American Minute with Bill Federer
Cold War, Socialism, & the Foreign Policy of Eisenhower & John Foster Dulles
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"There is only one defense -- a defense compounded of eternal vigilance, sound policies, and high courage"
- stated John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State during the Cold War, to the Overseas Press Club in New York, March 30, 1954.
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The Cold War began after World War II, as tensions grew between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1947 to 1991.
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The threat of direct nuclear attack loomed with the policy of mutually-assured destruction (MAD), but the Cold War was mostly waged through proxy wars in countries such as:
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Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Benin, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Congo, Cuba, Croatia, Czech Republic, East Germany, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Herzegovina, Indonesia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Mozambique, North Korea, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Yemen.
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Forty-five countries fell to socialism and communism during the Cold War, often with brutal purges.
In the Ukraine, an estimated 25 million died in Soviet purges.
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In the Western Hemisphere, Mexico opened the U.S.S.R's first embassy in 1924, with socialist politician Leon Trotsky moving there in 1936.
Liberation theology and social justice movements paved the way for socialist and communist influences to grow in Central and South America.
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Campaigning for his FOURTH term as President, Franklin Roosevelt condescendingly remarked November 4, 1944:
"Speaking here in Boston, a Republican candidate ... said that, quote, 'the Communists are seizing control of the New Deal, through which they aim to control the Government of the United States.' Unquote.
... However, on that very same day, that very same candidate had spoken in Worcester, and he said that with Republican victory in November, quote, 'we can end one-man government, and we can forever remove the threat of monarchy in the United States.' Now, really - which is it - Communism or monarchy?"
Roosevelt answered his own question when he told the American Youth Congress, February 10, 1940:
"The Soviet Union ... is run by a dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world."
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Though political theorists argue otherwise, every communist country is run by a communist dictator - Stalin, Mao Zedung, Pol Pot, Castro, Ho Chi Min, Kim Jong-Il, and others.
In this sense, communism effectively operates a monarchy -- an imperial totalitarianism.
Communist Party members act as the "new royalty," and citizens, having no realistic elective control over the government, are simply "subjects" of the crown.
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Eisenhower sent a letter to the Senate, February 20, 1953:
"The Soviet Communist Party who now control Russia ... subjected whole nations to the domination of a totalitarian imperialism."
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In 1946, President Truman cut off aid to the pro-American leader of the Republic of China, Chiang Kai-shek.
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This allowed Communist Mao Zedong to gain strength and take over China, implementing policies which resulted in an estimated 80 million deaths.
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Dwight Eisenhower stated (TIME Magazine, June 16, 1952):
"China was lost to the free world in one of the greatest international disasters of our time - a type of tragedy that must not be repeated."
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Eisenhower told reporters, March 5, 1953:
Q. Mr. Reston: Do you regard the activities of the (Tudeh party - the Communist Party in Iran - as an internal situation?
THE PRESIDENT: In any country where a Communist Party is recognized ... it is an internal situation."
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President Dwight Eisenhower told Congress, February 2, 1953:
"I must make special mention of the war in Korea. This war is, for Americans, the most painful phase of Communist aggression throughout the world. It is clearly a part of the same calculated assault that the aggressor is simultaneously pressing in Indochina and in Malaya."
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Eisenhower told Congress, May 5, 1953:
"In Greece, the onrush of Communist imperialism has been halted ... We are proposing to make substantial additional resources available to assist the French ... in their military efforts to defeat the Communist Viet Minh aggression."
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In 1948, Lutheran minister Richard Wurmbrand was arrested by Communists in Romania. He was tortured 14 years in prison, while his wife, Sabina, was sent to a labor camp.
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International pressure secured their amnesty, and in 1965, they testified before the U.S. Senate’s Internal Security Subcommittee.
In 1967, the Wurmbrand’s formed Jesus To The Communist World, renamed Voice of the Martyrs.
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In Hungary, Cardinal József Mindszenty was arrested in 1949 and tortured by Communists.
Eisenhower wrote to the United Catholic Organization for Freeing Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty, February 1, 1954:
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"The Communist assault upon religious liberty and leadership in Hungary has failed to turn the Hungarian people from their faith in God.
