The 1948 Reagan Speech the Republicans REALLY Don't Want You to Hear

[Fearless]

[Jamaal510]

1. If only THAT Reagan

had governed the country instead of the trickle-down, race-baiting Reagan.

[jakeXT]

2. 5 feet more and no Truman ?

Case number one: if Henry Wallace had won the vice presidential nomination in 1944, he would have become president when Roosevelt died in 1945, and we probably would not have bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and could have avoided the cold war as well. It’s a startling and intriguing argument. Usually we teach about Wallace as the hopeless, left-wing third-party candidate of 1948, when he split from the Democrats and ran on the Progressive Party ticket. McCarthyism had already taken hold of American politics, and Wallace was redbaited into a crushing defeat.

Four years earlier, however, the situation was very different: Wallace was Roosevelt’s incumbent vice president, and the Soviets were our allies. A Gallup poll in July 1944 asked likely Democratic voters whom they wanted on the ticket as veep. Sixty-five percent said Wallace, while Truman came in eighth, with just 2 percent. Roosevelt announced that, were he a delegate, he would vote for Wallace. Claude Pepper, a Democratic senator from Florida, tried to nominate Wallace at the convention, but the conservative party bosses, who opposed him, adjourned the proceedings. “Had Pepper made it five more feet (to the microphone) and nominated Wallace,” Stone argues, “Wallace would have become president in 1945 and…there might have been no atomic bombings, no nuclear arms race, and no Cold War.”

Case number two: even with Truman as president in 1945, it was not a foregone conclusion that the United States would drop the bomb. Generals Eisenhower and MacArthur both opposed it, along with most of the other top generals and admirals—and they were joined by many of the scientists who had developed the bomb. If only President Truman had listened to them…

http://www.thenation.com/article/171210/oliver-stones-untold-history#

[wolfie001]

5. Soviet satellites would still have suffered.

Stalin's cruelty would not have been tempered by a Wallace. East/West tension in 1944 was being felt in neutrals like Sweden/Switzerland. Still being felt in 2014 with Putanized Ukraine. How long the Military Govt would've held out in Japan is a matter of debate but surrender wasn't in the cards before the ABombs. Lots of holes in this block of cheese.

[happyslug]

7. Where are you getting this history from?????

Wallace, in a letter to Truman written in the 1950s, pointed out they was little difference in what both men stood for, but biggest difference was one of method (Truman had come up through a "big city", Kansas City, Democratic machine and understood what such machines needed from the Federal Government, something Wallace never did understand and the reason he was denied the Vice Presidency in 1944). Thus Wallace would have done almost everything Truman had done between 1945-1953, maybe with a different tack, but the same net results (In fact, integration may have slowed down under a President Wallace, Wallace had NOT served in the Military and more comfortable with the farmers of the South then the inner City Democratic Bosses of the North. Wallace would have personally opposed racism and segregation, but he would try to avoid those issues to keep his more rural allies, many from the American South, Happy, just like FDR had done and for the same reason.

As to that Atomic Bombing, those had been planned at least a year before. The US had started to bomb Japanese Cities in late 1943, intensified in 1944, but five cities were "Spared" this bombing. Those were the cities reserved for atomic bombs. The Air Force wanted to see what the bomb could do and not have to worry about damage from previous conventional bombings. When asked by Truman, the US military told him these were all Military Targets. When a civilian Church Group contacted Truman after the second bombing and told him how many children would have died in a similar bombing of a similar US City, Truman Ordered no further bombing. The Order was not needed for the next bomb was only ready about August 28th, 14 days after the Japanese Surrender.

My point is the Targets had been set under FDR. FDR may have had input into those targets but may not have, but they were already set when Truman became President in April 1945. Truman had to deal with the end of the war in Europe and then meet with Stalin at Potsdam in July 1945. Truman had to deal with the demands of US troops in Europe to go home AND not then go to Japan.

Of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all were in favor on using the Atomic bombs till July, when Air Force General Hap Arnold became convinced the fire bombing of Japan would be sufficient. As to Eisenhower, he was in Command of the European Theater and his only question was how many could be made. If the answer was just a couple, he question their usability. If many, you could have a game changer in war. Now, the actual use on Japan, Eisenhower did not object but also pointed out Japan was defeated already and all that was needed was to look for a way for Japan to surrender and save face. In many ways the Atomic bombing did that, it made Japan look like a victim instead of a villain.

As to MacArthur, the Invasion of Japan had been assigned to General Stillwell, who had been in command of US forces in Burma and China. MacArthur appears to be tied down in the Philippines in 1945 (Japanese Forces were still fighting in the Philippines when Japan Surrendered on August 15, 1945). MacArthur's position was NOT that the Atomic bombing was unnecessary, but that the Atomic Bombing accomplished nothing. The better solution would have been an offer of surrender, with Japan retaining its Emperor. Something agreed to by the US, as Soviet forces took over most of Manchuria and headed for Korea.

The US changed its requirements of Japanese Surrender as the Soviet Army took Manchuria in August 1945. Records from the time period indicate the internal pressure on the Japanese Government to surrender came from the success of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria NOT the atomic bombings. The first bombing occurred on August 6, The Soviet Invasion occurred on August 8 (three months to the official day of Germany's surrender, as was agreed to by Stalin at Yalta). It was the invasion by Soviet Forces that pushed Japan to surrender on August 15th. By August 15, it was clear Soviet Forces would have all of Manchuria by September 1, and Korea by no later then October 1. This was the largest single land offensive of WWII. In many ways, it was Stalin's Answer to the Atomic Bomb.

