1917 AND ALL THAT: THE UNTAUGHT HISTORY SYLLABUS.
In Their Own Words: A Political History Of The Cold War 1917-1983.
By Brian Mitchell.

My apologies to those who have been following these excerpts from my book and
waiting for this last two chapters.

Delays are due to health problems, which will hopefully be now more under
control. Unless we need more money to bomb another country for its oil, of
course. Then I'll probably have to wait even longer for an appointment.

After all, each Cruise or Tomahawk missile being more or less the cost of a new
NHS hospital, built, equipped, staffed and maintained for a year. Whoops, there
goes another operating theatre.

But then we need the oil don't we? How else will we 4 wheel drive Jeep the kids
to the local grammar school - which of course is half way up Mount Killimanjaro?

Thank you all for your patience.

Brian Mitchell.



Chapters 49 - 50 of 50. .

Chapter 49

IT TAKES TWO TO MAKE AN ARMS RACE -
BUT ONLY ONE TO START AND LEAD ONE.
"I'm willing to be just as generous as we possibly can, so long as that's
consistent with maintaining clear supremacy."

(US Ambassador to United Nations Jean Kirkpatrick.)

The West has always led the arms race. And in the 1980s the West was still
planning to lead the arms race:

"Serious negotiations on arms control can only take place after we have
increased our forces... in ten years time."

(Reagan's chief negotiator in Geneva Paul Nitze, Los Angeles Times Sept 28
1981.)

For the third time in their brief history, the Soviet people can see the
capitalist world arming against them; this time with nuclear weapons.

Any scientific look at the history of arms development will show that British
and US 'defensive' nuclear weapons are always about attacking the Soviet Union
through the Soviet Union's continually improving defence systems.

Washington and Moscow did not suddenly decide to have an arms race; like two
athletes or football teams. The whole history of the arms race shows that it was
started by one, and the other was forced to follow:

USA USSR

First Atomic bomb: USED: 1945 Tested: 1949

Formation of military blocs: NATO: 1949 Warsaw Pact: 1955

First hydrogen bomb available: 1953 1954

Medium range missiles: 1953 1959

First Inter Continantal Ballistic Missiles available: 1955 1957

First nuclear armed submarines launched: 1956 1962

Submarine launched ballistic missiles: 1959 1968

Solid fuelled ICBMs: 1962 1969

MRVs (Multiple re-entry vehicles): 1964 1972

MIRVs (Independently targetable): 1970 1975

It is also common knowledge that the West was first with Cruise, Trident and
Pershing missiles, and Neutron bombs, and Manoeuverable Re-entry Vehicles
(MARVs). The West was also first with chemical, biological, and binary weapons.
The Soviets do not have any equivalent of some of these latest US weapons.

From 1945 to 1983, the US, Britain and France conducted a total of 896 nuclear
tests, of these 748 were by the US. The Soviet Union conducted a total of 492
over the same years.

The West has always led the arms race. And the US would not have hesitated to
use its nuclear superiority to blackmail the Soviet Union into refraining from
giving military assistance to any third world country that wanted to take the
socialist path or in some way become independent from US exploitation:

"In the early postwar years, we had a monopoly of nuclear weapons. And for a
decade after that - until the middle or late sixties - we had overwhelming
nuclear superiority... which determined the outcome of the Berlin airlift, the
Korean war, and the Cuban missile crisis... in the late '60s and early '70s, our
nuclear superiority was no longer so evident as it had been at the time of the
Cuban missile crisis; indeed superiority had given way to stalemate. The
deterioration of our nuclear advantage led to the erosion of our position (in
Vietnam) and profoundly affected the final stages of the conflict.

The mission of our nuclear forces. must also provide a nuclear guarantee for our
interests in many parts of the world, and make it possible to defend those
interests by diplomacy or by the use of theatre military forces whenever such
action becomes necessary. .we carry on the foreign policy of a nation with
global interests, and defend them if necessary by conventional means or theatre
forces."

(Eugene Rostow, former head of US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, in "The
Case Against SALT II." Commentary, Feb 1979.)

"By every significant measure of comparison, the United States has always held,
and continues to hold, a commanding lead in strategic power...

Both the nuclear and conventional balances of power in Europe have always
favoured NATO and continue to do so...

While the Soviet Union has done all it could do to match Western levels of
strength, it has failed to change the military balance...

It is the Soviets who always have to respond..."

(US military and defence expert Tom Gervasi.)

In other words: if we had nuclear superiority we would have used it in Vietnam.

But communists do not want war. They have no interest in war.

"Russia has not the slightest thing to gain by a war with the United States. I
believe Russia's policy is friendship with the United States. There is in Russia
a desperate and continuing concern for the lot of the common man and they want
to be friends with the United States."

(Eisenhower, Nov 15 1944. The Nashville Banner Nov 15 1944.)

Communists do not want arms races. They do not want to build missiles and
missile silos. They want to build houses, health centres, schools, sports
complexes, hydro-electric power stations, universities, industrial complexes,
hospitals, gas pipelines, steel plants, factories producing consumer goods,
railways, roads, ports, and new towns and cities. And they want to trade with
the capitalist world on an equal basis.

"What the Soviet Union proposes to the capitalist countries is competition in
raising the standard of living of the people and not in the arms race, in
building houses and schools and not military bases and rocket launching sites,
in expanding mutually advantageous trade and cultural exchanges and not the
"cold war","

("USSR Today and Tomorrow.")

It was not communists who attacked Vietnam and subjected the Vietnamese people
to over 30 years of war. It was not communists who backed and rearmed Hitler's
Germany. Nuclear bombs were not dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by communists.
It was not communists who attacked Nicaragua. It wasn't communists who mined
Nicaragua's sea-ports, damaging Soviet ships and killing their crew; or
destroyed Nicaraguan oil installations at Corinto. Communists did not attack El
Salvador, Dominican Republic, Korea, Angola, Lebanon and just about every other
country on earth. It was not communists who tried to destabilise the world
socialist community by provoking counter-revolutions in Hungary in 1956,
Czechoslovakia in 1968, or Afghanistan and Poland in the 1980s. It was not
communists who overthrew Chile's progressive Allende government and installed
Pinochet; or overthrew Spain's democratic government and brought Franco to
power. Nor did communists plan or launch the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
Communists did not bomb Libya. Communists did not attack or occupy Malaya,
Indonesia, Cyprus, Aden, Iraq, Iran, or attack Afghanistan from Pakistan. And
communist troops do not occupy Northern Ireland. It was not communists who
bombed the innocent people of Kampuchea (Cambodia) and installed Pol Pot, and
communists did not reduce the population of Laos by three million to three and a
half million in the secret bombing war against that country. And communists did
not invade and still occupy the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada.

