Category Archives: History

Guests of the Ayatollah

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guests-of-the-ayatollahThe subtitle of this book by Mark Bowden is “The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam,” and I think a better subtitle would have been “The Iranian Hostage Crisis.” This book was recommended to me by a Great Nephew who is studying to be a high school history teacher, and it is a very worthwhile book. I was worried when I saw it is well over 600 pages and decided I could probably skim some of it. I asked myself something to the effect, “After all, how could the lengthy hostage situation have interesting information for several hundred pages?” I was wrong. I found myself reading the details each time I thought of skimming. There is very little information in the book that isn’t interesting, and I learned why someone beginning a career as a history teacher would recommend it to person who has given himself the title of “amateur historian.”

The book begins with a description of Iranian students who had become more interested in the revolutionary politics of opposing the United States than in university studies. They began planning a siege of the American embassy in Tehran, and many of them expected to die. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the hated Shah of Iran, had been a staunch ally to the U.S. against Soviet expansionism. He had been put in power by a CIA-funded coup that had been masterminded by Kermit Roosevelt, Theodore’s grandson that overthrew the elected government in 1953. The shah had to flee to the United States when the Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers landed at the Tehran airport, revolution swept the country, and the United States became the “Great Satan.” “The prosperous middle and upper classes of Iran prayed that they weren’t going to be abandoned to the bearded clerics, but they were in the minority. To the great stirred mass of Iranians, afire with the dream of a perfect Islamic society, the U.S. embassy was a threat…What plots were being hatched by the devils coming and going from its gates. Why was no one stopping them?”

A dozen young Islamist activists who named themselves, “Muslim Students Following the Imam’s Line” to differentiate themselves from those they thought were not completely loyal to the Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, planned to take advantage of a large planned demonstration against the embassy. The students knew Khomeini had a stake in preserving the provisional government, and they feared he might order them to not carry out the assault. That was probably the most brilliant part of their plan.  The activists planning the assault decided they would not harm the Americans. They expected to have some attackers killed, and decided they would pass the bodies of any martyrs killed by the Marines out to the crowd. Continue reading →

America in the Cold War: A Reference Guide

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america-in-cold-warThis book by William T. Walker is exactly as advertised in the title. It has a very useful chronology of events in the front. The main body is contains “Clift Notes” versions of important events and has much to recommend it as a reference book. The Preface leads, “On Christmas night, December 25, 1991. George H.W. Bush addressed the American people to report the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and a new Commonwealth of Independent States and several new countries, including Russia, had been recognized immediately by the United States. On January 28, 1992, in his State of the Union Address to a joint session of Congress, Bush proclaimed the United States had won the Cold War.” The reality was that the remnants of the Cold War lingered in China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam. Historians began the debates about whether the Soviet Union collapsed because of internal corruptions and inefficiencies, whether American wealth and power had defeated them, or whether the Soviet Union was “…an artificial state that succumbed to the nationalist identities and ambitions of its own people.” The answer is undoubtedly a combination of all of those plus some other reasons. Regardless of the reason, it was a remarkable event.

A section titled “The Beginning: Allies Become Antagonists” is a good example of how the book presents complicated history briefly and precisely. It begins with the Americans providing Lend Lease to the Soviets as they reeled under the Nazi invasion. The alliance the World War II alliance with the Soviets began to fray before the Potsdam Conference. The Americans decided they had to step in to stop Communist advances in the later 1940s with the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and the Soviets responded by blockading Berlin. All of that in less than two pages.

The Soviet government had been given full diplomatic recognition on November 17, 1933 under the FDR administration. The Soviets promised in return that they would “…abstain from conducting propaganda within the United States.” The Great Depression moved FDR further left, and several “…Americans were attracted to the Soviet experiment, entered the federal government, and provided secret information on American policies and interests to the Soviet Union.” By the end of World War II the Soviets had focused on establishing hegemony in Eastern Europe. Some historians blame the beginning of the Cold War on the use of the atomic bomb in Japan. Stalin decided the bombings were done to intimidate the Soviet Union. He pushed his scientists to build an atomic bomb to counter the American monopoly. Continue reading →

The National Security: Its Theory and Practice, 1945-1960

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national securityI was able to get this book on an interlibrary loan, but the book wasn’t available on Amazon. The United States Military Academy at West Point held a symposium April 21-23, 1982 with the above title. It has some crucial information about why the decision was made to build a site for construction of more nuclear weapons, which is the subject of my quest to write a book about the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant. The book comprises seven essays presented at the symposium with an introduction and conclusion prepared by the editor. The “…burgeoning fears of the U.S.S.R…determined character and magnitude of American security policy.” “What began as a cautious and contested move toward nuclear power in the Truman years evolved under Eisenhower into a massive nuclear arsenal of almost incomprehensible proportions.”

The introduction by Norman A Gaebner discusses how Americans generally viewed the Soviet Union after World War II as “…a valiant ally.” However, diplomats who dealt with the Soviets predicted trouble despite FDR’s assurances that he and Stalin “got along fine.” Events following the war proved the Soviets intended to use the land power it had gained and American politicians took note. Arthur Vandenberg, Republican leader in the Senate wrote in his diary, “FDR’s appeasement of Russia is over.” James Forrestal advocated a showdown with the Soviets in the spring of 1945 rather than later. The United States was in a position of power with its atomic monopoly and two thirds of the world’s capital wealth. The Soviet Union had lost more than 2000 towns and cities, 20 million deaths, and much of its resources. Despite the magnitude of its losses, the U.S.S.R. was becoming increasingly threatening. National Security Council (NSC) documents declared, “The ultimate objective of Soviet-directed world communism is the domination of the world.” Secretary of State Dean Acheson “…developed the promising concept of negotiation from strength.” Consistent with that policy, Truman decided to proceed with the development of the hydrogen bomb.

Richard D Challener wrote that Truman would not have approved a 300 percent increase in the defense budget called for in NSC 68 if the Korean War hadn’t begun. The concept of nuclear deterrence became a key to defense strategy, but the U.S. had only nine atomic bombs in 1946. There were over fifty by the end of 1948. David Rosenberg wrote that Truman viewed the atomic bomb as a weapon of terror and a weapon of first resort. Despite that, he ordered vast increases in production facilities. On July 14, 1949 Truman told his top advisors, “Since we can’t obtain international control we must be the strongest in atomic weapons.” He approved a substantial increase in nuclear production in the fall of 1949 and an additional increase after the outbreak of the Korean War. Those approvals led, in part, to the construction of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant in Colorado. Continue reading →

America’s First War With Islam

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Thomas Jefferson Tripoli PiratesBrain Kilmeade, of Fox News, working with Don Yaeger who receives co-author credit in a much smaller font and may be responsible for the large number of primary sources listed in the Notes, wrote this book about America’s first war as a nation to feature the “relatively unknown, unsung patriots” who fought and died to makes our famous founding fathers’ vision come true.

I’m glad I picked up the book and will, therefore, forgive him for using one of the most famous of those founding fathers in the title: Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates, the Forgotten War that Changed American History.

From the halls of Montezuma,
To the shores of Tripoli…
Hymn of the US Marines

Around 1800, Tripoli (known today as Libya) was the most aggressive of the nations on the North African Barbary Coast: Morocco, Algeria, Tripoli, and part of Egypt, nations beholden to the Ottoman Empire. These nations, each with its own an absolute ruler, controlled the Mediterranean Sea and extended their reach into the Atlantic Ocean. They extorted protection money from nations trading in the Mediterranean, and mostly received whatever they demanded, even from powerful nations like Britain and France (which persisted in fighting each other through the period.) Ships not under the rulers’ protection were routinely captured by “pirates” working for these nations, their crews enslaved, and vast ransoms demanded. It was “a centuries-old practice of building economies around kidnappings, theft, and terror.”

US ships were easy targets
The newly formed United States, untried in the region, found “its status was lowly indeed,” but needed the economic boost from trade. At first, the US paid “tribute” like other nations did, but didn’t have the credit-rating to raise the increasing sums demanded and was still deep in debt from the Revolution. Eventually, the US fought the Barbary nations – especially Tripoli – and won the right to free passage in international waters.

I chose to title this review as a war with Islam, which is a bit hyperbolic.

  • At one point a Tripoli diplomat explained that “all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave.”
  • Later, however, when America supported an exiled prince against his brother who ruled Tripoli (regime change as a tactic is not new) the US emissary “touched upon the affinity of principle between the Islam and American religion. Both taught the existence…of one God… both enjoyed the universal exercise of humanity, and both forbade unnecessary bloodshed… the viceroy had to agree: indeed these were the maxims of his faith.”

