Four California legislators introduced House Resolution Number 37 asking the Emperor of Japan to defer attacking the shores of California until the good members of the State Legislature of California had adequate time to deliberate calmly and thoroughly what actions should be taken by the State of California in its part in the present war. If the Emperor's troops did attack, please restrain them from emulating the behavior of the Germans when they attacked through Belgium and Holland. These prime specimens of American manhood quite supinely asked the Emperor of the Japanese to wait until January 12, 1942 before commencing any aggressive action. On December 17, 1941 some 10 days after the attack a 28 year old Vince Lombardi sent to Ank Scanlan a letter in which Vince congratulated Scanlan on his appointment as football coach at Holy Cross College; reminded Scanlan that Vince was a member of the line known as the Seven Blocks of Granite at Fordham University; and brought Scanlan up to date on his recent coaching experience. Then young Mr. Lombardi asked for a job coaching football under Mr. Scanlan. That not every American ran down to the recruiting station has been fairly well known, but the importance and priority this country gives to athletics, even in wartime, has continued to amaze foreign observers who remember the domestic conditions of their countries during World War II. A half-century later after American victory against Iraq in an unrestrained outburst Newsweek called General Norman Schwartzkopf "a Vince Lombardi in army greens".

In the name of free trade the New York Times cheered the Japanese on to victory over China and Russia. Yet lurking the background was the desire to punish Russia for its treatment of Jews. Later the Japanese butchered the Chinese with the United States being their great supplier of war materiel. Mao Tse Tung never forgot this. The Japanese killed more people and occupied more land than the Germany of Hitler. Yet the United States never tried the greatest of all war criminals, Hirohito the Emperor of Japan.

Jefferson’s sins were noted by a foreign observer who penned these words:

"The weary statesman for repose hath fled

From halls of council to his negro's shed;

Where, blest, he woos some black Aspasia's grace,

And dreams of freedom in his slave's embrace."

American historian, Henry Adams, took pains to identify the man who wrote these lines, Callender, as a "Scotch libeller". During the period from 1889, when Adams quoted these lines, to the present day, this charming couplet mocking professed American ideals has disappeared from American memory and our anthologies. During the 1830 school year in Germany philosopher and historian Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel lectured his students he judged the performance of the American militia indifferent

Blacks have highly exaggerated notion of their participation. Ebony almanac and other black publications have not written anything near the truth, but denigrate white deaths by doing so. Cowardice at Harvard during the Civil War was exceeded only by cowardice at Yale. Most influential Harvard President of all, Charles William Eliot, lied about his devotion to the Union cause and willingness to fight. In fact Mark Twain, Howell, Henry Adams and both James’s managed to miss the carnage. American literature has been the poorer for it. Establishment historians Samuel Eliot Morison and today’s James McPherson covered up affluent’s neglect of service. Lincoln so willing to send the sons of other people to fight and die kept his son at Harvard for the war. Yet young Robert so desired to serve he did so from February 1865 to war’s end in April 1865 on Grant’s staff.

English poet, Rupert Brooke, was looking forward to the end of the World War I when he could attack the things he loathed: feminism, hermaphroditism and capitalism. Prior to America’s entry into World War I William Jennings Bryan resigned as Secretary of State due to Woodrow Wilson’s lying. In 1916 Pancho Villa at the height of the Mexican revolution crossed the border with a force of 1000 men and raided Columbus, New Mexico. The outlaw forces of Villa killed 18 Americans and wounded many more. In a book for children in the English language series, Hispanics of Achievement, the author was careful to point out Villa's revolutionaries were under strict orders to kill only men although one Spanish speaking Anglo heard one of the thugs tell another to kill any thing that "looked white". Somehow it does seem fitting that the only foreign raid on the continental United States in the 20 century is commemorated by the Pancho Villa State Park, formerly Camp Furlong, where Pershing's headquarters was located. In 1959 the New Mexico State Legislature designated this area a state park where a forty-nine acre botanical garden coexists with full RV facilities. The influence of the WASP has declined acutely in the border area. Most emphatic about the importance of Russia to Germany was philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche much preferred the feelings and intuitions of the Russian Nihilists to the English Utilitarians. The intergrowth of Slav and German races guided by the world's cleverest financiers, the Jews, was necessary for Germany to become master of the world. He wanted to jettison the right of people to representation. He demanded the representation of great interests. Germany required unconditional union with Russia with a mutual plan to exclude English schemes to gain mastery of Russia. Nietzsche, who thought Bismarck a Slav, was appalled by what he saw in the new world: "No American future!". September 12, 1918 when the American Army deployed in battle in divisional size, the Allies protected the American Army in the rear. American units did engage in some combat duty, but not in divisional size. American forces were protected on the field for a over a year while the vaunted American Army got ready. George Marshall thought Americans who were quick to remember Valley Forge and the American Revolution did not realize that in France of 1917 the American Army was in a similar situation. Marshall saw troops of the First Division without shoes and with feet wrapped in gunnysacks march 10 or 15 kilometers through ice or snow. The strength and sacrifice of the Allies held the enemy at bay for a year. This great effort enabled the fighting of battles which ended the war. David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister at war's end, in his memoirs remembered with deserving petulance the concession to General Pershing on maintaining American divisional formations and Pershing's refusal to merge American infantry with British force. Pershing relinquished American command temporarily only for training. Could Pershing have imagined the reaction of the British and French to having untried American formations fighting adjacent to their men while facing a formidable enemy like the Germans? Did he have much concern for the risk he was placing Allied troops under?

Lloyd George swore American troops in battalion strength had expressed satisfaction at suggestions of being incorporated into British formations. Moreover, he quoted Pershing writing at the end of February, 1918 of Pershing's disappointment at American progress and the possibility of having to stand by almost helplessly while the Allies were assaulted by the Germans and were suffering losses in the hundreds of thousands while struggling against defeat. Lloyd George noted a high proportion of American troops as of February 28, 1918 were non-combatants and the rest were poorly trained.

The acerbic Thorsten Veblen attributed any utterances by the patriotic types as to how America won the war in Europe as "stage bravery". Professor Veblen attributed the puerile blood lust of Americans to dementia praecox, an affliction of distemper of early manhood.

That prior to December 7, 1941 the United States could be fairly assumed to be a belligerent has been obvious to all who remember. Activities prior to World War I which led General Ludendorff to conclude the United States was really a belligerent were surpassed by the deal worked out with Britain to exchange destroyers for use of naval bases. A textbook used at West Point for World War II described the escorting of British convoys as having "unquestionably" violated all recognized rules of neutrality and could have provoked a justifiable declaration of war from Germany. Arthur Hays Sulzburger, president and publisher of the New York Times, interpreted the Lend-Lease Act as a warlike act. He told an audience on January 31, 1944 that he believed the United States did not go to war because of Pearl Harbor, but that the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor because America had gone to war when the Lend-Lease Act passed on March 11, 1941.

Historian A.J.P. Taylor had Leon Blum and the rest of France welcoming the Munich agreement with relief and shame. The British also have had a difficult time in remembering the deal between Hitler and Chamberlain was widely popular at home. Very few Britons were prepared to fight for Czechoslovakia. Some years later in his diary James Forrestal, who served as Secretary of War under Roosevelt, revealed American Ambassador Joseph Kennedy's account of his conversation with Chamberlain. The British Prime Minister blamed the American government of Franklin Delano Roosevelt along with world Jewry for forcing England into war. In 1938 the England of Chamberlain had nothing to fight with and could not risk war with Hitler. Old Joe Kennedy thought if England had refrained from entering the war over Poland, Hitler in time would have taken Germany into war with Russia with no resulting conflict with England. Currently in England revisionist historians have been saying if Britain had avoided fighting Germany in World War II, she would be much richer today, and the country would be better for it. Kennedy blamed William Bullitt, then American Ambassador to France, for forcing Roosevelt to insist that Germany be faced down over Poland as neither England or France wanted to fight. American historian, Charles Beard, thought of the war as being necessary for the survival of the nation. What did disturb Mr. Beard was the behavior of the American wealthy who had so little confidence in the citizenry and so little respect for the truth, that they unashamedly lied about the central issue of war or peace. The question of democracy's future perturbed Mr. Beard as he thought the actions of Mr. Roosevelt had left the populace with no effective choice.

From a vantage point of fifty years hence a maddening perspective on the war was already apparent in the New Republic issue of December 15, 1941. There in all seriousness was a report supposedly from battlefields in Libya that American-made tanks were the finest in use on any battlefield. The suggestion made by a good friend of labor was that morale of American workers could be considerably boosted if they learned how well their products held up in actual combat. The hope was this would bring the war home more sharply to them and help increase their zeal and personal commitment. What was not considered was that the American-made tank, far from being the most skillfully designed and assembled tank in use by any army, was much closer to being the worst tank in use by any army in the world. Why would a harsh truth be unwelcome to the American worker, or to the editors of the New Republic for that matter?

