War and Myth VIII

Several myths came out of the post-war world. 1) That the Russians (alone) cheated at Yalta, 2) That somebody in Washington mislaid or lost China. 3) That Roosevelt was a closet Communist who conspired to defeat Russia’s primary Asian enemy, Japan. 4) That anybody, anywhere, who wanted his independence was an active Communist agent. 5) That the Russians had the means of dropping atomic bombs on us by the early 1950s.
To understand the thinking in the United States immediately after World War II, I use the following analogy. Imagine a human being, with fully developed mental and emotional capabilities who never was born—who somehow stayed right in the warm, snug, dark womb.
He’s fed by umbilical cord. There are soft walls to hold him up and to allow him to nap against. There are few loud noises and no glaring lights. He feels totally safe.
Suddenly, by Caesarian section, this totally unprepared creature is pitched into the outside world. There are blinding lights. He is surrounded by strange persons whose intentions he cannot know, of whose existence he never dreamt.
He must feed himself—somehow. There are no walls to hold him up when he tries to walk and trips. There is a cacophony of incomprehensible noise. People are saying things to him he cannot understand—insisting he wear strange new clothing … .
This is a very fair estimate of how the world of 1945, 46, 47 and on seemed to most Americans. Since the founding of Jamestown, we had lived in a womb made up of two vast oceans and the British Empire. We were safe, we were snug, we were totally protected—without realizing either that fact or being forced to accept the reality of a hostile world beyond.
Did someone wish to invade us (the “Holy Alliance” in the 1820s)? The British navy prevented it. (Not out of any real love for us—but because London profits were too great for England to permit Europe to regain her American colonies.)
Except for the brief exception of the Civil War, our 19th Century army consisted of a handful of cavalry regiments to fight Indians, a few harbor guards (what did Fort Sumter have in 1861? About 90 men?) and a Corps of Engineers to build piers and light houses.
As late as 1916, a French general could sneer at an American delegation, “We lose more men before breakfast (WWI) than you have in your entire army.” Even as Hitler rose to power, we could sit back and voice our opinions without fear of having to take action—because the British Navy stood between us and the Nazis.
In 1945, Britain was gone. NOTHING stood between us and any horror, any aggressor, any threat, any where on the planet. Call a cop? We were the world’s only remaining police force. Dazzling light, strange voices, threatening sounds—all at once.
(We wanted to disarm. We sent millions of troops back to factories and colleges. We expected the world to return to the status we had known since 1783. It didn’t happen. By 1948, we were drafting soldiers again; we faced a foreign threat armed with atomic bombs.)
Is it any wonder that the entire United States, government and all, had what can only be explained as a nervous collapse? Hiss, Huac, McCarthy…all symptoms of a functional breakdown in American society.
Somebody did this to us, right? Now came the long night of looking for a scapegoat—the ones who did it to us. It was these Communists, right?
And first of all, you gotta believe that Yalta was a rip off. Roosevelt was incompetent (maybe even a traitor). Us poor, innocent Americans taken to the cleaners by those shyster Russians.
Let’s look at that myth tomorrow.