( theme music playing )
( rumbles )
( flames crackle )
( cheers )
- ( jazz music plays ) - newsreel: Pushing through germany,
The United States and soviet armies
Met at the river ill. Americans and russians joined hands
Joined hands in celebration of victory.
Successful partners in war,
The hope flamed among all men that the United States
And the soviet union, with their allies,
Would form a successful partnership
Against any future threat of aggression.
The news of final surrender, the news that peace had at last been won,
Penetrated to every corner of the globe.
Peace, the hope of mankind, had arrived.
Men rejoiced, cheered the end of world war ii.
( "in the mood" playing )
Stone: There was a brief moment in time
When the United States, alone among the victors,
Was on top of the world.
Its death toll was 405,000,
Compared to the soviet union's 27 million.
The economy was booming. Exports more than doubled pre-war levels.
Industrial production had grown 15% annually.
The U.S. Held two-thirds of the world's gold reserves
And three-fourths of its invested capital.
It was producing an incredible 50%
Of the world's goods and services.
In 1945 at bretton woods, new hampshire,
The U.S. Established the two new
Major economic institutions of capitalism--
The world bank and the international monetary fund--
Each budgeted at approximately seven to eight billion dollars.
President harry truman,
Who had made his name investigating excess spending in the senate,
Was overseeing a gigantic demobilization.
And yet there was a lingering unease in a new society
Where the home front had prospered
While the servicemen were away.
I can see that you had a splendid war record, derry.
Just average, mr. Thorpe.
But you'll understand that since this business changed hands,
We're under no legal obligation to give you your old job back.
I wasn't thinking of getting my old job back, mr. Thorpe.
- I'm looking for a better one. - What are your qualifications?
- Your experience? - Two years behind a soda fountain
And three years behind a norden bombsight.
Yes. While in the army,
Did you have any experience in procurement?
- No. - Purchasing of supplies, materials?
No, I didn't do any of that. I just dropped bombs.
- Did you do any personnel work? - No.
But as an officer, you surely had to act in an executive capacity.
You had to command men. Were you responsible for their morale?
No, I was only responsible for getting the bombs on the target.
- I didn't command anybody. - I see.
I'm sure that work required great skill.
But unfortunately we've no opportunities for that
- With midway drugs. - Yeah.
Stone: World war ii left as many
As 70 million people dead in europe and asia--
Two-thirds of them civilians.
Hiroshima was an ominous forewarning.
The depression was perhaps over,
But america's business and social planners
Feared a relapse
And fretted over the consequences of worldwide poverty,
With populations uprooted, homeless and unemployed.
Would revolution sweep the globe?
What would happen to american trade and investment?
In France the communist party,
Which had half a million members and fought bravely
In the resistance to the nazis,
Won 26% of the vote in 1945.
In Italy 1.7 million people
Joined the party.
Even in britain the people, exhausted and broke from two world wars,
Were uncharacteristically turning to the state
To make their lives tolerable.
And fortune, which had made winston churchill
One of the most respected statesmen of his era,
Now cast him aside
With a reversal befitting greek tragedy.
( trumpets playing )
Newsreel: Winston churchill, touring the ruins of berlin
As the curtain rings down on his career as prime minister
Of great britain.
Beneath flags of the big three, the 70-year-old leader
Stands at last in the heart of berlin
As he vowed he would five years ago.
Admiral king and general marshall come up to greet the old warrior.
Next to general marshall can be seen balding, mustached clement attlee,
New labour prime minister.
Stone: Attlee embodied the new socialist european,
Promising to build a free health-care system for all
And advocating the complete nationalization
Of many of britain's oldest industries--
A man preoccupied not with empire
But with a massive social welfare state.
By contrast, churchill was offering empire.
He had said in late 1942,
At a time when England's very existence was threatened...
Churchill's voice: I have not become the king's first minister
To preside over the liquidation of the british empire.
Stone: But dismemberment is exactly what he would live to see.
Atlee would administer the independence of india,
Pakistan, burma, sri lanka,
Jordan and palestine.
Attlee understood that there was a new american world order.
The U.S. Extended almost a $4 billion loan to britain,
Not to be repaid for 50 years,
And was now leasing military bases on english soil.
Britain in essence was to become
A new client-state of the U.S.
Franklin roosevelt-- who had always disliked
The concept of king and empire
And reflected much of the american disapproval
Of its repressive policies in india,
Greece and throughout the world--
Had successfully steered a middle course
Between great britain and the soviet union.
The prospect of a large american credit to help the soviets
Rebuild had been encouraged and discussed openly during the war.
But harry truman showed none of roosevelt's dexterity,
As he tacked, at a time of maximum U.S. Strength,
Increasingly towards the british camp.
When the soviet union did not receive anything close
To the aid package given the british,
They were greatly disappointed.
They already sensed the wartime alliance
Would be the first casualty of the postwar era.