The plight of Cardinal Mindszenty and of other churchmen who have suffered at the hands of the Communists has not been forgotten ...
The spirit of these men has defied confinement by the totalitarian State. It has become, indeed, a symbol of faith and freedom for our times."
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In November 1956, Soviet Communists crushed a student-led revolt in Hungary, mercilessly killing 2,500, wounding 13,000, and causing 200,000 to flee as refugees.
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President Dwight Eisenhower told Congress, February 2, 1953:
"Our country has come through a painful period of trial and disillusionment since the victory of 1945 ... The calculated pressures of aggressive Communism have forced us ... to live in a world of turmoil ...
No single country, even one so powerful as ours, can alone defend the liberty of all nations threatened by Communist aggression from without and subversion within."
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Socialist tactics included infiltration, organization, agitation, riot, domestic upheaval, and coup d'état, to topple western-leaning governments.
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Like a software virus, the new weapons of the Cold War were called "fifth column," namely, psychological warfare, espionage, and propaganda campaigns, infiltrating college campuses, movie industry, media, news outlets, music, political parties, courts, and churches.
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Eisenhower spoke in Abilene’s Plaza Theater (TIME Magazine, June 16, 1952):
"Any kind of Communistic, subversive or pinkish influence (must) be uprooted from the responsible places in our government."
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At the College of William and Mary, May 15, 1953, Eisenhower stated:
"It is necessary that we earnestly seek out and uproot any traces of communism at any place where it can affect our national life ...
The true way to uproot communism in this country is to understand what freedom means, and thus develop an impregnable wall, that no thought of communism can enter."
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A list of these subversive Communist goals for America was disclosed by Rep. Albert S. Herlong, Jr., of Florida, read into the Congressional Record, January 10, 1963 (Vol 109, 88th Congress, 1st Session, Appendix, pp. A34-A35):
"Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of 'separation of church and state' ...
Eliminate laws governing obscenity by calling them 'censorship' and a violation of free speech and free press ...
Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights ...
Discredit American culture ... Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and divorce ...
Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as 'normal, natural, healthy' ...
Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents ... Infiltrate churches and replace revealed religion with 'social' religion ...
Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a 'religious crutch ' ...
Discredit the Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis ..."
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The Communist goals continued:
"Discredit Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the 'common man' ... Control schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda.
Soften curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put party line in textbooks ... Control student newspapers ...
Infiltrate the press ... Control book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions ... Control key positions in radio, TV and motion pictures ...
Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV ...
Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the 'big picture' ..."
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The list concluded:
"Support socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture - education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc ...
Transfer some of the power of arrest from the police to social agencies ... Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
Infiltrate and control of more unions. Infiltrate and gain control of big business ...
Promote the UN ... Free trade, loans and aid to all nations regardless of Communist affiliation ... Internationalize the Panama Canal ... Give the World Court jurisdiction ...
Do away with loyalty oaths ... Capture one or both of the political parties ... Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities ... Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party."
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Soviet use of these tactics in America was confirmed by Vasili Mitrokhin, senior archivist for the Soviet Union’s foreign intelligence and the First Chief Directorate of the KGB.
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After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and the disestablishment of the Soviet Union in 1991, Vasili Mitrokhin left Russia for Estonia, then traveled to England in 1992.
He brought with him over 25,000 pages of Soviet intelligence records, documented in the book The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West (1999).
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Roger Baldwin, the founder of the A.C.L.U, twice visited the Soviet Union, embraced Vietnamese Communist dictator Ho Chi Minh, and wrote a book, Liberty Under the Soviets (1927):
"I joined. I don’t regret being a part of the Communist tactic, which increased the effectiveness of a good cause. I knew what I was doing. I was not an innocent liberal. I wanted what the Communists wanted."
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Echoing Lenin's phrase, "the goal of socialism is communism," Roger Baldwin wrote in 1935 at the 30th reunion of his Harvard class:
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"I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately, for abolishing the state itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the properties class, and sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal."
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The California Senate Fact Finding Committee on Un-American Activities stated in its 1948 report, page 107:
"The ACLU may be definitely classified as a Communist front or transmission belt organization ... At least 90 percent of its efforts are on behalf of Communists who come in conflict with the law."
