In his very hopeful address to the closing session of the United Nations founding conference in San Francisco on June 26, 1945, President Harry S. Truman sounded a note of warning. “ All fascism did not die with Mussolini. Hitler is finished but the seeds spread by his disordered mind have firm root in too many fanatical brains. It is easier to remove tyrants and destroy concentration camps than it is to kill the ideas which gave them birth and strength.”
As the generation that bore that battle sadly passes from the living into history’s shadows so too does the living memory of the prodigious horror wrought by Hitler’s ambition to “Make Germany Great Again,” Mussolini’s to “Make Italy Great Again,” and Tojo’s to “Make Japan Great Again.”
With the receding of the World War II generation the bitter lessons about hyper nationalism and fascism they learned the hard way on Omaha Beach and lwo Jima are being forgottenhere at home by their descendants.
The importance of prosperous, democratic allies was clear to Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and most others of that time. The Marshall Plan, conceived by Truman and his Secretary of State George Marshall to help get war-stricken Europe back on its feet, was a generous act but it also acknowledged the fact that the treaty that ended World War I created desperate conditions in Germany that became fertile ground for an Adolph Hitler to exploit. Wise to not repeat that.
In their enlightened self interest, our leaders of that time understood we needed trading partners. American goods needed markets. Winston Churchill envisioned modern Europe without tariffs and with a close association to the U.S.
A revitalized, democratic Europe would also help the U.S. counter the Soviet Union, re-emerging after the war as a threat and no longer an ally. On April 4, 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was established, providing for the common defense of the U.S., Canada and Western Europe.
A great student of history, Truman believed that had such an organization existed in 1914 and 1939 two murderous world wars would have been avoided. He ranked the Marshall Plan and NATO as two of his proudest presidential achievements and he thought they would stand the test of time. They have.
World class whiner Donald Trump’s deepening estrangement from our democratic allies in Europe and elsewhere is historically stupid. His affection for brutal dictators would disturb all of our post World War II leaders.
Like British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returning in 1938 from meeting Hitler in Munich claiming to have achieved “peace for our time,” Trump says we can all sleep well now that he has chummed it up with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Unfortunately Trump returned from Singapore with even less than Chamberlain returned from Munich with. We contained the Soviet Union. We can contain North Korea.
Columnist Mary McGrory wrote the day after Truman’s 1972 funeral, “He did not require to be loved. He did not expect to be followed blindly. Congressional opposition never struck him as subversive, nor did he regard his critics as traitors. He never blamed reporters for his failures. He never whined.”
Harry Truman was a president. Donald Trump is a compulsive liar and a con man.
Marty Ansley
Cinebar
