Howard Zinn, A People’s Champion? Part 27 The G.I. Bill, The Great Society, and Zinn’s Government Aid.

       “People’s History” is constantly dismissive of any government reforms or aid to its citizens. Government initiatives are either portrayed as ineffective, or secretly a ploy to control people, or in some cases they’re not mentioned at all. Zinn portrays the American government as a devious system of control over its population, but, prior to the Great Depression, it had little direct impact on people’s lives (It was designed to be that way). Only in the early 20th century did the Federal government greatly expand its powers. Let’s take a look at a few initiatives Zinn either doesn’t mention, or minimizes, including one that directly helped him.

       After World War II the government passed the G. I. Bill. Under the GI Bill, veterans got tuition for technical or university school, as well as subsistence pay.  The Veterans administration guaranteed loans up to $2000 to start a business.  Soldiers wishing to become home owners were guaranteed $2000 The Federal Housing Authority would underwrite mortgages up to 80-90% on the value of a home, the added VA loan brought millions into home ownership without a down payment and with low-interest rates. (1)

     Lyndon Johnson was a political pupil of FDR, and saw his presidency as a chance to extend the New Deal, in what he called the Great Society. First a look at Civil Rights. The Civil Rights Act, (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965) and the 24th amendment, the Civil Rights amendment, said poll taxes and other tax related barriers to voting were unconstitutional. Title II of the Civil Rights Act mandated open access to gas stations, restaurants, public lodging, on interstate commerce, places of entertainment and exhibition. Title IV bars discrimination in any program that gets federal funding. Title VII bans employment discrimination and made the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (2) This was the end to legal segregation, exactly what Zinn himself personally marched for. This was the legislation being contemplated when Martin Luther King Jr had his famous march on Washington, which Zinn dismisses as a sellout moment.

       In 1965 there was also the Older Americans Act, along with Medicare and Medicaid. The Omnibus Housing Act gave 6 billion to help poor and middle-income families by building housing and started rent supplement allowances. That was expanded in 1968 by the Housing and Urban Development Act. The Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development act of 1966 improved urban transport, landscaping, planted parks. It started in 6 cities, and expanded into 150. That was a supplement to 1964s Mass Transit act, which gave 375 million, the first large commitment of federal money, to subsidise subway, bus, and rail commuter transportation. The War on Poverty included 1964′s Equal Opportunity Act, and the Appalachian development act of 1964, which cost 2 billion. (3) The Head Start and Higher Education Act both passed in 1964. The Higher Education act helped the poor with educational opportunities.There was environmental legislation, 4 billion into the Clean Water Restoration Act, development was banned in 9 million acres of public domain  in the Wilderness area act 1964, 30 years later it covered 95.8 million acres. Also created were the Department of Transportation, the Department of Housing and Urban development, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The National Endowment for the Humanities and the Arts, as well as volunteer agencies like Job Corps, the Model Cities programs and Upward Bound. (4) All in all, the 89th congress of 1965-66 outdid the first two years of the New Deal. (5)

       Zinn could have called into question the effectiveness of the Great Society Programs, as there are argumens on both sides. In 1959 40 million families lived in poverty, which dropped to 25 million in 1968, or 22% of families in America to 13%. Black family income went up 60% in comparison to whites 1968, in 1965 it was 54%. In 1960 41% of blacks earned under $3000, which fell to 23% in 1968.(6) But there’s still room to question its effectiveness. In 1968 almost half of black families still made less than $5000, and many poverty oriented programs didn’t affect the sick, disabled, or elderly. (7) It is also the common critique of the welfare system that it sets up a “welfare mentality” or “culture of dependency” and creates a cold impersonal system to take care of people’s needs.

       Either way Zinn only mentions the Great Society in a fleeting sentence near the end of his book when he says “President Johnson’s War on Poverty in the sixties became a victim of the war in Vietnam.” (8) which is true actually. Zinn advocates a massive redistribution of wealth, thinking that will cure all of societies ills, but misses that programs such as the G. I. Bill and the Higher Education Act help people make wealth for themselves, he seems to have no understanding of this. He says Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps do nothing to help economic inequality. (9) Yeah no shit, neither does the Post Office.

       But the most ironic thing to me is that Zinn himself went to college on the G. I. Bill. If it wasn’t for that he’d have spent his life working on the docks or doing some manual labor work instead of being a college professor making ludicrous claims about history. In short, if it wasn’t for the military industrial complex, “A People’s History of the United States” never would have been written, maybe it’s an evil thing after all.

1. Chafe, William H The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II Fifth Edition 2003 Oxford University Press p 107

2. Johnson, Paul: “A History of the American People” Harper Collins 1999 p 892

3. Johnson p 874

4. Johnson p 875

5. Chafe p 229

6. Chafe p. 236

7. Chafe p 237

8. Zinn, Howard: “A People’s History of the United States” Harper Perennial Modern Classics  2005 p 601

9. Zinn 612

Howard Zinn, A People’s Champion? Part 26, Vietnam: Nixon and the War’s end.

       The counterculture movement of the 1960s is portrayed in “People’s History” as representing “The People,” but did it? Did most Americans want immediate withdrawal from Vietnam, redistribution of wealth, and legalization of marijuana? The 1972 Presidential Election makes a case against this viewpoint, as does another “People’s Movement” that often goes unnoticed in “traditional” accounts of this era.

