DOCSLIB.ORG

The American Veterans Committee's Challenge to the American Legion in Th

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The American Veterans Committee's Challenge to the American Legion in Th ABSTRACT Title of Document: A DAVID AGAINST GOLIATH: THE AMERICAN VETERANS COMMITTEE‘S CHALLENGE TO THE AMERICAN LEGION IN THE 1950s Peter D. Hoefer, Ph.D. 2010 Directed By: Professor James B. Gilbert, Department of History This study joins a nascent body of scholarship that seeks to enrich and complicate understanding of 1950s political culture. While this newer scholarship acknowledges conservative dominance, it has also uncovered considerable evidence that the period was far more politically diverse and contested. This study demonstrates that there was no single, unitary conservative Americanism or patriotism in the fifties decade. Instead, the American Veterans Committee, despite suffering heavy membership losses after purging the Communist Party from its ranks in the late 1940s, survived, regrouped and persistently challenged the hegemonic conservative American Legion, (the nation‘s largest veterans‘ organization) throughout the 1950s. Using a liberal version of what I term Cold War Americanism, the AVC attempted to defend and advance the New Deal legacy. The Legion, however, using a conservative version of anti-Communist discourse, joined with its counterparts in the postwar Right to oppose the interventionist liberal state. I explore the role of these contending languages in shaping 1950s political culture by analyzing how these two groups used Cold War Americanism to advance their respective interest concerning two of the period‘s most important domestic issues: the restriction on civil liberties, and the developing struggle for African-American civil rights. This study demonstrates that within the community of organized veterans, the American Legion was not the only voice heard in the 1950s. Any account of this period that fails to acknowledge the presence of the AVC would be incomplete and inaccurate. A DAVID AGAINST GOLIATH: THE AMERICAN VETERANS COMMITTEE‘S CHALLENGE TO THE AMERICAN LEGION IN THE 1950s By Peter D. Hoefer Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2010 Advisory Committee: Professor James B. Gilbert, Chair Professor David Freund Professor Joseph A. McCartin Professor Keith W. Olson Professor David B. Sicilia © Copyright by Peter D. Hoefer 2010 Table of Contents Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... ii Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2: The Legion and Civil Liberties ................................................................. 18 Chapter 3: ―We do not need vigilante tactics that violate the spirit of true Americanism:‖ The American Veterans Committee and the Fight for Civil Liberties. ..................................................................................................................................... 66 Chapter 4: The AVC and the Fight for Civil Rights ................................................. 107 Chapter 5: The American Legion, Civil Rights, and the Limits of Cold War Brotherhood .............................................................................................................. 151 Chapter 6: ―May the Spirit of Our Boys Who Fell in Battle Live Forever‖: The American Legion and Massive Resistance. .............................................................. 179 Chapter 7: ―All good Legionnaires know that a bullet has no racial or religious discrimination.‖ The Society of the 40 & 8 Controversy and the Limits of Racial Reform in the American Legion ............................................................................... 215 Chapter 8: Conclusion.............................................................................................. 243 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 248 ii Chapter 1: Introduction Speaking to the Chicago Accident and Health Association on May 17, 1950, American Legion national commander George N. Craig leveled a blistering attack on the State Department, declaring that it ―reeks with deceit, depravity and double talk.‖ The next day, as the New York Times reported, Michael Straight, national chairman of the American Veterans Committee (AVC) publicly denounced the speech as a ―defense‖ of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. As Straight charged, ―the Legion has used the same pack of lies and malicious gossip as is contained in McCarthy‘s original charges against the State Department.‖ Further, Straight declared, ―AVC is shocked that an organization which claims to be patriotic is joining this un-American attempt to undermine the faith of the American people in their government. At this critical time in the struggle against Soviet communism the bipartisan foreign policy as expressed by the State Department should be vigorously supported by all patriotic organizations.‖ As Straight concluded, the speech constituted ―another boost for Joe Stalin.‖ Undeterred by the AVC, the Legion continued its attacks on the State Department. At their October 1950 national convention Legionnaires passed a resolution that denounced Secretary of State Dean Acheson and ―the presence in the Department of State itself of men well known to possess Communist leanings and tendencies or perhaps even Communist party membership… [for] the failure of the State Department to deal adequately with the grim and bloody advance of communism throughout the world.