Conservatively-Speaking: Classically-Liberal Blog Opposing Socialism and Anarcho-Capitalism

Introduction: A Brief Description of the Popular Stereotypes Political Leaders in the GOP and Democratic Parties Endure, Leading Into the Perception of the Democratic Party's Historical Preponderance for Weak Foreign Policies

Within the realm of American politics exists a slew of stereotypes associated with both of the major political parties. Republicans are considered racists and bigots by the Left because they often choose to cut funding for government entitlement programs at nearly every level of our federal system of government. In contrast to this charge, the Democrats are touted by the media to be the champions of the poor and underprivileged, for the common man. This has been a prevailing archetype associated with the party since its founding in 1828. Republicans are considered by the masses to be the party promoting limited government and a strong military presence for providing the national defense. The Democrats are frequently viewed as "peaceniks" "hippies," especially since the 1960's social revolutions, bent on operating through bargaining and diplomacy in order to solve foreign disputes between two foreign nations, up to and including the United States itself. Republicans are considered the party that attempts to take the moral high ground that is perceived to be steeped greatly in religiosity, while Democrats are often thought as godless and amoral. Finally, Republicans are thought to be the party that is repressive to the civil rights and liberties of minorities, women, and homosexuals, while the Democrats will do just about anything to placate to these segments of the population in order to build the foundation upon which they can establish power and legitimacy through the democratic process.

It is so easy for Democrats to win elections -- far easier for them, in fact, than it is for members of the GOP. First, when they promise to "make the rich pay their fair share" of the tax burden, which in U.S. history has been as high as 94% of the incomes of the wealthiest Americans (1944), the poor and impoverished voters listen closely as if there is blood in the water. Then, the Democrats promise not to increase the taxes of the middle-class, which draws many people from that income demographic to their side. Finally, when the Democrats decide there is not enough money despite high tax rates for nearly every level of income, the middle-class's tax burden is increased significantly, further enthralling to small portion of American society below the poverty line. When the economy shows signs of some life if the nation happens to be in the midst of a recession, the Democrats take all the credit for the reported "progress" by claiming they are leveling the gap between the richest Americans and the poorest; thus, we have the concept of class-warfare that was first experimented with during the French Revolution by radical left-wing political partisans, and later by the astounding number of Communist revolutions such as in Russia, China, Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam between 1917 and 1975 with the fall of Saigon. Playing the class-warfare card by stating that the richest Americans, most of whom are wealthy white "aristocratic" male types, present a clear and present danger to economic and financial health and prosperity of the impoverished collective is key to the Democrats' political platform. And when the members of the poorest income brackets of Americans happen to be poor inner city African-Americans or Hispanics, regardless of whether or not they are legalized citizens of the U.S., they are nearly guaranteed to scarf up votes from that collective, for it is the concept of the collective of poor, oppressed working class folks who live off of meager wages as the result of the failings of capitalism, or what Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels referred to as the proletariat in their renowned socio-economic and political book called The Communist Manifesto that perpetuates this myth of class-warfare and popular discord. The poor are the salt of the earth, and the greatest source of power and legitimacy from which the Democrats may derive.

The most common stereotype regarding the Democratic Party, however, is this one: they focus almost solely on domestic issues such as the delicate balance of the progressive income tax that has existed in the U.S. since the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1912; the federal entitlement programs that have been rather commonplace since the FDR administration; the promotion of greater civil liberties even if it costs another person to lose theirs (see Roe v. Wade, which legalized the practice of abortions which, without a doubt, violates the right of the unborn child that was living at conception the to life, liberty, and the pursuits of happiness and property); Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; civil rights to the point where Caucasian males are punished for being what they are born to be: white and free; and so on and so forth. The Democrats aim to engender a culture of dependency and, ultimately, personal irresponsibility among the American people, for if the people are willing to pay just a little bit more in the way of their hard-earned wages to the federal government, it will take care of them. Sadly, as many have read about the economic and fiscal record of FDR, Truman, Carter, and now Obama, socializing America economically and through the implementation of welfare programs does not create wealth or opportunity, but it does level the income playing field to the point where the poor become poorer so long as the wealthiest Americans are made to suffer as well. This phenomena has rarely been realized by the majority of American voters and taxpayers since 1912, which with the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment also came the birth of big government in the U.S. Furthermore, Democrats over the course of the past 80 years are rather friendly to the influx of immigrants regardless of whether or not they are here legally. Throughout the history of this great democratic-republic, the greatest influence on America's political climate and atmosphere have been in the form of incoming immigrants who bring their political ideologies with them from their homelands. And it is no coincidence that the immigrants from 1877 through about the end of World War I originated the Gilded Age political coalitions of Populists and Progressives -- the fledgling years of modern day liberal politics as we know it today.

The Philosophies on Foreign Policy for the Progressive Movement and the People's (Populist) Party: The Genesis of the Modern Democratic Party in America's Modern Foreign Affairs Platform

Along with stereotypes of tending to domestic issues comes two that the general consensus among political scientists at which the Democrats are abject failures, and those are the concepts of foreign policy and national defense. Since the dawn of modern-day liberalism near the end of the 19th Century, the concept of the proletariat whose natural rights have been violated by the evil trappings of capitalism has prevailed almost to the exclusion of the U.S. being a world economic and military power that became our role as part of the spoils of victory from the Spanish-American War of 1898. The leader of the Populist Party wing of the Democratic Party William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska was an advocate of war against Spain in 1898. Historian William Leuchtenburg described Bryan as "few political figures exceeded the enthusiasm of William Jennings Bryan for the Spanish war." Bryan indeed argued that:

"...universal peace cannot come until justice is enthroned throughout the world. Until the right has triumphed in every land and love reigns in every heart, government must, as a last resort, appeal to force."

But he also opposed the U.S. becoming an imperial power. In the speech he delivered during the Democratic National Convention of 1900 titled "The Paralyzing Influence of Imperialism," he discussed his views behind his opposition to the annexation of the Philippines despite his support for the Treaty of Paris of 1898 that ended the war, and questioned the U.S.'s right to overpower people of another country just for a military base. He mentioned too, at the beginning of the speech, that the United States should not try to emulate the imperialism of Great Britain and other European countries.

The Populists predicated their platform on the plight of farmers. Like today's Democratic Party, it catered to poor, white cotton farmers in the South (especially North Carolina, Alabama, and Texas) and hard-pressed wheat farmers in the plains states (especially Kansas and Nebraska), it represented a radical crusading form of agrarianism and hostility to banks, railroads, and elites generally. It sometimes formed coalitions with labor unions, and in 1896 the Democrats endorsed their presidential nominee, William Jennings Bryan. The terms "populist" and "populism" are commonly used for anti-elitist appeals in opposition to established interests and mainstream parties. Thus, it was one of the very first political platforms in the U.S. to propagate the phenomenon of class-warfare.

The Progressive Era based its modus operandi in part on that of the Populist Party, but there were key differences. The era was a period of social activism and political reform in the United States that flourished from the 1890's to the 1920's. One main goal of the Progressive movement was purification of government, as Progressives tried to eliminate corruption by exposing and undercutting political machines and bosses. Many (but not all) Progressives supported prohibition in order to destroy the political power of local bosses based in saloons. At the same time, women's suffrage was promoted to bring a "purer" female vote into the arena. A second theme was building an Efficiency movement in every sector that could identify old ways that needed modernizing, and bring to bear scientific, medical and engineering solutions. Many activists joined efforts to reform local government, public education, medicine, finance, insurance, industry, railroads, churches, and many other areas. Progressives transformed, professionalized and made "scientific" the social sciences, especially history, economics, and political science. In academic fields the day of the amateur author gave way to the research professor who published in the new scholarly journals and presses. The national political leaders included Theodore Roosevelt, Robert M. La Follette, Sr., Charles Evans Hughes and Herbert Hoover on the Republican side, and William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson and Al Smith on the Democratic side. Initially the movement operated chiefly at local levels; later it expanded to state and national levels. Progressives drew support from the middle class, and supporters included many lawyers, teachers, physicians, ministers and business people. The Progressives strongly supported scientific methods as applied to economics, government, industry, finance, medicine, schooling, theology, education, and even the family. They closely followed advances underway at the time in Western Europe and adopted numerous policies, such as a major transformation of the banking system by creating the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Reformers felt that old-fashioned ways meant waste and inefficiency, and eagerly sought out the "one best system."

If one is to draw a conclusion as to the practice of foreign policy Progressive leaders implemented during this, one needs to study the history of presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Although both were Progressive, they were members of separate political parties, as stated above.

The Foreign Policy of Theodore Roosevelt

(Above: President Theodore Roosevelt, served from 1901-1909. Courtesy of Wikipedia)

In describing Roosevelt's foreign policy, his biographer and noted Italian historian William Roscoe Thayer (1859-1927) wrote this about him in Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography:

IN taking the oath of office at Buffalo, Roosevelt promised to continue President McKinley’s policies. And this he set about doing loyally. He retained McKinley’s Cabinet, 1 who were working out the adjustments already agreed upon. McKinley was probably the best-natured President who ever occupied the White House. He instinctively shrank from hurting anybody’s feelings. Persons who went to see him in dudgeon, to complain against some act which displeased them, found him “a bower of roses,” too sweet and soft to be treated harshly. He could say “no” to applicants for office so gently that they felt no resentment. For twenty years he had advocated a protective tariff so mellifluously, and he believed so sincerely in its efficacy, that he could at any time hypnotize himself by repeating his own phrases. If he had ever studied the economic subject, it was long ago, and having adopted the tenets which an Ohio Republican could hardly escape from adopting, he never revised them or even questioned their validity. His protectionism, like cheese, only grew stronger with age. As a politician, he was so hospitable that in the campaign of 1896, which was fought to maintain the gold standard and the financial honesty of the United States, he showed very plainly that he had no prejudice against free silver, and it was only at the last moment that the Republican managers could persuade him to take a firm stand for gold.

The chief business which McKinley left behind him, the work which Roosevelt took up and carried on, concerned Imperialism. The Spanish War forced this subject to the front by leaving us in possession of the Philippines and by bequeathing to us the responsibility for Cuba and Porto Rico. We paid Spain for the Philippines, and in spite of constitutional doubts as to how a Republic like the United States could buy or hold subject peoples, we proceeded to conquer those islands and to set up an American administration in them. We also treated Porto Rico as a colony, to enjoy the blessing of our rule. And while we allowed Cuba to set up a Republic of her own, we made it very clear that our benevolent protection was behind her.

All this constituted Imperialism, against which many of our soberest citizens protested. They alleged that as a doctrine it contradicted the fundamental principles on which our nation was built. Since the Declaration of Independence, America had stood before the world as the champion and example of Liberty, and by our Civil War she had purged her self of Slavery. Imperialism made her the mistress of peoples who had never been consulted. Such moral inconsistency ought not to be tolerated. In addition to it was the political danger that lay in holding possessions on the other side of the Pacific. To keep them we must be prepared to defend them, and defense would involve maintaining a naval and military armament and of stimulating a warlike spirit, repugnant to our traditions. In short, Imperialism made the United States a World Power, and laid her open to its perils and entanglements.

But while a minority of the men and women of sober judgment and conscience opposed Imperialism, the large majority accepted it, and among these was Theodore Roosevelt. He believed that the recent war had involved us in a responsibility which we could not evade if we would. Having destroyed Spanish sovereignty in the Philippines, we must see to it that the people of those islands were protected. We could not leave them to govern themselves because they had no experience in government; nor could we dodge our obligation by selling them to any other Power. Far from hesitating because of legal or moral doubts, much less of questioning our ability to perform this new task, Roosevelt embraced Imperialism, with all its possible issues, boldly not to say exultantly. To him Imperialism meant national strength, the acknowledgment by the American people that the United States are a World Power and that they would not shrink from taking up any burden which that distinction involved.

When President Cleveland, at the end of 1895, sent his swingeing message in regard to the Venezuelan Boundary quarrel, Roosevelt was one of the first to foresee the remote consequences. And by the time he himself became President, less than six years later, several events—our taking of the Hawaiian Islands, the Spanish War, the island possessions which it saddled upon us—confirmed his conviction that the United States could no longer live isolated from the great interests and policies of the world, but must take their place among the ruling Powers. Having reached national maturity we must accept Expansion as the logical and normal ideal for our matured nation. Cleveland had laid down that the Monroe Doctrine was inviolable; Roosevelt insisted that we must not only bow to it in theory, but be prepared to defend it if necessary by force of arms.

Very naturally, therefore, Roosevelt encouraged the passing of legislation needed to complete the settlement of our relations with our new possessions. He paid especial attention to the men he sent to administer the Philippines, and later he was able to secure the services of W. Cameron Forbes as Governor-General. Mr. Forbes proved to be a Viceroy after the best British model and he looked after the interest of his wards so honestly and competently that conditions in the Philippines improved rapidly, and the American public in general felt no qualms over possessing them. But the Anti-Imperialists, to whom a moral issue does not cease to be moral simply because it has a material sugar-coating, kept up their protest.

There were, however, matters of internal policy; along with them Roosevelt inherited several foreign complications which he at once grappled with. In the Secretary of State, John Hay, he had a remarkable helper. Henry Adams told me that Hay was the first “man of the world” who had ever been Secretary of State. While this may be disputed, nobody can fail to see some truth in Adams’s assertion. Hay had not only the manners of a gentleman, but also the special carriage of a diplomat. He was polite, affable, and usually accessible, without ever losing his innate dignity. An indefinable reserve warded off those who would either presume or indulge in undue familiarity His quick wits kept him always on his guard. His main defect was his unwillingness to regard the Senate as having a right to pass judgment on his treaties. And instead of being compliant and compromising, he injured his cause with the Senators by letting them see too plainly that he regarded them as interlopers, and by peppering them with witty but not agreeable sarcasm. In dealing with foreign diplomats, on the other hand, he was at his best. They found him polished, straightforward, and urbane. He not only produced on them the impression of honesty, but he was honest. In all his diplomatic correspondence, whether he was writing confidentially to American representatives or was addressing official notes to foreign governments, I do not recall a single hint of double-dealing. Hay was the velvet glove, Roosevelt the hand of steel.

For many years Canada and the United States had enjoyed grievances towards each other, grievances over fisheries, over lumber, and other things, no one of which was worth going to war for. The discovery of gold in the Klondike, and the rush thither of thousands of fortune-seekers, revived the old question of the Alaskan Boundary; for it mattered a great deal whether some of the gold-fields were Alaskan—that is, American-or Canadian. Accordingly, a joint High Commission was appointed towards the end of McKinley’s first administration to consider the claims and complaints of the two countries. The Canadians, however, instead of settling each point on its own merits, persisted in bringing in a list of twelve grievances which varied greatly in importance, and this method favored trading one claim against another. The result was that the Commission, failing to agree, disbanded. Nevertheless, the irritation continued, and Roosevelt, having become President, and being a person who was constitutionally opposed to shilly-shally, suggested to the State Department that a new Commission be appointed under conditions which would make a decision certain. He even went farther, he took precautions to assure a verdict in favor of the United States. He appointed three Commissioners—Senators Lodge, Root, and Turner; the Canadians appointed two, Sir A. L. Jette and A. B. Aylesworth; the English representative was Alverstone, the Lord Chief Justice.

The President gave to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, of the Supreme Court, who was going abroad for the summer, a letter which he was “indiscreetly” to show Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Balfour, and two or three other prominent Englishmen. In this letter he wrote:

The claims of the Canadians for access to deep water along any part of the Alaskan Coast is just exactly as indefensible as if they should now suddenly claim the Island of Nantucket….

"I believe that no three men [the President said] in the United States could be found who would be more anxious than our own delegates to do justice to the British claim on all points where there is even a color of right on the British side. But the objection raised by certain Canadian authorities to Lodge, Root, and Turner, and especially to Lodge and Root, was that they had committed themselves on the general proposition. No man in public life in any position of prominence could have possibly avoided committing himself on the proposition, any more than Mr. Chamberlain could avoid committing himself on the question of the ownership of the Orkneys if some Scandinavian country suddenly claimed them. If this claim embodied other points as to which there was legitimate doubt, I believe Mr. Chamberlain would act fairly and squarely in deciding the matter; but if he appointed a commission to settle up all these questions, I certainly should not expect him to appoint three men, if he could find them, who believed that as to the Orkneys the question was an open one.

I wish to make one last effort to bring about an agreement through the Commission [he said in closing] which will enable the people of both countries to say that the result represents the feeling of the representatives of both countries. But if there is a disagreement, I wish it distinctly understood, not only that there will be no arbitration of the matter, but that in my message to Congress I shall take a position which will prevent any possibility of arbitration hereafter; a position … which will render it necessary for Congress to give me the authority to run the line as we claim it, by our own people, without any further regard to the attitude of England and Canada. If I paid attention to mere abstract rights, that is the position I ought to take anyhow. I have not taken it because I wish to exhaust every effort to have the affair settled peacefully andwith due regard to England’s honor." 2

In due time the Commission gave a decision in favor of the American contention. Lord Alverstone, who voted with the Americans, was suspected of having been chosen by the British Government because they knew his opinion, but I do not believe that this was true. A man of his honor, sitting in such a tribunal, would not have voted according to instructions from anybody.

Roosevelt’s brusque way of bringing the Alaska Boundary Question to a quick decision, may be criticised as not being judicial. He took the short cut, just as he did years before in securing a witness against the New York saloon-keepers who destroyed the lives of thousands of boys and girls by making them drunkards. Strictly, of course, if the boundary dispute was to be submitted to a commission, he ought to have allowed the other party to appoint its own commissioners without any suggestion from him. But as the case had dragged on interminably, and he believed, and the world believed, and the Canadians themselves knew, that they intended to filibuster and postpone as long as possible, he took the common-sense way to a settlement. If he had resolved, as he had, to draw the boundary line “on his own hook,” in case there was further pettifogging he committed no impropriety in warning the British statesmen of his purpose. In judging these Rooseveltian short cuts, the reader must decide whether they were justified by the good which they achieved.

