History 468-for Jan 29-lecture outline

 

Vietnam War--Origins

·         Vietnam War brought to the surface the problems inherent in the US effort to manage the global political economy

·         ROAD TO U.S. involvement against VIETNAM: paved by the postwar order—logical, inescapable outgrowth of Cold War foreign policy and secrecy in foreign policy decision-making

·         U.S. gave a cold-war scenario to nationalist movements attempting to throw off shackles of western colonial domination; U.S. had pledged to “contain” communism. To U.S. policymakers, “third-world” independence movements were indistinguishable from Communist threats to U.S. market and political power; the movement in Vietnam to end colonialism was viewed as enemy that would fall into the Soviet camp and end U.S. access to third world markets

 

·         U.S. tied its fate as a superpower to its ability to maintain an anticommunist, pro-U.S. regime in Vietnam

 

Background and Context:

·         Vietnam a former colony of France, ruled by European powers during 19th and 20th century. Movement against brutal French rule began 100 years before U.S. got involved. Independence movement grew after WWI

·         During World War II Vietnam had been overrun by Japan.

Vietminh were rebels who fought against the Japanese, and had initially looked to the promise of self-determination by US and Britain hopefully—thought US would help in building independent nation after WWII.  Ho Chi Minh, leader of the movement, tried to establish ties to the U.S.

·         But French not willing to give up colonies and moved back in after WWII -- US joined in helping France regain colonial rule after Japan lost W.W.II..  The French gain control over southern part of Vietnam with brutal rule. US supports France in its war against the Vietminh rebels, paying 80% of war bill for France. Part of the reason for doing this is to maintain French support of U.S. position in Cold War in Europe and to ensure that U.S. conceptions of proper economic development of Vietnam were operative (US saw Vietnam as providing resources to Japan, which was now an ally. US had to be global operator, ensuring access to materials not only for its own needs but for that of its trading partner

 

·         US prevents elections under Geneva Accords-1954: by 1954, Vietminh rebels, led by Ho Chi Minh,  had defeated the French and won independence for the northern half of Vietnam. French agreed to leave N. Vietnam. Under a Geneva (Switzerland) conference held among 14 nations there were plans for an election to take pace in 1957. But US refused to sign this agreement, because they felt Ho Chi Minh, leader of rebels, would win.

 

U.S. Sets up South Vietnamese government, 1954. US replaces France as the dominant power in southern part of Vietnam. CIA authorized to damage, overthrow northern government (Hanoi).

·         US backs Diem, a New Jersey=educated aristocrat, who sets up dictatorship and refused to allow elections. Diem government abuses creates groundswell for rebellion among the south Vietnamese who seek unification and alliance with the North.

·         US had created an artificial country with almost no support from its own people.

o       CIA’s successful coups in places such as Guatemala, where it easily overthrew an elected government committed to land distribution, made such manipulations seem easy to accomplish.

 

For most Vietnamese, US was the last in the long line of invaders and occupiers, no different from French or Japanese colonialists. But US wrote a cold war script to suit our own purposes, purposes that had to do with US global supremacy and Cold War doctrines (domino theory). Assumed US right to determine the course of events throughout the world

 

 

Precedents for U.S. belief that putting puppet government could be a success: Examples of Covert Operations: Iran 1953  and Guatemala, 1954, Phillipines 1953-54

Senior policy-makers drew inspiration and “models” they hoped to use in Vietnam.  US leaders found it impossible to believe that any people could actually want something other than participation in the world capitalist economy. Any indication that people felt otherwise was thus interpreted as a clear sign of Soviet meddling, another step in the grand Soviet design for global communism.

 

Origins of covert actions--influencing European elections. Communist Party strong in Italy; had electoral participation--US gave $1 million to Christian Democrats, and engaged in covert disruption of the free elections in Italy (see recommended website)

 

A. Events in Iran, when the CIA overthrew a democratic government,  became one of the CIA’s great victories in the 1950s--

 

Background:

Great Britain had been running Iran from WWI until after WWII.

o        British troops occupied Iran to keep oil out of control of Nazis during WWII, and decided to stay after the war to keep control of the oil. Iranian oil going to the profit of the British owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. (Iran exported $360 million a year in oil, for which it received less than 10% in royalties.) Iranians didn't even get many jobs--Iranian nationals could not advance above laborers for the oil company; Iranians very poor. 70% of the land was owned by 2% of the population.