In mid-September 1945
At a foreign ministers meeting in london,
Secretary of state jimmy byrnes
Berated soviet policies in eastern europe.
Foreign minister molotov pointed to
Exclusionary U.S. Policies in Italy,
Greece and japan,
And, tired of byrnes's belligerence,
Asked if he was hiding an atomic bomb in his pocket.
Byrnes actually replied...
Byrnes' voice: You don't know southerners.
We carry our artillery in our pocket.
If you don't cut out all this stalling,
I'm going to pull an atomic bomb out of my pocket and let you have it.
Stone: In December, secretary of commerce henry wallace
Pressed truman to take control of america's atomic weapons
Away from soviet-hater leslie groves,
Who still had unilateral control over them.
Groves had advocated
A preemptive attack against...
The soviet union, with the largest army in the world
And having played the leading role in the anti-fascist movement,
Was now a frightening prospect
For some U.S. Officials.
In early 1946
A gallup poll found that 26% of americans
Thought the soviets sought world domination.
13% thought the british did.
The soviets, though aware of the rightward shift
In the truman administration,
Were hoping still to maintain the wartime alliance
And actually went out of their way to restrain
Their frustrated communist allies in china,
Italy, France and greece.
Stalin, whose major foreign policy goal
Was to make certain germany or japan never again
Posed a threat to his country,
Had enormous problems at home.
His nation was in the grip of a crushing poverty,
Engaged still in extensive ongoing partisan warfare
In its western sectors, particularly ukraine,
Which was soon to be wracked with famine.
The soviets were isolated at the u.N.
And the U.S. Had a monopoly on the bomb.
Yet the U.S. Was building an image
Of the soviet union as being out to conquer the world.
In germany the two systems were already at odds.
Roosevelt's policy of pastoralizing germany
Was reversed to one revitalizing the german economy
As a key to an overall european recovery.
This was not in itself a bad decision,
Given what happened to west germany in later years,
But at the time it was highly insensitive
To the concerns of a country that had been
Twice cornered in ruthless wars with germany.
There was in fact a profound conflict of interest,
And the stark images of the soviets stripping the eastern zone
Of everything to ship back to its own impoverished land was,
To most americans, perceived not incorrectly as looting.
As far back as the 19th century,
The pre-communist russian empire had been in conflict with the british empire,
Both seeking influence in turkey and iran.
Russia had repeatedly sought access
To the warm-water ports of the mediterranean.
( fanfare )
In the 1917 russian revolution,
Churchill, as lord of the admiralty,
Had been a fierce foe of communism,
Which he proclaimed "ought to be strangled in its cradle."
He'd wanted to draw the United States
Into a military engagement with the new communist regime.
And in the fierce counter-revolution against it
40,000 british and 15,000 american troops
Actually participated,
Poisoning relations from the start.
It had been roosevelt who finally recognized
The soviet union in 1933.
Churchill, out of office and favor,
Was now itching for a confrontation.
It would happen, not unsurprisingly,
In the middle east.
Great britain controlled 72% of middle eastern oil,
The U.S. Had 10% and wanted a bigger share.
The soviet union wanted a piece too.
Having stationed troops during the war
Across its border in northern iran
To keep oil supplies out of nazi hands,
The soviets now came into conflict
With britain in the south.
Churchill additionally felt threatened
By soviet probes in turkey,
Threatening britain's sphere of interest in the middle east.
The exposure of a soviet espionage ring in canada
In early February added credibility to his warnings.
And a speech by stalin in which he proclaimed
A new postwar five-year plan
To rebuild the soviet union
Was misunderstood as incendiary
And predicting the inevitability of a war
Between the two systems-- which it had not.
It was in this context in early March 1946
That winston churchill would remind the world
That he was still a power to be reckoned with.
He traveled to truman's home state--
Fulton, missouri--
To make one of the most devastating speeches of the cold war,
Words that would condemn forever
In the minds of many the soviet union.
( cheering )
Truman: Mr. Churchill-- he's one of the great men of the age.
He's a great englishman,
But he's half-american.
( laughter, applause )
( churchill speaking )
( applause )
Stone: This was a quantum leap in belligerence
Towards the soviet union.
"the new york times" applauded the speech,
Saying it was spoken "with the force of the prophet proved right before."
Visibly upset, stalin accused churchill
Of being in bed with the "war mongers"
Who followed the "racial theory"
That only english speakers could "decide the fate of the whole world."
The "chicago tribune," although agreeing
With his assessment of eastern europe,
Sharply questioned churchill's...
Florida's senator claude pepper observed
That churchill was, "as much opposed to russia
As to a labor government in his own country.
It is shocking to see mr. Churchill align himself
With the old chamberlain tories who strengthened the nazis
As part of their anti-soviet crusade."
The following month, on the first anniversary of roosevelt's death,
Wallace offered a different vision.
Wallace's voice: The only way to defeat communism in the world
Is to do a better and smoother job of production and distribution.