       In 1972 Nixon was re-elected when running against George McGovern. McGovern’s platform was for 30 billion cut in defense spending, immediate withdraw from Vietnam, legalizing Marijuana and a redistribution of wealth by giving $1000 to everyone in America. (1) In the wake of the 1960s was this what “the people” really wanted? Nixon was quoted as saying “Here is a situation where the Eastern Establishment Media finally has a candidate who almost totally shares their views. At last, the country will find out whether what the media has been standing for during these last five years really represents the majority thinking.” (2) Nixon often spoke of the “silent majority,” meaning the rest of America that were not protesting, marching, etc. Nixon won 61% of the popular vote and won the electoral college 521-17. If the public overwhelmingly wanted immediate withdraw from Vietnam, re-distribution of wealth etc, then why wasn’t McGovern elected?

       One a related note, one people’s movement unnoticed by Zinn is the Evangelical movement of the 1970s, which gave rise to the new right. This was a group shocked by the excesses and vulgarities of the counter-culture movement, who were opposed to the Roe vs Wade decision, and admittedly were upset by the rising presence of homosexuals. Evangelical Chrisitians created their own media club with the 700 Club and Jerry Falwell’s “Old Time Gospel Hour”, this media had an audience of 100 million. (3) This (and Falwell’s Moral Majority) was one factor in getting Reagan elected, though of course not the only one. Carter was grossly unpopular over his handling of the Iranian hostage crisis. Either way conservative Christians who voted for Reagan certainly wouldn’t be included in Zinn’s people.

       But back to Vietnam. “Although publicly I continued to ignore the raging controversy… I knew, however, that after all the protests and the Moratorium, American public opinion would be seriously divided by any military escalation of the war.” (4) The curious thing here is that Zinn tries to claim credit via the anti-war movement for ending the Vietnam war, but even in arguing that it did effect Nixon, he still can’t bring himself to give Nixon any credit. Instead he says the movement “caused him to drop plans for an intensification of the war.” Anti-war activist may like to claim credit for affecting policy on Vietnam, but Nixon and his Vice President Spiro Agnew openly mocked the counterculture. Agnew in a public speech said “A spirit of national masicism prevails, encouraged by an effete corp of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.” Later in the same speech he mocked the counter culture film Easy Rider. (5) Nixon himself said of the soldiers,

       “I have seen them. They are the greatest. You see these bums, you know, blowing up the campuses Listen, the boys that are on the college campuses today are the luckiest people in the world, going to the greatest universities, and here they are burning up the books… Then out there (in Vietnam) we have kids who are just doing their duty. And I have seen them. They stand tall and they are proud. (6)

       Writing on Nixon’s death in the 90s, Zinn describes him as  “the man who continued the war in Vietnam.”(7) Does it mean nothing to Zinn that the Vietnam War ended on Nixon’s watch? Does Zinn actually believe that he and his fellow activist personally stopped the war? To me this is wanton display of incredible arrogance.

       A word should be said on the aftermath of Vietnam. South Vietnam fell to communism in 1975, and Communists also took over in Laos and Cambodia. So on a small scale the Domino Theory turned out to be true. Around 1 million North Vietnamese died, and if the US pulled out sooner whose to say how far things would have spread. One of the great acts of genocide of the late 20^th century occurred as soon as the US left South East Asia, when the Khmer Rouge killed 1,200,000 of their own people, or 1/5^th of the population. This was in the infamous “Killing Fields.” (8) Even here Zinn could have said that Nixon’s bombing of Cambodia may have led to the Khmer Rouge coming to power. Either way over a million refugees fled South East Asia and immigrated to America. These were known as the boat people. If “the people” of South East Asia did not support the communist regime, then, just as in Cuba, why did they leave and come to evil imperialist America? In considering the refugees and the Killing Fields one has to wonder, if Zinn and his hippy cohorts really did stop the Vietnam War, maybe this is what they have to show for it.

1. Chafe, William H The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II Fifth Edition 2003 Oxford University Press p 404

2. Johnson, Paul: “A History of the American People” Harper Collins 1999 p 894-895

3. Chafe, William H The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II Fifth Edition 2003 Oxford University Press p 448

4. Zinn 501

5 ABC Documentary Our Century: America’s Time: Volume 5 Approaching the Apocalypse

6 Johnson p. 894

7. Zinn p. 657

8. Johnson p. 909

 

 

Howard Zinn, A People’s Champion? Part 25, Vietnam: The Anti-war movement.

       Some incidents associated with the 1960′s actually occured in the 70s, the Kent State Shootings, Watergate, and end of the era which was the end of the Vietnam War.”People’s History” records the anti-war movement, and champions the notion that it ended the war. An examination of this account raises the issue of who were “the people” Zinn claims to be represening.