Of even greater importance was the understanding reached, under Roosevelt’s direction, with the British Government in regard to the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. By the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, the United States and Great Britain agreed to maintain free and uninterrupted passage across the Isthmus, and, further, that neither country should “obtain or maintain to itself any control over the said ship-canal,” or “assume or exercise any dominion … over any part of Central America.” The ship canal talked about as a probability in 1850 had become a necessity by 1900. During the Spanish-American War, the American battleship Oregon had been obliged. to make the voyage round Cape Horn, from San Francisco to Cuba, and this served to impress on the people of the United States the really acute need of a canal across the Isthmus, so that in time of war with a powerful enemy, our Atlantic fleet and our Pacific fleet might quickly pass from one coast to another. It would obviously be impossible for us to play the role of a World Power unless we had this short line of communication. But the conditions of peace, not less than the emergencies of war, called for a canal. International commerce, as well as our own, required the saving of thousands of miles of distance.

About 1880, the French under Count De Lesseps undertook to construct a canal from Panama to Aspinwall, but after half a dozen years the French company suspended work, partly for financial reasons, and partly on account of the enormous loss of life among the diggers from the pestilent nature of the climate and the country. Then followed a period of waiting, until it seemed certain that the French would never resume operations. American promoters pressed the claims of a route through Nicaragua where they could secure concessions. But it became clear that an enterprise of such far reaching political importance as a trans-Isthmian canal, should be under governmental control. John Hay had been less than a year in the Department of State when he set about negotiating with England a treaty which should embody his ideas. In Sir Julian Pauncefote, the British Ambassador at Washington, he had a most congenial man to deal with. Both were gentlemen, both were firmly convinced that a canal must be constructed for the good of civilization, both held that to assure the friendship of the two great branches of the English-speaking race should be the transcendent aim of each. They soon made a draft of a treaty which was submitted to the Senate, but the Senators so amended it that the British Government refused to accept their amendments, and the project failed. Hay was so terribly chagrined at the Senate’s interference that he wished to resign. There could be no doubt now, however, that if the canal had been undertaken on the terms of his first treaty, it would never have satisfied the United States and it would probably have been a continual source of international irritation. Roosevelt was at that time Governor of New York, and I quote the following letter from him to Hay because it shows how clearly he saw the objections to the treaty, and the fundamental principles for the control of an Isthmian canal:

Albany, Feb. 18, 1900

"I hesitated long before I said anything about the treaty through sheer dread of two moments—that in which I should receive your note, and that in which I should receive Cabot’s. 3 But I made up my mind that at least I wished to be on record; for to my mind this step is one backward, and it may be fraught with very great mischief. You have been the greatest Secretary of State I have seen in my time—Olney comes second—but at this moment I can not, try as I may, see that you are right. Understand me. When the treaty is adopted, as I suppose it will be, I shall put the best face possible on it, and shall back the Administration as heartily as ever, but oh, how I wish you and the President would drop the treaty and push through a bill to build and fortify our own canal.

My objections are twofold. First, as to naval policy. If the proposed canal had been in existence in ‘98, the Oregon could have come more quickly through to the Atlantic; but this fact would have been far outweighed by the fact that Cervera’s fleet would have had open to it the chance of itself going through the canal, and thence sailing to attack Dewey or to menace our stripped Pacific Coast. If that canal is open to the warships of an enemy, it is a menace to us in time of war; it is an added burden, an additional strategic point to be guarded by our fleet. If fortified by us, it becomes one of the most potent sources of our possible sea strength. Unless so fortified it strengthens against us every nation whose fleet is larger than our own. One prime reason for fortifying our great seaports, is to unfetter our fleet, to release it for offensive purposes; and the proposed canal would fetter it again, for our fleet would have to watch it, and therefore do the work which a fort should do; and what it could do much better.

Secondly, as to the Monroe Doctrine. If we invite foreign powers to a joint ownership, a joint guarantee, of what so vitally concerns us but a little way from our borders, how can we possibly object to similar joint action, say in Southern Brazil or Argentina, where our interests are so much less evident? If Germany has the same right that we have in the canal across Central America, why not in the partition of any part of Southern America? To my mind, we should consistently refuse to all European powers the right to control in any shape, any territory in the Western Hemisphere which they do not already hold.

As for existing treaties—I do not admit the “dead hand” of the treaty making power in the past. A treaty can always be honorably abrogated—though it must never be abrogated in dishonest fashion." 4

Fortunately, Lord Salisbury, the British Prime Minister, remained benevolently disposed towards the Isthmian Canal, and in the following year he consented to take up the subject again. A new treaty embodying the American amendments and the British objections was drafted, and passed the Senate a few months after Roosevelt became President. Its vital provisions were, that it abrogated the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and gave to the United States full ownership and control of the proposed canal.

This was the second illustration of Roosevelt’s masterfulness in cutting through a diplomatic knot. Arrangements for constructing the Canal itself forced on him a third display of his dynamic quality which resulted in the most hotly discussed act of his career.

The French Canal Company was glad to sell to the American Government its concessions on the Isthmus, and as much of the Canal as it had dug, for $40,000,000. It had originally bought its concession from the Government of Colombia, which owned the State of Panama: At first the Colombian rulers seemed glad, and they sent an accredited agent, Dr. Herran, to Washington, who framed with Secretary Hay a treaty satisfactory to both, and believed, by Mr. Hay, to represent the sincere intentions of the Colombian Government at Bogota. The Colombian politicians, however, who were banditti of the Tammany stripe, but as much cruder as Bogota was than New York City, suddenly discovered that the transaction might be much more profitable for themselves than they had at first suspected. They put off ratifying the treaty, therefore, and warned the French Company that they should charge it an additional $10,000,000 for the privilege of transferring its concession to the Americans. The French demurred; the Americans waited. Secretary Hay reminded Dr. Herran that the treaty must be signed within a reasonable time, and intimated that the reasonable time would soon be up.

The Bogotan blackmailers indulged in still wilder dreams of avarice; like the hasheesh-eater, they completely lost contact with reality and truth. In one of their earlier compacts with the French Company they stipulated that, if the Canal were not completed by a certain day in 1904, the entire concession and undertaking should revert to the Colombian Government. As it was now September, 1903, it did not require the wits of a political bandit to see that, by staving off an agreement with the United States for a few months, Colombia could get possession of property and privileges which the French were selling to the Americans for $40,000,000. So the Colombian Parliament adjourned in October, 1903, without even taking up the Hay-Herran Treaty.

Meanwhile the managers of the French Company became greatly alarmed at the prospect of losing the sum which the United States had agreed to pay for its rights and diggings, and it took steps to avert this total loss. The most natural means which occurred to it, the means which it adopted, was to incite a revolution in the State of Panama. To understand the affair truly, the reader must remember that Panama had long been the chief source of wealth to the Republic of Colombia. The mountain gentry who conducted the Colombian Government at Bogota treated Panama like a conquered. province, to be squeezed to the utmost for the benefit of the politicians. There was neither community of interest nor racial sympathy between the Panamanians and the Colombians, and, as it required a journey of fifteen days to go from Panama to the Capital, geography, also, added its sundering influence. Quite naturally the Panamanians, in the course of less than half a century, had made more than fifty attempts to revolt from Colombia and establish their own independence. The most illiterate of them could understand that, if they were independent, the money which they received and passed on to Bogota., for the bandits there to spend, would remain in their own hands. An appeal to their love of liberty, being coupled with so obvious an appeal to their pockets, was irresistible.

Just what devices the French Company employed to instigate revolution, can be read in the interesting work of M. Bunau-Varilla, one of the most zealous officers of the French Company, who had devoted his life to achieving the construction of the Trans-Isthmian Canal. He was indefatigable, breezy, and deliberately indiscreet. He tells much, and what he does not tell he leaves you to infer, without risk of going astray. Mr. William Nelson Cromwell, of New York; the general counsel of the Company, offset Varilla’s loquacity by a proper amount of reticence. Bunau-Varilla hurried over from Paris, and had interviews with President Roosevelt and Secretary Hay, but could not draw them into his conspiracy. The President told him that, at the utmost, he would only order American warships, which were on the Panama coast, to prevent any attack from outside which might cause bloodshed and interfere with the undisturbed passage across the Isthmus, a duty which the United States was pledged to perform.

The French zealot-conspirator freely announced that the revolution at Panama would take place at noon on November 3d. It did take place as scheduled without violence, and with only the accidental killing of a Chinaman and a dog. The next day the Revolutionists proclaimed the Republic of Panama, and on November 6th the United States formally recognized its existence and prepared to open diplomatic relations with it. The Colombian Government had tried to send troops to put down the rebellion, but the American warships, obeying their orders to prevent bloodshed or fighting, would not allow the troops to land.

As soon as the news of these events reached Bogota, the halls of Parliament there resounded with wailing and gnashing of teeth and protests, and curses on the perfidious Americans who had connived to free the Panamanians in their struggle for liberty. The mountain bandits perceived that they had overreached themselves. Instead of the $10,000,000 which their envoy Herran had deemed sufficient; instead of the $40,000,000 and more, which their greed had counted on in 1904, they would receive nothing. The Roosevelt Government immediately signed a contract with the Republic of Panama, by which the United States leased a zone across the Isthmus for building, controlling, and operating, the Canal. Then the Colombians, in a panic, sent their most respectable public man, and formerly their President, General Rafael Reyes, to Washington, to endeavor to persuade the Government to reverse its compact with the Panama Republic. The blackmailers were now very humble. Mr. Wayne MacVeagh, who was counsel for Colombia, told me that General Reyes was authorized to accept $8,000,000 for all the desired concessions, “and,” Mr. MacVeagh added, “he would have taken five millions, but Hay and Roosevelt were so foolish that they wouldn’t accept.”

The quick decisions of the Administration in Washington, which accompanied the revolution in Panama and the recognition of the new Republic, were made by Roosevelt. I have seen no evidence that Mr. Hay was consulted at the last moment. When the stroke was accomplished, many good persons in the United States denounced it. They felt that it was high-handed and brutal, and that it fixed an indelible blot on the national conscience. Many of them did not know of the long-drawn-out negotiations and of the Colombian premeditated deceit; others knew, but overlooked or condoned. They upheld strictly the letter of the law. They could not deny that the purpose of the Colombians was to exact blackmail. It meant nothing to them that Herran, the official envoy, had drawn up and signed a treaty under instructions from Marroquin, the President of Colombia, and its virtual dictator, who, having approved of the orders under which Herran acted, could easily have required the Colombian Parliament to ratify the treaty. Perfervidly pious critics of Roosevelt pictured him as a bully without conscience, and they blackened his aid in freeing the Panamanians by calling it “the Rape of Panama.” Some of these persons even boldly asserted that John Hay died of remorse over his part in this wicked deed. The fact is that John Hay died of a disease which was not caused by remorse, and that, as long as he lived, he publicly referred to the Panama affair as that in which he took the greatest pride. It is only in the old Sunday-School stories that Providence punishes wrongdoing with such commendable swiftness, and causes the naughty boy who goes skating on Sunday to drown forthwith; in real life the “mills of God grind slowly.” Roosevelt always regarded with equal satisfaction the decision by which the Panama Canal was achieved and the high needs of civilization and the protection of the United States were attended to. He lived long enough to condemn the proposal of some of our morbidly conscientious people, hypnotized by the same old crafty Colombians, to pay Colombia a gratuity five times greater than that which General Reyes would have thankfully received in December, 1903.

Persons of different temperaments, but of equal patriotism and sincerity, will probably pass different verdicts on this incident for a long time to come. Mr. Leupp quotes a member of Roosevelt’s Administration as stating four alternative courses the President might have followed. First, he might have let matters drift until Congress met, and then sent a message on the subject, shifting the responsibility from his own shoulders to those of the Congressmen. Secondly, he might have put down the rebellion and restored Panama to Colombia; but this would have been to subject them against their will to a foreign enemy—an enormity the Anti-Imperialists were still decrying in our holding the Philippines against the will of their inhabitants. Thirdly, he might have withdrawn American warships and left Colombia to fight it out with the Panamanians—but this would have involved bloodshed, tumult, and interruption of transit across the Isthmus, which the United States, by the agreement of 1846, were bound to prevent. Finally, he might recognize any de facto government ready and willing to transact business—and this he did. 5

That the Colombian politicians, who repudiated the treaty Herran had framed, were blackmailers of the lowest sort, is as indisputable as is the fact that whoever begins to compromise with a blackmailer is lured farther and farther into a bog until he is finally swallowed up. Americans should know also that during the summer and autumn of 1903, German agents were busy in Bogota. and that, since German capitalists had openly announced their desire to buy up the French Company’s concession, we may guess that they did not urge Colombia to fulfill her obligation to the United States.

Many years later I discussed the transaction with Mr. Roosevelt, chaffing him with being a wicked conspirator. He laughed, and replied: “What was the use? The other fellows in Paris and New York had taken all the risk and were doing all the work. Instead of trying to run a parallel conspiracy, I had only to sit still and profit by their plot—if it succeeded.” He said also that he had intended issuing a public announcement that, if Colombia by a given date refused to come to terms, he would seize the Canal Zone in behalf of civilization. I told him I rather wished that he had accomplished his purpose in that way; but he answered that events matured too quickly, and that, in any case, where swift action was required, the Executive and not Congress must decide.

Note 1. In April, 1901, J. W. Griggs had retired as Attorney-General and was succeeded by P. C. Knox; in January, 1902, C. E. Smith was replaced by H. W. Payne as Postmaster-General. [back ]

Note 2. W. R. Thayer: John Hay, II, 209, 210. [ back ]

Note 3. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who also opposed the first treaty. [ back ]

Note 4. W. R. Thayer: John Hay, II, 339–41. [ back ]

Note 5. Leupp, 10–11. [ back ]

The policy of interventionism, originally implied in the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, was implemented into action more so under Theodore Roosevelt than any president since James Monroe. Though unfortunately not chronicled by Thayer, Roosevelt sent the "Great White Fleet" across the globe to various ports-of-call in order to demonstrate the U.S.'s new found military might as a result of its monumental victory over the Spanish Empire, or the last vestiges of it.

The Foreign Policy of Woodrow Wilson

(Above: President Woodrow Wilson, served from 1913-1921. Courtesy of Wikipedia)

President Woodrow Wilson spent 1914 through to the beginning of 1917 trying to keep America out of the war in Europe. He offered to be a mediator, but neither the Allies nor the Central Powers took his requests seriously. Republicans, led by Theodore Roosevelt, strongly criticized Wilson's refusal to build up the U.S. Army in anticipation of the threat of war. Wilson won the support of the peace element (especially women and churches) by arguing that an army buildup would provoke war. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, whose pacifist recommendations were ignored by Wilson, resigned in 1915. Thus, with Wilson being a product of the Progressive movement and Bryan serving as part of the Populist wing of the Democratic Party, we see the difference in foreign policy philosophies between the two similar, yet different, ideologies.

The U.S. had made a declaration of neutrality in 1914. Wilson warned citizens not to take sides in the war for fear of endangering wider U.S. policy. In his address to Congress in 1914, Wilson stated, "Such divisions amongst us would be fatal to our peace of mind and might seriously stand in the way of the proper performance of our duty as the one great nation at peace, the one people holding itself ready to play a part of impartial mediation and speak the counsels of peace and accommodation, not as a partisan, but as a friend."

The U.S. maintained neutrality despite increasing pressure placed on Wilson after the sinking of the British passenger liner RMS Lusitania with arms and American citizens on board. Wilson found it increasingly difficult to maintain U.S. neutrality after Germany, despite its promises in the Arabic pledge and the Sussex pledge, initiated a program of unrestricted submarine warfare early in 1917 that threatened U.S. commercial shipping. Following the revelation of the Zimmermann Telegram, Germany's attempt to enlist Mexico as an ally against the U.S., Wilson took America into World War I to make "the world safe for democracy." The U.S. did not sign a formal alliance with the United Kingdom or France but operated as an "associated" power. The U.S. raised a massive army through conscription and Wilson gave command to General John J. Pershing, allowing Pershing a free hand as to tactics, strategy and even diplomacy.

Wilson had decided by then that the war had become a real threat to humanity. Unless the U.S. threw its weight into the war, as he stated in his declaration of war speech on April 2, 1917, western civilization itself could be destroyed. His statement announcing a "war to end war" meant that he wanted to build a basis for peace that would prevent future catastrophic wars and needless death and destruction. This provided the basis of Wilson's Fourteen Points, which were intended to resolve territorial disputes, ensure free trade and commerce, and establish a peacemaking organization. Included in these fourteen points was the proposal for the League of Nations.

Woodrow Wilson delivered his War Message to Congress on the evening of April 2, 1917. Introduced to great applause, he remained intense and almost motionless for the entire speech, only raising one arm as his only bodily movement.

Wilson announced that his previous position of "armed neutrality" was no longer tenable now that the Imperial German Government had announced that it would use its submarines to sink any vessel approaching the ports of Great Britain, Ireland or any of the Western Coasts of Europe. He advised Congress to declare that the recent course of action taken by the Imperial German Government constituted an act of war. He proposed that the United States enter the war to "vindicate principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power". He also charged that Germany had "filled our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government with spies and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our peace within and without our industries and our commerce". Furthermore, the United States had intercepted a telegram sent to the German ambassador in Mexico City that evidenced Germany's attempt to instigate a Mexican attack upon the U.S. The German government, Wilson said, "means to stir up enemies against us at our very doors". He then warned that "if there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with a firm hand of repression." Wilson closed with the statement that the world must be again safe for democracy. With 50 Representatives and 6 Senators in opposition, the declaration of war by the United States against Germany was passed by the Congress on April 4, 1917, and was approved by the President on April 6, 1917.

In a speech to Congress on January 8, 1918, Wilson articulated America's war aims. It was the clearest expression of intention made by any of the belligerent nations. The speech, authored principally by Walter Lippmann, expressed Wilson's progressive domestic policies into comparably idealistic equivalents for the international arena: self-determination, open agreements, international cooperation. Promptly dubbed the Fourteen Points, Wilson attempted to make them the basis for the treaty that would mark the end of the war. They ranged from the most generic principles like the prohibition of secret treaties to such detailed outcomes as the creation of an independent Poland with access to the sea. It also called for the formation of the League of Nations. This came to fruition, but the United States did not join due to opposition from Republicans in the Senate, led primarily by Henry Cabot Lodge, leading to the Upper House of Congress to balk at ratifying the treaty.

