1945: War Turns Cold

16th German Army launches “battle of the bulge” offensive on the western front. 17th Waffen SS executes 81 American prisoners of war in Malmedy Massacre”. DATE

January 5th 1945 Battle of the Bulge raging FDR wanted unconditional surrender.

January 9th – US troops land on Lingayen Gulf, Luzon

January 15th the st Convoy along new Ledo Road reaches Myitlyina start of Burma road.

January 22nd Burma Road reopened and Japs land blockade of china lifted.

German injustices

In January 1945, “Germany’s Titanic”, the torpedoing of a converted cruise-liner, The Wilhelm Gustloff, by a Russian submarine, occurred. It was carrying refugees fleeing East Prussian and the Baltic states occupied by Nazis in advance of Soviet troops. Most of the 9,000 who died were women and children.

Millions of “Vertribene” (expelles) forced at gun-point to abandon ancient and well-established German communities in Poland and Czechoslovakia.

“Grass’s mother was raped by Russian soldiers before she fled Danzig (now Polish Gdansk) in 1945”.

WG Sebald’s essay on “Air War and literature” and the horror of the allies’ carpet bombing of German cities (included in “On the Natural History of Destruction”). Walter Kenpowski “Echo Sounder”.

January 1945 USSR requested a $6bn loan for post-war reconstruction – US response?

SEE PAGES 21 and 22

January 17th – USSR liberates Warsaw from the Nazis.

January 27th Auschwitz liberated.

The Rape of Manila

One of the most terrible death throes of the Pacific War. Instead of declaring it an open city like Rome or Paristhe Japanese holed up in Manila and fought to stay. More people died from American shelling than Japanese massacre.  Typical US error of judgement like the one in Iraq - ?

There were warnings over public confidence given to Hirohito from February 1945 onwards. L&S P219

February 3rd – US enters Manila. Batltle of Manila begins

Feb 4th Yalta Conference begins

Yalta

February 4-11th FDR, Churchill and Stalin met at the Yalta conference, probably where the Cold War began. This meeting of the "Big Three" was held at the former palace of Czar Nicholas on the Black Sea coast. Stalin's army had got as far as the Oder River and was poised for the final attack on Berlin. But Stalin on Feb 3rd had ordered Zhukov to pause for the conference. His occupation of Poland was complete, and his was the largest army in Europe; 12 million soldiers in 300 divisions. Eisenhower's four million men in 85 divisions were still west of the Rhine. German cities had been devastated by bombing; the last major city in Germany, Dresden was to be destroyed on Feb 13th. FDR appeared weak and tired in photographs, and he would present his Yalta report to Congress on March 1st sitting down. In two months he'd be dead of a massive cerebral haemorrhage. His physician, Dr. Howard Bruenn has written that FDR suffered from high blood pressure, but denied that poor health impaired his judgement at Yalta.

The conference was intended to draw up a grand plan of peace settlement - division of Europe into East/West. By the end of 1945 a divided Europe was already taking shape.

FDR never prepared for Yalta. His style, muddled and lazy, often left him guilty of failing to make decisions, or making them too late. He took former Justice James F. Byrnes, Justice James, director of Economic Stabilisation, with him as advisor. They met for first time at the conference, no discussions took place prior to the meeting between the president and his advisor.

The topics for discussion were the adoption of Dubarton Oaks plan for a UN Organisation; conditions of approaching German surrender; treatment of Poland and other liberated countries.

The UN issue went without a hitch. The Polish question was trickier. Stalin promised to hold free elections there and on this condition Poland was handed over to Stalin, dictator and mass murderer.

The great European carve-up had begun, with the US for once feeling no particular need to "save" Poland from the communists. It was also agreed to partition Germany. Reparations were discussed, with the Soviets asking for $20bn, $10bn payable to Russia. USSR also asked for reparations in labour. The seizure of human beings to work as slaves after the war was authorised. Stalin agreed to enter the war against Japan 3 months after Germany's surrender. The Soviets had an interest in turning Manchuria into a Soviet puppet state. Finally FDR managed to negotiate away the whole of the Balkans to Stalin.

Bert Andrews in the New York Herald Examiner wrote about four secret deals:

1)            Russia's demand for $20bn in reparations from Germany,

2)            for Poland to the Curzon Line,

3)            for three seats in the UN,

4)            for the territory in the Far East including Outer Mongolia, south Sakhalin Island, the Kuriles.

Stalin did not hold free elections in Eastern Europe and the American press turned increasingly hostile to Russia. However, Robert Dallek claims in ‘Franklin Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy’ that FDR was hoping the future UN organisation would be the place to deal with Stalin, not at Yalta. He told Adolf Berle, "I didn't say the result was good. I said it was the best I could do."

Feb 13th Dresden bombed -

The Bombing of Dresden

From the Introduction of “Mother Night” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, 1961.

“The city [Dresden] was lovely, highly ornamented, like Paris,and untouched by war. It was supposedly an “open” city, not to be attacked since there were no troop concentrations or war industries there.

“But high explosives were dropped on Dresden by American and British planes on the night of February 13, 1945, just about twenty-one years ago, as I now write. There were no particular targets for the bombs. The hope was that they would create a lot of kindling and drive firemen underground.

“And then hundreds of thousands of tiny incendiaries were scattered over the kindling, like seeds on freshly turned loam. More bombs were dropped to keep firemen in their holes, and all the little fires grew, joined one another, became one apocalyptic flame. Hey presto: firestorm. It was the largest massacre in European history, by the way. And so what?

“Everything was gone but the cellars where 135,000 Hansels and Gretels had been baked like gingerbread men. So we were put to work as corpse miners, breaking into shelters, bringing bodies out. And I got to see many German types of all ages as death had found them, usually with their valuables in their laps.”

Dresden on page 26

Feb 19th US landings on Iwo Jima

26th Feb US troops capture Corregidos in Philippines

March 3rd Battle for Manila ends.

March 4th Indian / British troops take Meiktila in Burma.

March 7th US troops cross Rhine at Remagen

March 9th Allied troops reach outskirts of Mandaley in Burma

Mrch 9 – 10th – Massive fire-bombing raid on Tokyo – start of USAF blitz

Following Paul Tibbet’s suggestion to LeMay 334 aircraft flew at low level over Tokyo. Stopping incendiary bombs on a city whose houses were mostly made of wood of paper. The American planes were filled with the smell of roasting flesh. A number, caught in the updraught, plunged into the furnace they had started. The target – Tokyo’s Shitamachi district was the most densely populated area on earth. Around 94,000 people were killed that night. A million were made homeless. 16 square mile sof city were destroyed.

Some downed American aircrews lynched on the spot. There were also instances of hostility against the Japanese military in the aftermath of the bombing.

In a confidential memo one of MacArthur’s aides – Brigadier Geneal Bonner Fellers called it “one of the most ruthless and barbaric killings of non-combatants in all history…it set the pattern for bombing 63 of Japan’s other cities, although a few, were left untouched.” L&S

In Osaka over half of all houses were burnt to the ground.

In Nagoya almost 90% of homes were destroyed.

Jaoan began to starve – suggestions that old, very young and the sick should be killed were made by Police Bureau Chief for the Osaka area. It was never carried out. However hunger led to abstention and resentment while the elites seemed to be doing OK.

