The Case of George Washington

To date, when speaking of American presidents, I have illustrated those I consider the worst examples of American leadership, at least from the monarchist perspective which is what we are all about here. It may surprise some to read that I shall not be taking the same course with the subject of today, the first American president; George Washington. Why is that, you ask? Simply because I do not consider Washington to have been a bad president at all. Not flawless, certainly, as none can be but he was, I think, on the whole, one of the better American presidents. Now, before any Yankee Doodle patriots get too excited, let me state up front that there should be no denying the fact that George Washington was a traitor to his king and country and someone who, had he ever been taken by the British, could have been justly executed as such. The man broke his solemn oath to his monarch and that cannot be denied, justified or shrugged off. It is also true that, as the first American president, he was exalted as no American politician ever was until Abraham Lincoln. Because of this, hero worship has created a totally inaccurate view of George Washington in the popular imagination. What perplexes me the most is that it seems he is often given the most praise in the area where it is least deserved.

Most obvious, so obvious in fact that hardly anyone takes it seriously anymore, is the idea that George Washington was so pristinely honest that he was known as the man who “could not tell a lie”. Everyone has probably heard the story about little George Washington and the cherry tree and most everyone probably knows that it did not happen. What is a fact is that George Washington helped start the French & Indian War and signed a confession admitting to the assassination of a French officer by the force under his command. Washington later denied this and claimed that he didn’t know what he was signing but, either way, whether out of ignorance or intent, he had certainly been dishonest -to one side or the other. He also certainly lied when he gave his oath of allegiance as he later broke that oath to take part in the War for Independence. The incident surrounding the death of the French officer, Jumonville, is also revealing about two more misconceptions surrounding George Washington; one that he was a humble man and the second that he was a great military leader.

One could say many things about George Washington but humble he certainly was not. His entire life was one episode after another of his grasping for the next rung of the social ladder. When he started the French & Indian War some of his own countrymen at the time thought that he had gone off to pick a fight with France in the hope of advancing his own military career. We certainly know that one of his first things which led to his break with Great Britain was his failure to secure a commission in the regular army and his offense at the way militia officers were treated as being beneath regular army officers. After the war, he secured an immense fortune for himself by marrying a widow with four children who just happened to be the largest landowner in Virginia following the death of her husband. This was also the man who, when the Continental Army was being formed at the start of the War for Independence, showed up to Congress wearing his old militia uniform from the French & Indian War, blatantly advertising himself for the position of commander of the army. It makes his feigned protests at fearing he was not up to the challenge ring very hollow (even though he was perfectly right on that score).

It is also true that George Washington was a slave owner and though some have tried to temper this part of his life to make him more palatable to modern audiences, it is a futile effort. Known for having very bad teeth, even early in life, Washington was not averse to having teeth extracted from his slaves when he needed some new ones -and I doubt any pain-killers were involved in the process. This was also the man who, as a military commander, blamed his soldiers for lost battles, indeed who cursed them roundly to their faces and asked sarcastically how he could be expected to win a war with such incompetent material to work with. He certainly felt little to no affinity for the common soldier as was demonstrated during the famously harsh winter the army spent at Valley Forge where many soldiers starved and froze to death. Washington certainly did not share their discomfort but was billeted quite comfortably, miles away in a warm mansion, feasting and holding parties and dances (he did love to dance). Was he behaving any differently than any other general of an army? No, not most of them to be sure, but then most are not held up to be examples of great humility like Washington either.

However, if Washington was not humble as an army commander, he nonetheless did, like Clement Attlee, have much to be humble about. To put it simply, Washington was a disastrously bad military commander, bordering on the very depths of incompetence. This may come as a surprise to most people who will have surely heard how Washington was a positively brilliant military commander. It makes one wonder what the standards for brilliance are when that description is applied to a man who consistently lost almost every battle he fought even when the odds were greatly in his favor. This is probably the one point of criticism that I have received the most ‘push back’ on when it comes to George Washington. He won the war after all, so surely he must have done something right? True, he did win the war, or rather was on the winning side and I give him all due credit for that considering that he would have been blamed if the whole thing had failed. However, the man was a military idiot and the facts simply do not support the allegation that he was some sort of genius. It has nothing to do with the cause he was fighting for. I certainly have no sympathy whatsoever for the causes that Napoleon Bonaparte or Field Marshal Rommel fought for and yet these men were, undeniably, military geniuses. Washington was not and to make matters worse, he often repeated the same mistakes over and over again that led to his constant defeats.

For the sake of truth and clarity, let us take a look at the record of his command of the Continental Army throughout the war, with all the major operations year by year. In 1775 Washington assumed command but fought no major battles. The patriots were defeated in their invasion of Canada but he had no part in that fiasco. In 1776 he occupied Boston after the British were bluffed into evacuating it, which some may count as a victory but it seems hard to see it that way. In August, Washington was repeatedly defeated in the battles on Long Island and the following month lost New York City to the British under General Howe. In October, Washington was defeated at White Plains and in November again at Fort Washington which any decent military commander would not have even attempted to defend. After this, he retreated all the way to Pennsylvania and the only battle he won before the year was out was the Battle of Trenton in New Jersey in December. Before anyone becomes too excited, however, this was not a formal battle against the British army but was rather a minor raid in which a vastly superior rebel force surprised a small garrison of drunk German mercenaries before retreating again.