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg became a director at the ACLU in 1972.
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Roger Baldwin's friend, Earl Browder, was the general secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1930 to 1944. The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee reported in 1956:
"Founded in September 1919, the Communist Party of the United States of America is an organization unique in American history. It is not a true political party and differs fundamentally from all political parties in this country.
It is in fact a Russian-inspired, Moscow-dominated military conspiracy against our Government, our ideals, and our freedoms."
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In 1950, members of the Communist Party USA formed the Mattachine Society, the nation’s first homosexual rights organization, which lobbied to repeal sodomy laws.
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In 1948, the nation was shaken when TIME Magazine senior editor Whittaker Chambers confessed to being a Soviet spy.
Chambers had joined the Communist underground in 1932 and worked with spies within Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal administration who leaked classified documents.
When fellow Soviet spy Walter Krivitsky was found murdered in 1941, Chambers decided to meet with the FBI, though the FBI strangely did not follow up on his lead.
It was not until another spy, Elizabeth Bentley, defected in 1945 and corroborated Chambers’ story that his story given attention.
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In 1948, Whittaker Chambers testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming 18 current and former government employees who were Communist spies or sympathizers.
One of those named was Alger Hiss, who had worked in Roosevelt's Department of Justice, the State Department, and later helped write the U.N. Charter.
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For his effort in exposing Soviet spies, Chambers was posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan, who stated March 6, 1984:
"Whittaker Chambers understood the struggle between totalitarianism and the West. He, himself, had turned to communism out of a sense of idealism in which he thought that might be the answer. And then he wrote ... 'the Communist vision is the vision of man without God' ...
When men try to live in a world without God, it’s only too easy for them to forget the rights that God bestows — too easy to suppress freedom of speech ... jail dissidents, and to put great thinkers in mental wards."
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In 1943, a journalist named Frank Marshall Davis joined the Communist Party in Chicago. In 1956, he was called to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, then he moved to Hawaii.
In the article “Frank Marshall Davis: A Forgotten Voice in the Chicago Black Renaissance,” written by ex-University of Hawaii professor Kathryn Takara (2002), Frank Marshall Davis is quoted as saying:
"From now on I knew I would be described as a Communist, but frankly I had reached the stage where I didn’t give a damn."
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In the Communist Party USA's journal Political Affairs, Gerald Horne wrote of “a history of the radical, Communist and working-class movement in Hawaii”:
"It is not well known, I’m afraid, that before statehood in 1959 probably the most vigorous, communist and radical trade union movement under the U.S. flag was in Hawaii."
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Investor’s Business Daily, August 5, 2008, wrote:
"Frank Marshall Davis was a member of the Moscow-controlled Communist Party USA, according to the 1953 report of the Commission of Subversive Activities of the Territory of Hawaii."
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While in Hawaii, Davis wrote a weekly column, “Frankly Speaking,” for the labor union paper Honolulu Record, headed by vocal communist Harry Bridges (TIME Magazine, July 19, 1937).
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In 1956, the House Un-American Activities Committee concluded that the Honolulu Record was “a front for the Communist Party,” stating:
"Mr. Davis’ column defends Communists and attacks capitalism with the same vigor as columns appearing regularly in the Daily Worker and other frankly Communist publications ...
Mr. Davis constantly defended the 11 top United States Communist officials recently convicted in New York on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the Government ... Mr. Davis comments ... as follows: 'I feel strong sympathy for the Communist minority.'"
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While in Hawaii, Frank Marshall Davis became friends with Stanley Dunham, as the Telegraph.co.uk reported in the article “Frank Marshall Davis, alleged Communist,” August 24, 2008:
“Frank never really did drugs, though he and Stan would smoke pot together.”
Stanley Dunham’s daughter was Ann Dunham, who married on February 2, 1961, a student from Kenya named Barack Hussein Obama.
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In a February 25, 1953, Press Conference, Eisenhower stated:
"Almost 100 percent of Americans would like to stamp out all traces of Communism in our country ...
I went to Columbia University as its President and I insisted on one thing ... If we had a known Communist in our faculty and he could not be discharged ... I was automatically discharged.
