America is one
of the youngest of the major countries but has still gone through its fair
share of turmoil and major events. Even
if one was to start at 1940 there are several lessons to be learned from the
events that have taken place in America’s history. These lessons are up for debate, obviously,
and each is welcome to his or her on opinion about each event that has
unfolded. I will go out on a limb and
say there are two major lessons that one can learn from studying American
history since 1940. The first lesson is
that history is taught with bias and one must look deeper then the standard
textbook to truly understand major events.
The second major lesson to be learned after studying this period of
American history is that true visionaries are marginalized beyond belief.
I have been
studying American history throughout my relatively short academic career and
have been taught basically the same thing throughout that time. I have studied major events like Truman’s
decision to drop the atomic bomb, Vietnam, the Cold War, and America’s
involvement in Cuba during the Cold War.
Through my studies, up until this point, I have been taught the very
basic and incredibly elementary version of these historical events. I knew that dropping the atomic bomb was a
tough decision but did not know all the deliberation that went on behind the
scenes. I knew that Vietnam was a
debated war but it was always insinuated that we ‘won.‘ I was taught that the Cold War was a very
scary time but I was never taught that an unknown Soviet soldier saved the
world from a possible nuclear war and that Soviet President Gorbachev made
incredible strides to end the war but American President Reagan refused his
terms to hold on to a sci-fy fantasy dream.
December 7, 1941
is truly a day that will live in infamy in American history. The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese
was an atrocious event and this is by no means an excuse or explanation of
their actions. I do not wish to say that
they did not deserve to be attacked for they truly started real American
involvement in World War II. For
generations of Americans have been taught that the dropping of the atomic bombs
on the Japanese saved thousands of lives that would have been lost in a land
invasion. I am arguing that the dropping
of the bomb was not necessary for an American ‘victory’ and the surrender of
the Japanese.
The United
States was trumping the Japanese production of war materials, for by 1943 the
United States was producing almost 100,000 planes a year, and the Japanese
produced a total of 70,000 throughout the war.
By 1944, the United States had deployed almost 100 aircraft carriers to
the Pacific, while the Japanese only deployed twenty-five the entire war[1]. Despite the vast material advantage the
United States had on the Japanese, we proceeded with an all-out war strategy.
Almost as if we were “holding off” the Japanese until the atomic bombs were
completed. Without going too much into
the development of the atomic bomb, after the Manhattan Project was completed
and was tested at Trinity it was clear to many that a huge mistake had been
made. The Admiral of the Pacific fleet,
William “Bull” Halsey once said, “The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment….
It was a mistake to ever drop it…. It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had
put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before[2]. Admiral Halsey and other military leaders
including General Henry Arnold, General Curtis LeMay, and Admiral Ernest King
all thought that the dropping of the bomb was unnecessary for the Japanese were
going to surrender even without the dropping of the bomb. Military leaders were not the only ones who
though the bombs should not be dropped but even the very scientists who
developed the bomb were against it.
Scientists like J. Robert Openhiemer and Albert Einstein regretted the
development of such a weapon[3].
Even despite the
overwhelming majority of military leaders voted to not have the bombs dropped,
they were anyway. The city of Hiroshima
was obliterated first. Tens of thousands
were killed instantly and an estimated 140,000 were dead by the end of the year
and an estimated 200,000 casualties contributed to the bomb by 1950. The United States officially reported that
3,242 Japanese were killed[4]. The city of Nagasaki was destroyed with a
21-kiloton implosive plutonium bomb, which landed on the largest Catholic
cathedral in Asia. Forty-thousand were
killed immediately including 250 soldiers. After five years an estimated
140,000 casualties were contributed to this bomb[5]. With the Japanese already basically defeated,
their leaders seeking peace talks, and our finest military and scientific
leaders against the dropping of the bomb should Truman have dropped it? I’ll leave that one up to you.
The Vietnam War
is also an interesting event to look into when studying American history. The United States really did not actually
need to be in Vietnam. The leaders of
the government looked at it in paranoia.
What were the paranoid of? Communism.
The Cold War was in its early stages and the United States was weary of
what might become of the world if communism took over. Once the Soviet Union developed atomic
weapons the United States had to “tread lightly” as to not incite a war with
the Soviets that would have ultimately ended in mutually assured destruction.
The war had to be sold to the American people.
A lot of people did not really know why the United States was getting
involved but the government did a phenomenal job selling the evils of communism
and thus getting the war they wanted.
The Vietnam war was protested unlike any other American war though. Through the development of television and
journalism the American people were able to visually see the horrific-ness of
this war.
The start of
American involvement is a cruel joke.
The Gulf of Tonkin incident is often overlooked when studying this
event. The U.S. destroyer, Maddox,
reported that they were under attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats which
now appears to have been false. For the American vessel had actually fired
“warning shots” at the North Vietnamese vessel first. It was enough for
President Johnson to initiate airstrikes across North Vietnam though[6].
There were
protests of the Vietnam War everywhere which is relatively known. But one eye-opening fact of the war was the
treatment of the veterans. I do not have
words to describe how horrible it was but perhaps this video can do the trick.
The Cold War is
perhaps one of if not the most important events studied in recent American
history. The Cold War was an incredibly
crazy time for everyone in America and the Soviet Union (perhaps every one of
the globe) for each had nuclear weapons pointed at the other. The closest the two countries came to war was
October 27, 1962. An American Naval
Carrier group was dropping depth charges near a Soviet B-59 submarine that was
carrying nuclear weapons. Almost all the
members of the crew wanted to launch a nuclear attack on the United States,
including Commander Valentin Savitsky.
