From the Easy Chair

World War II Eye Witness

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 20-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161AJ66

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161AJ66, World War II Eye Witness from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[Rushdoony] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 170, May 9, 1988.

Otto Scott and I are now going to discuss World War II. I know we will have differing perspectives on this and I think it will be worth exploring because I think we are facing possibly a life crisis.

In order to understand, I think, warfare in the modern world, we need to recognize that in the modern age war is a form of revolution. The loser always has a revolution on his hands. The country is dramatically and radically changed. But even more, even the winner undergoes dramatic changes. The modern state recognizes that it can concentrate vast powers during war time. And as a result of this concentration, major social changes take place. And so a war becomes an occasion for social change.

The United States before World War I was a dramatically different country, far freer than we can begin to realize. And, certainly, the United States of the 1930s before World War II had freedom to an extent that we today cannot appreciate. The wartime powers were held as far as possible by the state and with the Korean War, the Vietnam War, steadily the power of Washington has increased.

As a result, warfare is highly welcome by many people in the bureaucracies of various countries in that warfare gives them an opportunity to enhance their powers.

Now when World War II broke out it was potentially and it was very quickly a war between two tyrannies, Nazi Germany and Marxist Russia. We did not belong, in my estimation, on either side and we are the loser, I believe, for having been in that war. Just as we, I believe, destroyed the old order by entering World War I when had we not entered, some historians believe, there would have been a negotiated peace in 1916. It would have left the old Russia intact. It would have left Germany intact. It would have avoided some of the serious problems that were created by Versailles.

As a result, I felt very strongly in the 30s when about 1936 or seven several economists predicted that the New Deal would seek an outlet by taking up into war that this was a likelihood. All the New Deal policies had failed. Roosevelt had only increased the number of the unemployed. And, as a result, he welcomed an opportunity for warfare.

Otto, I know you won’t agree much of what I have said, but let’s hear your perspective on it.

[Scott] Well, I ... I don’t agree with much of it, that’s true. I recall the period, of course, very well. And I was working for United Features Syndicate in the late 30s when the menace of Hitler and Nazi Germany became more and more evident. And I recall that I was invited to a party an few days after the Anschluss, a few days after Hitler marched into Austria and took over Austria. And, of course, he was immensely popular with the Austrians as he was with the Germans and it was a bloodless conquest, if you want to overlook the fact that {?} was brutalized and put into a concentration camp and so forth.

Just before I went to the party—and parties in those days are not official parties like they are apt to be today where people have a party in the name of some group or a cause or another, the Salvation Army or the Church or this or that. This was just a group of people who knew one another who wanted to get together and have a few drinks and talk. In the 30s parties were very informal. They were friendly. It was a friendlier period than any period since the war, I think.

I went up to the teletype room of the United Press and I went along the machines to see what I could pull to... as a conversation breaker to talk about. And there was an item from Vienna. The German occupation forces had announced that there were something like, I have forgotten the number, 10,000 or 12,000 or whatever professional openings in the city government of Vienna. Applicants should report, et cetera, et cetera.

That meant that so many thousand Jews who were physicians or researchers or clerks or whatever had lost their jobs. And it didn’t say that. It didn’t have to say that. You could read it between the lines. So I tore that off and I put it in my pocket and I went to the party and some time in the course of the evening... Now you understand this was New York City where there is a large Jewish population. And also it was a time of great unemployment here, because I believe that took place around 37 or so. I am not positive now. I haven’t looked it up.

I read that aloud and there was a silence and somebody said, “Wouldn’t that be wonderful if it happened here.” And I never forgot that. I have never forgotten that. I thought this country is no better than any other and it is a myth that the American people are better than other people. They are people and there is nothing better than people.

In any event, from that time onward, I began to pay considerable amount of attention to that system and, of course, it was a period... it was my radical period of my youth when I was pretty far over on the left. All my friends were on the left. I had lost of Communist Party friends and lots of Social Democratic friends and lots of Jewish friends. And I was emotionally involved in Mr. Roosevelt’s efforts—and they were obvious efforts—to get us involved in the war.