These attacks, and many more, were the actions of anti-communists and the forces
of capital.

It was not communists, but US or British capitalists who have been involved in
acts of aggression, invasions or military occupations, usually to put down
progressive governments or popular uprisings, such as in Honduras in 1905, Cuba
in 1906, Nicaragua in 1912, Haiti in 1914, the Dominican Republic in 1916, Cuba
in 1917, Nicaragua in 1926, the Philippines in 1945-1956, Greece 1946-1949,
China 1946-1949, Paraguay 1947, Costa Rica 1948, Burma 1949-1961, Puerto Rico
1950, Korea 1950-1953, Guatemala 1954, Vietnam 1954-1973, Costa Rica 1955,
Lebanon 1958, Laos 1959-1962, Cuba 1961, Guatemala 1962, Panama 1964, Columbia
1964, Laos 1964-1970, Dominican Republic 1965, Thailand 1966, Haiti 1969,
Cambodia (now Kampuchea) 1970, Trinidad and Tobago 1970, Laos 1971-1973, Chile
1973, Angola 1975, Zaire 1978, Costa Rica 1979, Iran 1980, and in the 1980s so
far: El Salvador, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Grenada, Libya, and covert or mercenary
operations against Afghanistan and a number of other countries.

According to the US Brookings Institute the US used its armed forces in other
countries on 215 occasions between 1946 and 1975 alone.

It wasn't British communists who said "me too" to the US.

"The Western Powers have got to be strong... They have got to be perfrctly clear
as to the kind of world they want and stand for it until they get it."

(British Labour Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, House of Parliament, Oct 17
1950.)

"We ourselves have to keep forces in various parts of the world, garrisoning key
points such as Hong Kong or the Middle East... or engaged in actual fighting
against Communist banditry in Malaya. Therefore our military forces are
stretched."

(British Labour Prime Minister Attlee, in a broadcast, July 31 1950.)

"Then there are the British forces which are spread about the East and the Far
East... in Hong Kong, Malaya and to some extent in the Canal Zone of the Middle
East... This makes a numerical total of twenty-six divisions."

(Winston Churchill, House of Parliament, Jan 30 1952.)

"The units of our army are almost all overseas."

(Winston Churchill, House of Parliament, July 30 1952.)

No Soviet politician or military man has ever been recorded as making statements
like any of the following:

"Now that we have got a head start on the H. Bomb we should lay down the law...
not as diplomats, but as soldiers... We have got to act while we have the
advantage."

(Former US Commander in Berlin General Howley, Feb 6 1950.)

"President Truman told a press conference today that the United States was
relying on force rather than diplomacy in its dealings with the Soviet Union."

(Manchester Guardian Sept 21 1951.)

"War! As soon as possible! Now!... We must start by hitting below the belt. This
war cannot be conducted according to Marquis of Queensberry rules."

(US Military Attache in Moscow General Grow, 1952.)

"We need a voice which clearly takes our leadership. Communism must be
destroyed... We must hit below the belt... War! As quickly as possible! Now!"

(Former US Military Attache in Moscow Major General Robert Grow.)

It was not any Soviet politician or General who said any of the following:

"We must maintain armed forces all over the world. The United States may have to
occupy more countries before the cold war is ended."

(US Vice President Barkley, New Orleans, May 22 1950.)

"By the use of economic aid we succeeded in getting access to Iranian oil and
we are now well established in the economy of that country. to acquire control
over her foreign policy. make her join the Bagdad Pact. .the Shah would not dare
even to make any changes in his cabinet without consulting our Ambassador."

(Letter from US Council on Foreign Relations member millionaire Nelson
Rockefeller to President Eisenhower, January 1956.)

"Our aim is not simply to appropriate oil in one way or another (say in easily
accessible Nigeria or Venezuela) but to crush OPEC. Therefore we have to use
direct force in order to get hold of large and concentrated oil deposits which
can be opened up rapidly so as to put an end to the artificial oil shortage and
thus to lower the price... Since this is the ultimate and there is only one
target possible: Saudi Arabia... Fortunately, these are not only rich oilfields
but they are also concentrated in a very small area, a fraction of the Saudi
Arabian territory... While Vietnam was full of trees and brave people and our
national interest was almost invisible, what we have here is no trees, very few
people and a clear objective."

(Advisor to the US Defence Department Professor Miles Ignotas, March 1975.)

"The economic health and well-being of the United States, Western Europe, Japan
depend upon continued access to the oil from the Persian area."

(President Carter, Department of State Bulletin, April 1978.)

"Western industrialised societies are largely dependent on the oil resources of
the Middle East region and a threat to access to that oil would constitute a
grave threat to the vital national interests. This must be dealt with; and that
does not exclude the use of force if necessary."

(US Secretary of State Alexander Haig, March 11 1981.)

"As outlined in the paper, the strategy for Southwest Asia, including the
Persian Gulf, directs American forces to be ready to force their way in if
necessary, and not to wait for an invitation from a friendly government, which
has been the publicly stated policy."

(US Defense Department, reported in New York Times May 30 1982.)

"We must be prepared for waging a conventional war that may extend to many parts
of the globe. Many of the resources that we need for energy and many essential
strategic minerals are found thousands of miles from our shores... If we are to
safeguard our access, and the access of the free world, to these resources, we
must increase our military and naval strength."

(US Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger, April 28 1981.)

"As the largest producer, the largest source of capital, and the biggest
contributor to the global mechanism, we must set the pace and assume the
responsibility of the majority stockholder in this corporation known as the
world... Nor is this for a given term of office. This is a permanent
obligation."

(Leo D. Welch, Secretary-Treasurer of US Standard Oil Company, 1946.)

"It will become increasingly difficult in the near future to protect US overseas
interests with conventional weapons... I have in mind situations far from our
shores,... where we would have difficulty, from a logistics point of view, at
least, in reaching the areas in which we have considerable US interests.

.we have an added motivation... the need for the United States to look more and
more overseas for the resources to provide economic strength... we will be
looking increasingly towards Africa and the Middle East, as well as South
America, for the materials required by our industrial economy... We will require
free access and intercourse with many far distant nations of the world in order
to remain a leading export - import nation.

We may have confrontations with nuclear or non-nuclear nations whose
geographical location is such that we have no adequate means of protecting our
interests with conventional weapons... The use of nuclear weapons with varying
capabilities might be the only effective method of accomplishing our objectives,
protecting our interests, and minimising the overall death and destruction that
might accrue."

(US Vice Admiral Gerald E Miller, Congressional Testimony, March 18 1976.)