Graffitti appeared – “kill the emperor. Japan is losing in china. Why does our fatherland dare to commit aggression?” etc…L&S 201/202

“One high official comparing the public mood of mid 1944 to ‘a stack of hay, ready to burst into flame at the touch of a match.” The Japanese Thought Police had plenty of work – the US would release nearly a million political prisoners in the first month of occupation. L&S p202

FDR was tricked?

March 10th, James Dunn presented Stettinius with a document entitled “Draft Directive of the Treatment of Germany. Dunn had assured the Sec of State that he had merely put the Yalta decisions down on paper with no changes. Four days later Stettinius got FDR to initial it saying Stimson had endorsed it. The document had switched allied control from a decentralised power to a centralised power concentrated in the Control Council.

Stettinus had asked FDR to promote Dunn in December. FDR worried he was a conservative, consented. Dunn had been a backer of Franco and wanted to use German industrialists to rehabilitate Germany.

Stimson asked FDR why he’d signed the document and FDR wasn’t sure if he had – he was probably too ill to be responsible for his actions at this point – one month before his death.

March 20th Morgenthau and Grew presented FDR with a new document to replace Dunn’s Draft Directive, written mainly by McCloy and reflected FDR’s current view of changing German industry and not destroying it. McCloy also saw to it that his brother in law Lewis Douglas would get post as General Clay’s economic aide. Douglas was anti-semitic.

March 21st Mandalay secured

March 26th Iwo Jima fighting ends

The Redoubt Bollox-up

On March 28th Eisenhower (based at Reims, North Eastern France) drafted a cable which was sent to Moscow for the personal attention of Stalin. This was the first time that the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force had communicated directly with the Soviet leader. Why? Allied forces were about to make their final thrust deep into Germany and Eisenhower wanted to co-ordinate operations with the Russians. In 1939 when Soviet and German forces - allies at that point in the war - met in Poland, with no pre-agreed boundaries, the two sides engaged in a fierce battle with heavy casualties.  Eisenhower wished to avoid this possibility. Two more telegrams went to his superior General Marshall and General Montgomery in north Germany. These telegrams caused a serious rift between US and Britain. Eisenhower had decided that Berlin was no longer a major military objective - as he was not concerned with any political objectives, only military.

Was it already decided in Washington that Berlin should fall to the Soviets?

Churchill was worried by how much of Eastern Europe was falling to the Soviets. Poland and Czechoslovakia were now occupied by the Red Army. Churchill was hoping that Berlin could be captured by Allies as a propaganda coup and for bargaining with the Ruskies later. He was incensed by Eisenhower's telegram to Stalin.

In September 1944 the OSS predicted that the Nazis would evacuate crucial government departments to Bavaria. From this grew a belief held by Washington that the Nazis were collecting in a mountainous region of Bavaria and creating some sort of fortress, referred to as the National Redoubt. It was deemed to be a higher priority target than Berlin, as, it was believed, Hitler would be leading the surviving Nazis to a final stand. A new type of commando unit called the Werewolves would be able to sneak out of the Redoubt and carry out guerrilla warfare and sabotage among the occupying forces. The war department in Washington had been acting on this "intelligence" since February 12th, and on February 16th Allied agents in Washington sent a report claiming Nazis were preparing a redoubt for a final stand. OSS - Bill Langer produced report sceptical of Redoubt theory but was pretty much ignored.

Goebbels was broadcasting propaganda, stoking up the myth of Werewolves and a secret overwhelming sabotage / guerrilla organisation operating. There was a rumour of Gallery 16, part of the Alpine Fortress. Nine million Bank of England notes were forged here, enough for the B of E to withdraw many of its own notes and produce a new design. SHAEF concluded "it seems reasonably certain that some of the most important ministries and personalities of the Nazi regime are already established in the Redoubt area." Doubters thought it wise to act just in case the rumours were true. Hysteria was winning over reason. "If and when Hitler was found" it was widely believed, "it would be in the south."

April – Suzuki took over as pm.

April 1st – Americans landed on Japanese soil – Okinawa – three month battle – the fiercest yet. P.208

April 6th large scale Kamikaze attacks on Okinawe invasion fleet.

April 7th Japanese battleship Yamato sunk

April 12th Roosevelt died.

Roosevelt dropped dead

April 12th FDR dropped dead from a stroke and Truman became President. FDR's health began to deteriorate rapidly after his return from Teheran (1943). He did not recover. He lost weight, his face thinned, and suffered from shortness of breath, which was initially diagnosed as 'flu' and bronchitis. Bruenn's diagnosis of heart disease was more serious. FDR was never told, and decided to run for a 4th term in 1944. McIntire misdiagnosed and opposed Bruenn over treatments. McIntire destroyed FDR's medical records to hide his misdiagnosis and mismanagement of FDR's case. Dr Cary D Grayson's recommendation. Grayson was Pres. Wilson's doctor. www.healthmedialab.com.

The Truman Show

In 1952, he let in a little light on his early days – 3 months to get caught up and stack of documents .

Truman had the temerity to install his own choices in cabinet after he became president.

Truman’s Administration:

James F Byrne, Sec of State – Byrne appointed on July 3rd to take over from Stettinius who left his position on June 27th. Truman was to rely on Byrnes’ counsel once he became President.

Fred M Vinson, Treasury;

Robert P Patterson, War;

Tom C Clark, Attorney General;

Frank C Walker; Postmaster General;

Janus V Forrestal , Sec of Navy;

Harold L Hickes, Interior;

Clinton P Anderson, Agriculture;

Henry A Wallace, Commerce;

Lewis B Schwellenbach, Labor;

James V Forrestal, Defense.

Walker was soon replaced by Robert E Hannegan as Postmaster General.

Truman disliked Donovan and didn’t want to keep OSS alive. Presidential aide Clark Clifford complained that Truman “prematurely, abruptly and unwisely disbanded the OSS”.

Many OSS personnel “served with guerrilla, commando, and propaganda units considered extraneous in peacetime.”

Early in 1945, congress passed a law requiring the White House to seek specific congressional appropriation for any new agency operating for longer than 12 months. “Independent Offices Appropriation Act of 1945.”

Donovan’s rivals spread word that he was urging the creation of an “American Gestapo”. See Smith, “The Shadow Warriors”, pages 404/405.

FDR had got aide Colonel Richard Park Jr to conduct informal investigation of OSS and Donovan. FDR never saw the report but Truman did. – “bumbling and lax security”. Donovan’s proposals had “all the earmarks of a Gestapo system” and recommended abolishing the OSS.

On April 2nd, the SSU was transferred to the National Intelligence Authority. In June the CIG got a new DCI – Lt. Gen Hoyt S Vandenburg.

11th April 1945, Patton’s 3rd Army liberated Nordhausen – T Force and Operation Paperclip. Nearby Dora concentration camp with SS officers – it was only after several years that 39 of them were tracked down and brought to trial.

April 16th Red Army launched the Berlin (the final Soviet attack on Berlin) offensive. Allies took Nuremberg. 18th German forces in the Ruhr capitulate. 25th Anglo-US forces following Eisenhower's new policy met the Russian army along the Elbe at Torgau just under 50 miles from Berlin.28th Mussolini killed , and Venice falls to Allies. 29th Dachau concentration camp captured. 30th Hitler and Braun commit suicide in the bunker.