In the Atlantic Monthly of September 1940 appeared an article by two Yale undergraduates. One was Kingman Brewster destined to become President of Yale. This public manifest attested to their high moral posture by not wanting to fight in Europe. Carefully choosing words so as to not hide selfish expediency and stating students of their age were reluctant to parade their ideals in public, these two wrote that belief in the value of human beings and their intrinsic importance provided the backbone to their resistance to fighting. Underlying this tenet was faith in the institution of democracy. Democracy, as practiced in America, permitted all to take part in shaping the common destiny. Nowhere else was an entire population made up of people who were citizens because they or their ancestors repudiated hate and oppression in order to live by these principles. After alleging allegiance to the United States came before sympathy for Britain, the two berated their German contemporaries for having as their highest ideal Blut und Ehre (blood and iron). Further attesting to their high moral character, the students vowed they would not fight just for the sake of fighting; but "convince us war is the best means of serving our American ideals and we will follow you anywhere". Lest the reader have any doubt concerning the nobility of purpose, Brewster and friend held there was a far higher chance of maintaining American ideals by refraining from active participation in war abroad.

On May 23, 1941 Lindbergh in Madison Square Garden once again addressed the America First Committee and affirmed his belief in an independent destiny for America. Not an isolationist policy of building a wall around America, but one of limiting American interests to the Western Hemisphere which we would defend by force if necessary. Attacking Roosevelt, he appealed to the ideals of his countrymen by saying the only thing we lacked was a leadership which placed America first. Lindbergh argued we as a nation did not wish to fight for England's balance of power, her Empire, the Polish Corridor, or the Treaty of Versailles. He and his acolytes did not believe democracy could be spread in such a manner, and democracy was not an attribute which could be imposed by war. The politically correct hyenas of that era howled over that speech. Fellow members of the America First movement led the way. John T. Flynn, head of the New York chapter, publicly rebuked Lindbergh. In a private letter to Lindbergh Flynn admitted to his distress. The anti-Semites of his chapter had been delighted. Later after a private conversation Lindbergh wrote in his private journal that Flynn thought as strongly as he that Jews were in the forefront of pushing the country to war. Flynn was agreeable to discussing the matter in small private conversations. But, Lindbergh surmised that Flynn would rather see the United States in war before bringing the matter to a public debate. Norman Thomas, the lion of American socialism, regarded most of what Lindbergh said to be largely true and much of the criticism of Lindbergh to be "insincere and hypocritical".

George Marshall admitted the German soldier was distinctly superior to the American GI in both World Wars of the last century. George Patton denigrated the performance of the American infantry in both wars.

A most perplexing aspect to American memory of World War II has been the common belief that we suffered on the home front, and that everybody suffered equally. By August 1942 when very few American troops had shipped overseas, German submarines had sunk 485 ships, almost 2.6 million tons, off the coast of North and Central America in what must be regarded as a humiliating defeat for the American navy. According to Samuel Eliot Morison, chief naval historian of the war, Admiral Doenitz of the German Navy had sunk forty-two boats for every U-boat he lost in February 1942. When lights were turned off by the major hotels in Miami in consideration that the glare may have helped the Germans spot their targets, it was mid-summer of 1942. This gesture evidently did not help as in November of that year over 700,000 tons of shipping were sunk by the Germans. By May 1944 Doenitz sank only four ships, and he lost four submarines. Over 1.5 million American troops had crossed the Atlantic to England without one life being lost to German submarines. Much of this success may be attributed to Enigma intercepts of German communications.

Buying power of the average factory worker rose in real terms from $0.64 per hour in 1939 to $0.81 per hour in 1944. Due to the number of overtime hours worked in 1944 real income for factory workers was 50 percent higher than in 1939. That real income for the lower class could increase by 50 percent within five years under wartime conditions must stupefy the German, the French, the English and most of all the Russian working class. Yet the American worker has not thought it out of the ordinary. Many to this day have assumed that they sacrificed greatly for the Allied victory.

A Gallup poll taken in both England and the United States revealed startling differences of American and British attitudes towards war. When the British were asked which country was making the greatest contribution towards winning the war, they placed the Russians first with 50 percent, then Britain with 42 percent, China with 5 percent and lastly the United States with 3 percent. The American response placed the United States first with 55 percent, then Russia with 32 percent, Britain with 9 percent and lastly China with 4 percent.

Almost forty years after the end of World War II a woman who served as a nurse remembered the Pasadena of the war years somewhat differently. She thought of the town as an elite community where they had no idea that there was a war until the hospital came. After the hotel was requisitioned for use as a convalescent hospital, the patients, most of whom had plastic surgery, were taken for walks in downtown Pasadena. Their appearance so revolted the good citizenry of Pasadena that they were stared at openly on the streets. The upper crust of Pasadena then took to writing letters to the local newspaper where they complained bitterly about having to see maimed servicemen on the streets and suggested that the patients be confined to the grounds of the hotel so that they would not be seen in public. The nurse remembered how the patients would show the letters to the nurses and as well as they could, joke about them.

After the bombing at Pearl Harbor the outward spread of conquest by the Japanese emulated the forecast by Hanson Baldwin. The Japanese invaded the Philippines, conquered Hong Kong and Singapore in short order, and soon were marauding in the Indian Ocean. The naval battle of the Coral Sea stopped their advance towards Australia. For America the first great decisive battle took place at Midway on June 5, 1942 when American naval forces under Rear Admirals Spruance and Fletcher defeated the Japanese who had vastly superior aircraft and ships, but suffered from the leadership of Admiral Nagumo.

For those who get their sense of history from movies the pivotal American performance at the outset of the war was the battle at Guadalcanal, most particularly the fighting by the United States Marines on that island. After a six month battle which started on August 7, 1942 the United States evicted the Japanese by force. The First Marine Division was to commemorate its part in the battle with its first shoulder patch. The patch was a diamond of blue with the five stars of the Southern Cross as background. In the center of the patch was placed the red numeral 1 and vertically down the center was the word: "Guadalcanal". The division had lost 774 (or 650 depending on the source) killed in the fighting and almost 2000 wounded. For a total American force of 60,000 ground troops of Army and Marines some 1600 were killed and more than 4200 were wounded. The American Navy lost almost 5000 dead. For keeping score the American side lost about 7000 dead while the Japanese lost over 30,000.

As a sense of proportion the Soviet Union to have lost twenty million dead in almost four years of fighting in World War II would have had to average almost 600 dead per hour, or almost 15,000 dead per day. The marine casualties on Guadalcanal were not even on the order of the casualty level incurred by the same division during the Vietnam War. For the four years between 1965 and 1969 in Vietnam the First Marine division lost more than 6000 dead in I Corps. How the Marine casualties could be imprinted so deeply on the public mind is a tribute to their publicity machine which has been enthusiastically supported by the whole corps for a long time.

Through July 1944 American had lost almost 47,600 men in the Pacific Theater and not quite 5,000 of the dead were marines. In the following year to August 1945 United States military forces lost over 53,300 men with over 14,600 of them being marines. What memory of war in the Pacific the average American does have has been marines storming beaches along with the return of MacArthur to the Philippines. In reality the magnificent achievement of the American Navy has been obscured to the average American. Mastery of the seas by the American Navy was what enabled the United States to win. By 1945 the submarine fleet of 140 boats had blocked maritime transport of oil and foodstuffs so needed by the Japanese economy and effectively strangled the Japanese homeland . In 1944 almost 2.5 million tons of Japanese shipping had been sunk by submarines. Through July of 1945 import of rice, coal and iron ore into Japan had fallen to levels between 10 to 15 percent of imports of 1940. Supplies to the Japanese military overseas from the homeland were similarly restricted. One Japanese sergeant on the island of Leyte in the Philippines observed the United States Army was able to fight a war from 10 in the morning when attacks began to 5 in the afternoon when they stopped as American forces had such a preponderance of supplies. He reflected on all the night attacks and night training of the Japanese Army and concluded the Americans had made the rational decision.

With the end of World War II the best years of their lives were to start for many who fought in the war and lived. In December 1943 the National Commander of the American Legion, Warren Atherton, warned: "We'll start a bonfire that will burn that Washington squirrel cage down unless the men returning from war get their just desserts". These words or sentiments were not voiced for the troops who fought in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, or World War I.

As far back as 1818 some 36 years after the Revolutionary War ended, the Senate debated pensions for those who fought that war. It was admitted that those who fought were paid with certificates which fell prey to speculation. Senator Smith of South Carolina told his colleagues that no particular merit could be ascribed to any particular portion of the people of the United States for services rendered during that war. It was absolutely necessary that the citizenry should have been engaged in their normal occupation. All citizens were absorbed equally. Every man could not be in the army. Every soul was engaged and contributed to victory. The army would have shrunk into insignificance without those in public councils who issued bold and high-toned measures. Those in the army had not done more than they ought to have done. Nor had soldiers done more than any American devoted to his country. Senator Smith warned that the despots of Europe had their foundations in claim to military merit. His colleague Senator Macon of North Carolina thought the issuing of pensions would prove hatred towards free government in which man ought to live by the sweat of his own brow. If the revolution had failed, the most severe punishment of having a halter placed around the neck would have been given to the patriots who declared independence, not the soldiers. Senator Macon swore it was his duty to laud a body of men who rarely received praise. No class of men had more claim to merit for the Revolution than lawyers. They understood better than others the rights and privileges of the colonies. They exerted themselves, with advantage to the country and honor to themselves, to persuade others to examine the issues of independence. The revolution succeeded due to their efforts. Denigration of soldiers and the hazards of battle long has characterized the lawmakers of the United States and what passes for an American intelligentsia. The pontificating class has believed deeply that more courage is required and more danger is encountered when proclaiming American virtues and nobility than when facing enemy bullets. Their belief in the preeminence of lawyers survives also, but is not openly boasted about as Senator Macon did.