"The United States, as an island nation heavily dependent on overseas raw
materials, must continue its forward deployment of forces in Asia and the
Pacific region. There is no cheaper way to American security."

(US Defence Secretary Frank Carlucci.)

"You know, there was a time when our national security was based on a standing
army here within our own borders and shore batteries of artillery along our
coasts... The world has changed. Today, our national security can be threatened
in far away places. It is up to all of us to be aware of the strategic
importance of such places and to be able to identify them... ...all are vital to
us and if it went to world powers hostile to the free world, there would be a
direct threat to the United States and to our allies."

(Ronald Reagan, in a Television Address, Oct 27 1983.)

"In Asia our efforts were far less successful... the conception of force was too
nakedly shown, too much stress was laid on the military side, while we largely
ignored the importance of preliminary economic preparations for the alliances we
wished to make. But the same military measures will often be found
unobjectionable if the way to them is paved with economic aid...

The most significant example in practice of what I mean was the Iranian
experiment with which, as you will remember, I was directly concerned. By the
use of economic aid we succeeded in getting access to Iranian oil and we are now
well established in the economy of that country. The strengthening of our
economic position in Iran has enabled us to acquire control over her foreign
policy and in particular to make her join the Bagdad Pact. At the present time
the Shah would not dare even to make any changes in his cabinet without
consulting our Ambassador...

For us to have in Asia, Africa and other under-developed areas a political and
military influence as great or greater than we obtained through the Marshall
Plan in Europe. It is necessary for us to act carefully and patiently, and in
the early stages confine ourselves to securing very modest political concessions
in exchange for our economic aid (in some exceptional cases even without any
concessions in return). The way will then be open to us, but at a later stage,
to step up both our political price and our military demands...

In this case governmental subsidies and credits may take the form of military
appropriations. The hooked fish needs no bait. At the same time economic support
for those strata of the local business community which are ready to co-operate
with the US should be increased and the necessary conditions would be created
for businessmen of this type to be put in key economic positions and accordingly
for their political influence to be increased.

...the main emphasis in economic assistance as regards government subsidies and
credits should be on creating conditions in which eventually the economic
relations established by us would work for and make it natural for these
countries to join military pacts and alliances inspired by us. The essence of
this policy should be that the development of our economic relations with these
countries would ultimately allow us to take over key positions in the native
economy... By this means we can hope to divert the foreign policy of these
countries in a more desirable direction...

...support should be given in particular... to native businessmen who are
struggling against their colonial status.

...if we do not support them we lose all hope of exercising a restraining
influence on them until it is too late. If this happens the desire for
independence may result in a nationalism so strong as to escape not only from
the control of the old colonial powers but also from our own control.

Extensive economic aid... should always be presented as an expression of a
sincere and disinterested desire on the part of the US to help and co-operate
with them."

(Letter from US Council on Foreign Relations member millionaire Nelson
Rockefeller to President Eisenhower, January 1956.)

"Now the Pacific has become an Anglo-Saxon lake, and our line of defence runs
through the chain of islands fringing the coast of Asia."

(US General MacArthur, Daily Mail March 2 1949.)

American bellicosity cannot use the Communist threat as its excuse. It didn't
start with the Cold War:

"For defensive purposes the sovereignty of the United States extends to the
whole continent."

(US Secretary of State Richard Olney, 1895.)

"Fate has written our policy for us; the trade of the world must and can be
ours. And we shall get it, as our Mother England has told us how... We will
cover the ocean with our merchant marine. We will build a navy to the measure of
our greatness... Our institutes will follow our trade. American law, American
order, American civilisation, and the American flag will plant themselves on
shores hitherto bloody and benighted, by those agencies of God henceforth made
beautiful and bright."

(US Senator Albert Beveridge, 1898.)

American bellicosity has always had the same aim and will continue to make
enemies:

"In the future, we are more likely to be involved in Iraq-type things,
Panama-type things, Grenada-type things. Our position should be the protection
of the oilfields. Now whether Kuwait gets put back, that's subsidiary stuff."

(Chairman of US Armed Services Committee Les Aspin, 1990.)

"They know we own their country [Iraq]. We own their airspace. We dictate the
way they live and talk. And that's what's great about America right now. It's a
good thing, especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need."

(US Brigadier General William Looney, Washington Post, August 30 1999.)

"US aid is to "improve U.S.-Kazakh military cooperation while establishing a
U.S.-interoperable base along the oil-rich Caspian."

(U.S. State Department Report, 2002.)

"In oil's name, the United States is immersed in a new kind of colonialism, for
the resources that lie under foreign feet. They could care less about the
people. Therein lies an even greater tragedy."

(U.S. Dept. of State, Congressional Budget Justifications: Foreign Operations,
Fiscal Year 2003.)

It was not the Kremlin, but the Pentagon which in 1980 listed US troops in:

Europe: FRG 239,000, Great Britain 23,000, Italy 11,700, Spain 8,700, Turkey
4,900, Greece 3,300, Iceland 2,900, Nederlands 2,200, Belgium 2,000, Portugal
1,400, in ships of the 6th Fleet in Europe 25,000.

Asia: Japan 46,200, South Korea 39,000, Philippines 14,100, Guam 8,800,
Australia 700, Midway Island 500, US 7th Fleet 22,000.

Latin America: Panama Canal Zone 9,500, Puerto Rico 3,500, Guantanamo (Cuba)
2,100.

Also: Bermuda 1,300, Diego Garcia 1,100, Canada 700, Saudi Arabia 400, other
countries such as Israel 1,800.

Also 196,000 US marines operate in the Atlantic, the Caribbean and the
Mediterranean.

Also in 1980, the US was planning new bases in Egypt, Israel, Oman, Somalia and
Kenya.

Communists have not built a network of military bases all over the world on
other nations' lands.

The USA has never been attacked on its own soil. The US now has some 2,500 bases
in 114 other countries around the world; many of which can deliver or have
nuclear weapons targeted on the USSR - all on foreign soil. A number of other
countries also have their own nuclear weapons targeted on the USSR.

Many former British bases in its colonies around the world were given over to
the US as a result of the Destroyers for Bases agreement in 1940 and other
agreements during the war.

"To use our strategic air power successfully we must have bases so located
around the world that we can reach any target we may be called upon to hit."

(US Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.)

Main US bases abroad include: West Germany 188, South Korea 40, Japan 32, UK 18,
Philippines 11, Italy 9, Turkey 7, Spain 6, Panama 6, Greece 4, Bermuda 3,
Greenland 2, Australia 2, Antigua 1, Belgium 1, Diego Garcia 1, Iceland 1,
Canada 1, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay) 1, Netherlands 1, Portugal 1. Total 336.