Don’t forget also one other thing, Rush, and that is that although we were a big country then and a rich country, with all our troubles we were still a rich country and... and ... and lots of people were well off here. All through the 30s most people were employed. There was 16 million unemployed, but a lot more than that working and so forth. And those that were working were helping those that weren’t. That we were only one important country among a group. France was the biggest most important... most important country in Europe. England, its possessions were all over the world. It was the largest empire that had been seen in the world ever. Russia was on the other side of the moon. We didn’t know anything about it. The news that we got from ... about it from our correspondents was all doctored and false. We weren’t told about the concentration camps. They were as... certainly there were refugees, but they didn’t get any publicity. I never met one. And I was in the business.

So all my inclinations were there is going to be a war and I wanted to be shipped to London. Men were making big careers, big names there. I wanted to go to London. I could speak English. And I thought I had talent and Roy Howard disagreed. He said I was emotionally unstable.

That was a great phase at that period. It meant nothing. It still means nothing, but it sounded fearsome and determinative and what not. So I proved it. I shipped out as an ordinary seaman and, of course, I was frozen in the merchant marine. That is how it happened.

So I didn’t see the war as a way out of Roosevelt’s economic dilemma because I don’t think he gave a damn about the economic dilemma. I don’t think Mr. Roosevelt cared about anything excepting the fact that he could charm the American people. I don’t think he had a serious thought in his whole body.

[Rushdoony] Well, there were some who felt that it was his goal to get in, to have a determinative role in the peace and become what Wilson hoped to be.

[Scott] Ah, now... now...

[Rushdoony] ...a savior.

[Scott] Now... now you have put your finger on it. That I will agree with. Yes. He wanted to be important on the world stage. He wanted to be the arbiter of all the destinies of everybody in the world. That I agree with. Yes.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, you see, I had a vivid awareness of the Soviet Union.

[Scott] Yes, you probably... because of your background.

[Rushdoony] Yes. And as long as possible, my grandmother wrote to relatives in Soviet Armenia and Soviet Russia where she herself had been through the famine and the 20s. She only survived as did her youngest son and daughter, my aunt and uncle, because she became a matron in a home for homeless children, victims of the war.

[Scott] In Soviet Armenia?

[Rushdoony] In Soviet Russia.

[Scott] Soviet Russia.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] I see.

[Rushdoony] And it was provided with American foods. And even then so little was allowed to get to institutions such as that, because the Soviets stole everything for themselves that they could so that most of the year around she and all the children had night blindness.

[Scott] From malnutrition.

[Rushdoony] From malnutrition, malnutrition.

[Scott] Yes.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] That is one of the signs.

[Rushdoony] But she survived and we brought her over here. And she corresponded with those of the family who were still in Soviet Armenia until they sent out word that it was dangerous to get a letter.

So we had no little awareness of what was happening.

[Scott] Well you know, of course, that we lived here under a paper curtain.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] And ... and it has been many times folded in thicker today than it was then. We know the American... the United Press, I mentioned the teletype room. Banks and banks of teletype machines were clattering away all the time with dispatches from correspondents all around the world. Practically... well, I would say five or 10 percent of that vast inflow of information ever saw print, because it was up to the local editor to decide what to use and he only used what he thought would be of interest to his readers.

[Rushdoony] Well at that time the New York Times had in Moscow a most influential journalist imaginable. We can’t appreciate today how powerful the influence of Walter Durante was.

[Scott] Oh, that scoundrel.

[Rushdoony] A total reprobate and scoundrel who lied systematically, who had nothing but contempt for the people of Russia and did not care what happened to them.

[Scott] That is right.

[Rushdoony] But the Soviet Union and Stalin and Hitler formed a pact together. And they belonged together. But it was a foregone conclusion that they would split, because at that time the three main centers of world trade and commerce were the Danube, the Bosporus and Suez. Most of the world’s business, its trade, went through those three areas. And control of central Europe was the goal of both Stalin and of Hitler.