In 1777 Washington started with a victory at Princeton but, again, this was not a formal battle against the main British army. Again, this was a very minor battle against what was effectively the rear guard of the British army and one in which Washington had his enemy vastly outnumbered (roughly 4-to1 odds) and even then, it was a case of barely snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Washington did not meet the main British army in battle again until September when, surprise, surprise, he was soundly defeated by General Howe at the Battle of Brandywine. Later in the month the British occupied Philadelphia, the rebel capitol and the following month Washington was defeated again at the Battle of Germantown. The rest of the year was dominated by action in New York culminating in the British surrender at Saratoga but Washington played no part in that campaign and his army retired to winter quarters at Valley Forge. In 1778 Washington fought only one major battle against the British, the Battle of Monmouth (the largest battle of the war) and this was the closest he ever came to victory in a head-to-head fight against the British army. Of course, it wasn’t a victory, it was, at best, a stalemate but that is as close as Washington would ever come to such a thing.

1779 passed with no major action and in 1780 the British transferred their main operations to the southern colonies. Washington took no part in any major action until the siege of Yorktown in 1781 which ended in the surrender of the British garrison under Lord Cornwallis and, effectively, the end of the war. However, once again, it would be simply untrue to credit this victory to any military brilliance on the part of Washington. The British were outnumbered by at least 2-to-1 and the enemy force opposing them was just as largely French as it was American. Likewise, the victory was only possible because of the victory of the French navy at sea, the French lost more men attacking the British lines than the Americans did and the whole operation was undertaken at the suggestion of the French. Washington had wanted to attack in New York while the Comte de Rochambeau wanted to concentrate on the southern coast and it was a message from the French Admiral, the Comte de Grasse, which finally prompted Washington to give the order to move on Yorktown. Plain and simple, the siege of Yorktown was a French victory more than it was an American victory attributable to Washington.

Washington then, very dramatically, resigned as Commander-in-Chief to retire to civilian life, trying to portray himself like the noble Cincinnatus. Of course, this left him free to be elected President of the United States, and so become commander-in-chief again. It was something very typical throughout the life of Washington; advertising himself for the job of commander of the army, then feigning humility and reluctance to accept the post; stepping down from one position only to accept a more prestigious one later, declining his presidential salary but then (after “difficult” persuasion) accepting it anyway. It was all part of a very carefully calculated public-relations campaign to raise him above all others in the esteem of the public. However, as president, George Washington was the type that, I at least, prefer to others. What I liked most about his administration was that he did very little. In fact, when looking at his time in office, one could have easily mistaken him for a constitutional monarch rather than the sort of presidents most are familiar with.

President Washington, for example, was not a member of any political party and took care to ensure that he was not tied to or beholden to either of the emerging political factions though historians have since categorized him as being more sympathetic to the federalists but, still, not in complete lock-step with them. He tried to be a non-partisan president as hard as that is for people today to imagine. When opposition to the whiskey tax led to rebellion (though it ended without violence), Washington took charge and became the only President to command troops in the field as Commander-in-Chief. When it came to legislation, Washington did not believe that disagreement with a certain bill was sufficient cause to use his veto power against it and felt that a president should only veto a bill passed by both houses if he considered it to be unconstitutional. Obviously, that is a far cry from what his successors in the office have done, for good or ill. And, when it came to foreign affairs, Washington was adamantly opposed to permanent alliances which was a policy Britain had long been known for, being permanently tied to no one so as to allow greater freedom of action when situations developed that would best serve the national interest.

When the French Revolution broke out, despite strong support for the revolutionaries in many sections of the public and in the halls of power, Washington declared that the United States would be neutral. When the representative of the revolutionary government tried to enlist Americans to their cause and set up pro-revolutionary organizations in the country, Washington denounced such activity and asked the French government to recall the man. He was appalled by the Reign of Terror and, though a long-standing member of the Freemasons himself, was critical of the “Enlightenment” sentiments that drove it and was intent on keeping such trends out of America. He normalized relations with Great Britain, reestablished trade with the British Empire (which was beneficial to both sides) and so angered the French revolutionary regime by what were seen as his pro-British policies that they threatened war, though Washington would be out of office before anything of the sort happened and long gone by the time that one of his successors daftly went to war with Britain in 1812. When he left office, his “Farewell Address” included warnings to avoid allowing party politics to take hold in the country and to stay out of any “entangling” alliances with foreign powers. Good advice but, unfortunately, his warning about political parties went unheeded while his warning against entangling alliances and overseas meddling was somewhat more adhered to, at least until the 20th Century.