In 1931 at the onset of the depression the Chamber of Commerce of the state of New York unanimously adopted a resolution disapproving a proposed bill in the United States Congress to allow veterans of the great war to cash their adjusted service certificates. This expenditure from the treasury of the United States was deemed "most detrimental to the financial and economic welfare of the country". The Chamber voiced the complaint that if veterans spent every bit of the money the economy would not truly be stimulated. No consideration was given to the possibility that the veterans were due the money and had great need of it. At the same time after two veterans in New York City were unable to collect back payments of veteran relief, Norman Thomas wrote the Welfare Department in New York City. Mr. Thomas, who ran for President on the Socialist ticket seemingly for most of the first half of the twentieth century, accused Commissioner Higgins of having a grossly inefficient department or of permitting insiders in his department to pocket the money or divert it to political cronies.

The Pennsylvania Legislature approved a $500 million bond issue without a dissenting vote and later approved overseas bonus payments of $10 and $15 monthly for its soldiers of World War II. During the war in Vietnam soldiers from the state of Pennsylvania had their combat pay taxed by the state. In a state wide referendum the proposed measure to show appreciation for the military personnel who served in the Persian Gulf war against Iraq by paying them a bonus was voted down by a vote of 777,000 to 430,000. Keystone state voters did not value the contribution of latter soldiers nearly as much as they once did.

For the veteran attending college on the GI Bill after World War II one with a wife and two kids received $250 a month and had his tuition paid. The program lasted for 48 months. The $250 monthly of almost 50 years ago is now worth over $2100 a month. To bring the whole program to approximate dollar values today and using estimates of tuition and fees ranging from $8000 a year to over $20,000 a year the veteran received from $25,000 to $30,000 a year in support from the American government using the dollars of 1994.

With the election of John Fitzgerald Kennedy American entry to the Vietnam War was assured. The macho posturing of Kennedy in contrast to Richard Nixon has been forgotten by his hagiographers and most of the working press. How many Americans have remembered the debates of 1960 when Kennedy lambasted Nixon for wanting to defend the islands of Quemoy and Matsu? These islands just off the coast of China were to provide the launch site for the invasion and eventual retaking of China by the ageing Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek on Taiwan. Preserving these islands for that preposterous dream would have cost the United States much blood if the Chinese had ever mounted a serious effort to invade the islands. Nixon's counterattack on Kennedy questioned his ability to contain communism and nearly won him the election. Kennedy had learned his lesson.

All of this hardly mattered as the election of virile young Kennedy was meant to show the world that America had recovered her brash confidence and energy. The real Kennedy, who was always in great pain due to Addison's disease and often high on drugs and pain-killers, confronted Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna. The Soviet premier who had seen the brutality of war on the Eastern front sensed immaturity and diffidence in the young president and decided to test him by building the Berlin Wall. After the wall was built, Kennedy made the decision to have the United States stand firm in southeast Asia.

The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion due to bewildering judgment could only be attributed to his callowness. On April 17, 1961 the invasion of Cuba was launched by brave Cuban refugees who were deliberately misled as to the extent of American involvement and armed backing for their landings. Childlike obsession with plausible denial by the Kennedy administration led to the invasion being conducted on the cheap with no meaningful military support. These men were betrayed as they landed on the beaches and suffered frightfully. Barry Goldwater remembered being summoned to a meeting with JFK at the White House when the invasion encountered resistance on the beaches. Kennedy admitted to thinking the invasion might fail and asked Goldwater what he would do. Senator Goldwater remembered Kennedy not as a profile in courage, nor as a man projecting the confidence and resolve of his eloquent speeches. The young President had become another man and did not have the guts to go on. Senator Goldwater reminded his questioner that the United States Navy was stationed right offshore, and that Kennedy had an obligation as the commander to insure the success of the men he had sent. Kennedy told him "You're right". After leaving the Oval Office Senator Goldwater was certain the US Navy would intervene. Goldwater was wrong. Kennedy never issued the orders, and Goldwater charged "he had clearly lost his nerve".

Kennedy apologists have always tried to place the blame for this failure on his predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower. That Eisenhower who commanded at D-Day would not have been aware of the utmost complexity and need for military force would be an argument accepted only at editorial board meetings of the New York Times, or by the academic chronicler of Camelot, Arthur Schlesinger. During the investigation into the failure at the Bay of Pigs Eisenhower told Maxwell Taylor that he had not even heard of the planned amphibious invasion until it was in the news. What Eisenhower had authorized was training for guerrillas in Guatemala on such a scale so that it would remain covert. Harold Caccia, British Ambassador to Washington at the time of the Bay of Pigs, confided to Harold Nicolson, the British diarist and statesman, that it was not true that Kennedy had inherited the invasion as it was carried out. The American President grasped at the chance to show he was a strong man defending the Monroe Doctrine and plunged into Cuba.

The correct historical perspective on John Kennedy would not come from his sycophants like Sorensen, Schlesinger or McNamara, who were more interested in hiding the faults and lies of the Camelot era. The one to look to has been Charles De Gaulle. On May 31, 1961 Kennedy stopped in Paris prior to meeting Khrushchev in Vienna and was counseled by De Gaulle. De Gaulle warned the young JFK that intervention in Asia would be entanglement without end and warned that once nations have awakened, no foreign authority can be imposed. De Gaulle admitted to French experience with this and noted American desires to take the French place in Indo-China, but qualified his assessment: "I predict to you that you will, step by step, be sucked into a bottomless military and political quagmire despite the losses and expenditures that you may squander". De Gaulle counseled on helping the Asians from poverty and humiliation that were the causes of totalitarian regimes: "I say this to you in the name of our West". In his memoirs De Gaulle wrote his impressions of conversing with the young president: "Kennedy is listening to me, but events will show that I did not convince him".

Morley Safer of CBS has lied for the communists and apologized about their atrocities for more than 30 years. The massacre at Hue, some 10 times the size of My Lai, was described by Safer as having the victims "carefully selected". He remembered a communist spy fondly. Conservative icons Goldwater, Reagan and W.F. Buckley supported the war in Vietnam and even advocated a draft. Yet their sons did not serve. Like their fathers in World War II they did not march to the sound of the guns. Buckley wrote of his son having a "providential affliction".

So crazed was the American media with the pursuit of Nixon over Watergate that they shunted other more important issues aside much to the future regret of this country. The national media in such demented blood lust subordinated events which hastened America's descent to secondary status in many key economic areas. Shrill accusations by the eastern press and national TV mafia dominated the news.

In August of 1971 President Richard Milhaus Nixon in a speech televised and carried on radio throughout the world announced the United States would abandon the Bretton Woods agreement of the Second World War. This agreement had as its basic premise the primacy of the American dollar with stable exchange rates. Much of the loss of the exalted position of the dollar could be attributed to the defense burdens the United States had shouldered alone for much of the postwar period. In the same speech Mr. Nixon announced a visit to Peking to negotiate with Chairman Mao. The recognition of power and position of China was long overdue.

Very little noticed in this country was the embargo that Mr. Nixon had placed on soybeans during the throes of the Watergate frenzy. The price of soybeans had rocketed due to the failure of the anchovy catch off the coast of Peru. The American soybean harvest was the only available protein substitute for much of the world. With the Japanese leading the way the price of soybeans was bid upwards to three to four times its historical value, and the domestic American consumer was unprepared for the price increase this would bring to his dietary staples. Domestic clamor about the added cost and the precarious position of his presidency led Mr. Nixon to ban the export of soybeans to appease his domestic critics. This shortsighted action has had repercussions to the present day. The Japanese were stung so badly they made it national policy to increase investments in parts of the globe other than the United States to increase the harvest of soybeans. In the Asahi Shimbun, the newspaper with the largest circulation in Japan, George Pompideau, then Prime Minister of France, was quoted as saying that long after Europeans had forgotten about Watergate, they would remember the embargo on soybeans. So they have.

American agriculture has yet to recover its reputation for reliability and contractual integrity. Much of the current American problem with balance of trade and international competitiveness can be attributed to this rash decision precipitated by the Watergate scandal. Western Europe initiated a farm policy virtually guaranteeing self-sufficiency in food supply to the great economic benefit of the French farmer. The Japanese diversified their buying to Brazil and Australia. Americans have long forgotten this embargo though we occasionally are reminded by foreigners who have not, and we have wondered why they do not forget. The most noble class of the whole planet, the American consumer, benefited from this imprudent decision which kept food costs almost at accustomed low levels. American politicians have pandered to this class at all times, but most especially during elections. Long term aspects of American reliability and integrity were tossed aside by politicians, excepting some representing farm states, to appease their constituents. Even as recently as 1992 the worldly Abe Rosenthal, once editor of the New York Times, wrote that American politicians concerned themselves too much with the price of soybeans. This outlook has long characterized that newspaper which regards a demonstration in the West Bank of Israel as more deserving of news coverage than events in the United States.