[Scott] And England.

[Rushdoony] Yes. So it was a forgone conclusion that they would have to split sooner or later and they did over the issue of the Bosporus. And Hitler absolutely refused Stalin on that. And so Hitler then followed his refusal with an attack.

[Scott] Well, we have to go back a bit. The Versailles treaty, you know, England repented of almost as soon as the ink was dry and they were not upset because the United States pulled out of the League of Nations at all, because at no time did the English ever want the United States fooling around on the world stage.

[Rushdoony] Especially a Wilsonian United States.

[Scott] That is right. The English then under Mr. Chamberlain who was really a very strong fellow. He was not a weak man at all, thought that if they gave way to Hitler as much as possible that inevitably Hitler would turn on the Russians.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] Because the Russians were his great problem. France was not a great military threat. Hitler knew it. He was too strong for that. Russia was the group. And I look back on it and I wonder at how much that went on that I was not able to understand. I was younger. I was not as well read. I had not seen as much of the world and the information was not as available.

The great cry in the American press and the British press was to stop Hitler. Stop Hitler mainly because of his inhumane policies. None of us ever stopped to think that he might overreach and stop himself. We wanted to stop him.

So Mr. Chamberlain was more or less forced, if his party wanted to remain in power, to go to war. They went to war at a time when they couldn’t reach Poland. They couldn’t help Poland. They couldn’t do anything. They were in no condition to fight. But in order to stay in office he took the risk. And the people who pushed him in with the best of intentions, the people who pushed for both England and the United States to go to war against Hitler with the best of intentions helped create the Holocaust because Hitler said, “If you go to war against me, this is what I will do.”

[Rushdoony] Yes. And today what has happened is that central and eastern Europe is in slavery. Europe has gone into a decline. Instead of being the center of the world and of empire and of world trade, it is a very poor second to the Pacific powers and the center of world trade today is the Pacific.

I think one of the things we need to remember, too, is the appalling blindness that marked people in international affairs then, because in 1927 the Briand-Kellogg Peace Pact was signed outlawing war.

[Scott] Oh, yes, and setting a quota on the navies.

[Rushdoony] Yes. And we proceeded to dismantle our navy, as did Britain, and as did France.

[Scott] And Japan.

[Rushdoony] Yes. And we had the illusion, I didn’t and I know you probably didn’t, but most of the people did that men now were entering a humane era. War was abolished and all would be well.

[Scott] I never believed that even when I was a boy in school. I never believed that kind of nonsense. I knew my fellow men better than that and, of course, we had had the Latin American experience and observation and so forth. But we were inundated with pacifistic propaganda, Journey’s End, What Price Glory. What Price Glory with a hysterical lieutenant shouting at his captain in the dugout and... and all that sort of thing. I remember we left the theater and my mother said, “I hope my boys will never get involved in the war.”

Later on she said to me, “Where is your uniform?”

I said... I said, “The merchant marines don’t have a uniform.”

She said, “What will the neighbors think?”

[Rushdoony] Well, if you go back now and look at the literature of the era, Morrison, the editor of The Christian Century the most influential periodical of its day in church circles, very liberal, wrote a book about the marvelous Kellogg-Briand Pact, The Outlawry of War.

[Scott] Oh, yes.

[Rushdoony] And if you look at the major periodicals of the day, it is amazing the kind of nonsense that is in those periodicals. They actually believe that mankind could enter a new era.

[Scott] Well, the Oxford University march, we will not fight for God, king or country. And they did prove one thing. They proved that if the Danes and the Swedes and the Norwegians and the Dutch and the French and the Belgians, they did prove that men will not fight if they don’t have leaders.

[Rushdoony] Well, we are going through the same nonsense now. At that time both liberals and liberal Christians, Modernists and the left favored this hostility to armament, hostility to anything in the way of facing up realistically to the possibility of war. And you have that again just in recent days. You had Denmark say that they will not allow any American ships or NATO ships with nuclear weapons to enter their courts, although they are a part of NATO. And they are apparently confident that their army, made up of men and women combat soldiers and their royal guard, 125 men mounted on camouflaged bicycles...