The last public service Washington gave was as commander of the army, yet again, during the last seven years of his life as war with republican France seemed eminent. On the whole, Washington was a terrible general but a very able president. His treason was mostly due to his own vanity and ambition. His problem with Britain was not really with the monarchy or aristocracy but rather that he was never deemed worthy to be included in that aristocracy. His treason was not due to any objection with the British Empire itself but rather colonial America’s subservient position within it. As a military commander he was downright incompetent but he was certainly courageous and had a natural leadership ability, though this was mostly revealed in his dealings with other generals and officers. His much-praised ability to “keep the army together” was due more to his strict, even cruel, enforcement of severe punishments for desertion or disaffection.

The republicanism that Washington espoused, much like the American government as a whole, was never probably as sincere as it seemed but was more of a last resort; used to give an ideological justification for the treason he and his fellows had committed. This is revealed by the fact that, as president, he acted more like a monarch than a president, doing his best to stay above factions and political parties, urging unity and standing as a unifying force above regional and political divisions. The fact that this mindset did not endure among his successors in the presidency is clear evidence of the shortcomings of the republican model. Washington was a president who managed to act like a monarch but, in such a republic, inevitably the president became a partisan, political figure to the point that Americans today can hardly imagine it being otherwise. As far as American presidents go, he was one of the better ones but it is still worth noting that in his administration, everything he did and everything he argued for, be it his reluctance to use the veto, his effort to stand above politics and to unite his people and keep them united was almost exactly what Britain’s King George III had been trying to do when Washington and those like him betrayed the King for it.

One of the Worst: President Woodrow Wilson

In some areas, there is not much that needs to be said here about the misdeeds of President Woodrow Wilson as so many have detailed them already and from widely different political backgrounds and viewpoints. For monarchists, much of the criticism of Wilson has focused on his actions during and after the First World War. There is certainly much to criticize. However, my problem with the most extreme of that type of criticism is that, in exaggerating the influence of a man who was involved only at the very end of the war and whose views were often ignored when it was over, too many equally or more guilty parties escape unscathed. The First World War was a disaster of epic proportions but it was not a war that the United States or Wilson had anything to do with starting nor was the botched peace settlement entirely of his own making. Later, after the fact when it was too late to do any good, Wilson himself admitted he was totally out of his element and had no idea what he was talking about when he strutted over to Europe ready to lecture to all and sundry about how to solve the worlds problems. There is plenty, again, to criticize him for on that front but his counterparts in the other countries involved deserve by far the most criticism. Nonetheless, he was one of the worst presidents America has ever produced and it is Americans, rather than Europeans, who have the most grounds for which to condemn Woodrow Wilson.

First of all, some things to make all our friends on the liberal left very uncomfortable. Wilson was a Democrat and only the second Democrat to be elected President since the era of Republican domination during and after the Civil War. This happened because the Republican Party had split into conservative and progressive factions led by Taft and Teddy Roosevelt. His father was a Confederate-sympathizing Presbyterian preacher and, as President, Wilson segregated Washington DC and the federal government, demoting or firing many Blacks (whom he referred to as “Darkies”). He re-segregated the army and is often remembered for the praise he gave to the controversial Civil War film “Birth of a Nation” in which the heroes who ride to the rescue in the end are the Ku Klux Klan. Wilson’s endorsement was so positive, it was featured in the film itself. Wilson also adamantly opposed granting suffrage to women but, being a politician after all, changed this position when it became clear that his career would suffer for it. Afterwards, he favored giving women the vote. Impressed yet liberals? So, it is true, this hero of the Democrat Party and so many liberals still today was a complete racist who only grudgingly went along with giving women the right to vote and who had no qualms about invading countries that did not threaten the United States at all. What a guy.

His election came with a huge victory for the Democrats in Congress and with near absolute power President Wilson could have his way on just about everything. The American people were to see what an unfettered Democratic government looked like for the first time in the memory of most people. First he lowered or abolished tariffs and then set about putting the government in charge of the banking industry and establishing a new currency with the passage of an act creating the Federal Reserve which the government would have exclusive control over. In doing this, Wilson had said that he wanted to set business free, but not too free it seems as he next set about enacting a massive intrusion of government into the business sector with the creation of the Federal Trade Commission and the passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act. He also helped out the farmers by making it easier for them to drown themselves in debt. Again, what a guy. And if that doesn’t make you love him, Americans also have President Wilson to thank for the federal income tax. I’m rather surprised his face isn’t on Mt Rushmore (which was carved by a member of the KKK so I really am surprised).

In the area of foreign relations, Wilson turned down a loan to China because he was against “dollar diplomacy” yet he didn’t seem to have a problem with violent “diplomacy”. He disapproved of the military dictatorship of President Victoriano Huerta in Mexico and tried to coerce him into retirement, declaring that there would be no peace in Mexico so long as Huerta remained in office. When Huerta refused to step down because of the disapproval of the American president, Wilson began selling weapons to his enemies (including Pancho Villa who would eventually ransack a town in the United States). Next, a group of U.S. sailors were arrested in the Mexican port of Tampico. They were eventually released and President Huerta apologized but this was not enough for President Wilson who demanded that Huerta salute the American flag in Tampico which, obviously, he was not about to do. When Huerta refused this ridiculous demand, Wilson responded by invading Mexico and occupying the port of Veracruz. This little battle cost 18 Americans their lives, four more than the number of sailors who had been arrested in Tampico -what a trade. Argentina, Brazil and Chile intervened to negotiate a peace, Huerta was forced to leave office and Wilson was happy. But, the man who replaced Huerta, Venustiano Carranza, was soon faced with rebellion as well, led by one of his former generals, the aforementioned Pancho Villa.

