THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 80, May 6, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
RECENT HISTORY OF THE U.S.A.: FORGOTTEN LESSONS
By Alan Caruba
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA & INTERNATIONAL POLITICS IN THE POST-WORLD WAR II ERA: HOW THE U.S.A.
HAS APPLIED ITS POWER MILITARILY & THROUGH THE TRADECRAFT OF SPYING -- A STRING OF BLUNDERS & FAILURES
UNDERMINING THE POLITICAL CULTURE THAT ENCOURAGES & SUSTAINS EFFECTIVE U.S. FOREIGN & NATIONAL SECURITY
POLICY -- THE FAILURE OF AMERICA'S NATIONAL LEADERS TO LEARN FROM THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST
FULL STORY:
“The United States was resolved to intervene on behalf of its interests, but it was also resolved to intervene in such a way as
not to violate the principle of nonintervention,” wrote Professor Han J. Morgenthau, examining the lessons of the failed Bay
of Pigs invasion that was intended to overthrow Fidel Castro, head of the Communist political regime in Cuba.
"In order to minimize the loss of prestige, the United States
jeopardized the success of the intervention … and we lost
much prestige as a great nation able to use its power
successfully on behalf of its interests…. It sought the best
of both worlds and got the worst.”
The Bay of Pigs invasion, which occurred April 15-19, 1962, failed because then- U.S. President John F. Kennedy lost his nerve
and denied the air cover needed to protect the invading forces of CIA-trained Cuban freedom fighters. Earlier, the original point
of invasion had been moved to the Bay of Pigs, sixty miles away from Havana, giving Castro’s forces tactical advantage.
Mostly, though, the intelligence that underwrote the fiasco was just wrong.
For generations raised on Hollywood films and television programs in which American spies and military heroes triumph over
evil, the distance between that popular fiction and the reality of how America has applied its power militarily and through the
tradecraft of spying has been perceived by Americans as a string of defeats. We shall never know how many plots against our
nation have been thwarted because it is the nature of espionage that they are rarely, if ever, revealed.
Sometimes, though, it seems as if no lessons were ever learned or ever applied from the Bay of Pigs, the Watergate break-in,
and the subsequent long nightmare of the Vietnam War. The generals we trained for military leadership often proved too timid
to resist the hubris of political leaders, and those that did resist sometimes found their careers ended abruptly. This was
not lost on those who replaced them.
What had begun as the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, a daring and innovative group composed mainly of
the sons of America’s elite, graduates of Yale and Princeton, born to patriotism as they were born to privilege, would at war’s
end be disbanded and then reincarnated as the Central Intelligence Agency. In time, the CIA, despite its many successes
fighting the spread of Soviet Communism, would reportedly evolve into just another politicized bureaucracy.
The more that ethos took over, the less effective the Agency, often called “The Company,” became. By the time George W.
Bush was in the Oval Office (his father had briefly served as the Agency’s Director), the CIA was not led by someone with
field experience in intelligence, but rather a seasoned political operator, George Tenet, who now denies having told the
President that the invasion, removal of Saddam Hussein, and the democratization of Iraq would be “a slam dunk.” In his new
book, he concedes the CIA analysis was wrong.
“The echoes of the Bay of Pigs have resonated in our international policy ever since,” writes E. Howard Hunt, a former
member of the OSS who served over twenty years as a CIA operative. He was a legend within the Agency by the time he
retired and he would be involved in the Watergate scandal to the extent that his name would forever be linked to it. He had
been drawn into the totally paranoid world of Richard Nixon’s White House and his judgment deserted him.
I know this because I recently read his excellent autobiography, American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate
& Beyond, written with Greg Aunapu, and with a foreword by his longtime friend and Conservative legend, William F.
Buckley, Jr. I know it, too, because I can recall living through the aftermath of that abortive break-in of the Democratic Party
headquarters on June 17, 1972. It brought down all the key players around Nixon and it forced the only resignation by
a President in the long history of this nation.