The Redoubt Bollox-up

23rd April - a Wehrmacht officer (Lt General Kurt Dittmar) was captured crossing the Elbe near Magdeburg - an accurate broadcaster known everywhere as the "voice of the German High Command" - interrogated - he said "the National Redoubt? It's a romantic dream. It's a myth."

General Bradley admitted his error. "this legend ... shaped our tactical thinking."

Dittmar also told the Allies that Hitler was in Berlin.

28th April - The Daily Mirror "Seven Allied Armies are closing in on Hitler's last stand Redoubt in the mountains of Austria and Bavaria."

And so the Russians reached Berlin first .

Stalin was becoming increasingly obstructive and this change in attitude was noted by Churchill. Once Stalin realised that Berlin wasn't a priority for the Allies, USSR went for it as quickly as they could. "The moment Stalin received Eisenhower's cable which suggested that Berlin was no longer very important, he ordered a Marshal Zhukov to advance on the German capital with all speed and whatever the cost. He couldn't believe that Eisenhower could be so wrong or naïve - and therefore assumed that he must be playing a political game. Churchill had been right to be annoyed about the "historic and unprecedented" telegram ."

April 28th Arakan in Burma secured

In May, US resumed firebombing of Japan. Le May was prevented from bombing Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Niigata and Kokura. At end of July LeMay still didn't know why he was being prevented from bombing these cities.

May1st at 10.20pm the death of Hitler was announced to the German people on Hamburg radio . He had "fallen" in battle, "fighting at the head of his troops".  In reality he hadn’t left his bunker in the Reichschancellery since January 16th.

May 2nd: All German forces in Italy surrender.

Unconditional surrender of all German forces on 8th May. The Times of London printed an obituary the next day. Pres Velera sent his condolences to the ambassador.

However, the Russians did not provide a body, or any evidence, or even talk about, what may have been discovered in the Reichschancellery. And so rumours began to circulate that Hitler was still alive. Sightings were reported - Northern Italy, Swiss Alps, Evian, Grenoble, St Gallen and off the Irish coast. – see if I can embellish the Hitler sightings bit? – work up to a Fortean talk?

German surrender

May 8th VE day. The war was now over - for Britain and Europe.

The US had been working to develop the nuclear bomb, ostensibly in a race with Germany. But after Germany had surrendered, the US continued to work on this technology. Britain were locked out as scientists came close to achieving their goal.

(May 10th to 11th Target Committee at Los Alamos 9 a.m. in Dr. Oppenheimer's office)

Spring – Congress instructed administration not to use lend-lease for post-war reconstruction.

Truman signed an order May 11th terminating all shipments to USSR including all those already at sea, applying “leverage against the Soviet Union”. Stalin termed it “brutal” – then Truman resumed lend-lease shipments but only till the war was over in August.

23rd Heinrich Himmler committed suicide.

May 3rd Allies recaptured Rangoon

TOKYO destroyed

Look up Mcnamara’s early career – mathematician involved in calculations to maximise efficiencies of these bombings.

March 9th 1945 Tokyo was firebombed using napalm. General Le May had taken over the bombing of Japan and had begun to experiment with napalmsince the B29 bombings were considered a failure. For three hours planes dropped bombs and napalm on the dense city. The city's river water became so hot it reached boiling point. Napalm, a recent development from the research labs of Du Pont and Standard Oil, designed to stick to buildings or flesh while burning. A horrific new weapon. US strategic Bombing Survey concluded that "probably more persons lost their lives by fire at Tokyo in a six hour period than at any time in the history of man." The Japanese listed 83,793 dead and 40,918 injured.

The same day rumours of a possible US invasion led the Japanese to oust the French colonial government, which had been operating independently, and seize control of Vietnam. They installed Bao Dai as their puppet ruler.

See Inferno: The Firebombing of Japan, March 9th – August 15, 1945 by Hoyt, Edwin P.

May 11th – Aussies take Wewak, NG

June 10th Aussies began landings on Borneo

June 22nd Okinawa resistance ends

June 30 Luzon campaign in Philippines ends

American public opinion was growing impatient. Many wanted the Japanese people dead. The land invasion necessary to win the war was becoming politically unacceptable. Morale in the armed forces was plummeting. Men were deserting positions. Also it had been agreed in February at Yalta that the USSR would declare war on Japan 90 days after the end of the war in Europe – this seriously concerened Truman. He needed to end the war before the Soviets got to Japan.

July 13th Italy declared war on Japan.

July 16th to August 2nd 1945 – Potsdam. The first A-Bomb test took place in Alamogardo, New Mexico – the day after Truman arrived in Berlin. He got the news wired to him immediately “Baby satisfactorily born.”

Churchill wrote “after all our trials and perils, a miracle of deliverance.”

On the last day of Potsdam Truman mentioned a “very powerful new explosive” to Stalin who replied “Good, I hope the United States will use it.” – a very casual reply which confused Truman. Stalin already knew about the bomb. KGB spies inside the Manhattan Project.

Potsdam Declaration was issued on 26th July 1945. The US, GB and China called on Japan to unconditionally surrender.

Attlee replaced Churchill as prime minister on the 26th – which upset the Americans.

Two days later Japan rejected the Potsdam declaration.

June 5th Allies divide Germany into occupation zones.

June 16th the recommendations of the immediate use of nuclear weapons by Dr. Oppenheimer appeared.

26th UN World Charter signed in San Francisco.

Republican Senator, Arthur Vandenburg, "I am deeply impressed (and surprised) to find Hull so carefully guarding our American veto in his scheme of things" regarding setting up of the UN.

29th June the conference of Commanders in Chief of the four armies of occupation agreed on the 4 occupation zones of Berlin.

During June, Eisenhower attended a press conference at the Hotel Raphael in Paris and voiced doubt that Hitler was really dead.

US, British and French troops arrived in Berlin at beginning of July - the Russians had had Berlin - and the Reichschancellery - all to themselves for about seven weeks .

July 16th the first US atomic bomb is tested at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Potsdam conference begins.

Potsdam

The Potsdam Conference was held in July with the Allies - US, GB and USSR - to plan the post WW2 world. An idealistic document was produced which the USA more or less ignored. Reparations were a crucial issue here. Each side would take reparations from its own occupation zone. Newly created Council of Foreign Ministers were to meet in London in the coming Autumn.

July 17th - Truman met Stalin for the first time. "I can deal with Stalin. He is honest, but smart as hell." Issues were the Polish border, the fate of Eastern Europe.

Truman described himself as "an innocent idealist surrounded by Wolves". Agreements reached were "broken as soon as the unconscionable Russian dictator returned to Moscow." "And I liked the little son of a bitch."

"America Past and Present" makes the ludicrous claim that "the US, on the other hand," comparing to the USSR, "upheld the principle of national self-determination, insisting the people in each country should freely choose their post-war rulers." Such as in Italy, Greece, Iraq, France, Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam and Germany. Of course!

On 18th July the Japanese emperor telegraphed President Truman…and "once again asked for peace". The message was ignored. A few days before the bombing of Hiroshima Vice Admiral Radford boasted that "Japan will eventually be a nation without cities - a nomadic people."

July 24th - At a formal meeting where Churchill, Secretary of State James Byrne, GB foreign minister Anthony Eden, Soviet Marshall Georgii Zhukar were present Harry S Truman mentions the nuclear bomb to Stalin. Stalin didn't seem bothered, apparently. He asked for no details and commented that he hoped the US would make "good use of it against the Japanese."