After Pancho Villa raided American territory, President Wilson ordered another invasion of Mexico where American troops clashed with rebel and government forces alike. The issue was never settled as American attention was soon diverted by the First World War. However, Mexico was certainly not alone in being invaded by American troops thanks to President Wilson. No, this preachy scholar who firmly believed he was the smartest man in any room, who condemned past territorial acquisitions by the United States and who would condemn, for example, the German invasion of Belgium in 1914, invaded a number of other countries himself. Aside from a totally unjustified invasion of Mexico at Veracruz, Wilson had American troops invade and occupy Nicaragua in 1914, Haiti in 1915 and Wilson put the Dominican Republic under U.S. military rule in 1916. Somehow, each of those was justified but, of course, Germany invading Belgium or Austria-Hungary invading Serbia was just plain wrong. It was after all of that, in 1917, that Woodrow Wilson took the United States into World War I after winning reelection on the slogan “he kept us out of war”.

But, before getting into that, we should also mention that a whopping three Constitutional amendments were passed during the Wilson administration. One was giving women the vote (and we know what Wilson thought about that), the other was the prohibition of alcohol which proved to be extremely lucrative for the organized crime business and finally one which provided for the direct election of U.S. Senators who had previously been appointed by state governments. This is often overlooked but it was one of the worst of the many terrible things Wilson inflicted on the United States. The Senate had been established in the first place to provide a representative body for the states of the Union. The people were represented by the House of Representatives and the states were represented by the Senate. By making Senators be directly elected, the public suddenly got double-representation and the states suddenly had none. This made it much easier for the federal government to trample on the rights of the states in the future. It would also lead to a great deal of political fighting and deadlock as the Senate ceased to be a less partisan gathering based on region rather than party and became a more puffed up version of the lower house which became particularly problematic when the same public would elect one party to power in the House and another party to power in the Senate.

Wilson declaring war on Germany

Then, of course, there is the war. It is true, Wilson stayed out almost until the very end (he specifically did not want to join the Allies so long as the Russian Empire was a member of the club) when many others (like Teddy Roosevelt) wanted to get involved from the outset. It is also true that Germany committed a calculated risk with the reintroduction of unrestricted submarine warfare and an unbelievably colossal act of stupidity with the infamous Zimmermann Telegram, however, Wilson still could have dismissed that if he had really wanted to. Most governments would not have of course, but the fact is that Mexico was not about to be any sort of threat to the United States and Germany or any of the Central Powers posed no real threat to American security or interests at all. Germany gave Wilson a reason to go to war but it could never be said it was vital or necessary to do so. Then, during those brief months of war, the American public was treated to what a little strutting dictator Wilson could be. Newspapers that were critical of the war, Great Britain, the Wilson administration or which said anything positive about Germany were shut down. People who displayed opposition to the war were arrested. So much for freedom of speech. One man was arrested for playing music by Beethoven, another was arrested for reading the Constitution of the U.S. on the street. Wilson set up an official propaganda office, enlisted celebrities to help sell war bonds, deported immigrants who opposed the war and arrested thousands of people for being critical of the government even after the war was over. He was a tyrant of the first order who would never compromise with anyone. In fact, many attribute the failure of the Senate to ratify the Versailles Treaty, at least in part, with the fact that Wilson cut the Republicans completely out of the process.

In his arrogant, scholarly way, he came to Europe when it was over famous for his “Fourteen Points”, cheered wildly in every European capital he visited. The truth, of course, was that the Fourteen Points were irrelevant from day one. The Germans actually wanted to have a peace based on them, knowing it was a better deal than what they would otherwise get but, of course, Britain and France had no intention of letting Wilson dictate the peace. Most regarded Wilson with derision as an over-educated yet uniformed, idealistic incompetent who didn’t know what he was talking about. Eventually, Wilson himself all but admitted as much. He had lots of vague, pretty sounding slogans but no real solutions to European or world problems. He also sacrificed a great deal just to see the creation of his beloved League of Nations, a useless talking shop that the United States, thankfully, refused to have any part of. In fact, the U.S. refused to sign on to both the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles which, in typical fashion, Wilson blamed on the influence of Germans and Irish in the United States. He left behind him a country full of unemployed veterans, striking workers and race riots but with a much bigger and more powerful federal government that future presidents would be only too willing to exploit.

