Britain as a Superpower, 1945-1957

I notice that Professor Weinberg has been following the news. So perhaps you can

fill us in on the national emergency. No. I’m reading a 19th

century Italian novel, but I can fill you in on the plague and the alarm.

OK. We have two guests this afternoon. Our principal speakers, Derek Liebert,

but we also have David Whately from U.T. Arlington. He is the author of the book

on Eisenhower, Churchill, Eden and the Cold War. And David, we’re very glad

that you could drive down from Arlington this morning to be with us this afternoon.

Derek Liebert has written several books

about the bureaucracies in Britain and the United States and

above all, on the problem of the Cold War. His

books include From Korea to Afghanistan,

Special Operations and the Destiny of Nations

and How America’s Cold War Victory Shapes Our World.

And the most recent book, America Confronts the British

Superpower. Derek, we’re very glad to have you with us, sir.

For your loss. It’s an honor to be invited

to talk at the preeminent center of British studies,

and what I propose to talk about over the next 40 minutes is

less history per say than teasing out as we

go along how this story pertains to today.

The last book that Professor Lewis referred to is titled Grand Improvisation.

America Confronts the British Superpower. Nineteen forty five to fifty seven.

And therein are explicit lessons for today, because unless

one understands this story and the context, it makes it pretty

hard to fully grasp America’s insularity that we’re seeing once

more in our retreat from alliance systems.

It makes it tricky as well to understand the British perspective

on European unity and federation or indeed events

in the Middle East. It also, unless

we take a closer look, it’s hard to understand the preeminent players

of those dozen years, say, after World War 2, starting

with Churchill, disliked as biographers always do. Churchill’s

return to power in October fifty one and his second time

at Downing Street until April 1955 just glosses over

what, say, one of his successors, Harold Macmillan, saw as the

most dramatic time of Churchill’s life and arguably the most articulate

with the most riveting of speeches. But biographers such as a recent thousand-page

biography would devote 30 pages to Churchill again as prime

minister. It also means that we’re unfamiliar

with some of the Titanic one time figures of American history

figures who, after World War Two, stood against the sky and are now completely

forgotten by Treasury Secretary John Westway Snyder, who is easily the

most powerful secretary of the Treasury in U.S. history, which I’ll refer to as

we proceed. My purpose also is

to correct many, many of the myths that surround

those dozen years after World War 2 and that keep on echoing through the decades

through today until they even get into the history textbooks to

further mislead notions about the Truman Doctrine of 1947

that are demonstrably incorrect, or about how America initially

got entangled in Vietnam in the early nineteen fifties.

Or, for instance, how the US abetted

what Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion on New Year’s Eve nineteen

forty nine saw as a declaration of war by the British Empire against

Israel. How all of this has been lost and forgotten and is highly worth

revisiting for current purposes. Most of all, I want to debunk

one of the most vexing myths of the 20th century that

strong words shape affairs today. And this is the myth. It’s universally

believed that after World War Two, Britain was so dispirited,

worn down, financially weak that it didn’t have the gumption

and the spirit to maintain its global role, and that the U.S., as

the new superpower, arrived and assumed

various worldwide responsibilities. That’s quite, quite the contrary

of what happened has I will argue. Indeed, the

term superpower was coined in 1944 by a professor at Columbia

University and the British Empire. And Commonwealth was the archetypical

superpower, all the more so after World War Two ended. Of course,

the US had an atomic monopoly. Of course we had unsurpassed industrial waste.

Soviet Russia, for its part, was the greatest unitary land powered history with

the mightiest, mightiest army that ever existed. But by the definitions

of a superpower, which. Means global deployment, network of alliances,

ability to project power into every corner of the planet. A 10 tacular intelligence

apparatus worldwide. There was for a number of years after

World War Two. Only one superpower, the US, came rather late

into the game. If we look at nineteen forty five

as Churchill is prime minister, until that summer

he’s elected. He’s ousted from power ignominiously to

the surprise of many. And into office come the Labor

Party. Bully boys. These are tough guys. These are

men who had grown up in anything but a school of moderation,

whereas Churchill and FDR could talk with some sympathy about Stalin

and Stalinism. That wasn’t remotely the case with the tough guys of the British

Labor Party. And the story through nineteen forty six nineteen

forty seven is very much the most form of no formidable of British Foreign Secretary

Ernest Bevin, the son of a 40 year old washer woman. He never knew who his

father was. Rose to probably be the foremost foreign

secretary in British history about how Devon very

much stood up to Stalinism and as we’ll also see,

wrote a great deal of U.S. policy standing up during the Berlin blockade of 1948.

