Diary of a Heartland Radical: D Day Hoopla is An Example of “Cognitive Warfare”

Monday, June 10, 2024

D Day Hoopla is An Example of “Cognitive Warfare”

Harry Targ

(The recent visit of President Biden to the beaches of Normandy reflects the continued efforts of presidents to rewrite World War 2 history to celebrate the achievements of “democracy” over “authoritarianism.” The speech, however, reflects the ongoing “cognitive war” to convince the US citizenry, if not the world’s, of the special virtues of the United States and to proclaim:

“Here we proved the forces of liberty are stronger than the forces of conquest. Here we proved that the ideals of our democracy are stronger than any army or combination of armies in the entire world. “

And he pridefully reported that “We established NATO, the greatest military alliance in the history of the world. And over time … we brought more nations into NATO — the NATO Alliance, including the newest members: Finland and Sweden. …

Today, NATO stands at 32 countries strong. And NATO is more united than ever and even more prepared to keep the peace, deter aggression, defend freedom all around the world.”

As the material below suggests the Soviet Union and its Red Army bore the brunt of the war in Europe from its outset, while the allied leaders, Winston Churchill and Franklyn Roosevelt, postponed the invasion of Europe, the second front, for two years to further bleed the Red Army. In addition historian Gabriel Kolko suggested that the “the politics of war” meant that from at least 1943 on the “unnatural alliance” of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union involved each nation planning for a post-war world in which it would have maximum influence. As President Biden’s speech indicated., the US vision was to create a US dominated world based on an alliance system of which from 1949 on NATO would become a centerpiece.

These points and more suggest that the Biden speech at Normandy, was used by him, as presidents before, to conceptualize a world view of American exceptionalism and the need to continue to protect “democracies from authoritarian regimes.”)

*********************************************************

U.S. Foreign Policy during World War Il

After Nazi Germany had attacked the Soviet Union, France and Great Britain, and after U.S. entry into the war, an alliance of convenience was formed between Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union, what might be called “the unnatural alliance.” Wartime collaboration has been characterized by historian Gabriel Kolko (The Politics of War, 1968) as amicable until 1943, when all sides realized that the Nazis would be defeated. From that point on, each ally sought to maximize its own advantage in reference to postwar political influence.

The major source of conflict between the Soviet Union and the Western allies concerned plans for a cross-channel invasion of Europe. The Soviets fought the largest share of Germany's forces during most of the war. Consequently, they viewed the invasion of Europe promised by President Roosevelt in 1942 as of vital importance for relieving the pressure on the Red Army. Prime Minister Churchill of Great Britain repeatedly counseled Roosevelt to postpone the invasion and instead to carry out operations in North Africa, Greece, and Italy. The Soviets believed that the British strategy, accepted by the United States, was designed to weaken the Red Army, preserve the lives of Western armies, and consequently increase the power of the West after the war was over.

In June, 1944, after nearly three years of postponement, the Normandy invasion was carried out. While during most of the war the Soviets faced 70 to 75 percent of Germany's divisions, the cross-channel invasion increased the West's contact with German forces to 81 of its 181 divisions. British and U.S. confrontation with German forces peaked only in January, 1945, when they were engaged against 42 percent of the German army.

Further, the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union established contacts with political factions or movements from Eastern and Western European countries that represented political tendencies closest to the interest of each. The United States and Britain collaborated with conservative political forces, such as landed aristocrats from Eastern Europe and military officers from Eastern and Western Europe. Despite the fact that Britain and the United States often favored different clients, each supported political figures that were least likely to seek radical social change within their societies after the war.

While the Soviet Union often encouraged Communist and other left resistance fighters to cooperate with their more conservative countrymen to defeat fascism in Western Europe, they were not interested in supporting those political figures in Eastern Europe that were anti-Soviet.

A critical example of the latter were the Polish ex iles in London, who called for an Eastern European bloc after the war that would contain the Soviet Union. Since Poland had been the traditional point at which the Soviet Union had been invaded from Europe, the status of the postwar Polish government was of critical importance to the Soviet leadership. Early in the war Stalin had said that the Soviet Union would not tolerate a bloc of anti-Soviet states on its western borders. The London Poles represented just such a prospect.

Therefore, the wartime experience had been one of jockeying for position among the allied powers. The late date of the cross-channel invasion and the kinds of exile and resistance fighters each side supported indicated to the Soviet leadership that allied collaboration was indeed fragile.

This was the background for the famous wartime conference held February 4-11, 1945, at Yalta, when Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met to begin to settle outstanding postwar issues. The major accords resulting from the Yalta conference dealt with Asia, Eastern Europe, and postwar policy toward Germany.