26th Clement Attlee became p.m. of GB in a shock defeat for Churchill. This unsettled Washington who mistrusted lefties, however moderate or legally elected. Financial support from the US was cut off.

And so began a massive program of nationalisation, especially important were the railways and the coal industry. What was the US attitude to this?

The bombing of Japan had been going on since November '44 and one US general voiced his opinion that the war would be over by Sept or Oct 1945. A naval blockade had been imposed and Japan was close to collapse. Through the summer of 1945, Japan's largest 66 cities were burned down by napalm. In Tokyo a million civilians were homeless and estimates of 100,000 to 124,000 had died.

FDR's son and confidant said that the bombing should continue "until we have destroyed about half the Japanese civilian population". The US pursued this aim ruthlessly.

In July the US office of Censorship intercepted a letter claiming Hitler was living 450 miles from Buenos Aires, building robot bombs and other weapons. Think of Bin Laden in his cave or Saddam Hussein hiding out with his WoMDs. The US government acted on this letter requesting of the Argentinean govt help in following up the inquiry. J Edgar Hoover became involved although they eventually decided it was not true.

The Russians claimed that the British had him living in a castle in Westphalia. In August an American lawyer claimed Hitler was living in Innsbruck with his personal physician Dr Alfred Jodi. And so on, the false reports continued.

Many believed that during the summer members of the Wehrmacht set up in the mountains on the Swiss frontier, called Edelweiss. The Redoubt myth was back.

Truman’s “economic Bill of Rights” introduced in September ended his honeymoon period with congress.

Truman received the OSS report without intervention by the JCS. The OSS was finished. A new organisation was to be formed, without Donovan.

In December Truman decided that the JCS was more workable – this led to CIG

Frank C Walker didn’t last long – replaced by Robert E Hannegan. In ’46 Vinson was relaced by John W Snyder, and Ickes was replaced by Julius A Krug and Wallace by W Averell Harriman.

In the Middle East - the official pre (Israeli) state underground military organisation had formed - The Haganah.

The US recruited defeated Nazi chief of intelligence for Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Reinhard Gehlen. Increasing reliance of US intelligence on the Gehlen organization’s estimates of Soviet strengths and intentions led to exaggerations of estimates of strength and led to Ronald Reagan era of extravagant military spending.

From 1945 to 1948 US military intelligence correctly assumed that Soviet occupation forces in Eastern Europe were worn out and posed no threat – but were supplanted by Gehlan’s lies. This led to the Cold War.

Christopher Simpson: Blowback: America’s Recruitment of Nazis and its effects on the cold war (NY, Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1988 ISBN 1-55584-106-6)

New Internationalist defined the phases of the modern arms trade.

The first phase of the modern arms trade began. Dominated by the two emerging superpower suppliers’ fight for global supremacy 1945 to 1973, and the power vacuum left by decolonisation and the creation of new states.

Arms transfers are a tool for making new allies and keeping ‘friendly’ governments in power. Weapons were often given as ‘military aid’ or under soft loan arrangements. New Internationalist MOVE TO BIRTH OF COLD WAR

Nazis Plan Come-Back

The Nazis, realising they were losing the war in 1944, their leaders met top German industrialists to plan a secret post-war international network to restore them to power , according to a declassified US document. How much of this was actually effected and what did the US do with it?

Companies such as Krupp and Roehling were told to be prepared to finance nazis after the war – when it went underground.

“Existing financial reserves” to be placed at disposal of party so strong German empire can be created after the defeat.”

Failure of De-Nazification Policy

October 21st, at noon, Colonel Gerhard Wilck surrendered what remained of the City of Aachen to the US First Army. It was the first major city of Germany to be captured.

US forces had a 4-Ds program. Demilitarization, Denazification, Decartelization, Democratisation. But temporary administration had to be organised. Franz Oppenhoff was chosen to run this administration, to be Mayor. But Oppenhoff and his leading officials had been former officials at the Veltrup Armaments Works and were suspected of making substantial contributions to the Nazis by the locals.

Two months later a member of SHAEF Psychological Warfare Division arrived – Saul Padover. His report caused reverborations throughout allied occupation forces. 4-Ds program failed due to American prejudice – needing Germans to run civic authorities but they chose respectable, well dressed, well spoken English Speaking non unionists, and non communists. In other words, Nazis.

August 8th USSR declared war on Japan and launched massive invasion on Manchuria.

August 14th USSR advance into Sakhalin & Kurile Islands.

August 29th Mountbatten and Slim accept surrender of Japanese in Singapore.

Sep 2nd MacArthur accepted formal surrender in Tkyo Bay

Sep 13 Japanese surrender in Burma signed.

 “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds .”

August 6th 1945? Hiroshima blown up. The US dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. It exploded above a hospital in the centre of the city, and killed 100,000 people instantly, 95% of them were civilians. Another 100,000 died slowly from burns and the effects of radiation .

The Japanese reel from the shock and make moves to surrender.

8th USSR declares war on Japan.

Soviets invade Manchuria.

9th Nagasaki blown up. The US dropped another nuclear bomb.

On August 14th a 1,000 plane raid on civilian targets, organised by US General "Hap" Arnold to celebrate the war's end, bombed what remained of major Japanese cities. 1000's more civilians were killed. The "finale" described in the official air force history. According to survivors leaflets were dropped among the bombs announcing the surrender.

Japan surrendered unconditionally on August 14th.

John Berger, Guardian, June 29th 2002 compared Hiroshima with the WTC attacks on 11th September 01. "The two events include a fireball descending without warning from a clear sky, both attacks being timed to coincide with the civilians of the targeted city going to work in the morning, with the shops opening, with children in school preparing for their lessons."

"Sixteen hours ago" Truman announced, "an American aeroplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese army base." One month later the last uncensored report, by Aussie journalist Wilfred Burchett, described the cataclysmic suffering he encountered after visiting a makeshift hospital in the city. General Groves, who was the military director of the Manhattan project hastily reassured congressmen that radiation caused no "undue suffering" and that "in fact they say it is a very pleasant way to die". In 1946 the US strategic bombing survey came to the conclusion that Japan "would have surrendered even if atomic bombs had not been dropped."

Dr Walter H Judd: Atomic weapons should not have been used in Japan, “they weren’t needed. There were no targets there to need or justify the use of atomic weapons. Atomic weapons were always brought up during arguments in this country, just as later in the case of Vietnam.”

Historian Richard Frank denies that the Japanese were anywhere near surrendering (check him out) – Japanese offer conditional surrender – but agree to unconditional surrender on the 10th.

L&S page 29 onward

Include pp228, 229, 230, 231

The cites nuked had been saved from the bombings previously to ensure that damage from the atomic weapon would be completely clear.

Roots of the Korean War

In August Japanese authorities in Korea saw defeat looming. They were concerned about law and order and the protection of Japanese in Korea. The Japanese authorities decided that they needed the help of Koreans during the interim phase between Japanese occupation and the arrival of Allied forces. In morning of August 9th the Japanese governor-general, General Abe, asked a known nationalist Song Shin-u to head an "interim administrative committee" to ensure law and order. Song had connections with both the Japanese and Korean elite. But Song refused and on August 15th - the day the Japanese surrendered - General Abe made the same offer to Yo Un'hyong who was considerably farther to the left of Song Shin-u, but not a communist. Yo accepted on the condition that the Japanese immediately free all the political prisoners, not interfere in peaceful Korean demonstration and guarantee a rice (!?! What did I mean here?) for at least three months. The Japanese complied and Yo promised to deter any violent reprisals against the Japanese.