And not least, entering NATO. The British were

not bankrupt, as Max Hastings and other historians would argue.

In 1945 are in dire financial straits. But bankruptcy is a

unambiguous word. It doesn’t lend itself to

squishiness. The British were not bankrupt. They were in financial currency

exchange predicaments. The Americans

didn’t regard the British as bankrupt at all. We believed they were going to be quite the contender

in the post war world. Britain’s two great trading

rivals had been wiped off the map. Japan and Germany.

Britain was expected to recover fast, especially with the

help of a US loan, a one time loan as it was supposed to be,

and let it not be forgotten. The British had the commanding heights of the industries

of the future that would be Jet Aviation Lifesciences

and very quickly atomic civil civilian power.

They also had a sprawling empire, quarter

of the globe, 600 million people. The U.S.,

which traditionally has lived behind its ocean

moats and high tariffs, came very slowly to

an understanding that there was an Anglo-Saxon colossus on the planet

that hadn’t the slightest interest in stepping aside.

A one time loan for British recovery was made in December

nineteen forty five. It nearly didn’t get

ratified by or approved by Congress because of events in the Middle East and Palestine.

It was a near run thing. The British were then expected to get into gear real

fast and assume a role perhaps

as global peacekeepers, as partners. It all remained unclear.

Maybe FDR type decolonization was to be preferred.

What got into focus in nineteen forty seven, however, was Americans

becoming more and more fearful of Stalinism and the British in

early nineteen forty seven Buffalo Wing. The Americans ever more into

a global role. The British and nine

teen. Forty seven February March. The great Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin announced

that Oh, we are going to leave Greece, which had been a longtime British

political military interest. They implied they would leave the eastern Mediterranean as well.

I would argue that the weight of evidence, the British had no such intention. Proof is that

they escalated during that time. The Americans, however, we got the bit

in our teeth. We appropriated massive amounts of money. The Truman Doctrine is a

blank check essentially to counter terrorism and terrorist activities anywhere

in the world and move relatively fast. We did it to

global political military engagements greatest by

end of forty seven were again in financial straits. The US helped bail them

out. Recovery was always believed was going to be right around the corner.

The inflection point, as they say in business, occurred in nineteen forty eight. That’s

where the Americans got truly, truly scared. Ten years

after Munich, the Czech coup of March

nineteen forty eight. When the last parliamentary

system in Eastern Europe was crushed by the Stalinists. And then, of course,

the Berlin blockade, it was at that point that U.S. ambivalence

toward the British Empire and Commonwealth and what they brought to the table ended pretty

deep. Quickly we realized that we wanted big

mediating bodies between ourselves and the rest of the messy world. Perhaps the British

Empire. Hopefully the UN. It’s hard to see

the US thrusting out for power, certainly at that

time. The British also

had enormous displays of political military might.

For example, the 1948 Olympics were held in

London, not in Baltimore as some had thought, or in MMOs on which was

another contender. But George the six had quietly used his influence to make

sure that they would be in London, as had been planned before World War 2. It was a

marvelous spectacle. It was done to impress the world that London was not a

bombed out city, the biggest in the world, but that it was a vibrant,

exciting center of the planet. The Berlin blockade certainly got

U.S. attention, especially when Churchill that summer compared it to Munich

diffidence in going into the world. One, we expected the British to do half of

that storied era left in the Berlin airlift. They weren’t supposed

to carry half the tonnage. And the Americans also held back from

any single military commitment on the continent. For example,

had the Red Army blasted to the west toward the channel,

the shortest way would have been to go through the British occupation zone

of western Germany. The American military was under explicit orders. If the Red Army does

that, just stand down. Don’t do anything. Only respond if American troops

are attacked. That policy didn’t change until Truman had been safely

elected. That November of forty eight. So time and time again, we see

the U.S. standing back, certainly in Europe. What was

underway in the Middle East was an unusual tale because

that is the one area that the US did get engaged in in

the future of Palestine. It was

done because of American homeland passions, guilt about

the Holocaust. The uncertainty of the British military commitment.

