Hitler, Churchill, and Reagan
by Clyde N. Wilson
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What an orgy of Churchill and Britain bashing we have had of late! One would almost begin to think that the Brits bear most of the blame for World War II and all its attendant horrors. (Actually there is nothing new here. The interpretations that have recently appeared were all debated vigorously in the immediate postwar period.) It is even hinted that the defunct British Empire and its last great statesman are somehow responsible for the present ownership of the United States by neocon imperialists.
That the neocons have claimed Churchill as a hero tells us a lot about them and very little about Churchill. It is the stock-in-trade of the Straussian/neocon cult to appropriate every great thinker and every great statesman in history who has a favourable reputation and to repackage them as forebears of the great Leo. To administer a well-deserved thrashing to V.D. Hanson, then, does not constitute a decisive victory over the real Winston.
The current World War II revisionist theorising badly needs an application of Occam’s razor. The esteemed and fearless Mr. Buchanan, it strikes me, makes too much of diplomatic might-have-beens: if only perfidious Albion had not done such-and-such, then the Germans would not have been forced to do their bad this-and-that. But the conflict of governments is not always a chess game in which every move can be carefully calculated for effect. Sometimes it is a fast, sweaty, and unpredictable tennis match. We should not lose sight of the fundamentals: which side represented, however imperfectly, Western civilisation and which side was a barbaric, bullying threat to that civilisation. (Please do not bring in here the issues involved in American participation in the war, which is a different matter.)
Can Britain really be blamed for the Russian alliance? Once the power-maddened Germans had stupidly invaded Russia, it was impossible not to use the Russian alliance to counter the more pressing threat to the West. No one could predict the Russian position at the end of the war. At least Churchill never believed that “Uncle Joe” was a good old fellow, unlike the Communist-riddled American government of FDR. The Russians won the most by the Roosevelt/Stalin conspiracy against Churchill at Yalta. FDR was much more interested in eliminating the British Empire than he was in saving Western Europe from Communism.
It is even more far-fetched to blame our present American swaggering imperialist imposture upon the world on those who acted in a bygone and different time. I suspect here an all too common American tendency to plead a special righteousness in which anything bad that happens is the fault of foreign machinations. There is more than enough good American precedent in Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and others to explain what we do now.
In the context of a then still Christian society, Lincoln’s brutal war on civilians was more egregious and revolutionary than the British and American bombings of World War II. Just before the Spanish-American War, the U.S. press went berserk over the atrocities committed by the Spanish general “Butcher Weyler” in Cuba. Nobody bothered to notice that Don Weyler had been a military attaché in Washington during the American civil war and was a fervent admirer and imitator of Sherman. The final responsibility for American involvement and actions in the two world wars must rest on American leadership and the American people, not on Churchill and the Brits.
In simple truth, if blame for the neocon conquest of America is to be placed anywhere, then it must rest on the shoulders of Ronald Reagan, who was elected as a conservative and ruled as a neoconservative. If Reagan had not foisted the first Bush upon the country there would now be no second President Bush. All of the neocon suspects first came to power under Reagan’s wing—Bennett, Kemp, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle, Abrams, etc. It was the Reagan administration that sold Congress on the National Endowment for Democracy. Because, as the Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz said at the time, “If we are to achieve the kind of world we all hope to see—with peace, freedom, and economic progress—democracy has to continue to expand. Democracy is a vital, even revolutionary force.”
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1 Comment by Daniel Maxwell on 30 June 2008:
“The current World War II revisionist theorising badly needs an application of Occam’s razor. The esteemed and fearless Mr. Buchanan, it strikes me, makes too much of diplomatic might-have-beens..”