Of the two main founding sectarians of the modern Democratic Party, the Progressives more aggressive in foreign affairs and national defense than were the Populists. The Populists, if one characterizes their philosophy by the Party's most prominent politician William Jennings Bryan, preached pacifism, although it should be noted that when the U.S. declared war on Spain in 1898, one of the most vocal proponents of President William McKinley's decision to prosecute the situation was none other than "the boy orator of the Platte." It can also be concluded that President Wilson's method for entering the U.S. into the war was, at best, disingenuous and dishonest, not to mention misleading the American people of his intentions

The Foreign Policy of the Democratic Party Rises Like a Phoenix from the Ashes of Isolationism Between 1939-Present

The main trend regarding the history of U.S. foreign policy since the American Revolution is the shift from non-interventionism before and after World War I, to its growth as a world power and global hegemony during and since World War II and the end of the Cold War in the 20th century. Since the 19th century, US foreign policy also has been characterized by a shift from the realist school to the idealistic or Wilsonian school of international relations.

At the conclusion of the First World War, foreign policy reverted back to the practice of isolationist foreign policy. Under the administrations of Republicans Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, the nation worked toward growing the economy and domestic wealth. The 1920's were a time characterized by rapid economic growth and great financial prosperity. However, with the failures in economic policy under President Herbert Hoover, the nation plunged into the Great Depression that would last more than a decade.

The Foreign Policy of Franklin D. Roosevelt

(Above: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, aka. "FDR," served from 1933-1945. Courtesy of Wikipedia.)

Franklin D. Roosevelt, who is commonly referred to as "FDR" and who won the Election of 1932 in a landslide, is best known for his formally introducing socialism and the welfare state into America's political consciousness. However, he was also the first president in nearly 20 years to embroil the U.S. in interventionist foreign policy. It is this intervention in foreign policy by signing an international agreement with allied nations Great Britain and the Soviet Union known as the Lend-Lease Agreement and the placement of an oil and rubber embargo on the empire of Japan that ultimately led the United States into war with the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan from 1941-1945 stemming from the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese warplanes.

Much like the spirit behind the method Wilson used to enter the U.S. into World War I in 1917, there have been strong allegations of FDR goading the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor, and furthermore, of covering up the plot by concealing vital information which might have given away the Japanese government's intentions. In the book Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor by Robert Stinnett, the author alleges that the Roosevelt administration deliberately provoked and allowed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in order to bring the United States into World War II. Stinnett claimed to have found information showing that the attacking fleet was detected through radio and intelligence intercepts, but that the information was deliberately withheld from Admiral Kimmel, the commander of the base. Stinnett's proposition is based initially on a memorandum written by Lieutenant Commander Arthur H. McCollum in October 1940, which was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. McCollum, who was head of the Far East desk of the Office of Naval Intelligence at the time, discussed the strategic situation in the Pacific and ended with a list of eight actions directed at the Japanese threat. Stinnett characterizes the actions as "provocations" and states his belief in McCollum's point F ("Keep the main strength of the U.S. fleet now in the Pacific in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands") was intended to lure the Japanese into attacking it. Stinnett asserts that the overall intent was to provoke an act of war which would allow Roosevelt to enter into active conflict with Germany in support of the United Kingdom. However, critics of Stinnett's research, no doubt historical revisions of the Left, are dismissive of the claims, citing that many of his claims are baseless. An article in Salon from June 14, 2001 quotes former CIA historian Donald Steury:

"[Stinnett] concocted this theory pretty much from whole cloth. Those who have been able to check his alleged sources also are unanimous in their condemnation of his methodology. Basically, the author has made up his sources; when he does not make up the source, he lies about what the source says."

It should be noted that Salon is a politically-liberal and progressive news site, and no doubt is defending the "honor" of the Democratic Party's ideological hero and champion.

The Second Term was a failure; FDR had overreached and his efforts to fight the conservatives in the business community, the GOP, and his own party (in the South) produced a backlash against excessive presidential control. With war breaking out in Europe in 1939, FDR turned to foreign affairs. Administrative Assistants to Roosevelt included James Forrestal, Lauchlin Currie and David K. Niles. Their function was to get information and to condense and summarize it for Roosevelt's use. FDR soon moved Forrestal to the Navy department, where he took over the responsibilities of the incompetent secretary. Public opinion on entering the war became polarized in very complicated ways. Conservatives divided into pro-war ("interventionist") and anti-war ("isolationist") blocs, as did liberals. The Republicans split, and so, too, did the Democrats. FDR was the leader of the interventionist liberal Democrats, but he was opposed by old allies like John L. Lewis and Joe Kennedy, and supported by old foes like Henry Stimson. In general the dispute was entirely focused on Europe. Virtually every group was hostile to Japan and supported a strong pro-Nationalist China policy, which FDR pushed vigorously. Tokyo was threatened: end its invasion of China or FDR would--and did at the urging of KGB agent Harry Dexter White working as an Undersecretary of the Treasury--cut off Japan's oil supplies. Japan responded to an ultimatum--written by Harry White--with a decision for war. Once Pearl Harbor was attacked (Dec. 7, 1941), all the prior divisions vanished overnight, and all groups supported the war effort.

(Above: FDR and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.)

In August 1939 Stalin made an alliance with Hitler called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact under which both jointly waged aggressive war against Poland; the two divided Poland between them, as Germany turned toward France and Britain and the Soviet Union invaded Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland. With Roosevelt strongly supporting France and Britain, the Communist Party USA at Moscow's direction began attacking Roosevelt in the wildest terms and did so for the next twenty-two months. In the 1940 election, pro-Moscow elements in the CIO forced John L. Lewis to turn against Roosevelt and support the liberal Republican Wendell Willkie. Roosevelt meanwhile moved right, and brought into top jobs the GOP vice presidential nominee from 1936, Frank Knox (a conservative who became Secretary of the Navy) and conservative Republican lawyer Henry Stimson, who took over the War Department. Rejecting advice from its communist organizers, 90% of CIO members voted for Roosevelt, who was easily elected to a third term.
Roosevelt was determined to help Britain and at one point after Pearl Harbor Winston Churchill even moved into the White House to coordinate war strategy. Isolationists, led by the America First Committee and Senator Burton K. Wheeler tried to block the moves toward war. Thus, FDR catered to communist sympathizers and domestic Communist Party members in order to increase his chances of winning the election in 1940.

Roosevelt in February 1940 accused the Soviet Union:

"In the early days of Communism, I recognized that many leaders in Russia were bringing education and better health and, above all, better opportunity to millions ... I disliked the regimentation ...I abhorred the indiscriminate killings of thousands of innocent victims ....

"I heartily deprecated the banishment of religion - though I knew that some day Russia would return to religion for the simple reason that four or five thousand years of recorded history have proven that mankind has always believed in God in spite of many abortive attempts to exile God.

"The Soviet Union, as everybody who has the courage to face the fact knows, is run by a dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world. It has allied itself with another dictatorship [Germany], and it has invaded a neighbor [Finland] so infinitesimally small that it could do no conceivable possible harm to the Soviet Union, a neighbor which seeks only to live at peace as a democracy, and a liberal, forward-looking democracy at that."

It is interesting to note that Roosevelt, naturally as a leftist, was a Communist sympathizer.

In June 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and Communists on Moscow's instructions immediately switched from anti-FDR isolationism to support for FDR and demanded the U.S. enter the war. The conservative isolationists were convinced that FDR was conniving to somehow trick the American people and enter the war. Public opinion steadily moved to support FDR's aggressive policies against Japan and Germany.

In early December 1941 a military officer gave Senator Burton Wheeler, an isolationist liberal Democrat, a copy of the top secret American war plan for fighting Germany. Wheeler gave it to the Chicago Tribune, which published the secrets in a desperate effort to weaken the American military so much that Roosevelt would avoid war. Pearl Harbor came a few days later and Wheeler and the isolationists went quiet.

The policy makers in Washington--including those at the newly constructed Pentagon--wanted to focus on defeating Germany. Public opinion (and the Navy) insisted on defeating Japan first. Given the military situation, there was little in 1942-43 the U.S. could do to open a ground front in Europe except send military supplies to Britain and Russia, which was done. The war in 1942-43 of necessity focused on Japan, and it was a very hard-fought war primarily with naval aviation. The great American victory at the Battle of Midway ended the Japanese blitzkrieg and evened out the forces. Japan was unprepared for a long war, and already by early 1942 the U.S. had far more warships and warplanes under construction than Japan did. Before the material edge became decisive, American forces defeated the Japanese at the Battle of Guadalcanal. By 1943 the "island hopping" campaign under Admiral Chester Nimitz in the central Pacific, and under General Douglas MacArthur in the Southwest Pacific was inexorably pushing American forces toward the Japanese home islands, with the goal of invading them and capturing Tokyo.

American and British troops invaded North Africa in 1942, and Sicily and Italy in 1943. In retrospect these were not major strategic goals, but they did provide the Army with the combat experience needed to prepare for the real invasion of France in June 1944. By then the German Luftwaffe had been destroyed by the U.S. Air Force, and the vast advantage in war material made the German military position hopeless. With the huge Russian armies pressing in from the east, and the smaller but more powerful Allied armies coming in from the west, the Nazi war machine was crushed in 1944-45.

FDR worked very closely with his military advisers, and followed their strategic advice. His stated policy was fostering diplomatic relations with Britain, the Soviet Union, and the Chinese Nationalists. Stalin publicly disbanded the Comintern in 1943 in return for lend-lease aid of food and munitions. A message from Moscow to all KGB stations relating to this event is one of the most important messages in the entire corpus of VENONA translations. This message clearly discloses the KGB's connection to the Comintern and to the national Communist parties.

John P. Davies was assigned to Gen. Joseph Stilwell as Stilwell's adviser in China. Hopkins made a note at the time: "The President indicated his strong dissatisfaction with the way the whole show was running in China. He stated that Stillwell obviously hated the Chinese and that his cablegrams are sarcastic about the Chinese and this feeling is undoubtedly known to the Generalissimo." Roosevelt and Hopkins biographer Robert Sherwood wrote that Gen. George C. Marshall told Hopkins his only serious disagreement with Hopkins was on the issue of Stilwell. Sherwood adds that "he was unquestionably a serious nuisance to Roosevelt and there were many times when he was on the verge of recalling him."

(Above: Photograph taken of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference, February 1945.)

At the Yalta conference in February 1945, victory was in sight in Europe. A reparations commission was set up to help repay the Soviet Union from German assets. Everyone realized that the conquest of eastern Europe by the Red Army guaranteed Soviet dominance, but efforts were made to get promises of fair elections; the promises were made, but the elections were never held. Roosevelt, despite his failing health, seemed to think that he and Stalin would personally iron out any difficulties after the war ended. FDR persuaded Stalin to promise to enter the war against Japan 90 days after Germany surrendered; Stalin did so.

The Foreign Policy of Harry S. Truman

A middle-aged Caucasian male wearing a dark business suit and wireframe glasses is depicted smiling pensively at the camera in a black-and-white photo.

(Above: President Harry S. Truman, served from 1945-1953. Courtesy of Wikipedia)

In 1944, after Vice-President Henry A. Wallace had been rejected by leading Democrats as too far to the left, Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman supported his friend former senator James F. Byrnes of South Carolina for that office. Catholics vetoed Byrnes, who had left that faith. Truman himself became Roosevelt's choice as a compromise vice presidential candidate, and the two were elected. Roosevelt had been in ill-health since his return from the Teheran conference. At the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, DNC Chairman Bob Hannegan went for instructions to President Roosevelt's private railway car just before the July convention officially began. Roosevelt had decided to dump incumbent Vice-President Henry Wallace. Worried over dissension on the choice of a successor, Roosevelt told Hannegan: "Go on down there and nominate Truman before there's any more trouble. And clear everything with Sidney." The President could not make the selection of Truman until Sidney Hillman, Director of the Political Action Committee for the Congress on Industrial Organizations (CIO) approved it. When Harry Truman walked into the smoke-filled room of DNC at headquarters at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, Soviet spies John Abt, Lee Pressman, and Nathan Witt, were on hand. Roosevelt ignored Truman between the election in November 1944 and the inauguration in January; even as Vice president Truman was not consulted on national policies, and not informed of major decisions, nor of the atomic bomb. Although he realized Roosevelt's health was failing rapidly, he made no preparations for assuming the presidency and did not even build up a staff of advisers. Truman succeeded to the Presidency upon the death of FDR on April 12, 1945.

Early in his term as president, Truman presided over the conclusion of World War II in both Europe and Japan. On April 25 his telephoned speech opened the San Francisco Conference establishing the United Nations. A week later Germany surrendered, and from July 17 to August 2, 1945, Truman attended the Potsdam Conference with Britain's Winston Churchill (soon replaced by the new prime minister Clement Attlee) and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union. he was there when he learned that the Trinity test of the first atomic bomb on July 16 had been successful. He hinted to Joseph Stalin that the U.S. was about to use a new kind of weapon against the Japanese. Though this was the first time the Soviets had been officially given information about the atomic bomb, Stalin was already aware of the bomb project, having learned about it (through espionage) long before Truman himself did.

(Above: President Harry S. Truman's announcement of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.)

In August, after the Imperial government refused surrender demands, Truman authorized the atomic bombing of Japan. Although it was not known how devastating the explosions and the aftermath would be, Truman, like most Americans, was not inclined to be merciful towards the Japanese in the wake of the long years of war. Truman always stated that his decision to bomb Japan saved life on both sides; casualty estimates for Americans ranged very widely. Casualty estimates for Japan ranged into the millions. Secretary of War Henry Stimson made the real decision: to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When the Japanese were still slow to surrender, Truman ordered a massive conventional air raid on Tokyo for August 13; Japan agreed to surrender the following day. Japan immediately surrendered on terms that allowed Emperor Hirohito to stay on the throne and not be tried as a war criminal. He also knew that the program could cost $2 billion, and so he was not inclined to forgo an alternative that might quickly end the war. Hiroshima was bombed on August 6 and Nagasaki on the 9th. When the Japanese were still slow to surrender, Truman ordered a massive conventional air raid on Tokyo for August 13; Japan agreed to surrender the following day. Truman put General Douglas MacArthur in charge of occupying and controlling Japan; MacArthur remained in charge until the peace treaty was finally signed in 1951.

The decision to drop the atomic bomb has been the focus of one of the most heated debates among both scholars and the public since 1945. After 1945 the debate was dominated by "traditionalist" scholars, who argued that the U.S. had no choice but to drop the bomb as a way to bring World War II to an end. The traditionalists were succeeded in the 1960s by "revisionists," who asserted that the dropping of the bomb was done to intimidate Stalin, not end the war. The leading revisionist historians emerged from the "new left" movement of the 1960s and rejected any notion of the moral superiority of America or capitalism to the Soviet Union. They thought the Cold War and containment were poor policies and generally favored détente, along the lines proposed by Henry Wallace. They include Gar Alperovitz, Barton J. Bernstein, Kai Bird, Diane Shaver Clemens, Bruce Cumings, Richard Freeland, Lloyd Gardner, Gabriel Kolko, Walter LaFeber, Thomas Paterson, Harvard Sitkoff, Ronald Steel, Athan Theoharis, and William A. Williams (the leader of the "Wisconsin School"). The revisionists are not monolithic, but they usually agree that Truman and his advisers were wrong whether the issue is the Cold War, Korea, or the atomic bomb. Revisionists had argued that Truman's goal at Potsdam was to prevent Soviet entry into the war against Japan, and the atomic bomb was used to scare them off. However in 1983 archivists discovered a letter Truman wrote to his wife from Potsdam on July 18, 1945:

"I've gotten what I came for-- Stalin goes to war August 15 with no strings on it . . . I'll say that we'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed! That's the important thing."

In the 1990's, a more nuanced historical approach emerged searching for a middle ground, offering a number of more credible studies, essentially arguing that neither the traditional nor the revisionist interpretations were entirely satisfactory.

As a Wilsonian internationalist, Truman strongly supported creation of the United Nations, and included Eleanor Roosevelt on the delegation to the UN's first General Assembly. With the Soviet Union expanding its sphere of influence through Eastern Europe, Truman and his foreign policy advisers took a hard line against the USSR. In this, he matched American public opinion, which quickly came to view the Soviets as intent upon world domination. Gradually Truman created his own administration, using the Fair Deal label to express its goals in domestic affairs. Truman systematically removed the Roosevelt cabinet and inner circle of advisers. The most dramatic episode was firing Henry A. Wallace in 1946 because of his outspoken criticism of the administration's foreign policy as too harsh on the Soviet Union. Liberals saw themselves in a struggle with conservatives for Truman's soul after the 1946 election. Linked to the President through top aide Clark Clifford, these liberals included Oscar Ewing, former party official and director of the Federal Security Agency, Leon Keyserling, member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, and David Morse, assistant secretary of labor. They embraced the memo plotting 1948 campaign strategy written by former Roosevelt adviser James Rowe, which urged Truman to "move to the left and focus on building a coalition of groups that centered on organized labor, liberals, and northern urban African Americans." Liberals had national support from the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), led by Walter Reuther, Eleanor Roosevelt, Joseph Rauh, James Rowe, Reinhold Niebuhr, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Hubert Humphrey, and Ronald Reagan. The ADA was hostile to the Soviet Union, battled American Communists and fellow travelers like Wallace, and supported the purge of Communists from the CIO labor unions. Truman agreed with the ADA and moved left after 1946.

Truman, a Southern Baptist, sought religious allies in the Cold War. He tried to unite the world's religions in a spiritual crusade against communism, sending his personal representative to Pope Pius XII to coordinate not only with the Vatican but also with the heads of the Anglican, Lutheran, and Greek Orthodox churches. "If I can mobilize the people who believe in a moral world against the Bolshevik materialists," Truman wrote in 1947, "we can win this fight." Since the Roman Catholic Church was his strongest religious ally in the moral battle against international communism, Truman put Rome first in his global strategy, even trying to confer formal diplomatic recognition on the Vatican. At home, he received solid support from Catholics, who were a major element of the New Deal Coalition, but overwhelming resistance from Protestants, especially Southern Baptists who rejected anything "popish." Truman's political-diplomatic effort to formalize a public, faith-driven, ecumenical international campaign failed.