"The West could, with relative impunity launch atomic attacks on the Soviet
Union from a perimeter of 360 degrees, manned by more than 250 allied bases."

(General Norstad, US Supreme Commander of NATO, in The Times June 14 1957,)

"In the event of a major war, certain objectives were clear. The United States
should follow "what has been our one and only basic policy in the last thirty
years. This is that we prefer to fight our wars, if they be necessary, in
someone elses territory."

Through its farflung system of bases and the mobility of its forces, the United
States would shield itself..."

(US researcher M.S.Sherry, quoting from US declassified documents JCS 1496/2 and
JCS 1519, of September and October 1945, in his book "Preparing for the Next
War.".)

By 1983, nineteen nations had nuclear weapons on their territory - eighteen of
these being capitalist; not counting China.

The USSR did not have one single nuclear weapon based on the soil of another
country.

Contrary to suggestions even emanating from small sections of the peace movement
in Britain, no other Socialist country has nuclear weapons on its soil.

During the so-called Cuban "missile" crisis in 1962 the Soviet Union was forced
to repossess the nuclear weapons it had given to Cuba after the US Bay of Pigs
invasion of Cuba because of President Kennedy's threat to commence hostilities
against the USSR if this was not done.

Is there one law for the socialist Soviet Union and another for the capitalist
world of the United States of America?

"...adequate military strength deployed in key areas across the world [was
essential for maintaining B.M.] a progressive and integrated capitalist world
economy."

(Eugene Rostow, to US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 1981.)

Asked to explain US MX and Trident weapons:

"I think for the same purposes as in the past: To bully smaller nations. You
wouldn't need all this destructive power to bully a smaller nation if Russia did
not exist. But most of the smaller nations we've been opposed to are allied to
Russia. So, if we want to be able to say to Russia: we may have to batter or
even annihilate your small friends here, like North Vietnam, and you had better
not get into the fray - you'd better stand back - then we can't have too many
weapons in the balance."

(Daniel Ellsberg, in "Nuclear Armaments: an interview with Dr. Daniel Ellsberg."
Berkely 1980.)

Chapter 50

SOVIET ARMS PROPOSALS AND US "CONTRIBUTIONS TO PEACE."
Nothing has changed as far as the West's leadership of the arms race is
concerned. Maxim Gorky wrote in 1932:

"The bourgeoisie rejected the Soviet Union's project for general disarmament,
and this alone is sufficient to justify us in saying that the capitalists are
socially dangerous people, that they are preparing for a new world war. They are
keeping the Soviet Union in a tense state of defence, compelling the working
class to spend a vast amount of precious time and material on the production of
weapons of defence against the capitalists, who are organising to attack the
Soviet Union and to turn this huge country into their colony, their market."

(Maxim Gorky, "On Whose Side, "Masters of Culture"? Reply to American
Correspondents." 1932.)

The British answer was to extend NATO even further; such as to help the
Portugese retain their domination of countries such as Angola, Mozambique and
Burkino Faso and prevent the spread of socialism there:

"NATO should broaden its maritime horizons... The South Atlantic should now be
included to give support and backing to our Portugese allies against the spread
of communism in Africa."

(Tory MP Geoffrey Rippon in the House of Commons; in "Round Table July 1970.)

Repeated Soviet proposals for a system of collective security in Europe were
rejected in the late 1930s. The result of that was the Second World War.

The manipulative power of our mass media is such that the majority of people in
Britain, those who do not put any effort into seeking alternative information
sources, largely because they are not informed of their existence, are denied
the chance to examine Soviet proposals for themselves. But then, we have a free
press; don't we?

If our "free press" is unforthcoming, then perhaps we should look at the
'unfree' press of the Soviet Union published in English in the UK in order to
find out what proposals are made or not made, voted for or against, and by whom:

"The Soviet Union solemnly declares that it will never use nuclear weapons
against states which renounce manufacture, acquisition and deployment of such
weapons on their territory."

(Leonid Brezhnev, quoted in Soviet Weekly, London, January 1982.)

The US ignored this declaration. So did the mass media.

The Soviet Union also declared at UN in 1982 that it would not be the first to
use nuclear weapons and proposed that the other member nations declare the same.

"We will never be the first to use nuclear weapons."

(USSR, June 18 1982.)

The US replied the same day:

"For us that is unacceptable."

(White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes, June 18 1982.)

This was adopted by the majority. The US voted against it. The British
government whispered it among themselves. The mass media largely ignored it.

Also in 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev stated that:

"War will not come from the Soviet Union, we will never start a war."

(Mikhail Gorbachev, 1985.)

The US and British governments and NATO uses the argument that the West must
have superiority in nuclear weapons because the Soviet Union has superiority in
conventional weapons. But the Soviet Union has also made a declaration not to be
the first to use nuclear or conventional weapons in Europe.

The US, Britain and NATO uses the argument that the West must have a nuclear
"deterrent" because of a Soviet superiority in tanks. But it is important to
understand that overall there is a rough parity between these kinds of weapons.
The Soviet Union has more tanks, but the West is superior in anti-tank weapons.
So there is more or less parity.

The Warsaw treaty organisation also proposed the following:

"The Warsaw Treaty member states address the member states of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation on the proposal to conclude a treaty on the mutual non-use
of force and on the maintenance of relations of peace..."

(From the Prague Declaration of the Warsaw Treaty Organisation, January 1983.)

The preposterous arguments put forward against unilateral disarmament completely
collapse when you consider the example of Canada:

"We have withdrawn from any nuclear role by Canada's armed forces. We are thus
not only the first country in the world with the capacity to produce nuclear
weapons, who choose not to do so; we are also the first nuclear armed country to
have chosen to divest itself of such weapons."

(Canadian Premier Trudeau, member of NATO, to UN Special Session on Disarmament.
1978.)

The last nuclear weapon on Canadian soil was returned to the US in July 1984. Do
the Canadian people now tremble in fear of a Soviet nuclear attack? And does
anybody in Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain or Portugal lose any sleep at the
thought of finding the streets overrun by Soviet tanks one morning?

And what do the peoples of Grenada, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Laos, Kampuchea, El
Salvador, Dominican Republic, Korea, Lebanon, Libya, Cuba, Haiti, Honduras,
Guatemala, Mexico, Uruguay, Puerto Rico - all of whom have been invaded by US
forces - think of a Soviet threat?

The Soviet threat is a lie. The ridiculous assertion that the Soviet Union or
any other country in the world socialist community presents a military threat to
the capitalist world does not stand up to even two sentences of simple serious
thought.

