Echoes of A New Tomorrow: Life after Revolution in the Commonwealth of Britain

[DensleyBlair]

These Italian shenanigans are really quite interesting, in particular for their ramifications for the Commonwealth.

Thank you. I have a feeling that there will be trouble yet from the youngest Syndicalist sibling.

Poor Togliatti! Will the Italian Syndies allow the PCI to play an ancillary role as they did for many years in Britain? Or are those bridges already to thoroughly burnt?

I think Togliatti's chances of redemption are probably slim, but I could see Nenni being brought back into the fold. Even Pacciardi, actually – his antifascist credentials are pretty firmly established, so I could see him being an acceptable figure to lead a bourgeois liberal wing of the Partisan movement.

Either way, even if the activism of the Syndies might have given them control of the streets - you’d imagine the FDP parties still probably have more popular backing, never mind the bourgeois constitutional parties. I wonder what became of Christian Democracy (as in the broad political movement) in this world. Would love to hear what the global centre right looks like in this world.

I think it's an interesting point, and one which I admit I haven't given much thought. I'd be interested to know if you have any intuitions.

For my money, I think the position of the centre-right is deceptively strong in this world. In Britain, for example, by the mid-1950s Mosley's government is basically a sort of directorial One Nation affair with probably a hint more chauvinism. His biggest allies are either former Tories (Boothby, Macmillan – who we haven't seen yet but who is knocking about) or right-wing Labour types like Strachey, Kenneth Younger and Hilary Marquand – the sort of people who hated the 'factionalism' of Gaitksell's party OTL but I think would be quite happy under a technocratic Mosleyite administration. I've tried to make a point of highlighting the fundamentally counterrevolutionary character of Mosley's assumption of power in 1934, and I think what all the bluster hides is basically Butskellism with socialist characteristics.

In this regard, I think Britain is probably alone amongst the Syndicalists; France has a much livelier left-wing political tradition at this point, so my assumption is that they sort of keep to the left of their neighbour across the Manche. (@loup99 was at one point in the process of writing something on the French canon, but I haven't heard from him in a while so I don't know whether we'll ever be getting it.) Spain, having been under Francoist rule for the entirety of the period over which Echoes tales place, is of course more of an unknown quantity, but I don't anticipate any great counterrevolution within the generation after the war at least.

To return to Italy, I could see things getting quite interesting going into the Sixties. I fully anticipate there being a sort of Years of Lead analogue and a couple of decades of leftist government, so I think considering the centre-right's relationship to such a movement would be worthwhile.

And of course there are plenty of countries that can't get a look in in the updates. The various non-aligned nations of Europe are all basically ticking over as parliamentary democracies in some form, as are Canada, Australia and New Zealand (although Australia is slightly more towards the South African end of the White Dominion scale ITTL).

Purely for reasons of time and energy, I probably won't do an overview of the global centre-right outside of hints dropped in foreign affairs updates – but I'm more than happy to discuss possibilities in-thread. As ever, if there's anything anyone is interested in hearing my speculations on, I'm always willing to oblige.

 

[Tommy4ever]

I agree with the idea that Mosleyite Britain is the outlier here in the Syndie world makes a lot of sense. You can see how Oswald has been able to occupy a political space that those who aren't outright reactionaries would be willing to live with so long as he keeps the real Reds at bay.

Continental Syndicalism looks very different, and I see one reason for this above everything else - the Catholic Church. In Italy, Spain and France you have the heartland of European Catholicism, and in each of those countries the left has a long anti-clerical tradition, so its hard to see their Syndie governments having anything but quite hostile relationships with the Church. The Church's links to hostile foreign powers would likely only make this worse. Yet at the same time they all (and especially Spain and Italy) have massive devout populations. These would surely be at the core of opposition to the regime. You'd likely see big Catholic subcultures emerging - with social and sporting clubs, newspapers (if allowed) etc. Historically the fascist experience changed political Catholicism a lot - with Catholics playing a big role in resistance movements, and coming out of WWII very pro-democracy and fairly centrist on the economy (if not social issues). In this TL I'd imagine you'd see the Catholics forming a fairly coherent political programme aimed at protecting the church and Catholic values through whatever avenues are open to them legally - perhaps Christian Workers parties/factions (mixing moderate socialism or social democracy and support for Catholic values) if overtly non-socialist politics aren't legal or politically viable.

 

[DensleyBlair]

Continental Syndicalism looks very different, and I see one reason for this above everything else - the Catholic Church. In Italy, Spain and France you have the heartland of European Catholicism, and in each of those countries the left has a long anti-clerical tradition, so its hard to see their Syndie governments having anything but quite hostile relationships with the Church. The Church's links to hostile foreign powers would likely only make this worse. Yet at the same time they all (and especially Spain and Italy) have massive devout populations. These would surely be at the core of opposition to the regime. You'd likely see big Catholic subcultures emerging - with social and sporting clubs, newspapers (if allowed) etc. Historically the fascist experience changed political Catholicism a lot - with Catholics playing a big role in resistance movements, and coming out of WWII very pro-democracy and fairly centrist on the economy (if not social issues). In this TL I'd imagine you'd see the Catholics forming a fairly coherent political programme aimed at protecting the church and Catholic values through whatever avenues are open to them legally - perhaps Christian Workers parties/factions (mixing moderate socialism or social democracy and support for Catholic values) if overtly non-socialist politics aren't legal or politically viable.

I can see this being the case, for sure. In Spain and Italy, you do still at least have vestiges of an anti-fascist opposition, so the extent to which Catholicism may have experienced change is possibly greater than in France. The Fourth Republic likely comes down pretty hard on the side of laïcité, as you mention – and having never had the experience of the the Resistance, there would be little to suggest that Catholicism in France has been at all convinced of the necessity of social democracy.

The Pope will no doubt have things to say about Buozzi coming to power in Italy, as well. The Vatican I'm sure would be an incredibly visible 'enemy within', and as the European Syndies become more integrated towards the end of the 1950s I could well see a Catholic opposition organising across borders within the SI on the Continent. I like the idea of Christian Workers factions. Having pro-democracy Catholic youth prominent within a sort of soixante-huitard moment across Western Europe would be an interesting possibility.

 

[99KingHigh]

Chapter Seven: Sunset Call (1949-1952)​

The collapse of Nationalist China was a slow death, lingering with agonizing wheezes and heaves. On April 4, 1949, the Communist general Chu Teh amassed a million men on the northern bank of the Yangtze, the last natural barrier between Mao and the few southern outposts remaining loyal to Chiang. His veterans, reinforced by two Soviet tank divisions, thrust across the river and destroyed the few southern outposts still loyal to the Kuomintang. Within the first week of May, Teh was hammering at Shanghai’s gates with Soviet air support, and Chiang, in despair, fled to Formosa, taking as many KMT loyalists as he could ferry. On June 26, KMT gunboats blockaded the mainland ports; three months later Mao proclaimed Red China’s sovereignty, and by year’s end Chiang had announced a competing authority in Taipei. Sun Yat-sen’s vision of China perished alongside FDR’s world-legacy of the global “three-policeman,” condemned to the dustbin of history.