Regarding hostilities in Asia, the Soviet Union promised to enter the war against Japan within three months after the formal end to the war against Germany. As a result of the Soviet Union's commitment to the final phase of the Asian war, the USSR was to gain control of the Kurile Islands, and the Sakhalin Islands. The Port of Dairen and Port Arthur would be internationalized. All of these concessions restored the status of these areas to what they had been at the time of the Russo/Japanese war during the first decade of the twentieth century. The Soviet Union was to control the Manchurian railroad jointly with the Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek and agreed to sign a treaty of friendship with the Nationalist Chinese forces. Finally, a joint trusteeship was to be set up between the United States and the Soviets for the postwar occupation of the Korean peninsula. The Soviet Union would occupy Korea north of the 38th parallel—the United States south of it.

The accords on Eastern Europe were to provide the initial point of conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. Poland's eastern and western frontiers were to be moved westward, giving land to the Soviet Union and taking land away from Germany. The issue of the governance of Poland after the war was discussed, and the great powers agreed that the government of the Lublin Poles, supported by the Soviet Union, should be broadened as a result of elections to include representatives from other political tendencies. The United States and Britain were particularly interested in representation from the conservative London Poles. In reference to Eastern Europe in general, the allied powers were to assist in the establishment of free governments throughout the area.

The last issue of major consequence involved the disposition of Germany after the war. Each wartime ally, including France, was to administer a zone of Germany, and policy affecting all of Germany was to be subject to the decisions of an Allied Control Council, The United States agreed in principle to reparations to the Soviets to be extracted from Germany. Stalin had mentioned a figure of $20 billion, but no final decision was made on the precise figure. Finally, it was agreed that German industrial capacity for military purposes would be eliminated.

Within two months of the Yalta Conference, President Roosevelt had died and his successor, Harry Truman, acknowledged the fact that no elections had yet been held in Poland. The language of the accords on Poland was ambiguous, allowing for political participation of "all democratic and anti-Nazi parties," which by some standards could exclude the London Poles. It was clear, nevertheless, that the London Poles represented forces hostile to the Soviet Union. Truman and his key advisors, such as Admiral Leahy and Averell Harriman, ambassador to the Soviet Union, decided that it was time to pressure the Soviets to reduce their influence in Eastern Europe. Harriman reiterated the charge that he had been making throughout the war: 'I believe that Stalin hoped to get to the Atlantic, and that was perhaps the reason why he didn't carry out the Yalta agreements. The prospects for Communist takeover seemed too good" (Harriman, in Howard Bliss and M. Glenn Johnson ed., Consensus at the Crossroads, 1972, 102-111)

Two weeks after Roosevelt's death, on April 23, 1945, Truman met with Foreign Minister Molotov of the Soviet Union and scolded him because no elections had been held in Poland. On May 5, 1945 lend-lease shipments to the Soviet Union were abruptly canceled without formal notice to the Soviets. Further, a $6 billion loan request the Soviets had sent to Washington was "lost. " The goal of this hardening policy towards the Soviets was to pressure them to withdraw from the affairs of Eastern Europe. The Open Door for U.S. economic and political influence then could be exercised there as it had been before World War Il.

The seeming concern for "free elections' in Poland, which served as a signal to the world of the United States's unilateral dismissal of allied collaboration, was somewhat deceitful. Stalin had repeatedly said throughout the war that he would not tolerate a belt of anti-Soviet states bordering the Soviet Union. It was clear that the London Poles sought just that. Also, when Truman attacked Molotov, only two months had passed since Yalta. Further, the Soviets had not violated their Yalta commitment regard ing Asia and Germany, so that in retrospect it becomes clear that Truman's conduct, immediately on taking office, constituted a conscious movement away from cooperation to confrontation. Harriman's position was that the dire economic situation in the Soviet Union would force it to capitulate to the demands of the United States for a postwar world order based on the Open Door.

To maintain the façade of alliance, Truman sent Harry Hopkins, a close advisor to Roosevelt, to negotiate with Stalin on these emerging conflicts in May, 1945. As a result of Hopkins's deliberation with Stalin, the latter agreed to include some London Poles in a new Polish government. The new Polish government that was established was recognized on June 21, 1945, by the United States and Great Britain.

The last wartime conference was held at Potsdam in July, 1945. While minor agreements were reached on the administration of Germany, the meeting -attended by Churchill (and his replacement, Clement Attlee, who had just defeated Churchill in British elections), Stalin, and Truman was filled with acrimony. By the outset of the conference, Truman had heard of the successful test of the atomic bomb. He realized that economic pressure on the Soviets could then be coupled with the implied threat of using the most destructive weapon the world had ever seen.