USA were desperate enough to recruit the USSR for support in taking Korea prior to Japan surrendering

On the 15th August US General Order #1 was issued in Korea - a State Dept proposal - was drafted by Colonels Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel. Shortly thereafter the USSR agreed to a line of demarcation at the 38th parallel. Although there appeared to be nothing the way of the USSR taking the whole peninsula they stopped voluntarily at the agreed line. The closest US forces were at Okinawa – too far away to meet, much less challenge. The USSR compliance was probably due to their considering the balance of Europe/ Asia – which was more important? / what would they be risking in Europe by seizing Korea? The Soviets were in Korea as a result of a deal done at Yalta and Potsdam in 1945, due to US concern over the Japanese. Once the Japanese had surrendered suddenly the US were concerned about the Soviets being there.

From August to September Yo formed the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence (CPK) which became the genesis for the first Korean government in forty years - the Korean People's Republic. The CPKI established provincial chapters in each of the thirteen provinces of Korea. Local branches of the CPKI were known as "people's committees" and they took control of local administrative functions from the local Japanese authorities. Three weeks after liberation, representatives from each of the "people's committees" throughout the land met in Seoul to establish the "Korean People's Republic {KPR}. The first act passed by the KPR was to schedule elections in the immediate future.

The Korean People's Republic was a leftist-led coalition government that sought to include the moderate and conservative segments of Korean society to preserve national unity. The KPR leadership was left-leaning, but the cabinet included moderates like An Chae-hong and right wingers like Kim Song Su and Syngman Rhee.

The KPR announced a twenty-seven point platform on September 14th which did not constitute a socialist revolution but included rent control. Confiscation of land owned by Japanese and collaborators; nationalisation of major industries that had been already nationalised under the Japanese occupation; reduction of the working day to eight hours; and the creation of a minimum wage. This echoed the demands of most Koreans; and not a precursors of a Marxist revolution.

US military action began in Korea (date?). US troops led by General Hodge (XXIV Corps) entered Korea on 8th September, almost a full month after the Soviets had got there. The Americans dispersed the local popular government of anti-fascists who had resisted the Japanese. Japanese fascist police and Korean collaborators were used to brutally repress the population. About 100,000 people were murdered in South Korea before the Korean war had even begun. General John Reed heading the US military command brought about the demise of the KPR in the south. The Soviets were working with the KPR in the north. Conservative Koreans, Japanese occupational authorities and the US claimed that the KPR were a “soviet stooge”. Hodge refused to recognise Yo Un’Hyong and was under Washington orders not to grant recognition to any Korean govenrment that he encountered. The opportunity to form a broad based coalition that would represent the entire nation was now lost.

Hodge was ordered to establish a United States military government in Korea. Unprepared and inexperienced in Korean affairs, General Hodge set out to create a military occupational government structure. Hodge moved to “resurrect” former officials who had served under the Japanese and incorporated them into the USMGIK bureaucracy. The use of former pro-Japanese Koreans as officials in the new military government and the National Police alienated the great majority of Koreans.

12th December the “people’s committees” that made up the “vertebrate” of the Korean People’s Republic were then outlawed. This decision by the USMGIK brought them into direct confrontation with many labour unions and peasant associations that had backed the “people’s committees”. In some areas, violent clashes between the US military (aided by the Korean National Police) and the “people’s committees” occurred. A campaign to eliminate all the “people’s committees” in southern Korea was implemented.

Hodge would later replace many of his “hand-picked” Japanese collaborators with Koreans who were not part of the former colonial  structure because of pressure emanating from the populace.

Dr Walter H Judd: “Atomic weapons were always brought up during arguments in this country, just as later in the case of Vietnam.”

Marshall, planning he invasion of Japan, was initially against the use of the atomic bomb. Then he required populations to be warned and evacuated prior to use – and used only against military targets – docks – bases – airfields, etc.

But once the bomb was used – he didn’t speak against its use; moreover, he defended the President’s decision to use it.

“The atomic bombing was re-enacted annually for many years (perhaps still is) [at Texas air shows] before an admiring audience of tens of thousands, with a B-29 flown by retired Air force General Paul Tibbets, who lifted the curtain on the atomic age at Hiroshima. Japan said the event was “in bad tatse and offensive” but Texas took no notice.

“1000-plane raid five days after Nagaasaki on what remained of major Japanese cities…designed to be ‘as big a finale as possible’, the official Air force history relates…Thousands of civilians were killed, while…leaflets fluttered down proclaiming “Your government has surrendered. The war is over.” Genral Spaatz wanted to use the third atom bomb on Tokyo for this grand finale, but concluded that further devastation of the “battered city” would not make the intended point.”

Chomsky “year 501” page 238.

The Roots of the Vietnam War

USA and GB recognised only the Annamese emperor regime that the French had set up.

The Chinese under Chiang Kai-Shek agreed to withdraw from Vietnam and allow the French to return in exchange for French concessions in Shanghai and the other Chinese parts.

The French bombarded Hanoi and Damascus in returning to Asia October 7th, Dec 22nd, 1945, French conduct Operation Lea. A revolution was brewing in china. Attacks on Viet Minh guerrilla positions in North Vietnam near the Chinese border. Most of Viet Minh slip away through gaps in French lines.

In March, Ho Chi Minh agreed to allow French troops into Hanoi temporarily in exchange for French recognition of his Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Chinese troops then depart.

In a major affront to Ho Chi Minh, the French high commander for Indochina, during June, proclaimed a separatist French-controlled government for South Vietnam (Republic of Chochichina).

Minh then spends May to September in France to negotiate full independence and unity for Vietnam, but failed to obtain any guarantee from the French. Violent clashes in November between French and Viet Minh. French bombard Haiphong and occupy Hanoi forcing Minh to retreat into jungle.

30,000 VM launch the eight year struggle known as the first Indo China War.

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1945.html

Upon Japanese surrender Bao Dai abdicated and allowed the popular Ho chi Minh to occupy Hanoi and proclaim a provisional government.

The US divided Vietnam into two at the 16th parallel in order to disarm the Japanese there. A plan was hatched. The Chinese nationalists were to move in and disarm the Japanese north of the parallel while the British move in and do the same in the south. France requested the return of all their pre War colonies in SE Asia. Astonishingly the request was granted. A boost for the future of democracy, with Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to once again to become French colonies following the removal of the Japanese.

In May 1945 Truman had assured the French that he did not question her "sovereignty over Indochina".

In the Fall of 1945 the US urged Nationalist China, put temporarily in charge of the northern part of Indochina by the Potsdam Conference, to turn it over to the French, despite the obvious desire of the Vietnamese for independence.

Throughout the summer a severe famine in Hanoi and surrounding area resulted in 2,000,000 deaths from starvation out of the 10,000,000 population. Political unrest and peasant revolts against the Japanese and remnants of the French colonial society allows Ho Chi Minh to capitalise by successfully building  his Viet Minh movement. The people of Vietnam seemed to be asking for self-rule. Given the Western rhetoric about democracy, they may have even expected some support.