I personally would not be a party to an organization where there was a known card-carrying Communist in such a responsible position as teaching our young."
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At a News Conference, March 9, 1953, Eisenhower stated:
"Our churches ... should be the greatest possible opponents to communism ... The church, with its testimony of the existence of an Almighty God, is the last thing that ... would be preaching, teaching or tolerating communism."
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Eisenhower stated November 9, 1954, to the National Conference on the Spiritual Foundation of American Democracy:
"We are attacked by the Communists who in their own documents state that capitalism - Democracy - carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction ...
Fundamentally Democracy is nothing in the world but a spiritual conviction ... that each of us is enormously valuable because of a certain standing before our own God."
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Eisenhower's Secretary of State, 1953-1959, was John Foster Dulles.
Dulles was born FEBRUARY 25, 1888, in the home of his Civil War general grandfather. His father was a Presbyterian pastor.
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John Foster Dulles graduated from Princeton, studied law at George Washington University, and was an Army Major in WWI.
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He was elected a U.S. Senator and appointed by President Wilson as legal counsel to the U.S. delegation at the 1918 Versailles Peace Conference.
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John Foster Dulles was foreign policy adviser to New York Governor Thomas Dewey in his campaigns for President in 1944 and 1948.
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Dulles was instrumental in the creation of the United Nations, to which he was the U.S. Ambassador, 1945-49.
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In 1947, the State Department sent John Foster Dulles to assess the situation in France after World War II.
He observed strikes, strife and sabotage which were making the country vulnerable to a take over by communists who had the second largest political party in France.
Dulles recommended immediate economic assistance in the form of billions of dollars through the Marshall Plan.
Ironically, the Marshall Plan's distribution aid through government handouts inadvertently led post-war Europe to a dependency on socialist-style welfare programs.
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He took an active role in establishing the Republican plank calling for the establishment of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine.
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Dulles was an adviser to President Truman, voicing his opposition to the U.S. dropping the atomic bomb on Japan, writing on August 10, 1945:
"If we, as a professedly Christian nation, feel morally free to use atomic energy in that way, men elsewhere will accept that verdict.
Atomic weapons will be looked upon as a normal part of the arsenal of war and the stage will be set for the sudden and final destruction of mankind."
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Dulles' reference to the United States being "a professedly Christian nation" is confirmed by it having the highest number of individuals who identify as Christian (2012):
- United States = 246.8 million
- Brazil = 175.8 million
- Mexico = 107.8 million
- Russia = 105.2 million
- Philippines = 86.8 million
- Nigeria = 80.5 million
- China = 67 million
- Democratic Republic of Congo = 63.2 million
- Germany = 58.2 million
- Ethiopia = 52.6 million.
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The Pew Research Center (2012) reported:
- Christianity is the largest religion in the world, comprising 31.5 percent of the global population;
- Islam is second with 23.2 percent;
followed by:
- Unaffiliated 16.3 percent;
- Hinduism 15 percent;
- Buddhism 7.1 percent;
- Folk religions 5.9 percent;
- Other 0.8 percent; and
- Judaism 0.2 percent.
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Approximately one third of the world's population identifies itself as Christian.
The Pew Foundation reported:
"The number of Christians around the world has nearly quadrupled in the last 100 years, from 600 million in 1910."
This makes Christianity one of the fastest growing religions, with nearly 70,000 added each day, (through conversion and births into Christian families), mostly in Africa, India, Asia, and the Middle East.
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Christians is also the most persecuted religion in the world, with an estimated 500 being attacked or martyred each day, mostly in Africa, India, Asia and the Middle East.
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The British House of Commons was informed December 3, 2013 (Daily Hansard Debate, M.P. Jim Shannon, Strangford, DUP):
"That this House is concerned that the persecution of Christians is increasing in the 21st century;
notes that there are reports that one Christian is killed every 11 minutes somewhere on earth for their faith;
further notes that Christianity is the most persecuted religion globally;
bears in mind that the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion is a human right stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
and calls on the Government to do more both in its foreign policy and through its aid work to defend and support people of Christian faith."
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Christians experience persecution in 130 of the 197 countries in world, especially in Muslim countries, such as:
Syria, Eritrea, Nigeria, Pakistan, Malaysia, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Egypt; and Communist countries, such as China and North Korea.