During the death rattle of the Nixon presidency the Chief of Staff of the White House H.R. Haldeman wrote of Mr. Nixon believing there was "total Jewish domination of the media". Whatever has been written about the problems and mutual hatreds between Mr. Nixon and American Jewry must be balanced with the actions of the Nixon presidency when Israel was threatened in 1973. In the Yom Kippur War of 1973 Israel lost between 2500 and 3000 of its citizenry, and Syria and Egypt lost about 9000 men each. The Israelis reversed their initial losses due to the massive airlift from the United States which plundered its own reserves and supplies which were in the pipeline for Vietnam so that Israelis could be resupplied. Supplies taken from the Vietnamese were never made up. Mr. Nixon for his performance when the Israeli back was against the wall, and their need for massive military aid superseded any flowery expressions of support which American Jewry so value never received credit from his blood enemies.

The ferocity of the wars Israel has engaged in over her lifespan has been exaggerated in the American press. The "War of Liberation" in 1948-9 took 6000 Israeli lives, some 43 percent of Israeli dead lost in all four of her wars and other engagements. The campaigns of 1956 and 1967 cost 170 and 750 dead to Israel respectively. Neither of these skirmishes merited the term "war". In 1973 at most 3000 Jews died.

During the Middle Eastern war in 1967 the most under-reported and dishonestly reported event in American history since the end of the Second World War occurred. The American Navy ship, the USS Liberty, was attacked by the Israeli Air Force. The American Navy lost 34 men dead and had 171 wounded. What multiplied the disgrace and moral cowardice on the American side was the behavior of the United States Congress. A reading of the Congressional Record showed that not once in the year following the treacherous attack did any of the 535 senators and congressmen bring up the attack by Israel. The power of the Jewish lobby was never more convincingly displayed. The assault soon lost the interest of the American press. Not only did the mainstream press lose interest, the magazine of the Veterans of Foreign Wars refused to do a long article on the attack. They succumbed to financial pressure of cancellation of advertising pages and did not print the piece. The USS Liberty newsletter published by their crew claimed one of the goals of the Jewish War Veterans was to prevent hearings on the attack.

Chapter 10 – Solzhenitsyn at Harvard

A great intrusion into the liberal mindset of the United States took place when Alexander Solzhenitsyn in June 1978 delivered the commencement address at Harvard. After reminding the assembled that the motto of Harvard was "Veritas", the great Russian told them that "truth is seldom sweet; it is almost invariably bitter". Then he cautioned them that he came as a friend to deliver bitter truths. For a crowd which had long recited the cant that truth was beauty and beauty was truth this was a brutal assault on their cherished beliefs.

First he told the liberal cognoscenti that Israel was not really a part of the West because its state system was fundamentally linked to religion. This bitter truth has forever estranged Mr. Solzhenitsyn from acceptance by New York Jews whose cardinal belief has been that Israel should be the beacon for the entire world. Then he continued his rudeness by noting the most striking feature he had noticed among the West was its decline in courage. This decline was most particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites in the societies which gave the impression the entire society had lost its moorings and integrity. This decline which he considered a lack of manhood could sometimes be most clearly seen when these governments had outbursts of wrath against weak countries which clearly could not offer resistance. However, these same western governments became paralyzed when dealing with powerful governments and powerful threatening forces of international terrorism. Then he had the nerve to state that historically a decline in courage had been seen as the beginning of the end.

Taking full advantage of his opportunity Mr. Solzhenitsyn told the throng that Western society had chosen to organize itself on legalistic terms. While noting that he had come from the Soviet Union where the society had no objective legal scale and was a terrible one, he cautioned that a society with no other measure other than the letter of the law was not worthy of man and did not allow for the full range of human possibilities. The resulting paralysis of man's noblest impulses would cause a society of spiritual mediocrity.

The media did not escape his critique. There was no moral responsibility for distortion or disproportion of facts. The need for instant plausible information had caused the media to resort to guesswork, rumors and suppositions to fill the void. These assertions had become almost impossible to refute, but they had settled into memory of the general public. The media had lionized terrorists and had shamefully intruded into the private lives of people. This sensationalist approach which was caused by the psychic diseases of the 20th century - haste and superficiality - had severely limited in-depth analysis. Lack of official censorship in the West had led to media which had no self-consciousness and would present no facts which contradicted their prevailing mindset.

Like any great Russian Solzhenitsyn did not think the West worthy of being a model for his country. Six decades of communism had conditioned his countrymen in spiritual training far in advance of the West. He insisted the most cruel mistake of the American intelligentsia came with the failure to understand the Vietnam war. The anti-war movement had become accomplices in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations. Then he asked if they heard the moans coming from there, or if they preferred not to hear?

After reminding the Harvard audience and many others that in the 20th century Western democracy had not won any great war by itself, Solzhenitsyn cautioned against the West aligning itself with China. In two World Wars the West had taken care to shield itself with the armies of Russia when they should have been capable of winning the wars by themselves. Those advocating an alliance with China and using it as a shield should remember that at a later date China armed with American weapons could turn on America which could fall victim to a Cambodian-style genocide. Yet these warnings and no weapons would help the West unless they recovered their willpower and confidence. To defend oneself, one must be ready to die, and there was very little such readiness in a society raised on a cult of material well-being. In closing he chose to instruct the faithless that humanism which had lost its Christian heritage could not expect to prevail.

This address provoked much admiration from those who professed conservatism in the United States, but who chose to overlook Solzhenitsyn's contempt for much of American trash culture and materialism. Those on the left such as John Kenneth Galbraith and the purveyors of much of the smuttiness of American life, the New York Jew and his brethren in Hollywood, have never forgiven his public airing of great truths.

Writing some two decades later in 1899 Mark Twain admitted that after the Civil War the Jew came down in force, set up shop on the plantation, supplied all the Negro’s wants on credit and at the end of the season owned the Negro’s share of the present crop and part of his share of the next one. Before long whites detested the Jew. Twain doubted if the Negro loved him. One Negro who did not was the intellectual W.E.B. DuBois who wrote in 1903 how disappointed he was in the passing of power in the South from Southern gentleman to lowlife to include "unscrupulous immigrants".

Dostoevsky, who had served as a soldier and been imprisoned, had remembered living among Jews and that none of his beloved Russian countrymen had despised them even though Jews donned special garments and screamed when they prayed. However, these Jews shunned Russians and refused to take meals with them. The Russian commoner, instead of feeling hurt, rationalized these actions as being dictated by the Jew's religion and having comprehended, felt the supreme cause would forgive the Jew. So Dostoevsky has written.

In a flight of fancy Dostoevsky tried to imagine a Russia with three million Russians instead of three million Jews and with eighty million Jews instead of eighty million Russians. How would Jews treat Russians? Would Russians have equal rights? Would Russians be permitted to worship freely? Would Russians be converted to slaves? Worse than that would Russians be slaughtered to the last man as Jews used to do to alien peoples many times in their ancient history?

A century before Dostoevsky while pondering the fall of Rome, Edward Gibbon pronounced Jews a distinct species who boldly professed, or faintly disguised, their implacable hatred of the rest of the human race. Gibbon reminded his reader that "the wise, the humane Maimonides" openly taught that if an idolater fell in the water a Jew ought not to save him from instant death.

Ronald Reagan, a movie actor of mediocre talents, was chosen by the American electorate to lead the nation from the perceived failure of the Carter presidency. Seldom has a state been blessed with a commander in chief who fully realized the ambitions and desires of the common man to lead the nation. Mr. Reagan spent the years of World War II in Hollywood making war movies and obviously felt he had made an important contribution to the war effort. Many Roman Catholics and Notre Dame football fans could not think of his role as George Gipp in the movie about the life of Knute Rockne without having tears in their eyes. The triumph of Hollywood was evident. Not the liberal Democrat as many of the Hollywood elite would have preferred, but nevertheless one of theirs did prevail.

Prior to debating Jimmy Carter in 1980 Ronald Reagan was asked if he were nervous. Mr. Reagan replied, "Not at all. I've been on the same stage with John Wayne". Much of America understood this response. When asked to address a group of Medal of Honor winners, Mr. Reagan gallantly accepted. Mr. Reagan told the men of heroism displayed by a crew of a B-17 bomber which had been hit by anti-aircraft fire over Europe and was attempting to return to England. As the bomber started to disintegrate the crew parachuted out of the plane, the pilot was starting to jump when he noticed the wounded ball-turret gunner who had cried out in fear as he was dying. The pilot stopped and sat beside the gunner. Then the pilot took the frightened gunner's hand and told him, "Never mind, son. We'll ride it down together". Then Mr. Reagan added, "Congressional Medal of Honor, posthumously awarded". Mr. Reagan had recited this story through much of his political career and had insisted he read the citation while serving with an air corps unit in Hollywood during the war. The only problem was that of the 434 Medals of Honor awarded during that war not one fit the noble description put forth by Mr. Reagan.