Woodrow Wilson must easily rank as one of the worst presidents in American history. Arrogant, hypocritical, narrow and close-minded, he was convinced he had the answer to any and all problems which usually amounted to some grandiose turn of phrase followed by putting the government in charge and leaving someone else to deal with it. He actually emerged from the war claiming that the United States was the “savior of the world”. He blighted America with the Federal Reserve, the income tax and a level of totalitarian tyranny the likes of which had not been seen before (but would be seen increasingly in the future). He inflicted plenty of terrors on Europe, the only diminishment there being that his Allies happily ignored him most of the time and inflicted far worse. Yet, as bad as he was for America, probably the worst thing Wilson did was to clear a path for even worse things to come and politicians from both the Democrat as well as Republican Parties have built on his mistakes. He muzzled free speech and gutted freedom of the press, later presidents would put people in concentration camps, hold people without trial or take away any right to privacy. He got the government involved in banking and business practices, later presidents would take over entire industries. He started the income tax, other presidents would raise it higher and higher and expand it wider and wider. Wilson was terrible enough on his own but probably the most damaging thing he did in the long run was setting a new standard in what the President could get away with and, for the first time, setting the precedent that American military intervention could solve the world’s problems. Woodrow Wilson: Europeans hate him, Americans should hate him more.

Why I Will Not Join In Kennedy Worship

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and from the political left as well as the right, ‘Kennedy worship’ has been in overdrive. The airwaves are full of tributes of that ‘magical’ time of “Camelot” with that darling liberal family becoming American royalty. The tales of perfection are never ending. How the Kennedy clan is the quintessential American story, poor Irish immigrants, fleeing British oppression, coming to America for freedom, working hard, becoming extremely wealthy and entering politics to “give back” to the country that has made their success possible. Frankly, it’s enough to make me sick. I will not be joining in with this Kennedy love-fest and the most simple answer as to why should be clear enough. I am a monarchist and heaping adulation and hero worship on a republican politician is not on my list of priorities. I consider the list of American presidents to be a sorry collection overall and even the few I consider comparatively better than others I could never bestir myself to actually admire, defend or praise and commemorate. However, to my surprise, some monarchists apparently adore JFK and the Kennedy clan that has remained in power ever since, benefiting from the myth-making surrounding their fallen hero. This surprised me, especially coming from admirers of the British Empire (something Kennedy opposed) and the tenacious defense of Kennedy by some. Having taken on other beloved American presidents in the past, not excluding Washington and Lincoln, perhaps I should explain what some of my problems with Kennedy are. His sincere worshippers will surely not be moved by this, most have no recollection of the “Camelot” days and even then it was more form than substance but, just in case there are some open to persuasion, here are the reasons why this monarchist has no love for the late President Kennedy.

First of all, I am no fan of the nest that Kennedy hatched from. The rise of the family under Joe Kennedy was no success story of hard work and fair play but rather of political intrigue, corruption and making a fortune on bootlegging during prohibition. Joseph and John F. Kennedy, however, had relatively little in common save for the fact that no woman was safe around either of them. JFK was born in 1917 and named after his grandfather, Boston mayor and later Congressman John F. Fitzgerald who was a lifelong supporter of Irish republicanism and published a weekly newspaper devoted to denouncing the British monarchy called “The Republic”. Joe Kennedy, who hungered for recognition and acceptance from the elites of Wall Street and London, tried to distance himself from his Irish dissident background but John F. Kennedy was the total opposite. Still, his father helped get him elected to Congress and later the Senate by building him up as a war hero. He had earlier purchased John a commission in the Navy and when sent to war his torpedo boat was run over by a Japanese destroyer and cut in half. And, when you’re a Kennedy, getting run over by a ship larger and slower than your own is enough to qualify for “war hero” status.

From his earliest days in office, touring Asia and the Middle East in 1951, JFK was an avowed enemy of the British Empire. In his radio report to the home front, he decried, “Our intervention in behalf of England’s oil investments in Iran” referring to the aid the U.S. and U.K. gave to the restoration of the Shah of Iran who had been driven out by his premier who had nationalized the oil industry, most of which was British-owned. The depth of opposition to the British Empire Kennedy had can be seen in the pages of his book, “Profile in Courage” in which the nominally Catholic Kennedy praises the Puritanical John Quincy Adams for his refusal to, “yield his devotion to the national interest for the narrowly partisan, parochial and pro-British outlook which dominated New England’s first political party”. In a St Patrick’s Day speech in Chicago in 1956 he called on the local Irish-Americans to broaden their opposition to the British Empire in Ireland to revive the American ‘revolutionary heritage’ and apply it around the world against all empires. The following year, in a speech called “Imperialism the Enemy of Freedom” in the Senate, he demanded that the U.S. take the side of the Algerian rebels against the French and decried the resources the Eisenhower administration had given to support the French in Vietnam and the last Vietnamese Emperor.