The response of the American public was slow. After all, campaigns had continuously unfolded since September 1931, and while U.S newspapers carried regular accounts of the Red Offensive since V-J Day, the American reader had lost interest in the distant battles that seemed to cycle around in an endless loop. If developments eventually became important, he reasoned, his trustworthy government would tell him about it. Sure enough, it did. On August 5, 1949, Stettinius’ State Department issued a 1,000 page White Paper, conceding that the largest nation in the world had fallen to Communism, as well as the cessation of aid to Nationalist China. Three American generals, including George Marshall, had tried to persuade Chiang to break up the fiefdoms of the KMT and purge it of corruption and defeatism. Over three billion dollars of U.S. aid, as much as MacArthur had received, had gone to the KMT, and thus, had gone down the drain. Nearly all the shipped arms were now in Soviet and Chinese hands; Stettinius spent his final month excoriating Chiang’s incompetence and insisting that events were beyond his control. But when he died in October 1949, nobody believed him. The U.S. public thought this talk of KMT ineptitude was a nefarious bait-and-switch—after all, the China of Pearl Buck had been dependable and pro-American. The disintegration of Chiang’s forces was shocking. Suddenly, up went the cry of the retreating French in 1870 and 1914: Nous sommes trahis! We are betrayed!

PLA units with with Japanese Type 97s and T-35s advance into Shenyang in 1948.​

America was particularly susceptible to scapegoating, having won a great war that they had assumed would ensure enduring tranquility. But with Stalin and Mao gobbling up the Eastern Hemisphere, and vast webs of espionage conspicuously everywhere (or so the Mcarthyites alleged), the impulse for blame was unavoidable. Conservative Republicans, whipped by Roosevelt and then Byrnes (he brutalized them in 1948 as wanting to “nail the American consumer to the wall with spikes of greed...these gluttons of privilege” and even called Dewey a “fascist”), were determined to flay Byrnes alive with any weapon they could grab. On the Hill the murmurs that the administration had deliberately “lost” China—that the responsibility for China’s defeat lay in Washington—began to stir. It was all a vast and insidious conspiracy, which had begun when Alger Hiss accompanied Roosevelt to meet Mosley, Léon Jouhaux, and Stalin in Biarritz. Robert A. Taft could not contain himself, and he warned that “the greatest Communist asset in our history has been the pro-International group in the State Department who promoted at every opportunity the Communist cause in China.” And Taft was a gentleman; others would not be so delicate. William E. Jenner called George Marshall “A front man for traitors.” Joe Martin declared that Stettinius was “a bend-over boy” responsible for selling “America down the river.” McCarthy denounced the whole administration as “egg-sucking phony liberals whose pitiful squealing would hold sacrosanct those Communists and queers who sold China into atheistic slavery.” Gallop found that only 29 percent of the American people disapproved of McCarthy, and even the Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy, charged that the State Department had squandered U.S wartime gains.

MacArthur remained silent. He knew his own record on the Chinese issue would bear scrutiny, and by and large he was right. In February 1945, he predicted that Manchuria, Korea, and North China would be lost to the Communists. That, however, had been a strictly military appraisal. When General Albert C. Wedemeyer had asked him to strengthen Chiang’s position with seven divisions, MacArthur had refused—but this was simple prudence for the occupation of Japan. Most Americans had welcomed the presence of their Russian ally on the mainland, even later critics of the Byrnes administration, such as Senator Alex Wiley, at the time had showered praise on “Russia’s contribution in the Far East.” Luckily for MacArthur, he had never gone that far. Soon after Wiley’s speech the General told the senior British officer in East Asia, Harold Briggs, that though he was resigned to the loss of North China, he felt that further Soviet intrusions into Asia should be met by force. Thereafter his reports of drawing disaster were nothing less than prophetic. His feelings, a “mixture of disappointment and frustration because of his lack of control over developments outside his authority in Japan,” turned “chagrin into pathological rage as he watched Kaishek’s regime crumble before him.” When Claire L. Chennault told the American public of a “ring of Red bases, stretching from Siberia to Saigon,” MacArthur could grumble that he had been telling Washington the same thing for years. As for the liberal argument that KMT rule had been less than exemplary, he responded, “If he has horns and a tail, so long as he is anti-Communist, we should help him...rather than make things difficult, the State Department should help him fight against the Communists...we can try to reform him later.”

​

Life ran a headline in December 1948 that declared “MacArthur says fall of China imperils U.S.” The Joint Chiefs were vexed; they had agreed that the loss of the mainland constituted no threat to American security in the Pacific. But here he was blameless; the House foreign Affairs committee had asked his opinion of Maro’s victories, and he had simply replied that “it would be utterly fallacious to underrate either China’s need or its importance.” Several months later, the Senate asked him to testify on Far Eastern affairs; he declined, but more cables had been exchanged between the Dai Ichi and the Capital. As long as the initiative came from Congress and his replies were nonpartisan, his behavior was above reproach. His essential view was that American policy in China was suicidal, and that it could not help but to share in the KMT’s defeat. Once Chiang was vanquished by Soviet-Maoist arms, Japan would be threatened, and he suggested Nippon might become a latter-day Bataan. While he insisted that it was unthinkable to land GIs on the mainland, he insisted upon a strengthened U.S. military posture in the Fear East. He wanted more ships, clouds of airplanes, and six infantry divisions, and all the military equipment and technical advisers Chiang could ever want. In 1944 he had demurred from the view that Formosa was the key to Japanese conquest—now with Japan secure, strategic priorities shifted, and recommended (confidentially) to the Joint Chiefs that Washington should “proclaim to all peoples of Asia our firm intention to safeguard the Pacific” by declaring its vital interest in Formosa.

This was an extremely sensitive point, as the Republican leadership was demanding an American commitment to Formosa, together with an administration announcement that no Peking regime would be recognized by the United States. In late December 1949 the National Intelligence Authority convened to resolve the issue, and the council’s mood was dovish. Some participants even wanted to abandon all U.S. military positions in the western Pacific, returning to Hawaii, if necessary. The Chiefs submitted MacArthur’s appraisal but reported they were opposed to sending a U.S. military mission to Formosa. The new Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, hover, reasoned in support of MacArthur’s position. Bynes temporized—though his new appointments, including Acheson and Defense Secretary Robert A. Lovett were hawks in the face of growing Soviet aggression in East Asia—and postponed a decision, still unsure of Soviet intentions. MacArthur was astonished. Privately, he told his staff that he believed America had suffered a grave defeat, and when he made an indelicate comment saying as much to the press corps, the White House prepared to dump him. Indignant at this treatment, MacArthur resigned from SCAP on January 13, 1950. He was swiftly replaced by General Matthew Ridgway as a thunderous tornado of press criticism swept over the White House. He finally got his ticker-tape parade in New York three weeks later.

