Quotations
from the book
Rollback
Right-wing Power in U.S. Foreign Policy
by Thomas Bodenheimer and Robert Gould
published by South End Press, 1989
... a shadowy international ring of right-wing zealots, free-enterprise
ideologues with a sizable streak of monetary greed. ... This international
conglomerate includes CIA and ex-CIA operatives, representatives
of the military-industrial complex, foreign govemments, anti-communist
ideologues in such organizations as the World Anti-Communist League,
Third World death squad organizers, international narcotics and
arms dealers, and counter-revolutionaries displaced from social
revolutions in such places as China, Cuba and Nicaragua. Contragate
figures related to this network include Lt. Col. Oliver North,
retired Maj. Gens. Richard Secord and John Singlaub, the late
CIA Director William Casey and Nicaraguan contra leader Adolfo
Calero. We call this grouping the global rollback network ..
***
Rollback or global rollback seeks the deliberate overthrow
of the Soviet Union and of other nations seen as unfriendly to
the United States. Selective rollback seeks the deliberate overthrow
of particular (mainly Third World) nations but not of the Soviet
Union or the Eastern Bloc.
***
Historically, right-wing means conservative or reactionary,
with the term deriving from the French Revolution. In the French
National Assembly of 1789, the conservative nobility sat on the
presidents's right while the liberal commoners sat on the the
left. Analogously, we roughly define the U.S. right wing as those
forces that embrace a reactionary world view i.e. those wanting
the world to retum to the time when communism did not exist which
means global rollback.
***
... under Reagan, an apparatus was established whose actions
could be plausibly denied not only by the president but by the
CIA as well.
***
[During the Korean War, General Douglas] MacArthur, supported
by Senator [Howard] Taft and the right wing, had wanted to extend
the rollback policy into China; his plan was a naval blockade
of China, air bombardment - possibly with atomic weapons- of Chinese
industry, troop deployment points, and supply depots, followed
possibly by an invasion by Chiang Kaishek. Insubordinate to his
Commander-in-Chief Harry Truman, MacArthur continued to make public
statements supporting the rollback of North Korea and extension
of the war to China. On April 10, Truman was forced to fire him.
When MacArthur returned to the United States half a million people
greeted him in San Francisco and equally massive welcomes took
place in Washington and New York. The public outcry against Truman
was huge, including the considerahon of his impeachment by the
Republican Right.
***
With the Republican victory [1952], it appeared that global
rollback would become U.S. foreign policy. After winning the election,
Eisenhower set up study groups to work out U.S. politico-military
strategy, resulting in the policy document NSC-162. Three alternatives
were considered: 1) to continue Truman's containment doctrine,
2) to draw a line around the globe and let the Soviets know that
if they crossed the line they would be directly attacked by nuclear
weapons (nuclear containment) , and 3) substitution of rollback
for containment, with a vigorous program of political, psychological,
and economic warfare against the communist world along with paramilitary
measures such as the infiltration of agents and saboteurs.
***
... rollback operations in China and the Third World became
official U.S. policy. Selective rollback was intstitutionalized
as a covert policy residing within the Central Intelligence Agency.
***
... selective rollback actions directed at governments that
were socialist, nationalist, or simply uncooperative with U.S.
business interests, remained as a constant, generally covert,
feature of U.S. foreign policy [after World War II].
***
The right wing sees the world as a simple, bipolar battleground
between the forces of freedom and justice led by the United States
and the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union. The Soviet
empire is bent on world conquest, thus, in order to protect and
defend freedom, the Soviet empire must be destroyed. There is
no room for negotiation. There is no room for comprimise, There
is no room for two social systems on the face of this earth.
***
"The Soviet Union underlies all the unrest that is going
on. If they weren't engaged in this game of dominoes, there wouldn't
be any hotspots in the world."
President Ronald Reagan
***
" I don't think Star Wars is feasible and I don't think
anyone takes it seriously. It's just a device to make the Russians
go broke. But we'll go broke too. It's very much a a John Wayne
standoff."
Isaac Asimov
***
"I don't think we should do anything to take the strain
off the Soviet people under conditions of the chronic failure
of Soviet agriculture."
Jeane Kirkpatrick
***
Third World insurgency has been so closely identified with
the Reagan Administration that it is now called the "Reagan
Doctrine."
*****
The Global Rollback Network from Chiang Kai-shek to Oliver
North
" Create and exploit troublesome problems for International
Communism, impair relations between the USSR and Communist China
and between them and their satellites, complicate control within
the USSR, Communist China and their satellites...Counter any threat
of a party or individuals directly or indirectly responsive to
communist control to achieve dominant power in a free world country..
In areas dominated or threatened by International Communism, develop
underground resistance and facilitate covert and guerrilla operations..."
General guidelines for covert operations in President Dwight
Eisenhower's 1955 directive NSC-5412/2
***
The drug trade run though Air America blossomed. As well as
supplying the habits of the addicts that at one point comprised
over 5 percent of the U.S. armed forces, heroin from the "Golden
Triangle" came home to hook tens of thousands of U.S. citizens.
Most of the drugs came through Florida via anti-Castro Cuban networks
working with the Trafficante organization ...