[Scott] I wonder how they do that. Maybe they put skirts over the wheels. Well...

[Rushdoony] They are going to defend themselves that way. The world is crazy.

[Scott] Well, the... the main thrust of the present propaganda is that nothing is worth living for.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] Nothing is worth dying for. Nothing is worth fighting over. Nothing is worth the sacrifice of your life. Now that means, of course, you come back to Gibbon and his decline of Rome, the fall of Rome. He said, “In the end they gave up everything for security. And in the end they lost it all: honor and security and safety alike.”

Now I ... I don’t think that this is typical to the human race, because World War II’s great lesson to me... There were two lessons, I guess, a number of lessons. One I had just finished reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace the summer before. I finally went off into the merchant marines. And it was... it is the greatest book on war that has ever been written, because it describes how the Borodino changed, the battle that spelled Napoleon’s military defeat in Russia. And in the end, he made it clear that nobody knew except God how the tide of battle turned, what were the details and the artillery battery and so forth which caused the whole thing to fall apart from the French side. But God determines the outcome.

And it reconciled me—and I didn’t realize that it would until I got into the business of World War II and the ships and so forth, convoys. I was in a convoy that was attacked. I was in London during the Blitz and I had lots of chances to see how people behaved. And, of course, to see how I behaved myself. And most people are incredibly physically brave. They are just ... rise to the occasion and they will do things that you don’t believe they will do simply because it is there to be done and somebody says, “Joe, you do it.” And Joe will do it.

But so... so our literati have been telling us lies about human nature. And here in the United States they are trying to make cowards out of everybody.

[Rushdoony] One of my more vivid recollections of the 30s was the day when my father and I were going somewhere in the evening. I was a student then at the university. And the headlines had to do with Mussolini attacking Ethiopia. And I told him. I said, “This is the beginning of the end. We are going to go into another world war before this is over and we will see the end of freedom as we have known it.”

I was very, very low. And he didn’t deny that what I said was probably true. All he said is that you cannot allow it to depress you, because God is still on the throne and he has his purpose in all of this.

[Scott] Well, I... I agree with your dad. I was not ... I... I knew that we were going to go into the war. In fact, I won 100 dollars on the date. There was no question in my mind that a war was going to break out in Europe. It broke out in 39. A lot of Americans forget that. It broke out on September the first, 1939.

[Rushdoony] That is right.

[Scott] And the English were fighting alone while we sat, as my Irish grandmother always said, with our ass in a tubful of butter.

[Rushdoony] That is a good Irish expression.

[Scott] And it... it... it really used to infuriate me. I ... I remember having dinner with some of my Irish school friends from upstate that came down to New York and I said, “What do you think will happen in Europe?” And Hitler was standing on top of France. Dunkirk was over. What do you think will happen in Europe?

Everyone looked at Eddie Veckie and Eddie said, “Otto, who do you think will win the World Series?”

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] We have got lots of men like that.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] Nothing is going to happen. Nothing is going to happen. Well, a lot of them... a lot of them lost their lives that were at that... several of them that were at that dinner. And I didn’t... I... I... I didn’t think we were going into the cataclysm that we actually went into. I thought it would be a war like other wars. The thing that changed the whole sequence as the nuclear bomb.

[Rushdoony] Yes, but before the nuclear bomb, there was a massive bombing on both sides, especially by the allies.

[Scott] Well, they were...

[Rushdoony] … of civilians.

[Scott] They had more planes.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Remember far more people died in Dresden than in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Scott] I know, but the Germans were pictured as devils incarnate.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] I doubt if the German people will ever again rise not only because of the devastation... devastating defeat in two monstrous wars, but also because of the odium that has been piled upon them.

[Rushdoony] Well, one of the things that both before the war and during the war left me very much depressed was the fact that there was no preparation for peace. You have to go back to the literature of the time to see how suddenly the Soviet Union became a great and marvelous nation.