And Israel, of course, declared its independence in May 1948.

And the Truman administration was the first to recognize an independent

Israel, utterly contrary to the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and

to Secretary of State Marshall. That was a cynical move by

Harry Truman, who had no especially strong feelings about Israel. That is

demonstrated by what happened fast after Truman was elected in 48.

The British, as well as the Americans, had had enough of Zionist terror

that is shown in September and Zionist terrorists what it was called at the time by all concerned.

That was shown in September 1948, when Foreign

Secretary Ernest Bevin and Secretary of State George Marshall stood on the tarmac

at Orly Airport as the body of the U.N. peace negotiator

Count folk. Bernadette was taken off of the C-47. They agreed that enough

was enough. In the Middle East, war was raging between the

Arabs and the Israelis. The Israelis had the best of it, which was not a surprise

to many of the Americans, such as Undersecretary of State

Bob Lovett, who had predicted an easy Israeli victory given the weight of Israeli

manpower and technology. The Israelis go storming into

Egypt. The Egyptians had a defense relationship with the British.

What I referred to previously on New Year’s Eve, 1948

that has essentially been lost in the archives is the British gave

an ultimatum to Ben-Gurion leave Egypt immediately

or the worst will fall significantly.

That was handed to Ben-Gurion under Truman’s signature by the American

ambassador in Israel because the British didn’t recognize Israel. And Ben-Gurion’s

response was this is a declaration of war from the British Empire.

And of course, Israel left Egypt within the first week of January.

Nineteen forty nine. This is not an historical curiosity

because this information with deliberately leaked by Dwight Eisenhower on February 16th,

give up Egyptian territory. So as you can see, the world is in this kaleidoscopic

mess. By nineteen forty nine. Whether it’s Europe, the origins of NATO,

the US is pushed, pushed, pushed by the new allies to commit manpower

to Europe. Utterly contrary to what Congress had

pledged over and over, Congress was told there’ll be no American troops remaining in

Western Europe. The US had minimal competence and its ground forces

that were there. About twelve tanks in the US army were

capable of combat in nineteen forty nine. Remember as well that the British

were the slowest to demobilize after World War 2. The Americans.

The Russians demobilized real fast. The British much, much slower.

And what the press reported was a million

British imperial troops worldwide and about a thousand garrisons. That wasn’t

too far off as would be proved.

The British, of course, were in their currency, squeezes over and over again. However, British productivity

had boomed far beyond anyone’s imagination. After World War Two.

And let’s not forget what was happening on the US scene. This is constantly forgotten

by historians. Americans lived under the terrible, terrible shadow

of the depression. The Americans were utterly convinced,

except for a very few economists, that that depression would come

roaring back in 1946. Why? Because 10 million youngish

men were being demobilized because of a supposedly crippling

one hundred and twenty eight percent of GDP national debt, and because of

the complete cut down in government demand. It was certain the depression was going to come back

and the Republicans got elected to sweep the Congress in November.

Forty six. And you can see every decision

in U.S. foreign policy significantly for about the next 10 years

was influenced by fear of the renewed depression. Right. Until full. Fifty

four. Fifty five. China, of course, to look at another

part of the world, was supposedly being swallowed by Stalin

and our ally, John Kai shek, not to be

the last. Corruption, incompetence. His forces

were caving fast, and it looked as if all

of Sino Soviet communist expansion was swallowing up

much of the globe. To add to the horrors of 1948

was what was truly expected to be the worst economic smash up

by far of the twentieth century. It was barely averted in 1949.

That was the one example in U.S. history where the State Department was functionally taken over by

the Department of the Treasury to work out that crisis, which was avoided by a whisker.

So China is falling or being lost to the Russian.

The Russians then, to America’s universal horror, come up with an atomic bomb

in August nineteen forty nine. The British are in another currency

squeeze hand Washington again, as in forty

seven around the Truman Doctrine starts panicking. What does this mean? What

might become of the British Empire? What does this mean for America’s role in

the world? What was launched on September 1st? Nineteen forty nine, ten years

to the day after Hitler invaded Poland was one of the most consequential of National

Security Council reports and studies that

I think has been undertaken ever. And the purpose

was to understand the future of the British Empire and how it pertained

to American interests. It was an enormously ambitious study.