‖1 1 New York Times, May 18, 1950, 13; AVC Bulletin, May, 1950, 2. For the Legion‘s 1950 convention resolution see: New York Times, October 13, 1950, 13. The national conventions in 1951 and 1952 1 Far more than a disagreement over charges of Communist influence in the State Department informed the actions of these two organizations. As this study argues, the use of anti-Communist rhetoric in this episode reflected two distinct and competing political agendas concerning the legitimacy of the postwar New Deal. Founded in 1919 during the height of the WWI Red Scare to lobby for federal aid to veterans and to combat domestic ―Bolshevism,‖ the Legion emerged in the interwar decades as one of the nation‘s premier anti-Communist organizations.2 Yet beginning in the late 1940s, and continuing throughout the 1950s, the Legion played a significant role in the efforts of the postwar Right to halt the postwar New Deal. As did other conservative individuals and organizations,3 the Legion sought to discredit liberal reform by associating its vast enlargement of centralized federal authority over domestic affairs with Soviet Communism. From its conservative perspective, the Legion viewed the postwar liberal welfare state as an unwarranted encroachment upon individual liberty, the system of unregulated free enterprise, and state‘s rights. These elements informed a conservative Americanism critical of the New Deal as passed similar resolutions against the State Department. The 1951 national convention called for ―the immediate removal of the present corps of [State Department] leaders‖ for their ―incompetence, indecision and defeatism,‖ and, ―the removal from office in that department, and all other government departments, of any and all persons who are not in full sympathy with our opposition to communism.‖ As convention delegates declared, ―They must be replaced and the State Department reconstituted with men of unquestioned loyalty.‖ Report of the Committee on Foreign Relations, in Proceedings of the 31st National Convention of the American Legion, Miami, FL, October 15-18, 1951, published as House Document No. 313, 82nd Congress, 2nd Session 84-85, 88. The 1952 Legion convention condemned State Department leaders for their ―outright refusal to act‖ effectively against ―the dangers of communism.‖ It also called for the administration to remove Acheson from his position. New York Times, August 28, 1952, 1. 2 William Pencak, For God & Country: The American Legion, 1919-1941 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989), xii, 14. 3 On the conservative anti-New Deal backlash, see Robert Griffith, The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987), 30-31. 2 ―communistic‖ since the late 1930s4, and as the Cold War intensified, they were reasserted in a resurgent postwar nationalist and anti-Communist discourse I term Cold War Americanism. Throughout the 1950s, the Legion regularly drew upon this political language to depict the New Deal domestic reform agenda as detrimental to American national security interests. In these representations, the Legion depicted liberal reform and its allies as ―alien,‖ ―un-American,‖ ―disloyal,‖ and ―communistic.‖ Conversely, the group represented the values and practices of self- reliant individualism, laissez-faire free enterprise and state supremacy over local affairs as the embodiments of ―true‖ Americanism that were indispensable to United States success in the Cold War. The AVC on the other hand primarily used anti-Communist rhetoric as a language of reform to counter conservative opposition to the New Deal. Formed in 1944 by reform-minded WWII veterans as an alternative to the Legion, the AVC advanced a liberal version of Cold War Americanism discourse that embraced the power of the interventionist state as a positive development, and promoted its expansion to ensure that the nation lived up to its core ideals of democracy and equality
Load more

Recommended publications
  • DONNA LEINWAND: (Sounds Gavel.) Good Afternoon and Welcome to the National Press Club. My Name Is Donna Leinwand. I'm a Repor
    NATIONAL PRESS CLUB LUNCHEON WITH JEFF IDELSON SUBJECT: JEFF IDELSON, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME, IS SCHEDULED TO SPEAK AT A NATIONAL PRESS CLUB LUNCHEON MAY 11. HALL OF FAME THIRD BASEMAN BROOKS ROBINSON WILL BE A SPECIAL GUEST. MODERATOR: DONNA LEINWAND, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL PRESS CLUB LOCATION: NATIONAL PRESS CLUB BALLROOM, WASHINGTON, D.C. TIME: 1:00 P.M. EDT DATE: MONDAY, MAY 11, 2009 (C) COPYRIGHT 2009, NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, 529 14TH STREET, WASHINGTON, DC - 20045, USA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ANY REPRODUCTION, REDISTRIBUTION OR RETRANSMISSION IS EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION, REDISTRIBUTION OR RETRANSMISSION CONSTITUTES A MISAPPROPRIATION UNDER APPLICABLE UNFAIR COMPETITION LAW, AND THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB. RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PURSUE ALL REMEDIES AVAILABLE TO IT IN RESPECT TO SUCH MISAPPROPRIATION. FOR INFORMATION ON BECOMING A MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, PLEASE CALL 202-662-7505. DONNA LEINWAND: (Sounds gavel.) Good afternoon and welcome to the National Press Club. My name is Donna Leinwand. I’m a reporter at USA Today and I’m president of the National Press Club. We’re the world’s leading professional organization for journalists and are committed to a future of journalism by providing informative programming, journalism education and fostering a free press worldwide. For more information about the National Press Club, please visit our website at www.press.org. On behalf of our 3,500 members worldwide, I’d like to welcome our speaker and our guests in the audience today. I’d also like to welcome those of you who are watching us on C-Span. We’re looking forward to today’s speech, and afterwards, I’ll ask as many questions from the audience as time permits.
