Dirksen once said, "A billion here, a billion there; pretty soon you're talkin' real money." The monetary cost of liberating Kuwait could have been financed by several of our most successful companies.

As for the military's policy regarding the media, sensitive information was protected. The military was run by Vietnam veterans, who were acutely aware that anti-U.S. journalism had cost American lives and ultimately caused Vietnam to be lost. The possibility of politically embarrassing information being revealed, combined with the fear of Vietnam-style lies and propaganda on the part of liberals, led to a policy of strict containment. Despite this policy, the public got graphically instant information. Regardless of media bias, the war was run so smoothly, and was such a success, that even CNN could not effectively portray it as otherwise.

Following the uprisings in the north and south, the "no-fly zones" protected the Shiite and Kurdish minorities. Monitored by the U.S and Great Britain, sorties were flown over Iraq for years following the war. They often had to bomb positions to hold the Iraqis back. There were two sustained bombing campaigns, Desert Strike in 1996, and Desert Fox in December of 1998.

A United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) on weapons was established, to oversee Iraq's required compliance regarding destruction of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missiles. Iraq accepted some inspectors, but refused others, in violation of the resolutions. In 1997, all U.S. inspectors were thrown out of the country team. Saddam said they were spies. Their espionage involved the observance of Iraqi weapons violations, and reporting it back to the government. Between 1997 and 1999, new inspectors came to Iraq. Eventually, Saddam built his WMD program back up, and used a relaxed atmosphere to justify throwing out all inspectors.

Inspectors had found evidence of biological weapons, and non-compliance at many sites. Scott Ritter, a former Marine and an inspector, resigned, saying the U.S. blocked investigations because they knew if they looked hard enough, they would find substantial WMD. The Clinton Administration did not want this to happen, because if it did they would be forced to confront Iraq. Ritter said that the CIA was using the weapons inspectors as cover for covert operations inside Iraq, which is precisely what the CIA is supposed to do; find out what the bad guys are doing to keep 'em from killing good folks. Sounds reasonable.

Economic sanctions against Iraq were eventually morphed into something called oil-for-food, which resulted in hungry Iraqis and additional palaces for Saddam. Using UNICEF reports, Saddam's "oil-for-palaces" program resulted in 90,000 Iraqi deaths per year.

"Gulf war syndrome" has not been pinned down, but many feel it could have been from exposure to depleted uranium or anthrax, two WMDs Saddam was supposed to get rid of.

Palestinians were badly hurt by their support for Iraq. Bush's new power in the Middle East put America in a position to push for a peaceful solution. Palestine quietly came to Israel, leading to the Oslo Accords. An actual agreement might have been arrived at by the mid-1990s had Bush stayed in office. Under Clinton, Arafat was elevated to "statesman." While progress was made, it could not service Arafat's identity with terrorism.

China was blown away by the Persian Gulf War. At Tiannenmen Square, they mowed down pro-Democracy demonstrators in the streets. Following the fall of the Soviets, they found themselves isolated as a Communist dinosaur, but still clung to the belief that they were a power worthy of mention in the same breath with the U.S. The Gulf War eliminated that fairy tale. Bush's ability to structure a worldwide coalition, some members being former sworn enemies of America and one-time ideological brothers of the Chinese, made them realize that the U.S. was an unstoppable force.

Saddam decided to "defy" the U.S. He could easily have had sanctions lifted by simply becoming a member of the family of nations, but chose not to do so. He relied on liberalism in the West to wear down the sanctions, plying the good citizens of Democratic countries with stories of children starving while he built orgy rooms for his sons. He not only did not personally suffer from he sanctions, he benefited. He was a rebel to many Arabs while waiting for liberalism to break the will of Western nations.

That very well could have happened eventually, but events spun out of control. Reagan had put down state-sponsored terrorism. An uneasy calm settled in over the Israel-Palestine question. But new terrorists emerged, enraged that Saudi Arabia had allowed American troops to occupy their soil. According to reports, terrorist elements were connected with Saddam, especially after he kicked out weapons inspectors. The CIA is still gathering much of the information. A strong suspicion has and continues to mount that Sadism was involved, at some level, with the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Saddam beforehand may very well have not known the actual details of 9/11. If he did, he calculated poorly, as did all the terrorists, on the effect of 9/11. If Saddam and Osama bin Laden had sat down together and asked each other what the worst possible outcome of the 9/11 plan would be, they would have created a scenario that detailed exactly and precisely what actually happened in the months and years after it occurred.

The first Gulf War offered a free lesson to all potential enemies of the United States on what would happen if they ever fought the U.S. Anybody who risked that kind of firepower had to be beyond the ability to understand. This did not stop liberals from trying to understand them. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein continued to place themselves as the enemies of America. Bin Laden instigated strikes against U.S. interests. Saddam supported terrorism and continued to build weapons of mass destruction. These were suicidal acts, but they come from a culture of suicidal acts.

The Persian Gulf War was a tremendous opportunity to test whether all the weapons that Reagan and Bush had built to overcome the Soviets worked after all. They did. Precision guided munitions (PGMs, also "smart bombs"), such as the guided missile AGM-130, eliminated targets with a minimum of civilian casualties. Specific buildings were bombed while journalists observed from their hotel rooms. This was proof positive of their effectiveness. They knew the bombs worked because if they did not, they would not have been alive to talk about it afterward. Cluster bombs and Daisy cutters simply eliminated the enemy by the thousands.

Patriot missiles knocked down scuds. The biggest concern was that the Scuds were loaded with chemical or biological warheads. As mentioned before, Saddam knew that if he did this, he would lose all sympathy from liberals. They were his only "allies." If this happened, he opened himself up to a Dresden firebombing-type retaliation on Baghdad. If Saddam was going to use his WMD, he was going to use it when he could exert maximum effect, not risking a wayward Scud falling in the Israeli desert. The success of the Patriots was widely hailed during the war, but afterward it was discovered a few Scuds got past them. Liberals, desperate to find something to put down, tried without success to make an issue of this.

The Global Positioning System allowed units to cross the desert undetected by the enemy. Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) and satellite communication systems were very effective, too.

CHAPTER THREE

WHY THE RIGHT GOES AFTER THE CLINTONS

"'We're not inflicting pain on these fuckers,' Clinton said, softly at first. 'When people kill us, they should be killed in greater numbers.' Then, with his face reddening, his voice rising, and his fist pounding his thigh, he leaned into Tony [Lake], as if it was his fault. 'I believe in killing people who try to hurt you. And I can't believe we're being pushed around by these two-bit pricks'. . ."

\- "All Too Human" by George Stephanopoulos

"With an immense sense of sorrow, I have to say I believe that the stories of the 'Clinton Body Count'" are on the mark. It does appear, at least to this observer, that the man occupying the United States Presidency is a murderer.

- "The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories" by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

"... The President suffers from a syndrome characteristic of certain adult children of alcoholic parents. This gives him a strong tendency to lie, to be by nature indecisive, to create and thrive on chaos, to deny personal responsibility and indulge in self-destructive behavior."

\- "The Dysfunctional President: Inside the Mind of Bill Clinton" by Paul Fick, Ph.D.

There is a term that gets tossed around a lot these days. Bill Clinton's top political consultant, James Carville, loves to apply the term to the women in Clinton's life. The term varies from "white trash" to "trailer trash." It is an unfortunate term, and somehow the racial and class connotations inherent in the word are not Politically Incorrect, like the infamous "n" word.

As long as it is a word that Clinton's people float around, then it becomes fair game in relation to him. If ever it applied to anybody, it applied to Bill Clinton and his mother. She was a woman who slept around with various men in Arkansas, got herself pregnant by a bunch of them, and ended up having four children from four different ones. One of them was Bill Clinton. Another one was his half-brother, Roger, a drug addict, alcoholic and ne'r'do'well.

Clinton grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas, one of the most corrupt, mob-controlled cities in America. Al Capone had permanent rights to a suite in the Arlington Hotel. Clinton's stepfather liked to wave a gun around in a drunken stupor. His business ventures fell through because he stole money from the company. He physically abused Clinton's mother, who was a heavy gambler and always owed money to the mob. She figured out "inventive" ways to repay her debts. Bill's Uncle Raymond was a mob character whose house was firebombed in retaliation for some criminal enterprise.

"In Hot Springs, growing up here, you were living a lie," recalled Paul Bosson, Hot Springs prosecutor. "You lived a lie because you knew that all of these activities were illegal. I mean, as soon as you got old enough to be able to read a newspaper, you knew that gambling in Arkansas was illegal, prostitution was illegal. And so you lived this lie, so you have to find some way to justify that to yourself and, you know, you justify it by saying, `Well,' you know, 'it's okay here.'"

Clinton's mother stated that it did not "occur" to her that gambling was illegal there, and that she was "shocked" when a vote was held to determine its legality. She got away with her illegal gambling.

A Federal investigation determined that Hot Springs had the largest illegal gambling operations in the country. Clinton grew up in an environment of sexual promiscuity. Do not get me wrong, I have no argument with sexual promiscuity and would be a hypocrite to write moral condemnations denigrating the joys of sex. One could even argue that in having all these illegitimate children, Clinton's mother was a poster girl for the Pro-Life movement, although one is not aware of how many abortions she underwent. A man should not be judged by who his parents are or the environment he was raised in, but there is little question that such circumstances do shape what kind of people we become. There is an obvious connection between Bill Clinton and his mother, just as it impossible to separate the Kennedys from Joseph P. Kennedy.

Exactly how indiscreet the gal was makes a difference. If she went to hotels, or the dudes' houses, or had them over when Bill was at school and away from him, that is one thing. A son coming home to see his mom getting three-on-oned is another.

There is also a great deal of admiration due a young man who grows up on the wrong side of the tracks, no doubt enduring the barbs of others who identified and ridiculed his mother for her loose ways. Clinton could have grown up like Roger, a substance abuser who lived on the edges of the law and saw little reason to try and succeed on a straight and narrow path. Instead, he excelled in school and found fascination with beautiful subject matter, like politics and history. He admired John F. Kennedy and even met him when he was a teenager. This was at a time when average people were not particularly aware of JFK's promiscuity, either.

On the other hand, Clinton's supposed "other side of the tracks" upbringing does not square with the fact that through is mother, and through blood relations, he had wealthy and influential connections, albeit illegal ones.

Clinton was not a bad-looking kid, and he had the gift for speech. He made himself popular through his wit, his smile and his smarts. He grew up in Arkansas at a time when racial bigotry was very common, but he did not harbor prejudice towards blacks. Because he was considered so low on the social order, he identified with them. Because he was so gifted, he elevated himself above his social ranking. By earning his way to prestigious Georgetown University, he rose above and beyond what normally came from his neck of the woods.

Clinton was a true scholar. He possessed the ability to work hard, but did not consider studying to be drudgery. He envisioned a career in politics and considered every day an opportunity to prepare himself for that day. He earned a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford College in England.

Clinton was a wild and wooly 1960s radical. He did drugs. He apparently was emulating his mother and making time with as many girls as possible. These were the days of "free love," and Clinton drank from that trough. His years in Washington had transformed him from the quiet Southern boy into a loud anti-war protester, with the abominable "bad hair" that went with it. Vietnam was raging. Clinton did not want to touch it with a 10-foot pole. The Rhodes Scholarship offered him the perfect opportunity to get out of the country and avoid the draft. For the first, he lost interest in school, which is a little surprising. Studying politics at Oxford was a fascinating opportunity. However, real world politics trumped the kind you read about in books. Anti-war protests were occurring in London. Clinton saw the power of anti-Americanism. He identified with it. Being the poor kid whose mother tramped about the countryside, he saw himself as one of the dispossessed "victims" of American greed and capitalism. Eventually, his mother would be elevated to heroic status by the Democrat party, and his drug-addled brother trotted out as his spokesman by the liberal media.

Res ipsa loquiter.

Clinton enthusiastically rallied against America while living in England. Then he went to Moscow in the dead of Winter. He said it was a "vacation," a "sight-seeing trip." His detractors have implied that he may have offered his services to the Communists, or that they might have recruited him. There is some evidence that his itinerary and travel schedule veered from the tightly controlled tourist schedule of the average foreign visitor to Moscow, which could be a sign that he had a handler. Clinton biographer Roger Morris wrote that Clinton was a CIA informer during his Rhodes Scholar days. He had no visible income, yet traveled around Europe and the Soviet Union, staying at the best hotels in Moscow. The U.S. government supposedly had a program at that time, employing well-educated people like Clinton as part of Operation Chaos, in order to undermine anti-war resistance. Former White House FBI agent Gary Aldrich wrote that Clinton was asked to leave by Oxford officials, supposedly because they knew about Operation Chaos.

If Clinton was a Bubba "Manchurian Candidate," it explains much about him. If indeed he did endeavor to, or actually carry out, espionage and treason against the U.S., he got away with it. It does not follow his character pattern that he would work for the government to "break" student resistance. He could have been informing the Communists of what he knew about Operation Chaos. As somebody who planned to run for office eventually, this would have been risky, but that is part of his character.

He did not complete his studies at Oxford, which leads one to question why he went to Europe while the Vietnam War raged. Avoiding the war was an obvious answer, but clandestine activity is another. If so, he got away with it.

Clinton met a 19-year-old woman in an English bar and had sex with her. She claimed it was rape. Clinton claimed it was not. A retired State Department official, who was involved in the case at the time, told the Capitol Hill Blue news service in the late 1990s, "There is no doubt in my mind that this woman suffered severe emotional trauma. But we were under tremendous pressure to avoid the embarrassment of having a Rhodes Scholar charged with rape. I filed a report to my superiors and that was the last I heard of it." The victim's family did not file charges. Clinton got away with it.

Eventually, Clinton did face the draft. He took an audience with an Army officer to discuss his status. He tried to defer his draft, saying he was going to the University of Arkansas Law School. He wrote a letter stating that he "loathed the military." He worked the angles in classic Clinton form, using time and bureaucracy to delay and obfuscate, openly expressing that he wished to avoid the draft while still maintaining his "political viability" for that time in the future when he planned to run for office. The segregationist Arkansas Democrat, Senator William Fulbright, also mentored Clinton. When Eisenhower tried to enact civil rights laws, Democrats like Fulbright and Albert Gore, Sr., father of Clinton's eventual Vice-President, blocked it. When LBJ proposed civil rights in 1964-65, Fulbright and Gore joined fellow Democrats to try and bock it again. Republicans gave Johnson the votes he needed.

Clinton simply outlasted the draft board until he could apply to, get accepted, and start at Yale Law School. He was a draft dodger, but he got away with it. He met a 22-year-old woman who told the campus police that Clinton sexually assaulted her. No charges were filed, but retired campus policemen contacted by Capitol Hill Blue news service in the 1990s confirmed the incident. The woman also confirmed it, but declined to discuss it further. Clinton got away with it.

At Yale Law School, he met Hillary Rodham. Hillary had grown up a "Goldwater girl" in the Chicago suburbs. Some time before or during her time at Wellesley, she had a complete "change of heart" and became a total liberal. This is the first indication that her entire moral base is the hunger for power. She saw at Wellesley the power of the lesbian elite that is part of liberalism's core. Hillary realized that her political chances were better attaching herself to this new, shrill voice than the old-fashioned American values embodied by Goldwater. Hillary's senior thesis has never been viewed. She ordered it sealed from public view, and got away with it.

When she met Clinton, her plan was hatched. Here was a smart, savvy Southern Democrat whose politics were in line with the anti-Americanism she adhered to at Wellesley. In the early 1970s she saw it as the future of the Democrat party. There was some attraction, which helps. A political marriage was struck.

Hillary realized that Bill's star would have to rise and shine first. She would rise with it, in the manner of Eva Peron, who slept her way to success as a political wife in 1940s Argentina. She would bear up to life in Arkansas. In light of Nixon's Southern strategy, she knew that this part of the country would be instrumental in future national elections. Racial politics had already changed. She perceived that Democrats could benefit from the new openness. She was right. Hillary would take a job as a lawyer and make money while her husband made his name.

They worked for George McGovern and the Democrats when Watergate broke, trying to impeach Richard Nixon. Once that mission was accomplished, the Clintons went to Arkansas and entered politics.

27-year old Clinton had been profiled occasionally in "hometown boy makes good articles" detailing his rise through Georgetown, the Rhodes Scholarship, and Yale Law School, but politically he was unknown. He ran for Congress in a crowded Democrat primary, vying for a shot at an entrenched Republican incumbent.

"Yet as soon as he enters the race," Roger Morris wrote. "Mr. Clinton enjoys a decisive seven-to-one advantage in campaign funds over the nearest Democratic competitor, and will spend twice as much as his well-supported GOP opponent. It begins with a quiet meeting at his mother's house in Hot Springs. Around the kitchen table, as Virginia Clinton will describe the scene, avid young Billy meets with two of his most crucial early backers - Uncle Raymond G. Clinton, a prosperous local Buick dealer, and family friend and wealthy businessman Gabe Crawford. As they talk, Mr. Crawford offers the candidate unlimited use of his private plane, and Uncle Raymond not only provides several houses around the district to serve as campaign headquarters, but will secure a $10,000 loan to Bill from the First National Bank of Hot Springs - an amount then equal to the yearly income of many Arkansas families. Together, the money and aircraft and other gifts, including thousands more in secret donations, will launch Mr. Clinton in the most richly financed race in the annals of Arkansas...

"No mere businessman with a spare plane, Gabe Crawford presided over a backroom bookie operation that was one of Hot Springs' most lucrative criminal enterprises. [And the] inimitable Uncle Raymond - who had also played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in keeping young Bill out of the Vietnam draft - was far more than an auto dealer. In the nationally prominent fount of vice and corruption that was Hot Springs from the 1920s to the 1980s (its barely concealed casinos generated more income than Las Vegas well into the 1960s), the uncle's Buick agency and other businesses and real estate were widely thought to be facades for illegal gambling, drug money laundering and other ventures, in which Raymond was a partner. He was a minion of the organized crime overlord who controlled the American Middle South for decades, New Orleans boss Carlos Marcello or 'Mafia Kingfish' as his biographer John Davis called him."

Clinton got away with it. His mob connections, orchestrated through his mother, who appears to be a small-time Judith Campbell Exner, belie the image of a "man from Hope" rising from hard-scrabble beginnings by dint of talent and work.

Clinton became a law professor at the University of Arkansas, where Capitol Hill Blue news service reported that a female student claimed Clinton attempted to keep her in his office against her wishes, groping and feeling her out. She reported the incident to her faculty advisor, but Clinton said she ''came on'' to him. The girl was forced to leave school, and after Clinton became President, she was located in Texas. She chose not to speak to reporters. Other students who were there conformed that it happened. Clinton got away with it.

In 1976, Clinton, backed by Arkansas mob interests in league with the state Democrat party, was elected Attorney General of Arkansas. Two Indonesian billionaires came to Arkansas that year to do business with Clinton, who they heard was pliable in various...matters. Mochtar Riady and Liem Sioe Liong, close to Indionesian strongman Suharto, ran a company called Riady. Riady was looking for an American bank to buy. It was not unlike Meyer Lansky's decision to do business in Bautista's Cuba, where a friendly government would give him carte blanche. Carter put Riady together with Jackson Stephens, and Stephens Finance was formed. An association began between Stephens and BCCI's founder, Hassan Abedi, with Carter aide Bert Lance, all sponsored by Arkansas' new Attorney General. It was pure corruption, but Clinton got away with it.

In 1977, Hillary Clinton joined the Rose Law Firm. The next year her husband was elected Governor. The Clintons and their friends, James and Susan McDougal, bought land in the Ozarks for $203,000 with mostly borrowed money. The 203-acre plot was called Whitewater. It was scammed to retirees as a retirement community, even though there was no infrastructure or business within 50 miles to support it. The Washington Post later said that some of the retirees were forced to "live off the land" because, to borrow Gertrude Stein's phrase, there was "no there there." More than half of the purchasers lost their plots in the sleazy rip-off deal. The Clintons got away with it.

Two months later, Hillary Clinton invested $1,000 in an insider cattle futures deal. A few days later her $1,000 was $5,000. She earned almost $100,000 altogether. Economists estimate the chances of making such a profit legally are one in 250 million. She got away with it.

Governor Clinton appointed Jim McDougal as economic development advisor.

His mother was regularly seen "hanging out" at the race rack with mobsters. She introduced her son, Roger to horse breeder Dan Lasater. Lasater gave Roger "work" and helped him pay off an $8,000 drug debt to Colombia's infamous Medellin cartel. Roger had a four-gram per day cocaine habit. He got his stuff from a New York broker of the Medellin supply. The Medellin normally would not extend business to white trash types like Roger. But his family connection, including his mother being a mob associate and, his middleman later testified, "who his brother was," made him an exception. It was during this time that capitol rumors circulated Hillary was having an affair with a man named Vince Foster.

Clinton raped a woman named Juanita Broaddrick, who was a Democrat volunteer in Clinton's gubernatorial campaign. He almost bit her lip off in the process of the act. The hospital reported the rape. Clinton's people removed the report and photos. Broaddrick was frightened out of her mind, and intimidated into not pressing charges against the Attorney General. Clinton got away with it.

Roger Morris wrote in "Partners in Power" that Clinton accosted a woman lawyer in Little Rock. When she rejecting him, he bit her. The lawyer, like Broaddrick, chose not to press charges against the Attorney General because he already had a reputation as a man who was protected by forceful elements. Clinton got away with it.

When her husband saw now-Governor Clinton at the 1980 Democrat Convention, he told him, "If you ever approach her, I'll kill you." Clinton apologized and told the man he would never contact her.

Shortly after these incidents, Paula Grober, Clinton's speech interpreter for the deaf who was with him when they occurred, was killed in a high-speed, no witness, one-car crash. If Clinton murdered Grober, he got away with it.

A legal secretary said Clinton attempted to force her to perform oral sex. Her boyfriend, a Democrat lawyer, told her that "people who crossed the Governor usually regretted it," and that she should forget that it ever happened.

"I haven't forgotten it," she says. "You don't forget crude men like that." Clinton got away with it.

Sharlene Wilson testified in 1990 that she sold cocaine to Roger Clinton, and observed Bill snort some at Le Bistro, a Little Rock nightclub.

"I watched Bill Clinton lean up against a brick wall," Wilson told the London Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in 1995. "He was so messed up that night, he slid down the wall into a garbage can and just sat there like a complete idiot."

Wilson said she observed Bill's avid drug use between 1979 and 1981. Drug prosecutor Jean Duffey said she believed the testimony. Clinton got away with it.

Arkansas state trooper Larry Patterson claimed that Governor Clinton had oral sex with a woman in a car parked outside daughter Chelsea's elementary school. He got away with it.

Governor Clinton appointed Web Hubbell to head the state ethics commission, with the goal being the weakening of legislation exempting the Governor from strong oversight provisions. Arkansas under boy Clinton was the home of some of the most notorious gunrunning, drug and money laundering operations in America. The IRS issued notice that Clinton's "enticing climate" was ripe for bribery. Operatives would go into banks with duffel bags full of cash. Bank officers distributed the dough to tellers in sums under $10,000. Anything under 10 grand is not reportable.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote that Sharlene Wilson flew cocaine from Mena, Arkansas to Texas. Other drugs were stuffed into chickens for shipping. Wilson was known as "the lady with the snow" at "toga parties" attended by Bill Clinton, who got away with it.

"I lived in Little Rock, Arkansas, okay?" said Wilson. "And I worked at a club called Le Bistro's, and I met Roger Clinton there, Governor Bill Clinton, a couple of his state troopers that went with him wherever he went. Roger Clinton had come up to me and he had asked me could I give him some coke, you know, and asked for my one-hitter, which a one-hitter is a very small silver device, okay, that you stick up into your nose and you just squeeze it and a snort of cocaine will go up in there. And I watched Roger hand what I had given him to Governor Clinton, and he just kind of turned around and walked off." The Governor got away with it.

Investor's Business Daily reported that Sally Perdue, a former Miss Arkansas and Little Rock talk show host who said she had an affair with then-Governor Clinton in 1983, told the London Sunday Telegraph that he once came over to her house with a bag full of cocaine.

''He had all the equipment laid out, like a real pro," said Perdue. He got away with it.

"He smoked marijuana in my presence and offered me the opportunity to snort cocaine if I wanted to," Genifer Flowers, who had an affair with Clinton, told talk host Sean Hannity. "I wasn't into that. Bill clearly let me know that he did cocaine. And I know people that knew he did cocaine. He did tell me that when he would use a substantial amount of cocaine that his head would itch so badly that he would become self-conscious at parties where he was doing this. Because all he wanted to do while people were talking to him is stand around and scratch his head...." Clinton got away with it.

Two Arkansas state troopers swore under oath that Clinton was ''under the influence'' of drugs. He got away with it. Sharlene Wilson said Bill and Roger snorted blow together, but got away with it. Jack McCoy, a Democrat politician, told the Sunday Telegraph that he could ''remember going into the Governor's conference room once and it reeked of marijuana.'' Roger Morris quoted law enforcement officers who said they knew of Clinton's drug abuse. Apartment manager Jane Parks said she would listen through the walls while the Governor and Roger talked about their drugs. R. Emmett Tyrrell, editor of American Spectator, tried for years to verify rumors that Clinton overdosed. He got away with all of it.

Hillary Clinton made a $44,000 profit on a $2,000 insider investment in a cellular phone franchise deal designed to bilk minorities and women through an FCC loophole. Her investment was made just before the cellular giant, McCaw, bought the company. She got away with it.

A drug pilot claimed that he would land his Cessna 210 full of cocaine into eastern Arkansas. Clinton's state troopers would meet him. If true, Clinton got away with it.

Jerry Parks' wife claimed that security operatives brought huge sums of money from Mena airport to Vince Foster, waiting in a K-Mart parking lot. Mrs. Parks opened the trunk and found so much cash she could not close it again. Her husband told her that Foster paid him $1,000 for each trip to Mena, and to forget what she had seen.

"Foster was using him as a kind of operative to collect sensitive information on things and do sensitive jobs," Evans-Pritchard wrote. "Some of this appears to have been done on behalf of Hillary Clinton. . .Foster told him that Hillary wanted it done. Now, my understanding . . .is that she wanted to know how vulnerable he would be in a Presidential race on the question of - how shall I put it? - his appetites." If true, the Clintons got away with it.

Interestingly, Hillary Clinton began to lobby on behalf of the Nicaraguan Contras. Word began to spread around Little Rock that Dan Lasater threw parties in which coke and women were available. Bill was a frequent guest. He got away with it.

Roger's landlady, Jane Parks, said Bill visited his apartment and shared drugs and young girls with him. If there were underage, they got away with it.

Judy Gibbs, a model/escort who modeled in Penthouse, ran a brothel in Fordyce, Arkansas. They blackmailed powerful clients. Her family linked her to Clinton, but after she cooperated with police in a cocaine trafficking investigation, she was burned to death inside her home from an unsolved fire. If Clinton killed her or ordered her killed, he got away with it.

Newsmax reported in 1999 that, "[Former Clinton bodyguard Barry] Spivey had become something of a mystery man, who insisted on meeting [Paula Jones investigator] Rick Lambert on a deserted road nestled deep in the Arkansas backwoods. The Jones investigator admitted he was none too comfortable with the situation. Spivey shared a story about a conversation he had with Clinton while on a flight over southeast Arkansas. The trooper noticed a blackened patch amidst the greenery below that, surprisingly, Clinton recognized. That patch was all that was left of an estate that had burned to the ground in the mid-'80s. According to the trooper, Clinton began reminiscing about rumors of his involvement with the woman of the house, a onetime 'Penthouse pet.' Her husband, Spivey said, was involved in a pornography ring. Clinton explained to Spivey, 'You know that mansion just burned down right on top of them.' Years later, Spivey remains struck by one thing: The eerie expression that crossed Clinton's face as he spoke those words...." Perhaps it was the look of a man who got away with it.

Well over 30 people met unexpected, often violent deaths after being connected in some manner to Bill Clinton in those days. Almost all of them were poorly investigated by Arkansas officials. They were either incompetent or chose incompetence. How many were killed by Clinton and his people is not determined. Barbara Wise's semi-nude body was found in the Commerce Department. She was said to be a troubled individual, and the chances are that her death had no connection to Clinton. A business figure with connections to espionage operations was scheduled to fly on a plane with Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. At the last second, he cancelled his seat, and the plane crashed. The businessman later died in the crash of TWA 800.

Vince Foster's death could have been part of illegal activities he performed or knew that Clinton was involved in. Investigators may have been getting close to past money laundering, drug trafficking, or illegal intelligence operations.

All of this leads me to stop for a second and contemplate some possibilities. I am a Christian, and many, especially those of the liberal persuasion (who have adopted the Clintons as their heroes) think this is an antiquated religion. For some reason, the "Eastern philosophies," which are much older than Christianity, are often their preferred "faiths." Anyway, Christianity offers the existence of the devil.

Now, this no doubt will make many think I am a nut, but I do not care. I believe that a human being can summon forth the power of Satan if he believes in his heart that Satan is real. I believe he can make a deal with the devil to achieve greatness that he or she otherwise would not attain. I believe there are famous people in Hollywood, politics, music, the business world, book publishing, and other endeavors who have achieved their success as a result of these deals. I believe dark forces protect them. I believe it is utterly possible that the Clintons made such a deal.

I could be completely wrong about this, but so far, Bill and Hillary have gotten away with it.

Clinton lost re-election as Governor in 1980 because the electorate despised Hillary. She refused to change her last name to Clinton and showed disdain for the "red-necks" of Arkansas.

Larry Nichols told the George Putman Show in 1998 that Clinton had determined that he had to "dry out on the white stuff" before making another run. R. Emmett Tyrrell spoke to emergency room workers at the University of Arkansas Medical Center to confirm whether Clinton had been hospitalized after OD'ing. He was not told "no."

''I can't talk about that,'' a nurse said. Another feared for her life. Dr. Sam Houston, a well-known physician and doctor for Hillary's father, told Newsmax Clinton's cocaine overdose was well known within medical circles. Houston had full knowledge of the incidents, which involved state troopers and Hillary's instructions for the hospital staff. Hillary told both resident physicians that they would never practice medicine in the United States if Clinton's drug problem leaked out. She pinned one up against the wall to back up her point. Both hands pressed against his shoulders, as she gave her dire warning. The Clintons got away with it.

Jim McDougal developed a system to pass money to Clinton. A contractor agreed to pad his monthly construction bill by $2,000. The contractor put the figure on his invoice as a cost for gravel or culvert work. After he was paid the full amount...the contractor reimbursed McDougal the $2,000. He turned the money over to Clinton. Once, after he handed over his latest consignment of 20 hundred-dollar bills to relay to the governor's office, Clinton's assistant said, "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First had Cromwell. Clinton could profit from these examples if we cross him.'" Clinton got away with it.

Hillary Clinton wrote to Jim McDougal that, "If Reagonomics works at all, Whitewater could become the Western Hemisphere's Mecca." She got away with it.

Major drug trafficker Barry Seal, under pressure from Louisiana, relocated his operations to Mena. Seal imported 1,000 pounds of cocaine a month from the Medellin. He claimed to have made over $50 million. As an informant, he said that in 1980-81, he made about 60 trips to Central America and returned with 18,000 kilograms.

In 1996 the Progressive Review reported, "The London Telegraph has obtained some of the first depositions in ex-CIA contract flyer Terry Reed's suit against Clinton's ex-security chief - and now a high-paid FEMA director - Buddy Young. According to the Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 'Larry Patterson, an Arkansas state trooper, testified under oath that there were "large quantities of drugs being flown into the Mena airport, large quantities of money, large quantities of guns." State troopers working on his security detail discussed the subject repeatedly in Clinton's presence, he alleged. Patterson said the Governor "had very little comment to make; he was just listening to what was being said."' Clinton got away with it.

State police investigator Russell Welch said the Mena airport was owned by a man who "doesn't exist in history back past a safe house in Baltimore in 1972." Another was owned by someone who "smuggled heroin through Laos back in the '70s." Still another was "owned by a guy who just went bankrupt. So what's he do? Flies to Europe for more money." Welch said of Fokker that "the DEA's been tracking those planes back and forth to Columbia for a while now." Clinton got away with it.

Evans-Pritchard detailed a DEA report that a backer of Clinton "smuggles cocaine from Colombia, South America, inside race horses to Hot Springs." IRS agent William Duncan and an Arkansas state police investigator reportedly took drug trafficking concerns to U.S Attorney Asa Hutchinson. 20 witnesses were to be subpoenaed before the grand jury. Hutchinson chose three.

"The three appeared before the grand jury, but afterwards, two of them also expressed surprise at how their questioning was handled," wrote reporter Mara Leveritt. "One, a secretary at Rich Mountain Aviation, had given Duncan sworn statements about money laundering at the company, transcripts of which Duncan had provided to Hutchinson. But when the woman left the jury room, she complained that Hutchinson had asked her nothing about the crime or the sworn statements she'd given to Duncan. As Duncan later testified, 'She basically said that she was allowed to give her name, address, position, and not much else.' The other angry witness was a banker who had, in Duncan's words, 'provided a significant amount of evidence relating to the money-laundering operation.' According to Duncan, he, too, emerged from the jury room complaining 'that he was not allowed to provide the evidence that he wanted to provide to the grand jury.'"

Bill Clinton got away with it and was again elected Governor of Arkansas.

Mochtar Riady formed Lippo Finance & Investment in Little Rock. A non-citizen, Riady hire President Carter's former SBA director, Vernon Weaver, to chair the firm, along with a $2 million loan guaranteed by the SBA. Weaver used a character reference from Governor Clinton to guarantee the loan, which was funneled to Little Rock Chinese restaurateur Charlie Trie. Riady and Jackson Stephens formed United Pacific Trading, while state regulators warned McDougal's Madison Guarantee S&L to stop making improper loans. Clinton knew about the warnings but did nothing. All the while, according to the Tampa Tribune, the Mena drug-running operation was in full swing. The drugs were transported in coolers marked "medical supplies." The planes were reportedly met by Bill Clinton, who got away with it.

Dan Lasater's firm was under investigation for drug peddling, but he still was given parts of 14 state bond issues. Judge David Hale's Capital Management Services began loaning money to state figures. Stevens and Riady bought Worthern Bank, installing Riady's 28-year-old son, James as president. BCCI investor Abdullah Taha Bakhish was a co-owner. Jim McDougal attempted to keep his S&L, which had been providing cash for the Whitewater operation from being shut down by the state.

Clinton used to "jog over to McDougal's office about once a month to pick up the [retainer] check for his wife," the Washington Times quoted a business associate. He got away with it.

Goldman Sachs, Payne Webber, Salomon Brothers and Merrill Lynch became Clinton's financial backers. So did Washington socialite Pamela Harriman. They were not the only "backers" of Bill Clinton.

"...The mob really came into Arkansas politics," a former U.S. attorney told Roger Morris. "It wasn't just Bill Clinton and it went beyond our old Dixie Mafia. . .This was Eastern and West Coast crime money that noticed the possibilities just like the legitimate corporations did." Clinton got away with it.

Dan Lasater bought a New Mexico ski resort for $20 million, and the Clinton's promoted it. U.S. Customs determined that the resort was a front for drugs and money laundering. Lasater, with Patsy Thomasson, bought a 24,000-acre ranch in the drug emporium of Belize, helped by the U.S. Ambassador. The Belize government nixed the deal, though.

Under Clinton, Arkansas' prison system sold prisoners' blood to Canada, until a problem was discovered involving AIDS and hepatitis. This is against American law but Clinton got away with it.

Thousands of dollars in mysterious checks were cashed through the Whitewater account at Madison Guaranty in a check-kiting scheme McDougal operated, probably with the Clintons, who got away with it.

When Roger Clinton was arrested for buying more cocaine, he told Hot Springs police, "Got to get some for my brother. He's got a nose like a vacuum cleaner." Roger was working for Dan Lasater at the time. His brother got away with it.

Barry Seal said the Mena operation earned him between $60 and $100 million, but Vice-President George Bush's drug task force was closing in on him. He flew to D.C. to cut a deal, "rolling" for the DEA on the Medellin cartel. Louisiana and Arkansas agents were unaware of Seal's deal.

"By Seal's own account," reporter Mara Leveritt said, "his gross income in the year and a half after he became an informant - while he was based at Mena and while Asa Hutchinson was the federal prosecutor in Fort Smith, 82 miles away - was three-quarters of a million dollars. Seal reported that $575,000 of that income had been derived from a single cocaine shipment, which the DEA had allowed him to keep. Pressed further, he testified that, since going to work for the DEA, he had imported 1,500 pounds of cocaine into the U.S. Supposed informant Seal will fly repeatedly to Colombia, Guatemala, and Panama, where he meets with Jorge Ochoa, Fabio Ochoa, Pablo Escobar, and Carlos Lehder - leaders of the cartel that at the time controlled an estimated 80 percent of the cocaine entering the United States." Despite his ties with Seal, Clinton got away with it.

When President Reagan wanted to send National Guard troops to Honduras to aid the Contras, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis went to the Supreme Court to stop it. Clinton, however, offered to "help" the Contras, sending his security chief, Buddy Young, and the Arkansas National Guard. They left "excess" weapons behind for the Contras. If this act of "benevolence" on behalf of Reagan was cover for a drug deal involving the Contras or some other Central American organization, Clinton got away with it.

State trooper L.D. Brown, Clinton's bodyguard, applied to the CIA. Clinton "Reaganized" his application regarding Nicaragua. Brown met a "CIA recruiter" in Dallas, but apparently he was a member of Vice-President Bush's staff. Bush's man arranged a meeting with Barry Seal, who was cooperating with the V.P.'s task force. Brown joined Seal, flying M16s to Honduras. They returned with duffel bags. When Brown expressed concern to Clinton that he might be involved in illegalities, "Slick Willie" told him, "Oh, you can handle it, don't sweat it." Brown eventually looked in the duffel bags on the next trip and found cocaine.

"Your buddy, Bush, knows about it," Clinton told Brown. "That's Lasater's deal." If this story is true, then it could explain why the Republicans did not go after Clinton harder. Bush may have been involved in a CIA operation to bust the drug lords or to use them to aid the Contras. Manuel Noriega of Panama may have been involved. Either way, it may have eventually spun into something the Reagan Administration did not want exposed. If so, Clinton got away with it. He also won re-election in 1984.

In 1985, Roger pled guilty to cocaine distribution and served a short prison sentence. Wayne Dumond allegedly raped a relative of Bill Clinton. He was then sexually assaulted and castrated by two masked men. A local sheriff was sentenced to 160 years for extortion and drug dealing. He kept a jar on his desk with Dumond's testicles in it, reading, "That's what happens to people who fool around in my county." A parole board eventually released Dumond when evidence revealed his innocence.

Clinton carried on a "romping, stomping fit," according to the editor of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. He blocked the release. If Clinton ordered the innocent Dumond's testicles to be castrated by sheriff's deputies, then blocked the release of an innocent man, and was involved in extortion and drug dealing with the sheriff, then he got away with it.

McDougal put Mrs. Clinton on a $2,000 a month retainer by Madison Guaranty to mollify her and keep her passing money to her husband. Hillary later denied involvement in Madison, who she represented before the state securities department. When her lie was later exposed she exclaimed, "For goodness sakes, you can't be a lawyer if you don't represent banks." That must have been her Republican upbringing. She got away with it.

The Arkansas Development Finance Authority was, according to a Clinton crony, "his own political piggy bank." Millions were funneled to Clinton's people, but records were usually not kept. AFDA was used to bring in business from out of the state. The hook under Clinton was that Arkansas kept union activity to a minimum. This could either be because Clinton was a conservative at heart or the mob does not like to share with unions. Either way, Clinton got away with it.

Dan Lasater underwrote a $30 million bond deal for state police radios at the time that Roger was telling the U.S. about Lasater's drug operations. Bill Clinton, through Worthen Bank, was raiding the Arkansas state pension funds during this time, causing them to lose 15 percent of their value. Clinton's subsequent high risk, short-term investment caused a $52 million loss. Mochtar Riady bailed out Clinton. They covered the losses with a Worthen check written by Jack Stephens in the middle of the night, an insurance policy, and the subsequent purchase over the next few months of 40 percent of the bank. Clinton got away with it.

A Chinese native named John Huang became a Lippo executive in Arkansas.

China Resources paid Lippo to "tour" Asia on behalf of Governor Clinton, according to the FBI. Mochtar and James Riady took over the First National Bank of Mena. It has been alleged that they ran a Contra supply base in addition to the drug and money rackets. If so, and if Clinton was involved, he got away with it.

A Contra operative named Terry Reed helped organize Operation Donation. The plan was to steal planes and boats needed for the Contras, and the owners claimed the insurance. Reed was a CIA asset of Felix Rodriguez, Vice-President Bush's Contra connection.

Park on Meter, a manufacturer of parking meters in Russellville, Arkansas, was the recipient of an industrial loan from the Arkansas Development Finance Authority in 1985. Allegedly, this company was a Federal front for the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons and devices to carry them on C-130s for the Contras. They denied it, but they admitted to having secret military contracts. A parking meter manufacturer that had secret military contracts? Web Hubbell was their attorney. Oh, coincidentally, next to their land was an Army Reserve chemical warfare company.

Checks made out to Clinton and his campaign were endorsed and placed in Madison S&L. A cashier's check in the amount of $3,000 had the name of a 24-year-old college student named Ken Peacock on it. In 1993 he refuted that claim. Whitewater did not file corporate tax returns. Asa Hutchinson failed in his try for the U.S. Senate. Police sources alleged that Hutchinson knew about the Mena operation but did not act. Mike Fitzhugh, his successor, did not allow state investigator Russell Welch and IRS agent William Duncan to present a money-laundering scheme to the grand jury. Jim McDougal created another land deal, this called Castle Grande.

Evans-Pritchard said that Clinton's Arkansas was a "major point for the transshipment of drugs" and "perilously close to becoming a 'narco-republic' - a sort of mini-Columbia within the borders of the United States." Meyer Lansky would have been proud.

"An epidemic of cocaine, contaminating the political establishment from top to bottom," with parties "at which cocaine would be served like hors d'oeuvres and sex was rampant," was Evans-Pritchard's description of events attended by Clinton, who got away with it.

Madison was described by a Federal Home Loan Bank Board audit as financially reckless and ready to break apart, but this was the era known as the "savings and loan crisis." It hoped to fold and be rescued by the Feds, just like so many other S&Ls. The audit, however, indicated that Madison's records were even shoddier than most. It was obvious that the exact nature of their transactions was meant to be kept secret. If Madison's records were so bad in order to hide the Clinton's participation, they got away with it.

David Hale's Capital Management Services Inc. received an SBA-approved $300,000 loan for Susan McDougal, who owned an advertising agency called Master Marketing. The loan was never repaid. If Clinton was involved, he got away with it.

Dan Lasater pled guilty to cocaine distribution. Roger copped a plea and testified against him. Both did time. Lasater's jail-time affairs were run by future Clinton White House aide Patsy Thomasson. If Bill Clinton snorted and distributed drugs, he got away with it.

Associates of Barry Seal had their money and drug racketeering case dropped despite investigators' and IRS objections. Seal was slated to testify at Jorge Ochoa Vasques' trial. Seal was murdered by three Colombian hitmen in a gangland hit in Baton Rouge just before it started. If Clinton was involved in the conspiracy to commit this crime, he got away with it.

Months later, Seal's cargo plane was shot down over Nicaragua with supplies from Mena for the Contras. Crewmember Eugene Hasenfus survived. Louisiana's Attorney General told U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese that Barry Seal had smuggled $3-$5 billion worth of drugs into the States. If it was done for, or with the cooperation of Governor Clinton, Bill got away with it.

Whitewater did not file corporate tax returns for 1986. James Riady resigned from Worthen Bank, and Clinton was re-elected Governor of the greeeeeaaaaat state of Arkansas. He got away with it. Again.

In 1987, the McDougal's Whitewater files were transferred to the Clintons. In 1992, the Clintons said they had no records of this. They got away with it. Clinton made presentations of the Arkansas Traveler awards to Contra operatives Adolpho and Mario Calero and John Singlaub.

In Saline County, two boys, Kevin Ives and Don Henry, died when a train ran over them on a railroad track. It was ruled "accidental." Supposedly the kids smoked pot and fell asleep on the tracks, never hearing the oncoming train. Independent investigators, aware that they were close to Mena and that suspicious drug-related activity was rumored to be going on there, were completely stonewalled by law enforcement officials in their efforts to get to the heart of the matter.

After dogged work, they managed to exhume the bodies so an autopsy could be performed. That autopsy determined that Henry had been stabbed in the back while Ives was beaten with a rifle butt. The investigators determined that the Mafia and the Clinton's political machine were behind the murders. They both got away with it.

Theories as to why they had to die included the possibility that they came across a drug drop. The Progressive Review said the drop could have been not of drugs but cash, gold and platinum, based on the concept that there was a series of drops in which Federal intelligence agents were being reimbursed. Another version of events said the Dixie mob and Clinton political boys had stolen the drops, using the boys as scapegoats.

"I firmly believe my son and Don Henry were killed because they witnessed a drug drop by an airplane connected to the Mena drug smuggling routes," Ives' mother said, stating that the entire investigation was a cover-up.

"I believe the law enforcement agents were connected to some very high political people because they have never been brought to justice and I don't think they ever will be," prosecutor Jean Duffey said of the incident. "I think they are protected to avoid exposing the connection...There have been several murders of potential witnesses. Anyone who could have solved this murder many years ago has been systematically eliminated."

Nine people who had knowledge of events surrounding the Ives-Henry murders ended up dead. The chance that this is coincidence is so far from being possible that it is that with which is impossible. The Clintons got away with it.

That is what the meaning of is is.

Keith McKaskle told his parent's good-bye because of the "railroad track thing" that he knew involved Clinton's "octopus squad." An inmate said he was offered $4,000 to kill him. A suspect in the Ives-Henry murders was killed in a robbery set-up. Boonie Bearden disappeared from the face of the Earth after rumors floated around that he knew what had happened to the kids. James Milam was decapitated. Clinton's state medical examiner, Fahmy Malak, called the Ives-Henry deaths accidental and Milam's decapitation death by natural causes. Jeff Rhodes was shot, burned and his hands and feet were sawed off. If the Clintons ordered these killings, they got away with it.

Terry Reed said that after his plane was returned he was told it would have to be "borrowed" again, so therefore he did not report it missing. Reed said he backed off the Contra operation when he learned that drugs were involved. Reed felt state financial people were laundering drug money. He told Felix Rodriguez he wanted out. Reed was charged with mail fraud for trying to collect on the insurance on a plane in a Little Rock hanger. Captain Buddy Young, the head of Clinton's Swiss Guard, said he saw the Piper Turbo Arrow at the North Little Rock Airport. Whitewater did not file corporate tax returns for 1987.

At the home of Pam Harriman, conservative Democrats met over 100 times in 1988 to come up with a plan to revamp their party and take the White House away from the Republicans. Charging donors $1,000 to attend her soirees, Harriman raked in $12 million and the cabal settled on Bill Clinton as the man to lead them to the Promised Land. Clinton was chosen as the keynote Speaker for Michael Dukakis' nomination at the Democrat National Convention. Instead of promoting Dukakis, Clinton made a long-winded speech extolling his own platform. His biggest applause occurred when he said "in conclusion."

Polk County prosecutor Charles Black, asked to meet Governor Clinton to probe illegal activities in Mena.

"His response," Mr. Black told CBS News, "was that he would get a man on it and get back to me. I never heard back."

Arkansas Representative Bill Alexander pressured the General Accounting Office to investigate Mena in April of 1988. The National Security Council shut his probe down within four months, according to Micah Morrison of the Wall Street Journal. Congressional inquiries never got anywhere. Clinton got away with it.

The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations connected Oliver North to the Barry Seal case.

"Law enforcement officials were furious that their undercover operation was revealed and agents' lives jeopardized because one individual in the U.S. government - Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North - decided to play politics with the issue," their report stated. "Associates of Seal, who operated aircraft service businesses at the Mena, Arkansas airport, were also targets of grand jury probes into narcotics trafficking. Despite the availability of evidence sufficient for an indictment on money laundering charges and over the strong protests of state and Federal law enforcement officials, the cases were dropped."

The ultimate irony is that Bill Clinton may have literally gotten away with murder because his Arkansas mob operations were connected to Republican attempts to fight Colombian drug lords and illegally stop the spread of Marxism-Leninism in Central America. No wonder the guy has that Cheshire cat grin on his face all the time.

Madison S&L was closed by the Feds, costing the taxpayers $47 million. The Clintons got away with it.

The FDIC hired Webster Hubbell from the Rose law firm to handle the Madison case. Rose law represented the FDIC and sued an accounting firm for $60 million, blaming their auditing practices on the S&L disaster. Rose earned $400,000 in fees and expenses. The accounting firm paid $1 million to the government. The irony of Hillary's law firm working for the government is almost too rich to stomach. Rose might as well have been "The Firm" in John Grisham's novel, only in this version they were not the targets of the Federal government, but lawyers for them. Hillary got away with it.

A U.S. Senate subcommittee said they had insufficient evidence to issue indictments on Mena money laundering charges, ending a fruitless five-year investigation. Arkansas prosecutors asked Clinton to allow local investigators to pursue the case further, but he refused the request. Clinton got away with it.

A group of University of Arkansas students decided to look into Mena as part of a study of corruption in Arkansas politics. Dan Short was the president of State Bank in Noel, Missouri. He told people that he was in trouble because he had become involved in a drug-laundering scheme. He was kidnapped, forced to take out $71,000 from his bank, and then killed. If Clinton was involved, he got away with it.

In 1990, James Riady took a branch of Lippo Bank in association with John Huang, who was based out of Hong Kong. China Resources Company Ltd. bought bank stock in Hong Kong Chinese Bank at a 15 percent undervalued price. According to intelligence sources, the firm was a front for Chinese military intelligence. If Clinton was involved in this espionage operation, he got away with it.

Warren Stephens provided $50,000 for Clinton's campaign commercials. The investigation shut down mysteriously. Something scared the heck out of Sharlene Wilson after she told her story about a coked-out Clinton collapsing into a garbage can. She went on the lamb when her ex-boyfriend, Clinton supporter Dan Harmon, took charge of the case. Eventually she was located and sentenced to 31 years for a relatively minor charge. Clinton, on the other hand, got away with it.

Terry Reed's case was tossed out. The judge was disgusted at the various "holes" in the "chain of proof" necessary for conviction, a reference to the obstruction of justice led by Governor Clinton, who of course got away with it.

Clinton's security man, Buddy Young, was described as having a "reckless disregard for the truth." Young's main job was to use state troopers to do Clinton's dirty work, then keep them quiet. He was rewarded with a plumb at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Clinton again got away with using the troopers for his criminal network.

One of those troopers did not stay silent. Larry Patterson testified that there were "large quantities of drugs being flown into Mena airport, large quantities of money, large quantities of guns." Patterson says Clinton was aware of all of it. A judge protected Clinton when he said no Mena evidence regarding Clinton would be permitted, allowing him to get away with it.

Governor Clinton pardoned Lasater after six months in jail. A law enforcement official said this was far from normal procedure in such cases. Clinton got away with it.

A new drug task force began looking into the deaths of the boys on the railroad tracks. Jean Duffey told her boss told that her work was not to entail any public officials. This left Clinton out it, despite "witnesses telling us about low-flying aircraft and informants testifying about drug pick-ups" in a large-scale operation that could not have been conducted unless it had the approval of government agencies. Clinton got away with it.

An Indonesian-Arkansas connection began when the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission furthered deals involving Wal-Mart, Tyson's Foods, and JB Hunt. The Arkansas Democrat- Gazette reports "make reference to Clinton's ideal position as President . . .in helping to secure Arkansas-Indonesian deals." The U.S. Ambassador in Jakarta said that numerous Arkansans began to appear in Indonesia. If the connection involved illegalities, Clinton got away with it.

According to the IRS, the CIA was still operating out of the Mena airport. Arkansas State Police investigator Russell Welch developed pneumonia-like symptoms after cooperating with the IRS. According to the Washington Weekly in 1996, "On the weekend of September 21, 1991, Arkansas State Police Investigator Russell Welch met with IRS Investigator Bill Duncan to write a report on their investigation of Mena drug smuggling and money laundering and send it to Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh. Returning to Mena on Sunday, Welch told his wife that he didn't feel too well. He thought he had gotten the flu . . .In Fort Smith a team of doctors were waiting. Dr. Calleton had called them twice while Welch was in transport and they had been in contact with the CDC. Later the doctor would tell Welch's wife that he was on the edge of death. He would not have made it through the night had he not been in the hospital. He was having fever seizures by now. A couple of days after Welch had been admitted to St. Edwards Mercy Hospital, his doctor was wheeling him to one of the labs for testing when she asked him if he was doing anything at work that was particularly dangerous. He told her that he had been a cop for about 15 years and that danger was probably inherent with the job description. She told Welch that they believed he had anthrax. She said the anthrax was the military kind that is used as an agent of biological warfare and that it was induced. Somebody had deliberately infected him. She added that they had many more tests to run but they had already started treating him for anthrax." If Clinton was involved, he got away with it.

IRS agent Bill Duncan was arrested for possessing a service revolver that he had a permit for. He was beaten and chained in the basement of D.C. police station. Taken off the Mena case, he was told to falsify testimony for a Federal Grand Jury, refused, and was fired. If Clinton was involved, he got away with it.

Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh received "credible evidence of gunrunning, illegal drug smuggling, money laundering and the governmental cover-up and possibly a criminal conspiracy in connection with the Mena airport" by State Attorney General Winston Bryant and Arkansas Representative Bill Alexander. Walsh wrote back that the investigation was closed.

"The Feds dropped the ball and covered it up," said Alexander. "I have never seen a whitewash job like this case."

This is very interesting, and helps to explain why Clinton got away with everything. Lawrence Walsh had operated a highly partisan attack on the Reagan/Bush Administration that, in the end, accomplished little despite enormous sums of taxpayer dollars expended. Walsh surely reached the point where he saw the culpability of a Democrat Governor who was tapped as the party's favorite for the next Presidential election. This meant a dead end.

Jackson Stephens and BCCI figure Moctar Riady bought BCCI's former Hong Kong subsidiary. Dan Harmon took over prosecution responsibilities in the train deaths' investigation. His drug investigator, Jean Duffey, was smeared, threatened and left Arkansas in fear. Clinton got away with it.

In the meanwhile, a D.C. fundraiser said that she was in a hotel room with Governor Clinton when he pinned her against the wall and felt her up her dress. She screamed until an Arkansas state trooper knocked on the door. At that point Clinton let her go and she ran away. She told her Democrat boss about it and was told to stay silent, allowing Clinton to get away with it.

Clinton announced his candidacy for President, leading Meredith Oakley of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette to write, "His word is dirt. Not a statesman is he, but a common, run-of-the-mill, dime-a-dozen politician. A mere opportunist. A man whose word is fallow ground not because it is unwanted but because it is barren, bereft of the clean-smelling goodness that nurtures wholesome things. Those of us who cling to the precepts of another age, a time in which a man's word was his bond, and, morally, bailing out was not an option, cannot join the madding crowd in celebrating what is for some Bill Clinton's finest hour. We cannot rejoice in treachery. The bleaters who care more for celebrity than veracity are basking in a false and empty light. They trumpet the basest form of political expediency, for they revel amid the debris of a broken promise. Clinton will never accept that assessment of his actions or his following. He subscribes to the credo that the anointed must rule the empire, and he has anointed himself. In his ambition-blinded eyes, one released from a promise has not broken any promise. He ignores the fact that he granted his own pardon."

The are the words of Truth.

The Worthen Bank gave Clinton a $3.5 million line of credit. Stephens Inc. employees raised more than $100,000 for him. Soraya and Arief Wiriadinata, the daughter and son-in-law of Lippo's co-founder, donated $450,000 to the DNC. Arief Wiriadinata came to the U.S. from Indonesia. She was supposed to study landscape architecture, although he was described as a gardener.

Little Rock Worldwide Travel gave Clinton $1 million in deferred billing for campaigning. Clinton aide David Watkins claimed they were responsible for him being able to make his run at the White House, at least in the beginning.

The first thing Clinton's campaign staff did was to create a "bimbo" patrol to threaten, buy, and discredit the numerous women who have had sexual relations, often violent, illegal and mysogynistic, with the Governor. Private investigators were sent out in a wide-ranging blackmail, psychological and intimidation operation. The goal was to make sure Clinton got away with it.

Clinton allowed the execution of a black man, Ricky Ray Rector, even though he was not mentally competent. Money magazine reported that Clinton received yearly $1.4 million payments for admissions tickets to the state-regulated Oaklawn racetrack. Clinton would hand out tickets to contributors, and got away with it.

Brooks Jackson of CNN reported that the state's greyhound track commission met several times a year at the Kennel Club, with the Southland Greyhound Park illegally paying for the commissioners' food and booze. No doubt illegal deals were conducted there, on the behest of Bill Clinton, who got away with it.

Torch singer Gennifer Flowers recorded her last conversation with Clinton.

"If they ever ask if you've talked to me about it, you can say no," Clinton was recorded saying. He called New York Governor Mario Cuomo a "mean son of a bitch."

"I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't have some Mafioso connections," Flowers told him.

"Well, he acts like one," chuckled Clinton.

Regarding media inquiries, Clinton her, "If they ever hit you with it, just say no and go on. There's nothing they can do. I expected them to look into it and come interview you. But if everybody is on record denying it, no problem."

The Washington Post and the New York Times had the tapes but decided that such a recording of the Democrat front-runner was not fit to print. In 1997 Gennifer Flowers was interviewed by Penny Crone and Curtis Sliwa on New York's WABC. She claimed to have received death threats after the recordings were made public. She claimed that making her involvement public was protection from murder.

She was asked if Clinton was behind it.

"What I thought, after my home was ransacked, was that he was behind that - simply because I had called to tell him about it and it was his reaction it," she said. "I mean, he acted, he was aloof. He didn't act that concerned. He said, 'Well, why do you think they came in there?' And I said, 'Well, why the hell do you think?' He said, 'Well, do you think they were looking for something on us?' I said, 'Well, yes.' And at that moment I thought, well, maybe you're behind this because he would have as much interest to know what evidence I might have as anyone else would." Flowers added, "One thing that Bill said on those tapes that I think has run true throughout his Presidency. He told me, 'If we stick together and we continue to deny it, everything will be OK.'"

In February of 1992, a survey of Democrat contenders showed "Slick Willie" in the lead for President. He was getting away with it.

Days before the New Hampshire Primary, a supermarket tabloid, the Globe, said Clinton had fathered a bastard child after she attended orgies with him. She had moved to Australia. The elite media ignored the story. The chances that they would have ignored it if it had been President Bush are so far from possible as to be simply impossible. In the meanwhile, Clinton got away with it.

Time whitewashed the Mena investigation as a smear job while smearing those making the allegations against Clinton, helping Clinton to get away with it.

"It's very difficult to catch Bill Clinton in a flat lie," the Pine Bluff Commercial wrote. "His specialty is a lengthy disingenuousness."

Former Miss Arkansas Sally Perdue described her affair with Clinton on the "Sally Jesse Raphael Show". The London Sunday Telegraph reported that state troopers dropped Clinton off under the guise of "jogging."

"He saw my Steinway grand piano and went straight over to it and asked me to play. . ." recalled Perdue. "When I see him now, President of the United States, meeting world leaders, I can't believe it. . .I still have this picture of him wearing my black nightgown, playing the sax badly. . .this guy tiptoeing across the park and getting caught on the fence. How do you expect me to take him seriously?"

A Democrat Party goon approached her.

"He said there were people in high places who were anxious about me and they wanted me to know that keeping my mouth shut would be worthwhile. . ." she said. "If I was a good little girl, and didn't kill the messenger; I'd be set for life: A Federal job, nothing fancy but a regular paycheck. . .I'd never have to worry again. But if I didn't take the offer, then they knew that I went jogging by myself and he couldn't guarantee what would happen to my 'pretty little legs.'"

Fine party, the Democrats.

Perdue said a shotgun cartridge was left on the driver's seat of her Jeep and back window was shattered. Clinton got away with it.

James Riady's family and employees gave Clinton $700,000. After his election, John Huang and Riady gave $100,000 to Clinton's inaugural fund. Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker came to Washington for the inauguration. He left Arkansas under the control of the President Pro Tem of the Senate, Little Rock dentist Jerry Jewell. Jewell, as acting Governor, issued a number pardons, including one for convicted drug dealer Tommy McIntosh.

It was "a political payoff, offered in exchange for dirty tricks Mr. McIntosh played on Clinton political opponents during the Presidential campaign, or as a payoff for stopping his attacks on Mr. Clinton," reported the Washington Times. "It seems that the elder McIntosh had worked for Clinton in his last state campaign and, according to McIntosh in a 1991 lawsuit, had agreed not only to pay him $25,000 but to help him market his recipe for sweet potato pie and to pardon his son." Clinton got away with it.

Webster Hubbell was floated as a potential Deputy Attorney General, but he told associates that "to take any other position that involves Senate confirmation - perhaps to avoid fishing expeditions into the law firm's confidential business," made acceptance of the nomination problematic, according to Time magazine.

John Huang arranged for Mochtar Riady and Clinton to meet and discuss China's "most favored nation" status and the relaxation of economic sanctions. China's MFN was renewed. If this was the result of bribes, Clinton got away with it.

The Clintons engaged in "foul-mouthed shouting matches and furniture-breaking sessions," according to two Arkansas state troopers, quoted by Washington Times reporter Jerry Seper.

Hillary Clinton and David Watkins favored World Wide Travel over the White House travel office. They had been the source of $1 million in "free" campaign trips. Seven long-term travel office employees were fired. The Clintons trumped up mismanagement and kickback charges, while director Billy Dale was charged with bogus embezzlement allegations. A jury acquitted them in less than two hours on the false charges of kickbacks, bribery acceptances and payoffs. Can you imagine that? Bill and Hillary Clinton accusing somebody of kickbacks, bribery acceptances and payoffs! They got away with it.

Insight magazine reported that the Clinton Administration eavesdropped on over 300 locations during the Seattle Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference. FBI videotapes of diplomatic suites "show underage boys engaging in sexcapades with men in several rooms over a period of days." The operation involved the FBI, CIA, NSA and Office of Naval Intelligence. Hotel rooms, telephones, conference centers, cars, and even a charter boat were bugged. The operation was performed as part of a blackmail operation used to further Asian financial interests that were bribing Clinton. In a world in which Osama bin Laden and other dangerous terrorists were plotting to destroy this beautiful nation, Clinton was using the full force of our intelligence apparatus to bug underage boys engaging in sexcapades with men because it threatened his cover. He got away with it.

Washington attorney Paul Wilcher was investigating various scandals ranging from the October Surprise of 1980, drug and gun running through Mena and the Waco assault. His plan was to make a TV documentary detailing Clinton's crimes. After delivering an extensive affidavit to Janet Reno, he was killed. If Clinton ordered this, he got away with it. Can't vouch for Reno.

The Clinton's attorney, Vince Foster, finally filed the missing Whitewater tax returns. The RTC and SBA investigated the $300,000 SBA-approved loan to Susan McDougal in 1986, provided by Capital-Management Services Inc., owned by David L. Hale.

A package from Arkansas contained a vial that Clinton said was allergy medicine. Clinton asked White House physician Dr. Burton Lee to give him an allergy shot. Lee told him he could not do so without seeing the President's medical history, or what is in the serum that had been delivered, without supporting data from Clinton's doctor in Arkansas. He in turn told him he had to check with Hillary first. Lee was immediately fired and told to leave right away. Clinton got away with having his medical records (which included his treatment for cocaine abuse, among other things) from being revealed. In 1996 journalist Richard Reeves stated that Clinton "tries to avoid heavy lifting or meetings after he has taken his allergy shots because he is so punchy; he has trouble thinking coherently."

On July 19, 1993, Clinton personally fired FBI director William Sessions, telling him to leave FBI headquarters. That night, Clinton security aide Jerry Parks' wife Jane overheard her husband's animated conversation with Vince Foster.

"You can't give Hillary those files, they've got my name all over them," Foster said.

The next day, Louis Freeh was named new FBI director. Also that day, the FBI raided David Hale's Little Rock office and took the Capital-Management documents. A few hours after the search warrant was signed by a Federal magistrate in Little Rock, Vince Foster "drove" to Ft. Marcy Park without car keys, in a vehicle that changed color over the next few hours. He "walked" across 700 feet of park without getting dirt on his shoes or grass stains on his pants. He "shot himself" with a vanishing bullet. He left a tiny amount of blood. That was the "official account." Foster's death is still today an unsolved mystery. Millions of people who can think believe the Clintons got away with murder - again.

A few hours after Foster was "discovered," Clinton's goons secretly searched his office. One of them was Hillary's chief of staff. A couple of days later, another search was conducted, for the record. U.S. Park Police and FBI agents, who had jurisdiction over the Foster investigation, had their efforts blocked by the White House, citing "executive privilege."

30 hours after his death, Foster's "suicide note" was provided, torn in 27 pieces with pieces missing. Witness Patrick Knowlton was in the park 70 minutes before the body was "discovered." His recollections did not fit the official version, even though he was pressured to change his story. He was subpoenaed and said that he was harassed and knew he was under surveillance, in an effort to intimidate him. If Clinton's people were obstructing justice, then Clinton got away with it.

Jerry Parks, who had handled Clinton's security in Arkansas (can you imagine what that entailed?) kept a dossier on Clinton. Two months after Foster's murder, Parks was murdered sitting in his car near Little Rock. Parks was shot through the rear window, then finished off with three more shots with a 9mm pistol. He had run American Contract Services, supplying Clinton's bodyguards during the campaign and transition. He was still owed $81,000 by Clinton, and had begun a file that included photos and dates of Clinton's sex life. According to his widow, Federal agents took his files and computer. She quoted him saying, "I'm a dead man" after hearing of Foster's murder. He had made substantial cash transfers to Foster. Later, his house was trashed, with files, 130 telephone tapes and computer data stolen. If Clinton had Parks murdered, he got away with it.

Four years later, the Progressive Review re-visited it.

"Why did Miquel Rodriquez, the Assistant U.S. Attorney assigned by <Ken> Starr to reopen the investigation into Foster's death resign? Was it true, as some have alleged, that he was blocked from aggressively pursuing the case? Why was he denied the opportunity to bring in experts outside the FBI to deal with inconsistencies? Why did Starr, in reopening the Foster case, permit FBI agents to review their own work in the previous investigation? There have been conflicting statements as to whether any x-rays were taken of Foster after his death. Were there or weren't there? If there were, where have they gone? If there weren't, why not? It is standard police procedure to investigate suicides as though they were murders. Why wasn't this done in the case of Vince Foster? Why did Bernard Nussbaum ask for the combination of Foster's safe immediately after his death? Why were manila envelopes in the safe addressed 'Eyes Only' to Janet Reno and William Kennedy never delivered to them? Where are these envelopes and what was in them? Whose bloodstained car was towed to the FBI garage from Ft. Marcey Park the same night as Foster's death? How did Foster walk 750 feet through a park without gathering any physical evidence of the hike on his shoes? How did his glasses end up 19 feet from his body? What were the origins of numerous carpet fibers found all over Foster's clothing and underwear? How did it happen that all 35mm film of the scene was either overexposed or missing? How did it happen that most of the Polaroid shots have vanished? How did Foster manage to shoot himself yet die laid out in the careful manner of someone placed in a coffin? Why were there no fingerprints on the gun? Why did no one hear the shot? Where is Foster's appointment book? How did car keys, not found during the investigation in the park, turn up with Foster at the morgue? How was Foster's car opened at the park since officials claimed it was locked? Where is the bullet that killed Foster? Why did witnesses have their testimony changed and why was one witness subsequently harassed in a manner used by intelligence agents for intimidation? What did Foster do in the hours between lunch time and when he supposedly was killed? What did Marsha Scott of the White House staff and Vince Foster talk about during the two-hour meeting they had the day before he died? Why can't Marsha Scott remember? What did Foster do on secret trips to Switzerland and other locations about which his wife knew nothing? Why have police and rescue workers been forbidden to discuss the case?"

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind, but the real answer looks to be that 32 years apart, the Democrat party nominated and got elected men who ordered the murder of others in the manner of a Mafia don. Clinton's heroes, the Kennedy's, had the president of South Vietnam assassinated in 1963, they very likely killed a year after Marilyn Monroe in Los Angeles. As Joe Di Maggio said as soon as he heard of Marilyn's death, "Those fucking Kennedys."

The deaths of Foster and Parks create a real quandary. In a town dominated by Democrats, who populate the Federal bureaucracy, the question is, are Democrats able to get away with things that Republicans cannot? Or is it just that Democrats are more pre-disposed to do the really heinous stuff? Is it easier to destroy a Republican President who was trying to find out what his opponents strategy might be than to get a Democrat ordering murders? Or to bring down a Republican President going against Democrat attempts to keep anti-Communist freedom fighters from overcoming their oppressors, just a few years after Democrats had succeeded in shutting down aid to people who died by the millions because of it? Are Democrats just more skilled and experienced at breaking these laws?

Or do the Clintons have dark forces working on their behalf? Did they make a supernatural deal that allowed them to improbably rise to power, all their crimes covered up and never solved? Is one of them a beast, over and above run-of-the-mill evil? If so, is it coincidence that such evil chose to be draped in the cloak of the Democrat party? Is the Clinton's story the real tale of Damien and "The Omen"? Is it dangerous to broach this subject?

The Truth will set you free.

Patrick Knowlton's attorney, John Clarke, raised other issues:

  * "Can you tell us why no fingerprints were found on (1) the external surface of

the gun found in Mr. Foster's hand; (2) the cartridge casing of the bullet's found in the gun; (3) Mr. Foster's eyeglasses; (4) Mr. Foster's car; (5) any of the contents in his car; and (6) the torn 'suicide' note?

  2003. "Your report on Mr. Foster's death claims there was a 1 1/4 x 1 inch, or half-dollar sized exit wound in the back of Mr. Foster's head caused by a .38 caliber gunshot with high velocity ammunition. Please explain why out of all the witnesses at the scene, not one reported or documented having seen this wound, or brain matter, or bone fragments or blood splatter on or around the body, head or vegetation, as would be expected.

  * "Between the hours of 4:30 P.M. and 6:05 P.M., there is a record of six witnesses - Jennifer Wacha, Judith Doody, Mark Fiest, Todd Hall, Patrick Knowlton and George Gonzalez \- having seen an older brown Honda within the Ft. Marcy parking lot, parked in the same spot as Mr. Foster's car was later found. Inasmuch as Mr. Foster's Honda was silver and much newer than the brown Honda described by the witnesses, and inasmuch as Mr. Foster was dead by 4:30, how is it that Mr. Foster's car arrived in the park after he was already dead?

  * "Mr. Foster's body was found at Ft. Marcy Park with his car but without any car keys. Later that evening William Kennedy and Craig Livingstone showed up at the morgue and so did Mr. Foster's car keys. There are conflicting reports in the record about when Kennedy and Livingstone and the U.S. Park Police arrived at the morgue. Can you explain where William Kennedy and Craig Livingstone were during the five-hour period when Vincent Foster was last seen and his body was discovered?"

The only "answer" continually seems to be that Clinton got away with it. The Honda in the Ft. Marcy parking lot was said to be "brownish" before Foster's body was found, "gray" afterwards.

One day after Foster's murder, Buddy Young was sent to Texas to work for FEMA. When four former ATF agents were killed during the Waco Massacre, it was noted that all of them had once been Clinton's bodyguards! All of them were killed in a mysterious manner. The nature of their entrance wounds made it appear that they could have been killed by sharpshooters who had planned to kill them ahead of time, and if this was ordered by Clinton to keep them silent about what they knew about the President, he got away with it.

Four more Clinton bodyguards died in a helicopter crash near Quantico, Virginia. Reporters were not allowed near the site, which was guarded by "lots of Marines with guns," according to the fire chief. A firefighter made a videotape, which was seized by the Marines.

China Resources Company Ltd. paid 50 percent above market value for Lippo's Hong Kong Chinese Bank. The Riadys made $163 million off the transaction. Tyson Foods gave illegal gifts to Agriculture Secretary Michael Espy when costly regulations were under consideration. Tyson's reduced fines cost them $6 million, but government contracts arranged by Espy earned them $200 million.

The Clinton Administration viewed ATT's new tap-proof phone as a threat. Janet Reno put Webster Hubbell on the case. Hubbell tapped into a fund of drug money, attempting to buy all the phones, planning to refit them with a chip called Clipper, an NSA invention allowing the government to bug phones with a special key. The DEA was given a supply of these. The plan was for all government agencies and everyone in the country to use the new public-key based cryptography method. Public outcry derailed Clinton's plan, which was an interesting one in light of the fact that he and his wife had worked against Nixon during Watergate, because bugging people was such an awful thing to do. Amazingly, this time, Clinton did not get away with it.

The Clinton White House sold Cray supercomputers to China as part of a "goodwill" gesture. China during the Clinton years made enormous "strides" in the area of technological advancements. In other words, Clinton finally made Lenin a prophet, by selling the Communists the rope they could use to hang us. $2 billion of trade with China was exempt from national security scrutiny. China obtained 77 supercomputers to scramble and unscramble secret data and design nuclear weapons. Clinton almost single-handedly modernized the Red Chinese Army, and he got away with it.

President Clinton signed national security waivers allowing four U.S. commercial satellites to be launched in China, despite evidence that China was exporting nuclear and missile technology to Pakistan and Iran, just to name a few. One of the satellites belonged to Loral.

Chinese launched an appropriately named Long March rocket carrying a $200 million satellite belonging to Loral, but it failed in mid-flight. In legal proceedings that followed, it was determined that circuit boards from the highly classified encryption device in the satellite were found to be missing. After the crash, the NSA reportedly changed the encoded algorithms used by U.S. satellites due to the probable release of highly classified information. If this story is true, perhaps for the time, Clinton can get a little credit. Selling faulty equipment to the Communists might have been a swindle that netted him a lot of money, and yes, he got away with it, but anything that leaves the Chinese with missiles that fail is alright from this angle. On the other hand, the faulty equipment was probably placed in the devices by the NSA without Clinton's knowledge, as part of a patriotic effort to keep America safe despite him. This would be in the tradition of Naval intelligence maintaining the Venona project to see if the Soviets were cutting a separate deal with Hitler and had spies in the Roosevelt Administration, unbeknownst to Roosevelt. When Democrats are in power there are just some things that have to be done to make sure we are kept safe, regardless of whether they like it or not. God bless these guys.

Loral CEO Bernard Schwartz contributed a minimum of $1.5 million to the Democrats. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown okayed the sale of new American engines for China to put in its cruise missiles. Brown reclassified the military equipment as civilian. Brown told the Saudis they could only have our planes if they signed on to a sweetheart ATT phone contract that he brokered, adding $4 billion to the deal, all cut through a firm called First International, owned by Ron Brown. Brown and Clinton got away with it.

The temerity of the Democrats was virtually beyond belief. Clinton and his cronies were utterly brazen. They had been throughout his public life. It almost seemed that the only way they could keep getting away with it would be if they were...protected, by...what?

In 1994, John Huang quit the Lippo Group and took $800,000 with him. He went to the Commerce Department to work for Ron Brown, at the behest of Hillary Clinton. Brown gave him top secret clearance. Huang visited the White House approximately 70 times. The CIA briefed him 37 times. He had access to some 500 intelligence reports. He made 281 calls from his office at Commerce to Lippo banks. Hunag was not working on national security. He was using the American government, at the expense of our ability to defend against military action from China, to make money for himself and Bill Clinton. They both got away with it.

Ron Brown went to China to open up $5.5 billion in business. A $1 billion contract was for one of Clinton's pals in Arkansas, Entergy Corporation, to run Lippo's power plant in northern China. Entergy got similar sweetheart contracts in Indonesia.

"I think the idea of having President Clinton from Arkansas in the White House shouldn't be underestimated," Riady told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

Indeed. Clinton got away with it.

China, at this point only five years removed from Tiannenmen Square, still operated Soviet-style gulags and work camps. This did not bother the Clintons one bit. In fact, if they are not just crooked but genuinely evil. It makes sense that they admired the Communists for their "hard-line" ways.

A Commerce Department statement read, "...deftly navigated the human-rights issue by obtaining an agreement on further talks and then moved directly into the economic issues at hand: Helping Chrysler, Sprint and others with their joint ventures."

Is there some set of circumstances, some alternate Universe, in which Democrats can legitimately know these allegations and still support these people? The Clintons got away with it and the beat goes on.

Gandy Baugh, an attorney for Dan Lasater, "jumped" to his death. His law partner "killed himself" a month later. Danny Ferguson was named a co-defendant in the Paula Jones lawsuit. Five days later, his ex-wife, Kathy Ferguson, was found dead. She left a "suicide note" next to bags she had neatly packed for a trip she was scheduled to take. Her fiancée, a state trooper, was shot at her gravesite next to a note reading, "I can't stand it any more." The local police chief was quoted saying, "It puts big questions in your mind. Why?" Big questions? Are there still really questions? Clinton got away with it.

FBI agent Gary Aldrich was on White House detail. He was told to trim the Christmas tree in the Blue Room, using small clay ornament of 12-lords-aleaping. The Clinton's ornaments had erections. Hillary's other ornaments allegedly included drug paraphernalia such as syringes and roach clips, three French hens in a menage a trois, two turtle doves fornicating, five golden rings attached to a gingerbread man's ear, nipple, belly button, nose, and male phallus.

Webster Hubbell was convicted of tax evasion and mail fraud after stealing almost half a million bucks from the Rose law firm and not paying $150,000 in taxes. Considering everything, one is surprised Clinton did not nominate him to be Attorney General. He quit his job at Justice, then met with Hillary, John Huang, James Riady, and Ng Lapseng. Riady and Huang went to the White House for five straight days in June of 1994. The Hong Kong Chinese Bank, a Lippo/Chinese intelligence operation, paid Hubbell $100,000. Hubbell received $400,000 in additional payments for his fine work. Huang previously had worked for the Hong Kong Chinese Bank. Clinton got away with it.

James Leach chaired the House Banking Committee. He came home one day and found a Clinton private investigator checking out his house to intimidate him. Clinton got away with it.

Macao businessman Ng Lap Seng was associated with the Chinese. On June 20, 1994, he arrived in the U.S. from China with $175,000, and met with Charlie Trie and Mark Middleton at the White House. He sat at Clinton's table at a Democrat National Committee fundraiser. Middleton regularly visited Trie's apartment at the Watergate, which was paid for by Ng. If a Chinese money laundering operation was being run through the Clinton White House, Clinton got away with it.

Few White House employees had security clearances. Huang did, and he used it at Commerce to obtain top secret files on China before meeting with the Chinese ambassador. If he then informed the ambassador what was in those files, on Clinton's behalf, they both got away with it.

Huang and the Riadys then met with Clinton, and Huang's new marching orders were to raise funds for the Democrats while staying on at Commerce as a $10,000 a month consultant. He raised $5 million for the 1996 campaign, but about one-third of that had to be returned to its illegal sources, including five Chinese nationals who gave $250,000 to the Democrats in exchange for a meeting with the President, who got away with it.

Hubbell went to work for a Lippo affiliate before doing jail time.

"I guess the question is really this, it is whether, in connection with this representation, you received a large amount of money and that may have had an impact on the degree of your cooperation with the independent counsel or with us?" a Senate counsel asked him.

"That's pretty rotten," Hubbell responded. Hubbell had represented Worthen and James Riady in the 1980s. While Hubbell may have been nailed, the Clintons got away with it. At Christmas time, the Clintons invited a major drug dealer named Jorge Cabrera to the White House. Cabrera, a Democrat of course, gave $20,000 to his party of choice. Vice-President Gore was happily photographed with the drug man at a Miami fund-raiser. Unbelievable. Clinton tried to hide the photo of Gore with the drug dealer, calling it a secret under the Privacy Act! Clinton and Gore eventually got away with it.

Cabrera had done 54 months in prison for his continuing narcotics operation, which he was actively managing during his service in the Clinton/Gore Administration. He did more prison time after his visit with the Clintons for transporting 6,000 pounds of cocaine into the U.S. The Clinton Administration said he posed no threat! They, uh, got away with it.

Clinton pardoned one of his mother's gambling friends, according to the Washington Times. Jack Pakis had been convicted under the Organized Crime Control Act, sentenced to two years in prison, but the sentence was suspended. He was fined and put on probation. Pakis' arrest had been part of an FBI sting operation against illegal gambling in Hot Springs.

"His trial judge described Mr. Pakis as a professional gambler, part owner of an illegal casino and an illegal bookmaker for football and horse-racing bets," according to the Washington Times.

The FBI had "reached into Hot Springs to put a stop to gambling that has existed here since the 1920s,"U.S. District Judge Oren Harris noted. Pakis was the former owner of one of Al Capone's favorite hangouts. Clinton's mother wrote an autobiography describing the joint as a place where "gangsters were cool and the rules were meant to be bent." It is not known whether Pakis was one of the men she provided sexual services for. Thanks to her, there were in Hot Springs a lot of motherf... You get the idea. Clinton got away with it.

Roger Morris and Sally Denton detailed Clinton's drug/Contra operations in Mena, but the Washington Post did not run it. A pattern was developing among Democrats and their willing accomplices in the media. It was similar to the way Joe McCarthy had been lied about and smeared after Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, Henry Wallace, the Rosenbergs and many other liberals were discovered to be Communists and Communist spies in the 1940s and '50s. Their world depended upon it. The truth about Clinton was so horrible that to admit what he was could very well spell the end of the Democrat party. Everything they stood for rested on this "man's" narrow shoulders. A seminal moment in politics had occurred, and the result was that the Democrats were doomed to being the party of lies, crimes and murder. This is the simple, sorry fact of the matter.

It is very likely that the Clintons were protected because Mena had involved the Reagan/Bush Administration. We will probably never know the whole truth. However, the case against Clinton, by 1995, only his third year in office, was so insidious that it is difficult to excuse his crimes as "political," or "bi-partisan." It appears that in an effort to fight Communism via a covert operation out of Mena, he may have hooked on to a proposal the Reagan people made early in the 1980s. Knowing the whole thing was protected from prosecution and the public because it was a secret, national security operation, Clinton realized he had what he considered to be the carte blanche opportunity to engage in any activity he wanted. The devil works that way.

The Post said "allegedly dark deeds at Mena have helped foster the cult of conspiracy that has taken root among some of Clinton's more virulent opponents." Morris' and Denton's article eventually was published in Penthouse.

Just before White House lawyer Cheryl Mills testified before a Senate committee on the Whitewater affair, her car was broken into and her notes on Vince Foster were stolen. Clinton got away with it.

IRS investigator Bill Duncan's computer was broken into and his 7,000-page file on Mena was tampered with. Clinton got away with it.

L.D. Brown, who had been a part of the Arkansas State Police security detail, said in American Spectator that he made secret flights from Mena in 1984, providing M-16 rifles to the Contra rebels in exchange for cocaine for Clinton's drug selling operation.

"That announcement spurred Ft. Smith lawyer Asa Hutchinson, chairman of the Arkansas Republican party, to request yet another Congressional inquiry into long-standing allegations of money-laundering at Mena," wrote Mara Leveritt in the Arkansas Times. "Hutchinson was the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas when investigators first presented evidence supporting those allegations. In an argument disputed by police investigators, Hutchinson claims he left office before the evidence was well established. Since he harbors political ambitions, he has an interest in clearing his name." Clinton got away with it.

Johnny Chung called himself a pawn of macro-politics before a House committee. He said a fax broadcast service owner was sought by the White House, the DNC, various Chinese generals and officials, and that he was being called to a karaoke bar in the middle of the night to advise a Chinese-American on the run from the U.S.

"I next saw General Ji's wife when she came back to the United States with her son," Chung said. "I set up their attendance at a Presidential fundraiser - the 'Back to the Future' event - at a California movie studio on October 17, 1996. I took my driver and secretary as well as the general's wife and Alex to meet the President. There was a mix-up with the DNC and my driver and secretary were given a private audience with the President while me and the General's wife and son were not included. While my driver and secretary were very appreciative, I was very upset." If Clinton was using Chung to cut illegal deals with the Chinese that threatened American security, he got away with it.

Clinton spoke in Little Rock, saying the Whitewater investigators were "a cancer" that he will "cut out of American politics." He was determined to get away with it.

Barbara Wise, a Commerce Department (International Trade Administration) secretary and associate of John Huang, was killed. Her body was discovered partially nude in a locked office at Commerce. If she died because she knew things about Clinton and was going to speak about them, then Clinton got away with it. Her murder was never solved.

A grand jury probe began in March, 1996 regarding Ron Brown. An Oklahoma gas company allegedly diverted $500,000 to him to influence a pending lawsuit. Janet Reno put Daniel Pearson in charge of the investigation. Brown complained to Reno that the investigation was getting too close, but Reno felt that she had been presented with public information and if she stopped at this point, it would be too close. Brown went to Clinton and informed him that if he was going down, so was he. Big mistake.

Four days later Brown, the utterly corrupt, criminal former head of the Democrat National Committee, was dead. After the grand jury subpoenas were issued, the plane he was flying (along with over 30 Americans) crashed Croatia. Inconsistencies dogged the crash investigation regarding the weather, the crashed site, the black boxes, and the suicide (?) of an airport official in charge of navigational aids. The rescue team was delayed for more than four hours while Clinton's people prepared the site to eliminate evidence of foul play. Other reports indicated that the plane crash was arranged to kill another man who had the goods on Clinton, or simply heard about the plot in advance, and did not make the flight. He was killed eventually. Either way, if Clinton murdered all those people, he got away with it. At this point, the reader must examine the evidence and start asking some serious questions. Time after time, these reports are made, and there is never enough proof to get the Clintons. Is it possible these events keep occurring, over and over, and they are just plain innocent? Deaths, murders, suicides, crashes, drugs, money laundering, espionage, foreign countries? At one point does circumstantial evidence add up to an obvious conclusion?

Hillary Clinton decided to write a book, and was given $120,000 of editorial help that she attempted to hide from the public. Then she told New Zealand television that she was named after New Zealand's Sir Edmund Hillary. When Hillary was born, Hillary was an unknown beekeeper. He did not scale Mt. Everest until after Hillary was named.

Hillary's "an unusually good liar," Senator Bob Kerrey, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told Esquire.

Convicted cocaine distributor Dan Lasater testified before Congress. The newspaper of record, the New York Times, chose not to report the story. Lasater was a "friend of Bill" (FOB); Roger's drug supplier (paying off his debt to the cartel); a "friend" of Clinton's mother (who introduced them); and was recommended by Bill to eventual White House aide Patsy Thomasson, who became vice president of his bond company and had power of attorney for him when he was in jail. Thomasson became director of White House Management and Administration, responsible for drug testing among. Thomasson had hired Roger as a limo driver. At trial, Lasater said he supplied coke and ashtrays on his corporate jet. He said he gave coke to minors. Lasater had a back door pass to the Governor's mansion. A state trooper said he usually spent 45 minutes with Clinton. He was insulted when he was called a "drug dealer." The New York Times refused to print any of this. Bill, connected to Lasater up to his eyeballs, got away with it.

Ex-CIA director William Colby died while canoeing after leaving his home unlocked, his computer on, and dinner on the table. Colby had begun an investigation into Foster's death for Strategic Investment. If President Clinton could order the death of the former Director of Central Intelligence, and government agents carried it out, then it is a chilling statement about America. It makes one think about the Kennedy assassination. It speaks to a "shadow government" that makes the average American so small and insignificant as to wonder just how pervasive evil truly is. Will the Truth set us free? Is there an afterlife, and once he enters it, will Bill Clinton keep getting away with it.

Jim McDougal told a reporter that he expects to die in prison. Obviously, McDougal knew Clinton would get away with it.

The Arkansas Development Financial Authority transferred $50 million to a bank in the Cayman Islands. If this was part of the Clinton's illegal activities, they got away with it.

The Associated Press reported that drug use was rampant among Clinton staffers.

"Some of the Clinton White House employees who were placed in a special drug testing program had used cocaine and hallucinogens and were originally denied White House security passes, Secret Service agents testified Wednesday," the AP reported. "The testing program was created as a compromise so the new administration's workers could keep their jobs, according to Arnold Cole, who supervised the Secret Service's White House operations. 'Initially, our response was that we denied them passes,' Cole said."

"I have seen cocaine usage," said agent Jeffrey Undercoffer of Clinton's people. "I have seen hallucinogenic usages, crack usages." 21 Clinton White House workers had been placed in a special testing after their background checks indicated recent drug abuse. Clinton got away with it.

Vince Foster's widow re-married. Neil Moody, the son of her new husband, was killed in a single-car crash against a brick wall after he talked to reporters. He said he found documents in his stepmother's private papers indicating that Foster may not have committed suicide. He threatened to make a splash of it just before the Democrat National Convention. Witnesses saw him arguing with a man in his car just before he sped off, right into the wall. If he died to protect the Clintons, they got away with it.

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jeremy Boorda allegedly killed himself after going home for lunch. Why? Supposedly he had been wearing an improper "V for Valor" medal. Others said he was stressed over Navy downsizing. Upon investigation, he was entitled to wearing the pins. Some now believe that Clinton's people either killed him, or if he killed himself, it was because of the "Tailhook" scandal that feminist Democrats had used to hatefully make Naval aviators look bad. Tailhook had been a major boost for Clinton and the Democrats during the "year of the woman" 1992 campaign. If Admiral Boorda died at their altar, they got away with it.

TWA 800 crashed.

"Police are investigating the possibility that insurance fraud by a Swiss resident listed among the 230 people killed in the TWA Flight 800 explosion might have been behind the disaster, Swiss television reported last night," wrote the Guardian of London. "Swiss authorities have been investigating Algerian-born Mohammed Samir Ferrat, for 18 months, the report said. . . A Geneva lawyer, Gerald Page, alleged in an interview for the Swiss television report that Ferrat took out life insurance policies worth several million Swiss francs in the weeks before the plane crashed in July 1996, half an hour after taking off from New York . . .On August 19, a month after the crash, the local medical examiner in Suffolk County - in whose jurisdiction the disaster occurred - declared that Mohammed Ferrat had been positively identified as a dead passenger from TWA Flight 800. U.S. investigators counted him out as a suspect early. . .The report showed footage of the late U.S. Commerce Secretary, Ron Brown, at the Washington signing with Ferrat of a pounds 62.5 million contract between Sofin and the U.S. construction firm Chatwick Inc., which was to build residences in the Ivory Coast."

According to CNN, Mohamed Samir Ferrat was scheduled to accompany Brown on the flight that crashed in Croatia. He did not make the trip for unexplained reasons, but did die on TWA Flight 800. If Clinton had anything to do with this, he got away with it.

Shelly Kelly was a flight attendant on Ron Brown's crashed flight. James Nugent of the Wall Street Underground wrote, "Four hours and 20 minutes after the crash, the first Croatian Special Forces search party arrives on the scene and finds only Ms. Kelly surviving. They call for a helicopter to evacuate her to the hospital. When it arrives, she is able to get aboard without assistance from the medics. But Kelly never completes the short hop. She dies en route. According to multiple reports given to journalist/editor Joe L. Jordan, an autopsy later reveals a neat three-inch incision over her main femoral artery. It also shows that the incision came at least three hours after her other cuts and bruises."

Chief Niko Jerkuic, technician in charge of the radio beacons used during the fatal Ron Brown flight, committed suicide. Christopher Ruddy and Hugh Sprunt wrote, "Brown's plane was probably relying on Croatian ground beacons for navigation. In the minutes before Brown's plane crashed, five other planes landed at Dubrovnik without difficulty, and none experienced problems with the beacons. But additional questions about the beacons and the crash will remain unanswered because, as the Air Force acknowledges, airport maintenance chief Niko Junic died by gunshot just three days after the crash and before he could be interviewed by investigators. Within a day of his death, officials determined the death was a suicide."

The three major networks spent an average of one hour and twelve minutes each on the Clinton scandals during all of the election year of 1996, and Hillary Clinton says they were victims of a conspiracy.

They just kept getting away with it.

Is it possible that the description of these events is just Republican ranting? Are they just scurrilous accusations? Can common sense discount these reports? The beatings go on.

Charles Uribe, chairman of A.J. Construction Company in New York, received a phone call, according to Michael Isikoff of Newsweek.

"The Vice-President is on the line," his secretary said.

"Vice-President of what?" Uribe asked.

"The Vice-President of the United States," she replied. A series of "yes, sirs" and "no, sirs" followed.

"We need to raise $50,000 for the campaign," Uribe told his colleagues. Clinton got away with it and was re-elected in November.

Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor said he was "stunned" to discover that companies joining him on trade missions were Democrat campaign contributors, despite a letter from Clinton stating that $10,000 donors would get an invite to "join party leadership as they travel abroad to examine current and developing issues." Clinton got away with it.

Hillary Clinton showed up at the pediatrics ward of the Georgetown University Medical Center to have her photo taken reading to sick kids. The sick kids looked...sick. They were bald from cancer treatments, and some had tubes and catheters sticking into them. She ordered the sick kids replaced by the healthy children of the hospital staff, who had to be rounded up. She got away with it.

Former White House intern Mary Caitrin Mahoney was shot five times during the murder of three Starbucks employees in an execution-style slaying, but no money was stolen. A police informant on the case was murdered when sent by D.C. police into a botched drug sting. There were 301 murders in D.C. that year. The Starbucks murder was the only one handled by the FBI and Janet Reno. If this was an effort to eliminate more people with knowledge of Bill, then Clinton got away with it.

Foutanga Dit Babani Sissoko, a West African multi-millionaire, was in jail for bribery and smuggling. He showed a judge a dinner invitation he received to dine with Bill Clinton in Washington. The judge figured if Sissoko was an FOB, he must be a truly bad criminal, and set his bail at $20 million.

Former Arkansas state trooper L.D Brown was approached on a bus in England and offered $100,000 to lie about Whitewater. A similar offer was made to him in Arkansas. If the Clintons were behind the bribe offer, they got away with it.

A $27,000 check was discovered in a car in Arkansas, along with McDougal's Madison Guaranty records. Shortly thereafter, a mysteriously sick McDougal was tossed into solitary confinement because he would not urinate for a drug test. He was on 12 medications at the time, four of which make it hard to urinate. If the Clintons were behind this, they got away with it.

Gennifer Flowers reported death threats and that her house was ransacked. Clinton got away with it.

Two Armed Forces medical examiners confirmed that Ron Brown had a perfectly circular hole in his head that looked like a gun wound. No autopsy or investigation followed, and if that was because Clinton ordered it that way, he got away with it.

A Federal grand jury found state prosecutor Dan Harmon guilty of drug dealing and extortion, sentencing him to eight years in prison.

Jim McDougal said of Web Hubbell, "Hubbell knows where the bodies are buried."

Independent prosecutor Dan Smaltz and the FBI questioned an ex-Tyson food pilot who claimed to have carried cash from Tyson to the Arkansas Governor's mansion.

"I nearly fell off my chair when I heard Joe make the allegation." Smaltz told Time magazine. "I took over the questions." Janet Reno blocked Smaltz from pursuing the case, so Clinton got away with it.

Monica Lewinsky had the following conversation with Linda Tripp:

TRIPP: "Well, let me put it to you this way. By hanging up and saying you're telling your parents and then hanging up the phone, you're saying a whole hell of a lot more than you could ever do in a 20-minute conversation."

LEWINSKY: "I know (tape skip) (inaudible) my Mom will kill me if I don't tell him - make it clear at some point that I'm not going to hurt him, because - see, my Mom's big fear is that he's going to send somebody out to kill me."

TRIPP: "Oh, my God. Oh, my God."

LEWINSKY: "So -"

TRIPP: "Shut up."

LEWINSKY: "Well, that's what she thinks."

TRIPP: "Oh, my God. Don't even say such an asinine thing. He's not that stupid. He's an arrogant....but he's not that stupid."

LEWINSKY: "Well, you know, accidents happen."

Charlie Trie told a reporter who located him in China that he would not come back to the U.S. because, "I want to stay alive."

Fox's Carl Cameron reported that the FBI saw Trie's employees destroying fundraising evidence. Just before Senate campaign finance abuse hearings, Janet Reno refused to grant the warrants to search Trie's office, leaving agents to simply observe the destruction of documents. Reno and Clinton got away with it.

White House aide Cheryl Mills told the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee that she and White House Counsel Jack Quinn withheld documents from investigators for 15 months, including a memo suggesting Clinton wanted the $1.7 million White House Office Data Base shared with the DNC.

"[Your investigations will not] feed one person, give shelter to someone who is homeless, educate one child, provide health care for one family or offer justice to one African-American or Hispanic juvenile . . ." she said. "You could spend your time making the lives of the individuals you serve better, as opposed to tearing down the staff of a President with whose vision and policies you disagree."

She concluded that Clinton was a champion of civil rights. In the mean time, Clinton got away with it.

Res ipsa loquiter.

1998 began with George Stephanopoulos telling ABC This Week that the White House has a "different, long-term strategy, which I think would be far more explosive. White House allies are already starting to whisper about what I'll call the Ellen Rometsch strategy . . . She was a girlfriend of John F. Kennedy, who also happened to be an East German spy. And Robert Kennedy was charged with getting her out of the country and also getting J. Edgar Hoover to go up to the Congress and say, 'Don't you investigate this, because if you do, we're going to open up everybody's closets.'"

"Are you suggesting for a moment that what they're beginning to say is that if you investigate this too much, we'll put all your dirty linen right on the table?" asked Sam Donaldson. "Every member of the Senate? Every member of the press corps?"

"Absolutely," replied Stephanopoulos. "The President said he would never resign, and I think some around him are willing to take everybody down with him."

In other words, Clinton intended to get away with it.

Jim McDougal said the Clintons move through people's lives like a tornado. He died in solitary confinement after being separated from his heart medication and put on Lasix, which is contraindicated for heart patients. After complaining of dizziness and becoming ill, no doctor was permitted to see him. He had been in isolation prior to his death. His autopsy found "a toxic but non-lethal amount" of Prozac in his body according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The medical examiner said the Prozac was unrelated despite being three times the normal dosage.

Shortly before he died, McDougal completed a book with Curtis Wilkie of the Boston Globe. In the New York Times review, "Moments after President Clinton gave videotaped testimony for the criminal trial of James and Susan McDougal, his former Whitewater partners, he privately agreed to give Mrs. McDougal a pardon if she was convicted, a new book by James McDougal says. 'I'm willing to stick with it, but if it doesn't work out, or whatever, can you pardon Susan?' McDougal recalled asking Clinton shortly after the President had completed his testimony, in the Map Room at the White House two years ago. 'You can depend on that,' Clinton is said to have replied quietly in the private conversation, apparently out of earshot of others. McDougal then asked, 'Like I say with all lawyers, I mean promptly?' The President grinned and nodded, by McDougal's account, and said, 'If you hang with me, I'll do it.'"

McDougal looks like the Frankie Pantangelo character in "Godfather II", willing to die for "Caesar." If so, Clinton got away with it.

Still another Clinton witness died. Johnny Franklin Lawhon, Jr., 29, was the owner of the auto transmission shop in Mabelville, Arkansas, who discovered a $27,000 cashier's check made out to Bill Clinton in a trunk of a tornado-damaged car. Lawhon hit a tree in the wee hours of March 30.

He took off "like a shot" from a filling station, said a witness. If Clinton's people killed him, he got away with it.

Linda Tripp had to be taken by the FBI to a safe house because of threats against her life. This is very interesting. The FBI usually uses safe houses to protect people from the Mafia and other criminals. Their use of the safe house meant that they felt Clinton to be as much a threat as the Mafia or dangerous criminals. Clinton got away with threatening her.

Arkansas Highway Police took $3.1 million from four suitcases in a tractor-trailer in money laundering scheme tied to Clinton's old Mena days, but he got away with it. Jorge Cabrera, official drug dealer of the Democrat party, pled guilty to laundering $3.5 million between 1986 and 1996. Clinton got away without it being connected to him.

Monica Lewinsky told Linda Tripp to lie under oath, and "I would write you a check. "

"I mean, telling the truth could get you in trouble," she added. "I don't know why you'd want to do that...I would not cross these - these people - for fear of my life."

Lewinsky thought she would be murdered by Clinton's "people" like former White House intern Mary Caitrin Mahoney, killed in the Starbucks execution-style murders, which Clinton got away with it.

The U.S. media ignored a story about Clinton selling the blood of Arkansas' prisoners in the 1980s, which he had gotten away with. Canadian publishers did report the story.

Kathleen Willey came forward to report that Clinton sexually harassed her in the White House. Before testifying, her tires were punctured with nails and her cat she went missing.

"Then just days before she testified in the Paula Jones lawsuit in early January, Willey was out jogging near her home when a stranger approached her. . ." reported ABC's Jackie Judd. "The man knew what had happened at her home and that he asked her if the tires had been fixed and if the cat had been found."

"Don't you get the message?" Clinton's man said before jogging off. Clinton got away with it.

On September 9, victim Bill Clinton gave a speech.

"All of you know that I've been on a rather painful journey these last few weeks and I've had to ask for things that I was more in the habit of giving in my life than asking for in terms of understanding and forgiveness," said Clinton, "but it's also given me the chance to try to ask, as all of us do: What do you really care about? What do you want to think about in your last hours on this Earth? What really matters? . . .So I ask you for your understanding, for your forgiveness on this journey we're on. I hope this will be a time of reconciliation and healing, and I hope that millions of families all over America are in a way growing stronger because of this."

Was this Clinton's version of a mea culpa?

Charles Wilbourne Miller, 63, was murdered and thrown into a shallow grave close to his ranch house near Little Rock. A .410 gauge shotgun and a Ruger .357-caliber revolver submerged in water were near Miller. The Ruger was supposed to have been used by Miller to kill himself. The weapon used by Miller to kill himself would then have had to be placed in the water by Miller after he killed himself. Two rounds in the handgun's cylinder were spent, meaning he shot himself, then put it to his head and shot again. Miller's connection to Clinton was that he had been the executive vice president and member of the board of directors for a company called Alltel, the successor to Jackson Stephens' Systematics. This was the company that provided software for the White House's "Big Brother" data base system and was behind Clinton's plan for the "Clipper" chip to bug every phone, fax and email transmission in America. If he died because he knew too much about Clinton, then the President got away with it.

Dr. Cyril Wecht, a veteran of over 13,000 autopsies, said there is "more than enough" evidence to suggest that Ron Brown's death was murder before the plane went down.

"It is not even arguable in the field of medical legal investigations whether an autopsy should have been conducted on Brown," said Dr. Wecht of the crime Clinton probably got away with it.

FBI Director Louis Freeh appeared before Congressman Dan Burton's committee:

BURTON: "Mr. Freeh, over 65 people have invoked the Fifth Amendment or fled the country in the course of the committee's [Clinton scandals] investigation. Have you ever experienced so many unavailable witnesses in any matter in which you've prosecuted or in which you've been involved?"

FREEH: "Actually, I have."

BURTON: "You have? Give me, give me a rundown on that real quickly."

FREEH: "I spent about 16 years doing organized crime cases in New York City and many people were frequently unavailable."

The only time Freeh ever saw more stonewalling than with Clinton was with the New York mob. Clinton got away with it. Former state trooper Larry Patterson testified in Paula Jones sexual harassment case:

Larry Patterson: "[Governor Clinton] said, 'I've got someone I need to see.' I said 'Okay.' 'Where are going?' He said 'To Booker Elementary School. . .[Chelsea attended Booker] So we went to Booker Elementary School and he said, 'I've a friend waiting down here, Larry and I'd like to spend some time alone with her.' . .This particular lady was driving a small red compact car. It was parked beside the school underneath a streetlight. . .I was out of the car smoking, could see the action going on. Two Little Rock city policemen pulled up, said, 'What are you doing here?' I I.D.'d myself. I said, 'I've a friend that's meeting a married lady down here, and they'd like some privacy. The Little Rock city policeman on the passenger side said, 'If the school gets burglarized, I hope you can cover this. . .I said, 'Yeah I can cover this. No problem.'"

Q: "You said that the woman's car was under a streetlight and you could see what was going on?"

Mr. Patterson: "Yes, Sir."

Q: "What was going on? What did you see?"

Mr. Patterson: "I saw Bill Clinton on the passenger side of the front seat. I saw the woman get into the driver's side. I saw her head disappear into what looked like his lap..."

Clinton got away with getting blown in a public place near where kids were. A "friendly" judge threw out criminal investigations into Clinton's scandals on technical grounds, in an effort to see to it that he got away with it.

Webster Hubbell faced new charges. After pleading guilty to tax evasion and mail fraud involving the theft of nearly a half million dollars from the Rose law firm and $143,000 in unpaid taxes, his plea was based on cooperating with the independent counsel, but he never did. Clinton got away with it.

"Communist Party cadres should study the speeches of Hillary Clinton because she offers a very good example of the skills of propaganda," wrote Yu Quanyu, director of the Chinese Academy of Social Studies in Ideological and Political Work Studies. "Her sentences are short and stimulating. That's why she gets a lot of applause. But Chinese people have a habit of giving long speeches in which the sentences are long and tedious."

President Clinton was deposed in the Paula Jones case. The Washington Times reported that his memory failed 267 times. The following is from the deposition:

I don't remember - 71

I don't know - 62

I'm not sure - 17

I have no idea - 10

I don't believe so - 9

I don't recall - 8

I don't think so - 8

I don't have any specific recollection - 6

I have no recollection - 4

Not to my knowledge - 4

I just don't remember - 4

I don't believe - 4

I have no specific recollection - 3

I might have - 3

I don't have any recollection of that - 2

I don't have a specific memory - 2

I don't have any memory of that - 2

I just can't say - 2

I have no direct knowledge of that - 2

I don't have any idea - 2

Not that I recall - 2

I don't believe I did - 2

I can't remember - 2

I can't say - 2

I do not remember doing so - 2

Not that I remember - 2

I'm not aware - 1

I honestly don't know - 1

I don't believe that I did - 1

I'm fairly sure - 1

I have no other recollection - 1

I'm not positive - 1

I certainly don't think so - 1

I don't really remember - 1

I would have no way of remembering that - 1

That's what I believe happened - 1

To my knowledge, no - 1

To the best of my knowledge - 1

To the best of my memory - 1

I honestly don't recall - 1

I honestly don't remember - 1

That's all I know - 1

I don't have an independent recollection of that - 1

I don't actually have an independent memory of that - 1

As far as I know - 1

I don't believe I ever did that - 1

That's all I know about that - 1

I'm just not sure - 1

Nothing that I remember - 1

I simply don't know - 1

I would have no idea - 1

I don't know anything about that - 1

I don't have any direct knowledge of that - 1

I just don't know - 1

I really don't know - 1

I can't deny that, I just -- I have no memory of that at all - 1

Bill Clinton has always been described as being a man with a "steeltrap mind." He got away with it. Monica Lewinsky spoke to Linda Tripp about filing a false affidavit in the Paula Jones case:

TRIPP: "You - you are - are you positive in your heart that you want to do that? I mean -"

LEWINSKY: "Uh-huh."

TRIPP: "I'm only saying - I'm only saying that in case you should change your mind."

LEWINSKY: "No. I - I - I - first of all, for fear of my life. I would not - I would not cross these - these people for fear of my life, number one. Wagging the dog."

The term "wag the dog," made into a movie starring Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, became a catchphrase of the Clinton Presidency, in which the President continually "made news," often faking some national security "crisis" in order to divert attention from his crimes and scandals. Some of these include:

  * Election eve 1996: U.S. jets fired on Iraqi radar sites.

  * January 26, 1998: President goes on TV to deny the Lewinsky affair; sent top officials on tour to build support for attack on Iraq. Warned Hussein not to "defy the will of the world."

  * June 30, 1998: Judge Suzan Webber Wright ordered the unsealing of Clinton's Jones case deposition; U.S. jets fired on Iraqi radar sites.

  * August 20, 1998: Monica Lewinsky appeared before the grand jury; Clinton attacked alleged terrorist centers in Sudan and Afghanistan.

  * November 13, 1998: Clinton settled the Paula Jones suit for $850,000; Clinton ordered, then aborted, a massive missile attack on Iraq.

  * Impeachment eve 1998: Clinton launched a massive missile attack on Iraq.

The Washington Times calculated seven Kenneth Starr-like investigations could have been carried out for the price of one day's assault on Baghdad by Tomahawk missiles, but Clinton got away with it.

The Defense Technology Security Administration said that Loral's unauthorized release of sensitive technology to China created "major" violations of U.S. national security, three medium violations and 12 "minor" infractions, but Clinton got away with it.

During Clinton's impeachment trial the following statements were made:

Senator Barbara Boxer: "Rejecting these articles of impeachment does not place this President above the law. As the Constitution clearly says, he remains subject to the laws of the land just like any other citizen of the United States."

Senator Herbert Kohl: "President Clinton is not 'above the law.' His conduct should not be excused, nor will it. The President can be criminally prosecuted, especially once he leaves office. In other words, his acts may not be 'removable' wrongs, but they could be 'convictable' crimes."

Senator Joseph Lieberman: "Whether any of his conduct constitutes a criminal offense such as perjury or obstruction of justice is not for me to decide. That, appropriately, should and must be left to the criminal justice system, which will uphold the rule of law in President Clinton's case as it would for any other American."

Senator Richard Bryan: "For those who believe that the President is guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice - criminal offenses - there is a forum available for that determination."

Senator Frank Lautenberg: "[The] legal system, our civil and criminal laws provide the proper venue for a President who has failed in his private character. . . .And in this case, the legal system can and will continue to address the President's personal transgressions."

Senator Kent Conrad: "Offensive as they were, the President's actions have nothing to do with his official duties, nor do they constitute the most serious of private crimes. In my judgment, these are matters best left to the criminal justice system."

Senator John Breaux: "For wrongful acts that are not connected with the official capacity and duties of the President of the United States, there are other ways to handle it. There is the judicial system. There is the court system. There are the U.S. attorneys out there waiting. There may even be the Office of Independent Counsel, which will still be there after all of this is finished."

There was no criminal indictment of Clinton. He got away with it.

An attempt was made to kill Johnny Chung. If this was Clinton's attempt to silence another witness in "Chinagate," he got away with it.

According to Neal Travis of the New York Post in a book on the Mossad, Israel blackmailed President Clinton with 30 hours of his phone sex talks with Monica Lewinsky. In return, Clinton halted a Federal probe into a top Israeli mole in the White House, who apparently stayed at the White House until the end of Clinton's second term. He was supposed to be much more important than CIA traitor Jonathan Pollard had been. Clinton got away with it.

Lewinsky testified about heavy petting and oral sex in the Oval Office. She said the President told her a foreign embassy was tapping her apartment. He gave her instructions on how to fool the buggers. Kenneth Starr had enough to handle, so Clinton got away with it.

1,000 Canadian hemophiliacs filed a $660 million class action suit in Toronto after getting Clinton's "bad blood" from Arkansas. He got away with it.

John Gotti told the New York Daily News that Clinton got away with things a Mafia boss would never have gotten away with. Of the tap in which Clinton and Gennifer Flowers said Mario Cuomo acted like a Mafioso, Gotti told his brother Peter, "He's telling her, 'Why would you want to bring this out? If anybody investigates, you lie.'...If he had an Italian last name, they would've electrocuted him." Of course, he got away with it.

The American Bar Association, one of the biggest supporters of Democrats in the United States, featured felon Webster Hubbell at its national convention after he did jail time for overbilling clients, one of the most important ethical breaches in the law.

The ABA invited Clinton to speak the same week that a Federal court judge imposed a $90,000 fine on Clinton for having given "false, misleading and evasive answers that were designed to obstruct the judicial process." The judge took the action, "not only to redress the misconduct of the President in this case, but to deter others who might themselves consider emulating the President of the United States by engaging in misconduct that undermines the integrity of the judicial system." Clinton was also facing disbarment in Arkansas.

A former White House aide, Mark Middleton, an Arkansas lawyer and confidant of Clinton, invoked the Fifth Amendment 28 times in campaign finance abuse House testimony. House Government Reform Committee Republicans wanted to know if he had conspired with government officials in China or elsewhere to illegally funnel contributions to the Democratic National Committee or the Clinton/Gore re-election campaign. Georgia Republican Congressman Bob Barr asked Middleton if he was "a bag man" for the Chinese.

"I respectfully decline to answer the question," answered Middleton, and Clinton got away with it.

Former counsel to the House Judiciary Committee David Schippers did an interview with Human Events editor Terence Jeffrey, excerpted below:

HUMAN EVENTS: "What is the most significant thing that happened during the impeachment process that the country doesn't know about but should?"

SCHIPPERS: "I think the most important factor that the public should know that they don't know is that, before we ever appeared on the floor of the United States Senate, the House impeachment managers and I were told that there was no way we could win."

HUMAN EVENTS: "Who told you that?"

SCHIPPERS: "Six Republican Senators. Members of the leadership."

HUMAN EVENTS: "Members of the Republican leadership came over to you?"

SCHIPPERS: "No, we were over there. We were discussing the kind of method by which we would try the case, and we, the managers and myself, were told, 'Look we're just trying to keep you from embarrassing yourselves.' I mean, this is after a vote of the House of Representatives impeaching the President.

"In that same meeting one of the senators - and because I do not know which one it was, I will not name any of the Senators - turned to Henry Hyde and he said, 'Henry, I don't care. No way are you going to get 67 votes.' This was before anything had occurred on the floor of the Senate."

"And Henry Hyde said, 'Well, you know Senator, we have other materials over there in that room that were furnished by Mr. Starr and I think that some of them may have to do with assaults or things like that. And the Senator said, 'Henry' - this is a direct quote - 'I don't care if you have proof that he raped a woman, stood up and shot her dead, you're still not going to get 67 votes.'

"At that point I raised my hand and I said, 'Senator, are you telling me I just watched a hundred Senators raise their right hand to God and swear to do equal and impartial justice and that they will ignore that oath too?' And the Senator said, 'You're darn right they are.'

"From that moment on I knew that we were in a rigged ball game. In Chicago we'd refer to it as a First Ward election...It was rigged to make it impossible for us to win. I don't know why they were so anxious to keep the American people from hearing the evidence. I just will never know."

The bottom line is Clinton kept getting away with it.

Senator Alphonse D'Amato approached former Arkansas state trooper and Clinton bodyguard L.D. Brown and used strong-arm tactics to get him to "cooperate" on the Mena charges. Apparently, D'Amato was concerned that the case was tied into the Bush task force on drugs and the Contra operations, which may in the end be why Clinton got away with it.

When Michael Espy was appointed to the Department of Energy, columnist Paul Greenberg wrote, "He seems to have passed this administration's high ethical test: He's been acquitted."

Wayne Dumond was released after 12 years in prison for not raping Bill Clinton's cousin, but Clinton got away with it. Whitewater criminal Susan McDougal was proudly featured by the Tulsa County, Oklahoma Democrat's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner.

A Democrat National Committee staffer wrote the following to DNC chair Don Fowler: "Johnny [Chung] committed to contribute $75,000 to the DNC reception in Los Angeles on September 21. Tell him if he does not complete his commitment ASAP bad things will happen." No doubt, Clinton would still get away with it.

Carlos Ghigliotti, 42, was discovered dead in his office near Washington. Ghigliotti was the thermal-imaging analyst hired by the House Government Reform Committee to review tape of the Waco siege. He had said that his examinations revealed that the FBI fired shots during the incident. The FBI had said that the light bursts on infrared footage were reflections of sunrays on shards of glass or other debris.

"I conclude this based on the ground view videotapes taken from several different angles simultaneously and based on the overhead thermal tape," Ghigliotti had told the Washington Post. Janet Reno and Bill Clinton had just gotten away with it.

President Clinton declared "National Character Counts Week."

"The character of our citizens has enriched every aspect of our national life and has set an example of civic responsibility for people around the world," said "Slick Willie".

Danno Williams' father is not Bill Clinton, according to The Star. He got away with it. Clinton's liberal apologists used this single case of Clinton actually being proven innocent as example of the "right wing conspiracy" to get Clinton. But wait, even this fairly unimportant event turned out to be false, or probably false.

Newsmax checked various medical labs and determined that the test used to determine if the baby was Clinton's was not sufficient to determine paternity. At this point, is the reader ready to ask if Clinton has jackal's blood, or "666" imbedded under his hair?

"Some press have ignored the claims of Danno's family because Danno's mother, Bobbie-Anne Williams, of Little Rock has a criminal record as a prostitute and drug addict," wrote Newsmax. "Williams has stated that in the mid-1980s then-Governor Clinton had encountered her at her home, near the Governor's mansion, while out on a morning jog. The two had sex on several occasions and had also used cocaine, she said."

Larry Patterson was ordered by Clinton to deliver Christmas gifts to the boy in 1988 or 1989. Clinton did not buy the gifts. He stole them from among gifts friends of the Clintons had given him to give to his daughter, Chelsea.

"Patterson said, that in addition to the gift giving, he became 'really suspicious' in 1992, during the Presidential campaign, when the Williams' home was burglarized," continued Newsmax. "The only items stolen were two photographs of the child, one of which had appeared in the Globe, a supermarket tabloid, alleging Clinton had fathered the child. 'This is a simple house burglary,' Patterson explained, yet it set off alarm bells in the Governor's mansion. Patterson learned the burglary received priority attention from Clinton because Captain Buddy Young, who headed the Governor's security detail, assisted the local Little Rock police in their investigation of the case. Patterson said it was 'unheard of' for a member of the security detail to work with local police on 'a simple house burglary investigation.'"

Is any commentary really necessary? If the story is true, and Clinton did father this black child with a prostitute, then stole Chelsea's presents for the kid, he got away with it.

Juanita Broaddrick accused Clinton of raping her. She found herself audited by the Internal Revenue Service. Other "Clinton audits" include: Elizabeth Ward Gracen; Billy Dale (fired in travel office affair); Fox News critic Bill O'Reilly; Kent Masterson Brown (brought lawsuit compelling Hillary's health care task force to reveal its members); and Paula Jones. Also: National Review, American Spectator, Christian Coalition, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Freedom Alliance, Heritage Foundation, National Rifle Association, Western Journalism Center, National Center for Public Policy Research, Fortress America and Citizens Against Government Waste.

Clinton just got away with it.

A former Justice Department prosecutor testified to Congress that an investigation into Clinton's connection to a top Democrat fund-raiser involved in the sale of missile-related expertise to China was in order. Attorney General Janet Reno rejected the recommendation. Lee Radek, head of the department's public integrity section, called the recommendation "silly." But Clinton did get away with it.

The Association of Trial Lawyers, another fine organization that is virtually a fundraising wing of the Democrat National Committee, invited Clinton to speak.

Former White House counsel Charles Ruff said "I don't know," "I don't remember," "I don't recall" or "I have no specific recollection..." 12 times in 30 minutes before a Congressional committee investigating missing White House e-mails.

Ruff told Bob Woodward that Watergate figures could have gotten off the hook if they had just said, "'Gee, I just don't remember what happened back then', and they won't be able to indict me for perjury and that, maybe, that's the principal thing that I've learned in four years....I just intend to rely on that failure of memory." Ruff missed a major point. The Watergate figures were Republicans. The chances that Republicans will answer honestly are much greater than with Democrats.

When the FBI interviewed Vice-President Al Gore, he changed his answers at such time as his old answers were identified and exposed to be lies. He was shown documents from the fund-raising investigation, and said he may have missed an important discussion because he drank too much iced tea. 23 times Gore said that he was unable to recall the parts of the November 21, 1995 meeting referring to his illegal fund-raising. He and Clinton got away with it.

Arthur A. Coia, the former president of a labor union, raised millions of dollars for Bill Clinton, Al Gore and the Democrats. He pled guilty to defrauding taxpayers in Rhode Island of nearly $100,000 in taxes that were due on three Ferrari sports cars worth more than $1.7 million. Coia got two years probation and a $10,000 fine, but Clinton and gore got away with it.

The D.C. police reported that they towed about 1,000 vehicles per year to secure the streets so Clinton can make speeches, have lunch or catch a basketball game, but he got away with it.

Vince Foster's murder

From the Progressive Review, based on research by Hugh Sprunt:

July 20, 1993...PARK POLICE interviewed about a dozen family and friends. Police officer reported, "One of the last things I got from Mrs. Foster - I asked her was he - did you see this coming?...Everyone said, no, no, no, no, he was fine...Nobody would say anything about depression or that they noticed some signs, they were worried."

Later, in answer to a question from a Senate staff attorney, an investigator said, "I mentioned depression, did you see this coming, were there any signs, has he been taking any medications? No. All negative answers."

One day after death, BERYL ANTHONY, Foster's brother-in-law...Asked if Foster had been depressed during the two weeks before his death, Anthony said, "There is not a damn thing to it. That's a bunch of crap."

Two days after death PARK POLICE interview of three White House secretaries: "[number one] There was nothing unusual about his emotional state. In fact, over the past several weeks she did not notice any changes, either physically or emotionally. . . [number two] Mr. Foster's demeanor seemed normal to her. [number three] She did not note any unusual behavior on by Mr. Foster on [the day he died>. "She noticed no weight loss."

Two days after death WASHINGTON POST..."Although White House officials said they saw few if any signs of emotional problems from Foster, others who were his friends described themselves as worried over his depression and anxiety. "Certainly people who knew him well - he is reserved and hard to know, really - felt he was depressed, but no depressed in the sense of killing himself. I can tell you that thought did not enter people's minds," the friend said. Clinton addressed the mystery himself. "No one can ever know why this happened." (Author's note: But sure they can)

Six days after death PARK POLICE..."Mr. Anthony stated that he and his wife had noticed a gradual decline in Mr. Foster's disposition to the point of depression... During the month preceding Mr. Foster's death, Mr. Anthony stated that he and his wife noticed that Mr. Foster's depression had become increasingly worse and became very worried about Foster's well being...His wife had given Mr. Foster a list of three counselors, psychiatrist or other doctors to do counseling."

Nine days after death LISA FOSTER tells Park Police that husband had been taking an anti-depressant

Soon after death LAB TESTS BY VIRGINIA DIVISION OF FORENSIC SCIENCES...Lab tests come up completely negative re anti-depressants.

August 3, 1993 BOYCE RENSBERGER IN THE WASHINGTON POST..."No one around him has said they were aware of any problems."

August 9, 1993 SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL IN NEW YORKER...Had lost 15 pounds.

August 15, 1993 DAVID VON DREHLE IN THE WASHINGTON POST..."He had a difficult time sleeping. He felt guilt and worthlessness. His concentration at work was flagging although it was so high to begin with, he still functioned well." Had lost 15 pounds since coming to Washington.

Some months after death lab tests reported anti-depressants in Fosters's blood. This during a time when an FBI whistleblower was complaining internally that the labor was playing fast and loose with its reports.

Post death FAMILY DOCTOR told FBI that he did not think Foster was significantly depressed and that the prescription was just to help him sleep better. Prescription was one-fifth the initial average daily dosage for depression.

Post death MRS FOSTER (from FBI handwritten notes) said Foster had been "fighting" taking the prescription for sleeping pills dispensed several months earlier for insomnia. Foster was concerned they might be addictive.

Post death MRS. FOSTER (from FBI final report)...Her words are changed to "fighting depression."

June 1994 FISKE REPORT...Family doctor had prescribed an anti-depressant the day before the death. Weight loss "obvious to many."

"A Washington Tragedy"

By Dan Moldea

A Review by

Hugh Sprunt (c) April 1998

"There have been seven known government investigations concerning the death of former White House Deputy Counsel Vincent W. Foster: The U.S. Park Police investigation, the simultaneous one conducted by the FBI in parallel with the Park Police, the separate FBI investigation into the discovery of the so-called Foster 'torn note' in Foster's briefcase six days after his death, the one performed by Robert Fiske (the first 'Whitewater' Counsel), that conducted by Representative William Clinger (then ranking Republican on the Committee on Government Operations), the one conducted by the Senate 'Whitewater' Committee, and the investigation done by the current 'Whitewater' Independent Counsel, Kenneth Starr and released to the public on October 10, 1997 (the 'top-level' reports).

"Thousands of pages from the underlying government investigative record have been released as well (subsidiary reports of various kinds, testimony, depositions, FBI and Park Police witness interview reports, laboratory reports, investigators' memos and handwritten notes, etc.). It is critical to emphasize two points: The only source for the conclusions claimed for in the top-level reports is, of course, the underlying investigative record the government compiled and, at the time the underlying record was being created, the investigators involved had no idea the documents they were creating would ever have to withstand public scrutiny.

"Since the top-level reports reached the same conclusion - that Foster killed himself on the spot where his body was discovered at Ft. Marcy Park, Virginia, with the 1913 Army Colt .38 Special revolver found in his hand by firing a bullet into his mouth that exited the upper rear of his head - it is legitimate to ask why there is still any controversy remaining about Foster's death. If, on the other hand, numerous material discrepancies remain unexplained or unmentioned in the top-level reports after so many investigations and so much effort, it would be all the more appropriate to question the legitimacy of the government's claims about the death.

"In part, the Foster controversy survives due to the work of reporters such as Chris Ruddy and Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, both of whom had books published last year about their examination of the death explaining why they continue to question the official conclusions. The controversy also survives due to document analysis and fieldwork done by others, including Reed Irvine of AIM, who have also reported serious problems, if not more, with the official conclusions. Having evaluated that record with care, Reed Irvine, like Ruddy and Evans-Pritchard believes that, however Mr. Foster came to grief, be it suicide or be it murder, 1) the official death scene was materially altered and 2) Foster did not die in that park.

"According to his publisher, Dan Moldea's just-published book, 'A Washington Tragedy \- How The Death Of Vincent Foster Ignited A Political Firestorm' (Regnery; $24.95), 'investigates all the details of the death of Vincent Foster and runs down all the clues and evidence. His trained eye for detail is evident on every page. . .He answers all the questions that have been raised.' According to the author, 'This work is based on my numerous exclusive interviews with the top investigators, both official and unofficial, in the Foster case, as well as a close reading of the thousands of documents they authored.' Moldea promises his readers 'a straight narrative about the Foster investigations, organizing it into a chronology of events,' without 'placing my own personal spin on the actual words written and spoken between and among the characters.'

"To his credit, Moldea mentions some of the sizable discrepancies between the factual conclusions endorsed by the top-level reports and the content of the underlying official investigative record. In sharp contrast, the reports ignored or greatly minimized government evidence, however significant, inconsistent with the official conclusions about the Foster death.

"The confidence the authors of the top-level reports express is extremely high. Fiske: 'On the afternoon of Tuesday, July 20, 1993, in Ft. Marcy Park, Fairfax County, Virginia, Vincent W. Foster, Jr., committed suicide by firing a bullet from a .38 caliber revolver into his mouth. As discussed below, the evidence overwhelmingly supports this conclusion, and there is no evidence to the contrary.' Fiske's successor, Independent Counsel Starr agrees with the prior official reports and quotes his own experts: '[I]n my opinion and to a 100% degree of medical certainty, the death of Vincent Foster was a suicide. No plausible evidence has been presented to support any other conclusion.'

"Moldea concludes that none of the discrepancies within the record are of any significance and agrees with the conclusions in the top-level reports. He differs only in that he believes that the 'triggering event' for Foster's suicide 'occurred within his private life, not his public career,' namely, Mr. Foster's 'unhappiness with the state of their marriage since his move to Washington.' What is the nature of the discrepancies, many alluded to by Moldea but many not, that continue to cause to some to believe the Foster death involves a significant cover-up - a cover-up that continues to this day? This review of 'A Washington Tragedy' will cover one major official claim in detail and highlight a few others, all framed within the context of Moldea's new book.

"Clearly, it would be astounding in an investigative record that spans many thousands of pages not to discover numerous discrepancies. That said, all material discrepancies should have been dealt with prior to the drafting stage of the top-level reports, either by reconciling the apparent discrepancies in a reasonable and innocuous manner or, if that could not be done legitimately, by shaping and qualifying the conclusions in the reports to reflect reality.