Let's make it a clean race, a determined race,
But above all a peaceful race in the service of humanity.
The source of all our mistakes is fear.
Russia fears anglo-saxon encirclement.
We fear communist penetration.
Out of fear, great nations have been acting
Like cornered beasts, thinking only of survival.
The common people of the world will not tolerate imperialism,
Even under enlightened anglo-saxon atomic-bomb auspices.
The destiny of the english-speaking people
Is to serve the world, not dominate it.
Stone: Following churchill's speech,
Conditions deteriorated rapidly.
When soviet troops stayed in northern iran
Beyond their March deadline,
Truman threatened war. He wrote...
Truman's voice: If the russians were to control iran's oil,
Either directly or indirectly, it would be a serious loss
For the economy of the western world.
Stone: Truman later privately claimed to a hard-line senator
That he gave the soviets a nuclear warning,
Telling their ambassador, if soviet troops are not out in 48 hours,
"we're going to drop it on you."
They were out, he claimed, in 24.
The soviets did withdraw,
But probably for reasons other than atomic blackmail.
Less than two months later,
The U.S. Cut off desperately-needed reparation payments
From west germany to the soviet union.
And in July of '46, sending another
Chilling message about its intentions,
The U.S. Decided to proceed with an atomic bomb test
In the marshall islands.
( applause )
In September '46 in front of 20,000 people
At new york's madison square garden,
Henry wallace tried to put a stop
To the growing madness.
Wallace's voice: The tougher we get,
The tougher the russians will get.
We can get cooperation
Once russia understands that our primary objective
Is neither saving the british empire,
Nor purchasing oil in the near east
With the lives of american soldiers.
Under friendly, peaceful competition
The russian world and the american world
Will gradually become more alike.
The russians will be forced to grant more and more
Of the personal freedoms and we shall become more and more absorbed
With the problems of social-economic justice.
Stone: The speech became world news,
Deeply embarrassing to secretary of state jimmy byrnes
Who told truman either he or wallace had to go.
Support for wallace poured in throughout the ensuing controversy
From such as eleanor roosevelt and albert einstein,
But not from the truman administration.
James forrestal regarded wallace as at best a security risk,
And secretly had his naval intelligence unit
Monitoring the secretary of commerce,
And shared information with the f.B.I.'s j. Edgar hoover
Who harbored deep suspicions about wallace's loyalties.
Wallace in turn considered hoover an "american himmler."
Truman later denied he had read
And approved the entire speech in advance,
Which he had. He wrote in his diary...
Truman's voice: Wallace is a pacifist 100%.
He wants us to disband our armed forces,
Give russia our atomic secrets,
And trust a bunch of adventurers in the kremlin politburo.
I do not understand a "dreamer" like that.
Stone: Truman fired wallace.
And with his departure, the best chance
To avert a nuclear arms race was gone.
1947 would be the turning point,
As the U.S. Plunged headlong
Into the cold war at home and abroad.
Behind the ongoing liberation movements
In places such as british malaya,
French indochina and dutch indonesia,
U.S. Leadership painted a dire picture of stalin
Spreading world revolution,
Ruling out negotiations and ignoring any grays
In its black-and-white conclusions.
In greece, the british army
Toppled the popular leftist national liberation front
And restored the monarchy and right-wing dictatorship,
Sparking a communist-led uprising.
Following the severe winter of 1946-7,
The financially-strapped british could not control the revolt
And asked the United States to take the lead
In defeating the greek insurgents
And modernizing the turkish army.
One state department official later summed it up:
Great britain had within the hour
Handed the job of world leadership to the United States.
A war-weary public had no appetite
For costly initiatives.
But truman, addressing both houses of congress,
Appealed for $400 million,
Laying out a new vision
For america as the world's policeman.
( truman speaking )
Stone: Truman in not distinguishing vital threats
From peripheral ones and by linking the fate
Of people all over the world to the security of the United States
Was making a momentous statement.
These words could in fact be transposed to korea,
To vietnam, to iraq and afghanistan.
After a heated debate,
Congress fell into line.
Moscow was stunned by this war-like language,
Accusing the U.S. Of imperialist expansion under the guise of charity
And trying to extend the monroe doctrine to the old world.
From outside the government
Henry wallace led the opposition,
Decrying the utter nonsense of describing...
...And accusing truman of betraying roosevelt's vision for world peace.
Wallace's voice: President truman cannot prevent change in the world
Any more than he can prevent the tide from coming in
Or the sun from setting.
But once america stands for opposition to change,
We are lost.
America will become the most hated nation in the world.
Stone: Anticipating that the soviets
Would reply in kind, he warned...
Wallace's voice: Truman's policy will spread communism
In europe and asia.
Stone: Two months later the soviets sponsored
A communist coup overthrowing
The democratically-elected government of hungary.
"the new york times" wrote
"the coup in hungary is russia's answer
To our action in greece and turkey."