            On the Kent State shooting of 1970, Zinn writes, “At Kent State University in Ohio, on May 4th, when students gathered to demonstrate against the war, National Gaurdsmen fired into the crowd.” (1) He writes as if the National Gaurd immediately arrived and shot civilians, when in actuality some students were throwing rocks at the guardsman. Also, 2 of the 4 killed were not involved in the protest at all, but were just students walking on campus. The reason the National Guard was present in the first place was that the students previously committed arson to a local army cadet building. (2)

            One major tale of the this era I’m surprised Zinn didn’t cover was the riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention. Hardline mayor William Daley mobilized over 25,000 police in response to rumors that activists would lace the city water supply with drugs and that 1000 nude protester would swim in Lake Michigan. (3) The mythology is that the police started a riot in Chicago. Although police brutality did occur, it was the counterculture activists who initiated the violence. One activist present said, “When I see these pigs out here I know what America is really about.” (4) Zinn also doesn’t cover the Weathermen, the radical group that committed acts of violence in the 1970s. Ironically, in March of 1970 some members of the Weathermen were building a bomb at a home in Greenwich village and accidentally blew themselves up. (5)

       Regarding public attitudes toward the war, Zinn cites a poll in Dearborn Michigan in 1967 that 41% of the people wanted the war to stop, but that means about 60% did not. Then he cites two counties in California in 1970 that had a referenda on ballot asking for withdrawl, it got a majority vote.(6) California obviously is a more left leaning state. (One of those counties was San Franscico County.) Througout the book he often (but not always) cites polls from more liberal areas like Boston/Massachucets or California to prove his points. One poll he didn’t cite was that in the Kent State shootings 58% of people sided with the gaurdsmen. (7)

       One of the fantasies of this era is that everyone tuned in, turned on, and dropped out. The counter culture was a large visible loud force, but it was not the majority. Many of the people in America found it offensive and frightening that all of their most basic values, family, patriotism, religion, monogamy, hard work, (Things that Zinn believes are myths used for control) were attacked. It was especially offensive since many in the counter culture were from the upper to middle class. One of the conceits the left had was that the rich started wars like Vietnam and the poor fight them. If that’s true for Vietnam it’s partly because the wealthier kids could go off to college and get student deferments. It is said the counterculture era had a generation gap, but that gap was also found amongst the youth themselves. One American GI said “I’m fighting for those candyassses because I don’t have an old man to support me.” (8)

       This raises the issue of who are “the people” Zinn claims to represent? Did the the anti-war movement really stop the Vietnam War, or was it ended by a conservative Republican president? If the counterculture truly represented the people, than why did a candidate friendly to their ideals not get elected when given the chance? These issues will be addressed in the last installment on the Vietnam War.

1. Zinn, Howard: “A People’s History of the United States” Harper Perennial Modern Classics  2005 p 490

2. Johnson, Paul: “A History of the American People” Harper Collins 1999 p 894

3. Levering, Ralph B The Cold War: A Post-Cold War History Harlan Davidson Inc, 1994 p 261

4. ABC Documentary Our Century: America’s Time Volume 4 Unpinned

5. Chafe, William H The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II Fifth Edition 2003 Oxford University Press p 395

6. Zinn p 491

7. Our Century, Volume 4

8. Chafe, p 328

Howard Zinn, A People’s Champion? Part 24: Vietnam, War Crimes?

       Vietnam in pop culture and 60s mythology is known as the bad war, (World War II being the good war) imagery associated with that time include Vietnam POW’s being shot in the head, children running from napalm attacks, and villages getting burnt to the ground. Many Vietnam Veterans, after coming home to America, were verbally and sometimes physically harassed by more radical members of the anti-war movement. Soldiers had blood throw on them and were called baby killer among other things. This is not to ignore atrocities that did occur, like the My Lai massacre. Still, when reading the account in “People’s History” regarding the Vietnam War, one must question the accuracy of it’s account.

       Zinn writes, ‘Large areas of South Vietnam were declared “free fire zones” which meant that all persons remaining within them-civilians, old people, children,-were considered an enemy, and bombs were dropped at will.” (1) These free fire zones were actually required by the 1949 Geneva Convention. The idea behind free fire zones is not some evil plan to blow up babies, as Zinn writes. Free fire zones were areas where civilians were evacuated. The measure actually saved lies. The alleged people’s champion has no sympathy or understanding of the experiences on the ground of the American soldier in Vietnam, where the enemy seemed everywhere, and no where. The reason there was combat in civilian areas was because the Vietcong were making strongholds in civilian villages, itself a violation of the Geneva convention. Despite the civilain casualties that did happen (which were 45% of war deaths in Nam, which about matches the average for the 20th century) the population actually increased, in part due American medical technology. (2)

       Media presentation in the war also contributed to some of the mythology of the 60s. A popular photograph of a prisoner tossed out of a helicopter turned out to be staged. Charges of American Tiger cages on the island of Con Son were false, the famous photograph of a young girl burned by napalm led people to believe, wrongly, that American’s were ininerating the children of Vietnam. (3)

       This is not to ignore tragedies that did occur. Zinn gives a full account of the My Lai massacre, where US soldiers killed around 500 men, women, and children. It was a grave injustice when only one man, Lt William Calley was convicted, and only served three years in prison. Zinn exploits the My Lai victims to suggest that this event was a common occurance, saying “Indeed, My Lai was unique only in it’s details.” (4) That sentence itself doesn’t make any sense. The details are what makes anything unique, that’s what makes them details. Zinn follows up this silly statement by filling half a page with a letter a GI wrote to his parents. The letter describes burning a series of huts to the ground and shooting livestock. It says nothing of anyone being killed. (5) Of course there’s no context, was this an enemy village, were these innocent civilians? We’ll never know, but in Zinn’s mind they must have been, because he said so. Either way, as frightening as a burning village might be, it’s no where near as horrific as the sensless slaughter of 500 people. For Zinn to equate one with the other, to suggest that incidents like My Lai happened all the time is intellectually barbaric.