Ten months were devoted to it starting September 1st. Forty nine. By the time it

ended in July 1950, America would be

at war. It was an attempt to audit the empire, to quantify what were British

capabilities around the world and how did that play into U.S. interests.

It required top level studies by the Department of Defense, by Central Intelligence,

with involvement for Treasury. And the studies were coordinated

on the National Security Council staff at the White House NSA. Seventy five

ultimately had an anodyne title, British military

commitments, British military capabilities. But this is why

it is significant. The conclusion was that the

British Empire and Commonwealth hadn’t retreated one whit since 1945.

Nor would it be likely to retreat or be weakened in the foreseeable

future. Through the 1950s. And if it did so, that would

be seriously compromised to the US geopolitical

position. Because Americans, for reasons financial, technological

and experiential, were unable to fill the role that the British Empire still

possessed as peacekeepers. So you hear that. And you’d say, well, what about

the British getting out of Palestine and 47

giving independence to what became India and Pakistan? How could anyone

look at a portrait of the world mid-century point and say the British Empire hadn’t

retreated and might be as strong as ever? It’s, by the way, that was both

presented by the British and understood by the Americans.

The British, for example, had not left India and Pakistan. Quite

the contrary. The Foreign Office Secretary BEVAN was explicit about this. The

empire was now stronger than ever in the subcontinent. Why? Because why did into

its global, financial, political and military alliance system now was the

largest democracy in the world. India and the world’s largest Muslim

nation, Pakistan. Therefore, this made

the global entity of the empire and Commonwealth all the stronger.

So one finds titans of the U.S. Senate, like Robert Taft of Ohio,

easily the most powerful man on Capitol Hill, saying the British

haven’t become weakened. They are reorganizing. They are decentralizing

the whole entity with its million men. It’s who knows what in

reserve. It’s global deployments is as strong as ever. And

as the world is crumbling, or so it’s seen losing China. Soon,

Soviet Russian aggression in Korea. The empire is needed. The US can

do it. That is the mid century perspective.

That is essentially the summary of National Security Council report.

Seventy five that Truman received just within weeks

of Stalin launching the Korean War. There has been some ambiguity

among scholars about Soviet culpability. The question is open and shut. Stalin

had been preparing and pushing the North Korean attack

on the South since March 1949 with

enormous numbers of tons of petroleum logistical equipment.

Moving across Russia to prepare the invasion of

June 25th, nineteen fifty. The Americans

then had a disastrous experience

in Korea. The original mission, of course, was to rescue South Korea

from communist Stalinist aggression. We

nearly were kicked off the peninsula, but General MacArthur was

able to then rout the North Koreans in September 1950. Again,

the Americans got the bit between their teeth. Indeed, encouraged by the British, as

has been forgotten, and we charged into North Korea right up to the Chinese

border. What followed, as you know, is

the worst defeat in American history, certainly the longest military retreat ever

in our history. Korea. To this end, can be seen as

our first of quite a few failed wars in a row. Five thousand

Americans were killed to accomplish the

original mission of rescuing South Korea. A twenty eight

thousand were killed in the failed invasion of North Korea. To

that end, by the time the Korean armistice occurred in

July, fifty three. It was a sad

defeat for the United States. And one of the rallying points was never

again, never again would America find itself in such a position

in the Middle East is in various

forms of turmoil, certainly in Iran. Iranian

nationalists, patriots, however, want to defy them at the time.

Nationalized the Anglo Iranian oil company.

The British got all set to invade in summer. Nineteen

fifty one to invade Iran. The fact that the Russians

still had a friendship treaty with Iran and it made it abundantly clear

that the British entered Iran, the Russians would then intervene themselves, didn’t seem to hold back

the Labor government one whit. Again, these are tough

guys who knew communism and had fought the communists nearly in the streets

in the 20s and 30s and defending their labor unions. Let’s not also

overlook some of the provocative attempts of some of the toughest of these labor bully boys like

Nye BEVAN, who was touting preemptive war against the Soviets.

He suggested a British preemptive attack and

forty seven and then again in forty eight, with or without the Americans. But

the Russians could not be allowed to become too strong. The empire had to respond.

So the empire, which according to today’s historians and supposedly left to the

eastern Mediterranean in forty seven, hadn’t even begun to flex its muscles.