[Scott] Oh great ally.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] Our fighting ally.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] In fact, they got more credit than our own forces did.

[Rushdoony] Yes. The press was totally evil at that point. The various purges had served to discredit Stalin to the world in the latter part of the 30s, because all the men who had made the revolution were systematically executed by Stalin. But Stalin knew what he wanted, both in central Europe and in the Far East. And he set about getting that even when the war was on and the various conferences.

And when you read such things as Elliot Roosevelt’s memoirs describing Yalta and Tehran and the utter obliviousness to reality of Roosevelt and the helplessness of Churchill as Stalin and Roosevelt ganged up on him, you realize that we had no awareness of the reality of the world that was around us and of the future.

[Scott] Well, we were not told what happened at Yalta. I think it is interesting that both the conference at Tehran and the conference at Yalta were never ratified by the Senate of the United States as far as I know, nor was any documentation ever given to them, nor did they ever ask for it.

[Rushdoony] And yet we abided by them and we do have enough from Elliot Roosevelt’s account which is given with a great deal of naïveté to realize that Roosevelt treated the whole of future of mankind as a joke.

[Scott] Well, yes. And he also treated the United States as his personal property.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] ... to do with as he chose. And the people and the press went along. The press attacked our leading generals, MacArthur and Patton.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] ...dumped on them, savaged them and extolled Marshal Zhukov and everybody else.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] But we didn’t know at the time what was going on.

Now being in the merchant marines was a mixed blessing. As I said, we didn’t have uniforms, excepting the officers had a reserve naval uniform with a bar across the coat of arms or whatever you call it, insignia. And when I went ashore I was treated as a draft dodger. I used to tell people I was a German spy when they asked me why I wasn’t in the armed forces. Facetious reply was about the only one you could do. When you went ashore in London, they knew they would say, “And what do you do, yank? Oh, you are in the merchant navy. Ok.” They would buy you a drink for that. That was a dangerous duty.

[Rushdoony] And the losses there were phenomenal.

[Scott] The losses were heavy. But the thing was that here the real typical far behind the lines population, the farther behind the lines people are, the more severe they are on... on what... what kind of heroics they expect. But frankly the whole operation of the war, the decisions of the war, the actions taken during the war, the engagements during the war and what not, were a vast and confusing mystery to those involved.

None of us ever had received any kind of briefing from anybody. I have told ... told you before on one of these tapes about the pornographic literature...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] ...that is given to the troops on the way to the invasion of Saipan that I saw. And so at no time did any of the officials of the United States really seek to talk to the people.

[Rushdoony] Yes. You mentioned the savage treatment of the General MacArthur. Now Manchester wrote quite a lengthy biography of MacArthur and only in passing does he mention a fact that should have been central to the book, namely, there is only one other general in all of history who has fought with less loss of life or an equally low loss of life as MacArthur. The way he maintained his operations and his invasions was to minimize the loss of life as far as possible. No heroics. Simply carefully planned, detailed operation with a regard for human life.

[Scott] Well....

[Rushdoony] The Marine Corps, by contrast went into islands that need not have been taken, MacArthur said, threw men, wave after wave against impregnable places to be massacred wholesale.

[Scott] Well, that was U. S. Grant’s strategy.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] The United States army has always done that. It has always wasted men. Now our most extolled general, General Eisenhower and D-day, the whole program, the whole plan for D-day was put together by a British General Morgan. Mr. Eisenhower’s role was to select which day in the week they were to go. That was his contribution. And he got ... he is still getting credit.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, MacArthur saved the lives of tens of thousands of Americans who under any other commander would have lost their lives. And yet nobody has told either the soldiers or the American public this fact. He has been endlessly vilified.