1. Zinn, Howard: “A People’s History of the United States” Harper Perennial Modern Classics  2005 p 477

2. Johnson, Paul: “A History of the American People” Harper Collins 1999 p 882

3. Johnson 884

4. Zinn 479

5. Zinn 481

Howard Zinn: A People’s Champion? Part 23, Vietnam: A Maximum Military Effort?

The Vietnam War is often known as Johnson’s War, as it escalated under his presidency, and ended under his successor Richard Nixon. The assessment of the war that “People’s History” of the Vietnam War says nothing of the conflict Johnson faced in his own administration over the course of the war. This entry look Johnson’s role in the war, as well as the infamous Tonkin Gulf Incident.

The Tonkin Gulf incident, in which the American destroyer USS Maddox was allegedly fired on in the Gulf of Tonkin, led to the Tonkin Gulf resolution. This resolution allowed Johnson to escalate the war. The Maddox was in combat on August 2cnd, 1964 but the incident in question was on the night of August 4th, when sonar and radar mistakenly detected torpedoes due to adverse weather. They reported that they’d been attacked, but the Commander later said there was no visual evidence, and the sonar men were probably overeager from the battle two nights earlier. At the White House President Johnson and his advisers generally believed there had been attack, they did not make up the incident per say. (1)Although Zinn is right that the ship was not in international waters as so claimed, he doesn’t say that Johnson did not escalate the war for another 6 months. It was an election year and he was running against Barry Goldwater, who openly advocated bombing North Vietnam. (2)

Once Johnson was re-elected, we can see another example of how individual personalities affect history. Another president might have launched full scale war at this point, but LBJ’s personality was to operate in backroom deals and disliked open discussion. This is one of the mistakes of the Vietnam War, how the public was kept in the dark. Still, LBJ operated this way not because he was a ruthless war monger, but because he wanted public debate focused on his Great Society programs, which Zinn hardly mentions. (3) In fact one of the true domestic tragedies of the Vietnam war, was that it took away funding from his Great Society, (which was already heavily funded, but Johnson wanted more.) He described Vietnam as “That bitch of a war” that would kill “the woman I really loved-the Great Society. (4).

When Johnson did begin bombing in February of 1965 it was publicly justified not by the Tonkin Gulf incident, but because of an attack on a barracks at Pleiku and at a helicopter base nearby on February 7th. 9 Americans died and 5 aircraft were destroyed. (5) His bombing was authorized via he Tonkin resolution, not because he was power mad, but because he feared a formal declaration of war might have resulted in a response from the Soviet Union or Chinese (as they intervened in Korea). Such an outcome would have led to WWIII.

Zinn goes on to chronicle suggestions from the Johnson administration to blow up dams to flood villages and drown Vietnamese, and CIA recommendations of more intense bombing. (6) But did Johnson take these recommendations? America did not necessarily bring the full might of the military on this poor peasant country, as Zinn claims. Because there was no declaration of war, the US did not invade North Vietnam per say. The Air Force and Navy guaranteed continuous bombing without restraint (as in WWII) would bring results, but Johnson did not approve this suggestion. (7) Bombing in Vietnam was always restricted for political reasons with little show of tactics or strategy. Since the bombing was slow to intensify the North Vietnamese could rebuild and adapt. When North Vietnam got ground to air missiles from the soviets, America was forbidden could not attack their locations while they were being built. During the war there America offered 72 peace initiatives and 16 bombing pauses, all to no effect. (8) Military aid by China and the Soviet Union also offset their losses.

In assuming America waged all out war, Zinn ignores the conflict in LBJ’s own administration as early as 1965. His Joint Chiefs of staff urged for more troops, while his personal advisory realized the cause was lost. One close doubted the Vietcong could be defeated, “or even force them to the conference table on our terms, no matter how many hundred thousand white foreign troops we deploy…” and warned of a “protracted was involving an open ended commitment to US forces, mounting US casualties, no assurances of a satisfactory solution, and a serious danger of escalation at the end of the road.” (9)  Two years later LBJ sent 55,000 more troops in, but turned down a request for 200,000. (10)

There are many schools of thought on how Vietnam could have turned out differently. Some speculate that had Kennedy lived, US forces would have pulled out sooner. Some argue that the war could have been won, but was lost due to media bias, others think the military was restricted and in a sense wasn’t allowed to win. The true dilemma of the Johnson administration, which Zinn is incapable of assessing, is that LBJ wanted a limited war, out of fear of antagonizing the Soviet Union, and China, but at the same time wanted a quick victory. Again if America was as blindly war mongering as Zinn claims, then wouldn’t North Vietnam had been invaded, without any fear of war with China and the USSR?

1. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975 McGraw Hill 2002 p 142-143

2. Johnson, Paul: “A History of the American People” Harper Collins 1999 p 881

3. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975 McGraw Hill 2002 p 149

4. Herring, p 158

5. Herring, p 153

6. Zinn, Howard: “A People’s History of the United States” Harper Perennial Modern Classics  2005 p 481

7. Johnson, Paul: “A History of the American People” Harper Collins 1999 p 881-882

8. Johnson p 882

9. Herring, p 163

10 Herring p 217

Howard Zinn: A People’s Champion? Part 22, Vietnam: The Beginning

“From 1964 to 1972, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of the world made a maximum military effort, with everything short of atomic bombs, to defeat a nationalist revolutionary movement in a tiny, peasant country-and failed… In the course of that war, there developed in the United States the greatest antiwar movement the nation had ever experienced, a movement that played a critical part in bringing the war to an end.” (1)

This era was undoubtedly one of the highlights of the life of Howard Zinn. In this time he gave countless speeches and attended many anti-war protests. He also wrote Vietnam The Logic of Withdraw in 1967. The next few entries of this series will look at the Vietnam War, Zinn’s claims of a maximum military effort, issues of war crimes, and the belief that this generation of activists stopped the Vietnam War.

Since the Truman era US foreign policy was based around containing communism. Early on the Domino Theory was developed, which was the idea that if one country fell to Communism, it would set off a chain reaction causing other countries to fall as well. Zinn said at a press conference in March of 1968, “The Domino Theory is one of those great pieces of nonsense which the administration keeps uttering in which any student of international affairs I think can demolish in a very short time” He goes on, “The best way to make sure that a country turns to communism is to put foreign military forces in it because then the communists will have a nationalist cause which they can use against the foreign power.” (2) His last statement is nonsense which I will demolish in a short sentence. Japan, South Korea, and countries in Western Europe all have US military forces and no communism. Regardless Zinn and other intellectuals are too quick to dismiss the Domino theory. East and South East Asia was a sensitive area in the 50s. War was fought in Korea, and China turned communist. It made perfect sense to the American government to want to contain communism as much as possible in South East Asia. The experience of World War II, which had just ended, proved their point. In three months Hitler took Western Europe, and most of South East Asia was conquered by Japan in even less time. (3) President Johnson realized this saying;

“everything I knew about history told me that if I got out of Vietnam and let Ho Chi Minh run through the streets of Saigon, then I’d be doing exactly what Chamberlin did in World War II. I’d be giving a big fat reward to aggression. And I knew that if we let Communist aggression succeed in taking over South Vietnam, there would follow in this country and endless national debate… that would shatter my Presidency, kill my administration, and damage our democracy. I knew that Harry Truman and Dean Acheson had lost their effectiveness from the day that the Communists took over China. I believed that the loss of China had played a large role in the rise of Joe McCarthy. And I knew that all these problems, taken together, were chickenshit compared to what might happen if we lost Vietnam. “(4)

Zinn doesn’t outright say it, but hints that the real reason the military was in Vietnam was to capture its natural resources. He quotes a Security Council memo from June of 1952 reading “Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia and Indonesia, is the principal world source of natural rubber and tin, and a producer of petroleum and other strategically important commodities.” (5) Later he quotes a Kennedy official “The countries of Southeast Asia produce rich exportable surpluses such as rubber, teak, corn, tin, spices, oil, and many others.”(6) One of the conceits of the far left is that the Vietnam War was really fought so that corporations could get these resources, just as they say America invaded Iraq to steal Saddam’s oil. However by the time the war ended it’s total cost was 167 billion dollars, plus it triggered inflation which hurt Americas economy, and had political costs of discrediting its government, institutions and military. Whatever resources lay in South East Asia surely were not worth that much. (7)

Propaganda between the US government and private groups regarding Vietnam in the 50s is a huge golden nugget that Zinn misses. The book Deliver us from Evil is about North Vietnamese atrocities and the good deeds of America and Navy Doctor Tom Dooley, most of which were made up or exaggerated. The group American Friends of Vietnam, with help from Hollywood made the pro-American film The Quiet American, starring war hero Audie Murphy, a war hero. The movie was based on a Graham Greene novel which was actually anti-American. It was later remade with Michael Cain in 2002. Diem, South Vietnam’s leader, was told the film “would help win more friends for you and Vietnam in many places in the world where it is shown.” (8)

One of the conceits of JFK conspiracists is that JFK was planning to withdraw from Vietnam, so the CIA/Military Industrial complex had him killed to continue the war. This theory was played out in Oliver Stone’s work of fiction JFK. In that film Lyndon Johnson is shown in a smokey room in black and white footage saying “You make me President, and I’ll give you the dam war.” Obviously we’ll never know how a post 63 JFK presidency would have panned out, but during several fact-finding missions during his presidency revealed little progress was being made. The South Vietnamese people didn’t like their government, and it became evident Vietnam could turn into a long war. Kennedy told a journalist, “Those people hate us. They are going to throw our asses out of there at almost any point.” (9) Some believe that he wanted to wait after re-election to withdraw, because if he withdrew before it might cause another Red Scare during the election year. “If I try to pull out completely now, we would have another Joe McCarthy red scare on our hands, but I can do it after I’m re-elected” (10) Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara says that he and the president decided in October of 63 that by the end of 65 all US troops would leave Vietnam. (11) Keep in mind this is all speculative, as no concrete evidence exists either way, not to mention that if true he’d be risking lives just to ensure reelection. Still, this possibility raises the issue that the U.S. government is not as blindly war like as Zinn would believe, and, as we’ll see in the next entry, there was much conflict in the Johnson administration about the war.
1. Zinn, Howard: “A People’s History of the United States” Harper Perennial Modern Classics 2005  470

2. Documentary You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train part 5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AQae38OUQ4

3. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975 McGraw Hill 2002 p 20

4. Levering, Ralph B The Cold War: A Post-Cold War History Harlan Davidson Inc, 1994 p 109

5. Zinn p 471

6. Zinn p 475

7. Herring p 346

8. Herring p 79

9. Herring p 113

10. Levering p 104

11. Levering p 105

 

Howard Zinn, A People’s Champion? Part 21, The Civil Rights Movement

               Zinn on the Civil Rights movement. “The federal government was trying-without making fundamental changes-to control an explosive situation, to channel anger into the traditional cooling mechanism of the ballot box, the polite petition, the officially endorsed quiet gathering.” (1)

Howard Zinn himself was directly involved in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. He was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and personally took part in marches and protests to help blacks register and vote safely. During this time, there was incredible violence as whites viciously attacked and sometimes murdered anyone involved in the civil rights movement. This was the time of legalized segregation, and blacks were restricted from voting via racist ballot taxes and other racist legislation. The ultimate triumph of the 60s is that legal segregation and voting restrictions were ended, allowing all people of color fully utilize their citizenship rights. Zinn’s analysis and cynicism of the very era he lived through is astounding, as he belittles Martin Luther Kings I Have a Dream speech, and dismisses the very Civil Rights laws which passed in its wake.

              “When black civil rights leaders planned a huge march on Washington in the summer of 1963 to protest the failure of the nation to solve the race problem, it was quickly embraced by President Kennedy and other national leaders, and turned into a friendly assemblage.” (2) Zinn basically declares the high-water mark of the civil rights movement to be Martin Luther Kings sell out moment. He quotes nothing of King’s I have a Dream speech, but gives a full page quote to Malcolm X, part of which reads

              “This is what they (the establishment) did with the March on Washington. They joined it… became part of it, took it over. And as they took it over, it lost it’s militancy. It ceased to be angry, it ceased to be hot, it ceased to be uncompromising. Why, it even ceased to be a march. It became a picnic, a circus. Nothing but a circus, with clowns and all…

             Not, it was a sellout. It was a takeover.. The controlled it so tight, they told those Negroes what time to hit town, where to stop, what signs to carry, what song to sing, what speech they could make, and what speech they couldn’t make, and then told them to get out of town by sundown…” (458)

              To support Malcom X’s charges of selling out Zinn quotes Kennedy Adviser from his book A Thousand Days., when Kennedy met with Civil Rights leaders about the march on Washington, which was when Congress was debating Civil Rights Bills. “The conference with the president did persuade the civil rights leaders that they should not lay siege to Capital Hill….. So in 1963 Kennedy moved to incorporate the Negro revolution into the democratic coalition.” (458)

              So does Zinn actually think there should have been violence in Washington? Surely a race riot in the nation’s capital with Martin Luther King present would have done wonders for the Civil Rights movement. (Insert sarcasm here). Zinn subtly says that King was a clown, and has much more sympathy toward Malcolm X.  The thing is King faced problems directly, where Malcolm X did not. For over a decade King continuously put his life on the line. While Malcolm X gave speeches King was jailed and beaten in the march for Civil Rights. Martin Luther King’s dream was for white men and black men to be together at the table of brotherhood, while Malcolm X spoke of retaining segregation, though later he changed these views. King fought for a day where people would be judged not on the color of their skin but on the content of their character, and this is why we have Martin Luther King Day and not Malcolm X day.

              In closing, I could extensively quote the I Have a Dream speech to call out Zinn’s nonsense, but instead I’ll allow you to hear it for yourself. Please watch this, and decide for yourself. Was this a weak speech of a sellout clown, or was it a rousing speech calling for fundamental changes and improvement in American society. 

1. Zinn, Howard: “A People’s History of the United States” Harper Perennial Modern Classics  2005 p 456-457

2. Zinn p 457

3. Zinn 458

4. Zinn 458

Howard Zinn: A People’s Champion? Part 20, The Myth of JFK.

If you want to be cynical about American presidential politics and democratic elections, there may be no better example than the case of John F. Kennedy. Between a fraudulent election, a manufactured image of a young intellect, and cover ups regarding his personal life and family connections,  the JFK mystique is exactly what “People’s History” is talking about. It was a myth, a manufactured symbol used for control and power.

JFK’s father Joseph Kennedy had mafia connections, and John himself had occasional dealings with gangsters. John F. Kennedy graduated Harvard cum laude with the help of a thesis written by New York Times writer Arthur Krock, head of the Washington bureau of the NYT. Krock used his own literary agent to get it published in book form, entitled “While England Slept”. It was a manufactured best seller, as Joe Kennedy bought around 40,000 copies that were stored at a family compound in Hyannisport. (1) Interestingly enough, JFK argued that when facing an enemy America may want to shift to a “voluntary totalitarianism. (2)

JFK’s other alleged book, “Profiles in Courage,” was written by Theodore Sorensen, Jules Davids, who taught Jackie Kennedy at George Washington University, and a group of professional writers and academic historians. It won the Pulitzer for biography after pressure from Arthur Krock, Joe Kennedy, and others. Whoever tried to expose this was sued for libel or even investigated by the FBI. (3) 

Kennedy’s career as a congressmen was made through bribes to the Boston post, political figures, important families, etc. Mafia money was used during his presidential run to bribe election officials. Local sheriffs were given 50,000 to get the Kennedy vote out. Mafia figures who assisted Kennedy were promised leverage in federal investigations. During the campaign Kennedy invented the missile gap, the idea that Eisenhower allowed the Russians to exceed America in its armaments, when in fact America had a good lead in missiles. (4)

One of the defining moments that showed how the media changed 20th century politics was the Nixon Kennedy television debates. People that heard the debate on the radio believed Nixon won, where the TV audience favored Kennedy. This was because (in the first debate) the Kennedy staff asked the studio to have a high room temperature, knowing Nixon sweated easily. The camera showed close ups of Nixon wiping his brow and focusing on his five o clock shadow. Kennedy’s staff arranged for the two candidates to stand the whole time to because Nixon had a weak knee and would be in great pain. (5)

In the election the results from Texas and Illinois were highly suspect. At one polling station for instance, 6,138 votes were counted, but only 4,895 votes were registered. In Illinois, Kennedy won Chicago by 450,000 votes, with overwhelming evidence of fraud that the mafia was a part of. Mob boss Giancana and JFK both shared a mistress in Judith Campbell. Giancana was known to boast to Judith, “Listen honey, if it wasn’t for me your boyfriend wouldn’t even be in the white house.” (6) If Nixon had won Texas and Illinois, he would have won enough electoral votes to get the presidency. President Eisenhower himself urged Nixon to contest the results, but he declined. There’d never been a presidential election recount before, and a recount might have taken 18 months. Nixon accepted fraudulent defeat and even convinced the New York Herald Tribune to cancel a series of 12 articles about the fraud. (four of them were printed) (7)

JFK’s marriage to Jackie was pretty much arranged by Joe, who pleaded with her to not file for divorce due to Jack’s infidelity. JFK’s exploitation of women was unstoppable. In fact while in Naval Intelligence the FBI caught him in an affair with a Danish women suspected of spying for the Nazis. Before each TV debate his staff arranged a prostitute for him, and while president he met some women in secret apartments, accessed by tunnels under the Carlyle hotel in New York City. (8)

 In short, the Kennedy mystique is exactly what Howard Zinn was talking about. It was a manufactured symbol, a myth used for control, created by political elites, the wealthy, and the media, for the sole purpose of gaining power and influence. What did Zinn, a Boston professor, write about this in “People’s History,” absolutely nothing. Why? Who knows, but maybe because that Massachusetts politician was one of the first great heroes of the fabled 1960s. 

1 Johnson, Paul: “A History of the American People” Harper Collins 1999 p 849-850

2 Chafe, William H The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II Fifth Edition 2003 Oxford University Press p 178

3 Chafe p 178

4 Johnson p 852, 853

5 Johnson p 853

6 Johnson p 854

7 Johnson p 854, 855

8 Johnson p 856

Howard Zinn: A People’s Champion? Part 19, The 1950s

       The 1950s and 1960s are a litmus test for American political affiliation. To some conservatives, the 50s were a time of prosperity and ease after the traumatic Great Depression and horrific Second World War. To liberals they were a time of intense racism when segregation still ruled the land, and society as a whole was stricken with mass conformity and social repression. The 1960s sparked mass revolt against institutionalized racism, consumer culture, conformity and militarism. Those years are fondly remembered by liberals as a time when people fought for freedom. Conservatives remember the excesses of the 60s counterculture, and view those years as an unstable and frightening time when the nation was coming apart. It was shocking to older Americans to see their country tearing apart not long after it’s victory over Nazi aggression. The 1950s should be easy pickings for a child of the 60s like Howard Zinn, but it’s interesting to note how much “People’s History” missed in a time so easy to criticize..

              Zinn says nothing of the white suburban culture that developed during the 1950s. It was the era of Levitt towns, planned communities where homes were massed produced/all looked the same. These communities were exclusively white, and when buying a house, it was actually in some of the contracts that the homeowners were not allowed to sell to a person of color. Surely that is a serious indictment of racism in the consumer culture, but People’s history is silent on the matter.

              Though less serious but certainly noteworthy is the social pressures people felt that did live in those suburbs. This was the birth of keeping up with the Jones, when someone in the neighborhood got a TV, new car, etc, every one else in the neighborhood felt they must have one as well. Pressure on married life was equally intense. Divorce was rare, but if someone was divorced they were ostracized from social functions in the neighborhood. Harriet Osborn remembers “It was a couples society. We did things in couples, barbeques, and it was always couples. If we knew that the person was divorced we might have a second thought about asking them. The thing was to be married and keep the home together.”

              Social pressure and conformity were also present for men in the workforce. This was the era of the man in the grey flannel suit. IBM salesmen Roy Moskow says “There was a lot of choices for colored shirts as long as they were white. I was told where to buy my clothes.” Jack Trachsel adds “You were expected to have at least 2 drinks at lunch, preferably martinis.”           

       It also wasn’t the era of women in the workforce. If women did work in business they were secretaries and they had to be good looking. Roy Moskow adds “There were no female managers, none. It wasn’t even considered.”

              Television became part of American life in the 50s, and big business quickly found out that by developing programming aimed at families, they could reach a mass audience to which consumer products could be advertised to. There’s very easy criticisms here regarding artistic sensibilities and the excesses of consumer culture, but these are absent from Zinn’s account.

             “People’s History” is praised for recording voices of protest, but Zinn neglects his activist fathers the Beatniks. Writers like William S. Burroughs (who coined the phrase Heavy Metal) and Allen Ginsberg wrote poetry and novels like Howl and Naked Lunch, critiquing the conformist American culture and the very consumer materialistic mindset just mentioned. Why does Zinn neglect his counterculture forerunners? Could it be because they weren’t political per say, their protest wasn’t against Washington but against general consumer culture? Is that not good enough to be included?