"If it can be shown that 'enough' high-quality material discrepancies exist within the government record of the Foster death, the American public should not be expected to be confident the government's conclusions about the Foster death are truthful.

Stated a different way for the purposes of this review: Is Dan Moldea correct to dismisses all discrepancies as, in his words, 'insignificant details' that have been over-hyped the 'minutiae peddlers of the Foster case'?

"You, the reader, will be the judge as you evaluate the limited sample of discrepancies below from the wealth of disconnects and contradictions within the official record. As you pause now to slip into your judicial robes, I ask that you hark back to the familiar statue of 'Blind Justice.' You know her well: The blindfolded lady, holding high the scales of justice that enable her to weigh evidence intelligently and impartially.

Much has been made in the official reports, newspaper stories, magazine accounts, and books regarding Foster's depressed mental state in the weeks before his death. The official consensus is that Foster was clinically depressed, but an examination of the underlying record severely challenges, if not utterly destroys, this claim.

"Moldea accurately reports that the White House position on Foster's mental state in the weeks prior to his death changed radically several days after his death, attributing this shift to the discovery by the White House, on July 26, of the so-called 'torn note' in Foster's briefcase - a laundry list of items said to have been troubling him.
"The existence of the torn note was not made public until about 30 hours after it was found - and not until after several discussions about it were held at the White House (at least one with the widow and her attorney).

"Beginning the night of the death and for several days thereafter, those who knew Foster expressed nothing but shock and surprise.

"No family member or close friend initially voiced any concern about Foster's mental state, but around the time of the torn note's discovery, seemingly everyone who knew Foster began to describe how 'down' or 'depressed' he in fact had been in the weeks before his death.

"Rather than the cause of the radical flip-flop on Foster's mental state, at a minimum, the official reaction to the discovery of the note, if not the note itself, may have been a prudent tactical response to the death. Had Foster's death remained the unexplained 'bolt from the blue' that his family and close friends initially described, ongoing public interest in the 'mysterious' reason behind the death of this senior administration official and long-time confidante of the Clintons would have been legitimized.

"On the other hand, if it could be successfully claimed that Foster had been clinically depressed for one or more of a laundry list of reasons (failed administration political appointments, the gays in the military issue, 'Travelgate,' the burning of the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, political infighting at the White House, the Wall Street Journal's editorials, the Clintons' tax returns and blind trust, and Health Care Task Force litigation) the clinical depression claim alone would tend to forestall further inquiry by subjecting outside investigators in the media and elsewhere to charges of insensitivity and political partisanship ('scurrilous right wing kooks with cockamamie theories profiteering on the death of Vince Foster' being a typical composite allegation).

"There are gaping holes in the attempt to paint Foster as clinically depressed. Apparently casting about for a physical symptom of clinical depression, Fiske reported that Foster's weight loss was 'obvious to many' (media accounts shortly after the death placed the weight loss at 12-15 pounds), but Foster's medical records are consistent: Foster lost no weight, based on his weight just before starting his White House job and his weight when he died on July 20, 1993.

"Fiske reported that the Foster family doctor had prescribed an 'anti-depressant' the day before the death, but the doctor - a long-time family friend - told the FBI that he did not think Foster was significantly depressed and that he felt the prescription in question was merely to help Foster sleep better. The specific drug and the single daily 50 milligram dose said to have been prescribed for the six foot, four inch 200-pound Foster - the smallest tablet manufactured and about one-fifth the initial average daily dosage to treat depression - corroborates the doctor's insomnia explanation.

"The handwritten FBI interview notes of the widow state that Foster had been 'fighting' taking a 'prescription' for sleeping pills ('Restoril,' generic name 'tamazepam,' a benzodiazepine) dispensed several months earlier for this same insomnia (according to his widow, Foster was concerned the sleeping pills could be addictive), but the typed FD-302 report of the interview states in the equivalent location that Foster had been 'fighting depression,' a significant alteration in wording by the FBI, apparently made to buttress the official claims that Foster was depressed.

"What did the Park Police learn about Foster's recent mental state when they spoke to family members and close friends the night of the death? Despite contemporary media reports that the Park Police were denied entrance, two Park Police investigators each spent 70 minutes in the Foster home that night. The investigators' depositions provide significant information regarding the real-time perspective of Foster's family and friends immediately after they learned of the death and several days before those closest to the administration began to bruit about allegations of clinical depression.

"Based on the numerous statements that surfaced several days after the death that Foster had been struggling with clinical depression for several weeks, the numerous relatives and close friends who gathered at the Foster home the night of the death should have been describing to the investigators (and to each other) symptoms of clinical depression they had observed in Foster.

"This is emphatically not what the two investigators discovered in their 70 minutes asking spent asking questions at the Foster home that night. Presumably, the dozen or so friends and family who were present (many of them attorneys) realized that the investigators were not present to make idle social chit-chat, but were conducting a formal investigation into the death of a high-ranking Federal official, and took the questions they were asked seriously.

"Here are some quotes from the Senate depositions and testimony about the interviews conducted that night:

"'One of the last things I got from Mrs. Foster - I asked her was he - did you see this coming, was [sic] there any signs of this...everyone said no, no, no, no, he was fine. This is out of the blue...' '[Foster's sister, Sheila Anthony] was talking with us...I spoke with her, [the other Park Police Investigator present in the Foster home] spoke with her. She was very cordial. I remember asking her, did you see any of this coming, and she stated, no. Nobody would say anything about depression or that they noticed some signs, they were worried.' '[We] asked, was there anything, did you see this forthcoming [sic], was there anything different about him, has he been depressed, and all the answers were no.'"

"The Senate staff attorney also asked the investigator if he found out Foster was taking any medication, specifically any anti-depressant drug:

"Q: 'Did anyone at the notification [the death notification and initial interviews at the

Foster home, 9:00 - 10:10 P.M. EDT on July 20] mention depression or anti-depressant medication that Foster might have been taking?'

"A: 'I mentioned depression, did you see this coming, were there any signs, has he been taking any medication? No. All negative answers.'

"Moldea reports none of this information and instead incorrectly writes that the investigators at the Foster home that night wanted to find out about any drugs Foster was taking, but had been unable to do so.

"Lab work done as a part of the autopsy tested Foster's blood, vitreous humor, and urine, and included specific tests (all performed by the Commonwealth of Virginia's Division of Forensic Science) for the presence of anti-depressants, including particular tests for the presence of 'tricyclic anti-depressants' and 'benzodiazepines,' even though the Park Police investigators had been specifically told by family members and close friends that Foster was not taking any anti-depressant medication.

"The tests came up completely negative re all anti-depressant drugs screened, specifically excluding the presence of any 'tricyclic anti-depressants' or 'benzodiazepines.' It is not certain on the face of the report whether Trazodone [Desyrel] was specifically tested for by the Virginia Division of Forensic Sciences or not.

"The first known official claim that Foster had been taking anti-depressant medication, came from Lisa Foster nine days after the death. She told the Park Police on July 29 that Foster had taken Trazodone [Desyrel] the night before his death. Indeed, in the words of the widow's subsequent, and only, FBI interview conducted for the Fiske investigation:

"'How were you aware that your husband took one 50 milligram dose of Trazodone on the evening of 7/19/93?'

"'LF [Lisa Foster] told VF [Vince Foster] to take one and she also saw him take it.'

The night of the death, when asked by the Park Police investigators if her husband had been taking any medication, specifically any anti-depressant medication, she said no, even though a few days later she told other Park Police investigators Foster had taken anti-depressant medication just one day before his death and later told the FBI that she had told her husband to take the anti-depressant and had watched him take it.

"The 'new' information first surfaced in the only other contact that the Park Police were permitted to have with the widow, a 50-minute session in her attorney's office that ended at 5:00 P.M. sharp, three days after the discovery of the torn note and two days after the widow and her attorney had attended a meeting at the White House to discuss the then still-secret torn note.

"This interview had at least one other unusual aspect. According to the deposition of the senior officer conducting the interview: 'You know, we didn't have to question her a whole lot.' The widow gave more of a verbal statement than an interview, he said. Indicating that he thought Mrs. Foster was 'happy to get some things off her chest,' the senior Park Police officer also considered that 'she had gone over it with her lawyer so many times she had it down pat...I don't think we ever asked her a direct question... We did not interview any of the Foster children [the youngest of the three about to start his senior year of high school]. [The widow's attorney] would not make them accessible to us.'

"It was not until a re-test of the blood some months later by the FBI Lab that, mirabile dictu, the presence of both Trazodone and a benzodiazepine (Valium) in Foster's blood was reported - in time to buttress the June 30, 1994, Fiske Report claims that Mr. Foster was clinically depressed.

"The completely contradictory Virginia Division of Forensic Science report that no such drugs were detected (the Virginia report was, of course, based on recently drawn samples) was not made public until after the Fiske Report was released and few paid any attention to it any more than to the immediate post-death denials by the widow, other family members, and close friends that Foster was either 'down' or was taking any antidepressant medication.

"Of course, FBI whistle-blower Frederick Whitehurst was complaining internally during this period that the FBI Lab was playing fast and loose with the truth in its analysis reports, claims that have since become public and, based on Whitehurst's recent sizable cash settlement with the FBI and still-outstanding legal actions, appear to have been well-founded.

"Moldea considers the prior conflicting Virginia lab report 'curious,' but insignificant, even though the original lab report that found no anti-depressant drugs, and in the context of the universal denials the night of the death that Foster was depressed or taking anti-depressant medication (Moldea does not mention the other data provided above).

"Perhaps the most succinct example of the stark timing of the change in the official line from 'no depression' to 'depression' was provided by Beryl Anthony, Foster's brother-in-law (married to Foster's sister, Sheila, then an Assistant Attorney General).

Moldea quotes from a Beryl Anthony interview on Thursday, July 22. Asked if Foster had been depressed during the two weeks prior to his death, Anthony's said: 'There is not a damn thing to it. That's a bunch of crap.'

"However, on July 27 (the torn note was turned over to the Park Police the night of the 27th, though it had been found some 30 hours earlier) when Anthony was interviewed by the Park Police he, like Lisa Foster, did a '180.' Per the interview report: 'Mr. Anthony stated that he and his wife had noticed a gradual decline in Mr. Foster's general disposition to the point of depression...During the month preceding Mr. Foster's death, Mr. Anthony stated that he and his wife noticed that Mr. Foster's depression had become increasingly worse and became very worried about Foster's well-being. [So much so that] his wife had given Mr. Foster a list of three counselors, psychiatrists or other doctors who do counseling.'

"Moldea does not mention that Foster's weight gain in the six months reported in Foster's medical records was corroborated by his widow. Indeed, according to Moldea, 'She also says he was losing [emphasis added] weight' in her interview with Fiske's investigators. However, according to the widow's FBI interview (the typed FD-302 and the handwritten interview notes are consistent on this point): 'She believed that most of the weight which Foster had lost by that time ["when Lisa Foster. . . arrived in Washington, D.C."] had been lost prior to his arrival in Washington, D.C.'

"Lisa Foster arrived in Washington on June 5, 1993, having stayed in Little Rock so her youngest son could finish his junior year of high school there. Her husband arrived in Washington in January 1993, so the widow is saying that Foster did lose weight, but that the weight loss took place prior to January 1993 when he joined the administration.

Foster's medical records indicate he weighed 207 pounds in August of 1990. On December 31, 1992, at a physical the month before he went to Washington, he weighed 194 pounds (a 13-pound drop) and, according to his doctor's notes, was on a diet and exercising. Foster's weight at the autopsy was 197 pounds. A weight gain of about three pounds (194 to 197) in seven months is not particularly significant. However, it certainly is not 'a weight loss obvious to many' (Fiske) nor is it the 12-15 pound weight loss claimed in the media beginning a few days after his death.

"In all likelihood the weight gain was significantly more than three pounds because Foster probably did not strip naked for the doctor's nurse when he was weighed - on December 31, 1992, or at any other appointment. If he was not nude for his weigh-in, his 'stripped' weight would have been a pound or two less than 194.

"Furthermore, the 197-pound weight at the autopsy was a stripped weight, a stripped weight that obviously did not include the large amount of blood (two or three pints?) Foster officially lost both at the park (Fiske: 'Those present observed a large pool of blood...') and later in the body bag (Starr: '...found a large amount of blood in the body bag'). Taking these adjustments into account, the 'weight loss obvious to many' claimed in the Fiske report is hard to fathom since the data support a 1993 weight gain of about 6 pounds, if not more, between December 31, 1992, and July 20, 1993.

"Moldea believes that Foster gained weight in the early months of 1993 because he was 'eating more junk food,' but that Foster started losing weight 'as his depression set in during the latter weeks of his life.' Anyone espousing the idea that Foster's loss of appetite as he became more depressed made him lose weight near the end of his life must contend with the robust a la carte lunch the official record states that Foster personally selected and had a secretary deliver to his office before leaving the White House for the last time at about 1:10 P.M., officially bent on killing himself: A medium-rare cheeseburger, fries, a coke, and some M&Ms.

"According to interviews with the office staff, he ate it all, as he read the newspaper in his office, except the raw onion, which he decided to remove from his burger (had he forgotten to tell the secretary 'Hold the onions'?), and a few M&Ms. As he left the White House for the last time, officially en route to his own suicide (having first checked out a White House Communications Agency pager), he said, 'I'll be back, there are M&M's left in my office.'

"What did the three secretaries in the White House Office of Legal Counsel told the Park Police two days after the death about Foster's mental state? 'There was nothing unusual about his emotional state. In fact, over the last several weeks she did not notice any changes, either physically or emotionally. She noticed no weight loss [number one].' 'Mr. Foster's demeanor seemed normal to her...<number two> "She stated that she did not note any unusual behavior by Mr. Foster on [the day he died] [number three, Foster's own secretary].'

"This examination of the 'depression discrepancy' is fairly detailed but far from comprehensive. There are dozens of other material discrepancies, each with their own supporting details. A partial list:

"*Starr's forensic expert reports he found blood stains up to one millimeter in size on each side of each lens of Foster's glasses (in an attempt to prove the glasses, found 19 feet up-range from his head, were on Foster's face when shot), but both the Park Police and the FBI Lab reports explicitly state that there was no blood on the glasses.

"*An agent's memo to the head of the Technical Security Division of the Secret Service describes the FBI as having removed evidence from Foster's desk (officially, of course, that did not happen) and refers to the discovery of a letter or other writing written by Foster (apparently the night of the death) that was not the 'torn note' found six days later.

"*Starr's forensic expert reports his examination of Foster's shirt and slacks showed no sign the body had been dragged (an attempt to refute arguments that the body was moved to or within the park), but the lead investigator at the body site, the Medical Examiner, and the investigator charged with taking notes all report that the body slid down the berm and that they then dragged the body up the slope (a serious effort obviously required given the approximately 40-degree slope), stopping only when he body was higher up the slope than it was originally.

"*Starr's forensic expert reports possible down-range blood spatter and splatter on the vegetation in the Polaroid photos taken of the body, but no one at the site states they saw any; several observers affirmatively state there was none present (including the lead investigator and the Medical Examiner; its absence is a classic indicator that a gunshot victim with a through-and-through wound died esewhere).

"[To his credit, Moldea does state in his book that one of the investigators on-site, an experienced gardener, told him that she, like the other investigators, was looking for signs of blood spatter and that the stains that Lee reported seeing in the Polaroids was in fact a form of leaf blight, not blood.]

"*The bizarre harassment of Patrick Knowlton by some two dozen individuals, a Federal grand jury witness who saw items and events inconsistent with the conclusions of the official reports in Fort Marcy Park about an hour before Foster's body was found and who refused to change his story under repeated FBI questioning (Knowlton convinced the judges supervising Starr to make his 20-page rebuttal of Starr's Foster investigation a part of the Starr Report).

"*The Medical Examiner's field report was altered on page one to change the description of the exit wound; whoever made the alteration failed to alter the same language on page two, leaving the description on page two inconsistent with suicide by gunshot (a telex to the acting FBI Director from the Washington Metropolitan Field Office of the FBI sent about a day and a half after the autopsy but not liberated until March 1998 via a FOIA lawsuit by Accuracy In Media, confirms prior phone calls to the Director's office that there was no exit wound, a finding that directly contradicts the exit wound - a 1-inch by 1.25-inch chunk of skull was said to have been blown out \- in the upper rear of the head depicted in a diagram in the autopsy report not filed with the Northern Virginia Medical Examiner until six days after the telex to the FBI Director).

"*Numerous instances of systematic alterations in witness accounts: information in many handwritten witness interview reports was changed in the typed interview reports in a systematic way in order to support the official conclusions (other witness accounts were simply suppressed in the top-level reports).

"*In many cases, the top-level reports systematically alter the times reported in the underlying investigative record, apparently in an attempt to document the officially alleged delay in notifying the White House of Foster's death.

"*Much of the information used in the top-level reports to prove that the gun belonged to the family is contradicted by the underlying record.

"I differ with Dan Moldea: I believe any fair-minded individual familiar with the investigative record of the Foster death will conclude, at a minimum, that a sizable and ongoing cover-up of material aspects of this death exists.

"Ken Starr's report was unable to come to any conclusive results regarding Foster's death. Now available under the Freedom of Information Act, it says that Dr. Henry Lee Connecticut's former Commissioner of Public Safety, said it was not possible to completely reconstruct Foster's July 1993 death because of a lack of documentation

from the original shooting scene; no high quality scene photographs; no videotape of the scene; no detailed description of the scene; no diagrams of the location of each item of physical evidence and their condition.

"There were no X-rays of Foster's body taken at autopsy, there was no 'serious' investigation of the homicide or the moving of the body."

The Clinton Body Count

A number of people connected to Bill Clinton have turned up dead. To date, Bill and Hillary have gotten away with all of it! By printing this information (although I am by no means the first), I want to make it clear that I consider it entirely possible that the Clintons would attempt to have me killed. Whether they kill me or not, I cannot say. I can say it is something they would do if it can be done "cleanly." I want to plainly state that I am in perfect health, and if I should die suddenly after these allegations are published in this book, I want it known that I consider Bill and Hillary Clinton to be suspects. I also want to state plainly that "dark forces" of supernatural evil may be working on their behalf. As Shakespeare said, "There are more things on Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than can be dreamt of in your philosophy." These are some of the previous victims:

James McDougal \- Clinton's convicted Whitewater partner died of an apparent heart attack, while in solitary confinement. He was a key witness in Ken Starr's investigation. Was McDougal murdered in a Federal prison to silence him?

Ron Brown \- Secretary of Commerce and former DNC Chairman. Reported to have died by impact in a plane crash. A pathologist close to the investigation reported that there was a hole in the top of Brown's skull resembling a gunshot wound. At the time of his death Brown was being investigated, and spoke publicly of his willingness to cut a deal with prosecutors. Did Clinton have him killed because he told him they would go down "together" regarding revelations of Brown's many corruptions?

Vince Foster \- Former White House counselor, and colleague of Hillary Clinton at Little Rock's Rose law firm. Died of a gunshot wound to the head, ruled a suicide.

Mary Mahoney \- A former White House intern was murdered July. 1997 at a Starbucks Coffee Shop in Georgetown. The murder happened just as she was to go public with her story of sexual harassment in the White House.

Was this just a robbery gone bad?

C. Victor Raiser II & Montgomery Raiser: Major players in the Clinton fund raising organization died in a private plane crash in July 1992.

Paul Tulley \- Democratic National Committee Political Director found dead in a hotel room in Little Rock, September of 1992. Described by Clinton as a "dear friend and trusted advisor".

Ed Willey \- Clinton fund raiser, found dead November, 1993 deep in the woods in Virginia of a gunshot wound to the head. Ruled a suicide. Ed Willey died on the same day his wife Kathleen Willey claimed Bill Clinton groped her in the oval office in the White House. Ed Willey was involved in several Clinton fund-raising events.

Jerry Parks \- Head of Clinton's gubernatorial security team in Little Rock. Gunned down in his car at a deserted intersection outside Little Rock. Park's son said his father was building a dossier on Clinton. He allegedly threatened to reveal this information. After he died the files were mysteriously removed from his house.

James Bunch \- Died from a gunshot suicide. It was reported that he had a "Black Book" of people containing names of influential people who visited prostitutes in Texas and Arkansas.

James Wilson \- Was found dead in May 1993 from an apparent hanging suicide. He was reported to have ties to Whitewater.

Kathy Ferguson \- Ex-wife of Arkansas trooper Danny Ferguson died in May 1994; was found dead in her living roon with a gunshot to her head. It was ruled a suicide even though there were several packed suitcases, as if she was going somewhere. Danny Ferguson was a co-defendant along with Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones lawsuit. Kathy Ferguson was a possible corroborating witness for Paula Jones.

Bill Shelton \- Arkansas state trooper and fiancee of Kathy Ferguson. Critical of the suicide ruling of his fiancée, he was found dead in June, 1994 of a gunshot wound also ruled a suicide at the gravesite of his fiancée.

Gandy Baugh \- Attorney for Clinton friend Dan Lassater died by jumping out a window of a tall building January, 1994. His client was a convicted drug distributor.

Florence Martin \- Accountant /sub-contractor for the CIA related to the Barry Seal Mena Airport drug smuggling case. Died of three gunshot wounds.

Suzanne Coleman \- Reportedly had an affair with Clinton when he was Arkansas Attorney General. Died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, ruled a suicide. Was pregnant at the time of her death.

Paula Grober \- Clinton's speech interpreter for the deaf from 1978 until her death in December 9, 1992. She died in a one-car accident.

Danny Casolaro \- Investigative reporter. Investigating Mena airport and Arkansas Development Finance Authority. He slit his wrists, apparent suicide in the middle of his investigation.

Paul Wilcher \- Attorney investigating corruption at Mena airport with Casolaro and the 1980 "October Surprise" was found dead on a toilet June 22, 1993 in his Washington, D.C. apartment. Had delivered a report to Janet Reno three weeks before his death.

Jon Parnell Walker \- Whitewater investigator for Resolution Trust Corporation. Jumped to his death from his Arlington, Virginia apartment balcony August 15, 1993. Was investigating Morgan Guarantee scandal.

Barbara Wise \- Commerce Department staffer. Worked closely with Ron Brown and John Huang. Cause of death unknown. Died November 29, 1996. Her bruised nude body was found locked in her office at the Department of Commerce.

Charles Meissner \- Assistant Secretary of Commerce who gave John Huang special security clearance, died shortly thereafter in a small plane crash.

Dr. Stanley Heard \- Chairman of the National Chiropractic Health Care Advisory Committee died with his attorney Steve Dickson in a small plane crash. Dr. Heard, in addition to serving on Clinton's advisory council personally treated Clinton's mother, stepfather and brother.

Barry Seal \- Drug running pilot out of Mena, Arkansas. Death was no accident.

Johnny Lawhorn, Jr. \- Mechanic, found a check made out to Clinton in the trunk of a car left in his repair shop. Died when his car hit a utility pole.

Stanley Huggins \- Suicide. Investigated Madison Guarantee. His report was never released.

Hershell Friday \- Attorney and Clinton fundraiser died March 1, 1994 when his plane exploded.

Kevin Ives & Don Henry \- Known as "the boys on the track" case. Reports say the boys may have stumbled upon the Mena, Arkansas airport drug operation. Controversial case where initial report of death was due to falling asleep on railroad track. Later reports claim the two boys had been slain before being placed on the tracks. Many linked to the case died before their testimony could come before a Grand Jury.

THE FOLLOWING SEVEN PERSONS HAD INFORMATION ON THE IVES / HENRY CASE:

Keith Coney \- Died when his motorcycle slammed into the back of a truck July, 1988.

Keith McMaskle \- Died stabbed 113 times, November, 1988

Gregory Collins \- Died from a gunshot wound, January of 1989.

Jeff Rhodes \- He was shot, mutilated and found burned in a trash dump in April, 1989.

James Milan \- Found decapitated. Coroner ruled death due to natural causes.

Jordan Kettleson \- Was found shot to death in the front seat of his pickup truck in June, 1990.

Richard Winters \- Was a suspect in the Ives/Henry deaths. Was killed in a set-up robbery, July of 1989.

THE FOLLOWING CLINTON BODYGUARDS ARE DEAD:

Major William S. Barkley, Jr.

Captain Scott J. Reynolds

Sergeant Brian Hanley

Sergeant Tim Sabel

Major General William Robertson

Colonel William Densberger

Colonel Robert Kelly

Specialist Gary Rhodes

Steve Willis

Robert Williams

Conway LeBleu

Todd McKeehan

Source for above: Steven Levine (sjl@learnhow.com)

More deaths connected to Clinton and his Administration:

Chinese journalists killed in the bombing on May 8, 1999 of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia (Shao Yunhuan, of Xinhua News Agency, Xu Xinghu and his wife, Zhu Ying, reporters at Guangming Daily).

76 deaths as a result of the government siege on the Branch Davidians compound at Waco Texas.

April 19, 1995 - bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City results in the death of 168 people.

Yugoslav civilian death toll estimated at 2,000 in 78 days of NATO bombing of Yugoslavia (March-June, 1999) - Clinton said he supported NATO bombing of Serb television stations, despite criticism from some NATO allies who believe these are civilian targets. General Wesley Clark ran this operation.

"Serb television is an essential instrument of Mr. Milosevic's command and control," Clinton said.

"Clinton Urges Patience With NATO Bombing Campaign"

- Washington Post, April 25, 1999

All of these people have been connected with the Clintons in some form or another. Not included are any deaths that could not be verified or connected to the Clinton scandals. This list is considered the "smaller" list. More partisan, conservative lists include 61 names, but this includes people whose deaths were not tied to the Clintons and very likely died in other ways. All deaths are listed chronologically by date. This list is current and accurate as of August 1, 2000.

Time-line of the Clinton Presidency

1992 November 3 - Clinton and his running mate, Senator Al Gore (D - Tennessee), were elected with 43 percent of the popular vote, to 38 percent for George Bush and 19 percent for Ross Perot.

1993 January 20 - Clinton is sworn in for his first term as President.

April 19 - government siege on the Branch Davidians compound at Waco Texas results in the death of 76 people

June 18 - Clinton gets $200 haircut on Air Force One, shutting down two runways at Los Angeles International Airport for an hour

July 20 - Vince Foster dies - labeled a "suicide."

Aug 19ust - Clinton announces "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy regarding gays in the military

1994 March 14 - Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell announces his resignation.

1995 April 19 - bombing of Federal building in Oklahoma City results in the death of 168 people.

June - Monica Lewinsky, 21, comes to the White House as an unpaid intern in the office of Chief of Staff Leon Panetta.

1996 April 3 - Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown dies in a plane crash near Dubrovnik, Croatia.

August 22 - President Clinton signs the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.

November - Clinton wins reelection to second term with at popular vote of 45,628,667 (Bob Dole: 37,869,435).

1997 January 20 - Clinton is sworn in for his second term as President.

February 25 - The overnight guest list released by the Clinton Administration. Clinton acknowledges he personally encouraged rewarding DNC donors with overnight stays at the Lincoln Bedroom.

October - Jiang Zemin visits.

1998 January 14 - Lewinsky gives Tripp a document headed "Points to make in an affidavit," coaching Tripp on what to tell Jones' lawyers about Kathleen Willey

January 17 - "Did you have an extramarital sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky?" "No." Bill Clinton on the record (ABC News).

January 19 - Lewinsky's name surfaces in the Drudge Report.

January 26 - Standing alongside First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vice-President Al Gore in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Clinton waged his finger at news cameras and declared, "But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time - never. These allegations are false. "

March 22-April 2 - Bill Clinton takes trip to Africa - GAO study put the cost of the trip at $42.8 million - excluding security expenses.

June - Trip to China.

August 17 - Speaks to the American public regarding Monica Lewinsky.

August 20 - Clinton orders Cruise Missile Strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan.

December 19 - House votes to Impeach Clinton.

1999 March 24-June 10 - NATO bombs Kosovo and Serbia - over 38,000 combat sorties. May 7 - US planes bomb Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

2000 January 4 - The Clintons move belongings to house at 15 Old House Lane, Chappaqua, New York.

Clinton raises taxes; "don't ask, don't tell"; Waco, "Black Hawk down"; Hillarycare

Bill Clinton was aided by a confluence of factors in his 1992 campaign against George Bush. His two main advisors were George Stephanopoulos, an idealistic young Democrat, and James Carville, a brilliant, tasteless, disgusting liar. Stephanopoulos quit working for Clinton shortly after his Presidency, at such time as he realized most of the things the Republicans said about him were true. Carville stayed on and to this day is his most vocal supporter. Carville is to Clinton what Al-Jazeera is to Al Qaeda. They were made for each other.

The Republicans are partially responsible for Clinton's two greatest achievements, winning the 1992 election, and presiding over a strong economy. A recession began under George Bush and did not end until just before the '92 election. The public was not aware of this until a few weeks later. The economy had already begun to come back prior to Bush's last day in office, in January of 1993. The economic downturn was a combination of three things. First, it is cyclical, and the cycle happened to hit Bush at the worst possible time. Second, Bush agreed to raise taxes in 1990, which is never a good idea. Third, the Cold War had been won between 1988 and 1991. This meant that many workers in the Military Industrial Complex lost their jobs. Most of those were in California. This caused the California economy to dip more than the rest of the country. Carville urged Clinton that "It's the economy, stupid." Clinton was able to convince the electorate that Bush's policies were responsible for the economy. In a way, he was right, only not the way he meant it. Bush's policies as a member of the Reagan Administration were part of the reason the U.S. won the Cold War. The "Cold War dividend" not only meant reduced military spending, but also took away the defense issue from the Republicans.

While Bush had presided over an impressive victory over Iraq in 1991, he announced that we had entered a period of New World Order. This had people believing that military solutions were no longer necessary. An era of peace, prosperity and diplomacy had replaced the violent ways of the past. However, Republicans no longer had the edge they long held in issues of national security. Bush was a victim of his own success.

H. Ross Perot took Bush's votes away. Had he not entered the race, it would not have mattered. The Democrats also went after Bush for not finishing the war in Iraq and marching to Baghdad to end Saddam's regime. They were right about that, although none of them would have done it.

It was also a Republican Congress, elected in 1994 that kept Clinton's domestic spending in check, helping him to preside over a strong economy over the next six years.

Finally, the many smart, educated tech workers who had been laid off as part of the "Cold War dividend" made up much of the brainpower behind the Internet revolution, also known as the dot-com era. This technologically savvy generation of older Americans mixed with a new, younger, entrepreneurial generation to form the economic base of the economy and stock market explosion of the 1990s. While it is true that successes and policies of the Republican party generated many of the factors in the economic success of the 1990s, it is also true that Clinton deserves to take credit for it. Presidents always have and always will take credit for strong economies under their stewardship, no matter what their party. Clinton certainly did not put up major roadblocks to economic advancements, at least after a rocky first couple of tears.

Clinton had dealt with his status as a pot smoker and draft dodger during the Vietnam War. He got off to a very bad start in January, 1993 when he tried to actively promote homosexuality in the military. Military leaders despised him anyway because of his cowardice, but trying to turn the military into a social experiment was too much. Eventually, an unsatisfactory policy called "don't ask, don't tell" took hold.

Clinton had promised not to raise taxes. The second thing he did after gays in the military was raise taxes. The next thing he did was put his unelected wife in charge of trying to socialize one-seventh of the American economy through a boondoggle called "Hillarycare." The health care plan was intended to create huge new bureaucracies, and remove choice from citizens, cause enormous tax increases, and would have cost over a million jobs. The idea behind it was not to provide health care for all citizens, but to make all citizens think it did. It was classic Hillary Clinton, all style and no substance.

It was unveiled as a 1,342-page bill in the New Deal tradition. Hillary and Ira Magaziner put together a task force to create it. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office immediately rejected its premise, stating that the official Clinton Health Care Plan would increase Federal spending by $1.584 trillion over five years, to be sustained by working citizens.

The first $1.384 trillion would have entailed a new payroll tax of between 14 and 17 percent on every worker, plus 17 other new taxes costing $127 billion over five years, and $300 billion over 10 years. Average families would have been looking at $3,056 more per year. It was quickly determined that the private sector could provide high quality care at much lower cost than that.

The Clinton Health Plan would have been larger than any program except Social Security and Medicare. It would have added 200 new regional health cooperatives run by 50,000 new bureaucrats, 50 new government bureaucracies, 177 new state mandates, and nearly 1,000 new Federal powers and responsibilities.

Potential job losses of between 600,000 to 3.8 million were predicted, with 400,000 to 1.5 million jobs lost in the first year alone. The plan gave no choice to consumers. A new bureaucracy called the National Health Board would determine the type and amount of health care for everybody. Individuals would be subject to Orwellian fines of $5,000 or three times the amount owed, whichever was greater. Normal patient relationships would have suffered. If a doctor tried to get an early date for surgery for a sick patient and took "anything of value," he would face stiff fines and a 15-year jail term.

Free market demand for obstetricians, surgeons, or other specialists would be replaced by socialist rationing.

Hillary's task force members had tried to put together the plan in secret, in violation of Federal open meetings and open records' laws. Hillary was found by a judge to be in violation of these laws. When her secret sessions were ordered revealed, the public immediately turned against the plan. Assurances about cost, taxes, bureaucracy, and consumer choice were all revealed to be lies. Furthermore, the Clinton Health Task Force overspent its budget of $100,000, wasting $13.8 million.

Despite the universal failure of universal health care, Hillary has always harbored plans to bring it back. On May 6, 1996 Ira Magaziner stated, "Certainly his <Bill's> views haven't changed...President Clinton remains committed to the idea. Indeed, the President will try again if a more receptive Congress is ever elected."

In early 1996 Hillary said it would eventually happen. Re-structuring of the same plan was done under Bill's guidance in the area of health insurance purchasing cooperatives, government-defined benefit packages, and premium subsidies. Senator Ted Kennedy said of it, "We're going to get this done, and we're going to keep coming back at it."

Clinton won his first real victory by pushing forward passage of the

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which took effect on January 1, 1994, and the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which led to the establishment in 1995 of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Clinton's weakness (aside from his lack of character) was foreign policy, particularly when military action was called for. George Bush had sent American troops on a humanitarian mission to Somalia prior to leaving office, because the masses were starving.

Warlords were stealing U.N. food shipments. Genocide was occurring in Somalia, requiring tough action. Clinton maintained U.S. forces in the region for a few months, but nothing was accomplished. He decided to "pull out and declare victory." Under fire for his "pot smoking, draft-dodging" reputation with the military, Clinton ordered a detachment of Marines in camouflage gear to the White House lawn and staged a disgusting photo/op. He had the commander march up to him, salute, and declare, "mission accomplished." Clinton then had the temerity to make a speech praising himself for military leadership, attempting to claim that he had saved "tens of thousands" of lives. In Somalia, tens of thousands were dying.

With no U.S. deterrent, the warlords began bloody attacks on U.N. peacekeepers, forcing Clinton's hand. In August, 1993, he sent in a force of Rangers and Special Forces units to capture the brutal warlord Mohammad Farrah Aidid and restore order.

The first thing they asked for and needed was heavy armor; Abrams tanks and Bradley armored vehicles; plus AC-130 gunships. Clinton wanted to fight a symbolic war, with no real casualties. He was particularly distressed that the bad guys were black and desperately wanted to avoid killing them. So, he denied the requests. On October 3 a mission to pick up Aidid was forced to engage heavily armed rebels with no support. Two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down. 18 killed soldiers were killed, 73 injured, and the savages dragged the dead bodies of Americans naked through the streets. Absent graphic footage of dead children on Arkansas railroad tracks, or Vince Foster's murder, it was the first visual symbol of Clinton's Presidency.

The military immediately identified Clinton as the culprit for denying the request for armor. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin resigned, acknowledging this fact. A Senate Armed Services Committee investigation reached the same conclusion.

Despite the defeat, the Rangers had Aidid on the run and could have finished the job, but Clinton again cut and ran. The U.S. released the Muslim terrorists they captured. The U.N., without U.S. support, was unable to accomplish peace. Somalia is like many African countries in the post-colonial era, lawless and impoverished. Al Qaeda terrorists moved in and continue to use the country as safe haven and a staging ground. Clinton's performance there gave them the encouragement to increase terror activities that had been quelled by the Reagan/Bush Administration. In 1993, they went after the World Trade Center in New York City, exploding a car bomb in the underground parking lot. The intent was to blow up the entire twin towers structure. The plan partly failed. It still accomplished the goal of killing people and terrorizing New Yorkers, but Clinton was lucky it did not annihilate the entire building.

The military still harbors deep feelings about Somalia. There is a strong desire, especially among the elite Rangers and Special Forces, that they will go back there to finish the job as part of the War on Terror.

In 1993, a Christian sect called the Branch Davidians took up residence in Waco, Texas. They had some guns. The Clinton/Reno team thought the combination of white Christians with guns was too much to stomach. They laid siege on the Christians' compound, then ordered an attack.

''The decision to proceed was tragically wrong, not just in retrospect, but because of what the decision makers knew at the time,'' was the conclusion of a devastating 220-page critique of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms issued by the Treasury Department. The February 28, 1993 raid on David Koresh's compound in Waco resulted in the deaths of four ATF agents and six cult members. The 51-day standoff ended with the Clinton Administration burning 85 Christians to death. 17 of them were children. Then they tried to cover it up.

Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, whose department was in charge of the ATF, replaced the agency's entire top management. Koresh was leading a Bible session when he learned of the raid. Those pesky Christians.

Clinton enjoyed being called "America's first black President." Black columnist Toni Morrison gave him that moniker. In so doing she insulted the black race in a way few Ku Klux Klanners could have done. By calling him a "black President," she was saying that a President who lied, cheated, murdered, was rotten to the core, and whose wife was even more evil, represented traits determined to be those of black Americans. Clinton was naturally pre-disposed to dislike whites and Christians. This probably went back to his youth, when upstanding white Christians in Arkansas looked down upon his white trash mother.

Clinton did preside over the Israel-Jordan peace agreement, signed in 1994 by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan's King Hussein. He restored Haiti's ousted president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to power, and bolstered Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

War in the post-Communist breakaway Republics

With the breakup of the former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia split. War ensued in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. As a result, sanctions were levied and fighting ensued in Serbia-Montenegro, the remaining portion of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The United Nations Security Council (U.N.S.C.) adopted a series of Resolutions to impose economic sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro, the United Nations Protected Areas (U.N.P.A.s) in Croatia, and those areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina controlled by Bosnian Serbs. In 1993, CNN spotlighted the war that broke out, and quoted locals who asked questions like, "When will Clinton come?"

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was led by a Communist named Slobodan Milosevic, who used U.N. economic sanctions to strengthen nationalist sentiment and his hold on power. Serbian nationalism lead to Serbia-Montenegro's expansion of war in the Balkans, which in turn led to forced removal, torture, and genocide of thousands of Muslims and Croats from their homes. Most of the human rights violations were

committed by Serbs against Croats and Muslims, but Croats and Muslims also violated Serbs' human rights.

Sanctions failed to stop Serbian expansionism. Prior to the breakaway of Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had started its transition from a centrally planned to a market economy.

Sanctions failed to effectively collapse the F.R.Y.'s infrastructure. Before the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro's agricultural infrastructure was almost completely self-sufficient. Yugoslavia was forced to become a more closed economy.

War, rebellion and terrorism characterized post-Soviet life in Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Oil smuggling was lucrative in Serbia-Montenegro and expanded to Romania. Bribery, corruption, "white slavery" prostitution, drug smuggling and organized crime became endemic.

Serbs violated both the Geneva Convention's Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Times of War, Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. They violated the former Convention by forcing people to depart their homes and by forcing civilians to work in labor camps. Serbs also violated Article 53 of that convention which says, "any destruction by the occupying power of real or personal property belonging to private persons, or to the state or to other public authorities is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations."

The war in the Former Yugoslavia erupted over the rights (or lack thereof) of Republics within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina felt their rights were being encroached upon by Serbia-Montenegro. As a result, they broke away from the F.R.Y. to form their own nations. Although Croats, Serbs, and Muslims have lived together for centuries and subsequently share common cultures, the war was driven by the perceived differences between the three groups and subsequent prejudices that arose as a result

The collapse of Communism left Yugoslavia free of totalitarian rule, but without a political system. The people were now free and able to establish Democratic governments. However, their understanding of freedom and the meaning of Democracy were not innate. A unified Germany caused fear in Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist and the slaughter of thousands of Serbs in Krajina (a Serbian held part of Croatia) during World War II by Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and the Catholic government of Croatia, were still fresh in the historical mindset of the citizenry.

Prospering Slovenia and Croatia demanded Democratic institutions for the entire country, or else they would secede. In Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic was in power, pressing a nationalistic and Communist repression upon the minorities of the Serbian autonomous provinces of Kosovo i Metohija (mostly Albanian) and Vojvodina. (mostly Serb, but with important Hungarian, German and Romanian minorities). Milosevic revoked the autonomy of these Serbian provinces.

Dissident Republics of Croats and Serbs were founded and supported by Rump-Yugoslavia (Serbia) and Croatia. The Bosnians main feature of war was ethnic cleansing, with atrocities performed by the "Republika Srpska", the dissident Republic of the Serb population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Territories conquered by Srpska were cleansed of their non-Serb populations. This often included acts of genocide like the one in Eastern Bosnian Srebrenica in 1995. Horrible atrocities were performed upon the people of Sarajevo. Pedestrians were machine-gunned in their own streets. The Muslim government, until then claiming to represent Muslims, Croats and Serbs, made a federation with the Bosnian Croats. NATO enforced a "no-flying zone" above the entire country and enforced the Dayton Peace Treaty in which Rump-Yugoslavia and Croatia took part, representing their vassals in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This treaty ended the war and made Bosnia and Herzegovina into a federation between the Muslim-Croat, and the Srpska parts. Both were under NATO occupation. Many officials of Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat federation committed war crimes. Croatians dealt with the Serb opponents within Croatia proper. In the east they faced Serb opposition in Vukovar and suroundings. A peaceful settlement was made there. In the Southwest, the Serb Republic of the Krajina, a spin-off of the Bosnian Republika Srpska, was conquered and ethnically cleansed.

After the Bosnian war, Rump-Yugoslavia was confronted with an uprising of Kosovo-Albanians from one of its former autonomous provinces. Atrocities against the Albanians of Yugoslavia were widely reported. NATO intervened with airstrikes and occupied Kosovo. The Third Yugoslavian war thus ensued in 1999. Eventually Kosovo was occupied by NATO forces and is now administered by the United Nations, remaining formally a part of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia has seen revolutionary Democratic reforms since. Milosevic has been ousted and handed over to the Tribunal in The Hague.

A Fourth Yugoslav war became evident in 2001 when the Albanian minority in Macedonia was plunged into war by the encouragement of their Kosovo neighbors. NATO intervened there also. A new constitution, giving more rights to Albanians, was enforced.

Clinton wanted to end the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, but he did not want to commit American ground troops to do so. His military action had some effect, but was Clintonesque in its evasiveness. Clinton allowed U.S. troops to be commanded by NATO and U.N. commanders. He allowed American planes to be disguised with NATO markings. He dropped bombs on Belgrade and killed 2,000 innocent civilians. He ordered the planes to fly at a higher altitude than normal, thereby making their American identification harder to determine, while insuring more civilian deaths. A peace accord involving American peacekeeping troops was ultimately signed in Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995.

In 1999, the Balkans again required Clinton's attention. After hearing reports of continued ethnic cleansing in the Serbian province of Kosovo, Clinton and his British counterpart, British Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair, helped lead the push for NATO intervention, which resulted in a 78-day bombing campaign against Serbia that began in March. Political arguing over whether to send in NATO ground troops ensued. Clinton was not willing to use troops. Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic ultimately was brought down.

Following the Kosovo conflict Clinton had to deal with Russia, a traditional ally of Serbia, who had opposed NATO airstrikes. Then the U.S. accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three journalists.

The relationship with Blair appeared, for a time, to be the so-called "New Way." This was embodied by Dick Morris, a middle-of-the-road political consultant who advised Clinton to moderate his liberalism. Blair seemed to be cut out of this same cloth. The eventual election of George W. Bush, who called himself a "compassionate conservative" but was essentially moderate, seemed to re-enforce the "New Way" view. Events beginning on 9/11 have since required traditional conservative policies. In England, Blair has become a courageous partner of Bush, despite his Labor leanings.

Rwandan genocide

On April 6, 1994, Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane was shot down. Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntarymira died returning from Tanzania. Habyarimana's government had been in conflict with the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in August of 1993. For three years, war, cease-fires and negotiations marked the crisis. Habyarimana was facing the end of 20 years of one-party rule. He faced opposition within his own political organization, which most likely caused his death.

The Presidential Guard, elements of the Rwandan armed forces (FAR) and extremist militia (Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi) immediately began the organized slaughter, starting in the capital Kigali, of nearly one million Rwandans in 100 days time! The devil works that way. They went after the prime minister, the president of the constitutional court, priests, leaders of the Liberal party and Social Democratic party, the information minister, and the negotiator of the Arusha Accord. Those who did not join in the killings, such as the governor of a southern province, were removed or killed.

"The plan appears to have been to wipe out any RPF ally or potential ally, and thus raise the costs and limit the possibility of an RPF/Tutsi takeover..." was the U.S. intelligence analysis. "No end to the unprecedented bloodshed is yet in sight." (U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Intelligence Assessment, "Roots of the Violence in Rwanda", April 29, 1994).

The international community turned a blind eye. Bill Clinton did nothing. Western nations evacuate their citizens and left. The U.N. mission (UNAMIR) tried to mediate between the RPF and the Rwandan army, but Clinton asked them to leave. Clinton did not want U.N. forces fighting in Rwanda, which would have put the pressure on him to exercise the vast and beautiful power that God vested America with. When the U.N. left, the media (such as it was) left. Rwanda was left to suffer its fate. Clinton's failure in Rwanda is at the heart of liberal perfidy when it comes to American power. Rwanda offered no security concerns of immediate U.S. interests. It was purely moral. In this regard Bill Clinton always has, does, and will, fall short.

The U.N. tried to re-group, but failed to deliver the full complement of troops and materiel until months after the genocide ended. French troops succeeded in saving tens of thousands of Tutsi lives but arranged for the exit of many of the genocide's plotters, who were allies of the French.

On July 4, 1994 the RPF took the capital, Kigali. Rwandans implicated in the slaughter fled to neighboring countries, leaving nearly 1 million dead Rwandans, approximately one-tenth of the population.

The U.S. under Clinton not only did not do anything, they used their U.N. influence to discourage a U.N. response. Rwanda was the latest in a long series of events demonstrating that the U.N. is often impotent, and the U.S. is the only country that really can accomplish anything in these situations.

In a notorious "genocide fax" (originally published in The New Yorker), General Dallaire warned U.N. peacekeeping officials Major General Maurice Baril, the military adviser to Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and Kofi Annan, who at the time was Under Secretary General for PKO (peacekeeping operations) and is now U.N. Secretary General, of the existence of arms caches, a plot to assassinate Belgian U.N. peacekeepers and Rwandan members of parliament, and the existence of lists of Tutsis to be killed.

Dallaire intended to raid the caches, but Annan and DPKO official Iqbal Riza refused the request to aid the effort. In so doing, they all but sentenced the president to death. A "death squad" then tortured, killed, and mutilated 10 Belgian soldiers in the U.N. contingent protecting the prime minister, who was also their target. Belgium, a country not known for their backbone, withdrew immediately. The force stopping the murderers was no more. The U.N. Security Council actually voted to withdraw, insuring the slaughter.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher was aware of the situation but advised against doing anything. State Department and Pentagon officials received a memo stating that "a massive bloodbath (hundreds of thousands of deaths) will ensue" and the "U.N. will likely withdraw all forces." The Clinton Administration's edict was to not get involved "until peace is restored," which they knew would not occur until there were simply no more living people to kill. They were the only ones who could have restored peace and saved all those lives. The Pentagon analysts accepted it as inevitable.

American failure to intervene is one thing, but the efforts at keeping the U.N. from getting involved is another. Department of State cable number 099440 to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, New York, "Talking Points for UNAMIR Withdrawal", April 15, 1994, forwarded to the U.S. Mission to the U.N. in New York, instructed U.S. diplomats there that "the international community must give highest priority to full, orderly withdrawal of all UNAMIR personnel as soon as possible." Advising that this withdrawal did not require a U.N. Security Council resolution - which would have likely focused international criticism - the Department instructed the mission "that we will oppose any effort at this time to preserve a UNAMIR presence in Rwanda."

The White House did urge Rwandan military leaders to "end the violence." Perhaps if Clinton was involved in a sex scandal he would have been willing to "wag the dog" and save Rwandan lives instead of issuing statements.

A discussion paper from State further cautioned that the word "genocide" should not be brought up in conversations about Rwanda, because this could be used to pressure Clinton to have to "do something." Clinton's parsing of words, his legalese in avoiding responsibility, which brought so much trouble to him but in the end kept him from facing the music over his multiple crimes, was a part of his administration's policy mindset.

Christopher finally called the Rwandan slaughter "genocide," but on May 21 he had stated that "in light of the stark facts in Rwanda" to say "acts of genocide have occurred" (italics added).

North Korean nuclear build-up

In 1994, North Korea began to build up its nuclear arms stockpiles after a period of inactivity. The Clinton Administration knew of this frightening national security crisis but did nothing, with ramifications that are with us today.

Former President Jimmy Carter was instrumental in negotiating a 1994 nuclear agreement, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize. North Korea later admitted it had not lived up to the accord. When the agreement was announced, it was obvious that the only way it could be maintained was by trusting the North Korean government of Kim Jong-Il.

"The North Koreans' persistent eschewing of weapons inspectors undoubtedly raised red flags," but Clinton Democrats "believed for years that they offered protection," according to David A. Keene, co-chairman of Americans for Missile Defense. Since then, Kim secretly built a massive arms production program.

"Is anyone surprised that they couldn't be trusted?" asked Keene.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Wendy Sherman later complained they did not know the North Koreans were lying, which breaks the Cardinal "Reagan rule" of weapons agreements: "Trust but verify."

Republican Congressional leader Tom DeLay of Texas produced evidence showing that in 1998, intelligence sources contradicted Albright's assertion that in 1994 North Koreans was not in violation of the Carter-negotiated treaty.

DeLay wanted suspension of the $4 billion to $6 billion agreements to build two light-water nuclear reactors and to provide other assistance to North Korea, until it could be certified that the North Koreans had not broken the agreement.

"Defense Intelligence Agency people, CIA people," consistently warned Clinton, according to DeLay.

Newt Gingrich's Contract With America and the Republican Revolution of 1994

After the Persian Gulf War, when President Bush had 91 percent approval ratings, it appeared possible that the Democrat party might become obsolete, like the Whigs of the 19th Century. Events of 1992 changed that perception, but in 1994 the viability of the Democrats, and the relevance of Clinton, again became an issue. The Republicans swept to revolutionary victories in 1994. Now, a decade later, the 1994 campaign can be seen not as the final step, but one in a series of gradual steps, towards what is an increasingly inevitable reality.

The political viability of the Democrat party can be traced to a single event, with subsequent events and elections appearing as harbingers of their potential doom. Everything in post-World War II American politics can be traced to before and after the Vietnamese Tet Offensive of 1968.

This was obviously not the only "turning point." In the 20th Century, Theodore Roosevelt did much to build up and tear down the Republicans. Much of his good work was destroyed when he split the party in 1912, forming the Bull Moose ticket that upended William Howard Taft and gave the White House to Woodrow Wilson. If my theory has any validity - that Kaiser's Germany waited until a pacifist Democrat was the American President before embarking on war in France - then T.R.'s legacy is further tarnished.

The 1929 "Black Monday" stock market collapse created in the mindset of the American people an image of the Republicans as being uncaring, greedy, country club elitists who sacrificed the working man. While Dwight Eisenhower led the party back to the White House 33 years later, this image has been burned into many people's minds to this day by Democrats.

Two issues resonated within a few years of each other. The Alger Hiss case and McCarthyism creating the modern "politics of personal destruction" that poisons campaign methods. However, both events had dilutory effects over the immediate years that followed. Instead of creating an anti-Communist Democrat party, the result was the opposite. With Adlai Stevenson twice defeated, the Democrats succeeded with two hawks, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. In Johnson's case, particularly, he felt the need to take a strong stand against Communism in part to dissuade Republican complaints from the McCarthy years that his party was "soft on Communism." In this respect, the Hiss and McCarthy events could arguably be viewed as forcing the Democrats into taking up with a winning issue.

But the Democrats are not a party of resolve. In 1964, LBJ won a complete victory, but by 1966 the Republicans were chipping away at his agenda with impressive mid-term victories. In 1968, the riots in Chicago exposed a fissure in the party, which was split between the traditionalists and the Robert Kennedy wing of anti-war liberals.

The Tet Offensive, which was a series of military failures on the part of the Viet Cong, served to break the Democrats. It turned them into a party of doves. This fact has led them further and further towards eventual oblivion. The immediate effect looked like victory, but circumstances changed. They have never been the same since.

After Tet, Eugene McCarthy scored a near-upset over LBJ in New Hampshire. LBJ then announced he would not seek re-election. Kennedy looked to be the front-runner until his death. RFK's passing can be viewed two ways, in terms of its political effect on his party. It appears his dovish anti-war stance was a winning one. However, his chances at winning the 1968 election were based more on his name and personal stature than his stance on the war. Eugene McCarthy would not have beaten Richard Nixon. While Vice-President Hubert Humphrey was hamstrung from speaking out against the President, it was fairly well established amongst the electorate that he wanted out of Vietnam. He still lost. Nixon's Silent Majority has proven to be the most powerful weapon in the G.O.P. arsenal. All the media carpings and loud critiques of Republicans have, time after time, been put down (to the continual amazement of liberals who "do not get it") by the Silent Majority.

The Democrats completely lost the South over the next four years, and in 1972 they completely lost the Presidency by 49 states to one. Their strategy is always to benefit from bad things happening to America, which occurred when they exploited Watergate to regain power in the late 1970s. However, they are their own worst enemies, since Democrats in office always remind the electorate that they are not worthy of being in office. The Carter years were a glaring example. The "Republican Revolution" of Goldwater became the Reagan Revolution. The Republicans were simply an inexorable force, striding forward as history's champions, albeit with little setbacks.

Nixon's defeat of McGovern in 1972 did not foretell an immediate break-up of the Democrat party, but it sure was a big blow. Had Watergate not occurred, the Democrats might have faced near-extinction by the 1980s.

The Reagan Revolution regained most of the lost momentum of the 1972 campaign. Considering Reagan's legacy; the economy, Cold War victory, and his Vice-President prosecuting the Persian Gulf War, 1992 could have been the death knell of the Democrats. The prospects in 1991 looked so good that a Bush re-election, complete with sweeping "coat-tails," seemed inevitable, but it did not happen in 1992. Instead, it happened in 1994. The "Republican Revolution" of that year led to further speculation that in 1996 Clinton would be voted out of office, and the continuing sweep of Republican triumphs would continue. Again, it did not happen as planned.

The Republicans faced setbacks in 1998, but managed to get a beachhead on history when George Bush was elected with a Republican majority in 2000. Since then, all momentum has been on the Republican side. The 2002 elections were a stirring, historical G.O.P. triumph, and the 2004 elections have the potential of being the greatest Republican sweep in electoral history. The Democrats truly could be exposed as a party without a future.

The Democrats have been "saved" by just Watergate and, in 1992, a combination of events that really had to test Republicans' faith in the cosmos. The economy took a turn for the worse at the most abominable possible time. George Bush campaigned like a stiff. Ross Perot derailed 10-15 percent of his votes. Bill Clinton proved to be one of the best campaigners of all time.

Two years later, Clinton was on the ropes in serious way after the Republicans swept to historic victories. It did not prove to be part of a massive, inexorable sweep to victory in 1996, when Bob Dole ran a worse campaign than Bush in '92. Heavy-handed Republican handling of the Lewinsky-Impeachment scandal derailed G.O.P. efforts in 1998. But 2000, 9/11 and the 2002 mid-terms have the Republicans poised to fulfill a mandate that, at various times, seemed to be in their grasp since 1972.

The Democrats are again a party that may become something else; splintered into different groups of independents, liberals, moderates, and Greens, perhaps. However, this is by no means inevitable. Furthermore, the Democrats have waiting in the wings Hillary Rodham Clinton, a formidable contender with enormous resources at her disposal.

Getting back to 1994, the Clintons proved to be a lightning rod of criticism, the worst enemy of their party. Clinton is and was a great campaigner, but his skills are very selfish and personal. He had a terrific way of convincing voters to support him, but because of his poor character and terrible baggage, it became problematic for other Democrats to "coat-tail" him.

The economy had not made its big comeback by November of 1994. The Internet, or the "information superhighway," had debuted the previous year, but it was still an infant. The Clinton's record was shoddy. It included a bad "gays in the military" policy, a broken promise to not raise taxes, disaster at Waco, "Black Hawk down," and the elevation of the terrorist Yasser Arafat to statesman.

The Democrat Congress also experienced an extraordinary amount of bad press over the prior two years. A disastrous check-writing scandal had been revealed, in which Democrats had bounced numerous checks at the House bank, but not been held accountable for the fees and over-drafts.

In 1994, Republican Congressional leader Newt Gingrich emerged as one of the great political visionaries of all time. Gingrich, who represented the Atlanta suburbs, did not go on to the kind of career many envisioned for him. He proved to be argumentative and a source of controversy. Democrats have painted him as intolerant and hypocritical. A publicized affair he had that broke up his marriage worked against his credibility. However, as a leader, his strategy proved to a winning one.

Gingrich unveiled the "Contract with America," a simple set of promises that the Republicans made to the country if they would be elected as the majority party. Clinton and his Carville-led team of liars derisively referred to it as the "Contract on America." The proposals were staples of Republican philosophy; small government, de-regulation, lowering taxes, and a pro-business environment. Issues such as tort reform, illegal immigration and a popular call for term limits caught fire with the public. The Republicans swept to historic majorities in the House and Senate.

In California, Republicans swept into the majority in the state Senate and Assembly, re-elected Governor Pete Wilson, and ushered in Proposition 209, which was intended to reduce illegal immigration from Mexico, stopping the flow of public services for illegals already in the state.

It was a complete repudiation of Clinton, who would have been defeated in a landslide had he been in the ballot. It proved to be part of a trend, but not a continuing, unstoppable one. The 1994 Republican victory made the Republicans overconfident.

The Democrats did manage to hold Dianne Feinstein's Senate seat in California. In 1995, Gingrich overplayed his hand in a budget battle with Clinton. The public sided with the President, and much of the momentum from November was lost. Later, the California Supreme Court overturned Proposition 209, and California Republicans in the post-Willie Brown era may have mangled their advantage as thoroughly as any political organization in modern history. By 1996 the economy was on the rise. Republican disappointment left many with the feeling that the gains of 1994 had been lost. To use the ironic words of Lenin, they took two steps back and one step forward, consistently beginning in 1964. The kind of seismic shifts entailed in America becoming a "Republican country" or a "conservative country" do not occur in single election years. Furthermore, it is an on-going battle. America is not Mexico, where the PRI was able to dominate through corruption for some 60-plus years.

What the 1994 elections did accomplish was to push Clinton to the middle. By acting more Republican, he governed better because of it. For all the rightful criticism that he deserves, he also deserves credit for doing this. It is true he pandered to the liberal wing of the Democrat party. If he has a heart and soul, somewhere deep down there he may just be a liberal. But he is also a Southern Democrat, honed in the tactics of Dixie politics.

1996 Clinton-Dole campaign

In 1996, Clinton faced Republican Senate leader Robert Dole of Kansas. Dole's nomination was more of a reward for a lifetime of service to his country. Partially paralyzed from his Army combat experience during World War II, Dole was the quintessential Midwestern Republican. In the years since, Dole has done more for his image, doing commercials for Viagra, showing smiling self-effacement, than he did in his entire public career. In losing to Clinton, he frustrated the right. Twice they nominated war heroes against the draft dodger who "loathed" the military. Twice Clinton got the last laugh.

Some of his backers claim conservatives do not feel that he is a "legitimate" President, but this is not the case. Clinton won, fair and square, using the election rules. In 1992, had Perot not run, Clinton never would have won. Perot ran again in '96, and this time he was less a factor. It is possible that Perot cost Dole the election, but less certain than the 1992 fiasco. Certainly, Clinton did not steal his elections as had the Kennedys in 1960. Either way, Clinton was the elected President of the American people. The extreme criticism that he engenders is something that emanates from his record, in and out of the Presidency, and is shared by his partner in power, Hillary. The Presidency is an honored, cherished institution. It gives Republicans no pleasure to describe Clinton's official record, which is often to describe America dropping the ball, failing in its responsibilities as a great, moral power. The fact that the people elected Clinton is something that tells us how deceptive politics can be, and how wrong voters are sometimes. However, Republicans make a big deal about trusting the people. They deride "elites" who think that they are the only ones with the requisite skills to make decisions for the masses. In accepting Clinton's Presidency, conservatives must stay true to this theme. He was popular. He had his supporters. Millions of them. There is no denying this. It was not a phenomenon. He is a master politician.

Dole was married to a genial North Carolinian named Elizabeth Dole. She is a well-educated woman who satisfactorily handled various government positions in Republican administrations. She was later elected to the Senate from her home state. Liddy Dole is the anti-Hillary. Liddy simply is what Hillary is not: Honest. She puts the lie to the oft-stated myth that conservatives do not like strong women (the Margaret Thatcher case dispels that in the most telling manner). She campaigned for her husband and was of great benefit to him, particularly during a masterful, staged display during the Republican National Convention.

Dole, however, appeared old. Age worked against him and Bush before him. Carville said they were poster boys for the past. In many ways he was right. Dole ran an uphill fight. He had faced some tough early Primary competition which exposed his weakness, both with the conservative base and the national electorate. He tried to hit Clinton with the "character issue" and his many scandals, but amazingly, the more crimes committed by the Clintons, the better it worked for them. They had always gotten away with everything, through buffers, legalese, and the ability to think through events 10 steps down the road (or through some "other" forces protecting them?). By 1996, Republicans were reduced to looking like they were going after the Clintons unfairly. They had failed to make anything stick. None of this had any Republicans convinced for a second that the Clintons were innocent, but it did have them wondering whether exposition of Clinton crimes was of political benefit to them.

The Clintons are great campaigners and survivors for the same reason they were terrible co-Presidents. They are, literally, too smart. A President has many intelligent people around him, or her. It is not necessary to be a "policy wonk," which both Clintons are. A certain amount of simplicity, combined with strong core beliefs, is the preferred Presidential mindset. It does not always work, but this kind of personality does often govern most effectively.

Dwight Eisenhower was smart and had core values, but age slowed him down in his last four years. John Kennedy was very intelligent, and seemed to use his intelligence in a good manner, but his lack of morals cannot be countenanced in such a job. Lyndon Johnson was no simpleton, but his Southern ways made him come off like that. He was also too flawed a human. He had very smart people working for him, and he gave them too much power. Richard Nixon was like Clinton in that he may have been too smart for his own good, and he had major character flaws. Gerald Ford was fairly ineffectual and made worse so by post-Watergate Democrats. Jimmy Carter was brilliant. It hurt him when he tried to micro-manage everything. Ronald Reagan was perfect; smart, but not an intellectual, with core values and good advisors. George H.W. Bush was very smart and experienced, but lacked core political instincts. Bill and Hillary Clinton were possibly the smartest (co)President ever, but they had no core values, not to mention any values, period. George W. Bush is cut out of the Reagan mold; relatively simple but with good sense for what is right.

Bob Dole simply did not excite anybody. It was frustrating for his supporters to see a man who had faithfully served his country, was totally honest and deserving, lose to somebody like Bill Clinton. Dole's running mate was an interesting politician named Jack Kemp, who managed to fall just short of the high expectations people had for him. Kemp, a native of Los Angeles, had grown up a football jock. He was very handsome, and became the rugged leader and quarterback of the Los Angeles Chargers of the old American Football League. He moved with the team to San Diego, then was traded to the Buffalo Bills. He was a second tier quarterback in a league that was filled with some of the legendary players ever to play that position, including Joe Namath of the Jets, Len Dawson of the Chiefs, John Hadl of the Chargers, and Daryl Lamonica of the Raiders. Lacking the physical tools of the above-named stars, Kemp made up for it with smarts, elan and competitiveness. He made his teams winners, and was highly respected.

Kemp also had an affinity for African-Americans. He played in the 1960s, when integration of pro football had become very widespread during a time of social unrest. He knew many black teammates. He treated them with the grace they deserved. His smarts, toughness and leadership qualities earned him the respect and admiration of his teammates, black and white.

In 1970, Kemp retired from pro football and ran for the U.S. Congress from Buffalo as a Republican. Based on his popularity as a player, he won, and managed to get re-elected year after year. Kemp, like most athletes, had never been a major scholar, but he took to educating himself. Through sheer hard work he became one of the leading experts on taxation. He was one of the early proponents of "supply side" economics, which worked part and parcel with the "trickle-down" theory. His economic philosophy was in sync with Ronald Reagan. He promoted Reagan throughout the 1970s.

When Reagan was elected, Kemp's status was elevated as he played a major in pushing Reagan's tax cuts through Congress. By 1984, many felt that Kemp, more than George Bush, was the heir apparent to the Reagan legacy. He had a lot going for him. His blow-dried good looks, combined with his initials, JFK, exuded glamour. His wife was very attractive. Kemp was a charismatic speaker and advocate. His son made it as an NFL quarterback, too, after playing in the Ivy League, which is a rare combination. As a California native who had quarterbacked the Chargers, then starred and held office in Buffalo, he had a strong demographic base on both coasts. Despite obvious conservative credentials, Kemp was not seen as strident. His conciliatory manner and intelligence made him easy to work with from both sides of the aisle, and therefore attractive to crossover Democrats. Kemp's appeal with blacks and other minorities was at the heart of G.O.P. efforts to woo their votes.

When George H.W. Bush was elected President, he inserted Kemp into his administration. He made strong efforts to make a difference in the inner cities. His idea for "empowerment zones" of development and investment in urban cores was hopeful and innovative.

However, despite his credentials, Kemp never quite caught hold in Presidential politics. The mantel was passed to Bush, who dropped the ball. In 1996 Dole was honored with the nomination, not Kemp. It seemed he still had youth and popularity on his side for the future. Had Dole been elected, Kemp's star would have shined again. But Kemp proved to be a less-than-scintillating national campaigner in 1996. He was more of a single-issue candidate, or at least limited. He was strong on taxes and the welfare reform, but was not built for the kind of attack-dog efforts often expected of V.P.s.

One of Clinton's greatest accomplishments was welfare reform. By pushing this through, he took a major issue away from the Republicans. It was the work of Dick Morris, who at the time seemed to be developing the Third Way moderate form of politics that Clinton was wearing, and Tony Blair in England would adopt.

Clinton taking over a traditional Republican issue was brilliant. The Republicans were bound to receive the usual criticism about being "heard-hearted" or racist if they tried to tackle reform of welfare. It was strategy that some call "Nixon goes to China." Clinton demonstrated that he was extremely smart, because welfare reform proved to be part of his overall tilt to the right. After Gingrich led the 1994 mid-term Republican gains, he was forced to deal with him and the G.O.P. Instead of fighting them, and creating gridlock, Clinton accepted the many good ideas, especially in the area of economic growth, which the Republicans presented to him. It was, in this sense at least, a very good partnership. Clinton deserves credit for the success that followed in his second term because of it, but of course so does the Republican Congress of the 1990s.

In the Middle East, Clinton failed to maintain the momentum left over from the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Israeli-Palestinian disputes continued and Iraq invaded Kurdish territory. Clinton responded to the Iraqi aggression by ordering missile attacks on Iraqi planes and ground forces.

The economy soared on the wings of the Internet revolution, which amazingly Vice-President Al Gore tried to take credit for. The budget was balanced, but Clinton's character was always an issue. Gore ended up in hot water for blatant election law violations and cover-ups. He attended a fund-raiser at a Buddhist temple in California that clearly violated the law. He used his office to campaign and raise funds at taxpayer expense.

Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, Clinton's handpicked envoy, helped broker a historic peace agreement aimed at ending decades of fighting between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Clinton also earned kudos on a successful trip to China, but that may very well have been a staged event from both sides. Clinton's fund-raising, using China connections - the espionage and failure to preserve American security interests in light of the China threat - never really went away.

The Monica Lewinsky scandal

Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who in 1994 took over the investigation of the Clinton's involvement in the Whitewater land deal, expanded his probe into the death of Vince Foster, the handling of firings in the White House travel office, and shocking allegations of sexual misconduct by Clinton.

Monica Lewinsky was a semi-attractive Jewish girl from Beverly Hills who told friends that she planned to go to Washington, D.C., to intern for Clinton. She intended to bring her "Presidential kneepads." This was a reference to the fact that she wanted to give Clinton oral sex as much as possible. She accomplished her task. There is no record that Clinton ever questioned whether there was anything immoral about a middle-aged President getting blown in the Oval Office by a young girl in her early 20s who worked for him. The blowjobs became a regular event. Over time Clinton even had Monica half-believing that they might even have a future together, implying Hillary was just a political wife in a loveless marriage. By the time the scandal became public, Monica had put on a lot of weight, which made the whole thing even more tasteless.

Monica was no different than all the other women he cheated with. What made it a scandal was the fact that Clinton was facing investigations, allegations and lawsuits from the many women who had come forward to inform the world of his rapes, sexual assaults, sexual harassment, and infidelities. In particular, Paula Jones had sued him for pulling his manhood out of his pants and demanding that she service him orally while in Arkansas. Since he was Governor and she was a state employee, the tasteless act was elevated to sexual harassment from the boss-underling standpoint.

In the Jones depositions, Clinton lied under oath. When asked about Monica, he perjured himself. He waved his finger at the American public and lied, and lied about asking people to cover it up for him. As President, he also found himself in a new situation. His old methods in Arkansas, which were to have enemies and informants killed, was no longer a viable option. The Foster case had shown that there was too much heat for a President to have people killed except in rare cases. After Ron Brown's plane crashed, somebody must have gotten to the Clintons and told him that they had to desist in this kind of activity. Many of the women who came forward likely saved their lives by doing so. Once in the spotlight it was too difficult to murder the likes of Gennifer Flowers and Kathleen Willey.

Hillary Clinton, along with James Carville, decided that instead of actually murdering the women, they would murder their reputations. Brutal smear campaigns ensued, attempting to depict the women as "white trash," "trailer trash," "bimbo eruptions," and sluts. Their lives may be in danger still, since Hillary plans to run for President in 2008. Whether the Clinton death squad will have the staying power of the Israeli Mossad going after Black September remains to be seen. The many people who know inside dirt on the Clintons, not to mention their critics like yours truly, had best remain alert.

The Republicans faced a difficult scenario when the Lewinsky case hit. It was an election year, 1998. They naturally wanted to make the most of it, but found this easier said than done. Clinton's lie was minor. His indiscretion was sleazy, but neither was it particularly new in light of what people knew about him, nor different from the activities of thousands of powerful men who have sex with secretaries, mistresses and hookers outside of marriage.

The key point was that Clinton had lied under oath. There was no question that, technically, he had broken the law. The facts were very plain, and under the letter of the law, he had committed what the Constitution calls "high crimes and misdemeanors," which are grounds for Impeachment. On the other hand, it was "just sex." Clinton trying to cover up another sexual affair was not unreasonable considering the political fallout.

Sides were taken, and in so doing morality, a very tricky issue, became the major source of debate between the two parties. The Republicans were placed in the uncomfortable position - and many of them willingly took this position - of being morally superior, more Christian, and more righteous. That is pedestal that is too easy to knock down. On the other hand, the Democrats exposed themselves for what they were.

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt became one of Clinton's biggest supporters, using all of his resources and investigative powers to investigate Republicans. In so doing, he did no favor to the Democrats, who were now seen as the party of pornographers, pimps and scum. The Republicans simply did not want those votes or that kind of support, and in the long run benefit from the fact that this kind of element is drawn not to them, but to the Democrats.

Actor Alec Baldwin ranted on national television for people to rise up and "kill Henry Hyde," a Republican whose committee was responsible for going forward with Impeachment proceedings. Like Flynt, Baldwin did the favor to Republicans by reminding people that within the Democrat constituencies were the worst elements of American society. The Democrats had by this time become exposed as the preferred political party of drug dealers, criminals, homeless bums, and various low sorts.

On the other hand, the fact that most Christians, working people and upright citizens supported the Republicans, while good, became an issue that Democrats tried to say was a sign of intolerance. The problem with being more moral, as the Republicans have found out, is that one cannot say it. Generally, it becomes a fact that people just accept as the way it is. Using it as a campaign issue is tricky.

On August 17, 1998, Clinton became the first U.S. President to testify in front of a grand jury in an investigation of his own criminal conduct. He admitted that he had sex and lied, but said he did not ask anyone to lie about or cover up the affair.

In order to divert attention from, his scandal, Clinton sent U.S. cruise missiles in an ineffectual strike of alleged terrorist sites in Sudan and Afghanistan.

Starr was a conservative Republican, and worse, a Christian. Therefore, he was the subject of intense abuse and invective from the Left. He very easily could have been turned into a historical villain in the mold of Joseph McCarthy, but by 1998 there were conservative news organizations, like the Washington Times and Newsmax, and fair, balanced ones, such as Fox News, that reported the truth. Starr's report outlined 11 possible grounds for impeachment.

Polling of the American population revealed that the Impeachment pursuit did not have majority support, but the Republican Congress smelled blood. They despised Clinton and wanted to damage him. In the process it became a highly partisan affair. The Democrats would have gone after any Republican four times as hard, but that is just the way it is. In December, 1998 the House Judiciary Committee approved four articles of Impeachment: for grand jury perjury, civil suit perjury, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power. Republicans rejected Democrats' call to censure Clinton for "reprehensible conduct" rather than continue with Impeachment. On December 19, Clinton became the second President in American history to be Impeached. Two of the four articles of Impeachment passed (Article I, grand jury perjury, and Article III, obstruction of justice), the votes drawn along party lines. After a Senate trial in January and February of 1999, Clinton was acquitted on both counts. On the charge of perjury, the vote was 55-45 with 10 Republicans voting for acquittal along with all 45 Democrats. On the charge of obstruction of justice, the vote was 50-50, with five Republicans joining Democrats in voting for acquittal.

In the end, the event worked to the slight advantage of the Republicans, but it was by no means a victory. The 1998 mid-term elections were disappointing to the G.O.P., who had hoped that the scandal would favor them. Clinton's crimes, in the narrow scope of the Lewinsky matter, were simply not egregious enough to force him out of office by resignation or conviction. By impeaching him, the Republicans managed to hang a scarlet letter on his Presidency, which is the very least he deserved. If the Senate had voted him out, it would have set bad precedent. The Republicans who gave Clinton the vote to stay in office showed more bi-partisan fairness than Democrats would ever show a Republican. Certainly, their treatment of Nixon had been an abomination.

The liberals, who spewed invective over Starr and the conservatives who attacked the Clintons, missed the point on why the right went after them. The Lewinsky scandal was of small consequence. Lying about sex in a political atmosphere like Washington is something any politician is all but forced to do. But the frustration the right felt over the Clintons cannot be underestimated. The numerous scandals, lies and crimes, the killing of people that goes back for years, was all known by every Republican. The fact that none of it could be pinned on "Slick Willie" was terribly hard to accept. Each conservative believes the Clinton stories to his or her own personal degree, ranging from near-certainty to probably to maybe. Foster's death, the Brown plane crash, the kids on the train tracks, and the many other murders, "suicides," and "accidents," add up to a collective degree of certainty that the Clintons are, at the absolute least, major felons whose activities over the years are worthy of a long Federal prison sentence. Clinton's smug expression is seen by his detractors as the smile of a man who knows he always has, and apparently always will, get away with everything he is accused of. Worse, the unproven accusations add up, in a strange way, in his favor, making him look like a man who has survived a "trial by fire" from witch-hunting moral crusaders. A key element of the Clintons is the certainty that whether any or all or part of the vast array of criminal activities attributed to them is in fact true or not, it is all something they would do.

Clinton simply befuddled his accusers with inane conundrums, such as stating "what the meaning of is is."

The other important factor that Republicans understood was that if Clinton were removed from office, Al Gore would have become President. The Republicans benefited from having the figurehead of the Democrat party - the very nature of what he was and what he stood for - exposed. Had Clinton slunk away in disgrace, Gore would have taken center stage, looking Presidential while handling the "crisis." In 2000, he would have been able to campaign without the encumbrance of Clinton's shadow, and with the imprimatur and perks of a sitting chief executive. It likely would have pushed him over the top, although this scenario does not factor in his ability to turn people off.

The Clinton legacy in the Middle East

The history may not be written yet regarding Bill Clinton's legacy in the Middle East as it pertains to Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and the spinoff issues that surround all of this. However, it is becoming more and more obvious that Clinton failed to adequately defend America's security interests against bin Laden, and allowed Saddam to re-build his weapons of mass destruction to the point where his successor was forced to deal with him.

The infrastructure of the CIA's ability to fight terrorism completely collapsed under Bill Clinton, according to former agent Robert Baer. CIA operatives were directed away from spying on disreputable people and told to concentrate on "human rights and economic globalization." This sounds good in theory, except that it mirrors the utterly failed intelligence operations that Jimmy Carter concentrated on. Baer believes that in 1996, bin Laden formed an alliance with Iran. Perhaps this was the reason George Bush included Iran in his "axis of evil" speech.

In 1995, the National Security Council prevented a planned coup by Iraqi military leaders against Saddam Hussein, choosing instead to protect him. CIA assassination plans of Saddam were not applauded, but rather cause for scolding. Clinton did not maintain rigorous maintenance of the 1991 sanctions against Iraq, which may have helped him stay in power. Saddam sold millions of barrels of Iraqi oil by shipping them overland through NATO ally Turkey.

It "was a lifeline for Saddam, who used the money to fund his intelligence services and Special Republican Guards - the forces that kept him alive," wrote Baer, adding that Clinton could have stopped it but chose not to.

Sudanese leaders offered to extradite Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia, and share intelligence to help the United States to disrupt terror networks. Clinton turned them down repeatedly. On May 18, 1996, bin Laden left on a chartered plane for Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan. Three months later, he issued his first fatwa calling for attacks against America, accused of defiling Muslim holy places by stationing troops in Saudi Arabia. The same month, the State Department labeled bin Laden "one of the most significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in the world."

Had the U.S. accepted, it would have received data compiled on Al Qaeda prior to the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa. Sudan had been observing Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Kenyan citizen working for Al Qaeda in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, and Wadih el Hage, bin Laden's former secretary. Both men were charged with plotting the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

The Sudanese had the goods on Mamdouh Mahmoud Salim, an Afghan war veteran who had worked for bin Laden until 1995. Salim often visited Germany, worshipping at the same mosque as Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, the hijackers of the planes flown into the World Trade Center.

"Not to take up the Sudanese on their collaborative effort was a mistake," said Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of the CIA's counter-terrorism operations under the senior President George Bush. "When you can engage and learn something, it's always better than disengaging and turning your policy elsewhere."

Sudan had become a safe haven for terrorists evading the governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. Among them was bin Laden, who fled Saudi Arabia in 1992 to join with former anti-Soviet Mujahadeen in Khartoum. The foreign agitation grew and anti-Americanism became part of the Sudanese political culture.

Bin Laden created training camps and funding operations. The State Department recognized the problem as early as 1993. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was often seen with bin Laden, who oversaw a construction company that was contracted with Sudan.

"The U.S. said, 'We don't want him in Sudan,'" recalled Elfatih Erwa, then Sudan's Minister of Defense and now its Ambassador to the United States. "'He's a danger and he can build a terrorist network.'"

Former Clinton Administration officials have said they lacked enough evidence to indict him, which is an entirely different circumstance than removing him as a danger.

"Any good security person worth his salt says, 'Damn due process and civil liberties and civil review. We want that guy,'" said Steven Simon, then director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council. "That's not the kind of country we live in."

Sudanese and U.S. officials began talking about bin Laden in 1996. Bin Laden, a citizen of Saudi Arabia, had been kicked out of his native land.

"We asked the Saudis to take bin Laden back and they could handle it in their own way," said one anonymous negotiator. "They refused." The Saudis did not want anything to do with him.

Clinton's lame alternative was to pressure the Sudan to "ask" bin Laden to leave. The Sudanese then suggested that he stay in their country, where they would spy on him.

"We told them 'We believe if bin Laden stays in Sudan, we can baby-sit him,'" Erwa said. "'We can keep him under utmost control.'"

Clinton did not endorse that idea. By the Spring of 1996, bin Laden was gone. Sudan continued to offer intelligence on bin Laden, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. They wanted to establish good relations with the U.S. An intermediary, Mansoor Ijaz, was a shadowy Muslim businessmen who, surprise, was a major contributor to the Democrat party. He negotiated with Sandy Berger. The gist of the talks was a sweetheart oil deal in return for bin Laden.

Ijaz met with Bashir and Hassan Turabi, who had brought Sudan's Islamist government to power. The State Department referred to Turabi as the "silver-tongued devil." He offered to "usher in a new era of improving the understanding and attitudes of all elements in the Islamic world."

The Clinton Administration was cautious, and in fact they had reason to be. This kind of "offer," or quid pro quo, is made regularly in the intelligence game, often from dubious sources. But Clinton policy seemed to pre-dispose them to failure in the dangerous game of terror intel. By the time Clinton was in office, the devastating consequences of the Church Committee restrictions were historical fact. The Carter policy of "human rights first" had proven to be a failure. The Reagan/Bush policy of aggressive inter-action in the shadowy world of narco-terrorists and drug dealers had helped bring Democracy to countries like Nicaragua. However, Iran/Contra had shed too much light on the reality of what that was.

There was also irony in the Clinton policy of not dealing with "bad guys," presumably a response to Iran/Contra. Having run the Mena smuggling operation, Clinton actually was one of the bad guys that the U.S. dealt with, and now it was people like him who were the bad guys he forbade his government from working with. It takes one to know one.

The Sudanese were persecuting the Christian minority. This would seemingly have made them popular in Clinton's world, but further irony is added in that it was conservative Christian groups in the U.S. who said he should not work with them in light of allegations of human rights violations. The whole convoluted situation was made more bizarre by the fact that influential African-Americans did not want Clinton working with Sudan because they were trafficking in slavery.

"The Sudanese are one of the most slippery, dishonest governments in the world," said Susan Rice, a Clinton official. "The only thing that matters is what they do, not what they say they're going to do. They're very good at saying one thing and doing another."

The Sudanese then went to the Congress. On April 5, 1997, Bashir sent a letter to Representative Lee Hamilton, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs committee.

"We extend an offer to the FBI's counterterrorism units and any other official delegations which your government may deem appropriate, to come to the Sudan and work with our External Intelligence Department in order to assess the data in our possession and help us counter the forces your government, and ours, seek to contain," the letter read.

Democrats on Capitol Hill may have been warned not to follow up and go against Clifton's policy. Further intelligence was coming in regarding the dangers of Islamic Fundamentalism, but it stayed below the Clinton radar. In the mid-1990s, Iraq was still the "enemy" in the Middle East, and they were a secular state. Afghanistan was ruled by the Fundamentalist Taliban, but they were a completely backward country that did not concern the Americans. Iran was flirting with moderation, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had nothing to do with Fundamentalism.

Ijaz testified before a House subcommittee on crime, warning that the "real danger for the West lies in revivalist Islamic movements...where they can only be seen at a sidewalk cafe, with a bomb strapped to the body of a fanatic."

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright decided to pursue the matter further.

"With a permanent presence, we can nudge and push and argue," said Ambassador Timothy Carney at the time. His plan was to operate in Nairobi, Kenya. "We will press Khartoum to make good on its continual public statements that it opposes terrorism."

An internal squabble followed, and the Albright plan was quashed. On August 7, 1998, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed. On September 12, 2000, the USS Cole was attacked off the Yemen coast. At this point, the intelligence community was able to piece together the bin Laden connection to Al Qaeda. Sudanese authorities arrested two suspects monitoring the American embassy in Khartoum. The U.S. still refused to accept their help in full. They then sent cruise missiles, allegedly to destroy a terrorist target in Khartoum. It was a pharmaceutical plant that the Clinton Administration said was making chemical weapons. Their intelligence, based on bad policy (concentrating on "human rights) was poor.

"It's not 100 percent clear that the Sudanese would have fulfilled it," said R. James Woolsey, Jr., the director of the CIA for much of Clinton's first term, regarding the prospect of cooperating with Sudan in getting bin Laden. "But we could have started a dialogue with them on terrorism.

"It will be one of history's great unknowns."

President George W. Bush later derided the Clinton strategy, and said when he sends missiles, it will be to destroy terrorists, not "hit a camel in the butt."

1998 saw increased tensions with Saddam Hussein and Iraq. London and Washington struck the facilities where Saddam Hussein manufactured his weapons of mass destruction. They also struck his military infrastructure. This went on for four consecutive nights. They cited his threat to the world and, in particular, his neighbors.

"We have reduced the danger Saddam represents consistent with common sense and a proportionate use of force," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said. "Had we simply allowed the [arms] inspection regime to be reduced to impotence, and simply done nothing, then he would have known that we were not serious. He would have felt unrestrained and able to work his will on the outside world again."

Saddam repeatedly refused to submit to U.N. arms inspections. Blair and Clinton said Saddam was seeking to resume weapons development programs. They wanted to force him into allowing arms inspectors back to work. U.N. sanctions held and were to stay in place until Baghdad was certified free of weapons, including biological and chemical arms. By 1998, however, fissures had formed in the U.N. Anti-Americanism was rampant, with the "blame America first" crowd crowing that "starving Iraqi children" were the fault of the U.S., not Saddam, who refused to disarm and stole all the "oil-for-food" money to build palaces.

An argument began to creep in that the sanctions and inspectors should be virtually scrapped, which of course would not only have made Saddam the big winner, but made him more dangerous than ever. This was precisely what Saddam's plan was all along. Bill Clinton was not the man to hold the line in this kind of crisis. Clinton's bombings, however, just divided American "allies" even more.

France said Iraqi weapons had been destroyed and that arms monitors should prevent Baghdad from acquiring new ones. They said sanctions should be eased. Russia and China opposed the air strikes and wanted to lift the sanctions. Iraq refused to let the UNSCOM inspectors return after the bombings. Saddam accused U.S. experts with UNSCOM of spying, using that as the reason to ban them. This was a pre-cursor to banning all inspectors from entering sites, which he called "presidential palaces."

William Quant, an expert on the Middle East at the Brookings Institute in Washington, said that Saddam's plan was to use weak American "allies," i.e., liberals of the "useful idiot class," to weaken resolve.

"I think there were several reasons for him to conclude in the early part of this year that perhaps the consensus was weaker," he said. "There was more open discussion of the negative effects of sanctions on the Iraqi people, there was an outspoken concern about the rather aggressive and highly public statements of some members of the UNSCOM mission, and I think it is quite typical of Saddam Hussein to probe and see how deep some of these differences may be. So yes, the perception of some disagreement within the Security Council and within the anti-Iraq coalition did tempt him to make a move at the early part of the year."

Russia, China and France became de facto Arab lobbyists, isolating the United States and Britain. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan cut a deal with Iraq, allowing senior diplomats to accompany arms inspectors to sensitive sites and mediate over Iraqi concerns. In return he would promote Iraq's grievances over sanctions.

However, the U.N. quickly reached the conclusion that it was all sham, and that Iraq was trying to create sympathy, re-arm itself, and would never allow for full compliance. Baghdad demanded a new framework leading to lifting of the sanctions. Saddam cut off the "cooperation" he never engaged in the first place.

Washington and London threatened new air strikes, again without U.N. approval. The Arab Gulf states, plus Egypt and Syria, declared Baghdad had nobody to blame but themselves. With U.S. planes heading towards him, Saddam "promised" that Iraq would again cooperate with inspectors.

Four weeks later, Baghdad was still obstructing arms inspections. Washington and London bombed some 100 targets in Iraq for a total of 70 hours, again on a unilateral, non-U.N. approved basis. The aftermath of this event was that it was obvious that as long as Saddam was in power, he remained a threat. He would never cooperate or allow his country to become part of the family of nations. He possessed weapons of mass destruction. He posed a chemical, biological and, if unchecked, nuclear threat. Iraq taunted the U.S. and its allies further by shooting at jets patrolling the "no-fly" zones set up after the Persian Gulf war.

The Internet boom, Elian, Clinton's pardons and Democrat vandalism

In 1999, Washington had a large budget surplus, in light of Clinton's 1996 welfare overhaul. It was truly a boom time in the nation and in California, the tech capitol of the world. The Republican Congress had held the line on spending, working with Clinton on a bi-partisan economic basis. The Internet revolution had spurred an enormous stock market upsurge. Initial public offerings (IPOs) had turned ordinary people into overnight millionaires. Tech savvy college graduates could command $75,000 salaries and huge benefits packages, including lucrative stock options. Clinton was pushing for further social reform and revisions in the Social Security and health care systems. Republicans wanted to spur investment more through large tax cuts.

Despite Clinton's success with economic issues, he continued to show his true colors in the Elian Gonzalez case. Elian was a little Cuban boy who had boarded a boat with his mother, to flee from the awful repression of Castro's Communist Cuba. The boat sank and the mother drowned. The U.S. Coast Guard rescued Elian. He had relatives in Miami, and settled in with them. Castro realized it was bad propaganda for his citizens to continually risk their lives to escape life under him. With a friendly liberal in the Oval Office he decided to press for Elian's return. The boy's father was dug up and told that he now wanted to take custody of him. It was an utter sham, but it played with the "paternal custody" crowd.

The father was flown to the U.S., where he was introduced to his biological offspring, playing on the emotions of parents. The Cuban-American community offered to let him stay in the U.S. with the son, a terrific opportunity for him. More than likely, Castro's thugs were holding guns to the heads of his other relatives back in Cuba to prevent him from opting for freedom. He "insisted" that Elian return with him. It was obviously political and the Miami Cubans knew it. The liberals despised the idea of Castro and Cuba being made to look bad.

Janet Reno ordered agents in full combat gear to break into the house where Elian was sleeping in the middle of the night, point weapons inches from the boy's face and the relative holding him, steal Elian and return him to the imprisoned Communist island. It was disgusting. The photo that captured it describes the Clinton years in a nutshell. Elian's fate may never be known. The threats made to his father unless he cooperated with Castro might make disclosure problematic. One would guess that the boy will be treated well so he can be trotted out at some point to demonstrate the "success" of Communism. What crap!

Towards the end of his second term, particularly after George Bush was elected as his successor, Clinton settled into a behavior pattern that, in hindsight, is hard to explain. He and people around him committed some atrocious acts, particularly Clinton's numerous pardons of criminals and those blatantly bribing him for favors. Clinton allowed his photo to be taken for an Esquire photo shoot. In the photo, he has a grin that is so lugubrious, so obviously telling, that there is no question that what Clinton is conveying is that he got away with it, he knows it and he does not care who else does. It is unbelievable. The symbolism of the photo is obvious, too. Clinton sits spread-legged, his coat unbuttoned, with a long, phallic tie seemingly pointed at his notorious crotch, as if to indicate that he is a cocksman and damn proud of it. It makes Hugh Hefner and Robert Evans look shy.

With hours to go in his term, Bill Clinton issued pardons and commutation of sentences for politically connected felons and ne'r'do'wells. The obvious political payoffs and bribes were the blatant acts of a man bent on telling his critics that he could do anything he wanted to do, and they were powerless to stop him. This would make sense if Clinton planned to end his political viability, but this is highly unlikely. Hillary had recently been elected to the Senate in New York. Surely Clinton planned on her carrying on his name and legacy, probably in the White House some day. He has since lobbied for repeal of the 22nd Amendment, which bans him from running for President again, which indicates that he would like to be President once more. Clinton is a young ex-President, and he can hold many future jobs. His disbarment from legal practice probably would make him a longshot for the Supreme Court, a job he likely would not consider exciting enough, anyway. But Clinton has to be considered a candidate for future Senate or gubernatorial campaigns, cabinet positions, or ambassadorial roles.

His final actions seem to be telling reminders of his reckless personal side. The most outrageous pardon was of billionaire financier Marc Rich, a fugitive in Switzerland for 17 years, whose former wife is a major fund-raiser for the Democrats. Pictures of Rich's ex-wife, wearing cocktail dresses with her breasts all but flopping out, standing next to Clinton with his trademark grin, leave little doubt that sex was part of the deal. Presidential pardons are granted by Article II of the Constitution, and are given to people who have served their time after being convicted of a crime. The pardon restores civil liberties, such as the right to vote or obtain a hunting license. Most pardons follow a lengthy investigation by the FBI, former prosecutors, and the Pardons Office at the Department of Justice. Clinton by-passed all of that, obviously because Rich was not in any way deserving of a pardon. Aside from his fugitive status, his money was ill gotten.

Tom Bhakta was pardoned for tax evasion after his wife and three children each contributed $1,000 to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign. Bhakta's business partner and attorney, Kenneth Mourton, represented the commodities broker who arranged Hillary's insider trading deal which netted her nearly $100,000 in a few days in the 1970s. Bhakta's case received no review from the Justice Department. Bhakta's name was not even spelled correctly because Clinton pushed it through so fast.

Four Hasidic men from New Square, New York, imprisoned for fraud for funneling millions of dollars of government money to a fictitious religious school, had their sentences commuted after their followers contributed thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton's New York Senate campaign. Clinton commuted their sentences over the objections of the U.S. attorney who prosecuted them.

Edward Downe, Jr., a prominent Democrat contributor, was pardoned for insider trading. His prosecutor was not even notified of the pardon in time to oppose it. Clinton's pardons were cheap, sleazy bribes, arrangements for money, campaign contributions, sex, or sold by Hillary's criminal Rodham brothers. As usual, the Clintons got away with it.

Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon was justified since many convictions stemmed from Watergate, and Nixon had suffered enough in being disgraced and forced to resign. A trial was of no value to the country other than bloodthirsty Democrats. President Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane and four other officials, effectively. Their "crimes" were strictly political and based on policy decisions within the framework of their jobs.

Another story dominated the last days of the Clinton Presidency. It would have been utterly unbelievable, except when one considers the Clintons and the kind of people who surround them. In light of that, all things are believable. Clinton's aides vandalized the White House! They left about $19,000 worth of Federal damage. Is there some alternate Universe in which Republicans would ever do such a thing? Does this question really need an answer?

"Damage, theft, vandalism, and pranks occurred in the White House complex during the 2001 Presidential transition," said a General Accounting Office (GAO) report.

Damage was done to 62 computer keyboards, 26 cellular phones, 15 television remote controls, nine historic doorknobs, two chairs with broken arms and one Presidential seal.

Outgoing Clinton staffers tucked pictures depicting Bush as a chimpanzee, glued desk drawers shut, ripped phone lines from the walls, left messy offices and removed the "W" keys from numerous computer keyboards. A Presidential seal was stolen.

"Incidents such as the removal of keys from computer keyboards; the theft of various items; the leaving of certain voice mail messages, signs, and written messages; and the placing of glue on desk drawers clearly were intentional acts," the 215-page report concluded.

"With regard to stolen items, such as the Presidential seal, because no one witnessed the thefts and many people were in the White House complex during the transition, it was not known who was responsible for taking them," the report said.

It was tawdry and low class, and therefore the perfect send-off of the Clintons, who got away with it!

"The bitch is back": Is Hillary Clinton worse than Bill?

"Bill and I have been accused of everything, including murder, by some of the very same people who behind these allegations...For anybody willing to find it, and write about it, and explain it, it is this vast right wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for President."

\- Hillary Clinton, Today show

January 27, 1998

"I was lucky." (On how Hillary turned a $1,000 investment into $100,000 in one year.)

"He ministers to troubled people all the time...If you knew his mother you would understand it." (On why Bill was spending time alone with Monica.)

"I mean you've got this right winged press presence with really nothing on the other end of the political spectrum." (Hillary on the "right wing" press corps in Washington, 89 percent of whom voted for Clinton in 1992.)

"The problem back then, you'll remember, is that documents were destroyed, tapes were missing, 18 and a half minutes. The White House was no cooperating...I think the contrast is so dramatic." (On why the Nixon White House was "evil," but the Clintons were innocent.)

"When I look at the man department, I'm surprised more women aren't gay." (Hillary answering a question from female friends on whether she is gay or not.)

"Who is going to find out? These women are all trash. Nobody's going to believe them." (Hillary formulating strategy on how to destroy the women in her husband's life.)

"Every document that we have obtained has been turned over to the special counsel..." (with the exception of the documents not turned over to the special counsel or destroyed.)

"I don't have any memory of that." (The "smartest woman in the world's" stock answer to all questions regarding her illegal activities over the years.)

"He's a great human being." (Hillary on the liar James Carville.)

"We have to destroy her." (Hillary's strategy for dealing with Gennifer Flowers.)

"We will never build enough prisons to end our crime problem". (Hillary on crime.)

"I just put it in a little box. That's how I deal with it. I put it in a box in my mind and I just don't think about it." (On Bill's sex addiction.)

"To confine Impeachable conduct to indictable offenses may well be to set a standard so restrictive as not to reach conduct that might adversely affect the system of government. Some of the most grievous offenses against our Constitutional form of government may not entail violations of the criminal law...It limits Impeachable conduct to criminal offenses would be incompatible with the evidence...and would frustrate the purpose that the framers intended... Impeachment was evolved...to cope with both the inadequacy of the criminal standards and the impotence of the courts to deal with the conduct of great public figures. It would be anomalous if the framers, having barred criminal sanctions from the Impeachment remedy...intended to restrict the grounds for Impeachment to conduct that was criminal" (Hillary Rodham, Democrat staff attorney, House Judiciary Committee, 1974.)

"We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society." (Hillary's homage to V.I. Lenin and dead kids on railroad tracks near Mena.)

"I'm having a great time being the Pres- I mean Senator from New York." (Hillary's Freudian slip.)

"Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage always has been, between a man and a woman." (Hillary Clinton, who is in a political marriage of convenience.)

"The clearest way to know whether you are with a poor person in America is not by the logo on the clothes, because we all wear pretty much the same anymore. It's by looking into their eyes and seeing whether they look into yours, and seeing what kind of teeth they have." (Hillary on how best to purchase slaves.)

"I am particularly horrified by the use of propaganda and the manipulation of the truth and the revision of history." (Res ipsa loquiter.)

"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the President." (Hillary on her co-Presidency.)

"I've always been a Yankees fan." (Chicago-area native and Cub fan Hillary after declaring for the Senate in New York.)

"The Bitch is back."

\- Elton John

Who is the worst American of the 20th Century? Joseph P. Kennedy comes to mind. So does his son, Teddy. Bill and Hillary Clinton are up there. In this man's opinion, Hillary is worse than Bill. The idea that one of these people is the anti-Christ is certainly a longshot. It insults the patriotic sensibility to think that an American is the anti-Christ. Truth be told, there are hundreds of non-Americans littering the 20th Century, all of whom were worse than the Clintons.

Even the concept that they made a deal with Satan in order to obtain power seems hard to imagine, although not completely out of the question. "Truth" be known, many people, including some very surprising names on all sides of the political spectrum, may have invoked the Dark Prince in order to get their way.

On the other hand, if Satan is looking for somebody to inflict maximum damage, who better than an American President? Thanks to some very fine American President's, many of whom happen to be Republican, we now live in a world in somebody other than an American may lack the kind of power to commit the really large evil that Satan might call the "Big Bang." Tinpot dictators of disgraced Communist enclaves are not to be ignored, but they do labor against the odds.

Clinton's Presidency, at first glance, did not usher in the new Dark Ages that one might associate with Satan. There is no denying that a lot of good occurred under him. However, consider a few other things. Clinton gave perilous secrets to nuclear-tipped Communist China in return for personal contributions and more for the Democrats. Maybe the Chinese chose, on their own, not to attack the U.S. for the obvious humanitarian reasons, and the more obvious reality that they would be destroyed in return.

Clinton allowed terrorism to go unchecked during his years in office. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were not dealt with. George Bush has taken out both. Perhaps the forces of evil that Clinton hoped to unleash were simply overcome by larger forces of good unleashed by the Christian George Bush. Just a thought.

The idea that Satan is all about nuclear war may be off the mark, too. He probably prefers more insidious methods. A nuclear war might create the Armageddon that the Bible promises, with Christ returning as promised to confront him. Satan is probably not very confident about a one-on-one confrontation with Christ.

The Internet, which was not invented by Al Gore, and was going to come along whether Clinton was President or not, nevertheless is something much associated with the Clinton era. The theorists have occasionally opined that Microsoft founder Bill Gates is the anti-Christ. He is not religious, operates in a world of numbers and codes, is the richest man in the world as well as one of the most powerful, and is a Democrat! He is as responsible as anybody is for unleashing the tentacles of the Internet. Gates appears utterly fallow, and aside from an occasional anti-trust suit that he buys his way out of, he does what he does pretty quietly.

Now, I am an admirer of Bill Gates and do not seriously propose that he is the anti-Christ. It is not for me to say who is, or if such an entity ever will appear. But the Internet is a technological achievement that must be watched closely. It is a wonderful thing, of course, in that it makes for an incredible research and information tool, and allows people to communicate and work with each other more closely than ever before. But the Internet does not work the way everybody said it would. Instead of providing Truth and freedom to oppressed people, it has become the tool of terrorists and the disseminators of enormous falsehoods, particularly in the Arab and terrorist world.

Arabs do not log on and read the Truth. They are getting lies and slander about America, feeding the insanity and falsehoods of Fundamentalist Islam. Terrorists use the Internet to communicate and plot their attacks. Spin and deception have taken over as political discourse. Winners used to write the history. Today's losers, realizing this, are usurping the process by writing the Big Lie about freedom, Democracy, Christianity and America.

Child molesters and other criminals use the Internet as a tool. Viruses, so far just the work of prank hackers, may become deadly and disabling. Lightning can travel through phone lines. Some day, disastrous methods of attack may spread through the wiring of a connected world.

Leftist Unabomber Ted Kaczynski warned that technology was getting out of control. He did not like its application as a tool of globalization and capitalism. But quasi-religious worship at the shrine of technology, which is about the mass spreading of information that can be misleading, evil and deadly, is a threat.

I could be completely off base with all of this. I hope I am. Getting back to the Clintons, one still must consider what further damage they can do. During the 1992 campaign, Bill told campaign audiences that voting for him was also a vote for Hillary, and that America would be getting "two for the price of one."

As a Senator, Hillary's ability to do evil is considerable, but presumably limited. A smart cookie, she has so far played it close to the vest, voting with the Republicans in authorizing war with Iraq. Bob Dole has publicly stated that he believes she is doing a good job. She certainly has the smarts, the passion and the work ethic to do a good job.

If she is ever elected President, this would mean the momentum of conservatism, 40-plus years in the making, would be reversed. It is very possible that only a "big event" - a major terrorist act or North Korea nuking Japan - that is pinned on Bush and the Republicans, could persuade enough Americans to vote for Hillary. It would also mean another co-Presidency - "two for the price of one" giving us four to eight years of Hillary. Her rise to power seems, at the time of this writing, to be something that could only happen amid anarchy and chaos. That was the formula for Lenin and Hitler.

I could be wrong, but I do not believe the Clintons can be compared to Lenin and Hitler. There are levels of evil that they obviously do not meet. The American system simply does not allow for Lenins and Hitlers to rise in that form. But I think the fact such a disqualifier is even valid makes the Clintons people we must not give any more power to.

The Clintons always figured out ways to make money even when they were on the public payroll. Bill's salary as Governor of Arkansas was miserable, and even the President cannot match a Wall Street CEO. The salaries of professional athletes and entertainers are far more. Hillary made a good living at the Rose Law Firm, but the Clintons enhanced their income through their nefarious criminal corruptions.

When Newt Gingrich was on top of the world for orchestrating the Contract with America, he was provided a generous advance to write a book about his political philosophies. Hillary was his loudest critic. Gingrich promptly gave the money back. He ended up making it all back and more when the book shot to the best seller list.

At the end of the Clinton Presidency, both Bill and Hillary were given enormous advances to write their memoirs. There was no concerted effort by conservatives to stop this eventuality, since conservatives realized in the free market they are worth what is offered to them, and that their books would make the money. They kept their advances, and of course got away with their hypocrisy.

Just as Bill's mother was a tramp, Hillary's family demonstrates that lying, cheating, corruption and scandal are traits that run through their bloodlines, not unlike the Kennedys. Tony and Hugh Rodham are a couple of losers who cashed in every way they could on their connections. They used the administration to promote fraudulent business "deals," including one nefarious scheme with the Mayor of Moscow arranged by President Clinton. Moscow has become overrun by the Russian Mafia, of which Mayor Yuri Luzhkov's membership is well known. Sandy Berger, the national security adviser, found that the Rodham brothers' arrangement created a nightmare for him.

The Rodham brothers' fascination with former Stalinist dictatorships continued when they, along with partner Stephen Graham, flew to Batumi in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia to look over a potential $118 million hazelnut operation. Aslan Abashidze, an ally of Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze, ruled Batumi. Berger told the brothers to end the hazelnut deal because they said it would give the "seal of approval" of the U.S. government to the Georgian government, causing further diplomatic consternation for Berger.

Hugh Rodham used his connections to negotiate possible gun industry and tobacco settlements. Hugh and Tony embarrassed the First Family in early 1993 by asking corporate donors to pay for their inaugural parties. Hugh actually ran for Senate but was clobbered. Tony married the daughter of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D.-Calif.), but his cheating ending that. He was "employed" by the Democrat National Committee. They got into fistfights and regularly embarrassed themselves with their drunkenness, profanity and sexual tastelessness. "The boys," as there were disparagingly referred to, have been compared to "The Sopranos", the HBO program about a crime family, for obvious reasons.

Tony Rodham helped obtain a Presidential pardon for a Tennessee couple over the objections of the Justice Department. Edgar Allen Gregory, Jr. and his wife, Vonna Jo were convicted of bank fraud in 1982, accused of using the assets of a bank they owned to give loans to friends.

"I told him about Ed Gregory," Rodham said. "I didn't push. I told the President about Ed Gregory and that he had applied for a pardon. He's what the pardon process is all about."

The Gregorys were major Democrat campaign contributors who bought their pardon by donations to Hillary's Senate campaign. Clinton's pardons on January 20, 2001 included two for which Hugh was paid $400,000 for his work on two clemency applications.

Dick Morris, who consulted for the Clintons in Arkansas and Washington, told an interesting story about the Clintons.

"The real reason I was reluctant was that Bill Clinton had tried to beat me up in May of 1990 as he, you, Gloria Cabe, and I were together in the Arkansas governor's mansion," Morris recalled in "conversation" with Hillary in his book, disputing her memoir, "Living History". "At the time, Bill was worried that he was falling behind his Democratic primary opponent and verbally assaulted me for not giving his campaign the time he felt it deserved. Offended by his harsh tone, I turned and stalked out of the room.

"Bill ran after me, tackled me, threw me to the floor of the kitchen in the mansion and cocked his fist back to punch me. You grabbed his arm and, yelling at him to stop and get control of himself, pulled him off me. Then you walked me around the grounds of the mansion in the minutes after, with your arm around me, saying, 'He only does that to people he loves.' When the story threatened to surface during the 1992 campaign, you told me to 'say it never happened.' That, and not the invented conversation in your memoir, was the reason that I was reluctant to work for Bill again."

When she learned in 1993 that there were "concerns of financial mismanagement and waste," in the White House Travel Office, said Byron York in "The Hill", Clinton writes, "I said to Chief of Staff Mack McLarty that if there were such problems, I hoped he would 'look into it'" in "Living History" it says it was an "offhand comment." An audit by KPMG Peat Marwick discovered financial irregularities in the office. Then, "based on these findings, Mack and the White House Counsel's Office decided to fire the travel office staff and reorganize the department."

She said she had nothing to do with the firings. Former White House aide David Gergen told the grand jury that he remembered a conversation with McLarty. McLarty said the first lady was "very upset" about the travel office and was "ginned up on that issue...and that there were at least two occasions when she made it clear to him that she wanted action taken."

Former White House administrator David Watkins wrote that both he and McLarty "knew that there would be hell to pay if...we failed to take swift and decisive action in conformity with the first lady's wishes."

Asked if she had any role in the firings, she replied, "No, I did not." They asked whether she "had any input with either Mr. McLarty or Mr. Watkins as to that decision." She answered, "I don't believe I did, no."

Independent counsel Robert Ray determined that "Clinton did play a role and have input in the decision to fire the travel office employees and that her testimony to the contrary was factually false."

Alison Muscatine and Maryanne Vollers ghostwrote "Living History", but the frontispiece still reads, "by Hillary Rodham Clinton." The previous book project of Maryanne Vollers was about Jerri Nielsen, the doctor who had to be airlifted out of Antarctica. It was titled "Ice Bound: A Doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole" by Jerri Nielsen with Maryanne Vollers. John McCain's "Faith of My Fathers" is "by Mark Salter, with John McCain." Honor and honesty are not part of Hillary's essence. Hillary claimed she would not run for office, but she ran for the Senate. She has denied planning to run for President, but it is assumed by all that she is the Democrat candidate for 2008. If the situation is favorable to her, she _will_ run in 2004, or attempt to work the delegates and usurp the Primaries. She has positioned herself perfectly. She could run in 2004 and hold her Senate seat. If re-elected to the Senate in 2006, she could run for President and hold the Senate. Defeating her in the 2006 New York Senate race is likely to be the Great Crusade of the Republicans. She consistently out-polls all other national Democrats.

_LARRY KING SHOW_ , APRIL 29, 1997

CALLER: Are you considering running for office in the future?

HILLARY: No, no.

KING: At all?

HILLARY: No.

KING: No circumstance under which you would?

HILLARY: Not that I can imagine. That is not anything I have ever thought of for myself...

If Hillary looks and sounds Machiavellian, note that her husband once cited Machiavelli as a defense in charges brought against him. Hillary Clinton said "I don't recall" or its equivalent 50 times during Whitewater. Rush Limbaugh turned it into a hilarious continual soundbite, along with a spoof of Sonny and Cher's "I Got You" that depicted Bill and Hillary each cutting deals with the prosecutor to "drop a dime" on the other.

Democrats who defended the Clintons - liberals, the National Organization for Women, environmentalists, pro-abortionists and the various ilk that makes up their constituency, face the same problem they did with Alger Hiss and other Democrats who spied for the Communists. To admit that their party was naturally pre-disposed to being unpatriotic, and to commit treachery against this beautiful country, they threatened to blow the lid off the Democrat party forever. They were forced to destroy McCarthy, and to their benefit they had a willing media and film industry help them perpetuate this lie.

The Democrats put all they had behind Clinton, who was the man who ended 12 years of Republican rule, breaking the grip of Reaganism that "threatened" to turn America into a conservative country. He "saved" them from oblivion. They were so grateful that they _had_ to defend him, and everything the Clintons stood for. In so doing, the most hallowed office on Earth was bastardized. Honor, integrity, truth, justice, and all the idealism of the Presidency was compromised. Prominent liberals were reduced to publicly saying they would happily suck Clinton off because he protected the right to suck a living child out of a healthy womb. A once-great party was turned into a partnership of utter corruption. This is not healthy for America. Democrats compromised their integrity, their political heritage, and women. 68 percent of voters thought Clinton would go down in history more for his scandals than for his leadership. Almost 60 percent of Americans felt Clinton had led America down the wrong moral track. Absent unforeseen disasters, the Democrats will pay for the Clintons for years, if not forever. The Clintons lowered expectations so much that George Bush - hesitant, inexperienced and lacking a popular mandate - quickly ascended in opinion polls simply by not being Clinton.

The Clinton legacy is a legacy of lies and deceptions. The _New York Times_ , who went through the disgraceful Jayson Blair affair, have lost the ability to print the truth, _especially_ if it favors conservatives. Hillary Clinton and her husband "told" millions of young people that lying and cheating was acceptable. Liberals desperately try to pin the "liar" tag on conservatives. In doing this, they lie more. They just dig themselves deeper and deeper into a hole. This is what the Clintons gave to the Left. The lies and perfidies of the Internet came about under their watch. The Arab world learned how to spin and lie and distort their "news" under Clinton's watch.

Hillary claimed that the Monica Lewinsky affair was a surprise.

"I know that she wasn't [surprised] because Betsey Wright, his chief of staff [in Arkansas], had the full time job - in addition to helping him run the state - of fishing him out of bedrooms," Dick Morris told WABC Radio's Monica Crowley. "[Wright] once told me over the phone, 'I've had to pull [Bill] out of one-too-many bedrooms.'"

Working on Clinton's 1992 Presidential campaign, Wright compiled a list of 19 women who she described as potential "bimbo eruptions" to her, revealing that on several prior occasions, one of Mrs. Clinton's most trusted aides was dispatched to interrupt Mr. Clinton's extramarital liaisons. According to published accounts, Mrs. Clinton personally sought out San Francisco private detective Jack Palladino, whose job it was to discourage the women from coming forward. According to Federal Election Commission records, Palladino was paid $110,000 from the campaign's Federally matched account.

A photo showing Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton on a sailboat together during the time Senator Clinton now claims she was shunning her husband contradicted "Living History". Seen above aboard Walter Cronkite's sailboat on August 25, 1998, the photo was snapped as Cronkite took his guests for an outing off Martha's Vineyard, 10 days after Hillary claimed she had banished her husband from family activities after he admitted the truth about Monica. Bill posed in a triumphant, fist-in-the-air pose.

In "Living History" Hillary writes that she did not find out about Monica until August 15, 1998. _Washington Post_ reporter Peter Baker, author of a 2000 book on the Lewinsky scandal, wrote that Bill Clinton asked his lawyer, David Kendall, to break the news to Hillary, which he did on August 13. Hillary told ABC's Barbara Walters that her husband had _never lied to her_ before August 15, 1998.

Proving that she has no political conviction, Hillary lobbied on behalf of the Contras when she and her husband were profiting from a drug operation that may have been tied indirectly to them. Hillary, who protested against the war at Wellesley, later claimed she _tried to enlist in the Army_ but was too old. In 2000, she went into a tirade against a Jewish campaign worker, calling him a "fucking Jew bastard" among other anti-Semitic remarks.

According to New York sources, Bill urged Hillary to run for President in 2004!

When asked how it was she could not remember any of the facts about her infamous cattle futures trading, Hillary said she was pregnant with Chelsea and therefore could not remember. She hired private detectives to go after opponents and Bill's girlfriends, and ruthlessly oversaw campaigns. Her own chief of staff, Maggie Williams, accepted a $50,000 check in the White House from a Chinese influence peddler. This man, when deposed on the matter, said, "Well, the White House is a bit like the New York subway. You have to put the tokens in before you're allowed access."

Hillary was on the board of a corporation, which, according to a key whistleblower, provided services to the covert arms export network that supplied Saddam Hussein. Rose law firm billing records ended up in a closet in the Book Room of the White House. Records from Arkansas she said she could not find were mysteriously found in the bedroom at the White House. She was mentioned 36 times in the fraud indictment against Webster Hubbell.

Federal prosecutors said a Hollywood private detective may be indicted on charges of widespread wiretapping and witness intimidation following his arrest on unrelated weapons charges. Hillary hired Anthony Pellicano, a famed Hollywood "private dick," to gather dirt on Gennifer Flowers. CNN (the Clinton News Network), tried to say that the Flowers tapes were tampered with. Vince Foster hired private detective Jerry Parks to further probe Clinton's affairs. Parks, who by this time knew too much, was killed in 1993. Hillary in 1992 helped enlist a private security agency to snuff a rumor that Clinton had sex with a black prostitute.

Gennifer Flowers eventually sued James Carville and George Stephanopoulos for libel and slander, based on their lies told over years. Carville touted as "evidence" that Flowers' tapes had been edited, and CNN ran with it. Later, tapes of Monica were said to be doctored, according to Clinton's "liar's squad." Flowers managed to get independent analysis of her tapes proving they were genuine. Carville did not apologize.

Hillary claimed to be a duck hunter. It was another lie. She lied when she said she and Bill were thinking of adopting a child. Liberals actually ate this stuff up.

"I was on the New York shuttle a couple of weeks ago, and I saw something interesting," CNBC's Chris Matthews told his _Hardball_ guest Gail Sheehy. "Hillary Clinton (was) up in that little bankhead - bulkhead seat they reserve for VIPs in the corner, nobody around her; Secret Service guys all around with those little earphones and one large guy, rather embarrassed, rather sheepish, walking along with his own earphones carrying her bags... Who - who in the Senate gets a Sherpa to carry their bags for them?... I've never heard of a Senator getting a bag carrier. Who pays for the airfare for this guy? Who pays for his lifestyle? Who pays his salary to walk around carrying her bags, so she can walk around light-handed, with nothing in her hands?... I think next time you're on the shuttle, you'll see this show. It looks like - you talk about Queen Elizabeth, this looks pretty regal."

Senator Clinton was appalled over the FBI's slipshod handling of 3,135 documents related to the Timothy McVeigh case.

"How could this have happened?" she asked, backing an investigation.

"Does she think her future depends on making us forget her past?" countered the _New York Times'_ Maureen Dowd. "She's trying to metamorphose from someone who likes to bend the rules to someone who wants to crack down on those who bend the rules."

Dowd, a die-hard liberal, reminded readers that for years Hillary could not locate her papers for the FBI, forgotten "in a White House closet full of tasteful Arkansas tchotchkes." Now, she must "relish the prospect of a delicious payback with Louis Freeh, a man she must detest. He spent much of his tenure as FBI chief slapping around the Clintons and egging on their tormentors...Hillary's memory works fine, it seems, when it comes to grudges."

According to Evan Fitzmaurice of _American Spectator_ in 1994, "Beginning in 1990, Hillary Clinton received $31,000 a year to serve on the board of the Lafarge Corporation, a French company that is the second-largest producer of cement in the United States. Lafarge's Systech burning units disposed of more than 400 million gallons of hazardous waste between 1979 and 1992. In September 1992, Lafarge's plant in Demapolis, Alabama, was fined $1.8 million under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act for violating just about every possible regulation that existed for cement kilns - one EPA official described the plant as 'totally out of control.' A year later, the Clinton Administration allowed Lafarge to settle the $1.8 million in fines for only $594,000. When Lafarge obtained a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge for sand and gravel in a section of the Ohio River directly facing WTI, the circle of conflicts-of-interest was finally closed. Since at least April 1991, while Hillary was a board member of the parent company, Standard Lafarge has been permitted to dredge the Ohio River for sand and gravel to make cement."

On March 17, 1992, Hillary told the _New York Times_ she did not earn a "penny" from state business conducted by her Little Rock law firm and that she never intervened with state regulators on behalf of a failed Arkansas savings and loan association. Records later showed that she did.

In 1996, the _Chicago Tribune_ ran an editorial that read, "The legal issues will sort themselves out in time. But one thing has become all too clear. Bill and Hillary Clinton and their aides have made a concerted effort to deceive official investigators and the American public with half truths and outright lies . . . It's not clear what the Clintons want to conceal, but it's clear that they have made extraordinary efforts to do so."

Susan Edelman and Lois Weiss of the _New York Post_ wrote, "Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's new office in Manhattan costs more than any other U.S. Senator's office in the country, a _Post_ survey has found. Last month, the former first lady moved into a spread on the 26th floor of 780 Third Avenue, a stylish 50-story high rise covered with peach colored Finnish granite. The annual cost to taxpayers: $514,149. Her rent is nearly $90,000 more than the second most expensive U.S. Senator's office, Dianne Feinstein's newly leased $424,632 digs in San Francisco, according to the General Services Administration. New York and San Francisco office-rental markets are the priciest in the nation. But Clinton, New York's junior senator, picked space that's twice as roomy, has more amenities, and costs taxpayers nearly two and a half times as much as senior Senator Chuck Schumer's Manhattan office, which is across the street and a block away at 757 Third Avenue. His rent is $209,532 a year, which is also on the high end for U.S. Senators, the GSA says . . . 'I don't think she's paying too high a rent for the type of building a U.S. Senator should be in,' said Mitch Arkin of Cushman & Wakefield, one of the world's largest real estate companies. 'She's like royalty. She's the ex-President's wife. She lived in the White House for eight years, for crying out loud,' Arkin said."

Royalty!? Not on my watch.

Hillary is one of the newest Senators, but she made it clear that she expected to be given the opportunity to do the Democrat response after the next Presidential address.

When the Clintons' unforgivable pardons came to light, the _New York Observer_ stated, "Had she any shame, she would resign...With the nation and indeed the world watching, we <New Yorkers> entrusted her with the U.S. Senate seat once held by Robert F. Kennedy and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. It is clear now that we have made a terrible mistake, for Hillary Rodham Clinton is unfit for elective office. Had she any shame, she would resign. If Federal officeholders were subject to popular recall, she'd be thrown out of office by Spring time, the season of renewal." A enormous majority of New Yorkers believed Hillary lied about the pardons.

When Hugh Rodham sought Florida's Senate seat in 1994, his campaign tried to use his primary opponent's Jewish faith against him. Rodham's primary opponent was Mike Wiley, whose real name is Mike Schreibman. The Rodham campaign sent campaign aide Ellis Rubin to parts of the state where there were lots of Jews to accuse Wiley of not being proud enough of his ethnicity to use his real name. The ploy was to "out" Schreibman as a Jew in locales where being Jewish was not thought to be a political plus.

Denise Rich and others loaded gifts on the Clintons, such as furniture for their new homes and a saxophone for Bill, plus four fur coats that Hillary received in the waning days of the Clinton Presidency. The Clintons even tried to take White House furniture and items belonging to the country, like two busts of former Presidents, FDR and Kennedy, that sat behind his desk. Two Presidential ushers managed to remove them from boxes before they could be packed away for shipping to a temporary storage facility in New York.

"The White House is always careful about what stays and what goes when Presidents are leaving," said a former Clinton aide. "But they seemed extra careful with him."

Res ipsa loquiter.

The Clintons tried to register their legal defense fund past Bill's second term, which would have meant they could keep the money for themselves. When Hillary was overseeing the ghostwriting of her autobiography, reports of her brutal temper tantrums and bloated ego ran rampant.

"She's incredibly difficult," said Barbara Feinman, who (ghost) wrote "It Takes a Village". "She didn't like the editors of her first two books, and she hated the ghostwriters."

She had such a falling out with the first lady over her by-line, her lawyers had to threaten a lawsuit before she got paid. MSNBC's Jeannette Walls reported that Cheryl Merser, an experienced author hired to collaborate on Hillary's second book, "An Invitation to the White House", had such bitter disagreements over content that she ended up being marginalized from the project. Merser was acknowledged inside, but her name was dropped from the cover. Former White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers recently told ABC that Bill Clinton's staff lived in fear of Hillary even after her temper tantrums subsided.

"Not only would she sort of humiliate you in front of your colleagues," Myers said. "Hillary tended to kind of campaign against people behind their back."

When the Clinton team cruised on the _USS Roosevelt,_ as well as on other trips, wholesale theft of official government items occurred. The Secret Service had to issue a memo asking the _Clintonistas_ to "please return" the stolen goods. Bill and Hillary personally stole more than 1,000 items from the White House upon their departure; items that belonged not to them but to the country, some of which was expensive, rare and antique in nature.

Hillary despised the Secret Service and treated them like servants, as she did also with the Marines detailed to the White House and wherever the President traveled. She stated that she "hated" the Marine uniforms, and had them carrying canapés and other items, like waiters, at White House parties.

When Hillary was elected to the Senate, she allowed huge corporations to finance her "welcome parties," which was the opposite of her pledge to campaign for finance reform.

The records of the Clinton Legal Expense Trust showed that the 10,071 contributors from New York include at least 200 retirees, 67 teachers, 50 nurses, 31 librarians, 27 members of the clergy, 14 social workers, 10 guards, five composers and four disabled veterans. In seeking to defray legal expenses that arose in part from a failure to tell the truth, the Clintons accepted $20 from a Manhattan man named John Marmarinos who described his occupation on the contribution form as "homebound vet." A woman who answered Marmarinos' phone said he was unavailable to comment on the Clinton's purchase of a $1.75 million house in Chappaqua and a $2.85 million house in Washington.

"He's in a nursing home," she said. The Clintons also accepted $50 from a man who termed himself "retired under disability," $25 from a man who described himself as "disabled/unemployed," and $5 from a woman who listed her occupation as "homemaker-unemployed." A total of $20 came from two men who listed themselves as simply "unemployed."

_Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do the Clintons._

Despite everything, Hillary Clinton emerged from the Clinton Presidency as the most admired and powerful member of the Democrat party. Res ipsa loquiter. For years she denied having any political ambitions, which every human on Earth knew was a lie. For reasons that are almost mystical in nature, her lies never hurt her. She ran for the U.S. Senate in 2000 while her husband was still President. Even though neither Clinton had ever lived in New York, she ran in New York because it is the state of celebrities, offered her the friendliest demographics, and gave her the imprimatur of Manhattan social status.

Her election alarmingly came as the result of events that, again, seemed mystical in nature, as if she was being helped along by dark forces. Her opponent was New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a popular, highly effective Republican who had cleaned up the mob and the streets of Manhattan. Giuliani, a man of Presidential timbre, was well on his way to defeating Hillary, but amazing timing ruined it for him. He was estranged from his wife, and the details of his relationship with a woman who worked in his office hit during the campaign. This is the kind of thing that never hurts Democrats, since it is almost rote that Democrats are these kinds of people. Republicans hold themselves to higher standards and pay for it. Then Giuliani was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which is often not fatal, but in his case required immediate treatment. Knowing that the medical care would debilitate him, Giuliani dropped out.

Congressmen Rick Lazio, a competent, uncharismatic Republican from the Long Island suburbs, was installed as Rudy's replacement. Hillary went straight to the "race card," accusing New York cops of killing blacks, and generally making herself popular among the criminal element. Lazio hung close in the polls, but in the end Hillary beat him. A breakdown of precinct voting showed that in neighborhoods where crime was high, Hillary cleaned up. Safe neighborhoods went for the Republican, but it was not enough. The overwhelming Democrat majority of New York City was impossible to overcome. Only Giuliani could have done it.

After 9/11, Hillary was very vulnerable because all the courageous policemen and firefighters at the World Trade Center had voted against her. She failed to attend the many memorials and funerals that followed. When she tried to speak at a fundraiser for the heroes, she was booed vociferously. Good people see through and despise her.

How do the Clintons get away with what they get away? Start with Bill. One has to first understand where he comes from. On the East Coast, there is a corruption/ connection between organized crime and government. However, it has always been a separate identify. In the South, organized crime and the old-time Democrat machines that have been in operation there since Reconstruction are, in many cases, one and the same. This applies to the Orleans Parish in Louisiana, and it particularly applies to Arkansas. Nowhere is the entanglement between the mob and the government more thoroughly entwined than in Hot Springs, where Bill grew up.

Enter the woman who gave birth to him. She was a small-time gangster's moll, connected to mob figures for decades. She used sex to keep herself in good graces, and to help pay off her gambling, alcohol and drug debts. She gives birth to a bunch of kids from assorted dudes. How many abortions she had is not known. One of the births is Bill Clinton. The rest of the kids are ne'r-do'wells like the drugged Roger, but Bill is a special child. He is smart, bright and easy to like.

Early on, Bill is introduced to his mother's "acquaintances"; racketeers, drug lords, bookies and the like. Normally, a kid like him would grow up to be a "wise guy," running errands for these mobbed-up lowlifes until he "graduates" to a position of some authority in the "family." But Bill is different. Early on, these people recognize that he has potential beyond running a bookie operation or a whorehouse. So they sponsor and encourage him.

Good grades in high school. Georgetown. Yale Law School. The quid pro quo is, Hey kid, when the time comes you're gonna be our man in the government. Think of the Hyman Roth character in "The Godfather II" telling Michael that in Cuba they have a country and a friendly government all to themselves.