What did fit was the plot of the movie, A Wing and a Prayer. The locale was the Pacific Ocean, and the wounded man was a radioman. The pilot's final words were to the young crewman, "We'll take this ride together." How could any patriotic American not admire a man who believed like their president? This was just the way an American was supposed to behave when an airplane had been hit, and one man was facing a ghastly death by himself. Our president was justly proud when recollecting this tale. What did not concern the press which reported this story was how insulting it must have been for those men who did wear the highest award for valor this country could bestow, the Medal of Honor. The contempt they must have felt for this bozo should have been overwhelming.

The Medal of Honor society was further humiliated when Vice President Dan Quayle was selected to receive an award from the society. Richard McCool, aged 69 years of Bainbridge Island, Washington resigned from the society because he objected to its honoring Mr. Quayle, who took great pains not to serve overseas during his war. Mr. Quayle did serve as a public information specialist in the Indiana National Guard. That such a society designed to recognize the supreme effort of courage by its citizen soldiers could be manipulated by politicians who ran it into recognizing a shirking liar such as Quayle spoke much of the essential character of American politics. That in Britain a group of Victoria Cross winners would allow their society be prostituted into bestowing recognition on a known liar and coward would be virtually unthinkable.

Yitzhak Shamir and Ronald Reagan

Ben Bradlee, favorite of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and leader of the Nixon lynch mob, wrote of his favorite lie by Ronald Reagan. Mr. Reagan had told the Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, that as a member of the Signal Corps photography team he had filmed the horrors of the Nazi death camps. He repeated the same story to Nazi-hunter Weisenthal. According to the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv, Mr. Reagan told Mr. Shamir that he had saved a copy of the film of the liberation of the death camps because he knew the day would come when the world would not believe six million Jews died. Mr. Reagan had not left the United States during the war. What made the account by Mr. Bradlee so intriguing was what he failed to write about through ignorance or through perverse commitment to dishonest memory. This concerned Mr. Shamir's behavior during the war.

Mr. Shamir during the early part of the war was a leader of the Stern Gang in what was then British mandated Palestine. In late 1940 when Germany had occupied much of Western Europe and Britain was fighting alone, the Stern Gang started negotiations with the Axis powers. After an inconclusive meeting with a representative of Mussolini in Jerusalem, the Stern Gang went for the head and dispatched a gang member to Vichy administered Beirut, Lebanon to make common cause with the forces of Hitler's Germany represented by Otto von Hentig, chief of the Oriental Department of the Nazi Foreign Office. Mindful of the Teutonic passion for order and thoroughness, the Stern Gang Jews took care to place in writing their proposals to aid the German war effort. They expressed understanding and sympathy for Hitler's goal of ridding Europe of Jews. They made sure the Germans knew the establishment of a Jewish state in the Mideast bound to Germany by treaty would enable the Germans to strengthen their position in the Mideast. These pious Jews then offered to take part in the war on the German side. After the slaying of Mr. Stern by the British Mr. Shamir assumed command of this terrorist organization. Mr. Shamir, like Mr. Reagan, never left his country to fight the Germans, and he even made much less of a contribution to the Allied victory. This rather trenchant fact has not appeared in the American press, but rather has continued to be ignored. Such has been the power of Jews.

Dan Quayle was not a major player on the American political scene, but George Bush with his political acumen was quick to appraise his potential. George Bush trailed Michael Dukakis in the polls by 55 percent to 38 percent prior to the Republican Convention in August 1988. This incongruous fact has largely been forgotten about the election in 1988. Yet after the Republican Convention the polls had a tremendous reversal which showed George Bush and Dan Quayle leading the Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen ticket in the polls 51 percent to 42 percent. The first poll was on August 1 and the second poll was on August 29. The only substantial event of political consequence during the interval of 28 days was the nomination of Dan Quayle. This young Senator from Indiana was propelled into politics from watching the movie, The Candidate in 1972. This movie starred Robert Redford, who after being elected to the Senate asked his aides "What do we do now?". His friends said this movie made a tremendous impression on Quayle and was decisive in his choosing politics as a career.

What were the primary qualifications of the young Dan Quayle for being nominated as Vice President? For George Bush, who had served eight years as Vice President to Ronald Reagan, a Dan Quayle as second in command would never pose a challenge to his leadership in national office. One of young Quayle's college professors remembered looking into his eyes and thinking that he may as well be looking out the window. Despite his protests George Bush had to be well aware of Dan Quayle's evasion of military service in Vietnam, and Bush knew that Quayle, far from being an object of disapproval, represented over 90 percent of his generation which was eligible to fight in Vietnam. What could be more American than to support a war, but make sure that others fight it?

In May 1969 the 101st Airborne was storming Hamburger Hill in the Ashau Valley in South Vietnam, and the carnage was receiving front page coverage in the American press. On May 19, 1969 recently graduated Dan Quayle entered the National Guard of his home state of Indiana. During his years in college at DePauw University one classmate told the Boston Globe that young Danny was "a Hawk with a capital H" and a strong supporter of the war in Vietnam. Another classmate who waited tables with Quayle remembered discussing the war with him and asking him if he were such a strong advocate of intervention, why not go to Vietnam and fight: "I never got an answer". When questioned after receiving the nomination on August 18, Mr. Quayle in remembering the dreams of his childhood in Indiana told reporters the first thing young Hoosiers learned was to think about education and raising a family. Then he confided that back then he had no idea he would be in a room answering questions about military service, and he was not sure if he had made telephone calls seeking a place in the National Guard.

On August 19 he admitted to talking to his parents and telling them he wanted to join the National Guard in 1969. Fortuitously, the managing editor of his grandfather's newspaper, the Indianapolis News, was Wendell Phillippi, a retired Major General of the National Guard. Young Mr. Quayle and his parents called Mr. Phillippi and asked for his assistance in joining the National Guard. A strong believer in the family unit Senator Quayle boasted almost twenty years later of his parental involvement: "And, by golly, I'm proud that Mom and Dad wanted to help me". Though Mr. Quayle insisted there was no waiting list to join the National Guard, the commanding officer of the unit that Dan Quayle did join contradicted that assertion by insisting they had a waiting list of 35 to 40 at the time. This was not as Mr. Quayle remembered it. While insisting he did not enlist to avoid Vietnam, and that his enlistment broke no rules, Mr. Quayle considered his six years as patriotic service of which he was "darn proud". George Bush Jr., the son of the head of the ticket, thoughtfully replied that the important thing was "he didn't go to Canada". (It should be noted George Bush Jr. did not to Canada either. He deserted within the United States.)

In the summer of 1990 the Iraq of Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. This invasion as presented in the American media was totally unjustified and with no historical precedent. America had forgotten the Iraq of Saddam Hussein had fought a long bloody war with the Iran of Ayatollah Khomeini and had emerged victorious even though outnumbered over two to one. When that war started, Iran was the sworn enemy of the United States in the Middle East. A search for a countervailing force had led only to Iraq which alone had the capability of stopping Iran from expanding. Iraq fought with much of its war expenses funded by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and acted as a surrogate for the United States. Iraq fought for a longer time than the United States did during the Second World War and lost more men in combat, an estimated 300,000, against Iran than we did against both the Germans and the Japanese. They did this with less than one-eighth the population of the United States during World War II. Their losses proportionately were equivalent to the United States during the Civil War.

While fighting on money borrowed from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the Iraqis paid the ultimate cost of any war, the blood tax. Prostrate from that war, Saddam Hussein tried to negotiate with Kuwait a revision on repayment. Iraqi lives were what saved the Kuwait Royal family from a vengeful Iran driven by a Shiite Muslim faith hostile to the Sunni interpretation of the Kuwaitis and the Saudis. Another particularly goading irritant to the Iraqis was the drilling of a huge oilfield on the border with Iraq by the Kuwaitis where the Iraqis had legitimate concerns that the oil was Iraqi property by law and did not belong to Kuwait. The Emir of Kuwait wanted Iraq to repay the war loans. Extenuating circumstances were not to be considered. In May 1990 Saddam spoke to the Emir of Kuwait at a Baghdad summit of oil producers. Kuwait with an OPEC sanctioned output of 1.5 million barrels was actually pumping out 2.1 million barrels. Saddam said Iraq suffered by Kuwaiti cheating. Iraq desired a return to 1980 norms before the war with Iran. Saddam requested $10 billion then and asked for forgiveness of $30 billion in debt incurred while fighting Iran. For Iraq to repay these loans their people would be impoverished for many more years.

Something similar happened to the English after the First World War when they sought softening of loan terms from the United States. Winston Churchill tried to explain to Calvin Coolidge that the British suffered four years of war and lost about 800,000 men, about eight times the number America lost with less than half the American population, and deserved softer repayment terms. Coolidge, the product of New England parsimony and temperament, replied that the British freely hired the money. This retort so typical of his small mean mind brought forth from Churchill the rejoinder that in the small sense his observation was true, the whole answer deserved consideration of other circumstances. George Bush, like Coolidge, possessed the New England mind and very little sympathy for Iraq, but the need to retaliate did not seem to emerge. However, Margaret Thatcher cornered George Bush and through sheer force of personality and intellect made him commit to a war which could have been settled far short of the pounding which the Iraqis would receive. The British interest has not been examined by the American press.

With victory in the Persian Gulf against a third world country much of the populace celebrated as if the United States had vanquished the most evil force ever to walk the planet. This euphoria would soon disappear. When reality did arrive, the depressing truths that things were not to change much, if at all, had much to do with the loss of the election by George Bush, who soon after the war had his approval ratings in polls approaching 90 percent.