 

In 1951, new premier, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh fought to change this.

·         Mossedegh, refused to ratify a new oil agreement with the British company. Instead he nationalized it, claiming that Iran had rightful claim to its oil. Oil companies threatened boycott.

·         Mossadegh, thinking of US rhetoric about self-determination as expressed in the Atlantic Charter, appealed to Eisenhower for help.

·         Eisenhower replied that the US would not help unless Iran renewed contract on oil with Great Britain.

 

Meanwhile, CIA engineered coup which overthrew Mossadegh in Aug 1953.

·         Kermit Roosevelt and General Norman Schwartzkopf’s father engineered the plan.

·         US replaced Mossadegh with a former Nazi collaborator, General Zahedi. 

·         When the titular head of the country, the Shah, dismissed Mossadegh, Mossedegh’s  supporters took to the streets and forced the Shah to flee the country. Not to be outdone, Kermit Roosevelt hired his own street mobs, gave arms to the Iranian Army and toppled Mossadegh.

·          Meanwhile, the CIA planted press documents (see recommended website with an example from the New York Times) which gave a rendition of the news favorable to the Shah and painting this as a popular uprising.

 

After the coup, U.S. corporate and political and covert influence in Iran grows

·         The US poured in $250 million over the next three years, including $2 million in special bonuses for the hated Iranian army and police--SAVAK.

·         General Zahedi agreed to new deal that gave US companies 405, the British 40% and the Dutch and French 20%.

·         Kermit Roosevelt then became a vice president of Gulf Oil.

·          The people of Iran remained poor and resentful, forever identifying the Shah's rule with the U.S.

·         American people's lack of understanding of this made us very confused about later events. This is why after Iranian people finally overthrew the Shah in1979, they took American hostages and have an anti-American policy.

 

--To US officials, CIA seemed to offer a cheap, reliable, and easy way to remove regimes whose politics or ideology were distasteful to the US without involving any official intervention by the US govt.

 

·         In formerly secret documents, the CIA coins the term “blowback” in 1954, in respect to it’s easy manipulation of events in Iran. It acknowledges that its covert actions could involve “blowback” or negative consequences at some point in the future. Indeed, in Iran, fundamentalism among Muslims was a blowback from these events. Origins of anti-Western fundamentalism in Iran are tracible to these activities.

 

B. GUATEMALA

Guatemala had been firmly in the hands of the U.S. based United Fruit Co until 1944.

·         Trade unions were banned, and the country was ruled by a dictator who compared his rule to that of God and Hitler.

·         After a revolution in 1944, free democratic  elections brought a reformer, Juan Arevala,  who abolished forced labor on the banana plantations, raised the minimum wage, etc.

·         These reforms angered the oligarchy and the US and more than 2 dozen attempts were made to oust him during his four years in office.

·         American firms tried to starve out the regime. W.R. Grace and Pan American Airlines ceased promoting tourism; the World Bank withheld loans, and the US cut off military assistance.

 

·         In 1951 another reformer, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was elected by a landslide because of his advocacy of land reform. This was a big issue-- 2% of the population owned 70% of the land. The United Fruit Co was the biggest landowner.

o        In March 1953, Arbenz expropriated 234,000 uncultivated acres of the UFC land, offering as compensation the amount the UFC had declared the land worth for tax purposed--$600,000. UFC and the state dept demanded $15 million. When Arbenz refused, UFC started a massive publicity campaign to prove that Communism was on the rise in Guatemala

·         In early 1954, the CIA assembled, armed and trained an invasion force in neighboring Honduras and Nicaragua, both of which were ruled by right-wing dictators who US supported. 

·         The land was returned to the UFC, the Guatemalan legislature was dissolved, unions were outlawed and thousands of workers and peasants killed. Agricultural workers were bought back to conditions of servitude if not actual slavery

·         Since the U.S. allied and continued to support the repressive government of Guatemala, 200,000 people died. The Clinton administration was forced to reveal documents which implicate the U.S.  and the CIA

 

C. Philippines, 1953-54

--Philippines had won independence from US in postwar, but in 1953-54 US used CIA covert action to put its candidate for President in power, repressed an agrarian insurgency

 

Philippines was only one of numerous places across the globe that the US had stopped rebel insurgencies. Combined with the successes of Guatemala and Iran, US policymakers believed they had the ability to shape elections and stop any movement that challenged US hegemony (that word again!)