At Yale, he meets Hillary. When he identifies her as a fellow moral reprobate, he makes a deal. He tells her what is waiting back in Arkansas; political connections through organized crime, and plenty of ways to make money under the table. A pact with the devil is sealed. His run for Congress, as an unknown with no experience in his mid-20s, is the best financed of any candidate. Still in his 20s, the mob sponsors him to become Attorney General. Two years later, to Governor.

Bill takes over an office already infiltrated by the Arkansas Mafia. State troopers are de facto button men. He knows every bit of the operation because he has grown up with it since he was a child. People can be killed or made to disappear in an instant, all under the auspices of a deadly system that has been in place for decades. It is entirely rigged.

A funny thing happens. Previous Arkansas politicians are still...politicians. That is, there is some sense of idealism to them. Some moral suasion. Not so Bill and Hillary. They are more ruthless than the mob boys they work for. They take every possible advantage of the situation. They are bloodthirsty, the kind of people who actually have a taste for murder. Even the mob has always tried to tone it down. Bill and Hillary are drunk with power, unable to tone it down. People die. A lot of people. When the Reagan/Bush Administration tries to run a secret operation to fight Sandinista Communists, they turn to Clinton's drug operation in Mena. Once he has the "cover" of this Republican administration, Clinton can get away with virtually anything, knowing in the end he will be protected because the other side is involved. A dirty deal.

Being Governor of a small state is one thing. Nobody counted on this "man" becoming President. When he does the Republicans find themselves in a quandary. They cannot expose him entirely because of their own entanglements.

Then there is Hillary, who is worse than Bill. The sense of this snakewoman is that hell hath no fury like her wrath. Bill's crimes are "business." Hillary's have a personal angle to them. If you look closely enough at her, you see the ghost of the "Bitch of Buchenwald." If she was born in the Roman Empire, she is the kind of "woman" who had servants tossed into boiling oil for displeasing her. Think of Caligula.

When Hillary's memoir, "Living History" came out, it sold fairly well amid a huge publicity build-up. The Democrats, combined with Hillary's office and their PR minions, produced long lines of ready-made supporters to stand in lines in front of New York bookstores, creating the illusion for cameras that demand for the book was unprecedented. Meanwhile, at stores outside the mainstream loop of media attention, the book had a lukewarm reception. People walked into stores and saw huge stacks of "Living History", which gave the impression that it was selling "like hotcakes."

Two "dirty little secrets" belie this notion. First is that books that do not sell are returned to the publisher, for redistribution through book clubs or some other cut-rate way of unloading them. But the second "secret" was pure Hillary. It turned out that her publisher was forced to fire a large number of employees because Hillary's advance made it impossible to maintain their salaries!

America, do not elect this woman to the Presidency. Do not give Bill a second platform. Contained herein are many accusations and unproved rumors. Call it hateful if you have to. Call me a member of the "vast right wing conspiracy." Former advisor Dick Morris said that Hillary actually does care about children, women's issues and health care. If so, this is to her credit and makes my allegations less credible. Bob Dole said that Hillary was working hard and doing a good job as New York Senator. This may be true. But, over the course of a man's lifetime, especially if that man believes in decency, has common sense, learns history and tries to decipher right from wrong in a complicated, corrupt world; tries to teach his daughter to recognize and understand how to differentiate Truth from the devil's lies, he develops gut feelings and learns to trust those feelings. It gives me no pleasure to suggest that the Presidency, the greatest institution on Earth, of the country I love beyond all things save God and family, was for eight years occupied by such creatures.

Judging the Clintons publicly is a tricky task. Politically, and nobody knows this better than the Republican party, it is an activity filled with pitfalls. Every time I see the Clintons in a church, I think of Al Pacino becoming "The Godfather" to Connie's baby while Moe Green and the heads of all the New York families are murdered in juxtaposed montage. But the real-life murders of Arkansas, D.C. and thereabouts are not so easily pinned, Hollywood-style, on these people. Who, exactly, are they? Is it possible the "Clinton body count" is nothing more than coincidence? Are they actually innocent? What is the difference between Bill and, say, Ted Kennedy? It seems that while Kennedy is a coward, a drunk and a moral reprobate, he has not had to engage in the sort of actual criminality his father engaged in. For this reason, it seems that he can be judged "better" than Bill, who because he was not "born with a silver spoon in his mouth," to quote Ann Richards, had to emulate the likes of Joseph P. Kennedy and Michael Corleone to claw his way up the ladder.

The Republicans were unable to prove the most heinous of the Clinton's crimes - kids on railroad tracks, Ron Brown's airplane crash, Vince Foster's killing, and the rest. Eventually, they more or less "gave up" trying to hang all of this "baggage" on the Clintons. However, there are numerous criminals and elite mob bosses roaming this Earth free and easy because nothing was ever "proven." This does not make them less guilty, truth be told.

Eventually, the right found itself going for what they could get, perhaps motivated by Elliot Ness of "Untouchables" fame, who got Al Capone on tax evasion instead of murder, but "got him," nevertheless. It did not work out the same way with the Clintons. Hillary's testimony was found "factually inaccurate" (lies). Bill lost his bar license. He was Impeached but not convicted. They were found to have broken various laws regarding Whitewater, the Paula Jones case, and others, but none of it really stuck to them. They slid. Time passed. They were never disgraced and sent to "political purgatory." They won by attrition. They were like the Japanese hanging out in the caves at Guadalcanal, hoping to win by attrition by not getting smoked out. By not "killing" the Clintons, they survived. They are Nietsche's premise: "That which does not kill me makes me stronger." That phrase has always had a semi-Faustian ring to it. It still does when applied to the Clintons.

Still, who am I to say, for sure? Am I merely engaged in a scurrilous right wing "whispering campaign?" I never investigated Mena, Ron Brown's crash, Vince Foster's killing, the dead bodyguards, the drug deals gone bad. Somebody else did, and I just repeated it with my own spin. I am not infallible. As a Christian, I have been taught not bear "false witness" on others. A great moral conundrum permeates my attempts at finding something to hold onto regarding these people. I am not supposed to hate, and so I have to fight my visceral reaction to the Clintons. Between Christian charity and American legal traditions, which teaches us not to reach judgment unless it is "proven" and all the facts are in, the Clintons just walk between the raindrops. My gut tells me that this is how evil marches on, but my own mortality and limitations as a man prevent me from reaching full "judgment" and "conclusion."

The key question about the Clintons (Bill more so) is whether he is merely immoral, or actually evil? There is a huge difference. Many leading American politicians and heroes are immoral. Immorality can be measured by varying degrees. We all sin and are immoral. It is our concession as God's children. This is my concession, if you will, to the term "moral relativism." To criticize and judge Bill Clinton's morality is an act of hypocrisy on my part. I freely admit his sexual wanderings do not shock me. I may be a Christian, and many of my conservative brethren may take exception with this, but I freely adhere to Larry Flynt's statement, "Relax, it's just sex." Bill was getting blowjobs and screwing colleague's wives, but these are common acts, not Impeachable offenses. If this, plus a laxity of ethics, a willingness to skim off the top and steal a little here and there, is the extent of it, then Clinton is merely another in a long line of corrupt public figures. My advice is not to vote for him and let him leave.

But my instincts tell me to pursue it further. The sex apparently went beyond the usual. It was not just harassment or coercion under the color of authority. It was not just abuse of power. It was not just Bill's "arrested adolescence." Apparently it was violent and illegal. It was assault and rape. If the allegations do go beyond Whitewater, Paula Jones and Monica, veering into tacit side orders to eliminate suspects, get rid of witnesses, take care of rivals, then it deserves all the condemnation we can muster. Furthermore, these people are not going away. They want your children, people.

The fact that this nation survived the Clintons is, to me, the greatest example of how great we are. My fear is the devil's plan is not finished, and that the Clinton's are still central to the plan. Frankly, I hope I am wrong.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE NEW WORLD ORDER

"The consequences of the conflict in the Gulf reach far beyond the confines of the Middle East. Twice before in this century, an entire world was convulsed by war. Twice this century, out of the horrors of war hope emerged for enduring peace. Twice before, those hopes proved to be a distant dream, beyond the grasp of man.

"Until now, the world we've known has been a world divided - a world of barbed wire and concrete block, conflict and Cold War.

"Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a New World Order. In the words of Winston Churchill, a 'world order' in which 'the principles of justice and fair play...protect the weak against the strong ...' A world where the United Nations, freed from Cold War stalemate, is poised to fulfill the historic vision of its founders. A world in which freedom and respect for human rights find a home among all nations.

"The Gulf War put this new world to its first test, and, my fellow Americans, we passed that test.

"For the sake of our principles, for the sake of the Kuwaiti people, we stood our ground. Because the world would not look the other way, Ambassador [Saud Nasir] al-Sabah, tonight, Kuwait is free.

"Tonight as our troops begin to come home, let us recognize that the hard work of freedom still calls us forward. We've learned the hard lessons of history. The victory over Iraq was not waged as 'a war to end all wars.' Even the New World Order cannot guarantee an era of perpetual peace. But enduring peace must be our mission..."

\- President George H.W. Bush

Speech to Congress, March 6, 1991

President Bush outlined an ambitious proposal in the wake of victory in the Persian Gulf War. Republicans were sure that his New World order would be run by the Grand Ol' Party. There were warnings about Winston Churchill's fate in 1946, but White House campaign strategists, media gurus and consultants were sure that all the lessons of the past had been learned. They were wrong. History, as somebody once said, does not just repeat itself. Sometimes it rhymes.

Bush was right about the New World Order. He was right in that a Bush would run it, only it would be his son, not the old man. Bush's speech was mocked by many who despised the idea of America controlling the destiny of Mankind. Bush seemed to have clear sailing in front of him and the wind at his back in 1991, but he, America and the world still had rough waters ahead.

The New World Order can be traced to his March 6, 1991 speech. It is just that it took a decade before Bush's vision materialized and only then after amazing events occurred. In 1991, old Communist elements attempted to take over, but were stopped in large part because of Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was propelled by his courage in standing up to Russian tanks. It lifted him to the presidency of his country. Yeltsin drank too much and eventually faded away. His place in history could have been better than it was, but in fact he was an important leader in the transition of Russia from Communism. He believed in freedom and Democracy. He held the reigns in Moscow at a time when hardliners, militarists, nationalists, Communists, and nuclearists could have been threatening the U.S. A number of movies demonstrated the threat of such elements taking over in Russia. The world is fortunate that instead of that, we had Boris Yeltsin.

After the Berlin Wall came down, Eastern Europe went through a difficult transition. The immorality of Communism manifested itself in interesting ways. Some of the most popular public figures in Poland and Hungary in the early 1990s were pornographic movie stars, who were treated like royalty by adoring publics. Many beautiful women from Eastern Europe, faced with poor job prospects, entered the adult film industry, merging with the American porn business. Amazingly, top fashion models became adult movie stars in a part of the world that did not seem to recognize any boundaries on sexuality. This was a remnant of the old Communist system, and had been promoted since the days of V.I. Lenin. The Communists looked down upon Puritan values and Christian morality. When Communism faded away, sex most assuredly did not. Millions of Westerners, long fed the myth of Russian babushka women, were stunned to see that in the Balkans, the Baltic states, and throughout the old Warsaw Pact, there existed some of the most stunning, sexually adventurous women in the world.

Hardcore pornography was not the only thing that emerged in Eastern Europe. By the early 2000s, the old Soviet satellites had replaced France and Germany as strong supporters of America. They will be the European rocks of the New World Order in the 21st Century. Even if they do feature some, uh, wild women.

2000 Presidential election

Al Gore symbolizes the modern Democrat party. He is the scion of an old Tennessee family. His father, Albert Gore, Sr., was, like Bill Clinton's mentor William Fulbright, a segregationist Democrat U.S. Senator who blocked every effort by Dwight Eisenhower to pass Federal civil right legislation in the 1960s. Gore and Fulbright again opposed Lyndon Johnson's ambitious Civil Rights Act in 1964-65. Republicans gave Johnson the votes he needed to overcome Democrat opposition.

Young Al was an indifferent student who prepped in the Washington, D.C. area before moving to the Ivy League. He occasionally brought home failing grades, and overall was about average. Young Gore had political ambitions. He disdained the racist policies of his father's wing of the Democrat party. He also realized that his natural constituency were the anti-war protestors, but he was smart enough to know that good and decent people, who made up the patriotic Tennessee electorate, had no use for the various low rabble that made up the protest crowd. A deal was struck by the elder Gore to have the son inducted into the Army and sent to Vietnam, but as a reporter for Stars & Stripes. To assure that he stay out of harm's way, he was assigned a bodyguard. Outside of high-ranking officers, and maybe not even many of them, Al Gore may have been the only soldier to have a bodyguard. He did a short stint "in country," safely tucked away in the "rear with the gear."

Gore went through a period of introspection, flirting with the idea of a religious life. He was a reporter for the Nashville Tennessean, then entered politics. He had the name, the connections and the money. Gore was elected to the Congress, then the Senate. He is attractive and has the build of a football player. Gore was a New Democrat in the New South; articulate, willing to tackle difficult issues, and considered to be a man of integrity. He is happily married and a loving father. His wife, Tipper, took on the honorable task of opposing filthy lyrics in rap music.

Gore was generally seen as a conservative by Democrat standards, in line with his Tennessee constituency. However, possibly out of a guilt complex, stemming from his inherited wealth or the racial politics of his father, Gore found the need to veer into very liberal territory. He wrote a book about the environment based on faulty science, making claims about the ozone layer and pollution. He stated that the combustion engine is the thing we have to fear most in the entire world. The environment is an issue that liberals have tried to make their own, somehow linking capitalism, America, global industry, and the other fruits of success, with many of the troubles on the Earth, particularly the Third World. Many of the issues are not conclusions. The ozone layer, for instance, elicits many scientific theories that are not in line with the over-used adage that America and capitalism are to blame.

In 1988, at the age of 39, Gore tried for the Democrat nomination. He lost but acquitted himself well, establishing himself as a bona fide future candidate. In 1990, he was one of the few Democrats to back President Bush's plan to go to war in the Persian Gulf. When that turned out to be a smashing success, Gore emerged a winner while many of his Democrat colleagues were losers.

Gore developed a Hamlet-like reputation regarding his Presidential aspirations. Some members of the media found him irritating in his semi-tortured deliberations, and his serious, sometimes imperious attitude. But Gore remained the consummate politician, often moderating issues down the middle.

When Clinton was nominated, Gore was the perfect choice. Some questioned whether it was wise for two Southerners to be on the ticket, but after years of G.O.P. dominance in Dixie, it was now obvious the Democrats were serious about retaking the South. Gore was all the things Clinton was not. He had an Army record. He was a good family man. He was straight-laced and had a reputation for honesty, at least by political standards. He had voted for the war.

At the Democrat National Convention, at a time when Clinton had surged far ahead of Bush (who was yet to be re-nominated), the Gores and the Clintons joined hands on stage, then boogied to the beat of Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop Thinkin' 'bout Tomorrow". The two candidates were attractive, modern Southerners with equally modern wives. The site of them shakin' it on stage made the Democrats appear to be the party of the "new." George Bush was, as James Carville had said, "old."

In his eight years as Vice-President, Gore did a decent job and was the most important thing a Veep can be, which is loyal. But he found himself between a rock and a hard place. Surely he had heard the stories about Clinton prior to accepting the nomination, but in aligning himself with him he was climbing into bed with the devil, for pure political gain. He was gambling that Clinton's Presidency would be successful, and that he would ride that momentum into the White House.

Stories of Gore's wild arguments with Clinton were legendary. Gore despised Clinton; his lies, his cheating, his corruption, and his criminal activity. As a moral man, Gore found Clinton to be utterly despicable. He took on the role of "parent," chastising Clinton like a child for his perfidies. Clinton was often left to bow his head in shame - until Gore left the room. As his V.P., as a candidate, and as a Democrat, to this day he has maintained the discipline to keep his mouth shut on the subject, but his sense of decency was tested to the nub by "Slick Willie" and Hillary Clinton.

Not that Gore was entirely clean. He broke Federal campaign laws, used his official office to campaign, and was caught red-handed illegally soliciting donations at a Buddhist temple in California. But his indiscretions were the usual "political stuff," certainly not enough to hurt his viability. He must have thought that Clinton would "act Presidential" once he was the President. This is the heart of the argument about Clinton. Democrats trusted that a dishonest man could change. Republicans knew he could not. Clinton had risen to power on the wings of the Hot Springs/Little Rock mob, using corruption, murder, extortion, bribery and every possible heinousness to get his way. It was too much to expect that he could put all of that behind him.

Gore watched in horror while each new abomination occurred. He must have asked himself what he had gotten into when Foster and Brown were killed, followed by incredible derelictions of duty; illegal fundraising, breaches of national security regarding China, sexual assaults and harassments of the most tawdry kind. He had to defend Clinton in the 1996 campaign, and then stand by his side when he was Impeached even though he stood to gain if Clinton was forced out.

Silently, resolutely, Gore endured each Clinton scandal and lie right up to the end. When he declared for the Presidency, he told Clinton he did not want him anywhere near his campaign. He stuck to that strategy right to the end. Some post-mortems concluded that this was a mistake, but it is likely that to have Clinton's smarmy charms wrapped all over Gore's run for the Presidency would have been a disaster. Neither Clinton has ever been of the slightest value to any other Democrat candidate. Despite his efforts at distancing himself from the Clintons, Gore found himself in too deep. He was associated with the whole corrupt regime from beginning to end and unable to rub the stink of it off his Ivy League coat.

George Bush was a comer. In 1994, he had made a run for Governor of Texas against a powerful, sitting incumbent named Ann Richards. In 1988, Richards had made a speech at the Democrat National Convention that lives in infamy.

"Poooooooooooor George," she said of the former World War II hero, her Texas voice dripping with a kind of sarcasm that only can be uttered by the meanest of witches, "he cain't hep it. Heeeee was born with a silver spooooon in his mouth." It was the cheapest class envy, and draped Richards with the cloak of trash. The Democrats loved her for it.

George's son, called Dubya for his middle initial, "W," proved to be a modern day Dorothy from the "Wizard of Oz", going to the witch's castle and stealing her broom. In this case the castle was the Governor's mansion. Texas had a new sheriff in town, named Dubya.

Bush ran Texas well and was popular. He was re-elected by an enormous margin in 1998, one of the few bright spots in a down year for the G.O.P. In the course of that season he emerged as the front-runner for 2000. His intelligence was questioned. He was not his father. But he had his name, and he possessed certain strong leadership qualities. There was a simplicity to him that reminded people of Reagan (but not of his ever-explaining father). After Clinton, Bush's honest reputation and morality, built on maturity and real family values honed in a family of real value, looked like a great contrast. Furthermore, he had an "avenging angel" quality. To defeat Clinton's V.P. would be a defeat of Clinton's legacy after he had beaten his dad. It made for real theatre.

First, there were the Primaries. Gore faced what many had thought would be a formidable contender, New Jersey's Bill Bradley. Bradley, a Rhodes Scholar and All-American basketball star at Princeton, had starred as "Dollar Bill" for the two-time World Champion New York Knicks. He was tall and athletic, but no ordinary jock. He established a sterling reputation for hard work and intellect in the Senate, albeit on the Great Society side of things. But like his colleague, New York's Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Bradley's integrity and pragmatism was respected on both sides of the aisle. Bradley, however, was not cut out for hardball, state-by-state campaigning. He faded.

Bush, too, faced very formidable competition in the form of Arizona Senator John McCain. McCain was the son of a Navy Admiral. He graduated from Annapolis and became a fighter pilot in Vietnam, where he was shot down, captured by North Vietnamese savages, and held for years in the hellish "Hanoi Hilton." When released, his story was heartbreaking and heroic, a tale of courage, faith and patriotism. He never lost his belief in God, his fellow prisoners or the country he loved. It gave him the strength to carry on. He parlayed his heroic experiences, fighter jock appeal and even-keel personality into a political career. In 2000 he ran for President. In the early Primaries, it looked close. McCain's pet issue was campaign finance reform, which on its face seemed perfect. But the Republican party did not back McCain or the issue, since the essence of the reform was to deny citizens the right to monetarily back issues, candidates and parties of their choice in full and free manner. In a country that spends more money on porn than politics, efforts to limit participation in "good government" did not fly with the G.O.P. McCain began to fray at the edges. He was increasingly seen as a "maverick," a spinoff of his flyboy image.

The key was the South Carolina Primary. Bush knew he had to portray himself as the more conservative of the two. He made a controversial speech at Bob Jones University, a Christian college that did not allow inter-racial dating on campus. The liberals excoriated the school for this reason, but Bush's Christian appeal had a strong pull in the state, which he won. He and McCain ended up fighting it out in an aggressive manner, more so than the usual genteel Republican skirmishes. In the end, Bush was the nominee.

During the national campaign, Gore was a mess. He swayed from conservative Democrat to liberal. He tried to run on the high road, but when his poll numbers dipped he stooped to dirty, petty, politics of personal destruction. None of it played. He switched his campaign headquarters from Washington to Nashville. He feuded with Clinton forces who wanted the President to play a larger role. He tried to take credit for the good things under Clinton, such as the economy, the stock market and the tech explosion, but seemed stunned that he would be associated with all the dishonesty and scandal. He also tried to take credit for things he had nothing to do with, which the Republicans simply exposed.

Gore never showed his true self, and revealed that there may not be a "true Al Gore." His basic decency seemed compromised. As the campaign wore on, it appeared more and more obvious that the road, littered with the bodies of those felled by Clinton, would be felled last with Gore.

Gore had created for himself the image of a "policy wonk." When he debated Bush he was expected to run away with it. Bush, however, profited from low expectations. When he showed himself to be a decent, albeit not great debater, he scored points. Gore came off like the overeager student who is always trying to please the teacher, then gets annoyed when the kid in the back of the class offers some populist opinions. Gore huffed and guffawed while Bush spoke. This was unbelievably damaging behavior. It is doubtful a sigh ever was more costly.

Gore picked a good man, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, as his running mate. Lieberman was a devout Jew, the first on a national ticket. His integrity was without question, but even he found himself caught in the clutches of the Clinton shadow. Just as Gore was inextricably linked to Clinton, Lieberman found himself changing his mind, going back on long-held beliefs, and compromising himself in a way that he had never had to do before.

Gore certainly must have been tearing at his hair when Lieberman was accused of going against his principles in defending Gore, who had always prided himself on honesty. But the Clinton influence was too much to overcome.

Bush made an excellent choice in picking as his running mate former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. Cheney brought to the campaign a word that became overused, but appropriate: Gravitas. Cheney had flunked out of Yale, then returned to his native Wyoming, where he played football at the University of Wyoming. He gravitated to politics and earned his spurs during the Ford Administration. Elected to Congress, he was known as a conservative Westerner, with just a touch of cowboy mixed with Washington insider. As the first Bush's Defense Secretary, he acquitted himself beautifully during the Persian Gulf War. His political future was put on hold when Clinton upended the apple cart.

In the 1990s, Cheney cashed in as a corporate executive in the oil industry, which for absolutely no reason whatsoever is demonized by the Democrats. He also suffered some minor heart attacks, a cause for concern. In speeches and debates he was calm, levelheaded, and knew all the issues back and forth. At a campaign rally, a microphone caught Bush pointing out Adam Clymer, a liberal reporter for the New York Times.

"There's Adam Clymer," Bush said to Cheney. "He's a major league asshole."

"Big time," replied Cheney.

It won the election for Bush. The media and the Democrats tried to play it up, but the public loved it. The realization that the media, particularly the New York Times, is opposed to Republicans, had sunk in with the public by 2000. Biased reporters like Clymer, who had been spoonfeeding America their liberal spin under the guise of "straight reporting" for years, were now exposed for what they are. In a world of nuclear weapons, genocide, civil wars, and terror, the realization by the public that the news media is liberal is the new seismic shift in politics. It first hit home in 2000.

Bush ran one of the greatest campaigns of all time. He maintained incredible discipline, while Gore flew all over the rhetorical map. Bush called himself a "compassionate conservative." He played on his name just enough, but not too much. Many people who liked his dad wanted to see him gain "revenge" for the old man's 1992 defeat. There was just a touch of defiance in Bush. He is good looking but not a pretty boy, rugged but still gentle. The one-time frat boy was likable, played practical jokes, and had an easy-going humor. He organized people around him, but was self-deprecating, as opposed to Gore's "I am the center of the Universe" persona. He appeared to be a traditional Republican, offering to keep taxes low and government small. He also said he wanted to maintain a low profile internationally, not interjecting the U.S. into the business of other nations. It played well in 2000, which was in many ways the last year of innocence. Events since then demonstrate how very different things were when that campaign was being run. Bush's wife, Laura, a former schoolteacher, is pretty without being glamorous. After Hillary, she was perfect - a former librarian; quiet, yet intelligent.

Finally, Gore had to deal with his version of Ross Perot. Ralph Nader, the super-liberal anti-capitalist "consumer advocate," ran a third-party campaign. It is doubtful that a single Republican voted for him, but he picked Gore apart.

In the final weeks and days, the polls all favored Bush, both in the Electoral College and in the projected popular vote. By Election Day, it was predicted to be close, but Bush was ahead. Gore, a tireless worker, campaigned as if his life depended on it, which metaphorically it did. Privately, he had told associates that George Bush "had a life," and if he lost he would just return to Texas and be happy. For Gore, politics represented everything he was about, and without it he would, for all practical purposes, lose his identity.

"I have to win," he told his aides.

After his defeat, he and his wife wrote a book and tried to revive their public image. The book tour was a dud and the book plummeted in the sales rankings, causing conservative talk hosts to buffoon on Gore. Gore had considered a run in 2004, but he knew he was now a has-been. An intelligent, gifted man, he offers much, but his self-fulfilling prophecy is coming true before our eyes. He grew a beard, as if to announce he was in his "Hemingway years" or his "wilderness years." He taught a college course, but tried to do it as a celebrity, not a real professor, which only lasts so long. He slinked out of public view and promises to be seen by history as a semi-tragic figure.

What made Gore a tragic figure and not the President can be summed up in one word: Florida. In 1960, Nixon and Kennedy had dueled it out in the closest election ever, filled with controversy and "tombstone votes" that pushed JFK over the top. There had been previous elections in which the candidate with the popular vote did not prevail in the Electoral College, but nothing ever happened like in Florida.

As if in a nightmare, Gore was haunted more than ever by the ghost of Bill Clinton in Florida. Clinton's ghost almost won him the election, but in the end it was the deciding factor in costing him the election.

One of the Republicans' staple issues has always been illegal immigration. It usually consists of Mexicans crossing the border in California and Texas in the dead of night to work jobs no whites or blacks will touch, not paying taxes, and taking advantage of public services. In Florida, the illegals are less likely to be from Mexico, but rather from Haiti, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, or other Latin nations. The one ethnic group in Florida that is mostly made up of legal citizens is the Cuban community. They are educated, fiercely anti-Communist, and to the dismay of Democrats, vote straight Republican.

Either way, the Democrats like to call the Republicans' racist for insisting that the citizenry be made up mostly of actual citizens. Clinton knew he had a golden opportunity. He ordered a relaxation of border patrols and INS detentions and investigations. He offered amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegals and criminals. He lowered the standards for citizenship, and made it incredibly easy for foreigners who could speak, read or write virtually no English, to be citizens of the United States. His theory was that these illegals, many of whom were criminals and low-lifes, were the natural constituency of the Democrat party. He was right.

On election day, 2000, they showed up at polling places up and down Florida, and voted for the Gore/Lieberman ticket. Many were illiterate. Many could not read English. They could not understand the ballots. Many of these people were questioned about their votes in exit polling, done by the networks, who mainly used a service specializing in gathering this kind of information.

Based on the answers, the media made an early announcement that Gore had won Florida, practically assuring him the election. In the West, Republicans were discouraged by the news and stayed away from the polls, costing Republicans seeking the Senate, the House, governorships, state legislative positions, and other offices. It is an old tactic used by the media to hold down Republicans. It had also been used effectively in the 1976 Jimmy Carter election.

However, the media (except for Fox News) got it wrong. George Bush, interviewed at home in Texas, said he had information from his sources in Florida contradicting the announced Gore victory. After all, his brother, Jeb, was Governor of the Sunshine State. It turned out he was right, kind of. After further evaluation, the media reversed itself and announced that Bush was the winner. It was too late to help Republicans in the West, where the polls closed at eight in the evening.

Jubilation ensued from the Bush team. Gore called to concede. Then the news came on that it was too close to call. Obviously, something confusing had occurred in Florida. It turned out that many of the illegals had improperly filled out their ballots, designed ironically by Democrats. There were "butterfly ballots" and "hanging chads" and illegible write-ins. The illegal and the illiterate were not the only ones who made it difficult. Many of Florida's population were elderly and retired. They had made a fair number of mistakes. Then there were the absentee votes, which always favor Republicans. In Florida, Bush was due even more of these votes, since the state is the voting home to many servicemen who were overseas or out of the state.

The issue dragged on for weeks, with much wrangling, positioning and haggling from all sides. In terms of "intent," Gore may have had more voters who "intended" to "vote" for him, but Bush led in the state by a few hundred votes. However, two things worked against Gore. First, many of the "intended" votes were from people who either were illegally registered, fraudulently registered, were registered only because of Clinton's lowered standards or amnesties, or just plain failed to fill out the ballots in a legal manner. The law did not favor Gore.

Gore then tried to block the votes of patriotic American men and women, serving in the military, who overwhelmingly vote Republican. It was bad PR and bad politics. It also did not work. The military vote favored Bush. After a few days, it was obvious that Bush had won, but the Democrats refused to concede. Arguments ensued over "intent" of votes. The Florida laws were very specific about what constituted a legal, valid ballot and vote. No matter what tactic was tried, Gore could not twist the facts in his favor. Bush continued to lead and establish himself in the American consciousness as the victor.

It finally came down to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was, despite eight years of Clinton, comprised by a bare majority of Republican appointees. The vote favored Bush, who was certified as the President.

The Democrats desperately looked for ways to discredit the election, the Supreme Court, and the new President. More than three months after Gore conceded, an independent hand recount of Florida's ballots revealed that he would have lost anyway, even if officials would have allowed the hand count he requested. The Miami Herald and USA TODAY studied Florida's ballots and reported that Bush would have widened his 537-vote victory to a 1,665-vote margin if the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court would have been allowed to continue, using standards that would have allowed even faintly dimpled "undervotes" - ballots the voter noticeably indented but had not punched all the way through - to be counted.

The accounting firm of BDO Seidman conducted the study. They counted over 60,000 votes in Florida's 67 counties, tabulating separate vote totals in several standard categories.

Other "recounts" conducted by a consortium of media organizations, including the Associated Press, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and CNN later backed up the "Bush won" analysis in varying shapes and forms.

The voting controversy hurt Gore badly, probably finishing him off as a national candidate. Had he conceded gracefully, he would have earned points among the citizenry, as Nixon did when he refused to embroil the nation in a crisis after Kennedy stole the White House from him in 1960. In Nixon's case, he lived to fight another day, winning in 1968.

Instead, Gore was viewed as "sore loser" and his ticket dubbed "Sore/Loserman." He told his staff, "I'm not like George Bush...I'll do anything to win," and in so doing exposed himself and his party in a dishonorable fashion. After eight years of Clinton, it was a devastating blow to Democrat credibility after an election in which voters had hoped that the party included honest politicians.

The post-mortem on the election revealed that Gore had been dishonest, not blameless. He had been directly behind every scheming attempt to litigate, smear and intimidate his way into the White House. He personally directed the smear-and-destroy campaign against Florida's Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, for daring to uphold the law. A secret five-page memo was unveiled, detailing his plan to disenfranchise military men serving overseas, in direct contradiction to his stated desire to "count every vote."

Gore had secret consultations with an Electoral College expert in hopes of discovering "faithless electors" who would switch their votes from Bush to him. He ruthlessly tried to file the first lawsuit claiming that the a voter were "confused" into voting for Pat Buchanan instead of him.

Emblazoned on Gore's office wall was the slogan, "Win at any cost." He lived up to it, but failed to become the Al Davis of politics. Gore attempted to propagandize his team's efforts at making the "butterfly ballots" look like a grassroots uprising. He allowed Jesse Jackson and the "victim" wing of the Democrat party to make the election out to be about racism, claiming white Republicans had "confused" and "intimidated" black voters. Each of these scurrilous accusations was disproven and lacked credibility.

The nearly all-Democrat Florida Supreme Court drafted a pro-Gore decision ahead of time, but pretended otherwise during oral arguments. In Palm Beach, a Republican stronghold, Gore benefited from voter fraud that resulted in his capturing 94 percent of the vote! A Gore lawyer convinced the all-Democrat Palm Beach canvassing board to alter its standard for a valid vote - after which "Gore votes" began to multiply.

"The enduring myth of Florida's first recount is that all 67 counties tallied their ballots by machine, employing a uniform, statewide standard," explained award-winning Washington Times White House correspondent Bill Sammon. "Nothing could be further from the truth."

What saved Bush were the new realities of the media. Had the Washington Times, Fox News and other media outlets dedicated to true facts been around in 1960 and 1973, Nixon would have beaten Kennedy the first time, and possibly survived Watergate the second, instead of falling under the avalanche of liberal criticism. By 2000, a Republican found himself, for the first in decades, operating on a more level playing. The majority of news outlets were still biased towards the Democrats, but the majority of the public now knew it and therefore favored Bush with the weight of this knowledge.

They saw through sleazy hand-recount campaigns and Gore's reversal of his own statements upholding the Electoral College, after learning he won the popular vote. The public recognized the effect of media bias, which among other things cost the Republicans and Bush a net loss of at least 10,000 votes in the West after early, incorrect announcements of a Gore win. Despite irrefutable evidence, the media had refused to call states for Bush, while rushing to call others for Gore. Overall, it likely cost Bush a net loss of millions of votes nationwide - much more than enough to win the popular vote.

Jesse Jackson had shamelessly played on Jewish voters' fears of anti-Semitism, as well as promoting "disenfranchisement" of black and minority voters. Gore "superlawyer" David Boies swore a false affidavit to convince two canvassing boards to loosen their standards in counting ballots. His legal team issued numerous lawsuits to force the boards to loosen their counting standards - even as Gore adviser Warren Christopher championed their right to devise their own standards.

Stories of a "mob" of pro-Bush "rioters" "intimidating" the Miami-Dade canvassing board into canceling its recount were shown to be untrue, all part of Gore/media lies. Democrat strategist Bob Beckel gathered secret information on the backgrounds of Republican electors in an effort to blackmail them into voting for Gore. Democrat labor and civil rights leaders quietly encouraged Gore to become an unwitting "political kamikaze," sacrificing his political career to damage Bush's Presidency. The Gore team had an intimate connection to the plaintiff in an "independent" last-ditch lawsuit aimed at disenfranchising 13,000 voters in Seminole County. The Democrats and the press portrayed the Supreme Court's final ruling in Bush vs. Gore as a "bitterly divided" 5-4 vote, instead of the resounding 7-2 it actually was. Once defeat was conceded, the Democrats planned to turn Gore's defeat into a powerful political weapon for the 2002 and 2004 elections, but 9/11 eliminated that as a viable strategy.

Gore's priorities were skewed away from the national interest, in favor of his personal needs. On an easel of butcher block paper in the dining room of his residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington, Gore drew four concentric circles to represent his priorities. He and Lieberman occupied the innermost circle. The next circle was reserved for big supporters like AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and abortion advocate Kate Michelman. The Democrat party was third. Finally, in the last circle, Gore placed the country not first, not second, not even third, but dead last.

Whenever Gore won a state by a double-digit margin, the networks had projected him the winner in three minutes or less. But in state after state, Bush posted double-digit victories that the networks refused to acknowledge for at least 30 minutes.

Bush won Missouri by four points. CBS waited hours to call it. Gore won Pennsylvania by the same margin. CBS called it in 48 minutes at 8:48 Eastern, discouraging Western Republicans with two to three hours left to cast votes.

"Pennsylvania drops for Gore - 23 electoral votes," said Dan Rather on CBS. "And for the first time tonight, mark it - if you're in the kitchen, Mable, come back in the front room - 145 for Gore, 130 for Bush, 270 needed to won."

"Mabel" apparently was a Republican in California or New Mexico, who Rather preferred would stay home. More than a third of all registered voters in America still had time to cast their ballots. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, in all six time zones of the United States, polls remained open at the moment Rather said what he said. They remained open after closing time in Florida because of all the confusion, giving the decided advantage to Gore, especially in the state's western panhandle.

Historical reminiscences of Kennedy's stolen 1960 victory, an event they desperately wanted to be forgotten, further hurt the Democrats. Instead, articles and documentaries depicting the worst political crime in American history further demonstrated that it was the Democrats who were the party of corruption, as if Clinton's Presidency had not made that point clear.

Bush's first 100 days in office were greatly aided by the Clinton pardons. The contrast was vast. But he and everybody around him knew that his honesty and character would benefit him in contrast with Clinton only for so long. Events would come to pass that allowed this to happen, and further add to the long list of ironic twists that seem to propel the Manifest Destiny of this country.

9/11

Todd Beamer of Hightstown, New Jersey was 32 years old. On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, he was a passenger on board Flight 93, headed for San Francisco. Several passengers on that flight were in contact with loved ones, on their cell phones. Through these conversations, they knew that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, and another at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. On board their plane, Middle Eastern terrorists had attacked the crew and steered the plane towards Washington. Beamer and others on board realized this was not a "routine" hijacking. They realized, instead, that the plane was being used as a weapon. Since it was apparently "re-routed" for Washington, the plan was to crash it there. At the White House? The CIA? For about 13 minutes, Beamer spoke to the GTE operator.

The passengers knew they were not going to get off the plane alive. They knew that enemies of America had taken over and a war had started. They decided they were not going to go down without a fight. They gathered together and hatched a plan. They would rush one hijacker, who, he told everyone, had a bomb lashed to his chest.

Beamer told the operator, Lisa D. Robinson, to tell his wife he loved her. He also said other passengers would join him. Reportedly they included at least Jeremy Glick, 31 and Thomas Burnett, Jr., 38 in the attack on the hijackers. Beamer recited Psalm 23 with Robinson ("...Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil; for Thou are with me..."). Others recited the Lord's Prayer ("Our Father, Who Art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name..."). He left the phone off the hook, so Robinson could listen.

Thomas Burnett, on his cell phone, told his wife, "I know we're all going to die -there's three of us who are going to do something about it." Jeremy Glick told his wife, "We can take them, we can take them," just before Beamer gave the order. Robinson heard him say, just before 10 A.M., "Are you guys ready? Let's roll!" She heard some screaming, and then silence. Beamer left behind two sons, ages three and one. His wife was pregnant.

His widow, Lisa Beamer, told the _AP_ , "Some people live their whole lives, long lives, without having left anything behind. My sons will be told their whole lives that their father was a hero, that he saved lives. It's a great legacy for a father to leave his children."

What happened next is, of course, not known for sure, but then again, it is. Beamer, Glick and Burnett were Americans. They were _superior human beings_ to the Muslim savages hijacking Flight 93. They, and probably others, demonstrated their superiority by barreling into the savages, disabling them, and diverting that plane from its likely intended destination - a terrorist crash landing into the White House or the CIA - forcing it to crash into a rural area 60 miles from Pittsburgh. Everybody on board died.

Overall, 19 Al Qaeda terrorists, all of them from Saudi Arabia, boarded four planes that morning. Using box cutters to intimidate the crews, they took over the planes. Each group had people who knew the rudimentary elements of flying a jet. They had learned how to take off and fly, but not how to land. They had disabled the controls from the pilots. Two of them headed to the World Trade Center, which they had failed to blow up in 1993. They needed two planes to finish the job, one for each of the twin towers. Another plane was steered to the Pentagon, where it made a direct hit. The Pentagon suffered great damage and loss of life, but the World Trade Center attack was absolutely unbelievable.

Confusion reigned, but the towers did not simply blow up entirely and fall to the ground in one giant fireball. Many died instantly, and many others escaped, often in harrowing circumstances that involved acts of courage from ordinary office workers, and the bravery of New York City firefighters and policemen. But many others were trapped and knew their fate for agonizing minutes. They used cell phones to call loved ones and tell them that they loved them, sometimes leaving heartbreaking messages on voicemail and answering machines.

Some were forced by the heat and flames to the windows of the skyscraper, one of the tallest, most impressive buildings in the world. Facing certain death, many jumped to their deaths, to the shock of horrified on-lookers. More than 1,1000 were trapped by wreckage on the upper floors. Fewer than 20 got out alive.

In a real-life scene reminiscent of "The Poseidon Adventure", some made life-or-death decisions to take the elevator _down_ , where they met fiery deaths. A few took the elevator up, where they managed to avoid flames and make their way to staircases that had not yet been engulfed. Some crowded to the top floor, hoping to get to the roof and be rescued by helicopter, but they were doomed. The doors were sealed shut. The authorities had ruled out that kind of rescue as dangerously impossible. All of the choices were random. The few who lived were just lucky. Some had waited to hear word, instead of leaving, after the first plane hit, only to be killed by the blast from the second. Others who left after the first plane were killed by falling debris from the second. Others who waited lived because they did so.

Everybody who survived recalled the heat, the darkness and the smoke. Unknown voices called out, "follow me." Others cried for help. People saved each other's lives. People told stories of anonymous heroes, people in "red bandanas" and "three-piece suits" who helped them to safety, only to die trying. Over time identifications were made this way.

Police and fire personnel arrived on the scene. There was no doubt that to enter the buildings was the worst possible option. One asks what other country produces the kind of people who had the guts to do what they did. There are a few. The number is small.

The firemen raced into the two buildings and rescued as many people as they possibly could. Many went in and out. Many died trying. Rescue Company 1, West 43rd Street, lost 11 men. In an office complex that was aptly named, the attack was truly an act of global terrorism. It was the biggest single terrorist act in _British_ history, eclipsing all previous horrors in their long struggle with the Irish Republican Army. 500 Englishmen died. More than half of France's Carr Futures employee roster of 134 perished. Muslims and Jews died.

It was the worst American disaster since Pearl Harbor. Historians talked about terrible death tolls at Antietam and Gettysburg. A shocked, numbed nation cried. The first reports were that 20,000 had perished. Over time, that figure was reduced to around 3,000. The black-hearted savages who perpetuated this deed had accomplished their horrific task, but surely the news that 3,000, not 20,000, had died must have pierced their souls. It was the remarkable acts of courage and heroism by countless firemen and policemen that in fact did reduce the death toll as much as it did. Scores of police officers and more than 300 firefighters died, including a beloved 68-year old fire chaplain named Father Mike Judge. Everyone just knew him as Father Mike.

Remarkable stories flooded out of individual acts of heroism, of beloved family members, of departed firemen and cops. An outpouring of sympathy was felt from around the world. The French newspaper _Le Monde_ declared, "We are all Americans." There was global solidarity with the United States that had not been felt in decades.

Palestinian savages danced in the street.

Confusion reigned at first, while President Bush, the intelligence community and the military tried to figure out what was happening. Bush and Vice-President Cheney were separated from each other in case an attack was made on them. Bush, on board Air Force One, was flown to different locations so as to make him a less available target.

Eventually, Bush returned to the White House and the nation was placed in a state of high alert. Then remarkable things began to happen. Britons who survived the Blitzkrieg could relate, but a new spirit emerged. The spirit was, and there is no other way to see this, _uniquely American._ The terrorists had struck a huge blow to the United States. There was no doubt about that, but they had not actually accomplished their goal. They had done the physical work, at least in New York. The Pentagon had sustained serious damage, but the plane had not taken out as much of the structure as the terrorists wanted it to. Because of Todd Beamer, Jeremy Glick and Thomas Burnett, Jr. they had not completed the mission.

But the terrorists had missed the mark in a way they could not understand. At first, for fleeting hours, perhaps days, it looked like they had demoralized a nation. They wanted to strike a blow at the heart of freedom and cause an entire population to bow their heads and accept defeat. What made them think they could accomplish this lies at the heart of their insular, fundamentalist world. The nature of freedom, of love and of America were cartoon images to them; it was "spin," public relations, political lies, national mythology, propaganda. In their mind, Islam was the only religion on Earth and all others were so unworthy that they deserved to be wiped out. The kind of mentality that propelled Americans to make lives for themselves, to love and support families, to worship freely and make choices in a Democratic manner, were shams. Instead, they looked at America and the West and saw only pornography, drunkenness, drug addiction, and filth. In their warped minds they discerned that acts of terror were valid against such infidels.

After the initial shock, however, Americans did not divide among themselves, which is what the terrorists wanted us to do. We _came together_ in a way we had not done in years. It cannot be emphasized how important this was, because most countries, even Democratic countries in the West, _would_ have fractured at the seams. They would have been brought down by in fighting, arguments, finger pointing and self-recrimination. Americans got stronger. Foreigners expressed outright envy at this ability, which they freely admitted was something they could not have done.

Then came George Bush. For the first nine months of his Presidency, Bush had put together a decent record, but by no means did it look like he was on the road to greatness. His basic honesty had helped him score points in light of Clinton's character flaws and Gore's unfortunate, desperate attempts to steal the election in Florida. He had put together a respectable Cabinet and staff, surrounding himself with able people, many of whom had faithfully served his father. Cheney, despite health problems, was a steady hand, although he had been called the "co-President," or even the "real President," by those who believed his experience overruled Bush. Bush had chosen Colin Powell as his Secretary of State. Powell, the _protege_ of Cap Weinberger, symbolized the new America; a bright African-American from humble New York beginnings who had succeeded in the Army. Unlike the West Pointers, he was product of ROTC at City College of New York. He served in Vietnam, then moved up the ladder. He was a hero as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Persian Gulf War, along with theatre commander General Norman Schwarzkopf. Under Clinton, Powell had suffered the draft-dodger, but had done so loyally, in such a manner as to demonstrate the character differences between the two. Powell retired from the Army, wrote his best selling memoirs, and was widely perceived as a Presidential candidate. In 1996, he endorsed Dole and made his Republicanism known to any who may have doubted it. Had he chosen to run, he most likely would have won the 1996 or 2000 elections. Should he choose to run in the future, he would be a strong candidate to succeed Bush.

Powell also had an Eisenhower-type appeal. He had always maintained a non-partisan approach, probably leaning to the G.O.P. because it was under Republicans that he rose and flourished. However, he was moderate. In matters of war, he was almost a dove. Powell represented the philosophy that says, "Nobody hates war more than a soldier." He became the man dedicated to finding ways to avoid war.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was more hawkish. He had held the same job under President Ford. A former Navy pilot, he was Ivy League-educated and emerged as a "neo-con," or neo-conservative. The term was originally used by liberals to deride conservatives in the aftermath of 9/11, as events unfurled in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was meant to remind people of "neo-Nazis," but that garbage did not take. Over time the phrase began to resonate. In many ways, the term does not apply, since conservatives have always believed in "peace through strength," and the prudent exercise of American military might to shape a safer world.

But "old conservatives" like Pat Buchanan had maintained an isolationist stance, stating that no American boy should die unless America's direct interests were at stake. Those "direct interests" were the bone of contention. Buchanan essentially believed they were confined to our shores, with narrow parameters beyond that. The so-called neo-cons believed that America had a duty and obligation to use its power and influence to create American hegemony, safety, freedom and security, in such a way as to allow the seeds of Democracy to grow in the new century. There is no corner of the globe too distant for this mission to be carried out. It is ambitious beyond anything in history, and is the genesis for a new and continuing American Empire. Unlike the Romans, the British, the Chinese, or the Communists, ours has and continues to be a "new kind of empire"; an empire not of colonialization or "puppet governments," but of influence, partnership and freedom. It involves much more than military domination. It is about language, culture, values and a concept that is old in the West, but new to much of the world: Choice. It involves the incredibly difficult, hopeful concept that the former Third World can evolve into a place of safety from want and poverty. It requires faith in the ultimate goodness of humans, and a stern resolve to take on the presence of evil and overcome it, as some think it is the destiny of America to do. It is a plan that may not be fully completed for 100 years, but it is the future of the world.

The neo-cons are prepared to implement this plan. In prior years, it was not articulated. During the Cold War, it was too distant a vision, since first Communism had to be defeated. Bush hinted at it in his New World Order speech of 1991, but it was still unformulated. Clinton did not have the inclination nor the ability to even conceive of such a thing. Had he tackled this kind of issue, had he made the decision to formulate a "Nixon goes to China" foreign policy with such broad outreach, all his crimes and perfidies would have been, if not forgiven, certainly put aside in light of historical greatness, much the way FDR's corruptions give way to the fact that he led America in the greatest struggle in the history of Mankind.

World War II was the most important struggle in the annals of human events, and everything that happened after it led to 9/11. The Berlin Wall was not the "end of history." 9/11 is the _beginning_ of a new history. Everything emanates from this date. The Chinese word for _crisis_ is the same as _opportunity_. It was in the dark after-hours of 9/11 that people like Rumsfeld and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice began to understand that in fact this was as much an opportunity as a crisis.

Bush himself made a speech in which he stated that it was America's goal to "defeat evil." In so doing, the United States embarks on a momentous journey, and finds itself dealing with an international community that is not yet capable of understanding the nature of our aims in the world. For thousands of years, power and influence have too often been used to spread war, slavery, occupation and ruthless empire. America, in a little over 200 years, has proven that we are the one country worthy of international exploration on a global scale, and yet the concept is so dangerous to so many that even this country is considered suspect. The neo-cons, or the New Conservatives as I prefer to call them, have a vision that goes beyond that. Theirs is a holy mission, one that stretches its lineage back to the Founding Fathers, who were divinely inspired during that sweltering Philadelphia Summer of 1787 when they hammered out the Constitution.

Evil has met us often. It has divided our friends and partners through lies and propaganda. These lies have infiltrated many elements right here in America, where our past efforts have been dissected with a biased eye, trying to discredit us as "exploiters," "racists," "plunderers," "imperialists," "colonialists," and "war mongers." The United States has done more for more people than any entity in history. We have fed the hungry, clothed the poor, saved the dispossessed, and systematically killed evil regime after evil regime. The fact that these events are shrouded as exploitation instead of freedom and hope is proof that evil does use lies to promote its cause.

The New Conservatives realize what our mission is. We will carry it out despite the protests, the hate, and the criticism. We will do it because it is the _right thing to do._ This realization went from being a policy paper at the Hoover Institute to the new, established doctrine of the United States, in the hours and days after 9/11.

That was when George W. Bush emerged as a statesman and man of history. He went to the site of the fallen World Trade Center, and with no visible Secret Service protection scrambled out to the middle of the rubble, standing next to a fire captain, and with a bullhorn in his hands began to speak. At first, the exhausted firemen were wary of Bush. The kind of courageous, patriotic, hard-working folks who tend to become firemen and police officers are the very people who tend to vote Republican, so Bush was pre-disposed to a friendly audience. But after what had happened, Bush could easily have looked like any other politician, looking to score political points in a "photo/op." At this point the workers had little patience for such a thing.

Either Clinton would have looked ridiculous if they had tried to venture into such a situation. Gore would have looked awkward. Bush was right at home. He rallied the men, connected to them, encouraged them. His voice was optimistic and hopeful. It was just the ticket. Speaking into the bullhorn, one of the firefighters shouted, "We can't hear you."

"Well," Bush replied, with just a touch of humor, "I can hear _you._ And pretty soon, the people who knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us."

It was magic. It was unscripted. The firefighters cheered Bush the way Londoners once cheered Churchill. They chanted "U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A." In the days and weeks that followed, Bush went on television. He addressed the Congress. He was forceful, decisive and led. He proved to be a magnificent crisis President, and received universal applause from all sides of the political spectrum. When asked what he planned to in retaliation, Bush said, "I'm not gonna fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's going to be decisive" or "I'm not gonna 'pound sand.'" The remark was probably a shot at Clinton, who had failed to deal with Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, terrorism, or much of anything else. Worse, Clinton had fired cruise missiles into the empty desert whenever his sex scandals dominated the news, in a blatant "wag the dog" effort at diverting attention from his lies. The difference between Bush and Clinton emerged after 9/11. It was no longer about honesty. Now it was leadership and decisive action. 9/11 began the process of exposing Clinton in ways all his scandals had not.

At the attack site, some other amazing images emerged. Three firemen raised Old Glory on a pole in the middle of the rubble. The photo resonated every bit as much as the famous Marine flag-waving at Iwo Jima. Then, unbelievably, a steel cross was "resurrected" from the wreckage. The symbolism gave hope to the firefighters and to all of America. Yes, the fact that it resembled the crucifix might have been pure coincidence.

I just do not think so.

The country was basically put on hold. Airlines were grounded and people stuck at airports. College football, the NFL, and Major League baseball all canceled their games for the next week. Then anthrax started to show up in the mail at government facilities, causing jitters among the populace. Across the country, any discovery of white substances meant a call to the police to check it out. To this day, it has never been determined who was responsible for it, although it was eventually believed that the originator was not part of the Middle Eastern terror network.

Funerals and memorial services were held. New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Governor George Pataki made powerful, inspirational speeches, as did President Bush. The post-9/11 period turned out to be a bad scene for the Clintons. Bill Clinton showed up at a Red Cross facility, but quickly realized he was not serving himself by letting the spotlight shine on him. Reports were quickly beginning to come out about how he could have had bin Laden but failed.

Hillary was in a tough spot, too. The patriots and impressive individuals who make up the fire department and police force in New York were not her constituency. They had mostly voted for Lazio. Hillary had burned herself with them, blaming them on racism and other garbage in the accidental shootings of blacks. She played the race angle for all it was worth, garnering the votes of blacks, drug dealers, criminals and the "dispossessed" who made up her constituency. Hillary overplayed the bogus issue of "racial profiling," which was at odds with most law enforcement attitudes. She failed to appear at most of the funerals and memorials, because she knew she would be booed. However, she was lax in sending letters to the families, which she should have done. Finally, Hillary appeared at a benefit to raise money for the families, and was heartily booed. It was a sound more telling than words.

Major League baseball resumed after a week. It first it seemed utterly unimportant. But something incredible began to happen. Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants was in the middle of a mad dash to break the all-time home run record of 70, set by Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1998. When play resumed, Bonds, normally a hard case with the press, cried and spoke about how his record meant nothing, and that America had to come together. People rallied behind him. He provided excitement in the weeks that followed as he chased, and broke, the record. It was the first "sign of life," and a huge morale booster. It reminded people of how FDR had told baseball to keep playing their schedule during World War II, in order to boost morale.

When the play-offs started, all eyes were on New York, where the Yankees were hoping to win their fourth consecutive World Championship, and fifth in six years. Despite terrorist threats hanging, literally, over their heads, amidst anthrax warnings and jet fighters patrolling the skies above, Yankee Stadium was filled to capacity every game throughout a magical October.

The Yankees symbolize America. They are the greatest sports team in history; the best, the undisputed number one. They have a huge galaxy of faithful fans. They also have many detractors, some of whom live in New York City. There are many who think they are too good, that their excellence is not fair, and that the playing field should be more even. These people tend to root for the Red Sox or, in the old days, the Washington Senators. The New Yorkers who feel that way might be compared to liberals in America, uncomfortable with the greatness and power of this nation.

The Yankess, like America, pay little heed to their detractors and simply field the best team year after year. In 2001, they found themselves in a rare role reversal, that of a sympathetic "team of destiny." Against the Oakland A's, a rising team of young stars, the Yankees appeared to have met their match. Oakland won the first two games at Yankee Stadium, returning to Oakland to close out the best-of-five series. In game three, clinging to a slim 1-0 lead, shortstop Derek Jeter made a spectacular relay flip to nail Oakland's tying run and preserve the win. As if driven by the guiding hand of destiny, the Bronx Bombers won the text two games to capture the series, and advanced to the World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

After losing the first two games in Phoenix, the Yankees came home to New York. George Bush threw out the first ball. Rudolph Giuliani sat in the front row. The crowds were wild. The whole site of it did as much to defeat terrorism as any CIA black ops mission. A little over a month after the most sickening, hope-depriving act imaginable, New Yorkers responded in way that told the enemies of this country, "We live. We love. We win." In showing up at Yankee Stadium and comporting themselves in the way they did, New Yorkers foiled terrorism.

Somewhere in a bunker in the mountains of the Afghan/Pakistan border, Osama bin Laden heard about the crowds at Yankee Stadium. If he possessed the slightest ability to comprehend anything, he scratched his head and wondered, like the Grinch who stole Christmas, how in God's name these people could be so _happy!_ Like Admiral Yamamoto after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, bin Laden and his crew had to realize that they had not pierced out heart with a dagger. Instead, they had awoken a sleeping giant.

On the field, the Yankees rallied three days in a row to win and make themselves the favorites to win the Series. Before the games, emotion and pride met the singing of the "Star Spangled Banner". During the seventh inning stretches, fans sang lustily to the stirring words of "God Bless America".

The Series shifted to Arizona, and something funny happened. The Diamondbacks won. In a way, it was perfect. The Yankees had done their part in bringing a city back to life, but by Arizona winning it also showed that the whole country was part of this story.

While the terrorists had failed in their most basic goal of breaking our spirit, they did indeed inflict some major damage other than the physical destruction of buildings and the taking of lives. Just as the economy was rebounding when the first George Bush was leaving office in 1992-93, the economy had started to tailspin when Clinton left office in 2000-01. Bush pushed through a tax cut. Data eventually indicated that the recession ended under his watch in November, 2001. But the terrorist strikes prevented a strong recovery. For the next two years, the economy remained sluggish in light of the terror strikes and two military conflicts in the Middle East. None of that affected Bush's popularity. He struck just the right tone in everything he did after 9/11; in his speeches, his steadiness, his capacity for love and compassion, and in his military response. His ratings skyrocketed to a level commensurate with his father's in 1991.

A new sense of patriotism, of a nation united, emerged. Religion and God made a major comeback. Many worried that Muslim-Americans would be persecuted. Americans overwhelmingly showed them love, with only a few scattered incidents. The event did spotlight Islam, and many studied the religion and concluded that like Judaism and Christianity before, it had reached a cross-roads in. Muslims need to examine themselves and make the right choices in order to propel their religion to its full potential.

There _was_ a disappointing lack of moral outrage from Muslim Imams, both in the U.S. and abroad. Bush managed to get cooperation from most of the Muslim nations aligned with the U.S., but disappointing lies and outrages began to rear their ugly heads on the Arab street and in the utterly untrustworthy Arab media.

Then the moral relativists began to pop up, saying that what had happened to us was not "evil," but needed to be "understood." It was a "backlash" against our global power and support of Israel. Bill Clinton, unbelievably, came out and said we had brought it on ourselves because of the Crusades, which of course had ended some 500 to 600 years before the birth of America. However, liberal perfidy was in its own way helpful. It helped define the purpose and victory of conservatism as the winning ideology of 3,000 years of history. It identified who among us is not to be counted on in the fight, which was better to happen sooner rather than later when the stakes could be greater.

America's Mayor: Rudy Giuliani

In 1944, Rudolph W. Giuliani was born to a working class family in Brooklyn, New York. He was the grandson of Italian immigrants who attended Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School (Class of '61) in Brooklyn, Manhattan College (Class of '65) in the Bronx and New York University Law School in Manhattan, graduating magna cum laude in 1968.

Upon graduation, Rudy clerked for Judge Lloyd MacMahon, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. In 1970, Giuliani joined the office of the U.S. Attorney. At age 29, he was named Chief of the Narcotics Unit and rose to serve as executive U.S. Attorney. In 1975, Giuliani went to Washington where he was named Associate Deputy Attorney General and chief of staff to the Deputy Attorney General. From 1977 to 1981, Giuliani returned to New York to practice law at Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler.

In 1981, Giuliani was named Associate Attorney General, the third highest position in the Department of Justice. As Associate Attorney General, Giuliani supervised all of the U.S. Attorney Offices' Federal law enforcement agencies, the Bureau of Corrections, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the U.S. Marshals.

In 1983, Giuliani was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he increased aggressive prosecution of drug dealers, corrupt government officials, and insider trading on Wall Street. Giuliani made his name fighting organized crime. He was the first government attorney to aggressively go after La Casa Nostra since the Republican Thomas Dewey in the 1940s. After prosecutors had been looking away for years, Giuliani had had enough, especially since the Mafia besmirched his Italian surname. He made full use of a new Federal law called RICO, otherwise known as the Federal Racketeering and Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act. It gave him and his legal team the ability to go back decades and "connect the dots" between mob families. He used it to the full extent of the law. As a result, the so-called "Teflon Don", John Gotti, was put away once and for all. Giuliani ended an outrageous period in which mob characters were pseudo cult heroes. If he never did anything again, he deserved mentioned among American heroes for this effort, which came about due to intelligence, great dedication, and a willingness to do the right thing despite great risk to his personal safety. Giuliani could have been eliminated via a mob hit at any time, but he calculated that to do so would not just martyr him, but shed unwanted light on organized crime. His gamble paid off. The mob families took their medicine.

As U.S. Attorney, Rudy oversaw 4,152 convictions with only 25 reversals. In 1989, Giuliani entered the race for Mayor of New York City as a candidate of the Republican and Liberal parties, losing by the closest margin in city history. In 1993, he tried again. This time, he went after "General" David Dinkins, a corrupt African-American Democrat. Dinkins had succeeded Ed Koch, a feisty, honorable Democrat whose Mayoral career had not been exemplary. Koch had presided over New York during difficult times. A "Republican," John Lindsey, had been Mayor in the late 1960s. His flagging popularity had been saved by his association with the 1969 "Miracle Mets" of Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman, but that was no way to live.

By the 1970s, New York was a cesspool of liberal anarchy. At one time, conservatives like William F. Buckley had a modest hold on a portion of the electorate, but New York had fallen sway to the worst elements of 1960s and, worse, post-1960s society - drugs, crime, and a complete lack of faith in traditional American values. Los Angeles replaced New York in the '70s and '80s as the American city.

That was the scene Koch had inherited, and to his credit, he was honest and real. City Hall was a place of corruption and selfishness, but Koch refused to give in to the basest elements of New York. He enjoyed touring the streets, asking citizens, "How'm I doin', how'm I doin'?" He did pretty well, but his association with the corrupt Democrat organization of New York, which had never really straightened up since the days of Tammany Hall, did not help him. Eventually his time passed. He was replaced by a complete buffoon, Dinkins, who was nothing more than a stooge of the Democrat machine.

Giuliani was a Republican. He refused to give in to corruption or personal ambition. That is not to say he was not ambitious, but his hopes for his future coincided with his hopes for the future of a city he felt was the greatest in the world, and a country he knew was second to none.

He was elected Mayor, and took over in 1993. Under his leadership, New York made the comeback of comebacks. Giuliani wanted a clean police force that would aggressively go after criminals. He backed his officers all the way. In a city as rife with crime and drugs as New York, this was an incredibly difficult task, but Rudy was used to tough jobs. He loved New York, and he wanted to make it safe for citizens to walk the streets, go to the theatre, take in shows, restaurants, or rides in Central Park. Movies like "Escape from New York" and "Soylent Green" had painted a desolate portrait of New York as a vast wasteland of crime and despair. Not on Rudy's watch.

Rudy oversaw major task forces against drug dealers and criminals, of the organized and disorganized variety. He made New York a safe place to live again. He turned the Big Apple into - once again - the greatest city in the world.

Rudy improved education and "quality of life." He brought investment back into the city. He oversaw New York during a time when the bulls ran on Wall Street. While Clinton deserved to take his share of the credit, Rudy was the man who oversaw a city that is the financial capital of the world, and helped it during these boom times.

In 1997 he was re-elected by a wide margin, carrying four out of New York City's five boroughs. Accountability to city government, all but lost in the Apple, was returned. Crime was reduced by 57 percent, murder was reduced six percent, and the FBI recognized it as the safest large city in America for the five years.

New York law enforcement replaced Los Angeles as the envy of the country. L.A. had been glorified by Joseph Wambaugh novels, films and TV shows as the police force of "The New Centurions", dedicated cops who the public owed the American quality of life to. The general perception of New York, as embodied by films like "Serpico", was that it was hopelessly corrupt. In the 1990s, Rudy's strategies become models for other cities around the world, while L.A. found itself mired in the Rodney King beatings, the riots that followed, and brutal depictions of corrupt "task force" drug cops who were the model for TV programs like "The Shield".

Rudy created the CompStat program, which won the 1996 Innovations in Government Award from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. CompStat allowed police to statistically monitor criminal activity on specific street corners as well as citywide, holding precinct commanders accountable for criminal activity in their neighborhoods. The data was updated constantly, enabling police to become a proactive force in fighting crime, stopping crime trends before they become crime waves that negatively effect the quality of life for neighborhood residents.

When Mayor Giuliani took office, one out of every seven New Yorkers was on welfare. Rudy reminded citizens that work was the cornerstone of existence. In a city like New York, which is one of the most expensive places in the world to live, hard work is essential. Work ethic was re-established under his Republican leadership by implementing the largest and most successful welfare-to-work initiative in the country, cutting welfare rolls in half while moving over 640,000 individuals from dependency on the government to the dignity of self-sufficiency. In addition, Giuliani enacted a record of over $2.5 billion in tax reductions - including the commercial rent tax, personal income tax, the hotel occupancy tax, and the sales tax on clothing for purchases up to $110. In addition, hundreds of millions of dollars were returned to the private sector. Rudy rooted out organized crime's influence over the Fulton Fish Market, the private garbage hauling industry, and wholesale food markets throughout New York. These reforms, combined with the fiscal discipline which enabled the Mayor to turn an inherited $2.3 billion dollar budget deficit into a multi-billion dollar surplus, led New York to an era of broad-based growth with a record 450,000 new private sector jobs created in seven years. World tourism returned to record levels.

Mayor Giuliani also turned New York into a family friendly city. For years, few dared raise their children on its mean streets unless they had no other choice. For decades, the greatest minds in America - actors, writers, directors, composers, athletes, politicians, musicians, poets, financiers - had grown up in New York. An entire generation had been lost to crime, drugs and anti-Americanism. The "great minds" were being raised in the bedroom communities of Connecticut, the suburbs of Long Island, or in other less inspirational locales. With no disrespect intended, the inspiration of New York was lost to these people.

Rudy wanted a return to the heyday of the New York of his youth, a place where the stories resonated in the mind. This could only happen if the city was safe for families again. He committed himself to nurturing and empowering New York City's children, creating the Administration for Children's Services, and establishing an accountable, proactive and effective protector for New York's most vulnerable children. His goal was reached, and the city became a national model. Adoption rules were revamped, and the result was more loving parents adopting kids, and fewer girls "choosing" the abomination of abortion. More than 20,000 children were adopted, a 65 percent increase over the previous six-year period. Mayor Giuliani helped provide health insurance to children through the innovative HealthStat initiative, using computer technology to coordinate a citywide effort to enroll children in health insurance programs. Over 100,000 children and families were given access to health insurance through the HealthStat initiative, a combination of private and public health care that contrasted completely with the discredited socialized medicine offered by Hillary Clinton. It proved the complete superiority of the Republican philosophy as opposed to the out-dated New Deal ideas offered by Democrats.

Rudy helped turn around the New York City school system, again through the principle of accountability. He lowered the student-teacher ratio while increasing the annual operating budget by $4 billion, ended bureaucratic roadblocks that led to social promotion and principal tenure, while reforming bi-lingual education and special education programs, improved reading skills, increased computer accessibility, and added arts education as a part of the school curriculum. He helped place more books in classrooms and libraries, while creating weekend classes for science and English instruction. Rudy launched the New York City Charter School Improvement Fund, the first fund ever offered by a city government to help charter schools with equipment and facilities costs. He created a sense of competition in the New York public school system that proved of value to the children.

Under Rudy's leadership, New York City became an example of the resurgence of urban America. He cleaned up Times Square and beautified many other parts of the city.

Police departments throughout America and abroad came to New York to learn his innovative strategies for reducing crime, reforming welfare, encouraging economic growth, and improving the overall quality of life.

Based on that record, Rudy was the commanding favorite to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2000 U.S. Senate campaign. When Rudy was diagnosed with prostate cancer, he made the difficult choice to drop out and pursue treatments. It was a devastating blow to Republicans, who desperately wanted to stop Hillary in her tracks. It was not to be. Congressman Rick Lazio did the best he could. He won big in the suburbs and low crime areas of New York state. Hillary, however, cleaned up in the high crime precincts, and with the traditional liberal Manhattan base.

On September 11, 2001, Rudy was in the final stage of his Mayoral career when the two planes knocked down the World Trade Center. His response to the crisis, working in coordination with Governor George Pataki and President Bush, was extraordinary. His inspirational leadership, motivational speeches and calm decision-making qualities reminded people of his role model, Winston Churchill. Already considered the greatest Mayor in New York City history, Rudy ascended to legend status. He wrote a best selling memoir detailing his extraordinary career fighting the Mafia, corruption and terror, and 9/11. A TV movie was made about him, starring James Woods as "Rudy" (not to be mistaken with the movie about Notre Dame football).

Rudy left office and was replaced by a nominal Republican, Michael Bloomberg. Giuliani recovered from prostate cancer and remains a highly viable national political figure who could easily square off against Hillary in the 2006 Senate race, emerge as a Presidential contender in 2008 - or both.

War on Terrorism: Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda

In the first part of this interview which occurred in May 1998, a little over two months before the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, Osama bin Laden answered questions posed to him by some of his followers at his mountaintop camp in southern Afghanistan. In the latter part of the interview, ABC reporter John Miller asked the questions. I considered not putting bin Laden's words to the pages of my book, thus providing him the propaganda. But just as the world "ignored" Hitler's "Main Kampf", bin Laden was not paid attention to until 9/11. His poisonous philosophy is what we must overcome in the first half of this century. We need to know our enemy inside and out:

What is the meaning of your call for Muslims to take arms against America in particular, and what is the message that you wish to send to the West in general?

"The call to wage war against America was made because America has spear-headed the crusade against the Islamic nation, sending tens of thousands of its troops to the land of the two Holy Mosques over and above its meddling in its affairs and its politics, and its support of the oppressive, corrupt and tyrannical regime that is in control. These are the reasons behind the singling out of America as a target. And not exempt of responsibility are those Western regimes whose presence in the region offers support to the American troops there. We know at least one reason behind the symbolic participation of the Western forces and that is to support the Jewish and Zionist plans for expansion of what is called the Great Israel. Surely, their presence is not out of concern over their interests in the region... Their presence has no meaning save one and that is to offer support to the Jews in Palestine who are in need of their Christian brothers to achieve full control over the Arab Peninsula which they intend to make an important part of the so called Greater Israel..."

Many of the Arabic as well as the Western mass media accuse you of terrorism and of supporting terrorism. What do you have to say to that?

"There is an Arabic proverb that says 'she accused me of having her malady, then snuck away.' Besides, terrorism can be commendable and it can be reprehensible. Terrifying an innocent person is objectionable and unjust, also unjustly terrorizing people is not right.

"Whereas, terrorizing oppressors and criminals and thieves and robbers is necessary for the safety of people and for the protection of their property. There is no doubt in this. Every state and every civilization and culture has to resort to terrorism under certain circumstances for the purpose of abolishing tyranny and corruption. Every country in the world has its own security system and its own security forces, its own police and its own army. They are all designed to terrorize whoever even contemplates to attack that country or its citizens. The terrorism we practice is of the commendable kind for it is directed at the tyrants and the aggressors and the enemies of Allah, the tyrants, the traitors who commit acts of treason against their own countries and their own faith and their own prophet and their own nation. Terrorizing those and punishing them are necessary measures to straighten things and to make them right. Tyrants and oppressors who subject the Arab nation to aggression ought to be punished. The wrongs and the crimes committed against the Muslim nation are far greater than can be covered by this interview. America heads the list of aggressors against Muslims. The recurrence of aggression against Muslims everywhere is proof enough. For over half a century, Muslims in Palestine have been slaughtered and assaulted and robbed of their honor and of their property. Their houses have been blasted, their crops destroyed. And the strange thing is that any act on their part to avenge themselves or to lift the injustice befalling them causes great agitation in the United Nations which hastens to call for an emergency meeting only to convict the victim and to censure the wronged and the tyrannized whose children have been killed and whose crops have been destroyed and whose farms have been pulverized. ...

"In today's wars, there are no morals, and it is clear that Mankind has descended to the lowest degrees of decadence and oppression. They rip us of our wealth and of our resources and of our oil. Our religion is under attack. They kill and murder our brothers. They compromise our honor and our dignity and dare we utter a single word of protest against the injustice, we are called terrorists. This is compounded injustice. And the United Nations insistence to convict the victims and support the aggressors constitutes a serious precedence which shows the extent of injustice that has been allowed to take root in this land."

What is your relationship with the Islamic movements in various regions of the world like Chechnya and Kashmir and other Arab countries?

"Cooperation for the sake of truth and righteousness is demanded from Muslims. A Muslim should do his utmost to cooperate with his fellow Muslims. But Allah says of cooperation that it is not absolute for there is cooperation to do good, and there is cooperation to commit aggression and act unjustly. A Muslim is supposed to give his fellow Muslim guidance and support. He (Allah) said 'Stand by your brother be he oppressor or oppressed.' When asked how were they to stand by Him if he were the oppressor, he answered them, saying 'by giving him guidance and counsel.' It all goes to say that Muslims should cooperate with one another and should be supportive of one another, and they should promote righteousness and mercy. They should all unite in the fight against polytheism and they should pool all their resources and their energy to fight the Americans and the Zionists and those with them. They should, however, avoid side fronts and rise over the small problems for these are less detrimental. Their fight should be directed against unbelief and unbelievers."

We heard your message to the American government and later your message to the European governments who participated in the occupation of the Gulf. Is it possible for you to address the people of these countries?

"As we have already said, our call is the call of Islam that was revealed to Mohammed. It is a call to all Mankind. We have been entrusted with good cause to follow in the footsteps of the messenger and to communicate his message to all nations. It is an invitation that we extend to all the nations to embrace Islam, the religion that calls for justice, mercy and fraternity among all nations, not differentiating between black and white or between red and yellow except with respect to their devotedness. All people who worship Allah, not each other, are equal before Him. We are entrusted to spread this message and to extend that call to all the people. We, nonetheless, fight against their governments and all those who approve of the injustice they practice against us. We fight the governments that are bent on attacking our religion and on stealing our wealth and on hurting our feelings. And as I have mentioned before, we fight them, and those who are part of their rule are judged in the same manner."

In your last statement, there was a strong message to the American government in particular. What message do you have for the European governments and the West in general?

"Praise be Allah and prayers and peace upon Mohammed. With respect to the Western governments that participated in the attack on the land of the two Holy Mosques regarding it as ownerless, and in the siege against the Muslim people of Iraq, we have nothing new to add to the previous message. What prompted us to address the American government in particular is the fact that it is on the head of the Western and the crusading forces in their fight against Islam and against Muslims. The two explosions that took place in Riyadh and in Khobar recently were but a clear and powerful signal to the governments of the countries which willingly participated in the aggression against our countries and our lives and our sacrosanct symbols. It might be beneficial to mention that some of those countries have begun to move towards independence from the American government with respect to the enmity that it continues to show towards the Muslim people. We only hope that they will continue to move in that direction, away from the oppressive forces that are fighting against our countries. We however, differentiate between the Western government and the people of the West. If the people have elected those governments in the latest elections, it is because they have fallen prey to the Western media which portray things contrary to what they really are. And while the slogans raised by those regimes call for humanity, justice, and peace, the behavior of their governments is completely the opposite. It is not enough for their people to show pain when they see our children being killed in Israeli raids launched by American planes, nor does this serve the purpose. What they ought to do is change their governments which attack our countries. The hostility that America continues to express against the Muslim people has given rise to feelings of animosity on the part of Muslims against America and against the West in general. Those feelings of animosity have produced a change in the behavior of some crushed and subdued groups who, instead of fighting the Americans inside the Muslim countries, went on to fight them inside the United States of America itself.

"The Western regimes and the government of the United States of America bear the blame for what might happen. If their people do not wish to be harmed inside their very own countries, they should seek to elect governments that are truly representative of them and that can protect their interests.

"The enmity between us and the Jews goes far back in time and is deep rooted. There is no question that war between the two of us is inevitable. For this reason it is not in the interest of Western governments to expose the interests of their people to all kinds of retaliation for almost nothing. It is hoped that people of those countries will initiate a positive move and force their governments not to act on behalf of other states and other sects. This is what we have to say and we pray to Allah to preserve the nation of Islam and to help them drive their enemies out of their land.

American politicians have painted a distorted picture of Islam, of Muslims and of Islamic fighters. We would like you to give us the true picture that clarifies your viewpoint.

"The leaders in America and in other countries as well have fallen victim to Jewish Zionist blackmail. They have mobilized their people against Islam and against Muslims. These are portrayed in such a manner as to drive people to rally against them. The truth is that the whole Muslim world is the victim of international terrorism, engineered by America at the United Nations. We are a nation whose sacred symbols have been looted and whose wealth and resources have been plundered. It is normal for us to react against the forces that invade our land and occupy it."

Quite a number of Muslim countries have seen the rise of militant movements whose purpose is to stand up in the face of the pressure exerted on the people by their own governments and other governments. Such as is the case in Egypt and Libya and North Africa and Algiers and such as was the case in Syria and in Yemen. There are also other militant groups currently engaged in the fight against the unbelievers and the crusaders as is the case in Kashmir and Chechnya and Bosnia and the African horn. Is there any message you wish to convey to our brothers who are fighting in various parts of the Islamic World?

"Tell the Muslims everywhere that the vanguards of the warriors who are fighting the enemies of Islam belong to them and the young fighters are their sons. Tell them that the nation is bent on fighting the enemies of Islam. Once again, I have to stress the necessity of focusing on the Americans and the Jews for they represent the spearhead with which the members of our religion have been slaughtered. Any effort directed against America and the Jews yields positive and direct results - Allah willing. It is far better for anyone to kill a single American soldier than to squander his efforts on other activities."

John Miller's interview begins:

You come from a background of wealth and comfort to end up fighting on the front lines. Many Americans find that unusual.

"This is difficult to understand, especially for him who does not understand the religion of Islam. In our religion, we believe that Allah has created us for the purpose of worshipping him. He is the one who has created us and who has favored us with this religion. Allah has ordered us to make holy wars and to fight to see to it that His word is the highest and the uppermost and that of the unbelievers the lowermost. We believe that this is the call we have to answer regardless of our financial capabilities.

"This too answers the claims of the West and of the secular people in the Arab world. They claim that this blessed awakening and the people reverting to Islam are due to economic factors. This is not so. It is rather a grace from Allah, a desire to embrace the religion of Allah. And this is not surprising. When the holy war called, thousands of young men from the Arab Peninsula and other countries answered the call and they came from wealthy backgrounds. Hundreds of them were killed in Afghanistan and in Bosnia and in Chechnya."

You have been described as the world's most wanted man, and there is word that the American government intends to put a price on your head - in the millions - when you are captured. Do you think they will do that? And does it bother you?

"We do not care what the Americans believe. What we care for is to please Allah. Americans heap accusations on whoever stands for his religion or his rights or his wealth. It does not scare us that they have put a price on my head. We as Muslims believe that our years on this Earth are finite and predetermined. If the whole world gets together to kill us before it is our time to go, they will not succeed. We also believe that livelihoods are preordained. So no matter how much pressure America puts on the regime in Riyadh to freeze our assets and to forbid people from contributing to this great cause, we shall still have Allah to take care of us; livelihood is sent by Allah; we shall not want."

Mr. bin Laden, you have issued a fatwah calling on Muslims to kill Americans where they can, when they can. Is that directed at all Americans, just the American military, just the Americans in Saudi Arabia?

"Allah has ordered us to glorify the truth and to defend Muslim land, especially the Arab peninsula...against the unbelievers. After World War II, the Americans grew more unfair and more oppressive towards people in general and Muslims in particular. The Americans started it and retaliation and punishment should be carried out following the principle of reciprocity, especially when women and children are involved. Through history, America has not been known to differentiate between the military and the civilians or between men and women or adults and children. Those who threw atomic bombs and used the weapons of mass destruction against Nagasaki and Hiroshima were the Americans. Can the bombs differentiate between military and women and infants and children? America has no religion that can deter her from exterminating whole peoples. Your position against Muslims in Palestine is despicable and disgraceful. America has no shame. We believe that the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the Americans. Nothing could stop you except perhaps retaliation in kind. We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they are all targets, and this is what the fatwah says. The fatwah is general (comprehensive) and it includes all those who participate in, or help the Jewish occupiers in killing Muslims."

Ramzi Yousef was a follower of yours. Do you remember him and did you know him?

"After the explosion that took place in the World Trade Center, Ramzi Yousef became a well known Muslim figure. Muslims have come to know him. Unfortunately, I did not know him before this incident. I of course remember who he is. He is a Muslim who wanted to protect his religion jealously from the oppression practiced by America against Islam. He acted with zeal to make the Americans understand that their government was attacking Muslims in order to safeguard the American-Jewish interests."

Wali Khan Amin Shah was captured in Manila. American authorities believe he was working for you, funded by you, setting up training camps there and part of his plan was to plan out the assassination or the attempted assassination of President Clinton during his trip to Manila.

"Wali Khan is a Muslim young man; his nickname in Afghanistan was 'the Lion'. He was among the most courageous Muslim young men. He was a close friend and we used to fight from the same trenches in Afghanistan. We fought many battles against the Russians until they were defeated and put to shame and had to leave the country in disgrace. As to what you said about him working for me, I have nothing to say. We are all together in this; we all work for Allah and our reward comes from him. As to what you said about the attempt to assassinate President Clinton, it is not surprising. What do you expect from people attacked by Clinton, whose sons and mothers have been killed by Clinton? Do you expect anything but treatment by reciprocity?

The Federal government in the US. is still investigating their suspicions that you ordered and funded the attack on the U.S. military in Al Khobar and Riyadh.

"We have roused the nation and the Muslim people and we have communicated to them the fatwahs of our learned scholars who the Saudi government has thrown in jail in order to please the American government for which they are agents. We have communicated their fatwahs and stirred the nation to drive out the enemy who has occupied our land and usurped our country and suppressed our people and to rid the land of the two Holy Mosques from their presence. Among the young men who responded to our call are Khalid Al Said and Abdul Azeez Al and Mahmud Al Hadi and Muslih Al Shamrani. We hope Allah receives them as holy martyrs. They have raised the nation's head high and washed away a great part of the shame that has enveloped us as a result of the weakness of the Saudi government and its complicity with the American government...Yes, we have instigated and they have responded. We hope Allah grants their families solace."

You've been painted in America as a terrorist leader. To your followers, you are a hero. How do you see yourself?

"As I have said, we are not interested in what America says. We do not care. We view ourselves and our brothers like everyone else. Allah created us to worship Him and to follow in his footsteps and to be guided by His book. I am one of the servants of Allah and I obey his orders. Among those is the order to fight for the word of Allah...and to fight until the Americans are driven out of all the Islamic countries."

No one expected the Mujahadeen to beat the Russians in Afghanistan. It came as a surprise to everyone. What do you see as the future of American involvement in the Middle East, in taking on groups like this?

"...Allah has granted the Muslim people and the Afghani Mujahadeen, and those with them, the opportunity to fight the Russians and the Soviet Union...They were defeated by Allah and were wiped out. There is a lesson here. The Soviet Union entered Afghanistan late in December of '79. The flag of the Soviet Union was folded once and for all on the 25th of December just 10 years later. It was thrown in the wastebasket. Gone was the Soviet Union forever. We are certain that we shall - with the grace of Allah - prevail over the Americans and over the Jews, as the messenger of Allah promised us in an authentic prophetic tradition when He said the hour of resurrection shall not come before Muslims fight Jews and before Jews hide behind trees and behind rocks.

"We are certain - with the grace of Allah - that we shall prevail over the Jews and over those fighting with them. Today however, our battle against the Americans is far greater than our battle was against the Russians. Americans have committed unprecedented stupidity. They have attacked Islam and its most significant sacrosanct symbols. We anticipate a black future for America. Instead of remaining United States, it shall end up separated states and shall have to carry the bodies of its sons back to America."

What do you see as the future of the Saudi royal family and their involvement with America and the US military?

"History has the answer to your question. The fate of any government which sells the interests of its own people and, betrays the nation and commits offenses which furnish grounds for expulsion from Islam, is known. We expect for the ruler of Riyadh the same fate as the Shah of Iran. We anticipate this to happen to him and to the influential people who stand by him and who have sided with the Jews and the Christians giving them free reign over the land of the two Holy Mosques. These are grave offenses that are grounds for expulsion from the faith. They shall all be wiped out."

Describe the situation when your men took down the American forces in Somalia.

"After our victory in Afghanistan and the defeat of the oppressors who had killed millions of Muslims, the legend about the invincibility of the superpowers vanished. Our boys no longer viewed America as a superpower. So, when they left Afghanistan, they went to Somalia and prepared themselves carefully for a long war. They had thought that the Americans were like the Russians, so they trained and prepared. They were stunned when they discovered how low was the morale of the American soldier. America had entered with 30,000 soldiers in addition to thousands of soldiers from different countries in the world. As I said, our boys were shocked by the low morale of the American soldier and they realized that the American soldier was just a paper tiger. He was unable to endure the strikes that were dealt to his army, so he fled, and America had to stop all its bragging and all that noise it was making in the press after the Gulf War in which it destroyed the infrastructure and the milk and dairy industry that was vital for the infants and the children and the civilians and blew up dams which were necessary for the crops people grew to feed their families. Proud of this destruction, America assumed the titles of world leader and master of the New World Order. After a few blows, it forgot all about those titles and rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace, dragging the bodies of its soldiers. America stopped calling itself world leader and master of the New World Order, and its politicians realized that those titles were too big for them and that they were unworthy of them. I was in Sudan when this happened. I was very happy to learn of that great defeat that America suffered, so was every Muslim."

Many Americans believe that fighting army to army like what happened in Afghanistan is heroic for either army. But sending off bombs, killing civilians like in the World Trade Center is terrorism.

"After our victory over the Russians in Afghanistan, the international and the American mass media conducted fierce campaigns against us... They called us terrorists even before the Mujahadeen had committed any act of terrorism against the real terrorists who are the Americans. On the other hand, we say that American politics and their religion do not believe in differentiating between civilians and military, between infants and animals, or among any human groups.

"Our mothers and daughters and sons are slaughtered every day with the approval of America and its support. And, while America blocks the entry of weapons into Islamic countries, it provides the Israelis with a continuous supply of arms allowing them thus to kill and massacre more Muslims. Your religion does not forbid you from committing such acts, so you have no right to object to any response or retaliation that reciprocates your own actions. But, and in spite of this, our retaliation is directed primarily against the soldiers only and against those standing by them. Our religion forbids us from killing innocent people such as women and children. This, however, does not apply to women fighters. A woman who puts herself in the same trench with men, gets what they get."

The American people, by and large, do not know the name bin Laden, but they soon likely will. Do you have a message for the American people?

"I say to them that they have put themselves at the mercy of a disloyal government, and this is most evident in Clinton's administration... We believe that this administration represents Israel inside America. Take the sensitive ministries such as the Ministry of Exterior and the Ministry of Defense and the CIA, you will find that the Jews have the upper hand in them. They make use of America to further their plans for the world, especially the Islamic world. American presence in the Gulf provides support to the Jews and protects their rear. And while millions of Americans are homeless and destitute and live in abject poverty, their government is busy occupying our land and building new settlements and helping Israel build new settlements in the point of departure for our Prophet's midnight journey to the seven heavens. America throws her own sons in the land of the two Holy Mosques for the sake of protecting Jewish interests.

"The American government is leading the country towards hell. We say to the Americans as people and to American mothers, if they cherish their lives and if they cherish their sons, they must elect an American patriotic government that caters to their interests not the interests of the Jews. If the present injustice continues with the wave of national consciousness, it will inevitably move the battle to American soil, just as Ramzi Yousef and others have done. This is my message to the American people. I urge them to find a serious administration that acts in their interest and does not attack people and violate their honor and pilfer their wealth."

In America, we have a figure from history from 1897 named Teddy Roosevelt. He was a wealthy man, who grew up in a privileged situation and who fought on the front lines. He put together his own men - hand chose them - and went to battle. You are like the Middle East version of Teddy Roosevelt.

"I am one of the servants of Allah. We do our duty of fighting for the sake of the religion of Allah. It is also our duty to send a call to all the people of the world to enjoy this great light and to embrace Islam and experience the happiness in Islam. Our primary mission is nothing but the furthering of this religion. Let not the West be taken in by those who say that Muslims choose nothing but slaughtering. Their brothers in East Europe, in Turkey and in Albania have been guided by Allah to submit to Islam and to experience the bliss of Islam. Unlike those, the European and the American people and some of the Arabs are under the influence of Jewish media."

In 1957, Osama bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the 17th of 52 children sired by Muhammad Bin Laden, Saudi Arabia's wealthiest construction magnate. In 1979 he graduated from King Abdul Aziz University in Jiddah with a degree in civil engineering, but later that year, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, bin Laden left to join the Afghan resistance (Mujahadeen). For six years, he raised funds and provided the Mujahadeen with logistical and humanitarian aid, then for an additional three years he participated in military planning against the Soviets as a guerilla commander, including the fierce battle of Jalalabad which led the Soviets to finally withdraw from Afghanistan

In 1988, bin Laden established Al Qaeda," an organization of ex-Mujahadeen and other supporters. It expanded beyond the Afghan resistance and, after the Soviets left, morphed with the National Islamic Front (NIF), which took control of the Sudan. Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia, considered a Muslim patriot, but he quickly made enemies with the Saudi monarchy. When Iraq invaded Kuwait and the Saudis aligned themselves with the United States, allowing U.S. troops on their "sacred soil," Bin Laden was seen as a political liability in his own country. First confined to Jiddah, he then moved to Afghanistan and then to Khartoum, Sudan by 1992. Sudan became home to hundreds of suspected terrorists and ex-Mujahadeen.

Beginning in 1992, bin Laden attempted to coordinate disparate Middle East terror networks into one coherent organization that included the Iranian-affiliated Hezbollah. He wanted to re-focus away from pre-occupation with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and towards the "global threat" he perceived from the United States. He hatched a plan to attack targets that were American in nature, but associated with Middle East allies; U.S. forces stationed on the Saudi peninsula and Yemen should be attacked, and in the Horn of Africa, including Somalia.

Bin Laden established a relationship with the Sudanese, who gave him reign. On December 29, 1992, a bomb exploded in a hotel in Aden, Yemen, where U.S. troops had been staying en route to a humanitarian mission in Somalia. The soldiers had already left.

Bin Laden's followers allegedly tried to obtain components of nuclear weapons and began to work with Sudan's NIF to develop chemical arms.

When 18 US troops were killed in an urban attack in Mogadishu, Somalia, bin Laden was overjoyed. The event was completely demoralizing, and no American leadership emerged to lift spirits in light of the tragedy, or to prepare a coherent response. Bin Laden saw the inaction of the Clinton Administration, mistakenly reading that as the typical reaction he could expect from America. He was close to being right. Certainly, bin Laden was allowed to spread terrorism virtually unimpeded throughout the Clinton years, and came within a few hundred votes in Florida of probably being able to continue for years beyond that. For all of his abilities, bin Laden would prove to be somebody who lacked historical knowledge, or an understanding of the philosophical differences between Republicans and Democrats. He thought all Americans were the same. He would discover, when he ran into a buzzsaw named George Bush, that this was not so.

In 1994, however, bin Laden was still benefiting from the lack of definitive American strategy on how to deal with him after the first World Trade Center bombing. U.S. law enforcement, intelligence and national security officials were divided as to what approach to take. They received no leadership on this issue from the White House.

Bin Laden was financing at least three terrorist training camps in North Sudan, where rebels from a half-dozen nations received training. The Saudis revoked his citizenship and froze his assets. By this time, bin Laden was firmly established as a Muslim Fundamentalist. He trained and housed foreign guerillas in northern Yemen. In 1995, Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, was captured in Pakistan and extradited to the States. A link to bin Laden was established. Later that year, an unsuccessful assassination attempt on the life of the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, in Addis Ababa, was traced to him. Bin Laden wrote an open letter to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia calling for a campaign of guerrilla attacks in order to drive U.S forces out of the kingdom.

After that, most terrorist activity became associated with him, even though he was not linked to everything. In 1996, the Sudanese offered bin Laden to the U.S. but Clinton turned it down. He (bin Laden, not Clinton) was expelled from the country, whereupon he went into hiding in Afghanistan. In 1996, four Saudi men accused of bombing the Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh were beheaded in Riyadh's main square. Before their execution, they were coerced by the Saudi's into a public confession. In the confession, they claimed to have read bin Laden communiqués.

President Clinton authorized the CIA to use any and all means to destroy bin Laden's network just a short time after the Sudan had offered him to the U.S., which reeks of treachery. Having failed to accept bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind was free to organize the June 25, 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers military residence in Dhahran, killing 19 servicemen. Bin Laden was linked to the attack, but later blame was placed on a Saudi Shiite group. It is entirely possible the Saudi Shiites were made the scapegoats by Clinton to avoid his own culpability in the failure to stop bin Laden.

Bin Laden then issued a _jihad_ against U.S. forces on the Arabian Peninsula, overthrow of the Saudi government, liberation of Muslim holy sites, and worldwide Islamic revolution.

Naturally, bin Laden's calls for worldwide conflagration made him the object of interest to the Western media, who now felt the need to understand him. In November, 1996 Gwynne Roberts conducted an interview of him for the British documentary program "Dispatches". Bin Laden told her that unless the U.S. removed its troops from the Gulf region, he would order further attacks. After that, more media outlets flocked to bin Laden, giving him a mouthpiece to air his "grievances." A shadowy multi-national force allegedly crossed into Afghanistan in 1997 to kill or capture bin Laden, but it did not succeed.

In 1998, bin Laden joined with the Islamic Group, Al Jihad, the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh and the "Jamaat ul Ulema e Pakistan" under the banner of the "World Islamic Front." Their charming purpose was to kill American and civilians anywhere in the world.

A raid in Albania turned up two bin Laden "soldiers," documents and computers. Two Egyptian nationals were later arrested and turned over to anti-terrorist officials in Egypt. In 1998, American prosecutors determined that bin Laden headed an organization called Al Qaeda, which he used to finance and plan worldwide Islamic terror.

Muslims called theirs the "religion of peace." There are no worldwide Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist terror organizations. Cryptic messages began to filter in to the United States, which by this time was fully wired into the Internet. The Egyptian Jihad, for instance, said they would communicate to Americans "in a language they will understand." On August 7, 1998, Iraq informed Bill Clinton that they were not going to tolerate the continuation of the sanctions beyond the eighth year anniversary ending that year. Obviously, Saddam was scared to death of Clinton.

Two simultaneous explosions at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania followed. The bomb in Nairobi, Kenya killed 213 people, including 12 U.S. nationals, and injured more than 4,500. The bomb in Dar es Salaam killed 11 and injured 85. No Americans died in the Tanzania bombing.

On August 12, 1998, The Small Group of Presidential advisors met with Clinton, with evidence that bin Laden was looking to obtain weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons to use against U.S. installations, and further evidence of phone calls linking bin Laden in the embassy bombings.

Clinton was found to be a liar in the Monica blowjob episode. In order to create headlines that diverted attention from the image of his smiling face reacting to being pleasured by this barely legal intern, Clinton "retaliated" against bin Laden by lobbing cruise missiles at "suspected terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Al Shifa." It turned out Clinton was a liar regarding the "terrorist training camps," too. It was a pharmaceutical plant. Res ipsa loquiter.

Bin Laden, obviously just as scared of Clinton as Saddam, sent Islamic mercenaries to Kashmir to support an Islamic secession campaign. According to an October 7, 1998 report in the Arabic newspaper al-Hayat, bin Laden acquired nuclear weapons from Soviet Central Asian countries using a network of "influential friends".

On November 4, 1998 , a new superceding indictment was issued against bin Laden, Muhammad Atef and others, charging them with the bombing of two U.S. embassies and conspiring to commit other acts of terrorism against Americans abroad. Two rewards of $5 million each were offered for Atef and bin Laden. Atef was described as bin Laden's chief military commander. Over the next months, more interviews and media coverage of bin Laden ensued.

On May 29, 2001, four of Osama's followers were found guilty of charges stemming from the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, and Wadih El Hage were convicted of charges including murder, conspiracy and perjury after a nine-week Federal trial during which prosecutors called over 90 witnesses, including Al Qaeda informants and survivors of the bombings. Owhali and Mohamed face the death penalty at their sentencing, while Odeh and El Hage face life in prison.

In December, 2000, U.S. intelligence started "reporting [an] increase in traffic concerning terrorist activities," according to National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice in a news conference held May 16, 2002. In January of 2001, Peggy Chevrette, the manager of the now defunct Jet-Tech flight school, in Phoenix, Arizona contacted the FAA repeatedly about her concern that Hani Hanjour, then a student at the school, lacked the flying skills and English-language facility required for the pilot license he already held. The FAA inspector reportedly checked Hanjour's license. He monitored one of his classes at the Phoenix school, but "observed nothing that warranted further action." Hanjour is believed to have piloted the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

In February of 2001, CIA Director George Tenet warned that Osama bin Laden posed the "most immediate and serious threat" to the United States.

"As we have increased security around government and military facilities, terrorists are seeking out 'softer' targets that provide opportunities for mass casualties," he said. Later that Spring, Egyptian intelligence officials informed the CIA station chief in Cairo that they penetrated Osama bin Laden's organization.

Varying "specific" threats against U.S. targets or interests were suspected,

"There was a clear concern that something was up," said Rice. "...But it was principally focused overseas... The areas of most concern were the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula and Europe."

The Millennium bombing trial, relating to a terrorist plot in Seattle and Los Angeles set for New Year's Eve of 1999, ended with the conviction of two Algerian nationals. According to Rice, participants in the Millennium plot said Al Qaeda deputy Abu Zubaydah hinted "there might be interest in attacking the United States."

Terrorist threats increased, and the State Department reissued its caution to Americans traveling abroad. The Federal Aviation Administration worried about airline hijackings. A Federal group known as the Counterterrorism Security Group, or CSG, began a series of meetings aimed at identifying threats and coordinating a plan of action in case of a terrorist attack.

Throughout the Summer of 2001, an uneasy calm settled in, with Federal authorities hearing chatter aimed at an "event." The general belief was that it would be aimed at American interests overseas, with less foreseeability about a domestic attack. Convicted Millennium bomb plotter Ahmed Ressam did not reveal useful information regarding a future attack.

Mokhtar Haouari was convicted on July 13 for supporting a plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport. Later that month, the FBI's Phoenix office sent a memo urging headquarters to investigate Middle Eastern men who were students in U.S. flight schools. The memo said bin Laden followers could be planning to use the training for some sort of terrorism. Around this time, the FAA reissued its own message. The communication said, "There's no specific target, no credible info of attack to U.S. civil aviation interests, but terror groups are known to be planning and training for hijackings, and we ask you therefore to use caution." The memo did not reach the desk of David Frasca, who headed the FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit, until after September 11.

In August, analytic briefings of bin Laden's history and methods were done, with mention of "traditional" hijackings. FBI communications with Attorney General John Ashcroft warned of Al Qaeda threats, but not beyond the usual ones that had been going on for years. On August 16, the FAA issued a message on "disguised weapons," said Rice. "They were concerned about some reports that the terrorists had made breakthroughs in cell phones, key chains and pens as weapons," she added.

Acting on a tip from a Minnesota flight school, authorities arrested Zacarias Moussaoui on August 17, on a visa violation. A French citizen of Moroccan descent, Moussaoui wanted to learn how to fly, but not land, a 747 airliner. In a handwritten message, a Minneapolis-based FBI agent wrote that Moussaoui was the "type of person that could fly something into the World Trade Center," according to FBI Director Robert Mueller. Like the July memo from the Phoenix office, the Minnesota memo was sent to the Radical Fundamentalist Unit at FBI headquarters.

Later in August, French intelligence informed the U.S. that Moussaoui had trained at an Al Qaeda camp in 1998 and had been in contact with Al Qaeda members in Europe. The Minneapolis office of the FBI, finding the French report credible, asked headquarters to obtain a court order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for permission to search Moussaoui's laptop computer. A supervisor at FBI headquarters modified the warrant application to downplay the significance of the information provided by the French, according to Coleen Rowley, an agent and counsel in the Minneapolis office. The application was not pursued.

Moussaoui was held at an INS facility in Minneapolis, and turned over to the FBI only after September 11. On September 4, Egyptian intelligence warned the CIA chief in Cairo that Osama bin Laden was in the advanced stages of executing a significant operation against an American target. On September 10, the National Security Agency intercepted Arabic-language communications between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, involving at least one suspected Al Qaeda operative. One message referred to the next day as "the big match" and another "zero hour." The messages were not immediately analyzed.

On September 11, 2001, 19 men of Middle Eastern descent linked to Al Qaeda hijacked four commercial airliners. They paid with cash, bought one-way tickets, and met all the qualifications that set off "red flags" among airline employees regarding possible terrorists. However, in recent years ACLU lawsuits had made it virtually impossible to question people because it was considered "racial profiling," thus offending the sensibilities of minorities. The airlines did nothing. The planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a rural Pennsylvania field. Over 3,000 civilians died in the combined terrorist attacks.

War on Terrorism: The Taliban and Al Qaeda

In April of 1995, bin Laden told a French journalist that his decision to fight alongside Afghan Mujahadeen dated from "the time when the Americans decided to help the Afghans fight the Russians.

"To counter these atheist Russians, the Saudis chose me as their representative in Afghanistan... I did not fight against the Communist threat while forgetting the peril from the West.

"For us, the idea was not to get involved more than necessary in the fight against the Russians, which was the business of the Americans, but rather to show our solidarity with our Islamist brothers. I discovered that it was not enough to fight in Afghanistan, but that we had to fight on all fronts against Communist or Western oppression. The urgent thing was Communism, but the next target was America... This is an open war up to the end, until victory."

It is true that the American CIA helped create Osama bin Laden, and was allied with the Taliban. During the Cold War, Ronald Reagan praised our allies in the fight against Soviet expansion.

"Throughout the world...its agents, client states and satellites are on the defensive - on the moral defensive, the intellectual defensive, and the political and economic defensive," said Reagan on March 18, 1985. "Freedom movements arise and assert themselves. They're doing so on almost every continent populated by man - in the hills of Afghanistan, in Angola, in Kampuchea, in Central America ... [They are] freedom fighters."

Just as Roosevelt and Churchill had allied with Stalin to fight the Nazis, Reagan allied with bin Laden and the Taliban (Mujahadeen) to fight the Communists. Naturally, the critics have had a field day in making this connection. It is another example of how America, in taking on the massive responsibility of world protector, has been forced to mix it up with terrible elements of society in order to defeat even worse elements. Other countries, who have taken a convenient seat on the sidelines while the U.S. has done all the heavy lifting, like to point these anomalies out as our "faults." They are not eligible to make such judgments.

The US government supported the Mujahadeen that stopped the Soviets in Afghanistan. Between 1978 and 1992, the U.S. government poured at least $6 billion worth of arms, training and funds to prop up the Mujahadeen factions. Other Western governments, as well as oil-rich Saudi Arabia, joined the effort. Osama bin Laden provided millions more.

National security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski formulated the original plan. Part of the operation was to exploit the religious angle. The Soviets, with their avowed atheism, were viewed as the most hated enemy of Mankind. The West and Islamic fanatics in the Middle East shared this "convenient" view. Brzezinski hatched a plan to arm and supply the Fundamentalists against the Soviets. The idea was that the Fundamentalists would spread into the Muslim Central Asian Soviet republics, thereby destabilizing the Soviet Union (they did, and now they destabilize Russia).

Brzezinski's plan coincided with Pakistan military dictator General Zia ul-Haq's own ambitions to dominate the region. U.S.-run Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe beamed Islamic Fundamentalist messages throughout Central Asia. It was a period of paradox in the Carter Administration, since they were at the same time fighting Islamic revolution in Iran.

Washington "favored" Mujahadeen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who applied terrorist methods in his fight with the Russians. Hekmatyar was notorious in the 1970s for throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. The Mujahideen took Kabul in 1992, using U.S.-supplied missiles and rockets, killing 2,000 civilians in the process.

Osama bin Laden was a close associate of Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar trafficked in opium. Backing the Mujahadeen, the CIA found itself intertwined with the drug trade. The Afghanistan-Pakistan border allegedly supplied 60 percent of the U.S. heroin trade.

"Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets..." the former director of the CIA's operation in Afghanistan said in 1995. "There was a fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan."

He was 100 percent correct. The Americans had begun the ingenious concept of pitting bad guys against worse bad guys, eliminating the worst first, then eliminating the others in like order, as opportunity allowed. It is not a great solution. There seem to be no others, outside of the unacceptable idea of just nuking everybody into oblivion.

According to Ahmed Rashid, a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, in 1986 CIA chief William Casey committed CIA support to a long-standing ISI proposal to recruit from around the world to join the Afghan jihad. At least 100,000 Islamic militants flocked to Pakistan between 1982 and 1992 (some 60,000 attended Fundamentalist schools in Pakistan without necessarily taking part in the fighting).

John Cooley, a former journalist with the ABC television network and author of "Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism", wrote that Muslims worked with the CIA, which operated a spy training camp at Camp Peary, Virginia. Young Afghans, Arabs from Egypt and Jordan, and African-American "black Muslims" were taught "sabotage skills."

Ali Mohammed, one of those charged with the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was reportedly a product of this training. Recruits were given paramilitary training at the al Kifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn, New York, then sent to Afghanistan to join up with Hekmatyar. Mohammed was a U.S. Army Green Beret. The program was called "Operation Cyclone."

In Pakistan, recruits, money and equipment were distributed to the Mujahadeen by the Maktab al Khidamar, a front for Pakistan's CIA, the Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate, charged with providing covert assistance for the Afghan opposition forces.

Mohammed trained El Sayyid Nosair, jailed in 1995 for killing Israeli rightist Rabbi Meir Kahane and plotting to bomb the World Trade Center in 1993.

Shiekh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Egyptian religious leader jailed for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, may have been part of Operation Cyclone. He allegedly entered the country in 1990 with the CIA's approval. While all of this sounds terrible, the reality is that the U.S. was, as Michael Corleone might have said, keeping its friends close and its enemy's closer. In the long run, the U.S. knew where most of these people were, and when they "turned," used the information to round them up. Perfect, no. Effective? Sometimes.

Osama bin Laden was also an ally of the U.S. in the fight against the Soviets.

His close working relationship with Maktab al Khidamar (MAK) was in conjunction with the CIA. Milt Bearden, the CIA's station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989, said in a January 24, 2000 New Yorker interview that he never personally met bin Laden, but added "Did I know that he was out there? Yes, I did... [Guys like] bin Laden were bringing $20-$25 million a month from other Saudis and Gulf Arabs to underwrite the war. And that is a lot of money. It's an extra $200-$300 million a year. And this is what bin Laden did."

Bin Laden also brought construction expertise to Afghanistan, helping to build "training camps," dug deep into the sides of mountains, and roads to reach them.

Washington later called the camps "terrorist universities". They were built in collaboration with the ISI and the CIA. Afghan fighters included tens of thousands of mercenaries recruited and paid for by bin Laden, armed by the CIA, Pakistan, and Britain.

"The Americans were keen to teach the Afghans the techniques of urban terrorism - car bombing and so on - so that they could strike at the Russians in major towns..." said Tom Carew, a former British SAS soldier who secretly fought for the Mujahadeen, in the August 13, 2000 British Observer. "Many of them are now using their knowledge and expertise to wage war on everything they hate."

Al Qaeda (the Base), bin Laden's organization, was established in 1987-88 to run the camps and other business enterprises. Bin Laden became a "terrorist" in the view of the United States when he fell out with the Saudi royal family over its decision to allow more than 540,000 U.S. troops to be stationed on Saudi soil following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

After the Soviets were ousted from Afghanistan, bin Laden decided that the U.S. was his enemy. It is important to understand that he is to blame for his actions. The Soviets had invaded Afghanistan in an unprovoked, violent military action. The U.S. had been asked by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to attack and force Iraq out in 1991. Bin Laden's war was over. He had accomplished his mission with the help of the United States. The opportunity to live in peace was his. It was his Fundamentalist Islamic designs on worldwide terror that prompted him to continue to fight, this time against the Americans. There is no "blame" that is properly attributed to the United States. This nation did what it had to do to eradicate the evil of Communism. There were radical elements that had been joined in that fight, and they were out there. America invaded no Muslim country without provocation, and offered only friendship and help in getting nations to join the worldwide family. Hate and evil existed and opposed us. It meant the fight was not over.

Bin Laden joined with the Taliban, who had emerged as the dominant force in Afghanistan. In an August 28, 1998, in a report posted on MSNBC, Michael Moran quoted Senator Orrin Hatch, who was a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee which approved U.S. dealings with the Mujahadeen, as saying he would make "the same call again."

"It was worth it," said Hatch. "Those were very important, pivotal matters that played an important role in the downfall of the Soviet Union."

"What was more important in the world view of history?" asked Zbigniew Brzezinski. "The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? A few stirred up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?"

The answer to that question is: The liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War. Despite 9/11, that is still the answer.

The Taliban were a largely rural, Pashtun-dominated Islamic Fundamentalist movement that took a particularly draconian view of Islamic law. Muslim scholars generally disavow this view as one that is not the "true" teachings of Mohammad, but it is nevertheless part of a Wahabi sect of Islam that has endured for centuries. Only until the Muslim world addresses this view and eliminates it as a popular sect of Islam, and force for terror, will the religion be ready to move beyond its current state.

The Taliban and bin Laden defiled Islam in two major ways. First, as terrorists, they went against the peaceful tenets of Islam, which the majority of Muslims believe is the true nature of the religion. Second, they were worldwide drug dealers on a par with the Medellin cartel. This effectively eliminates them as moral entities.

The Taliban trafficked all the opium from the Pakistani border region. It was responsible for enormous destabilization of the Pakistani political situation. Developments in Afghanistan prior to 9/11 threatened Central Asia in its recovery after 70 years of Soviet rule. The five Central Asian states (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan) were threatened by a lucrative opium and heroin trade, financial crisis, refugee migration flows, and the potential rise of Islamic opposition movements. These states faced internal economic collapse during this time.

Afghanistan became a country that knew only war. The Taliban, whose name means "students," were boosted by the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI. The ISI gave them organizational, logistical, and material support. As Pashtuns, the Taliban shared significant ethnic identification with Pakistan, whose military is heavily Pashtun.

The Taliban captured Kabul in 1996, imposing restrictive Islamic law throughout Afghanistan. It could only be described as inhumane. Afghan women were denied schooling, medical care, and freedom to travel. Extrajudicial killings and massacres marked the Taliban regime.

Hatred of the United States stemmed not just from Islamic Fundamentalism within the Taliban, but because America left Afghanistan after the war with the Soviets. The United States had stated laudable objectives since 1992. It wanted an end to the civil war, establishment of a representative government that respected international norms (especially with regard to terrorism, drug trafficking, and human rights), and an end to foreign interference. But the United States had no real strategy to achieve these objectives. It supported U.N. efforts for a negotiated settlement, but provided no viable solutions. A vacuum was created between Soviet departure and U.S. disengagement, increasing ethnic divisions, the influx of terrorist groups, and rivalry between regional powers, most notably Iran and Pakistan.

Looking back, it seems that the U.S. was in a position in which nothing they did was going to be right. By leaving Afghanistan independent, they incurred Afghan wrath. However, had they stayed they would have been viewed as a "conqueror," an "occupier" and a "foreign infidel."

As the situation worsened, America distanced itself from all elements in Afghanistan. The United Nations was futile in their "efforts" at stabilization. On October 1, 1998, the United States Institute of Peace and the Middle East Institute co-sponsored a Current Issues Briefing to explore the regional and security ramifications of the Taliban movement's consolidation of power in Afghanistan. The consensus was that under the Taliban, Afghanistan had become completely de-stabilized. The U.S. continued its "hands off" approach. That would have been the continued policy had 9/11 not occurred.

War on Terrorism: Afghanistan

The Islamic Fundamentalist Taliban controlled Afghanistan. They allowed no freedom of expression. Let me offer a single anecdote to describe what this was like. A soldier I know was a paratrooper in the storied 82nd Airborne Division, and he fought in Afghanistan. He was not willing to get too graphic about his experience, which is typical of combat veterans. War is hell. But he did tell me that average Afghans would approach American soldiers and offer them the equivalent of one year's pay for pornography.

What does that tell me? It tells me that people must be free, and they must have choice. Humans have natural desires. To bottle up those desires is more evil than to give in to them. The point is not that pornography is a sinless, morally benign thing. But morality cannot be forced on us. It is a choice made from among many choices with free will. Moderation and discipline must temper all things. Furthermore, pornography is not worse than the evils committed by the Taliban, who claim to be devoutly religious. This is a farce, considering they fund themselves by dealing drugs and they commit the sin of murder as if they were sending children to the principal.

After 9/11, when intelligence was gathered and indisputable evidence pointed to Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network, operating under the umbrella of the Taliban, it quickly became obvious that the War on Terrorism would begin by rooting out Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Old Rudyard Kipling stories and poems about the heartbreaking Great Game between Britain and Russia in Afghanistan made their way into the media. The Soviets' horrible loss there was relived. Former Russian soldiers warned that no country could hope to go there and win. The country was inhospitable. The population was utterly opposed to America. The Taliban were too tough, too hard, too battle-experienced.

All any doubter needed was to see footage of America's military might in the Persian Gulf War of 1991. The U.S. had gone well beyond any conventional wisdom. In the history of the world, there had never been so much difference between the military power of one country and the next strongest country, as the U.S. in 1991. In the 10 years since, they had gotten much stronger, and everybody else had gotten weaker.

America had reached the point where it could do anything it chose to do. The only thing preventing the U.S. from conquering the entire world was the simple benevolence and goodwill of America. The U.S. is one of the only countries ever to be trusted with so much power.

The argument that there was anything holding America from doing whatever she wanted to do in Afghanistan was laughable. President Bush vowed to avenge the "thousands of lives" ended by "evil, despicable acts of terror."

The FBI revealed the identities of the 19 alleged hijackers and launched the biggest investigation in its history. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were the culprit. 50,000 leads were followed. More than 4,000 people were put on the case. Congress approved the use of force in response to the attacks and released $40 billion in emergency spending.

The U.S. froze the assets of 27 groups and individuals, many Islamic charities that were terrorist fronts. In Wiesbaden, Germany, three plotters were arrested. Further links to the German city of Hamburg were uncovered. Money transfers from the United Arab Emirates by an Al Qaeda operative, Mostafa Mohammed Ahmad, and an account in the name of Mohammed Atta, the alleged leader of the hijackers, at a bank in Florida, was discovered.

Al Qaeda and Iraq became suspects in anthrax attacks. After a period of quiet, set aside for planning, U.S. and British forces began air strikes against targets in Afghanistan in order to overthrow the Taliban and shut down Al Qaeda.

Osama bin Laden warned the U.S. that it will never enjoy security until the Palestinians also feel secure, and not until "the infidel's armies leave the land of Mohammad" - a reference to the U.S. in Saudi Arabia.

The former Governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge, was named director of the Office of Homeland Security. President Bush released a list of 22 "most wanted" terrorists, topped by Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri and associate Mohammed Atef.

Egyptian intelligence began to make connections, along with further discoveries of the network in Germany. The CIA's ban on assassinations was lifted. By the end of October, 2001, European and U.S. surveillance broke up a cell in Milan, Italy with alleged links all over Europe, run by Tunisian Essid Sami Ben Khemais.

Congress approved anti-terrorism legislation giving law enforcement sweeping powers to monitor and detain suspected terrorists. Civil liberties groups found nothing good to say about it. More than 900 people across the U.S. were detained.

In November, a letter from Bin Laden called on Muslims in Pakistan to stand up against the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan. The U.S. Government took further steps to freeze the assets of financial networks alleged to be linked to bin Laden. 62 more terrorists were rooted out and had their assets frozen.

The Northern Alliance troops, rebel Afghan militias who had long opposed the Taliban, took control of Kabul amid scenes of jubilation from the citizenry. The U.S.-led military campaign, which had started with special forces, combined with bombing and intelligence gathering, followed by airborne units and then regular troops of the Army and Marines, supported by air and Naval power, quickly took over the country. In a matter of days, the U.S. had totally discredited all the warnings about military adventure in Afghanistan. It was theirs. The citizenry welcomed them with flowers and thanks for liberating them from the Taliban. All dire warnings had been utterly and completely wrong.

Bin Laden was rooted out and forced to run, along with his network. Whether he was alive or dead was not known. His death had become, for all practical purposes, unimportant except as a satisfying, symbolic event. In every corner of the world, police were rounding up and detaining terrorists.

The FBI began the interrogation of Taliban captured in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

An American from Marin County, California, John Walker Lindh, was discovered among the Taliban survivors. Attorney General Ashcroft announced that 600 people connected to 9/11 had been detained. Moussaoui was the first to be charged. In court he declared himself a member of Al Qaeda and entered a guilty plea. Indonesia acknowledged ties between local Islamic groups and Osama bin Laden's network.

Qatar-based television, Al-Jazeera, released a five-minute video of Bin Laden in which he referred to 9/11. Pentagon officials announced that they had in custody in Afghanistan a high-ranking paramilitary trainer for Al Qaeda. Pakistani security officials handed over Ibn al-Shaykh al-Lilbi to U.S. forces. Mullah Abdul Salem Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, was also handed over to the U.S. military by the Pakistanis. John Walker Lindh, the so-called "American Taliban," arrived back in the U.S., where he would be sentenced to 20 years in jail.

FBI director Robert Mueller announced that 9/11 was partly planned by Al Qaeda operatives in Malaysia. A retired Malaysian soldier, Yazid Sufaat, was alleged to have given $35,000 to Zacarias Moussaoui. Two hijackers aboard the plane that crashed into the Pentagon - Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi - visited Malaysia in January 2000 and stayed at Yazid's flat outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian officials said in February, 2002.

Four Tunisians were jailed in Italy after a Milan court found them guilty of terrorist-related offenses. The prosecution alleged during the trial that they were connected with Al Qaeda. One of the men, Essid Sami Ben Khemais, was suspected of planning an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Rome the previous year.

In March of 2002, Saudi Arabia shut down charities funding Al Qaeda, with worldwide implications. American forces captured a high-ranking Al Qaeda official, Abu Zubaydah, during a raid on a house in Pakistan. Abu Zubaydah was co-operating with them, and provided numerous leads.

U.S. forces transferred 300 suspects to its naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a permanent, walled facility three miles away known as Camp Delta. CIA chief George Tenet said Iraq had contact with Al Qaeda, possibly working with the group and supporting terrorism from behind the scenes. Suddenly the focus turned to Iraq. In a few short months, the United States of America had gone from the despair and tragedy of 9/11 to effectively eliminating Taliban rule, thus liberating Afghanistan and placing it in the hands of Democratic forces, while rounding up hundreds of worldwide terrorists. No other country on the face of the Earth could have imagined accomplishing such a task.

Now, crisis had turned to opportunity. The question of how best to utilize American power and influence became the new order of debate within the Bush Administration. AIDS, genocide and civil wars ravaged Africa. Many in the military wanted to settle the score from Mogadishu in 1993. North Korea, a completely isolated and failed remnant of Communism, was trying to make themselves relevant. Most felt that this regime could be contained until it died of attrition. Fidel Castro was jailing more dissidents in Cuba, but his regime also would fall by attrition. China was awed by American power and wanted nothing to do with a confrontation. Their days of capitulation from Bill Clinton were done with. Vietnam, the poor Communist country left behind by history, was a non-entity.

There was one over-riding concern that needed to be dealt with first and foremost. That was Iraq.

War on Terrorism: Iraq

On October 9, 1998, the Senate Committee on Armed Services wrote a letter to President Bill Clinton, reminding him of that February's resolution authorizing military force if Saddam failed to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions "concerning the disclosure and destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."

The letter concluded: "[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, _to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites)_ to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's _refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."_ The Democrat Senators Levin, Lieberman, Lautenberg, Dodd, Kerrey, Feinstein, Mikulski, Daschle, Breaux, Johnson, Inouye, Landrieu, Ford and Kerry signed it.

President Clinton then addressed the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Pentagon staff. The following are his remarks:

"Please be seated. Thank you.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President, for your remarks and your leadership. Thank you, Secretary Cohen, for the superb job you have done here at the Pentagon and on this most recent very difficult problem. Thank you, General Shelton, for being the right person at the right time.

"Thank you, General Ralston, and the members of the joint chiefs, General Zinni, Secretary Albright, Secretary Slater, DCIA Tenet, Mr. Bowles, Mr. Berger, Senator Robb thank you for being here and Congressman Skelton. Thank you very much, and for your years of service to America and your passionate patriotism both of you. And to the members of our armed forces and others who work here to protect our national security.

I have just received a very fine briefing from our military leadership on the status of our forces in the Persian Gulf. Before I left the Pentagon, I wanted to talk to you and all those whom you represent, the men and women of our military. You, your friends and your colleagues are on the front lines of this crisis in Iraq.

"I want you, and I want the American people, to hear directly from me what is at stake for America in the Persian Gulf, what we are doing to protect the peace, the security, the freedom we cherish, why we have taken the position we have taken.

"I was thinking as I sat up here on the platform, of the slogan that the first lady gave me for her project on the Millennium, which was, remembering the past and imagining the future.

"Now, for that project, that means preserving the Star Spangled Banner and the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and it means making an unprecedented commitment to medical research and to get the best of the new technology. But that's not a bad slogan for us when we deal with more sober, more difficult, more dangerous matters.

"Those who have questioned the United States in this moment, I would argue, are living only in the moment. They have neither remembered the past nor imagined the future.

"So first, let's just take a step back and consider why meeting the threat posed by Saddam Hussein is important to our security in the new era we are entering. This is a time of tremendous promise for America. The superpower confrontation has ended; on every continent Democracy is securing for more and more people the basic freedoms we Americans have come to take for granted. Bit by bit the information age is chipping away at the barriers economic, political and social that once kept people locked in and freedom and prosperity locked out.

"But for all our promise, all our opportunity, people in this room know very well that this is not a time free from peril, especially as a result of reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals.

"We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. They feed on the free flow of information and technology. They actually take advantage of the freer movement of people, information and ideas.

"And they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen.

"There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us.

"I want the American people to understand first, how did this past crisis come about?

"And I want them to understand what we must do to protect the national interest, and indeed the interest of all freedom-loving people in the world.

"Remember, as a condition of the cease-fire after the Gulf War, the United Nations demanded not the United States, the United Nations demanded, and Saddam Hussein agreed to declare within 15 days, this is way back in 1991, within 15 days his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them, to make a total declaration. That's what he promised to do.

"The United Nations set up a special commission of highly trained international experts called UNSCOM, to make sure that Iraq made good on that commitment. We had every good reason to insist that Iraq disarm. Saddam had built up a terrible arsenal, and he had used it not once, but many times, in a decade-long war with Iran, he used chemical weapons, against combatants, against civilians, against a foreign adversary, and even against his own people.

"And during the Gulf War, Saddam launched Scuds against Saudi Arabia, Israel and Bahrain.

"Now, instead of playing by the very rules he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War, Saddam has spent the better part of the past decade trying to cheat on this solemn commitment. Consider just some of the facts:

"Iraq repeatedly made false declarations about the weapons that it had left in its possession after the Gulf War. When UNSCOM would then uncover evidence that gave lie to those declarations, Iraq would simply amend the reports.

"For example, Iraq revised its nuclear declarations four times within just 14 months and it has submitted six different biological warfare declarations, each of which has been rejected by UNSCOM.

"In 1995, Hussein Kamal, Saddam's son-in-law, and the chief organizer of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, defected to Jordan. He revealed that Iraq was continuing to conceal weapons and missiles and the capacity to build many more.

Then and only then did Iraq admit to developing numbers of weapons in significant quantities and weapon stocks. Previously, it had vehemently denied the very thing it just simply admitted once Saddam Hussein's son-in-law defected to Jordan and told the truth. Now listen to this, what did it admit?

"It admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare capability, notably 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs.

"And I might say UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production.

"As if we needed further confirmation, you all know what happened to his son-in-law when he made the untimely decision to go back to Iraq.

"Next, throughout this entire process, Iraqi agents have undermined and undercut UNSCOM. They've harassed the inspectors, lied to them, disabled monitoring cameras, literally spirited evidence out of the back doors of suspect facilities as inspectors walked through the front door. And our people were there observing it and had the pictures to prove it.

"Despite Iraq's deceptions, UNSCOM has nevertheless done a remarkable job. Its inspectors, the eyes and ears of the civilized world, have uncovered and destroyed more weapons of mass destruction capacity than was destroyed during the Gulf War.

This includes nearly 40,000 chemical weapons, more than 100,000 gallons of chemical weapons agents, 48 operational missiles, 30 warheads specifically fitted for chemical and biological weapons, and a massive biological weapons facility at Al Hakam equipped to produce anthrax and other deadly agents.

"Over the past few months, as they have come closer and closer to rooting out Iraq's remaining nuclear capacity, Saddam has undertaken yet another gambit to thwart their ambitions.

"By imposing debilitating conditions on the inspectors and declaring key sites which have still not been inspected off limits, including, I might add, one palace in Baghdad more than 2,600 acres large by comparison, when you hear all this business about presidential sites reflect our sovereignty, why do you want to come into a residence, the White House complex is 18 acres. So you'll have some feel for this.

One of these presidential sites is about the size of Washington, D.C. That's about how many acres did you tell me it was? 40,000 acres. We're not talking about a few rooms here with delicate personal matters involved.

"It is obvious that there is an attempt here, based on the whole history of this operation since 1991, to protect whatever remains of his capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them, and the feed stocks necessary to produce them.

"The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons.

"Now, against that background, let us remember the past here. It is against that background that we have repeatedly and unambiguously made clear our preference for a diplomatic solution.

"The inspection system works. The inspection system has worked in the face of lies, stonewalling, obstacle after obstacle after obstacle. The people who have done that work deserve the thanks of civilized people throughout the world.

"It has worked. That is all we want. And if we can find a diplomatic way to do what has to be done, to do what he promised to do at the end of the Gulf War, to do what should have been done within 15 days of the agreement at the end of the Gulf War, if we can find a diplomatic way to do that, that is by far our preference.

"But to be a genuine solution, and not simply one that glosses over the remaining problem, a diplomatic solution must include or meet a clear, immutable, reasonable, simple standard.

"Iraq must agree and soon, to free, full, unfettered access to these sites anywhere in the country. There can be no dilution or diminishment of the integrity of the inspection system that UNSCOM has put in place.

"Now those terms are nothing more or less than the essence of what he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War. The Security Council, many times since, has reiterated this standard. If he accepts them, force will not be necessary. If he refuses or continues to evade his obligations through more tactics of delay and deception, he and he alone will be to blame for the consequences.

"I ask all of you to remember the record here what he promised to do within 15 days of the end of the Gulf War, what he repeatedly refused to do, what we found out in 1995, what the inspectors have done against all odds. We have no business agreeing to any resolution of this that does not include free, unfettered access to the remaining sites by people who have integrity and proven confidence in the inspection business. That should be our standard. That's what UNSCOM has done, and that's why I have been fighting for it so hard. And that's why the United States should insist upon it.

"Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made?

"Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.

"And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who's really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too.

"Now we have spent several weeks building up our forces in the Gulf, and building a coalition of like-minded nations. Our force posture would not be possible without the support of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the GCC states and Turkey. Other friends and allies have agreed to provide forces, bases or logistical support, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Portugal, Denmark and the Netherlands, Hungary and Poland and the Czech Republic, Argentina, Iceland, Australia and New Zealand and our friends and neighbors in Canada.

"That list is growing, not because anyone wants military action, but because there are people in this world who believe the United Nations resolutions should mean something, because they understand what UNSCOM has achieved, because they remember the past, and because they can imagine what the future will be depending on what we do now.

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. We want to seriously reduce his capacity to threaten his neighbors.

"I am quite confident, from the briefing I have just received from our military leaders, that we can achieve the objective and secure our vital strategic interests.

