3 Jan. 1991
Dear Noam,
Thanks very much for your letter and the articles.
I fully agree that the Cold War is not over; only the terms of the propaganda have changed. The real war has always been between the Haves and Have Nots and will not change soon.
The current pas de deux between Hussein and Bush, threatening to crush thousands beneath their stinking feet, has already achieved the major aims of both: pan-Arab leadership (of the people if not of the governments) for Hussein, a new credible threat for the US military, and higher oil prices for all.
The ideological fanaticism you speak of, quite evident among the government's media mouthpieces (less so, hopefully, in the general population), is as impressive as the passion of a used car salesman. This spectacle of King George the Wimp flouting the law of the land, not to mention common sense, while Congress and the press sit by and (mostly) applaud looks like a rerun of Chaplin's The Great Dictator. Fascism on low burn? Surely Hitler had no more "charisma" than Bush (or Reagan), and maybe that is the key: the Führer must be an empty shell in order to absorb all the contradictions, ignorance, and frustrations which have been engendered in the people, building up to the explosion.
The level of cynicism and hypocrisy and just plain lies is truly staggering. It does my heart good to see you lay into people like Moynihan.
If we confine morality to the propaganda department on both sides, it is clear that Hussein and Bush are both getting what they want, whether there is a war or not. Hussein clearly was encouraged to invade, and the excuse that this was April Glaspie's diplomatic mistake or that Hussein took more than was expected is simply ludicrous. Just as ludicrous as the idea propagated by the Pentagon Papers that US strategy in Vietnam (since 1965) was driven by a stupid Pentagon and stupid presidents, in defiance of the wise voice in the wilderness: CIA.
For example, John Ranelagh says in The Agency (NY: Touchstone, rev. ed. 1987):
This is a perennial problem for the CIA: it does the work, provides the information and analysis, and watches helplessly as its intelligence falls on the deaf ears of policy makers. All too often what the CIA says is not absorbed until it is too late.
This discrepancy between policy and intelligence became increasingly acute as the United States pledged itself to deeper and deeper involvement in Vietnam. As The Pentagon Papers–the official, top-secret history of the United States' role in Indochina–later showed, apart from the earlier period in 1963-64, the agency's analysis was consistently pessimistic about U.S. involvement in South Vietnam's war against communist guerrillas supported by North Vietnam. In spite of this, first President Kennedy and then President Johnson poured hundreds and then thousands of U.S. troops into the war, first as support for the South Vietnamese military forces and then as front-line units, as policy diverged from reality and as domestic political considerations were, naturally enough, placed before conditions in Vietnam. Ironically, this process began in the Kennedy White House among those who prided themselves on being realists and who insisted on quantifying everything before making policy decisions. The members of this group–including Rusk, McNamara, Bundy, and Rostow–stayed on after Kennedy died to fight the war under Johnson. In retrospect, their problem was that they often concentrated on details, losing sight of the big picture (pp. 417-18).
This propagates not only the myth of a competent and well intentioned, though sorely misunderstood, CIA, but also the myth of continuity in US Vietnam policy in the Kennedy-Johnson transition. This, as will soon see, became the main–and unresolvable–bone of contention between Chomsky and me.
A caller on C-Span the other day dared to say the obvious–that the main beneficiaries of the Gulf crisis are the oil companies (and dependent industries). David Ignatius (Wash. Post) dismissed this straightforward observation as "conspiracy theorizing," which reminded me of Nicholas Lemann's crazy reaction to Manufacturing Consent.
Some (fortunately, a small minority) of the reactions to my letter to the local paper have forced me to see a further danger with espousing (or hinting at) conspiracy. Some of the people who agree with me, and not necessarily the least intelligent or least well informed ones, turn out to be neo- or unreconstructed Nazis! This is very depressing.
I think it is difficult to conceive of a conspiracy of the king, or of those in the shadow of the king, against his subjects. If the government is bad, it cannot be the government itself which is to blame, but something else which controls the government. A scapegoat is needed; hence the fascist leap–typically, of course, fastening on "the Jews," equated with Zionism.
The basic problem seems to be a deep psychological barrier to accepting the idea that the government itself is the enemy–whether "conspiratorial" or not. (If "they"–the government consisting of more than one person–are the enemy, they are by definition conspiratorial.) I suppose this should not be surprising, given the propaganda machine. On the other hand, at some level, the inherent evil of government is common knowledge, reflected in truisms like "All politicians are crooks," "Money rules the world," etc.
I am interested in this as a psychological problem because it seems essential. No matter how many facts are brought to bear, there seems to be an attitudinal or emotional bedrock that remains unmoved by rational arguments. Perhaps it is just the fear of radicalization, of marginalization, of no longer being or feeling part of the larger community.
What David Yallop says in In God's Name about the relationship between the Vatican and P2 strikes me as an excellent analogy for the relationship between the US government and the CIA (i.e. the "intelligence community"), and also for the relationship of individuals to the institutions they "believe in," whether it is the Catholic Church or the USA. Not everybody in the Vatican is a crook, but the degree of corruption (and conspiracy) is such that, rationally, one would think that even a devout Catholic would feel compelled to reject the institution. Yet, for the most part, they don't. Somehow, they accommodate the contradiction between doubt and belief, between reason and propaganda ("faith"), because they see no alternative. If Yallop is right, how can they continue being "good Catholics"?
The same is probably true of Americans' reaction to radical dissent, assassination theories, etc., all of which threaten to topple their fundamental belief in the goodness of their country, which they (wrongly) identify with the goodness of themselves, I suppose.
I have gotten an interesting reaction from some students in talking about the Segal thesis. I watch them trying to deal with it and try to get them to express what it is about it that troubles them (if it does at all–some are forever oblivious). A couple have said, "If this is true, I think I would commit suicide." This is a startling reaction, but an honest one, and I think (hope!) what they really mean is that they simply cannot conceive of a world where this is true, or where they believe it to be true, or even where they believe it may be true. Perhaps they would kill themselves only metaphorically, with a new self replacing the old–which doesn't sound so bad. Better than handing things over to the cockroaches, in any case, as you put it.
Sincerely,
Michael
Chomsky replied briefly on 5/20/91 and 12/12/91, expressing his discouragement at the American war fever and "anger relieved only by constant speaking and writing." We seemed to be in full agreement on that issue, which was keeping both of us busy, and I did not write again until a year later, after Oliver Stone's JFK had appeared in German theaters.