Fair enough, Dr. Wilson – but in my opinion, the questions he asked are ones that needed asking. The ‘good’ war is always the go-to justification for the American empire. (The War to Prevent Southern Independence is the other popular choice) True, as you said, Buchanan’s book concerns almost entirely the British – but often we find the same sort of ‘justification’ for murdering civilians from the British as we do from the American neocons. (I particular enjoy the bloodthirsty folks who can always drum up an excuse for nuking civilians)
As a side point, one touching aspect of the American participation in World War II is a good picture of the state of North-South relations were at the time – I have always found it revealing that so many Liberty Ships were named after famous Confederates. Not just Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, mind you, but others such as Judah Benjamin and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Indeed, by then the Confederates had simply become members of the large roster of ‘Good Americans’. How sad that now, at the urging of our media intelligentsia, they have all but been evicted.
2 Comment by Brock H. on 30 June 2008:
I must come to Pat’s defense, Professor. The quotes attributed to Churchill, the events and meetings he took part in, which of course my public high school textbooks wouldn’t dare speak of, seem to me to expose Churchill as a dishonest and opportunistic politician, constantly sacrificing chances to keep peace, avoid war, and effect foreign policy in wise and sensible ways, on the altar of Germanophobic ideology.
By the way, Pat’s book and recent op-eds cannot by any means be labelled a round of Britain-bashing. They are quite the opposite. In his new tome, what I read was a 423-page lamentation, a eulogy for the British Empire, 63 years in the making. My amazement was at the fact that Pat seemed to really ADMIRE the British Empire. What I believe Pat HAS been mudslinging at lately are the decisions made by British statesmen, Churchill foremost among them, that led to the Empire’s downfall. For they were unwise and insane decisions, all of them!
As for your claim of Churchill-bashing, that I agree with you on. It is a round of Churchill-bashing, by all possible definitions, and I am happily joining in it. The reason is because someone must be held accountable for the bad decision-making and unwise policy in London in the 40s. Do you have someone else in mind, Professor?
3 Comment by Red Phillips on 30 June 2008:
“Please do not bring in here the issues involved in American participation in the war, which is a different matter.”
I hope this comment is within the spirit of the quote above. I think all this arguing over how England behaved is beside the point and a major distraction. Interesting and worth discussing on its own merits for sure, but not really germane to the current debate about American foreign policy. How America got tangled up in the War very much is.
I wish we would quit talking about England and start talking about America.
4 Comment by rob on 30 June 2008:
Well, I tend to agree with Dr. Wilson on this score. I have never believed in the “greatest generation” but if I did, I think for Americans they lived during the civil war and not the World Wars.
From 1865 to the present has been one long experiment in the imposition of ideology on one generation after another from The preservation of the Union , to Churchhill’s finest hour, to the best deal being the New Deal. Thank God we are nearing the end of it and can soon join the British in blaming it on the evil of others instead of that blinding arrogance of our own.
5 Comment by Allen Wilson on 30 June 2008:
I agree that only Americans can be blamed for bringing America into that war unnecessarily. Churchill may have wanted America to take his side, but Roosevelt made that happen, and Churchill was a better ally to America than Roosevelt was to Britain. In fact, the impression I get of Churchill’s relationship with Roosevelt is one of a man with some sense of honour and integrity having to deal with a complete sociopath. That comes through loud and clear in the transcriptions of transatlantic phone calls.
I think one reason why people can sometimes go to the point of imbalance against the allies is because they are fed up with the demonisation of Germany, which has gotten to the point that leftists have tried to blame Germans who weren’t even born at the time as well as Americans who may have German ancestry dating back two centuries. To tell the truth, I’m sick to my stomach of it myself, to the point that I doubt the credibility of mainstream historians who show pro-allied bias.
The second world war plays the part in world affairs that the War of Yankee aggression plays in America. It’s the big myth that justifies the current evil order. Tear that myth down and the entire liberal world order is undermined, perhaps fatally. It is the desire to accomplish this in order to save what’s left of Western civilisation that is driving much of the revisionism going on, and this will also tend to lead toward too much bias toward the axis.
We have been spoon fed propaganda about that war for so long that it may be inevitable that a reaction in the other direction will happen, especially as the establishment, whose power rests on the victory gained in that war, loses all false credibility it ever had.