Footage from the General's 1950 ticker-tape parade in New York.​

Ironically, MacArthur’s departure from Japan accelerated the countdown to the Cold War, already ticking since Mao’s triumph in China. Events throughout Asia seemed everywhere to strengthen the narrative of the Pacific hawks. That same month as MaCAarthur’s resignation, the People’s Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed in Indochina under Ho Chi Minh after the brief tutelage agreed between Oliver Baldwin and Marius Moutet five years before. Three weeks later, Stalin assented to the transfer of Guandong to the People’s Republic of China, thereby solidifying the Soviet-Chinese alliance. Pak Hon-yong, Stalin’s handpicked premier of the People’s Republic of Korea, was enlivened by America’s complete apathy towards his peninsula. Even MacArthur had excluded Korea from his calculations, though the General had flown to Seoul in August 1948 for the formal inauguration of Syngman Rhee as president of the South Korean republic. Otherwise, Korea was the purview of the State Department—not the responsibility of SCAP. Stettinius had held that America should not strengthen Rhee’s army once South Korea was independent, and therefore no longer under Washington’s control. His real concern was that Rhee might pounce on North Korea. To that end, Seoul’s defenses were deliberately restricted by the State Department, even after the fall of China, and by October 1949 the South Korean military was considerably smaller than the North Korean armed forces. Meanwhile, the Kremlin knew that the United States was drafting a Japanese peace treaty without consulting Moscow. Since V-J day, the Soviets had pinned their hopes on Washington giving them a free hand in Korea. With that hope disappointed, Stalin and Hon-yong sought to achieve by force what Washington would not offer out of generosity.

The administration was under extreme pressure from congressional Republicans, and Byrnes grew concerned as the Red Carpet draped out from North Korea to Saigon that his conciliatory policy, the inheritance of Roosevelt, was collapsing. The McCarthys, Wherrys, Tafts, and Wileys had triumphed in the court of public opinion, and Democrats suddenly began to understand that the abandonment of another Asian state to the Communists was an invitation to political suicide. The first indication of a change in policy came in February when the House passed sixty million dollars in economic appropriations for Korea. In April 1950, running scared from critics on his right, and eager to prove that Alger Hiss was not a typical Democrat, Byrnes instructed the NIA to approve the policy paper that became known as NSC-68. Among other things, this document specified that the United States would resist any further Communist threat to non-Communist nations, and formed the basis for what would become the American–Pacific Treaty Organisation (APTO). MacArthur, like Stalin and Hon-young, knew nothing of the policy change. His first inkling was from an imprecise speech by John Foster Dulles, but even so he remained convinced that the United States’ policy remained completely apathetic outside the defence perimeter. That impression too, was not long to last.

The President, somewhat aged by the office.​

On June 25, 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea. Korea was Ridgway’s war, but it was MacArthur’s platform. The invasion put to rest any lingering goodwill between the United States and the Soviet Union—not that much distinction was drawn between Comintern and Cominform anymore, the differences still confused in the American imagination. The General, believing himself the most eloquent advocate of traditional American idealism, marched headstrong into the postwar struggle between "Christian democracy and imperialism Communism." Unlike most Americans, however, who saw domestic Marxism as the real danger, and reacted with McCarthyism, MacArthur believed the great enemy was the geopolitical combination of Marxism, best revealed by the machinations of Moscow and Peking. In reality, he would have been just as antagonistic toward them had the Tsar ruled in Moscow and the Manchurians in Peking; he had shown in Tokyo that he was capable of radicalism, as long as it wasn't called radicalism, and though he played lip service to conservative shibboleths, he had in fact ignored them. It was Byrnes and Paul Nitze, after all, who now wanted to fight the Huks and the Viet Minh; it was MacArthur who understood the motivations of both.

Byrnes’ pivot came hard and fast, and the aspirations of American policy in the Pacific materialized into a superstructure of economic and defense obligations. As the war unfolded in Korea, and Ridgway pushed back the Communist advance (precipitating Mao’s intervention upon the dire entreaties of Hon-yong), Acheson pieced together the disparate non-Marxist states under collective defense responsibilities to prevent Soviet expansion. Finally, in September 1950, Washington coordinated the creation of the American-Pacific Treaty Organization (APTO). The initial signatory nations included South Korea, the Philippines, Japan, Australia, and Canada. The Windsor nations, in particular, were quite determined not to follow their mother country into socialism, and they formed an informal bloc of proactive members that sought to cast syndicalism and its affiliates in India and Indochina in the same light as the Sino-Soviet bloc. Paul V. McNutt was confirmed the following month as the first Secretary-General of the APTO. Since 1949, the administration had already been forwarding massive sums for economic development into the Pacific. The plan was named after the President, the so-called “Byrnes Plan,” on the recommendation of Democratic adviser, Clark Clifford, much to the chagrin of the Old Right and Taft Republicans; they decried its profligacy and vanity as billions flooded into Asia.

Paul V. Mcnutt, MacArthur's protege and the first Secretary-General of APTO.​

Swept up in bitter denunciations of the administration, MacArthur took issue with all these advances. He regretted the vast expenditures in the Pacific, retaining an instinctual spusicion that such financial commitments were better kept at home, where they were needed. But his views were not isolationist, though they were ripe with contradictions, and he could simultaneously voice enthusiastic support for providing economic aid to emerging anti-communist countries in Asia. When called to testify before the Senate in May 1951, MacArthur excoriated the Byrnes’ administration for its prosecution of a limited war in Korea, complaining that the unacceptable idea, that “war can be applied in a piecemeal way, that you can make a half-war, not a whole war,” was gaining political purchase. He urged the Senate Armed Forces committee to adopt four goals: “to clear out all North Korea, to unify it and liberalize it, to cripple and neutralize China’s capacity to wage aggressive war, to spread the ideal of democracy evangelically throughout Asia.” Furthermore, he considered a forthright American commitment to democracy and capitalism in Asia a surefire indication to Europe that the United States intended to defend its honor and ideals. He declared, “there can be no compromise with atheistic Communism; no halfway in the preservation of freedom and religion...I believe we should defend every place from Communism...I believe we can...I believe we are able to. I don’t believe we should write off anything and accept the defeat that is involved in it...I don’t admit that we can’t hold Communism where it shows its head.” It was a rallying cry against defeatism, but potentially disastrous in the modern world. General Ridgway had employed the first tactical nuclear weapons in world history during the Chinese advance in November 1950 with devastating consequences, and having witnessed its destructive potential, privately vowed to never do so again. MacArthur, on the other hand, saw in this weapon of war a powerful advantage. He rattled his sabre, “the Soviet Union is woefully unprepared for intervention against American air and naval power in Korea; but if they did, I should say better now than later with our present nuclear capabilities.”