It assembled a seventy thousand man invasion force to make short work of Iraq.

This got the Americans attention real, real fast. And

cables from the White House state and the Spanish, especially the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Stand down. Stand down. Prime Minister Clement Atlee of Britain had the sense

not to proceed, but by this time the Labor government was tired and weary.

And Churchill was circling in for the kill. And he was mocking

the Labor government for its kicked Spaniel diplomacy.

And he won. To no one’s surprise. In October

rough time. The notion of Churchill being a friend

of Franklin Roosevelt, or at least FDR being a friend of Churchill’s is fanciful.

Jon Meacham has written a book about the classic friendship of FDR and Churchill. There

was nothing remotely like that. Churchill was a romantic. He might have romanticized his ties

to FDR. Franklin Roosevelt did not have friends, male

male friends, anyway. And

Churchill returning to power was now under no constraint

to suck up to the Americans, as he had been compelled to do throughout World War Two.

There’s still so much about Churchill that hasn’t been understood. A lot of which is distilled into

his second time in power. Churchill was often

called in his own country a Yankee careerist because of course, he was half American

and he was a careerist. And when he came to power and the men

he brought to power had few doubts about

where the British Empire and Commonwealth stood in the world.

They realised, of course, its financial constraints.

They understood utterly its industrial advantages, especially in

jet aviation, which the Americans still had to license. They understood as

well that if the United States had any hope of ever attacking Russia

or counter Russia, it would have to be done off of British airfields because the B

thirty six bombers hadn’t been brought online yet.

Remember, we had atomic bombing airfields

in Britain since the Berlin blockade. In theory, we needed British permission

to attack the Soviet Union. Churchill began playing

hardball right away with the Americans. He implied that those bases

could be removed if he saw fit. He implied as well that if he got jerked around

too much by the Americans over Iran and over European Federation,

he might pull the British Commonwealth division out of Korea.

He spoke about the immense expenses that the British public was bearing

for the sake of defending American interests around the world. Malaya

specifically with its exports of tin and

rubber. The British position from the Labor government

to the Conservative government and foreign policy changed little.

The British argued tirelessly that the only

way to defend a colony of Malaya with its vital exports that were

needed not only for the health of the British economy, but for the European economy because of the British

went down, Europe with Western Europe was expected to go down. The only way Malaya could

be defended was along the Mekong and in Vietnam,

and the French couldn’t do it themselves. And the Americans have to become engaged, as

we did to write a book. As one prominent diplomatic

historian does about the origins of America’s war in Vietnam, embers of war,

and to neglect the role of the British, and especially that High Commissioner

Malcolm Macdonald in Southeast Asia. It’s like writing a book about

America’s war in the Pacific against Japan and not mentioning Malcolm meant

not mentioning General MacArthur.

Malcolm McDonald was the British High Commissioner in Southeast Asia.

He ruled out of the world’s largest naval facility

still, which was Singapore. It was that Asian equivalent

of Suez, which was military forces. Middle

East only Norfolk, Virginia, might have rivaled Singapore at that

time. Malcolm McDonald was easily the most

influential figure on U.S. foreign policy concerning Southeast Asia

from as soon as we got aware of Indo-China 46 right

through right until fifty five. Everybody in Washington

concerned with U.S. Asian policy

made their pilgrimage to Singapore to get briefed by McDonald.

Highly convincing. He was known as the wise man of Asia. So if you’re

a congressman, Jack Kennedy, if you’re a brand new

vise, President Richard Nixon, if you’re the publisher of The New York Times or

if you’re Harry Luce running the Time-Life Empire, you go to Singapore

and you get your briefing from Malcolm Macdonald. Malcolm Macdonald will helpfully

fly you over the Malay and jungle, although he stopped that practice when Adlai

Stevenson had a near-fatal helicopter crash. But it will always show you that

the only way to defend Malaya and all of Southeast Asia is to draw the

line in Vietnam, which means backing the French and where they are with you to.

Back the French.

The Middle East, of course, is in its septic.

Terror for terror and was

getting into messier predicaments by

was far more accommodating to British interests. It essentially served as the trigger man, as

one historian called it, for the British to get rid of the Mosaddeq government

in Israel and Palestine. Back and forth, threats,

violence. But the US, the Eisenhower administration

increasingly realized it couldn’t stay away. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was

the first secretary of state ever to go to the Middle East, which he did on May

that afternoon of May 11th, the afternoon of May 11th, Greenwich

Mean Time. Churchill stood up in parliament and he had two messages.

