THE AMERICAN EMPIRE AND THE COMING OF CLASS WAR --- Episode 6

IN THE FALL OF 1945,  THE U.S. HAD THE ATOMIC BOMB AND RUSSIA DID NOT- WE START BULLYING


   
    With the nuclear issue looming large, scientists descended on Washington in the fall of 1945 to promote international control of atomic energy and prevent military control of atomic research. Wallace supported their efforts, testifying before the Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy that the May-Johnson bill, by providing for military oversight of peacetime nuclear research would set up the "most undemocratic, dictatorial arrangements that have ever been proposed to the Congress in a major legislative measure." Its passage would threaten to deliver the American people into the hands of "military fascism." Wallace further pressed Truman to remove control of U.S atomic weapons from Leslie Groves [military general] and require authorization of the president, secretary of state, secretary of war and secretary of navy before they could be used. Wallace feared that given Soviet-hater Groves's unilateral control over the nuclear arsenal , he might launch an atomic attack on his own authority. 
   Such a fear was not as far-fetched as it might seem. In late 1945, Groves openly advocated a preemptive attack against the Soviet Union. He reasoned that the United States had two choices. It could quickly reach an agreement with the Soviets ensuring that nobody use atomic bombs under any circumstances. But such an agreement, he believed, would necessarily entail "the abandonment of all rights of privacy  ---  that of the home, the laboratory and the industrial plant theoughout the world including the United States." Failure to reach an agreement, however, would mean the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union all having atomic bombs. In that case, he contended, "The United States must for all time maintain absolute supremacy in atomic wepons, including number, size and power, efficiency, means for immeiate offensive use and defensive against atomic attack.. We must also have a worldwide intelligence service which will keep us at all times completely informed of any activities of other nations in the atomic field and of theri military intentions." That would lead to an atomic arms race. But he didn't think that "the world could long survive such a race." Therefore, he concluded, the United States should not permit any potential rival "to make or possess atomic weapons. If such a country started to make atomic weapons we would destroy its capacity to mke them before it had progreesed far enough to threaten us." 

The scientists, in their efforts to achieve international control of atomic power and to ensure civilian control at home, always viewed Wallace as their most trustworthy ally in the administration. Oppenheimer visited him in October and voiced the scientists' distress over the growing tension with the Soviet Union and the fact that Byrnes was using "the bomb as a pistol to get what we wanted in international diplomacy." He knew the Russians would respond by very quickly developing their own bomb. Oppenheimer complained that "the heart has completely gone out of" the scientists. "All they think about now are the social and economic implications of the bomb." Wallace was shaken by seeing Oppenheimer so agitated : "I never saw a man in such an extremely nervous state as Oppenheimer. He seemed to feel that the destruction of the entire human race was imminent." Wallace shared Oppenheimer's concern about the precarious nature of the international situation and encouraged him to speak directly with Truman. Unsettled by the encounter with Oppenheimer, Wallace commented, "The guilt consciousness of teh atomic bomb scientists is one of the most astounding things I have ever seen. " 
   Oppenheimer took Wallace's advice and met with Truman six days later. The meeting could not have gone worse. Truman stressed national considerations in passing an atomic energy act ; Oppenheimer pressed for international control. The meeting ended disastrously with Oppenheimer's confession of guilt over the bomb. 

Wallace persevered in his effort to mitigate the influence of Truman's conservative advisors, who preferred confrontation with the Soviet Union over continuing the wartime alliance. They saw malign intent in every Soviet action. Wallace encouraged Truman to understand how his words and actions looked to Soviet leaders. Following the cabinet meeting the day after Truman's unfortunate encounter with Oppenheimer, Wallace stayed behind to speak with the president. He again urged Truman to be evenhanded with Great Britain and the Soviet Union and to offer the Soviet Union a loan comparable to the one the United States had offered Great Britain. He compared U.S. dictating election results in Cuba and Mexico to the way the Soviets exerted control over the Balkan states. Truman, as always, greed completely with Wallace's analysis of events. 

The effects of Wallace's repeated interventions were usually short-lived. Truman's other advisors discerned a more threatening pattern in Soviet actions and succeeded in convincing the president to view the world through their prism. By November, they were referring to Wallace and Truman's progressive friends as "Reds" and telling Truman, "Don't pay any attention to what those 'Reds' want you do." 
   Meanwhile, Soviet leaders were pressing their own agenda : securing their gains in Eastern Europe and Asia, rebuilding their shattered economy, and making certain that Germany and Japan never again posed a threat to Soviet security. They were well positioned to act on those interests. With Communists having played a leading role in antifascist resistance movements, beleaguered Europeans often welcomed Soviet troops as liberators. Communist party membership soared across Europe. Communists won more than 20 percent of the vote in France, Italy, and Finland in 1945. With Europeans populations uprooted, homeless, hungry, and unemployed, the prospect seemed ripe for further Communist gains. In Italy, where 1.7 million joined the party, real wages in 1945 were barely a quarter of 1913 levels and GNP was at 1911 levels. Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson worried that Europe would turn toward socialism, leaving the United Staes isolated "They have suffered so much and they believe so deeply that governments can take some action which will alleviate their sufferings, that they will demand that the whole business of state control and state interference will be pushed further and further." 
   But the Soviet Union, adhering to wartime understandings and hoping to maintain the wartime alliance, went out of its way to restrain its frustrated Communist allies in China, Italy, France, and Greece. In early 1946, a Gallup Poll found that only 26 percent of Americans thought the Soviets sought world domination. Thirteen percent thought the British did. 

   MUCH MORE TO COME.