And it clearly contributed to the soviet decision
To impose a new, stricter order across eastern europe.
The greek civil war grew bloody,
And U.S. Personnel identified as "advisors"
Arrived in the war zone in June of '47.
The United States amply armed the right-wing monarchy
And tolerated their client's mass political arrests and executions.
It was an especially savage conflict,
With tactics-- some old, some new--
That previewed those later used in vietnam,
Such as mass deportations to camps,
Mass imprisonment of wives and children of subversives,
Executions, the destruction of unions,
Torture and napalming villages.
Greece was kept in the hands of wealthy businessmen,
Many of them nazi collaborators,
And the victims were primarily workers
And peasants who'd resisted the nazis.
The soviet union temporarily assisted the left-wing forces,
But in February of '48
Stalin ordered yugoslavia's josip tito,
As well as neighboring albania and bulgaria,
To stop supporting the guerilla movement.
( stalin speaking )
Stone: The tough tito, who'd fought his own grueling war
Against the nazis and had no fear of stalin's assassins,
Refused, and stalin excommunicated him
From the international communist movement,
Antagonizing hard-line allies like mao in china.
The state department reported
"for the first time in history we may now have
Within the international community
A communist state independent of moscow."
But despite providing covert support for tito,
The United States never adjusted its rhetoric to reflect that.
In the public's mind, the soviet union remained
At the center of a communist conspiracy
To dominate the world.
In 1956, out of office a second time and in retirement,
The old lion churchill confirmed in an interview...
Churchill's voice: Stalin never broke his word to me.
We agreed on the balkans. I said he could have
Romania and bulgaria
And he said we could have greece.
He signed a slip of paper and he never broke his word.
We saved greece that way.
Stone: Stalin's lack of support for the greek uprising
Doomed the rebels,
And the war ended with victory in 1949
For the national government.
Though U.S. Officials cheered the victory,
The greek people weren't so sure--
More than 100,000 died
And 800,000 became refugees.
Successive greek governments would use the state apparatus--
The police, military, decrees
And an intelligence agency--
To systematically rule the country.
Domestically, pressured by the republican right,
Truman found it necessary to appease
The public's growing unease with communism,
Thus he mandated loyalty checks on all government employees
To root out "subversives."
Having the wrong views on religion,
Sexual behavior, foreign policy or race could make one suspect.
Through 1952 loyalty boards
Reviewed more than 22,000 cases
And more than 4,000 employees were fired or resigned.
Newsreel: The growing menace of communism
Arouses the house of representatives'
Un-american activities committee.
Stone: In October 1947
The house un-american activities committee
Held highly-publicized public hearings
On communist influence in hollywood.
It was an easy target.
Have you ever been a member of the communist party?
I have told you that I will offer my beliefs,
- My affiliations and everything else... - Excuse the witness!
...To the american public and they will know where I stand,
- As they do from what I have written. - Stand away from the stand!
- I have written for americanism for many years... - Stand away from the stand!
...And I will continue to fight for the bill of rights, which you are trying to destroy.
Officer, take this man away from the stand.
Stone: Hollywood studio executives
Shamefully denounced those accused
And pledged not to hire anyone with suspect affiliations.
Although a great number of hollywood stars
Publically criticized the witch-hunts,
The "blacklist" gave way to the "graylist"
And hundreds more were denied work.
Among the friendly witnesses who testified
Were screen actors guild president ronald reagan,
Actors robert taylor and gary cooper
And studio executive walt disney.
I-- I don't believe it's a political party.
I believe it's an un-american thing
And the thing that I resent the most is that they
Are able to get into these unions and take them over.
Stone: From 1948 through '54,
More than 40 strongly anti-communist motion pictures were made,
Not including terrifying science-fiction parables
Like h.G. Wells' "the war of the worlds,"
Which implied the threat of communism.
Announcer: This could be the beginning of the end for the human race.
For what men first thought were meteors
Are in reality the flaming vanguard from the red planet.
- ( screams ) - ( siren wails )
Stone: The f.B.I. Under publicity-conscious
J. Edgar hoover,
Whose single greatest obsession in life
Was communism,
Conducted most of the investigations
Into its existence in america.
Those accused could not know the basis of the accusations.
In his paranoia, hoover distrusted
Even the white house, the pentagon and justice department,
And hid what he did-- both inside and outside the law--
Drawing up plans for mass detentions of communists
In the event of an anticipated soviet attack.
In July of '47 truman pushed through
The national security act, which created a vast new bureaucracy
Headed by the anti-soviet hardliner james forrestal
As this country's first secretary of defense.
The act also created the central intelligence agency,
Which was given four functions--
Three of them dealing with the collection,
Analysis and dissemination of intelligence.
It was the fourth function that would prove the most dangerous--
A vaguely-worded passage
That allowed the c.I.A. To perform...
...As the president saw fit.
The c.I.A. Would use that vague wording
To conduct hundreds of covert operations around the world,
Including more than 80 during truman's second term.