In early 1947 the British government, which was socialist but anti-Communist, secretly told Washington its treasury was empty and it could no longer give military and economic aid to Greece or Turkey, requested the U.S. take over. Acheson convinced Truman to act quickly lest Greece be taken over by its communist partisans who were at the time strongly supported by the Soviet government working through the communist Bulgarian and Yugoslav governments. If Greece fell, Turkey would be helpless and soon the eastern Mediterranean would fall under Stalin’s control. In a dramatic message to Congress on March 12, 1947, President Truman said that the U. S. must take immediate and resolute action to support Greece and Turkey. The Republican-controlled Congress, after extensive hearings, approved this historic change in U. S. foreign policy in a bill signed May 22, 1947. Thus was born the “Truman Doctrine.” Greece suppressed the insurgents; both Greece and Turkey joined NATO.

(Above: Video documentary about the Berlin Airlift.)

On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union blocked access to the three Western-held sectors of Berlin. The Allies had never negotiated a deal to guarantee supply of the sectors deep within the Soviet-occupied zone. The commander of the American occupation zone in Germany, General Lucius D. Clay, proposed sending a large armored column across the Soviet zone to West Berlin with instructions to defend itself if it were stopped or attacked. Truman believed this would entail an unacceptable risk of war. He approved a plan to supply the blockaded city by air. On June 25, the Allies initiated the Berlin Airlift, a campaign that delivered food and other supplies, such as coal, using military aircraft on a massive scale. Nothing like it had ever been attempted before, and no single nation had the capability, either logistically or materially, to have accomplished it. The airlift worked; ground access was again granted on May 11, 1949. Nevertheless, the airlift continued for several months after that. The Berlin Airlift was one of Truman's great foreign policy successes; it significantly aided his election campaign in 1948.

Truman had long taken an interest in the history of the Middle East, and had read many books on ancient history and the events related in the Bible. He was sympathetic to those who sought a Jewish homeland in Mandatory Palestine. As a senator, he had assured Jewish leaders of his support for Zionism, and at a 1943 rally in Chicago had called for a homeland for those Jews who survived the Nazi regime. A Jewish homeland in Palestine was widely popular in the United States, and Jewish support could be key in the upcoming presidential election. However, State Department officials were reluctant to offend the Arabs, who were opposed to the establishment of a Jewish state in their midst. Secretary of Defense James Forrestal warned Truman of the importance of Saudi Arabian oil in another war; Truman replied that he would decide his policy on the basis of justice, not oil. Furthermore, when diplomats were called home from the Middle East to advise Truman and promoted the Arab point of view, Truman told them he had few Arabs among his constituents.

American policy makers in 1947–48 agreed that the highest foreign policy objective was containment of Soviet expansion as the Cold War unfolded. From the perspective of many officials, Palestine was secondary to the goal of protecting the "Northern Tier" of Greece, Turkey, and Iran from Communism, as promised by the Truman Doctrine. Truman was weary of both the convoluted politics of the Middle East and of the urgings of Jewish leaders through his term in office, and was undecided on his policy. He later cited as decisive in his decision to recognize the Jewish state the advice of his old business partner, Eddie Jacobson, a non-religious Jew whom Truman absolutely trusted. Truman made the decision to recognize Israel over the objections of Secretary of State George Marshall, who feared it would hurt relations with the Arab states. Marshall believed the paramount threat to the U.S. was the Soviet Union and feared that Arab oil would be lost to the United States in the event of war; he warned Truman that U.S. was "playing with fire with nothing to put it out." Truman recognized the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, eleven minutes after it declared itself a nation.

Truman later wrote:

"Hitler had been murdering Jews right and left. I saw it, and I dream about it even to this day. The Jews needed some place where they could go. It is my attitude that the American government couldn't stand idly by while the victims [of] Hitler's madness are not allowed to build new lives."

Truman's 1949 inauguration was the first ever televised nationally. His second term was grueling, primarily because of foreign policy challenges connected directly or indirectly to his policy of containment. He quickly had to come to terms with the end of the American nuclear monopoly; with information provided by its espionage networks in the U.S., the Soviet Union's atomic bomb project progressed much faster than had been expected and they exploded their first bomb on August 29, 1949. In response, on January 7, 1953, Truman announced the detonation of the first U.S.hydrogen bomb.

Chiang Kai-shek, America's wartime ally and head of the Nationalist forces in China, was caught between two wars—a war on China by Japan and a war with Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communists. The U.S. policy was to avoid a civil war and to threaten to withhold additional aid to the Nationalists unless they worked out a compromise. No compromise was possible, and Truman refused to send in combat troops to fight the civil war. General George Marshall, who spent a year in China as Truman's emissary, testified that combat aid might have prevented a Communist victory, but General David Barr's military mission to China was specifically instructed not to supply this kind of assistance. General Albert C. Wedemeyer recommended this approach in his report on his 1947 fact-finding mission, but Marshall personally suppressed the report. Chiang believed that the Truman Doctrine to contain the spread of International Communism directed from Moscow would be extended to China, and ordered an offensive as soon as word of the new policy reached him.

Dean Rusk, Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the Far Eastern Division, said on May 18,1951 what the critics had been saying:

"The independence of China is gravely threatened. In the Communist world there is room for only one master. . . . How many Chinese in one community after another are being destroyed because they love China more than they love Soviet Russia? The freedoms of the Chinese people are disappearing. Trial by mob, mass slaughter, banishment to forced labor in Manchuria and Siberia. . . . The peace and security of China are being sacrificed by the ambitions of the Chinese conspiracy. China has been driven by foreign masters into an adventure in foreign aggression."

Rusk continued:

"We do not recognize the authorities in Peiping for what they pretend to be. It is not the government of China. It does not pass the first test. It is not Chinese. . . . We recognize the Nationalist government of the Republic of China even though the territory under its control is severely restricted. …we believe it more authoritatively represents the views of the great body of the people of China, particularly their demand for independence from foreign control….That government will continue to receive important aid and assistance from the United States."

General Marshall was Truman's principal adviser on foreign policy matters, influencing such decisions as the U.S. choice not to offer direct military aid to Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist Chinese forces in the Chinese Civil War against their communist opponents. Marshall's opinion was contrary to the counsel of almost all of Truman's other advisers--he saw that even propping up Chiang's forces would drain U.S. resources in Europe needed to deter the Soviets. When the communists took control of the mainland, driving the Nationalists to Taiwan and establishing the People's Republic of China, Truman would have been willing to maintain some relationship between the U.S. and the new government, but Mao was unwilling. In June 1950, Truman ordered the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent further conflict between the communist government on the China mainland and the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan.

(Above: Film footage from the Korean War.)

On June 25, 1950, Kim Il-Sung's North Korean People's Army invaded South Korea, starting the Korean War. In the early weeks of the war, the North Koreans easily pushed back their southern counterparts. Truman called for a naval blockade of Korea, only to learn that due to budget cutbacks, the U.S. Navy could not enforce such a measure. Truman promptly urged the United Nations to intervene; it did, authorizing troops under the UN flag led by U.S. General Douglas MacArthur.

Truman decided that he did not need formal authorization from Congress, believing that most legislators supported his position; this would come back to haunt him later, when the stalemated conflict was dubbed "Mr. Truman's War" by legislators. However, on July 3, 1950, Truman did give Senate Majority Leader Scott W. Lucas a draft resolution titled "Joint Resolution Expressing Approval of the Action Taken in Korea." Lucas said Congress supported the use of force, that the formal resolution would pass but was unnecessary, and that the consensus in Congress was to acquiesce. Truman responded that he did not want "to appear to be trying to get around Congress and use extra-Constitutional powers," and Truman added that it was "up to Congress whether such a resolution should be introduced."

Conditions inviting the North Korean attack were created by the United Nations which issued a resolution for withdrawal of both Soviet and American troops. Troops began withdrawing September 15, 1948, leaving only about 7500 Americans lightly armed. This left in South Korea 16,000 Koreans and 7500 Americans, both groups lightly armed, against 150,000 fully armed North Korean Communists. General Roberts, head of the U. S. Military Mission said the South Koreans were not permitted to arm adequately. The Korean part of Wedemeyer's report was suppressed. Wedemeyer said:

"American and Soviet forces . . . are approximately equal, less than 50,000 troops each, [but] the Soviet-equipped and trained North Korean People's (Communist) Army of approximately 125,000 is vastly superior to the United States-organized constabulary of 16,000 Koreans equipped with Japanese small arms. The North Korean People's Army constitutes a potential military threat to South Korea, since there is strong possibility that the Soviets will withdraw their occupation forces and thus induce our own withdrawal."

Wedemeyer warned that this would take place as soon as "they can be sure that the North Korean puppet government and its armed forces... are strong enough... to be relied upon to carry out Soviet objectives without the actual presence of Soviet troops."

By August 1950, U.S. troops pouring into South Korea under UN auspices were able to stabilize the situation. Responding to criticism over readiness, Truman fired his Secretary of Defense, Louis A. Johnson, replacing him with the retired General Marshall. With UN approval, Truman decided on a "rollback" policy—conquest of North Korea. UN forces led by General MacArthur led the counterattack, scoring a stunning surprise victory with an amphibious landing at the Battle of Inchon that nearly trapped the invaders. UN forces then marched north, towards the Yalu River boundary with China, with the goal of reuniting Korea under UN auspices. However, China surprised the UN forces with a large-scale invasion in November. The UN forces were forced back to below the 38th parallel, then recovered. By early 1951 the war became a fierce stalemate at about the 38th parallel where it had begun. Truman rejected MacArthur's request to attack Chinese supply bases north of the Yalu, but MacArthur nonetheless promoted his plan to Republican House leader Joseph Martin, who leaked it to the press. Truman was gravely concerned that further escalation of the war might lead to open conflict with the Soviet Union, which was already supplying weapons and providing warplanes (with Korean markings and Soviet fliers). Truman arrived at a new policy of containment, allowing North Korea to persist. Therefore, on April 11, 1951, Truman fired MacArthur from his commands.

"I fired him [MacArthur] because he wouldn't respect the authority of the President ... I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail."

-Harry S. Truman, quoted in Time magazine, December 3, 1973

The dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur was among the least politically popular decisions in presidential history. Truman's dismissal of MacArthur sparked a violent debate on U.S. Far Eastern policy, as Truman took the blame for a high-cost stalemate with 37,000 Americans killed and over 100,000 wounded. Truman fired his ineffective defense secretary Louis Johnson, and brought back George Marshall. Truman's approval ratings plummeted, and he faced calls for his impeachment from, among others, Senator Robert Taft. Fierce criticism from virtually all quarters accused Truman of refusing to shoulder the blame for a war gone sour and blaming his generals instead. Others, including Eleanor Roosevelt, supported and applauded Truman's decision. MacArthur meanwhile, returned to the U.S. to a hero's welcome, and addressed a joint session of Congress, a speech which the President called "a bunch of damn bullshit." The war remained a frustrating stalemate for two years, with over 30,000 Americans killed, until an armistice ended the fighting in 1953. In February 1952, Truman's approval mark stood at 22% according to Gallup polls, which was, until George W. Bush in 2008, the all-time lowest approval mark for an active American president.

The top-secret NSC-68 policy paper was the grounds for escalating the Cold War, especially in terms of spending on rearmament and building the hydrogen bomb. The integration of European defense was given new impetus by continued U.S. support of NATO, under the command of General Eisenhower. Truman committed the US to contain Communist expansion in Vietnam, where the Communists under Ho Chi Minh were trying to overthrow the French colonial regime. The State Department insisted that France give more autonomy to the Vietnamese. The US paid for about 80% of the French war costs. The problem was that the French were more interested in preserving their grandiose empire, and less interested in stopping Communism, while the US opposed colonial empires and saw Communism as the great threat to world peace and stability. Following NSC-68, Truman's last four budgets saw expenditures on national security quadruple from $13 billion in 1950 to $50 billion in 1953.

In August 1948, Whittaker Chambers, a former spy for the Soviets and a senior editor at Time magazine, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) stating that an underground communist network had been working within the U.S. government since the 1930s, of which Chambers had been a member, along with Alger Hiss, until recently a senior State Department official. Although Hiss denied the allegations, he was convicted in January 1950 for perjury for his denials under oath. The Soviet Union's success in exploding an atomic weapon in 1949 and the fall of the nationalist Chinese the same year led many Americans to conclude that subversion by Soviet spies was responsible, and to demand that communists be rooted out from the government and other places of influence.

Following Hiss's conviction, Secretary of State Dean Acheson announced that he stood by him. This and other events, such as the revelation that British atomic bomb scientist Klaus Fuchs was a spy, led current and former members of HUAC, including Congressman Nixon of California and Karl Mundt of South Dakota to decry Truman and his administration, especially the State Department, as soft on communism. Wisconsin Senator McCarthy used a Lincoln Day speech in Wheeling, West Virginia to accuse the State Department of harboring communists, and rode the controversy to political fame. In the following years, Republicans used Hiss' conviction to castigate the Democrats for harboring communists in government; Congressman Nixon gained election to the Senate in 1950 on an anti-communist platform, defeating the liberal Helen Gahagan Douglas, whom he called "the Pink Lady".

Charges that Soviet agents had infiltrated the government were believed by 78% of the people in 1946, and became a major campaign issue for Eisenhower in 1952. Truman tried to steer a middle course, both seeking to show that he was concerned with internal security, but fearing that innocents would be harmed and government activities disrupted. In 1949 he called American communist leaders, whom his administration was prosecuting, "traitors", but in 1950 he vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Act, though it was passed over his veto. Truman would later state in private conversations with friends that his creation of a loyalty program had been a "terrible" mistake

On the political front, revelation of scandals in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, in the Bureau of Internal Revenue and even the White House opened the administration to attack. Truman sought reelection in 1952 despite his dismal showing in the polls. He was defeated in the New Hampshire primary by Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, and withdrew. Truman supported Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson. Eisenhower won the GOP nomination and crusading against the Truman administration's failures regarding "Korea, Communism and Corruption," was elected in a landslide, ending 20 years of Democratic control of the presidency.

The Foreign Policy of John F. Kennedy

(Above: President John F. Kennedy, served from 1961-1963. Courtesy of Wikipedia)

The Kennedy style called for youth, dynamism, vigor and an intellectual approach to aggressive new policies in foreign affairs. The downside was his inexperience in foreign affairs, standing in contrast to the vast experience of the president he replaced, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. Kennedy's rashness and inexperience caused a national humiliation in 1961 as he sent CIA-trained Cuban exiles into an ill-prepared attack on Castro's Cuba. At the Bay of Pigs, all the invaders were killed or captured, and he was forced to negotiate for the survivors release giving Cuba medical and food. Kennedy's supporters blamed the fiasco on Eisenhower, for JFK inherited the plan; but Kennedy took the blame himself. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, seeing for himself Kennedy's inexperience at a summit conference, threw up the Berlin Wall as the Soviets escalated the Cold War regarding the status of Berlin, predicting correctly that Kennedy's response would be weak. Khrushchev went too far in 1962 when he sent nuclear missiles into Cuba aimed at the U.S. For the first time since Pearl Harbor -- or indeed since Washington and New Orleans were attacked in the War of 1812-- the U.S. was vulnerable to a major attack by an enemy power. Kennedy and Khrushchev reached a compromise whereby the Soviets removed their missiles from Cuba publicly, while Kennedy secretly removed American missiles from Turkey aimed at the Soviets, and also promised that America would never invade Cuba. In Vietnam, Kennedy increased the number of military advisers from 900 to 16,000 to prop up the ineffective, corrupt regime in South Vietnam. Historians are uncertain whether Kennedy would have avoided the failures of Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam.

John F. Kennedy's was primarily interested in foreign policy. Weeks after his memorable inaugural address sounded the tocsin for vigorous anti-communism, he encountered disaster when his invasion of Cuba failed at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, and he was forced to pay ransom of $53 million U.S. dollars in food and medicine in exchange for the 1,113 prisoners and 76 other exiles being held in Cuba. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, sensing weakness, pushed hard on the Berlin issue, and was able to build the Berlin Wall in East Berlin, despite Kennedy’s later rhetoric, "Ich bin ein Berliner!" ("I am a Berliner!")

President Kennedy's foreign policy was dominated by American confrontations with the Soviet Union, manifested by proxy contests in the early stage of the Cold War. In 1961, Kennedy anxiously anticipated a summit with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. The President started off on the wrong foot by reacting aggressively to a routine Khrushchev speech on Cold War confrontation in early 1961. The speech was intended for domestic audiences in the Soviet Union, but Kennedy interpreted it as a personal challenge. His mistake helped raise tensions going into the Vienna Summit of June 1961. On the way to the summit, Kennedy stopped in Paris to meet Charles de Gaulle, who advised Kennedy to ignore Khrushchev's abrasive style. The French president was nationalistic and disdainful of the United States' presumed influence in Europe. Nevertheless de Gaulle was quite impressed with the young president and his family. Kennedy picked up on this in his speech in Paris, saying he would be remembered as "the man who accompanied Jackie Kennedy to Paris."

On June 4, 1961, the president met with Khrushchev in Vienna and left the meetings angry and disappointed that he had allowed the Premier to bully him, despite the warnings he had received. Khrushchev, for his part, was impressed with the president's intelligence, but thought him weak. Kennedy did succeed in conveying the bottom line to Khrushchev on the most sensitive issue before them, a proposed treaty between Moscow and East Berlin. He made it clear that any such treaty which interfered with U.S. access rights in West Berlin would be regarded as an act of war.

Shortly after the president returned home, the U.S.S.R. announced its intention to sign a treaty with East Berlin, abrogating any third-party occupation rights in either sector of the city. Kennedy, depressed and angry, assumed his only option was to prepare the country for nuclear war, which he personally thought had a one in five chance of occurring.