6 Comment by james on 30 June 2008:
Its interesting how international bankers are never mentioned when talking about historical events. There wouldn’t be much of a war if you couldn’t get a loan guarantee. The Rothschild/Schiff banking dynasty financed the Russian revolution and in its aftermath the communist governments economy ran through there newly established central bank.
International bankers represented Germany during the Versie treaty which annexed German territory and in post WW1 depression were able to buy up Germany cheap.
What was there influence in Germany during and after WW2. Was operation blue conditional for getting a war loan payment?
Before the collapse of the Soviet Union western banks were set up in Russia were conditional loan payments were transfered to these banks were there people in Russia like Khodordovsky who was financied by Jacob Rothschild in London.
I also wouldn’t be suprised if this same type of thing is happening in Iraq especially who should develope Iraqs oil field and what type of laws are passed in the Iraqi parliment for continued US military presence.
7 Comment by Grumpy Old Man on 30 June 2008:
A fine post. Pat’s views are always provocative, and he’s often right (on the folly of WWI, for example), but he sometimes goes off the rails.
For one who has lived but a single life, Prof. Wilson, you are most wise.
I’m too old a dog for it to be likely to happen, but I’d love to take a history seminar with you. We’d probably differ on quite a few matters, but the discussion would, I imagine, be both incisive and civil.
8 Comment by R. Cort Kirkwood on 30 June 2008:
“Once the power-maddened Germans had stupidly invaded Russia, it was impossible not to use the Russian alliance to counter the more pressing threat to the West. No one could predict the Russian position at the end of the war.”
Just a few observations:
It’s worth remembering that the Germans were finished after they lost the battle of Stalingrad, where 300,000 men surrendered.
As well, I’m not sure I agree that the Russian position was unpredictable; but it may well have been that their geostrategic designs at that point were impossible to acheive in the short-term.
That said, Mr. Wilson is right to observer that Roosevelt likely had designs to dismantle the British Empire. As Max Hastings explains in “Retribution,” the story of the end of the war with Japan, American strategic policies certainly did not help British power in the Pacific and did, indeed, undermine it.
The irony is that the British, via William Stephenson, “A Man Called Intrepid,” ran a major propaganda campaign in newspapers and films to ensure American participation in the war.
So they sowed the seeds of their own destruction not just in lurching into World Wars I and II but also in assisting the rise of American power by getting us into the war.
On another note, as Sam Francis observed, World War II is the founding myth of the modern liberal welfare state. We should all keep that in mind. World War II tore apart entire communities in this country. Nineteen boys from tiny Bedford, Va. were killed in a matter of minutes on D-Day. This crucial point can’t left out of the discussion of American participation, if that is indeed to be discussed.
Last, there is the matter of what Churchill and Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor and when they knew it. No need to recite that story here, but it’s worth observing that Roosevelt also thought it would be bright idea to sink a few of our own military vessels in the Atlantic and blame it on the Germans so we could get into the war. (It was Roosevelt, by the way, who packed the Lusitania with arms to entice the Germans to sink it, which got us into WWI).
It seems that a very plausible, and simple (Occam’s Razor) explanation of American involvement in World War II is this: Roosevelt was surrounded by Reds and outright Soviet spies. The purpose of our fighting was to save Stalin. That would comport with Mr. Wilson’s statement that Roosevelt had it in for the British all along.
Had the Germans not had to contend with the Allies in Africa and Western Europe, and the Japanese had not been fighting the Americans in the Pacific, it would have been an entirely different ballgame. As it is, Roosevelt hatched a multi-faceted plan to invite a Japanese attack. And that got us into the war, and the Axis has to fight the Reds and the Western allies.
9 Comment by r_m on 1 July 2008:
British Empire first and foremost stood for Imperialism.
And jet we have Conservatives, a group of people supposedly opposed to Imperialism, either lamenting its fall or defending it against what they see as bashing it.
The British Empire? I say good riddance!