The Senate knew that if the Soviet Union was unprepared for a final confrontation, the United States was psychologically unprepared for further bloodshed. Senate Democrats accosted the General for his previous fallibility on the eve of the Japanese attack in 1941, when he had insisted that Tokyo would not be able to attack until the following spring. And there were inconsistencies in his testimony; he famously quipped that “only a madman would land in China, and that anyone who advocates that should have his head examined,” yet such an outcome was effectively inherent in the policies he advocated. Then, when pressed on Soviet military capabilities, he demurred, deferring the subject to the Joint Chiefs and military intelligence. Discounted by a parade of military and diplomatic officers, such as General Bradly and George Kennan, it was apparent that Korea was just “one phase” in the struggle against Communism, and not, as MacArthur saw it, as “the culmination of the struggle between East and West.” Acheson was on the mark when he stressed to the Senate that it “was difficult to see how the Soviet Union could ignore a direct attack upon the Chinese mainland.” Even so, MacArthur’s swagger and Pacific expertise carried enough force to compel a comprehensive rebuttal by the White House, which increasingly looked upon the Supreme Commander as its imminent political rival in the next presidential election.

Hard fighting in Korea between American marines and PLA forces in 1951.​

They were not off the mark, and the GOP was falling in line. Taft noted that “I have long approved of General MacArthur’s program...someday we will have to fight Red China on her terms at a time of her choosing...she will have atomic power backed by the entire Eurasian landmass...this issue could have been resolved forever in our favor...had those in Washington had the foresight to give MacArthur the green light in Asia. Wherry, Bridges, Knowland, Nixon, Hicklooper, Milliken, Ferguson, Capehard, Dirksen, Butley, and Alexander Wiley fell in line while the press titans, Hearst, McCormick, and Luce praised MacArthur and scored “the pernicious fallacy...the pap of coexistence with Soviet communism.” The administration paid an exorbitant price, even before the dismissal of MacArthur, as it was a straitjacketed in the Far East for fear of being called “soft on Communism.” They didn’t dare negotiate with Peking, and sought to demonstrate their zeal by baiting Mao, sending mountains of military equipment to Formosa, and praising Chiang to the sky. Not even the Joint Chiefs were immune from accusations of timidity. Brandishing anti-communist credentials became a matter of political survival as MccArthyism raged and the House Un-American Activities Committee shuffled through American life. In May 1952, a CIA-backed coup succeeded in catapulting the anti-imperialist, anti-European insurgents of Bao Dai into power in Saigon. The pace of the anti-communist momentum was such that despite the dubious nature of the overthrow and the character of its government, South Vietnam was rushed into APTO by the end of summer.

MacArthur crisscrossed the United States in a one man drive to arouse the country to what he regarded as its grave peril. He gathered up mayors and governors in his social calls, and aroused what Time magazine described as “a patriotic emotion seldom evoked in the doubting cynical mid-century.” His speeches were volatile, in full uniform and decoration (no one dared tell him that this was of questionable propriety), and many found the spectacle troubling. Nevertheless, his crowds were unprecedented; 300,000 applauded him in Seattle, in Miami he received ovations from 14,000 legionnaires; he addressed the legislatures of four states; streets were named after him; Houston rallied a crowd of half-a-million to watch his arrival and another half-million in Boston as his motorcade passed by. At Soldier Field, a fireworks replica of the Missouri blazed in the sky, a band playing “God Bless America,” as Jean MacArthur (who the General always introduced to the crowds as “my finest soldier”) was presented with a diamond brooch. With a fine disregard for the first Amendment, when a protester in Los Angeles ran alongside his car, he ordered an attache to “get rid of that sign, will you?” He rang aloud that the American people “have it in their power..to reject the socialist policies covertly and by deciduous means forced upon us, to stamp out Communist influence which has played so ill-famed a part in the past direction of our public administration...our country will then reassume the spiritual and moral leadership recently lost in a quagmire of ineptitude and incompetence.”

​

Herbert Hoover and Taft rejoiced in his declarations, even if it was gravely disturbing when delivered in full uniform. Yet, these speeches were not an accurate reflection of his philosophy; his liberal reforms in Tokyo were inconsistent with them, and while, like most American protestants, he identified and supported a linkage between political and religious life, he scorned the racial chauvinism of the ultrarightists. But on the road to the nomination there was no such indication that this was the man who made “Japan left-of-center.” He urged the removal of the “burden of taxation” from industrialists, which he feared would make them “stultified and inert” and a prelude to Communist slavery. His approach to political power was costing him prestige, and his opponents everywhere derided him as a “desperate, demagogic Republican politician fighting a dirty political war.” He did not attempt to rise above these accusations. In Jackson, Mississippi, he warned that “Byrnes is leading us towards a Communist state with as dreadful a certainty as though the Kremlin were charting the course.” His attacks on the conduct of the Korean enterprise, quickly became a factor in Byrnes downfall, and when the incumbent, facing a dramatic collapse in approval, declared he would not run again, MacArthur felt avenged.

The General at the Senate hearings in 1951, brandishing his characteristic pipe.​

MacArthur sealed his nomination in June at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, for which he was also the keynote speaker. Despite haphazard opposition from the Eastern Establishment, which attempted to congregate around Governor Earl Warren of California, the combination of Taftite support and the General’s intimidative popularity overcame a liberal coalition in the second round of balloting. MacArthur then deferred in favor of former Harold Stassen as his vice-presidential nominee, ensuring the compliance of the liberal Republicans. Stassen had insisted that if he had been awarded the nomination, and elected president, his first act would be “to recall the General to active duty.” MacArthur was delighted by such adulation, and rewarded Stassen for his fidelity. But even with the unpopularity of the current administration, MacArthur struggled. His speeches were poorly received, if not outright shill, and he was liable to lose friends with his grandiosity whenever he could not afford to do so. His opponent, Estes Kefauver, proved more amicable and relatable with the American public. Byrnes, who had no great love for the big-city Democratic political bosses (running scared from this anti-corruption crusader), preferred the Tennessee son, who caught the attention of the party in the primaries. With sanction from the presidential mountaintop, Kefauver survived, brandishing his liberal credentials against the demagogic General MacArthur; he very nearly stole back the race, but from the start his campaign was faced with the unenviable challenge of facing the victor of the Pacific War.

MacArthur campaigned against the administration's failures on corruption, communism, and Korea; the General relentlessly accused the Democrats of deliberately throwing the war in favor of stalemate, a treason, he imagined, inspired by communist infiltration. Kefauver, not a member of the Byrnes administration, ignored the administration’s record, and spent his energies attacking right-wing conservatism. This was made easier by the fact that MacArthur supported McCarthy in Wisconsin, much to the fury of the administration and to the delight of the Kefauver campaign, which insisted that there was nothing patriotic or American about McCarthy’s inquisitions. But on election day, it was MacArthur’s triumph; the country could not resist him, and the begrudging consent of the GOP’s Eastern Establishment was enough to shore up the liberal weak points. With 52.3% of the vote, he rode glamorously into power; it was enough to frighten the North Koreans and Chinese into a provisional peace during the lameduck session. Thus by inauguration in January 1953, MacArthur marched into the White House, free of the commitments of his predecessors.