Anglophiles in the Democratic Party disapproved as of course did the French and the British who were trying to maintain themselves. However, not long after, Charles de Gaulle became President of France, gave up on Algeria and withdrew France from its imperial alliance with Great Britain. This was nothing new however. In his very first political speech, Kennedy said that the only solution to the problems in Ireland were for the end of partition and the removal of the British Crown from any part of the island. For the sake of good relations, he avoided the subject publicly after becoming president, but from his earliest speeches throughout his political career there is no doubt he wanted the British Crown out of Ireland and most anywhere else in the world as well. As an admirer of the British Empire, that does not impress me much, nor does his much vaunted record of anti-communism. Kennedy was elected to office promising to negotiate a peace with the Soviet Union and the first fiasco he had to deal with was the Bay of Pigs invasion. He did not plan it, nor has he ever been held responsible for it but it was Kennedy who called off the scheduled air strikes so as to boost his absurd claim that ‘America had nothing to do with it’. All this accomplished was to make the communists view Kennedy as someone they could push around, and they were not incorrect in that assessment.

Kennedy wanted to show he was tough and thought Indochina would be the place to do it. First up was the Kingdom of Laos where a communist insurgency was underway. However, Kennedy could not bring himself to support the King of Laos who was tainted by being royal and by having been friendly with colonial France, so he made a 2-front war into a 3-front war. Rather than supporting the royalist faction of Prince Souvanna Phouma, he funded the formation a more faithfully pro-American faction under General Phoumi Nosovan. The result was a civil war no side had the strength to win until the victory of the communists in Vietnam allowed them to dominate the region and turn Laos into a puppet state. In Vietnam itself, Kennedy began by aiding the Catholic and strongly-nationalist President Ngo Dinh Diem, praising him as someone untouched by colonialism (unlike the former emperor). However, when the media (two individuals in particular) began to portray Diem in a negative light, opinion was shifted against him and his regime. When Diem refused to take orders from the United States government, Kennedy gave the word to the generals in Vietnam that U.S. aid would stop unless Diem was removed. Diem was not only removed but brutally assassinated along with every member of his family in the country at the time. South Vietnam never had a stable government again and the communists were elated, astonished that America could be so stupid as to remove their most dangerous enemy for them. No, a successful anti-communist crusader Kennedy was certainly not.

On other fronts, as soon as he gained office Kennedy began a personal correspondence with Gamal Abdel Nasser, the man who planned the overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy and an avowed enemy of Great Britain as well. Kennedy reversed the policy previously favored by Democrats Truman and Dulles and he actively took the side of Nasser and the Arab nationalists against the British and Saudi allied Arab royalists of the Middle East. He was also good friends with President Sukarno of Indonesia who brought an end to the reign of the Dutch monarchy in the East Indies. Even after being betrayed by their American allies, something Queen Wilhelmina had threatened to abdicate over, the Dutch monarchy of Queen Juliana still reigned over half of New Guinea. Sukarno wanted that for the Republic of Indonesia and President Kennedy was ready to help him out. He sent his brother Robert to the Netherlands to demand an immediate evacuation of Netherlands New Guinea and with Kennedy backing Sukarno who was threatening invasion, the Dutch were furious but had no choice but to comply. Afterward, the first lavish aid package for Sukarno’s government was passed a few days before Kennedy was assassinated. 

Kennedy had opposed British influence in Asia, Africa and Ireland but for many Brits who had given up on the idea of the glory days of empire, that was not terribly important. Many probably never heard about it or would have cared if they did. They probably didn’t care that when Kennedy visited Ireland he took the time to meet with his cousins who served in the Irish Republican Army, after all, they were so charming and as long as he did not mention the problem directly it could all be overlooked. However, some people in Britain did manage to work up some anger when it came to Kennedy taking over British defense. It seemed to many in Britain that Harold Macmillan had signed over British security to President Kennedy with the Nassau Agreement by which American missiles would be used for Britain’s nuclear deterrent and the U.S. gained a submarine base in Scotland. The British nuclear subs were then to be assigned along with British bombers to a joint NATO task-force that would be under United States control, keeping all nuclear capacity for the alliance in American hands, something Kennedy justified as preventing “nuclear proliferation”. Many in Britain, however, saw it as the loss of British independence in military affairs and it helped encourage the decline of the Tory party. Kennedy would have been thrilled. Kennedy appointees Bob McNamara and Dean Acheson were both of the opinion that Britain was old news and in the words of Acheson, the “’special relationship’ with the United States…is about played out”.

All of that would be sufficient, I would think, in discouraging any monarchist and certainly any British, Dutch, Laotian, Egyptian etc royalist from being part of the Kennedy fan club. For myself, it certainly is and I can add to that my opposition to almost the totality of his domestic policies as well. I don’t approve of his economic intervention, I don’t approve of his immigration plan to shift from Europe to Central and South America, I don’t approve of how he dealt with Native Americans and I don’t approve of his social policies. I do not like how he distanced himself from his religion while running for office and I can certainly not approve of the flagrant immorality of his private life. Were there other American presidents who were worse? Certainly. There were also some who were better. What is more frustrating about Kennedy than other presidents who have been deified and have their own cult-like following such as Lincoln or Washington or FDR, Kennedy had a whole family to come after him and who have benefited from the myth-making surrounding their slain relative. The adulation he received and the elevation of his family to "royal" status allowed a slew of disreputable characters with the Kennedy last name to hold positions of power and influence such as little brother Ted Kennedy, an alcoholic who got a woman killed and who arranged for Gerry Adams to come to the USA for St Patrick’s Day, or daughter Caroline Kennedy who stood up at the last Democrat National Convention to voice her support “as a Catholic woman” for birth control and abortion being part of the Obamacare health plan. The idea that President Kennedy, who did little and even less of any good, while in office or his dysfunctional family in general could have so many ardent admirers astounds me. It always will and if some wish to join in the worship of him or any other politician, I cannot stop them. However, I will be having no part of it myself nor will I ever hold a romantic view of any presidential figure.