In the weeks immediately after the Vienna summit, more than 20,000 people fled from East Berlin to the western sector in reaction to statements from the USSR. Kennedy began intensive meetings on the Berlin issue, where Dean Acheson took the lead in recommending a military buildup alongside NATO allies. In a July 1961 speech, Kennedy announced his decision to add $3.25 billion to the defense budget, along with over 200,000 additional troops, saying an attack on West Berlin would be taken as an attack on the U.S. The speech received an 85% approval rating. The following month, the Soviet Union and East Berlin began blocking any further passage of East Berliners into West Berlin and erected barbed wire fences across the city, which were quickly upgraded to the Berlin Wall. Kennedy's initial reaction was to ignore this, as long as free access from West to East Berlin continued. This course was altered when it was learned that the West Berliners had lost confidence in the defense of their position by the United States. Kennedy sent Vice President Johnson, along with a host of military personnel, in a convoy through West Germany, including Soviet armed checkpoints, to demonstrate the continued commitment of the U.S. to West Berlin.

Kennedy gave a speech at Saint Anselm College on May 5, 1960, regarding America's conduct in the emerging Cold War. The address detailed how American foreign policy should be conducted towards African nations, noting a hint of support for modern African nationalism by saying that "For we, too, founded a new nation on revolt from colonial rule."

He launched the Peace Corps by executive order in 1961, putting his brother-in-law Sargent Shriver in charge. It was mainly designed to be a new weapon in the U.S. Cold War arsenal, one that could reach the people directly at the grass roots not merely their national leaders. Kennedy in the 1960 campaign promised to form the agency, saying:

"I believe that as a counter to the flood of well trained and accomplished tacticians now helping nations with their problems that the Communists are sending out, I believe an American Peace Corps...could be trained to help these people live a life of freedom in agriculture, in handiwork, in road building, in government and other skills, young Americans who will represent the cause of freedom around the globe."

The Peace Corps has been endorsed by all subsequent presidents; nearly 200,000 Americans have served helping underdeveloped nations through personal humanitarian aid. It is still in operation, albeit with a modest record of achievement.

Kennedy paid a state visit to Ireland in 1963 - the first state visit of an American President to the country, which had secured independence from Britain forty years earlier. Kennedy visited his ancestral home in County Wexford, and was greeted by huge crowds in the cities of Dublin, Limerick, and Cork. He told crowds that once he had completed his term as president, he would like to become US Ambassador to Ireland, and live there. Kennedy accepted a grant of armorial bearings from the Chief Herald of Ireland and received honorary degrees from the National University of Ireland and Trinity College, Dublin. He visited the cottage at Dunganstown, near New Ross, County Wexford where his ancestors had lived before emigrating to America. On December 22, 2006, the Irish Department of Justice released declassified police documents indicating that security was heightened as Kennedy was the subject of three death threats during this visit.

(Above: U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy's Statement on Cuba and Neutrality Laws, April 20, 1961. Courtesy of Wikipedia)

The prior Eisenhower administration had created a plan to overthrow the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba. The plan, led by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with help from the U.S. military, was for an invasion of Cuba by a counter-revolutionary insurgency composed of U.S.-trained anti-Castro Cuban exiles led by CIA paramilitary officers. The intention was to invade Cuba and instigate an uprising among the Cuban people in hopes of removing Castro from power. On April 17, 1961, Kennedy ordered what became known as the "Bay of Pigs Invasion": 1,500 U.S.-trained Cubans, called "Brigade 2506", landed on the island. No U.S. air support was provided. Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, later stated that they thought the president would authorize any action required for success once the troops were on the ground. By April 19, 1961, the Cuban government had captured or killed the invading exiles, and Kennedy was forced to negotiate for the release of the 1,189 survivors. After twenty months, Cuba released the captured exiles in exchange for $53 million worth of food and medicine. The incident made Castro wary of the U.S. and led him to believe another invasion would occur. According to biographer Richard Reeves, Kennedy primarily focused on the political repercussions of the plan rather than the military considerations; when it failed, he was convinced the plan was a setup to make him look bad. But he took responsibility for the failure, saying, "... We got a big kick in the leg and we deserved it. But maybe we'll learn something from it." In late 1961, the White House formed the "Special Group (Augmented)", headed by Robert Kennedy and including Edward Lansdale, Secretary Robert McNamara, and others. The group's objective--to overthrow Castro via espionage, sabotage, and other covert tactics--was never pursued.

Khrushchev and Castro went too far in 1962, secretly setting up medium range missiles in Cuba equipped with nuclear warheads that threatened the southeast United States. On October 14, 1962, CIA U-2 spy planes took photographs of intermediate-range ballistic missile sites being built in Cuba by the Soviets. The photos were shown to Kennedy on October 16; a consensus was reached that the missiles were offensive in nature and thus posed an immediate nuclear threat. Kennedy faced a dilemma: if the U.S. attacked the sites, it might lead to nuclear war with the U.S.S.R., but if the U.S. did nothing, it would be faced with the increased threat from close range nuclear weapons. The U.S. would as well appear to the world as less committed to the defense of the hemisphere. On a personal level, Kennedy needed to show resolve in reaction to Khrushchev, especially after the Vienna summit. More than a third of the members of the National Security Council (NSC) favored an unannounced air assault on the missile sites, but for some of them this conjured up an image of "Pearl Harbor in reverse." There was as well some reaction from the international community (asked in confidence) that the assault plan was an overreaction in light of U.S. missiles that had been placed in Turkey by Eisenhower. And there could be no assurance that the assault would be 100% effective. In concurrence with a majority vote of the NSC, Kennedy decided on a naval quarantine. On October 22 he dispatched a message to Khrushchev and announced the decision on TV.

(Above: Letter from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev October 24, 1962 letter to President Kennedy stating that the Cuban missile crisis blockade "constitute[s] an act of aggression ..." Courtesy of Wikipedia)

(Above: JFK announces Cuban Missile Crisis.)

The U.S. Navy would stop and inspect all Soviet ships arriving off Cuba, beginning October 24. The Organization of American States gave unanimous support to the removal of the missiles. The president exchanged two sets of letters with Khrushchev, to no avail. United Nations (UN) Secretary General U Thant requested both parties reverse their decisions and enter a cooling off period. Khrushchev said yes, but Kennedy said no. One Soviet-flagged ship was stopped and boarded. On October 28 Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the missile sites subject to UN inspections. The U.S. publicly promised never to invade Cuba and privately agreed to remove its missiles in Turkey, which were by then obsolete and had been supplanted by submarines equipped with UGM-27 Polaris missiles. This crisis brought the world closer to nuclear war than at any point before or since. In the end, "the humanity" of the two men prevailed. The crisis improved the image of American willpower and the president's credibility. His approval rating increased from 66% to 77% immediately thereafter. Realizing how close they had come to war, Kennedy and Khrushchev became much friendlier in public. In 1963, they signed a test ban treaty which eliminated nuclear testing above ground or in space; the treaty was further designed to hobble China and other countries trying to build their first bombs. The Cuban missile crisis reversed JFK’s image of ineptness in foreign policy, but his quiet, escalation of military involvement in Vietnam set the stage for the whirlwind reaped by his successor.

Arguing that "those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable," Kennedy sought to contain communism in Latin America by establishing the Alliance for Progress, which sent aid to troubled countries and sought greater human rights standards in the region. He worked closely with Governor of Puerto Rico Luis Muñoz Marín for the development of the Alliance of Progress, and began working towards the autonomy of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

When briefing Kennedy, Eisenhower emphasized that the communist threat in Southeast Asia required priority; Eisenhower considered Laos to be "the cork in the bottle" in regards to the regional threat. In March 1961, Kennedy voiced a change in policy from supporting a "free" Laos to a "neutral" Laos, indicating privately that Vietnam, and not Laos, should be deemed America's tripwire for communism's spread in the area. In May 1961 he dispatched Lyndon Johnson to meet with South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem. Johnson assured Diem more aid in molding a fighting force that could resist the communists. Kennedy announced a change of policy from support to partnership with Diem in defeat of communism in South Vietnam.

Kennedy initially followed Eisenhower's lead, using limited military action to fight the communist forces led by Ho Chi Minh. Kennedy continued policies that provided political, economic, and military support to the South Vietnamese government. Late in 1961 the Viet Cong began assuming a predominant presence, initially seizing the provincial capital of Phuoc Vinh. Kennedy increased the number of helicopters, military advisers, and undeclared U.S. Special Forces in the area, but he was reluctant to order a full scale deployment of troops. In late 1961, President Kennedy sent Roger Hilsman, then director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, to assess the situation in Vietnam. There Hilsman met Sir Robert Thompson, head of the British Advisory Mission to South Vietnam and the concept of the Strategic Hamlet Program was formed. It was approved by Kennedy and South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem. It was implemented in early 1962 and involved some forced relocation, village internment, and segregation of rural South Vietnamese into new communities where the peasantry would be isolated from Communist insurgents. It was hoped these new communities would provide security for the peasants and strengthen the tie between them and the central government. However, by November 1963 the program waned and officially ended in 1964.

In early 1962, Kennedy formally authorized escalated involvement when he signed the "National Security Action Memorandum -- Subversive Insurgency (War of Liberation)." Secretary of State Dean Rusk voiced strong support for U.S. involvement. "Operation Ranch Hand", a large-scale aerial defoliation effort, began on the roadsides of South Vietnam.

In April 1963, Kennedy assessed the situation in Vietnam: "We don't have a prayer of staying in Vietnam. Those people hate us. They are going to throw our asses out of there at any point. But I can't give up that territory to the communists and get the American people to re-elect me." Kennedy faced a crisis in Vietnam by July; despite increased U.S. support, the South Vietnamese military was only marginally effective against pro-communist Viet Cong forces.

On August 21, just as the new U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge arrived, Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu ordered South Vietnam forces, funded and trained by the CIA, to quell Buddhist demonstrations. The crackdowns heightened expectations of a coup d'état to remove Diem with (or perhaps by) his brother, Nhu. Lodge was instructed to try to get Diem and Nhu to step down and leave the country. Diem would not listen to Lodge. Cable 243 (DEPTEL 243), dated August 24, followed, declaring Washington would no longer tolerate Nhu's actions, and Lodge was ordered to pressure Diem to remove Nhu. If Diem refused, the Americans would explore alternative leadership. Lodge stated that the only workable option was to get the South Vietnamese generals to overthrow Diem and Nhu, as originally planned. At week's end, Kennedy learned from Lodge that the Diem government might, due to France's assistance to Nhu, be dealing secretly with the communists--and might ask the Americans to leave; orders were sent to Saigon and throughout Washington to "destroy all coup cables." At the same time, the first formal anti-Vietnam war sentiment was expressed by U.S. clergy from the Ministers' Vietnam Committee.

A White House meeting in September was indicative of the very different ongoing appraisals; the President was given updated assessments after personal inspections on the ground by the Department of Defense (General Victor Krulak) and the State Department (Joseph Mendenhall). Krulak said the military fight against the communists was progressing and being won, while Mendenhall stated that the country was civilly being lost to any U.S. influence. Kennedy reacted, saying, "Did you two gentlemen visit the same country?" The president was unaware the two men were at such odds that they had not spoken to each other on the return flight.

In October 1963, the president appointed Defense Secretary McNamara and General Maxwell D. Taylor to a Vietnam mission in another effort to synchronize the information and formulation of policy. The objective of the McNamara-Taylor mission "emphasized the importance of getting to the bottom of the differences in reporting from U.S. representatives in Vietnam." In meetings with McNamara, Taylor, and Lodge, Diem again refused to agree to governing measures insisted upon by the U.S., helping to dispel McNamara's previous optimism about Diem. Taylor and McNamara were also enlightened by Vietnam's Vice President, Nguyen Ngoc Tho (choice of many to succeed Diem should a coup occur), who in detailed terms obliterated Taylor's information that the military was succeeding in the countryside. At Kennedy's insistence, the mission report contained a recommended schedule for troop withdrawals: 1,000 by year's end and complete withdrawal in 1965, something the NSC considered a strategic fantasy.^] The final report declared that the military was making progress, that the increasingly unpopular Diem-led government was not vulnerable to a coup, and that an assassination of Diem or Nhu was a possibility.

In late October, intelligence wires again reported that a coup against the Diem government was afoot. The source, Vietnamese General Duong Van Minh (also known as "Big Minh"), wanted to know the U.S. position. Kennedy instructed Lodge to offer covert assistance to the coup, excluding assassination, and to ensure deniability by the U.S. Later that month, as the coup became imminent, Kennedy ordered all cables routed through him. A policy of "control and cut out" was initiated to insure presidential control of U.S. responses, while cutting him out of the paper trail. On November 1, 1963, South Vietnamese generals, led by "Big Minh", overthrew the Diem government, arresting and then killing Diem and Nhu. Kennedy was shocked by the deaths. He found out afterwards that Minh had asked the CIA field office to secure safe passage out of the country for Diem and Nhu, but was told 24 hours was needed to get a plane. Minh responded that he could not hold them that long. News of the coup initially led to renewed confidence—both in America and in South Vietnam—that the war might be won. McGeorge Bundy drafted a National Security Action Memo to present to Kennedy upon his return from Dallas. It reiterated the resolve to fight communism in Vietnam, with increasing military and economic aid and expansion of operations into Laos and Cambodia. Before leaving for Dallas, Kennedy told Michael Forrestal that "after the first of the year ... [he wanted] an in depth study of every possible option, including how to get out of there ... to review this whole thing from the bottom to the top". When asked what he thought the president meant, Forrestal said, "it was devil's advocate stuff."

Historians disagree on whether Vietnam would have escalated had Kennedy survived and been re-elected in 1964. Fueling the debate are statements made by Secretary of Defense McNamara in the film "The Fog of War" that Kennedy was strongly considering pulling out of Vietnam after the 1964 election. The film also contains a tape recording of Lyndon Johnson stating that Kennedy was planning to withdraw, a position that Johnson disagreed with. Kennedy had signed National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 263, dated October 11, which ordered the withdrawal of 1,000 military personnel by the end of the year. Such an action would have been a policy reversal, but Kennedy was moving in a less hawkish direction since his acclaimed speech about world peace at American University on June 10, 1963.

When Robert Kennedy was asked in 1964 what his brother would have done if the South Vietnamese had been on the brink of defeat, he replied, "We'd face that when we came to it." At the time of Kennedy's death, no final policy decision had been made as to Vietnam. U.S. involvement in the region escalated until Lyndon Johnson, his successor, directly deployed regular U.S. military forces for fighting the Vietnam War. After Kennedy's assassination, President Johnson passed NSAM 273 on November 26, 1963. It reversed Kennedy's decision to withdraw 1,000 troops, and reaffirmed the policy of assistance to the South Vietnamese.

On June 10, 1963, Kennedy delivered the commencement address at American University in Washington, D.C., "to discuss a topic on which too often ignorance abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived--yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace ... I speak of peace because of the new face of war...in an age when a singular nuclear weapon contains ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied forces in the Second World War ... an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and air and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn ... I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men ... world peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor--it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance ... our problems are man-made--therefore they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants." The president also made two announcements--that the Soviets had expressed a desire to negotiate a nuclear test ban treaty and that the U.S had postponed planned atmospheric tests.

In 1963, Germany was enduring a time of particular vulnerability due to Soviet aggression to the east, de Gaulle's French nationalism to the west, and the impending retirement of German Chancellor Adenauer. On June 26 Kennedy gave a public speech in West Berlin reiterating the American commitment to Germany and criticizing communism; he was met with an ecstatic response from a massive audience. Kennedy used the construction of the Berlin Wall as an example of the failures of communism: "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." The speech is known for its famous phrase "Ich bin ein Berliner" ("I am a citizen of Berlin"). A million people were on the street for the speech. He remarked to Ted Sorensen afterwards: "We'll never have another day like this one, as long as we live.

In 1960, Kennedy stated: "Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom". Subsequently as president, Kennedy initiated the creation of security ties with Israel, and he is credited as the founder of the US-Israeli military alliance (which would be continued under subsequent presidents). Kennedy ended the arms embargo that the Eisenhower and Truman administrations had enforced on Israel. Describing the protection of Israel as a moral and national commitment, he was the first to introduce the concept of a "special relationship" (as he described it to Golda Meir) between the US and Israel.

Kennedy extended the first informal security guarantees to Israel in 1962 and, beginning in 1963, was the first US president to allow the sale to Israel of advanced US weaponry (the MIM-23 Hawk), as well as to provide diplomatic support for Israeli policies which were opposed by Arab neighbors; such as its water project on the Jordan River. However, as result of this newly created security alliance, Kennedy also encountered tensions with the Israeli government regarding the production of nuclear materials in Dimona, which he believed could instigate a nuclear-arms race in the Middle East. After the existence of a nuclear plant was initially denied by the Israeli government, David Ben-Gurion stated in a speech to the Israeli Knesset on December 21, 1960, that the purpose of the nuclear plant at Beersheba was for "research in problems of arid zones and desert flora and fauna." When Ben-Gurion met with Kennedy in New York, he claimed that Dimona was being developed to provide nuclear power for desalinization and other peaceful purposes "for the time being." When Kennedy wrote that he was skeptical, and stated in a May 1963 letter to Ben-Gurion that American support to Israel could be in jeopardy if reliable information on the Israeli nuclear program was not forthcoming, Ben-Gurion repeated previous reassurances that Dimona was being developed for peaceful purposes. The Israeli government resisted American pressure to open its nuclear facilities to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. In 1962, the US and Israeli governments had agreed to an annual inspection regime. A science attache at the embassy in Tel Aviv concluded that parts of the Dimona facility had been shut down temporarily to mislead American scientists when they visited. According to Seymour Hersh, the Israelis set up false control rooms to show the Americans. Israeli lobbyist Abe Feinberg stated, "It was part of my job to tip them off that Kennedy was insisting on [an inspection]." Hersh contends the inspections were conducted in such a way that it "guaranteed that the whole procedure would be little more than a whitewash, as the President and his senior advisors had to understand: the American inspection team would have to schedule its visits well in advance, and with the full acquiescence of Israel.." Marc Trachtenberg argued:

"Although well aware of what the Israelis were doing, Kennedy chose to take this as satisfactory evidence of Israeli compliance with America's non-proliferation policy."

The American who led the inspection team stated that the essential goal of the inspections was to find "ways to not reach the point of taking action against Israel's nuclear weapons program."