10 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 1 July 2008:
My primary purpose here was to focus on the correctness of the British/French stand against German aggression in 1939, without bringing in the what and wherefore of U.S. involvement. I don’t see how the Anglo-French stand could have been avoided without the free countries becoming as totally cynical and ruthless as Germany and Russia. Second, to question the widespread assumption that the Yankee Empire is especially virtuous in acts and intentions. Fortunately, the second point does not need much emphasis here.
11 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 1 July 2008:
As for concern with Lincoln & Co. in a discussion of present imperialism—in order to solve a problem you have to find where things first started going badly wrong.
12 Comment by MAP on 1 July 2008:
Dr. Wilson, you wrote an essay back in 69/70 illustrating that the Democratic Party has throughout almost all of our country’s history been the true conservative party. This changed with FDR and the New Deal when liberals flocked to the party. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this was also the beginning of an illusion, magnified by the appearance of Berry Goldwater. Since the only remaining party was the Republican, people looked to it as replacement for conservative representation. And the party was only too eager to accept them. But herein lays the illusion. As M. E. Bradford pointed out the Republican Party was founded on the abstract ideology of Lincoln (even if dishonest) and they can never escape it, since this ideology is essential to justification of the war, Reconstruction, war crimes, dictatorial powers, and the rest. Therefore, there will always be a need to kick up the scaffolding that supports the ideology. And since abstract ideology is the opposite of conservative, it is impossible that the Republican Party can ever represent it. I believe this is what we have witnessed since War World II, ideology-driven agendas without conservative representation. As you state here, Ronald Reagan is thought to be the great conservative president, but is really only a move toward other ideologies
13 Comment by Patrick Hall on 1 July 2008:
Americans are not a conservative people, in general.
Ronald Reagan was no more “conservative” than Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower, Herbert Hoover, or Calvin Coolidge were.
I believe our task, as American conservatives, should be to debunk these lies of what makes a conservative. First on the list should be the rejection of the “Rights of Man”, in particular the American Constitution, and it’s so-called “Bill of Rights”. The only way to truly fight Liberalism in America is to fight it’s very foundation.
14 Comment by TJF on 1 July 2008:
I am very grateful to Prof. Wilson for going to the heart of this question. The passionate defense elicited by John Lukacs’ review of Buchanan–a review that no friend of Buchanan could ever have commissioned–is a perfect illustration of the dangers of ideology. To counter neo-conservative imperialism, many conservatives have fallen for a kind of absolutist isolationism that is virtually self-refuting. Even Robinson Jeffers, who strongly opposed US involvement in both world wars, praised the gallantry of England in the early years of WWII. I have never been a fan of Churchill–his cynicism and self-promotion are despicable, and the sinister qualities of his regime are best portrayed by Evelyn Waugh, who felt that WC’s support for Tito was a betrayal of everything the war might have stood for–BUT, to denigrate his statesmanship or the courage of the British people is worse than foolish, and Pat, to his credit, retains his admiration for the gallantry of Britain.
15 Comment by Tom Piatak on 1 July 2008:
Yes, of course Churchill and the British were brave and heroic when they stood up against Hitler in 1939 and 1940. But they way they treated the nation Norman Davies has dubbed “the first ally,” a nation that managed to supply the fourth largest contingent of Allied fores despite being occupied from 1939 on, casts a rather different light on the British. Both Churchill and Roosevelt had betrayed the Poles behind their backs at Tehran, when each of them intimated to Stalin that he could keep the portion of Poland he had seized under the Nazi-Soviet Pact. This was never shared with the Poles, who found out about it only when Molotov told Mikolajczyk after the Warsaw Rising had been crushed, causing Churchill to become furious–at the Poles for being reluctant to sign away half their country to Stalin.
