THE AMERICAN EMPIRE AND THE COMING OF CLASS WAR --- Episode 8

BOTH BEFORE AND AFTER WORLD WAR II, GREAT BRITAIN, THE SOVIET UNION AND THE UNITED STATES LOOKED CLOSELY AT THE MIDDLE EAST TO ASSURE FUTURE OIL SUPPLY 


Iran was another prize. In September 1941, tired of Reza Shah Pahlavi's erratic behavior and questionable loyalties, Britain and the USSR invaded and occupied the country, forcing Reza Shah into exile and replacing him with his twenty-one -year-old son. 

Having eyed Iran's rich oil reserves since the 1920s, the United States now maneuvered to expand its influence, offering lend--lease aid and sending in civilian and military advisors. In 1943, Secretary of State Cordell Hull explained to Roosevelt why it was essential to limit British and Soviet power : "It is to our interest that no great power be established on the Persian Gulf opposite the important American petroleum developments in Saudi Arabia. 

Like Great Britain and the United States, the Soviet Union did indeed have designs on Iranian oil. Stalin wanted to develop the oil fields in northern Iran. He also worried about the security of the Soviet Union's Baku oil fields, which were only a hundred miles north of the Russo--Iranian border. Stalin pressed Iran for oil concessions comparable to those granted to Gret Britain and the United States and, with troops remaining in the country from World War II, supported a separatist uprising in Iran's northern provinces to force Iran's hand. 

Churchill, meanwhile, itched for a confrontation with the Soviet Union. A rabid anti-Communist and unabashed imperialist, Churchill had tried to draw the United States into military engagement with the Soviet Union as far back as 1918. Though forced to defer his long-sought confrontation during the war, he pounced as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Soviet probes in Iran and Turkey had threatened the British sphere in the Middle East and Mediterranean, and Great Britain's hold on India seemed precarious. The exposure of a Soviet atomic espionage ring in Canada in early February 1946 added credibility to warnings issued by Forrestal, Leahy, and other hard-liners.  A speech that month by Stalin raised further hackles, though it was actually much less inflammatory than Soviet expert George Kennan and others contended. 

Anti-Soviet sentiments were clearly on the rise in early March 1946 when Churchill spoke in Fulton, Missouri, with Truman sitting on the platform. His bellicose words delivered a sharp, perhaps fatal, blow to any prospects for post-war comity : 

     From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent . . . Police governments are prevailing. . . in a great number of countries . . . the Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization . . . I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines. 

Stalin responded angrily, accusing Churchill of being in bed with the "warmongers" who followed the "racial theory" that only English speakers could "decide the fate of the world." 

The speech aroused intense passions on all sides. Major newspapers were mixed in their reactions. The New York Times applauded Churchill's harsh rhetoric, spoken "with the force of the prophet proved right before." The Washington Post also found elements to applaud but criticized Churchill's "illogical" call for an "international police force," as "overdoing the emphasis on force."

The Chicago Tribune agreed with Churchill's analysis of what was occurring in Eastern Europe but sharply disagreed with his remedy and pounced upon his defense of British imperialism : "He proposes an alliance, half slave and half free, with the British empire representing slavery. He comes really as a suppliant, begging assistance for that old and evil empire and frankly expecting to get it on his own terms." Such an alliance would require U.S. acceptance of "the enslavement and exploitation of millions of British subjects." The Tribune lectured sternly that the United States shoud not use its power "to maintain British tyranny thruout the world. We cannot become partners in slave holding." 

Several senators vigorously denounced Churchill's defense of empire. Maine Republican Owen Brewster proclaimed, "We cannot assume the heritage of colonial policy represented by the British foreign and colonial office. Nine-tenths of the world is not Anglo-Saxon. We must consider how we are going to gain the confidence of the world that is not Slav or Anglo-Saxon. I fear an alliance with Britain would be the catalyst that would precipitate the world against us. We should orient American policy independently with the Russians." Florida's Claude Pepper observed, "He spoke beautifully for imperialism ---but it is always British imperialism. I think his tory sentiments make him as much opposed to Russia as to a labor government in his own country. We want Anglo-American cooperation, but not at the exclusion of the rest of the world." Pepper later joined fellow Democrats Harley Kilgore of West Virginia and Glen Taylor of Idaho in issuing a statement rejecting Churchill's proposal for "an old fashioned, power politics, military alliance between Great Britain and the United States " that would "cut the throat of the UNO." Pepper told reporters, "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 people of the world who really want peace must take note of this Tory clamor in Britain and the United States which is building up for war. The new British-American imperialism which Mr. Churchill proposes and defends makes us false false to the very ideals for which both nations fought." 

Nor did the public clamor to support Churchill's belligerent call. As one Washington Post reader asserted, "Senator Pepper and his colleagues should be congratulated on their courageous reply to the war-mongering speech of Churchill. Who is President of the United States, Truman or Churchill ? Why should Churchill tell us what our policies should be when even the British people repudiated Churchill's policies in the last election. Churchill is a warmonger and it is time that Senator Pepper told him so. We need  second Declaration of Independence from british rule." 

Riding on the train to Missouri with Churchill, Truman had read Churchill's speech in its entirety and heartedly approved of its contents. But, in light of the outcry against Churchill's pugnacity, he denied having advance knowledge of what Churchill would say. Truman's boldfaced lies were quickly exposed by journalists. 

  MUCH MORE TO COME OF THIS MOST INTERESTING PERIOD IN OUR HISTORY.