[Scott] ...because of his dramatic personality and his superiority. Superiority is a very unpopular condition, you might say. I must say that I recall when I met and listened to and admired Paul Blaser that when I wrote him up, I had to write him down. I had to diminish his gifts, because I knew the average man would not believe that anyone that superior to himself could exist.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] They would... they would find it incredible. So therefore I had to get around, call... actually... his actual stature. I would not have been accepted if I wrote it down. There is a tremendous gap in ability. One of the things I discovered in... in World War II was that if I had anything complicated to say, I had better find somebody over the rank of major, because up to then, up to that rank you would have trouble conveying the information. But if you wanted to go beyond that rank, then all... you... the fellow would grasp it right away.

And I am not a hierarchical minded man. I started out as a rebel. I mean, I left home because of rebellion and so forth. So I don’t... it doesn't come naturally to me, but I recognize the superiority of others. I am delighted when I encounter it. I wouldn’t want the world to be limited to my measure and I think anyone who does is, by that token, an inadequate individual.

World War II, from the American side, did not impress me. When I... I was at the invasion of Saipan. We had this tremendous armada that surrounded the island of Saipan and Tinian. We had total air and sea control. We bombed and strafed it ever day for 40 days and 40 nights. The navy would move out. They would tell us not to move from our anchorage, because our position was marked on their chart and if there was a strange vessel they would fire.

They used those 12 inch guns to shell the island. Then it took them six weeks or more. I have forgotten how long it took them to take the island. We on our vessel came back with something like 1500 ambulatory wounded and insane.

I said, “What do you mea insane?”

Well, these are fellows who showed fear. So immediately they were given a section eight, shipped home.

And I said, “What happens when they get home?”

Well, they could... they are put in the closest state sanitarium to their home. Then they are given a medical discharge and they recover once they see the green grass and the safety and the security. The Australians just sent them back into battle. The Australians fought the whole war in the South Pacific without reinforcements. They only had one army.

[Rushdoony] Yes. That is one of the sad facts of World War II. Almost nothing is said about the Australians, but they were used in Europe in a way that is staggering, no rest. They fought day and night. They fought week in and week out. And Churchill was going to pull out the remaining troops and leave them totally defenseless to any Japanese attack. At that point they put their foot down. But their fighting in the South Pacific was amazing as well.

[Scott] Well...

[Rushdoony] The Australian part in World War II...

[Scott] ...was more heroic than ours.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] By far.

[Rushdoony] It was a remarkable story.

[Scott] The Germans called the Americans the Englishmen’s Italians. And when we went into France after D-day the crime that accompanied our troops across Normandy is something that has never been printed, not a good story.

On the other hand, I saw, as I said, I never saw people show fear. The ones on the vessel I felt sorry for, because they had psychiatrists with our troops who at the slightest sign would condemn a man to a lifetime of that sort of label.

I personally never saw anyone showing fear. And I remember just before the troops were disembarked at Saipan the... the fighting had already started. We were D-day plus two or whatever. I have forgotten. It was in the very early days. And this fellow in full battle gear stood in the door at my stateroom and said, “When do you think you will get back to the States?”

I said, “Well, we will get rid of you guys tomorrow, unload you men tomorrow. We will probably be back in a month or so.”

I had no idea what he was going to say. I was a little bit leery, because there was a lot of built up propaganda against he merchant marine. We were supposed to be not only draft dodgers, but... but knocking off a lot of money and all that stuff.

He said, “Well, I am glad somebody is going to be ... get back.”

I said... he said, “I have a letter to my wife and I don’t want the lieutenant to read. Would you do me a favor? Would you mail it for me?”

I said, “Of course. Give me the letter.” So I took the letter and he shook hands with me, thanked me and went on.

There was a... the... I didn’t agree with Ernie Pyle that the best men were on the bottom. I don’t agree... I don’t believe that. That doesn't make sense. I thought Ernie was sentimental.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] And... and I knew him and I liked him, but I couldn’t share that kind of sentiment. I didn’t feel that the privates were better men than the lieutenants or better men than the colonels or anything like that. So I thought there was a great deal of heroism in the Pacific. The United States forces worked against some savage, savage conditions. They got practically no merit, no... no credit.

Stalingrad got all the credit. The Russians got all the credit.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] In the American press.