Off Topic Tuesday: Lincoln, O'Reilly and the Unneccessary War

Recently Fox News big-shot Bill O’Reilly has been out promoting “his” new book (co-written with a historian friend of his) about Abraham Lincoln who, O’Reilly says, was the greatest American president of all-time. In a real “meeting of the minds” O’Reilly was going on about how great Lincoln was to Glenn Beck, stating, as part of his greatness, how “everyone” hated him. Is that really supposed to be a sign of greatness for the leader of a democratic republic? I find it rather odd that on so many occasions the people who promote the idea of majority approval as the best way of choosing a head of state also applaud those presidents who most ignore public opinion and the will of the majority. Yet, such is the case. I also find it extremely odd that Lincoln, the man upheld as the “great unifier” and one of the most exemplary statesmen in American history, is the same man who had to resort to the armed force of the largest army in the world and a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people in order to achieve that “unity”.

If Lincoln was such a wise and gifted statesman, shouldn’t he have been able to hold the country together and reach a political solution without resorting to butchering hundreds of thousands of men, starving women and children and burning cities? Preserving the Union was, of course, only part of it. The other issue, and majority opinion says the dominant issue, was slavery. Again though, no other major power had to kill hundreds of thousands of people in order to abolish slavery. The British did it peacefully, the Dutch did it peacefully, Mexico did it peacefully and all long before the United States ever even got serious about the issue. There has also been a lot of confusion (I don’t know why) about the Confederate position on slavery. The Confederate Constitution is not hard to find. Importing slaves was forbidden but slavery was legal. The Confederate government could never abolish slavery but state governments could. There seems to be some confusion about this, again I am not sure why, as there was really no restrictions the government could put on the states for or against slavery since the backbone of the Confederacy was the right to secede and any state could at any point secede over any issue they wished. After some heated debate it was decided that “free” states could join the Confederacy if any would choose to at some point. But, slavery was certainly accepted -no doubt about it.

However, most who find Lincoln objectionable do not do so because of his opposition to slavery. As with any politician, he at times tried to play both sides of the issue and it was the preservation of the Union that was always his paramount issue. That does not mean, of course, that slavery did not matter to him. Although “Honest Abe” was not always honest about it, there should be no doubt that he was against slavery and wanted to see it wiped from the American continent. It is also true that, even as an anti-slavery sympathizer, he certainly did not possess modern attitudes on the subject of race. He did not think races were equal nor did he think that the “Black” and “White” races could live together peacefully. However, by the standards of his time he was certainly not a “racist” and most of those who were against slavery would have held similar views to the President on the subject of race. It would take many years for attitudes to change in the direction of seeing no races at all. Even today, it seems, that point has not been reached by any racial group.

I know of no one who dislikes Lincoln today because he was against slavery. I do know some people who dislike him because of how he went about saving the Union and doing away with slavery -brutal military force. I tend to think that there would not have been such a long and ugly struggle for civil rights and so much turmoil over the issue of race if slavery had been abolished peacefully, even if it took a step-by-step process that took a little longer than the abolitionists would like. I say that because the war Lincoln fought against the south did not make southerners realize that slavery was wrong. If anything, it made many hate the former slaves all the more as the north identified the slaves as the cause of the whole horrific war and all of the suffering the south endured during and after the war. The south did not give up slavery because they realized it was immoral, they did it because someone was holding a gun to their head.

There is also the age old question of whether two wrongs make a right. Was getting rid of the evil of slavery without going through legal means worth the evil of a war that devastated a country, killed 620,000 soldiers and killed 50,000 southern civilians? Lincoln said he opposed the right of secession yet he supported the secession of the pro-union counties of Virginia to create the state of West Virginia which gave his party more support in Congress. When (hopeless) amendments were introduced to abolish slavery when Lincoln was a congressman, Lincoln voted against them. In his inaugural address he supported enshrining slavery in the U.S. Constitution if that would prevent southern states from seceding. In light of other private words of his, I have no doubt about his opposition to slavery yet he was certainly not being honest and purely principled in that regard. He arrested civilians, even elected officials, who opposed his war or who criticized his government or who simply advocated making peace with the south. He condemned the southerners as traitors and yet the U.S. Constitution defined treason as making war against “the states” which is exactly what Lincoln himself was doing. He suspended basic civil liberties, had civilians tried by military courts and his military forces purposely targeted innocent civilians in the south.

Another area which receives scant attention is the decision of the Lincoln administration to suspend the prisoner exchange cartel during the war. I have studied this area in some depth and there is no one on earth, regardless of all circumstances, who could not be horrified by the sickening conditions that prevailed in the overcrowded, notorious prison camp at Andersonville, Georgia. Originally built to hold 8,000 men at the height of the war it had to contain some 33,000 U.S. prisoners at a time when the southerners themselves were starving due to the ravages of the northern armies and the northern blockade of the coast. At the worst period some 100 men died at Andersonville every day from disease and malnutrition. Yet, the Lincoln administration suspended all prisoner exchanges, condemning tens of thousands of their own soldiers to a slow, lingering, excruciating death from starvation, scurvy, dysentery or some other combination of diseases. Apologists then and now say this was done in protest to the Confederates not exchanging Black Union soldiers. Other evidence, however, suggests that this was done because the north knew southern prisoners were breaking their paroles and rejoining the war and that if prisoner exchanges were halted this would weaken the southern war effort whereas northern prisoners could be written off since the population was so much greater in the north, their losses could always be replaced. In short, their men in Andersonville were deemed expendable.

This always struck me as one of the most horrific but often overlooked “crimes” of the Lincoln administration. And, even if it were done on principle, it still seems despicable to me to refuse to at least save those they could. If the White soldiers had refused to be exchanged without their Black comrades that would have been an immensely admirable sacrifice to make but it should have been up to them and not left to the government to simply ‘write off’ tens of thousands of their own soldiers who were left to die in the most slow and excruciating way possible. And yet, this was the same government that took no action against Major General Benjamin “the Beast” Butler who authorized his troops to rape southern women when he was military governor of New Orleans because they were insulting the Union occupation forces. This was the same government that took no action, indeed even encouraged, the pillaging of cities, the burning of private homes and the killing of civilians.

What Lincoln had in his heart is known only to him and God. Ordinarily one might include his spiritual counsel in that but Lincoln was the first (and so far only) U.S. President that was never a member of any church. Based on his actions I have no doubt that he was absolutely opposed to slavery and he may be commended for that. But his record of that being the priority for his prosecution of the war is sketchy to say the least. He dismissed and court-martialed General John C. Fremont in the first year of the war for abolishing slavery in Missouri (Lincoln later pardoned him). And, as many now know, when he issued the famous Emancipation Proclamation it applied only to those areas “in rebellion” against the United States, in other words it applied only to those parts of the country he could not control but not to those slave-holding states he did control. Very few were actually freed by the decree with real emancipation not coming until the passage of the XIII Amendment. Lincoln would have given all sorts of political, military and diplomatic reasons for why this was his decision, but is that really a representation of “the greatest” President of all time?

It also makes me chuckle to see Lincoln being applauded by modern-day “conservatives” and “traditionalists” (Bill O’Reilly doesn’t like to say ‘conservative’ but calls himself a ‘traditionalist’) when you look at Lincoln in a world context. There was no revolution or revolutionary in Europe that the Unionists (especially abolitionists, Freemasons, Protestants and liberal democrats) of the north who supported Lincoln did not celebrate at every opportunity. They cheered the anti-Hapsburg revolutionary Lajos Kossuth, they celebrated the Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi who even offered to join the war but refused when Lincoln only offered him the rank of major general rather than total command of all Union forces. “Republican Clubs” were formed in almost every major city, with the full endorsement of Lincoln, to raise money in support of the anti-clerical Mexican revolutionary Benito Juarez. Lincoln gave protection and even high military rank to a number of Irish revolutionaries a number of whom (after Lincoln’s death) led the so-called Fenian Raids into Canada in the absurd hope of holding the dominion hostage in return for Irish independence. The list goes on and on and it is no wonder that someone like Pope Pius IX would write sympathetically to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, certainly not because of any support for slavery (which his papal predecessor had strongly condemned) but because he viewed him as a fellow victim of the liberal nationalist wave that was sweeping the western world.

At the end of the day, everyone is entitled to their own opinion on Lincoln of course. The book O’Reilly wrote focuses mostly on his assassination and I would fully agree that the assassination of Lincoln was a horrible and tragic crime and as much a disaster for the south as it was for the north. As harsh as he had been at war Lincoln had advocated reconciliation rather than retribution once it was over. However, I cannot go along with anyone claiming he was “the greatest President in American history”. The man killed more Americans than the Kaiser, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Kim Il-Sung, Chairman Mao, Ho Chi Minh and Saddam Hussein combined. The greatest American President would have found a way to hold the Union together and abolish slavery without resorting to brute force that left hundreds of thousands of his fellow Americans dead and half the country in ruins (you know, like the British, Dutch, Russian, Brazilian etc monarchs were all able to do). A man hailed as “the Great Unifier” would not have presided over the secession of half the country in the first place and then restored unity only by devastation, starvation and a million bayonets. In his heart he may have been a good man with good intentions, but the “gold standard of leadership” as O’Reilly calls him, he certainly was not.