Rodger Davies, the director of the State Department's Office of Near Eastern Affairs, concluded in March 1965 that Israel was developing nuclear weapons. He reported that Israel's target date for achieving nuclear capability was 1968–69. On May 1, 1968, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach told President Johnson that Dimona was producing enough plutonium to produce two bombs a year. The State Department argued that if Israel wanted arms, it should accept international supervision of its nuclear program. Dimona was never placed under IAEA safeguards. Attempts to write Israeli adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) into contracts for the supply of U.S. weapons continued throughout 1968.

In 1963, the Kennedy administration backed the coup against the government of Iraq headed by Abd al-Karim Qasim, who five years earlier had deposed the Western-allied Iraqi monarchy. On 8 February 1963, Kennedy received a memo stating: "We will make informal friendly noises as soon as we can find out whom to talk with, and ought to recognize as soon as we're sure these guys are firmly in the saddle. CIA had excellent reports on the plotting, but I doubt either they or UK should claim much credit for it." The CIA had planned to remove Qasim in the past, but those efforts did not come to fruition. The new government, led by Abdul Salam Arif and dominated by the Ba'ath Party (along with a coalition of Nasserists and Iraqi nationalists), allegedly used lists—provided by the CIA—of suspected communists and other leftists to systematically murder unknown numbers of Iraq's educated elite. The U.S. continued to back Arif after he purged the Ba'ath Party from the government. Former CIA officer James Chritchfield disputed the notion that the CIA offered "active support" to the coup plotters, arguing that while "well-informed" on the first coup, it was "surprised" by the power struggles that followed.

Troubled by the long-term dangers of radioactive contamination and nuclear weapons proliferation, Kennedy and Khrushchev agreed to negotiate a nuclear test ban treaty, originally conceived in Adlai Stevenson's 1956 presidential campaign. In their Vienna summit meeting in June 1961, Khrushchev and Kennedy reached an informal understanding against nuclear testing, but the Soviet Union began testing nuclear weapons that September. The United States responded by conducting tests five days later. Shortly thereafter, new U.S. satellites began delivering images which made it clear that the Soviets were substantially behind the U.S. in the arms race. Nevertheless, the greater nuclear strength of the U.S. was of little value as long as the U.S.S.R. perceived themselves to be at parity.

In July 1963, Kennedy sent Averell Harriman to Moscow to negotiate a treaty with the Soviets. The introductory sessions included Khrushchev, who later delegated Soviet representation to Andrei Gromyko. It quickly became clear that a comprehensive test ban would not be implemented, due largely to the reluctance of the Soviets to allow inspections that would verify compliance. Ultimately, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union were the initial signatories to a limited treaty, which prohibited atomic testing on the ground, in the atmosphere, or underwater, but not underground; the U.S. Senate ratified this and Kennedy signed it into law in October 1963. France was quick to declare that it was free to continue developing and testing its nuclear defenses.

Kennedy's continuation of Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower's policies of giving economic and military aid to South Vietnam left the door open for President Johnson's escalation of the conflict. At the time of Kennedy's death, no final policy decision had been made as to Vietnam, leading historians, cabinet members and writers to continue to disagree on whether the Vietnam conflict would have escalated to the point it did had he survived. However, his agreeing to the NSAM 263 action in withdrawing 1,000 troops by the end of 1963, and his earlier 1963 speech at American University, gives an idea he was ready to end the Vietnam War, and the Cold War via detente with the Soviet Union nine years before it actually did in 1972. The Vietnam War contributed greatly to a decade of national difficulties, amid violent disappointment on the political landscape.

The Foreign Policy of Lyndon B. Johnson

(Above: President Lyndon B. Johnson, served from 1963-1969. Courtesy of Wikipedia.)

President Kennedy's vice president Lyndon B. Johnson succeeded Kennedy to the presidency upon his assassination on November 22, 1963. Johnson began his career as a liberal New Dealer, later when he became a senator he initially aligned himself with the Southern Democrats, although by the time he ascended to Senate Leadership he espoused moderate politics in an attempt to bridge both wings of the fractious Democratic Party. However, as President he seized the leadership of liberalism citing Franklin D. Roosevelt as his role model. Johnson moved the Democratic Party to the left, and pushed through Congress the Great Society, comprising liberal economic policy including Medicare (free health care for the elderly), Medicaid (free health care for the poor), aid to education, and a major "War on Poverty." As part of his jobs program he greatly escalated the American troop strength in Vietnam through conscription, from 16,000 in 1963 to 23,000 by the end of 1964 and finally to 550,000 by early 1968. Unemployment consequently, remained in check. Johnson won reelection in a landslide in 1964 over conservative leader Barry Goldwater, and in 1965 succeeded in obtaining new civil rights legislation with GOP senators, in particular the Voting Rights Act of 1965, over a Democratic Filibuster. Johnson's popularity steadily declined after 1966 and his reelection bid in 1968 collapsed as a result of turmoil in his Democratic party over conscription, race, Vietnam and widespread crime and rioting. He withdrew from the race to concentrate on peacemaking. Johnson was renowned for his domineering personality and arm twisting of powerful politicians.

(Above: In 1968, South Vietnamese Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes Nguyen Tat Dat [alias: Han Son] a Viet Cong guerilla with a pistol shot to the head. This was recorded by the Associated Press and NBC News.)

Johnson increasingly focused on the American military effort in Vietnam. He firmly believed in the Domino Theory and that his containment policy required America to make a serious effort to stop all Communist expansion. At Kennedy's death, there were 16,000 American military advisers in Vietnam. As President, Lyndon Johnson immediately reversed his predecessor's order to withdraw 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963 with his own NSAM No. 273 on November 26, 1963. Johnson expanded the numbers and roles of the American military following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident (less than three weeks after the Republican Convention of 1964, which had nominated Barry Goldwater for President).

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the President the exclusive right to use military force without consulting the Senate, was based on a false pretext, as Johnson later admitted. By the end of 1964, there were approximately 23,000 military personnel in South Vietnam. U.S. casualties for 1964 totaled 1,278. Johnson began America's direct involvement in the ground war in Vietnam when the first U.S. combat troops began arriving in March 1965. By 1968, over 550,000 American soldiers were in Vietnam; during 1967 and 1968 they were being killed at the rate of 1,000 a month.

Politically, Johnson closely watched the public opinion polls. His goal was not to adjust his policies to follow opinion, but rather to adjust opinion to support his policies. Until the Tet Offensive of 1968, he systematically downplayed the war; he made very few speeches about Vietnam, and held no rallies or parades or advertising campaigns. He feared that publicity would charge up the hawks who wanted victory, and weaken both his containment policy and his higher priorities in domestic issues. Jacobs and Shapiro conclude, "Although Johnson held a core of support for his position, the president was unable to move Americans who held hawkish and dovish positions." Polls showed that beginning in 1965, the public was consistently 40–50 percent hawkish and 10–25 percent dovish. Johnson's aides told him, "Both hawks and doves [are frustrated with the war]... and take it out on you."

Additionally, domestic issues were driving his polls down steadily from spring 1966 onward. A few analysts have theorized that "Vietnam had no independent impact on President Johnson's popularity at all after other effects, including a general overall downward trend in popularity, had been taken into account." The war grew less popular, and continued to split the Democratic Party. The Republican Party was not completely pro or anti-war, and Nixon managed to get support from both groups by running on a reduction in troop levels with an eye toward eventually ending the campaign.

He often privately cursed the Vietnam War, and in a conversation with Robert McNamara, Johnson assailed "the bunch of commies" running The New York Times for their articles against the war effort. Johnson believed that America could not afford to lose and risk appearing weak in the eyes of the world. In a discussion about the war with former President Dwight Eisenhower on October 3, 1966, Johnson said he was "trying to win it just as fast as I can in every way that I know how" and later stated that he needed "all the help I can get." Johnson escalated the war effort continuously from 1964 to 1968, and the number of American deaths rose. In two weeks in May 1968 alone American deaths numbered 1,800 with total casualties at 18,000. Alluding to the Domino Theory, he said, "If we allow Vietnam to fall, tomorrow we'll be fighting in Hawaii, and next week in San Francisco." After the Tet Offensive of January 1968, his presidency was dominated by the Vietnam War more than ever. Following evening news broadcaster Walter Cronkite's editorial report during the Tet Offensive that the war was unwinnable, Johnson is reported to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."

As casualties mounted and success seemed further away than ever, Johnson's popularity plummeted. College students and others protested, burned draft cards, and chanted, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" Johnson could scarcely travel anywhere without facing protests, and was not allowed by the Secret Service to attend the 1968 Democratic National Convention, where thousands of hippies, yippies, Black Panthers and other opponents of Johnson's policies both in Vietnam and in the ghettos converged to protest. Thus by 1968, the public was polarized, with the "hawks" rejecting Johnson's refusal to continue the war indefinitely, and the "doves" rejecting his current war policies. Support for Johnson's middle position continued to shrink until he finally rejected containment and sought a peace settlement. By late summer, he realized that Nixon was closer to his position than Humphrey. He continued to support Humphrey publicly in the election, and personally despised Nixon. One of Johnson's well known quotes was "the Democratic Party at its worst, is still better than the Republican Party at its best."

Johnson summed up his involvement in the Vietnam War in these words:

"I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved. If I left the woman I really loved--the Great Society--in order to get involved in that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home. All my programs.... But if I left that war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe."

Many political pundits and experts said that Johnson suffered "agonizing decisions" in foreign policy in the involvement in Vietnam and felt it caused divisions both in the U.S. and abroad.

Johnson was afraid that if he tried to defeat the North Vietnamese regime with an invasion of North Vietnam, rather than simply try to protect South Vietnam, he might provoke the Chinese to stage a full-scale military intervention similar to their intervention in 1950 during the Korean War, as well as provoke the Soviets into launching a full scale military invasion of western Europe. It was not until the end of the Cold War in the early 1990's that it was finally confirmed that the Soviets had several thousand troops stationed in North Vietnam throughout the conflict, as did China.

In a 1993 interview for the Johnson Presidential Library oral history archives, Johnson's Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara stated that a carrier battle group, the U.S. 6th Fleet, sent on a training exercise toward Gibraltar was re-positioned back towards the eastern Mediterranean to be able to assist Israel during the Six Day War of June 1967. Given the rapid Israeli advances following their strike on Egypt, the administration "thought the situation was so tense in Israel that perhaps the Syrians, fearing Israel would attack them, or the Soviets supporting the Syrians might wish to redress the balance of power and might attack Israel". The Soviets learned of this course correction and regarded it as an offensive move. In a hotline message from Moscow, Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin said, "If you want war you're going to get war."

The Soviet Union supported its Arab allies. In May 1967, the Soviets started a surge deployment of their naval forces into the East Mediterranean. Early in the crisis they began to shadow the US and British carriers with destroyers and intelligence collecting vessels. The Soviet naval squadron in the Mediterranean was sufficiently strong to act as a major restraint on the U.S. Navy. In a 1983 interview with The Boston Globe, McNamara claimed that "We damn near had war". He said Kosygin was angry that "we had turned around a carrier in the Mediterranean."

Johnson's problems began to mount in 1966. The press had sensed a "credibility gap" between what Johnson was saying in press conferences and what was happening on the ground in Vietnam, which led to much less favorable coverage of Johnson. By year's end, the Democratic governor of Missouri, Warren E. Hearnes, warned that Johnson would lose the state by 100,000 votes, despite a half-million margin in 1964. "Frustration over Vietnam; too much federal spending and... taxation; no great public support for your Great Society programs; and ... public disenchantment with the civil rights programs" had eroded the President's standing, the governor reported. There were bright spots; in January 1967, Johnson boasted that wages were the highest in history, unemployment was at a 13-year low, and corporate profits and farm incomes were greater than ever; a 4.5 percent jump in consumer prices was worrisome, as was the rise in interest rates. Johnson asked for a temporary 6 percent surcharge in income taxes to cover the mounting deficit caused by increased spending. Johnson's approval ratings stayed below 50 percent; by January 1967, the number of his strong supporters had plunged to 16 percent, from 25 percent four months before. He ran about even with Republican George Romney in trial match-ups that spring. Asked to explain why he was unpopular, Johnson responded, "I am a dominating personality, and when I get things done I don't always please all the people." Johnson also blamed the press, saying they showed "complete irresponsibility and lie and misstate facts and have no one to be answerable to." He also blamed "the preachers, liberals, and professors" who had turned against him. In the congressional elections of 1966, the Republicans gained three seats in the Senate and 47 in the House, reinvigorating the Conservative coalition and making it impossible for Johnson to pass any additional Great Society legislation.

Johnson became the first serving President to visit Australia. It proved to be a visit that provoked many demonstrations against his visit, in the context of wider anti-war protests.

The Foreign Policy of Jimmy Carter

(Above: President Jimmy Carter, served from 1977-1981. Courtesy of Wikipedia.)

Jimmy Carter defeated incumbent Gerald R. Ford in the Election of 1976. During Carter's term as President, he created two new cabinet-level departments: the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), and returned the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. He took office during a period of international stagflation, which persisted throughout his term. The end of his presidential tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow (the only U.S. boycott in Olympic history), and the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state. By 1980, Carter's popularity had eroded. He survived a primary challenge against Ted Kennedy for the Democratic Party nomination in the 1980 election, but lost the election to Ronald Reagan, the Republican candidate. On January 20, 1981, minutes after Carter's term in office ended, the 52 U.S. captives held at the U.S. embassy in Iran were released, ending the 444-day Iran hostage crisis.

In contrast to Carter's economic policies which were uncertain and left the public confused, his foreign policy was more clearly defined, although foreign policy is where Jimmy Carter suffered his worst defeats. In his inaugural speech he stated that "our commitment to human rights must be absolute." He singled out the Soviet Union as a violator of human rights and strongly condemned the country for arresting its citizens for political protests. However, he was criticized for not doing enough to promote his proclaimed human rights foreign policy stance in his administration, such as continuing to support the Indonesian government even while it was implicated in the commission of acts of genocide in the occupation of East Timor.

Carter also tried to remove the U.S. image of interventionism by giving Panamanians control of the Panama Canal. Over conservative opposition he did so--but Panama fell into the hands of a dictator named Manuel Noriega who threatened Americans and had to be overthrown by an American invasion in 1989.

Détente with the Soviet Union collapsed when Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. President Carter responded by imposing an embargo on the sale of grain to the Soviet Union, humiliating Moscow by orchestrating a western boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow, and start funding and arming the anti-Soviet forces inside Afghanistan. The policy of détente that was established by President Nixon was over and the "Second Cold War" began.

Carter's greatest and arguably only triumph while in office was a historic peace treaty known as the Camp David Peace Accords, between Israel and Egypt, two nations that had been bitter enemies for decades. The treaty was formally signed in 1979, with most middle eastern countries opposed to it.

(Above: Blindfolded American hostages being paraded before the public by their Iranian captors, November 5, 1979. Courtesy of Conservapedia)

In 1979, a new radical Islamic regime lead by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran overthrew America's close ally Shah. Thousands of modernizers were arrested, expelled or executed. In November 1979 student revolutionaries stormed into the American embassy in Tehran and captured 52 United States diplomats as hostages. The US seized all Iranian assets and tried to bargain, a process that dragged on for 444 days. Despite pressure to use military action Carter tried to negotiate with Iran, which proved to be unsuccessful. In April 1980 President Carter approved a rescue attempt (over the opposition of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance). To the nations dismay, the attempt failed when several helicopters malfunctioned. Eight serviceman died in the accident. Carter's negotiations with Iran continued throughout 1980. Ironically, the hostages were released just after Carter left office on January 20, 1981, as they were fearful of what President Reagan might do.

His administration suffered from his inexperience in politics. Carter paid too much attention to detail. He frequently backed down from confrontation and was quick to retreat when attacked by political rivals. He appeared to be indecisive and ineffective, and did not define his priorities clearly. He seemed to be distrustful and uninterested in working with other groups, or even with Congress when controlled by his own party, which he denounced for being controlled by special interest groups. Though he made efforts to address many of these issues in 1978, the approval he won from his reforms did not last long. In the 1980 campaign, Ronald Reagan projected an easy self-confidence, in contrast to Carter's serious and introspective temperament. Carter's personal attention to detail, his pessimistic attitude, his seeming indecisiveness and weakness with people were accentuated in contrast to Reagan's charismatic charm and delegation of tasks to subordinates. By the time of President Carter's reelection campaign, the country was plagued by problems, including high levels of unemployment, inflation, interest rates and the Iranian hostage crisis. Although incumbent Presidents usually win their party's nomination easily, Carter faced a primary challenge from the more liberal Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. Carter was able to maintain a lead over Kennedy and defeated him with 51 percent of the vote to 38 percent. In the general election, Carter faced two opponents: Conservative and charismatic California Governor Ronald Reagan as the Republican nominee and moderate Illinois Congressman John Anderson running as an Independent. Reagan locked the election in late October of the campaign when, at the Presidential debate, he asked the voters, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" His relaxed performance helped to dispel fears from the Carter camp that Reagan was a war monger. Reagan used the economic problems, Iran hostage crisis, and lack of Washington cooperation to portray Carter as a weak and ineffectual leader. Reagan won by a large margin, 43.9 million votes for Reagan and 35.5 million votes for Carter. Democrats maintained control of the House of Representatives but by a narrower margin, and lost control of the United States Senate. Carter was the first elected president since Herbert Hoover in 1932 to lose a reelection bid.

The Foreign Policy of Bill Clinton

(President Bill Clinton, served from 1993-2001. Courtesy of Wikipedia.)

Critics of President Bill Clinton argued that he lacked a knowledge of world affairs. In his 1992 speech at the Democrat National Convention, he devoted one minute to foreign policy issues in an oration that lasted an hour. Clinton entered office after the U.S. won the Cold War, and the U.S. was the only superpower. There were no major foreign crisis during his presidency. His foreign policy was based on five principles: 1) strong alliances with Europe and Asia, 2) positive relations with former adversaries, 3) a global perspective on local conflicts, 4) the adaptation of national security priorities to incorporate technological advances, and 5) effective economic integration.