It is true that FDR was far more naive about Stalin than was Churchill, but in a way this makes Churchill worse, because there is little doubt that he was lying when he told Parliament on August 2, 1944, as the Red Army was standing idly by watching the Germans crush the Warsaw Rising: “The Russian armies now stand before the gates of Warsaw. They bring the liberation of Poland in their hands. They offer freedom, sovereignty, and independence to the Poles.” And when some MPs questioned the wisdom of Yalta, Churchill told them: “Marshall Stalin and the Soviet leaders wish to live in honourable friendship and equality with the Western democracies….I know of no Government which stands to its own obligations, even in its own despite, more solidly than the Russian Soviet Government.”
Those who view Churchill as invariably heroic should carefully consider those words, spoken by the prime minister not only in the knowledge that he was lying but knowing that his brave words of defiance to the Nazis in 1939 and 1940 had been paid for, in part, with Polish blood, both in resistance to the Nazi invasion of 1939 and the defense of Great Britain. In the crucial days of September and October 1940, Polish pilots constituted between an eighth and a quarter of the pilots available to Fighter Command for the defense of London and accounted for 18 percent of German planes destroyed on September 11, 14 percent on September 15, 25 percent on September 19, and 48 percent of all German planes destroyed on September 26. As Air Chief Marshall Dowding admitted after the Battle of Britain, “had it not been for the magnificent material contributed by the Polish squadrons and their unsurpassed gallantry I hesitate to say that the outcome would have been the same.” For this “unsurpassed gallantry,” the Poles received at Yalta what the Czechs received at Munich–the subjugation of their country–with one difference: This time, Churchill defended the betrayal in Parliament.
16 Comment by Theodore M. Van Oosbree on 1 July 2008:
No one denigrates the courage of the British people but Churchill’s “statesmanship” and that of the other British statesmen of the time is open to question. After all, if one takes the purely cynical line that a war should merely serve the material interests of the warring nation, WW II was a disaster for Britain. She was left bankrupt and soon to be shorn of the beloved empire Churchill cherished. Furthermore, the unspoken assumption that the war was mainly the doing of Germany is incorrect. It was the creation of the Soviet Union as a result if WW I that midwifed WW II. Recent scholarship, using the previously secret Soviet archives, demonstrates that Stalin planned a massive invasion of Europe. he was forestalled by the German attack he had not anticipated (his agents in Germany reported the unreadiness of the Wehrmacht for such an attack and he mistook capabilities for intentions). No matter what the regime in Germany, there would have been a war.
17 Comment by Red Phillips on 1 July 2008:
“To counter neo-conservative imperialism, many conservatives have fallen for a kind of absolutist isolationism that is virtually self-refuting.”
This is why I have been careful not to be too critical of England because they were so much closer to the action and their situation was clearly different than ours. Was there some scenario whereby Germany would have fought the Soviets and left England out of it? Perhaps. I don’t know. No one knows. But that is why I think all of this is a needless distraction. America’s unique position in the world affords us the luxury of nonintervention that some of our European brethren may not have. This uniqueness should be acknowledged and celebrated as the blessing that it is, not wished away as it is by the neocons always conjuring up enemies that threaten us across vast oceans. Nor naively imposed on others with less fortunate circumstances.
18 Comment by Tim Manning on 1 July 2008:
In regard to the problem Tom Fleming raised about conservative rebuttals to the neocons: No, absolute isolationism is not a good idea. In fact, it’s downright evil. It’s pacifism in the worst sense. In other words, it’s liberalism, or that nihilistic inclination which I sometimes call civilizational suicide.
I like to tell my liberal sister that I’m anti-war but pro-violence. I once told a libertarian that I favor invading New York City. Invading Mexico City might not be a bad idea, either. I’m sure you get the drift.
War is a Christian virtue. But, of course, it’s a been a long, long time since our leaders (Jeff Davis, that is) put us into the right wars.
19 Comment by Red Phillips on 1 July 2008:
Well, I would not go as far as Mr. Manning. As I have pointed out to Christopher Roach on a couple of occasions, the use of the term pacifism is neither helpful nor accurate. I have yet to meet all these Quaker, Mennonite, and/or Tibetan Buddhist paleos. Maybe I’ve just missed them.