​

 

[stnylan]

And thus into office was he propelled.

 

[Tommy4ever]

Our American Caesar seems to have mostly faced out towards the Far East, where Soviet Communism is the order of the day. Will he see the Syndicalists of Europe’s as another string in the Socialist cordon, or potential grudging allies against Moscow and Beijing?

 

[Le Jones]

Oh God it has happened. I echo @Tommy4ever - his view of the UK and Europe will be intriguing...

 

[Kienzle]

These last two updates have been insanely good. So many developments to consider.

On April 4, 1949, the Communist general Chu Teh amassed a million men on the northern bank of the Yangtze, the last natural barrier between Mao and the few southern outposts remaining loyal to Chiang. His veterans, reinforced by two Soviet tank divisions, thrust across the river and destroyed the few southern outposts still loyal to the Kuomintang. Within the first week of May, Teh was hammering at Shanghai’s gates with Soviet air support, and Chiang, in despair, fled to Formosa, taking as many KMT loyalists as he could ferry.

Why did the Soviets directly intervene in the Chinese Civil War? With no US presence in Europe, did they not see a risk to escalation, or did they not judge the CCP capable of finishing the job? IIRC, Mao would have been loath to accept the direct military aid given it would somewhat tarnish his anti-imperialist credentials. Does this mean that the USSR will have more influence in the PRC?

The initial signatory nations included South Korea, the Philippines, Japan, Australia, and Canada.

Any reason that Chiang's "Free" China isn't included? Especially considering that South Vietnam is in there. With more serious US backing and no UN, I'm wondering how this will influence recognition of China and Taiwan down the line (unless Taiwan gets annexed soon, in which case this is a moot point).

 

[99KingHigh]

These last two updates have been insanely good. So many developments to consider.


Why did the Soviets directly intervene in the Chinese Civil War? With no US presence in Europe, did they not see a risk to escalation, or did they not judge the CCP capable of finishing the job? IIRC, Mao would have been loath to accept the direct military aid given it would somewhat tarnish his anti-imperialist credentials. Does this mean that the USSR will have more influence in the PRC?

You've hit on a few of the right points a) no U.S. presence/East-West conflict in Europe as in our own postwar scenario, and b) because my own reading of a divergence in the Pacific was the higher quantity of aid/material sent to China from the United States, as well as larger direct American involvement overall with the KMT (in lieu of a European outlet taking their attention as during WW2); these conditions somewhat altering our civil war from its historical position, in which even Stalin was apathetic at best to Mao's likelihood of success. We also have a more engaged Soviet presence in the region as a result of their longer participation in the Pacific War compared to OTL.

Any reason that Chiang's "Free" China isn't included? Especially considering that South Vietnam is in there. With more serious US backing and no UN, I'm wondering how this will influence recognition of China and Taiwan down the line (unless Taiwan gets annexed soon, in which case this is a moot point).

More on that, next time.

 

[DensleyBlair]

And thus into office was he propelled.

Once Doug set his mind on the Oval Office, it could only end one way.

Our American Caesar seems to have mostly faced out towards the Far East, where Soviet Communism is the order of the day. Will he see the Syndicalists of Europe’s as another string in the Socialist cordon, or potential grudging allies against Moscow and Beijing?

Up to now, the general order of "We'll keep to the Pacific, you keep to Europe" has generally held firm in Washington – and as of yet there is little appetite to suggest escalation in the Syndicalist sphere. I make no promises for the world once MacArthur is through with it, however.

Oh God it has happened. I echo @Tommy4ever - his view of the UK and Europe will be intriguing...

As I think I said before, my instinct is that MacArthur, for all of his absurdity, is the sort of leader that Mosley really rather wishes he could be (with all of his absurdity). From the Commonwealth establishment there will be no cries for entanglements with the US – but it remains to be seen whether this will prove true in the other direction.

These last two updates have been insanely good. So many developments to consider.

Thanks! All things considered, it took a decent amount of planning on the part of KH and me. Happy to hear it's paying off.

__________________________________

Thanks all for your comments and reactions on the last couple of updates. Always glad to hear your thoughts and speculations. Very excitingly, I'm literally a few hundred words away from finishing part 3 of this beast, so the home stretch is incredibly close. And there'll be plenty of fireworks before the end. I promise.

As ever, do let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like to hear about, or potentially see covered in some detail. After @Tommy4ever's insights the other day, I've gone back and filled in a few upcoming foreign affairs updates with some details on the conservative movement in the German Reich. King and I have also begun to think about how a certain someone might react to the Syndies' treatment of the Catholics once he comes to prominence in the US. But that's all to come.

In the meantime, the second part of the European overview will be out either this weekend or early next week, depending on whether I remember to sort it and if there's an appetite for so many chapters in such short succession. Until then, cheers to you all!

 

[GangsterSynod]

Well, I'd hoped so see the old soldier fade away, but... Byrnes and now MacArthur in the White House, Mosley's years in Britain, this really is the darkest timeline.

 

[DensleyBlair]

Well, I'd hoped so see the old soldier fade away, but... Byrnes and now MacArthur in the White House, Mosley's years in Britain, this really is the darkest timeline.

Yeah, things are at a fairly low ebb. Racialists, wannabe totalitarians and wildcard supreme commanders are a pretty grim bunch – but thankfully not unassailable. I like to think that there's plenty of light as well as shade if you take everything in full view, and we’ll be seeing some restitution before too long.

________________

Seeing as I probably won’t get a better chance to bring it up, I thought it was worth mentioning that we’ve just about hit this AAR’s first anniversary! Thanks to everyone who’s joined us for some of the ride, and to you few who have been here all along: my deepest thanks and appreciation.

 

[Le Jones]

Seeing as I probably won’t get a better chance to bring it up, I thought it was worth mentioning that we’ve just about hit this AAR’s first anniversary! Thanks to everyone who’s joined us for some of the ride, and to you few who have been here all along: my deepest thanks and appreciation.

Congratulations @DensleyBlair - an achievement and here's to seeing a lot more of your writing.

 

[DensleyBlair]

Congratulations @DensleyBlair - an achievement and here's to seeing a lot more of your writing.

Thank you, my friend! We shall be seeing some more imminently.

____________________________

Not quite sure where this week has gone, in all honesty. I meant to put this up a few days ago, but no harm done. I've been busily working on what, hopefully, will be a nice project to share with you all at some point once this beast is closer to its conclusion.

In the mean time, the second part of the Carr update will be up any second now, so look out below. A little warning: some of the timeline details have altered since this was written. I've gone back and checked for continuity, and I think I got everything, but I will warn you now that there is a greater than zero chance that future updates will contradict what I've got down here. (This, of course, is always a possibility.)

Anyway, please do enjoy!