It shows the sad state of our education that the mass media is able to convince
even one British half-wit that the day after we get rid of US nuclear weapons
from our soil will see Soviet tanks outside Tesco's or a SAM-7 has hit
Sainsbury's.

In no other country, except perhaps the US, has the mass media such control over
public opinion.

"The hard truth is, as my recent visits in both the East and the West have made
clear to me, that many peoples of the world have less fear of the Red Army than
they fear that the United States may rashly precipitate atomic warfare against
which their population centres are utterly defenceless."

(John Foster Dulles, speech at the Annual Dinner of the Conference of Christians
and Jews, May 12 1952.)

"The main reason why a good part of the world does not love us is a double fear
that we will bring about World War III and economic disaster."

(New York Times April 11 1952.)

"There are those who wonder if we do not tend to trap ourselves by saying 'No'
automatically every time the Kremlin says 'Yes' without considering the
consequences."

(New York Times May 11 1952.)

The main reason why the British media so controls the thoughts of the British
people is that they do not want them to realise that the Soviet Union wants
peace and that there is therefore no reason for the arms race forced on them by
the US and impoverishing the British people.

But it is the US dominated capitalist system that continually frustrates the
desire of ordinary people for peace and prosperity.

"Secretary of State Marshall accuses the Soviet Union of waging a propaganda
campaign for peace. This is a curious accusation. Don't we want peace?...

Twice this year Stalin tried for direct peace talks with Truman. Once Truman
tried for a direct peace talk with Stalin. On each occasion the military
diplomats and bankers in uniform moulding American foreign policy prevented a
meeting.

We have the atom bomb. The Russians seem to have a weapon more terrifying: the
peace feeler."

(I.F.Stone, New York Star, Nov 15 1948.)

What is the Soviet viewpoint on the need for military force?:

"In terms of internal conditions, the Soviet Union needs no army. But since the
danger of war coming from the imperialist camp persists, and since complete and
general disarmament has not been achieved, the CPSU considers it necessary to
maintain the defensive power of the Soviet state and the combat preparedness of
its Armed Forces at a level ensuring the decisive and complete defeat of any
enemy who dares to encroach upon the Soviet land."

(From the Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Moscow, 1961.)

US "CONTRIBUTIONS TO PEACE."
One of the many obstacles the US puts in the way of disarmament is that of
verification of nuclear testing. But verification in the USSR is no barrier. US
testing personnel and devices have access to Soviet testing grounds. There is
complete contradiction in US claims anyway. The US claims to have satellite and
other intelligence facilities when it has claimed Soviet testing in the past.
The US cannot make these claims and then create non-existent problems of
verification unless its intelligence is faulty in the first place. If it is,
then the US cannot make such claims as in the past.

"We cannot afford, through any misguided and perilous idea of avoiding an
aggressive attitude, to permit the first blow to be struck against us. Our
government, under such conditions, should press the issue to a prompt political
decision, while making all preparations to strike the first blow if necessary."

(US Joint Chiefs of Staff directives 1496/2 and SWNCC 282.)

"It is still possible, I believe, to fight some wars using conventional forces
that don't involve nuclear weapons... but I think that if you advise potential
opponents in advance that you do not intend to cross certain lines, then you
have almost assured another Vietnam... Any time you get into a war the
possibility that you will use every weapon available has to be left open."

(US Secretary of Defence Weinberger, on being asked if he would have used
nuclear weapons in Vietnam, at his confirmation hearing, Jan 6 1981.)

Since its experience in Vietnam, the US does not believe in fighting a
conventional war, which it cannot sustain and is unlikely to win. It would
switch to nuclear very soon:

"High Military Officers in the Pentagon have been saying they cannot be expected
to fight a conventional war for longer than a few days if millions of Americans
are able to watch it night after night on their television screens. Public
revulsion would create intolerable pressures to scale back or end the fighting
altogether, as happened in Vietnam."

(Washington correspondent of the London Evening Standard, Nov 5 1986.)

Equally fallacious are the twin ideas of a "winnable" and a "limited" nuclear
war expressed by the Carter administration's Directive 59 of July 1980, which
confirmed the US "first Strike" and "limited" and "winnable" nuclear war
policies..

"I regard war as inevitable, and the side which goes into action with the full
force of atomic weapons will win. The future will belong to the side which dares
to wage preventive war. The tension between East and West will continue, and
will only be interrupted by a war. That is why the West, if it wants to beat
Russia, must launch a preventive war using all atomic weapons at its disposal."

(Former Nazi General Bodo Zimmerman, Sunday Express, London, Feb 28 1954.)

"I could see where you could have an exchange of tactical nuclear weapons
against corps in the field without bringing either one of the major powers to
pushing the button."

(Ronald Reagan, Oct 21 1981.)

"You have survivability of command and control, survivability of industrial
potential, protection of a percentage of your citizens, and you have a
capability that inflicts more damage on the opposition than it can inflict on
you. That's the way you can have a winner..."

(George Bush, in a Los Angeles Times interview in 1980, when asked to explain
his statement how a nuclear war could be won.)

The USSR does not believe in the ridiculous US concept of a "winnable",
"limited", and "containable" nuclear war. It would escalate immediately.

"The idea of a "limited" nuclear war is a myth... A nuclear conflict, even if it
starts in Europe, will turn into a general nuclear war within hours, and its
flames will spread to the US too."

(Gene Laroque, Director of the Centre for Defense Information, Washington, in an
interview with a Pravda correspondent, Sept 5 1983.)

"In reality, any war in central Europe would rapidly escalate into an all-out
nuclear war."

(British American Security Information Council.)

The US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency described the Soviet pledge not to be
the first to use nuclear weapons as "unacceptable" to the West "because neutron
weapons might be needed as a last resort".

Talking about the US's cowardly use of neutron weapons, former Pentagon nuclear
strategist Daniel Ellsberg, who was jailed for publishing the "Pentagon Papers",
stated that:

"This warhead is designed to be used advantageously only for first-use against
an adversary who does not have nuclear weapons with which to retaliate: the kind
of opponents we have actually fought in the last thirty years - the Koreans, the
Chinese (before they exploded an atom bomb) and the Indochinese. In the future,
occasions might arise again in Korea or in the Middle East."

(Former US nuclear strategist Daniel Ellsberg.)

"The simple fact of the matter is that... it is possible that with nuclear
weapons there can be some use of them... in connection with what is up to that
time a war solely within a European theatre."

(US Defence Secretary Casper Weinberger, Oct 27 1981.)

"It would be advantageous to use tactical nuclear weapons and chemical weapons
at an early stage.