Its earliest success was to subvert Italy's 1948 election
To ensure victory over the communist party.
Democracy was apparently a virtue
When it served U.S. Interests.
Sometimes referred to as
"capitalism's invisible army,"
The c.I.A. Was truly the beginning of a new america,
Built upon a secret state that would grow exponentially
Over the following decades.
Despite his public face, truman had feared from the start
That the c.I.A. Could turn into a "gestapo"
Or "military dictatorship."
In 1963, shortly after john kennedy had been assassinated,
Truman, surprisingly but explicitly,
Called for the c.I.A. To end operations
And simply gather intelligence.
His op-ed appeared in the "washington post,"
But strangely generated little discussion
In other media outlets and disappeared from public attention.
General george marshall,
Having led the allied armies to victory
In the second world war, was named man of the year again
By "time" in January of '48
And planned a quiet retirement.
But truman, who'd had more than enough of byrnes,
Forced his resignation and made marshall
His new secretary of state.
Privately believing that truman's descriptions
Of a communist threat were exaggerated,
Marshall's common sense dictated
That the best way to win a war
Was to prevent it from occurring.
What was needed in a ruined and destitute europe
Was not a military response, but a humanitarian one.
In that spirit
At harvard university's graduation ceremony in June 1947,
America's most prestigious general
Invited european leaders to submit a plan
For economic recovery.
Out of this was born the famous marshall plan.
Our policy is directed not against any country
Or doctrine,
But against hunger, poverty,
Desperation and chaos.
Stone: What the United States did after the second world war
Was rare in imperial history.
It restored its old rivals germany and japan
And made them economically-powerful satellites
Of the United States.
It is a difficult program.
And you know far better than I do
The political difficulties involved in this program.
But there's no doubt whatever in my mind
That if we decide to do this thing,
We can do it successfully.
Stone: The U.S. Eventually spent $13 billion
Between 1948 and '52,
With britain, France and germany
Being the largest recipients,
Adding greatly to soviet fears
Of german power restored.
The soviets turned down an offer to join the plan,
As it called for too much american control
Over the soviet economy.
When czechoslovakia-- a freely-elected coalition government headed,
Interestingly enough, by a communist party--
Accepted marshall's offer of aid,
That went too far for the mistrustful stalin
Who demanded the czechs reject the plan.
In February of '48
A stalinist regime was imposed on czechoslovakia.
The U.S. And many liberals in europe
Were shocked.
Famous actor james cagney
Voiced following explanation of the western point of view.
James cagney: Subversion is of course
An important technique of communist conquest.
Czechoslovakia in 1948 is an established democracy in eastern europe.
Suddenly a rash of strikes.
Conservative elements resign from the capitol.
But jan masaryk, son of the country's greatest hero,
Will not go along and remains in the foreign office.
Two weeks later his dead body is discovered.
Whether he was murdered or killed himself
Is not known to this day.
Stone: Masaryk's manner of death--
Falling out of his bathroom window--
Would come to particularly haunt forrestal
And vindicated the darkest view of soviet intentions.
Marshall, however, had told a cabinet meeting
The previous November that the soviets would soon
"clamp down" on czechoslovakia
As a "purely defensive move."
But truman seized on the outrage
To press the marshall plan through congress,
As well as a rearmament program
The pentagon had long been pushing.
Truman: The soviet union and its agents
Have destroyed the independence and democratic character
Of a whole series of nations in eastern and central europe.
It is this ruthless course of action
And the clear design to extend it to the remaining free nations of europe
That have brought about the critical situation in europe today.
Stone: The U.S. Also at this point
Made the fateful decision to press
For an independent west german state.
Truman described the marshall plan
And the truman doctrine as two halves of the same walnut.
Although the plan fueled european recovery,
Much of the aid was used to purchase exports from U.S. Multinational corporations.
Little aid was given to rebuild
Europe's own indigenous refining capacity,
Allowing the american oil majors to dominate the european market.
The plan was secretly generous to the c.I.A.,
Which diverted large amounts of marshall aid money
For covert operations. In the summer of '48
Following the czechoslovakian coup,
Truman approved a dramatic escalation
Of global covert action to include
Guerilla operations in the soviet union
And eastern europe.
One project went to creating a guerilla army
Codenamed "nightingale" in ukraine,
Which had originally been set up by the nazis in 1941,
Made up of ultranationalist ukrainians.
These groups now wreaked havoc in the famine-wracked region
Where soviet control was loose,
Carrying out the murder of thousands of jews,
Soviets and poles who opposed
A separate ukrainian state.
Beginning in 1949,
For five years the c.I.A. Parachuted
Ukrainian infiltrators back into the region.
To the soviet mind,
It was as if they had infiltrated guerillas
Into the canadian or mexican border areas of the United States,
And signaled the lengths to which the U.S. Was willing to go
To dislodge soviet control
Of their own border areas and sphere of interests.