Truman, Attlee, and Chiang Kai-shek issued a proclamation during the conference calling for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese. This public statement was made without the prior knowledge of the Soviets. During the weeks preceding Potsdam, the Japanese had been negotiating with the Soviets over surrender. They only wished to preserve the Emperor as their spiritual leader. It was clear, however, that the United States no longer needed or wanted the Soviet Union to intervene in the Asian war or aid in securing Japan's surrender now that the atomic bomb was operational.

On the German question the allies agreed at Potsdam to take reparations from their own zones. The Western zones would give the Soviets ten percent of their reparations because the Western zones included the industrial sectors of Germany. Also, fifteen percent of Western reparations taken were to be exchanged for agricultural products from the Soviet sector. These agreements were soon to be dishonored.

Despite the communiqués between the Japanese and the Soviets about possible surrender, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, killing 80,000 people. The Soviet Union sent their armies into Manchuria on August 8, 1945 and on August 9 a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, leveling the city. The United States had become the first power in world history to use nuclear weapons.

The Cold War Heats Up

In October, 1944, Stalin and Churchill had reached an agreement whereby the Soviet Union would have dominant influence in Romania and Bulgaria after the war, and the British would have dominant influence in Greece. Both nations were to have equal influence in Yugoslavia and Hungary. While this arrangement was made without formal approval of President Roosevelt, many analysts argue that Stalin assiduously honored the arrangement after World War Il, until the Western nations began to pressure Stalin to reduce Soviet influence in Eastern Europe.

This pressure began almost immediately after the United States dropped the atomic bomb in the summer of 1945. The U.S. secretary of state, James Byrnes, publicly attacked the Soviets for a lack of democracy in the Bulgarian election, which was subsequently postponed until 1946. While the Soviets did influence Bulgarian politics, in what had been a country allied with Germany, at the same time they did not engage in political pressure in support of the left in Greece, Hungary, or Yugoslavia. Consequently, the public attack on the Soviets was probably seen by them as a repudiation of the Churchill-Stalin agreement of 1944. Further, as Horowitz suggests:

The deeper significance of Byrnes' statement was that it indicated to the Russians that the West was no longer in terested in working with them, and indeed was ready to use its preponderant power to prevent the Soviet Union from organizing a sphere of influence (in accord with previous agreements) in the vital East and Central European area. Thus, on the very day the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, and while Washington was staking out its own sphere of influence in the Pacific, President Truman declared that the East European countries were "not to be spheres of influence of any one power." This was the effective end of the coalition (David Horowitz, The Free World Colossus, 1971, 57).

After an acrimonious meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the big powers in September, 1945, the foreign ministers met in Moscow in December. Secretary of State Byrnes agreed to draft treaties concerning former German satellite countries: Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. When Byrnes returned to the United States, he was castigated by the media and more impor tingly by President Truman for his "appeasement" of the Soviet Union. In a memorandum dated January 5, 1946, Truman made his position on the Soviet Union clear. It was only a matter of time for this policy to be institutionalized militarily, politically, and economically:

There isn't a doubt in my mind that Russia intends an invasion of Turkey and the seizure of the Black Sea Straits to the Mediterranean. Unless Russia is faced with an iron fist and strong language, another war is in the making. Only one language do they understand-"how many divisions have

I do not think we should play compromise any longer. We should refuse to recognize Russia and Bulgaria until they comply with our requirements; we should let our position in Iran be known in no uncertain terms and we should continue to insist on the internationalization of the Kiel Canal, the Rhine-Danube waterway and the Black Sea Straits, and we should maintain complete control of Japan and the Pacific. .

We should insist on the return of our ships from Russia and force a settlement of the Lend-Lease debt of Russia. I'm tired of babying the Soviets (Alonzo L. Hamby, Beyond the New Deal : Harry S. Truman and American Liberalism, 1971, 117).

The growing hostility to the Soviet Union in 1945—46 was coupled with a naval buildup in the Mediterranean, a $13 billion defense expenditure, further atomic bomb tests, and initial efforts to secure U.S. air bases around the world. With dissent emerging within the Truman administration, Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace wrote Truman on the import of these policies:

These facts make it appear either ( l ) that we are preparing ourselves to win the war which we regard as inevitable or (2) that we are trying to build up a predominance of force to intimidate the rest of mankind. How would it look to us if Russia had the atomic bomb and we did not, if Russia had 10,000 mile bombers and air bases within I ,000 miles of our coastline and we did not? (Richard J. Walton, Henry Wallace, Harry Truman and the Cold War, 1976, 90)

Shortly after this memorandum to Truman, the ex-prime minister of Great Britain came to the United States and spoke at a small college in Fulton, Missouri. President Truman was on the podium when Churchill called for a United States-British military alliance against a "totalitarian" and expansionist Soviet Union. He proclaimed that "from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent" (Halle 103—4). While not publicly endorsing the Churchill view, Truman did not disavow it either.