2nd September Japan signed surrender agreement and Ho Chi Minh proclaims Vietnam independence, quoting from the text of the US declaration of Independence, clearly a subversive pinko text, which had been supplied by the OSS. “We hold the truth that all men are created equally that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. This immortal statement is extracted from the Declaration of Independence of the USA in 1776. These are undeniable truths.”

Ho declared himself president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and pursued American recognition, but is repeatedly ignored by President Harry Truman.

In 1942 FDR’s personal representative assured the French General Henri Giraud “it is thoroughly understood that French sovereignty will be re-established as soon as possible throughout all the territory, metropolitan or colonial over which the French flag flew in 1939”.

British forces arrive in Saigon, South Vietnam on 13th September. 150,000 Chinese Nationalist soldiers – mainly poor peasants – arrive in Hanoi after looting Vietnamese villages during their entire march down from China. They then proceed to loot Hanoi.

22nd September French soldiers, captured by the Japanese, released by the Brits, went on the rampage in Saigon. They attacked the Viet Minh and killed innocent civilians, aided by some of the 20,000 French civilians living in Saigon. September 24th Viet Minh in Saigon successfully organised a general strike shutting down all commerce, electricity and water supplies. Members of Binh Xuyen, in a Saigon suburb, massacre 150 French and Eurasian civilians. A report written by an American officer in Vietnam recommends that the US “ought to clear out of south east Asia.”

October French claimed back their former colony with US blessings. 35,000 French troops under General Jaques Phillippe Leclerc arrive in South Vietnam to claim back the former French colony. Viet Minh immediately begin a guerrilla campaign to harass them. The French then succeeded in expelling the Viet Minh from Saigon.

Armed militia used to combat the spread of HCM’s growing popularity in the north led to extreme shock and anger. The French even rearmed some of the Japanese troops that had oppressed the locals for four years.

September - an official enquiry into the whereabouts of Hitler got under way by British who were incensed by Russian reports that Hitler was living in Westphalia under British protection. It was to be carried out by Hugh Trevor-Roper, an Oxford history don. A US dossier suggested that suicide was quite likely given Hitler's psychological profile. T-R tracked down eye-witnesses who had been in the bunker towards the end. He interviewed Hitler's and Bormann's secretaries. He checked out some of the "sightings". His conclusions were that Hitler had committed suicide with Braun. After announcing his conclusions he continued investigating through '45 / '46.

During World War II, Japan occupied French Indochina. As well as fighting the Vichy French, the Việt Minh started a campaign against the Japanese. Due to their opposition to the Japanese, the Việt Minh received funding from the Americans and the Chinese, though the Chinese would imprison Hồ Chí Minh for more than a year during the fight against the Japanese military dictatorship because Ho was a follower of the communist ideology. When Japan surrendered in August 1945, the Japanese handed over control of some public buildings in Hanoi to the Việt Minh, now led by Hồ Chí Minh, after turning in the Vietnamese nationalist leaders of the Việt Minh to the French colonialists. After other nationalist organizations proclaimed the independence of Việt Nam, Hồ proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on September 2, 1945. Wikipedia

From the Viet Minh grew the organisation that was to become known as the Viet cong.

October 1945 – OSS – difficualt questions asked.

The OSS was disbanded on September 20th 1945, 1 ½ months after the war had ended.

Americans looted Germany

T-Force was carting as much equipemnt as they could get their hands on back to the USA.

The TICOM Group was to capture all code-making and breaking equipment as they occupied more and more of Germany. They were looking for new German FISH code making equipment but also any Russian code equipment the Germans may have developed. It remains unknown if any nazi code breakers were given asylum in England or the USA. It is known that Dr. Erich Huettenhain was taken to the US.

As many as 80% of all housing units in Germany had been destroyed . The effect of the air campaign against industrial centres and munitions makers presents a different view.

Nazis were producing more planes, trucks, tanks etc at the end of the war than in ’41. Production of munitions at the end of the war was estimated  to be at roughly 80% of capacity. The Ford plant at cologne stood untouched at the outskirts of a city that laid in ruins. It was running at 70% capacity when the city fell to allies. The RAF had targetted Cologne in a massive bombing raid involving a thousand bombers in 1943 and had bombed the city repeatedly after that.

Throughout Europe and in Germany large industrial plants stood unscathed amid a field of rubble especially those that had connections to US firms such as Ford and IG Farben plants at Cologne. The IG Farben building in Berlin was untouched and used by allies as a command centre.

At cabinet level the Air Force was under the command of Sec of War Stimson (Skull and Bones). Stimson chose John McCloy as Asst Sec in charge of intelligence, civilian affairs and general troubleshooter. Stimson placed Robert Lovett as Asst Sec of War for air.

McCloy and Lovett were Wall Street. Lovett a partner and close friend of Prescott Bush at BBH, Prescott had selected Lovett for Skull and Bones membership.

Lovett was an advocate of terror bombing population centres including later in the Vietnam War. McCLoy was integral in selcting targets for non-destruction.

Trubee Davison, again, Skull and Bones, had been assistant Secretary of war for air between the wars. He had set up special Yale Unit of the Naval Reserve Flying Corps during WW1, known as the Millionaire Squadron. Two other members – Robert Lovett and Artemus Gates.

The Yale unit served GB under the command of Lovett. Trubee’s father, Henry Davison, a senior partner at JP Morgan and Co, financed the unit.

During WW2 Trubee worked for Lovett. June ’41 to Dec ’41 Trubee was deputy chief of staff in the air force combat command holding the rank of colonel. Dec ’41 to ’46 Trubee was Asst Chief of Staff at A-1.

Artemus Gates served as Asst Sec of Navy for air during WW2. Air power was directed largely by members of the Yale unit.

Robert Lovett married Adele Quaterly Brown, daughter of James Brown of BBH. Artemus Gates married Trubee’s sister etc… Sift through these connections.

“Thus at the very top level, there were several people with detailed knowledge of American investments in Germany”.

War Crimes Trials

Before the war ended, the British, American, Soviet and French Governments met at London. This conference produced the London Agreement on 8th August 1945. Britain, USA, USSR and France signed this agreement (supplemented by Law No. 10 issued by the Allied Control Council in Germany), responsible for the establishment of the institutions and methods used for the trying of international war criminals. The Governing document produced by these meetings was the Charter of the International Military Tribunal.

It was America who persuaded the other countries that the Nazis should be given a fair trial. Churchill wanted to shoot them in a summary execution with no trial whatsoever. The French were somewhere in between.

The Nuremberg trials began in November – Tokyo war crimes trial began on may 3rd 1946.

The International Military Tribunal (IMT), governed by its charter, would try suspects whose acts were across national boundaries.

Those suspects whose acts were localised, would be tried by each of the four nations' own war crime courts. The courts operated by the individual countries operated according to the procedures of the particular country. However, the operation and charters of these courts were governed by Law Order No. 10, and heavily influenced by the IMT's charter.

The IMT was based in the US Occupation Zone, at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. It was ironic that this building has been spared the Allied bombing raids. The US Zone was selected, as the US was the only country which was capable of providing the required material and logistical support. To placate the Soviets, the tribunal's permanent seat was located in Berlin. The tribunal's charter was also signed in Berlin.