Newsweek Magazine, not generally known as being a booster of the American military and their adventures, published a special edition commemorating the campaign. In their considered judgment the unambiguous hero was Norman Schwartzkopf, who restored to the military the luster it had not enjoyed since the days of World War II. He had freed the military from the painful legacy of Vietnam by keeping American casualties very light and inflicting deep mortal wounds on the enemy. He was an earthy American general. In an unrestrained outburst Newsweek called Schwartzkopf "a Vince Lombardi in army greens". What greater accolade could come from the American media than to compare a general to that ultimate test of American masculinity, football coach Vince Lombardi. As a young man, Mr. Lombardi was asking for a job coaching football within ten days after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. During the war in Vietnam Mr. Lombardi, while vocally supporting Mr. Nixon in his policy on war in Vietnam, openly consorted with some of the most blatant draft dodgers that this country has ever seen, professional football players. Yet those who set the cultural tone of this country had long determined that the ultimate test of American manhood was proficiency in football.

The briefing by General Schwartzkopf on how the war was won became a best selling video of 1991. One critic from the neoliberal New Republic attributed the secret of General Schwartzkopf's media success to his attacking the press. This critic did admit Schwartzkopf did not pick on the innocent because most journalists understood little of the military and were easily cowed. Later Schwartzkopf upset the media with his speech at West Point. There he attacked many in the media who had advocated war. These armchair warriors were ones who watched Rambo movies, watched war on TV and never had a draft card. These were people who had no idea what they were talking about. These were "military fairies" who had never been shot at in anger, but who felt qualified to comment on the leadership qualities of the American army. These were the sentiments of a man who remembered Vietnam with some bitterness. Some critics pointed out that many of the civilian superiors of Schwartzkopf fit his description of "military fairies". One who did was Secretary Cheney whose staff presented a plan "as bad as it could possibly be" for confronting Iraq.

For the politically correct press the use of "military fairies" permitted them to unleash hatreds which they had kept to themselves. One such was Sidney Blumenthal, then writing for the New Republic. Mr. Blumenthal thought "military fairies" were reformers who advocated a change to maneuver warfare against the preferred Pentagon solution of charging straight ahead. Mr. Blumenthal stated that the victory of the United States during the war was due not to Schwartzkopf, but to these seers. Mr. Blumenthal concluded by saying Schwartzkopf did not have the temperament to play in the democratic arena. Mr. Blumenthal thought that General Schwartzkopf planted land mines in order to step on them. This snide remark about the heroism displayed by Schwartzkopf in Vietnam revealed much of the character of the American press corps. As a battalion commander, then Lieutenant Colonel Schwartzkopf walked into a minefield to rescue some of his young troopers who had set off a mine causing casualties. For those who have never known fear where urine would dribble down a leg, the sustained courage needed to rescue his men could only be a quality they could relate to something they had seen in the movies. Mr. Blumenthal, a student of Brandeis University in 1968 where these gutless taunts were commonplace, revealed himself as a jeering coward of the worst kind, somewhere about the Ted Kennedy level.

As one who has long believed the public recall of events of this century has been warped to satisfy demands of American liberals, particularly the Jews among them, and that this recall has become so dishonest as to endanger the national politic, the author willingly confronts an anticipated shrieking from those who feel themselves unfairly assaulted. So firmly implanted in American memory has been the word "holocaust" that any challenge to the prevailing usage brands the challenger an anti-Semite who has no views worth considering by right thinking people. Pavlov's dogs started salivating when hearing bells, and one has the thought the desired response by the national media would be for eyes to water whenever "holocaust" is heard.

This ability to control the necessary national debate by not only those in the national media, but also by those who submit to or are frightened by the power of those in the national media has made America a morally corrupt nation. This last statement would include most Senators and Representatives of the United States.

Inconvenient events and awkward facts that contradict an accepted recall of American history are never presented in the national media. One of the greatest and most consistently honored taboos has been any evidence, which denies Jews to present themselves as nothing less than exemplary citizenry in American history. This prohibition must be attacked and destroyed.

American Jews and the Civil War

Previously mentioned was the participation of Jews in the American Civil War in which 500 died out of a Jewish population estimated at 150,000 in the America of 1860. The source for this assertion was the Encyclopedia Judaica, a reference work published in Jerusalem in 1972. These numbers were proudly recounted in the Winter, 1992 edition of The Jewish Veteran, the newspaper of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States. This contribution to the American war effort was slightly over 3 deaths per 1000 population by American Jewry. The northern white death rate was about 16 per thousand population where 20,000,000 northern whites had over 300,000 die. Southern whites with a population of some 8,000,000 had about 240,000 die giving a death rate of about 30 per thousand population. The black death rate of about 9 per thousand resulted from nearly 36,000 deaths in a population of some 4,000,000 and allowance must be given to the obvious constraint that blacks in the South, where the majority lived, were prohibited from bearing arms. Dying by Jews clearly did not approach the sacrifice of other groups in America. (Their avoidance and cowardice continued in five (5) more wars to include the holy of holies, World War II)

Chapter 16 – Blacks and American Wars

A maliciously distorted view of participation by blacks in America's wars has long existed. Why this interpretation has existed for such a long time can be explained only by moral cowardice of whites and dishonesty by both blacks and whites. As with so many issues involving race in the United States no public discussion has been possible unless euphemisms are used, and forbidden topics are accepted by both sides.

Some 10,000-12,000 black slaves served the British cause with Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment being the most renowned unit. This voluntary association with the British was understandable as blacks received their freedom and a new life in Canada after the war. Blacks, both slave and free, served with General Washington's forces. Ebony Yearbook gave the contribution to American forces at 5000 to 7000 men out of a black population of 3,500,000. They stated that blacks were 2 percent of Washington's forces.

When the issue becomes the Civil War, obvious stupid mistakes, if not outright misrepresentations about black participation in this war, have become almost criminally irresponsible. Ebony Handbook published in 1973 gives the below information for black participation:

STATISTICS

Black

Total Black Percentage

 Total                                       Black        Black Percentage

Union Army                                          2,213,363                                 278,312                  12

The historian from Princeton, Professor James McPherson, gave his and other generally accepted estimates of the Union dead, which would include both battlefield and non-combat related deaths at about 360,000. His estimate of blacks serving in Union forces was about 179,000 black soldiers and perhaps as many as 20,000 black sailors. What caused the greater dispute was the accounting of the dead. The number of war deaths for Union troops as given by Ebony approximated the accepted number, but the number of deaths under battlefield conditions for the blacks was totally out of line. How Ebony computed some 36,000 black deaths allegedly occurring on the battlefield out of 140,000 total battlefield deaths to be 14 percent of the total has illustrated the sloppy, irresponsible statistics tolerated when originated by blacks. Most estimates for battlefield deaths for blacks hovered at about 3000 which would make the estimated total less than ten percent of Ebony's inflated guess. Professor McPherson wrote of six percent of white Union troops being killed in action while only 1.5 percent of black Union troops were killed under combat conditions. Fully 19 percent of black troops died from disease, which was a rate of almost twice that of white soldiers. Much of this large discrepancy has to be attributed to poor sanitation practices among blacks who did not receive near the medical care the whites did. The historian of black issues, Herbert Aptheker, gave as his estimate of the black civil war dead as 2870 killed or mortally wounded while 29,756 died of disease. Mr. Aptheker, who has been a lifelong communist, dedicated one of his works to his charming daughter, Bettina, who was arrested for attempting to blow people up with bombs, and to Angela Davis, who still runs as a Communist candidate. In addition Mr. Aptheker was optimistic enough to dedicate the volume to the future that their solidarity symbolized. Even in February 1991 Ebony asserted that Union records show 37,638 black casualties which they maintained was 21 percent of Union casualties.

Has nobody challenged the blatant distortions, if not lies by the black cultural elite? The effort by the white war dead has been denigrated, and the black contribution has been inflated. This blatant distortion of the truth has persisted for at least fifty years, and an inspired, yet educated, guess would be the misrepresentation has been believed in the black culture for over one hundred years.

Professor McPherson of Princeton has represented the lineal descent of the abolitionist strain in America of the late twentieth century. The need to belittle much of the white race and conversely to inflate the black race has been evident in his writings.

Black and White Crime

A verboten topic for much of the national media has been the proclivity of inter-racial crime by blacks on whites. The relative absence of crime by whites on blacks while featured in the witless movies which permeate much of American culture has been deliberately exaggerated by the masters of that industry. In 1990 93 percent of black murder victims were slain by black offenders while 86 percent of white murder victims were slain by white offenders. For the interracial aspect 617 whites were murdered by blacks while 305 blacks were killed by whites. Conservative polemicist, Pat Buchanan, held that blacks as one of eight Americans were responsible for 50 percent of rapes and nearly 60 percent of murders in the United States. He further maintained that Hispanics with 6 percent of the population were responsible for 12 percent of violent crime. A professor had found for 629,000 interracial crimes committed in 1985 where the victim could afterwards identify the attacker, nine out of ten were attacks by blacks on whites. White criminals favored white victims 98 percent of the time while blacks favored black victims less than half the time. They seemed to prefer robbing and raping whites.