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Once the Soviet Union detonated an atomic bomb in 1949, John Foster Dulles became convinced that the U.S. needed a nuclear arsenal to deter Communist expansion, as he stated April 11, 1955:
"Men face the great dilemma of whether to use force to resist aggression which imposes conditions which violate the moral law and the concept that man has his origins and his destiny in God."
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Dulles negotiated the Peace Treaty with Japan.
In a toast to Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles stated September 3, 1955:
"War is an awful thing. God grant that we have seen the last of it. But war in this case made the people of our two countries know each other as never before."
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John Foster Dulles stated at Indiana University, June 13, 1955:
"Our people have always been endowed with a sense of mission in the world.
They have believed that it was their duty to help men everywhere to get the opportunity to be and do what God designed."
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On April 11, 1955, John Foster Dulles addressed the Fifth Annual All-Jesuit Alumni Dinner:
"Peace is a goal which men above always sought. It is a goal which we particularly think of at this Easter Season when we commemorate the resurrection of the Prince of Peace."
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At the 1954 Geneva Conference, Dulles reportedly refused to shake hands with the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, Zhou Enlai, as he had been instrumental in consolidating control and bringing about the persecutions under Mao Zedong's Communist Party.
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In a kind of reverse-engineering of Communist tactics, when Iran's leader, Mohammad Mosaddegh, became pro-Soviet, Dulles approved in 1953 the CIA's first coup d'état to overthrow a leader, Operation Ajax, replacing him with the Shah.
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In 1954, Dulles approved a similar coup d'état operation in Guatemala.
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In retrospect, the Cold War opened a controversial chapter in U.S. foreign policy, countering Soviet tactics by adapting them, with varying degrees of CIA involvement in coup d'état operations in the Congo (1960); Dominican Republic (1961); South Vietnam (1963); Brazil (1964); Chile (1973); and elsewhere.
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John Foster Dulles referred to Communism as "godless terrorism," stating at the Jesuit Alumni Dinner, April 11, 1955:
"Man, we read in the Holy Scriptures, was made a little lower than the angels. Should man now be made little higher than domesticated animals which serve the purpose of their human masters?"
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In 1955, Dulles was named Man of the Year in Time Magazine and in 1959, he was awarded the Medal of Freedom.
Dulles explained April 11, 1955:
"The government of the United States ... was founded as an experiment in human liberty ...
Our institutions reflect the belief of our founders that all men were endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights and had duties prescribed by moral law.
They believed that human institutions ought primarily to help men develop their God-given possibilities and that our nation, by its conduct and example, could help men everywhere to find the way to a better and more abundant life.
Our nation ... developed ... spiritual and economic vigor the like of which the world had never seen."
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Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C., is named for him.
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His son, John W.F. Dulles was a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin; his daughter, Lillias Hinshaw, was a Presbyterian minister; and another son, Avery Dulles, became the first American priest to be directly appointed a Cardinal.
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On May 7, 1954, in reply to a question from a Danish student, Secretary of State Dulles stated:
"Neighborly love, in political actions, means loving others, based on the brotherhood that was created with God as the Father of all.
It means that the political power of any government must be considered an opportunity, not to favor individuals but to do well for all."
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Secretary of State John Foster Dulles warned:
"Our institutions of freedom will not survive unless they are constantly replenished by the faith that gave them birth.
Our greatest need is to regain confidence in our spiritual heritage."
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During the Cold War, Dwight Eisenhower stated December 24, 1953, lighting the National Christmas Tree:
"The world still stands divided in two antagonistic parts. Prayer places freedom and communism in opposition one to the other.
The Communist can find no reserve of strength in prayer because his doctrine of materialism and statism denies the dignity of man and consequently the existence of God.
But in America ... religious faith is the foundation of free government, so is prayer an indispensable part of that faith ... The founders of this, our country, came first to these shores in search of freedom ... to live ... beyond the yoke of tyranny."
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Schedule Bill Federer for informative interviews & captivating PowerPoint presentations: 314-502-8924 wjfederer@gmail.com
American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission is granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate, with acknowledgment.
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