George Lewis's List: Cold War

• NPR's Tom Bowman
• Eisenhower was worried about the costs of an arms race with the Soviet Union, and the resources it would take from other areas — such as building hospitals and schools.
• was the possibility that as the military and the arms industry gained power, they would be a threat to democracy, with civilians losing control of the military-industrial complex.
• Another concern
• America's new reliance on sophisticated weapons technology also helped bring about
• "a technology race with the Soviets."
• And that meant that weapons manufacturing became more specialized.
• Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
• Gates talked about America's insatiable appetite for more and more weapons:

• "Does the number of warships we have, and are building, really put America at risk, when the U.S. battle fleet is larger than the next 13 navies combined — 11 of which are our partners and allies?

  Is it a dire threat that by 2020, the United States will have only 20 times more advanced stealth fighters than China?

• Gates has also discussed the difficulty of cutting military spending:

  "What it takes is the political will and willingness, as Eisenhower possessed, to make hard choices — choices that will displease powerful people both inside the Pentagon, and out."

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• But in general, the administration did whatever it could, short of releasing confidential data from U-2 spy planes, to convey that it did not share the conclusions of the Gaither Report.
• After all, who was behind the faulty intelligence and calls for military buildup in the Gaither Report?
• trade journals catering to the aerospace industry.
• these publications became a venue for the largely unfiltered views of the military establishment
• There were also ads for the raw materials needed to make planes and rockets: titanium, graphite, rubber, stainless steel, aluminum. Layered on top of that were dozens of subindustries that had sprung up after the war, many of which straddled the line between public subsidy and private enterprise: makers of helicopters, circuit breakers, aircraft bolts, aircraft engines, roller bearings, navigation and radar systems, aircraft spark plugs, rockets and much else. A typical full-page ad from January 1957, for example, hawks a product made by the Radio Corporation of America—RCA, at the time, the 25th largest company in America, with nearly 80,000 employees and well over a billion dollars in annual revenue. Most Americans associated it with radios and televisions, but RCA also—as this ad made clear—had a “defense electronic products” division that made guidance systems for Air Force planes. An illustration shows seven white Air Force fighters, each with its system trained on a large, black, unmarked aircraft. The copy promises readers, “Fire control radar tells WHERE TO AIM/WHEN TO FIRE!”
• Most advertising seeks to sell a product or service to multiple customers. For leading-edge military products with national security implications, there was only one customer—the Pentagon.
• Repeatedly, I saw Ike angered by the excesses, both in text and advertising, of the aerospace-electronics press, which advocated ever bigger and better weapons to meet an ever bigger and better Soviet threat they had conjured up.”
• A New York Times reporter wrote that Eisenhower had let it be known that he “believed political and financial influences rather than military considerations alone were playing an unwarranted part in the defense debate.”
• he was well down the path of frustration with the influence, and confluence, of military and industrial power

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• In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.
• America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.
• noble goals
• threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world
• a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties
• each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs
• • What is Ike saying (in your own words)?  Why is he saying it?
• A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment.
• Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
• Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry
• we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions
• an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience
• In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
• We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes
• Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals
• Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow.
• Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect
• Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment
• I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.
• May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.

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• 861.00/2 - 2246: Telegram

   

  The Charge in the Soviet Union (Kennan) to the Secretary of State
• I cannot compress answers into single brief message without  yielding to what I feel would be dangerous degree of over-simplification.

• (1) Basic features of post-war Soviet outlook.

   

  (2) Background of this outlook

   

  (3) Its projection in practical policy on official level.

   

  (4) Its projection on unofficial level.

   

  (5) Practical deductions from standpoint of US policy
• USSR still lives in antagonistic "capitalist encirclement" with which in the long run there can be no permanent peaceful coexistence
• there will emerge two centers of world significance:
• Battle between these two centers for command of world economy will decide fate of capitalism and of communism in entire world."
• Smart capitalists, vainly seeking escape from inner conflicts of capitalism, incline toward latter
• Conflicts between capitalist states, though likewise fraught with danger for USSR, nevertheless hold out great possibilities for advancement of socialist cause, particularly if USSR remains militarily powerful, ideologically monolithic and faithful to its present brilliant leadership.
• from standpoint of Soviet policy?
• • Soviets must:
    - advance USSR strength
    - reduce strength of capitalist
    - exploit differences/conflicts between capitalist powers
    - 
• advance relative strength of USSR
• reduce strength and influence, collectively as well as individually, of capitalist powers
• Second, please note that premises on which this party line is based are for most part simply not true. Experience has shown that peaceful and mutually profitable coexistence of capitalist and socialist states is entirely possible.
• Finally we have the unsolved mystery as to who, if anyone, in this great land actually receives accurate and unbiased information about outside world.
• There is good reason to suspect that this Government is actually a conspiracy within a conspiracy; and I for one am reluctant to believe that Stalin himself receives anything like an objective picture of outside world.
• We have now seen nature and background of Soviet program. What may we expect by way of its practical implementation?
• Internal policy devoted to increasing in every way strength and prestige of Soviet state:
• Wherever it is considered timely and promising, efforts will be made to advance official limits of Soviet power.
• Russians will participate officially in international organizations where they see opportunity of extending Soviet power or of inhibiting or diluting power of others.
• I reiterate, Moscow has no abstract devotion to UNO ideals. Its attitude to that organization will remain essentially pragmatic and tactical.
• Toward colonial areas and backward or dependent peoples, Soviet policy,
• directed toward weakening of power and influence and contacts of advanced Western nations
• a vacuum which will favor Communist-Soviet penetration.
• nternational economic matters, Soviet policy will really be dominated by pursuit of autarchy for Soviet Union and Soviet-dominated adjacent areas taken together
• underlying policy
• I think it possible Soviet foreign trade may be restricted largely to Soviet's own security sphere, including occupied areas in Germany, and that a cold official shoulder may be turned to principle of general economic collaboration among nations

• Actual manifestations of Soviet policy in this respect will be restricted to arid channels of closely shepherded official visits and functions, with superabundance of vodka and speeches and dearth of permanent effects.

   

  (h) Beyond this, Soviet official relations will take what might be called "correct" course with individual foreign governments, with great stress being laid on prestige of Soviet Union and its representatives and with punctilious attention to protocol as distinct from good manners
• they are in reality working closely together as an underground operating directorate of world communism, a concealed Comintern tightly coordinated and directed by Moscow.

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