It besmirched the Oval Office in ways that even the sexual dalliances and mass pardons by Bill Clinton could not. A
generation or more of Americans learned to no longer trust the judgment and integrity of our Presidents, a bitter lesson
learned, with an impact on American political culture that lingers to this day. Though the Nixon Presidency and the
Watergate break-in dealt the final blow, Lyndon B. Johnson had set in motion the presidential deligitimization process while
he was in the Oval Office.
As Hunt writes, “Watergate set off a blood feud between Democrats and Republicans that may continue for generations,”
adding, “Americans now suffer from political fatigue, lacking faith in the leadership of both parties.”
“And we never seem to learn,” writes Hunt.
“Lessons taken from the Bay of Pigs should have kept us out of
Vietnam, but they didn’t. The ‘quagmire’ of Vietnam should have
kept us from invading Iraq, but it didn’t. Watergate should have
made each successive administration more transparent and
mindful of the law, but it didn’t. Instead, almost every
administration has had some scandal important enough to hang
a ‘gate’ on, such as Iran-Contragate under Ronald Reagan and
Monica-gate under Bill Clinton.”
As the American philosopher George Santayana warned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat
it.”
The hubris of Richard Nixon found renewed life in George W. Bush. The sexual appetites and lack of judgment of John F.
Kennedy found renewed life in Bill Clinton. No one has quite matched the flat-out stupidity of Jimmy Carter, whose failure
to support an Iranian ally in 1979 set in motion the Islamic Revolution that threatens the Middle East and the world today,
but few recall that it was the revulsion against the excesses of Watergate that had propelled a little-known former
Governor of Georgia into the Oval Office.
If our leaders cannot learn these lessons, where are we headed?
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Politics & Political Competition:
Elections, PACs, & Political Parties
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
The American Political System:
Politics & Government in the U.S.A.
How America Goes to War:
The President, American Law, U.S. Military
Intervention into Foreign Conflicts
Communism: Longterm Enemy
Russia & Other Former Soviet Republics
The Far East & U.S. Foreign Policy
Latin America -- Economics, Politics, Political Regimes,
& Relations with the United States of America:
Problems & Opportunities for the U.S.A.
American Foreign Policy -- Constitutional Democracy:
U.S. Promotion of Constitutional Democracy in Foreign Countries
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
North Africa -- The Arab States of Islamic North Africa
The Middle East & the Problem of Iraq
Page Two
Page One
The Problem of Rogue States:
Iraq as a Case History
National Strategy for Victory in Iraq
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
Egypt, Arabs, & the Middle East
Tunisia, Islamic North Africa, & the Arab World
The Middle East & the Problem of Syria
The Middle East -- Lebanon as a Geopolitical Problem
Turkey, the Middle East, & the U.S.A.
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. Intelligence & America's National Security
United States Intelligence Agencies & America's
Defense Against International Terrorism
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba’s new book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press.
© Alan Caruba 2007
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
Return to Top of Page
Go to the WEBSITE INDEX
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Public Issues & Political Controversies
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
Most Recent Articles
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Volume IX, 2007
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Subject Matter Highlights
Return to POLITICAL EDUCATION Homepage
CONTACT & ACCESS INFORMATION
This is not a commercial website. The sole purpose of the website is to share with interested persons information regarding civics,
civic and social education, political science, government, politics, law, constitutional law and history, public policy, and political
philosophy and history, as well as current and recent political developments, public issues, and political controversies.
POLITICAL EDUCATION, CONSERVATIVE ANALYSIS
POLITICS, SOCIETY, & THE SOVEREIGN STATE
Website of Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr.
Government, Politics, Public Policy, Legal Issues, Constitutional Law, Government & the Economy, Cultural Values, Foreign Affairs,
International Relations, Military Defense & National Security, Geopolitics, Terrorism & Homeland Security, American National Interests,
Political Systems & Processes, Political Institutions, Political Ideologies, & Political Philosophy
INDEX FOR THE ENTIRE WEBSITE
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity