Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00a0\u00bbWar fever has gripped the Capitol . . . Generally, people here have come to feel that war is on the way. They’re resigned to it . . . The atmosphere in Washington is no longer a postwar atmosphere. It is, to put it bluntly, a prewar atmosphere.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tDoes that sound like the mental climate inside the Beltway circa September 2002?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tActually, the above statements are excerpts from newspaper accounts of the war scare of March 1948. This little-remembered incident has been described in detail by Frank Kofsky in his book, Harry S. Truman and the War Scare of 1948. (Palgrave Macmillan, February 1995). <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThis essay will summarize Kosfky’s thesis, evaluate its accuracy, and apply any putative lessons to the current \u00a0\u00bbcrisis\u00a0\u00bb with Iraq in order to determine whether there is an underlying structure in both situations that allows us to reach valid conclusions about how U.S. national security policy really works. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tBaking the Scary Souffl\u00e9 Betty Crocker Style<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tTo simplify, Kofsky sees the following as the ingredients of the war scare of 1948: <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t1. The aviation industry had plummeted from being the largest U.S. industry in 1945 to 44th in 1947 and was near bankruptcy. Knowing they could neither survive in a commercial market nor be seen accepting a direct government subsidy (much less endure nationalization), aviation executives lobbied relentlessly for increased military procurement contracts. But Congress would only loosen the purse strings if there was a commensurate threat; as Lawrence D. Bell, president of Bell Aircraft remarked in September 1947, \u00a0\u00bbas soon as there is a war scare, there is a lot of money available.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t2. The European Recovery Program [ERP aka the \u00a0\u00bbMarshall Plan\u00a0\u00bb], the centerpiece of Secretary of State George C. Marshall’s agenda, had dim chances of passage by a parsimonious Congress. The only prospect for ERP’s enactment was if it were seen to be essential for preventing Western Europe from falling under Soviet domination. And that perception, in turn, could only arise if the Soviet Union were seen to be planning to do so either by subversion or outright invasion. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t3. The military was remorselessly jockeying for bigger budgets. The Air Force wanted 70 wings of combat aircraft; the Army wanted to expand and was lobbying for reinstatement of a peacetime draft (Secretary Marshall, the erstwhile Army chief of staff, had his own hobbyhorse: Universal Military Training [UMT]). But absent a threat, President Truman’s budget experts saw increased military spending as inflationary in a economy just emerging from World War II price controls. And absent a threat, no Congressman aspiring to re-election would vote to draft his constituents. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t4. In the election year of 1948 President Truman was unpopular as an economic slowdown loomed. But the President and his advisors were aware of the rally-round-the-flag effect. As White House Counsel Clarke Clifford wrote in late 1947, \u00a0\u00bbThere is considerable political advantage to the Administration in its battle with the Kremlin. The worse matters get . . . the more there is a sense of crisis. In times of crisis, the American citizen tends to back up his President.\u00a0\u00bb But a crisis would be beneficial in another way: by saving the aviation industry and facilitating passage of ERP (which many economists have argued was really a mammoth export subsidy to American industry), a war scare would also be a jobs stimulus before the Presidential election.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tIntelligence Estimates Distorted<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tThus the ingredients of the war scare souffl\u00e9. But how to make it rise? As Kofsky tells it, key members of the administration used the imposition of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia in early 1948 as the pretext. And this was no mere case of the national security elite taking counsel of their fears: the CIA, the service intelligence agencies, the State Department Policy Planning Staff, and the U.S. Embassy in Moscow were unanimous: the takeover did not portend an armed attack on Western Europe; it was more likely a defensive reaction to the proposed ERP, and if, anything, represented Stalin’s attempt to consolidate the sphere of influence he was conceded by Churchill and Roosevelt at Yalta and reaffirmed by Truman himself at Potsdam. [1] <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tFurthermore, U.S. intelligence judged the Soviet Union so devastated by the Second World War as to be too weak and war-weary to undertake a military operation against Western Europe for almost a decade to come. [2] <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe Scare Kicks in<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tBut administration officials, while privately conceding the intelligence estimates were correct, devised a plan to convince Congress and the American people that war was imminent. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tSecretary of Defense Forrestal, a relentless hawk, induced the military governor of Germany, General Lucius Clay, to write a letter stating, in ominous but vague words, that it was his \u00a0\u00bbfeeling\u00a0\u00bb that the Soviets were planning war. In a Machiavellian stroke Forrestal made sure the letter, which was worthless as an intelligence estimate, was classified so as to increase its allure. Second-hand summaries of the classified document were soon circulating around Washington, giving birth to the war scare of March 1948. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tSecretary Marshall, seeking to induce Congress to pass ERP before the administration’s self-imposed April 1 deadline, added his mite to the effort. The normally grave, unflappable Marshall, who unlike Forrestal, did not have a reputation as a superhawk, gave an extensive series of speeches comparing Stalin to Hitler, invoking Munich, and hinting, in elliptical fashion, that war was around the corner. The public could not help but be concerned if the taciturn Marshall, whose reputation was higher than the President’s and all but above criticism, began warning of war. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe \u00a0\u00bbcrisis\u00a0\u00bb reached its apex on March 17 when Truman addressed Congress. Employing much the same rhetoric as Marshall, the President asked for speedy and unamended passage of ERP and prompt passage of both the draft and UMT. Unmentioned, though, was a request for supplemental military spending. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThen the military services roared through the breach opened by Forrestal, Marshal, and Truman with their trademark subtlety. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tAir Force Secretary Stuart Symington blithely claimed in Congressional hearings that the Soviet Air Force was superior to that of the U.S. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe Secretary of the Navy lied to Congress when told the whopper that Soviet subs were \u00a0\u00bbsighted off our coasts\u00a0\u00bb – a spectacular allegation given the fresh memories of the Germans’ U-Boat campaign in 1942, which slaughtered hundreds of vessels literally within sight of the shore. [3] <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe Army, for its part, concocted the fantasy that the Red Army could mobilize \u00a0\u00bb320 line divisions\u00a0\u00bb in 30 days. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tPulling in the Reins<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tBy the beginning of April, the war scare had gotten out of hand. The public was becoming genuinely frightened. Once the Marshall Plan had been enacted, Truman and Marshall tried to walk the horse back into the barn. The President at one point even declared that the USSR was a \u00a0\u00bbfriendly power.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tBut the services continued to beat the war drums, and Congress, then as now not wanting to appear \u00a0\u00bbweak on defense,\u00a0\u00bb passed the draft and gave the Pentagon a 30 percent budget increase, with aircraft procurement increasing by 57 percent. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tGenesis of the Cold War<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tThus the short run goals of the war scare were met: increased defense spending (particularly on aviation), conscription, ERP, and improved political stature for the President. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tBut in the longer term, the results were baneful: When on May 10 and May 17 the Soviets tendered proposals for negotiating their differences with the United States in Europe, the United States rejected them. Kofsky believes that not only had the administration become locked by events into its anti-Soviet rhetoric, but that rejection of Soviet offers served the Truman-Clifford political strategy of both outmaneuvering Congressional Republicans and whipping dissident Henry Wallace Democrats into line.[4] <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tAfter the rejection of its diplomatic overtures and facing U.S. advocacy of a West German state and a North Atlantic military alliance, the Soviets evidently believed they had nothing to lose by adopting a hard line. After having followed an inconsistent policy of announcing inspections of all traffic entering and leaving the Western sectors of Berlin, and then quietly canceling the orders, Stalin moved to blockade Berlin in June 1948. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tAs Kofsky would have it, the war scare made virtually inevitable a cold war which for four decades bloated the military budget and paralyzed the cerebra of American officials. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tBut has Kofsky painted a true picture?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe Soviets’ reaction to the war scare, it seems to me, is somewhat conjectural, despite the plausible sequence of events: correlation cannot be proved to be causation. The Soviet dictator’s moves may have resulted from a different dynamic that remains to be discovered in the Russian State Archive. Likewise, there is no record of explicit decisions having been taken within the U.S. government to initiate a war scare although it is hardly likely that experienced bureaucratic operators would have set such a policy down on paper. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tYet the preponderance of evidence suggests Kofsky is on to something. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tHe has painstakingly documented a deliberate ratcheting up of war scare rhetoric that is too abrupt to be happenstance, to convenient to be innocent, and conducted in defiance of intelligence estimates which officials were both cognizant of and agreed with. Finally, while superhawks like Forrestal were always crying wolf, the contemporary statements of players like Marshall and Clifford are so inconsistent with their professed views before and after the event that there is a powerful circumstantial case that the war scare was fabricated for political gain. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe Myth of the Wise Statesmen<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tIntentionally or not, one of the greatest services Kofsky performs in his granular search of the record of March 1948 is to debunk the myth of George C. Marshall. Two generations of gilding and varnishing by hagiographers have elevated Marshall to virtual godhood. But behind the pained expression and noble bearing, Marshall comes across – in his own words – as a duplicitous manipulator and cutthroat political operative. Since Marshall and his early postwar colleagues like Lucius Clay and Robert Lovett have been elevated to American secular sainthood second only to that of the generation of the Founders, his all-too human propensity for peddling snake oil suggests the historical record is in need of revision. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tLikewise, the myth surrounding Give ‘Em Hell Harry, the feisty regular guy who told it like it was. This comforting fairy tale must recede before a more definitive narrative: of an opportunist who denounced his Republican opponents (who were in general opposed to increased military spending and the draft) as \u00a0\u00bbfascists,\u00a0\u00bb and who smeared those in his own party who favored a negotiated settlement in Europe as Communist sympathizers. The run-up to the election of 1948, which has loomed so large in political lore, must yield to a more prosaic explanation: Truman and his advisors deliberately stirred up a war scare to improve their election chances. Those who believe that statement to be libelous should re-read Clark Clifford’s statement quoted above. [5]<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe Iraq Obsession and the Crony Capitalists<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tLet us now apply the templates of favoritism towards business lobbies, falsified intelligence, and political manipulation to the crise du jour: the public relations campaign against Iraq. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tAt first blush, the similarities are tenuous: unlike the aviation and other military industries at the close of World War II, the \u00a0\u00bbdefense\u00a0\u00bb sector is a trivial proportion of the overall economy (just as all manufacturing has declined in importance). Likewise, \u00a0\u00bbbig oil,\u00a0\u00bb often cited as a factor in U.S. policy, is not preponderant in economic terms. Why shouldn’t health care, real estate, or retail sales wield far greater political clout, as their respective proportions of the economy would dictate? <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tKofsky’s thesis that the cold war created a \u00a0\u00bbpermanent war economy\u00a0\u00bb in the United States is slightly askew. While by every measure (proportion of GDP, workers employed, etc.) the war sector has been declining for decades, the significant fact that Kofsky understates is that the early cold war created political linkages between munitions makers and government that generate disproportionate influence. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tOne who doubts this should observe the political infighting over a weapon system that involves only a small fraction of the jobs of, say, an automobile model subject to Federal regulation, or the putative effect of an economic policy on retail employment. The salient fact is that the \u00a0\u00bbdefense\u00a0\u00bb sector is a complete dependency of Federal largesse, and has therefore honed its political lobbying skills to the point where it is hard to distinguish government officials from industry executives (they move seamlessly from one sector to the other). <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe same applies to big oil. From Wilson’s 1914 Mexican intervention to FDR’s 1945 promise to defend Saudi Arabia in perpetuity to the appointment by President Bush (Harkin Oil) and Vice President Cheney (Halliburton) of Zalmay Khalilzad (Unocal) as special emissary to Afghanistan, the oil interest has always lurked at periscope depth beneath the surface of America’s \u00a0\u00bbhumanitarian\u00a0\u00bb foreign policy. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tLike the arms manufacturers, oil relies on a one-sided bargain: privatize the profits and socialize the losses. Just as the sole-source cost-plus contract keeps the defense contractors safe from the gales of competition, so does American muscle protect pipelines in Colombia, oil fields in Kuwait, and the dreams of investors in Central Asia. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tDoes this tail wag the dog of U.S. government policy? The evidence is anecdotal, but the piling-up of recent examples is so extensive that it cannot be ignored. As nervous investors hope the stock market can arrest its long, erratic slide since March 2000, one would expect a governing elite that is as politically responsive to economic conditions as, say, Truman was in 1948, to follow policies that would benefit the general economy and the overall world economic climate. But unlike the World War II period, when America was overwhelmingly a manufacturing economy and the military sector was a large subset, the present-day United States as a whole does not benefit from high military spending and an atmosphere of \u00a0\u00bbpre-war crisis.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tStock Meltdown: Your 401(k) at the Mercy of the War Party<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tObservers now overwhelmingly say the sliding of stock markets worldwide and the poor economic outlook are being exacerbated by the incessant drumbeat of war talk from the U.S. government. [6] Yet the administration not only blithely continues to rachet up the war scare (the volume of noise was higher in August than it was in May, and we can be sure it will be at a fever pitch in October, prior to the election). <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe Washington Post reported on August 6 that factions within the government (particularly on the Defense Policy Board) are advocating a military take-over of the Saudi oil fields, which must inevitably bring with it the U.S. occupation and administration of the Arabian peninsula of one million square miles, to include the holy sites of Mecca and Medinah. A strategy better calculated to ignite popular uprisings from Morocco to the Sunda Straight, flood Al Qaeda with recruits, and collapse the world economy can hardly be imagined. Predictably, the following day, the Post reported that the Bush Administration disavowed this war aim. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tBut I must re-emphasize, it is not necessary that the governing elite’s war policy benefit the overall economy (and with it the average citizen and taxpayer); it is merely required that the policy benefit those narrow sectors that prop up the elite. After all, imperialism was always a losing proposition for Britain – or at least the majority of British subjects, as attested by this passage which sounds eerily like the global operations of Halliburton: <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\u00a0\u00bbOverseas railways often did not pay those who invested money in them, but they paid those who built them and those who peddled their shares. The Boer War cost the British taxpayer a great deal of money, but South Africa also produced many millionaires. Clearly, imperialism brought economic gain to some people, if not to the imaginary national community, and the lucky few could hire journalists to bamboozle the many.\u00a0\u00bb[7] <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThreat Inflation and the Climate of Fear<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tJust as the war scares of 1948 and 2002 are both predicated on economic gain – albeit the present case is based on narrow sectors who paradoxically benefit as the rest of the economy weakens the present Iraq crisis is based on systematic falsification of evidence by government officials and their operatives in and out of government: as was the bomber gap in the 1950s, the missile gap in the 1960s, and the window of vulnerability in the 1970s.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tIs Saddam Hussein a threat who cannot be contained? The Joint Chiefs of Staff appear to believe containment will work, but the successors of Forrestal, Clifford et al. consistently twist the evidence and prey on the restricted access to classified information, uncertainty, and fear to maneuver opponents into proving an oversimplified negative: that there is no bomber gap, no missile gap, no window of vulnerability (all now known to have been fictions) – or in the current war scare, that Saddam has no weapons of mass destruction, has no development program, and is not contemplating any. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tLikewise, at the height of the Anthrax scare last October, some civilian officials such as Richard Perle began fingering Saddam Hussein as the source of the attacks – despite emerging evidence that the ultimate source of the anthrax may have been the U.S. government itself. [8] In similar fashion, no matter how often the intelligence agencies or the Czechs themselves beat down the story of the Mohammed Atta rendezvous in Prague, Forrestal’s spiritual descendants continue to revive the canard. [9] <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tBut today’s operatives have carried the pathology of falsification and manipulation well beyond the bounds that Forrestal or Marshall would have contemplated. For the past month, the world has witnessed a soap opera of Pentagon civilian operatives [most of whom never served in uniform] routinely leaking what purport to be U.S. war plans in cavalier disregard for the lives of their fellow citizens who wear military uniforms. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tLike the war scare of 1948, the war scare of 2002 may have worked too well: people are becoming \u00a0\u00bbgenuinely frightened,\u00a0\u00bb and resistance to the elite’s war plans is increasing. [10] Congress and the public are starting to demand hard evidence of Saddam’s alleged arsenal. No doubt the coming months will see the administration produce superficially convincing \u00a0\u00bbproof\u00a0\u00bb that will persuade many, especially on Capitol Hill. But will this \u00a0\u00bbproof\u00a0\u00bb be any more genuine than the Soviet subs of 1948 or the bomber gap, especially as the classified intelligence on which it is supposedly based will be subject to dispassionate scrutiny only years from now? The reader can draw his own conclusion. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tConclusion: A Predatory Elite<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tFrank Kofsky has performed a useful service by stripping away the accretion of myth that has veiled the opening stage of the cold war. But the pathologies he found in embryo have metastasized. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe crony capitalists who back the current war policy have economic interests wildly at odds with those of the average American citizen. Their operatives in the government no longer bluff about war and pull back from the brink but deliberately plot aggressive war and delight in the attention and power their leaks give them. They have become a reckless, predatory elite. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\u00a0\u00bbImperialism is a depraved choice of national life, imposed by self-seeking interests which appeal to the lusts of quantitative acquisition and of forceful domination surviving in a nation from early centuries of animal struggle for existence . . . It is the besetting sin of all successful States, and the penalty is unalterable in the order of nature.\u00a0\u00bb [11] <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe author of that passage, J.A. Hobson, consistent with the views of Gibbon, Spengler, and Toynbee, believed imperialism automatically begets its own penalty, one that is \u00a0\u00bbunalterable in the order of nature.\u00a0\u00bb Our elites, who worship something called \u00a0\u00bbAmerican exceptionalism,\u00a0\u00bb believe otherwise. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThese predatory elites are now rolling dice in a game that risks other people’s money and spills other people’s blood. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t* Werther is the pen name of a Northern Virginia-based defense analyst.<\/em> <\/p>\nNotes <\/h4>\n
[1] The postwar alibi of Churchill acolytes that the \u00a0\u00bbappeasement\u00a0\u00bb of Yalta was all FDR’s fault is not convincing: already in October 1944, Churchill flew to Moscow to work out a spheres-of-influence deal with Stalin that largely mirrored Yalta – without Roosevelt being present. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t[2] The catastrophic human and material losses were underplayed by the Soviet government for decades. Some recent estimates state that the Soviet Union lost as many as 27 million dead [Richard Overy, Russia’s War]. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t[3] The Office of Naval intelligence could offer no evidence of such sub sightings. Its own estimates said that the Soviet Navy would be unable to mount continuing, overseas operations until 1957. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t[4] Truman’s later exasperation with Senator Joseph McCarthy notwithstanding, it was the President himself who uncorked the \u00a0\u00bbCommunist subversion\u00a0\u00bb genie in his denunciation of Henry Wallace’s followers during the war scare – two years before McCarthy’s Wheeling speech. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t[5] A corrective to David McCullough’s hagiographic portrayal of Truman is a balanced and thoroughly researched biography by Alonzo L. Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t[6] The exception is MSNBC economics correspondent Lawrence Kudlow, who believes an attack on Iraq will add 2000 points to the Dow. As a card-carrying neoconservative, Kudlow’s views on most subjects are sufficiently demented as to give further weight to those who believe an attack on Iraq would have adverse economic consequences, such as the Tenon accounting group in Britain, who forecast that an Iraq war would depress world economic output by almost one trillion dollars. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t[7] A.J.P. Taylor, Essays in English History. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t[8] \u00a0\u00bbIraq ‘behind US anthrax outbreaks:’ Pentagon hardliners press for strikes on Saddam,\u00a0\u00bb Observer [UK] October 14, 2001.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t[9] \u00a0\u00bbWhite House says Sept. 11 skyjacker had met Iraqi agent,\u00a0\u00bb Los Angeles Times, August 2, 2002. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t[10) An ABC News poll conducted on August 29 showed public support for an attack on Iraq down 13 points in only two weeks. Support drops further to a 39 percent minority if U.S. allies oppose it. Earlier last month it was a 54 percent majority. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t[11] J.A. Hobson, Imperialism.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit \u00eatre lu avec la mention classique \u00e0 l’esprit, Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only..]<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
La panique de 1948, ou le complexe militaro industriel born again<\/em><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n\tReprise du texte<\/strong> Analysis<\/em><\/strong>, de la lettre d’analyse<\/strong> dedefensa & eurostrat\u00e9gie<\/em><\/strong> du 10 avril 1995.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tOn l’a d\u00e9j\u00e0 \u00e9crit (1), la vision historique am\u00e9ricaine de la Guerre Froide est dans une phase de r\u00e9vision fondamentale. Les ambitions, la profondeur et les effets de ce mouvement devraient rel\u00e9guer au second plan les entreprises r\u00e9visionnistes d\u00e9j\u00e0 lanc\u00e9es sur cette \u00e9poque, dans d’autres p\u00e9riodes (leur but \u00e9tait essentiellement de type id\u00e9ologique, destin\u00e9 \u00e0 faire pr\u00e9valoir une th\u00e8se politique g\u00e9n\u00e9rale ; si elles apportaient des pr\u00e9cisions int\u00e9ressantes, elles n’en constituaient pas moins des appr\u00e9ciations limit\u00e9es). Comme pour la plupart des mouvements importants aux \u00c9tats-Unis, les Europ\u00e9ens, en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral plus attach\u00e9s aux liens formels de suj\u00e9tion (type atlantistes) et fort peu \u00e0 la compr\u00e9hension de l’\u00e9volution du ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne am\u00e9ricain, mettront un certain temps \u00e0 d\u00e9couvrir l’ampleur du ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tPour notre part, nous ajoutons ce qui nous para\u00eet un jalon important dans ce mouvement g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, avec le livre Harry S. Truman and the War Scare of 1948, A Successful Campaign to Deceive the Nation<\/em>, de Frank Kofsky, un professeur d’histoire de l’universit\u00e9 de Californie (2). Nous ne cacherons pas avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 victime en partie du m\u00eame ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne que nous sugg\u00e9rons plus haut : the War Scare of 1948<\/em> a \u00e9t\u00e9 publi\u00e9 en 1993 et nous n’en parlons qu’en 1995. Deux ans, \u00e0 notre \u00e9poque de communications intensives, c’est beaucoup.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t[Mentionnons cet autre ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne en passant : certes, deux ans c’est beaucoup si nous pensons que ce livre apporte une contribution essentielle \u00e0 la mise \u00e0 nue d’une \u00e9poque si importante. Pourtant, il n’a gu\u00e8re eu d’\u00e9cho aux \u00c9tats-Unis \u00e9galement, o\u00f9 nous n’avons relev\u00e9 aucune publication (critique, recension, etc.) \u00e0 son propos. Pourquoi ? Une premi\u00e8re hypoth\u00e8se est qu’il transgresse une r\u00e8gle tr\u00e8s importante de notre \u00e9poque : il d\u00e9cloisonne les sp\u00e9cialit\u00e9s. Le sujet concerne l’industrie a\u00e9ronautique am\u00e9ricaine, le Pentagone, le complexe militaro-industriel. En m\u00eame temps, il concerne la politique occidentale, la s\u00e9curit\u00e9 europ\u00e9enne, notre analyse de la Guerre Froide, les fondements \u00e9tranges de nos liens avec les \u00c9tats-Unis, et ainsi de suite. Une seconde hypoth\u00e8se est que les th\u00e8ses de Kofsky sont trop radicales pour n’avoir pas suscit\u00e9 un barrage de l’establishment<\/em>. Dans ce cas, la meilleure arme est le silence. Sans doute les deux causes s’additionnent-elles.]<\/p>\nLa situation des \u00c9tats-Unis et du monde en 1945-48<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
\tQue s’est-il pass\u00e9 r\u00e9ellement en f\u00e9vrier-avril 1948 \u00e0 Washington ?, interroge Kofsky. \u00ab Dans un espace remarquablement court de deux mois, \u00e9crit-il, l’administration r\u00e9ussit \u00e0 augmenter les d\u00e9penses programm\u00e9es pour les commandes d’avions militaires de 57%, alors que le total allou\u00e9 au Pentagone augmentait de 30%. Aucun pr\u00e9sident depuis y compris Ronald Reagan \u00e0 son \u00e9poque de plus grande influence n’a approch\u00e9 un tel bond spectaculaire dans les d\u00e9penses militaires en temps de paix<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tAvant de lire ce qu’en dit Kofsky, on se r\u00e9f\u00e9rera \u00e0 la chronique du temps. Fin f\u00e9vrier 1948 se d\u00e9roula cet \u00e9v\u00e9nement connu sous le nom de coup de Prague (prise du pouvoir par les communistes en Tch\u00e9coslovaquie). L’\u00e9v\u00e9nement \u00e9tait, dans notre compr\u00e9hension du temps, tout \u00e0 fait consid\u00e9rable. Il marqua, peut-\u00eatre plus s\u00fbrement que le blocus de Berlin (juin 1948) et le pont a\u00e9rien qui suivit, la racine de cet \u00e9tat d’esprit qui engendra et accompagna le r\u00e9armement occidental dans la p\u00e9riode d\u00e9sormais nomm\u00e9e Guerre Froide. Pour l’estimation historique g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement accept\u00e9e, le coup de Prague illustre de fa\u00e7on dramatique la politique expansionniste et subversive de l’Union Sovi\u00e9tique et du communisme, dans toute sa brutalit\u00e9, dans cet imm\u00e9diat apr\u00e8s-guerre o\u00f9 Staline vieilli et malade r\u00e9gnait encore.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tEn Europe, sans aucun doute le coup de Prague fut le point d’orgue de la mont\u00e9e d’une crainte se transformant en panique (Scare<\/em> en anglais) de la politique sovi\u00e9tique. La position de la France conditionnait l’\u00e9volution de la situation en Europe occidentale. La France \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 un pays essentiel \u00e0 cette \u00e9poque, \u00e0 cause de sa position strat\u00e9gique centrale certes, mais aussi des h\u00e9sitations qui avaient marqu\u00e9 sa politique \u00e9trang\u00e8re depuis 1945 entre une position m\u00e9diane entre URSS et USA (doctrine inspir\u00e9 par les ann\u00e9es de pouvoir de De Gaulle entre 1944 et 1946) et l’alignement sur les USA qui suivit. L’historien Irwing Wall remarque \u00e0 propos de cette p\u00e9riode : \u00ab Cet \u00e9v\u00e9nement<\/em>, (le coup de Prague) plus que tout autre, provoqua \u00e0 Paris une v\u00e9ritable panique. Le message envoy\u00e9 par Bidault<\/em> (ministre fran\u00e7ais des affaires \u00e9trang\u00e8res) au secr\u00e9taire d \u00c9tat am\u00e9ricain le 4 mars exprime \u00e9loquemment les inqui\u00e9tudes fran\u00e7aises et marque une date importante de la guerre froide …<\/em> \u00bb (3). C’est encore moins un hasard \u00e0 cette lumi\u00e8re, si le trait\u00e9 de Bruxelles, fondateur de l’Union de l’Europe Occidentale et r\u00e9duit alors \u00e0 la France, au Royaume-Uni et aux pays du Benelux, fut sign\u00e9 le 18 mars 1948, moins d’un mois apr\u00e8s le coup de Prague.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tAux \u00c9tats-Unis, que se passait-il ? L’administration Truman avait lanc\u00e9 ce qu’on nommera plus tard la doctrine Truman, mais les retomb\u00e9es sur sa politique \u00e9trang\u00e8re restaient encore mineures. La r\u00e9organisation de l’appareil de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 nationale par le National Security Act<\/em> de 1947 \u00e9tait d’abord un acte de port\u00e9e int\u00e9rieure, et ce qu’\u00e9crit Kofsky doit grandement nous le confirmer. II s’agissait de r\u00e9organiser, du c\u00f4t\u00e9 du gouvernement, une structure militaro-industrielle qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 tourn\u00e9e vers la guerre totale. Le 24 mars 1948, donc pr\u00e8s d’un mois apr\u00e8s le coup de Prague, Truman r\u00e9pondait \u00e0 son secr\u00e9taire \u00e0 la d\u00e9fense Forrestal et aux chefs d’\u00e9tat-major venus lui pr\u00e9senter des recommandations d’augmentation draconienne du budget du Pentagone: \u00ab I want a peace program, not a war program<\/em> \u00bb. La pr\u00e9occupation am\u00e9ricaine \u00e9tait donc tout \u00e0 fait int\u00e9rieure encore \u00e0 cette \u00e9poque : que fallait-il faire \u00e0 l’\u00e9gard des structures industrielles h\u00e9rit\u00e9es de la guerre, et toute enti\u00e8re orient\u00e9es vers la guerre ?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tCe d\u00e9bat plut\u00f4t de type industriel allait conditionner les \u00e9v\u00e9nements d\u00e9crits par Kofsky, et nullement les questions ext\u00e9rieures. A l’\u00e9poque, les Am\u00e9ricains envisageaient \u00e0 peine la cr\u00e9ation de l’OTAN, et encore dans une forme tr\u00e8s att\u00e9nu\u00e9e. Selon Wall : \u00ab La paternit\u00e9 de l’OTAN revient sans doute \u00e0 Ernest Bevin<\/em> (Premier ministre britannique). Apr\u00e8s l’\u00e9chec de la Conf\u00e9rence des ministres des Affaires \u00e9trang\u00e8res<\/em> (d’Europe occidentale) r\u00e9unie \u00e0 Londres en d\u00e9cembre 1947, c’est lui qui, avec l’accord de Bidault, proposa \u00e0 Georges Marshall la cr\u00e9ation d’une alliance militaire entre les \u00c9tats-Unis et l’Europe occidentale pour r\u00e9sister \u00e0 une agression sovi\u00e9tique. En un premier temps, le secr\u00e9taire d \u00c9tat se montra r\u00e9ticent…<\/em> \u00bb. Avec le coup de tonnerre du coup de Prague, on comprend qu’on en vienne aussit\u00f4t \u00e0 la signature du trait\u00e9 de Bruxelles n’incluant que les Europ\u00e9ens, le 18 mars. A cette \u00e9poque, les \u00c9tats-Unis \u00e9taient bien plus absents de l’Europe que ce que l’on a admis depuis, et cette p\u00e9riode appara\u00eet justement comme un pivot dans le d\u00e9bat r\u00e9orientant les USA du n\u00e9o-isolationnisme o\u00f9 ils \u00e9taient retourn\u00e9s vers un internationalisme anticommuniste. C’est toute la th\u00e8se de Kofsky, qui plaide implicitement toujours cette m\u00eame id\u00e9e que les raisons de cette \u00e9volution furent beaucoup plus int\u00e9rieures qu’ext\u00e9rieures.<\/p>\nLa crainte du retour de la D\u00e9pression<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
\tIl y a d’abord un aspect g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, que Kofsky note sans le d\u00e9velopper mais qu’on retrouve d’une mani\u00e8re r\u00e9currente dans l’analyse du comportement historique des \u00c9tats-Unis : la crainte que le pays ne retombe, apr\u00e8s l’hyper-expansion industrielle de la guerre, dans la Grande D\u00e9pression. \u00ab La d\u00e9pression des ann\u00e9es 30<\/em> ? s’exclamait Norman Mailer en 1967. Nous ne l’avons pas r\u00e9gl\u00e9e. Nous sommes entr\u00e9s en guerre et c’est la guerre qui a fourni la solution<\/em> \u00bb.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tKofsky estime que le mouvement puissant qui naquit \u00e0 la fin de 1947 pour sauver une industrie a\u00e9ronautique au bord de l’effondrement avait notamment pour cause la crainte qu’un tel \u00e9v\u00e9nement catastrophique puisse \u00e0 nouveau pr\u00e9cipiter une d\u00e9pression : \u00ab Avec le souvenir de la pire d\u00e9pression encore vivace dans l’esprit du public, il existait une crainte constante et tr\u00e8s forte qu’un effondrement \u00e9conomique puisse \u00e0 nouveau intervenir<\/em> \u00bb. Cette m\u00eame crainte se trouvait, sous-jacente, de fa\u00e7on plus g\u00e9n\u00e9rale derri\u00e8re toute entreprise \u00e9conomique consid\u00e9r\u00e9e \u00e0 cette \u00e9poque. Ainsi, le plan Marshall (ou ERP pour European Recovey Programm<\/em>) \u00e9tait-il destin\u00e9 \u00e0 r\u00e9tablir un march\u00e9 occidental (transatlantique) vital pour l’\u00e9conomie am\u00e9ricaine, tout autant et m\u00eame davantage que d’\u00e9riger une barri\u00e8re contre l’expansion du communisme (il est bien \u00e9vident que les deux objectifs se confondent : ce que nous tentons de d\u00e9terminer est leur chronologie, donc lequel est la cause premi\u00e8re). Dans les faits, les choses ne se pr\u00e9sentaient pas aussi simplement. L’administration, particuli\u00e8rement le secr\u00e9taire d’\u00c9tat Marshall, se heurtait au Congr\u00e8s sur toutes ces questions. A la fin de l’hiver, Marshall n’\u00e9tait en rien assur\u00e9 que l’ERP serait approuv\u00e9 et recevrait les fonds n\u00e9cessaires, et m\u00eame on pourrait admettre qu’il avait la conviction du contraire. Kofsky montre ais\u00e9ment qu’\u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de cette pr\u00e9occupation, le coup de Prague fut \u00e0 cette \u00e9poque per\u00e7ue comme une p\u00e9rip\u00e9tie par le Secr\u00e9taire d’\u00c9tat. II cite des analyses am\u00e9ricaines sugg\u00e9rant que cette action modifiait peu l’\u00e9quilibre des forces en Tch\u00e9coslovaquie, d\u00e9j\u00e0 favorable aux communistes et \u00e0 Staline.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tPuis, Marshall changea brusquement d’avis sur la tactique \u00e0 suivre. Certains indices l’y conduisirent (dont le fameux t\u00e9l\u00e9gramme de Clay, du nom du g\u00e9n\u00e9ral Clay qui commandait la zone d’occupation en Allemagne, et qui livra une analyse particuli\u00e8rement alarmiste sur les possibilit\u00e9s d’attaque-surprise des communistes dans les semaines \u00e0 venir). Entre temps et sous l’impulsion de son secr\u00e9taire James Forrestal, le d\u00e9partement de la d\u00e9fense avait entrepris de pr\u00e9senter au public et au Congr\u00e8s l’image d’une situation brusquement d\u00e9grad\u00e9e, mena\u00e7ant de mener les uns et les autres au bord du gouffre. Marshall s’\u00e9tait convaincu que cette rh\u00e9torique serait un argument d\u00e9terminant pour convaincre les \u00e9lus de voter l’ERP (qui refuserait cette aide aux pays qui risquaient de devenir l’avant-garde du front de l’Am\u00e9rique ?).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tComme on voit, cette \u00e9volution d’une Am\u00e9rique soudain sur le pied de guerre face \u00e0 une menace suppos\u00e9e de guerre-surprise ressemble \u00e0 un montage int\u00e9rieur o\u00f9 le ministre de la d\u00e9fense a une place principale. Tout le monde n’en \u00e9tait pas averti (ce qui renforce l’hypoth\u00e8se du montage). Le 25 mars 1948, alors que Forrestal exhortait la Commission s\u00e9natoriale des Forces Arm\u00e9es \u00e0 voter des cr\u00e9dits suppl\u00e9mentaires pour le Pentagone face \u00e0 \u00ab l’agression<\/em> \u00bb et \u00e0 la menace d’attaque-surprise de l’URSS, le pr\u00e9sident Truman d\u00e9crivait ce m\u00eame pays, dans une conf\u00e9rence de presse, comme \u00ab une nation amicale<\/em> \u00bb. Il s’agissait de justifier des ventes de mat\u00e9riels divers \u00e0 l’URSS, dont quarante-six moteurs neufs de bombardiers B-24 de la guerre! et en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral de justifier le commerce avec l’URSS. Tout cela donnait, selon les explications de Truman, un excellent moyen de lutte contre la stagnation \u00e9conomique. L\u00e0 aussi, on note la perception prioritaire du point de vue int\u00e9rieur (comme dans les cas de Marshall et de Forrestal).<\/p>\nGloire et effondrement de l’a\u00e9ronautique<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
\tLa situation \u00e9tait grave, mais il ne s’agissait pas de la Tch\u00e9coslovaquie. Ce qui avait amen\u00e9 Forrestal \u00e0 se faire l’avocat ardent d’une relance des commandes d’armement, et par cons\u00e9quent et au deuxi\u00e8me degr\u00e9, de peindre les rapports avec l’URSS sous la couleur d’une brutale tension qui devait convaincre le Congr\u00e8s de le suivre sur cette voie, c’\u00e9tait la situation de l’industrie de l’a\u00e9ronautique.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tDans ce cas, Kofsky apporte des \u00e9l\u00e9ments in\u00e9dits, et \u00e0 notre sens, d\u00e9cisifs pour bien des appr\u00e9ciations : les d\u00e9lib\u00e9rations du Air Coordination Counmittee<\/em> (ACC), dont les archives n’ont pas \u00e9t\u00e9 faciles \u00e0 consulter (\u00ab Finalement, il m’a fallu deux voyages \u00e0 Washington D.C. pour convaincre les \u00a0\u00bbNational Archives \u00a0\u00bbde d\u00e9classifier et mettre \u00e0 ma disposition les documents de l ACC que je voulais consulter<\/em> \u00bb). La t\u00e2che de l’ACC, mise en place au d\u00e9but de 1947 et dissoute au d\u00e9but des ann\u00e9es cinquante, \u00e9tait de coordonner les politiques des diff\u00e9rents minist\u00e8res et agences en mati\u00e8re a\u00e9ronautique, et de pr\u00e9senter des recommandations pour une politique g\u00e9n\u00e9rale.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tDans quel \u00e9tat se trouvait l’industrie a\u00e9ronautique lorsque l’ACC se pencha sur son sort ?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\u00a0D’abord ceci : plus qu’aucun autre industrie, elle avait tir\u00e9 d’extraordinaires profits et le moyen d’une formidable expansion de la production de guerre. Les six plus importantes firmes (Boeing, Curtiss, Douglas, Lockheed, Martin, United Aircraft) virent leurs ventes combin\u00e9es augmenter de plus de 60 fois entre 1939 et 1944, de 250 millions USD \u00e0 16,7 milliards USD, et leurs profits combin\u00e9s augmenter de 244% pendant cette p\u00e9riode. Prenant le cas de Boeing, Kofsky calcule qu’entre 1941 et 1945, ses investissements totalis\u00e8rent 15,9 millions USD et ses profits d\u00e9pass\u00e8rent 60 millions USD. Les investissements furent essentiellement assur\u00e9s par l’\u00e9tat, \u00e0 hauteur de 92% pour toute l’industrie (3,428 milliards USD sur 3,721).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\u00a0L’effondrement des commandes et de l’activit\u00e9 fut radical en 1945. Sous la pression du public en ao\u00fbt-septembre 1945, le Congr\u00e8s ordonna une d\u00e9mobilisation acc\u00e9l\u00e9r\u00e9e (\u00ab Ce n’est pas une d\u00e9mobilisation, c’est une d\u00e9sint\u00e9gration<\/em> \u00bb, commenta en d\u00e9cembre 1945 George Marshall, alors chef d’\u00e9tat-major de l’U.S. Army). L’industrie a\u00e9ronautique, qui attendait effectivement un ralentissement radical de la production, ne le pr\u00e9voyait pas si extr\u00eame. De plus, elle attendait une expansion maximale du transport civil et se tenait pr\u00eate \u00e0 y r\u00e9pondre (Douglas avait le DC-4 et le DC6, Martin le 02 et le 03, Boeing le Stratocruiser<\/em>, Lockheed le Constellation<\/em>, etc.). Les pr\u00e9visions s’av\u00e9r\u00e8rent erron\u00e9es. Par exemple, le trafic a\u00e9rien pour 1947 fut en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral \u00e0 peine sup\u00e9rieur (de 4 \u00e0 5%) \u00e0 celui de 1946, et pour certaines compagnies, inf\u00e9rieur, alors qu’on pr\u00e9voyait en 1946 une augmentation de 25 \u00e0 35%.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t L’industrie a\u00e9ronautique avait investi puissamment dans le secteur civil et se retrouvait rapidement dans une situation proche de la banqueroute. En 1947 (ann\u00e9e termin\u00e9e le 30 novembre), Douglas enregistra une perte de 14,78 millions USD. C’\u00e9tait une situation typique de l’\u00e9poque, apr\u00e8s une ann\u00e9e difficile (1945) et une premi\u00e8re ann\u00e9e de pertes (1946). \u00ab Le cas de Douglas a confirm\u00e9 un point de vue d\u00e9j\u00e0 r\u00e9pandu. <\/em>(…) Sans l’intervention du gouvernement pour r\u00e9gler la facture, la plupart des compagnies commerciales sont incapables d’op\u00e9rer d’une mani\u00e8re rentable avec le seul secteur civil<\/em> \u00bb (selon Aviation Week<\/em>, d\u00e9cembre 1947).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tL’\u00e9volution g\u00e9n\u00e9rale de cette industrie marque donc cette situation explosive : en 1939, le secteur a\u00e9ronautique \u00e0 ses d\u00e9buts \u00e9tait le 43e de l’industrie am\u00e9ricaine ; en 1943, il atteignait la premi\u00e8re place, dans une industrie au sommet de sa production ; au d\u00e9but de 1948, il \u00e9tait retomb\u00e9e \u00e0 la 44e place … D\u00e8s juillet 1946, on retrouve dans les notes personnelles de Robert Gross, patron de Lockheed, l’id\u00e9e que les 14 grosses compagnies a\u00e9ronautiques US devront \u00eatre r\u00e9duites \u00e0 3 ou 4 en fonction du travail disponible.<\/p>\n
L’industrie sauv\u00e9e par une intervention publique massive <\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
\tAinsi, d\u00e8s 1947-48, s’\u00e9tait impos\u00e9e aux industriels de l’a\u00e9ronautique autant qu’aux officiels de l’administration Truman concern\u00e9s par leur probl\u00e8me si consid\u00e9rable, cette r\u00e9alit\u00e9 qui a finalement moins \u00e9volu\u00e9 qu’on pourrait croire : l’industrie a\u00e9ronautique am\u00e9ricaine, dans la forme structurelle qu’elle avait, n’\u00e9tait viable qu’au travers d’une intervention massive des pouvoirs publics. En Europe, une telle situation e\u00fbt naturellement men\u00e9 \u00e0 une nationalisation technique (ce fut d’ailleurs souvent le cas). Aux \u00c9tats-Unis, il n’en \u00e9tait pas question. Pour Forrestal, banquier de Wall Street venu \u00e0 la fonction publique au d\u00e9but de la guerre, la nationalisation c’\u00e9tait le socialisme, voire le communisme. En 1943, il allait jusqu’\u00e0 exprimer l’id\u00e9e que c’\u00e9tait \u00e0 \u00ab l’industrie priv\u00e9e, [par son existence et son activit\u00e9] de nous \u00e9viter un coup d’\u00e9tat marxiste<\/em> \u00bb.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tD’autre part, il fallait sauver l’industrie a\u00e9ronautique. On l’a vu, il y avait la cause fondamentale de la crainte que l’effondrement de cette industrie amen\u00e2t une r\u00e9action de panique en cha\u00eene semblable \u00e0 celle de 1929, et pr\u00e9cipit\u00e2t \u00e0 nouveau l’Am\u00e9rique dans la D\u00e9pression. L\u00e0 encore, on retrouve, au travers de cette pr\u00e9occupation purement int\u00e9rieure, le signe que la D\u00e9pression constitue, bien plus que la Deuxi\u00e8me Guerre mondiale qui en fut principalement la cure comme le dit Mailer, l’\u00e9v\u00e9nement fondamental pour l’Am\u00e9rique au XXe si\u00e8cle. Dans ce cas de l’a\u00e9ronautique, il joua effectivement un r\u00f4le essentiel, alors que des concepts tels que la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 de maintenir la base industrielle a\u00e9ronautique des \u00c9tats-Unis n’eurent qu’une place r\u00e9duite.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tUn autre point, plus particulier et encore plus d\u00e9licat, concerne le r\u00f4le de la Chase Manhattan Bank de la famille Rockefeller, alors la premi\u00e8re institution financi\u00e8re du monde. La Chase Manhattan avait investi massivement dans l’industrie a\u00e9ronautique : en 1944, les avances et pr\u00eats qu’elle lui consentait atteignaient 276 millions USD en pr\u00eats industriels, 320,4 millions USD en pr\u00eats \u00e0 court terme, 852 millions USD en pr\u00eats partiellement garantis par l’\u00e9tat, etc. Bien entendu, la Chase Manhattan ressentit l’effondrement de la fin de la guerre d’ao\u00fbt 1945 \u00e0 ao\u00fbt 1947, les d\u00e9p\u00f4ts des compagnies a\u00e9ronautiques \u00e0 la banque pass\u00e8rent de 85,4 millions USD \u00e0 16 millions. Avec la perspective de l’effondrement de l’industrie a\u00e9ronautique, l’\u00e9quilibre m\u00eame de ta banque \u00e9tait en question.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tLa Chase Bank joua un r\u00f4le fondamental dans la relance de l’industrie a\u00e9ronautique par le biais des commandes de l’\u00e9tat. Elle le put par l’influence \u00e9norme qu’elle avait sur le monde politique (tous les candidats r\u00e9publicains \u00e0 la pr\u00e9sidence avaient leurs campagnes pay\u00e9es par la Chase Manhattan, et les d\u00e9mocrates recevaient \u00e9galement des fonds). Forrestal, ancien banquier, \u00e9tait un ami intime de Winthrop Aldrich, beau-fr\u00e8re de John D. Rockefeller et directeur g\u00e9n\u00e9ral de la Chase Manhattan. Au d\u00e9but 1948, une lettre du secr\u00e9taire \u00e0 l’Air Force Stuart Symington \u00e0 Aldrich indiquait que l’op\u00e9ration \u00e9tait lanc\u00e9e : \u00ab Le probl\u00e8me est de savoir comment faire avec l’argent pour obtenir ce que nous voulons<\/em> \u00bb. La r\u00e9ponse vint en mars-avril 1948 : la War<\/em> Scare du printemps 1948 amena le Congr\u00e8s et Truman \u00e0 accepter une augmentation de 57% des commandes militaires a\u00e9ronautiques. Et ce n’\u00e9tait qu’un d\u00e9but. L’industrie a\u00e9ronautique am\u00e9ricaine \u00e9tait sauv\u00e9e. Jusqu’\u00e0 aujourd’hui, elle a v\u00e9cu sur ce r\u00e9gime qui dispense tous les avantages de la nationalisation sans imposer aucune de ses obligations.<\/p>\n\u00ab Le pays a toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 conduit par des crises<\/em> \u00bb<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n\tUn ami du ministre Forrestal, Ferdinand Eberstadt, disait en 1947 \u00e0 un de ses assistants : \u00ab Le pays a toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 conduit par des crises, <\/em>[et] s’il n’y en a pas une \u00e9vidente \u00e0 un moment donn\u00e9, on doit en susciter pour pouvoir avancer<\/em> \u00bb. Cette remarque anodine pourrait bien constituer la cl\u00e9 d’un des ph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes essentiels du second demi-si\u00e8cle : l’installation au coeur de la puissance am\u00e9ricaine de ce qu’on nomma plus tard le Complexe militaro-industriel. Celui-ci pesa d’un poids tout particulier sur la d\u00e9termination de la politique am\u00e9ricaine et sur l’\u00e9volution de la Guerre Froide, par l’\u00e9tat de crise qu’il perp\u00e9tua. II contribua \u00e0 peser sur l’\u00e9conomie am\u00e9ricaine par les pressions continuelles exerc\u00e9e sur les finances publiques. II fut un des instruments favoris de diverses d\u00e9stabilisations dont nous mesurons aujourd’hui les cons\u00e9quences : le poids des militaires dans la bureaucratie de Washington, l’influence militaire am\u00e9ricaine sur des r\u00e9gions enti\u00e8res du globe, etc.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tLe livre de Kofsky n’est pas inutile, et l’on peut attribuer \u00e0 quelque attitude d’inqui\u00e9tude ou de pusillanimit\u00e9 le silence qui a accueilli sa diffusion. Son travail est en effet \u00e9tay\u00e9 par tant de documents, dont un grand nombre sont exploit\u00e9s publiquement pour la premi\u00e8re fois, qu’il est bien difficile de r\u00e9duire sa th\u00e8se \u00e0 quelque chose’ de n\u00e9gligeable. Reste alors le silence, pour \u00e9viter de faire conna\u00eetre une appr\u00e9ciation qui doit conduire, en m\u00eame temps que d’autres, \u00e0 des d\u00e9marches r\u00e9visionnistes fondamentales sur la Guerre Froide, sur le r\u00f4le de l’Am\u00e9rique dans celle-ci, sur la m\u00e9canique du pouvoir am\u00e9ricain, etc., et quelques autres domaines de cet acabit. Enfin, ce livre constitue certainement un outil pr\u00e9cieux pour ceux qui, aujourd’hui, ont \u00e0 analyser la situation et les perspectives de l’industrie a\u00e9ronautique am\u00e9ricaine.<\/p>\n
Notes<\/h4>\n
(1) Voir \u00a0\u00bbdd&e\u00a0\u00bb Vo19, n\u00b011, notre texte Analyse.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t(2) Paru chez St-Martin Press, \u00e0 New York.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t(3) \u00a0\u00bbL’Influence am\u00e9ricaine sur la politique fran\u00e7aise, 1945-1954\u00a0\u00bb; lrwin M. Wall, Balland, Paris 1989.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Le complexe militaro-industriel, son \u00e9trange pass\u00e9 et son avenir radieux Cet ensemble analytique comprend principalement deux textes et s’articulent principalement autour d’un livre. \u00a0Le premier des deux textes est paru le 14 septembre 2002 sur le site Defense and the National Interest, auquel nous avons d\u00e9j\u00e0 plusieurs fois fait r\u00e9f\u00e9rence et qui est sans aucun… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3806,3012,3537,3840,3839,3762],"class_list":["post-65470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notre-bibliotheque","tag-cmi","tag-complexe","tag-industriel","tag-kofsky","tag-militaro","tag-werther"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}