"Let me be clear: A military operation cannot destroy all the weapons of mass destruction capacity. But it can and will leave him significantly worse off than he is now in terms of the ability to threaten the world with these weapons or to attack his neighbors.

"And he will know that the international community continues to have a will to act if and when he threatens again. Following any strike, we will carefully monitor Iraq's activities with all the means at our disposal. If he seeks to rebuild his weapons of mass destruction, we will be prepared to strike him again.

"The economic sanctions will remain in place until Saddam complies fully with all U.N. resolutions.

"Consider this already. These sanctions have denied him $110 billion. Imagine how much stronger his armed forces would be today, how many more weapons of mass destruction operations he would have hidden around the country if he had been able to spend even a small fraction of that amount for a military rebuilding.

"We will continue to enforce a no-fly zone from the southern suburbs of Baghdad to the Kuwait border and in northern Iraq, making it more difficult for Iraq to walk over Kuwait again or threaten the Kurds in the north.

"Now, let me say to all of you here as all of you know the weightiest decision any President ever has to make is to send our troops into harm's way. And force can never be the first answer. But sometimes, it's the only answer.

"You are the best prepared, best equipped, best trained fighting force in the world. And should it prove necessary for me to exercise the option of force, your commanders will do everything they can to protect the safety of all the men and women under their command.

"No military action, however, is risk-free. I know that the people we may call upon in uniform are ready. The American people have to be ready as well.
"Dealing with Saddam Hussein requires constant vigilance. We have seen that constant vigilance pays off. But it requires constant vigilance. Since the Gulf War, we have pushed back every time Saddam has posed a threat.

"When Baghdad plotted to assassinate former President Bush, we struck hard at Iraq's intelligence headquarters.

"When Saddam threatened another invasion by amassing his troops in Kuwait along the Kuwaiti border in 1994, we immediately deployed our troops, our ships, our planes, and Saddam backed down.

"When Saddam forcefully occupied Irbil in northern Iraq, we broadened our control over Iraq's skies by extending the no-fly zone.

"But there is no better example, again I say, than the U.N. weapons inspection system itself. Yes, he has tried to thwart it in every conceivable way, but the discipline, determination, year-in-year-out effort of these weapons inspectors is doing the job. And we seek to finish the job. Let there be no doubt, we are prepared to act.

"But Saddam Hussein could end this crisis tomorrow simply by letting the weapons inspectors complete their mission. He made a solemn commitment to the international community to do that and to give up his weapons of mass destruction a long time ago now. One way or the other, we are determined to see that he makes good on his own promise.

"Saddam Hussein's Iraq reminds us of what we learned in the 20th Century and warns us of what we must know about the 21st. In this century, we learned through harsh experience that the only answer to aggression and illegal behavior is firmness, determination, and when necessary, action.

"In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed.

"If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.

"But if we act as one, we can safeguard our interests and send a clear message to every would-be tyrant and terrorist that the international community does have the wisdom and the will and the way to protect peace and security in a new era. That is the future I ask you all to imagine. That is the future I ask our allies to imagine.

"If we look at the past and imagine that future, we will act as one together. And we still have, God willing, a chance to find a diplomatic resolution to this, and if not, God willing, the chance to do the right thing for our children and grandchildren.

"Thank you very much."

In the middle of his second term, President Clinton urged Americans to be ready for a possible attack on Iraq, and warned that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had used biological weapons against his own people - and would likely use the weapons again unless he were prevented from doing so.

Hussein, said Clinton, "threatens the security of all the rest of us." Clinton said Hussein and the Iraqi leadership had repeatedly lied to the United Nations about the country's weaponry.

"It is obvious that there is an attempt here based on the whole history of this (weapons inspections) operation since 1991 to protect whatever remains of his capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them and the feedstock necessary to produce them," Clinton said.

Iraq, Clinton said, admitted having a massive offensive biological warfare capability, after the Persian Gulf War ended in 1991. These included 5,000 gallons of Botulinum (causing Botulism), 2,000 gallons of anthrax, 25 biological-filled Scud warheads, and 157 aerial bombs

Clinton said Iraq still posed a threat to the national security of the United States and the "freedom-loving world," accusing them of thwarting U.N. inspections through "reinterpretation" of the Gulf War resolutions, attempting to shed a question on which sites could be inspected, for how long and by whom.

Clinton made it clear that the military had the right to strike in order to secure the "vital strategic interests" of the United States in the Gulf.

Iraq pledged to make "all serious and legitimate" efforts to peacefully resolve the crisis, inviting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to "come here with an open mind and free will" to conduct talks. Annan consulted later with the five permanent members of the Security Council. Annan and the U.N. offered to "modify" the resolutions as appeasement to Saddam. Washington insisted that the U.N. resolutions in effect since the Gulf War provided complete authorization needed for an attack.

Hussein, said Clinton with a straight face, had repeatedly lied to the United Nations about their possession of weapons of mass destruction.

In 1998, Clinton said that Iraq had abused its "last chance," spelling out non-compliance and attempts to stop an UNSCOM biological weapons team from videotaping a site, photocopying documents and preventing Iraqi personnel from answering UNSCOM's questions. Iraq failed to turn over almost all the requested documents. Clinton positioned 15 U.S. warships and 97 U.S. aircraft in the Persian Gulf, including about 70 aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. More than 12,000 sailors and Marines were deployed in the region. Eight of the warships were equipped with cruise missiles in the northern part of the Gulf, within easy striking distance of Baghdad. More troops and jets were added. More than 300 cruise missiles were available for use against Iraq, plus air-launched cruise missiles aboard 14 B-52 bombers on the British island of Diego Garcia, where Britain had 22 strike aircraft.

On December 16, 1998, President Clinton, facing Impeachment, diverted attention as best he could by going on TV and telling the country that he ordered new military strikes against Iraq because they posed a threat to the entire world.

"Saddam must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons," Clinton said.

Operation Desert Fox was carried out over several days by U.S. and British forces, Clinton said.

"Earlier today I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces," Clinton said.

"Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors," said Clinton.

Clinton further added that other countries had weapons of mass destruction, but Saddam posed a special risk because he had used such weapons against his own people and against his neighbors.

Saddam had been warned six weeks prior. Clinton had waited until he needed the "cover" for his blowjob scandal to launch the strikes. Saddam was unimpressed and did nothing, realizing that Clinton was a paper tiger. Baghdad "promised" to cooperate.

"Along with Prime Minister Blair of Great Britain, I made it equally clear that if Saddam failed to cooperate fully we would be prepared to act without delay, diplomacy or warning," Clinton said.

Clinton was using a report turned in by Richard Butler, head of the United Nations Special Commission in charge of finding and destroying Iraqi weapons, which he said was a depressing document showing Saddam had not complied in the past, that he possessed WMD and was building more. Iraqi officials had destroyed records and moved everything to divert the inspectors.

"In halting our airstrikes in November, I gave Saddam a chance - not a license," the President explained. "If we turn our backs on his defiance, the credibility of U.S. power as a check against Saddam will be destroyed."

Clinton's strike came as a result of the unanimous agreement of his security advisors. Timing was important, said the President, who quickly must have realized that he did not want to remind millions of Americans of Monica going down on him. Iraq, he said, could produce chemical, biological and nuclear programs in a matter of months, not years.

"If Saddam can cripple the weapons inspections system and get away with it, he would conclude the international community, led by the United States, has simply lost its will," said Clinton. "He would surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction."

Clinton also called Hussein a threat to his people and to the security of the world.

•Timeli"The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government - a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people," Clinton said.

Clinton promised to work with Iraqi opposition forces.

"Saddam Hussein and the other enemies of peace may have thought that the serious debate currently before the House of Representatives would distract Americans or weaken our resolve to face him down," he said. "But once more, the United States has proven that although we are never eager to use force, when we must act in America's vital interests, we will do so."

Saddam concluded that Clinton's words were not believable and did nothing. By 1999, he might have thought he had won, because the inspectors were kicked out and nobody had done anything about it. Surely he was rooting for Al Gore in 2000, who promised no action. George Bush was a wild card. Saddam knew that Bush held a personal grudge against him. His father had been blamed for not taking the march to Baghdad, leaving him in power. It was one of those decisions that need to be judged with a caveat. At the time, it was the right thing to do. Over time, it was not.

If Saddam knew Bush's son would be President someday, he likely would not have ordered the terrorist assassination of his father when he visited the Middle East after leaving the White House. The attempt failed, but when Bush was elected, Saddam must have felt uneasy. Still, Bush had not raised any major rhetoric about Iraq during the campaign. Everything changed with 9/11. It was a momentous event, one that drastically turned American foreign and military policy around. It was the catalyst for a series of events that will effect the world for the next century, when the U.S. assumes a position of international greatness above and beyond all previous history.

Saddam Hussein was the single most evil human being on the face of the Earth, beginning with his ascension to president of Iraq in 1979. His crimes against humanity are well documented for well over 20 years. His crimes were committed against the people of Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and other countries. The Bush Administration, when contemplating military action against Saddam in the Winter of 2002-03, took into full account brutal, systematic war crimes and crimes against humanity that he committed right up until the point when Bush made it impossible for him to continue committing them.

During he Iran-Iraq War, Saddam and his forces used chemical weapons against Iran, causing the deaths of 5,000 Iranians between 1983 and 1988. The use of chemical weapons had been a war crime since the 1925 Chemical Weapons treaty, to which Iraq is a party. Iraq also killed several thousand Iranian prisoners of war, a war crime in violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, to which Iraq is a party.

In Halabja in March of 1988, Saddam and his cousin, Ali Hassan al Majid, known as "Chemical Ali", ordered chemical weapons used on this town in northeastern Iraq, killing an estimated 5,000 civilians. This was a war crime and a crime against humanity. Photographic and videotape evidence of this attack was abundant. Most of the dead were women and children. 10,000 were wounded. 281 other villages, valleys and mountaintops were gassed under his command. Halabja's survivors, however, provided the best evidence. The United States worked with the Washington Kurdish Institute and Dr. Christine Gosden to document Halabja.

Beginning in 1987 and continuing until 1988, Saddam ordered the "Anfal" campaign against Iraqi Kurds. Chemical Ali administered the attack under Saddam's orders. According to the 1995 Human Rights Watch, Iraq's "Crime of Genocide" were chemical attacks that resulted in an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 Kurds killed. Other estimates are that 182,000 "disappeared," buried (some while still alive) in mass graves with mechanical shovels.

On August 2, 1990, Saddam ordered his forces to invade and occupy Kuwait. President George H.W. Bush organized international support and forced Saddam's troops out of Kuwait by force. During the occupation, Saddam's forces killed more than a thousand Kuwaiti nationals, as well as many others from other nations, many in mass executions. Saddam forced numerous other crimes in Kuwait, including environmental crimes such as the destruction of oil wells in Kuwait's oil fields and massive looting of Kuwaiti property. Saddam's son Uday stole numerous cars from Kuwait. Saddam's government also held hostages from various nations in a blackmail campaign. Iraqi authorities committed war crimes against coalition forces, and against American and British service members, detailed in a report to Congress and in an article by Lee Haworth and Jim Hergen in Society magazine back in 1994.

Saddam then destroyed of 4,500 Kurdish villages, hundreds of hospitals, schools and mosques, 150 Assyrian villages, dozens of churches and monasteries as well as the disappearances of about one 1,000 members of the Assyrian community.

In the village of Dujail in 1983, he had many inhabitants killed and generally punished following an assassination attempt originating from there. Shi'ite Muslims were brutalized in Southern Iraq. Iraqi tanks under his command rolled into Southern villages with the slogan "No more Shi'ites after today."

After the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Saddam's forces killed between 30,000 and 60,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, in order to put down an uprising. The uprising began in

the south. Experts deemed this event to be a crime against humanity and possibly also a war crime.

In the early 1990's on up to the time Bush ended it, Saddam drained the southern marshes of Iraq, depriving thousands of Iraqis of their livelihood and their ability to live on land that their ancestors have lived on for thousands of years.

Saddam engaged in "ethnic cleansing" of Persians' from Iraq to Iran, and a campaign of ethnic cleansing of the non-Arabs of Kirkuk and other northern districts. He ordered the systematic killings of political opponents, dissidents and those who displeased him, often through the use of torture and rape. He had people's tongues cut off, eyes gouged out, skinned people alive, placed people in acid baths, beheaded them, castrated them, disemboweled them, used electrical torture, and other methods. He often utilized these techniques on women and children of those he deemed his enemies, or had entire families killed and tortured. All in all, Saddam was responsible for the varied murder and torture of over 1 million humans, until President Bush put a stop to it.

Sexual assaults of women, in an effort to intimidate leaders of the Iraqi opposition, were commonly practiced, along with a campaign of murder and intimidation of clergy, especially the Shi'a. Over 10,000 clergy were estimated to have been killed by Saddam.

Saddam built a ruthless police state using a small group of associates. These included Ali Hassan al-Majid ("Chemical Ali"), Saddam's elder son Uday, a commander of a paramilitary organization, and Saddam's younger son Qusay, the Head of the Special

Security Organization and his heir apparent.

Just as Mongol conquerors built a pyramid of the skulls of their victims, Saddam Hussein used helmets of Iranian soldiers killed during the Iran-Iraq War. Saddam also killed approximately 40 of his own relatives. Allegations of prostitution were used to justify the barbaric beheading of women.

Senior Arab diplomats told the London-based Arabic daily newspaper al-Hayat in October of 1991 that Iraqi leaders privately acknowledged that 250,000 people were killed during the uprisings, most in the southern part of the country.

900,000 Iraqis were made refugees by Saddam's oppressive government, which included his Arabization campaigns, forcing Kurds to renounce their identity or lose their property. 200,000 Iraqis lived as refugees in Iran prior to the 2003 war.

The U.S. Committee for Refugees in 2002 estimated that nearly 100,000 Kurds, Assyrians and Turkomans had been expelled. In the five years prior to Saddam's removal by Bush, 400,000 Iraqi children under the age of five died of malnutrition and disease, even though it could have been prevented by the government. The oil-for-food program sought to make available to the Iraqi people adequate supplies of food and medicine. The regime blocked access for international workers to ensure distribution, then tried to blame the West for maintaining sanctions.

Coalition forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom discovered military warehouses filled with food supplies meant for the Iraqi people, which had been diverted by the Iraqi military. Saddam routinely refused visits by human rights monitors from 1992 until 2002.

A huge number of extrajudicial executions on political grounds were discovered by the U.N. Special Rapporteur's report in September of 2001. The report further detailed the execution of 4,000 prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in 1984; 3,000 prisoners at the Mahjar prison from 1993-1998; 2,500 prisoners were executed between 1997-1999 in a "prison cleansing campaign"; 22 political prisoners executed at Abu Ghraib prison in February/March 2000; 23 political prisoners executed at Abu Ghraib prison in October 2001; and at least 130 Iraqi women beheaded between June 2000 and April 2001.

Beginning in 1991, U.N. weapons inspectors found and destroyed a supergun, 48 Scud missiles, 40,000 chemical munitions, 500,000 liters of chemical-weapons agents, 1.8 million liters of precursor chemicals, and large quantities of equipment related to biological warfare. In late July of 1998 inspectors were convinced that large quantities of the weapons were still missing. Since they were never allowed back in, one must assume that when the war started in 2003, he either still had them or had destroyed them himself. If he destroyed them, he did not prove that to the world.

Inspectors found a document that said Iraq had used 6,000 more chemical bombs in the Iran-Iraq War than in fact they used. The "minders" took the document. The extra 6,000 were never found.

While the U.S. may have "pumped up" its case against Saddam, as former U.N. weapons chief Richard Butler asserted, they had a case. Conservatives had overestimated the Soviets in the past, which included a high estimate of their 1976 gross national product. In 1989, the CIA published a review of its threat assessments and admitted to "substantially overestimating" the Soviets.

In the 1990s, the CIA estimated that Chinese military spending was twice what it was determined to be in the 1999 Cox report. Threat estimates of North Korea, Libya. Iran and Syria today are probably high. But none of this changes the fact these enemies were and are evil. Many of the high estimates are based on chest pumping by the threat countries themselves, who paraded nukes and all form of weaponry past the Kremlin and Tiannenmen Square. Saddam was always boasting about his countries' strength.

One of the most compelling arguments for regime change in Iraq was not just Saddam's human rights abuses, war crimes, genocide, weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, nuclear) program, support of terror networks like Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, and possible link to 9/11. His two sons became completely intertwined in his regime, achieving power eclipsed only by the father. Therefore, any coups, assassinations or changes meant a chilling scenario in which Iraq would be passed on to two individuals who, amazingly, may have been worse than the father.

Qusai Saddam was his younger son. He held wide-ranging power over the security apparatus. He was a man who compelled the basest possible kind of fear. Ranked number two on the coalition forces' list of the 55 most wanted men from the Iraqi regime, behind only Saddam himself, he was also wanted for numerous war crimes. Qusai was particularly dangerous because he did not necessarily look the part of an evil despot. He had a quiet nature and was considered relatively good looking. At age 37 prior to the war, he was in charge of the intelligence and security forces that protected the family. Since the slightest fissure in security made the family vulnerable to the thousands who desired Saddam and his kids dead, the loyalty factor on the force was beyond anything that Westerners could imagine.

Anybody who volunteered to serve knew from urban legend what would be required of them, which meant that only the cruelest, most violent and fanatical minds ever considered such a thing. Many were orphans, most from the Iran-Iraq War, a few from the Persian Gulf War. They were inculcated with hateful lies about Western conspiracies that were responsible for their parents' deaths. They were gullibly sold on the idea that only Saddam protected them from the "Crusaders." Still, only the worst and most loyal of them made the cut, so to speak. Sometimes a recruit would be forced to kill a relative, a friend, a child, an old person, or just a citizen on the street, to prove their mettle.

A recruit could be killed or tortured for the slightest indiscretion. The ones who survived this hell were utterly impervious to reason, human suffering or logic, blindly devoted to Saddam and Qusai. Qusai also commanded the Republican Guard, an over-hyped 80,000-soldier force responsible for defending Baghdad. It is out of this group that the U.S. faced guerilla opposition in Iraq after the 2003 war. The liberals "blamed" Bush for this, as if the average citizenry opposed the American presence, or as if Bush had "created" additional terrorism. These media lies emanating from the West were utter statements of garbage.

Qusai stayed out of public view, but his older brother, Odai, was very flamboyant. He collected luxury cars and women. In a manner not unlike Bill Clinton in Arkansas, who used state troopers as pimps, if Odai saw a girl he fancied he had his guards order them, often by force, to his quarters for sex which, often was pure rape. If a woman resisted, she would likely be killed after the raping, or maimed. Boyfriends and husbands who protested were killed and tortured, or killed just to silence them even if they said nothing. Iraqis nicknamed Odai "The Snake'' for his bloodthirsty ways.

Qusai was a more trusted advisor by his father, considered the heir until George Bush removed that possibility. Odai, partially paralyzed by a mid-1990s assassination attempt, was thought to be too reckless to be the heir. Qusai rose to power by demonstrating a taste for ruthless genocide following the 1991 defeat at the hands of the first President Bush. He orchestrated a terror campaign, mass executions and torture to crush the Shiite uprising. He also engineered the drainage of the southern marshes to destroy the Shiite "Marsh Arabs."

Qusai ran the detention centers and torture system, ordering the "prison cleansing" - mass executions of thousands of prisoners to free up cells. Most were killed via bullets, but occasionally Qusai and his henchmen amused themselves by watching men being dropped into shredding machines. Prisoners who went in head first died quickly, which was not sporting to Qusai. He ordered them put in feet first so he could hear them screaming.

Qusai enjoyed using power saws to amputate foots, hands, arms and other body parts. Saddam was highly impressed with these qualities. He rewarded his son by making him chief of the army branch for the ruling Ba'ath party in 2000. This placed him in charge of all army movements. Prior to the American invasion, Qusai was placed in charge of defending the nation's capital and heartland. However, he had no military experience. He had not fought against the Iranians or the Americans. Military commanders, however, were forced to defer to him as if he was Doug MacArthur. Qusai's only military "experience" was his marriage to the daughter of a senior military commander.

Odai Saddam Hussein was put in charge of Iraq's national soccer program. His idea of motivation was a little different from Knute Rockne's. Odai killed and tortured athletes who failed to perform well. He was also head of the Fedayeen Saddam paramilitary unit, used to eliminate opponents and exert total control over a population of 25 million people. This was another major source of the post-war guerrilla opposition to American troops. Odai was "elected" to parliament in 1999 with 99 percent of the vote, but did not usually attend sessions.

Odai enjoyed murder more for the sport of it than Qusai. He would murder and torture or no reason. The practice of dropping people into acid baths to watch them burn up was apparently his idea, although his brother and father liked the put it into practice regularly during the Clinton years, until George Bush ended it. Historians compared Odai to Rome's infamous Caligula. He called himself Abu Sarhan, an Arabic term for "wolf.''

Occasionally, Odai's murderous rampages went against his father's desires. Saddam was exasperated with Odai for killing one of his favorite bodyguards in 1988, which was the main reason Odai was demoted and Qusai moved ahead of him. Odai also had a bodyguard named Kamel Gegeo, who arranged sex for Saddam. Odai became worried that one of the women, who later married Saddam, would undermine his position as heir. Mad at Gegeo for having found the woman, he beat him to death with a club and an electric carving knife in full view of guests at a high-society party.

After the 1996 assassination attempt that left Odai with a bullet in his spine, the two brothers became rivals and a deadly power struggle likely would have ensured had Bush not made the point moot.

Odai owned the newspaper Babil, the weekly Al-Zawra and Youth TV. He beheaded journalists he disagreed with. He never beheaded Peter Arnett or Dan Rather.

Much of Odai's notoriety abroad stemmed from his position as head of the National Iraqi Soccer Club. He once forced track athletes to crawl on newly poured asphalt while they were beaten and threw some of them off a bridge. He had a special prison just for underperforming athletes.

Jailed soccer players were forced to kick a concrete ball after failing to reach the 1994 World Cup finals. Odai also enjoyed dragging them through a gravel pit and dunking them in a sewage tank so infection would set in.

Like Stalin, Saddam's role model, army officers were targeted in Iraq. In 1983, Odai bashed an officer to death when the man refused to allow Odai to dance with his wife. He also shot soldiers who failed to salute him. Odai divorced the daughter of one uncle, Barzan Ibrahim Hasan, in 1995 after she complained of being beaten. Odai shot and wounded another uncle, Watban Ibrahim Hasan. The U.S eventually captured both uncles, much to their relief.

Iraq was a Third World cesspool of poverty and hunger, but Odai lived like Hugh Hefner. He called himself a Muslim, but enjoyed alcohol in heavy doses. U.S. troops who stormed his mansion in Baghdad discovered a personal zoo with lions and cheetahs, an underground parking garage for his collection of luxury cars, Cuban cigars with his name on the wrapper, and $1 million in fine wines, liquor, and heroin.

Odai was obsessed with pornography, prostitutes and Internet sex sites. His "black book" contained detailed ratings of his many women. He also popped pills, medicines and sexual fortifiers. He had a self-testing HIV test kit.

After 9/11, the question about Iraq took on a new urgency. Bush's semi-isolationist views no longer seemed relevant. America had entered a worldwide War on Terrorism. Terrorism emanated from the Middle East. Osama bin Laden was the face of terror, and his premise was Fundamentalism. But Saddam was a longtime enemy of the U.S., and immediately conjecture was made regarding his connection to terrorism, and his potential future threat.

The first job at hand was to go into Afghanistan, which Bush and the military did in marvelous, short efficiency. Osama was not captured. He may or may not have been killed, but he was effectively eliminated as a threat. But the threat was still there, in terms of terror, WMD, and instability.

"We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them," President Bush said in the aftermath of 9/11. Countries are either "with us or against us," he said. Iraq was assuredly against us. Bush brilliantly identified an "Axis of Evil," Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Like Reagan's "evil empire" speech, it enraged liberals and made despots weak in the knees. The Clinton era was over.

The New Conservatives began to assert themselves. The Afghanistan operation was absolutely essential, both in terms of national security, regional stability and a need to satisfy America's resolve to make those who had attacked us pay the ultimate price.

But Iraq went beyond that. In terms of pure national security, it was not obviously essential. The U.S. military and intelligence community had established a certain amount of dominance over the terror situation, in Afghanistan particularly. Iraq posed a threat as a sponsor of terror, and of course they posed a threat because they had never gotten rid of their weapons of mass destruction. Inspectors no longer were in the country, and various estimates were bandied about over how quickly they could deliver a blow to America or her interests.

But other considerations came into play. Iraq's ability to flaunt itself in the face of the West, to play themselves as pseudo-victors of the 1991 war, were creating a highly de-stabilizing atmosphere in the Middle East. The human rights atrocities and genocides committed there were reasons in and of itself to go after Saddam. There were other countries committing atrocities against their people, but Iraq was obviously, and for many, varied reasons, the first place that needed to be neutralized.

But the New Conservatives saw in Iraq a momentum that had started in Afghanistan and could be built on. The old isolationism was no longer, in their view, an option. If Saddam could be overthrown and freedom, stability and peace brought to Iraq, then American Hegemony could start to be achieved in the Middle East. Despots, terrorists and sponsors of terror; read: Syria, Palestine, Libya, Iran, et al, would know they faced an entirely new paradigm shift in U.S. policy. No more isolationism. No more appeasement. Countries like North Korea, Cuba, and other rogue states would realize they had little choice but to make themselves benign in a U.S.-dominated world.

The fight against terrorism now had the potential of spreading to narco-terror in Colombia. A wide-reaching New World Order like the one the first Bush had envisioned, which had been put on hold by the Clintons, could be revived by the people who knew how best to implement it, the conservatives. If Iraq could be safely restored, to the benefit of its citizenry, as Afghanistan had been, then the "Arab street," poisoned for years by vile Al-Jazeera lies, would see clearly the benefits of being American allies. The Marines have a saying: "No more better friend, no worse enemy."

Surely, the world had seen that opposing the U.S. militarily was suicide, but incredibly there were still some, like Saddam, who lived in a world of illusion. America could use the situation to again prove that we were not anti-Muslim, at war with Islam, and that the 21st Century was not destined, as if controlled by the dark forces of Satan, to be a violent Clash of Civilizations. The Middle East is the hot bed of all world politics, and it is part of Biblical prophecy. Armageddon is in the Middle East. The anti-Christ (assuming (s)he is not Joseph P. Kennedy or one of the Clintons) is supposed to come from there. There are many who take a negative view of the situation there, much like those who felt Communism could only be defeated in a war. Reagan had done it peacefully.

Now, the U.S. found itself the only superpower left, the most powerful nation in world history. The gap between American military strength and the next best military was greater than the gap had ever been between any powers in history, whether it was Rome, Napoleon's Grand Army, or the British. The New Conservatives knew that as strong as our military was, our identity was even stronger. American influence, ideas, culture and the sheer power of our message - freedom and opportunity - had the ability to effect the world in a way not seen since Christ's message spread 1,500 to 2,000 years ago. It was utterly new and unique, brought about by the awful events of 9/11, which in brilliant irony had created an opportunity for change and goodness that we had been "blinded" to until it happened. The Clinton Presidency had dulled our sense of purpose. We had lost direction and faith in our ability to change the world for the better. Not anymore.

In the heart of the Middle East, where hate, lies and misunderstanding were the order of the day, lay our next great challenge. A direct confrontation with evil that only the U.S. is prepared to fight. We would take the battle to the capitols of evil and defeat it on its home turf, replacing it with goodness. Maybe, just maybe, we could do what Lawrence of Arabia had wanted us to complete back in 1919, and leave the region with a legacy of love. The next century is the great test for Islam. It holds the promise of being a time in which this great religion, with all of its potential, can look deep within itself and, like the Jews and Christians of yesteryear, rid itself of Fundamentalism, Wahabism, and the elements of hate that hold it back. Who better to help it accomplish this goal than the United States, a secular state formed by "people of the Book"; a country that separates religion from its government, yet inculcates religious morality into its actions in every corner of the globe?

If Iraq could be achieved successfully, then Palestine would come next. The hardcore terrorists who had run Palestine for years would know their methods had failed, and finally a peace could be established with the Jews. The Biblical prophecies of violence do not have to happen. Armageddon can be averted. Only America - and the New Conservatives know this - could change this downward spiral of events from turning into conflagration.

In contemplating these issues in the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom, the New Conservatives knew they were treading in dangerous territory. For a few fleeting months, America and its most important city, New York, were viewed sympathetically. The Yankees had gone out and played like the champions they are, quickly dissipating their rare position as the "sentimental favorites." New York came back strong and bustling, refusing to be beaten, and showing that they did not need anybody's sympathy. The U.S. made the decision that they would rather be respected than loved, and they definitely had no desire - albeit, they had an obligation - not to be felt sorry for.

Many would misunderstand us. The Middle East media would lie. The liberals would howl. Old Europe- France, Belgium and Germany, in particular - would do anything to make their lack of political power in the New World Order less...obvious. But the Rubicon had been crossed on 9/11. Now it was up to George Bush to lay down a gauntlet, to demonstrate to the enemies of freedom and decency, once and for all, that the old ways were over forever.

The New World Order!

Bush loves his father, but models his Presidency on Reagan. Reagan had pledged to consign an "evil empire" to the "ash heap of history." Bush decided to consign terrorism to the ash heap of history. It is the defining challenge of our generation. Bush made it clear that he planned to take aim at states harboring terrorists as well as at terrorists themselves. The first domino to fall was the Taliban. In Bush's view, terrorism could not be defeated if Saddam still held power in Iraq.

Like bin Laden, Saddam hated America so much that he would do anything he thought he could get away with against her. If Saddam had a nuclear weapon, and thought he could destroy the U.S. without having us turn him into a fireball in retaliation, he would have had no moral compulsions. The Iraqi situation was not just geo-political. It was a blood feud. Saddam hated the Bush family. He had tried to kill the elder George, and it was the decision not to go after him that had cost Bush much of the imprimatur of his 1991 victory. George the younger now felt an obligation to finish the job his father had started and been criticized for.

Saddam had accumulated a wide array of chemical and biological weapons, especially after he kicked out the inspectors. There was no intelligence outfit in the world that doubted this, whether it be the CIA, Britain's MI5 or MI6, the Israeli Mossad, or any others. Republicans and Democrats, Labor and Conservatives, liberals and patriots all had acknowledged this reality.

Sanctions had turned his once-powerful country, an economic and military arsenal in the Middle East, into a second-rate state. But Saddam had become a cornered animal, like a headstrong Mafioso unable to separate "business" from personal. The most dangerous aspect of Saddam was his megalomania, combined with his failure to grasp reality. Saddam and his family had surrounded themselves for so long with "yes men" and sycophants, that they no longer grasped the slightest semblance of truth. In his mind, he could get away with attacking his enemy, triumphing in his sordid dreams like a modern day Saladin.

This manifested itself in his risky expulsion of inspectors from Iraq. He hid his weapons in mosques, schools, hospitals, farms, private homes and hundreds of other clandestine sites that no inspector could hope to find. The grave danger of weakness in the White House was exemplified in this brazen act. But Saddam's "yes men" had failed him miserably, not just in causing him to believe he had the power to offend America, and defend himself against the U.S. He lacked the most basic intelligence. Somebody apparently failed to sit him down and explain the difference between conservatives and liberals, and Republicans and Democrats.

He saw the laughably corrupt Clinton and determined that American had lost her greatness. His own lack of honesty blinded him from understanding the power of an honest, straight-shooting man in the Oval Office. He might have kept getting away with it except for 9/11.

Saddam may have been part of the 9/11 planning. If so, he was his own worst enemy. However, this is, considering his psychological make-up, in sync with what we know about him. However, the exact nature of 9/11 may not have been his work. If so, Saddam saw powers unleashed in its aftermath that should have terrified him. His "advisors" and his own inflated ego failed to warn him of the future.

After 9/11, Saddam should have realized the game was up. When the U.N. pushed for inspectors to go in, he should have cooperated. It was his only hope. In previous years, countries in Latin America, as well as South Africa, had been required to relinquish their WMD programs. They had cooperated and made a very concerted effort to demonstrate their full compliance with measures, and destruction of all weaponry. This was the only model that could have saved Saddam.

Aside from the WMD he had used against his own people and the Iranians, Saddam had enough anthrax to kill millions of people, as well as other biological agents. Had he already given some of this stockpile to Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad or other terrorist groups? The New Conservatives considered certain options. Saddam could use it against us, or terrorists could use it against us. The only way to stop Saddam from using it against us was to destroy him once and for all.

Now, and this is a very, very important point, if he had given some to these terror groups, they would still have it after Saddam was gone. So, how does the U.S. protect itself from them? Remember to put yourself in their shoes. Osama had overseen a perfect attack, and the result was the diametric opposite of his hopes and dreams. If Saddam's defiance would result in the diametric opposite of his hopes and dreams, then what could Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad or the remnants of Al Qaeda hope to gain by launching a big hit against us?

In their "best case scenario," they hit us with a nuclear bomb, kill a million or two with anthrax, or take out a city with bio-chems. Then what? This sounds easy and surgical to say, but America can take it. The U.S. can survive even that kind of atack. But worse for them, not only would America survive that sort of event, they would come back stronger than ever. What the world saw, when Americans joined together after 9/11, then efficiently went after Al Qaeda, Osama and the Taliban, was a mere speck of dust compared to what we would do if the response called for enough firepower. It took the heart out of them.

By going after Iraq, the New Conservatives were planning to send the clearest message possible. Terror not only would be prevented, but America had reached a point in which terrorists no longer had any viable political objectives on a grand scale.

That would leave only evil. The New Conservatives were confident that they had the political and moral will to tackle this job. Intelligence reports in 2002 indicated that Saddam desired a nuclear arsenal. He had a clandestine program, spread over many hidden sites, to enrich Iraqi natural uranium to weapons grade. He had the designs and the technical staff to fabricate nuclear weapons once he obtained the material. He had the money to buy the material and components as well as finished nuclear weapons. How close was he? We will know that answer. We knew that we could not "relax" on this issue. We had missed his nuclear program in the early 1990's, just as we had failed to predict the Indian nuclear test in 1998.

We knew that Saddam had tried to assassinate the first President Bush in 1993, which is a terrorist act. He operated a terrorist training facility at Salman Pak complete with a passenger aircraft cabin for training in hijacking. His collaboration with terrorists was well documented by the CIA. A senior Iraqi official met with Mohamed Atta in Prague prior to 9/11. He collaborated with terrorist groups, some of whose leaders lived in and operate from Iraq, and gave safe haven to them. He openly paid the families of suicide bombers, which is not evidence of terrorism, but the simple act of it. He praised the attacks of September 11. While he and bin Laden were different (secular vs. Fundamentalist), their common enemy was the same.

Bush also knew that governments in the Persian Gulf would celebrate Saddam's removal from office. The liberals tried to paint a war scenario as an attack against Islam, but to most Muslims, his reign of terror was an insult to Islam. Saddam's fall would result, the Bush Administration felt, with dancing in the streets of Baghdad. The rest of the so-called "Arab street" would be inflamed by Al-Jazeera, but like much of the vitriol the West sees from the Arab world, it would be more for show. This is an important aspect of the Middle East psyche, which Westerners fail to understand. Arabs are an emotional, hot-blooded people. They live under a searing Sun in a part of the world that is repressive. They do not have the outlets for their pent-up frustrations that we do. They do not drink or take in a Georgia-Florida football weekend. They take to the streets and yell. Then they go home and pray. It is very much a facade. At the end of the day, other Arab populations would welcome a peaceful successor.

Saddam's nuclear ambitions were not new in the early 2000s. In 1981 Saddam struck a deal with those arbiters of Truth and Incorruptibility, the French, to build a nuclear reactor. Once fuel was placed in the reactor, it could not be bombed without releasing lethal radioactive material. Allowing the fueling to go forward meant that Baghdad could eventually get the plutonium to build a nuclear weapon. The Israelis said, "Not on our watch." In a pre-emptive precision strike that humiliated Saddam, they bombed the reactor at Osirak, destroying it.

Bush had inherited the remnants of the CIA's dispirited intelligence apparatus under Clinton. 9/11 occurred less than nine months into his Presidency. He was determined never to be caught flat-footed. He had decided to take pre-emptive action just like the Israelis. He did not ever want to be accused of waiting too long.

The U.S. discovered that Iraq refurbished sites formerly associated with the production of chemical and biological agents while retaining the means to manufacture them, possibly by attaching them to bombs, shells, artillery rockets and ballistic missiles.

Saddam was known to place extreme importance on possessing weapons of mass destruction, because he felt that was the key to his nation's power. He did not consider them "last resort" weapons. He concealed them from inspectors, and failed to live up to the resolutions or the sanctions. The intelligence community concluded that Saddam continued to produce chemical and biological agents into the 2000s. Some estimates were that he was in 2003 just 45 minutes away from being able to launch them. There was intelligence that he had given Qusai the authority to use these weapons, too. He developed mobile laboratories for military use, corroborating earlier reports about the mobile production of biological warfare agents, and pursued illegal programs to procure controlled materials of potential use in the production of chemical and biological weapons.

There were reports that Saddam covertly sought technology and materials for the production of nuclear weapons, specifically significant quantities of uranium from Africa, despite having no active civil nuclear power program that could require it. He had nuclear specialists in his government. He illegally retained up to 20 Al Hussein missiles, with a range of 650 kilometers, capable of carrying chemical or biological warheads. Saddam started deploying his Al-Samoud liquid propellant missile, and used the absence of weapons inspectors to work on extending its range to at least 200 kilometers, which was beyond the limit of 150 imposed by the United Nations;

He started producing the solid-propellant Ababil-100, and was making efforts to extend its range to at least 200 kilometers, which was also beyond the limit of 150 imposed by the United Nations.

He constructed a new engine test stand for the development of missiles capable of reaching the U.K. Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus and NATO members (Greece and Turkey), as well as all of Iraq's Gulf neighbors and Israel. He pursued illegal programs to procure materials for use in its illegal development of long range missiles. He also learned from years of previous U.N. weapons what they looked for, how they find it, and what their methods were. This allowed him to more effectively conceal sensitive equipment and documentation in advance of the inspectors.

The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) judged Saddam a major threat for all of the above reasons. They determined that by 1998, Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were in breach of international law. Under a series of United Nations Security Council Resolutions Iraq was obliged to destroy its holdings of these weapons under the supervision of U.N. inspectors. Iraq engaged in a history of deception, intimidation and concealment in its dealings with the U.N. inspectors. The JIC also concluded that the violent and aggressive nature of Saddam's regime and his record of internal repression and external aggression intensified the overall concern regarding his threat potential. Iraq was able to finance its WMD program drawing on illicit earnings of upwards of $3 billion generated outside U.N. control.

In the Fall of 2002, the rhetoric heated up regarding war with Iraq. The Bush Administration cited all the reasons herein stated: WMD (chemical, biological, nuclear), terrorism, human rights, war crimes, genocide, and stability in the Middle East, among the others, as justification for invasion.

With mid-term elections approaching in the first week of November, Bush wanted to get international and national support for war. He approached both the United Nations and the U.S. Congress. Both bodies provided him with legal approval for the war. First, he attained U.N. Resolution 1441, which Iraq accepted. The U.N. codified Bush's "zero tolerance" if Iraq failed to cooperate with inspectors, and included language that made it clear that the U.S. "will launch military strikes if it deems it necessary."

Saddam accepted the new U.N. resolution (1441) demanding that U.N. inspectors be given unhindered access to any suspected Iraqi weapons site or face "serious consequences.'" President Bush again warned that the United States would have "zero tolerance" for any Iraqi interference with inspections and made it clear he would launch military strikes against Iraq if he deemed it necessary.

After a four-year absence, U.N. weapons inspectors returned to Iraq in November of 2002 with the prospect of war or peace hanging in the balance. The U.N. Security Council resolution authorized the inspectors' return and mission promised "serious consequences" if Iraq did not cooperate with the probe.

The new U.N. resolution was necessary because the inspectors left Iraq in 1998 after Iraq put up too many obstacles and they needed to get back. Now, the United States and Britain threatened war if the inspectors were not allowed to operate freely. The crux of the Resolution read as follows:

"Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations,

"1. Decides that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions, including resolution 687 (1991), in particular through Iraq's failure to cooperate with United Nations inspectors and the IAEA, and to complete the actions required under paragraphs 8 to 13 of resolution 687 (1991);

"2. Decides, while acknowledging paragraph 1 above, to afford Iraq, by this resolution, a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council; and accordingly decides to set up an enhanced inspection regime with the aim of bringing to full and verified completion the disarmament process established by resolution 687 (1991) and subsequent resolutions of the Council;

"3. Decides that, in order to begin to comply with its disarmament obligations, in addition to submitting the required biannual declarations, the Government of Iraq shall provide to UNMOVIC, the IAEA, and the Council, not later than 30 days from the date of this resolution, a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects of its programs to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles and dispersal systems designed for use on aircraft, including any holdings and precise locations of such weapons, components, sub-components, stocks of agents, and related material and equipment, the locations and work of its research, development and production facilities, as well as all other chemical, biological, and nuclear programs, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to weapon production or material;

"4. Decides that false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq's obligations and will be reported to the Council for assessment in accordance with paragraphs 11 and 12 below;

"5. Decides that Iraq shall provide UNMOVIC and the IAEA immediate, unimpeded, unconditional, and unrestricted access to any and all, including underground, areas, facilities, buildings, equipment, records, and means of transport which they wish to inspect, as well as immediate, unimpeded, unrestricted, and private access to all officials and other persons whom UNMOVIC or the IAEA wish to interview in the mode or location of UNMOVIC's or the IAEA's choice pursuant to any aspect of their mandates; further decides that UNMOVIC and the IAEA may at their discretion conduct interviews inside or outside of Iraq, may facilitate the travel of those interviewed and family members outside of Iraq, and that, at the sole discretion of UNMOVIC and the IAEA, such interviews may occur without the presence of observers from the Iraqi Government; and instructs UNMOVIC and requests the IAEA to resume inspections no later than 45 days following adoption of this resolution and to update the Council 60 days thereafter;

"6. Endorses the 8 October 2002 letter from the Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC and the Director-General of the IAEA to General Al-Saadi of the Government of Iraq, which is annexed hereto, and decides that the contents of the letter shall be binding upon Iraq;

"7. Decides further that, in view of the prolonged interruption by Iraq of the presence of UNMOVIC and the IAEA and in order for them to accomplish the tasks set forth in this resolution and all previous relevant resolutions and notwithstanding prior understandings, the Council hereby establishes the following revised or additional authorities, which shall be binding upon Iraq, to facilitate their work in Iraq:

"- UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall determine the composition of their inspection teams and ensure that these teams are composed of the most qualified and experienced experts available;

"- All UNMOVIC and IAEA personnel shall enjoy the privileges and immunities, corresponding to those of experts on mission, provided in the Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations and the Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the IAEA;

"- UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have unrestricted rights of entry into and out of Iraq, the right to free, unrestricted, and immediate movement to and from inspection sites, and the right to inspect any sites and buildings, including immediate, unimpeded, unconditional, and unrestricted access to Presidential Sites equal to that at other sites, notwithstanding the provisions of resolution 1154 (1998);

" - UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right to be provided by Iraq the names of all personnel currently and formerly associated with Iraq's chemical, biological, nuclear, and ballistic missile programs and the associated research, development, and production facilities;

" - Security of UNMOVIC and IAEA facilities shall be ensured by sufficient United Nations security guards;

"- UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right to declare, for the purposes of freezing a site to be inspected, exclusion zones, including surrounding areas and transit corridors, in which Iraq will suspend ground and aerial movement so that nothing is changed in or taken out of a site being inspected;

"- UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the free and unrestricted use and landing of fixed- and rotary-winged aircraft, including manned and unmanned reconnaissance vehicles;

"- UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right at their sole discretion verifiably to remove, destroy, or render harmless all prohibited weapons, subsystems, components, records, materials, and other related items, and the right to impound or close any facilities or equipment for the production thereof; and

"- UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right to free import and use of equipment or materials for inspections and to seize and export any equipment, materials, or documents taken during inspections, without search of UNMOVIC or IAEA personnel or official or personal baggage;

"8. Decides further that Iraq shall not take or threaten hostile acts directed against any representative or personnel of the United Nations or the IAEA or of any Member State taking action to uphold any Council resolution;

"9. Requests the Secretary-General immediately to notify Iraq of this resolution, which is binding on Iraq; demands that Iraq confirm within seven days of that notification its intention to comply fully with this resolution; and demands further that Iraq cooperate immediately, unconditionally, and actively with UNMOVIC and the IAEA;

"10. Requests all Member States to give full support to UNMOVIC and the IAEA in the discharge of their mandates, including by providing any information related to prohibited programmes or other aspects of their mandates, including on Iraqi attempts since 1998 to acquire prohibited items, and by recommending sites to be inspected, persons to be interviewed, conditions of such interviews, and data to be collected, the results of which shall be reported to the Council by UNMOVIC and the IAEA;

"11. Directs the Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC and the Director-General of the IAEA to report immediately to the Council any interference by Iraq with inspection activities, as well as any failure by Iraq to comply with its disarmament obligations, including its obligations regarding inspections under this resolution;

"12. Decide to convene immediately upon receipt of a report in accordance with paragraphs 4 or 11 above, in order to consider the situation and the need for full compliance with all of the relevant Council resolutions in order to secure international peace and security.

Then Bush was given further authorization for war by the U.S. Congress, who passed a Use of Force Resolution, in which Iraq was forced to disarm and comply with the U.N. The House of Representatives passed the H.J. Resolution 114 on October 10, 2002 by a vote of 296-133. Senate approval came in by a vote of 77-23. The resolution reads as follows:

"RESOLUTION AUTHORIZES THE USE OF MILITARY FOIRCE IN IRAQ

"Specifically, the resolution authorizes President Bush to:

"use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to -

"(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and

"(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

"DETERMINING NEED FOR FORCE

"Before employing military force in Iraq, the resolution requires that the President first determine that continued diplomatic efforts 'or other peaceful means alone,' will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

"PRESIDENT MUST NOTIFY CONGRESS

"The resolution also requires the president to notify Congress before or within 48 hours after actually committing military forces against Iraq.

"PRESIDENT MUST REPORT TO CONGRESS

"The President is also required to report to Congress at least once every 60 days a report on all actions taken in relationship to the powers granted to him in the resolution and on any planning efforts regarding the potential use of military forces against Iraq."

"The House of Representatives has spoken clearly to the world and to the United Nations Security Council," President Bush stated. "The gathering threat of Iraq must be confronted fully and finally....Today's vote also sends a clear message to the Iraqi regime: It must disarm and comply with all existing U.N. resolutions, or it will be forced to comply."

Over the next months, U.N. inspectors returned to Iraq in a sham display. Saddam hid all of his weapons of mass destruction, and the "minders" used every possible tactic of deception and obfuscation to delay and prevent the inspectors from finding anything. It was impossible for them, after all the years they had been out of the country and Saddam had to hide and conceal his weapons, to find anything. The fact that Saddam had WMD was known by all. Saddam claimed he did not have any. To let him get away with that was tantamount to letting a murderer off the hook because he said I didn't do it.

When it became obvious that Iraq had no intention of complying with the U.N. Resolution or cooperating with inspectors, the White House then began their final military and public relations campaign, in preparation for the inevitable showdown. In a fact sheet entitled "A Decade of Deception and Defiance," the administration stated that Saddam had "repeatedly violated 17 United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs) designed to ensure that Iraq does not pose a threat to international peace and security...he has tried, over the past decade, to circumvent U.N. economic sanctions against Iraq, which are reflected in a number of other resolutions. As noted in the resolutions, Saddam Hussein was required to fulfill many obligations beyond the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Specifically, Saddam Hussein was required to, among other things: Allow international weapons inspectors to oversee the destruction of his weapons of mass destruction; not develop new weapons of mass destruction; destroy all of his ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers; stop support for terrorism and prevent terrorist organizations from operating within Iraq; help account for missing Kuwaitis and other individuals; return stolen Kuwaiti property and bear financial liability for damage from the Gulf War; and he was required to end his repression of the Iraqi people." Instead, Saddam repeatedly violated the agreements.

In January, 2003, Bush gave his State of the Union speech. In it, he cited a British intelligence report that, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

After the war, this statement came under question. The British continued to stand by it, but American Democrats attempted to discredit the winning President. A retired State Department official named Joe Wilson wrote in the New York Times, "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

In reality, the "scandal" was not Bush's making. It was Bill Clinton's. He allowed U.S. capabilities in Africa to be all-but destroyed. Wilson was a diplomat in Niger, the African country in question. As charge d'affaires in Iraq in 1990, he was the last American to meet with Saddam. Later, he served as Ambassador to Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe. In the late 1990s, he was an official with President Clinton's National Security Council, where his duties took him to Niger.

In 1998, uranium accounted for 65 percent of Niger's exports. A French company headed the consortium that ran Niger's uranium mines. Wilson claimed "that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place," and told the CIA that.

"In an effort to inquire about certain reports involving Niger, CIA's counter-proliferation experts, on their own initiative, asked an individual with ties to the region to make a visit to see what he could learn," said CIA Director George Tenet. "He reported back to us that one of the former Nigerian officials he met stated that he was unaware of any contract signed between Niger and rogue states for the sale of uranium during his tenure in office. The same former official also said that in June, 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss 'expanding commercial relations' between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales."

Documents alleged to demonstrate a uranium deal between Iraq and Niger, which were part of the basis of the British report, turned out to be forged. Maybe. But what does not wash is that the CIA had to rely on a retired State Department official to travel to Niger to double-check British intelligence about Niger's uranium!

Mines in Africa that produce uranium that can be used in weapons of mass destruction should have been a major source of concern to Clinton, but it was not.

"...Our coverage in the continent of Africa is abysmal because we made a decision to pull out our assets in Africa," said House Intelligence Chairman Porter Gooses (R.-Fla.) in an interview with Human Events editor Terrence Jeffries. "It was also compounded by the scrub that was done during the...John Deutch DCI-ship, the scrub of assets. We basically denuded ourself of capability in the [Human Intelligence] world and we're paying for that. There was nothing sinister about it. That was the judgment of the day. We were a nation at peace and prosperity and that was what society said was okay to do. We did it. We did it at our peril."

During the Clinton years.

"And there's been more than uranium sales mischief out of Niger..." Goss added. Another reporter asked Goss if he thought the British report cited by the President might be correct. "I think that is a very fair question to ask the British," he said. "I have no reason to doubt the British report..."

Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), discredited the British report. However, ElBaradei and the IAEA also presented evidence that tended to support the British report.

On March 7, 2003 ElBaradei appeared at the U.N. Security Council to report on the IAEA's investigation of Iraq's nuclear-related activities. He said the Iraq-Niger documents were "not authentic," but revealed that Iraq had sent an official to Niger in 1999.

"For its part," said ElBaradei, "Iraq has provided the IAEA with a comprehensive explanation of its relations with Niger, and has described a visit by an Iraqi official to a number of African countries, including Niger, in February 1999, which Iraq thought might have given rise to the reports [of a uranium deal]."

ElBaradei pointed out IAEA interviews with Iraqis were conducted within Iraq, in the presence of an Iraqi government monitor. Therefore, they could not be relied upon. Why would Saddam have sent an emissary to Niger? The emissary was their Ambassador to the Vatican, Wissam Al Zahawie, who was named in "forged" documents used as evidence of the Niger-Iraq uranium connection. Iraq had previously purchased uranium from Niger in 1980, which was used in their building of the Osirak reactor that Israel destroyed.

What is highly possible is that the "forgeries" were set-ups meant to throw the West off their scent. Apparently this was the story that Ambassador Wilson bought. A former Niger official said that in June of 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales.

Tony Blair never backed off his assertion that Iraq was purchasing uranium from Niger for nuclear purposes.

"Let me just say this on the issue to do with Africa and uranium," Blair said. "The British intelligence that we have we believe is genuine."

In February, 2003 Secretary of State Colin Powell cited "undeniable" proof of Iraqi violations of the Resolution, which meant that the U.S. now had the authorization under both the United Nations and the Congress to take action "deemed necessary" by Bush.

Powell presented satellite imagery and communications between Iraqi officials to demonstrate their efforts at deceiving inspectors. Iraq is in "material breach" of council Resolution 1441, he said, and must now face the "serious consequences" threatened in the measure, stating further that the world "places itself in danger of irrelevance if it allows Iraq to continue to defy its will without responding effectively and immediately."

China, Russia, and France waffled on the subject, but Powell cited evidence of an Iraqi chemical munitions plant and mobile biological-weapons laboratories.

"There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more and he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction," Powell said.

Powell cited a pattern of illegality as evidence of a possible Iraqi effort at developing nuclear weapons, plus long-range ballistic missiles, including two systems cited in the previous week by chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix.

Powell detailed U.S. allegations that Baghdad and Al Qaeda were in league through operatives, citing Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, who was accused of ordering the murder of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan in 2002.

"We wrote [Resolution] 1441 to give Iraq one last chance," Powell continued. "Iraq is not so far taking that one last chance. We must not shrink from whatever is ahead of us. We must not fail in our duty and our responsibility to the citizens of the countries that are represented by this body."

Iraq's ambassador to the U.N., Muhammad al-Duri, said Powell's claims were "utterly unrelated to the truth." He said Iraq "will provide detailed and technical responses to the allegations."

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw echoed Powell's statements that Iraq was in "further material breach" of Resolution 1441. 10 former Communist countries, now staunch U.S. allies, supported America's stance on Iraq. The so-called "The Vilnius 10" included Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

"In the event, in the near future, the inspectors don't report to the council that Iraq has changed its attitude with regard to its obligations, the Security Council will have to take the appropriate action for the implementation of the relevant resolutions adopted since 1990," Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Pasi said of Powell's compelling evidence of Iraq's arms programs.

Their joint statement said the trans-Atlantic community "must stand together to face the threat" of Iraq. The "Vilnius 10" joined 12 other European countries, including European Union members Spain, Italy, Britain, and Denmark, in a "coalition of the willing" supporting the U.S.

As it became obvious that Iraq had violated the U.N. Resolution, and that Bush intended to make him pay for it by virtue of invasion, the anti-war protests began to mount. There were three elements to the anti-war argument. First, traditional Central Europe - namely France, Belgium and Germany - opposed the U.S. In the case of France and Germany, their main reasons for doing this were a stark realization that they no longer had any real world power. The U.S. had so thoroughly eclipsed them in terms of military thunder, influence and political hegemony, that these old powers were now close to irrelevancy. This is not to say they lack any importance, but as movers and shakers who had the ability to control events, their time had passed. These were countries that, in the past 200 years, had made full-scale efforts at world domination. They had failed. Now the position they once aspired to was filled by the United States. Opposition to the U.S. was based on little more than a backlash against their own "failures" to attain dominance.

The opposition of countries like Belgium, France and Germany had psycho-historical roots, too. Belgium had committed outright genocide against the black population of their colony, the Belgian Congo, during the reign of King Leopold in the 19th Century. France had committed racist atrocities in Indochina, Algeria, and other colonies, much of it causing probems in the Middle East that the U.S. was now in the process of cleaning up. During Napoleon's reign, they had opted for pure, naked aggression, and had failed in their attempt to turn the Middle East into part of their sphere of influence. Germany, of course, had committed the worst possible crimes against humanity, and prior to that had been the greatest war criminal in the world, during the Great War. Before that they had opted for naked aggression in the Franco-Prussian War. Russia, also opposed, had committed crimes against humanity on a scale above Nazi Germany. China was blown away by U.S. power and had little to say as they hunkered in the shadow of a reality in which their so-called status as a world power was nary a blip on the screen compared to the U.S. They uttered a few quiet words in opposition. Of course, their record for murder eclipsed even Germany's and Russia's in the 20th Century.

Russia and China were not expected to back us, really. Russia had too recently been humiliated by our total victory in the Cold War. But Belgium, France and Germany represented NATO. So why? It has to do, as mentioned, with their oft-miserable human rights records. These countries had committed terrible atrocities and could not conceive of power used wisely, because when they had it they abused it.

Only Britain, among major powers, had, like America, the moral backbone of its history. America had spread goodness and decency throughout the world, so the U.S. trusted itself to do the right thing. England, at the height of their empire, had kept Chinese and Indians out of country clubs, and occasionally exhibited a heavy hand. But they were responsible for bringing Christianity, education, medicine, trade, business, jobs, culture, decency and excellence to millions of natives. Despite all the hemming and hawing of liberal historians, this was a great thing. Britain is not a nation, like so many other nations, that needs to apologize for its past. Therefore they are free to be confident in their friendship with that other great nation, which owes so much to them, the United States.

Next came the liberal Democrats in the United States. Their problem was purely political, and was based on the naked realization that George Bush was already a highly popular Republican President, who had led the country in the aftermath of 9/11, a major victory in Afghanistan, and was on the verge of a huge success in Iraq. Democrats knew that if he succeeded in this endeavor, he would ascend to electoral heights they could never hope to match. Bush and the G.O.P. would be in a position of such superiority in the 2004 elections that the long-suspected notion of the Democrat party as an irrelevant dinosaur, staved off by recession, Bill Clinton, Ross Perot and the Internet, might be impossible to stave off much longer.

The Democrats found themselves in an old, new position. First, there was the Alger Hiss fallout, in which they had been forced to "invent" McCarthyism to dissuade the public from the Communists in their midst. Next came Clinton, who they had to defend, like Hiss, to the end because he was their last hope against extinction. But what was new was that for all their perfidies and unpatriotic sentiments over the years, the traditional Democrat party had always been the "loyal opposition," or in the case of JFK and LBJ, defenders of the U.S. But to "defend" America now was more and more looking like political suicide to many Democrats. It was a complete Catch-22, because many Democrats, like John Kerry, Joseph Lieberman and even Hillary Clinton, knew that to oppose the war was also political suicide. They knew that in future years, the Iraq War would be a huge American victory, and to oppose it would place them on the wrong side of history. But if they supported it, they were supporting Bush, who faced a "win/win" situation. Would they support their country, and therefore support a Republican? For all too many, the answer to that question was "no." They had little in the way of reasoning to back their arguments.

Many who would have served themselves by staying quiet could not help it and said goofy things that amounted to, "Saddam has no weapons of mass destruction, and if we go to war he'll use his weapons of mass destruction." Liberals simply do not realize the fundamental truth of America, which is that we are the world's least exclusive club with the highest dues. Still, in an odd twist of fate, liberals may have saved us from Saddam's WMD. How? When Saddam identified them as his best "friends" in the West, he also knew the only way he could hold on to their second-hand "support" was by not using the weapons, and in fact, to hide them in such a way as to make the conservatives look foolish. Of course, there those among the conservative class who recognize such tactics and expose them. Thus, and it is.

Finally, there were the street protesters. These may have been the new constituency of the Democrat party, but in reality they represented old-line opposition with roots in Rousseau's France, Thoreau's America, and in the anarchism of Emma Goldman, Sacco and Vanzetti. The bottom line on these people was that they simply did not like one country - America - being so great, so successful, so powerful and so influential as the U.S. now was. Their philosophy was based on the same thought process that J. Robert Oppenheimer used when he decided to give atomic secrets to Soviet scientists. They believed in a fuzzy kind of "fairness," a desire to even the playing field because they simply did not trust that America would do good with the power it possessed. To feel this way was to fail to know history, and to lack the basic understanding that in all the annals of Mankind, America was the only nation that had earned, through its own track record, the trust of the world to handle its power responsibly.

It was this strain of anarchism/liberalism that had written much of the critical history that had tried, desperately, to paint American success and altruism as racism, exploitation and greed. The Founding Fathers, they said, were slave owners, but they had not shed light on their plan to end importation of slaves by the early 1800s, which was supposed to allow slavery to die on its own. Instead, slave owners treated slaves so "well" they kept multiplying until the 1860s. Their critics were the people who always pointed out American slavery, instead of lauding this nation for ending the practice by using laws written in America by Americans to end it forever.

These were the people who said America "stole" land from Mexico, when it was the Mexicans who invited American mountain men with guns into their territories to protect settlements from marauding Injuns, and after the Americans restored order, the Mexican government told them they were Mexican citizens.

These were the people who called the Indian Wars "genocide," when in reality the American West was an utterly unique situation. For centuries, invading nations had sent armies in to secure territories first. Now, for the first time, ordinary settlers came of their own volition, using their skills and capacity for hard work to forge something in the West. The Army was sent in not just to protect the settlers, but to protect the Indians, too.

These were the people who said American expansion in the Middle East, the Pacific and China was exploitation, but failed to understand that we were protecting our legitimate trading interests, bringing Christianity, medicine, Democracy and modernity to backwards peoples.

These were the people who argued that Communism was not a big threat, when it was a bigger threat than Nazism. They sacrificed the patriotic core of the Democrat party at the altar of this specious lie, and used it to hamstring our boys in Korea and Vietnam, then left our allies hanging out to dry.

Finally, with Reagan, the conservatives had said, "Enough." They took a stand, and vowed to never let this strain of anarchism/liberalism dominant our worldview again. So resolved, they defeated Communism, they were now in the middle of defeating terrorism, and had decided to enter the "window of opportunity" that would allow them to shape a truly safe, secure world in the new century.

The so-called New Conservatives, whose vision of the New World Order had been delayed for eight years by Clinton, knew and understood this strain of anarchism/ liberalism. They knew their history, and that they were on the right side of it. Armed with this simple premise, they endeavored, once again, to do the right thing.

On March 20, 2003, about 90 minutes after the lapse of a 48-hour deadline imposed by Bush for Saddam and his sons to step down and go into exile, the "right thing" started. President Bush announced that he had ordered the coalition to launch an "attack of opportunity" against specified targets in Iraq. 36 Tomahawk missiles and two F-117 launched GBU-27 bombs assaulted clear, high-level Iraqi governmental officials and targets, including Saddam himself, based on specific intelligence which led the U.S. government to believe it knew his movements.

Special Forces troops operated inside Iraq. Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. put Special Forces troops in the area. Iraq launched a number of missiles at targets in Kuwait, including the coalition forces stationed there. This was a material breach of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 and would be counter to what Iraqi officials had claimed. U.K. and U.S. ground troops moved into the demilitarized zone between Iraq and its neighbor, Kuwait.

General Tommy Franks commanded the coalition forces. 40 satellite-guided Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched, "surgically" striking a bunker holding top Iraqi officials.

"On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war," Bush announced. "These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign."

Called "Operation Iraqi Freedom," the initial phase of the war employed a new term called "shock and awe," based on a concept devised in the mid-1990s. The idea was to the show the enemy so much pure firepower and technological wizardry that it would eliminate the slightest hope that it could be defended against, thereby causing them to surrender before real damage could be done to the populace and the infra-structure.

It was a tremendous plan, but failed to address some peculiarities intrinsic to the Husseins. First, Saddam and his sons did not consider surrender or exile a viable option, because they were aware that their long history of war crimes would make them subject to trial, or worse, public retaliation from the people they had terrorized. But the most important element was their own lack of real information. In cultivating an atmosphere of utter obedience, in which the slightest bad news meant the messenger would be killed, they had isolated themselves from the truth. As hard as it is to believe now, they actually felt that the Republican Guard could hold off an American invasion of Baghdad. Just as Hitler felt "in my blood" that he could conquer Russia, it would prove to be a fatal error.

Furthermore, after eight years of Clinton, Saddam simply did not believe Bush would launch a full-scale invasion. He figured he could hunker down and survive an aerial bombing campaign. He had not taken into account the fact that now, for the first time since Bush's father attacked him 12 years earlier, he was dealing with a President whose word could be trusted.

Despite protests, Great Britain's Tony Blair courageously supported and backed Bush and the American effort. On March 21, Royal Marines occupied the strategically important al-Faw peninsula in the southeastern corner of Iraq. Soon, Royal and U.S. Marines captured Umm Qasr, Iraq's only deep-water port. Coalition forces were greeted with cheers from Iraqi citizens.

U.S. and U.K. forces moved through the south of the country. Forces towards the east reached the edge of Iraq's second city, Basra. The U.S. Third Infantry Division towards the west reached the outskirts of the strategically crucial town of Nasiriya on the Euphrates River, where they came under fire from Iraqi defenses. The British government announced that coalition forces had all the major southern oil fields under control.

Saddam ordered wells to be destroyed but the coalition, led by Special Forces, prevented all but a few to be set on fire. Special fire fighting troops extinguished two of those. Baghdad came under heavy aerial bombardment, and the Iraqi Minister for Information said the strikes wounded 207 civilians. Subsequent information showed this to be untrue. Airstrikes were also made on the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk.

The Iraqi Army 51st Division quickly surrendered to U.S. Marines. The Iraqi government reported that no Iraqi troops had surrendered. It was an Iraqi lie. British troops capture the Faw Peninsula in southern Iraq. U.S. forces captured Umm Qasr. 1,000 Turkish troops entered from the north.

Over the next days, surgical air strikes continued on military targets in Baghdad. It was already clear that the U.S. possessed an uncanny ability to strike specific targets without creating massive "collateral damage" - civilian casualties. As incredible as the 1991 Persian Gulf victory had been, the 1990s technology boom had improved our weapons capability by an enormous magnitude. There seemed nothing the U.S. could not do.

Furthermore, the Pentagon had made a key decision, which was to "embed" reporters with the units. In Vietnam, success had been denied in large part because of lies, untruths, propaganda and liberal media spin. The Pentagon calculated that if reporters were right on the action and saw the troops up close, it would be like reporting on the New York Yankees. That is, success and excellence would be openly, obviously displayed to them. Therefore the simple truthful descriptions of events would be descriptions of greatness. They were right.

Iraqi soldiers began surrendering, but the Iraqi government provided further false reports of victories, no surrenders, and civilian casualties. The British entered Basrah, and an American soldier killed one fellow soldier while wounding 13 others in a hand grenade attack. He was a black Muslim who had told others that the U.S. was committing war against Islam and planned to rape Muslim women. The media virtually ignored the story because it was not Politically Correct to portray a black Muslim in such a fashion. Had he been white it would have been world news.

U.S. Marines battled into Nasiriya, a key crossing of the Euphrates River about 225 miles southeast of Baghdad. Despite low casualties, mostly accidents and not combat-related, the media began to depict British and American soldiers wounded and killed by the Iraqis, as shown by the Arabian Al-Jazeera TV network. It was an attempt to portray the war as a "quagmire." Embedded reporters, however, told the real story, which was continuing success and advancement.

When 10 U.S. Marines were ambushed, CNN attempted to portray this as an example of poor planning. The Iraqis captured some mechanics and videotaped them tortured and killed execution-style, in violation of the Geneva Convention. Coalition forces began to take control of the An Najaf province, where a huge chemical weapons plant had existed. When troops came upon the site, they discovered that the weapons of mass destruction had been moved prior to their arrival.

Five civilians were reportedly killed when a missile fell on their houses in a populated district in the west of Baghdad, but it was not known whether it was a misguided American missile, a Iraqi missile off-course, or an intentional Iraqi strike to drum up propaganda. Americans braced against chemical attacks, but they did not come. The informed speculation was that Saddam had boxed himself into a corner regarding his WMD. He knew that if he used them, it would be a direct U.N. violation, justifying the American attack. He still had a portion of the liberal world supporting him on this issue. The theory began to circulate that he had hid them, or even destroyed them, in order to frustrate the Americans and make them look bad.

The United States discovered that Russia had delivered weapons to Iraq, which included GPS units and anti-tank missiles. This was a violation of the sanctions by the United Nations, and shed led on why Russia had opposed the invasion. The Shiite population of Basra rebelled against the Iraqi militia. With the port city of Umm Qasr rendered "safe and open" after a fabulous operation in which divers dismantled off-shore mines, British ships began to land additional medicine, food and water for the population area.

In Nasiriya, coalition forces discovered and confiscated weapons caches and gear to protect against chemical weapons, including a T-55 tank, over 3,000 chemical suits with masks, and Iraqi munitions and military uniforms. All of this equipment was hidden in a Nasiriya hospital. The only purpose for having these was if Iraq possessed and planned to use chemical weapons. Explosve suits, used by terrorists, and discovered terrorist training facilities supported the link to international with Saddam.

The U.S. operation was already being hailed as the most spectacular military invasion in history, but dust storms slowed up the march on Baghdad. Thousands more chemical suits, further evidence of Iraq chemical weapons, were discovered in An Nasiriyah. The fear of chemical weapons used in the battle of Baghdad occupied the commanders.

The American central command in Qatar admitted that bombardments could have killed civilians due to the fact that Iraqi military assets were being placed close to civilian areas (within 300 feet in some cases). Two explosions occurred on a commercial street in Baghdad, killing 14 civilians and injuring 30.

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld accused Syria of supplying arms and material to Iraq. Humanitarian aid began to make its way to the population after securing the port. The Iraqis began to dress their soldiers as civilians. 140 of these fighters were identified and killed by the U.S. The Iraqi information minister denied they were soldiers.

An Iraqi Silkworm missile exploded in a shopping center in Kuwait City. The Iraqi lie was that it was a malfunctioning U.S. cruise missile. An Iraqi military suicide bomber, driving a taxi, killed four U.S. soldiers in an attack.

"We will use any means to kill our enemy in our land and we will follow the enemy into its land," Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said, "This is just the beginning. You'll hear more pleasant news later."

On March 31, U.S. troops killed seven civilians, including women and children in a suicide car attack that drove through a checkpoint. The driver ignored warning shots, and non-lethal gunfire into the engine. Journalist Peter Arnett of NBC gave an interview to Iraqi television in which he lied, saying the American operation was going poorly. He possessed the information that it was going as planned, but in lying gave aid and comfort, albeit false comfort, to Iraq. Arnett's lies about a "baby milk factory" that was a munitions depo in the first Persian Gulf War had been previously identified and exposed. He had lied regularly while reporting from Vietnam in an effort to discredit America. Arnett was fired.

On April 1, a 32-year-old Iraqi lawyer, whose wife worked as a nurse at a hospital in Nasiriyah, risked his life to help coalition forces rescue prisoner of war Private First Class Jessica Lynch. The lawyer said Lynch had been tortured and sought help from coalition forces. Black Hawk helicopters flew in under cover of darkness, touched down next to the hospital, and a team of heavily armed commandos stormed the building, using hand-drawn maps given to them by the lawyer and his wife. Lynch was successfully rescued. The lawyer and his family were flown to a refugee center in the southern port city of Umm Qasr.

The next day, the U.S. reached the Baghdad suburbs, where small units of Iraqi Republican Guards fired upon them. The sandstorms had made the troops look like they were bogged down. Many in the media questioned the war plan. Cartoons began to appear with Democrats asking, "Is it Vietnam yet? Is it Vietnam yet?" The liberals were unable to hide the fact that they did not favor America in this fight. Liberal college professors like one at Columbia went so far as to say they hoped for "a thousand Mogadishus." In the mean time, when the sandstorms lifted, it was discovered that the Americans had made use of them to advance unimpeded to Baghdad.

In Mosul, northern Iraq, citizens told reporters that they were happy that the Iraqi soldiers were gone. Continuing joy expressed by the citizenry put the further lie to liberal claims that we were "hated" and would be opposed as "conquerors" and "imperialist infidels." The U.S. took control of Saddam International Airport.

More evidence of weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's terror link was found the next day when MSNBC discovered deadly toxins' ricin and botulinum at a laboratory in northern Iraq, used as a training camp for Ansar al-Islam, a terrorist group with ties to the Al Qaida terrorist network.

U.S. forces searching the Latifiyah Explosives and Ammunition Plant, south of Baghdad, discovered thousands of boxes full of vials of a white powdery substance, atropine (a nerve agent antidote) and Arabic documents on how to engage in chemical warfare. The facility had been identified by the International Atomic Energy Agency as a suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons site. U.N. weapons inspectors visited the plant at least nine times, including as recently as February 18, 2003. It was further evidence of Iraq's WMD.

Arab media attempted to say that the U.S. killed journalists at the Palestine Hotel, but further reporting by Western sources revealed that journalists face fired in Abu Dhabi from Iraqis beneath them. Journalists at the Palestine Hotel denied the story of U.S. fire from or around the hotel.

Iraqi media depicted great victories and descriptions of huge American casualties, enormous civilian death tolls from U.S. fire, and American forces turning in retreat. In reality, few civilians had been injured. The Americans were driving their vehicles into the heart of Baghdad, literally where the commentator could see them, with the red, white and blue flying high, right outside his window.

On April 9, Baghdad fell to U.S. forces amid Iraqi street celebrations. American infantrymen seized the deserted Ba'ath Party ministries and pulled down a huge iron statue of Saddam. Throngs of Iraqis kicked the statue with their shoes, the ultimate sign of disrespect. Old Glory hung from where the statue had been. The new Iraqi flag then replaced it. Iraqi citizens celebrated wildly. Some carried signs indicating that anti-war protestors had been "wankers" because they merely aided Saddam. In Marin County, California, cars driving by Sean Penn's home rolled their windows down and screamed, "Hey Sean, let's go to Baghdad now."

Penn, a Hollywood celebrity, had traveled to Baghdad much like Jane Fonda had traveled to Hanoi during Vietnam, to provide aid and comfort to Saddam' regime under the guise of "peace." Penn did not go to Baghdad, where thousands were now free despite his best efforts.

Saddam's forces melted into the population. Kurdish troops took over Kirkuk. Looting occurred among the long-repressed populace. Government and public buildings were plundered. Reports of looting at the National Museum of Iraq, which contained much historical antiquity going back to the Mesopotamian era, were reported. Later, it was discovered that Saddam's people had stolen much of what was missing prior to the battle. However, museum officials had already removed most of the artifacts. 90 percent of the museum's possessions were restored. Once inside the city, it was discovered, incredibly, U.S. bombing had not destroyed a great deal of the infrastructure.

On April 13, Saddam's hometown of Tikrit was captured by American Marines without notable casualties. The war was over. U.S. forces continued a "mopping up" operation. Small guerrilla factions continued to pose a deadly threat, but slowly they were compartmentalized into pockets that would allow the coalition to shrink them. The first post-war problem came from Fundamentalist Muslims, who began to rally their fanatics at mosques, followed by demonstrations in the streets. Fears of a "Democratically" elected Fundamentalist state circulated. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld quelled that quickly when he informed the world that such an event fell into that category of things that was not gonna happen!

In May, Bush, a former fighter jock, co-piloted a jet onto an aircraft carrier, where he was received by wildly cheering Navy personnel. The liberals lost it because their guys were draft dodgers and cowards. Bush was accepted as a bona fide member of the "warrior fraternity." Speaking on the deck of the carrier, Bush lauded the performance of the American military, which had won a decisive, virtually perfect victory. He lauded the British, who had also been brilliant. He thanked our allies for their support. He also made a point of talking about the new nature of American military technology. We now had at our disposal weapons that were so precise that we could wipe out military targets with minimal civilian casualties. The Iraqi War had been won with an incredibly low number of civilian deaths. Even Iraqi army casualties were relatively low, despite the rout they took, because the "shock and awe" campaign had been so effective that many simply ran and hid.

Countries across the globe who had maintained a "hands off" attitude suddenly joined the Coalition. France met with Bush and offered "pragmatism." Victory has many...in this case, cousins.

The aftermath of the victory would not be without problems, but they were not unforeseen. There had been some expectation that Iraqi police and security forces might be transferred into civilian forces under U.S. interim authority, but the weight of the security and re-building fell, of course, to the Americans, who took on the responsibility.

On May 27, Rumsfeld quoted Thomas Jefferson, who said, "we are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed."

"Time and patience," he said, were required. Democrats, however, began a suicidal period of criticism. Despite Congressional approval in October, they had taken an adversarial position for pure political reasons. With a Presidential election a little over a year away, they had assembled a number of Primary hopefuls, most of whom had staked out an anti-war position.

The Democrats had entered dangerous and unpatriotic territory, desperately trying to disguise their lack of support as being something other than unpatriotic. The basic premise of protest as being part of the American tradition was, of course, true, but the obvious benefits to the U.S. and the world were so glaring that they had placed themselves into a corner they would possibly never crawl out of.

Prior to the war, the Democrats had stategized that if they opposed the war and it was a disaster, they could campaign on a nebulous "see, I told ya so" plank. When the war went perfectly, that option was gone to them, but a mea culpa like the one they should have made in admitting Communists were in their midst, or that Clinton was corrupt beyond redemption, was not the path they chose. Instead, they tried to paint the war as something other than what any person who could read or watch TV could see what it actually was: An unmitigated success.

They had firmly confirmed what many suspected of them for years, and what many others simply knew to be true of them. This was that they benefited only from American failure. They had forced themselves by their positions and failures to root for American disaster, economic depression, and a general hopelessness that only their ancient discredited prescriptions could fix. They had nothing and they knew it.

They grasped at the fact that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction were not found yet, even though the logic of this lack of discovery was quite available to all thinking men. Put yourself in Saddam's shoes. First, he had four years to hide his WMD from inspectors. The possibility that Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction were so far from being possible as to be, for all practical purposes, simply that with which is impossible! After 9/11 and Afghanistan, when the focus was placed back on him, he was cornered, Bush was a new kind of President, a man to be feared unlike Clinton.

If Saddam used his chem/bio cache, he would violate the U.N. Resolutions in such a way that even his "useful idiot" friends would be forced to justify the attack. Furthermore, he knew that American troops had the proper equipment to render such an attack as all but fruitless. It was not a viable option to him. So what did he do? Saddam either hid his weapons in such a manner that they would never be found, or he destroyed them himself. If he destroyed them per the U.N., it would have been seen as "caving in" to the Americans. Instead, he wanted to foil Bush, to make him look bad, and he knew that his best ally in this endeavor was liberalism. Liberals were actually willing to go on record and say that Saddam never had these weapons, which for all practical purposes put them in the position of giving Saddam the benefit of the doubt over Bush.

Res ipsa loquiter.

Saddam could have thrown his WMD in the Tigris River. Either way, what he did with them will be known eventually. One impossibility is the answer that he did not have the weapons. He had them. It was also obvious that U.N. inspectors were never going to find his weapons on their own with Saddam in power. That falls into that category of things that was not gonna happen!

"While our goal is to put functional and political authority in the hands of Iraqis as soon as possible, the Coalition Provisional Authority has the responsibility to fill the vacuum of power...by asserting temporary authority over the country," said Rumsfeld in late May. "The coalition will do so. It will not tolerate self-appointed 'leaders.'"

In the aftermath of the war, problems occurred in Iraq. Factions of Saddam loyalists continued small-scale attacks on U.S. troops. A steady stream of attacks resulted in U.S. casualties. Acts of retribution against Iraqis cooperating with the Americans were committed. Authorities discovered that Saddam's infrastructure was worse than it had been thought to be. Long delays in getting electricity up and running in the 120-degree heat created short tempers. The process of putting together a Democrat government in Iraq was a major challenge.

European countries did not shower praise on America, either, but their attitude was understandable. The world had changed to the point in which the gap between U.S. superiority and the rest of the world was too great a chasm to bridge. This resulted in frustration and envy from the rest of the world. They "liked" us when we were down after 9/11, but we came back in a way no other country could have done. This demonstration of American resolve and greatness was the last and obvious piece of evidence that no other nation was even in our shadow, much less represented a legitimate rival, friendly or otherwise.

In late July, Qusai and Odai Hussein were found and killed. Attacks and the lack of a perfectly smooth, functioning, up-and-running Iraq within a few short months had the Democrats, liberals and their allies in the media complaining about Bush's "lack" of a "plan." In reality, what had and was occurring in Iraq was highly, precisely and to quintessential effect, that with which had been carried out and was the plan:

  11. Win the war quickly with minimal "friendly" casualties, minimal civilian

casualties, minimal Iraqi military casualties and minimal damage to the

infrastructure.

  11. Secure the country; use the military on the ground to do the hard, challenging, necessary work of fighting opposition, guerrilla and criminal attacks.

  12. Install an administration to work with the Iraqis on securing the country and.

  13. Bring in the international community.

  14. Transition to Iraqi control free Democratic choice.

Many of the "attacks" reported in the press were actually police actions, not unlike those that occur in American urban centers when the cops stop ordinary crimes in the process of occurring. Another interesting development occurred. A number of the attackers were also terrorists who came to Iraq from other Middle Eastern countries. This created the odd scenario of playing into the U.S. hands. It was messy, but the end result was that it condensed terrorists into one single place where the American military could marginalize, control, group them together, and eliminate them more easily than if they were scattered throughout the world.

It tended to be better to fight the terrorists in Iraq with our Army than to fight them on American streets with our citizens, cops and firemen. It was better than having disparate security forces from various countries fighting multiple rearguard actions. It did not speed the process of securing Iraq, which was a problem, but it did seem to beg the notion that if these terrorists wanted to die in large numbers in order to meet Allah, the Americans would be willing to satisfy their requests.

No country in the world could have done a better job. It was an incredibly hard task. Instead of cheering Bush and cooperating in the difficult work, Democrats just criticized. When Iraq is the new model for freedom, Democracy and peace in the Middle East, they will "jump on the bandwagon" as they did after the Cold War was won despite their harping.

Their complaints completely failed to recognize the alternative scenarios; defeat, chemical explosions, anarchy, chaos, and a hundred spinoffs, none of which occurred. They took various attacks, of debatable size, organization and effect, and tried to paint it as "failure" by George W. Bush.

It would be like stating that Abraham Lincoln had "failed" to win the Civil War because of Quantrill's Raiders. It would be like stating that FDR had "failed" to win World War II because it took years to clean up and organize Germany and Japan. The American Silent Majority listened to all of it. They said little, leaving Democrats with the false impression that their hue and cry had resonated with more than their now-tiny group of hardcore die-hards. The Silent Majority formulated plans to express themselves in the voting booths of this nation. The Democrats, who never learn, will be just as dumbfounded at their losses as Pauline Kael was in 1972, when she exclaimed, "I don't know how it happened <Nixon winning 49 states>. I don't know anybody who voted for him." The votes come from Des Moine, Omaha, Shreveport, Syracuse, Fresno, and a million points of light in between, where good citizens raise their families and do the right thing. They do not come from the high crime precincts and liberal salons that propel Hillary Clinton.

In the mean time, having done all the heavy lifting, the United States began the process of magnanimously bringing in the United Nations to give an international flavor to the reconstruction of Iraq. It is likely Bush and America will never be given the genuine thanks for the gift of freedom they provided in Iraq.

Res ipsa loquiter.

President George W. Bush

George Walker Bush turned out to be something of a surprise, but not that much of one. When his father ascended to the Presidency, the media began to focus on his family, and in so doing the nascent possibilities of political dynasty were first discussed. Biographies of George the younger revealed an impressive individual who had degrees from Yale and Harvard, had piloted jets in the Air Force, and ran a multi-million dollar oil company in Texas. Thus read the description of a man groomed for political greatness. With his connections, he seemed a natural.

That was the feeling among Texas Republicans and business leaders who tapped him to slay Ann Richards in 1994. It was a feeling that spread throughout the country beginning in 1998, when Bush won the Texas Governorship in a landslide, Bill Clinton hit his low point, and the Grand Ol' Party began to seriously consider the next election. All along, the "gut feelings," the "intuitions" of "funny feelings" that people had about Bush - that he would exceed expectations, that he was honest, and that he was a natural leader - turned out to be right.

Predicting greatness in politics is virtually impossible. Few seriously predicted it of Bush. All that he was originally asked to do was restore the White House to its rightful party, and to maintain the safety and prosperity of a prosperous country in good times. It seemed to be a simple task that offered him the opportunity to make a good name for himself, get re-elected, and restore some integrity to the Presidency (not a hard task considering the standards at the time). It did not quite turn out the way people thought it would.

If Bush will be go down in history as a great President, it will be because he responded to the events he faced, but it will also be as much about those events. Dwight Eisenhower was a national hero because he was the right man in the right place at the right time, when Hitler posed a challenge. Abraham Lincoln's place in history only came about because of the Civil War. Events are what have put Bush in a position to go down in history as a President worthy of comparison with Theodore Roosevelt.

Both men were scions of prominent Eastern families, but were associated with rugged Western individualism. They took office exactly 100 years apart, both following elections in the first year of new centuries that held unlimited American promise. Both were willing to carry a "big stick," and to use it to advance American interests anywhere on the globe. Both came into office under a "cloud," Roosevelt by virtue of McKinley's assassination, Bush after the Florida electoral dysfunction. Both viewed America from an idealist's point of view.

Greatness was the province of Bush's father. If ever a man was destined for stardom, it was he. Few men in history possessed greater qualifications for the White House than George Herbert Walker Bush. Scion of a blueblood family. War hero. Honest to a fault. Yale baseball captain. Millionaire oilman. Congressman. U.N. Ambassador, RNC chair, envoy to China, CIA director and Vice-President. Conservative, but not alarmingly so. A Southerner with Eastern roots who was appealing to the West. Plus, he was Reagan's guy!

On top of that, few if any Presidents (Clinton is one) took over the White House at a more perfect time, with more opportunity to succeed. The Cold War was won and Bush was inextricably identified with winning it. Peace had broken out all over the world. The economy was pounding along.

How the man managed to blow it and give us Bill Clinton is one of the more depressing annals in American history. It has been given all the discussion it needs within these pages. But in the back of the political mind was the realization that Bush had sons and grandchildren. George tapped into that in 1994. His brother, Jeb, would make his bid a few years later. His father is the healthy, hearty sort of guy who will be around until he is 100. His image as patriarch reinforces the "I really liked that guy" image that people have when they consider whether favoring Clinton was a mistake or not.

Bush's mother, Barbara, is a similar rock of Gibraltar. Among the grandkids there is a sense of good old-fashioned honesty and respect for ones' elders. Bush's daughters are typical college kids who enjoy drinking beer, which makes them...typical college kids. The grandchildren, nieces and nephews are young, but they have enormous potential. For one, just in case nobody has noticed, most of the Bush's are extraordinarily handsome. One niece is a successful model. Jeb's son, the product of his marriage to a Latino lady, looks like a cross between Pete Sampras and Julio Iglesias. Looks matter in American society. Big time.

Forget the Kennedys. The Bush family is the new dynasty in American politics. There were no deals made with the devil to orchestrate this. No inside Wall Street short sells profiting from America's crash. No mob bootlegging operations or Hollywood sex scandals. Old man Bush never argued that America should do business with Hitler, he just volunteered to go fight him. His stories of heroism were true, not products of a PR machine. The Bush's made their money providing goods and services that America needs. Joe Kennedy made his by fleecing the unsuspecting, moving his millions from one shell game to another, hiding it in off-shore accounts, never contributing anything of real value to society.

The Kennedys had theirs handed to them. The Bush's learned the value of hard work and never forgot it. The Kennedys are immoral. The Bush's are moral. The Kennedys lie, cheat, drink like fish and get away with it. The Bush's are honest, accountable, learn from their mistakes, and know when it is time to put the whiskey away. In George W.'s case, forever.

The Bush's do not possess the "reckless gene," and they do not have a curse hanging over their head. Yeah, they are as good-looking as the Kennedys, and their women are prettier.

The father was better prepared. Clinton was smarter. But George W. Bush would succeed by emulating neither one. His model would be Reagan. It started on July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Connecticut. His father was still the captain of the Yale baseball team, and a man in a hurry. Upon graduation, the family moved to Odessa, Texas, where the senior Bush went to work in the oil business. George W. was always known as just "W" to distinguish him from his father, and in Texas parlance that came to be pronounced Dubya. The best thing that could have happened to George was growing up in West Texas. Had he grown up in tony Greenwich, the ancestral family home, he would never have affected a Southern twang. He would have been just another rich kid among rich kids, with all the same societal issues that were portrayed in the book and film "Murder in Greenwich", in which Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel killed a neighbor girl.

Growing up in Midland, George became an American kid. While his father was successful and they had money, there was only so much that one could do with money in Midland. His friends were regular Texas kids, and he did regular things, including baseball, fishing and making mischief. When it was time for high school, however, George had to get serious. He was enrolled in his father's alma mater, Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He was a legacy and he came from money, but he was not unusual at Phillips Andover. The school was filled with rich legacies. His grandfather was a Connecticut Senator, but his father was not yet a political figure. He was an outsider in many ways, with his Texas accent and ways. He had a phenomenal sense of humor, played pranks, and cultivated fun. He quickly became popular. He played baseball, but not as well as his father. He would never do anything as well as his old man until he became President. But his father was not a grinder. The family subsisted on love, Christian charity, and a concept called noblesse oblige, the "noble obligation."

It was a premise passed down since Plato. Unlike the Kennedys, who believed privilege brought special favors, the Bush's felt it meant a special obligation to do good deeds for fellow men. Just as the family was charitable, they were with each other. George was not pressured into being just like his father. There was an understanding that it was virtually impossible to achieve such Olympian heights. He was expected to work hard, to be honest, to treat others with respect, and not abuse his privilege. He could get away with average grades, average baseball skills and a penchant for irresponsible fun. He would not get away with failing in his obligation as a man, an American and a Christian.

His mother, Barbara, presided over the Sunday worship at the Episcopalian Church. Unlike the Catholic Kennedys, who drifted through their religious training (despite Rose's devotion) believing all their sins were excused by confession, the Bush's were given a more somber, and perhaps realistic, religious education. They were not Southern Baptists, as so many in Texas are. They practiced their faith in the buttoned-down Eastern manner.

Bush made it through Phillips Andover Academy, where he received a first class education that included study of the classics, philosophy, and all the other accoutrements of a gentlemanly upbringing. Then it was on to his father's other alma mater, Yale University. The Vietnam War affected Yale, like almost all college campuses, in the 1960s. It was just not affected as much.

To the extent that a college is either Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, some schools have established a certain political identity. On the West Coast, California-Berkeley and Stanford have longstanding liberal traditions. California, in particular, became a hotbed of radicalism, to the left of the Democrat party. 400 miles away, the University of Southern California became the "Republican school," where many of Nixon's staff matriculated. Walter Mondale chastised students for having the temerity not to be fooled by liberal myths. Hatred for the Trojans goes far beyond the many beatings they have administered on the field of athletic strife. Cal students mock the "V for Victory" salute by Troy's student body, holding credit cards in their hands and deriding SC as the "University of Spoiled Children." All the churlishness in this "rivalry," however, is in Berkeley.

On the East Coast, the Ivy League, which includes Brown, Columbia and Harvard, is remarkably liberal. Patriotism, Christianity and military service are seen as low rent, the province of "red-necks" and blue collar "folks" from "flyover" country. The character of a nation's college population is an important thing.

A philosophical decision had been made at Yale. Perhaps it was because the school is located in Connecticut, a place that may be on the East Coast and part of New England but always has been "different" from the rest of the Seaboard. Up and down the Seaboard, residents of New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maine, Delaware, and Rhode Island have thick accents. Voices range from the aristocratic to the Bowery, from mob "wise guys" to the distinct tomes of Cape fishermen. Everybody, it seems, except Connecticut residents.

In the 1950s, William F. Buckley had written "God and Man at Yale". This book detailed the liberalism he discovered at Yale, and had spread throughout the Ivy League and the country. Buckley skewed the lack of patriotism, and a new kind of "religion" that revolved around man and science as the new answer to age-old questions. Throughout the Ivy League, Buckley's values were considered old-fashioned, the overwrought concepts of a crackpot right winger.

But Yale had always marched to the tune of a crabby Christianity. Their rolls were filled with the names of those who had fought and died in Europe and the Pacific. A slight tilt of the political balance was effectuated. The Yale that George Bush attended was by no means conservative, but it was not the bastion of liberal anarchy that Harvard and Columbia had become. Those schools were doing a disservice to its graduates and the country by filling them with ever-increasing doses of anti-American dogma. Many saw through it and found the Truth. Many did not, or sometimes not until it was too late.

Bush was not the student his father had been. He was not the student Bill Clinton or Richard Nixon had been. Left to his own devices, he would not have been accepted at Yale, but as a legacy he was admitted. His father was a war hero, a millionaire contributor and an important man, but he still was not an elected official. The elder Bush was running in the Texas Republican Senate primary when his son was admitted. His grandfather had been out of the Senate for four years. George studied history at Yale. He was, for all intents and purposes, a C+ student. He joined his father's fraternity and was not far from the Tim Matheson character in "Animal House". He enjoyed partying, drinking and girls. He as not good enough to play varsity baseball, as his dad had done. He led cheers at football games in the Yale Bowl instead. George W. also was initiated into the prestigious Skull and Bones Society. He graduated in 1968.

By now, his father was a Congressman from the Houston suburbs planning to make another try for the Senate in 1970. The Vietnam War was raging. There were many opportunities for George W. to avoid military service. He could have gone to law school, or he could have used his father's influence to keep his name out of the draft lottery. He could have joined the Navy and gone off to fly jets over Hanoi, as John McCain was doing.

In the long run, he did the best thing he could have done. He joined the Air Force and trained to fly jets for the Texas Air National Guard. In subsequent years, Bush was criticized for this by Democrats who chided him for "protecting Texas from Oklahoma." But a few points are worth considering. First, his unit could have been called into active service. Most of the pilots in Korea were Reservists.

Second, Bush fulfilled his military obligation without killing any Vietnamese civilians. Politically, he was better off for not having participated in Nixon's "Christmas bombing" of 1972. Democrats were calling the flyboys "baby killers," and describing them as inhuman for dropping napalm an "impoverished agrarian villages" (that were part of a Communist offensive bent on enslaving all of South Vietnam).

Third, Bush was a fighter pilot. His opponents have called him "stupid," despite his two degrees from Yale and Harvard. But more impressive than his academic credentials is the fact that he entered flight training and made it through. This is the same program shown in "An Officer and A Gentleman", which makes no attempt to describe Richard Gere as "stupid." In fact, that film only depicts the first part of officer training. The candidates all must still go to flight school, where well over half of those who start wash out.

Bush is part of a fraternity depicted in other Hollywood fare, like "The Right Stuff" and "Top Gun". He might have been admitted to Harvard and Yale based on his name. He might even have skated on some grades for the same reason. He might even have been admitted to flight training because of his old man. But he did not earn his wings for any reason other than that he earned them. The United States Air Force does not let just anybody fly multi-million dollar jet aircraft, endangering fellow crew, support personnel, or the citizenry, unless that person is qualified.

Bush trained on jets for two years, then joined his Guard unit. He flew for them until 1973. During that time, he dabbled in politics part-time in Alabama, and became known as a "man about town." Young, good-looking, a fighter jock, Bush was a regular in the Houston social scene, squiring beautiful Texas girls and partying with a coterie of rowdy friends from Midland, Houston and the Air Force. He had a lot of money and drove around in a fancy convertible. He probably did drugs, and he never held a full-time job.

Bush applied to the University of Texas Law School but was not admitted. Then he applied to the Harvard Business School in 1973, and was admitted. His failure to get into Texas somewhat alleviates the lie about his so-called "privileged affirmative action" status, since his father was a two-term Texas Congressman and former U.N. Ambassador. The family had no connections to Harvard, and in fact their Republican identity may have been a detriment. Bush was well prepared to enter the oil and gas business. He had two degrees, including a Harvard MBA. He was a former fighter pilot and had the Bush name. At first, though, he did not apply himself to establishing his company with due diligence, and did not achieve instant success. In 1976, he was driving his car and had tennis star John Newcombe with him. H was pulled over, and convicted of drunk driving. When his father heard about it, the opportunity presented itself for the old man to use his influence to "take care" of the situation. In a move that says everything about the difference between the Kennedys and the Bush's, the father made it clear that his son should pay for his transgressions, and that "it may be good for him."

In 2000, Al Gore waited with this information until just days before the election to spring it on the public. Bush had kept it quiet despite the advice of "full disclosure" from advisors because he was embarrassed that his two daughters, Jenna and Barbara, would learn of it. Gore's act backfired against him. When the public heard how the old man had told the authorities to treat his son like any other citizen, it reminded them that Gore himself had been given special treatment with his Vietnam bodyguards. Plus, his boss, Clinton, had skated past more responsibility than any man in the 20th Century.

Political scientists did estimate that the last-minute trick swayed enough voters to give Gore the popular vote and make Florida close, but in events that may just have been guided by a divine hand, Bush prevailed, albeit by the narrowest of margins.

In another event that further separates the socialite Kennedys from the plainspoken Bush's, George W. in 1977 Bush met Laura Welch, a librarian, and married her. She brought him down to Earth. Their twins were born in 1981. In 1977, Bush ran for Congress in West Texas. He won the primary but lost to Democrat Kent Hance.

When he devoted his attention to the oil business, he finally began to achieve some success in this competitive business, eventually merging his company with another oil firm, Spectrum 7, becoming its chief executive officer. Bush did not achieve the rousing success of his father, who had been in the business at precisely the right time, the booming 1950s. Texas oil in the 1980s was on a losing track.

In 1985, oil prices fell sharply. The company verged on collapse until a Dallas firm acquired it. It was a lucky break for Bush, who wound up with a seat on the board and $300,000 in company stock. There is little question that his family name saved him from the plight that another man might have faced. Critics have said that Bush "was born on third base and thought he hit a triple," but friends and business associates vehemently dispute this characterization. Bush was never arrogant. There was, beyond his swashbuckling sense of humor, humility. He certainly understood that he was fortunate to have been who he was. His career was not that of a man who sat back on his family name, either. Bush could have avoided flying jets. He did not have to hump his way through the Harvard MBA program. He could have taken his family trust and just vacationed, but he chose marriage, politics and business, all things that required hard work. Besides, his father never would have allowed him to just skate through life.

In 1986, Bush gave up alcohol for good after his 40th birthday. People did not consider him an alcoholic, but obviously he felt the need for a change. Although raised an Episcopalian, it was at this time that Bush experienced an awakening and strengthening of his Christian faith. He switched to his wife's Methodist denomination and became a devout churchgoer and Bible studier. He also headed to Washington to work full-time for the next two years on his father's Presidential campaign.

Bush began to weigh the possibility of running for Governor of Texas. The feisty matron of class envy, Ann Richards, was holding office in Austin. Bush chose to concentrate on the Presidential election, although Richards made his "short list" when she delivered her atrocious "silver spoon" speech.

After the 1988 election, Bush assembled a group of investors to buy the Texas Rangers baseball team for $86 million. Bush invested only $606,302, but it was his political acumen that held the deal together. He was named managing partner, a position that allowed him to build his reputation in the public eye as a Texas businessman. A baseball enthusiast from his childhood, Bush preferred to sit in the stands among the other fans rather than in the owners' box. Two important things occurred during the next five years. Bush helped build the palatial Ballpark at Arlington, a showcase stadium, and he befriended Rangers' legend Nolan Ryan, a Texas native.

After his father lost to Bill Clinton in 1992, George W. announced his plans to go after Ann Richards. She would be the first to fall in a string of Bush family feuds that the son would win for his father. Running on an agenda focused on issues such as education and juvenile justice, George W. won with 53 percent of the vote. Ann Richards did not know what hit her.

Bush ran a tight ship in Texas. He was an advocate of the death penalty, a popular position in the state, and implemented it regularly. The Texas economy rebounded from its 1980s doldrums. Bush spoke Spanish and received tremendous support from Mexican-Americans, as well as substantial support from African-Americans. He was relatively moderate in many ways, and actively reached out to Democrats in the Texas Legislature, creating lasting friendships and alliances.

Bush was re-elected by an incredible margin in 1998. With Republican leaders urging him to run for President, he sold the Rangers to a Dallas businessman for $250 million, making $14.9 million on his $606,302 investment (as opposed to Hillary Clinton's cattle future investment, for instance). He used the money to buy a new 1,500-acre ranch near Crawford, Texas, and brought in the best advisors from the Reagan/Bush and even Ford Administrations to advise him in prerparation for 2000.

Bill Clinton himself, a man with a keen political eye, saw the potential in Bush, characterizing him as a legitimate candidate who knew how to "connect" with people.

George W. called himself as a "compassionate conservative," a play on words originally conceived by conservative talk show host Michael Savage, which was another way of evoking the "kinder, gentler" Republican mage that his father had hoped to do after years of bruising Democrat attacks on Reagan. On the issue of welfare, Bush said, "It is conservative to reform welfare by insisting on work. It is compassionate to take the side of charities and churches that confront the suffering which remains."

Bush held to Reaganesque views on core G.O.P. issues, favoring small government, tax cuts, a strong military, opposition to gun control, and abortion. He served himself well with his choice of Dick Cheney for running mate.

Bush was a good candidate, and he earned his spurs in defeating the impressive John McCain in the Primaries. Normally he would have been the underdog. The economy would not begin slowing down until the last two months of Clinton's Presidency, and no major international crises loomed. Vice-President Gore had the wind at his sails. With the country in a state of general prosperity, the candidates divided primarily along ideological lines. However, Gore was hindered by a huge white elephant sitting in the corner of the room, and he pretended it was not there. The elephant was named Bill Clinton.

Clinton was popular. In fact, had he run in November of 2000, he would likely have beaten either Gore or Bush. But he was a conundrum for the Democrats. He and his wife, both formidable political figures, were entirely selfish and never, ever had coattails. Clinton had a record of success that was utterly overshadowed by his character flaws. His failures as a human being were so great that close attachment to him was the death knell of any candidate.

Gore knew it. He was forced to walk a brutal tightrope, swaying in the political winds. He was forced also by the discipline of George W. to change his message almost daily, while Bush held the line.

As previously discussed, Bush won the election, and in the fight over Florida earned legitimacy he otherwise would not have gotten because of Gore's unfortunate handling of the situation. On election night, Bush turned to his brother and told him that he expected him to deliver Florida, where Jeb was Governor. The younger sibling told him he would not let him down. It was close, but in the end Jeb held his end of the bargain.

Bush's first year was marked by popularity and a strong outreach to Democrats, in an effort to create bi-partisan consensus.

In 2002, with Afghanistan in the victory column, Bush acquired more wins prior to the mid-term elections when he secured a U.N. Resolution that essentially gave him authorization to use force if Saddam failed (as Bush knew he would) to abide by the law and give inspectors unfettered access.

He then picked up another huge victory when Congress authorized him to use the military against Saddam for the same reasons. He campaigned hard for Republican candidates down the stretch. Unlike Clinton he demonstrated remarkable coattail popularity. Few Republicans since Nixon in 1966 had done so much for the party, and it paid off with a historic, ground breaking Republican sweep.

Bush had taken office with majorities, but defections and changes had given the Senate to the Democrats. After November, 2002, he now had solid majorities in the House and Senate. Republicans swept to breathtaking victories in gubernatorial races and state legislative races all across the nation. The power of their victory was on a par with the 1994 Gingrich Revolution, only this time it came with the White House, too.

It was unheard of in the 19th Century, a mid-term sweep for a sitting, first-term President. Rarely in American history had any Republican held such a mandate. Furthermore, it was more rolling thunder for Bush in his inexorable quest to conquer past enemies. Ann Richards had fallen in '94. Gore's defeat in 2000 was a symbolic retribution against Clinton for beating his dad. In 2002, Bush achieved total vindication, as well as validation, after the close 2000 election that his enemies said "illegitimatized" him. First, Janet Reno had run for Governor of Florida, but was beaten in the primary. It was one of numerous failures for Clinton alumni, who found association with his administration to be of zero value.

In the general Florida election, Jeb had taken on the entire national Democrat establishment, and he trounced his opponent. Just to add some ice cream to the cake, Katherine Harris, excoriated by Democrats for following the law as Florida's Secretary of State, was elected to Congress.

With victory in the bag in Iraq, Bush had turned the corner in the Middle East. He and his team were closing in on victory in the War on Terrorism, and with it creating stability in the Middle East. This means an eventually independent Palestinian state, the emasculation of state-sponsored terror, the knowledge that rogue terrorism was on the run, and the prospect, for the first time since World War II, that this volatile region could be safe, secure and eventually prosperous. It will not happen tomorrow, but George Bush has taken the concrete steps necessary to lead us on the path towards achieving this absolutely vital goal.

In a little over 200 years, America had:

  * Ended British colonial rule.

  * Ended slavery.

  * Made the world safe for Democracy.

  * Ended Fascism.

  * Ended Communism.

  * Was ending Terrorism.

After terrorism, the next crusade: Africa

Now, Bush turned his attention to the "last" place evil had to hide, the African Continent. An argument emanated not from the Left, but from the New Conservatives, who said that the U.S. had no pressing interests there. Africa offered a real problem. As of 2003, there appeared to be a real question whether blacks were capable of ruling themselves. The question itself had all the earmarks of pure racism, except for the small problem that it appeared to be true that they.

Many had questioned, at various times, whether the natives of the South Pacific, the Orient, the Middle East and Latin America could rule themselves. While many problems still existed in these parts of the world, and true Jeffersonian Democracy had yet to spring from their loins, there were hopeful signs.

The Philippines is a Democracy. Singapore is more of an autocracy. Taiwan and Hong Kong are the Democratic engines that will change China. South Korea and Japan are Democracies. The Middle East has little Democracy, but Israel is, Palestine may someday be, and so will Iraq. In Latin America, drugs, crime and poverty threaten Democratic structures, but these are Christian countries, and this means that at their heart there is a basic morality that gives hope for freedom.

But Africa, in the view of many, is hopeless. For 200 years, white missionaries and social workers described an upbeat population of peaceful, dancing natives. This was not an untrue characterization, but amid this National Geographic scene was a darker world of tribal wars, ethnic and religious rivalries, unheard-of savagery and cannibalism. White apologists tried to call this a "cultural" thing, which was moral relativism run amok. Murder, rape, pillage and flesh-eating were no more "culturally right" in Africa than cutting the hearts out of living virgins had been in the Aztec world.

When European countries colonized much of Africa, there was hope. The whites brought violence, disease and racism, yes, but they also spread Christianity, built hospitals, established economies, modernized the populace, created cities out of the bush, and led Africans from a backwards culture to a hopeful future.

With the decline of the British Empire and the spread of independence spurred by Gandhi and Allied victory in World War II, liberalism called for African autonomy. The black citizens of the continent rightly wanted to rule themselves, and the colonies were disbanded. The Cold War, however, turned Africa into a battleground, and the losers were the native populace. They found themselves used as pawns in the chess game between freedom and Communism.

In Uganda, Idi Amin murdered 300,000 people in the 1970s, and engaged in cannibalism himself. His was an obvious case, but one that represented a new negativity with respect to Africa. Could it ever be free? Could Democracy ever take hold there? Most whites thought that it was a tough nut to crack, while liberals closed their eyes, pretending the blacks were "ruling" themselves. If they did not talk about the genocide, then it did not happen, right? Well, it did happen.

Everything came to a head in South Africa, and to a lesser extent in Rhodesia, towards the end of the Reagan Administration and the beginning of the first Bush's. South Africa was a white-run country of majestic beauty, incredible natural resources, and a thriving economy. White South African women were said to be among the most beautiful in the world. The ruling whites had fought hard for their piece of the world. The British had battled the Zulu's in legendary fashion, the Boar War had been a particularly bloody campaign, and settlers had struggled to defend their rural lands in the same manner as whites fending of marauding bands of Indian savages in the Old West. An uneasy balance existed between the Dutch Afrikaners and the British descendants that made up South Africa.

Apartheid, of course, separated the blacks from the whites. This policy shocked the liberal West. The only problem with the dynamic was that the average black living under Apartheid lived a much safer and better life than the average black living under black African rule. During a time when American blacks were demanding reparations for slavery, some smart alecks suggested that they should pay America for having brought their ancestors to the U.S., thus saving them from living under war, torture, AIDS and misery in a black-ruled African "nation."

While the general premise that blacks living under whites were better off than they were living under blacks was true, it still lacked the ideal of freedom that yearns in the human breast. South Africa and Rhodesia were turned over to their majority black populations, and in the 1990s two prosperous countries became virtually lawless; reprisals, murders, kidnappings, rampant crime, drug use, illegitimacy, AIDS, despotism and all form of human indecency now dominate the landscape. There are still whites holding on in South Africa and Rhodesia, but their days are numbered. Once turned over to the blacks, these countries went into the toilet. This statements reeks with apparent racism. This does not change it from being the simple Truth.

White colonialization was the last vestige of order in Africa. In the 1990s, with these cornerstones of security dismantled, the continent became the devil's playground. Genocide in Rwanda claimed more than a million lives in 1994, but Clinton had ignored it, even making a point to avoid use of the word "genocide" so as to keep the "situation" under the radar. AIDS, which had originated in Africa, spread like wildfire. An ignorant, uneducated public had no idea how to fight the disease. Africa had failed its test. It could not handle modernity. Its long history of tribal violence, once confined to small geographic areas, now had the ability to travel by plane, train and automobile, by gun and bomb, to all corners of Africa.

Nobody else was willing to do much about it. France, to its credit, had people in Africa. The U.N., to its credit, had peacekeepers. But these "forces" were symbolic and failed to address the real problems. Only the United States has the ability to take on this kind of challenge, and in so doing an entirely new paradigm shift would be required. There exists in Africa very little in the way of "American interests." The real interests are moral. If America actually is God's country, then it has the moral obligation to help even where there is no obvious benefit to the help. It is a national example of what some people might call random acts of kindness.

Bush knew that his predecessor had passed on Rwanda, and had been criticized for it. As his Presidency took form, genocide began to occur in the Congo, and civil war was tearing Liberia apart. Having scattered Al Qaeda, sent bin Laden into hiding, liberated Afghanistan and Iraq, sent the Hussein brothers to the infernal regions, and placed Saddam in a box, Bush now had the power, the political capital and - more than anything - the optimism to address Africa. Bush believed that Africa was not hopeless. The future in Africa might not be Democracy. Perhaps some form of autocracy, or neo-colonialism would be required, but Bush believed that the people of Africa have potential and should not be left twisting in the international winds forever.

He also knew that Fundamentalist Islam lives and breeds in Africa. Bin Laden's first big strike against the West had been in Somalia, and Sudan was another danger spot. Southern Sudan had been a rich source of gold, slaves, and ivory for the Arab merchants of the north, who exploited a country tragically torn by the civil war between Arab-dominated northern and the diverse black African tribal populations of the south. Sudan, the largest country in Africa, was engaged in the worst ongoing humanitarian disaster on the continent by the time Bush became President. 2 million civilians died in civil war and 4 to 5 million were displaced. Famine, slave raids, bombing and other gross human rights violations occurred there on a massive scale. Muslim persecution of Christians took on a flavor that reminded missionaries who saw it of the Holocaust. For upwards of 50 years, a Sudan Muslim government has committed genocide.

The "Lost Boys' of Sudan" was reported on 60 minutes II. The following quotes describe their situation, from the perspective of one of the Sudanese people"

"Many lost boys died from starvation, thirst, wild animals like lions which preyed on them. Some drowned in swollen rivers of the South, others eaten by crocodiles as are forced to cross the river, hunger and diseases and many other things.

"Lack of parents and home make the lost boys wondering for where to live and who to care for them. Most of the children lived as orphans...some of them were shot dead by the Muslim government who used to attack the village, and kill adult and taking girls and boys as slaves.

"All the southern women mourned for their lost boys day and night. They also pray for orphans who had survived, they asked God for help and forgiveness of the people..."

The West yawned. There is only so much capacity for empathy, it seems. We are inundated by so much horror that we compartmentalize it. We are no longer shocked. We have a "mechanism" to keep distant from these things, in order to maintain our sanity. The general feeling now was that black Africans really had only themselves to blame. They could not "handle" freedom. Could this be true?

The Congo was just as bad. The United Nations was in limbo while the so-called Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was ravaged by genocidal war. Clashes between Lendu and Hema tribal factions escalated from a regional struggle for gold, diamonds, timber and other resources into a major civil war.

"The international community just doesn't care," said Bill Fletcher of Washington-based Trans-Africa Forum. "Over two million people dead. So what? The U.S. interest in Africa is in direct relationship to oil in the ground. Angola, yes. Equatorial Guinea, yes. But DRC, no."

A request by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan for a rapid deployment force (RDF) in DRC was not met with enthusiasm from the 15-member U.N. Security Council. A Council delegation led by Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere of France visited Central Africa, including the DRC, in June of 2003, but the United States refused to provide troops or participate in peacekeeping operations. France, Britain, Canada and Pakistan offered support for the Congo.

Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, proposed a contingent of European Union troops to DRC, under a U.N. mandate and an E.U. flag. The U.N.'s Administrative and Budgetary Committee, a 54-member African Group, complained that the world was not providing "adequate funds" for both the U.N. Observer Mission in the Congo and the U.N. Mission in Sierra Leone.

Two major human rights organizations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said that a "critical test" of the Security Council's commitment to prevent mass murder had failed.

"Thousands of civilians have already died in this conflict," said Kenneth Roth, HRWs executive director. "Only rapid U.N. action can head off continued killings."

According to HRW, at least 5,000 people died from direct violence in Ituri between July, 2002 and March, 2003, in addition to the 50,000 civilians who died there

since 1999. An estimated 2.5 million to 4.7 million civilians died in the DRC since 1998. Warring parties and neighbors exploited the gold, copper, coltan, diamonds, timber and cobalt resources.

Pierre Okongo Lumbi, head of the Commission on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and a senior DRC official, accused Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi of "pillaging" and "exploiting" the DRC. In a three-year period, over $1.5 billion worth of resources were taken by the neighboring African states. U.N. Under-Secretary-General Jean-Marie Guehenno asked for a peacekeeping force.

"The peacekeeping troops we have there are neither trained nor equipped to deal with the kind of violence that erupts from time to time," he said. "They're there to help implement a peace agreement, not to deal with militia that are at war."

The Group of Eight industrial powers met in June of 2003 with heads of state from South Africa, Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria and Senegal to discuss an "action plan" for Africa, calling for Western military and logistical support for a new regional peacekeeping force in Africa, with a troop strength of 3,500 to 5,000.

A 54-member regional group, the African Union, the successor to the former Organization of African Unity, met to discuss the situation, too. U.N. peacekeepers in the DRC, they were told, were overwhelmed.

"Our evaluation of what we know, it could be a genocide," said Carla Del Ponte, who was in charge of prosecuting perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

France wanted to lead an international mission with a U.N. battalion of about 700 troops. Kofi Annan requested troops from "governments with capacity."

"France has indicated that in principle it is prepared to participate in such a force, provided there is a clear mandate, and other governments join in," he said. "So we are in touch with other governments trying to see if they will join France in such an effort."

In 2003, a civil war reached overwhelming proportions in Liberia, a country with strong ties to the U.S. Freed slaves, with the mandate and support of President Monroe, had formed the nation in the early 19th Century. The capitol city, Monrovia, was named after him, as was another city named after President Buchanan. Liberia had long been a limited success story, but in 1997 Charles Taylor was "elected" president using the campaign slogan "I killed your ma, I killed your pa."

By 2003, civil war threatened to become genocide. Bush decided to step in and send troops, but offered to intervene only when Taylor left the country. He stationed troops of the Liberian coast. This act followed a trip Bush had taken to Africa, where he offered an impressive aid package to help battle AIDS through an education, medical and chastity-based program.

Bush's first tentative steps in Africa were the hopeful signs of a new beginning. It reflects the fact that only with American support and leadership can such an endeavor succeed. It offers some political benefit to Bush, who had the backing of international and U.S. black leaders. More important, investment in Africa says that America, and white people, have not "given up" on Africa, and do believe there is potential there in the 21st Century.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE DOMINANT MEDIA CULTURE AND THE EFFECT OF SPORTS ON AMERICAN SOCIETY

"We have to understand that there are differences between a capitalist lobotomy and socialist lobotomies."

\- Suzanne Ross

Hollywood and the McCarthy "backlash"

Let me get one thing perfectly clear. I love Hollywood. Let me amend that. I love what Hollywood produces. That being said, the past 10 years or so have been down years for the entertainment industry. Films that depict angst, religious animosity and a refutation of traditional values are all the rage, despite the fact that movies like "Seabiscuit" elicit laudatory commentary and big business from a public thirsty for something wholesome. Rap music has merged with punk and a hard-edged "heavy metal" sound to serve a hybrid of the counter-culture, although Christian rock and especially country and western has found itself to be the most popular, with its patriotic themes of God, country and family.

But nobody does it like Hollywood. The American film is the true art form of the 20th Century, and I am part of it. I studied in the prestigious University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television, as well as in the well-respected UCLA Writers' Program, which has produced numerous successful screenwriters. I have studied the so-called three-act "formula" screenplay, as well as all genre of film, from independent to studio blockbuster. I have written scripts and worked in Hollywood. I have an agent and I know show biz from the inside.

Why is Hollywood so liberal? The answer to that question is easy and complicated. First, it is not as liberal as many people think. There are "closet conservatives" in the industry, as well as some big names who lend themselves to causes. John Wayne, Charlton Heston and Frank Capra were just three well-recognized conservatives. I myself belong to an organization called Hollywood Republicans, which meets regularly and has a web site. There are groups of writers and producers who meet in "cells" to discuss "conservative" or family-themed scripts and projects. They wistfully talk about making "our kind of movies" with others who are considered "one of us" when they wrest control of the industry from the likes of Rob Reiner, who once said, "In my perfect world, the bad Senator will always be a Republican. When the conservatives make their movies, then they can do it their way."

Many of the "little people" in Hollywood - camera operators, stagehands, grips, etc., are Republicans, and there are plenty among the actors, writers, directors and producers. But the industry has been taken over by Left wing activists who have created the most stifling form of "thought police" in America today. It is the closest thing to censorship. We joke amongst ourselves that in Hollywood we are members of the Republican Witness Protection Program.

The first thing to address is the new sensibilities of fame. In the "old" days, actors came from the general population. Many served in the military. Guys like Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood and Steve McQueen were in the Marines or the Army, then were "roustabouts" who fell into acting because they had the looks and happened to be discovered. John Wayne became an actor because he injured himself and lost his scholarship to play football at Southern Cal. Their success was serendipitous. They certainly had egos and worked hard to get where they got, but underneath it all was a sense that they were just fortunate to have lucked into such a niche.

Too many of today's stars are narcissistic fools, although it is not all their fault. The "fame machine" of publicists, tabloids and television has created a juxtaposed "us vs. them" world in which they feel the need to insulate themselves from the great unwashed. This, however, comes at a terrible price of guilt. The fact is that very, very few actors are really that much more talented than the thousands who fail, and they know it. There are only a limited handful of stars who were destined for greatness no matter what.

Marlon Brando and James Dean had that kind of talent. Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant had screen presence. Sir Laurence Olivier was going to be a star. But for many other actors, their success was about luck, or something else. Many slept their way to the top. It would not surprise me to know that some made deal with Satan.

Jane Fonda was beautiful and talented, but was she really that extraordinary? Without the Fonda name, would she have become a star? Alec Baldwin is a handsome son of a gun with a great voice and screen presence, which goes for George Clooney, but in reality, there are plenty of unknowns who possess those same qualities. Julia Roberts strikes me as ordinary. Barbra Streisand is a singer extraordinaire, but an actress ordinaire.

So what is the point? The point is that the current crop of actors does not emanate from the populace like Wayne, McQueen or Eastwood once did. They do not come to Hollywood on leave from military service, or on their way home from an American victory in some foreign war. High school drama departments have become de facto gay youth clubs. The first gays I ever was aware were my high school drama teacher (who claimed to have served under Patton at the Bulge, by the way) and the students in his class. I did not care, although I took some heat from my jock buddies. I did not mind. I just knew I liked "Death of a Salesman" and the comic genius of Neil Simon.

The New Hollywood studies drama at elite universities and schools like the Actors Studio in New York, immortalized by the "Strassberg method" which emanated from a Russian drama teacher named Stavlinsky. After World War II, the second half of Stavlinsky's writings was discovered, revealing that the so-called "method" that propelled Brando and Dean was not what the author had intended, but the style became a fixture in the American acting scene.

When a handsome young man or gorgeous woman ascends to the top nowadays, they find their world turned inside out, with sycophants, managers, an adoring public, a fawning press, and more money than they could ever have imagined thrust onto them, seemingly overnight. Unlike athletes, who face competition from teammates and opponents, hear the boos of the crowd, and are subject to the ridicules of intemperate sportswriters, the actor is a protected species. They are not allowed to demonstrate "human" traits beyond platitudes about the rain forest, Alar on schoolkids' apples, or other things they know little about. Amazingly, an actress who plays a farmers' wife on screen, for instance, will be called before Congress to testify about the conditions of Midwestern farmers, as if their two weeks of preparation for the role somehow qualifies them.

Our newly inducted members of the Beautiful People's Club then have to deal with a question that nags at their innards. "Do I really deserve this?" The answer is, no more than the guy in their old acting class who did not get the break they got. That is not the answer they want to hear. Wracked by guilt over their own success, they develop a phobia for things that are earned, like national greatness, military objectives, and corporate success stories.

This does not apply to everybody. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are two of life's lottery winners who happen to have grown up together back in the day in Boston. They recognize how good they have it and refuse to play the swelled head. But they are exceptions to the rule. The biggest liberals in Hollywood tend to be utterly condescending and imperious, with little real respect for ordinary people.

Again, this does not apply to everybody. Rob Reiner is an enormous liberal, but to his credit he studies issues, puts his money where his mouth is, and has a genuine desire to help the community. I disagree with his politics but admire his passion. Sean Penn, Madonna and Barbra Streisand are blowhards who have no concept of reality, and there is little about their personal lives deserving of genuine respect.

Many conservatives have taken the position that actors are stupid because most of them never went to college, or even dropped out of high school, but this misses the point, too. They are not stupid. Acting is an important profession. I submit that if we closed all the movie theatres and video stores, and took away movies and TV shows, the worldwide clamor would be devastating. Folks need to be entertained. Entertainment also carries social importance. Certainly, Shakespeare's works are as much social commentary as entertainment. The Greeks before him used the stage to make political points, sometimes to the playwrights' physical detriment.

It was an actor, John Wilkes Booth, who felt destiny had put him in the misguided position to "save the Confederacy" by assassinating Abe Lincoln. Actors do not avoid college because they cannot get in. They are consumed by the passion to act, which spurs them to leave for Broadway or Hollywood as soon as they are out of high school, or causes them to drop out of college because a degree is not what will open doors for them. While many live in a kind of "dream world" of sex, drugs, and parties, most are intelligent. It was that intelligence and pursuit of creativity that pushed them into high school drama in the first place, where the ability to read well is essential to an actor. Acting requires perception and social empathy that are not normal traits of the Dumbellionite Class.

Most educated people will admit the majority of what they learned came from independent study and reading for pleasure in the post-college years, anyway. Working actors read many scripts that enlighten them to a myriad of issues. The really successful ones can employ advisors, and have plenty of time to read newspapers, magazines, and bone up on issues.

Let's face it, some of the most liberal actors are great at what they do. Tim Robbins is so far to the Left that he is almost a Communist. He does not look the part. He is tall, athletic and good-looking, and lands roles that portray him as business executives. His parents were folk singers, which may or may not explain why he has arrived at an egalitarian worldview that gives no credence to America's role as peacekeeper and savior. He just sees in this country exploitation, killing machine, corporate corruption and racism. He views people with his opinions to be the only ones capable of saving the world from us.

For these reasons, people such as myself have identified Robbins as something less than a traitor, but not much more than a hare-brained activist. It would be very easy to dismiss him and never watch his movies, except that he is responsible for some of my all-time favorite screen moments. He co-starred in the hilarious "Bull Durham" (1988), and in 1992 held together one of the greatest movie ever made, "The Player". That film was directed by another Leftist of remarkable antipathy towards conservatism named Robert Altman. Altman's art cannot be denied. He has the ability to create "conversations" among numerous characters that give his films, particularly "M*A*S*H" and "Nashville", an entertaining, documentary feel. This emanates from the French cinema verite embodied by Jean-Luc ("I have no script") Goddard.

Alec Baldwin told Jay Leno's audience that they should go to Republican Congressman Henry Hyde's house and stone the man and his family to death because they endorsed Clinton's Impeachment. The fact that he paid little price for this statement is extremely telling. First, any conservative who said anything remotely close to that would have been drawn and quartered. The reason for that is because conservatives are known to be intelligent, educated, serious people, so when they say something it is taken seriously This fact is understood and accepted by conservatives. People just dismissed Baldwin as a kooky actor, which is, in a nutshell, why their Dumbellionite statements never get traction. However, because they live in their little "look at me" worlds, these people have actually fooled themselves into believing they matter for something other than being a pretty or handsome popcorn mouthpiece on Saturday nights. They do not.

That is not to say they do not have a platform from which to build a case. Baldwin is not stupid. He certainly is not as stupid as his "killing Henry Hyde's family" statement would have the public believing. He has passion and cares about America, and for this he actually deserves some admiration. But where he and many of his ilk fail to get it is that their high profiles come with responsibility, at least if they plan to go public with their politics.

Baldwin may read the New York Times, but he fails to gauge the political winds. To him, a conservative Republican is an evil monster. It appears to me that one would have to scrape layers of insulation and adulation from Baldwin in order to get to any core understanding of people that is necessary in the political world. Baldwin thinks that conservative Republicans are racists, homophobes, heartless, baby killers, polluters, exploiters and imperialists.

Now, a Democrat like California's U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein could be sat down and rationally spoken to, and with. Senator Feinstein could see that Republicans want minorities to succeed, and might even agree that personal responsibility and a reform of old line affirmative action policies is necessary. Would Baldwin?

Senator Feinstein understands that Republicans may not endorse gay marriages, but believe gays should be allowed all the freedoms under the Constitution (just not more so). Baldwin probably could not be made to see this.

Feinstein understands that tax cuts are not "heartless," and has enough knowledge of economics to know that relieving the burden on the wealthy has the potential to spur growth. Her constituency and philosophy may differ on this, but she can see the reason in the Republican argument. Baldwin appears, from this angle at least, to be blinded by his narrower ideology.

Feinstein knows American soldiers are not gung-ho to kill children or drop napalm on farmers, but Baldwin seems pre-disposed to suspect the worst. Feinstein can listen to an argument that global warming may be a natural phenomenon, and she may produce sources to dispute it, but she is capable of reasoning the issue and understanding that it deserves further study. Baldwin is the kind of guy who is closed-minded on such things, easily dismissing Republicans as uncaring polluters, as if we breathe different air than he does.

Dianne Feinstein knows that in American history, this country has liberated millions and relieved suffering from one corner of the globe to another. Baldwin will have none of it. He will acknowledge our righteousness in World War II, but to him defeating Communism, and apparently terrorism, were little more than historical blips in which liberals were unfairly painted as enemies by the right.

The difference between a solid, respected Democrat like Senator Feinstein, and Alec Baldwin, is not just that Feinstein went to Stanford, and has immersed herself in a lifetime of knowledge, reading books, policy papers, and listening to advisors. She has dealt with the citizenry, asking for their votes, and she has worked closely with members of the political opposition, all with a common goal for America.

Baldwin was born with the gift of looks and vocal charisma. Once he hit it big (ironically playing the patriotic Tom Clancy character Jack Ryan in "The Hunt For Red October"), Baldwin's life changed. He became a multi-millionaire, with gorgeous women offering fantasy sex to him. Publicists protected him. Friendly interviewers promoted him. Tabloid fans adored him. Baldwin's temper, checked in his "previous life" by the norms of societal expectation, now could explode because he was no longer part of that normal society. He was a movie star. Suddenly, his opinion on matters of policy was elevated, and he believed his own importance. His story is hardly unique.

Ronald Reagan is often cited as "just an actor," but his political education was long and arduous. He cut his political teeth during the Red Scare, and Communists in Hollywood were not just a myth to him. They were real. He knew their names and he helped the government identify them. He went on the speaking circuit for G.E., and spent years learning issues and how to deliver them. He went through a maturation process, realizing that the Democrat party he had always identified with had left him, not the other way around. Slowly but surely, year after year, he became more politically savvy. When he finally entered the fray he was ready and never turned back.

Michael Moore is a disgruntled, angry little man. He made it big with a documentary about the Detroit automobile business. His premise was, essentially, that it was not fair for big corporations to make profits, and if they did not they should not be allowed to fire employees even if they could not afford to keep them on. It was Communist sophistry.