Think of isolationism as the international version of the good neighbor policy. Be friendly but otherwise pretty much mind your own business. This strikes me as profoundly conservative. Not liberal, pacifistic, nihilistic or any other epithet.
20 Comment by TJF on 1 July 2008:
Isolationism is also misleading. It was concocted to imply that anyone who believed in minding his own business and was not in favor of imperial adventures was some kind of ostrich. Of the great American “isolationists” of the 1930’s and 40’s–John T. Flynn, Charles Lindbergh, Robert Taft–none favored anything like isolation. They were prudent in their patriotism, and Lindbergh even served in the war he had opposed, despite FDR’s efforts to prevent him.
21 Comment by Ronald Kyser on 1 July 2008:
The “communist-riddled American government of FDR” (the quotes are to signify attribution, not disagreement!) was only marginally less popular in Bedford Co., Va., after D-Day than before:
1932 2,321 D; 469 R; 41 O
1936 2,276 D; 619 R; 11 O
1940 2,535 D; 791 R; 14 O
1944 2,534 D; 1,068 R; 6 O
[ E. E. Robinson, "They Voted for Roosevelt", 1947.]
I would imagine “O”, i.e., Strom Thurmond, got more than six votes in the next election. (In fact, he got 10% in the whole Commonwealth.) Question is, why did he wait till ‘48? Something other than Communism must have been eating at him. As Red Diaper Baby David Horowitz had to inform Ann Coulter, Harry Truman was no “Friend of Joe”.
22 Comment by Sean Scallon on 1 July 2008:
Why do the questions of World War II continue to vex us so? Is it because the world as it is now is a product of that war? I don’t mean lines on map, but that fact that because of the war the welfare/managerial state became entrenched as did the military industrial complex and the interventionist foreign policy created to feed that complex? Is it because the ideas of cause of the Allies and horrors of Nazism sprang forth the civil rights movement (not just for African-Americans but also Hispanics, Indians, Homosexuals) , Or colonialism for that matter? Or that the use of so many female workers in factories and heads of households while their menfolk went off to war created the feminist movement? That our local mannerism and traditions were changed in the creation of the mass culutre necessitated by the mass armies needed to fight the war or the mass technologies created to feed that culture?
I think we all know the answer. The modern history of the world came forth from World War II and it dominated our discourse from the time it was fought until the en do the Cold War in 1989.
The fact we’re ever having these historical debate about the war, which would have never been even dreamed of say, 30 or 40 years ago when the mythology was so strong, shows as the so-called “Greatest Generation” passes from the scene, a real discussion can begin anew over the legacy of the war upon the country. Such a debate, althought right now politically unuseful, could very well mean that edifices created by the war and its aftermath can be successfully challenged in ways they could never had been before.
23 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 1 July 2008:
As I pointed out in an article back in the 80s, while the Bedford men were giving their lives, the “Progressives” were busy hiding out safely in Washington offices (Arthur Schlesinger, Nelson Rockefeller, the various Soviet agents) designing the New World Order that had nothing to do with what good men were fighting for. They imposed a new meaning on the war much as Lincoln changed a war for the Union into a war for social revolution. Except in those days, Americans had more ability to bounce back to normal.
24 Comment by R. Cort Kirkwood on 1 July 2008:
@20 Dr. Fleming:
Charles Lindbergh was not only a great American patriot but also fascinating man. At the age of 40-something, he outlfew the best pilots the Marine Corps had to offer during training missions, then landed in the Pacific and fought as a civilian. What the Smear Bund did to him was unconscionable.
Recommended reading: Lindbergh, by Scott Berg: http://www.amazon.com/Lindbergh-Scott-Berg/dp/0425170411
25 Comment by Red Phillips on 1 July 2008:
“What the Smear Bund did to him was unconscionable.”
The Smear Bund has no conscience, only an agenda to further.