              While 60s heroes like Bob Dylan get mention in People’s History, Rock N Roll and it’s racial origins are absent. When early Rock N Roll pioneers like Little Richard were heard on the radio, whites, and blacks could not see the color of their skin, they just knew the music was good. In it’s own way Rock N Roll played a part in breaking down racial barrier. The story of Elvis Presley is of particular interest. Though not consciously a social activist, his very presence and style inflamed white southern racists, who hated seeing this white performer dressing and sounding like blacks. The early story of rock n roll was certainly worthy of conclusion in “People’s History,” as was the Beatniks and their protest against consumer/conformist culture.

              Quotes taken from ABC documentary Our Century: America’s Time. Volume 4, Happy Days

Howard Zinn: A People’s Champion? Part 18, The Korean War

       “People’s History” says very little about the Korean War, it’s covered in two pages. Even in Zinn’s account it seems to be the Forgotten War. In this scant account Zinn claims that the United States disingenuously lured the United Nations into a small  civil war in Asia. Outside the narrative of “People’s History,” he basically says the war never should have been fought. Interestingly enough, the actual events of the Korean War, perhaps more than any other war, go against Zinn’s thesis of a blindly war mongering United States that only causes wars to suppress domestic rebellion.

              Why was an army sent into what could be viewed as a Korean Civil War? To President Truman it was a test of his country’s credibility as leader of the non-communist world. Truman is quoted as saying

        ”If this were to go unchallenged it would mean a third world war, just as similar incidents had brought on the Second World War…. It was clear to me that the foundations and the principles of the United Nations were at stake unless this unprovoked attack on Korea could be stopped.” (1)

       After some skirmishes back and forth between the two, North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25th, 1950. To fit his thesis of a non-Soviet threat, Zinn could have said that North Korea acted independently of the Soviet Union, but he doesn’t. Zinn claims the UN action against North Korea was a ploy by the US. “The United Nations, dominated by the United states, asked it’s members to help “repel the armed attack.”" (2) Zinn neglects to tell us that the Soviet Union was on the UN Security Council, through which they could have blocked the UN action. However, at the time they boycotted the UN for not recognizing the new Chinese communist government. This was a lucky break for Truman, which allowed him to fight the war under the UN. Regarding the UN forces, Zinn says, “The American army became the U.N. army.” (3) Although Americans made up the majority of UN forces, given they had the highest population, Zinn seems condescendingly dismissive of other countries that sent troops. Those countries include the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Greece, Ethiopia, Luxemburg, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, the Netherlands, Columbia, and New Zealand. Also Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, and India sent medical teams. At the Korean War museum in Seoul South Korea, there are plaques for each country that sent troops, that lists every soldier that died. (For America there’s one for each state.) For the alleged people’s champion to seemingly dismiss the contributions of soldiers around the world who died for South Korea is shameful.

              Zinn correctly notes that the UN did more than repel the North’s attack. US commander Joseph MacArthur invaded North Korea, thinking China, which bordered North Korea, would never get involved. Of course they did, which caused the war to end in a stalemate. Joseph MacArthur is never mentioned by Zinn. It’s not mentioned how he disobeyed President Truman and crossed the 38th parallel in the spring of 1951, and in fact wanted to take the war into China itself, using atomic bombs no less. (You learn this in high school by the way) As a result he was fired by Truman, who did not want to risk a wider war. (4)

              The thesis of “People’s History” is that America gets involved in wars only to suppress domestic rebellion. If this is the case why did Truman not follow Macarthur’s advice and wage nuclear war on China? Wouldn’t armed conflict with the world’s most populous country last a while? By Zinn’s own logic America could have declared war on China, and the evil elite could have used that to suppress the then budding Civil Rights movement. If America is so blindly war mongering as Zinn claims why didn’t it do just that?

              But one of the easiest criticisms of the Korean War Zinn completely misses. That is that South Korea was not a democracy. The Korean War was an instance where, like Indonesia, Vietnam, Greece, and Nicaragua, the US supported a right-wing dictatorship against Communist aggression. Wouldn’t it be a perfectly sound argument to point out that South Korea was not a democracy, and didn’t become so until the late 1980s?

              Either way, I’d like to step outside the narrative of “People’s History” for a moment. In the 2005 edition, there is an interview in the back with Howard Zinn. In it he says

              “Well Korea is an example of a situation that I have described as pointing to an important difference between just cause and just war. A cause may be just-in other words, the defense of South Korea against an invasion by North Korea may be a just cause-but a just cause is not necessarily corrected by war. And so it may be wrong for North Korea to invade South Korea, but it’s pretty hard to justify the killing of several million people in order to prevent one half of a divided country’s military action to unify that country, even though that action may be unjust. So I think it was a misguided, immoral decision to go to war in Korea. We spent three years at war-where were we at the end of it, with three million people dead? We still had dictatorial regimes in both North Korea and South Korea. “(6)

              Again in the text of people’s history he doesn’t mention the dictatorship of South Korea. Yes South Korea was a dictatorship, but it is not now. Today it’s one of the biggest economies in the world, while North Korea is still a dictatorship. The differences between wealth, health, and quality of life between North and South Korea are astounding. If the UN did not intervene, then the whole Korean peninsula would be under dictatorship today. Is that not immoral? I say shame to the alleged people’s champion.

1 Levering, Ralph B The Cold War: A Post-Cold War History Harlan Davidson Inc, 1994 47

2  Zinn, Howard: “A People’s History of the United States” Harper Perennial Modern Classics  2005 p 427

3 Zinn p 427

4 Levering p 50

5 Appendix to “People’s History” interview with Zinn. p 6