[Rushdoony] Well, there was a war on in the press against MacArthur and against Patton. And because of the hostility to Patton, the Pacific war was consistently downplayed. You recall, of course, his nickname, dug out Doug, as though he were some cowardly character. It was incredible.

[Scott] He was notorious for his chances he took.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] In World Wars I and II.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] He had that invulnerable feeling. He had perfect faith.

[Rushdoony] Yes. The aftermath of the war was an ugly one because we threw away everything we had fought for.

[Scott] Well, what a... talk about cannon fodder. Treating our men as cannon fodder. That is how it is done.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] The... in both wars our leaders threw away the fruits of victory.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] In that case why did we fight?

[Rushdoony] Yes. Stalin was the victor and we handed everything to him.

[Scott] Well, you know that Truman carried on Roosevelt’s policies.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] He was dissuaded to tell the Soviets to get out of Iran or he would drop the bomb and they got out within 10 days. If he had told them to get out of central Europe or he would drop the bomb, as Stalin expected him to do, Stalin would have withdrawn.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] But he didn’t... he didn’t, because, I guess, it didn’t occur to him and nobody suggested it. And I know there is a big build up of Harry Truman now. But you remember Truman.

[Rushdoony] Oh, yes.

[Scott] And he doesn’t deserve that build up.

[Rushdoony] He was Prendergast political hack, a product of a very corrupt machine.

[Scott] Well, on that score I have mixed feelings because when Prendergast died he went to the funeral. He didn’t deny it. Harry Prendergast had made him and he didn’t deny it. And on the other hand Eisenhower wouldn’t even go to Marshal’s funeral or to MacArthur’s. And both of those men were the men that made Eisenhower.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, when the war was over Russia which had not fought in the Pacific was given a portion of Japan and still holds most of one of the Japanese islands.

[Scott] And always will.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] We are on the verge of giving them some more.

[Rushdoony] We delayed in taking Berlin until we gave the Russians the opportunity to come across Poland and East Germany and take over that area. So at point after point we handed entire peoples to the Russians.

[Scott] Don’t forget that our Communist Party members here attained and maintained tremendous influence and prestige and position in the United States all through World War II.

[Rushdoony] Yes. All through World War II. And they were in the OSS which was the predecessor to the CIA and went from one to the other.

[Scott] Absolutely. They were in the OWI, the office of war information. I think I was fortunate when the... in the long run. I didn’t get far, of course in the merchant marine. I didn’t plan to, didn’t want to. Bosin is as high as I got. But most of my colleagues were taken into either intelligence and they worked for the office of war information or they did various intelligence duties. Some of them in the OSS and similar places. And others in propaganda.

Now I don’t... I have never met anybody who could successfully go through either of those experiences without being basically altered.

[Rushdoony] Well, after the war the Soviet Union demanded that all the Russians in Europe be handed over to them. These included people who had left during the revolution.

[Scott] That was not publicized, by the way.

[Rushdoony] No. It included people who were born outside of Russia.

[Scott] But the newspapers didn’t tell us about that.

[Rushdoony] No. They were loaded by American troops into boxcars with bayonets to go there and be killed.

[Scott] But that didn’t come out. That didn’t come out until a fellow wrote a semi underground book that was printed by a semi underground publisher. And then a more respectable guy wrote about it and finally now Count Tolstoy...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] ... has written the complete thing.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] And the individuals in Britain who went along with his have been reached and questioned and they have said, “Well, that was our orders.” And they... that is all. But no American official has been reached and questioned about it. Isn’t that curious?

Isn’t it curious that in a country like Britain that has press regulations and not the press freedom that we have, they will tell more of the truth than we will under a free press?

[Rushdoony] I used to know the young woman, Russian, who was used by Eisenhower as an interpreter, a translator. And the only way she saved her parents and her brothers and sisters was by begging for their lives and finally because she was working for them, they pulled them out.

[Scott] They made an exception.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Now imagine the callousness of that.