Options at this stage should include deep nuclear strikes."

(From US Army Training Manual "Airland Battle 86".)

"I made up my mind that the best way to save the lives of those young men - and
those of the Japanese soldiers - was to drop those bombs [on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki] and end the war. I did it. And I would say to you I would do it again
if I had to."

(US President Truman, May 10 1950.)

"He would not hesitate to use the atom bomb if it were necessary for the welfare
of the United States."

(The Times April 8 1949.)

"General Eisenhower said that he was concerned at the apparently growing opinion
that the United States should never drop the atom bomb first. 'To my mind the
use of the atom bomb would be on this basis: Does it advantage me or does it
not, when I get into a war? If I thought the net gain was on my side, I would
use it instantly.'"

(US Senate Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Joint Committee, March 11 1951.
Daily Telegraph March 13 1951.)

"I would request the use of theatre nuclear weapons at a time when I could not
accomplish my mission conventionally."

(NATO Supreme Commander in Europe, US General Rogers, two days after the Soviet
Union's "no first use" pledge at the UN.)

"They (the Soviets) can expect to lose many times over the twenty million they
lost in World War two they keep talking about in every speech. They have to
think that the number of losses will be multiplied many times over and not that
we plan just to take out missile silos in Siberia."

(US Senator Glen, during Senate hearings on nuclear war strategy.)

Similar contempt for people and disdain for human lives was also expressed in
the remark that:

"You can have a limited nuclear war. The USA has already fought such a war, in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Japanese not only lived through it but are
flourishing."

(Eugene Rostow, director of US Arms Control and Development Agency.)

As the secret "Pentagon Papers" published in 1971 show, the US
military-political leadership seriously considered a "pre-emptive" nuclear
strike in Vietnam in order to "hasten the end of the war".

Henry Kissinger's memoirs also reveal that Denis Healey as a member of NATO's
Nuclear Planning Group also argued for early use of nuclear weapons long before
Ronald Reagan was anywhere near the White House or Mrs. Thatcher near
Parliament.

Who profits from peace?

As we have seen; in the socialist countries nobody profits from an arms race;
everybody suffers, everybody loses; while everybody gains from peace and
disarmament.

In the West however, it is quite the opposite. Although "defence" costs the
average British family some £24 a week (1985 figures); not everybody loses:

"France and England must have a large enough credit in the United States to
prevent the collapse of world trade... Perhaps our going to war is the only way
in which our present prominent trade position can be maintained and a panic
averted."

(Walter H Page, US Ambassador in London, 1917.)

"A 'peace scare' seized the New York Stock Exchange last night, causing
considerable selling. Prices declined, especially in steel securities and the
so-called 'war securities'."

(News Chronicle March 16 1940.)

"Only an improved international situation can dim the business outlook."

(Journal of Commerce March 23 1948.)

"In a lot of ways, World War Two was not hell for the US... the elimination of
unemployment, the general increase in incomes, the boom in business..."

(From "Economic Consequences of a Third World War." in Business Week, NY, No.
973, April 24 1948.)

"Peace if it really arrived would upset things. At present arms expenditure and
aid to other countries are bolstering business."

(US News and World Report Dec 31 1948.)

"Just when people thought the boom might be tapering off, the war in Korea set
off a new boom. It's really a made-to-order situation to keep business at a high
level."

(US News and World Report, summer 1950.)

"The possibility of peace talks on Korea interrupted Wall Street's recovery
today and caused a fair sized set back."

(The Times March 26 1951.)

"The possibility of a temporary truce haunts United States policy planners."

(Business Week April 12 1951.)

"The foreigh policies of this country, Britain and France have now entered a
truly agonising crisis. The cause is the so-called peace offensive now being
carried on by the masters of the Kremlin."

(Washington Post April 16 1951.)

"Sudden peace could work havoc with business."

(New York Times May 20 1951.)

"The coincidence between the boom and the conclusion of the Paris Treaties, and
the obvious connection between the rise in share values... and France's
agreement to the rearmament of West Germany... the buyers expect that arms
contracts... will lead to an increase in profits and thus to higher dividends.
The stock exchange thus counts in advance on an arms boom and regards this
development as guaranteed."

(Frankfurter Rundschau, Jan 3 1955.)

"Peace would pull the props from beneath the entire economic structure."

(US News and World Report.)

And there was a boom on the Tokyo stock exchange when the Korean war started.

Completely ignoring the USSR's "no first use" pledge at the UN, Ronald Reagan
spoke of his own "contribution to peace" and makes the assertion that "we were
never the aggressors".

Then why does he force Europe to accept such NATO concepts as "first strike",
"demonstration shots", "preventive strikes", and "launch on warning"?

Reagan's "contributions to peace include denying visas to what he called "left
wing" delegates to UN disarmament talks; including Romesh Chandra, chairman of
the World Peace Council at Helsinki. The US also refused visas to over 300
people to attend the UN Special Session on Disarmament in 1982.

More US "contributions to peace" include:

UN resolutions:

Resolution:US voting.

Ruling out direct or indirect use of force against any country in Central
America or Caribbean by any member state of the UN:VETOED.

Keep UN Security Council informed about events in Central America and
Caribbean:AGAINST.

Halt production and eliminate stockpiling of nuclear weapons:AGAINST.

Against development of nuclear weapons in states where they are not sited at
present:AGAINST.

Prohibition of neutron weapons:AGAINST.

Reaching agreement on total banning of nuclear tests:AGAINST.

Resume Soviet-US talks on chemical warfare:AGAINST.

Calling on states to refrain from production of binary and other chemical
weapons and not deploying such in other countries:AGAINST.

On banning cooperation with South Africa and Israel in nuclear weapons
field:AGAINST.

Condemning Israel's attack on Iraq's nuclear research installations:AGAINST.

In voting against virtually every recent UN disarmament proposal, the British
Government has consistently frustrated the peaceful plans and development of
every region of the world:

Proposal:Sponsor For Against Abstain UK vote.

Additional Protocol 1 of the Treaty of the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in
Latin America: Mexico135 0 9 FOR.

Cessation of all test explosions of nuclear weapons:Mexico 119 2 26 AGAINST.

Urgent need for comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty:Australia and New Zealand
117 0 29 ABSTAIN.

Establishment of a Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone in the region of the Middle East:
Egypt Consensus FOR.

Establishment of a nuclear weapon-free zone in South Asia: Pakistan 94 3 46
ABSTAIN.

Conclusion of an international convention on the strengthening of the security
of non-nuclear states against the use or threat of nuclear weapons: Bulgaria 108
17 15 AGAINST.