 

[DensleyBlair]

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
THE ANTI-FASCIST PACT AFTER THE WARS, 1943–1953

E. H. CARR
1970

PART TWO: EUROPE, 1948–53​

Following the establishment of a workers’ state in Italy the previous year, it was widely presumed that European geopolitics were largely settled for the time being. There was one final twist with the democratic election of Josip Tito’s Communist Party of Yugoslavia in 1946. Tito oversaw the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy and the creation of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He aligned with Stalin and in 1947 joined Cominform. The formation of Cominform in 1946, three years after the creation of the Syndicalist International, marked the lowest ebb in Soviet–Commonwealth relations since the dawn of the revolutionary era. With Stalin convinced that the Soviet and Commonwealth systems of socialism were incompatible, each leader retreated towards a position of consolidation: Mosley in the West, and Stalin in the East. Coming so soon after the Syndicalist victory in Italy, Tito’s alignment with Cominform seemed to give Moscow a much needed win on the international stage, while also providing a vital link between the Soviet Union and the Balkans, where Stalin hoped to expand Communist influence.


Many observers had expressed doubt that this settlement would be long lasting, but few had expected that it would take only until 1948 before the delicate balance in Europe would be upended once again. In January 1948, the Commonwealth International Bureau published a collection of documents entitled German–Soviet Relations, 1938–1941. Based on the testimonies of numerous Soviet sources active in the Commonwealth, including the accounts of former Narkomindel minister Maxim Litvinov, German–Soviet Relations contended that there existed secreted protocols devised by the foreign ministries in Berlin and Moscow setting out an agreement between the two states in dividing up Eastern Europe following the collapse of the Nazi regime. Litvinov attested to having his work undermined by allies of Stalin during the final two years of his tenure as foreign minister, frustrating his popular front policy and trying to spark the conditions for Soviet intervention in Poland and Romania. The documents further alleged the existence of secret commercial agreements between Germany and the Soviets, providing for joint economic hegemony of Eastern Europe.


The publication of German–Soviet Relations sparked outrage in the Kremlin, and Stalin was quick to issue denunciations both of Mosley and of Litvinov, whom he described as “a traitor equal to Trotksy”. This was followed by the publication of a counter-history, Falsifiers of History, which denounced expansionism in Eastern Europe as a capitalist plot backed by “American bankers and industrialists” eager to contain the Soviet threat. Mosley defended the decision to publish, arguing that “Europe has a right to know” if peace is threatened. International reactions were equally strong; in Germany, Chancellor von Weizsäcker refuted claims that the Reich would allow Communist influence to “infiltrate the German sphere of interest”, which was a successful rebuttal insofar as it managed to assuage the fears of governments in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Likely the biggest beneficiary of the scandal was Tito, who was able to parlay anti-Soviet fears in Eastern Europe into a more independent, nominally pro-Yugoslav feeling. Apparently in protest of Stalin’s policy in Eastern Europe, Tito stayed away from the Cominform annual congress in 1948, before pulling Yugoslavia out of the organisation the following year.

Tito and Stalin, honoured side by side in happier times for the European communist bloc.​

Evident from 1949 was the existence of a rift between Stalin and Tito, who had come to win for himself a significant position of influence in Eastern Europe that rivalled and frustrated Moscow’s own plans. Furious at Yugoslavia’s unilateral withdrawal from Cominform, Stalin made plans for the invasion of Romania and Bulgaria in summer 1949 in order to stage a later Soviet invasion of the Balkans. This military adventure ultimately came to nothing, but Moscow persisted in its campaign against the bothersome Tito. By 1950, a KGB spy ring was active within the CPY, seeking to promote the Stalinist faction and suppress the Titoists. The assumption in Moscow was that once it was known that he had lost Soviet approval, Tito would collapse; "I will shake my little finger and there will be no more Tito," Stalin remarked. It soon became apparent that this was a delusion on Stalin’s part, and the KGB moved towards a more openly hostile policy, attempting the assassinate the Yugoslav leader on numerous occasions. Tito sent Stalin a stern letter following one assassination attempt: “Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle. [...] If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send one to Moscow, and I won't have to send a second.”


After 1949, Tito emerged as a neutral leader in Eastern Europe, and gained the respect of many in the West. Stalin’s influence was contained largely to Romania and Bulgaria, whose population remained naturally Russophilic and was more favourable to Stalin that their own absolutist leader Tsar Boris. But Tito’s rising popularity more or less put an end to Soviet power in Albania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, who were only too happy to remain neutral caught between three feuding powers: Yugslovia, the Soviet Union and the German Reich. For their part, the Syndicalists were favourable towards Tito, viewing him as a useful counterweight to both Germany and the Soviet Union. Stafford Cripps visited Tito in Belgrade in 1948, his final official engagement as the Commonwealth’s Secretary to the Syndicalist International before his retirement later that year. Without ever making an official declaration on the issue, the SI states supported Tito’s continued neutrality and hoped that it might form the basis for a future non-Soviet socialist bloc in Eastern Europe.


At the same time as Tito’s rise in the Balkans, a change of chancellor in Berlin signalled a shift in Germany’s diplomatic ambitions. In 1946, the German premier Ernst von Weizsäcker retired after eight years at the head of government. A key figure in German diplomacy since the days of Nazi rule, Weizsäcker had held firm to the idea of ‘Lebensraum’, the German policy of military and diplomatic expansion which the Reich viewed as necessary for its ‘comfortable existence’ within the European order. Under Nazi rule, the Lebensraum doctrine had been used to justify German territorial ambitions first in the Rhineland, then in Austria and, fatally, in Czechoslovakia. Following Hitler’s assassination in 1938, the German foreign office initially continued to push for a militarist application of the doctrine, believing that some expansion in Poland could still be achieved. This aspiration was quashed by the reality of German internal politics going into the 1940s, with the military yet to recover from the tribulations of 1938 and the economy entering a downturn after years of overheated Nazi policies. Thus from about 1941 the Reich shifted towards a doctrine of political and economic hegemony, seeing itself in explicit terms as the defender of capitalism in Europe and charging itself with the protection of the East from Soviet communist incursion. This was the basis of all conflicts between Berlin and the Kremlin during the 1940s.

Ernst Freiherr von Weizsäcker, Chancellor of Germany 1938–46​

Weizsäcker’s successor was former finance minister Carl Freidrich Goerdeler, who had distinguished himself as a steady hand in control of the treasury. Aligned with the moderate wing of the National People’s Party, which enjoyed the favour of Kaiser Wilhelm and had held power uninterrupted since 1938, his appointment marked a relaxation of many of the most repressive aspects of the German regime – although this was most evident only following the accession of Kaiser Louis Ferdinand in 1951. Goerderler’s guiding principle in international policy was the moral necessity of the “free market”, an economic doctrine which had found little favour even among capitalist nations since 1929. This was fitting in many ways; sixty-four years old at the time of his appointment, Goerderler was no Prussian Junker, but was by all accounts an austere man, extremely capable, who valued Lutheran moralism and traditional conservative thought as fundamental for a stable German nation. He epitomised a sort of “neo-conservatism”, lacking the total disillusionment with Nineteenth-century ideals endemic among most of Europe’s governing class at the time.