[Scott] Well, now, my analysis of Mr. Eisenhower, General Eisenhower is that he was a politician. He was a political general. He was a courtier under MacArthur.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] He was a courtier that General Marshal very much enjoyed and liked. He was able to satisfy all sides, but he knew that Mr. Roosevelt was pro Soviet and that the administration of Washington was pro Soviet and that he should not do anything to balk the Soviet expansion, only balk the British.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, Tolstoy’s books are nightmarish reading. And there is so much more than I have heard from survivors that has not yet been printed, the details of those horrors. And because God is on the throne, he holds that against the people who tolerate such things and to this day are indifferent concerning it.

So I believe we do face judgment for our part in World War II and the aftermath.

[Scott] Well, don’t forget that...

[Rushdoony] I think the Soviet Union does also.

[Scott] The Soviet Union does before we do...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] ... and to a greater extent that we do. The... many of these horrors were things that were kept from us. We didn’t know anything about them. I recall... of course, I wasn’t here all the time, but I have always been a reader and, of course, as an ex journalist always read the papers and I try to keep up with them. We knew nothing of the Jewish experience. They were a footnote in a large catastrophe that involved 35 million people. During the war this all came out after the war. And it only came out in certain areas. The whole business of the Russians being handed over did not come out. The business of Yalta and Tehran didn’t come out. And even today there are people who will argue...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] ... that there was nothing else that could have been done. To make excuses. Right now we have a pro Soviet press. We still have.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] We still have. We have had a pro... a pro Soviet press openly ever since we got into World War II with the Soviet as an ally.

[Rushdoony] Well, we are in a time of judgment and we can thank God that we are, because there is going to be a reckoning. There is going to be a house cleaning. And the balance of power is in God’s hands and he will bring justice to the earth.

[Scott] Well, don’t forget. I have made this point before. I know you agree with it that judgment involves salvation as well as condemnation.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] Everyone is not condemned. Everyone does not suffer, because everyone is not guilty.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] And I ... when I hear about World War II today, I only hear about the Holocaust. I don’t know where is the monument to the World War II people? Where are the parades regarding the World War II veterans? Who... who... who defeated Hitler?

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, we reached the point where a sizable percentage of our children don’t know who Hitler, Stalin or Roosevelt were and in what countries they were. Those who are ignorant of the past will suffer because of it and the ignorance is appalling all over the world, because we have become barbarians.

One of the books of the 30s describing education under Hitler was entitled School for Barbarians describing German education and its warped character. And a similar book—and I have forgotten the title—described things in the Soviet Union and the lack of any real awareness of what things are like in the world. Today we could write a like book on things in the United States, the ignorance of children and of their parents very often, because they are a product of the same schools.

[Scott] Well, I get letters every so often from the Chalcedon essay saying, “Would you mind telling me what books to read so that I can catch up?”

And my heart sinks, because I have ... you and I are both sitting here reflecting aloud, so to speak, a lifetime of reading.

Yes. A study that has never stopped. I am still studying. I am still finding out things about history that I didn’t know. I am still reading books that cast a different light upon things I thought were long settled. And there is no single set of books…

[Rushdoony] No.

[Scott] ...that I can recommend to anybody. All I can say is that you have to plunge ahead. You have to look. You... the libraries don’t cost any money. Use the libraries. Read them all.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, that is a question I get and I feel the same way about it, too. I have a 30, 35,000 books in my library and they don’t begin to give me all the knowledge I need to peace together just our recent history.

[Scott] Yes. And things keep falling out of the woodwork. Just recently the 70 year blockade of Lloyd George’s papers and the British view of the Treaty of Versailles has been released.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] After 70 years. Why did they sit on all this?

[Rushdoony] Well, it was only in 72 when the British archives were open that we found out that Benjamin Franklin was a British agent during the War of Independence and the American historian who wrote that up has been vilified...

[Scott] And ruined.

[Rushdoony] And, in fact, suppressed.

[Scott] He has been ruined. Yes.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] So therefore when we talk about World War II, don’t forget, it is from the gnat’s eye viewpoint.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, our time is up. Thank you all for listening.

[Voice] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.