Prevention of an arms race in outer space: Sri Lanka/Egypt 147 1 1 ABSTAIN.

Immediate cessation and prohibition of nuclear weapons tests: USSR 118 4 24
AGAINST.

Freeze on nuclear weapons: India 124 15 7 AGAINST.

Nuclear arms freeze: Mexico and Sweden 124 13 8 AGAINST.

Condemnation of nuclear war:USSR 95 19 30 AGAINST.

Nuclear weapon freeze: USSR 108 18 20 AGAINST.

Implementation of the declaration on the denuclearisation of Africa: Sierra
Leone 142 0 6 ABSTAIN.

(Hansard July 30 1984.)

At the UN, of 157 member states, only one country voted against a resolution
calling on nations to refrain from production of chemical weapons and deployment
in states which do not have them at present. That same country possesses around
300,000 tons of such weapons and is producing new types tested on Afghanistan
and El Salvador. That country was the US.

2,000 tons of chemical weapons is at present stored in West Germany for
deployment in Britain and Italy.

What is it for? How would it be used?

"This would be done largely by dropping waste materials. The zone would be such
that no life would survive there. It could remain as a barrier if necessary for
years."

(The Daily Mail, Dec 18 1954, speaking of a planned creation of a radio-active
zone at the beginning of a war in West Germany.)

"Under such circumstances biological weapons are a weapon which can considerably
increase the effects of war on the civilian population. It is thus conceivable
that large parts of the population of an industrial area should be infected with
fatal or crippling biological material... Perhaps the germ of pest, typhus or
cholera... There are also many types of material designed to infect animals or
effect vegetation..."

(US General William M. Creasy, chief of the Department of Biological and
Chemical Warfare of the United States Army, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
Dec 24 1954.)

The paper goes on to describe the effects of radiation, regarding Hiroshima:

"...in the past year out of a total of 30,000 births more than 8,500 were not
normal, nearly 4,500 new born babies died immediately after birth, 500 were born
dead and over 3,600 were monsters or idiots. Some had no eyes or no brain,
others had deformed heads."

(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Dec 24 1954.)

What is this stockpile of chemical, biological and radiation weapons really for?
The unemployed? Communists? Social upheaval? Chemical warfare is no good against
modern military forces who are protected against chemical warfare. It could only
be of use against civilians. It is therefore most suitable in times of social
unrest - for class warfare.

The perfect capitalist weapon is the Neutron bomb. It destroys human life but
leaves capital intact. The effects of financing it has the opposite effect on
Third World economies: it leaves people alive but destroys their wealth.

At the UN in 1963, the Soviet Union tabled a Draft Convention banning
development, production and use of chemical and biological warfare. The US and a
number of other capitalist countries refused even to discuss the matter.

In 1975 the USSR, USA and Britain stated to the UN Disarmament Committee that
they had no biological weapon stocks. In 1980 attempts were made to accuse the
Soviet Union of violating this. The Soviet Union again formally stated that it
does not possess any bacteriological agents, toxins, weapons, equipment or means
of delivering such weapons as named in the Convention.

The US makes such fabrications in order to justify its own production and
stockpiling of such weapons.

US President Carter assigned $2.47 billion for a new chemical warfare programme.
Later $4 billion was allocated.

The US is now armed with aircraft containers with agents for bubonic plague,
anthrax and encephalitis. US stocks of nerve gas run to tens of thousands of
tons.

The US did not ratify the 1925 Geneva Gas Protocol until 1975.

"The US is not a party to any treaty now in force, that prohibits or restricts
the use in warfare of toxic or non-toxic gases, or of bacteriological warfare."

(From: US Army Field Manual "The Law of Land Warfare.")

The US broke off talks on production of chemical weapons in 1980.

On a UN Emergency Session on Palestine resolution ending Israeli aggression, 129
countries voted in favour; two voted against: the US and Israel.

Fed up with having to make all these tiresome "contributions to peace", Ronald
Reagan said at the UN in June 1982:

"We need deeds not words."

(Ronald Reagan, at UN June 1982.)

As we shall see in a later chapter; Reagan's "deeds not words" include:

Supplying El Salvador's junta with chemical weapons, cluster and phosphorus
bombs.

Supplying Pakistan with similar weapons for use by Afghan "rebels".

Supplying Thailand with chemical shells for use against Kampuchea.

Supplying Pakistan with facilities for spreading viruses via mosquitos into
Afghanistan.

Spreading biological diseases among the crops, animals, and people of Cuba.

Finally; the Soviet proposals to rid the world of nuclear weapons by the end of
the century have been largely ignored by the capitalist world and its media;
which invariably dismisses Soviet disarmament proposals as "propaganda".

"If all that we are doing is indeed viewed as mere propaganda, why not respond
to it according to the principle of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth"? We have stopped nuclear explosions. Then you Americans could take
revenge by doing likewise. You could deal us yet another propaganda blow, say,
by suspending the development of one of your new strategic missiles. And we
would respond with the same kind of "propaganda". And so on and so forth. Would
anyone be harmed by competition in such "propaganda"?"

(Mikhail Gorbachev, in an interview with Time Magazine, Sept 1985.)

But the Soviet Union is here to stay; and cannot be ignored:

"Whoever desires peace and seeks to enter into businesslike relations with us
can always count on our support. But those who might attempt to attack our
country... will meet with a crushing defeat. The gentlemen of the bourgeoisie
will only have themselves to blame if some governments dear to them which still
by the grace of God firmly hold the reigns of government will be missing on the
day after such a war."

(XVIIth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1934.)

Adolf Hitler found this out ten years later. And so did the British Municheers
and appeasers. And it is no less true today.

Unfortunately, American Presidents only seem to sober up in old age:

"When we get to the point, as we one day will, that both sides know that in any
outbreak of general hostilities, regardless of the element of surprise,
destruction will be both reciprocal and complete, possibly we will have sense
enough to meet at the conference table with the understanding that the era has
ended and the human race mush conform its actions to this truth or die."

(Eisenhower, April 1956, in Washington post Sept 1983.)

"Under certain circumstances likely to develop in Europe, we may be forced to
make first use of nuclear weapons. We will never be able to put into effect our
joint plans in this vital area unless quite exceptional efforts are made to
check European tendencies towards neutralism, pacifism and unilateralism. To
achieve this it is necessary, I feel, to emphasise the theme that the nuclear
weapons balance, particularly in the European theatre, has changed sharply in
favour of the East.

(Supreme Commander of NATO Alexander Haig, in a letter to ex Dutch Nazi
Secretary of NATO Joseph Lunz on the eve of his retirement, June 1979.)