Andy Butfoy (2006) argues that in the 1990's the "revolution in military affairs" (RMA), which produced "smart" weapons like cruise missiles, came of age. This apparently transformed how America viewed the relationship between force and international relations. It looked as though technology was framing foreign policy. In particular, smart weapons enabled Clinton to combine risk minimization with an expanded security agenda. However, we should be wary of ascribing technological determinism to the conflicts of the 1990's dominated by Washington's flexing of its strategic superiority, such as its bombing of Belgrade. As shown by comparison with US strategy after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington's stance in the 1990s was shaped by linkages between technology and specific political circumstances. As these circumstances changed, so did the RMA's place in US efforts to shape world order.

From 1985 to 1992, North Korea "bought time" for its nuclear weapons program by entering into a series of international diplomatic agreements under which it promised to "deweaponize" its reactors and halt further production of plutonium. By Clinton's second, however, North Korea had violated the terms of most of the non-proliferation agreements and withdrew from the rest. Clinton forged an agreement with Kim Il-sung that the North would temporarily halt its signed on Oct. 21, 1994 known as the "Agreed Framework." In addition to the oil supplied under the 1994 Agreed Framework, North Korea continued to the United States and other countries for free, unconditional food aid while eschewing any real reform of its Stalinist agricultural system. By 2000, the United States contribution of food and other forms of humanitarian aid to North Korea had amounted to over $61 million.

Many military events occurred during Clinton's presidency. The Battle of Mogadishu occurred in Somalia in 1993. During the operation, two U.S. helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenade attacks to their tail rotors, trapping soldiers behind enemy lines. This resulted in an urban battle that killed 18 American soldiers, wounded 73 others, and one was taken prisoner. There were many more Somali casualties. Some of the American bodies were dragged through the streets -- a spectacle broadcast on television news programs. In response, U.S. forces were withdrawn from Somalia and later conflicts were approached with fewer soldiers on the ground. In 1995, U.S. and NATO aircraft attacked Bosnian Serb targets to halt attacks on U.N. safe zones and to pressure them into a peace accord. Clinton deployed U.S. peacekeepers to Bosnia in late 1995, to uphold the subsequent Dayton Agreement.

Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government from the presidency of Bill Clinton until bin Laden's death in 2011. It was asserted by Mansoor Ijaz that in 1996 while the Clinton administration had begun pursuit of the policy, the Sudanese government allegedly offered to arrest and extradite Bin Laden as well as to provide the United States detailed intelligence information about growing militant organizations in the region, including Hezbollah and Hamas, and that U.S. authorities allegedly rejected each offer, despite knowing of bin Laden's involvement in bombings on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. However, the 9/11 Commission found that although "former Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to the United States", "we have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim." In 1998, two years after the warning, the Clinton administration ordered several military missions to capture or kill bin Laden that failed.

In response to the 1998 al-Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed a dozen Americans and hundreds of Africans, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes on terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. First was a Sudanese Pharmaceutical company suspected of assisting Osama Bin Laden in making chemical weapons. The second was Bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Clinton was subsequently criticized when it turned out that a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan (originally alleged to be a chemical warfare plant) had been destroyed.

To stop the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Albanians by nationalist Serbs in the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's province of Kosovo, Clinton authorized the use of U.S. Armed Forces in a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, named Operation Allied Force. General Wesley Clark was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and oversaw the mission. With United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, the bombing campaign ended on June 10, 1999. The resolution placed Kosovo under UN administration and authorized a peacekeeping force. NATO announced that its forces had suffered zero combat deaths, and two deaths from an Apache helicopter crash. Opinions in the popular press criticized pre-war genocide statements by the Clinton administration as greatly exaggerated. A U.N. Court ruled genocide did not take place, but recognized, "a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments." The term "ethnic cleansing" was used as an alternative to "genocide" to denote not just ethnically motivated murder but also displacement, though critics charge there is no difference. Slobodan Milošević, the President of Yugoslavia at the time, was eventually charged with the "murders of about 600 individually identified ethnic Albanians" and "crimes against humanity."

In Clinton's 1998 State of the Union Address, he warned Congress of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's possible pursuit of nuclear weapons:

"Together we must also confront the new hazards of chemical and biological weapons, and the outlaw states, terrorists and organized criminals seeking to acquire them. Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade, and much of his nation's wealth, not on providing for the Iraqi people, but on developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The United Nations weapons inspectors have done a truly remarkable job, finding and destroying more of Iraq's arsenal than was destroyed during the entire gulf war. Now, Saddam Hussein wants to stop them from completing their mission. I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein, 'You cannot defy the will of the world,' and when I say to him, 'You have used weapons of mass destruction before; we are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again.'"

To weaken Saddam Hussein's grip of power, Clinton signed H.R. 4655 into law on October 31, 1998, which instituted a policy of "regime change" against Iraq, though it explicitly stated it did not provide for direct intervention on the part of American military forces. The administration then launched a four-day bombing campaign named Operation Desert Fox, lasting from December 16 to 19, 1998. For the last two years of Clinton's presidency, U.S. aircraft routinely attacked hostile Iraqi anti-air installations inside the Iraqi no-fly zones.

Clinton's November 2000 visit to Vietnam was the first by a U.S. President since the end of the Vietnam War. Clinton remained popular with the public throughout his two terms as President, ending his presidential career with a 65 percent approval rating, the highest end-of-term approval rating of any President since Dwight D. Eisenhower. Further, the Clinton administration signed over 270 trade liberalization pacts with other countries during its tenure. On October 10, 2000, Clinton signed into law the U.S.–China Relations Act of 2000, which granted permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) trade status to People's Republic of China. The president asserted that free trade would gradually open China to democratic reform.

Perhaps more telling of President Clinton's dealings with the Chinese is in this report from Whiteout Press:

(Above: U.S. President Bill Clinton with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.)

How China Conquered America

June 1989. After the Chinese government turns on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, the Bush Administration imposes sanctions on China, including a moratorium on high-level visits and military cooperation.

March 9, 1992. While campaigning for President, Bill Clinton says, “I do not believe we should extend ‘Most Favored Nation’ status to China unless they make significant progress in human rights, arms proliferation and fair trade.”

October 1, 1992. Clinton tells a Milwaukee crowd, “There is no more striking example of Mr. Bush’s indifference toward democracy than his policy toward China…The Chinese leadership still sells missiles and nuclear technology to Middle Eastern dictators who threaten us and our friends…I do believe that our nation has a higher purpose than to coddle dictators.”

January 22, 1993. The day before the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Clinton signs an order reversing the ban on funding for international abortion programs. The head of the UN Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), which President Reagan accused of supporting coercive abortion in China, attends the signing ceremony.

June 3, 1993. President Clinton signs an executive order extending MFN to China on the condition that MFN will not be renewed in 1994 if human rights do not improve.

August 1993. After learning that China transferred missile technology to Pakistan, the United States bars the export of American-made high-technology, including satellite-launching equipment, rocket systems, flight control and other computer systems.

September-October 1993. According to the April 13, 1998 New York Times, Michael Armstrong, CEO of Hughes Electronics, which had worked with China Aerospace to launch American satellites, wrote two “blunt” letters to President Clinton in the early fall of 1993, reminding him of “his support” and saying that the sanctions were damaging his company. Together with Loral Space and Communications, Hughes had contributed $2.5 million to the Democratic Party since 1991.

September 29, 1993. President Clinton announces a plan, which Commerce Secretary Ron Brown helped develop, to liberalize Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls restrictions on computers and other high technology equipment to China and other nations.

October 5, 1993. China conducts an underground nuclear weapons test.

November 12, 1993. President Clinton grants Hughes and Martin-Marietta waivers to launch US satellites from Chinese rockets.

November 17, 1993. Secretary of State Warren Christopher indicates that if China will discuss its transfer of missile technology to Pakistan, the United States will allow two American satellites to be exported.

November 18, 1993. President Clinton decides to permit the sale to China of an $8 million supercomputer capable of performing 958 million calculations per second. He also lifts the ban on selling components for China’s nuclear power plants.

November 19, 1993. Chinese President Jiang Zemin meets informally with President Clinton at a conference for Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders. Afterward, Clinton says, “I think anybody should be reluctant to isolate a country as big as China with the potential China has for good.”

January 1994. The Clinton administration authorizes the Chinese launch of three satellites, including one Hughes satellite. The same month, the United States resumes financing for the UNFPA, which funds China’s population control program that includes coercive abortion.

March 30, 1994. The United States lifts export restrictions on telecommunications and computer technology imposed by the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls. China and the former Soviet block are the primary beneficiaries.

May 3, 1994. President Clinton tells CNN, “I do not seek, nor would it be proper, for the United States or any other nation to tell a great nation like China how to conduct all its internal affairs, to treat all its citizens or what laws it should have. That would be wrong.”

June 2, 1994. President Clinton announces that he will sign an executive order extending MFN to China for another year. Clinton says that he will no longer link trade with human rights in evaluating China’s MFN status.

September 1994. Loral CEO Bernard Schwartz travels to China with Commerce Secretary Ron Brown on a trade mission. From 1992 to the present, Schwartz has given $1.9 million to the Democratic Party.

October 4, 1994. US Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen sign an agreement ending the ban on export to China of US high-technology, including satellite launch equipment and computer technology.

October 7, 1994. China conducts an underground nuclear test.

October 18, 1994. US Defense Secretary William Perry and Chinese military leaders agree to begin high-level briefings on each other’s military strategy. Perry tells a news conference, “We are putting into place one dimension of the overall policy of President Clinton’s program of broad, constructive engagement with China.”

January 26, 1995. Chinese Long March rocket carrying an Apstar-2 satellite manufactured by Hughes Space and Communications, a unit of General Motors, explodes above its launch pad.

March 6, 1995. Johnny Chung, who according to the New York Times, has since admitted to funneling funds from the Chinese Army to the Democratic Party, receives a $150,000 wire transfer from the Chinese government owned Bank of China.

March 8, 1995. Chung meets with Hillary Clinton’s aide Evans Ryan at the White House and offers assistance. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Ryan left for about 15 to 20 minutes and returned saying she had spoken with [Mrs. Clinton’s Chief of Staff Maggie] Williams. Then she said, “Maybe you can help us.”. The aide told Chung that “the First Lady had some debts with the DNC.”

March 9, 1995. Chung returns to Mrs. Clinton’s office with a $50,000 check made out to the DNC, which Maggie Williams accepts.

March 11, 1995. Chung takes his friends, including Hongye Zheng, an advisor to the Chinese government owned China Ocean Shipping Co. (COSCO) to a taping of President Clinton’s radio address in the Oval Office.

May 15, 1995. China explodes a nuclear bomb in an underground test.

May 26, 1995. In a White House announcement, President Clinton says, “I have decided that the United States should renew ‘Most Favored Nation’ trading status toward China…I am moving, therefore, to delink human rights from the annual extension of ‘Most Favored Nation’ trading status for China.”

July 21-26, 1995. China conducts tests of six surface-to-surface ballistic missiles off the coast of Taiwan.

August 15-25, 1995. China conducts off-shore military exercises 90 miles north of Taiwan.

August 17, 1995. China explodes a nuclear bomb in an underground test.

August 25, 1995. In spite of Republican opposition, President Clinton announces that the First Lady will attend the UN Conference on Women in China.

September 1995. In a meeting with public officials from Long Beach, California, President Clinton pushes for the Long Beach Naval Station to be leased to the Chinese government owned COSCO.

October 6, 1995. President Clinton loosens restrictions on the sale of high-performance computers. China is allowed to import computers of less than 7,000 million theoretical operations per second for civilian purposes; they can get greater capacity with special permission from the Commerce Department. The computers offer China’s missile program increased simulation capability in assessing nuclear blast damage and kill zones.

October 9, 1995. After pressure from producers of communications satellites prompted a review of existing restrictions, Secretary of State Warren Christopher issues an order keeping commercial satellites on the munitions list, an inventory of strategic military and intelligence technology, and reaffirming the jurisdiction of the State Department in the matter. According to the May 17, 1998 New York Times, Christopher wrote in a classified memorandum that lifting the export limitation would “raise suspicions that we are trying to evade China sanctions.” The Commerce Department appeals Christopher’s decision to the President.

October 24, 1995. Jiang Zemin and Clinton meet in New York City. Their meeting was scheduled at the New York Public Library, but was moved at the last minute after Chinese officials learned that the library was exhibiting photographs of the pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.

February 6, 1996. Wang Jun, head of the China International Trade and Investment Corporation and holder of a multibillion dollar interest in one of Hong Kong’s leading satellite companies, meets with Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown at the Commerce Department. Wang, called a “Chinese arms dealer” in a Senate Committee Report, later attends a White House Coffee with President Clinton, escorted by Charlie Trie, a DNC fundraiser who raised $640,000 for the President’s Legal Defense Fund, all of which was returned after the source could not be verified. Tried fled to China rather than face questioning, but has since returned under indictment. The same day, President Clinton approves the launch of four American satellites by Chinese rockets.

February 15, 1996. A Chinese Long March 3B carrying a $200 million Loral satellite explodes 22 seconds after liftoff.

March 14, 1996. President Clinton shifts control over regulating the export of communications satellites from the State Dept. which was primarily concerned with national security aspects of such exports, to the Commerce Dept., which is concerned with the economic benefits.

May 10, 1996. The Loral-led review commission investigating the February rocket explosion completes and passes on to Chinese officials its report, which according to the April 13, 1998 New York Times, discusses “sensitive aspects of the rocket’s guidance and control systems, which is an area of weakness in China’s missile programs.” The New York Times says that a Pentagon report concludes that, as a result of this technology transfer, “United States national security has been harmed”.

May 23, 1996. President Clinton calls for renewal of MFN for China, saying that renewal would not be “a referendum on all China’s policies,” but “a vote for America’s interests.”

June 8, 1996. China conducts an underground nuclear test.

July 21, 1996. Johnny Chung, according to the New York Times, brings Liu Chao-ying to two DNC fundraisers, including a $25,000 per couple dinner. Liu Chao-ying is a Lieutenant Colonel in the People’s Liberation Army and an executive at China Aerospace, which owns the Great Wall Industry Corp. that makes Long March rockets. Her father is the top commander of Chinese military forces. The New York Times says that Chung has told the Justice Dept. that Liu gave him the better part of $100,000 he contributed to the DNC in the latter part of 1996, and that the source of the money was the PLA.

July 29, 1996. China declares a moratorium on nuclear testing after conducting another nuclear test.

August 8, 1996. According to AP, Clinton meets again with Long Beach officials to advocate turning over the naval base to COSCO.

September 24, 1996. At the UN, President Clinton joins with the foreign ministers of China, France, Russia and Great Britain in signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty forbidding all testing of nuclear weapons.

November 5, 1996. President Clinton wins reelection. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the single largest Democratic donor during the election cycle was Loral CEO Bernard Schwartz, who gave $632,000 in ‘soft money’ to the Democratic Party between 1995 and 1996. The State Dept. issues regulations shifting responsibility for satellite launching licenses to the Commerce Dept.

January 1997. The Panamanian government awards the contract to operate the Atlantic and Pacific ports of the Panama Canal to a Hong Kong company, Hutchison Whampoa. China takes control of Hong Kong six months later. The United States, which is set to relinquish control of the canal next year, does not protest.

March 25, 1997. While in Beijing for a meeting with Premier Li Peng and President Jiang Zemin, Vice President Gore attends signing ceremonies for Boeing’s $685 million sale of five jetliners to China’s state-owned Civil Aviation Administration as well as a $1.3 billion joint venture between General Motors and China’s state-owned Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp.

May 1997. According to the April 13, 1998 New York Times, a classified Pentagon report reveals that Hughes and Loral scientists “had turned over expertise that significantly improved the reliability of China’s nuclear missiles” following the February 1996 rocket explosion. Hughes and Loral deny the New York Times report when it is published in 1998.

May 19, 1997. President Clinton announces that he will authorize MFN renewal for China.

October 1997. Chinese President Jiang Zemin makes a state visit to the United States. During the trip, he stops at a Hughes site to discuss satellites.

January 15, 1998. After China promises that it will no longer aid Iran’s nuclear program, President Clinton certifies that China is a reliable partner for nuclear technology exchange.

February 19, 1998. Despite opposition from the Justice Dept, President Clinton signs a waiver approving the launch of a Loral satellite from a Chinese rocket and reportedly authorizing the transfer of the same type of technology that the Pentagon said had “harmed” US security and that the Justice Dept. was investigation Loral and Hughes for their illegally transferring in 1996.

March 14, 1998. President Clinton announces that, after backing it since the Tiananmen massacre, the United States will no longer sponsor a UN resolution denouncing China’s human rights practices.

May 17, 1998. President Clinton responds in lawyerly language to allegations that Chinese campaign funds affected American foreign policy, “All the foreign policy decisions we made, we based on what we believed, I and the rest of the administration, were in the interests of the American people.”

This article was originally published in a 1999 printed edition of Human Events and titled The Real Bill Clinton Scandal.

After initial successes such as the Oslo accords of the early 1990s, Clinton attempted to address the Arab–Israeli conflict. Clinton brought Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat together at Camp David. Following the peace talk failures, Clinton stated Arafat "missed the opportunity" to facilitate a "just and lasting peace." In his autobiography, Clinton blames Arafat for the collapse of the summit. The situation broke down completely with the start of the Second Intifada.

Supporters of human rights faulted Clinton’s ideological transition from Wilsonian idealism to realism, especially regarding China and Bosnia. They gave high marks for his efforts at pushing peace negotiations in Haiti and the Middle East, the use of economic sanctions against North Korea, India, and Pakistan, and his efforts to get a chemical weapons convention. However, they give low marks in terms of human rights for inaction on the genocide in Rwanda and the Russian repression of secessionist Chechnya.

The Arab terrorist group al-Qaeda conducted a World Trade Center bombing in 1993, simultaneous bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Clinton bombed al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan in response, but meanwhile 19 terrorists were plotting an even more ghastly attack on America which took place on September 11, 2001, eight months after Clinton left office.

The Foreign Policy of Barack Obama

(Above: Obama the Communist.)

Americans deaths in Afghanistan have more than doubled under Barack Obama's leadership compared with the preceding eight years of George W. Bush, according to the Congressional Research Service. Against his own Defense Secretary's advice, Obama attacked Libya - a possible violation of the War Powers Act. After he he took credit for the killing of September 11th mastermind terrorist Osama bin Laden, the U.S. State Department warned of increased risk to the lives and safety of Americans. Bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri confirmed the Benghazi Attack which killed four State Department employees, was motivated by revenge. Bin Laden's killing, however had negligible impact on Obama's approval ratings. Obama ended U.S. military involvement in the Iraq War, and also signed the New START arms control treaty with Russia.