He made another documentary about guns that the fact-checkers discovered was filled with lies. America is a country in which legal gun owners hunt, and also protect their families with these weapons. Criminals who illegally own guns commit 99 percent of gun crime. Much of the crime that is prevented is done by legal gun owners stopping illegal gun owners from using their guns in the commission of crimes. But many criminals with illegal guns are minorities. Liberals like Michael Moore would prefer to shift the focus from this fact to the fact that most legal gun owners are white Republicans. He pointed to an isolated incident, the shooting at Columbine, as evidence that white gun owners are responsible for American crime. This is untrue, and Moore knows it. He says it anyway. Webster's has a word that describes this, and it starts with the letter "l." As far as I am concerned, Michael Moore should be excoriated for writing a book (the title of which describes him) called "Stupid White Males" just as much as I would be if I wrote a book called "Dumbass Negroes".

Most conservatives put their politics aside and frequent movies starring these liberals, because they really do not pay much attention to their pedantics. However, if an actor is on the cusp, so to speak, we may make another choice. Take Julia Roberts, who said "Republican can be found in the dictionary after reptile," which is not true. She demonstrated the truism that one is better to say nothing and be thought stupid than to open their mouth and remove all doubt. After years of hype, people are coming to realize she is highly over-rated. She received industry recognition for a movie that few outside the industry thought much of, when she portrayed the trashy, foul-mouthed "Erin Brockovich", a story about an isolated incident in the California desert in which the Pacific Gas & Electric Company inadvertently polluted the water supply of a tiny town. The implication, like Moore's work, is that big businesses are not the friends of the public, favoring tax cuts and pollution over the safety of kids. What is never mentioned in these portrayals is that companies like PG&E provide goods and valuable services desired by millions, at a fair price. They employee thousands, who fund dreams and families through the salaries and benefits derived through their success in a capitalist, free market system that is second to none in the world. They pay the taxes (plus make enormous charitable contributions) that provide the rising tide that lifts all boat in this, the greatest society ever conceived.

But Hollywood would just portray them as enemies. They cheer when they are slapped with billion-dollar lawsuits that result in job losses, higher prices, and help to grind the wheels of commerce down. Julia's average acting skills are now identified by many movie consumers who choose not to patronize her work.

Woody "Hemp Man" Harrelson is a Godsend to the Republicans. The fact that he is a Democrat discredits the Democrats more than Republican money can buy. Then there are guys like Mike Farrell and Ed Asner, who are washed up but try to stay in the public eye through political activism. Farrell is a sharp fellow who can give and take with the likes of Sean Hannity. Asner, however, is the old school liberal, still seething because the Communism he and his pals were associated with was identified for what it was. Asner has acting talent, but he has been known to vocally state that no Republicans would work on projects that he was involved. That was when he had enough clout to make such an outrageous edict stick. Unlike Farrell, Asner does not prepare himself for the interviews he conducts. Farrell at least has made the informed decision that, for instance, backing Pinochet over Allende in Chile was bad, and correlates that with invasion in the Middle East (??). Anyway, he at least knows some history. Asner just spouts nostrums about how we would get our heads handed to us in Iraq, which he said a few weeks before we destroyed Saddam. Asner eventually started doing interviews again, claiming that since Clinton was a liar, Bush must be, too. Farrell, to his credit, went on with Hannity and stuck to his (misguided) guns. Let me be clear, liberals like Asner and Farrell are not unpatriotic. If they have hard feelings against America, it is more out of a hope to make America a better place. Generally, they are of the "fairness" school of political discourse, which unfortunately is the same one that prompted Robert Oppenheimer to share atomic secrets with Soviet colleagues/spies. The idea is that it is not fair for one country - America - to be as powerful and successful as it is. They do not trust America to handle its power. Asner, Farrell and their kind believe in a better society. They are not bad people. They are due respect for their passion and desire to live in a better world, and to use their influence in so doing. Just because they do not have post-graduate degrees does not make them ineligible to voice reasoned opinions.

What is beyond reasonable belief is the fascination, indeed an actual love affair, between Fidel Castro and Hollywood. Surely these celebrities are aware of the thousands he has imprisoned and killed. Castro has probably murdered roughly 1 million people. The real truth will not be known until he is toppled. This information is common knowledge, not hidden from Hollywood.

When Castro toured the U.S. in his early days, he was feted by the New York Broadway crowd, surrounded by showgirls who appeared to be his sex offerings, while sycophant producers, actors and other show folk crowded around him like a guru. That was before his murderous repressions were known. Still, he gets the star treatment. It becomes hard to say that this man, an enemy of freedom and of America, could be idolized by anybody who does not, by virtue of idolizing him, hate America. Do they hate freedom? Is that possible? The answer is more complicated, obviously. There is something psychological about the mindset of celebrity, capitalism and patriotism that I make no effort to explain. Perhaps money, fame and idolatry place these celebs in a place they think is above the norm, as if the usual rules of conduct and decency are for somebody else.

Hollywood has labeled Castro a "genius" and a "source of inspiration to the world." Conservative media critic Michael Medved says these accolades are "sickening." Dennis Hays, head of the anti-Castro Cuban American National Foundation, compares the Cuban dictator's "hold" on Hollywood to a "cult" following, not unlike that of Jim Jones and David Koresh.

Saul Landau, who won an Emmy, produced documentaries on Castro.

He "has brought a greater equality in terms of wealth distribution than I guess any country in the world today," said Landau. Many of his policies are "praiseworthy." This analogy has been used countless times, but Hitler cut down on crime and Mussolini made the trains run on time.

Steven Spielberg dined with Castro, then announced that it "was the eight most important hours of my life." Spielberg may be a liberal, but "Saving Private Ryan" is one of the most patriotic movies ever made. Are conservatives just closed-minded about Castro? Can Spielberg's dinner and comments be misconstrued?

Jack Nicholson spent three hours with Castro in 1998.

"He is a genius," said Nicholson. "We spoke about everything."

He is "a source of inspiration to the world," according to supermodel Naomi Campbell. "I'm so nervous and flustered because I can't believe I have met him. He said that seeing us in person was very spiritual." She met Castro with fellow model Kate Moss. Castro is a notorious ladies man who has slept with hundreds, probably thousands of women. One can only guess at a Campbell-Moss-Castro menage a trois.

"Socialism works," "explained" economist/comedian Chevy Chase. "Cuba might prove that. I think it's conclusive that there have been areas where socialism has helped to keep people at least stabilized at a certain level."

Chase's statement is as telling as any. If he, and others like him, actually believe this, then there is a sense that there is no hope. It has to speak to a commitment to a certain hope or ideal that these people want to be true so badly that they will believe it is true no matter what. When O.J. Simpson was on trial, psychologists posited that he had worked himself into a mindset in which he actually convinced himself of his own innocence. Perhaps liberals have done the same thing.

American media moguls like the president of CBS TV, the head of MTV and the editor of Vanity Fair called Cuba "romantic...soulful and sexy..." according to the New York Post.

Robert Redford, Spike Lee, Sidney Pollack, Oliver Stone, Woody Harrelson, Danny Glover, Ed Asner, Shirley MacLaine, Alanis Morissette, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Kevin Costner ventured there like pilgrims.

Costner has been rumored to fairly conservative by Hollywood standards, but he went there in 2001 for the premiere of his film, "Thirteen Days".

"It was an experience of a lifetime to sit only a few feet away from him and watch him relive an experience he lived as a very young man," Costner said. This is at least a reasonable statement.

Cultural critic David Horowitz called Redford's 1990 film "Havana", "grotesque," in its fawning of Castro. Harry Belafonte and Ted Turner promoted Castro as if he was Winston Churchill. The New York Times said of the 2002 film called "Fidel", "This is an exercise not in biography but in hero worship." In Cuba, Belafonte railed against his own country and his President. Hollywood wants Bush to end the trade embargo imposed on Cuba since 1961, but Bush will not do so until Castro honors human rights, releases political prisoners and holds free and fair elections.

"It's very sad, and I wish Steven Spielberg and Danny Glover or any of these other guys would spend a little time with some of the political prisoners in jail before they make broad stroke comments about Cuba and Cuban society," Hays said.

He said he hopes celebrities will "open their eyes" before they promote Castro's Cuba.

"Remember, this is a man who has killed tens of thousands of his own citizens," continued Hays. "He's killed over 30 Americans, he harbors fugitives from U.S. justice, he has supported terrorism and narco-terrorism throughout the hemisphere, causing untold thousands of other citizens' deaths." Castro's is a "ruthless dictatorship that denies people the freedom of speech, the freedom of press, the freedom of association...What is the problem here? Short of Saddam Hussein, it's hard to find a figure in the world that has caused more human misery than Fidel Castro."

Yet Spielberg, who produced the depiction of the German slaughter of Jews, dines with a man who slaughters Cubans and Catholics

"[Spielberg is] totally blind to gulags in Cuba. [During his recent visit to Cuba] he made no mention of the thousands of people who are harassed and imprisoned on a daily basis," Hays added.

"Part of the Hollywood mindset is an almost childlike fantasy to escape to fantasy world," said Medved, the author of "Hollywood vs. America". "The one characteristic we connect most to really successful people in Hollywood is immaturity and that fits very well into utopian paradises of various kinds, like Cuba." Celebrities become "animated by guilt...One of the ways people deal with that guilt is they become revolutionaries, and Castro is perfect for them because he is an intellectual...[Castro] is a rich guy, he's always been a rich guy, he's from the elite like most of Hollywood."

Of Spielberg's eight most important hours of his life, Medved notes, "Not the hours when he met his wife, not the birth of his children, it was the eight hours he spent with Fidel."

"It just shows that Spielberg may be a talented filmmaker, but he hasn't got any moral brains," Horowitz, a former 1960s radical, said. "They say, 'isn't it wonderful, [Cubans] are all driving these vintage cars and they keep them running.' Well, it is not so wonderful because they are too poor to get anything else." It is a "national disgrace" that has "been going on for years and years." Castro is a "sadistic monster...the longest surviving dictator in the world," yet "[Hollywood] can't tell a dictator from a Democrat or a country deliberately and systemically impoverished by its leader. These people don't know anything. It's just depressing to even talk about it. They are 'useless idiots,' if I may turn [Vladimir] Lenin's comment around."

"[Castro] has acknowledged that he personally slept with over 1,000 women...it would be fairly common for Castro to go through four or five women a day," said Medved. "For people who have invested a great deal of life proudly trying to see how many beautiful women you can conquer, there is a natural tendency to identify with Bill Clinton or Fidel Castro."

Robin Bronk is the executive director of the Creative Coalition, a liberal celebrity-based activist group whose founders include Ron Silver, Christopher Reeve, and Susan Sarandon.

"Celebrity activism is as old as [silent film actress] Gloria Swanson," she said.

"We live in a society here in the U.S. where celebrities are put out there as opinion leaders. Just as they have their agent and their manager and their publicists, they are expected to have their issue," which "if utilized the right way, there are a lot of spokespeople who are speaking on behalf of issues that are not necessarily the best spokespeople.

"Typically people in the arts tend to be more liberal and less conservative. I think it's the nature of that constituency."

Filmmaker Saul Landau disputed the "celebrities are just stupid" angle.

"How the hell is he duping them?" he said. "They've got two eyes, they've got two ears. Cuba is the king of all of Latin American countries. You don't have millions of homeless people in Cuba, you don't have 42 million people who don't have access to medical care." Cuba, he says, OUTPERFORMS the United States "when you talk about the right to food, the right to shelter, the right to a job, the right to a retirement." This is tantamount to saying that the Redwood Pop Warner team has a better football tradition than Notre Dame.

"I have not seen any evidence that he is a sadistic monster or a brutal dictator," he added. "People in Miami who are running their anti-Castro lobby, are, in my opinion, not representative of the Cubans in the country. Cuban human rights violations take the form of procedural violations. They involve legal and political rights rather than economic and social rights. They broke a lot of eggs" to achieve their goals. "It's very difficult coming from the U.S., to imagine a political leader with whom you could have an intelligent conversation. Well, I guess you could with Bill Clinton, but you certainly can't with the moron that is in there today."

Castro has a "religious aura" about him, he says. "When he comes into room, a wind follows him. He intimidates people by his very presence, he emanates, he vibrates power."

Dear Christ Almighty!

The actual Cubans who experience Castro never say anything nice about him. In the 1950s, actress Lucille Ball was suspected of having Communist sympathies, but her husband, Desi Arnaz, had none. He recounted how Communists came to his house in Cuba and burned it down because his family was successful, and that he "hates" Communism. Actor Andy Garcia is a Cuban refugee.

"Sometimes, you feel like what's really going down in Cuba is protected in a way by the American media, and it's a shame, because the truth needs to come out," Garcia told Fort Lauderdale's City Link. "People need to be aware of what's really going on down there."

Garcia's 2000 HBO movie, "For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story", profiled a jazz musician who fled Cuba for America. "For me, there's no substitute for liberty and freedom. People die for that."

"People don't have a lot of information, and when they ask me about it, I tell them about the drama of exiles, the repression, the firing squads, the horror of Communism," singer Gloria Estefan, another Cuban refugee, told Exito Online in 1997. "My whole family paid a heavy price for freedom. My father not only fought in the Bay of Pigs, he volunteered to fight in Vietnam. He fought for these same freedoms. How could I forget that Fidel Castro was the person who did me so much harm?"

In 2002-03, Castro upped his crackdown on dissidents with the speedy convictions of at least 74 nonviolent government opponents in nonpublic "kangaroo-court" proceedings. Rounded up were independent journalists and pro-Democracy activists, including reporter-photographer Omar Rodriguez Saludes, writer Raul Rivero and magazine editor Ricardo Gonzalez, who received sentences up to 27 years each.

The U.S. State Department called the actions "the most egregious act of political repression in Cuba in the last decade." Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa said that Castro's crackdown was the "natural progression of a dictatorship that has been oppressing human rights for years." The House passed a condemning resolution, 414-0, and Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and International PEN, among others, joined the chorus of condemnation.

Castro's "one hell of a guy," was Ted Turner's response.

He is "one of the most mysterious leaders in the world," said Barbara Walters (not considered a major liberal; she got her start in public relations under Bill Safire) on ABC's _20/20_.

Castro relies on "the unswerving naivete and obtuseness of the American Left, which consistently has managed to overlook what a goon he is," wrote _Washington Post_ columnist Richard Cohen.

He is "one of the Earth's wisest people," said Oliver Stone, who also made a loving documentary of Castro that was so fawning that HBO could not run it. New York VIPs paid up to $6,500 to jet to Cuba with Yoko Ono to meet with Castro.

"It's especially ironic that press and publishing executives are paying an enormous premium to meet with a man who is busy jailing journalists and writers for being journalists and writers," Mickey Kaus commented.

But why is Hollywood so liberal? It starts with anti-Semitism, Joe McCarthy and John Kennedy, who ironically was a friend and supporter of McCarthy. Joseph P. Kennedy backed McCarthy. McCarthy dated his daughter. Bobby worked for him. JFK refused to condemn him even after he was President, calling him a great American.

It would be nice to blame Hollywood's liberalism on Joseph P. Kennedy, who seems to be to blame for many other ills of the 20th Century. He made a big splash in Hollywood and squired plenty of actresses around. When his kids grew up they gravitated toward California, which became a home away from home. With their money good looks, they fit right in among the Hollywood set.

JFK's PT legend was built by John Hersey, who married one of Kennedy's former girl friends, in the New Yorker. JFK's life, from his prep school graduation to his Congressional debut; his health, his women, his Naval career; his Pulitzer, years in the Senate, the 1960 campaign fraud; his mob ties, friendship with Frank Sinatra, affairs with Marilyn Monroe, the death of Monroe; everything in his life and the life of his family has been dissected and is known. Virtually none of it was known when he and Robert Kennedy were alive and courting votes.

The reason for this is because Kennedy was a hero of the Left. The Left controlled the media. The "job" of the Left is not to reveal truthful accounts of events that shed a bad light on heroes of the Left. Its "job" is to reveal truthful accounts of events that shed a bad light on heroes of the right. They proved to be good at it.

Had they revealed 20 percent of the truth about John Kennedy, he would not have defeated Richard Nixon in 1960. He would never have been elected President. Neither would any other Kennedy, assassinations or no assassinations. JFK likely never would have beaten John Cabot Lodge for Massachusetts Senator in 1954.

The Kennedy myth is only one example of the way the media has long dominated what America thinks. There is good news, however. In this beautiful nation we live in, Truth is available. There are numerous people who seek and discover the Truth, and for those of us who do this, it sets us free. Hallelujah.

Howard Hughes was America's richest man. Riches denote success and hard work, the American Dream. It is the opposite of Communism, and therefore related to conservatism. Such people are more likely to be members of the Republican party. Hughes was a Republican, and to make matters worse, a supporter of Richard Nixon. For all the aforementioned reasons, the press attacked him. His biographer, Charles Higham, claims he was anti-Semitic because a poet who once was supposed to have written something anti-Semitic was on his payroll at one time. The problem with this charge is that, unlike the true anti-Semitic charges leveled on Joe Kennedy, or the anti-Semitic charges that the mainstream press did not report about Hillary Clinton, Hughes was mostly sympathetic toward Jews. He had some "run-ins" with Jewish film executives, but this describes anybody who rose to any kind of prominence in Hollywood.

Anti-Semitism may be the root of the liberal media in America. Film critic Michael Medved reported that over the years, he has received "...mail from viewers and readers in all regions of the country who suspect that the disproportionate number of Jews in Hollywood leadership positions might somehow account for the alienation of the industry elite from the American mainstream. Some of these letters..." Medved writes, "...appear to be sincere attempts by basically well meaning people to understand what's gone wrong with the popular culture. Others reflect anti-Semitic attitudes of the most poisonous and pernicious variety."

Since Hollywood became a place where Jews could succeed, it became a place where they could "fight back" against the anti-Semitism that they faced. Anti-Semitism became associated with elite WASPS, who did not allow Jews in their country clubs, which in turn were associated with the Republican party. The early Communists (namely Marx) were Jewish. Since their was prejudice against Jews in America, this helps explain why many American Communists were Jewish. The fact that millions of Jews died under Communism is a troubling issue for liberal Jews. Nevertheless, Jews became influential in Hollywood and the media, and in turn the media became liberal.

No "business in the world is so firmly associated in the public mind with the Jewish people as the American entertainment industry," said Medved. Kennedy, the son of one of the most virulent anti-Semites in the country, became associated with the Civil Rights Movement, which was populated by Jewish liberals, many in the film industry. Kennedy campaigned regularly in California, where he raised funds and lent himself to the glamour and glitz of the industry. He absolutely loved it.

Kennedy also came after McCarthy. It was the rise of Kennedy which coincided with the final ending of the so-called "blacklist" that had, according to myth, prevented Hollywood screenwriters and directors from working for a few years. Through the power of film, Hollywood painted a picture of an American Gestapo, peeking into bedrooms and trampling on the civil rights of poor liberals, who, God forbid, happened to be millionaire Jewish Hollywood bigshots. Very oppressed people.

Check out some of the trash that depicts McCarthyism, and you may notice something odd. The Senators, always readily identified as Republicans, are always fictitious. They are carefully chosen for their pursed lips, pinched expressions, uptight manners and general disaffection for humanity. But they are never based on real people. They are never McCarthy. Why? Because these "events" are not based on real things that happened. It is, virtually all of it, a damnable, Orwellian lie (to borrow from Ann Coulter, author of "Treason").

Hollywood was not always liberal. D.W. Griffith's "Birth of A Nation" (1915) was downright racist, but like Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi Olympics documentary, it was brilliant. John Wayne, often directed by the patriot John Ford, portrayed cowboy heroes, dominating screens in the 1930s, '40s and '50s. "Gone With the Wind" (1939) was a fabulous, endearing portrait of the Old South that would never be made today because it "glorified" a racist society. The Hayes Codes provided standards to protect viewers from so-called "indecent" activity like pregnancy and couples sleeping with each other. J. Edgar Hoover found out that Charlie Chaplin, a British citizen, was a member of the Communist Party, and had the temerity to inform Chaplin that he knew this fact.

In 1939, Frank Capra made "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", starring Jimmy Stewart. I have sources that tell me a film was made 10 years later that depicted the Republican as a good guy, but I could not verify it. To the best of my knowledge, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" is the last big screen film in which the Democrat was the bad guy, and even then it is only inferred. In Capra's classic, a Midwestern political machine based on the corrupt Democrat organization in Kansas City that Harry Truman rose to power in, is exposed by an idealistic young Senator (Stewart). Claude Rains plays the Truman character. He looked just like him, and in end gives a Senate floor mea culpa of his complicity with Democrat crimes, which is highly, precisely and to quintessential effect the same one "Give 'em hell Harry" should have given, but never did. All is not lost for the Democrats, however, because Stewart is still a Democrat, and the hope for the future. In reality, the Democrats just got more corrupt, and Hollywood would be their willing ally.

Capra made hopeful family pictures like "It's A Wonderful Life", and Hollywood had a decidedly patriotic feel to it. Daryl Zanuck was an American legend, and his 1962 classic "The Longest Day", featuring an all-star cast led by Duke Wayne, holds up to this as an accurate portrayal of D-Day. After a spate of quick combat pictures after the war, however, thing had changed. Film noir became stock in trade. Movies of dark psychological character study, social conflict and post-war angst hit the scene. "The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit", starring Gregory Peck, exploited the "failure" of the American Dream. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, audiences began to see something different, but they could not quite put their finger on what it was. It was subliminal, except when it was obvious.

Since the U.S. had been allied with the Soviets in the war, it seemed natural that Hollywood would put out movies depicting the Russians in battle. Fair enough. It seemed just as fair as making movies about the British. But the Soviet war pictures were different. They were less about realistic portrayal of their courageous defense of Stalingrad, and more about the "joys" of Marxism. Movies like "Song of Russia" were pure propaganda, promoting Communism as the future. Other films would show handsome Russian soldiers in foxholes with beautiful Russian girls and wise old Russian men, spouting phrases straight out of "The Communist Manifesto" while happily killing Nazis. Gregory Peck was in such a movie, and he must have been ashamed, not just because he was doing Stalin's PR., but because it was such utterly bad cinema.

As our good friend Slim Pickens would have said, "What in the wide, wide world of sports is goin' here?" Congress noticed these clunkers and began to ask, "Who in God's name is making this stuff?" Thus was born the House Un-American Activities Committee. Hollywood of course would have the gullible public believe HUAC was created simply to make those liberal Hollywood Jews stop making liberal movies. In reality, it grew out of the Venona project, which had identified hundreds of Communists working in the Democrat State Department, the Army, and both the FDR and Truman Administrations.

The 1950s have been described as an "American reign of terror" in Hollywood. Many of those questioned about their terrible stint on the Blacklist, when pressed further, often refer to extended periods in Paris or the south of France, where they found work in the avante garde French movie business which saw its heyday in that decade, led by the work of Jean Luc Goddard. A real "Gulag Archipelago". In the meantime, American boys fighting the very Communists they sympathized with were getting their asses shot off in the Chosin Reservoir.

Based on a great novel by Allen Drury, "Advise and Consent" was a 1950s film that holds up today as one of the best political movies ever. It revolves around the nomination of Henry Fonda to be Secretary of State. The fictional account portrays Fonda, based on Alger Hiss, and his nomination raises a huge hullabaloo. In Hollywood's perfect world, Hiss/Fonda is not convicted, and a bungling Burgess Meredith plays the Whittaker Chambers character. Instead of using his Christian resolve to uncover the Truth via his "pumpkin papers," he is discredited as a liar. It also offers an insidious plot to blackmail a bi-curious Republican Senator. It is good stuff, but definitely political revisionism.

1960 was the "official" end of the Blacklist. A young director named Stanley Kubrick had made a brilliant movie about military justice, "Paths to Glory", starring Kirk Douglas in 1958. In 1960, he directed the classic, "Spartacus". "Spartacus" starred Douglas as a slave of the Roman Empire, depicting his deadly rivalry with the Roman General Crassus (played to perfection by Laurence Olivier). The film was rife with social message. The slaves who rise up against their Roman oppressors are metaphors for the working class, especially minorities, rising up against white oppression. One black slave, played by ex-football star Woody Strode, gives his life so Spartacus can live. The fact that he was black was well calculated. Dalton Trumbo, a former Communist, wrote "Spartacus". He penned it under an assumed name because he was still Blacklisted. When it came time to edit the film for release, Douglas, a huge star and its producer, made the decision to list Trumbo as the writer. His power and the film's success combined with this act ended the Blacklist. In a notorious scene that was cut from the original but has since been restored, a slave named Antoninus (Tony Curtis) bathes Crassus/Olivier. Strange wordplay about a preference between snails and oysters at first seems irrelevant until one realizes it is Trumbo's effort to introduce a homosexual theme to the story, using snails and oysters as metaphors for straight and gay love. Isn't that special?

Hollywood would employ former Blacklisted writers and directors. There were not very many of them, and only a few of them possessed real talent. But the real "end of the Blacklist" was the new direction of film content. Film was established as the most powerful medium in the world, a combination of high art and cultural media. Hollywood was going to get their licks in. Big time.

In 1962, John Frankenheimer made "The Manchurian Candidate", which starred and was produced by Frank Sinatra. The film has alternately been described anti-Communist by some, not so by others, including Frankenheimer, who was (ironically as I shall demonstrate) a close friend of Robert Kennedy's. RFK was his guest the last night of his life. Based on a 1950s novel, the film shows an Army unit in Korea, captured by the Communists, and made to endure "brainwashing" techniques, which they cannot remember except in their sleep. Lawrence Harvey wins a Congressional Medal of Honor for actions that in reality never happened, but were programmed into the mind of the unit. He is the son of a Hillary Clinton-type dragon lady, played to perfection by Angela Lansbury. Her husband, his stepfather, is Senator Johnny Iselin, a McCarthy figure. The political affiliation is a little fuzzy, but it can be assumed he is a Republican, although another Senator is viewed as an ACLU liberal, yet still a member of Iselin's party (?).

The Iselin (McCarthy) character is depicted as a buffoon and a drunkard with no redeeming qualities. He makes scurrilous accusations about Communists in the government with no proof, and when asked to name how many, arrives at the random number "52" because of an available bottle of Heinz 52 catsup. It is without a doubt a classic film, and to its credit the Communists are shown to be bloodthirsty animals. There is some confusion because Lansbury and her husband are right wing ideologues, except that it turns out Lansbury is a Communist spy, using the cover of the right to plan the assassination of a Presidential candidate. The idea is for Iselin (who is unaware of his wife's espionage?) to become President. Presumably somebody like McCarthy in the White House is the worst possible scenario for America, and plays into Moscow's hands. The shooting is to be carried out by her son, Harvey, but Sinatra gums up the works by figuring out how he was brainwashed, and catastrophe is averted in the end.

One year later, Frankenheimer was back at it with "Seven Days in May", screenwritten by "Twi-Light Zone" creator Rod Serling. Serling's "Zone's" were a masterpiece of semi-liberal social conscience. Frankenheimer seized on another 1950s novel based on the real events of 1934, in which Republican industrialists recruited Marine hero Smedley Butler to orchestrate a coup d'etat against FDR. The novel and Frankenheimer's film fictionalize the event. It was, again, one of the best movies ever made, but completely liberal. Frankly, I have to ask why in 1963 the decision was made to examine a political conspiracy from 1934 when the worst political crime in U.S. history, the stealing of the 1960 election by Kennedy over Nixon, had occurred just three years prior. The answer to that question, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.

After JFK's assassination, "The Manchurian Candidate" was pulled because it hit too close to home, but in June, 1968 RFK was staying at Frankenheimer's Malibu home the night of the California Primary. He was tired and wanted to stay there. The enthusiasm of his victory that night convinced him to make the long drive on a twisting, turning Pacific Coast Highway, up the Santa Monica Freeway to downtown Los Angeles, where Sirhan Sirhan was waiting for him with a gun at the Ambassador Hotel.

Kirk Douglas is the Butler character In "Seven Days In May", an upright Marine whose politics are explained early by a fellow officer who says to him, "I though you'd be an ACLU lawyer by now, protecting the great unwashed." Douglas describes this officer as the kind who would be better suited for an army that goosesteps. Good dialogue, though. Burt Lancaster is the right wing Air Force General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is modeled after Curtis LeMay, although the Lancaster swagger and charisma make him far more appealing. Frederick March is President Jordan Lyman, an ardent liberal who has just signed a peace treaty with the Soviets that presumably dismantles much of our nuclear arsenal. Lancaster does not trust the Soviet will honor their end of the bargain. Therefore he is convinced they will strike and America will be lost. A U.S. Senator is in on Lancaster's plot to take over the Presidency. They make him from California just to make sure he is affiliated with Dick Nixon. Nice touch. The public is solidly against the President, fueled by a right wing radio host in a prescient script device. In the end, the "protector of the great unwashed," Douglas, foils the plot and March's speech to the D.C. press corps is met by a standing ovation. Oh, those evil militarists and Republicans.

Around this time Marlon Brando starred in "The Ugly American", which despite its title was not liberal, but proved to be prescient. It was loosely based on the friendship developed between an American fighter pilot, shot down and fighting with guerillas, and Ho Chi Minh, who was fighting the Japanese during World War II. Marlon, the former pilot-turned-PR-executive, is named ambassador to a small Southeast Asian nation modeled on Indochina. The reason he is appointed is because of his friendship with a populist leader there who the U.S. fears may be a Communist. Brando assures them the man is not one, but when he gets there he discovers the man is. Their friendship turns into mortal enmity, and America's largesse, goodwill and social conscience are thrown back at us by savage mobs roiled by Marxist ideology. The final scene shows a press conference detailing the crisis, with a businessman changing the channel on his TV to show American indifference to the world's crises. Considering what happened in Vietnam over the next years, it proved to be a real cautionary tale.

In 1964 the first of the "bomb" movies came out. Kubrick further earned his place in the pantheon of film greats with his all-time classic "black comedy," "Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Love the Bomb". Explaining how a movie that ends in the world obliterated by nuclear (actually hydrogen) holocaust is a comedy leads me to suggest watching it. Only then you will know. The iconoclastic Kubrick made an iconoclastic film starring the extraordinary Peter Sellers in three roles. He plays the President, a lily-livered liberal in the mold of Adlai Stevenson. He plays Mandrake, a British Royal Air Force officer, and he plays Dr. Strangelove, an ex-Nazi scientist based on Werner von Braun, although some of have suggested that they see in the madman Henry Kissinger. Kissinger was not well known when the script by Terry Southern (who later wrote "Easy Rider" but died destitute) was turned in.

The premise is that an Air Force General, Jack Ripper (most of the characters are given descriptive names), played by the Communist bohemian and Sausalito weed smoker Sterling Hayden, goes mad. He is convinced that because water is fluoridated the Communists have conspired to deprive red-blooded Americans of their "essence," their "vital bodily fluids"...their semen. For this obviously stupid (believed only by right wing wackos) reason, Ripper overrides Air Force protocol and orders his nuclear attack wing to bomb Russia back to the stone age. Of course this is meant to show that the military is filled with lunatic fringe elements with their hands on the button. In an interesting bit of terminology, the words Soviet Union are never uttered, only Russia, presumably to "humanize" all those agrarian reformers. Thought I hadn't caught that, huh? Anyway, real-life pacifist George C. Scott, playing General Buck Turgidson, discovers Ripper's plan. He is another Curt LeMay take-off, bombastic and filled to the brim with sexual testosterone that seemingly can only be released by his bikini-clad girl Friday, or by bombing the Russkies to smithereens.

A plan is hatched to inform the Communists how to shoot down the wing, in order to prevent nuclear holocaust. Turgidson thinks that is a terrible idea and that as long as the boys are on their way, they should drop their payload on the bastards. The Russian Ambassador, however, puts a crimp in those plans by informing the President that this would set off a Doomsday Machine, guaranteed to destroy all life on Earth. Turgidson laments the fact that there is a "gap" between the Soviet possession of such a device, which the Americans lack, no doubt due to liberal malfeasance. Forced by the Doomsday scenario to avoid holocaust, the Americans and Russians work together to shoot down all the U.S. planes, save one. Meanwhile, Ripper kills himself and his aide de camp, Mandrake/Sellers, discovers the recall code. But the last plane, piloted by good ol' boy Slim Pickens, is as Turgidson/Scott describes, wily enough to evade radar, while damage from a heat-seeking missile has rendered it unable to receive the recall. They make their run. Pickens makes his cowboy speech about going "toe to toe, nuclear combat with the Russkies" and emphasizes the crew, including a young James Earl Jones, is due commendations "regardless of race, color or creed." With Pickens personally releasing and riding his bomb into a Valhallic destiny, the deed is done, leaving the Doomsday shroud to envelop the Earth. All is not lost, however, because Dr. Strangelove/Sellers, messianically saluting the President as "mein Fuhrer," describes how mineshafts can be converted into underground government societies for the next 100 years. The boys all smile when Strangelove says that in order to further the human race through procreation, many more attractive women than men would have to be recruited to do "prodigious sexual work." Unfortunately, monogamy would have to be a thing of the past. The end.

"Dr. Strangelove" may be one of the 10 greatest movie ever made, but its comic message was clear: The military is not to be trusted, nuclear weapons serve no good purpose, and the Soviets are likely to be victims of our aggression. Like a number of movies, however, its political message is stilted. Reagan said it was his favorite.

In 1965, a serious nuclear movie called "Fail Safe" was released. Henry Fonda is the President. A computer glitch launches The Bomb for the U.S.S.R. Fonda cannot recall it, and apologizes to the Soviet premier. His wife is visiting New York City, and in one of the worst political decisions in Hollywood history, Fonda tells the Soviets that in order to prove to them it was an accident, he will drop a 30-megaton nuclear bomb on the Big Apple! He carries through with his decision, despite his wife's presence there. The Soviets are portrayed as suffering their fate with dignified resolve.

"To Sir With Love" was a beautiful story about a black teacher, Sidney Poitier, who overcomes racial barriers to teach West London toughs and toughettes the meaning of life. It was, literally, banned in Alabama, which was ruled entirely by...the Democrat party. In 1967, Poitier again stirred the red-necks with "In the Heat of the Night", where he plays Virgil Tibbs, a competent Philadelphia cop stuck overnight in a Mississippi town. It must be 110 degrees at night. The white boys sweat like stuck pigs while Virgil is as cool as a cucumber in a Savoy Row suit. The sheriff, Rod Steiger, is discomfited by circumstances in which Tibbs is "lent" to him to solve a murder that happens to occur when he is there. In working together, layer after layer of characterization is stripped away in marvelous fashion, through the skill of director Norman Jewison (who tells everybody he is not a Jew, he is Methodist), until understanding between the two men become a metaphor for the healing of a divided America. Very good stuff.

In 1969, John Wayne infuriated the Left with "The Green Berets", a film that made no apologies in its all-out support of America's effort in Vietnam. It was lambasted by critics, but in a very interesting sign, sold out at the box office. It plays today and while it is heavy-handed, there is little about it that rings untrue. The soldiers do not swear, complain or bastardize their uniforms like the actual guys did, but their patriotism and military professionalism was the real deal. The Communists they fight in the film are shifty little pissants. This does not deviate from the essential truth.

In 1970, two films juxtaposed each other. "Patton" was an unlikely winner of eight Oscars. The pacifist Scott for all practical purposes took his Buck Turgidson character and refined him into the real-life Patton. In interviews, Scott said he found his research of Patton revealed an unbalanced man, but on screen Scott nailed him as the vainglorious, brilliant, driven warmonger he was. Steiger was offered the role first but turned it down because it glorified war. Vietnam was absolutely at its apex. It was very surprising that Hollywood would make such a film at that time. But director Frankin Schaffner had served under Patton, and after making "The Planet of the Apes" had the clout to call his shots. The film did not get America behind the war, but it did cause Nixon to start bombing Cambodia because the Patton story convinced him to get tough. The screenwriter, oddly enough, was Francis Ford Coppola, who may have done himself a turn. Coppola was no war lover, and wrote "Patton" as a man obsessed with war ("God help me, I love it so"), deluded by visions of Napoleonic grandeur mixed with Episcopalian Christianity and karmic reincarnation. The intent may have been to show a psychotic military man, to de-mask his heroism, and this may have been what prompted Scott to play it. From page to screen there are virtually no changes, but if Coppola was trying to put down the military by showing Patton's human warts, the result was a brilliant work that now is one of, if not the most, conservative pictures ever made. Watching "Patton" stirs wonderful pride in two countries (Great Britain is prominent in the film) that were tough enough to stand up to the Nazis when the rest of the world cowered in victimhood. Karl Malden's Omar Bradley is Patton's perfect foil, as is the Bernard Law Montgomery character. The film saved Coppola, who was about to be fired as "The Godfather" director. When he won the Oscar for "Patton", it gave him too much clout to get the axe.

At the same time, Robert Altman's "M*A"S*H" came out. It, too found an audience, and truth be told many who enjoyed "Patton" enjoyed "M*A*S*H". It was just plain funny, and the anti-military theme was subtle. Altman walked a brilliant tightrope between a pro-American and unpatriotic premise. There is no doubt that Altman intended it as an anti-Vietnam movie. It was written by former Communist Ring Lardner, Jr. Lardner had been Blacklisted, and this fact featured prominently in the politics of the film's aura. It was based on a sexy paperback novel about surgeons in Korea. The film was set in Korea, yet made every possible attempt to convey the image that it was actually Vietnam. Many of the movie's set pieces were deliberately Vietnamese in nature and costume, for that very purpose. To the extent that it was unpatriotic, it subtly described "regular Army" officers as unyielding, intolerant Christians, utterly blinded by stupid jingoism. The draftees, however, are funny and attractive as they drink and love their way through a bevy of good-looking nurses, all while saving lives in the style of comic Galahads. Altman showed genius as a filmmaker. The movie avoided real controversy because it was just so darn good.

"M*A*S*H" spurred a television show that ran for years. In the 1970s it played for its time and audience. Re-runs, however, strain its credibility beyond Altman's original themes. Two doctors played the "bad guy." The first was a complete buffoon. Frank Burns was prominently identified as a Republican. He is given zero good qualities. He is ugly, a bad doctor, a coward, a racist and all-around mean SOB who cheats on his wife with Major Margaret Hoolihan, who at least is given some character. She is half-Vixen, half-Fascist, naturally Republican, a patriotic American in the "worst way," who worships the idols of war. Over the years the writers gave Margaret a little development. Very little. Burns was replaced by Major Charles Emerson Winchester, a Boston Brahmin, naturally a Republican whose father "knows Truman. He doesn't like him, but he knows him." Winchester, like Hoolihan, is allowed a touch of humanity when the liberal writers felt charitable, but generally was available for all possible bashing. Two hero-doctors anchor the show by showing their intelligence, medical skills and tolerance as direct contrasts to the war effort. The CIA is lampooned, and a military effort that in reality featured MacArthur's Inchon campaign, perhaps the most brilliant invasion in history, is also played as foolish. In the end, the TV show and the film avoid being really and actually unpatriotic because they do feature an emphasis on the basic goodness of the American spirit under stress, but you will not catch me tuned in to those old re-runs.

TV shows began to veer into social territory in the 1970s, especially "All In the Family". Carroll O'Connor played Archie Bunker, the epitome of everything liberals despise. In turning him into a cartoon character, and also because O'Connor's acting skills were extraordinary, they came close to overshooting their mark and making Bunker more popular than creator Norman Lear, a liberal's liberal, wanted him to be. Since that meant success and riches, however, Bunker was allowed to develop his own little cult of personality. Bunker liked nobody except the Republicans and Nixon. He was a New York construction hardhat, like the ones who cheered Nixon. His venom was directed at blacks, Jews, Puerto Ricans, Orientals, Europeans, Catholics, gays, Democrats, liberals, Communists, and everybody. The assumption was that he was a Protestant of English or Irish origin, but the writers wrote in his complaints for "drunken Irishmen" and "fag Englishmen." His view of God was that if you did not believe in Him you were a Communist, but beyond that little was explained. His son-in-law, Rob Reiner, ate him out of house and home, exasperating Bunker with liberal nostrums. His wife, Edith, was a dunce who did not stand up to him unless the writers decided that night's episode would feature women's rights, but the next time out she was back to her mousy self.

Bunker's "castle" was constantly invaded by a host of blacks, women, Hispanics and other minority-types from the New York "melting pot," all of them smarter than Arch and able to run rings around him intellectually. The only characters outside of Edith who stooped to his low IQ were his dumbass white bowling and lodge pals. The show worked, for one thing, because after years of racial intolerance, white America was ready to loosen up, laugh at themselves, and accept a little affirmative action comedy at their expense. It also worked because Bunker developed a cult status that Lear had not predicted. There were those who agreed with his views, and sitting at home these Joe Six-Packs spent the 1970s yelling, "You tell 'em, Arch."

"The Godfather" (1972) was a stylized masterpiece. Its auteur director, Coppola, laced it with the subtlest Leftist message that may have avoided the radar of even longtime fans who have seen the film 10 or more times. When interviewed by producer Robert Evans, Coppola said he wanted to make a movie that was a metaphor for capitalism in America. Evans told him what he could do with his metaphors, but Coppola was brilliant and an authentic Italian, a Hollywood rarity at that time. His ethnicity was considered necessary in the making of a Sicilian mob picture.

In the classic Tahoe scene of "Godfather II", Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) tells a Nevada Senator that he is just as corrupt as he is. In the first film Pacino tells Diane Keaton (Kay) that his father is no different than the President, in that they are both powerful men who have other men killed. The "family" is depicted as a corporate empire that must change with the times like a car company, only the stock in trade of the mob was the transition from prohibition booze to heroin (although Michael's goal is eventual "legitimacy"). What gives Coppola's work authentic panache, as opposed to so many heavy-handed liberal messages, is that in "The Godfather(s)", his messages have the ring of truth.

The mid-1970s saw a spate of "government conspiracy" films, all with liberal themes that emanated from Watergate. None of them were about Kennedy stealing the 1960 election. Hmm.

"Chinatown" (1974) may be the best screenplay ever written. A historical look at 1930s Los Angeles, it actually condensed events from the 1900s with events that, uh, never happened but made for good drama. Written by L.A. native Robert Towne, directed by Roman Polanski, produced by Evans and starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunnaway and famed director John Huston, it told the story of how Los Angeles became a metropolis. In Towne's version, Huston "owns" the L.A. Department of Water & Power with a character based on actual L.A. City engineer William Mulholland. Mulholland had orchestrated the political deal which built the aqueduct that brought water from the Owens Valley into the L.A. Basin, allowing millions of Southern Californians to keep their lawns green to this day.

The Mulholland character is "sacrificed" at the altar of greed, embodied by Huston, who secretly buys the San Fernando Valley, knowing that once the water deal is set, it will be incorporated into the city, making him a gazillionaire. It is rather cynical, although nobody suggests the L.A. "city fathers" were boy scouts. The same old theme is that capitalism and American political power are corrupt. To make sure the audience is convinced the corruption is beyond redemption, Huston is in the end found out be an insatiable, incestual monster. He plays the role so well it brings up minds-eye imagery of his real daughter, Angelica. The film is utterly beyond any criticism, regardless of political colorization. For decades, film students and screenwriters have studied it. It spawned an artistic quest to lace the screen with symbols, metaphors, backstory, and twists.

"Chinatown" seems to be the apex of the American film period, the mid-1970s. The period from 1960 to 1979 is unparalleled, but the backstory of the people who created these classics is a telling tale of why the genre leans to the Left. In the 1960s, film schools became popular. Four schools emerged, and have held their place as the place to learn the craft. In Los Angeles there was the USC School of Cinema-Television. Their first big alumnus was "Star Wars" director George Lucas. UCLA combined their film school with their drama program, so as to bring actors, writers, directors and producers together. Coppola went to UCLA along with a future rock star named Jim Morrison, who would form The Doors with another UCLA film alumnus, keyboardist Ray Manzarek.

In New York, Martin Scorsese was cutting his teeth making student films starring Harvey Keitel at NYU. Columbia rounded out the "big four."

Steven Spielberg wanted to study film at USC, but when he was turned down he had to go to Long Beach State. It worked out for him. By the late 1960s, a small society of film geniuses began to assemble on weekends at the Malibu crash pad of actress Margot Kidder. Things usually got out of hand. There were a lot of loose girls, loose drugs and alcohol. As amazing as it is to say, substance abuse actually seems to have been the fuel for the genius of that film era. Spielberg, Coppola, Scorsese, "Taxi Driver" screenwriter Paul Schrader, Dennis Hopper, Nicholson and others were regulars. The partying was out of control. A slightly "classier" version of the same thing was going on at the Beverly Hills estate of Bob Evans, which was known to the "in crowd" as Woodland.

When the drugs started getting out of hand out at Kidder's place, an impressive young Los Angeleno would quietly walk out the door, go to his car, grab his shotgun and bullets, and head out to the beach. There, he would lock and load, then fire his weapon to relieve stress out at the Pacific Ocean. The man's name was John Milius. Milius had gone to the USC Film School with Lucas. He and Coppola had formed a friendship, then a creative partnership.

Everybody who knew these "young Turks" of the new Hollywood, which included writer/directors like Speilberg, Lucas, Schrader, Towne, Polanski and Coppola, producers like Evans and Dan Brown, and actors like Hopper, Nicholson and Clint Eastwood, concluded that the most talented of them all was Milius. Milius was a conservative Republican.

Everybody excused him for that. At Kidder's, he drank beer but did not imbibe in the heavy drug use, choosing instead to satisfy his gun fancy outside. Creatively, Milius' career was hung up on a "crazy" idea he had. Away from the Hollywood crowd, Milius knew a lot of Vietnam vets. He hung out with Green Berets, Rangers, Delta guys. He never served himself, but he was fascinated by the military and soaked their stories in. They had a lot of stories to tell.

In the late 1960s, Lucas and Coppola bought into Milius' plan to actually go to Vietnam with a camera and film crazy stuff. They would bring actors, and tailor a storyline around what they saw. It was based on a movie called "Medium Cool", which had sent actors to the Democrat National Convention in Chicago, where riots broke out, then fashioned it into a feature film.

Predictably, the U.S. government was not keen to the idea of a bunch of Hollywood wannabes prancing around the 'Nam "lookin' for the shit." It never came about. Coppola's ship came in with "The Godfather". Lucas made "American Graffiti" (1973) and "Star Wars" (1977). Milius was seen as a little bit ripe. Hollywood studios were not sure what to make of this conservative war buff. The big directing gigs did not come his way, but his talent as a writer - with a conservative bent - was apparent. In 1971 he penned the classic "Dirty Harry", starring Eastwood as a San Francisco cop who has little patience for Left wing judges, bleeding heart social workers, incompetent police captains, untrustworthy mayors, and especially child-killing, torturous serial murderers.

Milius would make a fine career writing in this genre. After a few years he, Lucas and Coppola decided to do something once and for all about their "Vietnam movie." Milius sat down and wrote "Apocalypse Now". The film began shooting in the Philippine jungles in 1975, and experienced more legendary problems than any film this side of "Heaven's Gate". For four years, it rained. Harvey Keitel was fired and replaced by Martin Sheen, who had a heart attack. Marlon Brando was overweight, overpaid and only would work for a few weeks. The Marcos government had to rescind their promise of loaning their helicopters because they needed them to fight those pesky Communist guerillas.

When the film was released in 1979, it bore only slight resemblance to Milius' original script. Years later, some of his personal vision was restored in a redux version, but the film morphed into something other than what Milius had hoped it to be. In "Hearts of Darkness", a documentary about the making of "Apocalypse", Milius laughed at how Coppola almost lost his mind in the jungle. He compared him to Hitler, sending armies into Russia without enough gas, as if will alone would win the day. Slowly Milius script was cut, pasted and changed around. His original described highly professional American intelligence and Special Forces operations, spelling out his vision of how the U.S. could have won the Vietnam War if they had been allowed to fight it all-out. Coppola's version became a dark look into the soul of madness. While the Brando character (Colonel Kurtz, based on Joseph Conrad's missionary Kurtz character, who "becomes God" among native Africans) spells out his strategy on how the U.S. could have won in the 'Nam, it is distinctly different from Milius'. Milius described legitimate warfare, while Brando/Kurtz said the only way we could have won would have been to commit the same kind war crimes and acts of genocidal terror as the Communists.

"Apocalypse" is a great film, one of the classics of all time, but nobody studies it at West Point. The Milius version might just have been given such a look-see. In 1984, Milius wrote and directed "Red Dawn", starring Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen. It describes a joint Communist Cuban/Soviet invasion of the Rocky Mountains. Aside from its Cold War warning, it was an ode to the gun lobby. In an early scene, a pick-up truck has a bumper sticker reading "You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers." A Communist soldier then pries a gun from the hands of a dead Colorado resident. A group of high school football players who had been taught how to hunt, fish and live off the land by their dad, take to the mountains and form a guerilla unit, attacking the Communist occupiers in series of daring raids. In the end, the Communists are defeated and World War III is won. The high school boys are memorialized for their courage and daring in the early, dark days of the fight for freedom.

"The Wind and the Lion" was a beautiful Milius film and story, with a pulse-pounding sound track. Brian Keith plays Teddy Roosevelt, who orders U.S. troops to Morocco to protect U.S. interests, as well he should have. Candice Bergen is an American socialite, kidnapped by a roguish Arab sand pirate, played by Sean Connery. The film is much more story, character rivalry and romance than history, but it does not hand us any of the usual garbage portraying the U.S. as racist exploiters. Instead, America under Roosevelt is portrayed as a modern power, unafraid to flex its muscles, but not willing to go overboard.

Milius writes and directs to this day. He has a tremendous love of history, a conservative trait. The reason for this is simple. History is the accurate description of great things done by conservatives. No wonder we love history. He is not the household name that Speilberg, Coppola or Lucas are. He says he is comfortable with the decisions he made, which were to be up-front about his politics regardless of whether it cost him. He freely admits that his conservatism indeed did prevent him from the kind of greatness that he was capable of.

The conspiracy movies included two fictional stories, "Marathon Man" and "The Parallax View", as well as the Watergate movie, "All the President's Men" (which Robert Redford produced after giving long consideration to a movie about how Kennedy stole the 1960 election...not!).

"Marathon Man" was directed by John Schlesinger, written by the great William Goldman (based on his novel), and produced by Bob Evans. Goldman, along with Towne, is considered one of the best screenwriters of all time. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1968) is an original screenplay that gets as much study as "Chinatown", and his book "Adventures in the Screen Trade" is a must-read for industry insiders. "Marathon Man" stars Dustin Hoffman as a Columbia doctoral student, obsessed with his thesis about his father, who committed suicide when he was "victimized" by McCarthyism. His brother is Roy Scheider, a super-secret agent for an organization that handles, apparently, what the FBI cannot and the CIA will not. His pal is William DeVane, and he is in league with the devil, a former Nazi dentist named Christian Zsell (played to perfection by Laurence Olivier), based on Joseph Mengele. Zsell is also known as the "White Angel". The plot revolves around millions of dollars worth of diamonds, smuggled to the U.S. by Zsell with DeVane's (and Sheider's) help. Hoffman accidentally gets involved and foils the plot. It is brilliant stuff in every way, shape and form, but coming on the heels of the Church hearings, the film plays on the public's belief that the CIA is corrupt, bent more on money and power than protecting the interests of freedom. The anti-hero is Hoffman. The backstory of his persecuted Jewish father strengthens the myth that fine liberals of conscience were the victims of the McCarthy witch-hunt. Like all films depicting McCarthyism, the victim is fictional and there are no scenes based on real events. This is because actual scenes of actual "victims," if they hold to the truth, will show actual Communists being caught in lies by public officials using perfectly normally and legal techniques of American justice.

"The Parallax View" was big liberal Warren Beatty's attempt to describe a similar conspiracy involving shadowy government agencies. It is entertaining and worth watching, but misses the mark. Beatty seems to be trying to piece together an explanation on how, or even who, killed Kennedy. "The Manchurian Candidate" may have inspired him. Beatty plays a journalist who goes undercover, allowing himself to be recruited by the Parallax Corporation, presumably a CIA front that trains assassins. His psychological profile is determined in part by watching a disturbing montage of scenes, ranging from love, sex and patriotism to war, gore and devil worship, mixed with the juxtaposition of wealth vs. need. The point seems to be that people go hungry while rich America has sex and kills people?

"All the President's Men" (1976) was Robert Redford's breakthrough from pretty boy star to filmmaker with clout. Redford, a former baseball player at L.A.'s Van Nuys High School whose classmates were Dodger Hall of Fame pitcher Don Drysdale and the sex angel Natalie Wood, had been typecast by his looks and blonde hair into Malibu beach boy roles early on. This offended his sensibilities as an artist. Redford is in some ways the patron saint of liberal movie stars, and his story is a common one. He is no Dumbellionite, even though he never went to college. Like so many, he was drawn like a bee to honey to the theatre, trekking to New York as a teenager. His liberal views apparently were formed in his youth, growing up in the Mexican section of Santa Monica and seeing racism up close (at least, that is the story he tells). His lack of formal education in no way speaks to a lack of political knowledge, but his success and looks speak to a certain amount of good luck while others his age were in Southeast Asia. This very likely created a guilt complex that Redford, a star with an ego, could not manifest upon himself, so he found a culprit in this country, which had provided him a forum to achieve so much.

Redford was behind the entertaining political movie "The Candidate" (1972), which goes a long way towards explaining how the game works. This film is really not a liberal one, which is what makes it worthwhile even after 30 years. It is supposed to be based on Edmund "Jerry" Brown, former California Governor Pat Brown's son. Jerry Brown at the time was a youthful Secretary of State who would go one to two terms as Governor. He was a new kind of pol, attractive, a bit of swinger who dated rock star Linda Rohnstadt, and representative of the Golden State image of the 1970s. They called him "Governor Moonbeam".

Redford plays the son of the former Governor of California, played by Melvyn Douglas. The old man is old school all the way, having schmoozed his way up the slippery slope through implied corrupt deals with labor unions and other Democrat special interests. Redford is a young man who played football at Stanford and is now a social issues lawyer of the pro bono variety, helping Mexicans in Central California. Peter Boyle knew him at Stanford and is now a Democrat political consultant who recruits Redford to run for Senator against Crocker Jarman, an entrenched conservative Orange County Republican. Jarman could be Reagan, but he is as much a composite of the traditional Republican: Strong on defense, down on affirmative action and welfare, a real "up by the bootstraps" guy who emerged from the Depression and World War II to make up our "greatest generation."

The film does an about-face on perceptions that, in many cases, turn out to be true. Redford is the rich kid with connections. Jarman beat the Depression like the rest of the U.S., without a social worker.

"How did we do it?" he mocks.

Redford's film wife is played by Karen Carlson, pure eye candy (but what happened to her career I cannot say?). She has ambitions of her own, and pushes him to do it because he has the "power," an undefined sexual charisma of the JFK variety. Redford plays a caricature of himself, handsome but considered an empty suit. His deal is he can say any outrageous thing because he cannot win anyway, and in so doing shows he has the brains. When he creeps up in the polls, the idealism gives way to standard politicking, complete with deals with his old man's crooked labor buddies. He wins, demonstrating the power of looks and TV advertising. In the end he expresses that he is not prepared for the task.

He then made a clunker called "The Way We Were" with Barbra Streisand that desperately tried to explain, apologize for, justify, glorify and approve of being an American Communist during McCarthyism, but just plain fails. He made the 1973 classic "Three Days of the Condor" (1973), with Cliff Robertson and Faye Dunnaway. He plays a CIA reader, a kind of pre-Tom Clancy research guy, a benign fellow among other benign CIA fellows, all of whom are murdered in a fuzzily explained hit by bad CIA fellows. After escaping, Redford tries to get to the bottom of it. Since he is a genius he has the intellectual tools to outwit his chasers. This is the film's highlight, revolving around the sexual tension between Redford and the redoubtable Faye, who he "kidnaps" in order to have a place to hide out, her apartment. The movie goes off the deep when the whole conspiracy turns out to be about the CIA's covert operations in the Middle East, where the U.S. apparently is planning the invasion (that never actually occurred) to take over OPEC. The message is that The Company murders innocents, the U.S. is a warmongering empire, and tool of capitalist greed. It is Redford's answer to Guatemala, Iran and Chile, where the people killed were generally Communists. Redford would rather show the CIA killing Chinese- and African-Americans and other non-threats.

"All the President's Men", based on the book by Woodward and Bernstein, was impossible to resist for Redford. Nixon! Oh boy! Again, Hollywood passed up the Kennedy-stole-the-election story. What a shock! You have to hand it to these guys, though; they have talent. "President's" was masterful, thanks in large part to Goldman, who knew how to condense the story. Redford tried to play it close to the vest, and comes close to making it come off as straight and narrow. The actual truth portrayed betrays the lack of objectivity, however, at the Washington Post. Redford is Bob Woodward, a former Navy officer and a Republican. This is revealed to Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) who gives him a furtive look upon learning this shocking truth. Jason Robards is Ben Bradlee, the Post's editor. We all know the story: The DNC is broken into by Cubans with White House phone numbers in their address books, and in investigating the burglary Woodward and Bernstein suspect a larger plot, which they uncover through dogged journalism that cannot be denied. The two writers are shown to be complete heroes. Hal Halbrooke plays "Deep Throat", the White House insider who gives Woodward the leads he needs to keep investigating. To this day his identity is unknown, and it remains entirely plausible that he was invented out of whole cloth.

The story is the story, and there is no room for liberal bias in that. To Redford's credit, he does not demonize the Republicans or sermonize. Implicit threat against the pair are made, but not expanded into anything. G. Gordon Liddy did volunteer to "off" Jack Anderson for revealing CIA assets in the U.S.S.R., but there is no evidence that Nixon's Republicans ever thought about blowing Woodward and Bernstein away. Domestic political murders, as best as I can tell, are the province of the Democrats. Even in Oliver Stone's "JFK", it is Lyndon Johnson who supposedly was in on the plan to kill the President.

The bias in "All the President's Men" is subliminal, but leave it to yours truly to see it. First, there is the acronym CREEP, which stands for Committee to Re-elect the President. There have been numerous such committees over he years, and they always go by the acronym CRP. But Woodward and Bernstein turned it into CREEP. Gotcha. There is also a scene in which Bradlee, who in real life was a drinking buddy (and God knows what else) of Kennedy's, getting the news that the story is progressing and has real legs.

"You run that baby," he tells Woodward and Bernstein, then does little jig as he leaves the office. This is telling. Redford and director Alan Pakula allowed it, probably because it let them impart their own happiness over Nixon's downfall through the character. In another scene, Robards/Bradlee tells the reporters, "There's not much riding on this. Just the First Amendment and the Constitution of the United States."

Now just hoooold on there, Ben. Was Watergate really about the Constitution? Was that august document threatened? This begs the question, Where was Bradlee and Post publisher Katherine Graham when the Constitution really was threatened by their pal JFK, who stole the 1960 election? Where were they when their pal Bobby Kennedy was wiretapping Martin Luther King? Democrat operatives had to break into homes, hotels and offices to wiretap Dr. King just as the Plumbers had to break into Dr. Fielding's office, and Larry O'Brien's. A free press is undoubtedly the cornerstone of Democracy, but it functions best when it is not populated by over-inflated egos who think they are the soul arbiter of freedom of expression.

My former editor at the San Francisco Examiner was a die-hard, old school liberal (in San Francisco?!). He once informed me that in his opinion he would rather have a free press than the right to vote, which is the very heart and essence of the liberal elite agenda. Of course he feels that way, he has all the power. He had risen to the top of a profession dominated by liberals, which gave liberalism all its power. Voting? Who needs voting when you have smart, educated liberals like him to tell the masses what to think? Such perfidy.

I informed this "man" that I would take the free vote over the free press. When push came to shove, I liked the tradition of "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine, the way pamphlets and knowledge were passed from town to town during the Revolution, spreading the intoxicating power of freedom. The British controlled the press, the government and the military, but the people controlled their ideas. When that editor discovered I was a Republican (in San Francisco) he almost had a seizure. He has since been discredited, which was not the first time that occurred in his checkered career. Free press? Free to lie about conservatives.

"The Missiles of October" starred William DeVane as JFK and Martin Sheen as RFK. Both of these actors portrayed the Kennedys better than any actors ever have. This is a patriotic film that depicts how close we came to nuclear combat toe to toe with the Russkies, and how the Kennedys saw us through the crisis. This may have been the beginning of Sheen's political awakening. He is an interesting character, liberal to the core but vastly different from the rest of the Hollywood Left.

Sheen's son, Charlie, who wrote the foreword to my biography of "Barry Bonds: Baseball's Superman" (www.sportspublishingllc.com, 2002) is actually a bit on the conservative side. Martin gets his liberalism from the Catholic religion. He was apparently like many other young celebs in fleshpot land in the 1970s; good-looking and hedonistic. While filming "Apocalypse Now" he had a heart attack, induced by his bad habits and the stress of filming that monster. This was an epiphany for him. He returned to the Catholicism of his Ohio upbringing.

There is no doubt Martin's liberalism is based in part on the enormous guilt he felt, first because that is what Catholics are made to feel, but more important because he knew his money and fame was a fleeting thing. Of course he had earned it, but like so many in the entertainment business, it had not been the result of a controlled plan. Entrepreneurs and most other successful people plot a life strategy, follow it, work hard and achieve their goals. Actors are subject to the fickle fates of producers' and agents' whims. Almost all of them look at struggling impresarios in the employment lines and the acting schools and say (to themselves), "There but for the grace of God <well, maybe not God> go I."

Sheen does believe in God. Those who have worked with him tell stories about his devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. At every break, he approaches people with his Bible and the story of his Savior. Sheen is a man who asks, "What would Jesus do?" As discussed earlier, there are many aspects of Christ's life that seem socialist. This has been used by many to justify Communism as real Christianity. This approach loses luster when one studies history and economics (read Adam Smith), and determines that the best producer of wealth, which allows more boats in the water to rise with the tide, is the marketplace, not Communism.

Sheen may see a world in which companies like Chevron, Arthur Andersen and Bechtel are peopled by Benedictine Monks who produce the engine of wealth in the name of Christ. It is a utopian vision and one I am not here to criticize, but at some point folks need to make their decisions in the real world. One asks whether Christ, if he were President, would bomb targets in Baghdad, or worse, Dresden or Nagasaki. The first, obvious answer seems to be, Of course not. But if Christ were President, charged with stopping Saddam from killing thousands and Hitler from killing millions, and He knew that killing thousands would save thousands more on our side as well as theirs, and He did not have access to his supernatural powers, would He not do the same thing that FDR, Truman and Bush did?

Now I am definitely not going to say what He would do. I do not have the ability to make that prediction. He would be smarter and wiser than any human and probably come up with an answer we have never thought about. But Martin Sheen has no more access to Jesus' motives than I do. Furthermore, Sheen is a man who does things by symbol, understandable considering the iconography of his religion. He has accepted the wealth of his profession, living in a palatial Malibu estate. Occasionally, he shows up at a homeless shelter, where he sleeps on the street for a night, or works the soup kitchen, then returns to Malibu. With all due respect, does this really help anybody?

He gives a lot of money to charity. Good for him. He is a pacifist, which is fine, but this principle must be tempered by a reality about the world we live in. The freedoms that we cherish are protected by our power, which we have to fight for. At this point, America is pretty secure, but the world has many insecure places. We go there and have to do some pretty rough things to some pretty bad actors in order to make it safe for others. Sheen himself expresses admiration for Dwight Eisenhower, so there is hope for him. Ike was no pacifist. He understood that peace comes through strength. When it is all said and done, I like Martin Sheen, think he is an awesome talent, and respect his passion. That goes for many liberal activists. I actually have more respect for those who care, speak out, put their opinion on the line and have a social conscience - whether I agree or not - than with slackers who just live off the fat of the land with little knowledge or understanding of the world they exist in. In Sheen's case his Christianity is a big plus and beats the heck out of the karmic vicissitudes of many of his morally irrelevant cohorts.

In 1976, Martin Scorsese directed "Taxi Driver", starring Robert DeNiro. Calling this a "conservative" movie is a stretch, but it is a prescient look at New York attitudes that preceded the age of Giuliani. Paul Schrader wrote it. His story is a hoot in and of itself. He and his brother were raised in a strict Calvinist Pennsylvania family, emphasizing the strictest tenets of Scripture and absolutism. The Calvinists are big on pre-ordained destiny. Released from this environment, he came to Hollywood and tried everything. Naturally, he was a mess; a drug addict, an alcoholic and a heterosexual so confused he tried homosexuality just...to try it. Given the assignment to write a screenplay, he was holed up in a downtown L.A. hotel for weeks, then months. He had little social contact except occasional taxi rides to restaurants in and around L.A.'s skid row. He began to see the world from inside the taxi, and came up with a character and a plot revolving around the concept.

DeNiro's Travis Bickle is a Vietnam Marine vet, off kilter but moral, who is sickened by the crime, drugs and immorality of 1970s New York City, seen from the taxi he drives night and day. He has an ill-fated fling with a pretty campaign worker (Cybil Shephard), goes off the deep end and portrays himself as a possible assassination threat to a Presidential candidate, although this is never fleshed out. In the end, he commits an act of vigilantism to save the life of a teenage prostitute with potential (Jodie Foster), and like in "Death Wish" (Charles Bronson), is made a hero.

The message of "Taxi Driver" is that peace comes from strength. It was a popular theme in a number of flicks. Hollywood seemed to fail to grasp some important realities about its marketplace. Time after time, movies that veered away from "touchy feely" liberalism and gave teeth to conservative characters (Eastwood's "Dirty Harry", Bronson, DeNiro, and others) made boffo box office, yet the industry has never come to grips with itself. They return time after time to premises that insult conservative audiences, and wonder why the lines get shorter.

An example is "The Deer Hunter" (1978), starring DeNiro. The film breaks numerous rules in terms of length of time and attention to detail. It can truly be called art. Small town values of American patriotism, loyalty and religious faith hold a sad story of native sons ruined in the 'Nam. The Communists are shown for what they were, savage beasts with no redeeming value. The film is an enduring monument in film history and made huge coin, but its "failure" to hue to the liberal line, especially on the nasty subject of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, made enemies for it director, Michael Cimino. When Cimino made another bid for artistic greatness, falling short with "Heaven's Gate", Hollywood turned on him in a way they never would have if his failures were liberal failures. Directors like Woody Allen are allowed to make boner after boner because they all are peppered with potshots at conservatism, Republicans, McCarthy and Christianity. How charming he is.

As if to counter-balance "The Deer Hunter", good old Jane Fonda starred in "Coming Home" (1978) with Jon Voight. Saved by the pure benevolence of American goodwill from a treason trial, she was allowed to pursue her craft (she is excellent at it). "Coming Home" seemed to be the realization of the self-fulfilling prophecy she created in 1972. It was that year that she traveled to Hanoi, the heart of America's enemy, and allowed herself to be posed on Communist tanks, wearing an army helmet. It was blatant "aid and comfort" provided to an enemy during a time of war. Jane did not stop there. Like a modern day Tokyo Rose, she got on the radio and told the troops their wives and girlfriends were having sex with hippies and protestors back home. To this day, the G.I.s have never forgiven "Hanoi Jane". She tried to apologize and say she was wrong, but her heart was never in it.

Eventually she married CNN founder Ted Turner, a man who may not be the anti-Christ (but may be), and may not have achieved his success by invoking Satan (but may have). When Turner saw CNN employees adorned in "ashes" to worship Ash Wednesday, he went ballistic about "Jesus freaks" in his employ. Such a crime! Jane, in the first move she ever did that I liked (other than wearing skintight sex clothes in her hot-selling workout vids), declared she was a "born again Christian." That was the last straw for Turner, who divorced her. There is no word on whether Christianity took in Jane's life, but I wish her well.

In "Coming Home", she portrays the very cheating wife she described to the boys in her "Hanoi Jane" days. She tries to pepper the performance with an apology to her officer husband, Bruce Dern, but it ends up being more of an explanation, which in light of what we know about Vietnam does not wash. Two thumbs down.

In 1984 Sam Waterston starred as New York Times reporter Sidney Scheinberg in "The Killing Fields". Clint Eastwood was offered the role, but turned it down. He said it was because he is a "Western WASP," not an East Coast Jew, but he probably ran from it because he is a Republican and knew that Scheinberg had been a biased Vietnam reporter and did not want to promote that. Scheinberg filed numerous reports advocating the message that the U.S. was not doing the right thing in Vietnam. The early part of the film promotes the liberal myth that it was U.S. bombs and U.S. aggression that created the situation in Cambodia. The perfidy of such a concept is mind-boggling. The U.S. did create the situation in Cambodia, because it was U.S. Democrats, led by Chappaquiddick Teddy, who de-funded the South Vietnamese until they collapsed. Then they have the bluster to tell the world, using their powerful friends in the film industry, that the Cambodian holocaust was not because they disarmed the forces of freedom, but because the Communists were incensed at American crimes, therefore justifying their rampages of mass murder against innocent civilians. Is there some alternate Universe in which this can be true. Answer: No.

However, like a fair number of films that liberals make, "The Killing Fields" ends up promoting a semi-conservative message when it gets into truthful events that cannot be portrayed any other way. Pol Pot's murder of Cambodia is undeniable. In putting it on film, it simply speaks for itself. There is little to conclude in walking out of the theatres that showed "The Killing Fields" beyond the simple conclusion that, "Communists killed millions of people," which is a fact that does not allow for much leeway. Leftists still try to find that leeway, however.

When Ronald Reagan became the President, a shift to conservatism occurred in Hollywood and the media. Hustler founder Larry Flynt flirted with Christianity, but it did not take. When his editors suggested that the Reagan mood should portend more "family friendly" fare, Flynt fired that messenger and went from sick and disgusting to really hardcore porn (which is better than sick and disgusting). He aligned himself against the Republicans, who were asking 7-11s to keep their porn mags away from minors (a move since described by liberals as tantamount to Stalinist censorship). In 1998, Flynt became the mouthpiece of the Democrat party, a de facto Clinton spokesman and unofficial public relations firm for the DNC. In 2003 he decided to run for Governor of California as a Democrat. While his intentions may be to benefit the Democrats, he could not have harmed them more. Republicans need say nothing about this fact. It exists for what it is, on it face. Republicans just smile and say, "Hey, you Democrats, you can have Larry Flynt." They have him and he has them. A mariage made in...?

Res ipsa loquiter.

"Top Gun", starring Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer in 1986, was a glamorous showcase film for the Navy. Actual Navy recruiters set up shop in theatre lobbies, signing up young hopefuls filled with visions of drinking beer while singing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'", making afternoon delight with Kelly McGillis, while tear-assing through the skies like a bat out off freedom.

Vietnam backlash films like "Death Before Dishonor" and "Rambo" depicted buffed-up U.S. supermen gaining celluloid revenge against those pisspoor Commie rats. "Missing", starring Jack Lemmon, told a different story about an American lost to the death squads of a Latin American dictatorship propped up by the Nixon/Kissinger government. The message is simple: America is as evil as Communism because we get in bed with bad guys who oppose Communism. It gives no credence to the torture rooms and gulags of Communism throughout the globe. For years the liberal media said that as many as 300,000 went "missing" under Chile's Augusto Pinochet. Apparently, according to records available after the peaceful governmental transfer of power over a decade ago, the figure is less than 3,000. Still human rights abuses, but not genocide that places Pinochet in the same boat with Stalin or Idi Amin.

Then came "Platoon". How to explain Oliver Stone? First of all, he is, in my humble opinion, still the mot talented director in the game, even though he no longer is the hottest of properties. He has a knack for telling stories through symbols, metaphors, light and color, expressions, black-and-white imagery, sound effects and cuts that is truly revolutionary. Stone has been described as a personally repugnant human being; a liar, a cheat, a drug addict, an evil and brutal personality, somebody who may have invoked the devil to give him his fame and fortune. If so, he made a good deal in terms of creating product, because like him or hate him, Stone's work is first rate.

His interviews reveal an erudite, Cosmopolitan man who can turn on the charm, which belies the stories of repelling sex harassment that is really molestation. There is no question that he is intelligent, and there is also no question that unlike most of his colleagues, he can walk the walk as a Marine, having served in Vietnam.

This is supposed to be what authenticates him, and it certainly is a bona fide, but his fellow Marines have, at the very best, mixed feelings about the message he conveys. Stone came from affluence in suburban New York, went to Vietnam presumably out of patriotism, and was devastated by the experience. He became a total radical, driven stark mad by drug use, and fell hook, line an sinker into the counter-culture while at NYU's film school, circa 1970. Stone regularly talked about attaching a long scope to a rifle and "taking out Nixon," but apparently the Secret Service never heard of his Travis Bickle-like fantasy.

In 1976 he wrote "Midnight Express", a great film starring Brad Davis as an American college student imprisoned in Turkey for trying to smuggle heroin. It is a dark tale about human depravity that played to its 1970s audience of dropouts and drug abusers. It can be argued that it justified drug smuggling, but that would not be entirely accurate. It was just a strong piece about the will to survive, with a triumphant Hollywood ending.

In 1980, Stone made "Salvador", which was an amazing feat. It was political commentary on America's "evil" backing of right wing oppressors stomping poor Communist agrarians, but it was also a comedy, allowing for tour de force performances by James Wood and Jim Belushi. Woods is a down-and-out photo/journalist who captures the story. Belushi is his drinking companion who urges him to go to El Salvador not because a story is begging to be told, but because "you can drink and drive there."

Stone shopped "Platoon" around for years in various forms, advertising it as the experience of someone who had been over there. It was not an easy sell, since the story was too raw for a country trying to overcome the Vietnam syndrome, then fueled by the Reagan patriotism. It finally was made in 1986, and was hailed for its realism. It made stars out of Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, and Willem Dafoe. The realism is apparent in the language, the scenery, the heat and bugs, the sweat and toil, the "Cox's army" adherence to what was left of Army uniforms and equipment, the danger of night patrols and firefights, and the courage and the cowardice of regular guys doing one-year draft tours of "the 'Nam."

The essential story is only true if it describes William Calley and My Lai, or what that could have been if the villagers had been saved by a Messianic Sergeant Elias (Dafoe) instead of being gunned down by a Satanic Barnes (Berenger as a Calley knock-off). If Stone had simply made it the "My Lai Massacre", it would have been historically accurate, but what he did was pernicious. He wanted to convey to millions of moviegoers that My Lai was the norm, and he cast this ordinary platoon of grunts as driven to a My Lai-type war crime by the very nature of his view of our illegitimate role in Vietnam.

Stone was in Vietnam and I was not, but the history of Vietnam is not a history of ordinary units run amok in racist killing sprees. Stone infuses the story with humanity and heroes. Sheen plays Chris, an idealist, based on Stone's vision of himself. Want a fact? Here is a fact. Oliver Stone is not in the same league with the idealized Chris character. He is not a pimple on Chris's rear end.

Chris is a hero and a survivor. Dafoe, as Elias, is a Christ-like figure who protects his "brothers" and shows no fear, even when chasing "Charlie" into that most dangerous of places, the underground tunnel system. His death, portrayed on the posters, is a wide-armed crucifix, and it is avenged by Chris, his disciple who takes to the challenge with the passion of the converted. A final battle also shows something that rarely, if ever, happened. North Vietnamese regulars overrun the Americans. In actuality, they won all the battles against the NVA. Then, the commander has to make a call and have the whole "pod," friend and foe alike, napalmed in another stretch on history.

Berenger and his "super lifer" pals are shown to be corrupt, have a taste for death, and little accountability in a situation that lets them kill "gooks" with racist impunity. This is not out of the question. Soldiers are trained killers, and combat de-humanizes them. The Audie Murphy characterizations are not true, either. But Stone has created a vision of the Vietnam experience that is not portrayed as a special circumstance, but rather the average, the every day. His political message is very clear, and it is to discredit the objectives of the war. He also discredits a lot of his buddies who fought with him. He does demonstrate the inhuman behavior of the Communists, which as a combat Marine he saw for himself, but strongly urges the viewer to buy into the sickness of America.

In 1987 he again starred Charlie Sheen, this time as Bud Fox, along with Martin Sheen and Michael Douglas, in "Wall Street". Stone, like Coppola's "Patton", tapped into a part of America he really wanted to discredit, but instead glorified. Based on the go-go stock markets of the Reagan '80s, it is loosely based on inside arbitrageurs and junk bond kings like Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken. Fox/Sheen is an idealistic, ambitious young stockbroker, his father is his conscience, and Douglas as Gordon Gekko is pure tantalizing temptation. Fox must violate SEC laws and get inside information in order to do business with the "big elephant" Gekko. Gekko's star fades when a big deal-gone-bad has personal ramifications, and Fox turns a dime on him. The film is supposed to show that America is a greedy place that "produces nothing" in a "zero sum game" in which the rich only make money on the backs of the poor. Gekko's (Stone's) statements about economics are pure, unadulterated economic lies shown to be lies simply by...observing factual things. Where Stone may have had second thoughts was the reaction the film got. As the years went by, he and others were approached countless times by Young Republicans and Wall Street execs who told him the depiction of the exciting world of finance led them into that very career, which they thanked him for! Stone had hoped to create an egalitarian class. Instead, he created a decade full of Gordon Gekkos. They in turn fueled the dot-com boom. It was not unlike the Democrats who hoped to expose Oliver North and the Republicans in the Iran-Contra "scandal," only to discover that millions thought Ollie and his White House pals were doing God's work in fighting Communism.

Res ipsa loquiter.

In 1989 Stone came out with "Born on the Fourth of July", the true story of Ron Kovic, a gung-ho Marine who is paralyzed in combat in Vietnam. The film is realistic and compelling. Stone is a master and Tom Cruise as Kovic gives one of his best-ever performances, proving him to be a bona fide acting talent. The film depicts the heartbreaking American experience in Vietnam, and the character arc of Kovic is as complete as any ever captured. He returns home, desperate to believe that his sacrifice was in a noble cause, but this is chipped away by the well-known elements of '60s radicalism. The "generation gap" between longhaired youths and crew cut, religious parents is profound. Kovic sinks into the depravity of drugs and alcohol, but battles back to become a "hero" of the anti-war Left. He wheels into the 1972 Republican National Convention, where he tries to tell the clean-cut, well-heeled patriots that they are wrong and he is right. The idea is that they are all warmongers who have not fought, while he is a pacifist because he has. While there is truth to the premise, in choosing to tell this story, Stone establishes Hollywood as the home of solidly liberal ideas. In 1972, Nixon won 49 states over the ant-war McGovern. The idea that all those Americans, subject daily to reports from Peter Arnett and Dan Rather, the bias of Walter Cronkite, and the hate of the New York Times and the Washington Post, chose Nixon because they were bloodthirsty imperialists is just malarkey. Furthermore, Nixon had made 18-year olds eligible to vote. The concept that all of American youth protested in the streets is a myth. The anti-war movement was propped by TV that made pockets of outrage look like a widespread movement. The Silent Majority spoke out in '72. Big time.

Stone's depiction is fair in and of itself, but he takes advantage of the power of his medium in creating a mindset that such horrors as Kovic experienced are just part of the "Vietnam experience." Kovic's life mirrors soldiers going back to the Roman Legion and beyond. The Left has taken Vietnam as one of those core issues and stuck to it, just as they found themselves wedded to Alger Hiss, Bill Clinton and now the losing side of the War on Terrorism. McCarthy was going after genuine Communists, and genuine Communists were trying to enslave South Vietnam. It took some fighting to stop them. Nixon and Kissinger had the best plan available to them at the time, and the public recognized it. Watergate killed them and the Democrats used it to abandon our allies. Millions died because of them. Democrats will have you believe that we "created" the "killing fields." They have to say things like that, to cling to this nebulous theory, somehow unable to blame the rabid haters and murderers of Communist history, apparently because they are wedded to McCarthyism. Their movies are their best tool in perpetuating their lies. Not on my watch.

In 1991 Stone made his great bid, created a masterpiece, but in so doing laid himself out. A career that could have been the best ever was short-circuited, although one can give him begrudging credit for "trying." The movie was "JFK". It was an artistic achievement of light, shadow and hidden meaning, told through the symbiosis of different film styles. A great filmmaker could only have accomplished the mood it creates. It is a spiritual work.

But "JFK's" conspiracy premise is so over-the-top that it created a cartoonish cloud used to box Stone in. Stone did a lot of research and packs a mighty wallop in his attempts to "solve" or "answer" the Kennedy assassination mystery. He took some huge risks, came fairly close to pulling it off, but in the end did something to himself he must regret. He made himself uncredible. What he thought would happen is anybody's guess. Stone probably was so flush with success, Hollywood panache and faith in the power of film that he thought he could replace the legitimate historians. "JFK's" lesson is that a movie is still a movie - two or three hours of persuasive imagery, yes - powerful and compelling, but not fact. For years, Hollywood has promoted their causes in this manner, and yet the populace has shifted to the right. This frustrates them because they have no answer to this "problem." The proof of this is that the movies are and always will be the province of entertainment. When the Oliver Stone's try to rise above that they face a precipitous fall.

What really has set the Left back is not just the failure of the film medium to accomplish their goals, but also the lack of faith accorded college professors, school textbooks, and mainstream news. So who is left to tell the real story?

Weeeeeell, my friends, we are out there. We have been waiting in the wings all these years, gathering the facts in silence, not showing our hand, waiting for judgment day. The day of reckoning is upon us. Let freedom reign.

As for "JFK", it is a complicated piece of fiction that would require some real research to effectively discredit all of its lies. What it did in the theatre was have one asking, "Jeez, did that really happen?" or "My God, is this true?" or "Holy cow, I can't believe this could be." It is major sensory overload. Innocent civilians who knew things are killed. Deception and murder are used to cover up the sordid deeds. The film requires several viewings, and frankly time, probably years, to unravel it. What happens is that various reviews, reports from historical figures and historians are read and pieced together. After a while the discovery is made that a particular "witness" never existed, a certain "police officer" is a figment of Stone's imagination, smoke in the trees, conversations, special ops guys with the inside scoop (particular "Major X" played by Canadian Donald Sutherland) are invented out of whole cloth. A proposition is one thing, but "JFK" is "Alice in Wonderland", a "riddle wrapped inside an enigma, tied by a puzzle" or whatever it is Joe Pesci says. It is exhausting.

So who killed JFK? Oh, maaaaan! Stone's answer, as best I can tell, was Lyndon Johnson, in league with the joint chiefs, because Kennedy wanted out of Vietnam and they wanted in (because American industry needed the war?), working with right wing Birchers, who were part of rogue elements of the CIA (?), who were a "track," whatever that is, that could not be stopped because it was an inexorable connection starting in Guatemala ("good"), Iran ("good"), and Bay of Pigs ("not so good"), that had become dominated by Cuban exile "Republicans," working in league with the Soviets (KGB?), who recruited Lee Harvey Oswald, who learned to shoot in the Marines, who lived and married in Russia then came back, who promoted Marxism but was funded by Birchers (?), who was a patsy for the Dallas Mafia, who had Oswald-lookalikes say incriminating things, who worked with JFK, who worked with La Casa Nostra (who turned on him?), who were tied to Naval Intelligence (?), who operated out of a corner in New Orleans in which the Feds, the NIS and somebody else all had offices, who were tied to right wing homosexual businessmen, defrocked priests, gay prostitutes and guys with tempers like Ed Asner, whose activities were known by corrupt New Orleans lawyers and politicians, who were in league with the New Orleans International Trade Mart or something like that, protected by Dallas strip club owners, who hatched a plan that involved Cubans training in the Florida swamps or Latin America by gay militia commandos, who bought a bad Italian rifle with a bolt action release via mail instead of purchasing a better weapon through the black market or a store, who gave it to Oswald, who may or may not have fired at JFK but could not possibly have hit his mark from the Texas Book Depository, who with Secret Service agents working to kill the President had assassins disguised as police officers and bums in the bushes, a car wreck lot and a grassy knoll, and created a triangulated cross-fire that killed the President then got away.

Now, friends and neighbors, after all of that, at no time does Mr. Stone suggest that the assassination was the work of a fellow he later visited and said was a great man, named Fidel Castro, who is the most likely suspect.

Res ipsa loquiter.

Castro and the mob? Maybe. The confusion of Stone's plot twists is highly, precisely and to quintessential effect that with which the real killers want. Stone's film vastly hurts the attempt to learn the truth. He raises plenty of legitimate questions, mainly regarding the so-called "magic bullet," and he operates on at least one fairly solid foundation, which is that the Zapruder film seems to show more than one shooter. Saying Oswald was not a lone gunman is a premise I can give credence to, but beyond that God knows.

One thing is puzzling, and that is that in all the years since nobody has "stepped forward." Every so often somebody shows up on Larry King Live and says his father, usually a "Dallas cop," was the shooter, but these stories always have the crackpot feel to them. I want a deathbed confession from a Cuban, one of Sam Giancana's guys, something solid. When all the smoke clears, you still have a Communist sympathizer, Oswald, killing a President who just humiliated Kruschev over the Bay of Pigs, is a threat to Castro and is building up troops to fight Commies in Vietnam. It is plausible he had help and they were on the Grassy Knoll, they got away and Jack Ruby killed Oswald to shut him up. Maybe a little too convenient. The Warren Commission report came out only one year later, not enough time to sort out everything. The Church hearings were too open to get the real stuff beyond salacious sex. Secret CIA/FBI investigations might have been the only real answer, and who knows, maybe they were conducted, and maybe the gullible public cannot handle the truth. Who knows? Not Oliver Stone.

"Heaven and Hell" starring Tommy Lee Jones was more of the tired America-is-racist-and-hates-the-yellow-Communists stuff, but "Nixon", starring Anthony Hopkins, was a pleasant surprise. When word came that Stone was making a biopic of Nixon, everybody assumed the worst. The former President died in April, 1994 and Stone's film was in theatres by Christmas, 1995. The first puzzlement was the casting of the Englishman Anthony Hopkins in the role of a man from suburban (in his day, rural) Los Angeles. Hopkins pulled it off brilliantly, as did Stone.

Stone actually said that in researching Nixon, he came to "admire" him, a fairly common refrain among his biographers, including the late, respected historian Stephen Ambrose, and Tom Whicker, who wrote "One of Us". "Nixon" accomplishes what few biographies accomplish. It entertains while telling a complete story without being boring. This is a great challenge to filmmakers. "MacArthur", starring Gregory Peck, was dull, yet "Patton" was vivid. Numerous TV movies have failed to do much with the Kennedys. The only films about them were about short-lived events (two Cuban Missile Crisis films, and Stone's assassination thriller). A TV movie about Dwight Eisenhower starring Robert Duvall was a clunker. Randy Quaid tried to be Lyndon Johnson. Not. Nobody has ever gotten much mileage out of Abe Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt, or Hitler or Stalin. "Gandhi" worked very well, but various Winston Churchill efforts sank of their own weight. Why? I may posses enough knowledge to teach at any film school, but I do not have the answer to that question.

"Nixon" worked creatively. Financially it did okay but was not a blockbuster. It was one of those movies that folks will return to, though, especially to study Nixon. What made it work was the Stone specialty of "theme." The average viewer easily misses it, but Stone infuses Nixon's life with the premise that dark forces aided him. It can be inferred by this that he means Nixon was evil, or the tool of evil, but he juxtaposes this with enough of Nixon's basic humanity to make him more of a pawn, pushed by something that "helps" him...or does it? I found the ironic twists of the Nixon-Kennedy rivalry fascinating, and Stone truly does exploit it. His theme is not a patriotic one, because he infers that there is a "beast" that cannot be controlled. He infers that the beast is embodied in the Central Intelligence Agency, which in turn controls the U.S. A sequence showing Nixon visiting CIA Director Richard Helms (Sam Waterston) was mostly cut out of the original film, but the video shows it in its entirety at the end of the movie. Helms and his agency are virtually said to be the devil. Flowers in Helms' office are shown to bloom and wilt in supernatural ways, presumably depending on Helms' evil whim. Waterston's eyes are shown to be coal black. He is Satan!

Nixon asks himself the rhetorical question, "Whose helping us?" while staring into a fireplace flame under a portrait of Kennedy. The theme is first brought forth in Nixon's college years, when his older brother dies, and apparently this frees up money through an unexplained source (an insurance policy?) that allows Nixon to go to law school. In light of two Kennedy assassinations, the answer to Nixon's question seems to be the same one that Mick Jagger gives in "Sympathy for the Devil".

"After all, it was you and me," Jagger sings, and Stone would have you believe it was the devil in silent concert with Nixon and his brand of...something. Jingoism, patriotism, xenophobia, bloodthirstiness? Nixon is seen on a couple of occasions shadowed by a devil-like winged creature (the beast), and his conversation with a female college student at the Lincoln Memorial ends with her identification of the beast as the controlling force in American politics. Presumably the girl is able to see this clearly because her heart is pure.

Stone invents secret cabals that never happened between Nixon and John Birch Texas businessmen, racist to the core, who along with a smirking Cuban are there to tell us that because Nixon was in Texas on November 22, 1963 he was somehow plotting JFK's murder.

The conspiracy link between "JFK" and "Nixon" exists in this reference, and the CIA "tracks" like the one Agent X talks about in "JFK", apparently tie Guatemala, Iran and the Bay of Pigs to subsequent events. The Bay of Pigs tie-in, led by E. Howard Hunt and his Cubans, Bernard Barker, Eugenio Martinez, et al, is real enough, but the assassination is one Stone insists is part of the same "track." Something on the list of "horribles," which Nixon discusses with H.R. Haldeman (James Woods), who then talks about "bodies," references to something I still have never figured out after watching the film 15 times. The Kennedy's bodies? Vietnam dead bodies?

Stone gives Watergate its due, but lets the actual events speak for themselves without embellishing it with more hate towards Nixon than that era produced of its own accord. He actually does a solid job of demonstrating the semi-legitimate reasons for creating the Plumbers in the first place, which was to plug leaks in light of Daniel Ellsberg's treacherous "Pentagon Papers" revelation, in concert with the bunker mentality caused by anti-war protesters threatening, in their mind at the time, a civil war like the one that forced Lincoln to declare martial law.

Stone also makes it clear that Nixon and his people were convinced that Kennedy stole the 1960 election, and he does not try to deny it (without advocating it, either). Murray Chotiner represents the realpolitik Republicans who, Stone wants us to know, pulled the same fraudulent tricks, when he says, "They stole it fair and square."

Nixon is depicted as foul-mouthed and quite the drinker. His salty language apparently was learned well into adulthood, and he did occasionally imbibe after years as a teetotaler, but his associates insist it was by no means a regular thing. Woods' Haldeman is no friend of the Hebrews, and Paul Sorvino, doing a big league Henry Kissinger, finds himself constantly at war with the inside Nixon team, put down for his Jewishness. Powers Boothe is a cold-blooded Alexander Haig, representing the reality of Watergate's final conclusion.

It never would have happened under J. Edgar Hoover, Nixon says, and Haig agrees that Hoover, who died just before Watergate, was a "realist" who would have kept it locked up. Nixon discusses suicide with Haig, who eases him out of that but never really tells him not to. When Nixon asks for any final suggestion, Haig says something the real man probably never said:

"You have the Army. Lincoln used it."

Sure.

Nixon breaks down, incredulous that for all his accomplishments, he can be brought down by such a nothing event. Stone allows Hopkins to infuse this scene with Shakespearean irony. Stone gives Nixon his due in many ways. He demonstrates that he was utterly faithful to his wife, Pat, turning down a right wing lovely served up by the Birchers, while telling the girl that he entered politics to help people. His hardscrabble youth is nicely portrayed, with Mary Steenburgen playing his long-suffering Quaker mother. Young Nixon is utterly faithful to her and the honest, religious ethic of the family. But in a later scene, Steenburgen looks questioningly at his Presidential aspirations, saying he is destined to lead, but only if God is on his side. It is a telling statement playing to his theme that dark forces are the wind at Nixon's sails. He enters politics as an idealist, and becomes something else because he discovers he has the talent for it. He is industrious, in contrast to the Kennedys, and will earn everything he has simply by out-working everybody.

An entirely loving portrait of Dick Nixon would have no credibility. Stone does a great job with the movie, which is as balanced as it could be with a side of liberal righteousness.

In 1996, Stone made "The People vs. Larry Flynt", a telling sign of liberal taste. Flynt is a pornographer who has made millions doing just that. I have no problem with the fact that pornography exists, that he makes millions off it, and that it is protected by the First Amendment. But pornography is what it is. Like homosexuality, it is a sin that does not deserve to be justified or called something that it is not, namely art. Those who engage in pornography have every right to do so, and I would be a hypocrite to state otherwise. My point is that they are not engaging in moral activity. God will forgive pornographers, like homosexuals (in my opinion), if they ask Him to forgive them for what they do. I cannot say what happens to them if they do not ask for forgiveness.

The choice of a pornographer as the source of a glorifying Hollywood film, starring Woody Harrelson as Flynt, is not something that needs much commentary. It just states what it states. The liberals justify their endorsement of Flynt by pointing out that a former KKK leader named David Duke ran for office as a Republican in an election that lasted a few minutes, which he lost, over a decade ago. The media made a big deal of it. The Republicans disowned him and then nailed him for income tax evasion

Among Stone's other work includes "Any Given Sunday" (1999), as good and realistic a sports movie as has ever been made. It features an over-the-top performance by Al Pacino as a veteran pro football coach who can still motivate his over-paid, over-sexed, over-drugged, slightly thuggish, mostly black (except for a few White Aryan Brotherhood linemen) mercenaries with a speech that sends Knute Rockne to the bench.

He reportedly is working on the story of the 1934 Republican industrialists who recruited Marine hero Smedley Butler to overthrow Franklin Roosevelt, which was the genesis of "Seven Days in May". We are still waiting for Tinsel Town to take on Kennedy stealing the 1960 election. It could be a long wait. If any producers are reading this, I am offering my services at the Writers Guild minimum.

Martin Scorsese is no conservative and generally stays away from political, but it is worth mentioning that he is obsessed with Christianity. He is a Catholic, or a lapsed Catholic, and his New York youth apparently put the zap on his head in a big way. He went to church and believed in God, asked for his sins to be washed away in confession, but like the characters in "Mean Streets" (1973), he lived in Little Italy, where murder, extortion and immorality were a way of life.

Scorsese came up with some funky ideas, and laid it all out for the world to see in "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988). It is actually based on a book by Nikos Kazantzakis, but like all of Scorsese's work the screen version must be attributed to him. It is hard to say what he is trying to accomplish. I call the film "Bronx Jesus" because he populates it with New York actors (Harvey Keitel as Judas, Willem Dafoe as Jesus), except for evil, which Hollywood always says has an upper crust English accent (a very telling psycho-trait regarding class envy perhaps). On the one hand, Scorsese loves his Jesus. He is obviously very personal to him. He has a vision for who Jesus was, and it is a human vision. This is the crux of the story, because if Jesus is "human," then His suffering and trials are not just for show. In order for Jesus to die for our sins, He has to feel our pain and be tempted just as any mortal would be.

The finale is confusing and I have only seen it once, so forgive me, but as best I can recall Christ accepts a "deal" from Satan. A dream sequence follows, in which Christ is apparently fooled by Satan, disguised as a little girl. Apparently, he did not die for our sins, and Scorsese's message is muddled, possibly leading us to believe that the screwed-up world we live in is because of this. The Catholics and other Christian groups were outraged. It is not quite the "risen Christ on Easter Sunday" message of hope that we have all been counting on. Personally, I do not see Scorsese as anti-Christian for making it, although I do come away from such expenditures of theology believing there are just things we will never know until we die, and we had best live good lives until then!

In "Cape Fear", Scorsese introduces a Fourth of July parade scene rife with sluggish Americana. The scene is slowed down, given morbid music, and depicts patriotic icons with bland expressions, going through the motions while an unenthusiastic crowd masks a black-and-white cancer. It also chooses to make DeNiro a really dangerous Christian who quotes Scripture, speaks in tongues and preaches while he commits his acts of violence. Outside of one episode of "The X Files" in which a sect of Hasidic Jews included some ghost-Jew character who kills in the name of same ancient Hebrew tenet, I cannot recall seeing openly Jewish killers on screen.

"A Few Good Men" is another example of great filmmaking by a liberal, Rob Reiner. It is a marvelous film and a great screenplay by future "West Wing" writer/ creator, Aaron Sorkin. It borrows from "Platoon" in that it portrays the "little guy" as the hero in the military, but frankly plays on a theme - officers sacrificing enlisted men - that was going on under Pershing in World War II, and was exemplified in the French Army in Kubrick's "Paths to Glory". It was done away with in the Eisenhower years. Congress wanted to make for a more Democratic Army around 1900, so they stopped loading West Point enlistment with the heirs of old military families, opting for ordinary "sons of the land." The Ikes, Bradleys and Stilwells that resulted from this policy went a long way towards creating an officer corps that bends over backwards to protect enlisted personnel. Reiner and Sorkin never served in the Army. I have. I know from where I speak.

The beauty of "A Few Good Men" is in the character arc of Lieutenant Daniel Caffey (Tom Cruise). His father is the former Attorney General of the United States, and in this capacity he was a civil rights hero. Caffey never lived up to his dad's high expectations, although he graduated from Harvard Law School. He is skating by in the Navy JAG corps to satisfy family tradition. Demi Moore is a dedicated JAG lawyer who wants to do great things. Kevin Pollack is the guy who got picked on when he was a kid, and now he is also a JAG lawyer. The three of them get assigned to a case involving two "poster" Marines accused of murder at Guantanamo Bay. The Commander at Gitmo is Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson), in a role he did not win the Academy Award for, which is unbelievable. Jessup is about to be Assistant National Security Advisor, so he is very high up the Pentagon food chin.

Cruise is a slacker who pleads his cases, and is offered a sweetheart deal by the prosecutor, a Marine buddy played by Kevin Bacon. If the Marines plead out, the case goes away and after six months they are out of jail. The Marines are straight up and down, and say no. Demi, a so-so actress who rises to Oscar performance in a role she was born to play, takes Cruise to task. Normally a sexpot, she is not portrayed as anything but a professional officer and lawyer here, and she wears it well. There is sexual tension with Cruise, but nicely underplayed. The elephant in the corner is the "code red" that everybody knows Nicholson ordered, but nobody can ask about. If he ordered the "code red," the boys are free, which leaves a slight fact discrepancy because a Marine died because of a hazing they administered. It is fair to ask why they are free if they were ordered, hung if not, since the actions are still the same.

Military justice protocol is significantly different from the free-for-all of regular criminal courts, and Nicholson hides behind it. Demi gets Cruise to stage two of his character arc by committing him to the case and to getting Nicholson to admit to the "code red," which Cruise plans to do because he knows Jack does not like "hiding" from him. The Nicholson ego is too big for that. A huge obstacle must be overcome first when a Marine voice of conscience (J.T.Walsh) commits an "honorable" suicide. He was their only real witness, and it sets Cruise back into the pattern of responsibility avoidance. Pollack has been shuffling along with "I no responsibilities here whatsoever" act, but his role in the script is made clear. He tells Cruise he wrote a paper on his famous dad in high school, and that he was a great trial lawyer. He tells Cruise his father would plead this case out in a second. Then he tells him it does not matter what his father would do, it only matters what Cruise does. He backs up Demi's earlier faith in Cruise as an attorney, and for the first time Cruise realizes he has special talent and can win. The finale is a doozie with Nicholson thundering away with a speech that Sorkin and Reiner must have really agonized over.

Nicholson represents the "warrior spirit" that protects Americas liberal peaceniks like...Reiner and Sorkin. He gives an incredible dissertation on what it takes to build a military and do the heavy lifting that protects our cherished freedoms. Reiner and Sorkin resisted the chance to demonize Nicholson into the tired old conservative boogieman; the racist white officer (one of the Marines is black), stupid, a war glorifier. Instead, they let Nicholson make a speech that has been memorized and made into legend by... conservatives and military officers. But Jack makes a mistake and lets Cruise lead him one step too far, admitting to the "code red" that wins the day. The twist, and the message, is in the final verdict in which the Marines are declared "not guilty" but are dishonorably discharged for "conduct unbecoming Marines." They are stricken, because the Corps is where they found their very essence. Cruise tells them they do not need a patch to have honor, a line of pure gold. The black Marine, an actor who seemed to have been discovered for this one role and then disappeared, gives the film its intended meaning. He says their conduct was unbecoming because they were not supposed to follow an illegal "code red" order (given to them by a Southern racist Christian, Kiefer Sutherland), against a weaker man, despite the consequences. Pollack, who identified with the weaker man and did not like the macho Marines, melts because he sees his childhood tormentors symbolically apologize to him. Cruise has now earned his spurs and is no longer just Lionel Caffey's son.

"A Few Good Men" is a barnburner. The Sutherland role is its most heavy-handed bias. When he is told Cruise's father "made a lot of enemies in your neck of the woods" - Dixie - by letting "a little black girl" go to an all-white school, the subtle message is that he is a racist. Sutherland is further painted as a Bible thumper, the kind who have little patience for those who are not. Hollywood just brutalizes Christians. Nicholson also sneers at Pollack's screen name, Lieutenant Weinberg, a point that probably worked more against the Sorkin/Reiner message than for it. Nicholson is pointing out that Jews tend to be lawyers, while the Anglos do the fighting. The effect of the reference, however, causes people to make mental note of the fact that he is basically right.

Reiner is an "issues" liberal. He is definitely a man of conscience with good intentions. He gives of his time, energy and money for a variety of causes to better society, usually by helping disadvantaged kids or the afflicted. Hooray for him. He cannot get too much applause for that. But he jumped on the anti-tobacco bandwagon, which is in my view real hypocrisy. First, Hollywood always displays macho men and femme fatale women smoking cigarettes and looking cool. Tobacco has been around for centuries. It is a legal product that people want. The fact that it is bad for you is simply common knowledge, yet trial lawyers, the biggest Democrat special interest group, file nefarious multi-million dollar class action lawsuits and tort claims against tobacco companies, as if some plaintiff who smoked for 50 years before getting lung cancer was forced by the company to do so.

During the Clinton years, the Democrats jumped on this issue like there was no tomorrow, actually making government ads against legal American tobacco corporations and the tobacco industry in a move that cannot be legal, civilly and maybe Constitutionally. These ads typically show a couple of (always) white tobacco execs plotting to poison kids, then laughing about it. Turn this ad around and direct it at anybody else and the hue and cry would be endless. These companies contribute enormous taxes and employ thousands. I myself was addicted to chewing tobacco (Copenhagen) for 16 years. I knew I had to quit, tried several times, but went back to it. I knew the dangers of snuff and that it was a disgusting habit. Nobody dragged my arm. I chose to do it, chose to quit, girded my will power and accomplished this task. Period. Just like George W. Bush when he quit drinking.

Speaking of alcohol, this is worse than tobacco. It causes drunk driving deaths and has to be as unhealthy as smoking cigarettes, but it is not a target. On top of that, the real kicker is that if you go to Hollywood parties, or hang out at certain industry hot spots in Studio City, Universal City, Beverly Hills, or Santa Monica, you will find movie executives puffing on huge cigars like the one Bill Clinton asked Monica to use as a phallic. Such hypocrisy.

Russell Crowe played a tobacco exec a few years ago opposite Al Pacino in a film that never got anywhere. The crux of the film was that Brown & Williamson, a tobacco road company with a long, venerable tradition in old Carolina, had...shock...hid the fact that cigarettes are bad for people. For decades.

Really? Bad for people?

Basically they went out and advertised their product like any other capitalist organization, in an effort to get people to buy it. People buy tobacco for the same reason I used to buy it. They know it is bad for them. They joke and call them "cancer sticks." Oh, but kids are being duped, they say. There is no group of individuals on Earth more acutely aware of the danger of smoking than kids, to my knowledge. When my daughter was six or seven she was all over this issue. These same anti-tobacco crusaders are the same ones who will argue six ways from Sunday that marijuana should be legal, too.

"Forrest Gump" (1994), directed by USC alum Robert Zemeckis, was considered a fairly conservative film, but it certainly does not advocate any "good Republicans" vs. "bad Democrats." You can search far and wide, and you will not find Hollywood films that openly portray a Democrat as the bad guy. I wrote a screenplay a few years ago called "A Murderous Campaign". It had all the elements of a great script. A beautiful porn star has an affair with a Democrat Louisiana Senator. She overhears him plotting the assassination of a political rival, but they find out she heard the plan. They try to kill her, so she goes into hiding and hooks up with a crusty old Washington reporter who is considered kooky because he has been accusing this Democrat of these crimes for years. A retired FBI friend of the reporter helps them. The Democrat announces a Presidential bid. The porn star uses her considerable charms and discovers that the Governor of New Jersey is the assassination target at a Statue of Liberty rally. She saves the Governor, and the plot is revealed, but the Democrat candidate goes into spin control. Nobody can really prove the plan. It looks like he will win the nomination, having weathered the politics of personal destruction. Finally, the porn girl and the reporter find the old father of the Democrat's chief of staff, a former Ku Klux Klansman who wants to get what he knows off his chest before passing from this mortal coil. He tells them about the drug smuggling operation the candidate has been running in the Louisiana Bayou. The reporter's FBI pal arranges a raid. They discover all the "smoking gun" evidence of a series of political murders going back years. The girl is re-united with her family, gets out of the porn business, the reporter wins the Pulitzer, and it is jail time for the Democrat. The end.

Creative execs who loved the verbal pitch when I simply described the Democrat as a "politician," a "candidate" or the "Senator" all passed when they read the part in the script that identifies him as an actual Democrat. Pamela Anderson would be perfect as the porn chick. I could see Denzel Washington as the reporter, and Gary Busey as the Democrat Senator. I was asked if I would change him to a Republican. My answer was that I wanted to maintain the realism of the story. See ya.

The film "Dave" went through a similar change. The story of a Presidential look-alike (Kevin Kline) who fills in for the secretly deceased real thing, the original story featured a Republican who brought his skills as a small entrepreneur to the job. Hollywood turned him into a Democrat, but kept his G.O.P common sense, such as when he and his partner look at the Federal budget and balance it by using the methods any small businessman would use. Naturally, pet liberal projects are all interjected while "Republican priorities" are given the heave-ho.

Indians are a favorite pet of the liberal establishment. "Dances With Wolves" is a fine movie. Most of them are. Nobody ever said these people are not brilliant. There is no real lie in "Dances" that I can see, but it does seem stylized. The Indians are pictured as peaceful, spiritual conservers of the land. Real-life Indians had every potential of being violent savages without anybody's prompting. Just ask the Mexicans who were systematically robbed by them every harvest until American mountain men with guns were recruited to provide a little security. The soldiers are dumbasses, as are most of the whites that Kevin Costner "escapes" from in his effort to find the real West. While Indians certainly knew how to preserve the land, an act of necessity for them, they took plenty from it without replenishment. Whites stripped and mined the land, but they also came up with ingenious technologies that re-generated the land.

A fair look at the clash of white-Indian civilization was in John Milius' excellent "Geronimo", the story of the last Apache captured and brought in, bringing to an end the Indian Wars in 1890. Gene Hackman plays the officer charged with negotiating and capturing Geronimo. It fairly shows brave Indians, a well-meaning government, circumstances that were beyond control of the ability to foresee, white settlers whose ingenuity made use of the land that was previously unheard of, and how these events brought about bad feelings in the Indian community. The film is even without demonizing either side.

Christians-as-psycho-killers is the theme of "Carrie". How original.

"Apollo 13" (1995) was Ron Howard's excellent, patriotic re-enactment of the 1970 moonshot that went awry. The Soviets offered their assistance, but NASA said they would handle their own house, and they did. It is virtually impossible to conceive that any other country on Earth could have produced astronauts and ground crew that could have gotten that ship home safely. Howard makes a film that has you waving the flag when you walk out. At least you should.

Steven Speilberg made "Schindler's List" in 1993. It drew raves and deserved them, but what was left out of this Holocaust story is the fact that it was the American Army that saved the concentration camp survivors. It was wonderful of Speilberg to glorify a flawed Polish businessman who saved a few thousand Jews, but the fact is that it was the United States who saved European Jewry by defeating the Nazis, and then by creating Israel.

Speilberg's "Amistad" (1997) may have been driven by some liberal guilt on his part, but like a few other movies that set out to tell a "shameful" story of America - in this case, slavery - the film reveals one of this nation's greatest triumphs. Granted, it requires a little thinking to arrive there, but it is there. The Amistad slaves were on trial for murder in America and they were acquitted. The triumph was the system of American justice. They were recognized as humans who had the right to fight for their freedom in an effort to return to their homeland, a huge first step in ending slavery. The film, whether it means to or not (and my guess is Spelberg meant to) demonstrates that the injustice of slavery was brought to the shores of colonial America before the country was born. It was an inherited evil. The system was brought down, piece by piece, by American citizens, using American laws written by Americans, all under the coda of an American ethic: Freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It would be nice to say the Founders just put this in place in 1787. It took almost 80 years, but the thing had been around for thousands. It ended here. It did not end, as "Amistad" demonstrates, by a foreign power defeating us and ending it, or even by virtue of a big international lobbying effort, or through sanctions. It ended because we used the laws we created to end it. The film demonstrates the first strike of justice in an American courtroom regarding this terrible "institution."

"The Right Stuff", based on Tom Wolfe's book and directed by Phillip Kaufman, was a wonderful American story about the Mercury space program that told the tale of U.S. pilots just brimming with gusto, bravado and...the right stuff. "Saving Private Ryan" was gold, Spielberg's best work ever. Anybody who walks away from this 1998 account of America saving the world on D-Day, without a glowing respect for what we sacrificed, is an idiot or a "useful idiot."

"Strip Tease" was typical. In it, Burt Reynolds was depicted as so many Republican politicians are depicted: Stupid, immoral, greedy, corrupt...am I leaving anything out?

Hollywood continues to break down culture, values and societal norms. Because film emanates most often from the creative minds of writers residing in L.A. (occasionally San Francisco), New York or Europe, who are usually liberal, more likely to be gay than the average citizen, and seem to encourage breaking things down more than building them up, films often have a sour taste to them. While there is nothing openly politically conservative, there is much that is a quasi-endorsement of the Democrat National Committee. When Hollywood endorses traditional values, they attempt to purport the myth that it is the Democrats who are the traditionalists. I usually find it best to say nothing, simply letting the lie of it emanate for the public to observe without comment. But Aaron Sorkin is a de facto Democrat speechmaker, very talented, but so wrong, so in the clouds, that two of his latest works must be addressed.

"The American President", starring Michael Douglas as the Prez, and Martin Sheen as his chief of staff, was amazing hubris. It was a direct attempt to portray a Democrat in the White House as all that is upstanding and decent. The film actually made the ballsy effort at convincing the American public that the Douglas Presidency was pretty much the same as the Clinton Presidency, and that it was only a vast right wing conspiracy that saddled the man with problems, all of which were overcome in the Hollywood version by goodness and honesty.

There was no word about dead kids on railroad tracks or White House aides who knew felonious things about first ladies who walked across the grass to shoot themselves but had no grass stains on their shoes. Stuff like that. The Douglas President is just perfect, his only sin being that he is a widower who dates a woman. Sorkin serves this up with full G.O.P. indignation, as if the Republicans would care. In so doing he tries to differentiate from a man pursuing some happiness in his life with a man giving interns cigars to stuff in their orifices, jizzing all over the Oval Office, lying about it under oath, then saying that it is what the meaning of is is.

Wait and see. Condi Rice may be a Republican President some day. She is single. If she dates while in the White House, the Democrats will go on and on about it. It will start slow but the liberal media will build it and build it, and it will become an issue. Mark my words.

The natural extension of "The American President" was the TV success "The Left Wing", er, "The West Wing". It differed from the screen version somewhat, but attempted to do the same things. Martin Sheen plays the President this time. It is a very instructive show about how government works, the "inside baseball" of politics, and the pressures of the job. It occasionally semi-advocates a conservative position from a Dick Morris "New Way" slant that demonstrates the need for moderation and compromise. But the show portrays idealistic Democrats who never sleep; workaholics who make Nixon look like a piker. When push comes to shove, traditional liberal views on education, welfare, affirmative action and the like win the day. The Democrats are utterly dedicated to Democracy, freedom and America, and this is just not something that, in light of the Clinton era that the show shadows, possibly rings true.

"The West Wing" gives no credence to their party being venial, corrupt, immoral, or the other things that the Clintons laced it with. Over time, its ratings plummeted for the very reasons that I stopped watching it. Being a fan of politics, I ate it up at first, accepting its liberal bias because I choose to be entertained by the medium of film and TV. But the contrast between all these perfect Democrats saving the country and the world from bad guys and Republicans every Wednesday, with the real thing, became too much to bear. When George W. Bush became President, the show could not stand on credible legs any more.

"Bob Roberts" was Tim Robbins first foray into political filmmaking. He draws on his family experience as traveling folk singers and fashions a story of a conservative, religious political candidate who signs family songs on the campaign trail. The film itself is good stuff, well acted and produced, but the message is clear: White conservative Christians are just frauds and cannot be trusted. One watches it and wonders what a truthful depiction of Jesse Jackson would look like. Or an inside look at Joseph P. Kennedy pulling the strings in Jack's Congressional and Senate campaigns? Or the inside deals that kept Teddy Kennedy in office after Mary Jo Kopechne was killed? How about Al Sharpton and the Tawana Brawley incident? "Bob Roberts" is one of those movies that you just watch and shake your head.

After Tim McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma Federal Building, the Left went berserk, although their own Ted Kazcysnski (the Unabomber) beat them back. What has emerged in the years since is that if a real bad guy looks like McVeigh, he does the "perp walk" and is displayed for the cameras. If he is black, a black Muslim, or some such thing, he gets the hidden suspect treatment. "Arlington Road" is Robbins as a right-wing wacko who plans to blow up the government. The message is that the right in this country is dominated by white racists who think nothing of killing many, because they are Fascists. It is heavy-handed and compared with Truth fails miserably.

Robbins made another "political" film." "Dead Man Walking" stayed on an even keel. Starring Sean Penn in a bravura performance as a murderer getting ready for his execution, it takes a surprisingly Catholic point of view, in which Susan Sarandon plays a nun who makes him take responsibility for his actions, ostensibly to save his soul. It could be interpreted as being against the death penalty, but this is actually a stretch.

"American History X" may not have have accomplished what it set out to accomplish. The film centers on a white supremacist in the once-pleasant, now-crime stricken Los Angeles beach enclave of Venice. Edward Norton plays the racist, but the dialogue is sharp and intelligent. While there is no question that Norton is not in the right, and that his racial hatreds have taken him down a perilous personal path, he makes certain biting commentary about race and society that are entirely true and worth agreeing with. Whether the filmmakers wanted whites (and blacks) in the audience nodding in agreement with a guy they would like to show to be a monster is not known. He is charismatic, and intelligent enough to see the light after being stigmatized in prison. With the help of a black teacher, he turns his life around, but sees the damage he has caused to those around him. Heavy-handed political bias cannot be helped. Norton's sidekick is an utterly reprehensible, stupid white racist of the worst stereotype, who blathers about those who do not agree with him as "Democrats."

"The Contender" was made by a former West Point guy who is a liberal, a rarity in and of itself. It does not take a highly liberal position, but it is not conservative. The film's message is that the right's overarching investigations into Clinton's sex life were intrusive, although it does not examine the fact that his lies came under legal oath.

The V.P. dies and a woman Senator is nominated to replace him. A rumor circulates that while in college she was gangbanged by a fraternity. She refuses to answer the allegations. A conservative Senator (Gary Oldham, who is actually conservative and later expressed dismay at script changes to make conservatives look worse than originally planned), opposes her because of her alleged youthful promiscuity. He is also in league with another Senator who he wants to get the nod. The President (Jeff Bridges) sticks by the nominee and after a few twists and turns she gets in. The charges are never publicly refuted, which is the film's message. She reveals privately that the gangbang story was false, and the moral is that politician's personal lives are not open season for the press. This resonates to an extent, but the timing of the film, in light of the Clinton scandals, makes it obvious that the purpose is to dissuade the public that Clinton's immorality is our business.

"Absolute Power" and "Murder at 1600" had me thinking that somebody read my screenplay, "A Murderous Campaign", used my idea but gave me no credit. Maybe. Both films ("Absolute" is a Clint Eastwood picture) play on the public perception that Clinton might just be a murderer. However, the President bears no resemblance to Clinton and neither film takes a partisan tone, although Alan Alda in "Murder at 1600" seems to be a caricatured right wing militarist.

"Wag the Dog" was straight out of the Clinton files. The President (partially shown, but apparently not resembling Clinton physically or politically) defiles a girl scout on a White House trip and it becomes public. In real life Clinton lobbed bombs at Iraq and Bosnia to get the story off page one. In the movie a Bob Evans-type movie producer (Dustin Hoffman) is asked to create fake footage of a war with Albania, in order to get the girl scout story off page one.

"Three Kings" starred the ultra-liberal George Clooney in a convoluted story of U.S. soldiers trying to get rich in war torn 1991 Iraq, possibly re-creating the theme of Clint Eastwood's 1970 film "Kelly's Heroes". "Kings" is not a highly political story, but leaves little doubt that it views the first President Bush's war in Iraq, particularly the Kurdish uprising that he encouraged and did not back, as a cynical American lie.

"Thirteen Days" re-created the Cuban Missile Crisis, elevating the Kennedys to virtual sainthood while painting Curt LeMay as an advocate for nuclear holocaust. It was a fantastic picture, like many of them, but in it is an interesting scene in which Kenny O'Donnell, played by Kevin Costner, tells a Navy plot to lie to LeMay about being shot at, because LeMay would supposedly have ordered a strike if he had been. The film paints this lie as the right thing to do because it advocates the Kennedy's position, which was to maintain level heads and a calm demeanor. However, in 1987 Ollie North was excoriated by the Left for lying about the funding of anti-Communist guerrillas, which was Reagan's position. Funny about that.

Mel Gibson is considered a conservative. He is a devout Catholic, and is coming out with a film that depicts the last hours of Christ, called "The Passion of Christ". He is coming under increasing criticism for daring to portray the Savior and suggest that he is who millions believe He is.

One lonely conservative voice has been trying to shout out from the "wilderness" for years. Lionel Chetwynd is a writer/producer who made "The Hanoi Hilton", which actually described the North Vietnamese as the evil torturers they were. The "Hilton" was the moniker given the infamous prison camp where American POW's were kept while Jane Fonda was flirting with our enemies. In 2003 Chetwynd produced "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis". It stars Lance Bottoms ("The Last Picture Show", "Apocalypse Now") as President George W. Bush. Liberal film reviewers criticized it. Do not believe them. It is good stuff.

For a brief time in the Reagan '80s, Hollywood made "conservative" movies, but they were little more than schlocky action war pictures like "Rambo". The basic premise behind these movies was to show macho heroes like Chuck Norris or Sylvester Stallone "returning" to Vietnam to "re-win" the war and rescue buddies imprisoned as POWs.

In truth, Hollywood provides a lot for just about everybody. Cable and pay TV have created romance channels, family channels, true story channels, history channels, and there is a lot of content that does not fit the traditional liberal profile. Christianity takes a lot of hits. A lot of TV shows love to make the perp a white Christians, militia guys and the like.

But there are movies that portray Christianity in a loving manner. Family values, patriotism, honor and virtue get their due. Conservatives will rail against Hollywood, and listening to them you get the idea that everything is a liberal conspiracy. Not so.

But there are a lot of high-profile films like "American Beauty". The message is that the family is dysfunctional, morality and convention are a thing of the past, and homophobes are probably military rocks who secretly want to get it on with other men.

Then there is "Seabiscuit", a beautiful tale of redemption, which tells a patriotic story of how in this great nation people can pick each other up, work as a team, and inspire a country.

There are a few Hollywood celebrities who are conservative. Actor James Woods keeps his Republican views to himself. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a moderate Republican. Comedian Dennis Miller switched over after 9/11. But the dominant media culture is very liberal. What is important to note is the velocity that one side (the liberals) are allowed to create, vs. the other side. A look at pop culture talk shows, comic acts and the like demonstrates that conservatives may be placed on shows, but usually in a token manner, outnumbered by liberals. The conservatives generally play it straight, are a little apologetic, quite polite, and are forced onto the defensive. The audiences seem to be liberal, which considering the fact that the country is much more conservative makes it obvious they are recruited and steered into cheering and backing the liberal point of view.

Comedians like David Letterman and Jay Leno softly chide the Democrats, keep it in the middle, and avoid vitriol. Dennis Miller never could help himself. He was a liberal in the Clinton years but the President was such a target that Miller lambasted him. He finally realized he was not a liberal.

But most comics who do politics are hatchet men (and women). Liberals actually come out and say with a straight face that it is conservatives who are vicious and closed-minded, but Chris Rock, Jeanine Garafolo and Bill Maher are obviously examples that this concept is a pure lie. Liberal comics cut Republicans to shreds, using the foulest possible language, which Republicans could never in one and one half million years get away with. Maher called George W. Bush a "little asshole." Is there some way to justify this? Answer: No.

However, what these liberal comics fail to realize (I suppose I am telling them) is that in so doing, they do the Democrats the worst possible service. Their hate speech may play for a hand picked audience steered to a TV laugh track, but out there in the living rooms of America are millions of ordinary people. These people hear advocates of the Democrat party swearing, promoting all manner of foul behavior, showing little in the way of morals or scruples. They are not hearing this from Republican counterparts. What happens is that (a) the immorality of Democrats becomes subliminally known to them, and then (b) the immorality of Democrats becomes actually known to them. This does not help the Democrats any more than it helps blacks associated with cop killing, ho-banging rap music. The final reality is that the great advantage the liberals have, which is control of most of the TV stations and film screens, is not just wasted but made to be a disadvantage. This helps explain why, despite this advantage, they are losing the political battle for the hearts and minds of America.

If the liberals then want to ask what they can do to win this battle, they are provided an answer that many suspect already, but is really not what they want to hear. The answer is to be more like the conservatives. Is there any other way to tell it? This answer is bad news for the Democrat party either way. If they become more like conservatives, they eventually become Republican. If they become less like conservatives, they marginalize the Democrat party. The future, as it stands now, is that the Democrats are going the way of the old Whig party. The challenge of this reality for Republicans will be to rule a de facto one-party system without getting heavy handed about it.

What the liberals will discover, if they have not already, is that people vote with their feet. At some point, sooner rather than later, Hollywood will realize that if they make movies that realistically, occasionally show Republicans to be "good guys" and Democrats as "bad guys," which reflect actual political events, audiences will be stunned in a good way. Many conservatives stay away from films because they are sick and tired of the liberalism. This is the heart and soul of America; people with families and discretionary spending income. If they tap into this market, Hollywood will revive itself from the moribund industry that it is today.

In the future, Hollywood owes it to one of their own, Ronald Reagan, to make a big-ticket bio-pick about how he saved the world from World War III. These kinds of movies are not easy. A TV movie about Dwight Eisenhower, starring Robert Duvall, was serviceable but not awe-inspiring. A movie about Winston Churchill was basically a yawner. Abe Lincoln has been depicted in various ways, but a true movie capturing his life has never really been made.

Talk radio

Charles Grodin hosted a television talk show during the height of the Clinton years. Grodin is a liberal. He is handsome, smart and funny as all get out. His movies are a blast - "Beethoven", "Midnight Run", "Foul Play". Surely this man was the answer to a new phenomenon of conservative talk hosts who had achieved spectacular success and audiences in the mass millions. Grodin brought in friendly Clintonistas and other smiling faces from the liberal establishment in Hollywood, New York and Washington. His show was watched by nobody and went the way of the Dodo bird. How?

This is not all that easy a question. It begs the larger question, Will liberals ever compete with conservatives in the political talk show market? Maybe, but as of this writing there is not the slightest indication that it will happen soon. Grodin found himself defending Clinton and attacking conservatives. All of the charismatic qualities he brought to his film roles - smiling discourse, charm and humor, a disarming self-deprecation - disappeared.

Grodin could never get traction because he had to battle against the grain of Truth. Defending Clinton was the defense of a political reprobate. Grodin just found himself digging holes he could not get out of. Attacking Clinton's attackers forced Grodin to try and discredit common sense notions of law and politics. It was a tricky game, one that perhaps only Clinton himself had the ability to navigate. But what really kicked it for Grodin were general liberal notions, which juxtaposed with simple facts about America. In telling true stories of America, one is at the same time promoting conservatism. Grodin could not do this. He had to steer and veer to avoid this. It was exhausting to see him try. Promoting liberalism leads one to the inexorable path of describing what is wrong with America. Grodin could sense this, and his ability to read the tealeaves told him it was not flying. He ended up being sour and dour. Adios.

If anybody could have starred at it, it was George Stephanopoulos. He was young, decent-looking and charismatic (albeit about five feet ye tall to a grasshopper). He was smart, knew all the players and the "inside baseball," and had gotten out without being tarnished beyond his efforts to discredit women assaulted by Clinton. In the Democrat world, that is a pretty good track record. He never made it.

Clinton himself has been discussed regarding taking over a talk show. What a disaster that would be. If actual callers called in he would get verbally assaulted. Efforts to control the calls would be obvious. He would be defending himself and getting in hot water. If he tried to branch out, he would just be digging holes for himself.

Once upon a time, before cable was big, before talk radio, Phil Donahue was a powerhouse. He dispensed liberalism, and he got ratings. Surely this meant America was a liberal country. After dropping out of the game and returning, Donahue discovered that the only reason people turned to him was because they had no choices. Now, with competition, the choice was conservatism. Bye Phil.

Mario Cuomo was supposed to be a big liberal hit on talk radio. He had a reputation as a great speaker. He was a man of the people; the humble Italian Catholic, the immigrant's son, his story was the story of New York: Problem: Liberal positions, stated in a talk radio format over two or three hours, have to be explained, and sense must be made of them. See ya, Mario.

So who is out there? In San Francisco a liberal talk host has succeeded for years. His name is Bernie Ward. He is strident and argumentative. Frankly, a pain. But he is in San Francisco, a bastion of liberalism, so he survives. This city must be the one place where conservative talk radio finds no audience? Where the liberal Ward will beat the conservatives, right? Think again.

Rich liberals have for years tried to fund a network to overshadow conservative talk radio. CNN devoted a program to the premise of "combating" conservative radio. In 1996, the DNC tried to establish a speaker's bureau designed to create alternatives. It never went anywhere. They trotted out Alan Dershowitz, Lowell Weicker, Jerry Brown, Gary Hart and Doug Wilder. Nobody will argue that the conservatives are smarter than these guys. The only explanation for why liberals draw as big an audience as a Carol Mosely-Braun for President rally is that their ideas are not as good. Some things are just empirical evidence. People do not want this liberal jargon shouting at them in their car radios any more than they want to be a character in George Orwell's "1984", listening to Big Brother on a speaker system. It makes one wonder whether they would have chosen someone other than Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite had they had a choice, which they did not. Magazines like Mother Jones urge readers to call their radio stations and demand a change, but the only calls these stations get is, "When are you going to put G. Gordon Liddy on?" Conservatives constantly call CBS, NBC and ABC and demand that Dan Rather and Katie Couric get the axe, but it does not occur.

In 1994, the Republicans pulled out a huge win, a major refutation of Clinton and the longstanding Democrat hold on both the House and Senate. Conservative talk radio had played a major part, spoofing on the Democrats' check writing scandal. In January of 1995, radio listeners in San Francisco tuned into a station, KSFO/560 AM, and for 24 hours a day they heard conservatives. Ken "The Black Avenger" Hamblin, G. Gordon Liddy. Michael Savage. Michael Reagan, and a host of other local and national shows. The station was a hit, and has cleaned up in ratings' sweeps against every other San Francisco station ever since. On KNBR/AM 680 an atrocious sports host named Ralph Barbieri has long peppered his analysis with pithy anti-Republican commentary, thinking he is speaking to a liberal audience. KSFO and the conservatives have beaten him like a red headed stepchild for almost a decade. KNBR finally had to bring in an ex-NBA star, Tom Tolbert, to rescue what was left of their drive time share. It drives Barbieri batty that in a part of the country he thought was safe, conservative ideology whips him in the marketplace of ideas.

When Savage left KSFO, he moved over to KNEW/910 AM. Now, in San Francisco, liberals like Bernie Ward talk to a roomful of people at midnight while local and nationally-syndicated conservative superstars dominate all hours of the day on not one, but two talk stations.