On top of this, the Soviet Union also had plans to invade the northern most island of Japan on November 1, 1945 on the same day the US was planning to invade the Southernmost Main Island. The US claims NOT to have known of the Soviet invasion plan, but the US had turned over the largest number of lend-lease ships, including invasion crafts in the Summer of 1945. Russia would used these assets to take the Kuril islands, but they would also have permitted a Soviet Invasion of Japan's northern most island. Thus the US knew of the plans, till they saw what the Soviet did in Manchuria the US may NOT have believed it, but afterward it is clear the US understood the Soviet Union could take the northernmost main island of Japan.

Quotes on the Atomic Bombing:

http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm


Japanese use of Gas in China:
http://chinajapan.org/articles/05.1/05.1wakabayashi4-10.pdf

http://www.scmp.com/article/244833/new-evidence-japan-gas-use

More on the Planned Invasion of Japan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

Japan's plans of Defense:
http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/arens/chap4.htm

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/war.term/olympic.html

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/the-final-months-of-the-war-with-japan-signals-intelligence-u-s-invasion-planning-and-the-a-bomb-decision/

Here is a war Gaming Site on Operation Downfall:
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_downfall1.html
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_downfall2.html
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_downfall3.html
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_downfall4.html

Home page for the above site:
http://www.historyofwar.org/index.html

More on the Russian Invasion, Operation August Storm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_August_Storm

US Decision to use Gas on Japan:
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p12_Weber.html

US Decision to drop the Atomic Bomb:
http://www.doug-long.com/debate.htm

More cites with reports from the time period as to use or non-use of the bomb:
http://www.doug-long.com/

http://www.dannen.com/decision/index.html

More on the decision to Surrender:
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Tsuyoshi-Hasegawa/2501

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/08/07/why_did_japan_surrender/

http://csis.org/blog/how-influential-were-atomic-bombings-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-japanese-decision-surrender

http://personal.ashland.edu/~jmoser1/japsurrender.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Japans-Decision-Surrender-Robert-Butow/dp/0804704600

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3641184?uid=3739864&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103063124437

http://warincontext.org/2013/05/31/stalin-not-the-bomb-made-japan-surrender-ending-ww2/

http://www.zcommunications.org/japans-surrender-decision-and-the-monarchy-by-herbert-bix.html


http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-diplo&month=0007&week=d&msg=7K5bg/zFG7N/ht36DHZaMA&user=&pw=

Fear of a Communist Revolution in Japan:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07075332.2012.742450#.Up_Nd9JDvi4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Starvation

[jakeXT]

8. Maybe someone who had been VP during the war wouldn't believe it

When asked by Truman, the US military told him these were all Military Targets.

It took Truman a couple of years and the execution of a president to question the CIA

The Washington Post
December 22, 1963 - page A11

Harry Truman Writes:
Limit CIA Role To Intelligence
By Harry S Truman
Copyright, 1963, by Harry S Truman
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INDEPENDENCE, MO., Dec. 21 — I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency—CIA. At least, I would like to submit here the original reason why I thought it necessary to organize this Agency during my Administration, what I expected it to do and how it was to operate as an arm of the President.

I think it is fairly obvious that by and large a President's performance in office is as effective as the information he has and the information he gets. That is to say, that assuming the President himself possesses a knowledge of our history, a sensitive understanding of our institutions, and an insight into the needs and aspirations of the people, he needs to have available to him the most accurate and up-to-the-minute information on what is going on everywhere in the world, and particularly of the trends and developments in all the danger spots in the contest between East and West. This is an immense task and requires a special kind of an intelligence facility.

Of course, every President has available to him all the information gathered by the many intelligence agencies already in existence. The Departments of State, Defense, Commerce, Interior and others are constantly engaged in extensive information gathering and have done excellent work.

But their collective information reached the President all too frequently in conflicting conclusions. At times, the intelligence reports tended to be slanted to conform to established positions of a given department. This becomes confusing and what's worse, such intelligence is of little use to a President in reaching the right decisions.
Therefore, I decided to set up a special organization charged with the collection of all intelligence reports from every available source, and to have those reports reach me as President without department "treatment" or interpretations.

I wanted and needed the information in its "natural raw" state and in as comprehensive a volume as it was practical for me to make full use of it. But the most important thing about this move was to guard against the chance of intelligence being used to influence or to lead the President into unwise decisions—and I thought it was necessary that the President do his own thinking and evaluating.

Since the responsibility for decision making was his—then he had to be sure that no information is kept from him for whatever reason at the discretion of any one department or agency, or that unpleasant facts be kept from him. There are always those who would want to shield a President from bad news or misjudgments to spare him from being "upset."

For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas.

I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations. Some of the complications and embarrassment I think we have experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue—and a subject for cold war enemy propaganda.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x506785

[aaaaaa5a]

3. Reagan only changed parties in the 1960s because he opposed the civil rights movement.

What this really shows is the power of race in America. And how racism is the giant pink elephant in the room for every thing that is politics in this country. Think of the number of working class whites who see declining wages, no healthcare, pay inequality and no upward mobility, but still vote GOP, because the Democrats are the part of minorities.


The political history of Ronald Reagan is a perfect dichotomy of modern American politics. And how racial hatred exploited by the GOP over the last 45 years, destroyed the best political course for all of its USA citizens, black and white.

[weissmam]

4. with out the southern strategy

where would the GOP be today, even with it, taken ino account the changing demographic in the US (thats inevitable) where will tehg GOP of today be in 20 years (ten years even)

[liberal from boston]

6. Ronald Reagan

Amazing that Reagan was a Union member & it was his presidency that began the destruction of Unions. Sad that Reagan was a sell out & that his failed economic & foreign policies are still being promoted by the GOP.