In the Pentagon's military propaganda booklet "Soviet Military Power," from
which most defence or peace 'experts' take most of their material, Soviet
defence spending is completely falsifies by translating Soviet GNP in roubles
into dollars and determining how much it would cost to maintain the Soviet armed
forces at US dollar rates. This mythical Soviet defence budget as a percentage
of its GNP is then compared with the US defence budget and given as a reason to
extend it.

"A ruble estimate is calculated and the figure is made public, but no
dollar-ruble average is presebted. Press releases, hearings and media coverage
ignore it and concentrate on the dollar comparison. This exaggerates Soviet
military spending relative to America's - as the CIA has often admitted.

But a proper accounting and interpretation of both sides' military outlays
indicates that the West outspent the Eastern bolc by $740 billion from 1971
through 1980. Actually Mr. Reagan was off by more than $1, trillion."

(US Professor of Economics and Fellow at the Russian Research Centre at Harvard
University Franklyn Holzman, in International Herald Tribune, March 8 1986.)

"In March, 1978, the World Bank was asked to differentiate between the two
economic systems. The answer they gave was: 'The Russian GNP is estimated at
41-7 per cent of the United States GNP, and the combined GNPs of Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Poland and East Germany are about 55 per cent of the GNP of West
Germany.' This paints a very different picture indeed of the comparative arms
spending of the two blocs."

(Hansard Parliamentary Record, March 14 1978.)

"Let us take first the proposition that Soviet military expenditure exceeds that
of the United States... The Soviet Union itself produces for its own military
expenditure one single figure, 17-2 thousand million roubles with no further
explanation. There is no exchange rate within the bounds of possibility which
could convert this into a figure which exceeds the US figure for military
expenditure of 105 thousand million dollars at current prices...

There is not much doubt that if it were possible to value US military
expenditure at Soviet prices, which is the other half of a proper compatison
between the two countries, then US military expenditure valued in roubles would
exceed that of the Soviet Union... when the is made between any other forms of
expenditure in the two countries - health expenditure, education expenditure, or
the national product as a whole - the difference between the dollar based and
rouble based estimates is very big."

(SIPRI Yearbook 1979.)

"The CIA calculates that Soviet and American military expenditure are about
equal. In this computation they recognise the irrelevance of Soviet statistics:
the agency's analysts calculate how much it would cost the United States, at
current American prices, to acquire the weapons and manpower of the USSR... That
seems to be a sensible way to compare our two countries' military spending..."

(Washington Post journalist Robert Kaiser, in "Russia. The People and the
Power.")

This is at least an honest attempt. But it is still basically flawed. The ruble
is stable and there is no inflation in the USSR; nor are there any profits to
push the prices up. The only scientific way to compare would be to use the
labour theory of value in both cases.

"We and our allies invest approximately 25 per cent more in defense than the
Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact."

(US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Florida, Oct 26 1979.)

The same Pentagon booklet "Soviet Military Power" omits the 40 percent of US
numerical strength such as the National Guard, reserves etc, but includes all
similar Soviet units. It also understates American B-52 bombers by over 300. It
states them as 241; but SALT-2 stated them as 574, and none have been phased out
since then at the time the book was printed.

"You were talking about the Russians being able to do this and that. As a result
of this philosophy of what the Russians could do, a few years ago we developed
the bomber gap, and later we were told there was no bomber gap.

As a result of this same reasoning as to what the Russians could do, we
developed the missile gap... Now we come along later and everyone says there
never was a missile gap.

Now, are you by this testimony opening up a so-called megatonnage gap which will
never occur and which will be just as phoney as the bomber and missile gap."

(George Mahan, Chairman of US Congresional Inquiry in 1956, to US General Curtis
Lemay.)

"This is entirely possible, Mr. Chairman."

(General Curtis Lemay, in answer to the above question.)



British history books - balanced, objective, unbiased?

British school, college and university syllabus books do not contain any of this
information.

All the material and information I have presented here is not made readily
available or even obvious to historians, writers, journalists, teachers,
educators and syllabus publishers. Although I have spent many hundreds of hours
gathering it all together, I did not have to look very far to find any of it.

Many of the books I researched for this work are no longer on the shelves, if
they ever were, of most libraries and bookshops, even college and university
history libraries; except perhaps in very few left wing bookshops, labour
movement archives and museums and libraries, and private collections. Some are
even marked "Restricted Circulation." or for "British Forces Personnel Only." It
is suspected that many that disappeared were bought up in the 1970s and 80s and
destroyed. Most of this kind of material is not only subtly suppressed by the
library distribution system, and certainly by our schools and colleges, but more
'forgotten' by Western historians, publishers, booksellers and libraries. Some
can only be seen at the British Museum Library and are not, nor have been, in
general library circulation. The excuse given is that they are "not called for".
Most are not included in the bibliographies of British history books and
therefore the existence of them is not known; which is one reason why they are
"not called for."

When as a trainee history lecturer, it was suggested I take the class on a trip
to the Tower of London and then set them an essay on what life was like for a
soldier in King Charles' Army centuries ago. Very useful knowledge that! A
sociology of the past perhaps? But certainly not history in its most important
sense; unless history is to mean anything old or 'interesting' that you can do
in evening classes, like antiques, flower arranging or basket weaving. When
instead I taught real history, learning from the past in order to change the
future, the collective life-experience of humanity, I was got rid of. The head
of the history department complained that the students had remarked that I made
them think; which the head of history had probably never done in a lifetime of
teaching. I ended up washing and cleaning and emptying human surgical waste in a
hospital.

Unless teachers learn to be brave and intellectually honest (difficult when they
have a mortgage and bills to pay), future historical, social and economic
education and popular 'knowledge' will also not refer to the US or British
history and continuing complicity in global plunder, exploitation, domination
and control, wars of aggrandisement and acquisition, causing the deaths and
devastation of the homes and lands of millions of people - the thousands of
children under the age of two who will die tonight through simple lack of food,
clean water, medicine and education - the untold millions of unnecessary deaths
among the overwhelming majority of humanity on this incredibly rich and abundant
and ultimately sustainable earth.

From Brian Mitchell. Evolution.

Responses and criticisms welcomed.

Reply to my personal e-mail if you prefer.

My replies to criticisms will be posted.



.



"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our
minds."
(Bob Marley, Redemption song.)

"The most remarkable thing about the world is that you can understand it."
(Einstein.)

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set I go
into the other room and read a book."
(Groucho Marx.)

"Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice against anyone,
anywhere in the world."
(Ernesto (Che) Guevara, in a letter to his children, a few months before he was
killed.)

"The man who never made a mistake never made anything."
(GK Chesterton.)


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