So what is conservative talk radio, and why is it so important? There have been conservatives on radio for years. Paul Harvey was popular with homespun American style, telling populist tales of religion and small town values, giving his audience "the rest of the story." In the 1980s, talk radio was mostly the forum of the sports world. In Los Angeles, KABC introduced Dodgertalk, giving fans non-stop baseball news and interviews. Fans could call in and offer their two cents worth. In New York, sports fans called in to WFAN to opine about the Knicks, the Yankees, and the Rangers. Also in the 1980s, the cell phone became popular. With the economic upturn, more and more people were working in the cities, living in the suburbs, and listening to radio in their cars.

Two things favored conservatives off the top. First, people who drive to their cars to and from work, by virtue of having jobs, are more likely to be Republicans. But what really fuels the conservative talk radio engine is the fact that conservatives are more civic-minded and value knowledge more. Liberals tend to listen to music. They are more likely to be on the FM side of the dial. Conservatives usually have more education, and desire to better themselves and their communities. Part of that is to acquire more information. While others may be rockin' out to the Stones, conservatives want to make better use of their time and learn things.

Next, conservatives for years have been listening to spoon-fed media bias. They are tired of it. Conservative talk radio offered them something else after years of garbage. As a result of all the Left wing bias that conservatives put up with all their lives, in newspapers, magazines, school textbooks, college classes, Hollywood screens, and network news, conservatives had this little feeling in their guts. Dan Rather, Peter Jennings or Walter Cronkite would tell them something, conservatives would hear it, and a little reactor would go on telling them that what they were being told was not quite right. Doesn't add up. Off kilter. Now just hold on there, buddy. I'm sure that's wrong. Can't be. Are you sure about that?

It goes on like that for years. So the conservative have these feelings, but everything around him tells him he is in the wrong. Hollywood tells him he is wrong. Cronkite says he is wrong. His college professors definitely told him he was wrong. Before, those high school and junior high texts sure had some weird stuff in them. But the conservative is not liberal. Something keeps him from becoming that way. Something about those opinions does not make sense. This feeling sticks to him, and the feeling is that, hey, I still think I'm right.

Well, being a smart guy (or gal), and wanting to do the right thing, to stand up for what is right, the conservative begins to sort things out in his head. He starts to gather knowledge. He needs to arm himself with facts to countermand all this stuff which, as he gets older, wiser and more responsible, makes more and more difference to him. Facts.

The conservative makes a discovery. Trust me, it can be epiphany. It is like a religious experience. It may start with something small. Then it builds and grows. The bigger it gets the stronger it becomes. What am I talking about? I am talking about facts. Truth.

The conservative comes to the marvelous, beautiful realization that the facts favor his way of thinking.

This is power. Now it is no longer just opinion or emotion. Now he is on the right side of things.

Then one day he turns on Rush Limbaugh.

Rush Limbaugh changed everything. There is no more powerful force in American culture than Rush Limbaugh. He has moved mountains. He is responsible for a seismic shift in popular attitude. It cannot be emphasized too strongly just how huge this guy is.

Nobody is denying the importance of William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan. They came before Limbaugh and set the stage for him to do what he did. Goldwater and Reagan were, as Teddy Roosevelt put it, "in the arena," battling for the votes, putting themselves in front of a steamroller of public opinion armed only with their intellect and confident knowledge of their righteousness.

Limbaugh will be the first to admit he is only a part of what moves conservatism. He works hand in hand and in between the mediums of entertainment, government and business. If he is not entertaining, he fails. If he does not succeed as a business entity, he fails. If there is no corollary between his opinions and the electorate, he fails. He triumphs, in brilliant fashion, in all three areas. His very worst detractors cannot possibly deny this.

Limbaugh was born into a family of Republican lawyers in suburban Missouri. He failed to meet the academic expectations set by his family, but not for a lack of intellect. He went to a small college in Missouri and made fair grades, but dropped out to pursue what he had always wanted to do: Radio. He had strong conservative opinions and wanted to express them on the air. There was virtually no radio forum in those days to allow for that. About the only thing for him to do was disc jockey work, but he got in trouble for airing politics and was fired several times. Straight news did not interest him. He wanted to be part of a cultural medium. He sensed all the things that conservatives sense, which was that he was right, he was not alone, and others wanted to hear him. But how?

Limbaugh drifted from job to job, in and out of radio. He worked for the Kansas City Royals baseball team, where he did public relations, making a pittance salary while surrounded by wealthy superstars. One of them, George Brett, shared his philosophy and they befriended each other. Limbaugh maxed out his credit cards and bought groceries at 7-11 because they would except cards the grocery store would not.

Slowly, he began to establish himself in the radio business. He ended up at a station in Sacramento, California, where he was allowed to be a full-fledged conservative. Liberals called in, infuriated at the very idea that some such opinions could be allowed on the air. Aw, free speech. Ain't it a bitch? This went on for a while, and the hate was brutal. Several times, the station told Rush he was about to be fired.

Rush told his audience what was happening. He said that unless those who agreed with him made their presence known, he was gone. Liberals kept calling in, spewing with vitriol. Then the conservatives started to call. They kept calling. Rush's job was saved. For now. It was touch and go, but word of mouth spread. (It is my considered belief that if the Clintons had access to a time machine and could venture back into history to kill somebody, it would be Rush Limbaugh, circa 1985 or '86, before he got big.)

Then, the beauty of capitalism kicked in. Rush began to beat the other stations in ratings. Advertisers wanted to do business with him. The best part of it was that advertisers discovered they got more bang for their buck from Rush's conservative audience. They hung with him through commercials, as they tended to be the kind of upright, tax-paying citizens who needed and purchased the goods and services they advertised. Rush was a hit in Sacramento.

In the Summer of 1988, the big experiment began. Rush was brought to New York City, where he would be syndicated nationwide. Reagan was still the President, but Bush was running and Michael Dukakis had a 17-point lead. From one end of the "fruited plain" to the other, unsuspecting voters turned on their radios and heard Limbaugh extol the virtues of America, capitalism, freedom, conservatism, and the Republican party. In direct correlation with the early rise of his show, Bush rose in the polls. By November he was elected President, and Rush was a national sensation.

The Democrats despised him. Over the next four years, he drove them out of their cotton pickin' minds. He had up-dates on animal rights, Ted Kennedy and other liberal gods, skewing them with hilarious voice imitations, fake songs lampooning their nostrums, and other sacred cows. But what made him successful was that he knew what he was talking about. Limbaugh did his homework and argued persuasively. He knew history and he had the facts in his favor. Filling three hours a day, five days a week, year after year, Rush occasionally exaggerated claims, and sometimes his predictions were not right. But he stated that he was right "99.9 percent of the time," and he was a lot closer to that than he was wrong.

The Left went after him with everything they had. They tried liberal talk shows, but their dismal failures just made Rush's success more obvious. Rush was overweight, so they made fun of him. A member of the Dumbellionite Class named Al Franken, who it has been scientifically proven is not a pimple on Rush's buttocks, wrote a book called "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot". The book sold pretty well. Then Franken wrote another book, which was read by nobody. It turned out his first book only sold because Rush's name was on it. Nice. Then Rush lost weight and now looks terrific. Franken realized the only books he could write that would sell would have conservatives in the title, so he wrote a book using Fox News' "Fair and Balanced" moniker. It sold. Franken remains a Dumbellionite.

The liberals desperately tried to find something wrong with Rush, in his personal life, his family, his formative years, and his hard-luck period. Anything they could pin on the man. They found out his family was as upright as the one Beaver Cleaver grew up in. Rush never broke laws, never got in trouble, and did the right thing in every aspect of his life. He was as straight an arrow as they get. In 2003, the Left thought they "got" him when Limbaugh's addiction to painkillers was made public. Limbaugh simply took personal responsibility, never complained, and dealt with the results of his actions. When he returned to the radio, he was as big as ever.

In 1992, Rush went after the Clintons hard. When they won, it looked to be a major refutation of his power. Rush had become an icon of the right, a man that President Bush and the Republicans took very seriously - as did the Democrats. Criticizing him was not easy, since he had so many defenders and he possessed a platform. What Rush did more than anything was to expose the Left wing bias in the "dominant media culture," which he said was all of the media other than him. There was the media and the Left, all together. Then there was him.

Democrats complained and proposed Federal laws giving them equal time.

"I am equal time," Rush responded.

If Rush had three hours, they should have three hours to respond to him. Naturally, this meant that radio stations far and wide, who were making money hand over foot with Rush, were expected to put some boredom liberal on the air and watch their profits sink from a lack of listeners. Rush won in the marketplace of ideas, the freest possible example of choice, and conservatism was the winner.

Rush never blinked with the Clintons in the White House, stating that his show would be stronger than ever because now he had so much material, courtesy of their scandals. He was right again. He devised faux news reports describing "America held hostage" by the Clintons, and created hilarious songs bastardizing their lies, with a Hillary sound-alike responding "I don't recall" in Hillaryious fashion. A Sonny and Cher takeoff of "I Got You, Babe" turned into Hillary and Bill turning state's evidence on each other. He aired an Elvis impersonator singing a version of "The Ghetto", only it was a "liberal guy and a liberal gal" driving a Yugo to save mileage and do their part for the environment because "don't you know those SUVs are rapin' the land...?" only the liberals in the tiny Yugo are smashed by a Mack truck on the interstate. It was insane. He got a Teddy Kennedy sound-alike to do a parody of "The Wanderer".

"I'm a philanderer, yes I'm a philanderer," replaced "I'm a wanderer, yes I'm a wanderer," and "I sleep around and 'round and 'round," replaced "I get around and 'round and 'round."

Everybody recalled the first time they heard Rush. He wrote two best-selling books and had his own TV show. He spawned conservative magazines and newspapers like the Washington Times. People who filled in for him as guest hosts became stars in their own right. Rush is the singular responsible entity for conservative media today. His influence is what has created the paradigm shift that has changed the political landscape of America. He is as much a part of the Republican Revolution of 1994 and the Republican majorities that today dominate the executive, legislative, judicial, statehouse and state legislatures as any other force. He is a force of nature, he is an American, and he belongs to us. God bless him.

By 1995, thanks to his guest host spots and the demand for conservative content, others followed in his footsteps. Ken Hamblin called himself the "Black Avenger." Operating out of Denver, he represented the new "black conservative" movement which unfortunately has never materialized among blacks, but in a weird twist on affirmative action has become extremely popular with whites. Hamblin proposed a book with the questionable title "Please Don't Feed the Blacks", and was excoriated by the "brothers" for selling out. In the mean time, he doled out intelligence, patriotism, decency and common sense in huge doses, not concerned with any lack of so-called "street cred."

Larry Elder followed Hamblin's lead as a black conservative on KABC, the former L.A. sports station that now is conservative. In San Francisco, Michael Savage carved out a huge niche for himself. He started at KSFO, the conservative giant that was so successful that today KNEW has gone to the right, causing the liberals of the Bay Area many headaches with not one but two conservative stations in their midst. Savage is the most controversial of the conservatives, so hardcore that even Republicans tend to steer clear of him. He has been demonized as a hater, a warmonger, a racist and a homophobe. He does occasionally get out of control and says things he would be better off not saying. However, he has been painted unfairly. Savage has a Ph.D. He experienced what he says was reverse racism from colleges who would not hire him. He shades and exaggerates and generalizes, and probably would be the first to admit it. What makes his listeners so loyal is that every day, in between his rants and raves, he states pure, unadulterated Truths. He is not afraid to step on toes and talk about issues like race and homosexuality. He says things many feel but are afraid to opine. This is the core of his popularity. His detractors would have you believe his listeners are just racists, but Savage reaches "angry white males" who are not racist, but are sick and tired of being called racist.

Savage will say something like, "What America needs is not more tolerance, but more intolerance." Statements like this, heard on their own or appearing in print, seem hard to defend. What is required in order to "get" Savage is to hear him in context, over a period of time, and to be intellectually honest with ones' self. The "intolerance" statement, for instance, was in response to liberal attacks against the Patriot Act, and pervasive fear that Savage has about the future of not just American culture, but America itself. It was in response to his belief that oversensitive, Politically Correct, race-conscious Leftists can weaken this nation's resolve to a) maintain the traditions that make the U.S. strong, and b) worse, create moral relativism that could prevent us from doing the necessary work in winning the War on Terrorism. No liberal will be "turned around" by Savage, but if they are fair and honest about him they will not view him in the cartoonish manner that many do.

Savage expresses the outrage people feel over seeing bums in the street, but are afraid to say anything about for fear of being called heartless. When a black criminal commits a heinous crime but the media hides his race, but splashes a white criminal all over the news, Savage simply reveals it. He asks for a world in which everybody lives up to their responsibilities. His cosmopolitan background - immigrant son, New York Jew, one-time Democrat, man of the street - gives him what he calls a "compassionate conservatism." Savage rails about homosexual activists and filthy public displays, but has no animus for individual gays. He calls the Jesse Jacksons of the world what they are - charlatans - but he is not prejudiced. Savage is a man to listen to, and in so doing one discovers that the lies told about him are just that, lies.

G. Gordon Liddy drives the liberals as batty as Rush, because he was an official Republican "bad guy," the man behind Watergate. So what does he do? He drives a fancy sports car with the license plates, "H20GATE." Liddy, like Oliver North, makes no effort to hide behind his official actions, and was elevated to high status by the opinion of millions of American citizens that what he did was actually good. In Liddy's case, people view Watergate as something Kennedy and Johnson had done, and in light if the "civil war" atmosphere in the streets, and the desire not to let the Kennedys steal another election, the break-in was almost justified.

Liddy plays to highly macho sensibilities, is extremely sexual, loves guns, has a Pattonesque view of warfare, and takes on a conspiratorial, partisan view of the Clintons. He is nobody's fool, speaking several languages, and his education is first rate. He also has his pet peeves, such as "prison guards," who he has low regard for because they were his overseers when he served time.

Rush gave Sean Hannity his start, when he filled in for him. He is the most traditional, straightforward of the Republican hosts. Hannity is a good Catholic boy from Long Island, very strict and proper in his views regarding language, religion, morality, family values and the proper treatment of women. He is not afraid to have liberals on his show, and he is respectful towards them, drawing them in and, frankly, learning from them. His show lacks the fireworks of Savage or Liddy, and the factual evidence presented by Rush or Michael Reagan. It becomes slightly bland at times. Hannity co-hosts a Fox News program called Hannity and Colmes with liberal counterpart Alan Colmes. He is well suited for TV in appearance and smooth delivery. Colmes is a good man, but one feels a little sorry for him because, especially since the Bush Presidency started, the conservatives have been winning most of the battles. His attempts to oppose them, to meet the show's debate-style format, have left him grasping. Hannity needs to tone down his gloating just a little bit, but he is a gentleman (as is Colmes).

Michael Reagan is the former President's adopted son. Unlike his offbeat brother Ron, he is rock solid. Michael is totally unflappable, and loyal to his father in the manner of a true believer. His greatest trait is research and total knowledge of issues, including the most arcane policies, legislation, budgetary matters, and the like. He manages to dispense this while staying interesting, although he does occasionally go over his listeners' heads.

Bill O'Reilly is a TV star on Fox News. His foray into talk radio has been met with mixed reviews. O'Reilly may be the most opinionated of all the opinionators (with the possible exception of Rush). He is an Irish Catholic from the Boston area. His views are less conservative and more oriented towards common sense. He bills himself as an independent or a libertarian, which is the official line of Elder and Savage, as well. Like Savage, he criticizes the Republicans and makes a point of not walking in lock step with the party, which Hannity does and perhaps Reagan appears to do. O'Reilly's "non-partisan" assessment of himself is the party line of Fox News, which is accused of conservative bias. Like Fox, O'Reilly's approach walks a relatively new line. He calls his TV show, The O'Reilly Factor, a "no spin zone," asserting that only facts are allowed no matter how it plays out. O'Reilly is definitely conservative, but he is also right most of the time, which begs the question, If something that is right is considered conservative, then is it conservative or just right?

Some conservatives get irritated with O'Reilly because he calls it against the Republicans when he sees it that way. One can imagine that he would have jumped all over Nixon during Watergate. But his show has coincided with the Clintons, who were such easy targets, and the Bush Presidency, which has been easy to support. O'Reilly's final judgment may not be until he faces a crisis in which a Republican Administration or set of policies fails and is worthy of real criticism. This may or may not happen soon. What sets O'Reilly aside from Rush in particular is his attachment to non-political issues, especially involving children. He is seen as the champion of ordinary people, which fits with his blue-collar background (although his education, which includes places like Harvard, is top notch). O'Reilly is a bit full of himself. I do not know him or have inside information on him, but I sense that he takes himself way too seriously. Of course, there is no doubt that he is a power in this country.

Fox News is a source of controversy, especially during the Iraq War of 2003. Fox came about in part because of the success of Rush, who exposed liberal media bias. In turn, various conservative publications, like Human Events, Newsmax and sister book publications like Regnery sprouted up (or emerged from obscurity). Conservative writers became superstars, authoring best sellers. The Clintons became a cottage industry of books detailing their crimes and murders in Arkansas, their White House corruption, their sellout to China, illegal fundraising, and various derelictions of the public trust. Conservative writers and authors were matched with conservative magazines, newspapers and publishers, giving them a forum on conservative talk radio. The next step was to elevate them to the television screen.

By the mid-1990s, liberal media bias was no longer a "myth" or a complaint, but simply that with which was known by people who recognized facts. The conservatives had obviously shown themselves to be the driving force of American politics, first through Reagan, then in the post-Persian Gulf War period when George H.W. Bush had 91 percent approval ratings, and in the 1994 G.O.P. sweeps. Clinton was President, but he was so divisive and the source of so much political criticism that he helped Fox more than hurt it. In fact, he made it what it was.

Conservative talk radio was a hit, so TV seemed to be the next logical step.

Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, a conservative, bankrolled the operation and put the brilliant Republican media strategist, Roger Aisles, in charge. It was a hit from the beginning, with O'Reilly ascending to star status quickly.

The question has always been whether Fox is "conservative," biased to the right, or "fair and balanced" journalism, as they advertise themselves. This again goes to the question not necessarily of politics, but of common sense. If a sports columnist covers the New York Yankees and writes "the Yankes are the greatest sports franchise in history," is he biased toward the Yankees or simply stating a fact. After all, all empirical evidence and fact backs up the claim. Fox has covered the lies and abominations of Bill Clinton, the failure of the Democrat party, and the contrast of successful Republican events. In simply stating the truth, which favors the conservatives, are they biased? Obviously, it is more complicated than that and this question is proffered by a conservative, so take it under that context. But all things considered, the accusation of bias against Fox does not easily stick.

Like O'Reilly, the final judgment of Fox will not come until a Republican Administration really screws up and deserves to take a beating.

What seems to have happened is that for decades, the media in all its forms was liberal. It was so liberal that the liberals in the media thought of themselves as moderate. After McCarthyism, and then again after Watergate, liberals dominated the journalism schools. They were out to right conservative "wrongs," and in the tradition of Woodward and Bernstein to bring down Republican bigshots. Where the bias became obvious was when it contrasted with the country itself. In 1972, members of the New York media establishment were astonished that McGovern lost 49 states. Some said they did not know a single person who voted for Nixon. This was as telling as it gets. They operated in a bubble, a vacuum, completely unaware of what Middle America thought.

Liberals promoted Democrat agendas and Democrat candidates, but despite their best efforts found themselves, almost to their astonishment, with Reagan. Reagan then actually used their medium, television, to take his case time after time to the American people, instead of using Congress or the media. Aisles was working for Reagan at that time. The Fox brainchild started then. Reagan could make a direct speech instead of submitting himself to the tender mercies of a de facto Democrat press conference or interview with a liberal media personality, all of which semi-resembled the "blame sessions" that British Prime Ministers have to give, by law, in Parliament.

The liberals realized their bias was not winning them the country. In fact it was working against them, but coming to this realization was not easy to accept. Like admitting the truth about Hiss, it was too ugly. So Murdoch and Aisles decided to simply make this fact known on its face. Thus Fox was born.

Fox has consistently kept themselves fair. They present both sides of issues and bring in a variety of guests from all sides of the political spectrum. Where the bias accusation comes into play is from the skewed perspective of liberals, who have been so far to the Left for so long that when they see moderation, it looks conservative to them. Their longstanding inability to connect with the American public is a symptom of the same liberal sickness that does not let them see Fox as balanced.

A perfect example is Hannity & Colmes. Liberals see Hannity and decide the show is conservative, as if the liberal Colmes, who gets equal time, and the guests, who are as likely to come from the Left as the right, are not even there. For years, a typical forum on CBS News, or the morning talk shows, consisted of one conservative surrounded by liberals, like a Roman gladiator battling lions and swordsmen in a noble, losing effort. Suddenly Fox evens such forums out 3-3, or God forbid puts four conservatives and two liberals in a room, and they are, as Tim Robbins called them in a voiceover attempt at sounding like FDR, "19th Century Fox."

O'Reilly was accused of conservative bias, but perhaps to combat this he has gone out of his way to criticize the G.O.P. Still, the man is conservative and nobody can deny it. The show also features a bevy of very attractive women, which taps into something that country music fans have known forever. Beautiful, patriotic women are sexy as hell. After year and years of mean-faced, clipped-haired liberal women pursing their lips in agitation and outrage against evil Republicans, lovely, intelligent American women who dig this country is the freshest breath of air to sweep this fine land in a long, long time.

Many of the news commentators and reporters are accused of right wing bias, but the 2003 Iraq War revealed a basic truth that differentiates Fox from its competitors. CNN and other stations have long advocated that they are not American news organizations. They have made the decision that to maintain journalistic integrity, they must not favor the U.S., or advocate for the U.S. Conservatives have regaled them for this, and it is easy to do. There is a modicum of value to this approach. After all, they are charged with providing straight news, know matter how it plays out.

However, two things have discredited them. The first is history. America is not an infant country anymore. It has reached the point where it has a track record. There is no realistic way to look at that track record and not conclude that the U.S. is the one country that has done more to help the world, to save the world, to protect the world, and to make the world a better place, than all other nations in recorded history put together. But liberals are like New Yorkers who hate the Yankees, not because of their occasional failure but because of their constant success. The Oppenheimer mindset has pervaded them; they admit America is good, but its overwhelming goodness offends the sensibilities of fairness. It does not play into their notion of "equality," which they want to mold into an outcome in which all are given credit, even if credit is not due. Liberals deny history. Worse than that, they slipped, in Vietnam, during Watergate, and during the Reagan years, to not simply endorsing a neutral stance, but to an opposition stance. The conservatives were aligned with America. Liberals, in aligning against conservatives, therefore stood against America. They began to lie. When Rush Limbaugh came along, their lies began to be identified and exposed, en masse, for the first time.

While Fox openly rooted for the U.S. in Iraq, the other networks were exposed as friendly servants of our enemies. An example was CNN, where it was revealed that news chief Eason Jordan admitted that he had learned "awful things" of Iraq (torture, murder, assassination plots) but did not report them, because he had access to high-placed sources in Saddam's government. He was allowed to maintain a large staff in Baghdad, who became Saddam's de facto mouthpiece in America. Memos and faxes from CNN employees warning that Saddam was using them went unheeded. Instead, Bernard Shaw, CNN's anchor, chose not to "antagonize" the Iraqis by reporting truthful facts about them. CNN somehow deemed it more important to maintain a presence in Bagdhad, as if they were able to report scoops from there. When they did learn inside things, they did not report them. They could have embraced the banal silence of evil from anywhere.

Fox does not deny history. They embrace their Americanism, and in so doing they embrace patriotism. They made the decision, which came to a head when the U.S. went into Iraq to rid the world of Saddam, not just to cover the war, but to root for America. This nation's citizens do not want to see commentators on their screens who want Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong to win. They are funny that way.

"Useful idiots" and liberal media bias

"I can't believe it. I don't know a single person who voted for him!"

  11. Film critic Pauline Kael, speaking about Richard Nixon, the day after Nixon won 49 states to George McGovern's one.

In 2003, two excellent books hit the shelves. "Useful Idiots" by Mona Charen described "how liberals got it wrong in the Cold War and still blame America first." "Treason" by Ann Coulter passed Hillary Clinton's "Living History" in sales, and described "liberal treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism". They were preceded by Bernard Goldberg's excellent "Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News".

Now that the conservatives have made major in-roads in the media, liberals, bless their hearts, are pushing for government intervention. It is the first step in the "panic of the 21st Century," which is the decline and eventual destruction of liberalism as a force in American politics.

In 2003, liberals still dominate the editorial boards of most of the nation's influential daily newspapers, the three major television networks, and Hollywood. But their hold is no longer what it once was. It is true that in the late 19th and early 20th Century, many newspapers were "owned" by political parties. William Randolph Hearst was a conservative who controlled media in his day more than any current mogul. Many feel that Rupert Murdoch controls "too much" media. He owns Fox, Fox News, its affiliates, Hollywood studios, some Internet sites, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the New York Post, plus assorted U.S., English and other newspapers, and various additional holdings. But he is not the largest owner of media outlets. He is just the most influential, the most successful and the one everybody is trying to copy (or soon will be).

Goldberg's expose of elite media's obliviousness to their bias revealed that they see their liberalism as objectivity. Bias to them comes from those who stray from the plantation and show themselves to be conservatives. They exclude themselves from self-criticism and use the First Amendment as a shield. They have no idea how to deal with competition or accountability. Bill Clinton complained that it was unfair there was no "truth detector" to compete with Rush Limbaugh. Liberals have tried to "blame" conservative success on the airwaves to "angry white males" who they would have you believe are responsible for racist militias and terrorist bombings.

Liberal Eric Alterman came out with "What Liberal Media?" to counter Goldberg's "Bias", and Ann Coulter's "Slander". Nobody bought it. They always fall back on the so-called Fairness Doctrine in hopes that it will save America from tuning in to what they like to hear.

Many on the Left who reproach conservatives are artists, who like journalists too often think of themselves as being above reproach. Many have great talent, which they somehow think equates with moral superiority. Richard Wagner, one of the world's greatest composers, was a racist anti-Semite. Beethoven and Mozart were for all practical purposes perverts. Herbert von Karajan, a celebrated 20th Century conductor, was an apologetic Hitler supporter after the Fuhrer's death. Paul Robeson supported Stalin long after his murderous regime was exposed (although Robeson eventually came to see the error of his views and "confessed" his "sins" on his deathbed).

Some artists are morally upright. Arturo Toscanini and Pablo Casals are examples, as was the wonderful actor Jimmy Stewart, who was a Republican, a World War II fighter pilot, and rose to the rank of Air Force General in the Reserves. But novelist Norman Mailer stabbed his first wife and worked tirelessly to release a murderer who, upon that release, murdered again. Mailer today rails against George Bush and the Republicans. It is a free world, but is he really eligible? On the other hand, guys like Mailer are great advertisements for why the Republicans are popular.

In the opera (now movie) "The Death of Klingman", Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adama presents Palestinian terrorists hijacking the Achille Lauro and murdering Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer in a way that shows "neither side is beyond reproach." Jane Fonda committed treason. Woody Allen makes movies that lie about McCarthyism, but married his adopted daughter. All of this is worth considering when looking at web sites, banners and protest organizations starting with the words "Artists for..."

The "paper of record" is the New York Times, but their bias against Republicans and conservatives is so pervasive and obvious that in many quarters they have forfeited their position. The paper is and always will be influential. They have a huge worldwide subscription base and additional readership through newsrack sales and the Internet. A Times editorial or expose is still a day of reckoning for political figures. But much of what people read in this paper is now filtered through the lens not only of bias, but in light of the 2003 Jayson Blair scandal, credibility.

Blair was a young black reporter who was, basically, hired because he was black. His work was littered with inaccuracies and outright falsehoods, based more on shoddy work ethic and minimal "research" than any political axe grinding. His failures were well known to his editors, who if he were white would have fired him post haste. When his fake stories became public, he was let go amid great scandal. The "grey lady," as the Times is known, was hurt by other similar stories involving their staff. Eventually editor Howell Raines had to step down.

Media credibility can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the past 10 years, the conservative media has become the place where real news often emanates. The Washington Times is a conservative paper, loudly condemned by its competition for years. They were founded by the Reverend Syung Myung Moon, a multi-millionaire Korean Christian evangelist whose organization, known as "Moonies," practices a form of mind control over its adherents.

Moon's association with the paper set it back, but a funny thing happened along the way. Many of the best journalists in the country went to work for the paper. The Times has developed a reputation for providing some of the most truthful news in the business, which not surprisingly is not found anywhere else. It has become, again to the consternation of liberals, a big success. What has become more and more apparent is that many great journalists are conservative, but nobody read them for years because the big newspapers did not hire them. Today, most of the best-known writers and media personalities in papers, magazines, the Internet and on TV, are conservative. They have earned this through talent, hard work and honesty. Conservative media has had to be honest because their mistakes get magnified, while for years liberal news organs just slid by.

Nixon's Vice-President, Spiro Agnew, called the media the "nattering nabobs of negativism." Limbaugh pointed out that the media was negative by de-crying such talk shows as "Meet the Depressed" and "Slay the Nation." L. Brent Bozell documented liberal media bias. But it was Goldberg who seemed to have broken through an invisible barrier when he wrote a 1996 Wall Street Journal piece about bias. Goldberg was a longtime CBS news journalist, and his article raised hackles with news division president Andrew Heyward and Dan Rather.

Goldberg was threatened, and when he revealed what Heyward, Rather and others said to him, they all lied in denying it. His career was destroyed, although in reality he stepped up, becoming a best selling author and Fox contributor. The Left called him a traitor because Goldberg had been one of them, a liberal. But he had integrity.

He pointed out that liberal news outlets repeated figures on AIDS and homelessness that they knew were lies, but promulgated the concept of America (and by insinuation conservatives) as a heartless, uncaring place (and that only liberal news pandering felt this countries' pain).

He pointed out that Peter Jennings would refer to "conservatives" and "extreme conservatives" in relation to negative stories, but never referred to the likes of Ted Kennedy as "liberals" or "extreme liberals," and also never aired negative stories about them unless it could not be helped. Networks liked to show blonde-haired, blue-eyed "victims" of social injustice, to promote the concept that America was failing even its white citizens. The problem was often that they had to "scout" many white victims over a long period of time, passing up minorities in the process. Heyward had told Goldberg that "of course" networks tilt to the Left, but he then said he would deny saying it if he went public. Rather told Goldberg that he considered himself a "moderate," but Goldberg pointed out first Rather's obvious liberal tendencies, then explained that in Rather's world everybody was so liberal that they thought they were moderate. Liberals rarely admit to being liberals. Conservatives wear that label with pride. Res ipsa loquiter.

Goldberg pointed out that in 1996 Republican Presidential candidate Steve Forbes, "a rich conservative white guy, the safest of all media targets," had proposed a flat tax plan. It was a solid plan supported by many respected economists like Milton Friedman, among numerous others. CBS News reporter Eric Engberg did a segment of Reality Check using words like "scheme" and "elixir" to dismiss the plan as a con job, and invited only economists who disagreed with it to comment on it. Engberg called Forbes' plan "wacky." Goldberg pointed out that no network reporter would have called Hillary's health care plan wacky.

Liberal economic theory is best summarized by Clinton's campaign strategist, Paul Begala, who replied to a question about the "rich" from Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, ""Fuck them," Begala said.

In the 1980s, homeless advocates gave enormous, inflated figures describing the number of homeless in America. The networks repeated the figures, even though they were untrue. Goldberg pointed out that not only did they want to give the impression that Reagan's America produced more homeless, but in doing "man on the street" (literally) stories, executives wanted to show white families. Reporters went to homeless areas and found...bums. Dirty, filthy, alcohol- and drug-addled bums who had nobody to blame but themselves for their predicament. This did not fit the liberal schemata. Long, often-fruitless searches were conducted to find white families in shelters, to portray to the country the falsehood that Reagan's policies were affecting "everybody." Goldberg went to his bosses and complained.

AIDS created the same reportage. The media desperately wanted to hang the disease around Reagan's neck, claiming that "heartless Republicans" had let the disease spread uncontrollably - as if a mysterious virus emanating (we still are not sure) from African monkeys could just be corralled in no time by U.S. tax dollars. The media spent countless hours trying to convince the public that AIDS was not a gay disease. Normal people, through the process of living and experience over a period of years, eventually realized that AIDS was rarely spread to males through heterosexual contact. Bi-sexual men and drug addicts who contracted the disease through needles passed it on to women, and of course gays passed it on to each other through anal sex.

In Africa, the same myths have been passed down. Millions are said to die from AIDS. There is no question that it is an epidemic there. For reasons that defy any reasonable explanation, the disease is passed on among heterosexuals in Africa, whereas it rarely is anywhere else. This is a mystery beyond explanation. What the media, to this day, rarely report is that AIDS spreads rapidly in Africa because of immoral sexual habits and rape, but the real "secret" is that millions who have died or are dying from "AIDS" actually have other diseases. It is just easier to condense the deaths into a single killer: AIDS. President Bush has committed billions to fighting the disease, and amazingly liberals complain because he is endorsing an "abstinence program." The last time anybody checked, abstinence from sex and drugs stopped AIDS 100 percent of the time, but the Left does not want George Bush to tell African men who they can rape.

Homelessness did not go down under Bill Clinton. Reporting on it did. AIDS did no go down immediately under Clinton, but reporting on it did. ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN did 71 homeless stories in four years under the first President Bush. In Clinton's first four years, they did nine. Eventually, through science and research that had nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats, AIDS deaths have been reduced. Many gay men, in turn, have decided that since new "AIDS cocktails" can keep the disease in check, they can have unprotected sex and that being HIV positive is a "badge of honor."

In the modern news media, Catharine MacKinnon, a feminist ideologue who once equated all sexual intercourse with rape, is an expert. Conservative Phyllis Schlafly is a "right wing commentator." Clarence Thomas commits sexual harassment and Anita Hill is believed. The Christian Coalition is a conservative organization; the National Organization for Women (NOW) is a women's group. Robert Bork is a "conservative judge" but Laurence Tribe is a "Constitutional expert." Tom Selleck and Bruce Willis are "conservative actors." Barbra Streisand and Rob Reiner are political activists. Rush Limbaugh is a "conservative talk show host." Rose O'Donnell was a talk show host.

During the Clinton impeachment hearings, ABC's Peter Jennings prefaced all conservative politicians as "conservative" and "right wing," but just mentioned Senator Boxer, Senator Kennedy, Senator Barbara Mikulski, and so on. Dan Rather calls the Wall Street Journal editorial page "conservative" and the New York Times "middle of the road." They have not endorsed a Republican since Dwight Eisenhower. But hundreds of millions of ordinary citizens have.
When former Atlanta Braves' pitcher John Rocker spouted off to a Sports Illustrated reporter about "some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 29-year old mom with four kids," he accurately described a ride in the New York subway system. The media beat him up within an inch of his proverbial life for it. They never would have attacked Louis Farrakhan or Jessie Jackson for their intemperate remarks about Jews in the same manner, or for Hillary Clinton's anti-Semitic remarks during her 2000 Senate campaign.

Over the years, polls of major news organizations - the New York Times, Washington Post, the networks - revealed that somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of their journalists voted Democrat. Dismissing the issue of whether this "bias" is good or bad, it simply reflects a vast chasm between the public and the individuals who feed them their news. No wonder there is so much hunger for different content. The old days are gone. The public has gone through Watergate, cable TV, tabloids, and the Internet. They are a sophisticated, media-savvy lot who thirsts for real, true news. They do not trust as they used to, and will not be re-assured by FDR's "fireside chats."

The media are products of their environments, which are the coasts, Los Angeles, New York and Washington. They do not emerge from the heartland, and do not reflect the sensibilities of what many disparagingly refer to as "fly-over country." When they venture into America to cover campaigns, their reports often sound like they are from a foreign land. They are not members of the American Legion or the Kiwanis Club. They are not, by and large, church goers. A man like Gary Bauer, who runs the Christian Coalition, is said be "building a bridge to the 19th Century" by the Left wing moralist Anna Quindlen. Roxanne Russell of the CBS News Washington Bureau calls him "that little nut,". This is, in my view, is as egregious as talking about "that little Jewish nut case" who runs a pro-Israel lobby (Sam Schwartz), or "that dumbass Negroid" (Jesse Jackson) or "that little fairy, Billy Smith" who organizes gay parades.

Ted Turner is out-and-out prejudiced against Christians, calling them Jesus freaks and going into tirades when CNN employees display any Christian symbols. He calls Christianity a religion of "losers," somehow not making the connection with the rise of Christians from lion's food to the official religion of the Roman Empire.

Liberals in the press are amazingly hypocritical. Howard Cosell was far to the Left on the political spectrum, presumably in favor of women's rights. In the mid-1980s, when women were not yet major players in sport's journalism, I heard him interviewed on the radio by Lisa Bauman of KABC in Los Angeles. Lisa asked Cosell a standard question, and his reply was, "You have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen." He never answered her question, condescending to her as a fraud trying to make it a man's business. Cosell was the first to tell the rest of America to open up their professions to competition from women, but not his, thank you.

After America won the Cold War, liberals divided into two camps. One camp tried to jump on the bandwagon, taking equal credit with conservatives for the victory. The others decided there was no victory.

"I don't know any American Soviet scholar who believes the United States ended the Cold war," wrote Frances Fitzgerald in "Way Out There in the Blue".

Bill Clinton would have you believe that his evasion of the draft and subsequent mysterious trip to Moscow at the height of the Vietnam War helped us win the Cold War. He gives Reagan and Bush no credit for winning it, stating that it is like "the rooster taking credit for the Sun rise."

After Reagan's "evil empire" speech in 1983, the Washington Post's Mary McGrory wrote, "The President...embarrasses them <members of Congress> with his talk of the Soviets as the 'evil empire,' but they think he has convinced the country that the Communists are worse than the weapons."

Anthony Lewis of the New York Times said Reagan's words were "primitive," and completely disregarded the idea that there was a good side and a bad side to the arms race. Seweryn Bialer of Columbia University worried that Reagan had ruffled Soviet "patriotic pride," arguing that the Soviet deserved to be given legitimacy. This would be like apologizing to Hitler for treading on "German pride" when American moralizing de-legitimized the Third Reich. Bialer apparently wanted to legitimize the gulags and the millions who died in them and (and at the time he made his comments) still were dying in them.

When the Bolsheviks murdered the Romanovs and abandoned the Allies in World War I, Beatrice and Sydney Webb of the New York Times and the infamous Times' Russia correspondent Walter Duranty offered rosy assessments of Lenin and Stalin. The Communists were blackmailing Duranty because they knew he was a homosexual.

"I have seen the future and it works," wrote Lincoln Steffens.

When word of Stalin's purges reached the U.S. in the 1930s, in which some 10 million were murdered by Stalin in terror-famines, causing Communist Party U.S.A. rolls to be drastically reduced, Duranty reported that the reports were all lies.

Franklin Roosevelt was stunned that his American-style charm offensive had not worked on "Uncle Joe" Stalin. Harry Truman confided in friends that his worry was not Soviet Communism but British imperialism. Bertrand Russell wrote in the Manchester Guardian that America during McCarthy's time was a reign of terror comparable to living in Nazi Germany, despite the fact that one percent of the American population voted "McCarthy going after Communists" as the biggest problem in the country in 1954. He polled well over 50 percent approval in that year's Gallup poll.

Arthur Miller wrote "The Crucible" and Woody Allen made "The Front" to depict

an era of "hysteria," even though it was the "Hollywood Ten," not the "Hollywood One Thouand!" Apparently liberals think Communist screenwriters have a "divine right" to work in Hollywood, as William Phillips, editor of Partisan Review, pointed out in a defense of McCarthy.

Angela Davis was the vice-presidential candidate of Communist Party U.S.A. She had smuggled a gun into San Quentin Prison, which was used to murder a judge and paralyze the district attorney. The press called her an "activist," stating that to call her a "Communist" would be "McCarthyism." In 2001, Arthur Miller referred to "McCarthy's fascism" on National Public Radio.

Bill Moyers, a true liberal who worked for Lyndon Johnson, admitted that the general assumption on the part of LBJ's administration was that "if we injected a little power" on Hanoi, the Communists would cease to resist. Under Kennedy, even the New York Times agreed with RFK's 1962 assessment that, "We are going to win in Vietnam." The paper opined that, "No one except a few pacifists here and the North Vietnamese and Chinese Communists are asking for a precipitate withdrawal. Virtually all Americans understand that we must stay in South Vietnam at least for the near future."

When the war was no longer Kennedy's, and especially when it became Nixon's, the Times and their chattering compatriots turned against the U.S. The "little power" was not used by the Democrats when they were in a position to make it work. By the time the Republicans came to the White House the Communists were dug in deep, and the press would not allow such power to be used. The American media was the greatest ally of Communism in Vietnam.

The anti-war Left explained American involvement in Vietnam as pure imperialism. The 1960s and 1970s represented the "golden era" of American liberalism. It was a period in which they looked to be close to having "won" the historical "battle" with conservatism. But they forfeited their "victory" because they endorsed Communism despite knowing full well what it was. They could not offer the excuse of "blindness" that American Communists of the 1920s might have been forgiven for.

The press was their willing accomplice. They misquoted an Army officer, changing his words into, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." Peter Arnett of the A.P. had changed the quote from the original statement, which was that the Vietnamese had destroyed the town, and the officer said that had been a "shame." Arnett and his handlers shaped it and changed "town" to "village." Ben Tre, the town, was in fact a multi-storied town with buildings and paved streets, not a "village." They ran a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a screaming, naked child running from a napalm blast. Later, it was discovered the photo of the girl was taken after most U.S., troops had left, and the napalm was dropped not by the Americans, but by the South Vietnamese, who called in the attack when her village was raped and pillaged by Communists. The girl, Kim Phuc, eventually fled the Communists to Canada, and she expressed only hatred for what the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong had done to her people. Despite prodding, she refused to badmouth America.

Walter Cronkite's reports, which were viewed by the Communists as well as the American public, were filled with negativity about a corrupt government in Saigon and the "misery" that we brought to the country. Later, Cronkite stated that the U.S. "overreacted" to the Soviets and that "fear of the Soviets taking over the world just seemed as likely to me as invaders from Mars."

Reports from soldiers in Vietnam recounted press narratives that depicted civilians as terrified and dying, villages destroyed, napalm dropped indiscriminately. Those who were on the scene stated that most of the killing was done by the North Vietnamese, who killed more civilians resisting them than Hitler killed Frenchmen. The press wanted the public to think of the Marines as walking about villages, torching them with zippo lighters, while hundreds of non-combatants were routinely killed in U.S. bombings and operations. The press talked about the destruction of "homes" that were little more than straw shacks built by nomadic people, but they wanted the viewers to believe the U.S. was destroying dwellings that represented "a lifetime of backbreaking labor," according to CBS' Morley Safer, or villages that had "stood for a thousand years," according to Oliver Stone.

The descriptions of Americans fighting in Vietnam defy logic and everything we have ever known about U.S. service personnel, from the Revolutionary War to Afghanistan and Iraq. To buy the theory that suddenly the Americans were war criminals, "baby killers," and genocidal mass murderers of civilian populations, is to believe that a single generation of fighting men completely broke from all prior tradition, but a few years later re-grouped and went back to the old traditions of adhering to the proper conduct of war. One theory was that racism played a nasty role in the 'Nam, because the enemy and the ally were Oriental. If this were true, then our treatment of the Japanese and Chinese in World War II, when Americans were less "enlightened" than in the 1960s, would have lead to massive war crimes. What the world learned from the American media was a Big Lie, nothing less than a concerted liberal attempt to "bad mouth" our efforts at defeating Communism in Vietnam. Why? There is no easy, single answer. Certainly the Alger Hiss affair had created the need for the Left to downplay the dangers of Communism, as embodied by Cronkite's assertion that a Martian attack was as likely as a Soviet one.

When My Lai occurred, naturally the press went crazy. They created a cottage industry of reports and stories meant to characterize the tragedy not as the exception, but the rule. Movies about Vietnam, including "Apocalypse Now", "Casualties of War" and "Platoon", chose to center much of the story line around My Lai-style war crimes and civilian murders. In "Apocalypse", Martin Sheen as Captain Willard states after a civilian boat girl is killed by a trigger-happy American, "We tear them to pieces then offer them a Band-Aid. It was a lie."

The Truth is that the Green Berets dug 6,436 wells, repaired 1,210 miles of road, and built 508 hospitals and dispensaries. In the U.S., liberals displayed photos of Communist icons like Ho Chi Minh and Che Geuvara along with the North Vietnamese flag. This was the flag of an enemy that was starving, beating and torturing U.S. POWs in the most appalling manner possible. "Useful idiots" like California Congressman Ron "Red" Dellums said the Americans were morally equal to the Nazis. Jane Fonda traveled to Hanoi to do their bidding, then offered herself to Tim Hayden, the leader of the anti-war movement. Hayden said that our involvement in Vietnam showed the "real identity" of "our genocidal history." Noam Chomsky called it our attempt to impose "our particular concept of order and stability" on the world, and that we had become the most "aggressive power" in the world. For Chomsky, a learned man who knows how World Wars I and II started, to say such a thing leads one to conclude only that he is a liar.

The events that followed Watergate completely contradict the Leftist portrayal of the U.S. as a racist exploiter. After the Democrats sold out Saigon, resulting in the Cambodian/Laotian/Vietnamese holocaust, hundreds of thousands of "boat people" struggled against all possible odds to escape the Communists. Their destination was not France, England, Canada, Australia, Japan, the Philippines or any of all other possibilities on the face of the Earth. Their choice was America, home of the "racists," the "war criminals" and the "genocidalists."

These people are the best possible example of why America is the "land of opportunity." They arrived on our shores in the late 1970s, penniless, homeless refugees with no sponsors, no education, unable to speak English. They were the lowest possible class of people in American society. They settled into small communities, often dubbed "little Saigon," in places like San Francisco, Garden Grove, California, and Texas. They lived in the worst slums of the inner cities, where drugs and prostitution dominated street life. They moved about like ghosts, selling fruit, working as seamstresses, opening liquor stores. Within a few years, it was obvious that the bums and dwellers of the urban core were still selling and ingesting drugs, prostituting their women, and occupying street corners in the manner of complete unaccountability. The new immigrants, the Vietnamese, were now owning stores, buying real estate, and forging lives of success in their adopted homeland. It was a replay of how Jews had immigrated to Palestine after World War I with nothing, and within a few years simply excelled. Today, the children of the Vietnamese "boat people" are graduates of prestigious colleges like Cal-Berkeley and UCLA. Imagine how much more successful these people would be if America were not a racist country!

Folk singer Joan Baez was an outspoken critic of the war. In 1979, when word was coming back regarding Pol Pot and the Communist murder of millions, Baez was among a small core of liberals who felt guilty that that they had backed the forces of evil. She began a campaign to alert the world to the horrors of Southeast Asia after the Democrats gave them up. She contacted prominent anti-war activists, liberals all, and asked them to lend their support to the new cause. Almost none had anything to say. She personally appealed to Fonda, who replied coldly, "Such rhetoric only aligns you with the most narrow and negative elements in our country who continue to believe that Communism is worse than death...I worry about the effects of what you are doing."

George McGovern traveled to Vietnam, let the Communists show him what they wanted to show him, then reported back that it was "their country and their choice." No majority of people in the history of Mankind, including the Russians of 1917, ever "chose" Communism.

"To keep hope alive one must, in spite of all mistakes, horrors, and crimes, recognize the obvious superiority of the socialist camp," French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre once said. If he had added "National" before "socialist," would his words be considered wise, as they are by millions of Leftists worldwide?

The Khmer Rouge were led by an intellectual who had studied Sartre in Paris, named Pol Pot. When his "Red Cambodians" took over, they decided to save bullets, so they chose to murder through clubbing, asphyxiation and, in a move Mandela's African National Congress might have learned from, dousing heads in gasoline then setting them on fire. But they were "keeping hope alive" by demonstrating their "superiority."

The Khmer picked up on the Stalinist tactic of famine, reasoning that a starving population would not have the strength to mount a challenge. They also killed almost all the doctors in Cambodia, with predictable results. They were neither the first nor the last great mass murderers of Communism, who since 1917 have run up quite a record. The Soviets murdered at least 20 million of their citizens. China killed about 65 million of her countrymen. North Korea killed 2 million. North Vietnam contributed about a million. Cambodia added about 1.5 to 2.5 million. Cuba has probably killed about a million.

The Democrat response to the latest round of killing, as embodied by Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, was to deny he favored "abandoning an ally...The greatest gift our country can give to the Cambodian people is not guns but peace. And the best way to accomplish that goal is by ending military aid now."

Sydney Schanberg wrote in the New York Times in 1975 "it is difficult to imagine how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone."

To this day, liberals like Ed Asner argue that the Americans created the "killing fields". The theory is that if the U.S. had never been in the region in the first place, the Communists would never have had the "need" to commit such atrocities. Of course, this fails on two counts. First, we were not in the U.S.S.R. or Eastern Europe, and aside from a short period after Inchon we were not in North Korea. Asner would have you believe Communist holocausts were the result of our influence. I suppose Clair Chenault and "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell were the reasons Mao killed 65 million Chinese? Meyer Lansky is to blame for the Cuban atrocities. But where Asner and his ilk truly miss the mark is in their morally relativistic attitude, excusing this kind of horror as being somehow justified. A common sense view of Cambodian history from 1975-79 requires blame assigned to Pol Pot and his henchmen, nobody else. Is it so hard to do? Asner would certainly not assign blame on the Holocaust to somebody other than the Germans. In his line of reasoning, the death camps would not be Hitler's fault. Rather it was those Jews who took up too many positions in the Berlin and Vienna art world, or Marxists in the early years of the Weimar Republic, or American industrialists who helped the Germans build their industry back up.

Yet Anthony Lewis wrote, "We dragged a peaceful country into a useless, devastating war - for our own purposes."

When journalists tried to tell the truth about Cambodia, people like Richard Dudman of the New York Times Book Review insisted that the countries' "conditions, while hard, seemed by no means intolerable." Later, when the mass killings were impossible to dispute, the Left portrayed them as the result of the Khmer having been driven "mad" by our bombing campaign, which had "taught" them to hate and dehumanize. This was the central tenet of the early part of "The Killing Fields". Liberal lies about Pol Pot were part of a long tradition, however.

George Bernard Shaw, who saw the U.S. and Great Britain as bent on "ruling" the world, said of the Russian Communists, "We cannot afford to give ourselves moral airs when our most enterprising neighbor <the Soviet Union> humanely and judiciously liquidates a handful of exploiters and speculators to make the world safe for honest men."

By the time Jimmy Carter was President, nobody used the term "Cold War" any more. Conservatives like William F. Buckley found themselves swimming upstream, calling d'etente "impacted diplomatic hypocrisy...<that> has not achieved freedom for Eastern Europe."

Liberals did not see Nixon's opening to China for what it was. They felt it was about peace and a new understanding. In truth, Nixon and Kissinger brilliantly created a triangulated strategy of linkage and self-interests, pitting Communist Goliath against Communist Goliath.

Democrat Senator Frank Church of Idaho, who had tried to dismantle the CIA in a vain effort at making himself look "Presidential" prior to the 1976 elections, was still calling anti-Communism "stupid" in 1984. He claimed that it had forced us on the side of corruption and put the Soviets on the "winning" side.

The English socialist economist John Maynard Keynes, who for some reason was elevated to almost-godlike status by New Dealers, said in 1934 that, "Communism is not a reaction against the failure of the 19th Century to organize optimal economic output. It is a reaction against its comparative success. It is a protest against the emptiness of economic welfare, an appeal to the ascetic of it all."

"Despite what many Americans think," lied Dan Rather in 1986, as if he knew what "most Americans were thinking" from his perch in Manhattan, "most Soviets do not yearn for capitalism or Western-style Democracy." One wonders, deep down, what went through Rather's mind when he saw the images of the cheering crowds at the Berlin Wall's crumbling.

In 1921, Walter Duranty had written that Lenin was giving the Russian masses "what they want." When the famine/tortures killed millions in the 1930s, Duranty wrote nothing about it, painting a rosy, Pulitzer-winning picture of Russia. His apologists later said he had been duped, not shown the realities of Communism. Eventually his letters and contemporaneous documents showed that Duranty knew full well what was going on.

In the mean time, Malcolm Muggeridge of the Manchester Guardian reported on the famine, and for his efforts was branded a liar, not by the Communists but by the...Western Communists.

Journalist I.F. Stone was hailed upon his death in 1989 as the "conscience of investigative journalism" by the L.A. Times. His motto was "no enemies to the Left." He had spent a lifetime telling the world that Communists educated their masses better, provided better health care, and abolished unemployment, all lies. Singer Pete Seeger crooned against the immorality of American development, education, capitalism and the desire to make a better life for one's family. He sang odes to Stalin and Ho Chi Minh. If the myth of McCarthyism were true, he would have been censored and jailed. He was a millionaire.

Paul Robeson was convinced Communism offered an answer to racism. He claimed blacks would not fight for America. He was friends with Itzhak Feffer, a Jewish poet. He traveled to Russia while Stalin was in the middle of a pogrom against Jews. When he tried to meet with Feffer he was told he was "vacationing in the Crimea." Feffer was actually in prison and weighed less than 100 pounds. Stalin wanted to use Robeson, so he had Feffer "fattened up," given medical treatment, and allowed to meet Robeson under surveillance that Feffer knew about, but Robeson did not. Feffer drew his finger to his throat and mouthed the words, "They're going to kill us."

Robeson returned to the States, fully aware of Feffer's fate, but he lied and said rumors of Jewish persecution were "malicious slanders." To his credit (kind of), Robeson made a death bed confession in which he revealed the truth about Feffer years later. The American industrialist Armand Hammer somehow became known as a liberal friend of the Soviets who did business in Russia for decades. Whether Hammer was a spy was never proven, but he did "admire" Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the ruthless head of the Cheka (the pre-cursor of the KGB), pointing out that the shooting of "lax" railroad officials resulted in the trains running efficiently thereafter.

The history of Western "useful idiots" has few greater buffoons, however, than Jimmy Carter's Ambassador to the United Nations, Andrew Young. In 1977, Young stated that American foreign policy for the previous 20 years was a "tragedy," meant not to "feed the hungry" but as an "apparatus of repression," and that there was no "danger" from a militarized Communist world. He endorsed Carter's "human rights" approach to foreign policy in the post-Church, post-Watergate era. Regarding Soviet human rights abuses, he just said they had a "different concept of human rights." Isn't that special?

His explanation as to why millions had died in the famines was that the Sun "sets as early as three o'clock," which apparently it had not done during the time of the Czars. Hmmm. He also seemed unable to explain how blizzards, droughts, floods, grasshoppers, prairie fires, the "dust bowl" and other farm disasters in the American Midwest had not produced similar famines. Russian weather apparently was worse and had gotten that way beginning in 1917. Amazingly, Young was not evoking sympathy for the farmers (who deserved it), but for the Soviet government, who in his view had valiantly struggled to provide for its people against all odds. He could not see that the "odds" were stacked against them because their system was fatally flawed. This would be like a baseball team that insists that pitching, defense and fundamentals are unimportant, stressing instead that the players all wear high stirrups (if not, the penalty is death) and then cannot understand why they are unable to defeat the Yankees.

In 1921 and 1922, 5 million Russians starved because Lenin stole their grains after a bad harvest in 1920. George Orwell said in "1984" that those who made war called it peace, those who imposed ignorance called it strength, and those who imposed slavery called it freedom. He could have been describing the early, horrid years of Bolshevism.

Leftist economist Paul Samuelson wrote, "What counts is results, and there can be no doubt that the Soviet planning system has been a powerful engine for growth." MIT's Lester Thurow praised the Soviets' "remarkable performance" that "bear comparison with the United States." If anything in the history of history is inferior to something that is superior, Communism and the Soviet Union are inferior to the superior U.S. That's what the meaning of is is.

When the Communists moved into Africa, Andrew Young thought it was a natural occurrence since Cuba and Africa "shared in a sense of colonial repression and domination." The Cubans "brought a certain stability and order to Angola." When the Soviets tried Anatoly Shcharansky and Alexander Ginzburg for treason, Young thought it was an "independent" gesture. Young compared assorted murderers and rapists in American jails to Scharansky and Ginzburg, saying that the U.S. had "political prisoners," too. Eventually Young, who it might be said is an actual member of the Dumbellionite Class, had to resign because he was getting too friendly with known terrorists.

When Yuri Andropov took over the U.S.S.R. in 1982, the American media saw no big problem with his previous career heading up the KGB, which would be about the same as not having a problem with Heinrich Himmler succeeding Hitler as German Fuhrer.

Instead, Andropov was called an "intellectual" by Dusko Doder of the Washington Post. Lenin and Pol Pot had been intellectuals. So were the chattering classes of the American media. The whole thing rang of an elitism in which these people saw themselves as better than the American public, and certainly in a position to tell them what to think. It reminds me of my fuzzyheaded editor at the San Francisco Examiner who told me he would rather have a free press than the right to vote. How convenient.

When Mikhail Gorbachev took over, the Left went into a state of euphoria.

"Gorbachev has probably moved more quickly than any person in the history of the world," said Ted Turner. "Moving faster than Jesus Christ did. America is always lagging six months behind." Of course, Turner thinks Christ was nothing more than a Jewish carpenter. He somehow believes that Gorbachev "moved faster" than, just to name a few, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, or Oliver Cromwell.

Mary McGrory said Gorbachev has a "blueprint for saving the planet." Dan Rather described him in the manner not of a human but of a deity, while Democrats like Tip O'Neill said he reminded them of a Wall Street lawyer who would make a good Mayor of New York. Considering the liberal hold in New York at that pre-Giuliani time, maybe Gorby would have been better than what they had.

Time magazine, in the ultimate liberal apology, named Gorbachev "Man of the Decade" for the 1980s and called him "Communist Pope and the Soviet Martin Luther." The liberals used Gorbachev as an excuse to call anti-Communism, especially McCarthyism, a "grotesque exaggeration" (Strobe Talbott, Time). Gorbachev's new Communist "human face" made Reagan's efforts to aid the Contras more unpopular. The Sandinistas were described as "peaceful" and "Catholic," even though they adopted rigid Castroesque atheism.

Reagan's decision to deploy SS-20s and Pershing IIs in Europe created a hailstorm of Leftist protest. Arlo Guthrie sang "Blowin' in the Wind", which is where his brain would be if America did not protect him from Communist military expansion. Dumbellionites stuck signs on their bumpers reading, "You can't hug your kids with nuclear arms."

In the mean time, the Soviets expanded their espionage into the "unilateral nuclear disarmament" movements in West Germany, the U.S. and Switzerland. Soviet defector Stanislav Levchenko told the New York Times that the Communists' "success so far has been great" in infiltrating the nuclear protest movement. The Russians were far ahead of the U.S. in nuclear arms on European soil, but the liberals wanted only the Americans to remove their weapons. A segment of American Christianity, particularly the Papist-controlled Catholics, joined the anti-nuke movement in what I believe was a misguided attempt at promoting "arms control."

Numerous groups calling themselves Ground Zero, the Council for Nuclear Weapons Freeze, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Women's Strike for Peace, Mobilization for Survival, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and the Committee for Peace in a Nuclear Age, joined with Americans for Democratic Action, the Citizens Party and Communist Party U.S.A. to protest build-up. Many of the groups were Communist fronts or not even fronts. All of them were ripe for Communist espionage, infiltration and manipulation.

Anti-Communist Democrats of the JFK variety had become rare. Washington Senator Henry Jackson was an exception, but his party considered him a dinosaur. An American Communist named Vladimir Pozner, who had moved to the U.S.S.R., was allowed to become a media superstar in the U.S. The American softening on Communism had led Leonid Brezhnev to state that "the general crisis of capitalism" had proved "convincing confirmation" of Communist superiority. The Russians actually believed they were wining, thanks in large part to a Western press that allowed that impression to foment.

Democrats like Teddy Kennedy spoke of "the annihilation of the human race" as if his brother alone possessed the wherewithal to deal with the Soviet threat. The film "The Day After", which starred Jason Robards in 1982, was meant not just to scare the daylights out of Americans when it came to the prospect of nuclear weapons, but strongly supported the notion that World War III would start by accident, American hubris or some event other than Soviet global aims.

A bunch of scientists had devised something called the Atomic Clock. According to them Reagan had pushed the world to within "three minutes" of the proverbial Doomsday which has never occurred in the 20 years that since passed. Strategic Defense Initiative received the ultimate derision of the Left because the idea of a nuclear shield, which they called "Star Wars," would have given the U.S. ultimate power. Ultimate power in the hands of America is the greatest fear of the Left, and is the great dividing line of liberalism and conservatism. Today, America has achieved it, and liberalism has imploded into something far beyond reason and compromise. They are a defeated ideology. Therefore, their howls have no political aim left other than to discredit the winning side of history's debate. They would be gone and forgotten but-for the "useful idiots" of the liberal media.

The United States had made the Transcontinental Railroad, the Panama Canal, Mt. Rushmore, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Hoover Dam, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb, the nuclear bomb, airplanes, jet aircraft, space craft that had flown to the Moon and returned men safely to Earth, space craft that had gone to Mars and had the pictures to prove it, the space shuttle, and heat-seeking missiles. But SDI was somehow unattainable.

Hogwash.

Let us call the rhetoric against SDI what is and was. Unpatriotic. At Reykjavik in 1987, Reagan was excoriated for not giving in on SDI. He even offered to give the technology to the Soviets. Gorbachev knew his system was not in a position to do with the knowledge what the Americans could do. On July 14, 2001, a dummy warhead was blasted out of the sky by a missile launched from 5,000 miles away. Even the Boston Globe admitted the new SDI test had been a success. Certainly, considering the effectiveness of heat-seeking missiles, the SDI concept was far from impossible.

Che Geuvara was the first "sexy" Communist. I.F. Stone called him "beautiful...a cross between a faun and a Sunday school print of Jesus." Guevara started Cuba's first forced labor camps, was called a "cruel fanatic," and shot little boys for stealing food. His actual will praised the "extremely useful hatred that turns men into effective, violent, merciless, and cold killing machines." The Marlon Brando (Colonel Kurtz) character in "Apocalypse Now" might as well have been modeled after Che. In that film Kurtz was so vile that the CIA had a hit ordered on him.

Norman Mailer wrote of Fidel Castro that he was a "the first and greatest hero to appear in the world since the second World War...the answer..." and proof that Communism was not corrupt. In fairness to Mailer, who served in World War II, is one of the world's great writers and is a thinking man willing to look into his own conscience, he said that early in Castro's tenure. He did not repeat these kinds of words when his mass crimes were revealed later.

Robert Scheer, however, has never veered from his original Communist leanings, in which he called North Korea in the 1970s a "paradise," spoke of the "greatness" of Kim Il-Sung, and that Heaven on Earth had been found in places like Cuba and China.

Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel allowed themselves to be duped by Castro in 1992. After seeing the standard tourist view of Havana (which includes beautiful prostitutes who will engage in fantasy sex for a few dollars), they lied and said that Cuba has a higher standard of living than Mexico, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Colombia. Liberals somehow have gotten it into their heads that Cuba has a "terrific health care system," which is an abject lie. Peter Jennings attempted in 1989 to tell the U.S. that Cuba was a leader in the area of "heart disease and brain surgery," apparently because one of Castro's minions told him, "We are world leaders in heart disease and brain surgery." No American doctors (or any other doctors) go to Cuba to study techniques in combating brain disease and heart surgery, though.

The reality is that Castro's government elites do have access to health care, as do "health tourists" from Europe who receive health care for cheap prices. Ordinary Cubans just die of diseases or suffer in sickness.

When Reagan was battling Marxists in Central America, El Salvador's FMLN was never called "Marxist" by the Left wing press. They were seen as agrarian revolutionaries fighting a repressive, corrupt "regime" in San Salvador. The Left accused America of being "silent" about the thousands who were killed in El Salvador by "death squads" trained at the School of the Americas in Georgia, comparing us to the "silence" of Nazi Germany. Meanwhile, movies ("Salvador", "Missing" among others), documentaries, news reports and protests told the world in gory, regular detail about the deaths. People heard the stories, investigated, and in many cases made the determination that the Communists were worse than the "death squads." To believe the Left would require one to believe that torture and murder were taught and condoned by the U.S. for no reason other than they were good at it.

FMLN was Marxist to the core, but Senator Dodd only admitted that "some of them" were. He also lied and said the Sandinistas were not all Marxists. His lies were known by those heard them.

Amazingly, the Maryknoll Catholic order declared that, "For any Christian to claim to be anti-Communist, without a doubt constitutes the greatest scandal of our century...For Jesus, whether conservatives like it or not, was in fact a Communist...Jesus explicitly approves and defends the use of violence." This is going too far.

Sandinista president Daniel Ortega picked up on the Fonda theme that Saddam later used with Sean Penn. He invited "special guests" like Mary Travers (no relation to me) of Peter, Paul and Mary, along with such fine Americans as Betty Friedan, Abbie Hoffman, Ed Asner, Kris Kristofferson (who for some reason was named Veteran of the Year in 2002), Michael Douglas, Susan Anspach, Jackson Browne, Mike Farrell and Diane Ladd to Managua for some radical partying. The former wife of Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, Bianca Jagger, became the number one groupie of the Sandinista regime.

"Well awwwrrriiight!" as Mick once said. "Take yer clothes off an' let's have a look atcha."

Democrats took to the Sandinistas more than any previous Communist regime, because after China, d'etente, Church and Carter, they had thought the Cold War was over. Now it had started up again. They supported these Communists like few before them. California Democrat Congressman Mathew Martinez said the Sandinistas had an "indigenous form of government tailored to accommodate the needs of that nation," and the U.S. "supported subversion and terrorism." In 1984, Democrats penned the infamous "Dear Commandante" letter to Daniel Ortega, blaming the Reagan Administration for the "poor state of relations between the two nations." The letter praised Ortega for promising to hold free elections, since that was all they wanted Actually holding free elections was unnecessary to them.

Liberals later transferred their affections from Communists to terrorists. New Mexico professor Richard Berthold said, "Anyone who can blow up the Pentagon has my vote." When an Orange County, California history professor said after 9/11, "I want to see the Arab world stand up and say, 'This is wrong,'" he was suspended. Michael Moore was pissed that the terrorists had killed so many New Yorkers, because New York had voted against Bush and for Hillary.

"This is not right," said Moore. "They did not deserve to die."

Moore preferred to see soldiers and conservatives die because we have "funded terrorism" and deserve the payback. Bill Maher, who had previously called George W. Bush a "little asshole," thought the 9/11 terrorists had demonstrated heroism. Robert Scheer congratulated Maher. Liberals got up, used their "bully pulpits" on TV and other forms of the media, denouncing America. They were criticized for it, faced no censorship or official rebuke, then tried to say that ordinary citizens recognizing them as cowards, unpatriotic, stupid or various combinations of these were "squelching" their right to dissent. It was all "McCarthyism."

Noam Chomsky called the U.S. a "leading terrorist state." Michael Lerner said we were the victims of terrorists because we could no longer "feel the pain" of others.

Are liberals less patriotic than conservatives?

"Innocence does not utter outraged shrieks, guilt does."

\- Whittaker Chambers

Conservative author Ann Coulter asks in "Treason" whether this question is legitimate. She points out that liberals claim they are the ideology of the environment, minorities, women's rights, and a host of other special interests. She then posits the notion that if they can claim the "moral high ground" on these social issues, then is it out of bounds for conservatives to claim that they are more patriotic? Patriotism is a subjective word. If one reads Webster's or most mainstream dictionaries, and applies the meanings they give for "patriot" and "patriotism," it is not a big leap to arrive at the conclusion that the word fits the traditional concept of conservative more so than liberals.

However, many people would disagree with the Webster's meaning, and argue that it is based on old-fashioned, jingoistic concepts that, they might say, have been changed by new social notions based on modern perceptions of race, war and other events. It might be argued that to embrace old traditions is to give acceptance to notions that are unsympathetic or intolerant towards minorities. Or it fails to take into account new notions of appropriate military combat, and how these notions differentiate between old identifications of "enemies," "enemy combatants" and civilians, and new versions of these groups.

To "protest" American policies is viewed as "patriotic" by many. In and of itself it very well may be. Americans take pride in the fact that they do not march in "lockstep" with the President (differentiating us most obviously from totalitarians like the Nazis and the Soviets). We have a "loyal opposition" that operates with a two- or multi-party system. Dissent breeds compromise and moderation. That this is exactly how the Founding Fathers wanted it to be.

Certainly, Republicans "dissented" against President Clinton. Much of the "unpatriotic" label is attached to liberals who protest wars that Republicans lead us into. In 2003, many found fault with President Bush's premise that war in Iraq was the right thing to do. Conservatives pointed to many in the entertainment industry who howled about Iraq, and pointed out that they had not raised a ruckus when Bill Clinton bombed Bosnia, among other smaller engagements. This is not entirely true. Some (not all) of the liberals did protest Clinton's "war," but the notion of liberals dissenting with a Democrat is not big news in the media. A lot of the protest found little coverage. The press does like to publicize liberal complaints about conservatives, and vice versa. It is part of the news cycle.

I am not in complete agreement with all of Coulter's notions. I personally would have preferred her to be less strident and confrontational, and to take greater pains to point out that she does not consider all "liberals" to be traitors. If we lived in a country in which all the people were conservative, it would be one heck of a boring place. Unrestrained by the Left, the right would tend to get heavy-handed socially and too militaristic. I have argued that conservatism is the winning ideology of history, and find that almost impossible to disagree with. But conservatism is best served blended with a diversity of thought, religion, race, military ethos, and a host of other temperances.

I have argued that Dwight Eisenhower was the greatest man of all time, with the exception of the Lord Jesus Christ. Ike tended towards the Republican party, but was not a true conservative. He defeated one, Bob Taft, in order to get the party's 1952 nomination. Ike voiced skepticism about "extreme" notions of the political spectrum, in the military, the Military Industrial Complex, and in the Republican party, until the day he passed away. Ike lived in more moderate times and responded to those times. His philosophies will always ring true. It is a difficult dividing line sometimes, separating conservatism from moderation. Often, it is only defined by particular circumstances that can change.

What Coulter did do, successfully in my view, was identify historical facts that can be disputed, but in my view not successfully (for the most part). She did not expose every little old lady or man who considers him or herself to be "liberal," and state that this automatically means they are "traitors." Just as "patriot" has its dictionary meaning, so too does "traitor." It is not an easy definition to attach to people. Actions must occur in relation to events, by and large, usually with certain results or near-results.

Opinion is not treachery. Private and public discussions do not represent treachery. What Coulter set out to do was demonstrate events that had an effect, or a possible effect, on national security, during a time of war, crisis or even "preparation" for war, and show that certain actions (or inactions) had the "whiff" of treachery. This is dangerous territory. It comes close to moralizing, finger pointing, and has the enormous potential of biting conservatives in the back in the future. We have always been judgmental, because we feel some issues are important and require judgment in order to frame them properly.

Perhaps her version of "treason" might be called the "political" one, which could be equated with the "civil" requirements needed to "prove" a case, as opposed to the higher "criminal" requirements of "proof beyond reasonable doubt." Coulter is, like me, a partisan political animal. She views these issues as part of a "political war." She is out to win it, and she has taken no prisoners in this endeavor. She is divisive, has accepted this and all that goes with it, in the context of being a national media figure.

But Coulter, by being honest in her assessments (whether one agrees or disagrees with her), separates herself from, say, Hillary Clinton, who likes to take her shots but couches them in a political vein meant to get her points made without the kind of backlash that Coulter's books engender. True, Hillary is an elected official, and Coulter is not, but "truth in advertising" among the political classes is a worthy trait indeed.

Al Franken said that what the hates the most are conservative accusations that liberals love America less. In this, he has a point - to a point. Franken loves America. From what I have heard of him, he lacks, to use an Al Campanis phrase, the "necessities" to offer expert opinion. But he has all the right in the world to offer opinion, then take his chances. Franken compares liberal "love" and conservative "love" with children and adults. Conservatives, he says, love America "like a child loves his Mommy." It is the child's whole world and can do no wrong. Liberals, he says, love America like adults love their parents. They know the mistakes they made and want to learn from them.

Franken is, in my view, off the mark. He claims that one can turn to any page and find a lie in Coulter's books, then pointed one out. I read it several times but could not see where the lie was. Besides, it was a very obtuse and off-hand reference. Coulter's book puts the lie to Franken's "child" vs. "adult" argument, because her books are carefully researched and very, very little is ever shown to be untrue. Liberals think that if they call something a lie it is a lie, which does not make it a lie. Unfortunately for them, it too often reflects accurate portrayals of things they would rather have people not be aware of.

Liberals fail to realize that conservatives have been listening to these portrayals of them, and of history, and spent decades slowly, painstakingly, building a brick-by-brick case for their positions. Conservatives knew the only weapon they really had was true facts. Accusing them of lying at this point is like accusing an athlete who was not very good in high school, but through really hard work and desire became a professional star, of not having natural talent.

I would propose that the book you are reading is an example of why Franken's "child" analogy does not hold up to scrutiny. Within this work are the most devastating facts about America's darkest adventures: The Phoenix program; CIA-orchestrated coups in Guatemala, Chile and Iran; 100 years of brutal Jim Crow laws; and many other facts about us that are subject to public scrutiny. I would dispute any assessment of my work as being "Pollyanna" or hiding the truth. It is certainly not analogous to a little kid who loves his flawed parents without seeing their flaws. Instead, I have told the story of flawed people, a flawed nation, and a flawed ideology which, in my opinion, has been guided as the world's last, best hope by a loving God, and is the worst country on the face of the Earth with the exception of all other countries on the face of the Earth. Furthermore, I offer that all subjects throughout history could be hung on a giant dartboard. Wherever the dart hits, Franken and I can discuss whatever that subject is. We can do that 100 times. I propose that 99 percent of those subjects are ones I possess real knowledge of, while he possesses little. Then we can talk about who the children are, and who the parents are.

"Liberals have a preternatural gift for always striking a position on the side of treason," says Coulter. "Everyone says liberals love America, too. No, they don't." I have italicized what I disagree with. I think liberals are more likely to side with treason, but not always. Her blanket statement that liberals do not love America cannot be justified, either. But Coulter has hit on what I have already said. She is part of a small group of conservative writers and historians who are striking back. We have grown up reading the textbooks, seen the movies, listened and viewed the news broadcasts, the specials, the documentaries, listened to our college professors and read the books, all too often slandering and lying about the land we love. Liberals have written history since World War II. Not anymore.

Coulter may be a bit "ripe," but we have decided that we have the academic credentials, the smarts, the common sense and the wherewithal to tackle a domain that liberals have for too long tried to say only they are qualified to occupy. For decades, conservatives have operated on a certain amount of instinct. The average American has spent a lifetime hearing the liberal point of view. It has long ago ceased to pass the "smell test." The "little voice" that told us thousands of times, "I don't think so" or "that sure doesn't sound right" has resounded enough. Now we are armed with the facts.

The past 55 years have brought us to a point of division. The old enemy, Nazi Germany, was easy for everybody to hate. So was Japan. Communism seemed to be that way at first, but we never fought a war with the Soviets. We fought small wars with the Chinese and Soviet client states, but these wars did not materialize into the Armageddons that the militarists warned us the Communists were itching for. Because they lacked the kind of clarity of WWII, a fair number of Americans began to question the premise of who we were, what we stood for, and most importantly, why we fight. A large number of people in other countries began to ask the same questions, but they were not "burdened" by the patriotic loyalties that are in-grained into most of us in this country. When the U.S. won the Cold War, a funny thing happened. Psychologists, and just plain folks, could identify with the mindset.

It is the feeling one gets at the end of the school year when a rival or a bully has been beaten, or they are suddenly shown to be something other than what you "feared" them to be all along. They become humanized.

"He wasn't so bad," you say to yourself, although that feeling you had is still there. This kind of thing worked on our psyches all through the 1990s. Now terrorism has replaced Communism, but Osama bin Laden looks a lot different running scared than he did right after 9/11. Slowly but surely, our fears about terrorists wane a bit. It is a natural tendency.

None of this changes the historical fact about Communism, and terrorism, too. 15 years after the Berlin Wall crashed down, it is time to take an honest assessment of who the Communists were. If we can arrive at the conclusion that they were evil and they were a threat, then it is fair to ask who helped them, who failed to stand up to them. Because that side has been writing the history, and they do not want to credit McCarthy, Nixon, Reagan and Bush. They want you to think George Kennan, Adlai Stevenson, Dean Acheson, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy won the Cold War. With all due respect, and I mean this sincerely because all those people deserve some credit, that dog don't hunt.

History is important. The winners usually write it. The first drafts are influential but over time they are replaced. We must learn from history. From the standpoint of politics, Democracy, military strategy, and national security, history ranges from the really important to a matter of life and death.

Whittaker Chambers said in the 1950s, "In this century, within the next decades, <it> will be decided for generations whether all Mankind is to become Communist, whether the whole world is to become free, or whether, in the struggle, civilization as we know it is to be completely destroyed."

Chambers was a witness to the two great faiths of our time, God and Communism.

"Communism," he said, "is the vision of man without God." Coulter writes, "Liberals chose Man. Conservatives chose God." What is prescient in Chambers' statement is that Communism, despite its evil, and despite the hatred so many heaped upon it, is and always will be enticing. It was unavailable as a practical political outlet for Americans, but many in this country were drawn to it. They could not resist it. In so doing they did its bidding in secret, on the quiet. But Chambers posits that somewhere in the middle, between freedom and Communism, is a third choice that threatens to destroy us. What he was getting at, perhaps without really knowing it, is that there is this third way called ambivalence, and that this ambivalence is the slipshod, the fissure, the crack in society. This is where the "enemies" of freedom, who cannot call themselves Nazis, or Communists, or even nationalists, are able to operate. The devil works that way. Today, this is readily identifiable as terrorism, in the name of Fundamentalist Islam, which is a particularly devilish ploy. It uses a mainstream religion to further the works of Satan. Someday it will be something else, something that foments in Africa most likely; disease, anarchy, starvation, famine, hopelessness, racism. It will have a name some day. Mark my words.

The battle for the American soul since World War II (and there were battles prior to that) has turned on pivotal moments of triumph, failure and revenge. Hiss, McCarthyism, Kennedy over Nixon, Vietnam, Watergate, the Berlin Wall, and the Clinton Impeachment are the various watersheds. Even the writing of this book, and Coulter's book, is a part of this process. In 2004, conservatism is riding high. Conservatives are out to exact a certain amount of revenge for the lies of history. The Left will counter our books. It will go on until society has either inexorably surged to a higher place, or a "big event" moves us there.

What irks the Left most is that Vietnam and Watergate failed to score them the winning touchdowns. A political scientist like Alexis de Tocqueville might have surveyed the American landscape of the 1960s and '70s - literature, music, politics, culture - and said, "The Left has won." Musicians like Jim Morrison were singing about triumphal revolution, how "their side" had won. Then Nixon won 49 states in 1972. Everybody was shocked. But Watergate seemed to be the final nail in the coffin. What the Reagan Revolution told me were two things: Conservatism was the wave of the future and nothing could hold it back, and the Left never had enough gravitas to hold onto to the top slot in the corporation in the first place. Liberals differ on this because they think it was a freak occurrence, a setback, a sidebar.

Since 9/11, liberals have slyly gone from capitalizing War on Terrorism to "war on terrorism." Before the 2003 Iraq War, the "usual suspects" formed another wonderful organization called Not In Our Name, calling Bush's proposed fight "unjust, immoral, and illegitimate." They said 9/11 compared to "similar scenes in Baghdad." Their members included Jane Fonda, Ed Asner, Susan Sarandon, Casey Kasem, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Edward Said, Ben Cohen, Kurt Vonnegut, and a guy who killed a cop, named Mumia Abu-Jamal.

This group is easily dismissed as "unpatriotic," and Coulter thinks close to treasonous when considering the War on Terrorism, but are they? They offer the opinion that invading Iraq was immoral and illegitimate. They have little standing to call it illegitimate. The U.N. provided guidelines for Iraq to meet for weapons inspectors, and they failed to meet the guidelines. The U.N. did not spell out a "use of force" justification, but it was well assumed that the underlying power of the resolution was to justify such force if worse came to worse. Congress absolutely authorized force, and many Democrats signed on to it.

The "moral" question is key to this argument, and should not be dismissed lightly. Real military men like Douglas MacArthur said they could not even describe war. George Patton "loved" it, reveling in its "g(l)ory," but he was something close to crazy. I am worried for his mortal soul because of the way he felt about it. Movies like "Saving Private Ryan" are considered realistic, but can never really capture what it is.

War is about people burning to death, having their limbs and extremities blown to bits, experiencing agonizing pain. Innocent women and children die in wars, sometimes caught in burning buildings that they cannot escape from. Soldiers returning from Afghanistan, which was by no means a major conflict comparable to Korea, Vietnam, or even the Persian Gulf War, were glazed over from the experience.

Bush framed the issue around Saddam's WMD. A great deal of the pre-war hype and "justification" for it centered on Saddam's human rights abuses, but I thought this should have been elevated to the level of the WMD danger. Not In Our Name made the compelling argument that killing so many people (and their predictions were of horrible civilian death tolls, certainly far more than what happened) could not be justified. It is not not fair to simply call them unpatriotic for not backing Bush.

But where these people were off the mark was in their blatantly political agenda. They were against the war on a number of levels. My take on these kinds of groups was that they (a) Did not trust American power and (b) Hated the idea that a Republican President would gain political clout by prosecuting a successful war. There was, as far as I could detect, a lack of honesty in their protest. It was not about innocent lives. It was about a Republican President. Ed Asner may have "protested" Clinton killing 2,000 civilians in Bosnia, but his protests and those of others lacked the vociferousness of the one directed at Bush.

The Iraq War was in American interests. This gets to the heart of what Coulter argues is either unpatriotic, treasonous, or somewhere close. Liberals seem to have a big problem with winning American military campaigns that advance our agenda. They think we are too powerful, and our agenda should not be advanced any more than it already is. Where I disagree with Coulter is defining this as treason, although it seems pretty unpatriotic to me.

On the other hand, when America is at war, many factors come into play that are forgotten by history. The morale of the country, the safety of the troops and the support for their cause, are all things of worthy consideration. It may be unfair to heep the "unpatriotic traitor" label on people who protest, just because fighting men are discouraged by them, and perhaps the enemy is comforted by them, but these factors are extremely important at the height of the conflict.

When President Bush exposed and identified Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the "axis of evil," liberals went ballistic. These people cannot call something evil because they do not think America is righteous. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote a very telling article that comes closer to backing Coulter's assertions than perhaps Coulter can make. She wrote that Democrats would have to fake enthusiasm for the War on Terrorism out of fear of being labeled McGovernites, a losing political reality, and lie. What a novel concept for Democrats!

On the other hand, some things are really simple. Saddam was a bad, bad man leading a murderous regime. The U.S. was in prime position to take him out. All the machinations which might go into taking out some other maniac in the world were already hurdled. Bush is the checkers player, not the chess master. He took him out. Democrat failure to see the simplicity and goodness of this act, then or now, is worthy of some hard questioning.

Alger Hiss has been explored in detail throughout this work. Ann Coulter devotes a fair amount of time and research to this controversial character. Whittaker Chambers' accusations may well have been unheeded except for the Venona project. After the Hitler-Stalin pact, Chambers had a revelation. He realized what he believed in, Communism, was evil. He decided to inform, and spoke with Adolf Berle, President Roosevelt's Assistant Secretary of State. He provided the names of two dozen spies in the administration. This included Alger Hiss and his brother, Donald. When told, FDR told Berle to go "fuck himself." Hiss was promoted, given more responsibility, more trust and more power. The espionage accusations began to float about Washington. Dean Acheson took up the cause of defending Hiss. But through Venona, Hiss's work on behalf of the Communists was confirmed.

What happened over the next years is actually quite simple. Republicans knew Hiss was a Communist and wanted him. Democrats either (a) knew he was a Communist and liked him because of it, (b) knew he was a Communist but did not care, or (c) refused to believe the prima facie evidence of Venona. Naturally, it became political. When Chambers was called before HUAC he named Hiss as a Soviet agent. There is little use arguing the point of Hiss's Communist work. It has been detailed herein, he was convicted, honest historians knew he was a Communist, and after the Soviets imploded their archives proved it, just as they proved most everything conservatives had persuasively argued for throughout the Cold War.

The question then comes down not to whether Hiss was a traitor - he was - but whether his defenders were traitors. The Democrats went after Chambers with all their strength. The American public believed him. Throughout the 1950s, the U.S. agreed with the Republicans, Nixon and McCarthy. Truman was virtually thrown out of office, with three out of four believing Truman's administration was infiltrated by Communists, four out of five supporting HUAC, and even 71 percent of Democrats refuting the Truman charge that Communist espionage was "playing politics" on the part of Republicans.

Hiss did not want to sue Chambers for libel for the reasons that are now obvious, which was that he knew he would lose. But the Democrats shamed him into it and paid for his Harvard defense team. They slandered Chambers (who was married) as a homosexual who had been the gay lover of his brother, which was false. Even if it had been true it had nothing to do with Hiss. Hiss's defense apparently was to keep calling Chambers a "queer." Chambers simply provided loads of documentation, State Department summaries, letters he had secreted away for years, and various other irrefutable proofs. Hiss's libel case was down the tubes. A reluctant Department of Justice was forced to step in. Had Hiss just backed off the libel claim (which the Democrats forced him into) he may have been home scot-free.

Truman's lawyers at Justice tried to spin the case as an investigation of Chambers. Republicans at HUAC, realizing Democrat lies were in danger of winning the day, wanted more proof from Chambers. Chambers had feared for his life from the Communists and hidden the most damning evidence in a pumpkin patch in Maryland. Over time, he had come to realize that the Democrats were almost as dangerous to him as the Communists. For that reason he had not played his entire hand at the libel trial. He had anticipated being hailed in to criminal court by the Democrats. He wanted a final "weapon" to prevent this. Thus were the "pumpkin papers." They were "definitive proof of one of the most extensive espionage rings in the history of the United State," wrote "Perjury" author Allen Weinstein. Hiss's guilt was no longer in doubt.

Hiss evaded and lied, claiming that Chambers had gotten into his house to use his typewriter to type up his letters and spy directions. To this day, the New York Times and The Nation "believe" Chambers broke into Hiss's house to write the voluminous documents, all on Hiss's typewriter and in his inimitable communication style. Of course they know the truth, but lie about it.

The Hiss case raises serious questions about the Roosevelt/Truman Administrations, and the Democrat party in the succeeding years. The troubling sell-out of Eastern Europe, the "loss" of China, and the U.N. charter favoring the Russians cannot be ignored. The attempts by Hiss and his defenders for 50 years to uncover "new evidence" that never went anywhere begs the question not whether Hiss was a traitor, but whether Democrats had a problem with him being a traitor. The heart of the matter is that, apparently, certain acts of treason against the United States of America, if committed by the right person with the right pedigree at least, are considered good policy by Democrats.

Certainly Truman kept Hiss on at the State Department. FDR-appointed Supreme Court Justices Felix Frankfurter and Stanley Reed were Hiss's character witnesses. 1952 and 1956 Democrat Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson vouched for him. All of this happened after it was proven that Hiss was a Communist agent.

After McCarthyism, the dominant media culture in the U.S. became, more and more, overwhelmingly liberal. This was in response to the Hiss/McCarthy era. The twin towers of media paganism were that McCarthy was evil because there were no Communists, and Hiss was innocent because there were no Communists. It became the overriding theme of schoolbooks to this very day. It dominates the thinking of a majority of the press, in all its forms. When the Soviet cables further proving Hiss's guilt was made available in the 1990s, the Washington Post ran it on page three and still said there was "no evidence." The New York Times, who championed Hiss and trotted him out whenever Nixon met political defeat (California in 1962, Watergate in 1974), now just said the "distressing episode" was "over," and wanted it to go away. In the past 10 years, the "grey lady" failed to write the final truthful chapter on Hiss; defended Clinton in the same manner Democrats had defended Hiss in the 1950s; were identified as a "big-time" asshole by a Presidential candidate who gained points from a public that agreed with the assessment; hired an unqualified affirmative action writer who exposed the paper's lack of credibility; and continued to see its reputation besmirched by various other acts of journalistic irresponsibility. Now they wonder why the New York Post, the Washington Times, Newsmax and Human Events have so many subscribers.

Chambers wrote his autobiography, "Witness". Like so many books by conservatives who tell the truth, it was a huge best seller. He needed the money. None of the liberal newspapers or magazines would hire him.

Dean Acheson, the man as responsible as any (with the exception of Communist spies working in the Truman Administration) for letting China go Red, evoked Scripture in his defense of Hiss. The liberal Left seemed to be breeding a new kind of radical. England's version of Hiss was the dashing secret agent Kim Philby. Only the conservatives (and the American public) seemed to care. As Ann Coulter wrote, "Some of their young men would grow up to be poets and some would grow up to be Bolsheviks.... Salon liberals foolishly indulged their infatuation with Communism to the peril of the country."

Modern liberals would call that hogwash and cite Cronkite's statement that a Soviet world takeover was virtually impossible. They do not give any credence to the notion that the Communists were prevented from taking over by the likes of Chambers and McCarthy, by the brave boys who fought at Choisin Reservoir and Hue, and by Reagan's hardline on SDI. To say that a system that killed 100 million human beings in a relatively short number of years was no "threat," that they had no desire to dominate the world, and that they would not do anything they could to attain those goals, is a basic failure to recognize the facts.

Worse than that, it is recognition of the facts and, in more than just a handful of cases, a desire to aid in the enemy cause. That is treason. Liberals could not live in comfort in this great nation if they actively supported Communism. One could be a member of the party, but the public would not buy their books, their newspapers, listen to their broadcasts or go to their films. So they had to hide themselves, and attempt to convince a gullible country that Communism was not a domestic threat. I am part of that country, and I, along with millions of others, am not so gullible. Book after book announced, "there were no spies," "accusations of Communism were baseless," and "charges had no grounding in fact." Meanwhile, Chambers and other ex-Communists like Elizabeth Bentley and Louis Budenz, Soviet defectors and their documentation, the Pumpkin Papers, confessions in the Rosenberg case, numerous arrests, and decades of CIA intelligence and counter-intelligence, puts the lie to this proposition.

Then there was Venona. One of the greatest heroes in U.S. history was Colonel Carter Clarke, chief of the Army's Special Branch, who heard rumors that Stalin was cutting a separate peace with Hitler. He informed Roosevelt, who said "Uncle Joe" would not betray him and left the matter uninvestigated. Clarke understood something. He understood that someday FDR would not be President. He understood that the Democrats had a different...attitude about national security. Or, as Coulter writes, "The Democrats could not be trusted." So, cloaked in secrecy, he set up a special unit to listen in on Soviet cables. By war's end, the cables showed numerous Soviet agents in the Roosevelt/Truman government.

Hoover knew about it. Very few others did. McCarthy probably did not know about it. Certain friends in the intelligence community may have given him hints. It is amazing, but the Republicans, and surely most of the people handling Venona were Republican, never used what they had against the Democrats. Is there any chance that the Democrats ever would have sat tight on such a thing if they held this over Republican heads? I offer JFK's letting the cat out of the bag with the Bay of Pigs and Democrat Watergate politics that derailed arms control agreements and caused a holocaust in Southeast Asia. Beyond this, do I really need to answer that?

As John Earl Harvey and Harvey Klehr point out in "Venona", there was "a fifth column working inside and against the United States in the Cold War". It was entirely associated with the Communist wing of the official Democrat party. Not every American Communist was a spy, but hundreds were. Deciphering who the "fellow travelers" were from the dangerous plants, handlers and saboteurs was imperative. It required asking questions, and one of those questions was, "Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?" Hiss and Harry Dexter White may just have been two of the highest-ranking Communists, but this did not mean there were not others above them, or that those below them were not a major security threat.

The Communist witness Elizabeth Bentley was called the "Blonde Spy Queen." Both then and now, liberals discredited her as a "neurotic spinster," "hardly a reliable informant," and in 1994 The Nation thought her naming of almost 150 people could not be counted on because she drank and made a few mistakes spelling names and remembering dates. They never said a peep over Hillary's numerous "I can't recalls" in relation to the various crimes she committed. Venona, however, confirmed Bentley's testimony.

Ann Coulter makes a phenomenal comparison in "Treason" that demonstrates just how deep the Communists were into the Democrat-led government.

"To understand how deep were the Soviet tentacles in the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations, try to imagine a parallel universe today.

"Paul Wolfowitze, Bush's Deputy Secretary of Defense, would be a member of Al Qaeda taking orders from Osama bin Laden.

"Alger Hiss, Assistant Secretary of State under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Identified as a Soviet spy in Venona."

Coulter goes on to compare Harry Dexter White, FDR's Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, who conspired with Soviet spy Frank Coe and Solomon Adler to kill "critical" loans to Nationalist China when they were desperately fighting Mao Tse-Tung, to a Treasury Department employee who might block a key loan to Israel that allowed them to fall to Al Qaeda terrorism or Arab invasion. Hoover knew all about White but was restrained from going after him by the Democrats.

Lauchlin Currie, FDR's administrative assistant, would be compared to Bush aide Andrew Card. Duncan Lee, head of the Office of Strategic Services, and like the others a Venona spy, would be compared to an assistant to CIA Director George Tenet. Harry Hopkins, identified by former agent Oleg Gordievsky in "K.G.B." The Inside Story", by Anatoly Akhmerov as a spy of "major significance," held current chief of staff Karl Rove's position.

FDR's Vice-President Henry Wallace said, "America's main enemy was Churchill and the British Empire." Peace would come about "if the United States guaranteed Stalin control of Eastern Europe." Wallace backed Stalin's seizure of Czechoslovakia, the blockade of Berlin, and described the gulags as "a combination TVA and Hudson Bay Company." Wallace was actually a Communist who, had Roosevelt died just a year and a half earlier would have been President, running for four more years as a war time leader in 1944. The Wallace story is about all we really need to know about Communist espionage and the Democrats. It answers the fundamental question. They were tolerated because they represented a political viewpoint that the party endorsed. Coulter compares Wallace to Vice-President Cheney being "starstruck" by Saddam Hussein.

Owen Lattimore was a roving strategist during the Roosevelt years, surrounded by Communist spies. His position would be comparable to Richard Perle surrounding himself with Al Qaeda operatives. Jospeh Davis, FDR's Ambassador to the Soviet Union, told the A.P. in 1946 that, "Russia <note that liberals always called it 'Russia,' as in `Mother Russia,' never the 'Union of Soviet Socialist Republics' or other totalitarian monikers> in self-defense has every moral right to seek atomic bomb information through military espionage if excluded from such information by her former fighting allies." This was Robert Oppenheimer's view. It was carried out by the Rosenberg's with the help of their brother. It can be compared to defense of Saddam's gassing of the Kurds, and frankly might explain why the current Democrats seem to be doing all they can to discredit and make sure we do not find Saddam's nuclear program. Could it be there are too many modern Democrat hands on them?

Harold Ickes, FDR's Interior Secretary (his son was Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff), was a member of the Stalinist League for Peace and Democracy. Coulter compares him to Gale Norton being a member of the Al Qaeda front, Benevolence International Foundation. Roosevelt calling Stalin "Uncle Joe" would be like Bush referencing "Uncle Osama" or "good ol' Saddam." Truman called Stalinist Russia "our friends," which is like calling Hitler, Mao or Pol Pot a fine man. Stalin had killed 20 million when Truman said what he said, and Truman knew about it. Stalin's reasoning was that, "One death is a tragedy but a million is only a statistic." Hollywood loved that, letting Jon Lithgow say in "Cliffhanger" that "Kill 10 people you're a murderer. Kill a million and you're a conqueror."

The Communists, you see, thought they could not make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. One can only read this stuff and thank a benevolent God that a nation called the United States became extant and powerful enough, despite the traitors in her midst, to end such horrors.

McCarthy identified it as "a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous venture in the history of man. A conspiracy so black that, when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of honest men." Truman liked "old Joe." Stalin, not McCarthy. McCarthy's "conspiracy" statement has been lambasted for decades. "Conspiracy" theories have since been associated with nutcases. In "Dr. Strangelove", Sterling Hayden's General Jack Ripper goes completely off the deep end, believing the commies have conspired to steal his "essence" through fluoridation. The intent is clear: Make people laugh at the absurdity of militarists and conservatives, and for God's sake remind them of McCarthy. For years I have sat in darkened movie theatres, heard such comparisons, insinuations, outright lies and utter biases, and whispered, often not so quietly, "Bullshit!"

Other top FDR Communists included Laurence Duggan of the Latin desk at State, Frank Coe (IMF representative), Duncan Lee (OSS) and atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs. Hoover constantly sent memos on all of the above-named people. The Prime Minister of Canada warned the Americans. Soviet defectors warned us. Ex-Communists warned us. Only the Republicans listened.

When Ike took over, he had Attorney General Herbert Brownell reveal Truman's appointment of spies to top positions. Truman said he had not seen the FBI report. Hoover produced the copy he had sent Truman. Why is so much of this "news" to you, dear reader? It is not revelation. It has been known for years. But the liberal information founts that tell you what they think you should know have made it necessary for you to be a researcher and an archivist in order to find it out.

By the way, you're welcome.

Lauchlin Currie warned the Soviets that their code had been cracked. Coulter pointed out that despite this they made few changes, attributing this to "Soviet work ethic" and stating that had they had a "profit motive" they might have done a more efficient job. There are times when I am ready to fall in love with Ann Coulter. Currie eventually fled like a rat to Colombia. Coe ended up in Red China. Another Communist, Noel Field, went to Hungary. Duggan committed suicide. White died of stress. Liberal historians and college professors would have you believe McCarthy drove them to their deaths or lives in various "Communist paradises." Eleanor Roosevelt, poet Archibald MacLeish, Drew Pearson (and his protege, Jack Anderson), and Edward R. Murrow were just a few of the "useful idiots" who spent years and a great deal of energy defending these dead, disgraced and defected Communists.

"McCarthyism" is the name attributed to all of this. Even many of the spies were identified long before McCarthy's Wheeling, West Virgina speech. The Rosenberg's, for instance, had nothing to do with McCarthy. They were "cause celebs" among liberal elites, writes Coulter, who also disproves much of the myth about McCarthy and Hollywood. The "horror," the "Gestapo tactics," the "totalitarian atmosphere," the "Nazi police tactics" of McCarthyism can be summed up in Coulter's description of what happened to the tiny number of affected writers:

"You mean he couldn't do screenplays under his own name and had to fire the gardener and clean his pool in Bel Air by himself? No! That is shocking!"

Actor Humphrey Bogart summed up it nicely when he referred to the Hollywood Ten as, "Uniquely untalented," explaining that those whose careers were "ruined" owed it more to bad scripts than bad politics. The liberals, who for some reason are made up of an inordinate number of Jews, took to the Rosenberg case as their own. They wanted to use it to show that the U.S. was "Fascistic" like the country we had just finished sending to the ash heap of history, and that we were bent on executing nice Jewish folks from the Bronx. As Coulter pointed out, the smiling personage of Ike, who had led the "Crusade in Europe," did not allow this image to add up. Mountains of evidence convicted the Rosenbergs then, and in subsequent years reams more corroborated guilt utterly and absolutely without doubt. The Left still protested on their behalf with great fervor.

They were "total Communists or complete idiots," according to Coulter, who demonstrates that they tried to equate Stalinist tyranny with McCarthyism. If you want to count a couple of suicides, then the score on this one is still Stalin 20 million, McCarthy three.

An engineer in the Soviet spy ring, Joel Barr, fled to Russia the day the Rosenbergs were arrested, with all his belongings still in his Paris apartment. Another, Alfred Sarant, left his wife and child (but took his neighbor's wife) just as fast. The Russians put them to work on radar-guided anti-aircraft artillery and SAM missiles, used to shoot down John McCain and his fellow pilots in Vietnam. In 1992, Barr came to the States to collect his Social Security benefits (once a New Dealer always a New Dealer), and Ted Koppel interviewed him on that bastion of fair and balanced news shows, Nightline. Despite the above evidence, Koppel said Barr's espionage was still in question, and that being a Communist was okay during World War II (of course Barr fled during the Korea War against Communism). The Left always tried to equate our "deal with the devil," alliance with Stalin, as endorsement of his ideology. Churchill had advocated "crushing" him in the 1920s. Image how history would have changed had Communism been snuffed out in 1927. Presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover refused to recognize Stalin. Roosevelt did. Coulter says that in 50 years Nightline will (unless conservatives have changed the nature of the medium, which they just may) air a special on American Taliban JohnWalker Lindh, shedding doubt on what he did in Afghanistan.

Barr was allowed to vote again. He liked Clinton.

Coulter saves her greatest revelations of Truth to McCarthyism, a term she disparages and compares to grouping the "violence o the Black Panthers, the Weathermen, SDS, and drunk drivers under the name 'Kennedyism.'" The fact that "HUAC" is linked with "McCarthyism" is an example, since HUAC was an organ of the House, but McCarthy was in the Senate.

Oscar Shaftel was a Communist who was fired from his teaching job in New York when people found out he was a Communist. Did he go to jail? No, he just became a journalist like all the other liberals, who in turn wrote the misinformed history of McCarthy for years. His fate was the result of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, which McCarthy was not associated with, but he is just one example of a man who was called for years a "victim of Joe McCarthy." McCarthy was "associated" with the Smith Act. Communists liked the Smith Act at first because it was used aggressively against Fascists and rounding up Japanese. They disliked it when it was used against them. McCarthy had nothing to do with it, either.

McCarthy did identify and have removed dozens of Soviet operatives working in sensitive government jobs. He also attempted to use discretion in his investigative techniques. But the liberals turned this against him. A case in point was the Democrat foreign policy wonk, Owen Lattimore. McCarthy suspected Lattimore but had not yet gained proof. He chose to keep Lattimore's name confidential until proof, one or the other, could be delivered. Drew Pearson (whose lies about Truman's Secretary of Defense, James Forrestall, had driven the man to suicide) then leaked Lattimore's name as proof that McCarthy was ruining people's reputations. Pearson ended up telling the truth by way of his lie, because eventually Lattimore was found to be Red.

McCarthy chose to refer not to "named Communists," but to "security risk number one" or "case number two" and the like. As early as 1948, Truman was saying it was the Republicans (who had formed HUAC and were being led by Nixon) who were "friendly" to Communists and who were comparable to Fascists. Meanwhile, hundreds of Communists formulated Truman's foreign policy, at a time when he let China go Red and the Soviets went nuclear.

"Anyone with liberals views" was called a Communist, said Helen Silverstein in 1947. Soviet cables proved her liberal views ran to Soviet espionage. Her husband was a spy, too. He was actually awarded a medal by the Soviets while in the employ of the Roosevelt Administration. McCarthy has been vilified for "destroying" people and investigating their "personal lives" by the same poeple who think it just fine that Hillary Clinton and James Carville could go after and attempt to destroy Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Kathleen Willey and other women for having the temerity to have been sexually harassed, assaulted and raped by Bill Clinton. Liberals who call the 1950s a "frightening period" have a point only in the way terrorists might refer to the Bush Presidency as a "frightening period." If you were a Communist, you darn well should have been frightened that a real American like McCarthy was finding you out.

Ethel Roenberg's children described being called "commie" by their classmates. The San Francisco Chronicle compared these everyday taunts of schoolkids to American "totalitarianism." What Coulter points out about McCarthyism and its aftermath is that the liberals, knowing that Hiss, Rosenberg and association with 100 million murders, if admitted, documented, and exposed in the kind of thorough manner that Germany and Nazism were associated with the Holocaust, would end the Democrat party. They had to cling to their lies. Over time, conservatives moved on, ceding the matter to them. Not anymore. In the 1990s, Democrats were up against the wall with Bill Clinton in much the same way.

"'Blacklist survivor' Norma Barzman described her 'exile' in Paris thus," writes Coulter. "'We had dinner with Picasso every Tuesday night when we were at our country house in Provence. Yves Montand and Simone Signoret, Jacques Prevert were all friends. Plus we got to work with all the amazing European directors including Vittorio De Sica and Constantin Costa-Gavras. It was hard, but it was also the time of my life.'

"Meanwhile, back in the country they preferred people were being whisked off to Soviet gulags in the dead of night...

"10 Hollywood scribblers who subscribed to an ideology responsible for murder by the million refused to admit their membership in the Communist Party to a House Committee. All they had to do was 'fes up. But they felt they had the right not to tell the truth, so they were briefly jailed for contempt. This created a slight setback in their dinners with Picasso. The horror."

I could not have said it better myself.

The "Blacklist" of the 1950s is in no possible way comparable to the current blacklist. Elia Kazan, who named Communists and is one of the greatest directors of all time, is on the outs because of it. Openly conservative Republican screenwriters, directors and even actors are faced with de facto "Conservatives need not apply" signs up and down Sunset Boulevard. "Guilty By Suspicion" (1991), starring Robert De Niro, was the closest Hollywood film to telling the truth about the Blacklist. It involved a real director named Robert Merrill who had attended Communist meetings in the 1930s. The film naturally takes the position that even though he attended, and his friends attended, none of them were actually Communists. Their motivation was to feed starving Russians.

Eventually, the director was named. The studios asked him to cooperate and name the others who had attended the meetings. The director refused to "rat" on his friends and colleagues. His career dried up for a few years. It assumes that he was talented and in enough demand to maintain a position as an A-list director in a business that chews people up and spits them out regardless of political ideology. "Guilty By Suspicion" at least does not paint Merrill's case as being the direct result of Joe McCarthy's investigation, since his and almost all Hollywood people dealt with HUAC, not McCarthy, prior to Wheeling anyway. It addresses the legitimate question of whether it was fair to ask suspected Communists to name other suspected Communists. HUAC and others did lay a heavy hand on some of these people by taking the position of forcing them to choose between themselves and their colleagues, although it is a common police tactic used long before and since then. What the Communist apologizers fail to understand, however, is the urgency and importance of national security. Call me cold-hearted, but it is my personal belief that after the fall of Eastern Europe, the loss of China, the atomic explosion in Russia, American boys fighting in Korea, Communist expansion in Latin America, what we knew about Communist espionage in the West, and what the few who knew about Venona further knew at that time, asking people to cooperate in an effort to secure American safety and way of life was not unreasonable. As Coulter further points out, being a Communist was not illegal. Being identified as one just hurt careers in Hollywood, just as murdering ones' wife, getting caught masturbating in a theatre, or molesting kids would.

"They could still go to Paris or sell real estate..." writes Coulter. "They just couldn't work in the movies <for a few years>. That was the only price they paid for shilling for a mass murderer."

In all the years since World War II, there has never been a real film depicting Communist atrocities. Films and TV shows about the Holocaust abound. There have been depictions of Stalin and others, but they have always focused on the war, the strategy, and usually the suffering of the hardy Russian people. Nothing memorializes the 100 million dead, however. Not even Solzhenitzyn's "Gulag Archipelago" was made into a movie.

I was hired to write a screenplay about Josyp Terelya, who had been held in the gulags for years, but survived because of his strong Christian faith. Terelya described 20 years in the Soviet prison system in a book called "Witness" (the same name as Chambers' autobiography). The horrors of his captivity match anything that happened at Auschwitz. The difference is that Terelya was not held in this hellhole for three or four years, like most Jews, but for two decades. Hollywood never bought it.

Later, evidence surfaced that the decision by many Communists to take the Fifth was an order from Stalin, since they did more value to the "cause" as martyrs. On the home front, Owen Lattimore said that Stalin's show trials might be excessive to those on trial, but that it was okay because it encouraged others to tell the truth.

The mythmakers say that McCarthy caused people to commit suicides. It is not true. Dustin Hoffman's father in "Marathon Man" was supposed to have been driven to such an end, although to William Goldman's credit he does not directly attribute the death to McCarthy. A man named Ray Kaplan supposedly committed suicide before testifying after he said he was happy to do so. It had nothing to with McCarthy accusing him of Communism, but on the Senate floor a VOA employee stood up and shouted at McCarthy, "You murdered Ray Kaplan." The liberal press ran with it and turned it into "fact." McCarthy suspected Communists murdered Kaplan because he was going to expose their ring and its plans regarding the VOA. McCarthy biographer David Oshinsky was just one of many who built on the "driven to suicide" notion attributed to McCarthy.

"It would be as if Linda Tripp had turned up dead during the investigation of Bill Clinton, and liberals decided to blame Ken Starr," wrote Coulter.

McCarthy was not after Hollywood or "little guys." He suspected what all of us have suspected, that in the elite salons of the liberal establishment, "sedition always held a strange attraction for Ivy League types," wrote Coulter. Coulter veers from me in her association of George C. Marshall and even Dwight Eisenhower as part of an establishment that tolerated this sedition. My view is that a chairborn, striped-pants State Department desk chief, or a pampered Hollywood playboy, does not deserve the benefit of the doubt that I attribute to the likes of Marshall and Eisenhower. Marshall's supposed lack of vision regarding his own Marshall Plan and various accusations regarding Marshall's WASP standoffishness being the reason he failed to stop China from going to the Communists do not measure up to the sterling words of praise that every world leader had for his steadfast performance during World War II. While he may have allowed himself to "go establishment" after years surrounded by the Democrats, I will not berate General Marshall in these pages.

Ike was, and I repeat, the greatest single man this world has produced other than Christ. He and Marshall were attacked by McCarthy, which was stupid on McCarthy's part. McCarthy was feeling intense pressure by then from his liberal enemies. He had begun to drink heavily, and he made mistakes. Failing to respect Marshall and Eisenhower were his two biggest ones. Ike called him on the carpet and reamed him out up one side and down the other, the way only military men can do. There is an almost regal splendor to their use of swear words as cutting edges. Ike did so not because McCarthy was going after Communists. He spoke to Hoover and knew about Venona. But as titular head of the Republican party, facing re-election in 1956, trying to hold the fragile Republican majority that existed for those short years together, he saw McCarthy as hurting the cause. McCarthy's purpose was valid, but his methods had swayed from their original course.

In determining who "lost" China, Marshall is not the one to blame. Owen Lattimore, on the other hand, swayed Truman's policy away from Chiang Kai-Shek in favor of Mao Tse-Tung. When McCarthy went after him for it, he coined the phrase "McCarthyism." When called before McCarthy, Lattimore said he did not work at the State Department even though he took phone calls there, had an office there, and answered mail sent to him there. He regularly gave a State Department extension as the place to reach him. It was as if the liar James Carville or the infamous Thomason's said they "never worked at the White House."

Lattimore's lies resulted in perjury convictions. The New York Times consistently lies and says he was acquitted, when in fact they were later dropped on technicalities. Lattimore was a political gadfly, never assigned specific duties under FDR but used as a special advisor on foreign affairs. His hands were all over China. His own numerous writings are rife with apologist Stalinist propaganda. His own lack of official status with the White House was precisely what allowed him to work so closely with Communist spies. Whether FDR actually knew what he was and encouraged it is not really known. Perhaps FDR felt it was of value to have a "fellow traveler" working with Communists, who felt they could trust him. Maybe it started that way and became a dedication to the Soviet way. Maybe, and this may be a fair assessment of some (maybe not a lot) of the American Communists, they "loved" America but wanted her to change to socialism. They knew it would never happen Democratically. Since they felt they were the elites who were charged with thinking for the rest of us, they decided to take it upon themselves to do the "brave " work of letting the Communists into our world, for our own good, of course. Maybe they did not want the Soviets blowing us up with atomic bombs or attacking our cities, and they trusted "Uncle Joe" not to do that. The fact that they were "useful idiots" and worse, and Stalin would have bombed us to the Stone Age if he could have gotten away with it, is what makes them such historically dangerous figures.

To this day, however, liberals say that Lattimore resisted a "reign of terror" that in their minds is worse than the guillotines of 1790s Paris. All who believe in freedom are in Lattimore's debt, according to the Left. In reality millions who died under Mao should on their graves have the words, "Owen Lattimore sold me out."

Graduate students who attempt to research the truth about McCarthyism find themselves facing academic blacklists. I.F. Stone had advocated suppressing Fascist speech. Certainly anything opposing civil rights uttered by a white man was worthy of being made illegal, according to Stone. McCarthyism caused him to, uh, change his mind regarding free speech. Stone was a darling of the joined-at-the-world elite academia and journalism. He backed every Communist from Henry Wallace to Ho Chi Minh. In 1992 declassified Soviet cables identified Stone as a paid agent. A few years later, more Soviet archives confirmed it. He had an NKVD handler. Victor Navasky wrote, "if you accept the Venona documents, then you have to accept that I.F. Stone...was a Communist agent."

Stone's Communism raised the greatest firestorm among liberal reviewers of Coulter's book, which is interesting. Stone's identity was discovered and made public 11 years prior to "Treason's" publication, and re-confirmed nine years prior. Coulter's fairly short treatment of Stone was not new or revelatory. It rehashed known facts. Yet it has been used by more than any to discredit the book as "lies." Two things are striking about this. The first is that calling known facts lies is as credible as stating, "California is not a state in the American Union," or "There is no such thing as the Pacific Ocean." More telling, however, is the emphasis on Stone, who was not as big a name as Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow. Stone was hailed as a "giant figure," but he really was only a giant figure among a small group of liberal elites. His treatment by reviewers shows that the reviewers are all liberals, and that Coulter stepped on some sensitive toes.

It is, sometimes, an uphill struggle, but a worthy one.

Just as the Left protects Stone's place in history with particular vigor, so to is David Horowitz vilified. Horowitz outrages liberals in the manner that Clarence Thomas outrages the black lobby. Because unlike Ann Coulter, a Connecticut WASP blonde who effects the airs of the upper crust, she is therefore "easy" to hate. But Horowitz is a New York Jew raised by Communists. He was weaned on Communism, spoonfed it, and knows it because he grew up with it, the way Bill Clinton was raised in the underworld of Arkansas' political Mafia. Horowitz knew where all the bodies were buried, who was on the take, the role of unions in the C.P., and how New York Jews used their identity in the post-war years to raise a moral front in the face of McCarthyism.

Horowitz's parents were fired from their job as New York City schoolteachers because they were Communists. In the subsequent years, these kinds of firings have been dredged up and reported as the worst kind violent, forceful hatred inflicted by the right on the Left.

"What actually happened to my father and American Communists in general bears little resemblance to these lurid images," Horowitz says, and in telling the truth he is called the worst kind of traitor to his "people." If "his people" are Jews, then it stretches credulity that a system that killed millions of Jews because they were Jews, particularly when Stalin initiated a specific anti-Semitic plan in the early 1950s (for reasons that are not clear), could be condoned by Jews.

Horowitz woke up to the radicalism all around him before it was too late. He had been part of the horrid world of Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal. The hatred these two vipers of the Left spew for Horowitz today leaves many with the feeling that, if they could do it without leaving evidence, they would kill Horowitz after torturing him. Is this surprising since they shill for a system that did just that to so many?

Even though we now know that over 300 Soviet spies worked for the U.S. government (which is probably a very low figure), and McCarthy was going after them, he was beaten up beyond comprehension. Every insinuation and innuendo was made against him. His top investigator, Roy Cohn, was homosexual, but it is by far not confirmed whether his aide, David Schine, was. McCarthy was a bachelor until relatively late in late, but he dated women (including one of the Kennedy sisters), and married an attractive woman in the 1950s. The Communist playwright Lillian Hellman, who was portrayed lovingly by Jane Fonda, called Cohn, Schine and McCarthy "Bonnie, Bonnie, and Clyde." The Las Vegas Sun called McCarthy a "disreputable pervert." These attacks were very hurtful. The Left learned from them, using the "gay smear" campaign against J. Edgar Hoover's memory.

The amount and vociferousness of the lies against McCarthy piled up beyond comprehension. I have chosen not to detail all of it here. It is worthy of an entire book. I heartily recommend getting more on this in Ann Coulter's "Treason". Drew Pearson, who Coulter called the "Larry Flynt of his day," threatened blackmail on McCarthy's supporters. The New York Post ran a 17-page series of untrue charges. McCarthy began to sue the papers and won libel damages and apologies. McCarthy was accused of having the postman spy on the mail of a fellow Senator, exposing personal peccadilloes of opponents (alcoholism, adultery, homosexuality), and various other charges. Despite the allegations of criminal activity, slander and libel against McCarthy, nobody ever succeeded in proving anything in court, despite every possible advantage in gathering such facts if they had in fact been facts. McCarthy never paid a dime in defamation charges.

James Reston, the Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, despised McCarthy and assigned a reporter who had once been a member of the C.P. to cover him. Reston refused to concede that the reporter was biased.

McCarthy's war record had indeed been glorified somewhat beyond what it really was. This was completely normal among the post-war political class, but the press attempted to paint his Marine flying career as a total lie. They never went after Lyndon Johnson, who never actually joined the Navy but flew some junkets to the war, orchestrated paperwork that made him look like he was in the Navy, and then awarded himself the Silver Star. Later, Johnson manipulated FCC rules in order to assure himself of millions in radio stations in Texas, but the press let him slide on this, too. Meanwhile, McCarthy flew combat missions.

"...He took enemy fire from savage Oriental beasts and fired back as a tail gunner," wrote Coulter. Those Oriental beasts would have tortured him savagely if the plane had crashed and he had been taken as a POW.

The most lasting memory of McCarthyism is a bow-tied attorney named Joseph Welch berating him during the Army-McCarthy hearings with the famous utterance, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

The Chicago Sun-Times declared Welch's speech was in reference to McCarthy's "investigations into phantom Communists in the Army." Two such "phantoms" included Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Julius was an Army engineer. Ethel's brother was in the Army Signal Corps and worked with them on obtaining the secrets they gave to the Communists. It was precisely because of them and hundreds of other real and actual "phantoms" that McCarthy had gone after the Army. Cells had been discovered in the Army.

Ike and Marshall were both sensitive to these charges, for obvious reasons. McCarthy's mistake was in going after the Army, and even after them, in a blatant, public manner. He should have taken the matter to Eisenhower, presented the President with the evidence he had, and a smart decision on how best to handle it should have been made. I seriously doubt Ike would have told McCarthy to "Go fuck yourself," as FDR did when presented with evidence of Hiss's espionage.

Further inflaming the situation was Schine's special treatment after he was drafted, ostensibly so he could finish his work with the committee while going through basic training. Cohn had a crush on Schine, and the matter was largely his fault, not McCarthy's. Cohn was convinced, probably correctly, that Schine had been drafted specifically as "payback" for their investigation of the Army. It has been assumed that Schine was Cohn's gay lover, but most of the evidence actually points the other way - towards Schine being something of a ladies man.

Drew Pearson was apparently responsible for Schine being drafted, but Schine had a slipped disk that normally would have exempted him. Pearson maintained the pressure. Schine entered training, and the press hounded every step of the process. McCarthy was loyal to Cohn, who he believed was indispensable to his work. When the media went into overdrive, McCarthy began to drink heavily. Democrats "behaved like animals - sneering, interrupting, and catcalling..." during hearings, writes Coulter. Welch was the attorney for the Army. In a two-hour harangue of Cohn he portrayed the McCarthy-Cohn-Schine team as homosexual lunatics. Liberals, the great champions of gay rights, love to demonstrate the perversions of gays if it can be applied to Republicans. Welch went on and on, speaking in sing-song. He asked Cohn detailed questions that would have required him to refer to notes and documents. If Cohn did not have the answer at his fingertips, Welch patronized him, laughed at him, and made fun of the very notion that any Communists existed in America.

Cohn held firm, answered, "Yes, sir," or "no, sir," or "I will try, sir," and attempted to use common sense. The Democrats who lined the gallery were laughing at him. It was a "show trial," a "kangaroo court." Welch kept returning to a familiar theme, which was, "Where are the Communists?", "Who are the Communists," "name me some Communists," and the like. Cohn gave some names but was never allowed to finish his sentences. Welch asked about some suspected Communists, insinuating that Cohn had made false accusations without facts. Cohn attempted to explain that some people under surveillance by the FBI or under committee investigation were not proven to be Communists - yet - but that was the purpose of the investigation, to determine one way or another if they were, and what kind of security risk they might be. Cohn tried to reasonably point out the difference between a Communist and a Communist spy, and why a Communist in a sensitive government position was more dangerous than an average citizen who happened to be a member of the C.P.

This was the heart of the truth about McCarthy. He had not gone after Hollywood, because they were not government employees. HUAC and others had indeed gone after Hollywood because they had influence over society through the power of their medium. But McCarthy's concerns were not with Communists, but with Communist spies and saboteurs who were in a position to do real damage. These explanations were met by jeers and sing-song interruptions by Welch. However, in asking Cohn to name Communists, he walked right into it.

McCarthy interrupted at this point and said that in Welch's own law firm was a "Mr. Fisher," who was still an employee at that time. Fisher's name was known by McCarthy. McCarthy had not identified Fisher publicly, along with numerous other suspects, because the investigation was not complete and he wanted to name only true Communists, not shed suspicion on those who might be innocent. But Fisher's status was rock solid: He was a Red. He had been identified as one not by McCarthy or Cohn, but by Eisenhower's Attorney General. Fisher was a member of an organization that the U.S. government had determined was the "legal bulwark of the Communist Party."

"I have hesitated bringing that up, but I have been rather bored with your phony requests to Mr. Cohn here that he personally get every Communist out of government before sundown," McCarthy told the flabbergasted Welch. "Therefore, we will give you information about the young man in your own organization."

Welch had asked for Communists, and now he was being granted his request. They were in his law firm. McCarthy, knowing such a bombshell was best exploded in private, where the facts could be absorbed and pride did not have to be ruffled out in the open, had wanted to keep the information out of the discussion. Welch's badgering had gotten the best of him. Now Welch was placed in the position of having all that he stood and argued for fall apart in his face. Red with embarrassment, at that point Welch's response was really quite normal. He had been taken apart in front of God and everybody by a man he loathed and did not think had what it took to best him intellectually (this has always been the "secret weapon" of conservatives). Welch needed to, as the Japanese say, "save face." Admitting then and there that McCarthy was right on was not an option.

Fisher had been a big problem for Welch, who thought he had taken care of the matter the "liberal way." Welch said McCarthy was "cruel" and "reckless," and explained that Fisher had gone to Harvard Law School, which in Welch's view made him innocent of all wrongdoing, but told the commonsensical that the chances he was a Communist were greater due to his schooling.

Welch had indeed found out that Fisher was a Communist, who had worked for the National Lawyers Guild, the C.P. "legal bulwark" in question. Welch's method of "fixing" the situation was indeed telling. He had gone to the New York Times and told them about it. In return the Times had written a sympathetic story "explaining" that Fisher had been a member of the Guild. Officially, Welch had named Fisher, but the blow had been softened by a liberal story that for all practical purposes forgave Fisher for his indiscretion and painted him as a fine American. Of course, in the Times' world, being a Communist was the best example of being a fine American.

McCarthy and Cohn had not jumped on the Fisher case. They did not have all the facts and chose to wait until the case, like all the cases they investigated, were locked up tight. Now McCarthy was "naming" a man who Welch had already named. Welch was calling McCarthy cruel for naming him the man he named! Naturally, the New York Times excoriated McCarthy for naming Fisher after the Times had named him first.

"Little did I dream you could be so reckless and cruel as to do injury to that lad," Welch said to McCarthy. Apparently, stating that Fisher was a Communist (true) was cruel. Telling the New York Times that Fisher was a Communist but (wink, wink) we all know that make him a good fellow was not cruel.

Welch went on to say that he could not forgive McCarthy for providing the information that Welch provided. McCarthy pointed out that Welch had named Fisher first, and that Welch had "baited" Cohn. Realizing that McCarthy had logic on his side, suddenly Welch said, "I mean you no injury, sir," and "let's move on." Liberals always want to move on after their lies have been identified and exposed. The Clinton's way of doing it was to explain that they had to "move on so I can get back to work for the American people."

Welch looked at McCarthy and said, "Let us <us, he said, as in both of us, as in me, he should have said> not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

I am a historian, and all my life I did not know the details of this exchange until I read "Treason" by Ann Coulter. Reporters, who had seen the exchange as it has been explained herein, but who were rooting for Welch, began to applaud. They built upon their own applause to create an imaginary victory for Welch; a desperate re-structuring of the truth, a denial of what they had just seen. McCarthy's identification of a tried-and-true Communist had answered Welch's question. Welch had defended this Communist, which was no different than defending a Nazi. The climate of liberalism had pervaded the media and the Democrats in the post-Hiss years. It was hateful and unpatriotic. It was so desperate to score points against McCarthy, the Republicans and conservatism that it had lost all honor or sense of truth. The question Welch asked McCarthy was blatantly applicable to their own sad state of affairs. Communism was better (to them) than being on the losing side of history, especially when the winners were the likes of Richard Nixon, Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn. In a way, it is understandable. A psychologist could surely name a syndrome that describes the mindset. But the Hiss/McCarthy era was the dividing line of American politics. Since then, the Left has reserved so much hatred for the right that they have never been able or willing to own up to their own perfidy. The Kennedys came along and provided illusions of grandeur. Vietnam and the counter-culture actually made them think they had won, or at least were winning. Tet had changed the dynamic in a lasting manner. Nixon took 49 states, but Watergate - surely, Watergate \- was the final nail in the Republican coffin. But the G.O.P. was like a football team that keeps falling behind, and led by brilliant quarterbacks (think Roger Staubach winning the Heisman at Navy and the Super Bowl for Dallas), refuses to quit and, through sheer force of excellence, continues to surge forward with touchdown after touchdown. At this point, it is a runaway. Guess who is winning.

Reporters are supposed to be professional. In sports, very often an announcement will be heard or posted on the wall in press boxes, "No rooting." In 1975, the Boston media broke this rule when Carlton Fisk hit his "body English" home run to win game six of the World Series against Cincinnati. That day in 1954, they did the same thing, rooting for Welch with cheers, boos, catcalls, hissing at McCarthy in a shameless display.

Welch had put on the performance of a lifetime. He cried and sobbed for the victim Fred Fisher, then as soon as the cameras were off of him perked up and asked an assistant, "Well, how did it go?"

Bill Clinton must have seen this act, because years later at Ron Brown's funeral he came in laughing and telling a dirty joke. When he saw that the cameras were pointed at him his face went somber and he wiped an imaginary tear from his eye.

The New York Times then went into high gear to rehabilitate Fisher. The National Lawyers Guild became, in their subsequent articles, an organization that worked with unions and civil rights organizations. Attorney General Herbert Brownell had identified them as the C.P.'s law firm, much like "The Firm" that Tom Cruise worked for in John Grisham's novel/movie was the mob's law firm (that film could be used to explain how Southern pols like Bill Clinton who get away with what they get away with). Brownell did not say that the Guild "might" be Communist, or was "thought to be" Communist. The investigative powers of the United States Justice Department had conducted their investigation, done the analysis, and reached the conclusion that they were Red. The Times still called them allegedly subversive, which was like saying that the New York Giants, who won that year's World Series in four straight over Cleveland, were allegedly the World Champions.

The victim Fisher, the target of McCarthy's "assassination," one of those whose lives were "ruined" by the witch hunts, was made partner at a prestigious Boston firm, became president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, and made a ton of dough. Only in America.

McCarthy had revealed the truth. He had stumped Welch in open court, surprising him with a witty, think-on-his-feet riposte, the secret weapon of so many underestimated conservative minds. But in winning the battle he had lost the war. It was as if the New York Times told the Giants, after beating the Indians, that their official scorer ruled it for Cleveland.

If ever the O'Reilly Factor was needed it was then.

"What did I do?" asked McCarthy of his aides. They had no answer. The press played Welch's soliloquy, leaving out all the context of McCarthy's answers and remarks. Television portrayals forever after showed only Welch "shaming" McCarthy without the Fisher revelation. Certainly nobody ever pointed out that it was Welch, not McCarthy, who out named Fisher.