***
... the Nugan Hand Bank in Australia, ... would provide a
secret source of funding over the next few years for U.S. covert
operations, including the destabilization of the Australian Labor
Party and possibly the South Africa-backed Savimbi insurgency
in Angola... Former CIA Director William Colby served as a lawyer
for Nugan Hand. The bank reportedly laundered money for Suharto
of Indonesia, provided services for Marcos of the Philippines,
and assisted the Shah in shifting money out of Iran.
***
" From the first day in office, the Reagan White House
knew - beyond any reasonable doubt - that Roberto d'Aubuisson
planned and ordered the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo
Romero. The administration of President Carter classified ex-Maj.
Roberto d'Aubuisson, accurately, as a terrorist, a murderer, and
a leader of death squads."
The Reagan Doctrine: Third World Rollback
The U.S. government can no longer get away with the crushing
of democracy around the world directly; to justify its actions
it now... graces its rollback actions with the terminology of
democracy.
***
"It is a gross fabrication to claim that the contras
are composed of democratic groups".... As I can attest, the
'contra', military force is directed and controlled by officers
of Somoza's National Guard.... During my four years as a 'contra
director, it was premeditated policy to terrorize civilian noncombatants
to prevent them from cooperating with the Government. Hundreds
of civilian murders, tortures and rapes were committed in pursuit
of this policy, of which the 'contra' leaders and their CIA superiors
were well aware."
Edgar Chamorro a former member of the directorate of the Nicaraguan
Democratic Force (FDN) of the Contras
***
The most fraudulent thing about the Nicaraguan election was
the part the Reagan Administration played in it. By their own
admission, United States Embassy officials in Managua pressured
opposition politicians to withdraw from the ballot in order to
isolate the Sandinistas and to discredit the regime ... Instead
of encouraging the democratic opposition to fight within the system,
the Reagan administration did just the opposite. It tried to torpedo
the election, thus helping to lose for its clients the considerable
influence they otherwise would have had.
John Oaks, former senior editor of the New York Times
***
... the Reagan Doctrine and Third World democracy ...
1) The "freedom fighters" supported by the Reagan
Doctrine have generally been terrorists without a popular base.
2) In some cases the Reagan administration lessened its support
for right-wing leaders in the Third World, backing Aquino rather
than Marcos, Duarte rather than d'Aubuisson. 3) This move toward
Third World democracy was done for pragmatic reasons rather than
love of freedom: in El Salvador and Guatemala, to enable military
and economic aid to get through Congress; in Haiti and the Philippines
to gain more control over anti-dictator movements on the verge
of success so as not to "lose" those nations as Iran
and Nicaragua were "lost" in 1979. 4) U.S. support for
democratic developments in the Third World (for example the Philippines
and South Korea) was more a reaction to world events beyond U.S.
control than a U.S.-generated policy. The United States did not
initiate most of these developments, though Reagan enjoyed taking
credit for them. 5) Third World democracies are often fragile,
operating at the whim of their militaries. 6) Many right-wing
dictatorships are still supported by the United States, such as
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia. 7) The main goal of the
United States in the Third World is to maintain imperial control...
***
" Without the revolution of the thirteen North American
colonies, there would never have been a French Revolution...the
revolution which gave rise to the United States' nationhood has
been the most exported revolution in modern history.
How can one prevent a peasant from another Central American
country from hearing, from finding out, from realizing that in
Nicaragua land is given to other poor and barefoot peasants like
him ? How can you avoid his realizing that here children-not his
children-are being vaccinated while his children still die of
gastroenteritis and polio?...In that sense, we export our revolution."
Nicaraguan Vice President Sergio Ramirez arguing that the
export of revolution - from 1776 to 1979 - is nothing but the
free international circulation of new ideas
***
By the later years of the Reagan regime, a preferred nomenclature
suited to U.S. interests became standardized for the Third World.
In the case of nations to be rolled back (e.g., Nicaragua), governments
were called terrorist and the insurgents were labeled democratic.
In the case of countries to be supported against "communist"
insurgencies (e.g., El Salvador and the Philippines), the governments
were called democratic and the insurgents were labeled terrorists.
***
The "strategy of worldwide war" through the methods
of "low intensity" conflict indicates the degree to
which the Reagan Doctrine places the United States at war with
the Third World.
***
Democracy, as Americans understand it, is not necessarily
the future of all mankind, nor is it the duty of the U.S. government
to assure that it becomes that.
George Kennan, head of U.S. State Department Policy Planning
Staff, 1948
*****
Economic Decline: Fertile Soil for Right-wing Growth
...sectors of the business community attempted to solve the
economic crisis [of the 1970s and 1980s] through increased military
power abroad to allow multinational businesses to penetrate more
vigorously into the Third World and increased military spending
at home to stimulate the economy. ... In the 1970s and 1980s,
when business was less booming, global rollback became a more
attractive foreign policy goal.
***
Ruling Elites Move to the Right
... as is well known, in the United States the making of foreign
policy and military decisions is the province of a bipartisan
elite, drawn from the executive establishment and from private
industry.
Walter Dean Burnham, an expert on U.S. political parties
Rollback
Foreign
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