26 Comment by TJF on 2 July 2008:
My father-in-law, as a boy, met Lindbergh and watched his plane for him. Later on, as low man in the Army Air Corps, he surrendered his plane to Lindbergh who almost killed himself because he refused to listen to young Bill Clark who had made a few unauthorized modifications. Lindbergh was very gracious about it. What my father-in-law also told me was that Lindbergh made many brilliant aeronautical innovations which he simply gave to the US. He really was in almost every respect a great American, but when I described him some years ago as America’s most popular hero in the 1930’s, the neocons jumped all over me. Although I admire Lindbergh, that was not even my point. Today you cannot even repeat a simple fact–that Lindbergh was admired–without being attacked.
27 Comment by John Zander on 2 July 2008:
I do not believe that England stood best for western, christian heritage our real civilisation and culture or stood better for it than Germany, by many accounts the most cultured country in the world at the time of the famous world wars. This is Dr. Wilson’s given or premise which leads to its apparently inevitable twin conclusion(quote): “My primary purpose here was to focus on the correctness of the British/French stand against German aggression in 1939, without bringing in the what and wherefore of U.S. involvement.” -Dr. Wilson
I agree that as Americans we ought to discuss what we do and take responsibility for it. However Pat was attempting to strike at the root/s of the demonisation of Germany initially (suggesting which party was in reality the snooty aggressor with its empire by comparison, whether there were salutary effects to that empire or not and its civilizing influences, which Hitler himself admired); and Pat’s additional points such as even Hitler, only became (actually) evil under the dire circumstances of a war he wished he could end with honor but wasn’t permitted to do so.
So prior to changing our discussion back to ourselves as Americans which no doubt we must get around to, we have not addressed Pat’s factual points, point by point. Neither has Dr. Wilson except to ostensibly reiterate his own predjudice and pre-disposition toward believing a.) england is the greater civilising influence when in comparison with germany and b.) germany was to blame for its alleged belligerence while both england and france were ‘correct’ in their stand. Belief is one thing, facts and thinking about them quite another. I’m open and not an expert so I could be convinced that Dr. Wilson’s position may have more merit than Pat’s but so far it was and is only Pat, who seems to have pointed out some facts we haven’t been taught and he did some thinking about them. Dr. Wilson suggests those facts were thoroughly chewed upon and digested in the aftermath of the war, without apparently even mentioning the victors like the north with regard to the civil war, always write the history.
28 Comment by Rob on 2 July 2008:
Well, John, you have said many good things in your last post but one must choose a side about Prussia. They have a myth about their teutonic race and its superiority over the rest of God’s creatures and the inevitable necessity for them to unite and rule. One can argue the myth is true or false, but it IS the Prussian spirit and I think Dr. Wilson is correct in being suspicious of it. The Brits have many faults as well, the most obnoxious is their false humility of being once upon a time “just a little island empire dependent upon their control of the seas and their fleet so they could buy and sell, import and export, just the goods needed for their own survival.” But as I say, there are cross roads in which one must make a choice and we Americans have England for our Mother whether we like it or not, and there is much to like about that fact. In correcting one exaggeration, one must be careful to not create another.
29 Comment by John Zander on 2 July 2008:
I agree with you Rob. The judaic myth is the same, and perhaps in spirit even identical to the prussian myth. I always thought it amusing how when departing from our real culture our western, christian culture the sparks fly MOST between each of God’s two different ‘chosen’ mythical masters. Nonetheless we all may deep down to some degree, (it’s a world of degrees to greater or lesser extent therefore) yet ‘believe’ that or want to believe it about our own, even (perhaps especially) I say ol’chap – the Brits? Look at the neo-cons today – they’re Acting out their judaic myth (secular or religious that’s that culture) – revenging themselves upon all the rest of us, right now. I’d prefer the brits myself and i suspect the prussians if xian as well. i prefer the xian to the judaic or islamic in terms of what the culture suggests and thus makes actual inevitably in terms of behaviour. Remember the repeatables – we’re all concpetual creatures, and so at that [conceptual] pause – YES, culture matters.