Coulter wrote that in the 1950s there was "no Internet, no Fox News Channel, no Rush Limbaugh. Nothing but Nina Burleigh gushing to the Washington Post: I'd be happy to give Joe Welch oral sex just to thank him for attacking McCarthy. (Actual July 1998 quote about Bill Clinton from former Time magazine reporter Nina Burleigh: 'I'd be happy to give <oral sex> just to thank him for keeping abortion legal.")

It seems odd that Nina is so concerned with abortion since she cannot get pregnant by swallowing what Sterling Hayden referred to as "my vital bodily fluids" in "Dr. Strangelove". Hayden's General Ripper seemed to have the contraceptive plan down pat.

"I deny them <women> my essence, Mandrake," he tells Peter Sellers.

The McCarthy myth became one of good (liberals) triumphing over evil (conservatives). It has given birth to a million (and that figure might actually not be an exaggeration) stories in every conceivable form of media depicting liberalism as the better idea, and conservatism as the dark underbelly of human existence. Despite this going on for decades, a huge number of honest, hard working, tax-paying, play-by-the-rules, non-racist citizens have chosen conservatism in a free society. This fact drives the Left batty.

One of the first films to paint McCarthy with the brush of liberal treatment was "The Sweet Smell of Success", starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. It is a classic, like so many of them, and like many, conservatives must grit their teeth through its politics while enjoying it anyway.

Lancaster plays a heavyweight New York gossip columnist based on Walter Winchell. Winchell was the staccato-voice of "The Untouchables", a friend of J. Edgar Hoover, and a staunch anti-Communist. He wrote about Reds and they did not like it. Supposedly the film was based on the true story of Winchell and his sister. The implication, hinted at on screen but more than hinted at among the liberal press, was that Winchell had an incestuous relationship with her. When she falls for a musician, Lancaster plants a false story that he is a dope-smoking Red. The film does not directly depict McCarthy or his Senate hearings, but the idea conveyed was that innocent "musicians, artists and poets" were unfairly victimized by accusations of Communism. Even though most of the beat-poets and Communist sympathizers among the Greenwich Village crowd looked like Alan Ginsburg in those days, in "Sweet Smell of Success" the musician is player by Martin Milner. Remember him? Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, clean-cut, he was the embodiment of All-Americanism, cast perfectly as the veteran L.A.P.D. cop in the 1960s hit TV series, "Adam 12".

As for the real Winchell, the Left drove him out of New York. He moved to Hollywood, where his gossip columns single-handedly turned a journeyman left-handed pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels, Bo Belinsky, into the biggest playboy in baseball history.

McCarthy's drinking became acute during the Army-McCarthy hearings. In another encounter with Welch, a similar demand was made of him, to produce the name of a government whistle blower who had outlined Communist infiltration at Fort Monmouth. McCarthy had promised the source anonymity. He explained to Welch that sources would dry up if they were automatically exposed. McCarthy told Welch he was careful not to expose the names of suspected Reds until the investigation was conclusive, but Welch hounded him unmercifully.

McCarthy clashed with Eisenhower when he tried to hale the President into the Senate for questioning. Ike replied that he and the Army had conducted their own screening methods to keep Communists out of the Army, and invoked "executive privilege." Used against McCarthy it was brilliant. Used 20 years later by Dick Nixon it was devious. Going against Dwight Eisenhower was a bad tactic. McCarthy should have worked with the President behind closed doors, but it is entirely true that he was a publicity hound. Now his public style had gone too far.

"McCarthy's real threat to American Democracy <was> the fact that he has immobilized the liberal movement," Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey said. In John Frankenheimer's "The Manchurian Candidate", a Senator who is shot and killed bore some resemblance to Humphrey. He stated in the film that while the anti-Communist accusations by the McCarthy character may have led some to believe he was a "buffoon," he himself felt that if he were a "paid Soviet agent" he could not have done more damage to America. The Humphrey and movie quotes are telling, and prescient.

In a way both of them are right on, although neither would know nor understand why. Humphrey was right because hate for McCarthy did indeed wake up a sleeping giant. The New Deal was considered archaic by the 1950s. Macho Republicans and their patriot, flag-waving militarism were the order of the day. Truman was disgraced and the most popular man on Earth led the G.O.P., which for a brief period held both the House and Senate. Then along came McCarthy. The Left banded together in a way they never have since. They created a culture of media hatred that has hung over this beautiful nation like a nuclear Winter. The movie Senator was correct, and Ike knew it in his way. McCarthy may have been right, but in becoming the lightning rod for criticism all the focus of Communism was shifted away from espionage, sabotage, the Sino-Soviet pact, military expansion into Latin America, Cuba, and Eastern Europe. If McCarthyism had not occurred, perhaps a unified country would have been better prepared for Vietnam. This is just a theory and must be stated in accordance with the understanding that John Kennedy was a staunch anti-Communist. But the liberals may have been emboldened to go beyond the usual dirty tricks in stealing the 1960 election (again, however, the Joseph Kennedy influence is over and above all the usual complaints against Democrats).

Eisenhower was furious at McCarthy for his handling of the situation, and he viewed him as having led himself and the country down a dangerous path that, circuitously, had done damage that a "paid Soviet agent" could not have done. The point of this, however, is the damage done to America went hand in hand with liberal treachery, revenge and a desire to inflict more pain on the right than on Communism. Eisenhower knew the nature of these Democrats. He was a moderate and he knew how to work with them. After McCarthy even his prestige could not contain them.

The Left turned Communists who had been investigated by McCarthy into national heroes. Edward Murrow ran a brutal CBS special on McCarthy. The Senate voted to censure him. Interestingly, McCarthy had originally been a Democrat, but he was exposed to their corrupt machine. He also opposed segregation, which was entirely prosecuted by Democrat minions, so he chose the G.O.P. His politics were considered rather moderate.

"Only later, when it became clear that McCarthy strongly opposed a regime that sought the total destruction of the United States, was he reclassified a 'conservative,'" wrote Coulter. He was accused of being homosexual despite the fact that the woman he eventually married was described as a "ravishing beauty" who had been a bridesmaid of President Truman's daughter, Margaret. He employed women, gays and Jews when such a diverse staff was unheard of, and was popular with black voters. The segregationist Arkansas Senator William Fulbright, Bill Clinton's mentor a decade later, attacked him relentlessly. McCarthy called him "Senator Halfbright."

The nation turned on McCarthy, and it affected him brutally. This is a telling fact. McCarthy drank himself to death. Richard Nixon became deathly ill in 1974, had to be hospitalized and was thought to be near death while muttering incoherently how "insane" it was that he could be hated so much after having done so much to help make the world safer. Nixon recovered and gained a measure of revenge as an elder statesman, but these two Republicans, broken by their Leftist critics, were men of conscience. Their hearts never mended. They were consumed by questions of guilt, wondering where they had gone wrong and whether they indeed had deserved their fates.

Bill Clinton, on the other hand, never showed a sign of wear and tear. He just bluffed his way through, grinning and joking as if he had not a care in the world. The possibility remains that Clinton was able to handle the heat precisely because he (and his wife) have no moral conscience to burden them whatsoever. Or worse.

"They're murdering me, they're killing me!" McCarthy said weeks before his death. The successful anti-McCarthy playbook became the blueprint for numerous character assassinations, most recently launched against Linda Tripp, Newt Gingrich, Ken Starr, and led by Hillary and Carville, against all the women groped, assaulted and raped by Bill. The difference between McCarthy, Nixon and most conservatives accused of wrongdoing is that they get "caught" and punished. The Clintons just get away with it!

After McCarthyism, as Humphrey aptly pointed out, the Left became emboldened. The Sulzberger family, longtime publishers of the New York Times, were the boldest of the print media (Hollywood took the cake, both in terms of on-screen content and off-screen remarks). The current publisher of the Times is Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger. In the early 1970s, like Bill Clinton he evaded the draft and protested the Vietnam War. His father asked him point blank who Pinch would rather see shot and killed in a face-to-face confrontation, an American soldier or a North Vietnamese regular.

"I would want to see the American guy get shot," said Pinch. "It's the other guy's country." Of course Pinch would want the American boy to be killed. He would not have been one of his fraternity brothers. Calling it the "other guy's country" is, of course, a lie. The U.S. did not take the fight into North Vietnam. They were defending South Vietnam, where the Communist was invading "the other guy's country," or Cambodia, where they were running and hiding and using "the other guy's country."

Technically, Pinch did not commit treason when he said what he said, and even expressing such views in years of scathing Left wing editorials may not be treason. Ann Coulter was attacked by liberal reviewers and interviewers who tried to pin her into a corner, narrowing the definition of treason to its tiniest parameters. But Pinch's words, while not enough to land him in Ft. Leavenworth Prison, are treasonous. They are beyond contempt.

Despite popular misconceptions about the 1960s, Americans under the age of 35 supported the Vietnam War. At the time of U.S. withdrawal, only 20 percent of the country opposed the war. But the media ignored the Silent Majority and portrayed - to the world, particularly to the Communists in Moscow, Beijing and Hanoi - a nation bitterly opposed to the effort. It was a lie, and this lie cost thousands of American lives and, eventually, millions of Vietnamese and Cambodian lives. Technically, these misrepresentations on the part of the New York Times, the Washington Post, Dan Rather, Morley Safer, Walter Cronkite, Peter Arnett, and CBS News, were not acts of treason. They had the right to express their opinion. But to those who paid the price for their perfidy, it was treacherous, and with deadly results.

In Oliver Stone's "Nixon", there is a scene on the Presidential yacht Sequoia, which Nixon liked to take out on the Potomac River. In this scene, the subject is Vietnam, and the question is whether the U.S. can win. Nixon, and one or two other voices shoot back, in the fastest possible response, "No," then go into a discussion of the "Kissinger plan" of linking Soviet and Chinese détente with an honorable withdrawal from Vietnam.

First of all, the part of the conversation in which Nixon instantly said "no" to the possibility of winning in Vietnam never happened. The larger point is that by the time he took over the White House, the popular press had changed the paradigm in Southeast Asia, convincing millions it was in fact unwinnable. Nixon might have been able to aggressively win in 1962, but by 1969-70 he had to undo the mess created by Johnson. He and Kissinger did the best they could with what was left, and managed to turn lemons into lemonade though triangulated global diplomacy. For his efforts, Stone shows Nixon's steak during the Sequoia dinner scene dripping with blood, as if to suggest that Nixon was Pontius Pilate.

The concept that the country was entirely against stopping Communism in Vietnam simply does not hold with the most accurate polls of all, the elections of 1960, 1962 1964, 1966, 1968 and 1972. In 1960, JFK took an aggressive stance on the Indochina question to avoid the "soft on Communism" label. Nixon had served under a President who had prided himself on keeping the country out of conflicts. Both candidates, however, were popular because of, not despite, their anti-Communist credentials.

In 1962 the Democrats made gains after having stood up to Communism in Cuba, and Kennedy's creation of the Green Berets was a popular, even romantic, vision of America taking the fight to Communists.

In 1964, Johnson was elected after having started the war at the Gulf of Tonkin. The revisionists would have you believe he was elected as a peacenik while Barry Goldwater's "extreme" military policies were rejected. Actually, Johnson had portrayed Goldwater as an Arizona version of Dr. Strangelove, but conventionally defeating Communism was still highly popular.

In 1966, the Republicans, led by Nixon's tireless campaigning, won huge off-year electoral victories not opposing the war, but offering a better plan to defeat Communism than the one Johnson had, which was already showing cracks. In 1968, Johnson announced he would not run during the Primaries. Johnson's decision was not based entirely on an overwhelming mandate by the Democrats to pull out of Vietnam. While the Eugene McCarthy and later Robert Kennedy factions of the party indeed were made up of a large anti-war constituency, the party was divided. Many Democrats continued to support the war, which was the nexus for the Chicago riots. Nixon (and Wallace's popularity) in the '68 general election certainly shows that the U.S. was not one big anti-war rally. In 1972, Nixon won big. The country was convinced that peace, not a Bull Run-style withdrawal but an honorable result that saved South Vietnam from the ravages of the Reds, was at hand, and it was. The 1972 Democrats were divided because many of them had honor and disagreed with George McGovern's withdrawal policy.

All of this occurred despite the best efforts of the slanted media to convince the country that we were losing in Vietnam, had no hope of winning, and that "everybody" agreed that this was the scenario.

One cannot watch documentaries about the "killing fields" without rehashing the words of Pinch's dad, Punch Sulzberger's, who said in 1964, "I am not sure that what we offer the Vietnamese peasant...is any better than what the Communists offer."

Tell that to the thousands of boat people who went through every possible kind of hell to come to our shores during and after the Democrats turned the Nixon-Kissinger victory into genocide.

President Eisenhower had said he could not "conceive of a greater tragedy for America than to get heavily involved" in Vietnam, but events of the early 1960s most likely would have forced his hand. Nixon was aggressive. Goldwater's words speak for themselves.

"I would have said to the North Vietnamese, by dropping leaflets out of B-52s, 'You quit the war in three days or the next time these babies come over they're going to drop some big bombs on you.' And I'd make a swamp out of North Vietnam...I'd rather kill a hell of a lot of North Vietnamese than one American and we've lost enough of them."

This rhetoric is considered the essence of right wing militarism, but in light of short, completely successful Republican wars in Grenada, the Persian Gulf and Iraq, is it so inconceivable that a massive strike early could have cut the war off before it escalated? Opinion on this matter is divided, but the opinion of the New York Times, CBS and even the estimable David Halberstam is not what I would consider the final, expert analysis on the subject.

The Vietnam experience was described as a "quagmire," a word the liberals fell in love with. They trot it out every time this country goes into conflict, but it never sticks. In Iraq and Afghanistan, they call the difficult administration of these nations a "quagmire," but forget that the circumstances have no comparison with Vietnam. In both situations, we have invaded countries, defeated armies and occupy capitals. In Vietnam we never invaded the north or occupied Hanoi. Today, we face no prospect of Communist monoliths from Russia and China joining the fight, which was a big part of the Vietnam equation. The more I read about Vietnam and compare the 1991 and 2003 wars, the more I am convinced we should have bombed, invaded and occupied Hanoi, then dictated winning terms, and that we should have done it early on.

When America swept aside the Taliban in about five minutes in 2001, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times wrote, "Many who came of age during the Vietnam War, wincing at America's overweening military stance in the world, are now surprised to find themselves lustily rooting for the overwhelming display of force against the Taliban."

First of all, the only people who "winced" over American militarism were liberals. The victory in Afghanistan surprised nobody on the conservative side of the aisle. Dowd and her cohorts were rooting against us, but jumped on the bandwagon in time for the parade.

J.W. Apple of the New York Times admitted that George Bush's prosecution of American forces on the side of good made him realize Vietnam could have been won, too. The Gulf War had been rife with images of civilian casualties and Red Cross buildings shot by American ordnance, but even in a country whose propaganda was controlled by Saddam, post-war analysis determined light civilian casualties and damage. All the editorials that warn of overarching American military might seem to be preceded by dire warnings about our "humiliating withdrawal from Vietnam," which is something like Neville Chamberlain's ancestors referring to "Winston Churchill's humiliating entrance into World War II."

Prior to the Afghan conflict that followed 9/11, a Berkeley professor named Mark Danner predicted an American defeat in the style of the British and the Soviets. His reasoning was based on certain events that, upon analysis, state all we really need to know about who is better at handling defense of this country. He cited the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, the Iranian hostage crisis, the Beirut bombings, and Mogadishu. Maybe Danner thought he had a bi-partisan list because he included Beirut in 1983, which was a terrorist act, not a war. The other events had little in common with each other, except they were all Democrat follies, and could be added to other wars that started badly because of Democrats. This included the Civil War (Democrats-turned-Confederates); World War I (the Germans waited nine years until the U.S. Republicans were out of office to attack); World War II (Roosevelt left the U.S. dangerously unprepared then let thousands die at Pearl so we could enter the war, instead of just showing leadership in the first place and joining with Churchill from a position of strength); and Korea (Truman's loss of China gave away much of what we had gained and encouraged Communist adventurism).

Danner went on to say that "defeating Al Qaeda would "require much greater power than America has shown itself to posses." It is a good thing Bush disagreed with Danner's now-shown-to-be-faulty-assessment. But was Danner's analysis faulty, or something worse? Was their treachery in his dire predictions?

Ann Coulter may be criticized for suggesting as much, and while technically Danner did not "commit the act of treason," he and many like him abet the shadowy hope of it in their continual barkings, their open antagonism of foreign policy that not only is in America's best interests, but frees thousands, sometimes millions of people from slavery.

Afghanistan was nothing compared to Iraq, however. Jimmy Carter and his crew came out of the woodwork to criticize the prospect of removing the worst despot on the face of the Earth from the Middle East, and giving freedom a chance to reign where only darkness heretofore had fallen. Carter's expert analysis on the Middle East was based on the Iranian hostage crisis (which some college historians had recently blamed not on him, but Eisenhower) and naming Andrew Young as Ambassador to the U.N. Young said of the Ayatollah Khomeini that he would "eventually be hailed as a saint." We are still waiting on word from the Vatican. In the mean time, Khomeini's grandson, a respected Muslim cleric, came to Iraq to praise the United States, pledging to coalesce moderate forces, work with us, and create a Democratic country.

American victories in the Middle East could be traced to Richard Nixon, who according to Henry Kissinger in "Diplomacy" had presented a "direct moral challenge" to the Soviet Union. Reagan had abandoned the "gradualism" of the Cold War and presented a "why not victory?" approach that carried over to three Middle East victories that form the backbone of the New World Order in this century.

When Reagan hard-lined Gorbachev over SDI at Reykjavik, the Left was shown to be quite clueless. Flora Lewis of the New York Times was astonished that Gorby had "concentrated practically all its propaganda on space defense," and that he "must have his own reasons." Time's cover story read, "Sunk by Star Wars." Countless liberal editorials and analyses referred to Reagan's mistakes, fumbles, errors, debacles and the general conviction that the greatest peace treaty since Appommatox had been lost because of a "colossal failure of leadership." These opinions, while not "treachery" in and of themselves, nevertheless reflected direct opposition to the stated aim and goals of the elected government of this nation. Given that a mere two year later those goals were shown to be the winning formula in one of the greatest victories ever achieved, an analysis of these analysts concludes that they were clueless, unpatriotic, or both.

When the Soviet archives broke open, along with the Venona cables demonstrating spies in the Communist wing of the Democrat party, reams and reams of confirmation came from the top Russian political, military and intelligence people answering Flora Lewis' question about Gorby's "own reasons" for letting SDI dominate his policy. The Soviets knew it could work, and Reagan used it to press our advantage all the way to the end.

Liberals who assess that Gorbachev won the Cold War for us are making an argument that makes about as much sense as saying that Robert E. Lee won the Civil War for the North. Ex-Communists and resistance fighters know better.

Reagan "is one of the most important figures of the 20th Century," said Ladislav Jakl, the founder of the Czech Society for Ronald Reagan. "My life in the last 10 years in a free country, it's mainly due to the work of Mr. President Reagan."

The film "MacArthur", starring Gregory Peck in the title role, begins with text that states that over 1 billion people were affected by MacArthur, his policies, leadership and military victories. In the song "Abraham, Martin and John", a liberal anthem of the 1960s, Abe Lincoln, Martin Luther King and John Kennedy are credited with "freeing a lot of people." Lincoln and King certainly freed their share. How many JFK freed is debatable. But Ronald Reagan deserves songs and movies about him, because he is responsible for the freedom of millions, too. Whittaker Chambers had predicted that Communism would triumph because Americans could not match their passion, but his analysis was wrong, too.

Communist "passions" ran amok during the Cultural Revolution and in the "killing fields," just to name a few. Its faults were too exposed to too many to be excused. Reagan and the conservatives matched the passion of the Left with an abiding love for freedom, and were convinced that they were doing God's work in defeating Communism. When Reagan began to talk about God, morality and the absolutes of good and evil, reporters wanted him to "clarify" his remarks. He came at a time in which the Soviets had been led to believe, by the liberal media, that the kind of "cowboy jingoism" of Reagan, which was precisely what was needed to defeat them, had died with Watergate. Just as the Democrats were surprised time after time by the Silent Majority, so too were the Communists.

Chambers was prescient in his statement that if America could prevail, it would not be through war, but through a belief in God. This is utterly anathema to liberals, and as long as they choose not to invest some faith in the prospect, they will never get it and they will keep losing.

Eleanor Clift of Newsweek was one of those liberals. She said the Cold War as some kind of CIA cover-up, implying that the Soviets were on the verge of losing all along. Langley had propped them up because we needed an enemy, concealing the facts from the doddering Reagan until the appropriate time (apparently when ex-CIA Director Bush was in the White House). She also said that a child was better off in Cuba than in the United States. Shortly thereafter, she shipped her own children to school in Havana. Not.

It was the liberals who were wrong. They had been propping up the Soviets through their loving tributes for years.

"The Soviet Union is going to remain a stable state, with very stable, conservative <italics added>, immobile government..." stated 35 Sovietologists assembled for a 1983 Harvard/Columbia/Cornell study. "We don't see any collapse or weakening of the Soviet system."

Meanwhile, in a bar in Los Angeles, California, I told my then-roommate, an undergraduate student-athlete at USC named Terry Marks, that I was not sure we could ever "defeat" Communism without going to war.

"Not so," said Terry, ordering another pitcher of beer. "We'll just outspend 'em and they'll collapse." Terry was a tough Irish Catholic kid from a family of 12 in upstate New York. He was weaned on common sense.

We drank beer, Reagan outspent 'em, and the Soviets collapsed. Terry went on to become the Godfather of my daughter, Elizabeth, and is sure to be the next president of Coca-Cola International.

But liberals like Walter Laqueur, chairman of the International Research Council at the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown said there was "no real solution" to the East/West "dilemma." Reagan infuriated these people by veering from their prescriptions both on the domestic and foreign policy fronts. He made a speech denouncing "Keynesian economics," which made the Left gasp, then moved beyond George Kennan's containment policies, which made them roar. Guys like Keynes and Kennan win the Nobel Peace Prize. Guys like Reagan won the Cold War.

When the Contras became a force in Central America, the Nicaraguan Sandinistas suddenly found new allies: American liberals. In an act that really and actually comes close to being worthy of a prison term for treason, Mike Farrell and his Hollywood pals hosted Sandinista Marxist leader Daniel Ortega at a star-studded Beverly Hills fund-raiser. They were willing to overlook his tirades against Zionists.

"I don't consider them a threat to my way of life, or the United States," commented Mrs. George Slaff, the wife of Beverly Hills' mayor. Of course not. Brave Americans had long ago died to secure America for Mrs. Slaff, but Communism was just fine for the "little brown brothers," as Ann Coulter wrote in "Treason". The usual Hollywood suspects at the Communist fund-raiser were praised for putting their careers on the line, when in fact the industry had gotten so Left wing that their actions could be interpreted as helpful to their careers. It was opposing Communism that put one in jeopardy by the 1980s.

The Sandinista-Contra conflict of the 1980s framed the beginnings of the Leftist statement, oft-repeated, that to oppose a Republican President is "not unpatriotic." They have been repeating this over and over for 20 years. To paraphrase Shakespeare, "The Democrats doth protest too much!"

The former Ku Klux Klansman, Senator Robert Byrd (D.-West Virginia), would go on to become the most powerful Democrat in the U.S. Senate. He did so on the basis of hate speech directed against Reagan and his efforts at fighting Central American Communism. Byrd is a typical example of how a filthy human being rises to great heights in the Democrat party, while actions that are not one-50th as bad will sink a Republican by virtue of strict G.O.P. self-policing.

Mary McGrory, who surely has no love for the KKK, could find nothing bad to say about Byrd, but when conservative commentator Pat Buchanan weighed in favor of the Contras she denounced his "ugly" tactics, such as urging that an ideology that killed 100 million be stopped. The Democrats just accused the right of "Red baiting," which is the same as "Nazi baiting" or "racist baiting." Telling the truth about liberal pet projects is "baiting."

The Reagan Administration's brilliant Iran-Contra operation bedeviled the Left. It ranked up there with Hiss, McCarthy, and Nixon - popular events that the American public supported but had to be destroyed by the Left. This time, the Left came close, and again inflicted some real damage to American foreign policy and prestige, but Reagan was too far along. He was winning and not even the liberals could beat him.

Liberals used Iran-Contra to denounce all of Reagan's anti-Communist policy. It was as if the mishandling of Chiang Kai-Shek in China in 1942 was just cause for dropping out of the entire Pacific war. Flora Lewis attacked U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick for stating in 1984 that, until Reagan, the Communists had major major expansions.

"Where?" Lewis asked.

Answer: South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, South Yemen, Libya, Syria, Aden, Congo, Madagascar, the Seychelles, Nicaragua and Grenada. Somehow these people labor under the myth that conservatives do not acquire facts, or more likely, that their dominant position in the media will overshadow said facts.

Surely all the millions of people who lived in these countries "chose" Communism. Of course, nobody ever "invited" Communist takeover, no Communist government had ever been Democratically elected, and wherever Communism gained a foothold it created their number one export, refugees to non-Communist countries. Walter Mondale said fighting Communism had "undermined our moral authority." Liberal protesters referred to Reagan as "Ronald Ray-gun," and made the point that "Russians love their children, too." They always called them the Russians, not the Soviets, especially when referring to all those children trapped inside their evil system.

Anthony Lewis of the New York Times thought Reagan was unable to handle "complex" issues, despised his "religiosity" and his "black-and-white characterizations." Would Lewis have despised Patton's "black-and-white" strategy of stopping the Nazis, at any cost, at Bastogne in December of 1944? Somehow, the answer to that question is not as simple as it might seem. If a Republican were President under modern political circumstances, Lewis might well have found criticism of it. The point is that Lewis and others like him, in voicing these un-American platitudes, may not have been committing treason, but they were providing cover for it. History has exposed them on this.

Lewis hated the fact that we outspent the Soviets and built up an enormous arsenal. Simply having it, in his view, was as bad as using it. He had no grasp of the "peace through strength" concept. Reagan's plan worked and nobody was killed, but that does not matter to Lewis. It would be like criticizing a student for studying too much for a test that demonstrated the person to be the best student in the class, because it was embarrassing to the rest of the class.

Reagan won the Cold War by ignoring decades of liberal advice and strategy. He did it, as Frank Sinatra would say, "his way." Liberals never wanted to win the Cold War in the first place. It might prove embarrassing to the Communists. Norman Mailer came out and said that in 1984, while researching "Harlot's Ghost", he traveled to Moscow and roamed freely, extolling the churches and the "inexpensive working economy" he saw during his stay. He stated that he saw no evidence of a police state, and used his short stay as evidence that Reagan's "evil empire" speech was mere propaganda. A guy as smart as Mailer would seemingly have realized that he was an international figure, known by the Soviets to be a liberal and at the time writing a book about the CIA that they hoped might be embarrassing to The Company (it really was not). Mailer walked around downtown Moscow, a tourist haven which was hardly representative of the gulag archipelago. He could not say he was not tailed and spied on, or that what he saw was not orchestrated for his benefit. Either way, a few days as a Moscow tourist did not make him Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

The Nobel Peace Price went not to Reagan, but Gorbachev. Not winning the Nobel has become a badge of honor among conservatives. Apparently an American President would have to lose a war and get a ton of people killed in order to be eligible for one.

Coulter wants to know if Democrat non-support for the 2003 Iraq War was unpatriotic. It certainly was political. Congress authorized Bush to use the military in Iraq in October of 2002, and plenty of Democrats voted with the Republicans. But once the November elections were over (and they were soundly beaten), the Democrats became the "loyal opposition." There were exceptions, like Joe Lieberman, but the lead-up, the actual war, and its aftermath seemed to usher a new era of spin and deception on their part.

The 1991 Persian Gulf War and the 2001-02 Afghan action were splendid successes, and nobody could deny them. The Democrats who opposed these actions faded into the woodwork, and many tried to jump on the bandwagon during the victory parade. But Iraq was different. The best explanation is that George W. Bush and the Republicans had strung together so many popular, successful accomplishments that the Left simply could not take it anymore. It was like the Hiss and Clinton affairs. If they admitted they were wrong (or at least that the Republicans were right) on this one, it would be the proverbial "final nail" in their coffin. It would hand one too many political victories to Bush. It would make him impregnable. It would make them irrelevant.

So the Democrats, as if the October Congressional resolution did not exist, refused to come on board. The ones who had voted for the war, unlike the 1991 Gulf War aftermath, tried to deny Bush (and America) its victory even after it had won its victory. It was as if the Commissioner of Football refused to hand the Super Bowl Trophy to an owner he was feuding with. The directive, written or not, was that the war had to be opposed even in its wake, because the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" theory only strengthened the Republicans (and America).

The Democrat strategy points to a fundamental aspect of what their party has become. This truth has existed for decades, but it is more pronounced now than ever. The party only benefits when America fails. The Democrats oppose victory in battle, which furthers U.S. interests, because it does not further Democrat interests. The Democrats oppose a good economy, which furthers U.S. interests, because it does not further Democrat interests. Defeat of Communism, which furthers U.S. (and the world's) interests, is opposed by the Democrats because it does not further Democrat interests.

Is this treachery? Is this unpatriotic? In a free country people have a lot of leeway. Calling it treason or unpatriotic is not helpful. Just pointing to it and saying res ipsa loquiter is more instructive, and gets the point across more thoroughly. It is a losing philosophy used by a losing political party. They have been losing lately, and in 2004 they will ride this philosophy to the most complete political defeat in American electoral history.

The Left pointed to European countries, namely Germany, France and Russia, who opposed military action, and to the U.N., who of course opposed it, and sided with them. They ignored the fact that these countries had sold arms and armaments of WMD to Iraq, that they had supplied Iraq with technical and political espionage, and that their opposition to the war was about protecting these secrets and continuing to make money doing business with Saddam.

"They have good reason to hate us," former President Clinton said of Muslim terrorists. "After all, we sent the Crusaders to try and conquer them." For a smart historian, this was one heck of a stupid remark. First, it fails to address the reality of the Crusades, which was ended in 1290 after "a bunch of Europeans responded aggressively to the sack of Jerusalem by a mob of Muslim savages," who "spent the prior several hundred years grabbing a lot of territory that wasn't theirs," wrote Coulter.

Furthermore, the Crusades had nothing to do with the U.S., and the U.S. was not "imposing" Christianity on them. Finally, what ever happened to the "rule," which George H.W. Bush adhered to in deference to Clinton, that former Presidents abstain from political criticism of their successors. Clinton and Carter obviously decided it does not apply to Democrats speaking ill of Republicans. Res ipsa loquiter.

Al Gore fell in love with the tired old terrorist-domino theory while ignoring the other "rule" which keeps losing Presidential candidates from criticizing the winners.

"What we represent to the world is empire," said Gore, and he is partly right. But Gore referred to the "old" empire of Britain and Rome, not to the spread of freedom, Democracy and market opportunity that is inherent in the New World Order. Gore said that in responding to terrorism aggressively, we were only making more enemies, and that we were inviting more terror as backlash. This ignores the fact that the U.S. under Clinton had done little to thwart terror. Bush certainly seemed to have more of a domestic agenda on the table than a big anti-terror military campaign planned. But Gore and the liberals seem to think that we were supposed to have shut it down after the 9/11 funerals, ride the sympathy of Europe, and let the guilty roam free. He seems to think that letting Osama bin Laden skate, and to tell Saddam that he could build his weapons and orchestrate with terrorists with impunity, would not have resulted in further attacks against us because we would have been seen as nice guys. The most hypocritical side of the liberal argument, however, is that if Bush had not responded as he did, the Democrats would have been on him even worse than they are now. At least under those circumstances the Left would have been in the right, which this historian would identify as some truly groundbreaking history!

When Bush linked Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the "axis of evil," a brilliant move inspired by Reagan's "evil empire" speech, his critics complained that the three countries had little in common with each other. This made as much sense as saying that the Axis Powers of World War II, Germany, Japan and Italy, were not threats because they had little in common with each other. Or that only two of the Central Powers of World War I, Germany and Austria, but not Turkey, had much in common. When the question of war in Iraq came to a head, the Left then said that if we were to attack Iraq, then we should attack North Korea. When it suited their purposes, they found something "in common" between Saddam and Kim Jong-Il.

The liberals made fools out of themselves, essentially saying that, "Saddam has no weapons of mass destruction and if we attack him he'll use his weapons of mass destruction." In the war's victorious aftermath, they chose to give Saddam the benefit of the doubt on WMD over Bush. In this they come very close to treason, and very definitely exhibit lack of patriotism. A great American victory is hateful to these people.

They never give any credence to the numerous possibilities that still exist regarding WMD in Iraq, choosing instead to brand Bush a liar and hope the issue stays alive until 2004. Saddam knew if he used WMD the Americans would still defeat him and he would lose his edge with his Leftist allies. He hid them, first from inspectors, then from American troops, in places that will take a long while to find them. He could have destroyed them, but that is not likely. What he definitely wanted to do was embarrass George Bush, knowing Western liberalism would not let him down, and they have not. Treason? Maybe yes, maybe not.

Either way, it is not a very impressive liberal performance, and the voting public is watching. Robert Scheer, who is not just liberal and unpatriotic, but has genuinely favored North Korea over the United States since the 1970s, has been their biggest defender. Clinton and Carter offered absolutely no helpful advice, and continually offered their hopes and dreams, which any thinking strategist could quickly identify as not being in the best interests of the nation they once took oaths to "protect and defend." Teddy Kennedy said we should concentrate not on Iraq but North Korea, but once Bush took care of Iraq Kennedy no longer wanted to take care of North Korea. Their political lies are breathtaking.

Woody Harrelson once backed weekend traffic up on the Golden Gate Bridge for hours so he could demonstrate the value of pot smoking. He glorified hardcore pornography as the most important of Constitutional freedoms. His brother is a murderer (which gives he and Jesse Jackson something to talk about). He came out and said he was "tired of lies," as if there was some kind of alternate Universe in which things he said were not lies. He claimed that the attack on Iraq was part of a conservative conspiracy to wipe out "non-white" nations. Keep smokin', Woodrow.

Harrelson described Christopher Columbus as the spreader of white genocide, racism and the spread of European diseases (giving no credit for spreading the greatest religious and philosophical ideas in the history of the world) and said Americans were "stupid" for being so mad about 9/11. Yellow ribbons and flags were a "scourge" on the countryside.

My former editor at the San Francisco Examiner said after 9/11 he put a flag up, as if that made up for a lifetime of liberalism. I told him putting a flag up was never a bad thing, but he just thinks his right to tell me what to think (a free press) is more important than my right to vote.

Actress Jessica Lange denounced it as "un-Constitutional, immoral and illegal" war. Whether it was immoral or not could fall under the rubric of "opinion," but the fact that it was Constitutional and legal simply falls within...the facts.

"I hate Bush, I despise him and his entire administration," said Lange.

Susan Sarandon predicted that "thousands" would die, but that did not happen. She questioned what the plan was, and said we were going in "blind." The plan was highly, precisely and to quintessential effect that with which actually happened: "Shock and awe" followed by a quick, decisive victory, the overthrow of Saddam, the liberation of Iraq, and the very hard work of turning Iraq into a secure, Democratic country that the Middle East can look at and say, "Maybe there is another way" other than terrorism and anarchy. This part of the plan can be summed up as the administration of the country, the re-building of the infrastructure, clean-up operations against terrorists and rogue fighters, the capture of remaining Saddam cronies and family, and the creation of a government with the aim toward free elections. This perfectly describes exactly what has and continues to happen in Iraq, a place that is still dangerous and difficult, but is going according to plan. It would be nice if people would support the tough job we have endeavored to undertake instead of undermining it. Treachery? Probably not. Unpatriotic? It is just my opinion, I am conservative and take it with a grain of salt, but, hey, c'mon, it is.

Janeane Garofalo said, "Dropping bombs on the Iraqis is not going to disarm Saddam." It sure did not do him any good. Later she said Afghanistan was a "failure" (apparently other than freeing Kabul, sending Osama on the run, plus all the other good things). She said there was no reason to go after terrorism (other than 9/11, the USS Cole, the Khobar Barracks, and other acts). She said there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction (other than the evidence which takes up many pages earlier in this book). Is it possible to take her seriously?

Singer Sheryl Crow said war is not the answer (other than, as Ann Coulter points out, "ending slavery, Fascism, Soviet totalitarianism, but other than that it has a limited repertoire.")

The "best way to solve problems is to not have enemies," Crow announced.

Sean Penn's ad in the Washington Post begged Bush to "help save America before yours is a legacy of shame and horror." After the war was won in record time with minimal casualties, Penn was not heard from. Bush may win 50 states in 2004. Penn recounted the "bitter experience" of his father dealing with McCarthyism, which ravaged his career and family so much that he went on to a brilliant directorial career ("Bonnie and Clyde") and raised his sons, Sean and Chris, in the exclusive Communist enclave of Malibu.

Various celebrities like Madonna spoke of karma and "cycles of violence," as if the 9/11 hijackers had nothing to do with cycles of violence. George Clooney claimed to have inside CIA information. What a surprise, it was not favorable to Bush. Richard Gere asked why their was so much "personal enmity" between Bush and Saddam (other than Saddam's attempt to assassinate his father in Kuwait in 1993). Dustin Hoffman was one of those guys who got it kind of right without realizing it when he said the war, aside from being "reprehensible," was about "hegemony, money, power and oil."

In reality, the answer to that is, "You say that like it is a bad thing." Of course it was, along with many other good reasons. The Iraq War was very much about American hegemony, which is the only good kind in the world today. We must be powerful, influential and have prestige in a part of the world where, if we are not, it can explode and have terrible ramifications in every corner of the globe. To say that oil is anything less than highly important is completely insane. Hoffman's statement is the crux of liberalism. He recognizes the truth. He just does not like it. Liberals do not want America to be powerful and in control, but offer no alternative. If the U.S. were to lose its power and prestige at this point, many of the victories of the 20th Century would be lost. The Left simply fails to see things from the standpoint of global realism. Viewed from that lens, the world is a dangerous, radically disordered place. The United States has emerged as the single country best able to maintain stability. Furthermore, and this point cannot be made more plainly, America wields its power more wisely and with greater judiciousness than any power ever has.

Michael Moore could only say that the U.S. has orphaned thousands of children with "taxpayer-funded terrorism." Moore does not seem to want or is able to see that America has done more for orphaned, poor, starving kids than any country ever has. He simply is not able to, or is unwilling to (although he is not actually stupid) understand the context in which many kids have been orphaned by American bombs. He would view the "Christmas bombing" of 1972, for instance, as a wholly terrorist act. He is unable to view something like in light of the need to keep Communism from spreading to South Vietnam. He places no blame on the mass murderers of history, saying only that they did what they did, and apparently were justified in doing so, because America "made them do it."

Many conservatives who dismiss them as "idiots" or, of course, "useful idiots", put down Moore and his mindset. The former term does not apply. The latter does. The Hollywood Senator in "The Manchurian Candidate" says Johnny Iselin (the McCarthy character) is not a buffoon, but rather a dangerous person. I look at Moore and those who think like him, and I am perplexed. How dangerous he is, I am not sure. There is no evidence that people who think like him are close to getting power. Jimmy Carter, in his later years, expressed views that were not far from Moore's, but he was unable to act on these instincts as President.

This is an important point. Power and the practical necessities of governmental politics make Moore's style of liberalism all-but impossible to practice in an official capacity. That is the good news. Carter had people like Andrew Young, who were "fellow travelers" of Moore six days of the week and twice on Sunday, but Young had to be fired. When liberals govern, they quickly learn that all the things they hated about the Establishment are essential. That is why conservatives govern better. They come in with open eyes and are not pre-disposed to hate but they now are in control of.

Conservatives also govern better because, in America, they view history as a beautiful story. What perplexes me is how liberals can see the same story and react with such disdain. We are near the end of a long history book that has attempted to come to grips with such questions. The study of anarchism, as embodied by Rousseau, Thoreau and Emma Goldman, is a powerful strain that will always run through society. Why it is powerful is beyond me. I can understand Nazism and Communism. They were pure ideologies carried to extremes. Their messages were aimed at populations that wanted to be told that they were better, were not to blame, the enemy had been identified and would be punished, and that government would solve all their problems. Hitler and Stalin believed that man would give up freedom for security. They both offered that.

But anarchism offers no practical solutions. Goldman thought a government run by anarchists would consist of volunteers who would do good deeds because human nature was inherently good. In some respects, this is part of the liberal mystique, and in a way it is sweet. It is dangerous, however, because it allows for such gullibility, and within the framework of politics and the two-party system, the liberals, frustrated and marginalized, have felt the need to create an enemy. Their enemy is conservatism. Seeing that the world is not and apparently never will be one big Peace Corps, they are now embittered anarchists, and hell hath no fury like an embittered anarchist scorned.

My efforts at dissecting liberalism are not meant to put liberalism down. I look at the overweight Moore, dispensing his vitriol at all that is dear to me, and I must reach down and find my Christian center to feel something other than hate for him. In the end, I can see that at some level he means well. There is no value in demonizing him. I suppose in trying to "understand" him I am involving myself in the moral relativism that I have tried to break down throughout history. But Moore is not a terrorist, and I cannot help but think about something former baseball manager Leo Durocher once said: "I might disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death you're right to say it."

The problem is that a lot of good Americans have died to defend Moore's right to speak, and he seems not to understand or appreciate it. When good Americans die for the right of foreigners to be free, Moore sees only darkness and deceit. He hides behind the Constitution. The Constitution may have been written just for that purpose, but I find it distasteful nevertheless.

When Moore laughed at people on the hi-jacked 9/11 planes and called them cowards for not fighting back, expressing horror that the terrorists had killed Democrats (the majority in New York) instead of, say, Republicans at the Mutual of Omaha building in Nebraska, he crossed the line. The author of "Stupid White Men" had become his title. For somebody to write a book with that title in a world kept safe precisely because white men are smart enough to create the technology that makes us powerful and safe is ridiculous.

Norman Mailer has become a pen pal of mine. He knows what a conservative I am but respects my honesty. I have been in communication with him about turning "Harlot's Ghost" into a screenplay. Mailer told me my desire for "empire" would take America on a terrible path, and that my theory that God has charged us with the task is "vanity." I replied that my view of empire is not the same as the British. My view that God has given us the mission is not vanity but responsibility, to be fused with humility and a hope to accomplish the task within "term limits" that do not leave the task open-ended.

I have found Mailer to be introspective and honest, too. He gets in trouble shooting from the hip, but I respect him. He said during the Iraq War that the destroyed World Trade Center was "more beautiful than the building was," that we were the "most hated nation on Earth," and that we fought the war because white males needed to win something after years of seeing blacks and Latinos dominate sports. When questioned on these comments, he demonstrated that he was being satirical. Mailer said Bush planned to make "China the Greece to our Rome." Not a bad idea, Norman.

Washington's Democrat Senator Patty Murray said that Osama bin Laden was popular because he built schools, roads, day care, infrastructure, and "made their lives better. We have not done that." Is there anything to say to that?

Harry Belafonte was such a victim of McCarthyism that he went on to become a multi-millionaire. He has used that status to rant against the right for years. He was shilling for terrorists and dictators as much in 2003 as he had been for Communists in the "good old days."

Ann Coulter described a psychiatrist's evaluation of the anarchist Ezra Pound, the anti-war protestor of World War II: "What is unquestionably the most outstanding feature of his personality is his profound, incredible, over-weaning narcissism." This seems to be a very simple explanation, yet the evaluation of Pound is so easily transferred to these Hollywood stars.

As the country prepared for war, celebrities described how their voices of dissent were being stifled. They described this on Entertainment Tonight, Sean Hannity's program, Leno and Letterman, and in any and all other forums of free expression. When the American Legion did not throw them a parade they acted as if being worshipped was their Constitutional right. They determined that sensible people disagreeing with them was tantamount to accusations on un-Americanism. Tim Robbins congratulated himself on his courage. Was Sean Penn allowing himself to be used by Saddam as a photo/op treason? Was Woody Harreslon talking about "American lies" unpatriotic?

The bad news is that unpatriotic liberals dominate the dominant media culture and all aspects of the education system. The good news is that this is changing. As Satchel Paige used to say, "Don't look back, somethin' might be gainin' on ya." Well, conservatives are making their moves in the media, and there is no stopping us. Maybe, just maybe, God is on our side.

Our National Pastimes

According to legend, it started in a pasture in Cooperstown, New York in 1839. U.S. Army officer Abner Doubleday (later a Civil War hero), whose specialties were surveying, mapping and planning construction sites, apparently laid out a baseball diamond. The National Pastime was born. Later, the Doubleday story was refuted. Baseball came to America in bits and pieces, mostly emanating from the English sports of rounders and cricket, but the Hall of Fame was erected in Cooperstown anyway.

Union soldiers played baseball during the war. The first professional team was the Cincinnati Red Stockings, who went undefeated in 1869. The National League was formed in 1876, the American League in 1901.

Football started out as rugby, and in the late 19th Century became popularized under the "American rules" at East Coat colleges like Rutgers, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. The game was so violent that deaths piled up. The government had to enforce rules to make it safer.

Prior to World War I, professional baseball players were looked down upon by the upper classes. They were uneducated, chewed tobacco, drank heavily, consorted with gamblers and were not to be trusted with women. Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants was the first "role model" hero. An All-American from Bucknell, Matty was handsome, intelligent and upright. He was one of the greatest pitchers in history. He won 373 games for John McGraw's Giants, including three shutouts in the 1905 World Series against Connie Mack's Philadelphia A's. Mathewson was a tragic figure who joined the Army when World War I broke out, was exposed to mustard gas, and died from its effects a few years later.

The National League, known as the "senior circuit," was joined by the American League in 1901. In 1903 the first World Series was played between the Boston Pilgrims (later Red Sox) and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Boston surprised the baseball world by winning, but in 1904 McGraw refused to play his Giants against Mack's A's because the A.L. was a "busher league."

It was only 40 years after the Civil War when Ty Cobb entered the Major Leagues with Detroit in 1906. Cobb was the product of a wealthy Georgia family. His father was a state Senator. The father had gone on a business trip, but suspected Cobb's mother was having an affair. He snuck in through the bedroom window to catch her in the act, and was shot dead. The story was that she thought he was a burglar, but it was theorized that she was with another man, who murdered him, then covered it up with the burglar story. Cobb was devastated by the event. His psychological make-up was forever shaped not just by his idolized father's violent death, but the knowledge or suspicion that his mother had cheated on him, then killed him.

Cobb was met by enmity from the Northerners on the Tigers. He was described as "still fighting the Civil War," coming up from the South with a "chip on his shoulder." He was a violent racist, as was another star player of the late 19th Century, Cap Anson. Cobb was a remarkable player, though. He hit .367 lifetime with over 4,000 hits, revolutionizing the game. His violent temper, racism, and murderous rages, however, forever stained his legacy. Cobb may have been an intellectual genius, however. He became a manipulator of the stock market on a par with Joseph P. Kennedy, making millions when the country was in Depression. He never found happiness or peace, dying alone and unloved.

In 1912, the Boston Red Sox were led by a dashing young superpitcher named "Smoky Joe" Wood, who won over 30 games. Wood bested Mathewson in game seven of the World Series. The Mayor of Boston attached himself to the Red Sox, to his great political benefit. His nickname was "Honey Fitz". He was John Kennedy's grandfather on his mother's side.

Also in 1912, an American Indian named Jim Thorpe swept the pentathlon (today this would be the decathlon) at the Stockholm Olympics. King Gustav of Sweden told him he was the greatest athlete in the world.

"Thanks, King," said Thorpe.

At that same Olympics, a young Army officer, George Patton failed to medal in the modern pentathlon, which was a different event involving the firing of guns.

When America entered World War I, many baseball players served in the Army. The game was expected to revitalize morale after the war ended in 1918. Instead, it was embroiled in the worst controversy in its history.

Charles Comiskey was the tight-fisted owner of the World Champion Chicago White Sox. He cheated his players out of bonuses and paid them the minimum, even though the White Sox had a number of star performers. Eight White Sox players were approached by gamblers associated with a million-dollar bookie named Arnold Rothstein, agreeing to "throw" the 1919 World Series against the underdog Cincinnati Reds. After losing the Series, the "fix" was discovered. The players were charged. In 1920, they were all acquitted, and expected to go back to their team, which was at the time in first place again. But the new Commissioner of Baseball, Kennesaw Mountain Landis, banned them from the game for life on the grounds that the game could not afford a whiff of scandal. One of the banned players was "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, an ignorant South Carolina farmboy who was said to be too dim to have understood the concept of "throwing" the Series. Jackson got his nickname because as a boy he supposedly played without shoes, but the legend of his lack of intelligence was exaggerated. Jackson knew about the gamblers, but did not report it. He played hard, obviously not trying to lose. His ban from the game is steeped in tragedy and legend. Today many lobby that he should be post-humously admitted to the Hall of Fame. I vote that Jackson should be in.

The game was really saved by Babe Ruth, who was traded by the Red Sox to the Yankees prior to the 1920 season. Ruth had grown up in a bar in Baltimore, where his father was the saloonkeeper. He was an incorrigible youth, sent to an orphanage, where he learned to play baseball. He was the best left-handed pitcher in baseball with the Red Sox, who he led to two World Championships. Boston owner Harry Frazee, in order to finance a Broadway play called "No, No Nanette", sold Ruth along with several stars to the Yankees, who in their previous history had been an average team. Ruth transformed them into the greatest juggernaut in sports history. The Red Sox have never won a World Series since. This fact has been attributed by Beantowners to the "Curse of Babe Ruth."

Baseball, seeing the excitement created by Ruth's home run hitting, "juiced" the ball prior to 1920 and outlawed spitballs. During the Roaring '20s, Ruth was bigger than life. Yankee Stadium, the "House That Ruth Built," was erected. Ruth set career and single-season home run records. To this day he is arguably considered the greatest baseball player and athlete of all time. This subjective title is tempered by his drinking, his overweight physique, the fact that he did not compete against black players, and the sleek athleticism of later stars like Willie Mays and Barry Bonds. But Ruth still holds the "title" for two reasons. For one, his status as a star pitcher before becoming a slugger on the greatest teams in baseball cannot be matched. While others have broken his records, nobody ever stood as far above their contemporary competition as Ruth did. He revolutionized his sport more thoroughly than any athlete.

After World War I, football became a very popular sport, too. Previously, it had been relegated to the Ivy League crowd, but it became all the rage across the country. Doughboys who started college in their 20s took to the game in order to get their aggressions out. The first great team was the University of California Golden Bears, known as the "Wonder Teams".

Notre Dame University, a tiny Catholic school in South Bend, Indiana, had put their name on the map in 1913 when their end, Knute Rockne, devised a new play called the forward pass, which was used to defeat the mighty Army Cadets.

In the 1920s, Notre Dame began to travel about the country, taking on a barnstorming quality. Catholics flocked to their games and took to the team as their own. They became known as "Subway Alumni." Notre Dame traveled to Los Angeles to play Stanford in Pasadena's new Rose Bowl, and the University of Southern California in the new L.A. Memorial Coliseum. Following the USC game, a USC student manager named Gwynn Wilson asked coach Knute Rockne if he would like to set up a series home-and-home games with Southern Cal. Rockne said that he was taking a lot of heat from the Notre Dame administration for traveling so much, which took away from the players' school work. Wilson then went to Rockne's wife and asked her how she felt about it. Mrs. Rockne thoroughly enjoyed the California weather and shopping on Beverly Hills' trendy Rodeo Drive. She told Wilson she would insist on making the series a regular thing. When informed of his wife's desires, Rockne, who knew who the boss in his family was, agreed to the series. Thus, the USC-Notre Dame intersectional rivalry was born. The games were sellouts that drew national interest, and turned football into the popular sport that it is today.

University of Illinois running back Harold "Red" Grange thrilled fans with his exploits. His nickname was the "Galloping Ghost". He was signed to play professionally in the new National Football League, and drew capacity crowds to games in Chicago's Soldier Field, thus ensuring the success of the NFL.

Blacks were not allowed to play professional sports, but on the West Coast they played on integrated high school and college teams. Southern Cal's first All-American football player in the 1920s was black. Baseball's Negro Leagues produced some star performers, namely Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and "Cool Papa" Bell, who was said to be so fast he could "turn the switch and be in bed before the lights went out." Over the years, baseball has attempted to create various "all-time all-star teams" and anoint "greatest player" titles to various players. As Negro League lore became more and more known, it has become commonly understood that some of the Negro League stars were better than their white Major League counterparts. All-time all-star teams that once included catchers like Bill Dickey, Mickey Cochrane and Johnny Bench now replace these players with the likes of Gibson, a home run slugger who, if he had played in the big leagues, would have challenged Ruth's home run records. It is a worthy argument that all-time pitching staffs that include Walter "Big Train" Johnson of the Washington Senators could substitute him for Paige, who gave us homilies like "never eat fried foods, it stirs up the blood."

The Negro League players barnstormed in the Winter, occasionally playing Major League all-star teams even up (or better). In the 1930s they traveled to Latin America. Tin pot dictators, eager to distract the masses from their repressive regimes, created baseball teams to entertain the people. The reason baseball is so popular in Latin America is because of the Negro League stars who brought the game there.

Sports and politics mixed when the Olympics were held in Berlin in 1936. The Germans used the world stage to display the facade of clean streets, a crimeless society, and the myth of Aryan physical supremacy. Adolph Hitler's display was almost successful, as German athletes performed remarkably. The image was broken up when African-American track star Jesse Owens of Ohio State dominated the sprint events.

German-U.S. sports rivalry preceded the war in boxing, too, where Max Schmelling defeated another African-American, Joe Louis. Many white Americans had rooted for the German over Louis, but when they fought a re-match, the Germans had begun aggressive military moves in preparation for invasion of Eastern Europe. Americans now backed Louis, a major turning point in race relations. When Louis knocked Schmelling to the canvas, he became a national hero and a god to his people.

Baseball star Lefty O'Doul had led barnstorming teams to Japan in the 1930s, where crowds of fans who took to the game received him as a star. Crowds yelled "Bonsai" while watching O'Doul and his mate's display their considerable skills. After World War II, O'Doul returned to U.S.-occupied Japan, where the citizenry was depressed by the experience of defeat in the war. His baseball exhibitions were a major part of reviving morale in Japan as the country picked itself up and became a member of the family of nations again. Brooklyn Dodger owner Walter O'Malley and others took teams to Tokyo to play exhibitions. The game became as popular in Japan as it is in America.

When World War II broke out, many Major League stars joined the Armed Forces. The most prominent of these was Ted Williams, a Southern Californian who had joined the Red Sox, hit .406 in 1941, and was considered the equal of Ruth as a hitter. Williams joined the Marines and became a fighter plot. After the war, he returned to baseball, winning Triple Crowns and MVP awards. When Korea broke out, he went back to the Marines, where he was John Glenn's wingman. Williams was a conservative Republican who made his opinions known, causing enmity among the liberal Kennedytites in the Boston media. His heroics, when compared to the liberal lies of his detractors, speak for themselves.

After Pearl Harbor, the Rose Bowl was moved to North Carolina. The Major Leagues debated shutting the game down. President Roosevelt urged them to keep playing for the sake of American morale. Joe DiMaggio was a superstar center fielder for the Yankees. Like Williams, he was a California native, and he became an enormous hero to Italian-Americans, who were perceived as being either mobsters or Mussolini Fascists. DiMaggio's hero status was protected by the New York media, but unlike the hero Williams he was closer to the Italian stereotype than his fans would have wanted to know. DiMaggio regularly hung out with New York Mafiosi.

Williams and DiMaggio represented an enormous influx of talented athletes from California. Theories even made their way around that the warm weather and the oranges somehow created bigger, faster athletes. There may be some validity to it. California indeed was populated by more physically able humans than the rest of the world. Originally, only the strongest and most fit braved the cross-country trip to California, so their offspring tended to be more physically impressive than other places. The weather created a population of people who played sports and performed outdoor activities on a year-round basis. Hollywood brought a new generation of impressive physical specimens to the state. Over time, handsome men marrying and having children with beautiful women produced athletic children. Sports became a way of life on the West Coast.

Over the years, no other state has produced more athletes than California. In 1976, if the University of Southern California had been a country, they would have placed third in the medals count at the Montreal Olympics.

California also was a more tolerant place than the rest of the country. In the late 1930s, a black athlete named Jackie Robinson rose to prominence there. Robinson prepped at Muir High School in Pasadena, where he starred in baseball, basketball, football, track and was L.A. city tennis champion. He moved on to UCLA, a state school that in its short history was dominated by its prestigious cross-town rival, USC. Robinson and another black star, Kenny Washington, put UCLA on the map, defeating the Trojans in football for the first time. Robinson ran track and played baseball, too. When the war broke out, he became an officer. In an incident at a Georgia Army base that foreshadowed the Rosa Parks incident, Robinson refused to give up his seat on a bus, and was court-martialed. He stood up for himself and was acquitted. After the war, he played professionally in the Negro Leagues when he was chosen by Dodger president Branch Rickey to break the color barrier.

Other Negro Leaguers like Paige and Josh Gibson had been passed up because Rickey was looking for just the right kind of player and person to handle the rigorous challenge ahead. Robinson possessed all the criteria. He was a superior player, but he was also a college man and an Army officer; handsome, articulate and dignified, with a lovely wife and young family. Brooklyn, a true melting pot, was the perfect place for the "experiment" to take place. Robinson was told that he had to be "man enough not to fight back" against his combative instincts.

His first few years in the league were grueling and excruciating, but he continued to triumph. Fans booed, called him by the "n-word," and threw black cats on the field. Other teams razzed him, threw at him and spiked him. Robinson refrained from punching his foes, but used other methods; thrown elbows, upturned spikes, bunts down the first base line resulting in body blows to offending pitchers.

When an entire stadium turned on him, Dodger shortstop Pee Wee Reese, who hailed from Louisville, Kentucky, went to Robinson and put his arm around him. It was a beautiful gesture. Robinson was a great player who became the first black in the Hall of Fame. His integrity and leadership qualities on the famed "Boys of Summer" teams, embodied by Roger Kahn's book, allowed blacks to integrate into baseball and other sports. Had the Robinson experiment "failed," it could have pushed back integration for years.

Robinson was a Connecticut Republican who backed Richard Nixon, although he withdrew his support when Nixon failed to intervene to get Martin Luther King out of jail in 1960. His son had problems coping with the pressure of being an icon's child, and Jackie himself succumbed to a heart attack in 1972, long before his time.

Following Robinson, black and Hispanic players became not just allowed to play, but dominant among the hierarchy of stars. The last vestige of sports integration was college football. In the 1950s, USC traveled to Texas with an integrated team. Their black running back ran for over 200 yards in the first half, leading the Trojans to a victory. The final nail in the coffin of segregation occurred in 1970. USC went to play the University of Alabama at Legion Field. SC, the dominant college football power in the nation under John McKay, had a roster filled with black stars. Alabama under Bear Bryant was still all white. SC's black sophomore running back, Sam "Bam" Cunningham, ran for over 200 years and four touchdowns in a 42-21 victory. When the game was over, Bryant went to his friend McKay and asked if he could "borrow" Cunningham. He took Cunningham into the losing locker room, placed him in front of the 'Bama team, and announced, "Boys, this here's what a football player looks like."

The next day, legendary Los Angeles Times sports columnist Jim Murray wrote, "We ratified the Constitution yesterday and welcomed Alabama into the Union." Bryant quickly filled his roster with black football players. The rest of the South followed suit. Within a few short years, blacks commonly populated not just football rosters but every aspect of college life in Dixie, including the cheerleading squads.

The Olympics also were a forum for politics and social change. In 1924, the Games were held in Paris, signaling peace in Europe after World War I. In 1932, Los Angeles "introduced" itself to the world as the city of the future by hosting the Olympics. In 1936, Germany used the Games to showcase themselves, and in 1948 London demonstrated peace in Europe, again. In 1960, the U.S. hockey team, comprised of college players, defeated the Soviets, comprised of world class professionals, at Squaw Valley, California. That same same year, UCLA decathlon star Rafer Johnson defeated his Bruin teammate, C.K. Yang, along with a Soviet decathlete, in a thrilling competition in Rome. Tokyo used the 1964 Games to show that they were a trustworthy country again. Germany attempted to do the same in 1972. The Black September wing of the PLO put a crimp in those plans. Jimmy Carter pulled the U.S. out of the 1980 Soviet Olympics after the Russians invaded Afghanistan, and the U.S.S.R. retaliated by not sending a delegation to L.A. in 1984 (the most successful Olympics ever held). In the 1980 Winter Games held at Lake Placid, New York, the Americans, again consisting of untested collegians, defeated the Soviets, considered the best team in the world (professionals, all of NHL caliber) in what was dubbed the "miracle on ice." In 2008, Beijing, China will no doubt try to put a happy face on their withering Communism.

Baseball expanded to the West Coast in 1958 when the Dodgers and Giants took their ancient rivalry to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Basketball became highly popular in the 1960s, developing into an urban art form dominated by black athletes like Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson. Amazingly, in the 21st Century, the new superstars of basketball are no longer American blacks. The end of the Cold War has revealed a treasure trove of basketball wunderkinds from Croatia, Lithuania, Serbia and other Eastern European nations.

Television changed the face of sports, and cable television even more so. College basketball's Final Four has become one of the most wildly popular institutions in the world. There is so much money in professional sports now that the athletes are the new economic titans of a gilded age. Gambling in Las Vegas and on the Internet has added a startling dimension to sports popularity. Even college baseball, once a lazy weekend activity for true fans, features its popular College World Series showcased on ESPN.

The Super Bowl is now a worldwide event. American sports have captivated every corner of the globe. In many ways, the charisma of American athletes, teams and their personas - colors, logo, symbols - have cemented the United States as the most influential of all nations.

American superstars like Barry Bonds, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Joe Montana are household names everywhere. It is not uncommon to go into a bar in Germany and hear Germans argue the relative merits of the Packers vs. the Cowboys. Sports has integrated society, made millionaires out of peasants, created rivalries, city pride, and identity, and transformed the landscape of entertainment.

CHAPTER SIX

"LET'S ROLL"

"Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war. We know that God is not neutral between them."

\- President George W. Bush, September 20, 2001

When I was a kid, my relatives from England would come to visit. I was regaled with stories about how much better educated Europeans were than Americans. To be perfectly honest, I was starting to get an inferiority complex about it. Watching "Patton" and simply absorbing truthful facts about America steered me away from that garbage, but I still harbored the general notion that Americans were less informed and not as well educated.

Then I went to Europe on my own, for the first time. I traveled around, like any recent college graduate does. New York, Washington, D.C., then England and France. A few years later, I actually lived in Europe for a whole year, when I was recruited to manage a baseball team in Berlin. I discovered that my relatives were all wet. The perception many Americans have of Europeans is of the wealthy, educated elites who come to America on vacation. They usually speak English (leading us to conclude we are Dumbellionites because we do not speak foreign languages). When you travel to Europe, and especially when you actually live there an extended time, you see that there are bums, Dumbellionites, slackers, ne'r'do'wells and assorted riff-raff, just as there are here. Their citizenry is not better educated than ours. In fact, they are less informed.

Europeans are more cloistered in their worldview. Americans live in a country that, like it or not, basically rules the world. World news is part of our culture. This leads me to an assessment of American youth. Television shows and pop culture - MTV, reality TV, Britney Spears, Eminem, Korn - combined with a real trip to a typical American high school, where girls dress like porn actresses, guys cruise around on skateboards with loose pants showing the crack of their butt, with stupid ski caps on their heads in 90-degree weather, leads one to the "inevitable" conclusion that our youth are hopeless slackers. Our future has gone to "hell in a handbasket" with them.

After 9/11, this country faces new challenges, not unlike what America faced after Pearl Harbor. The reaction of many of us old geezers (anybody over 30) is that "these kids" are not up to the task. This is an absolute falsehood. First of all, older generations have been saying that about each succeeding generation since forever.

During the Roaring '20s, old folks thought the flappers were slackers. After World War II, no generation could hope to compete. The high school kids of the 1950s were crazed on Elvis Presley, swinging around and gyrating to that "Negro music." The Christian ministry exhorted the populace to censor such Satanic rituals. (Elvis, by the way, was a fine Republican who offered his services to Richard Nixon to root out Communists in the entertainment industry.)

Kids in the 1960s were considered unpatriotic, longhaired rabble. The children of the 1970s were probably the least impressive of all generations. They were longhaired rabble like their '60s predecessors, but lacked the political passions, misguided as they might have been.

For the better part of 10 to 15 years, the Baby Boomers have been replaced by something called Generation X. They are a misunderstood lot. My status as an expert on the subject stems from the fact that my daughter is one of them. Kids will surprise you. They know more than you think and are not as dumb as they seem. It has always been that way.

America is the same. My point is that something really incredible happens to our children between the age of 18 and 30. They grow up. Everybody grows up, but Americans really grow up. There is no country in the world in which the contrast between 18-year olds and 30-year olds is as great as in America. Somehow, for reasons I cannot truly put my finger on, kids go from being slackers with stinking pants half way down their backsides to informed, impressive, productive members of society by age 30. They are up to the challenges facing this country in the new century.

This book has posed the question, Is God on our side? It has answered that question with the notion that He is. Larkin Spivey, a decorated Marine Corps officer and respected military professor, wrote a book called "God In The Trenches", in which Spivey shows when the nation's survival seemed uncertain, even doubtful, fate seemed to turn America's way, sometimes miraculously. Some of these events include Spivey's theories about how:

• An unopened note changed the course of the Revolutionary War.

• A phantom attack caused George Washington to win a decisive battle.

• The "unluckiest" incident in wartime history led to freedom for millions.

• " Random" events in the Pacific gave a small American carrier fleet victory.

• A U-2 spy plane and the death of a pilot saved the world from nuclear

holocaust.

Some point to the permissiveness of American and Western society, and state that this is evidence that God is not with us any more. The Reverend Pat Robertson said 9/11 was God's way of punishing us for out sins. Islamic Fundamentalists believe that our anything-goes culture needs to be punished so as to prevent it from poisoning the Muslim world. Former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork warns of the dangers of unchecked liberalism.

"Our popular culture has gone far beyond propagandizing for fornication," wrote Bork in "Slouching Towards Gomorrah". "That seems almost innocent nowadays. What America increasingly produces and distributes is now propaganda for every perversion and obscenity imaginable. If many of us accept the assumption on which that is based, and apparently many do, then we are well on our way to an obscene culture. The upshot is that American popular culture is in a free fall, with the bottom not yet in sight. This is what the liberal view of human nature has brought us to. The idea that men are naturally rational, moral creatures without the need for strong external restraints has been exploded by experience. There is an eager and growing market for depravity, and profitable industries devoted to supplying it. Much of such resistance as there is comes from people living on the moral capital accumulated by prior generations. That capital may be expected to dwindle further - cultures do not unravel everywhere all at once. Unless there is a vigorous counterattack, which must, I think, resort to legal as well as moral sanctions, the prospects are for a chaotic and unhappy society, perhaps, by an authoritarian and unhappy society."

We have seen what is great in America disavowed in favor of what is worst. In "America's Elites Take Their Cues from the Underclass", by Charles Murray, he argues that this has been the harbinger of doom for all great civilizations.

"Gertrude Himmelfarb sees it as a struggle between competing elites, in which the

Left originated a counterculture that the right failed to hold back," writes Murray. Daniel Patrick Moynihan called it "defining deviancy down," by de-valuing morality in order to make it fit the lowest common denominator.

The late historian Arnold Toynbee wrote "Schism in the Soul" In it he says that a "dominant minority" imitates those at the bottom of society. An example we see are middle class white kids imitating violent, repugnant black rappers.

"The growth phase of a civilization is led by a creative minority with a

strong, self-confident sense of style, virtue, and purpose," wrote Toynbee. "The uncreative majority follows along through mimesis, a mechanical and superficial imitation of the great and inspired originals. In a disintegrating civilization, the creative minority has degenerated into elites that are no longer confident, no longer setting the example. Among other reactions are a lapse into truancy (a rejection, in effect, of the obligations of citizenship) and a surrender to a sense of promiscuity (vulgarizations of manners, the arts, and language) that are apt to appear first in the ranks of the proletariat and to spread from there to the ranks of the dominant minority, which usually succumbs to the sickness of proletarianization."

Once-despised behavior that could be attributed to "low-class" or "white trash" individuals are today mainstream among a segment of our society. Larry Flynt is no longer relegated to his place in the pornographic corner. He is an important voice in the Democrat party who was a candidate under their banner for Governor of California. This says a lot about the political face of the sick proletariat, who used to be called the underclass.

The old ruling upper crust of liberalism now imitates these new codes of behavior.

In 1960, swearing was uncouth in public. Today the language of "South Park "or MTV is commonly quoted, providing tacit approval of the stupid and ignorant. Hookers cannot be distinguished by girls-on-the-town who refer to their Saturday night escapades as "slutting up."

Divorce is utterly common today, as is children being born out of wedlock. In the black community, young men consider knocking a girl up and leaving her to her own devices to be a badge of honor. They justify it because their "fathers" did the same to their mothers.

The good news is that the collapse of decency has left a vacuum and there are those who step forward to fill it. They are, by and large, conservative in nature. While the Dumbellionite Class may make up a majority that might represent potential political and social opposition, it is the conservatives who organize while the rest are unorganized.

What the conservatives realize about things like race is that asking minorities to live up to their standards benefits the minorities, just as a football coach who asks his players to live up to a higher standard of work ethic and competitiveness, rather than let his players wallow in mediocrity, is making them better players.

The hip-hop code of the streets nowadays is to take what you want, be violent, lord over weaker opponents, view women as sex objects, cheat, lie and exploit. Blacks in the inner city, confronted with these accusations, may respond that this describes slaveowners of the 19th Century. Fair enough, but it does not change the fact that those people are long dead, and the people being hurt in the 21st Century by this behavior are their people.

Those who stand against this are said to be racist and closed-minded. Like Fundamentalist Islam it is not going to be changed by outsiders telling them how to act. It must come from within their own ranks. White rappers like Eminem have taken the hip-hop mentality into the white community, where one hopes that its exposition will result in large segments of that community rejecting it. What is hoped is that at the end of the day, the elites of society will have an understanding for the lower classes, but are the lower classes permanently exempt from societal standards? Those lower classes allow the likes of Bill Clinton to emerge. Going on four years after Clinton's Presidency, a disturbing trend has emerged. Promiscuity is at an all-time high. I have said it before, and I will say it again. I am no prude. My reaction to the sight of a beautiful, scantily clad woman is no different than any other red-blooded American man. It is not all Clinton's doing, either. AIDS is no longer the threat it once was, and the myth that it was not a gay or a drug addict's disease has been fairly well dispelled. A new "sexual revolution" like the one we saw in the 1960s and '70s is upon us. Sex is a healthy thing, as far as I am concerned, but that does not make it any easier for us dads.

The existence of so much vulgarity may be true, but there always has and always will be an element of society that disdains it, preferring instead to be "ladies and gentlemen." I am the first to admit I am occasionally guilty of activity and behavior that may be vulgar, but I will say this for myself. I have discipline about it, I confine it in segments, and do not justify it beyond what it is. By and by, I choose to proceed with class. I am not alone. The difference is that the kind of shock and outer judgment of the upper classes towards the lower is no longer expressed. Rather, it is observed in silence, but the "upper classes" seem to acknowledge each other, as if in secret societies. Interestingly, good behavior is made more powerful this way because sometimes things need no commentary. Res ipsa loquiter means "the thing speaks for itself." In other words, vulgarians simply identify themselves by their own behavior without you or me judging them to their face. I sometimes say something like, "the thing is true and I have knowledge that it is," or "the thing is a lie and I have knowledge that it is." Therefore, I operate on the higher premise. The power is not in wry commentary, but in action. Leaders have always "led by example." Take politics. The Republicans generally just go about their business in a gentlemanly fashion, while the Democrats sometimes flail about like low class types. This behavior is seen, observed and noted by all. It has more resonance just as an existing fact than by Republicans making a big point of talking about it. It may seem the slow approach to social change, but it s the best way.

Bill Clinton and Larry Flynt may be spokesmen of the Democrat party, and in Clinton's case, the G.O.P. got in trouble judging him, because his case was too important to just let go. But by and large, just let the Democrats hang themselves by putting forth these low lifes as their examples, and the populace will see through it.

There will always be a place for educated people of culture. I look at this way. If most of the people were smart and acted well, then those of us who are smart and act well would not be special.

That being said, I am of course concerned at the hip-hopization of America, but realize this. I live in a liberal place, but if you travel America you will see a very different set of cultural standards. Most of these writers who describe these cultural trends are from big coastal cities. There are many places in this fine land where country music, God and patriotism are the norm. My baseball years opened my eyes to this early on. It was an education for me worthy of any documentary or book.

The rapper mentality will work itself out for the better, as hard as it is to believe. It is associated with blacks. If whites spend too much time de-crying blacks for their crimes and their music, it just comes off as racism, which is never going to be the popular argument. Blacks, however, are already becoming disgusted with themselves in large numbers. It will take time, but I have faith that in America they will choose to reform themselves, to some extent, by telling each other how to be.

All cultural change comes this way (unless it is America conquering a country and imposing good where only evil stood, i.e., Nazi Germany, Japan, etc.). Christianity was reformed from within, as was Judaism. In this century Islam will go through this transformation.

Goodness will prevail because it is the better way, more efficient, and causes fewer problems. Former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden once told me that being nice was not just the right thing to do, but it was easier and more efficient in the long run. We will see a new, better goodness, not the rigid, all-white, racially rigid kind that represented the British Empire or segregated America. Let me correlate it with economic change, because in the long run it is about a better model; behavior and capitalism are intertwined.

Take the economy. In the 1980s, we had a strong economy based on two things: A touch of greed and military spending. The Cold War was won and the military complex broke up, the economy went down, but it rebounded. This time, we learned from mistakes. The economy was more egalitarian and socially conscious in the 1990s, and less about military spending and more on high-tech, utilizing in large part former military industrial workers using their skills and education to fuel the dot-com boom.

Mistakes were made regarding overfunded IPOs and prognostication of the Internet, salaries were too high, and 9/11 really ended the boom times. Now we are coming back, again learning lessons from past mistakes. We may get it right this time. Less greed than the '80s, but some return to a military readiness that will never be out of vogue, combined with the high-tech breakthroughs of the '90s. A more realistic stock market that will not explode falsely like before, but grow based on a return to old style financial models, with lessons about what the Internet can and cannot do now. A business climate that is now more socially conscious, and also able to make environmentally safe products.

The problem is in Europe. By and large, Europe is in a funk because all their greatness is gone. Outside of Great Britain, their contributions to the world have been eclipsed by the United States for 100 years. America is so far and above them in every way that they find it hard to compete. Think of a Class A baseball team in the same division with the Yankees. The Class A guys are going to give up. The result is new socialism in which Europe just exists without incentive. The good news is smart people populate the place and new post-Cold War generations will improve upon the doldrums of the current dunderheads. A generation of European kids will come along who look at America and are inspired by us, not defeated by us.

Getting back to behavior and how best to change it, I say just show it and people will make their judgments. Nixon called them the Silent Majority. Never underestimate them. For example, if you wanted to show why America is better than France, you are not going about it the best way by yelling and screaming, "America is better than France. France is a bunch of frogs." That just make enemies.

Instead, show two documentaries. The first is on the American Revolution. Just give it straight, it needs no embellishment. Then show a documentary on the "reign of terror" in Paris. My guess is if a reasonable person saw both he will arrive at the conclusion "America is the better country" just based on the straight facts without a lot of advocacy. Those with a little "get up and go" will choose to emulate the better model.

Apocalypse Now? Drawing U.S. into world conflagration is terrorist's goal

The Arab world has been on the "back burner" of history for much of the past 100 to 200 years. This place is the "cradle of civilization." It spawned Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in that order. It is the home of some of the greatest antiquities extant. To study Mankind is to study the Middle East. The Crusades were a "clash of civilizations," and the Byzantine Empire was ahead of its time. In the first half of the 20th Century, events in the Middle East took a back seat to events in other parts of the world.

Religion tells us that Armageddon, or the Apocalypse, if they are one and the same (which we do not really know) will emanate from the Middle East. We think that if there is an anti-Christ, he will emerge from the Middle East (if he has not already). Politics, religion, terrorism and world war seem inextricably tied to oil in this region. If one gives any credence to these Biblical concepts, then one must confront one of two outlooks. There is the negative view, which is that it will come down and we will blow each other up. Then there is the positive view, which is that it does not have to happen. This is my opinion. I believe the United States was charged with the ultimate task of making peace in this land of war. I do not discount the idea that the anti-Christ has already been born, and the U.S. eliminated him in some manner, which may or may not be publicly known. Now that this region is again front and center, some hard questions need to be asked of it. These questions need to be addressed in light of Biblical prophecy.

  6. 1. What do Arabs want?

  7. 2. What do terrorists want?

  8. 3. What has the Arab world contributed to humanity in modern history?

4. What is their complaint against the West?

Let me start out with the third question. It is hard to answer this without insulting

the Arab world, but truth is not always easy to accept. The Middle East has contributed a natural resource called oil. The fact that they have oil is just a by-product of their natural environment. We need the oil and are grateful that we can buy it from them, but it does not count as a "contribution" to the betterment of Mankind.

Take Arab antiquities. It was mostly Western researchers and archaeologists who found them and made sense of it all. The Arabs mainly just let their treasures sit around and gather dust until mostly English and Americans came there, dug them up, and studied the treasures.

In World War I, the Arabs (the Ottomans) officially sided with Kaiser's Germany. A few disparate tribes fought under Lawrence, but for mostly ignoble goals. Where was the Arab world (not to mention Latin America and Africa) when the world needed everybody to stand up against Hitler? On the sidelines, cheering for...?

They aligned themselves with the Soviets, and now they are the home field for terror. What great technological, scientific, medical and humanitarian achievements have come out of the Middle East in the past 60 years, benefiting its fellow man. The West has provided oil, and in return provided the Arabs with riches beyond the wildest imagination of man for this "service." They Arabs have benefited from science from the West, technology from the West, medicine from the West, aid from the West, protection from the West, and handouts of all kind from the West.

This leads to questions number two and three. What do Arabs want, and what do terrorists want?

We have to address the psychology behind their lack of "achievement," their failure to "contribute," and their status as welfare recipients. They are jealous. Religion is not behind their terrorism or their "disagreements" with the West. That is a smokescreen for the fact that they do not achieve or contribute much to the world. Are we to truly expect these people, who are proud, to just live in a world in which all their advancements come courtesy of the West, while they have nothing to hold up as their own, and have them just say, "thanks"? That is not how people think.

Instead of competing, participating, or getting "in the arena," as Teddy Roosevelt said, they withdraw into the most basic, out-dated aspects of their religion, using that as an excuse to withdraw. Unable to compete with the West, they say that we are "poisoning" them with our modernity.

They have found passage after passage in the Koran which seems to justify violence, and even "modern" Imams in the West do not thoroughly discourage terrorism. There is no explanation for the lack of outrage from the responsible Muslim world except to conclude that at some level they agree or sympathize with the terrorists. Not all of them, but a significant number of them. 5-7 million Muslims live in America. I would be lying I said I do not have some fear knowing this.

So, what is the Arab/terrorist complaint with America and the West? Think about this. They talk about the Crusades, but that was centuries ago. Besides, Arab atrocities and guilt are just as great as Christian. This is a non-issue. Israel? This is an "excuse issue." It is obviously huge in the minds of Palestinians, but in reality it has little effect on most Arabs. British hegemony after World War I? To some extent, yes, but the British ruled peacefully and eventually handed over power, peacefully. American manipulation of political events? Sure, it is part of it, but is limited. Obviously the CIA propped up the Shah and "controls" oil, but is this legitimate reason to hate us? After all, we are doing business with them, pouring huge amounts into their economies, and providing jobs in the process. Complaining about this is like rural Tennesseans hating FDR because they suddenly modernized after the TVA was put into place.

Americans invaded Kuwait and part of Iraq to liberate Kuwait, but did not occupy, colonize or take over the oil supply, which is the great "complaint" whenever we contemplate going in there. We rid Iraq of Saddam. We have troops in Iraq but want to get out of there as soon as we can. We have a few troops in a small number of other places. Overall, there is no great army of Americans holding the boots to the region like the Romans once did. Overall, there is no real history of American occupation and American war. Are we to believe that the Arabs and the Fundamentalists truly hate us because of TV shows we watch, or the way our women dress? This is just an excuse for their own failures. Instead of engaging the world, they withdraw, and they hate.

Will the Arab world explode? This may very well be what the terrorists want. They may be pining for one mass suicide. This is where the larger Arab world differs from them. What the larger Arab world must do, to overcome this terrible possibility, is to contribute in the 21st Century. Contribute love, peace and maybe even some Democracy. Earn some respect from the rest of the world, and some self-respect for themselves. They have to give themselves something to live for.

If the Arab world fails to control its most inhumane, evil elements, then there will be war, and I have news for them. They will not win that war. The United States, and the West in general, will protect itself. We will do what we have to do to survive.

The goal of the World Trade Center terrorists was not just political, but religious. The great conflagration religion has warned us about since pre-Christian times may be their goal. That goal could be a world Apocalypse of death, destruction and anarchy that spares no one, whether they are Christian, Jew or Muslim.

Osama bin Laden was behind this tragedy, and the terrorists were Muslim extremists from the Middle East, bin Laden's confederates and cell splinter groups acting on his general orders. What was in their warped minds?

Since "terrorism" is not a nation with an army, a government, a population, territory, and an economy, their end game is different from the goals of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, or even Afghanistan. Bin Laden may be evil, but he was not stupid. He therefore knew that the world, namely the United States, shall never permit Israel to be destroyed and the region completely de-stabilized. He knew that if pushed hard enough, we will attack. If this occurs, we have the power to virtually wipe out entire civilizations through conventional, nuclear and biological destruction. Should we choose, we could virtually eliminate rogue states, and with them the terrorists sheltered within their borders.

This may be just what he wanted.

Since Zionism will not be destroyed, just as secularism shall not be eliminated, and Iraq was not allowed to dominate the region, bin Laden's goal was a worldwide _jihad_ , or holy war. He has supporters, they are Fundamentalist extremists, but their numbers are still relatively few. He may believe that the only way to generate enough hate and passion to create the real _jihad_ that is a worldwide nightmare scenario would be to draw a huge U.S. military response. He may have been willing to sacrifice millions of Muslim lives in the process. Even Anwar Sadat once said he was willing to sacrifice 1 million Egyptians to eliminate Israel.

Bin Laden may want a post-nuclear world of anarchy, a world without borders or governments, a world of chemical weapons and horror. The United States must caution against setting this kind of world in motion.

The Axis Powers wanted territory and natural resources. We knew how to stop them from getting it. Communism could be contained. Saddam Hussein was a politician with political and economic goals. Since bin Laden believed he was doing God's work, and had nothing to lose, this makes his kind a most dangerous enemy.

There also may be no good "fate" for him. If he was or is to be killed, he could be a martyr. If he is imprisoned, it could be worse. He could be used as a tool for further acts of terrorism, mostly of the hostage variety.

The United States turned the crisis into a window of opportunity. For the first time since Pearl Harbor, we evoked some sympathy from most of the world. So far, we have not built the kind of coalition we would have liked. This is our challenge over the next years.

Many have discredited the idea of getting a United Nations consensus, but this is our best chance to build a coalition. Even extremists in Damascus and Baghdad are human beings with feelings, and the concept of thousands of dead innocent civilians surely evokes at least a little sorrow.

However, a greater instinct than sympathy is self-preservation. The rogue states must have seen what happened and possibly realized, as Yamamoto did after Pearl, that a sleeping giant had been awakened. The last thing countries with much to lose want is to have the United States, armed with the will to do so, invade their countries in wholesale pursuit of the destruction of terrorists and terrorism.

If the terrorists persist, if they up the scale of destruction by using chemical and biological weapons, they will force us to strike back in ways that Middle East countries may not survive.

President George Bush can go to these states and tell them that either they are with us or they are against us. If terrorists harbored within their borders continue to hurt innocents, Bush will, to paraphrase "The Godfather", "blame some people..."

Iran and like nations do not need to make a big show of their cooperation. They can play their games for show, demonstrating their hate for America, but they are still a nation with much to lose if bin Laden or his successors, who do not, sees _jihad_ to fruition.

The best way to root out these terrorists is not by full-scale military action. Rather, it would be through internal intelligence, aided by Muslims with love in their hearts eradicating hate in everybody's best interest. Furthermore, there must be bin Laden lieutenants who are sickened by terrorism. Not everybody has the stomach for that kind of killing. Some of these people turn.

Surely, too, some people have enough human instinct to realize that being on the side of the killers of thousands of civilians is to be on the wrong side of the moral equation.

We took Afghanistan and Iraq with a minimum of civilian casualties, which gives us the moral edge we need to use to our advantage. Bush should eventually attempt a real coalition. What happened was the logical conclusion of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. We have been studying terrorism and predicting for some time that it is the greatest threat of this new century.

Nations like China and Russia have a role to play, as well. China may feel safe from terrorism for now, but they could be a target when they host the 2008 Olympics. For this reason, they have a vested interest in joining with us. As America plans for the future, we need to address questions about our past.

Who are we? How did we get here? What does history teach us? Why is America special? How did Communism rise and why was it opposed in America? What did we learn from Gandhi? What lessons did we apply in the post-World War II years? Throughout history, conquering nations had enslaved and colonized. We left Europe and Japan with a legacy of goodwill never seen in the annals of Mankind.

Arabs and distortions of history

We must reduce terrorism, or the worst threats posed by terrorism, to its bare margins. We have the manpower, the technology, the intelligence and the will to do it. Much of what needed to be done after 9/11 has already been accomplished in short order.

The second part of the equation is the tough part. That is called "winning the hearts and minds" of our enemies. We have had more success through "failure" doing that in Vietnam than we did when we were over there. This time we face 50 or 100 years - several generations, a century of conflict for our children and their children - unless we accomplish this task sooner rather than later.

This brings us to the great problem of addressing why so many Arabs hate us. We find this an absurd premise, given the wonderful deeds we have performed on behalf of Mankind through our history.

Let us examine Western influence in the Middle East. The Khyber Pass through Afghanistan has long been a passageway of trade. As the natural resources of the region became apparent and coveted, white soldiers were sent in to subjugate the region. Russians under Peter the Great tried, and failed. The British Raj tried in the 19th Century to take Kabul. In what Rudyard Kipling called the "Great Game," they were slaughtered.

By the time World War I came around, there was no particular reason for Arabs and Muslims to fear or respect the West. The Ottoman Empire controlled much Western territory, and exerted political, social, military and religious influence over an enormous swath of geography.

During World War I, things changed with mixed results due to the work of T.S. Lawrence. In retrospect, many Arabs look back at Lawrence with disdain, feeling that he used them as a sacrifice on the altar of English hegemony. More to the point, he used Muslims to defeat Muslims, which eventually led to the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in 1923. The English carved up the region, creating Iraq, taking over Palestine, and re-making the Middle East in their image, more or less.

For Muslims, Christians, Arabs and Middle Eastern people of all stripes, World War I concluded with mixed results. The Armenians were freed from Ottoman rule after millions had died in genocide. The Feisal family in Saudi Arabia found wealth catering to the oil demands of the West. Other regions, countries and governments did not prosper.

Then came World War II, the great, shining moment of American history. Surely, everybody must love us for what we did in Europe and in the South Pacific. Think again.

First of all, with the exception of a relatively small group of Arabs who avail themselves of an education in America and really choose to immerse themselves in our glorious history; plus whatever Arabs somehow find a place in the Middle East to learn true U.S. history (such places are very rare), the average Arab and Muslim knows little or nothing of our history. What they are taught are usually distortions and lies.

This is because they were mainly by-standers during World War II. Moroccans may have understood that they had something to gain by a U.S. victory over Germany on Vichy-French held territory, but for most of the Nomadic tribesmen and simple dwellers of the nation's where Rommel, Patton and Montgomery fought in North Africa, it was just a bunch of white men trying to blow each other up.

Arabs do not have a real D-Day in which Americans liberated them from the Germans. They do not have a history of fighting by the side of their American "brothers" in a just cause, like in the Philippines. The war in their neck of the woods was about property, strategy and oil.

Surely, had Germany won the war and controlled the Middle East, Hitler would eventually have come up with an "Arab Solution." The natives of the conquered lands, considered sub-human with their dark complexions and "dirty" religion by the Aryan supermen, would have been rounded up and killed in concentration camps.

The Arabs do not seem to know this, and therefore do not understand that they, too, were saved by us.

In fact, many Arabs think the Nazis were the good guys. After all, the Nazis were doing "great work" killing millions of their sworn enemies, the hated Jews. Millions of Muslims, if they even know about the Holocaust, think it was a swell idea. All for it. Too bad it had to end.

Why should they love America for beating Hitler when Hitler was killing their enemies? According to this logic, we are of course the enemy because we stopped Germany from completing what many Muslims consider to be sacred work. If it was not for us, there would not be any damn Jews around, much less a whole country full of them right in their backyards.

The Arabs have made bad political choices for years. Whose side were they on during the Cold War? Not the Americans. The Soviets, second only to Nazi Germany when it comes to killing Jews, swooped in and worked hand in hand with them for years. They played on the fears and prejudice against Jews, antagonizing them by playing the Israel card for all it was worth. They did it because the Arabs let them do it.

These are the people whose "hearts and minds" we are trying to capture. We must consider whether we can ever get them to change. The only chance is not just through acts of kindness like a new "Marshall Plan" of food and humanitarian relief, but a campaign of Truth. Arab Muslim children must be taught real world history, not propaganda. Nobody has to go in and paint us as perfect, but the distortions and lies that have festered like cancer amongst these people must be replaced with real facts.

It will take years. The current generation is lost in a cloud of hate, but the West must tell the real story in a way that allows these people to make their own decisions on an informed basis. We must not be occupiers, but we also must insist that the lies be put to rest. During the 2003 Iraq War, American G.I.s were portrayed by the Arab media as killers. The war was viewed by many as a Pan-Arab battle against Crusaders.

"The media are playing a very dangerous game in this conflict," said Abdel Moneim Saide, director of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, as quoted in the June, 2003 edition of _Newsmax._ "When you see the vocabulary and the images used, it is actually bringing everybody to the worst nightmare - the clash of civilizations."

Gory images of bandaged victims dominated Arab coverage, creating the impression of a civilian carnage when in fact the U.S. prosecuted the war with the least possible amount of collateral damage. Arab newspapers wrote that soldiers deliberately killed civilians, and called George Bush "Shaytan," Arabic for Satan. He was routinely featured in war coverage wearing a Nazi uniform (ironic since the Arabs were happy to see Hitler kill Jews), and called the Iraq War, when the civilian death toll may or may not have been over 1,000, an "American holocaust."

The Arab street indeed was inflamed by this kind of coverage, but even in the Middle East, Truth overcame the lies. Since the war ended, the rest of the Middle East settled into silence as news of Iraqi celebrations, Saddam's torture chambers, and the small actual civilian casualty rate became known.

Letter to George W. Bush

Note the date on this letter to then-Governor Bush. I was on board with the future President when John McCain was a strong GOP contender, before the 2000 Primaries and the amazing general election vs. Al Gore.

June 30, 1999

Governor George W. Bush

504 Lavaca, Ste. 1010

Austin, TX 78701

Re.: 2000 Presidential campaign

Dear Governor Bush:

I am very disturbed. I am disturbed as an American, and particularly as a Republican. I am disturbed also because I feel this letter will not be read seriously, because I wrote this to Bob Dole in 1996, and to the R.N.C. before the 1998 Congressional elections, and I either got a form letter back or nothing at all.

I am disturbed, Governor, because I believe if the G.O.P. would have followed my simple advice, we would have a Republican in the White House, a solid majority in Congress and in the states', and we would not be desperately trying to curry public favor in this horrendous "stained dress" scandal.

I will make this as short and sweet as I can. What it comes down is this: Win on the issues. Stay above-board. We do not need negative politics. Stay above the fray.

President Bill Clinton is riding high. Why? Because of the strong economy. Well, if and when you campaign in 2000, this is what you need to say:

The economy is strong because of the Republican Congress that was elected in 1994. Clinton wanted to push a massive tax hike (he did in '93) and a boondoggle health care revolution, but it was the Republicans who stopped him. The strong economy is more the result of the Republican Contract with America than Clinton's policies.

Next, emphasize this:

The strong economy is not just the result of Republican policies that emanate from the Contract. We are seeing something that may only be recognized by future historians, but we have the vision to interpret the fact that we are actually reaping the peace dividends from our Cold War triumph! The press talked about this in 1990-91, but it was unrealistic to expect to see these kinds of tectonic of changes so soon. Now that the Cold War is won, money earmarked towards defense is now spent in other places - or saved. Smart people displaced by the shrinking Military Industrial Complex have landed on their feet in an entrepreneurial, information-driven society.

Next, stay with that point and point out that:

The Cold War was won by many dedicated Americans. Harry Truman deserves some credit. So does George Kennan, John Kennedy, even Lyndon Johnson. But it was Republican hard-line refusal to back down against the Communists, during a time when liberals in the U.S. and Great Britain advocated just such a dovish policy, that eventually won the Cold War. Richard Nixon outlined this policy, Henry Kissinger implemented his plan, Ronald Reagan had the vision to boldly carry it further, and George Bush closed the deal! He, along with Reagan and a great American named Caspar Weinberger, are as responsible as anybody for a victory that is the reason we enjoy peace and prosperity in 1999.

I am not finished:

_Republicans have won the domestic war, too! Victory is ours. That sounds crazy at first, but here is what it is. The old-time liberal is no more. The McGovernites, those who advocated the Great Society, that mode of political thinking is as outdated as prohibition. However, point out that so far we have won a Pyrrhic victory. We won, but at what cost? Bill Clinton is successful only because he was smart enough to steal our ideas and cloak himself in moderately conservative clothing. The public likes conservative policies, so why not elect conservatives? This is the cornerstone of your campaign, not just for yourself as a Presidential candidate, but as the leader of a party reviving a movement - the most powerful and effective movement in the post-World War II era: The Reagan revolution. Furthermore, does anybody truly believe that, left to their own devices, the Democrats would continue these conservative policies? They act like moderate conservatives only because a G.O.P. Congress disciplines them. If Republicans do not maintain a solid majority, if Democrats get the Congress back along with the White House, they will revert to their old ways, because it is in their nature. You cannot change the stripes of the liberal tiger. Throughout all the changes, Republican philosophies remain rock solid. It is the Democrats who shift with the wind. The public, as it stands, like this "checks and balances" form of government. Our campaign must emphasize that what they like is when Democrats stop acting like Democrats. Therefore, it is logical that rather than electing Democrats who do not act like Democrats (but in their hearts are yearning to do so), we should elect a party that will implement_ _proven, successful_ _policies with enough teeth in them to stand the test of time!_

I believe you need to drive these points home over and over and over. Make everybody understand this simple message: Take credit, take credit and take more credit. Declare victory, and educate the press and the public on why it is that we have won. Facts, and history, are firmly on our side. Republicans are the real thing. We won't change.

As for abortion and the like, these need not be major campaign issues. We must gain power, then work to implement changes. First gain power. The way to do it is to drumbeat this powerful, simple message in a moderate, non-threatening manner. The beautiful part of it is that it is simple, direct, honest, informative and positive! What could be better than that?

Do not let the Democrats capture the right side of history. Republicans own the patent, but we must renew that patent in every election. We saw the future when nobody else did, and despite many detractors, we harvested unprecedented peace and prosperity!! I know you are your own man, but you have a unique opportunity, because of your name, to maximize this link to historical greatness.

I know you have a lot of fancy policy wonks feeding you advice, but I think what I have to say can be very helpful to you, our party and this country. Just stay the course.

Briefly, I have worked in Republican politics, and I met your brother, Neil, at the 1988 California Republican Convention. I stumped for Reagan and your father, and I managed the Congressional campaign of Republican Bill Boerum, who garnered more votes in a liberal San Francisco district against Congresswoman Barbara Boxer than any opponent in her House career.

Very truly yours,

**STEVEN R. TRAVERS**

Aids and the devil

The African AIDS crisis leads me to believe that the battle between good and evil is being won by evil. In the 20th Century, evil tried a direct approach, in the face of Nazism and Communism. Major wars were fought, and the forces of good defeated the forces of evil. Evil then decided to make a comeback, only this time evil is more pernicious, less obvious on the face and in its approach. It stays small, killing one-by-one by microbe instead of _en masse_ by artillery or the dropping of cyanide into a shower stall ventilator. The forces of good, i.e., the U.S. and the West, must confront evil again with a new version of the Marshall Plan. As for Bill Clinton leading the charge in this effort, as Chris Matthews of MSNBC suggests, my observation is that Clinton has the intellectual tools to do it. However, he ultimately would not see it through because Clinton is in everything for himself. His goal would be to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Saving African lives might be a worthy goal that he aspires to, but it would only be a by-product of his work, not the reason for it. The same principles apply to Hillary Clinton, who should acknowledge that her "it takes a village" philosophy, based on the theory that native African culture is superior to Western family values, is a sub-Saharan disaster. In Africa, families and villages shun children and spouses when they acquire AIDS in some kind of horrid "see no evil" immorality play. It literally "takes a village" in Africa to make AIDS such a taboo subject that millions die of it without knowing what killed them.

The Kissinger doctrine: Self-interest and history are keys to Middle East diplomacy

Self-interest, self-preservation and diplomacy are the most important keys to making our efforts successful, not just in the short run, but 10, 50, even 100 years from now. History is no longer taught very well, but William Shirer, in "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", quoted Santayana prophetically: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to re-live it."

Right now, some wise people are available to President George Bush as he builds a world coalition. His father, George H.W. Bush, has as much experience as anybody at doing exactly what W is attempting to do. So are his top advisors, among them Colin Powell and Dick Cheney.

Another great mind to be utilized is former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Anybody who wishes to understand what we need to do should read his book "Diplomacy", along with Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August" (which John Kennedy made note of in determining how nations "accidentally" stumble into wider war).

As good a place as any to avoid "re-living the past" is a study of Austrian diplomacy in the post-Napoleonic Era (1815-50). This period influenced Kissinger's thinking, and was the key to the Vienna Conference, the development of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and spurred a period of relative European peace lasting a century.

The first reaction is to discredit any correlation of the "civilized" governments of Victorian Europe with the extremist animals running rampant throughout the Middle East. Kissinger, however, reminds us that all politics and diplomacy is rooted in the concepts of self-interest and self-preservation.

All the players have an interest and an end game. The most difficult to deal with would be if bin Laden's motive were to create an apocalypse that spurs a worldwide Islamic holy war. However, bin Laden was allegedly human and he and his people have the instinct of self-preservation, at some level. This is the area Kissinger would have us exploit. This concept goes extra and especially for countries with territory, armies, and so forth.

The slippery slope is in convincing our adversaries of our steadfast resolve. Saddam Hussein of Iraq calculated that American resolve would end before marching on Baghdad, and he was right (until we decided to make him wrong). His self-interest (and sense of self-preservation) was based on maintaining power and using his role in the Gulf War to make himself into a defiant rebel in the eyes of a segment of the Islamic world. Had he been positive that we would have gone all out to destroy him and his government, his actions would have been much different.

It is instructive to understand that the Middle East is not the same, and the populations do not react, in the manner of Germany and Japan after World War II. It is just as instructive to study the fall of the Roman Empire and the end of colonialism, and further emphasize that the new insurgents are not the bomb-throwers of French Algeria. The new rebels have anthrax and maybe worse.

If a huge portion of America is wiped out in a biological and chemical weapons attack, we will come back with great and furious anger. That could mean military action that has a major effect on every Middle Eastern nation.

The key countries, surrounding the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Caspian Sea, do not want to become a 21st Century nuclear/chemical/biological Cambodia or Balkans. We need to explore what the following countries want out of this: Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, India, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, China, and Israel.

History and new realities tell us that to have the locals take care of their business, or at least have a big part in so doing, is a lot better than having the "world's policemen" come in, and leave everybody to clean up the mess. Coalition building based on self-interest is as relevant today as it was when England hooked up with Prussia and other nations to stop Napoleon at Waterloo.

Now, as Kissinger would advocate, comes the concept of linkage, which combined with former House Speaker Tip O'Neil's adage that "all politics is local," is how we should go about building a safer world for everybody via a diplomatic solution.

As students of Kissinger know, the diplomatic solution does not preclude military force. He had his Christmas bombings. Bush justifiably used force, too.

The keys could be China and Pakistan. These two are linked, via the Cold War, by the 1947 break-up of India (with India "going" to the West). China had influence with the Taliban, and was motivated by the chance to increase their image of peacemaker as we head toward their hosting the 2008 Olympics. Pakistan is relatively powerful and more modern than Afghanistan, a country that rivaled Caligula's Rome when it came to barbarism as spectacle. Pakistan's chance to get aid and cooperation from the U.S. benefits their position with neighboring India. However, it should deflate tensions with the New Delhi government, a long-time Western goal.

Back to bin Laden. The worst-case scenario is that his goal was to spur World War III, and a post-Apocalyptic _jihad_ that creates anarchy. However, we also know that bin Laden was motivated by the concept of getting American military troops out of his home country, Saudi Arabia. This was more important to him, we think, than a two-state Israel-Palestine, U.S. backing of Israel, or the destruction of Israel. He is mostly concerned with U.S. influence on Islam. A study of Western influence is complete only by going back to Lawrence of Arabia. The irony is that the U.S. pulled out of Saudi Arabia on their own, for normal reasons having to do with security and local politics. _In other words, the very thing that drove bin Laden crazy beyond reason was something of small scale to the U.S., which we were planning to do anyway._

All the nations in the region must be made to understand the deterrence factor. They must know the U.S. will do what we need to do to make the world as safe from terrorism as is possible.

Other players include Russia, eager to make themselves relevant in world affairs again. Specifically, they want Colin Powell's call to "end terrorism wherever we find it" to include a crackdown on Chechen separatists. (It should further be noted that the Powell Doctrine could eventually include using bin Laden-finding tactics in Latin America to smoke out drug lords who kill more people than bin Laden has.)

Iran has tentatively attempted modernism, a hopeful sign. They are motivated to prevent a refugee crisis across their border, and to get back into the game economically.

Saudi Arabia wants stability. They know they are a potential target because of their size, wealth and long standing as a world partner.

In a lesser way, Syria may wish to use this opportunity. Opportunity, as the Chinese say, is the real meaning of crisis. The Central Asian nations of the old U.S.S.R. are likely eager to no longer be ragged vestiges of a dead empire. They could welcome a chance to be partners with the U.S. by supplying logistical, diplomatic and intelligence help, in some cases behind the scenes.

We should explore secret agreements with countries that, for domestic political reasons, wish not to appear to be American puppets. If we successfully do this, future security will be increased only if we upgrade our regional intelligence, through satellites, technology and human resources, on a par with the Israeli Mossad, well into this century. What has happened is that Islamic Fundamentalism has emerged as the biggest threat to peace. Each act committed in its name is a recruitment tool. Because of the importance of oil, the U.S. cannot consider withdrawing interests from the region. Therefore, our strategy must contend not just with destroying the physical assets of our current enemies, but dealing with the _ideas_ that live on. That is why Muslim cooperation is so vital.

Bin Laden was an American ally when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Politics in this region breeds strange bedfellows. While "dealing with the devil" is expedient in the short term, we must do so only with a plan to deal with our "friends" when they become our enemies - and in some cases our friends again. Confusing? Welcome to the Middle East chess game.

One man's take on a new kind of war

1. How the world sees us.

It is important not just to remember the past, but also learn the truth about the past. Let me give two examples. A few years ago I met a young, beautiful French girl. She looked like Bridgitte Bardot from the "And God Created Woman" era (which is irrelevant to matters at hand but a nice memory for me). Anyway, she was a typical middle class bourgeoisie Frenchwoman. One day the discussion turned to politics. She said that America's involvement in Vietnam was the moral equivalent of Nazi Germany. In case any of my readers are not up to speed, America's involvement in Southeast Asia was _not_ the moral equivalent of Hitler's terror. The fact that this is so is simply so true that it deserves no explanation on its face.

My friend Brad Cole (the actor who portrayed Prince Richard on CBS's daytime drama "A Guiding Light") lived in France for years and told me this girl's views were typical, and that he was a lonely beacon of Yankee patriotism fighting a daily wave of Frenchmen who "hate America."

Now this is France, not our best friends but still an ally, a people whose favorite sport is running from the Germans. However, these revisionist, anti-American sentiments are rampant all over Europe. God knows what Russian, Chinese, Turkish, Australian, Japanese and African kids are being taught.

My daughter, when she was a student at a suburban California high school, was taught that the only reason we bombed Hiroshima instead of Tokyo was because it was cloudy that day. Harry Truman, according to the logic, would have preferred to extract as high a death toll as possible, ostensibly for racial reasons. I have read that Hiroshima was not the first target. The main target was not bombed due to cloud cover, but the main target was not Tokyo. Again, folks, without getting into this too deeply, this revisionist look at the way we desperately fought and won in the South Pacific theatre is garbage.

The point this is that Americans fail to grasp that common sense often does not drive the attitudes of people outside our borders and sometimes within them. The failure to teach history has distorted ideas domestically and internationally.

Do you think more than one percent of the Afghan population (and this goes for most Middle Eastern countries) knows the Holocaust happened, and the details of it? Or, if they have heard of it, they probably were taught that it was a lie. How many people anywhere know details of the American Revolution, the framing of a Constitution that was the anvil that destroyed slavery once and for all, in America by Americans? If they "know" anything they believe Washington and Jefferson were terrorists. Slavery is of course an ugly fact of life that we have put in the storefront window to view, anguish over, talk about and learn from.

No doubt our "enemies" are taught that George Patton committed crimes against humanity. The regrettable conflicts that came about when America expanded into Indian territory are made out as an all-encompassing feature of our existence, not Manifest Destiny. Western civilization as a whole is seen as imperialism, colonialism, of Christian Crusaders perpetrating an inquisition on a world of peaceful, indigenous peoples. No credit for building roads, hospitals, planes, developing medicines, bringing about the Age of Enlightenment in the form of books, the arts, film, ever seems to be accorded. Technological advancements of the West that have bettered the lives of billions of planetary humans for centuries are framed as expansionist tools of the Rudyard Kipling crowd.

Yes, Western Civilization gave the world guns, disease, smog, and by no means holds an exclusive patent or morality, but these facts are widely and freely disseminated and used to educate in order to learn from past mistakes.

Yes, the United States and the CIA rigged elections, fomented coups and backed unsavory guys in places like Guatemala, Iran, Cuba and Chile. Using 20/20 hindsight, some of these actions were wrong, but darn it, things were mostly done by men of goodwill who felt justified in doing it and had good intent. None of it is hidden. It is all displayed. It is us. Compare that to the despotism of our enemies, and our crimes are modest. Besides, the world starts now. Our previous adventures are irrelevant to our quest for survival. In that quest we will make more mistakes. They will be done for what seem good reasons without the benefit of historical analysis. All of it will be in the American spirit of taking on a heavy burden to provide safety and security for freedom-loving people.

Common sense is not at play in the way most of the world thinks, because few have been taught the truth. Who is to blame them, however? We Americans do not teach ourselves about ourselves, so why should we expect foreigners to do any better? In fact, foreigners who live in the U.S. often do better. Coming from miserable huddles of poverty and oppression, many arrive on our shores and immerse themselves in learning all that makes America so fabulous - aspects of life that we ourselves take for granted. I suspect that the locals instinctively believe something magical is behind MTV, the Rage Against the Machine and the other humdrums of the Dumbellionite class.

Now that I have raged against my fellow citizens' apathy, allow me to state that the instinct I speak of is what makes me confident in a new generation of Americans to confront this great 21st Century challenge of terrorism, on and off our shores. I see it in my daughter, who for the first time expresses the vestiges of resolve that so many young people suddenly have beating within their red-white-and-blue hearts. Millions of kids like her have been taught that we unreasonably bombed Japan and Germany, that the overriding aspect of the South Pacific War was Japanese internment, that U.S. businesses exist only to pollute the planet. You know what? As they stare at CNN and Fox News, read the newspapers, listen to the radio, and join a world that once seemed to have been built for their indulgence, it seems they have this feeling in the pit of their stomachs, this stirring within their souls that all that anti-American garbage was just that: Garbage.

Failure to know history will help bring down our enemies, too. Tojo thought the U.S. was too rich, too soft, a slothful giant to be destroyed at Pearl Harbor. The "sleeping giant" destroyed his empire and tried his ass. Osama bin Laden and his ilk may have had cursory knowledge of U.S. history, but they too believed we lacked the will to fight back. They do not know us, but they got a costly education. They bit off more than they could chew. Saddam thought we would just threaten, little more. Not so.

They may believe that we used the atom bomb only to terrorize, that we firebombed Dresden in 1945 for no reason other than to export evil. They are wrong about our motives, but if they think 55 years of Political Correctness has destroyed our will to use the weapons of freedom to defeat them, they are mistaken.

In the battle of wills, these terrorists are badly unarmed. I would also like to add that when these suicide bombers die thinking they are going straight to Heaven, they surely must be terrified when they find themselves in the clutches of the devil, informing them that the Western infidels are the ones in the right (damn it).

Finally, however, while an understanding of history is important, we are entering into a battle for hearts and minds. I would suggest as good reading material William Shirer's "The Nightmare Years", in which he describes his early years as a journalist traveling the rugged Khyber Pass of Afghanistan in the 1930s. This is a good window into the tradition, religion, and mind of the people of this region.

It is vital that those in the business of conducting intelligence understand that whether these people know the truth is not of immediate consequence. What is of consequence is what they believe the truth to be. Teaching and changing people who have been wrong for so long will not be easy. Lest I allow myself to be completely jingoistic in the manner of a John Wayne character, let me say that an honest approach to our partners and future partners, acknowledging mistakes where mistakes exist, made by the West from the time of Lawrence of Arabia to our handling of the Israel alliance, is better than a bulls-ahead, America-first approach.

We have tried. Sometimes we have failed. Most of the time we had our hearts in the right place, certainly more so than any other nation.

Will a future, peaceful Middle East resemble an alliance of former enemies the way Germany and Japan came around? One can hope.

2. Making the world safe.

Lord Almighty, George W. Bush issued a tall order when he said we would eradicate evil from the world. This makes the Marshall Plan look like the allocation of funds to build a new junior college. What we will do is try to make the world as safe a place as possible for Americans, Westerners, and all peoples of the world.

How do we do this? How do we make it so that the fewest possible people die in future attacks? Unfortunately, the time may come sooner rather than later when the answer to that question is to kill a lot of "their" people to save a lot of "our" people. Right now, our enemies are questioning whether we have the stomach to engage in such a task. Unfortunately, more of "our" innocents may have to die before our government feels they have that will, that mandate to "go all the way."

The calculation of killing is a chilling one. Take this hypothetical: We know the terrorists will kill 100,000 Americans, and the only way to prevent it is to kill 1 million Muslims. Yes or no?

Consider history. President Truman calculated that more Americans and Japanese would die in Operation Magic Carpet Ride, the land/sea invasion of Tokyo, Japan, than would die in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so he dropped them. It can be reduced to math.

Next, take a look at Dresden, Germany in February, 1945. We firebombed a mostly civilian population with little military hardware. Why? It was not because Truman, George Marshall and Curt LeMay just plain hated German people and wanted as many dead as possible. It was because we had just repulsed the wehrmacht in the Battle of the Bulge, but they kept coming. Our planners knew we would have to press on in battle march through the Low Countries, towards Berlin, against stiff resistance. They calculated the resistance would lessen, thus saving as many American lives as German dead in Dresden, in this process.

Cold? Yes, but this is the kind of tough decision W might soon be faced with. We also must face the fact killing civilians can be a strategy. Jimmy Doolittle's raids on Tokyo, like Dresden, helped weaken morale, an important factor in war.

What about biological weapons? If we knew we could send bombs that kill 100,000 Muslims to save San Francisco from an anthrax attack, do we do it? At what price tolerance, compassion, compromise? These beautiful human traits should of course be tried, but they do not always work. What then?

3. Containment.

Victory in our new war will not likely look like it did in Europe or Occupied Japan. Rather, it may look like our victory in the Cold War. This lets us re-examine the work of George Kennan, who in the late 1940s devised the U.S. policy of containing, rather than outright defeating, Communism. Attrition played a major part in the strategy, which certainly worked for years against the U.S.S.R. and is working against China.

4. The role of the media.

Watching rioting protesters in Kabul on TV in 2001, I got the sense that the entire Muslim world hated us and desired to protect Osama bin Laden. However, a poll of Afghanis apparently indicated that 62 percent of the nation wanted the Taliban to hand over bin Laden. This tells me the media is somehow working against us. Quick film clips and sound bites provide stirring images that lead us to see and believe certain things that are probably not indicative of reality.

The American instinct

A video store I frequent was closed right after 9/11 because one of the tapes was found covered in white powder. The fire department arrived, and it turned out the powder was not anthrax, but gypsum. A customer whose house was being re-modeled had returned the tape. The store was re-opened and everybody went about their business; no freakouts, no panic, no big deal.

It occurred to me that in a small kind of way, my country had defeated Osama bin Laden in a small battle in the War on Terrorism. This brings me around to something else I am beginning to notice, and that is an instinctive kind of Americanism that seems to happen to people here, almost by osmosis. If bin Laden had hired me as an advisor on what his enemies - the American people - were all about, I would have some things to tell him that I think would surprise him, and this is why he did not prevail.

I am not an expert on the military, or the government, or the inner workings of the Bush Administration, but bin Laden's war was not just with those entities. His war was with the spirit of America, by playing on our fears, our phobias, our softness and lack of resolve. When it comes to the inner workings of being an American, by God I _am_ an expert!

I suspect much of bin Laden's human intelligence came from a very small group of Arabs who have lived in the United States for five or 10 years, long enough to be very knowledgeable of life here. These guys, many of whom have been working as cabdrivers, hanging out in bars and strip clubs, renting and watching Hollywood movies, listening to rap and angry rock music, were bin Laden's spies.

Bin Laden probably heard about disenfranchised teenagers in black Goth clothes, pierced, spiked and tattooed. He had heard about kids who have no idea what World War II was fought over and do not care, who eschew church, family and morality for sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. He heard about girls who live for shopping sprees in which they max their parents' credit cards, and cannot wait to augment their breasts with silicone. He heard about boys who slack their time away on skateboards instead of pursuing wholesome activities like baseball or fishing.

Bin Laden must have heard about how Americans are addicted to on-line pornography and videos that depict the flower of our young womanhood getting debauched in extreme gangbangs and orgies. Or the kids who drop ecstasy, or listen to lyrics that urge them to kill themselves because society has no place for them.

Surely bin Laden heard from his operatives about racial tensions dividing us from each other. Of blacks demanding affirmative action and victimhood, and of angry white rednecks who would just as soon chain 'em to the back of their pickup trucks on a lonely country road.

Or bin Laden heard about gay pride and official policies that give rights to the Sodomites of the New Gomorrah.

Of course, bin Laden was told all about selfish, wanton Wall Streeters whose very existence revolves around the Almighty Dollar. He heard about parents who do not spend time with their kids, and kids who never see their fathers.

Gleefully, bin Laden's spies saw all this and more, reported it verbatim, and the conclusion based on all this "intelligence" was that the United States of America did not have the stomach to overcome a challenge.

Bin Laden had bad intel on two fronts. First, he did not understand history, and his biggest mistake was believing all the information he got from his people about the nature of our people, particularly our young folk. What those transplanted Arab terrorists could tell their leader was what they saw, but they lacked an intrinsic feel for what makes an American.

A kid grows up in this country, flush with freedom and opportunity. The schools teach them all kinds of garbage, like the Manifest Destiny of Westward Expansion was nothing more than an Indian Holocaust, or that we dropped the Atom bomb on Japan because the white leaders at the time hated yellow-skinned, slant-eyed little people.

They are told that our Vietnam experience was on a moral par with Hitler's Germany, that we are warmongers and racists who meddle in the affairs of innocent countries just trying to get by.

They are certainly not told that the leaders of Communist Russia and China were for years unadulterated mass murderers, and that they would have kept murdering if not for our stopping them. On the other hand, they are told that the only reason we have not replaced gas-guzzlers with electric cars is because a handful of Big Oil families will not allow it. That the Ozone Layer cannot possibly be a naturally occurring phenomenon. That companies that employ millions are nothing more than exploiters of the human condition, especially in Third World countries where folks working for them would die on the huddled streets if not for the jobs created by the "exploiters."

I know this is what they are being told, because I have a daughter who has been told this kind of thing in the public school system for 11 years. I told you, I am an expert. It is not just schools that tell our kids what a piece of crap America is. Hollywood is excellent in this regard. Our news media is very efficient at it, too.

So, getting back to Osama bin Laden's "eyes and ears" in America, they heard all of this stuff and told him about it, no doubt. What he did not get from them, he got from CNN.

There is a point, however, that these people are missing. For some reason, there is a common sense factor that young people raised in this nation seem, thank God, to possess. An adult who moves here may possess it after a long while, but they are much less likely to understand it than the young.

What it comes down to is that the young boy or girl growing up here, listening to all the "down with America" rhetoric, is smart enough to figure a few things out for themselves. Okay, we're warmongers and racists and greedy exploiters, but...but...

something does not add up. We are free to think for ourselves, to express opinions and live our lives as we see fit.

"How can we be racists if every person of color I know seems to be doing just fine, and none of my friends are down on them, and what about all those black dudes makin' coin in music and sports? Have they accomplished all of that despite our narrow-mindedness?"

A kid looks around and sees streams of foreigners here and thinks to himself, hey, if we're so bad, how come everybody keeps moving here? Dot-commers especially saw what Democracy is in this nation. What about the guy from India who started that Internet company that went public? Or the black-Jewish kid with computer skills who commanded a $70,000 salary?

A girl is told that we are a nation of homophobes, but has a hard time squaring this concept with the fact that all the gay people she knows about seem to be doing fine, thank you.

Kids hear about how we just blow people up without regard for human life, but common sense tells them that something is wrong with that picture because they know if we wanted to, we could obliterate a country like Afghanistan from the planet. Instead, we painstaking bombed only military targets and strove to keep casualties to a minimum.

Some of the smarter kids even study things like the Roman Empire and colonialism. They make mental note of the fact that the heavy-handed tactics of Rome and the British occupiers are not our style.

Hey, I thought Pat Robertson might have had a point when he said that we had gone so far from God that we had become vulnerable, but Pat missed a point that occurred to me. That is that we are free, and we are human, and we make mistakes, but as Frank Sinatra once said, the fun is in correcting our errors.

The young sense all of this much better than we give them credit for. They see injustice and do something about it. This generation sees racism and they gang up not to keep it going but to stop it.

They also sense instinctively that this is their time. There was nothing really special about the youth of the 1930s and '40s who took up the challenge of stopping Hitler, and later the Stalinists. A young man today sees our flag waving, and may not be inculcated by overwhelming patriotism, but they know that flag stands for something really special. They know because they have been here all their lives and that is long enough to understand such things. They know because they have been allowed to think for themselves, and down deep they know this country is the best in the world despite what they were told. They realize that if we were not the best we would never have the confidence to let everybody go around badmouthing us. We are such a great country that we know our greatness can sustain the slings and arrows of anti-U.S. sentiment. They know that the freedom to speak ones' mind is something special, and that our enemies do not have that right.

So they will fight. They will volunteer. They will sustain us in our time of need. They will not give up. They will never surrender. They will make us proud. Bin Laden's followers hear of it, and will do understand it. His prognostications will prove inaccurate, his calculations slightly off.

Not long ago, I read an article in _Newsweek_ about fighting terror. Apparently, many terrorists and suspected terrorists are under surveillance from the CIA and the FBI. They have decided that they get more from watching them move around than simply rounding them up. But in this article was something interesting. Apparently, a large number of terrorists stop becoming terrorists. Sometimes, they just become Americans. They get a job, they get married and start families, and _they fall in love with America._ That says it all.

Eventually, "thousands who will rise to replace" bin Laden will whither. They will become yesterday's news, like the Kaiser, Hitler, Pol Pot and others who clutter the dustbin of history. As for future generations of Americans, they will go back to their selfish, cynical ways. God bless 'em for it.

The truth about politicians

You know what bugs me? People who make fun of politicians. For that matter, people who get down on lawyers, too, but let me say my piece about politicians. Particularly high-ranking politicians. George W. Bush? How about running against that wildcat, Ann Richards, and coalescing the disparate elements of Texas politics? He is dumb, say the dumbbells of the radio and thereabouts. Hey, you know what, I do not know one single person who graduated from Yale, has an MBA from Harvard, and learned how to fly jet aircraft, who is dumb!

Society is filled with naysayers and nitpickers, from Don Imus on up (or down) who could no more handle the demands of politics than they could split an atom. Politicians are more educated, more honest, more hard-working and care more about this country than 99 percent of the apathetic populace, who know only to turn these guys into cartoon characters instead of taking the time to learn the issues. The system corrupts them, yes, but the people who complain about it do nothing to change it. If they switched places with these guys they would be far more corrupt. Most politicians started off as idealists. Just a reminder, but George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill were politicians. All of them received their fair share of criticism in their time.

As for lawyers, I say go to law school, pass the bar and practice law if you want to get down on these guys (and gals). Criticism of lawyers is more valid than that of pols, but most of the people who do the criticizing are the ne'e'r'do'wells who are too stupid to understand the legal system. Overall, I think stupid people are the ones who should be criticized. Find them and expose them I say!

California

Arnold Schwarzenegger is now in place as Republican Governor, having run the "Total Recall" campaign against Gray Davis. With a $38 billion budget deficit that he hid from the voters in 2002, Davis had overseen a state that saw its bond rating drop three notches by Standard & Poors. The California example is as strong as any in the nation when it comes to demonstrating the failure of the Democrat party. Davis was a second-term Democrat, with a Democrat state Senate and Assembly, and Democrats running the major cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sacramento. The state became a national joke, a laughing stock under these people. Poor economies and badly run state governments are nothing new, but the California Democrats succeeded in going above and beyond all previous records of incompetence (Texas Democrats who twice fled to avoid the state's business were close).

But Davis was not solely responsible for the state's mess. California had started the Reagan Revolution with the powerful Proposition 13 bond initiative of the late 1970s, which reduced property taxes and made it possible for families to raise their kids in the Golden State again. Property taxes under Jimmy Carter were sky high, but Republican policies managed to put the state back on its feet.

But the first Bush Presidency set California back. An invasion of Mexican illegals came to California during Bush's Presidency. Manufacturing jobs were lost to Third World globalization. Governor Pete Wilson tried to stem the tide. Propositions 209 and 187 were passed, denying social welfare benefits to illegals, supported by a huge majority. The courts struck it down.

Japan received a "free ride" on American defense, and the "Cold War dividend" cost the state numerous jobs in the defense industry. The auto industry also took a major hit, with many of those jobs leaving the country. Much of the TV industry went to Canada.

Reagan had intervened to impose quotas on Japanese cars, to save the semi-conductor industry, as well as Big Steel and Harley-Davidson. Since him, no President has put America first. Citizens and businesses fled the state even during the boom Clinton years because of high taxes. 2 million native Californians left in the 1990s. 31 million legal immigrants and 10 million illegals have replaced them. They eat up more taxes than they contribute. Global free trade deficits ($562 billion in 2003) caused California factories to re-locate in Mexico, Asia and China.

The state has gone through major changes since the first Bush years. Once dominated by Southern California, which had a Republican flavor to it, it is now represented by two Jewish Democrat women Senators from San Francisco, Dianne Feinstein (a moderate) and Barbara Boxer (a flaming, yet honest, liberal). Other interesting developments have taken place. First, San Francisco elected a quasi-Republican, Frank Jordan, as Mayor in 1991. I ran into Mayor Jordan at Johnny Love's nightclub on Broadway, shortly after his victory. He confirmed that he enjoyed Rush Limbaugh, but did point out that he was officially a Democrat. No Republican could be elected Mayor of San Francisco, but Jordan's victory was remarkable.

He was upended, however, by Willie Brown in 1995. Brown was the longtime self-proclaimed "Ayatollah of the Assembly" in Sacramento. Brown's story is almost worthy of a Steve Martin line: He was born a poor black child, in Texas. He escaped the vagaries of being black in Texas to attend San Francisco State, where he emerged as a brilliant student, protege of a San Francisco political family, the Burtons, and a lawyer. He was California Assembly Speaker for many years until term limits ended his reign.

Willie Brown is absolutely unbelievable. He is charming and easy to like. Occasionally he is asked by the media to critique politics, and in this respect he is as sharp as they come. He is also probably the most thoroughly corrupt political figure in America, and this is quite a statement in light of the existence of Jesse Jackson, the Clintons, Louisiana and Arkansas. It is hard to explain how Brown just gets away with what he gets away with, year after year after year. It is not so easily explained by saying that it is because he is black in city dominated liberals. There is smoothness and a _savoir faire to_ "da Mayor," as he is called. He is Central Casting's erudite version of a benign, likeable Satan. Under Brown's "leadership," San Francisco has become a cesspool of homeless bums, police corruption and a justice system headed by an actual former Communist who actually runs the district attorney's office in a way one would _expect_ a former Communist to run it.

When an ambitious, bright young Superintendent named Gavin Newsome proposed an excellent idea, which was to _stop paying the bums to live on the streets_ (a true story), the Board of Supervisors and a judge overturned his proposition, which had enthusiastically been voted in by the people.

Los Angeles went against the grain, too, voting in a Republican Mayor. Richard Riordan is referred to as a RINO (Republican In Name Only), but that is better than nothing. Riordan enjoyed a successful run in L.A., and was endorsed by President Bush for Governor in 2002. He was beaten by Bill Simon in the primary, who in turn lost to Gray Davis in November. Davis, a Vietnam vet and former chief of staff to Governor Jerry Brown, had represented Beverly Hills in the Legislature. How to explain Gray? He is not as corrupt as Brown, but he is in the same ballpark.

Just as political power has shifted from the south to the north, so has business clout. The Rodney King riots of 1992 and some major earthquakes, combined with the loss of jobs in the defense industry, hurt the Southern California economy. Meanwhile, the Silicon Valley, which is a geographical stretch just to the south of San Francisco running roughly from Palo Alto to San Jose, experienced its greatest growth.

Even sports evened out. The 49ers dominated the Rams, who left for St. Louis. The Raiders failed to enthuse Los Angeles and moved back to Oakland. The Giants built the best stadium in baseball, Pac Bell Park, and dominate the Dodgers. The A's developed into a power. USC and UCLA had always dominated Cal and Stanford, but a period of parity marked the 1990s. USC has again moved back into its perch as a college football power under a coach from...Northern California, Pete Carroll.

United Nations

Woodrow Wilson called it the League of Nations, but the U.S. Senate would not ratify membership. Ever since, America and the League's equally unsuccessful offspring, the United Nations, have been at odds. Perhaps because it was born when Communism was still half-legitimate, with the help of the Communist aristocrat, Alger Hiss, the U.N. has been a weak sister.

Unlike many conservatives, I do not call for the U.N.'s demise. It has its uses. But we must recognize its limitations, not expecting it to be an answer to the world's problems, nor a source of moral authority. The track record of history gives America the authority of global decision-making. Nobody else, including the U.N., has earned it. We have. Maybe the U.N. will someday, but it will only happen when they make the conscious decision to act more like America, and less like her detractors. These words are the chauvinistic expressions of a patriotic jingoist, which does not in the tiniest way change them from being that with which is true!

A few days prior to 9/11, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan attended a world conference on racism in Durban, South Africa attended by Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro, and various thugs. The host was Thabo Mbeki, one-time Communist leader of the African National Congress. Is there commentary that needs to be made regarding this?

The ANC enjoyed "necklacing" blacks by tying their hands with barbed wire, putting a rubber tire around them, pouring gasoline down their throats, then lighting the tire on fire. The process resulted in the victim dying in a slower manner, from the inside out. Their skin would melt. The ANC was Nelson Mandela's organization. His wife, Winnie, enjoyed necklacing in a manner that strangely reminds me of Hillary Clinton. Hollywood created the Nelson Mandela Freedom Award.