Goerderler’s tenure as chancellor marked the return of orthodox capitalist thought to the mainstream of European politics. At a time when Britain was entering a post-war economic slump and the Soviets were isolated, Goerderler oversaw a continuation of the steady recovery that had characterised the latter half of the 1940s. The recklessness of capitalism had led to its violent rejection in Europe between 1917–1945, and even the most evangelical devotees of capital in Washington had conceded the basic logic of President Roosevelt’s Keynesian ‘New Deal’ after 1933. Now, the new order seemed the call for a re-evaluation. So long as its economy remained buoyant (and this was the crucial caveat; free-market economies are prone to wild swings of the pendulum) unaligned states in Europe looked to the German Reich as an exemplar of moderate anti-Communist government.


This outward image of benign yet firm influence over European affairs concealed a more calculated reality. The young Kaiser Louis Ferdinand was a firm Atlanticist, who believed that German strength would be assured by warm relations with the United States. Influenced by his experienced first chancellor Goerderler, Louis Ferdinand soon came to see the merits of securing American support for Germany’s political aspirations in Eastern Europe. The two men believed that they could win a strong relationship with Washington by impressing upon the Americans Germany’s potential strength as a bulwark against communist influence in Eastern Europe. The Americans had not intervened in European affairs since the end of the Great War, and under President Byrnes kept to the post-war division of global spheres of influence that more or less limited American interventionism to the Far East. Byrnes moreover had little intention of drawing the ire of his Pacific War allies in London and Paris by showing support to their continental rival. So long as he occupied the White House, Berlin would have little joy in securing anything other than platitudes of friendship.

Pat and Richard Nixon arriving in Germany on an official visit in March 1955.​

When President Douglas MacArthur took office in January 1953, the Reich’s luck shifted. While MacArthur himself was preoccupied by the fight against the Soviets in Asia, his proactive State Secretary Richard Nixon saw the merits of the German argument. Although there was little appetite in the governing Republican Party for a concrete entanglement in the European theatre of the Cold War, the idea of the government sending financial support to the capitalist bloc via the Reich was not too upsetting. Nixon acceded to the pro-German policy, and as a first step helped grease the wheels of German accession to APTO in April 1953. The dream of a free-market economic bloc, meanwhile, achieved grounding in reality at the end of the following summer, after months of multilateral discussions.


Goerderler retired in March 1953, having overseen German economic recovery and the implementation of an actively anti-Communist foreign policy during a crucial period in the early years of the Cold War. It fell to his successor Walter Eucken to direct the arrival of American capital into Eastern Europe, forming the Eastern European Economic Cooperation Zone (ECZ) in September 1954. The ECZ was established as a transnational organisation for the promotion of free-market economics among the unaligned nations of the region. Its foundation marked a critical moment in the history of the Cold War in Europe, and arguably marked the point at which its early period – characterised by bloc-building, covert operations and the tense exchange of diplomatic propaganda – evolved into a period of escalated tensions over the subsequent decade. Coming three months after the death of Stalin, which had resulted in a period of internal instability in the Kremlin, the emergence of the ECZ as a new power bloc reset the carefully balanced relationship between the European powers. Within three troubled years, its existence would bring Europe to the brink of open war following the crisis in Bessarabia in January 1956.


Europe in 1953 was thus a continent that had undergone stark changes since the general optimism that had greeted the cessation of the Anti-Fascist Wars a decade before. Both Stalin and Kaiser Wilhelm had died, leaving a generation of younger actors to continue the German–Soviet drama in the East, carefully observed by Tito. In the West, the Syndicalist International maintained its dominance, though was showing signs of a drop in influence as the major battles in European geopolitics shifted eastwards. Having come out of the 1930s as Europe’s man of peace, enjoying a principal role in diplomatic affairs throughout the 1940s, the 1950s came as a shock to Chairman Mosley, who had to contend with the gradual sidelining of British interests. For the Commonwealth, the battle for ideological supremacy was moving into new realms, as Mosley spent the new decade in pursuit of cultural and technological excellence. This focus saw Britain implicated in the new “nuclear age” that followed the shocking experimental deployment of atomic weapons by Americans in Korea in 1952, and towards the end of the decade would involve the Syndicalist International in the burgeoning “Space Race” as the global powers took their dispute into unimaginable new frontiers. ‘Tension’ was the watchword in Europe at the century’s midnight. Before relations could get better, they would only get worse.

 

[stnylan]

An American-German alliance is an interesting development indeed.

 

[Anuerin]

With the mention of Albania I've got to ask, what's my boy Hoxha up to?

 

[Tommy4ever]

For a second there I thoughts Josefs Broz and Stalin were going to be friends in this TL!

A German-American alliance is going to be something of a titan - particularly if the capitalist economies can outperform the Syndie and Communist worlds. That said, it wasn’t until the latter 1960s and 1970s that the OTL capitalist economies started visibly outperforming the Eastern Block - so we could well see the different forms of socialist states keeping up or even outperforming the capitalists through the 1940s and 1950s when traditional industries still dominate the industrial economies.

 

[DensleyBlair]

An American-German alliance is an interesting development indeed.

It will certainly have important ramifications a little further down the line.

With the mention of Albania I've got to ask, what's my boy Hoxha up to?

Old Hoxha is currently the CP leader under the just about surviving Zogist regime. I've actually just finished writing our version of "'56 and all that" which gives a little bit more information on Albania – though I will warn any Hoxhaists out there in advance that are probably going to be a little frustrated.

For a second there I thoughts Josefs Broz and Stalin were going to be friends in this TL!

I have just enough lingering respect for Tito not to do that to him.

A German-American alliance is going to be something of a titan - particularly if the capitalist economies can outperform the Syndie and Communist worlds. That said, it wasn’t until the latter 1960s and 1970s that the OTL capitalist economies started visibly outperforming the Eastern Block - so we could well see the different forms of socialist states keeping up or even outperforming the capitalists through the 1940s and 1950s when traditional industries still dominate the industrial economies.

Germany's economy doesn't really recover from the chaos of the post-Nazi era until the late Forties, although we don't really get any hint of a proper Wirtschaftswunder until the Fifties. The Syndicalists are doing okay after the mild late-Forties recession, but Mosleyism – like any system that's been in place more or less unchanged for a generation – is starting to trade a little on good fortune. There will be a few shake-ups before we hit the end of this instalment of the TL.

BTW – I've managed to fit an overview of the European centre-right into the upcoming '56 update. So in spite of my previous admission that it probably wouldn't happen, you can now look forward to that in the not so distant future.

_________________________

Thank you all for your comments and questions. Always a pleasure to respond and think them over. We've got another American update from @99KingHigh inbound, giving a brand sweep over the MacArthur years (horror) so do stay tuned for that.

I've also finished the write up of part three in its entirety, which means once I'm done with a couple of other projects (both AARland and non-AARland related) I'll pick up work on what will be our fourth and final part to this instalment. I say 'this instalment' as it's increasingly looking like there will be a sequel. But we'll cross that bridge etc etc etc.