The Defendants

The four powers eventually decided on a total of twenty-two defendants whose alleged crimes fitted across national boundaries.

Martin Borman was tried in his absence. It was intended to try Robert Ley, but he hanged himself before the trial started. It was intended to try Gustav Krupp, who was the Father figure of the Krupp armaments firm. Due to his old age, Gustav Krupp was senile. It was decided that Gustav Krupp would not be tried by the IMT. His son and heir apparent, Alfried, who controlled the firm, was tried and found guilty by an American tribunal in 1948. The defendants: Martin Borman, Karl Doenitz, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Hans Fritzsche, Walter Funk, Herman Goering, Rudolf Hess, Alfred Jodl, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Constain, von Neurath, Fritz von Papen, Erich Raeder, Joachim von Ribberntrop, Alfred Rosenberg, Fritz Saukel, Hjalmar Schacht, Baldur von Schirach, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Albert Speer, Julius Streicher.

Why so few?

The fours counts which were specified by the IMT charter's Article 6 were

1              The conspiracy to wage aggressive war - that there was a general conspiracy among a group of people to plan, organise and otherwise prepare for an aggressive war.

2              The actual waging of aggressive war - the actual carrying out of an aggressive war, including the breaking of treaties, agreements and other international items.

3              War Crimes - acts against the laws and usage of war. An example of this would be the killing of prisoners-of-war.

4              Crimes against humanity. - acts committed against specific groups of people, based on their, for example, religion.

The defendants were then charged with committing crimes  covered by one of the counts. The defendants were allowed to chose their own lawyer.

Under the IMT powers specified in its charter, the following organisations were also tried: Gestapo, SD, SS, The Leadership Corps of The Nazi Party, Reich Cabinet, SA and The General and High Staff Commands.

The Judges & Prosecutors

Each country appointed one judge and one alternate to the tribunal. The charter established a quorum of one judge, or his alternate, from each of the four powers. Only the main judge could vote on the matters of verdicts and sentences. The four powers each appointed their own Chief Prosecutor to the trial. As specified by the charter, they then divided the work between themselves and their staffs.

Country Main Judge Alternate Judge Chief Prosecutor

UK Lord Justice Lawrence Mr. Justice Birkett Sir Hartley Shawcross

USA Judge Francis Biddle Judge John J. Parker Justice Robert Jackson

USSR Major-General Nikitchenko Lieu-Colonel Volchkov General R.A. Rudenko

France Prof. Donnedieu de Vabres Monsieur Robert Falco Monsieur Francois de Menthon

The judges decided amongst themselves that Lord Justice Lawrence was to serve as their Presiding Judge.

The trial itself lasted from its start at the end of November 1945, to the execution of the death sentences in October 1946. The IMT session at which each guilty defendant was sentenced was one of the few sessions that was not filmed.

Verdicts & Sentences

Communism in Europe

The US was worried about the French communists. After the war France was stricken by internal division, and a strong French communist Party was seen as likely to exploit this to its advantage. All over Europe firing squads were being employed to settle old scores from the war. There were massacres in Yugoslavia over the willingness of some to work for the Nazis.

Back in America the OSS was abolished. The remaining American information agencies cease overt actions and return to information gathering and analysis.

Operation PAPERCLIP begins. While other American agencies are hunting down Nazi war criminals for arrest, the US intelligence community is smuggling them into America, unpunished, for their use against the Soviets. The most important of these is Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's master spy who had built up an intelligence network in the USSR. With full US blessing, he creates the "Gehlen Organisation", a band of refugee Nazi spies who reactivate their networks in Russia. These include SS intelligence officers Alfred Six, and Emil Augsburg (massacred Jews in the holocaust), Klaus Barbie (butcher of Lyon), Otto von Bolshwing (holocaust mastermind who worked with Eichman) and SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny (personal friend of Hitler's). The Gehlen organisation supplied the US with its only intelligence on the USSR for the next ten years, serving as a bridge between the abolishment of the OSS and the creation of the CIA. However much of the "intelligence" the former Nazis provided was bogus. Gehlen inflated Soviet military capabilities at a time when Russia was still rebuilding its devastated society, in order to inflate his own importance to the Americans (who might otherwise visit justice upon him). In 1948, Gehlen almost convinced the US that war is imminent, and the west should make a pre-emptive strike. In the 1950s he produces a fictitious "missile gap". To make matters worse, the Russians had thoroughly penetrated the Gehlen organisation with double agents, undermining the very American security that Gehlen was supposed to protect.

Occupied Germany

Nazis were being re-employed or retained in their old positions. A directive was issued in February that Nazis were to be retained only if military necessity so requires. Colonel Bernhard Bernstein complained that too many detachments were taking advantage of the exception clause. He blamed the British for weakening the directives. In March the 12th Army under Bernstein issued new directive banning employment of Nazi sympathisers. Then the White House stepped in to allow employment of “nominal” Nazis. Bernstein blamed the British yet again.

March 3rd Stimson met FDR and reminded him that Eisenhower had agreed to serve only for a few months as military Governor of Germany after surrender. He had suggested his under Sec Robert Patterson supported by FDR and Morgenthau. Now he said Patterson was busy elsewhere and General Lucius Clay was the man for the job.

Morgenthau heard in 44 that McCloy was interested in job – with obvious clash of interests. McCloy established in advance that Clay would use the loophole in JCS 1067 to circumvent the 4-Ds program (ELABORATE).

Finland declared war on Germany.

7th Allies capture Cologne, Ludendorff Rail Bridge on Rhine River captured intact at Ramagen.

US reached Berlin in April.

Allied forces had broken out of Italy into Central Europe and from the Low countries into north Germany. In Asia – the immenent defeat of Japan. Hitler suicided on 30th April and on 8th May the German government surrendered unconditionally. The priority of the allies immediately post-war was to prevent Germany from recovering her economic strength.

Hoover rose up to take what he could – used propaganda “House on 92nd Street” and “This Is Your FBI” radio Show.

The Great American Plan

The US had done well out of the war. They had the nuclear bomb – exclusively – a military garrison in the heart of Europe, control of the Pacifc. Through all of this they had remained undamaged, immune to attack, fixed capital intact, resources greater than ever. The US standard of living had risen through the war, and now they had plenty of capital to invest globally.

There was a world-wide surge of US power. Lend-lease relief channeled through UNRRA (set up in 1943). The US had become Europe’s banker.

In America, the economy was finally stable after the crisis of the 1930s. War had been good for American businesses. Weapons production had started the mills and factories humming again after the depression, and when the end of the war was in sight the US were determined to smooth the way for continued economic growth.

Historian Gabriel Kolko, after a study of US Wartime policy (The Politics of War) concluded that "the US economic war aim was to save capitalism at home and abroad."

"During WW2 quasi-totalitarian measures at last overcame the effects of the Great Depression, more than tripling US industrial production and teaching valuable lessons to the corporate managers who ran the wartime economy."

But how to maintain or improve on this?

Washington was planning the outlines of a new international economic order based on a partnership between government and big business. FDR's chief adviser  Harry Hopkins championed foreign investment and its protection.

Assistant Sec of State Archibald Macleish was critical. He called it "a peace without moral purpose or human interest."

The IMF was set up during the war to regulate international exchanges of currency. Voting within the IMF was proportional to capital contribution to assure US dominance.