Thousands of innocent blacks died this way. Since taking power, the ANC has, with the approval of the U.N., turned South Africa from a prosperous country to a dispossessed crime hole. The true facts about modern South Africa are little known since the ANC employs Stalinist media censorship. A few brave journalists have told the story.

"We salute the heroic movement you represent," Annan told the conference while presenting Mbeki a bouquet of flowers.

Not surprisingly, Clinton liked the U.N., and vice versa. The U.S. is the U.N.'s largest financial contributor. One of the problems at the U.N. is that the 33 Democratic members of the Human Rights Commission do not vote as a bloc, while the remaining dictatorships often do. The Security Council consists of five permanent members, the U.S., China, France, Great Britain and Russia, and 10 rotating members, Germany, Guinea, Mexico, Pakistan, Spain, Syria, Angola, Bulgaria, Cameroon and Chile. Unimportant countries can stymie a country like America from doing its necessary work.

It is a socialist organization. Tyrannies use the U.N. to threaten American sovereignty and peace. The U.N. tries to ban all privately owned guns. In places like South Africa, Rhodesia and Zimbabwe, the sad fact is that white frontiersmen need guns to defend themselves from hordes of violent, rampaging blacks. This statement has all the earmarks of racist hyperbole, except that it is true. The U.N. want international police teams, not subject to local laws. Disarming citizens was the first act of Hitler and all Communist countries.

They want you to pay global taxes like the so-called Tobin Tox, applied to international transactions, plus special taxes for use of the oceans. President Bush canceled Bill Clinton's support for the International Criminal Court. The U.N., left to its own devices, would be the one-world government that Lenin envisioned. The ICC would enforce its "laws" on guns and gender discrimination.

U.N. peacekeepers stand by and watch genocides and holocausts, then count the skulls of the dead. They failed to stem black violence in South Africa and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, just as the League of Nations failed to stop Mussolini and Hitler. The U.N.'s history is a history of the worst bloodshed in recorded annals. The U.S. (and Britain) have stopped this bloodshed, time and time again. Canada, New Zealand and Australia are due some credit. Most of the rest have been by-standers. The U.N. failed to stop war in Korea, China's theft of Tibet, genocide in Cambodia, the Iran-Iraq War, Indonesia's war with East Timor, the first Gulf War, Bosnia, the Falklands War, and hundreds of other conflicts. Millions have died.

In Rwanda, U.N. "peacekeepers" assured Tutsi tribesmen that they would be protected from the rival Hutus, urging the Tutsis to turn in their weapons. 1.1 million died in the ensuing massacre. In 1995, the U.N. administered in Bosnia-Herzegovina, after the defeat of Slobodan Milosevic in the U.S.-led Balkans War. Under U.N. auspices, the sex trade, which includes the abductions of 12-year old girls, reached major heights. Some of the purveyors of underage prostitutes were U.N. personnel and aid workers, who were linked to the prostitution rings through official corruption.

The U.N. could not stop the Soviets and the Chinese from murdering millions. To this day, China operates slave labor camps, but the U.N. is silent. They were silent during the Palestinian Intifadas and mass murders in Zimbabwe. Marxists, Arabs and Africans kill with impunity under the nose of the United Nations.

But they condemn America. They allowed Libya to be elected to their Human Rights Commission chairmanship, where they sat next to "dignitaries" from Saudi Arabia, Sudan, China, Russia, Cuba and Zimbabwe. This was after Syria, who occupies Lebanon, had been found to back Hezbollah with up to $100 million per year. If the devil has an office, it is at the U.N.

The Left wing media praises the U.N. and excoriate America for backing out of Bill Clinton's agreements to adhere to the Kyoto Protocols, which would have meant radically curtailing U.S. industry, from electricity use to cars, trucks, farming and manufacturing. Third World countries like India and dictatorships like China, who pollute far more than the U.S., would be exempt. Kyoto would have bankrupted many American businesses, taking away millions of jobs, plunging the West into Depression, and increased global pollution. Still, American textbooks inform our children that it is a good treaty that is meant to reduce global warming, which is an unproven assertion.

Kyoto is socialist, anti-growth, and anti-capitalist. It is meant simply to redistribute American wealth to unsuccessful countries, many of whom would like to (or already do) finance terrorists against us, or would like to see us beaten in wars. The U.N. wants the U.S. to adopt the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), designed to make kids think they are doing God's work to keep women from being discriminated against. It would radically re-structure American governmental and educational institutions, creating a gender-neutral military, create "big sister" laws effecting families, revise U.S. textbooks, revise wage guidelines, and make abortion available on demand.

George W. Bush, the 2004 Presidential election, and G.O.P strategy

The big question of the day is whether George W. Bush is unbeatable in 2004. The Democrats offer Vermont Governor Howard Dean as a possible pre-Primary frontrunner. Former General Wesley Clark appears to be the most attractive Democrat based on the simple premise that he is, for all practical purposes, not a Democrat. On the surface, the Republicans would like to face Dean since they have the potential of defeating him in an electoral sweep greater than any in U.S. history. This brings to mind the George McGovern nomination of 1972, when Nixon won 49 states. However, that election did not bring America together. Watergate divided a still-divided country further.

It is possible that the best Democrat candidate for _America_ is Clark. Clark would not lose to Bush as thoroughly as Dean. While the temptation for the G.O.P. is to want an opponent they can win big against, the Dean candidacy would create a divided electorate since his only issues are the usual hate-Bush, hate-America tirades. Defeating such rhetoric will feel good, but might it not be better for somebody like Clark to maintain a modicum of patriotism on the Democrat side of the aisle?

Bush's re-election will be based on lessons learned from his father. In the Spring of 2003, he faced the same prospects at the same time in his Presidency as his dad did in 1991 \- a successful war, popularity, and no G.O.P. or third party challenger on the horizon.

The first Bush Presidency was successful in the lens of history. He liberated Panama, the Berlin Wall came down, he put together a 28-nation coalition to knock Saddam out of Kuwait, oversaw renewal of Israeli-Palestinian talks, and saw the liberation of 100 million in Eastern Europe. He managed to go in half a year from 91 percent approval to 37 percent of the vote.

He was a victim of his own success. Foreign affairs, his strong suit, was not an issue in 1992. He had treated conservatives with disdain and did not have their loyalty. After Clarence Thomas he gave in on a "quota bill." Where Reagan spoke of a "shining city on a hill," Bush scornfully referred to the "vision thing." Lee Atwater, his conservative guru, died at just the wrong time.

While W has gone out of his way to learn from the lessons of his father's defeat, and his role model is more Reagan than Bush I, he still treads in dangerous territory. Bush recognizes that he is not President of the Republican party or of the conservatives. He is President of the Democrats, the independents, the old, the young, black, white and other, gay and straight, hawk and dove, and all of America. After his razor-thin 2000 victory, he made a strong pitch to reach out to the other side of the aisle in his first year. This is a fairly common tactic.

But Bush, who has never been a true blue conservative (Texans knew this) has taken the "Nixon goes to China" playbook and pushed some very liberal agendas. It could hurt him, not so much with voters but with the economy, in his second term. It threatens his legacy and the future of the party, and the country.

In 2003, he proposed a radical Medicare overhaul, aimed at making the government a _de facto_ prescription pharmacy. This is a bad idea that has been tried before and always falls short, at great cost to taxpayers. Exactly what the Bush-Karl Rove strategy is may be beyond me, but it has the potential for pratfall.

Bush is making compromise with Democrats, theoretically to get them to come along with him on other, more important issues. It all might be "inside baseball," as his dad used to call it, but from Main Street all we see is more hatred from Democrats. Bush's judicial nominees were stonewalled in the most atrocious manner.

In the second Bush term, without re-election to worry about (although his successor and his legacy will be considered), Bush must address some of the hardest domestic issues to face any President since FDR. The Baby Boomers will start to retire. Medicare and prescription drugs are just the tip of the iceberg. Social Security, which became a boondoggle decades ago, will become all-but insolvent. In 1972, the day after beating McGovern, Nixon asked all the heads of his "plumb" departments to hand in their resignations. Most were hired right back beginning with his second term in 1973, but the plan was to re-tool the Federal government. It was an ambitious plan, derailed by Watergate. Even Reagan failed to follow up on what Nixon started. Since then, the government has just gotten bigger. It is time for a President to stand up and tell the American public what they must hear and deal with. Social security as we know it must be trimmed down, along with the entire Federal apparatus, or else we face a fiscal crisis in the next 20 to 30 years that has not been experienced since the 1930s.

No Democrat will do this. Only a Republican can make this call. Economists and government experts have been warning us for years. Those of us with political savvy know it is coming. But the public is largely unawares.

Some Democrat wild cards in 2004 include an Al Gore draft (not likely, since he does not want to lose to Bush again). Hillary's name is always brought up. She will run only if Bush is very weak, which is not in the cards. She probably would not want to run a campaign that she loses by a huge margin. However, she and Clark could be in conspiracy together. Clark could have been asked to place his name in the hat. If he runs strong in the Primaries, he might be asked to step down and run as Hillary's Vice-President. Possibly Hillary could be a Vice-Presidential candidate, as well.

As for other races, Jerry Springer (a Democrat...who knew?) chose not to run for the Ohio Senate. With California back in Republican gubernatorial control (Schwarzennegger), the Golden State is back in play and ready to re-assert itself as the most important political state in the nation.

My strategy would be to run National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, a California resident and former provost of Stanford University, for the state's U.S. Senate seat in 2004. If she succeeds, it will get rid of the ultra-liberal, out of step Barbara Boxer once and for all.

In 2006, Rudolph Giuliani needs to come back and run for the New York Senate, pinning a costly defeat on Hillary Clinton that will slow her '08 Presidential ambitions and deprive her of her public perch.

In 2008, with four years in the Senate from California under her belt, having already won a campaign in a huge media state that represents the world's seventh largest economy, Rice would be an excellent Presidential candidate. As a black woman, she would deprive the Democrats of an enormous demographic. It could be the final nail in their coffin as a viable party. If her opponent is Hillary, she will take a huge portion of the women's vote. Her ethnicity could augur a seismic shift back to the party of Lincoln.

Of course, she would have to make it through the G.O.P. Primaries, where Rudy Giuliani could run. Other contenders include Arizona Senator John McCain, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.), New York Governor George Pataki, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and a dark horse Colin Powell (not likely, but not impossible).

The next war

The future of American military operations will center around a rapid, combined-arms campaign to seize initiative through a "shock and awe," designed to handle multiple fronts. It will concentrate on a blitzkrieg-type offensive designed to deny, through rapid forward deployment, terrorists and their sponsors from using chemicals, WMD, and in many cases will be used to save not just human life and property, but to prevent environmental disasters.

"It is well that war is so terrible," General Robert E. Lee once said, "or we should grow too fond of it." Lincoln said virtually the same thing at the same time.

No words could have greater meaning to an America flush with power, for in fighting and winning wars with little casualty to themselves and few among the population, American military planners must avoid thinking of a "surgical" war. For this reason, we need to create partnerships and coalitions with nations who do not view war as "victory" like we do. These partnerships can create preventive covert and intelligence operations to replace the need for overt actions. This will help stop the lies and propaganda that emanate even from places like France, whose textbooks and media promulgate full-blown distortions of American history. Make them part of our history, not just by-standers.

The first goal of war will be to "crack the enemy's will as quickly as possibly," Harlan Ullman writes in "Shock and Awe". Instead of destroying everything through massive aerial bombardment, America now can cut off electricity, water and telecommunications with surgical efficiency, before overwhelming force is needed. The plan is to kill as few civilians and even as few of the enemy as possible, and of course as few Americans as can be done. There is no way we can rely on the U.N. to keep peace anywhere. They should be used as _our_ sounding board, not despot countries. We can use them to raise money and bring in police forces, but as a tactical military outfit, they are useless. Bill Clinton's use of them in this capacity proved that.

Future wars will be decided, as Sun Tsu wrote in "The Art of War", before they are fought. Much of that will be through media and information, which we can and must control, especially through the Internet. This has nothing to do with free speech. It has to do with competing with hate speech by spewing Truth to foreign lands.

George Bush must maintain his line that countries are "either with us or against us." Nations like Russia and Germany need to be held accountable for their treacherous sale of arms to enemy countries and terrorists. Some members of the Saudi Arabian government worked with Al Qaeda in planning 9/11. They cannot be trusted. They have no choice but to acquiesce to our demands on them.

Many militarists think war with China, probably a regional conflict, is inevitable, although this may not occur until after they host the Olympics. China has been pushed to the background by American dominance. If hard-line elements emerge there, they might choose to "make their play," so to speak, as a world power. A surgical bombing of North Korean nuclear facilities, like the preventive measures taken by Israel against Iraq at Osirak, may be necessary. Other possible strikes may occur in Somalia (to settle the score from 1993), Africa (to deal with civil wars), Latin America (to combat narco-terrorism), and to a lesser extent, action (overt and covert) in Iran, Libya and Syria. It is doubtful that Cuba will be attacked since Castro will fall of his own attrition. Vietnam no longer poses a threat.

G.O.P. policy: Taxes, small government, and other issues

Above the front entranceway to the IRS, engraved in stone, is the famous line by Oliver Wendell Holmes: "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society."

"Taxes," writes economist Stephen Moore, "are actually the price we pay for our failure to create a civil society."

Taxes and their relation to government services are the untold phenomenon of the 20th Century. In fact, it applies mainly to events that began in the 1930s, but did not even turn into the political issue that it is until the 1950s and '60s, with the Great Society. The modern demand for government services, and the need to tax the populace (read: The rich) in order to do so, is the result of a wholly new circumstances.

Think of many new "government services" as "electricity" and "air conditioning." For millions of years, man lived without electricity. Then he got it. Then a little less than 100 years later he got air conditioning. I think of these seemingly unrelated (to taxes) issues because in Iraq, in the Summer of 2003, thousands of irate Iraqis "rose up" in furious anger at the United States forces and administration for failing to repair Saddam's faulty electrical grids. People were forced to suffer through the "unbearable" 120-degree heat all Summer long. Of course, we are talking about Mesopotamia, the "cradle of civilization," where for thousands of years, man lived just fine without such luxuries. Jesus Christ changed the world preaching to masses in such heat. Mohammad started an Islamic revolution with no electricity. His followers slept in the heat, but did not rebel against him for failing to provide cool breezes.

Which brings me to health care; specifically, Hillarycare. For centuries, doctors were quasi-religious men; faith healers, barbers, "witch doctors." Then along came America. Now maybe the fact that medical care has improved 17,419.7 percent since that time is a coincidence, but I do not think so. In the past 100 years alone, the world has seen (in Switzerland, in Germany, in England, but mostly in America), scientific, medical, and techno-medical advancements beyond the realm of all prior imaginings. These are all medical treatments that human beings did without for thousands of years. In the old days, humans got sick, then sicker, and then died. Sometimes a religious miracle might save them, but by and large they went to the Great Beyond as nature would have them.

Now, everybody wants the most modern medical treatment and care. Of course, wanting this is perfectly understandable. But these treatments did not materialize out of thin air. They resulted because of research, which costs money, and was usually paid for by governments, using your taxes. Now everybody wants to use more of your taxes to see to it that they have access to every possible new and superior medical advancement. Nobody is to blame for wanting it. Getting it is unrealistic.

Democrats argue that many countries have socialized medicine. First of all, it is not what it is made out to be. Europeans pay half their earnings (at least) in taxes, and what the government takes out of their pockets for health care is substantially more than what I pay to Kaiser for private insurance every month. Kaiser is not the greatest health provider of all time, but it is better than all government health systems in Europe. But even if the U.S. wanted to create a Canadian-style health system, we face an obstacle no other nation faces. That obstacle is immigration, legal and illegal. Because we are the greatest nation in the world, everybody wants to live here. Illegals chew up such an enormous burden on our social net that providing health care for a nation our size is preposterous. Furthermore, the system we have now provides the best medicine and health care in the world. To socialize it would reduce the quality drastically. People from all over the world come to the U.S. to have procedures done here, because they cannot get that kind of care anywhere else. Asking the taxpayer to pick up this burden is immoral.

America is great in large part because we have an anti-tax, entrepreneurial spirit in which the government stays out of our business more here than any industrialized nation. We thrive because of it. Every other kind of system has been tried. None has ever produced better results than America.

The American IRS collects $2 trillion in annual taxes (more than the entire GDP of most countries) each year. In the first 100 years of American history, taxes were reasonable. Opposition to high taxes fueled the American Revolutionary War. Government revenues fueled World Wars. Americans were taxed at high rates, leading to the withholding system. Social Security gave rise to further payroll taxes on all workers.

In 1930 workers paid one of every eight dollars of their income in taxes. In 1950 they paid one of every four dollars of their income in taxes. By 2000, they paid just over 40 percent of their income in taxes. The tax burden on families has quadrupled since 1950 from $7,000 to $28,000. 15 percent of the Federal payroll tax, the number one tax now of middle-income families, creates unemployment. The Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation estimated that every one percent increase in the payroll tax rate costs the U.S. economy roughly 500,000 jobs.

In 1913 rates ranged from one percent to seven percent. Within five years the highest income tax rate was raised to 67 percent. Today, the highest rate is 39 percent and President Bush wants to cut it to 35. Liberals call it a "tax break for the yacht owners." The highest tax brackets, however, pay about 60 percent of all income taxes. 67 percent of Americans paying the highest tax rate are small business owners who create wealth, goods and services desired by other citizens.

The original income tax law was 14 pages long. By 1950 it was 1,000 pages. Today's IRS code is 11,650 pages. The Tax Foundation estimates that the country wastes $200 billion a year just to maneuver through the code. The tax system is anti-growth, unfair, incomprehensible, and overly intrusive. It is also becoming less enforceable through shelters and legal offshore accounts. The IRS' budget hike is $8.5 billion a year, spent on tax collection activities and revenue agents.

Alternatives are a 17 percent flat tax and the voter supported FAIR Tax to replace the entire income tax structure with a national retail sales tax, proposed by Representative Jon Linder (R.-Georgia). The history of economics is that lowered taxes always bring in government revenues. The Reagan tax cuts created the longest peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history. After the Republicans took over Congress in 1995 and reduced spending and taxation (which they are not doing under Bush), another period of prosperity resulted. Bush has cut taxes, but Democrats constantly drum into people's minds that they are "tax cuts for the rich," not mentioning that most lower income workers get refunds already. The rich pay the lion's share (in some brackets up to 90 percent) of American taxes.

Abortion.

I do not believe abortion is murder in the manner that "murder" is classified. Perhaps it is closer to manslaughter. I believe the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision was based on bad law. I do not see the "privacy clause" in application to abortion. In my view, because it involves the taking of a human life, and because that life has no current legal advocate, the issue is a public, not private, one. I believe the Supreme Court should overturn Rose vs. Wade, but I do not believe the issue should be subject to Federal law.

What I do believe is that the circumstances that led to Roe have drastically changed. Today, sex education is rampant in our schools. Contraception, in the form of prophylactics and pills, whether taken before or after sex, are now readily available. Ignorance is no longer the "excuse" that it used to be. There is no good reason for a women (or girl) to get pregnant if she does not want to. It is true that a small percentage of contraceptives fail, but I also believe that sex is an important matter, not to be taken lightly. When one engages in it they must accept the consequences.

If Roe were overturned, abortion would not become illegal. I believe each state should address the issue based on its constituencies. I believe parents should be notified of their minor daughter's pregnancies. I believe men have almost (not quite 50 percent) rights in the matter of whether their children are aborted or not.

New medical knowledge has demonstrated that the fetus is not the "unviable tissue matter" that people thought it was in 1973. Rather, a child becomes a "living thing" very early, developing arms, legs, a brain and a heart.

I believe people who bomb abortion clinics or murder abortion doctors, or commit other violent crimes in the "name" of abortion, are terrorists who need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I do believe, however, that the issue, whether one likes to admit to this or not, cannot be separated from its religious connotations. I believe the unborn child has a soul, and I also believe that God does not want that unborn baby killed. I believe anybody, not just the woman, but a man who aids in an abortion, even by "helping" it along, is placing his or her soul in danger. I believe if one aborts or helps abort, they can ask forgiveness from God and be saved, but if they do not ask for forgiveness it is not for me to say or judge.

I believe that the climate has changed in America, maybe not to the point where abortion would be made illegal across the land, but rather to the point where the practice can be made much more rare than it is. I feel it should be difficult to get an abortion; that a woman and her family should have to go through some education and counseling first. It is an issue that should require "soul searching" before agreeing to. There are many, many people who want to adopt babies. If a woman does not wish to be a parent, I believe we should put in place a safe, clean, dignified system that will allow a woman to go through the nine-month pregnancy and deliver the child to an adopted parent. I think the adoption laws could be revised so that women who in later years regret giving up their children should be given a second chance with a willing, cooperative "adopter" to be a part of their kids' lives.

Gun control.

I suppose it could be said that I differ with the core of the Republican party on this issue. I absolutely believe we should be allowed to own guns for hunting and protection. I think they should be registered and licensed, and only issued to people who meet the criteria of ownership. I believe in a waiting period. I do not think people should own a lot of the weapons that are out there. Assault weapons, generally, should not be available to "just anyone." That said, there are some exceptions that could be worked out depending on why a person wants such a weapon.

Death penalty.

I differ not only with my party but the majority of the American public on the death penalty. I do not argue that it may reduce crime, and many murderers "deserve" to be put to death. Most of the arguments for the death penalty make sense to me. However, if I was Governor, and I allowed a man to be put to death who I could have "saved," I would fear for my own mortal soul. I think I could still be saved myself if I asked God for forgiveness, but the fact that I would need to ask makes me question the morality of it. I cannot help but think about Pontius Pilate "washing his hands" of Jesus' Crucifixion.

Furthermore, there are many cases of convicted murderers found innocent years later by new evidence.

Trade deficit.

This is not a big issue to me. If the U.S. has big trade deficit one way or another, it can mean either that we are buying a lot of foreign products or the rest of the world is buying a lot of our products. Either situation is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. During the Reagan Administration, we had big trade deficit with Japan, because we were buying more of their cars than they were buying of ours. A call went out for tariffs and embargoes. Reagan said he believed in free trade and competition. Lee Iacocca took to the challenge and re-tooled the American car industry. American cars are again on a par with their Japanese counterparts. Also, if we were buying a lot of Japanese products, that is a sign of a strong economy, which is never a bad thing.

Federal budget.

Reagan ran large budget deficits, and there are conservative economists who insist that a balanced budget is not necessary to a strong economy. During Clinton's Presidency, the budget was balanced, and he deserves credit for this. I do not believe the budget has to be totally balanced, but my own sense of good business tells me we should strive to meet budget demands. However, both Reagan and the current President Bush have faced circumstances that justify a budget deficit. Reagan built up the military, running deficits in the process, in order to defeat the Communists. Bush is doing the same thing in order to defeat terror. Clinton benefited from the "Cold War dividend" and no major confrontations. Hopefully, Bush's second term will see a more peaceful, stable world military scenario (reduced terror threats) that will allow spending to be brought down and budgets balanced.

Federal deficit.

This is a more serious, long-term problem. Annual balanced budgets, which are filled with "smoke and mirror" budget tricks and "baselining," pass costs off to the next budget, often year after year. These budges are "balanced" not because it is, but because projected costs are higher than actual costs. The long-term debt affects interest rates and the world economy, and goes hand in hand with looming "monsters" like social security and health costs that will have to be met for the retiring Baby Boomers. A second Bush/Republican government must dedicate itself to doing the very tricky, politically charged work of convincing the American public that we must control costs and spending now in order to save our children's future. This issue could resonate in 2008. If Bush places this country on an "austerity" program in order to save us from future bankruptcy, he will engender enormous political pressure from Democrats, not to mention individual Republicans. There is no easy way to handle this, except to say that the President who puts us back on the right path to dealing with social security and future spending and deficits will have to accept his place in history years from now, instead of at the time.

America's Manifest Destiny: A new kind of empire

"Across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith. It cannot withstand truth. It cannot withstand freedom."

  6. President Ronald Reagan, Berlin Wall speech, 1987

"If not us, who? If not now, when?"

\- Robert F. Kennedy

Friends, Americans, countrymen, lend me your ear. We live in a brave new world. Global citizens, look around you, and observe history in the making. The Roman Empire existed for centuries. The Sun never set on the British Empire. China and Napoleonic France made their bids. The Ottomans, the Austro-Hungarians and the Byzantines had their day. Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia wanted and controlled empires, but nothing lasts forever.

If this is true, that nothing that lasts forever, then the U.S. must act accordingly. Some day, historians will look back on the American Empire and judge it for all it was worth. The American Empire may not last as long as Rome's did, simply because we are not comfortable as empire builders and keepers. History that took a couple hundred years to develop 2,000 years ago now happens in 10, 20, 30 years. The Cold War, for instance, would have been a 200-year conflict had it occurred during the Middle Ages.

The American Empire began when Theodore Roosevelt led the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill. As President, T.R. wanted to create an empire, and used our modern powers to start one. In China, the Philippines, Cuba, Morocco and other ports of call, the U.S. established itself as the dominant force. He spoke of an expansionist agenda and evoked "the earliest civilizations, those seated beside the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates." Just as a Republican President pushes for a new kind of empire after a short, successful war in 2003, so to did Roosevelt in 1903 when he came to San Francisco's Union Square to dedicate a monument to Commodore George Dewey.

His predecessor, McKinley, lacked the requisite American vision.

"I didn't want the Philippines," he said, "and when they came to, as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them."

"It is eminently fitting that there should be here in this great city on the Pacific Ocean," said Roosevelt during the San Francisco visit, "a monument to commemorate the deed which showed once and for all that America has taken her position on the Pacific."

Roosevelt and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge forged the new empire.

"Before I came to the Pacific Slope, I was an expansionist," Roosevelt said. "The inevitable march of events gave us control of the Philippine Islands at a time so opportune that it may without irreverence be called providential."

Senator Alfred J. Beveridge of Indiana said God "has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns."

The _San Francisco Chronicle_ saw The City as the "future seat of empire."

Rudyard Kiping took up the call for America to pick up where Britain was falling off.

"America has gone and struck a pickax into the foundation of a rotten house, and she is morally bound to build the house over again from the foundation," he wrote to Roosevelt.

Proving the U.S. was a benevolent power, under Roosevelt's successor, William Howard Taft, the U.S. bought 400,00 acres of Filipino land from the Roman Catholic Church, making it available as private homes through low-cost mortgages to thousands of locals.

Soon, Filipinos were electing their own legislature. When the Japanese attacked, they enthusiastically joined arms with their big brothers to fend them off. They were rewarded with independence in 1946. San Francisco's municipal report said of Dewey, who defeated the Spanish to take the Philippines, that he "added glory to American arms and gave the United States a position in the world as one of the great powers, thus extending American influence and exalting American citizenship. He destroyed the Spanish fleet, thereby saving the California coast from ravage and San Francisco from being placed under forced tribute by the enemy."

In 1917-18, the U.S. became a superpower by "making the world safe for Democracy" in Europe, but its foreign policy was schizophrenic over the next 20 years.

America exerted influence in China, started the "Open Door" policy, but regarding the big issues of Europe, remained isolationist while the last vestiges of the British Empire attempted to exert a control they no longer could maintain.

After World War II, the U.S. went through a 15- to 20-year period of prosperity, popularity and world influence of unprecedented proportions. The country was symbolized by Dwight Eisenhower, the most wildly popular man in the world, loved as much or more in Europe as he was in the U.S. Douglas MacArthur was more popular in Japan than in the States. John F. Kennedy was a celebrity in France, joking that he was "the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris."

Communism and its wars, Korea and Vietnam, worked as dichotomies in the Cold War, when American popularity decreased, but American power increased. The influence of the United States infiltrated every corner of the globe in ways the CIA could not imagine. Its cultural changes and economic effects created resentment, but the resentment was tiny compared to the increase in non-military power.

The men who died in Korea and Vietnam did not die in vain. If one can think of the Cold War as D-Day, think of Korea as Omaha Beach and Vietnam as the Hedgerow Country, where men died in battles that did not win wars, but had to be fought in order to get to Berlin.

The fall of the Berlin War was the paradigm shift that created sole superpower status for the United States. A New World Order was created. The War on Terrorism was fought, Iraq brought down, and the first beginnings of stability in the Middle East were established. 50 years from now, when historians are discussing how the "Middle East was won" they will start by discussing both President Bush's wars against Iraq.
In the early years of the 21st Century, the U.S. has, for all practical purposes, won the War on Terrorism. What remains now are mop-up operations and various humanitarian missions in Africa. The new reality is that the U.S. is so advanced militarily that it could simply conquer the entire world and rule it if it so chose to do so. The U.S. may have been capable of doing this 20 years ago, but it would have had to fight World War III to do it. Today, we could accomplish the same goal with a relatively small number of American casualties. Obviously, this is not going to happen. The decision not to let it happen is made by the United States.

The other reality is that the rest of the world knows this fact. It is entirely understandable that the rest of the world is uncomfortable with this knowledge. American power has made us less popular than we used to be. But popularity, as any general, baseball manager or schoolteacher can tell you, is less important than respect. American influence is greater in every way than it ever was before. We are totally respected. Not loved, respected. This is also much different from being feared.

The rise of America has gone from modern world power (1900-18), to superpower (1918-45), to ultra-power (1945-90), to sole ultra-power (1990-2001), to the Most Powerful Empire in World History (21st Century).

It is an entirely different kind of empire, but its influence reaches beyond the old influences - military, political, economic, cultural. America does not "occupy" or "colonize" in the manner of the old empires. They do not "prop up" puppet governments. This empire is as much about philosophy as anything else. What makes it so powerful is that the new American Empire has the same kind of hold on people as Christianity, because it is part and parcel with Christianity. It is not a Crusade designed to turn Jews, Muslims, Hindus and atheists into Christians. Replace "Christianity" with words like Democracy, freedom, safety, security, respect, and the "family of nations," and you have all the things that Christianity stands for.

The American Empire will spread as an idea (only faster) the way Christianity spread, until it tamed the Roman Empire. The American ideal will be resisted and resented, but it will permeate the consciousness of the world citizenry as the only true way. All the world's great religions will continue to exist, but decades and centuries from now, Muslim imams will give thanks to the influence of the American Empire on reforming (by helping them stamp out Fundamentalist) Islam.

Most important, the American Empire will represent the triumph of man and God over Satan. The Biblical prophecies of Armageddon will be averted because of American intervention. The worst predictions of humanity will be averted because God has put us here to avert them.

Just as history judges Teddy Roosevelt as the man who put America on the path to world power, George Bush will be seen as the man who started the American Empire. It is a heady concept that scares the dickens out of many, Americans and non-Americans alike. It is not something likely to be readily admitted to, in its most naked form, even by the New Conservatives who are creating it. It is left to writers and historians like Yours Truly to identify and define what it is. It will not be a smooth process, but it is America's Manifest Destiny for the 21st Century. It the course that has been laid out before us, and it is the right thing to do.

In 2003, the U.S. Army Special Operation Command deployed troops in 65 nations. We were chasing Maoist rebels in Nepal, fighting the Abu Syaf in the Philippines, and aiding the Colombian government in their fight for the soul of that country with the Medellin drug cartel, just to show a few examples.

In China, Iran, Syria, Libya, North Korea, Cuba and other nations ruled by despots, those despots are scared of George Bush. He demonstrated something Bill Clinton never did. He had a big stick and was willing to use it. More importantly, when he said something, he was willing to back it up.

The comedian Dennis Miller says that leaders deal with military strength in one of two ways. The "chess players" read books, mull over high concepts, strategize and game out scenarios. The "checkers players" see where a move has to be made and just make the move. Bush is a "checkers player." There are many times when the right man may be a "chess player." The past two years, and probably the next 10, will not be that time. The fact that "bad guys" are scared to death of the United States is an absolutely good thing. The fact that this is currently a debatable subject will someday be viewed as an oddity of our times.

The "death" of Communism has been replaced by something else, and this gets to an important Truth about human nature. Evil does not die. It shifts around, changing colors like a chameleon. The end of slavery in America did not end racism. It just became Jim Crow. Communism in Latin America, for example, is now replaced in Colombia by a morphing of Left wing and authoritarian groups, whose guerrilla Marxism is mixed with capitalism. The narco-terrorist group Fuerzasd Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) engage in acts of torture comparable to the Saddam Hussein regime. They take in hundreds of millions of dollars from cocaine sales, and are linked to the IRA and the Basque separatists.

Like Xenon's Greek army, which moved through the Persian Empire in 401 B.C., the U.S. finds itself managing a deadly world of fallen (and not fallen) governments and dynasties, ranging from traditional military powers to drug empires. Terrorism and anarchy, the natural result of the Emma Goldman mindset that began to spread its poison a century ago, morphing with liberalism and threatening the old assumptions of conservatism and safety, are now being dealt with by Special Ops forces and indigenous troops trained by them.

The difference between the current empire and the British one is that our soldiers are not built for maintaining colonial occupations. An American soldier rotates out. In the old days, an assignment to India was a much more long-term condition. British soldiers spent years in faraway lands. In turn they came to think of the colonies as an extension of Britain. The Americans know that their power comes not from occupation, but from leaving these places with the gift of freedom. Like Christianity, it requires the choice of free will. It takes less time than rounding up and imprisoning the government (the old way), but it is the only lasting way.

When I was a kid, my father and I practiced baseball all the time. We would go on vacation, and find a new baseball field in whatever town we were in, and practice on it. My dad kept a rake in the back of the car. When we were done using the field, he always smoothed it out before we left.

"Always leave the field in better shape than it was before we got here," he explained.

This is America's philosophy. Always leave a country better than it was before we got there. We have failed in this endeavor a couple of times. We have succeeded at it countless times, and shall continue to do so.

We strive to create an empire of personal relationships built on partnership. Our emissaries are not ambassadors, but often Army majors and captains. In former Communist countries, mid-level officers advise former generals and chiefs of staff. They are virtual policy-makers. A Romanian-speaking Balkans expert, Lieutenant Colonel Charles van Bebber, is to Bucharest what T.S. Lawrence was to Saudi Arabia. Colonel Tom Wilhelm is the most influential man in Mongolia, where a smaller version of Kissinger's triangulated foreign policy allows the small country to infuse its relationship with China and Russia with the _realpolitik_ of self-interest.

Like 2nd Century Rome under Trajan and Hadrian, the U.S. now finds itself "granting" world citizenship to countries eager to modernize in the post-Cold War world. Within our own borders an influx of immigrants from every corner of the globe now makes us a central territorial zenith. Millions of people experience America and go back to their native lands to spread the word like Christian disciples.

Just as the last 20 years have seen the military go from a place where criminals joined up to avoid jail time (under Carter) to a place where high-tech skills are taught and needed, the new Army will be filled with foreign language specialists who can communicate with the locals wherever we are.

The U.S. military promotes Democracy not by teaching the local populations about Thomas Jefferson, but through influence. U.S. advisors trained many elected officials in foreign countries. We train their security services, too. The result of this is diplomatic leverage. In Colombia, the civilian government is tainted by drug money, but the military police, trained by the U.S., are considerably less corrupt. It has been a long road to hoe. Liberals have chipped away at the policy for decades, but American involvement with foreign militaries has slowly seen many of them evolve from the "death squad" mentalities of El Salvador and Chile to a modernizing force. Human rights abuses in El Salvador were curbed largely because of the influence of American advisors, who convinced them over time that the practical disadvantages it caused - resentment among the population, terrorists, moral indignation - were outweighed by a more progressive approach.

Third World military officers are more likely to listen to American military advisers than hoary civilian moralists. In Latin America, if those Americans look like them and speak Spanish, the influence is enormous. In Peru and Indonesia, American Army generals have diplomatic power that diplomat's lack. U.S. foreign policy now recognizes this. The power of Democracy as a tool of military strength was demonstrated on the Normandy Beaches, where officers were killed instantly and units had to be led by corporals and sergeants. These lessons were learned by the military, which inculcated their officer corps over the next 50 years with increased training in diplomacy and strategic thinking, beyond the mere taking of territory. The result is an enlightened American force operating everywhere on Earth. It is what improves us from the Romans and the British.

Paraguay's constitution was adopted because of American military influence, namely two Special Forces officers who were given the authority by the State Department in a decision that placed more emphasis on "boots on the ground" thinking than centralized command. Critics say that America is not a police force, and that our military is supposed to be good only at "killing people and breaking things." This is an old, outmoded concept, and not part of the New American Empire. We are entering an age of poet-warriors who may be the first people who inculcate the true Platonic creed. The "warrior spirit" is now combined with the moderate elements of professional political training, the dream of Plato. Do not be surprised that American political leaders in the 21st Century will emerge from this class of citizen-soldier.

There is a difference between the old partnerships, when the U.S. trained armies on how to kill and torture in order to defeat the Soviets. Today, where narco-terrorism is the enemy, a "hearts and minds" approach to interagency support - diplomacy, human rights, aid - has created partnerships, not client states. In places like Yemen, it is so dangerous that only the military can operate there. Individual interests, time and again, are what motivate disparate regimes to invite Army personnel in to help them secure their countries. Terrorists are becoming more and more desperate. They choose "soft" targets in countries like these, which turns the populations against them and makes the Stars and Stripes more inviting. Time after time, the terrorists are creating situations that are the polar opposite of their hoped-for goals. They blow something up, and the locals invite us in to go after them. Air Force officers swoop in and provide medical care and toys for kids. In El Salvador, American advisors convinced the government that instead of shooting Leftist demonstrators, they should provide escape routes to let them run away. The Leftists quickly realized their power was in martyrdom, not their Leftist slogans.

Even in Chile after Allende's overthrow, the infant mortality rate was reduced from 30 percent to 11 thanks to privatization of medical services under American auspices. The "economy of force" that marks American advisor programs throughout the world helps to spread the Democratic message with a minimum of expense, and does not have the connotation of "quagmire" the liberals love to attribute to any effort to make the world better.

Sometimes, as we found out in Bosnia and other places, it is more realistic to "fix" society piece by piece, rather than forming the whole thing at once. The key to the new empire is an incremental approach. An obvious exception to that rule is in Iraq, but that country left few alternative options. Much of our work is done with little fanfare. The Coast Guard, for instance, patrols the seemingly endless Colombian riverways, and is operating also on the Yemeni coast, where Al Qaeda once had free reign. Not anymore.

Old style covert CIA operations have started up again. This helps circumvent the U.N., which is a good thing. The War on Terrorism requires this kind of policy, and a return to dealing with "morally ambiguous" characters in order to win a larger battle. The U.N. had backed so-called "peacekeepers" who were actually either incompetent Zambian non-combat units or Nigerian diamond smugglers, as was the case in the Clinton '90s. Order was restored in these situations by British troops. These U.N. operations have to be replaced by professional American and British units and advisors. The current "rules" that often require advisors to let the locals do the fighting should also be replaced by a pro-active policy like the one in Afghanistan. This is essential to preventing U.S. troops from being "sitting ducks."

New battles will be combinations of military activity, financial transactions, trade battles, legal maneuvers, resource distribution, and other methods. In this respect, the advantage lies entirely with the U.S., dominating enemies in every possible domain. The most important single aspect of this doctrine has to with the media. The priests of ancient Egypt and the rhetoricians of medieval Europe once held this position. Political divides, socialist agendas, jealousy, and the traditional "role" of the media to protect the weak from the strong have been used against us. American media (led by Fox) has seen an important new patriotic fervor. It may be crass, but dollars and sense will drive the media. In this respect, Fox, America and pro-American conservative media have the edge.

Demonstrations are loud and meant to draw media attention, but it should be pointed out that Hitler and Stalin oversaw large demonstrations. In the West, the demonstrations are relatively small. In other words, not too much should be drawn from them in terms of their modern importance. The media portrayed the Arab street as contorted in hate for America, but many journalists described these scenes as narrow in scope. They "turned it on" for the camera. Around the corner all was quiet. Much of it was an act. Honest journalism is our friend. America and Americans do good work. Straight reportage of this is in our interests. We should continue to endorse an open media everywhere. The Truth will set us free. Clinton gutted the U.S. Information Agency, a vitally strategic organ of American foreign policy. North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms is reviving it.

The Truth is a major victim in the Arab media. It is important that we get our message out in this part of the world. Every possible means must be utilized in doing so. Economic factors must be brought to bear in this effort. Media companies seeking advertising and profits must be helped along by the U.S. It might be called spin and propaganda, but in the case of America it is simply descriptions of many more things that are good than bad. This is what the liberals have never understood. They look at the flag wavers and the patriots as rubes, not realizing the power of the American story any more than they seem to understood the message of Christ. Anything that can move mountains like that cannot be all spin and propaganda.

Fox needs to expand its reach into the Middle East, although with all due respect they need to tone it down a little for that audience. Sean Hannity and the O'Reilly Factor are fine and dandy, but rather news content that seeks to divide crises' from each other is the best approach. In other words, less focus on single events, like Iraq, that can unify a mass of people, like Muslims. "Mass group identity" events should be avoided. But when all the manipulation is done, Truth is our best weapon. Telling the Arabs they are liars must be a cultivated process. Do not bang them over the head with it. Infiltrate their conscience with a steady, slow diet of Truth, over time. Counter-balance their "hate images" with stories of love. Do not try to hide American mistakes. Americans will occasionally screw up. Innocents are sometimes shot. A soldier can run amok and rape a woman. Americans are not immune to corruption and theft. Honestly report these things, show remorse, tell the people about our great and fair justice system and how it deals with these kinds of events, and people will understand it. Have faith in people.

Technology should be our friend everywhere. We must learn how to make the Internet our friend. We need to establish web sites in languages understood around the world that tailor messages of peace and love. Different approaches need to be tailored to the conditions. Human rights groups in the Middle East should operate as secular entities. In Latin America, which is Christian, and in Africa, where morality is all too rare, these groups can be more faith-based.

America is "unrestrained by any laws or any conventions other than its national interest," said James Rubin, a former Assistant U.S. Secretary of State. This may be true. It also is true that America is the first country in history to have the self-restraint to handle unlimited power properly.

"It does worry me that we are in a world today where we have only one huge superpower which does not need anybody and can follow whatever policy it wants," said French parliamentarian Axel Poniatwoski.

Americans are viewed as arrogant.

"We are all uncomfortable with <George W.> Bush - our pro-American loyalty has been quite heavily strained by the Bush Administration," said Menzies Campbell of the Liberal Democrat British opposition party.

Such sentiments are understandable. American power means old powers are less relevant. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's dismissals of Germany and France as "old Europe" did not help. Much of the anti-American rhetoric is just jealousy, or for show, playing to local politics. In reality, only the most paranoid suggest the U.S. is out to conquer the world, or steal global oil supplies. Past actions prove our intent over and over. We come in, liberate and leave. We usually leave a lot of money in the process, establish some companies who do legitimate business, and maintain some presence. Only anti-capitalist socialists would dispute the benefit our companies bring to most of the nations where they are located. Even the so-called "sweat shop" companies are still paying the employees more than any other employers are. Most of the citizenry in these places would be unemployed otherwise. It is not perfect, but it is not evil.

Behind almost all the rhetoric is friendship and goodwill toward Americans, the kind that does not make the news. Polls in Europe show that Americans and Europeans are consistently more united than divided.

"We don't need to dramatize these problems," said Vladimir Baranovsky, deputy director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow. Much of the anti-American sentiment is based on ignorance and lies. Many foreigners have the image of an America populated by gun-crazed gangs, where only rich and poor populate a landscape with no middle class or culture. Wonder where they get that idea (see the chapter on Hollywood)?

"I think that most people get obsessed with the U.S. because of its immense wealth and power," said Jack Straw, British foreign minister, in a BBC interview. "It has become fashionable, this kind of anti-American sentiment, and it is a convenient parody."

Washington is blamed for global warming and genetically altered crops (which have the potential to feed millions!), but those doing the "blaming" spend inordinate amounts of time imitating us.

"We have created an impression throughout the rest of the world that the U.S. is the bully of the playground, and that does not do well over the long term," said Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute.

"I am not concerned that the U.S. is too strong, I am concerned how they use their strength," said Karstan Voigt, an advisor to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. 9/11 was perceived differently in different parts of the world. Europe saw it as just another terrorist attack. The U.S., led by the New Conservatives, saw it as the beginning of a divine opportunity. This grandiosity is bound to raise some hackles. The immediate rhetoric has been about a "war for survival," but this will morph into a global policy that extends beyond terror.

Where the U.S. must make changes is in the building of alliances, traditionally their strong suit. For all the failures of the U.N., we must turn it around and use that body, rather than let us be used by them. Coalitions can still be built under its auspices, even if they are not part of a singular, monolithic U.N. force. Opinions differ on this subject.

"The United Nations is nothing anymore," said Sher Aga, a teacher at an American school in Kabul.

"The Americans need to see that we need to be consulted, they are just one part of the world," said Ulrike Guerot, an analyst on the German Council on Foreign Relations.

Britain and Tony Blair have accepted their role as junior partners, but Russia and France would prefer a "multi-polar" alliance. The European Union was created to try and bolster European political hegemony. The fact that it has not effectively done so, or at least that it has not come close to giving it equality with the U.S., is the source of some frustration. It did not help Russia and France when defeated Iraq revealed Russo-French business transactions and weapons sales to Saddam's regime, effectively eliminating their moral stance in opposition to the 2003 war.

In the end, everybody depends on the American economy, trade and partnership. The balancing act on our side is to spend our power wisely. When it is all said and done, we can do whatever we want to do, but must refrain from that and do the moral thing.

"There is no reason why the interests of the U.S. and the interests of the rest of the world need diverge," said Rubin. "When it comes to global terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, crime, drugs, global warming, disease - if America acts to blunt those threats, the world is better off."

"The rules should have universal application," said Sergio Sarmiento, an influential Mexican newspaper columnist. "If the United States has the right to carry out a preventative war, then other countries should have the same right."

"They must make it plain that the U.S. must act within the framework of international law...and that unilateral action outside the law, however justified in the short term...could well bring their country into disrepute and that would be a tragedy for all," said Douglas Hogg, a former British government minister.

"I am deeply troubled by the way we seem to be moving backward - historically away from a world of collective security and international community back toward something that looks more like self-help, each for his own," said Georgetown professor Charles Kupchan.

Of course, if the U.S. was just in it for "oil," one of the favorite accusations of the professional accusers, then Kuwait alone would be unexplainable. We went in, we liberated them, and we left. That is what we do.

A common question in the Middle East is, Why do they hate us? The Iraq War had us wondering if a lot of non-Muslims hated us, too. Our great power is the easiest, most obvious answer to these feelings. In the 1990s, we went from being overwhelmingly powerful to being almost God-like in universal power. With the fall of the Soviets, there remained no alternative to us. This is a very frustrating thing to those disposed not to like America and its John Wayne reputation. The Internet revolution just strengthened us more. By the beginning of the 21st Century, Pakistanis, just to name one example, were more influenced in their everyday lives by America than the Pakistani government.

First there was the Unabomber, and in 1999 a huge protest against American globalization took place in Seattle. People felt "imposed" on by us, because the U.S. influence was so pervasive. Look at this way this. It is better to have people protesting us than bombing us.

""One prominent international relations school - the realists - argues that when a hegemonic power, such as America, emerges in the global system other countries will naturally gang up against it," writes Michael Mandelbaum in "The Ideas That Conquered the World". "Instead, it is an effort to Gulliverize America, to tie it down, using the rules of the World Trade Organization or U.N. - and in so doing demanding a vote on how American power is used."

China, France and Russia are also so dependent on the U.S. that their hands are tied. So rogues and non-state nobodies are the only ones left to actually oppose America. America's benign globalization takes on the face of something scary when we rear our military heads. The ease with which we defeat terrorists and their state sponsors scares people.

"Where we are now," said Nayan Chanda, publications director at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, "is that you have this sullen anger out in the world at America. Because people realize they are not going to get a vote over American power, they cannot do anything about it, but they will be affected by it."

The three places where "unfinished business" must be conducted are Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. Latin American policy has and continues to succeed using a "go slow" approach. An important element of this part of the world is that Christianity is the dominant mindset. It exists in a strange moral vacuum, but strange Christianity is better than none at all. The Middle East is a place that also shall benefit from its religion. True, Islam has a long way to go, but within its tenets are values of beauty and kindness that give the Arab world the potential to rise above its current morass. But Africa a different story.

There is little religion, and little real morality in Africa. Christian missionaries established themselves for 100 years, and this gave the continent the beginnings of a civilization. But de-colonization and the exodus of whites has left the place in a mess. There is an organization called International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). They jumped all over George Bush for freeing Iraq from Saddam Hussein. They see great horrors and planned "International Days of Protest Against Occupation and Empire, from Palestine to Iraq to the Philippines to Cuba to Everywhere." ANSWER, like so many other umbrella groups, is a Communist front. The old Soviet lineage is obviously broken, but they are what is left of the hard Left: The Emma Goldman anarchists, frustrated by the lack of political power that history has left them with, who now find little more to protest than capitalism. They hate America. They say they are fighting racism. They lie.

ANSWER, for instance, does not care about the Congo. ANSWER never protested genocide in Congo, or anywhere else in Africa. The new facts are that most political noise is not an attempt to right wrongs. It is an attempt to raise money and have power. There is little money available or directed to these fronts from Africa. Africa is left alone. America must step in and help, for no reason other than pure morality.

Congo, Liberia, Sudan and Zimbabwe are the worst hit countries as of 2003-04, yet Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, Michael Moore, Michael Lerner, Gore Vidal, Cornel West or Howard Zinn - all identified and exposed as frauds and liars of the far Left - do not reference them in their thundering pontifications against America, who they would have you believe is the worldwide dispenser of racism and exploitation.

In five years of civil war, according to the International Rescue Committee (who quietly does the work ANSWER wants you to think they are doing), 3.3 million people have died. The Left does not care about victims. They only care about so-called "victimizers." They would have you believe the U.S. is a victimizer more than those responsible for 3.3 million dead in the Congo. More than Mandela's ANC and their necklacing practices. Their lies must be exposed early and often.

In "Occupation and Empire", Roy writes "the real and pressing danger, the greatest threat of all, is the locomotive force that drives the political and economic engine of the U.S. government," which she calls "a super-power's self-destructive impulse toward supremacy, stranglehold, global hegemony."

It is instructive to note at this point that one of the ways the right displays its superior policies over the Left is by repeating the Left's policies. Listen to conservative talk radio. One of their favorite things is to replay soundbites and repeat quotes from the Left. They often make their point not by pontificating their own punditry (although they do that) but by letting the Left hang themselves with stupid statements.

The fact is that, while the Left may state that the biggest problem with the world today is "U.S. imperialism," the truth is that in much of the world the biggest problem is not enough U.S. imperialism. What infuriates the Left is not that people suffer in places where the U.S. intervenes, but that people succeed and benefit in places where the U.S. intervenes. Africa needs U.S. intervention.

No doubt once we actually get in there and start making a positive difference in people's lives, ANSWER and Noam Chomsky will start writing hate articles about it. That is to be expected. As usual, neither weight nor substance shall be attributed to their words.

The U.S. owes Africa its attention in part because they helped create the current situation by backing Samuel Doe in Liberia, Mohammad Siad Barre in Somalia, Mobutu Sese Seko in Congo, and Jonas Savimbi in Angola during the Cold War. The Soviet backed the likes of Mengistu Haile Meriami in Ethiopia. We pushed the Soviet out, but like in Afghanistan, we did not stay. Like Afghanistan, we have to go back in. Morality is not the only reason. Terrorism is already brewing on the continent. Somalia, in 1993, was a bin Laden operation. Civil wars have ravaged governments and countries for years. The U.S. also buys the diamonds, copper and coltan (used for use in mobile telephones) that the African militias sell.

In Sierra Leone, Britain took the initiative and stepped in, saving many lives. American conservatives need to take their lead and consider Africa as they did Iraq. It is important also to understand that the American Empire is not a "final destiny." Our power should be viewed the way a President's power is viewed. Some day the task will be completed. Like the President, once the work is completed, we can step aside. It is our willingness to step aside where our real power lies. It will manifest itself not as a physical force but in an idea that has spread through most of the world, and is still a work in progress. Our goal is a set of global arrangements based on peace, security and goodwill among like-minded states.

Winston Churchill viewed the U.S. as the natural successor to the British Empire. Our goal is similar, although different. There is no power waiting for us to hand the reigns over to, except an ephemeral power of the mind and spirit that is greater than any army.

As we look to the future, let me summarize by saying that the world must look not to the U.N., but to the U.S. to lead the way. For the better part of 2,000 to 3,000 years, man has lived in a near-perpetual state of war. It is easy, as many believe, to think that this is the natural state of the human race. It is my contention that the meaning of life is "peace through strength." In pursuing this doctrine, after many trials and errors, wars and horrors, we can now look back on history and arrive at the conclusion that conservatism is the winning ideology. This applies to practical politics and the morality that must be behind those politics.

Liberalism is a complex subject. Applied to art and beauty, the enlightenment of closed minds, the exposition of racism and bigotry as evil, and as a basis for Western Civilization, it is a beautiful concept. But liberalism was the basis for Communism, which like other "ideologies of purity" such as national socialism sought to go too far and always ended up on the extreme. In Western liberalism, Plato's "warrior spirit" was lost in an effort to find a utopia that never will exist. It has been left to conservatives to do the heavy lifting.

There are many fine and wonderful liberals, who live exemplary lives and whose vision for America and humanity deserves only commendation. A liberal need not endorse American Empire, a Teddy Rooseveltian "big stick" approach to military dominance, a belief in God, Manifest Destiny or that America is "God's country," in order to be a patriot. This nation is bettered by the temperance of the liberal mind; it is a diversity of all things - religion, ideas, ethnicity's and political philosophy - that make us great. America is better off with a thriving two-party system and an evolving "loyal opposition."

In the end, just as Christianity and Judaism, now Catholicism (again) have reformed themselves from within, and as Islam must, so too do countries and political philosophies. The Republicans cannot tell the Democrats how to behave, any more than India can dictate to Pakistan. Conservatives are not in a position to preach the future of liberalism, or vice versa.

That being said, perhaps it is worthwhile to consider that conservatism has gone through a period of self-reflection and come out of it for the better. Our philosophy has been associated with racism, colonialism, and a "country club" mentality of elitism that has been said to favor the rich at the expense of the poor. We have been said to be rigidly religious to the point of being intolerant, extreme in our views, and promoting wars that needlessly kill innocents. Like many stereotypes, there is a hint of truth to these charges, although history, as I have attempted to demonstrate herein, does not justify the full extent of the allegations. Nevertheless, I contend that conservatives, particularly in the United States, have picked up on the complaints about us and found a comfortable sensitivity in dealing with them, thus reforming who we are. In the early years of the 21st Century, conservatives feel pretty good about what we stand for, and how we got there.

Since conservatives are humans, we make mistakes, and it would be disingenuous of me to suggest that we do not "revise" history. If you are not a conservative and you have read this entire book, no doubt you have read passages that you think I revised. History is rife with such opportunities. I have freely admitted that I would be better off if I were less political, and not as partisan toward conservatism and the Republican party. But I am passionate about how I feel, and it is simply impossible for me to keep my sympathies locked away. I advertised this work from the very beginning as a "conservative, Christian worldview" of history in an effort at full disclosure, and also because I proudly wear this label. It is what it is, take it or leave it.

Just as I have tried to be as honest as I possibly can while writing about subject matter that offers so many interpretations, I reserve my most ardent admiration for Truth, and enjoy debate and expression with truthful liberals. What I despise are lies, and unfortunately I must report that in my humble opinion much Leftist discourse over the past decades have been inculcated by myth and lie. This is an unfortunate observation and one that I feel can only be changed by the Left. Perhaps those of us on the right can "identify" and "expose" it, but our preachings are not the solution to it. Like all great institutions, liberalism must address itself honestly. There are those within its ranks who do so, and they must multiply. Exposing the lies of the right (and there are plenty, as in all things) is not the way to address perfidy in Leftist history.

As Rodney King once said, "Can't we all just get along?" This might seem odd coming from a writer who has just detailed his vision of how conservatism has triumphed, but I offer my observations not only as a statement, but as a confession that may allow those who do not stand with us to at least understand us better.

Just as I make these semi-self deprecating observations of the American right, I offer also a proposition that on first glance will be met by the howls and scowls of the ACLU. I believe that when all is said and done, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) did good work in finding real Communists at a time when our way of life was legitimately threatened by the twin perils of Mao Tse-Tung and Joseph Stalin. I believe there is such a thing as the "American way."

With that in mind, I propose a new committee, not the same as HUAC, but modernized and given political oversight that prevents it from being dominated by either party. This new committee would, and there is no other way to phrase this, find "anti-American subversion." This kind of activity is happening. It is not just espionage and terrorism, but rather there is an underground network of hatred and antipathy for our methods and our power that supports international terrorism. It uses the Internet and it is sophisticated. It hides behind the Constitution. It needs to be exposed. What brought down Communism in America were not mass deportations or convictions, but the disinfectant of light shining upon it.

My proposal is based not on the proposition that it is illegal to hate America or even promote the hatred of America, any more than it was illegal to be a Communist, or even a Nazi or a member of the KKK. My plan is to determine who these people are, if they are trying to recruit, raise money or spread their hate, and expose their networks. It is not right that an organization call itself one thing when they stand for another. If students are going to march in the streets at a rally sponsored by an organization, then they need to know if that organization is Communist, socialist or terrorist. The committee would weed out and expose the money trail and individuals behind terrorist, racist and anarchist groups who do not necessarily plan, carry out and aid criminal activity. Rather, it would expose the propaganda, lies and deceitfulness of a world in which media and information is now a tool of war. I say that if an idea is to be used in this country, then it should be exposed for what it is, allowed to thrive or fail on its merits in the marketplace, and not be "fronted" by something that is made to look benign.

America now stands alone as the most powerful empire in history, but in so doing we have left Europe in the dust. This is not a good thing in and of itself, and it is vital that in the next century we re-acquaint ourselves with our dear old friends. The United States is a country that owes itself to Europe and the great thinkers of Western (European) Civilization. Just as Presidents are the most powerful men in the world, but only for four- to eight-year stretches, America must think of itself in this Democratic way. Our empire will have a "term limit." It will be America who knows when it is time to reduce its power. We will not crumble like the fall of the Roman Empire. We must leave a just and safe world for centuries of generations to come, so that in the year 3000, schoolchildren will look at the American Empire as the true age of enlightenment.

In lifting Europe, it is most imperative that we give Great Britain a chance to restore its pride in itself. Several generations of Brits have grown up hating their colonial history, when in fact they are a race of people responsible for more good than any country on Earth, other than the U.S. The intellectual and leadership qualities of England are dormant now, but therein lie great potential for future generations.

Christianity is a religion maligned and hated by many, but within its tenets are the twin towers of righteousness. Whether one believes in Christianity as pure religious dogma or not, it is a religion that in my humble opinion has the ability not only to save the souls of all who believe, but also it imparts truth, wisdom and love to the world, Christian or non-Christian alike. I challenge the Catholic Church to overcome its current scandals, just as I challenge Islam to reform itself. The cynical lies of religion must be replaced by a respect for the pure teachings of great religions.

I challenge the citizens of the world to be aware of false prophets and the anti-Christ, just as we must guard ourselves against Napoleonics, martyrs and purists who pray to the god of statism. America's greatness will only be upheld so long as our citizens and leaders recognize that we are "one nation under God," never greater than our Maker, always subordinate to His commands.

America must put its own house in order and tackle the big economic issues of Social Security reform, so as to leave future generations with a chance to live as comfortable and happy an existence as we have always lived. It is this freedom from want that allows great minds to flourish within our country, formulating the concepts and strategies that will solve the many problems in our future.

We must never put morality on the back burner. Great morals will not be about judging others, but in living lives meant to fulfill the best purposes of each other without taking advantage of others, regardless of weakness or vulnerability. The Wall Street bond trader has good morals when he looks at the illegal Mexican yard worker and recognizes that in the eyes of God, he is not better or more important. It is not in guilt or unequal distribution of wealth, but in legitimate charity that goes beyond money. Call it respect, and let every citizen of the Earth know that respect always must be earned and reciprocated.

Let us value Truth and spread it like a beautiful virus. Let us not be deceived and manipulated by the Internet, a valuable tool that has the potential for great good and great evil. It is very much like the Garden of Eden. The Internet must not be allowed to become the root of unforeseen evils in the next 100 years.

Christianity

"Do right to the widow, judge for the fatherless, give to the poor, defend the orphan, clothe the naked. Heal the broken and the weak, laugh not a lame man to scorn, defend the maimed, and let the blind man come into the sight of my clearness."

\- God the

Giver of Values

II Esdras, Chapter II, King James Version, published 1851

(pages 17-24, 10-11 of the Apocrypha)

"There are therefore two ways to God: A way of affirmation and a way of denial... We have to take both. We must affirm and deny at the same time... If we go on affirming, without denying, we end up by affirming that we have delimited the Being of God in our concepts. If we go on denying without affirming, we end up by denying that our concepts can tell the truth about Him in any sense whatever...

"...The mere fact that there are beings means that there is Being. If God does not exist, nothing exists."

\- God the Eternal Mystery

Thomas Merton, "The Ascent to Truth", A Harvest Book, Harcourt Brace,

1981, page 94

.

"...In a creative universe God would betray no trace of his presence, since to do so would be to rob the creative forces of their independence, to turn them from the active pursuit of answers to mere supplication of God. And so it is: God's language is silence. The Old Testament suggests that God fell silent in response to the request of the terrified believers who said to Moses, 'Speak thou with us, and we will hear: But let not God speak with us, lest we die.' Whatever the reason, God ceases speaking with the book of Job, and soon stops intervening in human affairs generally, leading Gideon to ask, 'If the Lord be with us, why then...where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of?' The author of the 22nd Psalm cries ruefully, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'

"Whether he left or was ever here I do not know, and don't believe we ever shall know. But one can learn to live with ambiguity - that much is requisite to the seeking spirit \- and with the silence of the stars. All who genuinely seek to learn, whether atheist or believer, scientist or mystic, are united in having not a faith but faith itself. Its token is reverence, its habit to respect the eloquence of silence. For God's hand may be a human hand, if you reach out in loving kindness, and God's voice your voice, if you but speak the truth."

  6. "God the Universal"

Timothy Ferris, "The Whole Shebang", Simon & Schuster, 1997, page 312

Either an omnipotent force of intelligence created the Earth we live on, or natural forces started it from an unplanned "big bang" explosion. Who created the stars, the celestial bodies, the dense matter and the revolving Universe that operates perfectly for us to exist in the harmonious physical environment we live in? How do we explain the beneficial relationships of the Sun, the Earth, the Moon and the stars? How do we explain the perfect balance between plant, animal and human life, the natural properties to sustain such life, no matter how many more humans are born each year? Is it possible it just "happened" without an all-purpose "arranger?"

Yet atheists say all this order just came about by "accident." The Earth's crust is in relation to its size as big as the skin of an apple, yet within its 35 to 50 miles are all the life-giving atmospherics of air and an endless water supply. Why do all the other planets not "wander" off into the cosmos, instead of staying put? Who gave us reason, morality, love, goodness, kindness and our humanity? In "The Seeker" by The Who, Peter Townshend states, "I got values, but I don't know how or why." Give God a little credit, Pete old boy.

How is it that despite all the pollution that man creates, Mother Nature swallows it up and rekindles herself? By the same token, acts of nature like volcanoes are capable of causing more destruction, not to mention numerous other natural catastrophes, than what man creates.

I am a Christian. I do not profess to _know_ that Jesus was the Son of God. I do not _know_ that God exists. I am perfectly willing to accept that the Truth is something other than what I believe, but my faith is just that... _faith_. I do not say that Christians are the only ones. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists pray to a God who I believe is the same one I pray to. I just happen to think He has a Son. I think when we pass from this mortal coil, more things will be revealed to us than we can possibly envision while we live on Earth.

I have written a book that promotes the theory that God, and more specifically, Christ has inspired the United States to take a leadership role in doing His work: Freeing the enslaved, healing the sick, and making the world safer for its population to pursue happiness. I have proposed that Satan exists and that the gyrations of history - wars, slavery, genocide, holocaust, religious and ethnic hatreds - are part of a strategy to undermine God's plan.

I could be wrong. It could all be a big accident. The Earth could just be spinning on its axis for reasons that science can explain, and that America's ascent to greatness is just a temporary event, no more or less a matter of divine destiny than one of those planets spinning off into the Universe. I just do not think so. I have tried to convey my theories herein and hope that I may have convinced a few of the righteousness of my reasoning. Agree or disagree, and we live in a country where thank God we can do just that, I hope I have made you think.

To the immediate task at hand, which is the international War on Terrorism, I want to warn the populace that, unless we navigate this issue properly, we are headed towards Apocalypse or Armageddon. There are many differing views on this subject. Far too many have diluted our strength through partisan politics. There are many who italicize the "war on terrorism," in an effort to make it seem that we are merely fomenting fear instead of taking on a real challenge.

Walter Cronkite once said that he was no more threatened by Communist invasion than by a Martian invasion. Apparently he gives little credence to American fortitude (and certainly not the Ronald Reagan version of it) in preventing the invasion from ever occurring. I cannot urge too strongly that when it comes to worldwide, international terrorism, which emanates mainly from the Fundamentalist Muslim world, we must not take the Cronkite approach.

The U.S. has saved the world three times in less than a century, and we will save it a fourth time. Like Communism, we will do it without a world war. We will avoid Armageddon and Apocalypse. We will do it by coalescing and cooperating with all the peace loving countries on this planet that we share. They must understand the importance of this issue, not because they are in lockstep with America, but because they understand the concept of _realpolitik._

The past 200 years have been revolutionary times. Much of the world has embraced ideologies of racism (Fascism), Communism and anarchy. America (with some fabulous allies) has defeated all of them. Now, we are the sole megapower, the most complete empire in recorded history. But the _ideas_ of Fascism, Communism and anarchy have not gone away, because evil never goes away. It jumps around and looks for a home. A huge portion of the global populace has not shared in our victories. These poisonous, evil ideas have found a home in this part of the world's mindset. A government, an army or a country does not represent it. It is represented by Fundamentalist Muslim terrorism. It is centered in the Arab world. But its tentacles have the potential to reach to the Four Corners of the globe.

The War on Terrorism is not a war between the United States and Al Qaeda. It is a war between the family of nations and those who despise freedom. If the message of terror gets a grip on enough people, as Communism and Nazism once did, and if they arm themselves with enough weapons of mass destruction, it will require a major military effort to put it down. Nobody wants this to happen.

To our friends in Europe and the rest of the world, understand that if this war takes place, it probably will not be fought on the American continent. We will probably secure ourselves enough to see to it that we are relatively safe, as we have with few exceptions. But it will be fought someplace. It could be on the European and African continents, just as two world wars were fought there. Nobody wants this to happen, either.

I have news for you, though. If this war is fought, the Free World, led by America, will be forced to kill millions of human beings. If this war occurs, _America will win._ But it will be ugly, and it could be a _Pyrrhic_ victory in which the cost is greater than the victory itself. This is what the devil wants. Nobody wants this to happen.

What the entire world must fight against, tooth and nail, is a social revolution that takes all the hatreds, racism and class envy of Fascism, Nazism, Communism and anarchism, balls it up under the new banner of Terrorism, and creates a global war of race, religion and culture.

We must fight against letting the Internet become the tool that our enemies use to destroy us. The Unabomber, Ted Kazcynski, feared technological progress. His fears, while fed by paranoia, were not entirely unfounded. The great question throughout history is the same one we face in the next century. It may come down to whether "progress" benefits Mankind, or just the most advanced of the world. Is all of our technical wizardry and advancement really the hidden work of the devil? Satan's plan could very well be to bring enough "progress" to the Third World to allow them to use it to strike us. This is the pessimistic view. Progress has the potential to save the planet, too. How we steer this perilous ship is vital to our future.

The question we face as we work our way through the future is whether it will be necessary to keep the Third World "down." Or, as I paraphrase what Lenin supposedly said, do we "sell them the rope they use to hang us?" If the "great unwashed," the "teeming masses," and the "have-nots" of the world get hold of our technology, will it bring them freedom, or will they use it to wage war? Will it be used to feed, clothe, house, educate and employ, or to launch rockets?

The Arab world is the "cradle of civilization." They are a proud people with long histories, but they have fallen behind the West. The heart of their argument is centered around the fact that they are humiliated by their failure to achieve a modicum of Western success. This psychosis began when Russian Jews began immigrating to Palestine after World War I. Within a few short years they stood out as the more advanced people in comparison to their Palestinian neighbors. The Arabs are like the jealous, failed brother who lacks the skills, talent and ambition of the successful sibling. Instead of admiration, they replace it with hatred.

Our enemies have relied on our weakness so far. That weakness has emanated from the ranks of liberalism fed altogether by pervasive "white guilt." Our enemies have used this "compassionate" element of Western society for decades, but I have a warning for those enemies, who believe it will prevent us from protecting ourselves. There is a limit to what we will take. Do not count on "white guilt" from saving you. If we are struck hard enough, we will fight back, we will fight back hard, and there will be an element of ugly white backlash that could undo much of the good civil rights work that has been accomplished. This is what the devil wants. If provoked, this backlash could be a race war, a "clash of civilizations" pitting religions and cultures against each other. I have news for our enemies. _We will not lose that war!_ One side will be destroyed, and that side will not be the United States. In the history of Mankind, all major confrontations have been won by the more advanced society. The West is more advanced. This is a truth with dark connotations. It must not be allowed to play itself out. While all sides would "lose" in this struggle, the less advanced will lose _everything_!

If such a struggle occurs, the results will be a global depression. Europe must understand that the U.S. is strong enough, and also positioned by geography, to withstand such a depression. Europe is not. However, the U.S. faces "crunch time" as our Baby Boomers near retirement. Our resources are not limitless. We will save ourselves first before we save everybody else. Europe must work with us not just to strengthen American Hegemony, but to prevent themselves from falling victim to a worldwide disaster, which would destroy much of what they have worked to build since 1945. They must understand that American strength is vital to their strength.

The good news is that the hand of destiny guides us. Christian love, which brought a peaceful end to the Roman Empire, will prevail. To the Muslim world, I say that this is not a "warning" that new Crusaders will convert you. Over time, you will see that Christianity is a loving partner of Islam, not the enemy. The beauty of the "religion of peace" will finally be allowed to bloom. When that happens, humiliation will be replaced by real pride and partnership with the Fellowship of Man.

America must lead the world in a war of _inclusion_ and Truth. The beautiful, God-given gifts of freedom, Democracy and comfort that we and much of the planet enjoys must be brought to the Middle East, to Africa, and to the old Cold War battlefields of the Third World. This is the challenge of the 21st Century. We will accomplish this, in part, by expanding the global economy, and in so doing we will avert the Biblical prophecies of doom. Evil will not go away. The challenges will always be there, but if we play our cards right, the examples we leave for our ancestors will be as helpful as those left us by George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.

I leave you now with two phrases. When Todd Beamer and his fellow passengers had finished reading The Lord's Prayer, resolving to go after the terrorists who probably wanted to fly their plane into the White House, they began their charge with his fateful words: _"Let's roll!"_

I say to America and all men and women of good will, as we resolve to charge into the 21st Century bound and determined to make it the safest and most enlightened century in history, _"Let's roll!"_ As we move forward, we will face more challenges and unknown obstacles than I could possibly predict within these pages. As we face these challenges together, please remember also the words of the great Margaret Thatcher, who once said to President George H.W. Bush, "Don't go wobbly now." Let freedom reign and God bless America.

THE END.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SUGGESTED READING LISTS OF:

BOOKS, NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES, WEB SITES, PAMPHLETS, SCREENPLAYS, SHORT STORIES, LETTERS, THESES, REPORTS, VIDEOS, TELEVISION SHOWS, DOCUMENTARIES, FILMS, PHOTOGRAPHS, HEARINGS, SYMPOSIUMS AND ESSAYS

BOOKS

"Barry Bonds: Baseball's Superman" by Steven Travers, Sports Publishing L.L.C. (www.sportspublishingllc.com, 2002). "The Writer's Life" by Steven Travers (2004). "Angry White Male" by Steven Travers (2004). "The Lost Battalion" screenplay by Steven Travers. "Wicked" screenplay by Steven Travers. "Once He Was An Angel" screenplay by Steven Travers. "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli. "Republic" by Plato. "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. J.W. Allen, "A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century", Part IV, Chapter 1. .R.R. Palmer and Joel Colton. "A History of the Modern World", (8th edition), page 61. "The Social Contract" by Jean-Jacques Roussea. "To Kill A Mockingbird"." "History of Political Philosophy" by Leo Strauss. "Civilization and Its Discontents" by Sigmund Freud. "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau. "Crime and Punishment" and "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fypodor Dostoevsky.

"Universal History of the World, vol. 1-7". "The Century of Revolution: 1603-1714" by Christopher Hill. "History of Western Europe" by James T. Shotwel. Collier's Encyclopedia. "Revolutions of 1848" by Priscilla Robertson".

"American Heritage". "Rebels and Redcoats" by George F. Scheer and Hugh Ranken. "Lafayette's Two Revolutions" by John dos Passos. "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine.

"Ten Days That Shook the World" by John Reed. "The Enemy at His Pleasure" by S. Ansky. "Gulag" by Anne Applebaum.

"The Early Weimar Republic" by Ben John. J. W. Wheeler-Bennett, "The Wooden Titan" (1936, repr. 1967), A. Dorpalen, "Hindenburg and the Weimar Republic" (1964). "Hostage to Fortune: The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy" edited by Amanda Smith

"FDR and His Enemies" by Albert Fried. "Infamy" by John Toland. "Day of Deceit" by Robert Stinnett . "How Franklin Roosevelt Lied America Into War" by William Henry Chamberlin. "The Man in the Street" by Professor Thomas A. Bailey.

"How the Movie Wars Were Won" by John W. Cones. "The Search for J.F.K." by Joan Blair and Clay Blair, Jr. "At Dawn We Slept". G. Prange, page 453. "PH VERDICT OF HISTORY", Prange, pp 39-40. "The Conspiracies of Empire" by H. Arthur Scott Trask. "A Political History of Japanese Capitalism" by Jon Halliday. "FDR and His Enemies" by Albert Fried. "Infamy" by John Toland. "Day of Deceit" by Robert Stinnett

"How Franklin Roosevelt Lied America Into War" by William Henry Chamberlin. "The Man in the Street" by Professor Thomas A. Bailey

"President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War" by Charles A. Beard, "The Great Pacific War" by Hector Bywater, "Battle of Wits" by Stephen Budiansky, "The Codebreakers" by David Kahn, "The Secret History of the World" by Uri Dowbenko,

"Rule by Secrecy" by Jim Marrs , "Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids" by Jim Marrs,

"Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Communist Dictator" by Mike Rose, "First Class, "Temperament" by Geoffrey Ward, "Eleanor Roosevelt", "Masters of Deceit, J. Edgar Hoover", "The Roosevelt Myth" by John T. Flynn, "The Yalta Betrayal" by Felix Wittmer, "How The First Helicopter War Began" by Francis G. McGuire, "History of the Peloponnesian War" by Thucydides, "The Best and the Brightest: by David Halberstam, "JFK and Vietnam" by John M. Newman, "Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led To Vietnam" by H. R. McMaster (1997), "Patton: Ordeal and Triumph" by Ladislav Farago, "The Full Monty: Montgomery of Alamein" by Nigel Hamilton, "Normandy to the Baltic" (1947), "Memoirs" (1958), "The Path to Leadership" (1961), "History of Warfare" (1968), "The Tank in Warfare" by Erwin Rommel, "Infantry Attacks" by Erwin Rommel.

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Frank Baldwin, Diane Jones, and Michael Jones, "America's Rented Troops: South Koreans in Vietnam". Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, 1975. 45 pp.

Robert M. Blackburn, "Mercenaries and Lyndon Johnson's `More Flags': The Hiring of Korean, Filipino and Thai Soldiers in the Vietnam War". Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1994. 176 pp. Lincoln Palmer Bloomfield, "The U.N. and Vietnam". New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1968. 44 pp. Leszek Buszynski, "S.E.A.T.O.: The Failure of an Alliance Strategy". Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1983. 273 pp. ISBN 9971-69-060-8. Distributed in the US by Coronet Books, of Philadelphia. Knut Einar Eriksen and Helge Oystein Pharo, "Kald krig og internasjonalisering" 1949-1965 (Cold war and internationlization 1949-1965). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget Oslo, 1997. 505 pp. The fifth volume of a history of Norwegian foreign policy. Daniel Fineman, "A Special Relationship: The United States and Military Government in Thailand", 1947-1958. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997. viii, 357 pp. Lloyd C. Gardner and Ted Gittinger, eds., "International Perspectives on Vietnam". College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2000. 304 pp. John W. Garver, "The Sino-American Alliance: Nationalist China and American Cold War Strategy in Asia". Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. xiii, 312 pp. Alfred Georges, "Charles de Gaulle et la guerre d'Indochine". Paris, 1974. Thomas R. H. Havens, "Fire Across the Sea: The Vietnam War and Japan", 1965-1975. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987. James G. Hershberg, ed., "Central and East European Documents on the Vietnam War: Sample Materials from Polish, Hungarian, and East GermanSources". Washington: Cold War International History Project, 1997. Katsuichi Honda, "Vietnam War: A Report through Asian Eyes". Tokyo: Mirai-Sha, 1972. 511 pp.

"Third Interim Report of the International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam", 11 February to 10 April, 1955. Cmd. 9499. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1955. "Fourth Interim Report of the International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam", 11 April to 10 August, 1955. Cmd. 9654. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1955. "Report of the International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam Fifth Interim", 11 August to 10 December, 1955. Cmd. 9706. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1956. "Sixth Interim Report of the International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam", 11 December, 1955 to 31 July, 1956. Cmnd. 31. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1957. "Eleventh Interim Report of the International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam", 1 February, 1960 to 28 February, 1961. Cmnd. 1551. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1961. "Special Report to the Co-Chairmen of the Geneva Conference on Indo-China", June 2, 1962. Cmnd. 1755. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1962. 23 pp. "Special Report to the Co-Chairmen of the Geneva Conference on Indo-China", February 13, 1965. Cmnd. 2609. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1965. "Special Report to the Co-Chairmen of the Geneva Conference on Indo-China", February 27, 1965. Cmnd. 2634. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1965.

Abdul Kalam, "Peacemaking in Indochina", 1954-1975. Dhaka, Bangladesh: University of Dhaka, 1983. xiv, 458 pp. Arne Kislenko, "'Bamboo in the Wind: United States Foreign Policy and Thailand during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, 1961-1969"/ Ph.D. dissertation, History, University of Toronto, 2000. 359 pp. AAT NQ49905.

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Stein Tonneson, "Vietnam and the Great Powers: Roosevelt, Ho Chi Minh and De Gaulle in a World at War". Newbury Park, CA: Sage (forthcoming 1991). Apparently also published under a slightly different title: "The Vietnamese Revolution of 1945: Roosevelt, Ho Chi Minh and de Gaulle in a World at War". London, 1991. Ngo-Diep Trinh Thi, "Indonesia's Foreign Policy toward Vietnam". Ph.D. dissertation, Political Science, Hawaii, 1995. 247 pp. DA 9615557. Kil J. Yi, "Alliance in the Quagmire: The United States, South Korea, and the Vietnam War, 1964-1968". Ph.D. dissertation, History, Rutgers, 1997. vi, 377 pp. DA 9800312. Glen St. J. Barclay, "A Very Small Insurance Policy: The Politics of Australian Involvement in Vietnam, 1954-1967". University of Queensland Press, 1988. 199 pp. Alister Brass, "Bleeding Earth: A Doctor Looks at Vietnam". Melbourne: Heinemann, 1968. Bob Breen, "First to Fight: Australian Diggers, N.Z. Kiwis and U.S. Paratroopers in Vietnam, 1965-66". Sydney, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 1988. Gary R. Brooker, "Two Lanyards in Vietnam". North Canterbury, New Zealand: privately published, 1995. Bob Buick, with Gary McKay, "All Guts and No Glory: The Story of a Long Tan Warrior". St Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2000. xx, 251 pp. Terry Burstall, "The Soldiers' Story: The Battle at Xa Long Tan, Vietnam, 18 August 1966". Brisbane, Australia: U of Queensland Press, 1986. Terry Burstall, "A Soldier Returns: A Long Tan Veteran Discovers the Other Side of Vietnam". Brisbane, Australia: University of Queensland Press, 1990. Terry Burstall, "Vietnam: The Australian Dilemma". St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1993. xxv, 329 pp. Deborah Challinor, "Grey Ghosts: New Zealand Vietnam Vets Talk about their War". New Zealand: Hodder Moa Beckett, 1998. Chris Coulthard-Clark, "Hit My Smoke: Targeting the Enemy in Vietnam". St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1997. xx, 199 pp. Barrie Crowley, "View from a Low Bough". St Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1997. viii, 285 pp. ISBN 1 86448 301 6. L.A. Crozier, "The Golden Land .re Indochina in the 1960s and 1970s". Brisbane, Australia: Griffith University. 120 pp. Steve Eather, "Get the Bloody Job Done: The Royal Australian Navy Helicopter Flight-Vietnam and the 135th Assault Helicopter Company, 1967-1971". St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1998. xxv, 166 pp. Peter Edwards with Gregory Pemberton, "Crises and Commitments: The Politics and Diplomacy of Australia's Involvement in South-East Asian Conflicts 1948-1965". North Sydney, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1992. xix, 515 pp. Peter Edwards, "A Nation at War: Australian Politics, Society and Diplomacy during the Vietnam War, 1965-1975". St Leonards: Allen & Unwin Australia, 1997. ISBN 1864482826. xx, 460 pp. Ian McNeill, "To Long Tan: The Australian Army and the Vietnam War 1950-1966". St Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1993. xxv, 614 pp. Chris Coulthard-Clark, "The RAAF In Vietnam: Australian Air Involvement in the Vietnam War 1962-1975". St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1995. xxii, 412 pp. Jeffrey Grey, "Up Top: The Royal Australian Navy and Southeast Asian Conflicts, 1955-1972". St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1998. xx, 380 pp. Brendan O'Keefe with F. B. Smith, "Medicine at War: Medical Aspects of Australia's Involvement in Southeast Asia 1950-1972". St Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1994. xxx, 505 pp. "Agent Orange: the Australian Aftermath". Denis Fairfax, "Navy in Vietnam: A Record of the Royal Australian Navy in the Vietnam War 1962-1972". Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1980. Ronald Bruce Frankum, Jr., "Silent Partners: Australia and the United States in Vietnam, 1954-1968." Ph.D. dissertation, History, Syracuse University, 1997. 366 pp. DA 9820995. Ronald B. Frankum, Jr., "The United States and Australia in Vietnam, 1954-1968": Silent Partners. Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 2001 (forthcoming). 356 pp. Frank Frost, "Australia's War in Vietnam". Sydney, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 1987. Jeffrey Grey and Jeffrey Doyle, eds., "Vietnam: War, Myth, and Memory: Comparative Perspectives on Australia's War in Vietnam". Allen & Unwin Australia. 1-86373-319-1 Robert A. Hall, "Combat Battalion: The Eighth Battalion in Vietnam". Crows Nest, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2000. xix, 308 pp. Brian Hennessy, "The Sharp End: The Trauma of a War in Vietnam". St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1997. 176 pp. Peter King, ed., "Australia's Vietnam". Sydney, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1983. Greg Langley, "A Decade of Dissent: Vietnam and the Conflict on the Australian Home Front". Sydney: Allen & Unwin Australia, 1992. Lex McAulay, "The Battle of Long Tan". Hawthorn, Australia: Hutchinson, 1986. Lex McAulay, "The Battle of Coral: Vietnam Fire Support Bases Coral and Balmoral, May 1968". (Originally published in Australia 1988?) pb: London: Arrow Books, 1990. The 1st Australian Task Force. Jock McCulloch, "The Politics of Agent Orange: The Australian Experience". Melbourne, Australia: Heinemann, 1984. Siobhan McHugh, "Minefields & Miniskirts: Australian Women and the Vietnam Warr.Sydney, Australia: Doubleday, 1993. Gary McKay, "Delta Four: Australian Riflemen in Vietnam". St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1996. xx, 313 pp. Gary McKay, "In Good Company: One Man's War in Vietnam". Sydney: Allen & Unwin Australia, 1987. St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin Australia, 1998. x, 197 pp. Gary McKay, "Vietnam Fragments: An Oral History of Australians at War". Sydney: Allen & Unwin Australia, 1992. ISBN 1-86373-297-7

Gary McKay and Graeme Nicholas, "Jungle Tracks: Australian Armour in Viet Nam". Crows Nest, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2001. xx, 325 pp. Ian Mackay, "Australians in Vietnam". Sydney, Australia: Rigby, 1968. Ian McNeill, "The Team: Australian Army Adivors in Vietnam, 1962-1972". St. Lucia, Australia: University of Queensland Press, 1984. Also London: Leo Cooper in association with Secker & Warburg, 1983. xiv, 534 pp. Kenneth Maddock and Barry Wright, eds., "War: Australia and Vietnam". Sydney, Australia: Harper & Row, 1987. John Murphy, "Harvest of Fear: A History of Australia's Vietnam War". Boulder: Westview, 1993. xxii, 335 pp. Australia, the Cold War, and Vietnam, from the origins to mid 1971. Lt. D.S. Newman, "Vietnam Gunners: 161 Battery RNZA, South Vietnam, 1965-71". Wellington, New Zealand: Moana Press, 1988.

Robert J. O'Neill, "Vietnam Task: The 5th Battalion The Royal Australian Regiment 1966-67". Melbourne, Australia: Cassell, 1968. Gregory Pemberton, "All the Way: Australia's Road to Vietnam". Sydney and Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987. Gregory Pemberton, ed., "Vietnam Remembered". Sydney, Australia: Weldon, 1990. Barry Petersen, "Tiger Men: An Australian Soldier's Secret War in Vietnam". South Melbourne: Macmillan Co. of Australia, 1988. Reprinted Bangkok: White Orchid, 1994. 246 pp. Peter Pierce, Jeffrey Grey, and Jeff Doyle, eds, "Vietnam Days: Australia and the Impact of Vietnam". London: Penguin, 1991. Iris Mary Roser, "Ba Rose: My Years in Vietnam, 1968-1971". Sydney, Australia: Pan, 1991. xiii, 288 pp. Anthony Ian Clunies Ross, "The Grey Eight in Vietnam: The History of Eighth Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment, November 1969-November 1970". Published by Eighth Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment. ISBN: 0642949034 John Rowland, "Two Transitions: Indochina 1952-1955, Malaysia 1969-1972". Brisbane, Australia: Griffith University. 69 pp. This memoir is no. 8 in a series, Australians in Asia. David Savage, "Through the Wire: Action with the SAS in Borneo and the Special Forces in Vietnam". St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1999. xiv, 239 pp. Michael Sexton, "War for the Asking: Australia's Vietnam Secrets". Ringwood, Victoria, Australia: Penguin, 1981.

Colin Smith, "The Killing Zone: New Zealand Infantry in Vietnam. Auckland, New Zealand: AQU Press. Gordon L. Steinbrook, "Allies & Mates: An American Soldier with the Australians and New Zealanders in Vietnam, 1966-67". Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. xviii, 182 pp. Mike Subritzky, ed., "The Vietnam Scrapbook: The Second Anzac Adventure". Papakura, New Zealand: Three Feathers, 1995. xvi, 304 pp.

Susan Terry, "House of Love: Life in a Vietnamese Hospital". Melbourne: Lansdowne Press, 1967; London: Newnes, 1967. 248 pp. Prue Torney-Parlicki, "Somewhere in Asia: War, Journalism and Australia's Neighbors, 1941-75". Sydney, Australia: University of New South Wales Press, 2000. xxvi, 305 pp. Mike Towers, "A Jungle Circus: Memories of Vietnam". St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1999. 264 pp. Alan Watt, "Vietnam: An Australian Analysis". Melbourne, Australia: Cheshire, 1968. Guy Bransby, "Her Majesty's Vietnam Soldier". Hanley Swan, Worcs., UK: SPA Ltd., 1992. 286 pp. Reprinted by Combined Books, 1997. John Colvin, "Twice Around the World: Some Memoirs of Diplomatic Life in North Vietnam and Outer Mongolia". London: Leo Cooper, 1991. J.P. Cross, OBE, First in Last Out: An Unconventional British Officer in Indo-China, 1945-76. London: Brassey's, 1992. Cross commanded a battalion of Japanese troops against the Viet Minh in 1945-46, and was British Defence Attache in Laos from 1972 to 1976. Retired as Lt. Col. "Documents relating to British Involvement in the Indo-China Conflict, 1945-1965". Cmnd. 2834. London: H.M Stationery Office, 1965. 268 pp. Alan Glyn, "Witness to Vietnam: The Containment of Communism in Southeast Asia". London: Johnson, 1968. 316 pp. Sir Robert Thompson, "Make for the Hills". 1989. Sir Robert Thompson, "No Exit from Vietnam". New York: McKay, 1969. Updated ed. New York: McKay, 1970. 224 pp. "Vietnam: Background to an International Problem" (Central Office of Information reference pamphlet 96). London: H.M.S.O., 1970. 72 pp. Harold Wilson, "A Personal Record: The Labour Government, 1964-1970". Boston: Little, Brown, 1971. 836 pp. Tracey Arial, "I Volunteered: Canadians in Vietnam". Winnipeg, Canada: Watson & Dwyer, 1997. 175 pp. Claire Culhane, "Why is Canada in Vietnam? The Truth about our Foreign Aid". Toronto: NC Press, 1972.

James Dickerson, "North to Canada: Men and Women Against the Vietnam War". Westport: Praeger, 1999. 232 pp. "Documents on Canadian External Relations". Ottawa: Canadian Government Printing Office, edited by Greg Donaghy and Ted Kelly, 1925 pp., published in 1997. James Eayrs, "In Defence of Canada, vol. 5, Indochina: The Roots of Complicity". Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983. Fred Gaffen, "Unknown Warriors: Canadians in Vietnam". Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1990. 366 pp. Fred Gaffen, "Cross Border Warriors". Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1995. John Hagan, "Northern Passage: American Vietnam War Resisters in Canada". Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. Frank Kusch, "All American Boys: Draft Dodgers in Canada from the Vietnam War". Westport: Praeger, 2001. Victor Levant, "Quiet Complicity: Canadian Involvement in the Vietnam War". Toronto, 1986. Douglas A. Ross, "In the Interests of Peace: Canada and Vietnam, 1954-1973". Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984.

Mitchell Sharp, Viet-Nam: "Canada's approach to participation in the International Commission of Control and Supervision, October 25, 1972-March 27, 1973". Ottowa: Information Canada, 1973. 51 pp. Charles Taylor, "Snow Job: Canada, the United States and Vietnam (1954 to 1973)". Toronto: Anansi, 1974. Jack Todd, "Desertion: In the Time of Vietnam". Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. 256 pp. Rosemary Johanna van Es, "Canadian 'Chivalry in Vietnam: The Press Coverage." Ph.D. dissertation, Sociology, McMaster University, 1996. 375 pp. DANN13690. Cheng Guan Ang, "Vietnamese Communists' Relations with China and the Second Indochina Conflict, 1957-1962". Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1997. Barbara Barnouin and Yu Changgen, "Chinese Foreign Policy during the Cultural Revolution". London: Kegan Paul (also distributed by Columbia University Press), 1998. Chen Jian, "Mao's China and the Cold War". Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. x, 400 pp. William Duiker, "China and Vietnam: The Roots of Conflict". Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1986.

Anne Gilks, "The Breakdown of the Sino-Vietnamese Alliance, 1970-1979". Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1992. 270 pp. Guo Ming, ed., "Zhong-Yue guanxi yan bian ssu shi nien" ("Forty years of Sino-Vietnamese relations"). Nanning: Guangzi Renmin, 1992. Hoang Zheng, "Hu Zhiming yu Zhongguo" ("Ho Chi Minh and China"). Beijing: Jeifang Zhun, 1987. P.J. Honey, "Communism in North Vietnam: Its Role in the Sino-Soviet Dispute". Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1963. xiii, 207 pp. Steven J. Hood, "Dragons Entangled: Indochina and the China-Vietnam War". Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1992. Eugene K. Lawson, "The Sino-Vietnamese Conflict". New York: Praeger, 1984. Thomas A. Marks, "Counterrevolution in China: Wang Sheng and the Kuomintang". London: Frank Cass, 1997. 352 pp. Robert J. O'Neill, "Peking-Hanoi Relations in 1970". Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1971. 30 pp. Contemporary China papers, no. 2. Jong-Chul Park, "The China Factor in United States decision-making toward Vietnam, 1945-1965." Ph.D. dissertation, political science, University of Connecticut, 1990. xi, 330 pp. Robert A. Rupen and Robert Farrell, eds., "Vietnam and the Sino-Soviet Dispute". New York: Praeger, 1967. 120 pp.

Kuo-kang Shao, Zhou Enlai and the Foundations of Chinese Foreign Policy. New York: St. Martin's, 1996. xii, 370 pp. "Support the People of Viet Nam, Defeat U.S. Aggressors. Peking": Foreign Languages Press, 1965. Jay Taylor, "China and Southeast Asia: Peking's Relations with Revolutionary Movements". New York: Praeger, 1976. xx, 384 pp. "The Truth about Vietnamo-Chinese Relations over the Past Thirty Years". Hanoi: Ministry of Foreign Relations, 1979. Odd Arne Westad, Chen Jian, Stein Tonneson, Nguyen Vu Tung, and James G. Hershberg, eds., "77 Conversations between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in Indochina, 1964-1977". Cold War International History Project Working Paper No. 22. Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1998. 199 pp. Essays by the editors, pp. 8-67; texts of translated documents, pp. 68-197. Allen Whiting, "The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence". Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1975. Qiang Zhai, "Beijing and the Vietnam Peace Talks, 1965-68: New Evidence from Chinese Sources". Cold War International History Project Working Paper No. 18. Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1997. 41 pp. The dates of the translated documents in the Appendix (pp. 26-41) actually range from 1965 to 1973. Qiang Zhai, "China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950-1975". Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. xii, 304 pp. Foreword by John Lewis Gaddis.

"The Kennedy Men: Three Generations of Sex, Scandal and Secrets" by Nellie Bly, "The Sins of the Father" by Ronald Kessler, "The Kennedy Men" Joseph P Kennedy to Will Kennedy Smith, "The Robber Baron and the Film Industry". "I'm for Roosevelt" by Joe Kennedy, "A Woman Named Jackie" by C. David Heymann, "The Education of Edward Kennedy" by Burton Hersh, "One of Us" by Tom Wicker, "Sinatra and the Dark Side of Camelot" by George Jacobs and William Stadiem, "The Dark Side of Camelot" by Seymour Hersh, "The Last Kennedy" by Robert Sherrill, "Senatorial Privilege" by Leo Damore, Tønnesson, Stein, 2002.

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"Bitter Legacy." "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism" by Robert Baer. "Living History" by Hillary Clinton. "Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism"by John Cooley. "The Earthquake" by General Najib al-Salihi Al-Zilzal.

"God and Man At Yale" by William F. Buckley. "Hollywood vs. America", Medved.

"Boys of Summer" by Roger Kahn. "God In The Trenches" by Larkin Spivey. "Slouching Towards Gomorrah", Bork. "Schism in the Soul" by Arnold Toynbee. "Giver of Values", II Esdras, Chapter II, King James Version, published 1851, (17-24, pp.10-11 of the Apocrypha). "God the Eternal Mystery" by Thomas Merton, "The Ascent to Truth", A Harvest Book, Harcourt Brace, 1981, p.94. "God the Universal" by Timothy Ferris, "The Whole Shebang", Simon & Schuster, 1997, p.312. "The Ideas That Conquered the World" by Michael Mandelbaum, "1984" by George Orwell. "Shock and Awe" by Harlan Ullmam and James Wade (1996). "What Liberal Media?" byEric Alterman. "Slander" by Ann Coulter. "High Crimes & Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton" by Ann Coulter. "Way Out There in the Blue" by Frances Fitzgerald. "Perjury" by Allen Weinstein. "Venona", John Earl Harvey and Harvey Klehr. "K.G.B.: The Inside Story" by Anatoly Akhmerov. "Crusade in Europe" by Dwight Eisenhower.

"Diplomacy" by Henry Kissinger.

"Stilwell and the American Experience in China" by Barbara Tuchman., "American Caesar" by William Manchester, "The Longest Day" by Cornelius Ryan, "The Gathering Storm" by Winston Churchill, "Eleanor and Franklin" by Joseph Lash, "The Challenge to Liberty" by Herbert Hoover, "Adolph Hitler" by John Toland", "Churchill's Grand Alliance" by John Charmley, "The Last Battle" by Cornelius Ryan, "The Middle Classes Then and Now" by Franklin Palm, "The New World Illustrated History" edited by John Hammerton, "American Government" by William McGlenaghan, "Your Country's Story" by Ernest Teigs and Fay Adams, "Poetical Works of Lord Byron", "A Popular History of England" by Francois Guizot, "The Brethren" by Bob Woodward, "Rabble in Arms" by Kenneth Roberts, "The Invisible Government" by Dan Smoot, "Profiles In Courage" by John Kennedy, "In Search of History" by Theodore White, "History Wars" by Edward Linenthal and Tom Engelhardt, "The Earl of Louisiana" by A.K. Liebling, "The Beards' Basic History of the United States, "Democracy In America" by Alexis de Tocqueville,

"The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William Shirer, "The Nightmare Years" by William Shirer, "Never Call Retreat" by Bruce Catton, "Ridpath's History of the United States" by John Ridpath, "The Landing of the Pilgrims" by James Daugherty, "The Navy History" by Fletcher Pratt, "The Eagle Against the Sun" by Ronald Spector, "The American Century" by Norman and Mindy Cantor, "Our Own United States" by John Southworth, "August 1914" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, "The First World War" by John Keegan, "T.E. Lawrence: An Arab View" by Suleiman Mousa, "1998 Movie & Video Guide" by Leonard Maltin, "Gandhi: An Autobiography" by Mohandas Gandhi, "The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes" by Arthur Waley, "Hatred's Kingdon" by Dore Gold,

"Most Likely to Succeed" by John dos Passos, "Hard Times" by Charles Dickens, "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Life of Samuel Johnson" by Jamers Boswell,

"The Teammates" by David Halberstam, "The Death of Right and Wrong" by Tammy Bruce, "The Gulag Archipelago" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, "Hoover Digest", "Nixon" screenplay by Stephen Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson and Oliver Stone, "At Any Cost" by Bill Sammon, "Bay of Pigs" by Peter Wyden, "The American Left" edited by Loren Baritz, "A Dictionary of Political Biography" by Dennis Kavanaugh, "America in Our Time" by Godfrey Hodgson, "The Civil War" by William Davis, "John Adams: A Life" by John Ferling, "The Prize" by Daniel Yergin, "California" by Warren Beck and David Williams, "Hamilton's Republic" by Michael Lind, "The Holy Bible", "...The Motivating Force", "The Scribner-Bantam English Dictionary", "Will" by G. Gordon Liddy, "Blind Ambition" by John Dean, "Richard Nixon" The Shaping of His Character" by Fawn Brodie, "Crazy Rhthym" by Leonard Garment, "Hegel In 90 Minutes" by Paul Strathern, "Witness" by Josyp Terelya with Michael Brown, "Witness" by Whittaker Chambers, "Kruschev" by Roy Medvedev, "Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago" by Mike Royko, "The New United Nations Welfare Giveway" by Cliff Kincaid, "The Immigration Invasion" by Wayne Lutton & John Tanton, "Standing Strong Against All Enemies" by Hal Jones, "The Conservative Revolution" by Herman Rauschning, "Michael New: Mercenary or American Soldier" by Daniel New with Cliff Kincaid, "Courage Is Contagious" by John Kasich, "To Renew America" by Newt Gingrich, "William F. Buckley: Patron Saint of the Conservatives" by John Judis, "The Lost Battalion" screenplay by Steven Travers, "Hillary Rodham Clinton: What Every American Should Know" by Christian Josi, "The Third World War: The Untold Story" by General Sir John Hackett. "Conspiracy of Silence" by Barrie Penrose & Simon Freeman, "The Truman Scandals" by Jules Abels, "The Bossman" by Charles Ashman, "Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry Truman" by Merle Miller, "Where the Buck Stops" by Harry Truman, "Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City" by Andrew Kirtzman, "Dulles" by Leonard Mosley, "Kennedy Justice" by Victor Navasky, "For the Record" by Donald Regan, "A Black Hawk Down" by Mark Bowden, "The Making of A Hero" by Wayne Greenhaw, "All's Fair" by Mary Matalin and James Carville, "The Commanders" by Bob Woodward, "The Case For Impeachment", "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "Blood Sport" by James Stewart, "Memorandum For the President" by Ben Heineman, Jr. and Curtis Hessler, "The Making of the President 1972" by Theodore White, "Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail '72" by Hunter Thompson, "Citizen Hearst" by W.A. Swanberg, "Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think" by Chris Matthews, "Behind the Front Page" by David Broder, "Letters to A Young Contrarian" by Christopher Hitchens, "Confessions Of a Muckraker" by Jack Anderson with James Boyd, "Coming To Terms" by William Safire, "A Good Life" by Ben Bradlee, "The Constitution of the United States", "Washington: The Nation's Capital" by Thomas and Virginia Aylesworth, "Hammond's World Atlas", "Year Of the Rat" by Edward Timperlake and William Triplett II, "Shakedown" by Kenneth Timmerman, "All Too Human" by George Stephanopoulos, "The Final Days" by Barbara Olson, "Betrayal" by Bill Gertz, "A Charge To Keep" by George W. Bush, "The Right Man" by David Frum, "Fighting Back" by Bill Sammon, "American Heritage", "The Death of the West" by Patrick Buchanan, "The Way Things Ought To Be" by Rush Limbaugh, "The O'Reilly Factor" by Bill O'Reilly, "See, I Told You So" by Rush Limbaugh, "Black Lies, White Lies" by Tony Brown, "The Woven Figure" by George Will, "The Savage Nation" by Michael Savage, "Dereliction Of Duty" by Lt. Col Robert Patterson, "The American Story" by Ruth Gavian and William Hamm, "The American Nation" by John Hicks, "Story of America" by Ralph Harlow and Ruth Miller.

NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES, PAMPHLETS, SCREENPLAYS, SHORT STORIES, REPORTS, VIDEOS, TELEVISION SHOWS, DOCUMENTARIES, FILMS, PHOTOGRAPHS, HEARINGS, SYMPOSIUMS AND ESSAYS

"Power Over People: Classical and Modern Political Theory, Part I and Part II, The Great Courses, The Teaching Company, Professor Dennis Dalton, Barnard College/Columbia University. Baltimore Sun, December 7, 2001, Lee Gaillard. Franklin D. Roosevelt's letters (4 vol., 1947–50) edited by Elliott Roosevelt, and his public papers and addresses (13 vol., 1938–50) edited by S. I. Rosenman. "Allied Victory Pattern Shaped in Setting of a Moroccan Villa." _Newsweek_ , 21 (February 1, 1943), 17-18.Anderson, Johnny. "Morocco Bound." _Hartford, Connecticut Times_ , (January 28, 1943) Basil O'Connor Collection, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Box 46. "Anti-climax in Morocco." _Nation_ , 156 (February 6, 1943), 184-185. "Appointment in Africa." _Time_ , 18 (February 8, 1943), 11-22. Aymond, Roy. "Big Doings in North Africa." _New Orleans States_ , (January 28, 1943) Basil O'Connor Collection, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Box 46. "Bullets, Mystery, Secrecy, and Censorship Plagued Reporters of Casablanca Conference." _Newsweek_ , 21 (February 8, 1943), 73. Burck, Jacob. "'I Told the Mrs. She's Not the Only One That Gets About.'" Davenport, Iowa _Democrat and Leader_ , (January 28, 1943) Basil O'Connor Collection, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Box 46. Churchill, Winston S. The Hinge of Fate. Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston, 1950. Dolye, Jerry. "My Day." _Philadelphia Record_ , (January 28, 1943) Basil O'Connor Collection, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Box 46. Dolye, Jerry. "Peace Only Through Unconditional Surrender." _Philadelphia Record_ , (January 27, 1943) Basil O'Connor Collection, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Box 46. "His Day!" _Sentinel_ , (February 1, 1943) Basil O'Connor Collection, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Box 46. "Historic Meeting Informal In Tone." _New York Times_ , XCII (January 27, 1943), 3. Hopkins, R. "Corporal on the job at Casablanca." Life, 14 (March 8, 1943), 49-50. Hulen, Bertram D. "Talks Explained." _New York Times_ , XCII (January 30, 1943), 1. Hungerford. "This War Makes Strange Bedfellows." _Pittsburgh Post-Gazette_ , (January 27, 1943) Basil O'Connor Collection, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Box 46. Jensen, Cecil. "MAIL." _Chicago News_ , (January 29, 1943) Basil O'Connor Collection, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Box 46. Jones. "No Deals With Criminals." _Detroit News_ , (January 28, 1943) Basil O'Connor Collection, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Box 46. Logan, Walter. "President Pays Surprise Visit To U.S. Troops in Morocco." _New York Times_ , XCII (January 27, 1943), 1. Middleton, Drew. "Leaders Go By Air." _New York Times_ , XCII (January 27, 1943). Moyer, Sy. "Westward, Ho." _St. Paul Pioneer Press_ , (January 30, 1943) Basil O'Connor Collection, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Box 46. Nash, Gerald D. ed. F.D. Roosevelt. Prentice-Hall, Inc.: Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1967. "Right in der Fuehrer's Face." _Washington, D.C. Star_ , (January 28, 1943) Basil O'Connor Collection, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Box 46. "RIGHT ON THEIR BACK STEP!" _Sioux City, Iowa Journal_ , (January 27, 1943) Basil O'Connor Collection, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Box 46. "Roosevelt Confers again with Churchill." _Scholastic_ , 42 (February 8, 1943), 14. "Roosevelt in North Africa: With Portraits of Officers." _Life_ , 14 (February 8, 1943), 19-23. Sallagar, Frederick M. The Road to Total War. Van Nostrand Reinhold Company: New York, NY, 1969. Temple. "'Allons! to Use Our Spurs on the Axis!'" _New Orleans Times Picayune_ , (February 3, 1943) Basil O'Connor Collection, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Box 46. Thompson, C. "Casablanca and After." _Current History_ , 4 (March 1943), 10-14. "'Unconditional Surrender.'" _Chicago Sun_ , (January 31, 1943) Basil O'Connor Collection, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Box 46. "Unconditional Surrender Conference." _Scholastic_ , 42 (February 15, 1943), 3-5."War Moves Toward the Blows Foreseen in Casablanca Plans." _Newsweek_ , 21 (February 8, 1943), 19-20. Willkie, Wendell. "Willkie Critical On Roosevelt Trip." _New York Times_ , XCII (January 27, 1943), 5. Fredrik Logevall, "The Swedish-American Conflict over Vietnam," Diplomatic History, Summer 1993, pp. 421-45. John Colvin, "Hanoi in My Time", The Washington Quarterly, Spring 1981, pp. 138-54. Chen Jian, "China and the First Indochina War, 1950-54," China Quarterly no. 133 (March 1993), pp. 85-110. Chen Jian, "China's Involvement in the Vietnam War, 1964-69," China Quarterly no. 142 (June 1995), pp. 356-87. Frank E. Rogers, "Sino-American Relations and the Vietnam War, 1964-66", China Quarterly, no. 66 (June 1976), pp. 293314. Michael Yahuda, "Kremlinology and the Chinese Strategic Debate, 1965-66", China Quarterly, no. 49 (Jan-Mar 1972), pp. 32-75.

"A Go-Ahead Nation", A Conversation With Robert W. Johanssen, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "The Power of an Idea" by Miguel Ángel González Quiroga. "Native American Displacement Amid U.S. Expansion", A Conversation With R. David Edmunds, University of Texas at Dallas. "An Ideal or a Justification?", A Conversation With David M. Pletcher, Indiana University. "An Early Agenda of Expansion"

A Conversation With Josefina Zoraida Vázquez, El Colegio de México. "A Mexican Viewpoint on the War With the United States" by Jesús Velasco-Márquez, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. "Resurrecciones Políticas," _El Siglo XIX,_ 20. Wilson Shannon to John C. Calhoun, October 28, 1844, in Carlos Bosch García, _Documentos de la relación de México con los Estados Unidos,_ vol. IV, UNAM, Mexico City, 1984, p. 351. "Bases Orgánicas de la República Mexicana," Article 89, IV, Mexico, June 14, 1843, in Felipe Tena Ramírez, "Leyes Fundamentales de Méxic _o,_ 1808-1971" _,_ fourth edition, Editorial Porrúa, Mexico City, 1971, p. 420. Josefina Zoraida Vázquez, "De la difícil constitución de un Estado, 1821-1854," in Josefina Zoraida Vázquez (ed.), "La Fundación del Estado Mexicano" _,_ Nueva Imagen, Mexico City, 1994, p. 31. Manuel Crescensio Rejón to Shannon, October 31, 1844, Bosch, op. cit., p. 352. Luis G. Cuevas to representatives from France, England and Spain in Mexico, March 28, 1845, in Bosch, op. cit., pp. 471-472. "Guerra con los Estados Unidos," _El Siglo XIX,_ 20 July 1845, p. 4. "Estado de la Cuestión de Texas" _El Siglo XIX,_ 30 November 1845, p. 4. Congressional decree no. 2826, Mexico, June 4, 1845, in Bosch, op. cit., p. 526. Enrique Olavarria y Ferrari, "México a través de los siglos," _México Independiente, 1821-1855,_ Editorial Cumbre, Mexico City, 1958, vol. IV, p. 543. Pedro García Conde to Mariano Arista, Mexico July 23, 1845, in Genaro García (ed.), "Archivo del General Paredes," _Documentos inéditoes o muy raros para la Historia de México,_ Editorial Porúa, Mexico City, 1974, pp. 554-555. William Parrot to James Buchanan, Mexico, June 17, 1845, in Bosch, op. cit., p 540. Manuel de la Peña y Peña to John Black, October 15, 1845, in Bosech, op. cit., p 599. See Jesús Velasco Márquez, "La Guerra de 47 y la opinión pública (1845-1848 _)",_ SEP, Mexico City, 1975, pp. 29-36. 15 James Buchanan to John Slidell, Washington, November 10, 1845, Bosch, op. cit., 613-321. J. Black to J. Slidell, Mexico, December 15, 1845, in Bosch, op. cit., pp. 632-635; M. de la Peña y Peña to J. Slidell, December 20, 1845, in Bosch, op. cit., pp. 639-642; J. M. del Castillo y Lanza to J. Slidell, Mexico, March 12, 1846, in Bosch, op. cit., pp 671-677. William Parrot to James Buchanan, Mexico, July 26, 1845, in Bosch, op. cit., p 566. "La Cuestión del Día" _El Tiempo,_ Mexico City, 5 April 1856, p.1. Speech on reply to Mr. Turner of Tennessee, February 12, 1847, in "The Works of John C. Calhoun" _,_ New York, 1854, vol. IV, p. 226; "Speech on the Three Million Bill," February 9, 1847, ibid, p. 305. "President James Knox Polk's war message to Congress," Washington, D.C., May 11, 1846, in Thomas G. Patterson, "Major Problems in American Foreign Policy, Documents and Essays" _,_ second edition, D.C. Heat and Company, Lexington, Mass., 1984, vol. I, pp. 245-247. "Parte Política," _El Tiempo,_ 11 May 1846, p.1. "Neutralidad," _El Republicano,_ 20 June 1846, p. 3. Alberto María Carreño, "México y los Estados Unidos de América. Apuntaciones para la historia de acrecentamiento territorial de los Estados Unidos a costa de México desde la época colonial hasta nuestros dias" _,_ second edition, Editorial Jus, Mexico City, 1962, p. 107. "El último mensaje de Mr. Polk," _El Republicano,_ 15 September 1846, p. 3. "La guerra," _El Republicano,_ 23 October 1846, p. 3. "No importa," _El Republicano,_ 6 April 1847, p. 4. "La Guerra y la Paz," _Diario del Gobierno,_ 8 July 1847, p. 3.Virginia Randolph Trist to Tockerman, July 8, 1864, "Nicholas P. Trist Papers" _,_ Box 10, Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel HIll. See Robert W. Drexter, "Guilty of Making Peace: A Biography of Nicholas P. Trist" _,_ University Press of American, Lanham, Maryland, 1991, p. 139. "Manifest Destiny" by Sam W. Haynes, University of Texas at Arlington. "The Borderlands on the Eve of War", A Conversation With David J. Weber Southern Methodist University. "The Travail of War: Women and Children in the Years After the U.S.-Mexican War" by Deena González, Pomona College. "The U.S.-Mexican War: A Major Watershed" by R. David Edmunds, University of Texas at Dallas. "The American Army in the Mexican War: An Overview", A Conversation With Richard Bruce Winders, Historian and Curator, The Alamo. John Porter Bloom's 1953 Emory University Ph.D. dissertation, "With the American Army in Mexico, 1846-1848," James M. McCaffrey's "Army of Manifest Destiny: The American Soldier in the Mexican War", 1846-1848. Richard Bruce Winders' "Mr. Polk's Army: The American Military Experience in the Mexican War." "A War of Violence and Violations: The Consequences of Conquest", A Conversation With Antonia I. Castañeda, St. Mary's University. "The Organization of the Mexican Army", A Conversation With William DePalo, Jr., The University of New Mexico. "'Apuntes' and the Lessons of History", A Conversation with Jesús Velasco-Márquez, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, by David M. Pletcher, Indiana University. "A Legacy of the U.S.-Mexican War" by Miguel Soto, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. "The Mexican-American War: Crucible for Greatness" by John C. Waugh. "Last New Territories" by Robert W. Johannsen, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "The War Between the United States and Mexico" by Robert Ryal Miller, California State University, Hayward. "Many Truths Constitute the Past: The Legacy of the U.S.-Mexican War", A Conversation With David J. Weber, Southern Methodist University.

History of Germany: Primary Documents from Richard Hacken and EuroDocs. German Armed Forces in WWII from Jason Pipes explains the SS and Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht and Kriegsmarine. German Armed Forces Maps of World War II. German Propaganda Archive at Calvin College. Memories of the White Rose by George J. Wittenstein, M. D. Nazism Exposed - Links to the Dark Side. History of the Reichstag in Berlin. Reichstag Turbulent History from BBC VW Nazi past unearthed reserve article from London Independent, Nov. 11, 1996. :Blair dismisses Hitler spoof ad" reserve article from BBC, 3 July, 2002; see also No Euro website. Berlin panoramas from berlin.de. Maps of the German losses or 2 or bg \- after WWI showing demilitarized zone; Rhineland north and south from L'Illustration 1921/03/12. "The Swastika and the Nazis: A study on the origins of the adoption of the swastika by Adolf Hitler as a symbol of the Nazi movement" by Servando Gonzalez. Dowling, Mike, "The Electronic Passport to the Rise of Adolph Hitler," The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 1994, 2000, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. U.S. Naval Institute - Naval History - Advance Warning? The Red Cross Connection by Daryl S. Borgquist. Vince Copeland, the founding editor of Workers World, in his 1968 pamphlet "Expanding Empire."

"Nixon said no to recount in '60" by Jack Torrey, Toledo Blade, Burgess, J. Peter, 2003. 'Editor's Comments', Security Dialogue 34(2), Burgess, J. Peter, 2003. 'The Politics of the South China Sea: Territoriality and International Law', Security Dialogue 34(1). Suhrke, Astri; Kristian Harpviken & Arne Strand, 2002. 'After Bonn: Conflictual Peacebuilding', Third World Quarterly 23(4): 875-891. Harpviken, Kristian, 2002. 'Breaking New Ground: Afghanistan's Response to Landmines and Unexploded Ordnance', Third World Quarterly 23(4): 931-943. Mousseau, Michael; Håvard Hegre & John R. Oneal, 2003. 'How the Wealth of Nations Conditions the Liberal Peace', European Journal of International Relations 9(2): 000-000. Hegre, Håvard & Todd Sandler, 2002. 'Economic Analysis of Civil Wars [Introduction to special issue]', Defence and Peace Economics 13(6): 429-433. Reichberg, Greg & Henrik Syse, 2002. 'Humanitarian Intervention: A Case of Offensive Force?', Security Dialogue 33(3). Soysa, Indra de, 2002. 'Paradise Is a Bazaar? Greed, Creed and Governance in Civil War', Journal of Peace Research 39(4). Tank, Pinar, 2002. ''Re-solving' the Cyprus problem: Changing perceptions of state and societal security', European Security 11(3): 146-164. Burgess, J. Peter, 2003. 'Editor's Comments', Security Dialogue 34(1). Burgess, J. Peter, 2002. 'Editor's Comments', Security Dialogue 33(4). Burgess, J. Peter, 2002. 'Editor's Comments', Security Dialogue 33(3). Burgess, J. Peter, 2002. 'Ethics of Humanitarian Intervention: The Circle Closes', Security Dialogue 33(3). Gleditsch, Nils Petter; Peter Wallensteen, Mikael Eriksson, Margareta Sollenberg & Håvard Strand, 2002. 'Armed Conflict 1946–2001: A New Dataset', Journal of Peace Research 39(5). Tønnesson, Stein, 2002. 'A 'Global Civil War'?', Security Dialogue 33(3). Tank, Pinar, 2002. Det turbulente Tyrkia ser mot Europa, Aftenposten 4.10.02 Barth, Elise Fredrikke, 2002. 'Peace as Disappointment: The Reintegration of Female Soldiers in Post-Conflict Societies: A Comparative Study from Africa'. 3/2002. Oslo: PRIO. Security Dialogue 34(2), June 2003.

Journal of Peace Research 40(3), May 2003. Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemy's Coast", Proceedings 118:2 (February 1992), pp. 56-62. Andrew L. Johns, "Opening Pandora's Box: The Genesis and Evolution of the 1964 Congressional Resolution on Vietnam," Journal of American-East Asian Relations, 6:2-3 (Summer-Fall 1997). Sen. Thurston B. Morton, "Only the G.O.P. can Get Us out of Vietnam", Saturday Evening Post, April 6, 1968, pp. 10-12. . "The 'Phantom Battle' that Led to War", U.S. News & World Report, July 23, 1984. Harry F. Rosenthal and Tom Stewart, "Tonkin Gulf" (AP dispatch), Arkansas Gazette, July 16, 1967, reprinted in Congressional Record, February 28, 1968, p. 4582. I[sidor].F. Stone, "McNamara and Tonkin Bay: The Unanswered Questions", The New York Review of Books, March 28, 1968, pp. 5-12. Susan B. Sweeney, "Oral History and the Tonkin Gulf Incident: Interviews about the U.S. Navy in the Vietnam War," International Journal of Oral History, 7:3 (November 1986), pp. 211-16. David Wise, "Remember the Maddox!", Esquire, April 1968, pp. 56-62, 123-127.

"Da Nang's Fall Feared Imminent; U.S. Ships Sent to Help Refugees", "Phnom Penh Surrenders" by United Press International (April 17, 1975), "Senate Rejects Vietnam Aid Rise" by Malcolm W. Browne, special to the New York Times, John W. Finney, special to the New York Times, Henry Kamm, special to the New York Times, "Truce Was Sought" by Sydney H. Schanberg, special to the New York Times (April 24, 1975), "Panic Rises in Saigon, But the Exits Are Few" by Fox Butterfield, special to the New York Times (April 30, 1975), "Evacuation From Saigon Tumultuous at the End" by George Esper, special to the New York Times, "U.S. Planes In Action" by Reuters, "Saigon's Finale"by Malcolm Browne (April 30, 1975), "Minh Surrenders, Vietcong In Saigon, 1,000 Americans and 5,500 Vietnamese Evacuated by Copter to U.S. Carriers" by the Associated Press, New York Times Front Page (April 30, 1975), "Vietnam, Test of Presidents, Was Distant War and Battle at Home" (May 1, 1975), NEWS ANALYSIS by Leslie H. Gelb, special to the New York Times (May 5, 1975), "Reporter's Notebook: Six Days in The Evacuation From Saigon" by Fox Butterfield, special to the New York Times,

"Refugees' Family Life Strained By Weeks of Waiting" by Jon Nordheimer, special to the New York Times (May 13, 1978), "Cambodian Refugees Depict Growing Fear and Hunger" by Henry Kamm, special to the New York Times."Former Cuban comrades cast doubts on Kabila's rebel image," by Jean Damu, Pacific News Service, 23 April, 1997, "The Cold War and Red Scare in Washington State" by Michael Reese, The Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest, University of Washington Department of History.

"The Atomic Café". Produced and directed by Jayne Loader and Pierce Rafferty. Irvington, NY: Voyager Company, 1984; re-released 1995. 82 minutes. "Love in the Cold War:", an episode of the television series "The American Experience". Produced and directed by Eric Strange and David Dugan. Alexandria, VA: PBS Video, 1991. 58 minutes. "McCarthy: Death of a Witch Hunter". Produced and directed by Emile de Antonio. Oak Forest,IL: MPI Home Video, 1986. 50 minutes. "Point of Order" (1964). "Post-war Hopes, Cold War Fears", episode 12 of the television program "A Walk Through the 20th Century With Bill Moyers". Produced by Imre Horvath. Directed by Imre Horvath and Bill Moyers. Alexandria, VA: PBS Video, 1983. 60 minutes.

"Are We Winning, Mommy?" "Seeing Red". Produced and directed by James Klein and Julia Reichert. Chicago: Facets Video, 1984. 96 minutes. "Albert F. Canwell: An Oral History" (Olympia: State of Washington, 1997), 121, by permission of the Washington State Oral History Program. © 1997 by the Washington State Oral History Program. All rights reserved. "House Concurrent Resolution, No. 10" from Washington State Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, "First Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State" (Olympia, 1948), v-vii and Washington State Legislature, Journal of the House: 30th Session (Olympia, 1947), 572-73.

"Members of the Canwell Committee examine evidence". Photo from Museum of History & Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, no negative number (filed under A. L. Canwell, 1/15/48). "The State Patrol ejects E.L. Pettus", vice president of the Washington Pension Union. Photo from Museum of History & Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, no negative number (filed under E. L. Pettus, 3/26/48). "First Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State, 61-69". "First Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State, 359-67". "First Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State, 415-39", H. C. "Army" Armstrong. "Washington State Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities", Second Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State (Olympia, 1948), 34-90, J. B. Matthews. "Second Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State, 18-26". "Second Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State, 130-44". "Anti-Canwell protesters march outside the Washington State Armory, where the Canwell hearings were held". Photo from Museum of History & Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, negative P121683. "Second Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State, 233-36". "Second Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State, 120-24". "Second Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State, 207-17. "Second Report: Un-American Activities in Washington State, 248-89". "George Hewitt testifies before the Canwell Committee". Photo from Museum of History & Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, negative P121665. "Florence James, co-director of the Seattle Repertory Theater, leaps to her feet and calls witness George Hewitt a `liar' and a `perjurer.'" Photo from Museum of History & Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, no negative number (filed under Mrs. Burton James, 1948). Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 28 July 1948 and 8 August 1948. Seattle Times, 22 July 1948. Snohomish County Tribune, 21 July 1948.

Document #21. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 27 July 1948. "Pension Builder", February 1948, Washington Pension Union Papers, University of Washington Manuscripts and Archives, Accession 185-1.Cartoons from UE News, 7 August 1952 and 14 March 1950. "University of Washington Faculty Senate, Tenure and Academic Freedom Committee", Hearings, vol. 1, pp. 41-45 and vol. 32, pp. 3908-11, University of Washington Manuscripts and Archives, Accession 70-30. "Ralph Gundlach's statement to the Tenure Committee", 16 September 1948, Ralph H. Gundlach Papers, UW Manuscripts and Archives, Accession 686-70-21, folder 1/11. "UW Tenure and Academic Freedom Committee", Hearings, vol. 16, pp. 1616-44. "UW Tenure and Academic Freedom Committee", Hearings, vol. 32, pp. 3801-83.

"Report of the Tenure Committee and Recommendations of UW President Raymond Allen", Communism and Academic Freedom, 29-54, 85-109. "Philosophy Professor Herbert Phillips adresses the University of Washington Regents, arguing that communists have a right to teach in American Universities". Photo from Museum of History & Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, no negative number (filed under University of Washington-Communist Hearing, 2/16/49). Washington Teamster, 28 January 1949. New York Times, 30 January 1949. Eleanor Roosevelt, "My Day," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 24 January 1949. University of Washington Daily, 7 April 1949.

Ralph H. Gundlach Papers, folder 1/13. "Psychology Professor Ralph Gundlach goes to court. Gundlach was sentenced to thirty days in jail for contempt of the Canwell Committee". Photo from Museum of History & Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, no negative number (filed under Ralph Gundlach, 3/23/49). Jane Sanders. "Loyalty oath signed by Garland O. Ethel". UW Manuscripts and Archives, Garland O. Ethel Papers, folder 11/4. Initiative 172, Voters' phamplet for the General Election held Tuesday, November 2, 1948. (Copy from the Washington Pension Union papers, UW Manuscripts and Archives, accession 185-1, folder 7/5.) "Members of the Washington Pension Union (WPU) present signed petitions for initiative 172 at the State Capitol". Photo from the Washington Pension Union papers, folder 7/4.

John Kenneth Jones, "McCarthyism in the Northwest: The Example of Huff et. al. vs. the United States (1953), the "Seattle Smith Act Trial," unpublished University of Washington master's thesis, 1968. Cartoon from UE News, 12 December 1953. "Population Trends: Towns and Cities of Washington State: April 1, 1940 to February 1, 1945" (Seattle: Washington State Census Board, 1946). All other information is from Calvin Schmid and Stanton Schmid, "Growth of Cities and Towns: State of Washington" (Olympia: Washington State Planning and Community Affairs Agency, 1971), 3-4, 58-63. Richard S. Kirkendall, "The Boeing Company and the Military-Metropolitan-Industrial Complex, 1945-1953," Pacific Northwest Quarterly 85 (October 1994), 137-49. Eve Dumovich, "The Boeing Logbook, 1916-1991" (Seattle: Boeing Historical Archives, 1991), with commentary written by Michael Reese. John Findlay, "The Off-center Seattle Center: Downtown Seattle and the 1962 World's Fair," Pacific Northwest Quarterly 80 (January 1989), 2-8. Michele Gerber, "Legend and Legacy: Fifty Years of Defense Production at the Hanford Site" (Richland, WA: US Department of Energy Office of Environmental Restoration and Waste Management, 1992). Center for Study of Intelligence Newsletter, no. 4, p. 4. Venona messages nos. 943 (4 July 1944), 976 (11 July 1944), 1251 (2 Sept. 1944). Admiral William P. Crowell, Deputy Director NSA, remarks at NSA Venona Ceremony, July 11, 1995. Dr. John Deutch, CIA director, at the Ceremony. Dr. David Kahn, NSA historian-in-residence, at the Ceremony. FBI Files: 1) letter to Director from Scheidt in re call between Inspector A. Belmont and ASAC W. Whelan of June 16, 1950 (date of letter not clear, p. 1-4); 2) letter to Director, FBI (Sept. 27, 1950) Bureau File 65-58236; 3) Joseph Weichbrod memo from D M Ladd (Sept. 13, 1948). Introductory History of Venona and a Guide to the Translations, prepared by Robert Louis Benson (National Security Agency, 1995), p. 8. Article by George Johnson, New York Times (July 16, 1995). Vice Admiral John M. McConnell, Director NSA, at the Ceremony, VENONA Historical Monograph, #3, p.10: "No other Washington-Moscow KGB messages from any other year [other than 1944 and 1945] were ever successfully deciphered." Louis J. Freeh, Director FBI, at the Ceremony. "The Avalon Project at Yale Law School: Findings and Recommendations of the Personnel Security Board in the Matter of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer".

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<http://www.godinthetrenches.com/ab.htm><http://humaneventsonline.com/>

http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.12513/pub_detail.asp