One, that the Americans were unhelpfully obstructionist in dealing with the Soviets.

Stalin having died in March. And two,

moreover, and this was his true point right at this minute as we speak here

in parliament paraphrased his eloquence. The American

secretary of state is right. Arriving in Cairo as I’m speaking

and we have special agreements with the Americans. And in a

nutshell, he insisted to the world, speaking in parliament as secretary of state, Dulles lands in Cairo

that the British and the Americans were totally aligned against the forces of Egyptian

nationalism, which was outrageously untrue.

But he wasn’t just misspeaking because as Douglas is trying to calm the waters

of Egyptian nationalists, in May 1953, a new

military junta had seized power the year before. Churchill sends

in a commando battalion to bulk up in Suez, which

by then had perhaps one hundred and sixty thousand fighting men

in support facilities. That was the British occupation against which the

Egyptian nationalists screamed.

By 1954, guerrilla war against the

British had pushed and gone a long way for a Suez deal for the

British to yield in Suez. And I won’t go into the Suez crisis itself, but

it is intertwined with relations deteriorating within Israel.

The Eisenhower administration had a particularly

clear cut approached at handling Israel. It was to take Israel before the

United Nations Security Council for sanctions for what Eisenhower called expansion

and violence. And Israel was condemned.

And the United Nations at UW urging first in March

to Suez and what we saw one

way or another, despite the threats now for sanctions against Israel as

it was terror and counter-terror across the borders, was

the Middle East turning ever more into a dangerous morass that we couldn’t stay away from?

Most of you all of you, I’m sure, are familiar with the Suez Crisis. Britain,

France and Israel collude to invade Egypt. The Americans, essentially, the Eisenhower

administration saw it as an attack on ourselves. We came down hard with threats and

sanctions. This led in late December,

early 57 to what Eisenhower, Secretary of State Dulles

and Richard Nixon together called the Declaration

of Independence from British Authority. And they called it a Declaration of Independence.

No longer would we be

deferential would we bite our tongues in dealing with

imperial foreign policy. The Declaration of Independence was

repeated at least twice and once by the Canadians. And

you could see official language in the US change overnight. Until then,

the Americans had spoken about the United States as a leader of the. Ringworld World

Eisenhower asserts this Declaration of Independence. And from here on in right through today, we are

the leader of the free world, the leader of the West. Looking back, Richard

Nixon would say it was only at this point that America asserted itself in

the world as leader of the West. The story, in conclusion,

doesn’t end with Suez, but I end it with Sputnik because the spook

nick success in October 57 was, of course, an ICBM

competition between the Americans and the Russians. And the Russians

showed that they had the most effective satellite and ICBM combination first.

It wasn’t just the shock of being able to launch a satellite around

the world. It was that America’s launches on live TV kept on failing and failing for months

as our ICBM blew up. And it led to a great sense of vulnerability

in the US. The combination of this feeling of exposure

to thermonuclear disintegration, plus this declaration of independence from the British Empire,

really now let the Americans move forth very much on

their own, asserting their primacy by now,

by any definition, we were a superpower that was no longer a concern with having British air bases

or not. Giant forest, all class aircraft carriers were being deployed. US had more

bases worldwide. We clearly were playing to our

strengths mass producing everything from military hardware to thermonuclear

warheads. The end point comments where U.S. foreign

policy, I would argue, truly changed in the early sixties. That magnetic young senator from Massachusetts

who spoke of a world half slave, half free, who spoke of the red tide

coming in under the Eisenhower administration, who mocked that five starred

golf playing general camping out in the White House. This was all the excitement

of emergency and foreign policy henceforth would bring

in academics. Year by year, professional foreign service officers

would be marginalized by the appointees of the political spoils system as it is today.

And this infatuation with emergency, with excitement,

with America, its role in the world

full of the belief that everybody truly wants to be like us, that we could manage

the planet as well as we manage our multi-trillion dollar domestic economy,

that there is very little need to do our homework, that interventions in Vietnam

or Iraq would be a cinch. All of these are the delusions and excitements with which we live today.

And that is why it is worth going back and reexamining the sources

of how we got to where we are.