In February and March 2009, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made separate overseas trips to announce a "new era" in U.S. foreign relations with Russia and Europe, using the terms "break" and "reset" to signal major changes from the policies of the preceding administration. Obama attempted to reach out to Arab leaders by granting his first interview to an Arab cable TV network, Al Arabiya. On March 19, Obama continued his outreach to the Muslim world, releasing a New Year's video message to the people and government of Iran. This attempt was rebuffed by the Iranian leadership. In April, Obama gave a speech in Ankara, Turkey, which was well received by many Arab governments. On June 4, 2009, Obama delivered a speech at Cairo University in Egypt calling for "a new beginning" in relations between the Islamic world and the United States and promoting Middle East peace. On June 26, 2009, in response to the Iranian government's actions towards protesters following Iran's 2009 presidential election, Obama said: "The violence perpetrated against them is outrageous. We see it and we condemn it." On July 7, while in Moscow, he responded to a Vice President Biden comment on a possible Israeli military strike on Iran by saying: "We have said directly to the Israelis that it is important to try and resolve this in an international setting in a way that does not create major conflict in the Middle East."

On September 24, 2009, Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to preside over a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

In March 2010, Obama took a public stance against plans by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to continue building Jewish housing projects in predominantly Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. During the same month, an agreement was reached with the administration of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with a new pact reducing the number of long-range nuclear weapons in the arsenals of both countries by about one-third. Obama and Medvedev signed the New START treaty in April 2010, and the U.S. Senate ratified it in December 2010.

On December 6, 2011, he instructed agencies to consider LGBT rights when issuing financial aid to foreign countries.

As Senator, Obama was highly critical of President Bush and promised change. As president, Obama has tripled down in Afghanistan, widened the war into Pakistan, multiplied drone attacks, bombed Yemen and Somalia, and started an undeclared NATO war in Libya. On presidential war powers, surveillance questions, Guantanamo, detention policy and habeas corpus, Obama has similarly stayed the course, or expanded Bush's precedents. In a speech on May 19, 2011 Obama fully embraced the Bush Doctrine of preventative war.

As Senator, Obama was highly critical of President George W. Bush and promised change. As President, Obama has tripled down in Afghanistan, widened the war into Pakistan, multiplied drone attacks, bombed Yemen and Somalia, and started an undeclared NATO war in Libya. On presidential war powers, surveillance questions, Guantanamo, detention policy and habeas corpus, Obama has similarly stayed the course, or expanded Bush's precedents. In a speech on May 19, 2011 Obama fully embraced the Bush Doctrine of preventative war.

From The Boston Globe:

"The New America Foundation, which tracks the strikes, has listed 23 raids since the beginning of April, 2011, all but one in Pakistan’s tribal regions of North and South Waziristan. A June 20 attack was reported in Kurram, an area north of North Waziristan along the Afghanistan border.

"The drone program has become increasingly controversial as the Obama administration has expanded its use beyond the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Lethal missiles have been launched from unmanned aircraft in at least five countries in addition to Pakistan: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and, most recently, Somalia. The military’s Joint Special Operations Command used a drone last June to attack what officials said were two senior members of the Al Shabab militant group on the Somali coast."

Earl Cox of The Jerusalem Connection Report said this:

''Obama is commendable when he says he wants to avoid war. His policies, however, favor war by destabilizing the Middle East making it extremely hostile and favoring radical Islam over America’s ally, Israel, and American interests in the region... The president has chosen a very dangerous path for every American and one that promises great difficulty for Israel.''

By Obama's third year as Commander-in-Chief, over 1200 American troops died in Iraq and Afghanistan - significantly more than the number who died during President George W. Bush's term of office. And growing numbers of civilian contractors also have fallen. In the first half of 2010, 250 contractors reportedly died in Iraq and Afghanistan - more than the 235 military personnel who fell during the same period.

On February 27, 2009, Obama announced that combat operations in Iraq would end within 18 months. His remarks were made to a group of Marines preparing for deployment to Afghanistan. Obama said, "Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end." The Obama administration scheduled the withdrawal of combat troops to be completed by August 2010, decreasing troop's levels from 142,000 while leaving a transitional force of about 50,000 in Iraq until the end of 2011. On August 19, 2010, the last U.S. combat brigade exited Iraq. Remaining troops transitioned from combat operations to counter-terrorism and the training, equipping, and advising of Iraqi security forces. On August 31, 2010, Obama announced that the United States combat mission in Iraq was over. On October 21, 2011, President Obama announced that all U.S. troops would leave Iraq in time to be "home for the holidays."

Early in his presidency, Obama moved to bolster U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan. He announced an increase to U.S. troop levels of 17,000 in February 2009 to "stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan", an area he said had not received the "strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires." He replaced the military commander in Afghanistan, General David D. McKiernan, with former Special Forces commander Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal in May 2009, indicating that McChrystal's Special Forces experience would facilitate the use of counterinsurgency tactics in the war. On December 1, 2009, Obama announced the deployment of an additional 30,000 military personnel to Afghanistan and proposed to begin troop withdrawals 18 months from that date; this took place in July 2011. David Petraeus replaced McChrystal in June 2010, after McChrystal's staff criticized White House personnel in a magazine article. In February 2013 Obama said the U.S. military would reduce the troop level in Afghanistan from 68,000 to 34,000 US troops by February 2014. Defense costs in Afghanistan from $43.5 billion in George Bush's last year to $113.7 billion for 2011. Adviser to General Stanley McChrystal David Kilcullen wrote, "One of the big strategic shifts is the use of language now which talks about Pakistan and Afghanistan as the same theater. Now we talked about Af-Pak long before the Obama administration came about, but the public use of that term, and the description of it as the Afghanistan-Pakistan campaign, sends a new message to people about how the administration is going to think about Afghanistan and Pakistan."

President Obama signed into U.S. law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), only after his administration successfully lobbied to remove language from the bill that would have protected American citizens from being detained indefinitely without trial. After the legislation cleared Congress, the ACLU commented that if President Obama signed the bill it "will damage both his legacy and American’s reputation for upholding the rule of law," while executive director of the Human Rights Watch blasted the President for being "on the wrong side of history," noting that "Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law. Section 1031 of the NDAA bill, which itself defines the entirety of the United States as a “battlefield,” allows American citizens to be snatched from the streets, carted off to a foreign detention camp and held indefinitely without trial. As reported by Infowars.com, the bill states that “any person who has committed a belligerent act” faces indefinite detention, but no trial or evidence has to be presented, the White House merely needs to make the accusation.

Obama referred to the bond between the United States and Israel as "unbreakable." During the initial years of the Obama administration, the U.S. increased military cooperation with Israel, including increased military aid, re-establishment of the U.S.-Israeli Joint Political Military Group and the Defense Policy Advisory Group, and an increase in visits among high-level military officials of both countries. The Obama administration asked Congress to allocate money toward funding the Iron Dome program in response to the waves of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel. In 2011, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements, with the United States being the only nation to do so. Obama supports the two-state solution to the Arab–Israeli conflict based on the 1967 borders with land swaps. In 2013, one journalist reported that, in Obama's view, "with each new settlement announcement, Netanyahu is moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation."

In February 2011, the political unrest that spread through the Arab world showed up as protests in Libya. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, leader of Libya for 41 years, responded to the violence with legitimate steps. The United Nations Security Council voted to impose sanctions, and later passed a resolution to protect civilians. Obama, without approval from Congress and over the objections of his own National Security staff, directed American forces to take out Libya's air defense system. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough, and White House counter terrorism chief John O. Brennan all opposed the action. Obama later said, "if we waited one more day Benghazi, a city nearly the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world." Alan J. Kuperman, in an editorial for The Boston Globe - suggested this statement was false, writing, "intervention did not prevent genocide, because no such bloodbath was in the offing. To the contrary, by emboldening rebellion, US interference has prolonged Libya’s civil war and the resultant suffering of innocents." Kuperman, a professor of public affairs at the University of Texas who authored a book called The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention, further stated that the rebels had tricked the world into thinking a bloodbath was at hand and that Obama had lied to the American people in order to act on this theory:

"Gaddafi [never] threaten civilian massacre in Benghazi, as Obama alleged. The 'no mercy'’ warning, of March 17, targeted rebels only, as reported by The New York Times, which noted that Libya’s leader promised amnesty for those “who throw their weapons away.’’ Gaddafi even offered the rebels an escape route and open border to Egypt, to avoid a fight 'to the bitter end.’"

Gaddafi wrote to Obama and told him he bore no ill will. "We have been hurt more morally than physically because of what had happened against us in both deeds and words by you," he wrote. "Despite all this you will always remain our son whatever happened. We still pray that you continue to be president of the USA. We endeavour and hope that you will gain victory in the new election campaign."

A March 29, 2011 article in The Washington Post included these lines:

"'It’s almost a certitude that at least part' of the Libyan opposition includes members of al-Qaeda, said Bruce Riedel, a former senior CIA analyst and adviser to President Obama. Riedel said that anti-Gaddafi elements in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi have had 'very close associations with al-Qaeda' dating back years....I would hope that we now have a good sense of the opposition in Libya and can say that this is 2 percent, not 20 percent,” Riedel said. 'If we don’t, then we are running the risk of helping to bring to power a regime that could be very dangerous.'"

This set off a fierce debate in the Obama administration over the wisdom of arming terrorists. It is now known sometime prior to March 31, 2011, at the urging of Hillary Clinton and over the objections of his National Security Council, Obama signed a Presidential Finding authorizing support for the rebel jihadis.

By October 2011, Libyan rebel fighting groups with support from NATO overtook the capital and toppled the government. Gaddafi was captured and brutally and sadistically murdered.The jihadis were immediately recognized by the U.S. and the U.N. as the new legitimate government. Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council, announced Sharia will be the source for all legislation and all laws conflicting with Sharia are null and void. Abdel Rahim al-Kib, the country's interim prime minister, echoed Jalil's words days later. The al Qaeda flag was flown above the Benghazi courthouse, and reports surfaced that the Libyan jihadis had imposed Sharia law in some parts of the country even earlier. By February 17, 2013, four foreign nationals were arrested for distributing Christian literature, a charge that could carry the death penalty.

With several U.S.embassies besieged on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney declared there was no reason to believe the attack on the sovereign territory of the United States consulate in Benghazi, less than two months before the 2012 Presidential election which killed Americans, was a terrorist attack.

"The unrest that we’ve seen around the region has been in reaction to a video that Muslims, many Muslims, find offensive."

This became the official White House line. Between jokes with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central Obama said the death of Americans was "not optimal." When pressed by reporters, who pointed out evidence that the violence in Benghazi was a terrorist attack, Press Secretary Jay Carney argued “the unrest around the region has been in response to this video.” Leading suspected jihadis in the murders and terrorist attack were the local Benghazi branch of Ansar al-Shariah, known to have ties to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. A commander of the terrorist group boasted jovially about the attack over drinks with reporters for The New York Times in Benghazi.

Two more Americans were killed, along with 35 others, after being taken hostage by rebel jihadists in Mali shortly after the Libyan upheaval.Hillary Clinton testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the wake of the Benghazi murders under her stewardship, that weapons and fighters equipped by the Obama administration made their way to Mali and Algeria:

"There is no doubt that the Algerian terrorists had weapons from Libya. There is no doubt that the Malian remnants of AQIM [al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb] have weapons from Libya."

In May of 2010, President Obama promised Mexican President Felipe Calderon that his administration would assist Mexico in curbing drug cartel violence, which has led to 30,000 deaths in Mexico. "President Calderon and I . . . stand together against the drug cartels that have unleashed horrific violence in so many communities," Obama said on May 19. "Mexico can count on the United States as a full partner in this effort." The Washington Post has reported however that White House officials stopped a requirement for gun dealers to report bulk sales of high-powered semiautomatic rifles commonly used by illegal drug cartels. Justice Department officials had asked for White House approval to require thousands of gun dealers along the border to report the purchases to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and Explosives. ATF investigators expected to get leads on suspected arms traffickers. Senior law enforcement sources said the proposal from the ATF was held up by then White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Gun dealers have been required for decades to report the sales of multiple handguns to the ATF.

One of Obama's campaign promises was that he would close the American detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba - detainees would be flown to other countries while the ones awaiting trial would enter the American court system. Two days after taking office he signed an order directing the military to do so. But, in November 2009 Obama admitted that his self imposed deadline of January 2010 would be missed, and in March 2011 the president went back on his campaign promise, signing an executive order to create a formal system of indefinite detention for the prisoners.

On May 1, 2011, Obama announced in a press conference that Osama bin Laden was dead after a U.S. assault force infiltrated a compound in Abottobad, Pakistan. Attacks on Americans and American consulate bureaus have since escalated as reprisals for bin Laden's death. Al-Qaeda, once presumed broken and on the run, now functions openly throughout North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and parts of Eurasia. Relations with longtime ally Pakistan have become strained. Obama experienced only a temporary blip in approval polls. Pakistan has denied White House claims that there was a deal with it allowing the raid.

Analysis of the History of Democratic Presidents' Records on Foreign Policy

The Democratic Party traditionally enjoys portraying the GOP's foreign policies of the past as the basis of "war mongering." In fact, each Republican president since Harry S. Truman has had to maintain the U.S.'s dominant role as either the leader of the free world or as being the world's lone-superpower.

Take a look at the following death totals in each war since the Progressive Era began. I excluded the Spanish-American War because the general consensus is that William McKinley was not a Progressive politician:

Philippine-American War

1898-1913

4,196

Boxer Rebellion

1900-1901

131

Mexican Revolution

1914-1919

~35

Haiti Occupation

1915-1934

148

World War 1

1917-1918

116,516

North Russia Campaign

1918-1920

424

American Exped. Force Siberia

1918-1920

328

Nicaragua Occupation**

1927-1933

World War 2

1941-1945

405,399

Korean War

1950-1953

36,516

Vietnam War**

1955-1975

58,209

El Salvador Civil War?**

1980-1992

Beirut**

1982-1984

266

Grenada**

1983

Panama**

1989

Persian Gulf War**

1990-1991

258

Operation Provide Comfort

1991-1996

Somalia Intervention

1992-1995

Bosnia***

1995-2004

NATO Air Campaign Yugoslavia

1999

Afghanistan (ongoing)**

2001-

2,145(11/2012)

Iraq**

2003-2011

4,486

The armed conflicts with ** indicate those in which a Republican president spent some of the time during the conflict in office. Note that there have been far more conflicts fought during the Democratic presidents time in the White House, not to mention hundreds of thousands of more deaths.

During the Obama administration, military casualties in Afghanistan have doubled in comparison to the number sustained during the eight year President George W. Bush served. Also, take into consideration that Obama has successfully alienated Israel, as he is too busy trying to become chummy with Arab nations sponsored by terrorists, most notably Syria, where the Republican Obama supporter Sen. John McCain is pushing for the president's intervention into the Syrian rebels' plight. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), however, is against this tactic, claiming that will be, in essence, arming allies of al-Qaeda who would, in turn, persecute the nation's 2 million Christians. That is nothing new, however, as it is widely believed by conservatives that the president is not only not interested in the interests in Christians in the U.S. and around the world, but that his secret life as a Muslim drives him to hate Christians and thus to surreptitiously suppress them. His failures to properly withdraw from Iraq have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Iraqi civilians though terrorist attacks and mob violence. And his handling of a post-bin Laden al-Qaeda has been atrocious, resulting in the attacks at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya by their operatives, which he attempted to cover up.

President Obama is the latest in a long line of Democrats who have pursued aggressive foreign policies. Woodrow Wilson promised the American people, and even implored with them not to take sides in the conflict, that he would not enter the nation into World War I; he did, in one year, better than 116,000 troops paid the ultimate price. It is believed by some conservatives that FDR lured the Japanese into attacking the U.S. Naval based at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 costing the lives of close to 3,000 American naval officiers, though the Left has almost successfully defended the founder of the modern liberal ideology's honor. Not withstanding, the U.S. sustained over 400,000 deaths during the war. Harry S. Truman was responsible for allowing the Cold War to being, allowing mainland China to be won by the Communists led by Mao Zedong, and failed to defeat the People's Army of North Korea under the leadership of Kim Il-Sung by failing to provide the proper manpower to push the Communists back across the 38th Parallel; firing Gen. Douglas MacArthur did not help his cause, either, as that reflected poorly on his approval rating; 36,000 or so died in that conflict, with no real victory obtained from it. JFK was only successful in one instance of his foreign policy, that of course being with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Lyndon Johnson escalated the Vietnam War by increasing the number of troops from 16,000 at the beginning of his presidency in 1964 to 550,000 in 1968, and he was thus responsible for most of the 58,000+ troops killed. Jimmy Carter's only successful venture during his entire presidency was the Camp David Accord where he negotiated a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. His greatest failure, perhaps greater than his handling of the economy, was his dealing with the Iran hostages crisis; it took until Ronald Reagan was sworn into office before the hostages would be released, which was just hours after Carter left the White House. Finally, President Clinton used the bombings of Iraq and the former Yugoslavia throughout the 1990's to cover up the scandal over Monica Lewinsky on network television, and he sold nuclear secrets to the Chinese government, as stated above, which is tantamount to treason.

Before you believe anything the Left claims about Republicans -- that all Republicans are "war mongers" -- please share with them this history of warfare during the course of the past 115 years. Progressives, one of the two precursors to the modern platform of the Democratic Party along with the Populists, are more interested in imperialistic ventures around the world than are Republicans, and have been historically for the majority of that period of time.

Conservatively-Speaking: Classically-Liberal Blog Opposing Socialism and Anarcho-Capitalism

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Courtesy of The Blaze: Could the Obama Administration's Next Scandal Be Brewing at the EPA?

COULD THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S NEXT SCANDAL BE BREWING AT THE EPA?

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

The History of the Failed Foreign Policies of the Democratic Party, From the Age of the People's (Populist) Party and the Progressive Era to the Obama Administration

How China Conquered America