The c.I.A. Was equally active in germany,
Taking over the gehlen organization from the U.S. Army.
Gehlen, a former nazi who'd run intelligence
In eastern europe and the soviet union for hitler,
Recruited a network of nazis and war criminals
Drawn in part from the gestapo and s.S.
And in the ensuing years,
It painted the worst-possible picture of soviet actions.
A retired c.I.A. Official acknowledged,
"he fed us what we wanted to hear.
We used his stuff constantly
And we fed it to everyone else--
The pentagon, the white house, the newspapers.
They loved it too.
But it was hyped-up russian bogeyman junk,
And it did a lot of damage to this country."
When in June of 1948,
The U.S. Instituted currency reform
In the three western sectors of berlin--
Which was 100 miles inside eastern germany--
In order to replace the popular black-market american cigarette,
The soviets saw this as a major step
In establishing an independent west german state,
As well as a betrayal of the U.S. Promise
To provide reparations
From the inherently more prosperous western zones.
The soviets cut off rail and road access to berlin.
Stalin said the western powers
Had forfeited their right of access
Because they were shattering
The postwar framework of a unified germany.
The western media decried the savage cruelty
Of the soviets' berlin blockade, trying to starve civilians into submission.
But contrary to this widely-held view,
The soviets, for all their faults,
Guaranteed west berliners access to food and coal
From the eastern zone.
U.S. Military intelligence confirmed this.
What most people do remember, however,
Is that over the next 15 months
In a heroic defensive maneuver against soviet aggression
The massive berlin airlift organized by general curtis lemay
Delivered food and fuel to 2.2 million people
In a besieged city.
Truman, who was willing to approve the use of atomic weapons,
Wrote in September, "we are very close to war."
France had little enthusiasm for this U.S. Initiative,
Fearing a re-militarized germany.
Nor did britain. But the U.S. Gambled
That its atomic monopoly would win out,
Rejecting soviet attempts to compromise
Until it achieved both a basic law
Outlining a west german state
And the creation in April of 1949
Of the north atlantic treaty organization.
This, for the first time in its history,
Committed the United States to a peacetime
Military alliance with western europe.
Its objectives won, the U.S. Now agreed
To talks on the future of germany,
And it was then that the soviets lifted the blockade.
Newsreel: And the soviets gave up.
Their blockade was lifted. The United States and britain
Had kept faith with the people of berlin.
The lifeline of supply remained open.
Stone: Germany was now officially divided.
And in return for its foreign aid,
The U.S. Would, with nato, militarize France,
England, Italy, germany
And later station nuclear weapons on german soil.
In effect the U.S. Was declaring
Western europe the first line of defense
And potential launching pad for world war iii.
As the 1948 election loomed,
And the republicans were heavily favored,
Henry wallace declared himself
The progressive party's candidate.
Wallace's voice: The bigger the peace vote,
The more definitely the world will know
That the United States is not behind the bipartisan reactionary war policy
Which is dividing the world into two armed camps.
The people of the world must see
That there is another america than this truman-led,
Wall-street-dominated, military-backed group
That is blackening the name of democracy all over the world.
Stone: Truman's political people
Unleashed a vicious red-baiting campaign
Using liberals to accuse
The former vice-president of being a tool of moscow.
Truman: I do not want and I will not accept
The political support of henry wallace and his communists.
( applause )
Stone: Although wallace repeatedly denied any involvement
With communism and warned that charges of it
Were being used to undermine american freedoms,
Mobs broke up his rallies, universities denied him
The right to speak on campuses
And his supporters were sometimes fired from their jobs.
Glen, I think the american people are going to surprise us
Very very pleasantly next fall.
- So do I. - ( chuckles ) boy.
Stone: Wallace's running mate,
Idaho senator glen taylor,
Was arrested and beaten up by police in birmingham, alabama,
For entering the gathering of a southern negro youth congress
Through a door marked "colored."
Wallace wired taylor.
Wallace's voice: This dramatizes the hypocrisy of spending billions for arms
In the name of defending freedom abroad,
While freedom is trampled on here at home.
Stone: The communist charges
And the dismissive treatment of wallace
By the major newspapers took its toll.
Wallace's campaign was a disaster.
He came in fourth behind a south carolina segregationist.
But his progressive agenda on domestic issues,
Especially civil rights,
Seems to have influenced truman.
In the end there was a surprising last-minute rush
To truman by democratic voters
Now fearing a republican victory.
And allowing truman to upset heavily-favored thomas dewey.
Though it was one of the great come-from-behind miracle tales
Of U.S. Politics, harry truman, like churchill,
Would watch his presidency crumble.
In the next four years, he would see his support plummet,
Leaving office with historically low
George w. Bush-level approval ratings.
In September 1949
Came the first of three major events--
None of them unforeseen by the laws of cause and effect.
Truman shocked the nation.
Truman's voice: We have evidence that within recent weeks
An atomic explosion occurred in the U.S.S.R.