Forgive my cynicism, but those seeking wealth and power seem to use religion when it suits their purpose. Continue reading →

Bridge of Spies

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bridge-of-spiesThis is a wonderful book that describes what is portrayed in the current movie with the same title starring Tom Hanks . I thought Mark Raylance’s portrayal of Soviet spy Rudolph Abel stole the spotlight from Hanks, who was admirable in portraying James Donovan. Donovan was the lawyer who defended Abel and later was the intermediary who arranged the swap of U-2 pilot Gary Francis Powers for Abel and Frederic Pryor, a hapless young intellectual who was snared in Cold War politics.

An interesting aspect of the book is how Powers was treated after he had taken the risk of flying over the Soviet Union to take photographs of secret military facilities. John F. Kennedy as a candidate for Presidency of the United States had successfully used the “missile gap” as a campaign issue against Richard Nixon. The planned Powers flight would have delivered the evidence that the Soviets in fact only had four ICBMs. Powers and his U-2 were shot down instead of presenting the evidence that would have disputed Kennedy’s campaign rhetoric. Kennedy “…promised as a candidate to close a ‘missile gap’ that did not exist and declined to meet Powers on his return to the United States.”

A fascinating bit of theory for dedicated “Conspiracy Theorists” is that the Power’s mission was intended to fail. Eisenhower and Khrushchev had intended to launch a new era of détente until Powers and his U-2 was shot out of the skies. The Paris summit was wrecked and “…threw into high gear the arms race that took the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and did not end until the collapse of the Soviet empire nearly three decades later. From the moment Powers was reported missing, there were well-places skeptics on both sides of the cold war who suspected that his entire mission had been planned to fail, and in doing so to prevent the outbreak of superpower peace. It is a theory that lingers to this day.”

The real name of the spy who is the central character in the drama was William Fisher, and he had been born in Britain. There is no doubt he was a brilliant man, since he could speak five languages and was a math genius. “Fisher’s main task was to rebuild the Soviet spy network in America. Perhaps the most interesting part of the Fisher story is that he was completely ineffective as a spy. “There is no evidence that Fisher recruited any useful agents who have not been identified or transmitted any significant intelligence by those who have been. This did not stop both sides colluding in the creation of the legend of Willie Fisher—by another name—as the most effective Soviet spy of the cold war.”  The “Fisher myth” was perpetuated by Soviet officials because he became famous for his loyalty and refusal to betray the USSR to gain personal benefits. Continue reading →

Crow Killer

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crow-killerThis is one of the books recommended to me by a Great Nephew who is studying to be a high school history teacher. The subtitle of the book, “The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson” by Raymond W. Thorp and Robert Bunker provides a hint about the descriptions of brutality. I’ve often said flippantly that one of my favorite moves is Jeremiah Johnson because it was a role for Robert Redford in which he seldom spoke. The first observation is that the book refers to John Johnson or John Johnston in Veteran’s Administration records. I don’t recall reading Jeremiah anywhere in the book. The book was published in 1983, and I wonder whether it could be published in the world of today with the radically racist language and many instances of complete disrespect to Native Americans (called Indians throughout) attributed to Johnson and other “mountain men.” The terms “red coons” and “red n…..s” (I decided to not even type that one) are used freely. Johnson and others were willing to act savagery toward hostiles, apparently because that was what was expected by “…the code of the mountain man.” There are several references to shooting foes in a manner that disabled but didn’t kill and then mutilating them before they died and then were decapitated so that their heads could be displayed on stakes. It was taken for granted that foes would be scalped either alive or dead.

The Foreword describes that the sources for the stories were primarily “Del” Gue and White-Eye Anderson (who apparently had one white eyebrow). It’s made clear that the myths about Johnson probably based on enough facts to cause them to spread. However, the mountain men were proud of their ability to embellish stories. The book is described as “…the personal history of Liver-Eating Johnson from 1847 to his death in 1900, pieced from oral legend.” One fact that stands out is that Johnson was a large and powerful man who could break a man’s neck with his hands. He is frequently described as being able to crush a man with a kick. He is even described as fighting off both a grizzly bear and a mountain lion with a frozen leg he had earlier wrenched off a Blackfoot. Even his horses were legendary. “Crow Killer’s big black watched over his master, scented Indians, and allowed none but his master near him.” Continue reading →