But one man on board would not allow this to happen, Vasili
Arkhipov. Arkhipov refused to launch the
weapon and may have single handedly saved the human race that fateful day[7].
Another aspect
of the Cold War that is rarely discussed in history textbooks is the
stubbornness of President Ronald Reagan during the Reykjavik, Iceland meetings
with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
Gorbachev came to the meeting ready to end the Cold War because he knew
his country could no longer keep up with the American initiated arms race. He knew that ending the war would be the only
way to turn his country around as many people in the Soviet Union were having
extremely difficult times even feeding their children. The Soviets proposed to
eliminate 50% off all of their strategic arms which included ICBMs
(intercontinental ballistic missiles). The sticking point was something
out of Reagan’s fantasies. The “Strategic Defense Initiative” or SDI was
one of the reasons why the two sides could not come to an agreement. This
“Star Wars” (a nickname for the project) type space station was something
Reagan thought would be able to keep the United States safe from all further
attacks. It was something Gorbachev saw as a potential weapon and felt as
if space should not be weapon-ized and thus the Cold War continued[8].
Gorbachev was a
visionary and as the second lesson to be learned from studying the portion of
history says, visionaries are often marginalized. Gorbachev put his pride aside and pushed for
the betterment of his people and the world.
He was cast aside by the American leaders and the Cold War ultimately
continued even though the peace that eventually in-sued can be attributed to
Gorbachev.
Henry Wallace,
the 33rd Vice President of the United States, was another marginalized
visionary. He made many enemies during
his time in office as he pushed for fairness and equality, strange right? Wallace made his most famous speech, “Century
of the Common Man,” which among other things elaborated on how we as Americans
could not push for the crush of Nazi oppression if we were having out own race
wars at home. Wallace also thought the
relations with Latin America were extremely important and even did a tour and
got twelve countries to declare war on Germany.
He pushed for fair wages for those Latin American workers who were
working for American companies centered in Latin America, something that got
him a lot of enemies for as history shows, if you cause business men to lose
even a fraction of their profits, there will be trouble. Wallace ran for
president in 1948 on a campaign that pushed for friendly relations with the
Soviet Union, an end to the nascent Cold War, an end to
segregation, full voting rights for blacks, and universal government health
insurance. Truman ended up winning the
election and well, we all saw how that turned out[9].
On a more
progressive note, one other visionary that has been marginalized in American
history is Harvey Milk. Today we are still fighting for the rights of gays and
lesbians in this country. The origin of the fight is an interesting
story. One man can be said to have truly sparked the gay rights movement
and that man was Harvey Milk. Harvey Milk was the first openly gay person
to be elected to public office in the state of California when he was elected
to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors[10].
Harvey did not run on a platform of only gay rights but also pushed for
increased child care and education. He even had an ordinance passed that
would fine people who did not clean up after their dogs in public areas. But
Milk’s greatest victory was the defeat of proposition 6. Proposition 6
was set forth by John Briggs and it would have forced any openly gay teacher to
be removed from their position. At the early stages of the voting it was
a landslide to go through but after several debates in which Harvey participated
in the numbers started to even out. Eventually when the votes were
tallied, proposition 6 did not pass. This was a great victory for all
gays and lesbians because they could now “come out” and would not have to fear
losing their jobs. Harvey Milk did great
things in his short time in office. He served 10 months before being
brutally assassinated along with Mayor Mascone by former Supervisor Dan
White. His murder was tragic loss not only to the gays and lesbians but
to the city of San Francisco. After the infamous “Twinkie defense” Dan
White served a total of 5 ½ years in prison for committing both murders.
History is a
funny thing; it always seems to repeat itself.
Maybe we should start studying it a little more closely that way we can
avoid some of the terrible situations that arise in our world today. When studying history, American history post
1940 at least, we can see that there are two important lessons to learn. The first is that history is often taught
with extreme bias, and that we should be teaching our children the full story
so that when they grow up they can make informed decisions and lead our country
into a better era. The second is that
those true visionaries are often marginalized for their beliefs. We must learn to listen and respect people’s
views and realize that we may not always be right. Let us do our best to repeat the good of
history and reconcile the bad.
[1] Oliver
Stone, and Peter Kuznick, The Untold
History of the United States, (New York: Gallery Books, 2012), page 131.
[2] Oliver
Stone, and Peter Kuznick, The Untold
History of the United States, (New York: Gallery Books, 2012), page 177.
[3] Oliver
Stone, and Peter Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States, (New York:
Gallery Books, 2012), chapter 4.
[4] Oliver
Stone, and Peter Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States, (New York:
Gallery Books, 2012), page 168.
[5] Oliver
Stone, and Peter Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States, (New York:
Gallery Books, 2012), page 173.
[6] Oliver
Stone, and Peter Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States, (New York:
Gallery Books, 2012), chapter 8.
[7] Oliver
Stone, and Peter Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States, (New York:
Gallery Books, 2012), page 309.
[8] Oliver
Stone, and Peter Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States, (New York:
Gallery Books, 2012), chapter 12.
[9] Oliver
Stone, and Peter Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States, (New York:
Gallery Books, 2012), chapter 3.
[10] Milk
Foundation, "The Harvey Milk Foundation." Last modified 2013.
Accessed April 18, 2013. http://milkfoundation.org/.
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