30 Comment by Eagle on 2 July 2008:
Mr. Piatak,
The west (meaning the US and UK) has ALWAYS betrayed its central European slavic allies. Whether it be at Yalta 60 years ago or in the Balkans 10 years ago, the result is the same. Slavs don’t matter to Churchill or his successors. Poles and Serbs would be forgiven for wondering should they have just peacefully surrendered to the racist Nazis and been better off in the long run.
But let’s leave aside WWII for a moment… One hopes that the Polish government will listen to the will of its people and adhere to basic national interest and refuse the US its request (bullying) to house a missile “shield” on its territory. The latest news is that the US is negotiating with the Lithuanians instead to house the shield. This is great news in so far it will prove definitively (to the Germans) that the US is indeed using the shield to bully Russia and not as a defensive mechanism against the Persians. One day Germany’s elite may come around and really see that Russia is their ally and then the Anglsophere will collapse. Oridnary Americans’ lives – like your’s and mine – will become much harder as the dollar’s reserve status crumbles and superpower status shifts to continental Europe, but this will be hardship infinitely preferable to a nuclear holocaust with Russia that the New York – London set is driving us towards.
31 Comment by Ronald Kyser on 2 July 2008:
Lindbergh is not without honor in his home. One of the world’s busiest air terminals is named for him, and a ticket between Minneapolis/St Paul and San Diego will take you from one Lindbergh to another. They even had a Lone Eagle Bar at MSP, unaware (or unconcered) that the man was a strict teetotaler.
There is also a double statue, as man and boy, in front of the State Capitol in St Paul. It hasn’t moved, but its address is no longer Constitution Avenue but “The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard”.
Dr Fleming once proposed “Land of Douglas” magnets for Illinois license plates, and I immediately thought of adapting that idea to the streets of Paris, two of which are named for Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. Imagine Parisians waking up to “Avenue Lindbergh père” and “Boulevard Lindbergh fils”.
32 Comment by R. Cort Kirkwood on 2 July 2008:
@26, Dr. Fleming:
The neocons jumped on you about The Lone Eagle for one of two reasons: Some likely didn’t know, as neocons are famous for their ignorance. The others did know and don’t wish to acknowledge truth.
33 Comment by pablo H on 4 July 2008:
32@KIrkwood,
Of course, they know. Why always this conservative reluctance to tell the truth? Or the shrinking from conflict?
Whatever the Neo-Cons are, its not ignorant or stupid. They smear Lindberg and Buchanan and attack anyone who admires them for a reason, to further their agenda.
34 Comment by Tom Widlar on 8 July 2008:
Dear Mr. Wilson:
Your review of Buchanan’s book begins with
“One would almost begin to think that the Brits bear most of the blame for World War II and all its attendant horrors. (Actually there is nothing new here. The interpretations that have recently appeared were all debated vigorously in the immediate postwar period.) It is even hinted that the defunct British Empire and its last great statesman are somehow responsible for the present ownership of the United States by neocon imperialists.”
I would like to learn more about the “vigorous debate”. Could you give details or point to some articles? Does “nothing new” mean the question can’t be considered any more?
Thank you.
35 Comment by Tim Manning, Jr. on 10 July 2008:
I realize this discussion has ended, but if anyone is listening…
Forget those hapless Northern war dissenters. They were right by accident. Take a look at Tom Watson of GA and Ben Tillman of SC. Look at, especially, Watson’s Magazine (1905-1917). It contains the best information anywhere on the roots of 20th century American war corruption. No one was better on the subject of WWI than the Southern Populist Party.
Also, check out Lyon Gardiner Tyler in the William & Mary Quarterly. He was the Populist era editor of WMQ, and wrote some of the best WWI analysis anywhere. It was so good that no one even criticized him for comparing the forces against Wilhelm II to those mounted against Jeff Davis. Oh yeah, and he was the son of the best-ever American President, John Tyler.