In Evanston, Illinois when differences between whites and blacks for interracial murders were illustrated in a novel way, outrage by blacks was vociferous. An information type television commercial had compared black gangs to white hate groups such as the Klan and skinheads. The skinheads were awarded a third-place bronze medal for the killing of blacks. From 1981 to 1991 they were known to have committed 12 murders. The Ku Klux Klan from 1960 to 1991 were known to have committed 20 known murders and thus received the silver medal for second place. The gold medal winners were black street gangs which had murdered some 1300 people in one year, 1991. This lively accurate statement provoked infuriated response by black politicians and their white allies for telling the truth and contravening what they felt were the bonds of decency. (I further found that Blacks have a highly inflated memory of their deaths in all subsequent wars, to include Vietnam where their numbers dead was lower than the number of blacks available in the draft warranted.)

The glow of the Gulf War had faded quickly. The butchery of Arabs which had caused so much of the American electorate to feel great pride had receded from many minds. Immediately after the war polls established that 30 percent of Americans regarded the victory in the Gulf as the greatest achievement of their country in their lifetime. This euphoria surpassed victory in World War II, the presidency of JFK or Americans landing on the moon. Only 20 percent thought the same in early 1992. This number was just behind winning World War II and ahead of the Kennedy presidency.

Some 60 years previously American newspaperman, H.L. Mencken, had written after crossing from Oklahoma to Arkansas that he had never seen such barbaric white people in his life. These primitives would soon send one of their sons to campaign for the presidency of the United States. The pride of the state was William Jefferson Clinton, the perpetual boy governor. Mr. Clinton first ran for state office at the age of 28. Arkansas had many areas where the opening of a McDonalds' Restaurant was regarded as an improvement on local cuisine. These areas were ones where the unveiling of new automobile models by Detroit each year was a cultural highlight and caused much discussion among the cognoscenti who would debate the changes for many months. Mr. Clinton in his national debut as keynote speaker at the Democratic presidential convention in 1984 managed to put a nation to sleep. This time would be different.

The presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush did not have many achievements. He was mocked on Saturday Night Live and seemed to have loved it. What would prove to be his downfall was his treatment of Israel when they tried to extort money during the Gulf War. The callous refusal by Mr. Bush to accede to Israeli greed would soon be superseded in the minds of American Jewry by the remark of Secretary Baker: "Fuck the Jews. They don't vote for us anyway". This remark removed any doubt of Jews in the media and in high finance that the administration of Bush would be friendly towards Israel to their satisfaction.

When the issue of draft evasion by candidate Clinton arose in February 1992, the response of the national media was unusually sympathetic. When his letter of December 3, 1969 thanking the colonel of ROTC at the University of Arkansas for saving him from the draft was published, editorial response to his deceit excused his behavior. The Philadelphia Inquirer acknowledged that some readers would think its indulgence as an effort by the anti-Vietnam set to excuse the actions of one of their own. This publication admitted that "the kinds of people" who did not have any option, but to be drafted generally did not grow up to become opinion writers on major newspapers. Never considered was what people with a sense of shame or honor would consider a suitable "option". Even, or most especially, editorial writers would have learned things which would have stayed with them the rest of their life. Those who did go and whose "growing up" ended in the war were of no concern to them. The New York Times complimented Mr. Clinton on his performance by stating he had worked "cleverly" in ways which was accepted common practice among others of his generation. The echo of Vietnam was an "irrelevance". To single out Mr. Clinton as a devious draft dodger was an "injustice". His foresight as a young student in writing "to maintain my political viability" so overwhelmed a columnist for the New York Times that she wrote in the coming campaign: "Maybe it is only now, 23 years later, Bill Clinton will be wounded in the service of his country". The style book of that newspaper had to have changed from the days when deskmen and editors were familiar with what real wounds were, and sleazy metaphors excusing lying and cowardice would not have been accepted. That letter which Mr. Clinton wrote after the draft lottery on December 1, 1969 and his application to Yale Law on December 2, 1969 was as maliciously cynical a document ever written by an American politician. In Newsweek veterans were admonished to embrace Mr. Clinton. They would have to acknowledge the wrongness of the war and their inability in avoiding the fate that a Rhodes scholar was able to evade. Qualities of honesty and courage did not arise in the minds of those who wrote for that magazine. Another Pulitzer Prize winner, Tony Auth, the editorial cartoonist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, had Mr. Clinton's action approved by an aging yuppie couple. One astute observer in the New Republic admitted that Mr. Clinton had been treated with far more respect by reporters than any candidate he could remember.

One of the few dissenting views was given by a University of Pennsylvania professor of international relations who mentioned his being in Vietnam the same day that Mr. Clinton wrote his letter. This man insisted the rationalization that everyone was doing it did not provide an acceptable moral excuse, and the behavior of his 1960's generation should not be the standard for acceptable deportment. The man who cheated the draft cheated everyone in the republic. This view earned him a rebuke in the pages of the New York Times from a man who contended a veteran who would not let old grievances heal after twenty years was far more destructive of civic feeling than the reluctance of a young man to face a controversial war. This opinion did seem out place in a newspaper where men marginally involved with Germans in Europe over 50 years ago have been chastised as if their actions took place yesterday.

Steve Ross, Time Magazine and the Election

Henry Luce, born in China of missionary parents and a soldier in World War I, had been the founder and guiding light of Time magazine for almost half a century. Justly criticized for being a bulwark of the Republican right for much of its existence, Time had by 1992 lost much of its puritan tinged tone. Time had deteriorated to such a point it had become a subsidiary of a conglomerate headed by one Steve Ross. (Ross may not fight in wars, but he certainly wants other to do so.)

Born Steven Jay Rechnitz in Brooklyn in 1927, the future Steve Ross told friends he enlisted in 1945 at age 15 for "adventure" and service to his country. Reality was that he enlisted at age 18 to get his choice of service. After six months of training, young Mr. Ross boarded the USS Hopping, a high speed transport. Mr. Ross would tell friends that his ship supported the Marines in their landings in the Pacific. Mr. Ross attributed his being hard of hearing to the firing of guns off his ship. In fact his ship had been in Norfolk, Virginia, when he was assigned, and he had spent all of seven days at sea during his military service. After leaving the navy Mr. Ross entered Paul Smith Junior College near Lake Placid, New York. While preparing for life's adventures he built a reputation for being an accomplished touch football player. He played so hard and aggressively that he broke his arm. This injury was so severe that it was featured in the school newspaper. In later years Mr. Ross would tell his friends that he had broken his arm, not playing at Paul Smith, but while playing end with the Cleveland Browns, the great powerhouse of post-World War II professional football. His children would have their bedrooms decorated with banners and other memorabilia of the Cleveland Browns. Yet when his career was recounted in the New York Times, Mr. Roger Cohen, European economic correspondent of that paper, dismissed his gift for lying about his past as of being of no significance. That Mr. Ross had chosen to lie about two of the most recognized symbols of American masculinity should have caused some comment, but Jews like Mr. Ross had always received lenient understanding from fellow Jews at the New York Times.

The primal influence for many Americans for understanding war has been the Hollywood movie. From that second-rate culture the figure of John Wayne has dominated. Born Marion Michael Morrison in Iowa in 1907, the Duke moved to California when he was six. A graduate of the University of Southern California where he played football, John Wayne projected himself into the American consciousness more than any other movie actor. The New American, the magazine for the reading segment of the John Birch Society, titled a story, "American Hero", in which Mr. Wayne's virtues were lauded. His stature was recognized and lauded by noting that for many he symbolized the American dream and epitomized American manhood. The Birchers recalled his great achievements such as starring in Sands of Iwo Jima and his unabashed patriotism. But his absence from the real battlefield of World War II was not discussed. His desire to stop the spread of communism in Vietnam and his advice to fight an all out war to win were applauded. America must be willing to say "To hell with world opinion".

Historian and biographer William Manchester had fought as a Marine on Okinawa and been wounded. Hospitalized in Hawaii with other gravely injured Marines, Manchester had been carried by Navy Corpsmen to the theater to see films for morale boosting recreation. One night the staff had planned a surprise for the patients. Before the film started, the curtains parted and out stepped John Wayne. The man from Hollywood was wearing a cowboy hat, bandanna, checkered shirt, chaps, boots, spurs and two pistols. He grinned at the severely wounded men and greeted them, "Hiya, guys.". Not one patient responded. Then the booing started, and the tinsel hero had to leave. Over 40 years later recalling the episode still gave Manchester enormous pleasure.

William Jefferson Clinton has been thoroughly besotted by the image of John Wayne. The fatherless Mr. Clinton looked at Mr. Wayne as his desired substitute. He knew he had to act much like John Wayne might to project a desired masculinity. Mr. Clinton has confessed that "I was raised on John Wayne movies. I had always wanted to see myself fighting for my country". When he named a new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, John Shalikashvili, to succeed Colin Powell, Mr. Clinton relished telling the assembled press that Shalikashvili after escaping from Europe as a war refugee had learned English from watching John Wayne movies. Anthony Lake, National Security Advisor of Mr. Clinton, was caught up on movies also. Mr. Lake mused on how his hero, Abraham Lincoln, had concerned himself with war and death while the South was in rebellion. Then he asked a bystander to compare his hero's actions with "George C. Scott playing Patton in his line 'God, I love it'".