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development was set up, supposedly to help reconstruct WW2 destroyed areas, but one of its first objectives was "to promote foreign investment."

"Truman cut off lend-lease arrangements with allies even before the Japanese surrender, reducing international leverage of the US - it weakened her old allies."

 The US under FDR had already plotted a strategy for increasing its power on the

planet. It intended to take over at the head of the Old World's Empires but it wasn't yet sophisticated in the sort of ways it could achieve this.

Sec of War Henry Stimson observed that all regional systems must be dismantled apart from the US.

The USSR had gained territory from Germany, Poland, Czkia, and Romania. Eisenhower had resisted pressure to seize Prague and Berlin (what pressure?) and allowed the Ruskies to get there first. The Soviets were also pushing against the borders of Turkey and Greece. The Soviets occupied northern Iran, much of Sinkiang, Mongolia, northern Korea, and naval base of Port Arthur. Had liberated the rest of Manchuria and took southern half of island of Sakhalin and the Kuriles from the Japanese. The rest of these gains were at the expense of China – Chinese revolution already looking likely.

In Greece the British restored the monarchy – but with this looking shaky – concerns grew over the communists attaining power there.

With no experience at intervening in Europe it was learning as it went along. It had fucked up though. Eisenhower lost Berlin. FDR failed to prevent Stalin taking Eastern Europe.

Once the UN was set up it became dominated by the big Western countries.

"The highest priority was to ensure that the industrial heartland, German-based Europe and Japan, would be firmly within the US-dominated world order, controlled by domestic financial-industrial sectors linked to US state-corporate power. The first order of business, then, was to undermine the anti-fascist resistance with its popular base in the rascal multitude to weaken labour, and to restore traditional conservative rule, often including fascist collaborations. This task was undertaken on a global scale in 1940s, with considerable violence when that proved necessary, e.g., Greece and South Korea."

They didn't just stamp on the workers' movements and anti-nazi groups, but the Americans protected Nazis too. The US role in protecting Nazis and collaborators in the immediate aftermath of WW2. In Denmark it has been estimated that from 2 to 300,000 Nazi collaborators were helped, by the US, to escape justice. To this day this is pretty much a secret.

The US followed Churchill's advice in Italy and imposed a right wing dictatorship headed by a fascist war hero Field Marshall Dadaglio and the King, Victor Emmanual III, a collaborator.

Imperial systems had to be restored under over-arching US control. Tactical decisions to favour traditional colonial preference systems for rival/allies temporarily. Trade patterns with industrial powers had to be maintained as the US economy relied on them.

Washington barred its allies from any role in the fate of Japan.

Italy see Chomsky p.42

WW2 cost the Americans " ten times as much as WW1 and double the amount spent in all American history before its outbreak."

40% of the cost came form increased taxes on rich and on corporations.

Union membership rose to 15,000,000.

112,000 Japanese-Americans were put into prison camps - and had their property taken from them.

US policy makers began by maintaining the Japanese emperor in power, to use his authority to enhance their own control. This meant criticism of the emperor had to be suppressed. A left-wing film critical of emperor was banned by US officials in ‘46. Anything negative about the emperor was kept out of the Tokyo war crimes trial.

Japan and the US conspired together to ignore Japan’s crimes prior to 1941. So atrocities that killed 10 to 13m Chinese (Chomsky’s conservative estimate) from 1937 to 1945, as were earlier crimes. Chomsky credits Japan historian Herbert Bix, BG, April 19, 1992 for this information – “501” p239. The US always considered the “sneak attack” on Pearl Harbor to have been a much worse crime than the torture, killing and other abuse of tens of millions of people. Why did the US allow these crimes to go unmentioned? For one, the US probably didn’t consider them crimes in the first place. Prior to Pearl Harbor, “much of the American business community and many US offcials” were more than happy to support Japan’s right to carry out atrocities in China. The US only objected to Japan’s “system of closed economy,…depriving Americans of their long-established rights in China” according to Ambassador Joseph Grew, in 1939, “an influential figure in Far East policy”, as quoted by Chomsky in “501”, p 240. China’s right to nationl independence, the rape of Nanking, Invasion of Manchuria, etc, were all forgotten as inconsequential.

The US moved to break Japanese unions, reconstruct industrial-financial conglomerates, supporting fascist collaborators which excluded anti-fascists, restored conservative business rule. The purge of war criminals was ended – essential structure of fascist regime restored. General MacArthur prevented emporer from being indicted or taking stand as witness or being interviewed by international prosecution investigators. This policy which placed Japan into the hands of pro-fascist corporate elements survives to the present day.

In Japan - some early genuinely democratic reforms under US occupation (MacArthur). Land reform, unions promoted, new constitution included 'no war' pledge. Some right wing militarists were purged, and some of the Zaibatsu, the corporate behemoths of the Japanese economy, were broken up. "but these reforms were carried out by the New Dealers, the most liberal US government in history". "By 1948, as Washington came to realise that China was not going to become an anti-Communist bastion and that a powerful alternative was needed, US occupation policy in Japan_ XE "Japan" _ underwent a "reverse course". Japanese economic power would now be rebuilt as part of an anti-Soviet alliance and many of the early reforms were weakened or repealed. War criminals were released. A threatened general strike was banned in '47 and over next three years imposed laws severely weakening the labour movement. In 1949, there was a mass purge of Communists, using regulations originally designed for ultra-right militarists."

"Japan's dominant conservative politicians were allowed to maintain their grip on power by the US occupation authorities and were secretly bankrolled by the CIA through the 1960s."

The US hanged Japanese war criminals in 1948 - (PM Hideko Tojo?). Tojo defended the Pearl Harbor attack as "forced by 'inhuman' economic sanctions imposed by Washington" which "would have meant the destruction of the nation" had Japan not reacted.

MacArthur declared that the entire Pacific "had become an Anglo-Saxon lake and our line of defence runs through the chain of islands fringing the coast of Asia. The US occupation of Japan lasted four years (1945 - 1949). Dissidents were purged, US imposed a heavy censorship, and any discussion of the Atomic Bomb or its effects was forbidden. A film of the aftermath was banned in the USA. August 1949 draft of NSC48

Disney’s the three caballeros, the second of two films – the first saludos amigos began during his 1941 south American trip. Donald duck letching after Spanish women. Quite un-Disney. Financially disastrous. Hated by critics. Disney thought the ‘liberal’ media was out to get him. In January Disney quit as president of Disney productions and Roy took over with John F Reeder (an ad exec) as V-P.

Babbit returned from the marines, war over, and tried to resume his old job at Disney. He received threats of violence and “sometimes put pretty girls in my room, where I worked, to distract me, to try to catch me in some kind of compromising position.”

Finally “the supreme court…found in my favour. Disney was ordered to rehire me.” But Babbit had a nervous breakdown and his career was wrecked.

Frank Sinatra – “Anchos Aweigh”

Artie Shaw –

Miles Davis in St Louis heard and met Clark Terry – also Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker in Billy Eckstine Band. Went to NYC to study in 1945 and working in small 52nd St Clubs with Parker and Coleman Hawkins. Toured with Benny Carter Band and spent 5 months on road with Eckstine.

The US activities in china during 1945?

April 1st: US troops encircle German forces in the Ruhr.

Allies liberate Belsen and Buchenwald concentration camps.

being formed in early 1946. A modification of the JCS 1181/5 proposed.???