Stone: In 1948 oppenheimer had said,
"our atomic monopoly is like
A cake of ice melting in the sun."
As henry wallace had warned in 1945,
Truman and his group were terribly wrong to assume
The U.S. Would have an ongoing monopoly on the bomb.
Americans felt more vulnerable than ever,
And the nuclear arms race that wallace and the scientists had so feared
Now escalated as the U.S. Hastened development
Of a hydrogen bomb.
As 1949 ended,
The world's largest and most populous nation,
China, turned communist.
When mao zedong
Routed the corrupt nationalist forces of jiang jieshi,
It was unquestionably the most important revolution
Since russia's 1917 overthrow of the tsar.
"time" magazine warned of the "red tide
That threatens to engulf the world."
General douglas macarthur wrote in "life" magazine,
"the fall of china imperils the United States."
Acting outraged as if the corrupt nationalists' loss
Had not been anticipated,
The conservative china lobby in the U.S.
Found guilty not only the soviet union, democrats,
State department china experts,
But also secretary of state george marshall.
These would prove to be false accusations.
In subordinating world revolution
To their own immediate security concerns,
The soviets had provided minimal assistance
To the revolutionaries and little encouragement.
Stalin did finally form an alliance with mao in February of 1950,
But urged the radicalized chinese leader
To maintain cordial relations with the U.S.
Both sides made exaggerated claims against each other,
But china's commitment to revolutionary change
And U.S. Refusal to recognize the legitimacy
Of the new government with a seat at the united nations
While recognizing dictator-run countries,
Doomed any efforts at peace.
In June of 1950,
North korea invaded south korea,
And the cold war now turned hot for real.
Both soviet-installed dictator kim il-sung in the north
And U.S.-Backed dictator syngman rhee in the south
Had been threatening to unify the country by force.
Distressed by the U.S.'s rebuilding of japan,
With whom the soviets had fought two bloody wars,
Stalin gave kim the green light to beat the south to the punch.
Stalin told kim il sung the war was a way
To get back at the "arrogant behavior of the United States in europe,
The balkans, the middle east,
And especially its decision to form nato."
On the other hand, knowing the industrial power of the U.S.,
Stalin did not want a wider war.
Importantly, the joint chiefs and the state department
Had openly acknowledged korea to be outside
The U.S. Defense perimeter in east asia.
But with communist victory in china
And revolutionary forces threatening to overthrow
Western-backed regimes
In vietnam, malaya, and the philippines,
Truman felt he had to make a stand somewhere,
And korea was the newly-appointed place.
Truman's voice: If we let korea down, the soviets will keep on going
And swallow up one piece of asia after another.
If we were to let asia go,
The near east would collapse
And no telling what would happen in europe.
Stone: Despite deploying tens of thousands of troops,
Truman refused to call the intervention a war,
Labeling it instead a "police action."
Although it was nominally a united nations effort,
The U.S. Provided half the ground forces
And almost all of the naval and air power.
Most of the other ground forces were south korean.
Truman opted as well to bypass congressional authorization,
Setting the stage for future interventions.
The war and its bloody, indecisive, three-year course
Would cost truman dearly.
As for james forrestal, though his views had helped shape
The poisonous anti-soviet climate in washington,
He'd been on the losing end of several policy battles with truman,
And was relieved of duty
With a ceremony in March of '49. He was "shattered."
When friend and future c.I.A. Director john mccone came to call,
Forrestal, becoming increasingly paranoid,
Pulled down the shades and sat away from the window
So as not to give a sniper an easy target.
Who he was afraid of, he never specified.
Rumors hit the press and went worldwide
That forrestal was discovered in the streets in his pajamas
Shouting, "the russian are coming!"
They're here already! You're next!
Stone: The pentagon announced forrestal had gone
For a routine check-up at the bethesda naval hospital in maryland.
He was diagnosed with reactive depression.
Doctor! Will you tell these fools I'm not crazy!
Make them listen to me before it's too late!
Listen to me. Please listen.
If you don't, if you won't,
If you fail to understand, then the same incredible terror
That is menacing me will strike at you!
Stone: Alone in his room on the 16th floor,
He suffered constant nightmares of persecution.
He thought he would suffer the same fate
As czechoslovakian foreign minister jan masaryk--
To be pushed out of a window.
But his condition began to improve
And on the night of may 22, 1949,
He stayed up late copying sophocles' "the chorus" from "ajax,"
Where the hero ponders his fate far from home.
At the word "nightingale," he put his pen down.
16 floors up, he jumped.
Philosopher and newspaper columnist walter lippmann
Wrote of forrestal:
"he was like a doctor who studies a disease
And then contracts it himself."
Behind him, forrestal left a newborn pentagon establishment,
Which, faced with those struggling for a different world,
Saw only communist conspiracies.
There is still today a fundamental misunderstanding
That the United States entered the cold war
In response to soviet aggression worldwide.