The appeal of Wayne has transcended what may have been thought of as conservative or liberal mindset. Arthur Sulzburger, publisher of the New York Times, had a bust of John Wayne in his office and a movie poster of the great man in Sands of Iwo Jima. This Sulzburger had occupied himself by organizing Outward Bound trips for his friends and had even served as a matchmaker for a couple who met on one expedition. One must wonder if the purpose of Outward Bound trekking was to experience a challenge and instill the self-respect he missed by ducking the Vietnam war. When assuming his present position vacated by his father, the younger Sulzburger was praised in the pages of the New York Times for adopting the trappings of the 1960's to include wearing his father's Marine Corps jacket on all occasions. Perhaps swayed by the war in Vietnam, this Sulzburger could not be bothered to get his own jacket.

The appeal of John Wayne's Sands of Iwo Jima to immature minds should appall anyone with anything near an adult mindset. Republican rabble-rouser Newt Gingrich has admitted to seeing the film four times in one day in 1953 when he was aged ten years. Manfully Mr. Newt confessed, "It was probably the most informative single film of my life". When the father of Mr. Gingrich was dying of cancer in 1972, his son visited and lectured him on not feeling sorry for himself. John Wayne would have understood. When ex-Marine William Manchester and a fellow veteran saw Sergeant Stryker on Iwo Jima, they laughed so hard they were asked to leave the theater. He cautioned those who liked the Sands of Iwo Jima that they should not tell it to the Marines.

In one of the great books of this century, The Golden Bough, British anthropologist and historian, James George Fraser, lamented the descent of the West from Roman times. Fraser attributed the loss of the ascendancy of the West to the rise of Christianity which he termed an Oriental religion. Prior to Christianity the West had the classical civilizations of Rome and Greece where the individual was subordinate to the community or state. The safety of the state was the supreme aim of conduct and had precedence over the safety of the individual in this world or the world to come. Citizens were trained from infancy in this ideal and were willing to lay down their lives to preserve the common good. If a citizen shrank from the supreme sacrifice, he knew that he behaved cowardly in preferring his existence to the good of the country.

The spreading of Oriental religions with their emphasis on the salvation of the soul and the communion of the soul with God as the aspiration of an educated man doomed this civilization. The prosperity and even the existence of the state shrank into insignificance. Fraser termed the spiritual basis of the Oriental religions a "selfish and immoral doctrine" which caused the devotee to withdraw from public service and contemn present life as merely a probationary period for a better, eternal life. With this emphasis on future life the bonds of civilized life were undone, and the disintegration of society began. Ties of family and state were loosened, and the society began to dissolve into individual elements. Individuals refusing to subordinate their private interests to the public good which does constitute the core of any civilization, even in the United States, caused this relapse into barbarism. Men refused to defend their own country and to continue their own kind. This idiocy persisted for a thousand years. Only at the close of the Medieval Ages did native ideals of life and conduct which Fraser termed "saner, manlier views of the world" prevail in Europe. The hiatus in the march of civilization was ended, and the tide of Oriental religion had been halted. Writing in the years before World War I, Fraser thought the invasion was still ebbing.

One might reasonably ask what Fraser would say in present-day America. The once dominant European element of the society had as a leadership class those who long had been retreating from public responsibility. Many had lost the desire to reproduce and were importing babies from Asia. This class had not glorified celibacy and poverty, but they had committed grievous injuries to any society seeking sustainable civilized values. They had lost the quality of courage.

As T.S. Eliot remarked, the Civil War was the dominant theme in American history. The great myth in American popular history has continued to be that the war was fought over slavery. The salving of the New England conscience and present-day pandering to imagined grievances of Americans of African heritage has demanded as much. Yet intelligent men have long believed differently.

The poet, Edgar Lee Masters, in one of the great polemics of this century contested the historical memory of Abraham Lincoln. That his work is not remembered today should be seen as proof positive that he wounded deeply. Masters used the term, "Hebraic-Puritan", to denote the mind of what was for him the obnoxious American Christian or those exposed to that culture. Masters dated the madness of America from the day the Puritans started the American Hebraic culture. This exactitude should be expected from a man who was once Clarence Darrow's law partner. The poet described the professed love of Hebraic-Puritanism as "inverted hate" which had access to the will of God and meant to carry it out even if the whole land were made a tomb. After complimenting Robert E. Lee as being a product of the best blood in England, that of the warrior and cavalier, Masters portrayed Lincoln, whether he was an atheist, a deist, or a free thinker, as a product of the Hebraic-Puritan culture. The great principle of the Hebraic-Puritan culture was to assume to act as one's brother's keeper, but the true motive was to be one's brother's jailer. In great insult Masters accused Lincoln of inculcating the government of the United States with the cant and hypocrisy of Christianity and poisoning the flesh of the republic. Previous to Lincoln presidents had not espoused the beliefs of Godly righteousness. Many had been deists.

Driven by the Hebraic-Puritan spirit of madness, the North was led to war. War had been initiated by radicals and fanatics like Garrison, Thaddeus Stevens and Senator Sumner whose lofty ideals were intimately connected to cruelty and would require bayonet and torch. However, the masterminds of the Republican party did not have the same goal. These men cared very little for the Union, but cared deeply for money and power. During the war the new American masters bought off, ran away and evaded danger in any way possible. During the fighting the North was riotously prosperous, and war contractors stole the country blind. Young men doing the soldiering did not know what the fight was about at first, but later just carried on to kill and subdue. The soldier who died at Gettysburg died not for honor or glory, but for gain. After the war the Hebraic-Puritan abolitionist cursed the slave holder while applauding the oppressor of laborers in the mills and mines of the North. This oppressor paid wages and was therefore a holy man. Abolitionists and their offspring went South after the war and looted the area. They controlled the Congress and forbade the Supreme Court from declaring any law they passed unconstitutional. The Supreme Court acquiesced. At long last the Thaddeus Stevenses and the corporations ceased to care for the Negro. The war had furnished the occasion and cause for capitalism to take over the wealth of the land and subdue the liberties of the people. Lincoln had laid the foundation for a state where carpenters and rail splitters had nothing to say in America. The war was far more fundamental than the matter of slavery, and Lincoln knew that. The war allowed the pious Jehovah-men to overcome the remnant of classical civilization as a "rising tide of filth might submerge a Greek temple". The civilization based on this barbaric superstition of Hebraic-Puritanism could not produce a culture worth anything to the spirit of man. It would be a civilization which must be destroyed for America to rise out of the hypocrisy and materialism of the Civil War. Masters maintained the War between the States proved salvation was not of the Jews, but of the Greeks.

Writing in 1931 after the then recent World War I and 10 years before American entry into World War II, Masters added to this hypothesis. Woodrow Wilson did many of the things Lincoln did while citing Lincoln as his authority. Prophesying, Masters thought it highly likely a small group of men after deciding what was a cause of war and what was necessary for a successful prosecution once again would do exactly what Lincoln and Wilson did by limiting discussion and shackling the press. In less than a decade Franklin Roosevelt proved him correct by guiding the United States into another war by stealth and deceit. Masters considered the right of free speech so important he thought Negro slavery a "small evil" compared to a political milieu where men could not speak their thoughts. One may reasonably deduce that Masters was not of African-American heritage.

No great literature came out of the Civil War. The great reason was the preeminent theme of the war which suggested liberty was dishonored and destroyed. Great themes of the war could not be used for poetry or drama because the civilization which rose from the war could not believe this. American literary culture, founded chiefly on the Bible, could only glimpse superficially the infinite and profound currents of life. These insights were narrowed to particular instances of injustice and suffering in societies. Lincoln whose oratory derived from the Bible with its sacred curses and appalling prophesies based his moralities on parables in which there were no thought or real integrity. This coruscating portrayal of Lincoln so offended the loyal sons of Illinois that talk arose of chiseling from the tombstone of Ann Rutledge, Lincoln's first love, the epitaph composed by Masters in his Spoon River Anthology. The men of Illinois soon received solace from another quarter when Ambassador Katsuki Debuchi of Japan stood shoulder to shoulder with Governor Emerson of Illinois, and both spoke of their admiration for Lincoln at his tomb in Springfield, Illinois. Ambassador Debuchi let everyone know that "From my boyhood Lincoln has been one of my heroes". This commendation came 10 years before the attack at Pearl Harbor.

Another target of Masters' venomous criticism was Mark Twain. Masters accused Twain of having no real political principles. If he had, he never would have joined the Confederate Army. He would not have deserted after joining. He never would have joined the post-Civil War Republican Party which stole and defrauded the entire country. For an explanation of this depraved behavior Masters attributed this deviancy to Twain's breathing of the insidious poison of Christianity. Notwithstanding Twain's observations on the inconsistencies of the Bible which Masters dismissed as patent absurdities, Twain could not free himself of the Christian mythologies of his youth. All of Twain's epigrams and dialectics were directed against fables not worth noticing. Twain did not have the courage nor the insight of Nietzsche to see that Christianity was a poison and that Christendom bowed down to three Jews - Jesus, Peter and Mary.