For now: MacArthur incoming. Please do enjoy.

 

[99KingHigh]

The New York Times: Domestic Scenes from the MacArthur Presidency
​

September 1953

​

Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson died unexpectedly of a heart attack at his apartment, at 2:15 A.M. today. The Chief Justice was stricken fatally this morning. Mrs. Vinson and their son, Fred Jr., were at the apartment...

The possibility that John Foster Dulles might be appointed Chief Justice of the United States to succeed Fred M. Vinson was generally accepted today on the East Coast. Mr. Dulles, a renown international lawyer, gained further renown just last month when he served as President MacArthur's special representative to Taiwan. Despite considerable assistance by the previous administration, the government of Chiang Kai-shek had remained outside of the Pacific Pact out of concern for several "red-lines" drawn from Moscow and Peking. Mr. Dulles' highly visible trip to Taiwan this summer was widely viewed by observers as the prelude to its successful admittance into the APTO last month over the violent objections of the Chinese Communists.

Governor Warren of California, another contender, was widely criticized within the Republican party at the last GOP nominating convention for being "too much of a New Dealer in social and economic legislation."

--
April 1954

​

Senator Joesph R. McCarthy rejected suggestions from the Republican Senate leadership today that he call off his speaking tour this week and proceed to bring out “all the facts” in his controversy with the Army. The issue tonight was whether a majority of the investigating group would overrule him at tomorrow’s session and vote to proceed in his absence if necessary.

Senator McCarthy so far stands alone in defense of his chief counsel, Roy M. Cohn, who today reiterated that he had no intention of resigning. The Wisconsin Republican and Mr. Cohn have been charged by the Army with making direct threats in order to obtain preferential treatment for their friend and associate, Pvt G. David Schine. They, in turn, have counter-charged that Army officials sought to “blackmail” them into calling off public investigations of alleged Communists in the service...

...the speeches by the Senator in Milwaukee invited a full reply in Miami Beach by Senator Kefauver, the 1952 Democratic nominee, who charged that the MacArthur Administration has embraced “McCarthyism” in the hope of political profit. The President has so far remained vocally supportive of Senator McCarthy’s investigations, but there are many within the White House who believe that the Wisconsin Senator has crossed a line by wading into the Army, in which the President is thought to be highly protective. Secretary of State Richard Nixon is expected to make a reply tomorrow evening...

​

--
May 1954

​

The Supreme Court outlawed today racial segregation in public schools in a 6-3 decision. Chief Justice John Foster Dulles read the majority opinion that put the stamp of unconstitutionality on school systems in twenty-one states and the District of Columbia where segregation is permissive or mandatory. The court, taking cognizance of the problems involved in the integration of the school systems concerned, put over until the next term, beginning in October, the formulation of decrees to effectuate the majority decision. Standing with the majority was the Chief Justice, Justice Hugo Black, Justice Sherman Minton, Justice Felix Frankfurter, Justice William Douglas, and Justice Robert Jackson. Justice Forman Reed led the dissent alongside Justice Sam Bratton and Justice Walter Huxman.

The ruling is certain to face serious opposition from Southern governors, many of whom have already announced their intention to initiate clarifying challenges and resist any attempted implementation. President MacArthur noted that he thought an affirmative decision would produce unnecessary discord between the races, and signaled that he welcomed the transitory period allotted by the majority. Several prominent Southerners, including former President Byrnes, denounced the decision.

----
November 1954

​

---
December 1954

​

Despite opposition from the White House, the Senate voted tonight to censure Joseph R. McCarthy. The vote was 67 to 20, and a significant defeat for the President, who had urged his Republican colleagues to overlook his overreach on the Army hearings in light of his wider service in “exposing communism.” Voting for censure were all forty-three Democrats, including the minority leader, Senator Coke Stevenson of Texas [1], twenty-three Republicans and Senator Wayne Morse, Independent of Oregon.

The majority leader, Senator William F. Knowland, announced earlier in the day that he was opposed to the censure resolution. Only nineteen Republicans joined him in voting “no” on the showdown. Four successive amendments were attempted by White House loyalists to dilute the language of the censure. In each of the resulting votes the Democrats, long smarting under Mr. McCarthy’s denunciation of their party as the “party of treason,” voted against him to a man.

President MacArthur, following the censure vote, demanded that the Senate Investigations subcommittee resume public hearings Tuesday in its inquiry looking for Communists in defense plants.

[1] Who defeated a certain LBJ in the 1948 democratic primaries.

​

--
September 1955

​

President MacArthur insisted that the now unified labor movement, formed of the merger between the once quarrelling A.F.L. and C.I.O., protect its ranks against Communism and ensure that its 15 million members are permitted to differ politically. In a telephoned talk to the founding convention of the new federation, the President voiced cautioned praise for labor’s “unique contribution,” but firmly warned against suppressing minority views.

Mr. Meany, former A.F.L head, was unanimously elected president of the largest union group in the free world. He promised to guide it as “a force for good for all America,” and had his own words of caution for President MacArthur, warning the White House “to respect the gains of labor.” He also ridiculed charges by Republican Senators that the new federation would seek to control workers’ votes or capture the Democratic party. A similar pledge was made by Mr. Reuther, former president of the C.I.O, who heads the new industrial union department. He accused one critic, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, of proposing that labor be “politically disenfranchised.” In recent months, Republicans have been vocal in their denunciations of the Wagner Act, particularly as GOP Senators and the White House struggle to dent New Deal legislation in the face of determined opposition from the Democratic-controlled Congress. President MacArthur spent last week railing against income taxes and swollen budgets following the compromise budget negotiation in the Senate that saw the White House’s conservative demands for large spending cuts, including for the Pentagon, effectively overruled in favor of a modest budget surplus.

----
November 1955

​

Ninety-six Southern Congressmen have signed a Declaration of Constitutional Principles in which they state their intention to resist the implementation of the Supreme Court's school desegregation decision by all lawful means. In attacking the role of the Supreme Court they state that its action is "destroying the amicable relations between the white and Negro races that have been created through ninety years of patient effort by the good people of both races."

​

--
January 1956

​

...the newly released documents surrounding the suicide of Senator Lester C. Hunt have revived startling accusations against Senators McCarthy, Welker, and the Attorney General, former Senator Bridges, a key ally of President MacArthur. Members of both parties of the Senate Judiciary Committee have demanded an investigation into the allegations of blackmail, apparently premised on the threatened exposure of Senator Hunt’s son as a homosexual. The White House Chief of Staff, Philip La Follett, insisted upon the innocence of the Attorney General and especially, upon the aloofness of President MacArthur to the entire incident. The new evidence strongly reinforces the original charges published by Drew Pearson, in which he claimed that the three senators had conspired to blackmail. The Attorney General originally issued an affidavit exonerating Welker of pressuring the late Senator.

--
March 1956

​