There is no doubt the soviet leadership imposed repressive
And, when challenged, brutal dictatorships
On poland, hungary, romania, bulgaria,
East germany, albania and czechoslovakia.
But it is equally clear that the soviets were initially willing
To accept governments friendly to them in these countries,
Until the west began to make threatening moves
Both on their ideology and their security.
During this postwar period, it was the United States
With its atomic monopoly, not the soviet union,
Which bears the lion's share of responsibility
For starting the cold war.
The pacifist a.J. Muste wrote in 1941,
"the problem after a war is with the victor.
He thinks that he has just proven that war and violence pay.
Who will now teach him a lesson?"
Beginning with truman's first day in office,
His receptiveness to the views of hard-line anti-communists,
His denial of roosevelt's understanding with stalin,
The provocative and unnecessary dropping of the atomic bombs,
His spreading a network of military bases around the world,
Churchill's speech at fulton,
Truman's call for fighting communism in greece,
The division and remilitarization of germany,
The continued testing of bigger and bigger atomic and hydrogen bombs
Which he used to threaten the soviet union,
Truman's deliberate exaggerations of the communist threat
Both overseas and at home,
And his persecution and silencing
Of those who challenged these distortions--
In all of these matters, with few exceptions,
The United States, after successfully liberating western europe,
Was now signaling fear and aggression.
Why this fear?
It has been said, that as americans we are
An immigrant people to a new country,
People who in one way or another
Have escaped persecution and poverty and fear,
And though separated by two enormous oceans,
Are still subject to that incessant fear--
Even our sons and grandsons.
North americans have been taught and enamored
Of the myth of starting over with a new purity in a new land--
The myth of american exceptionalism
In a new jerusalem, a city on the hill.
Is it necessary then to exaggerate the fear
Of persecution from abroad,
From the corrupt foreigner who would always represent the old and evil ways?
Man over radio: Hordes of grasping, pushing foreigners
Who are stealing jobs from american workmen
And bread from american homes.
It is to combat this peril
That we, the challengers, have raised our rallying cry
"america for americans!"
Are you willing to protect your job?
- Well, you bet, sir. - I'm glad to hear that.
Because we got a pretty bad problem here in this state--
It's full of foreigners, all trying to chisel jobs
Out of americans like you and me.
Well, I certainly am obliged to you for telling me, mr. Taylor.
The first one of them foreigners that comes messing around my job
Is gonna find himself in a heap of trouble.
Oh, it ain't gonna be one, metcalf.
You gotta fight all of them.
You see, they stick together, these foreigners.
And they'll knife you in the back before you even know who they are.
An american alone ain't got a chance.
Stone: In the early 21st century,
There would be almost 300 million guns in american homes.
We are the most heavily armed nation in the world.
But when any nation goes
To an extreme degree to protect itself,
It's inevitable that that protection
Will never seem,
Psychologically, to be enough.
It is also often true
That the image of the enemy
Will grow proportionate to the size of the defense,
Resulting in an overreaction and accelerated spending of energies
In a futile attempt to liquidate that fear
Which never seems to erode.
Fear and uncertainty are two inescapable elements
In all human life since the beginning of time.
They are to be accepted as one accepts birth and death.
It was alexander the great who reportedly addressed the notion that
"if you can conquer your fear, you can conquer death,"
And in co-enduring with
And containing our fear and uncertainty,
We become naturally stronger.
The irony of life-- personal and public--
Is that often with the changing of time,
The object of fear, the enemy, becomes,
To the surprise of former enemies,
A friend, often a best friend or ally.
Clearly in hindsight, U.S. Leaders had exaggerated
The threat from an enemy they felt they needed,
Wanting to frame the world as an existential clash
Between two antagonistic social systems.
Henry wallace, who warned that the source
Of all of our mistakes is fear,
Had said it could be a healthy competition between those systems.
But the hardliners of american society
Felt that this was impossible,
And henry wallace was dismissed as naive.
James forrestal, one of those hardliners,
The first secretary of defense,
Thus ended his life in a violent fashion
That would become a strange omen
For an american foreign policy
That was increasingly terrified of its own shadow.
50 years into this century,
Halfway from 1900 to 2000,
The United States had forged the foundation of a new mindset.
It had developed into a full-fledged
If unique kind of empire,
Economically supreme and massively armed,
Policing the world while professing liberty and democracy.
For a policeman, it's necessary to locate
And arrest enemies of its social system.
Thus the story of the next 60 years of american history
Will resemble a pattern that has already occurred,
In the shape of increasing covert activities
Unknown to the people of the empire,
More and more regional wars,
And a form of control that is imposed over and over again.
George h.W. Bush: If history teaches us anything,
It is that we must resist aggression
Or it will destroy our freedoms.
Announcer: You are in the crosshairs of the bomb sights
An enemy is centering on you.
You are a citizen of the free world,
A citizen of the United States of america.
You are the target.
( dramatic music playing )