    [Show full text]
  • AROUND the HORN News & Notes from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum September Edition
    NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM, INC. 25 Main Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326-0590 Phone: (607) 547-0215 Fax: (607)547-2044 Website Address – baseballhall.org E-Mail – [email protected] NEWS Brad Horn, Vice President, Communications & Education Craig Muder, Director, Communications Matt Kelly, Communications Specialist P R E S E R V I N G H ISTORY . H O N O R I N G E XCELLENCE . C O N N E C T I N G G ENERATIONS . AROUND THE HORN News & Notes from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum September Edition Sept. 17, 2015 volume 22, issue 8 FRICK AWARD BALLOT VOTING UNDER WAY The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Ford C. Frick Award is presented annually since 1978 by the Museum for excellence in baseball broadcasting…Annual winners are announced as part of the Baseball Winter Meetings each year, while awardees are presented with their honor the following summer during Hall of Fame Weekend in Cooperstown, New York…Following changes to the voting regulations implemented by the Hall of Fame’s Board of Directors in the summer of 2013, the selection process reflects an era-committee system where eligible candidates are grouped together by years of most significant contributions of their broadcasting careers… The totality of each candidate’s career will be considered, though the era in which the broadcaster is deemed to have had the most significant impact will be determined by a Hall of Fame research team…The three cycles reflect eras of major transformations in broadcasting and media: The “Broadcasting Dawn Era” – to be voted on this fall, announced in December at the Winter Meetings and presented at the Hall of Fame Awards Presentation in 2016 – will consider candidates who contributed to the early days of baseball broadcasting, from its origins through the early-1950s.
    [Show full text]
  • Fred Norman & Dave Bristol to Join Adam Dunn in the 2018 Reds Hall
    Fred Norman & Dave Bristol to join Adam Dunn in the 2018 Reds Hall of Fame Induction Class The three will be honored during Reds Hall of Fame Induction Weekend, July 21 & 22 CINCINNATI (February 6, 2018) — Starting pitcher Fred Norman and manager Dave Bristol will join Adam Dunn to complete the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame’s Induction Class of 2018. • Fred Norman was a mainstay of the Big Red Machine’s starting rotation from 1973-79 and recorded double-digit victory totals in each of his seven seasons in a Reds uniform • Dave Bristol was a major contributor to the creation of the Big Red Machine and managed the Reds from 1966-69 Bristol and Norman were selected by the Hall’s Veterans Committee, which is comprised of Hall of Famers, Reds executives, Hall of Fame board members, baseball historians and media members. “I’d like to thank the Veterans Committee for its thoughtful and thorough review of all the former players and managers that were part of the Veterans Ballot,” said Rick Walls, executive director of the Reds Hall of Fame & Museum. “After speaking with Fred and Dave, I know this election means the world to them, and we all look forward to enshrining them among the other Reds legends in the Hall during Induction Weekend July 21-22.” Dunn was the top vote-getter selected by fans, Reds alumni and select media through the Modern Player Ballot, presented by Clark Schaefer Hackett, the official accounting firm of the Reds Hall of Fame Ballot. The trio will be honored during Reds Hall of Fame Induction Weekend on July 21 & 22 and brings the Hall’s membership ranks to 89 total including 81 players, 5 managers and 3 executives.
    [Show full text]
  • American Arsenal
    AMERICAN ARSENAL This page intentionally left blank PATRICK COFFEY AMERICAN ARSENAL A Century of Waging War 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Th ailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Patrick Coff ey 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitt ed, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitt ed by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Coff ey, Patrick. American arsenal : a century of waging war / Patrick Coff ey. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-995974-7 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Comparing Hall of Fame Baseball Players Using Most Valuable Player Ranks Paul Kvam University of Richmond, [email protected]
    University of Richmond UR Scholarship Repository Math and Computer Science Faculty Publications Math and Computer Science 7-2011 Comparing Hall of Fame Baseball Players Using Most Valuable Player Ranks Paul Kvam University of Richmond, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/mathcs-faculty-publications Part of the Applied Statistics Commons Recommended Citation Kvam, Paul H. "Comparing Hall of Fame Baseball Players Using Most Valuable Player Ranks." Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports 7, no. 3 (July 2011): Article 19, 1-20. doi:10.2202/1559-0410.1337. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Math and Computer Science at UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Math and Computer Science Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports Volume 7, Issue 3 2011 Article 19 Comparing Hall of Fame Baseball Players Using Most Valuable Player Ranks Paul H. Kvam, Georgia Institute of Technololgy Recommended Citation: Kvam, Paul H. (2011) "Comparing Hall of Fame Baseball Players Using Most Valuable Player Ranks," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports: Vol. 7: Iss. 3, Article 19. DOI: 10.2202/1559-0410.1337 ©2011 American Statistical Association. All rights reserved. Comparing Hall of Fame Baseball Players Using Most Valuable Player Ranks Paul H. Kvam Abstract We propose a rank-based statistical procedure for comparing performances of top major league baseball players who performed in different eras. The model is based on using the player ranks from voting results for the most valuable player awards in the American and National Leagues.
    [Show full text]
  • PROFESSIONAL SPORT 100Campeones Text.Qxp 8/31/10 8:12 PM Page 12 100Campeones Text.Qxp 8/31/10 8:12 PM Page 13
    100Campeones_Text.qxp 8/31/10 8:12 PM Page 11 PROFESSIONAL SPORT 100Campeones_Text.qxp 8/31/10 8:12 PM Page 12 100Campeones_Text.qxp 8/31/10 8:12 PM Page 13 2 LATINOS IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL by Richard Lapchick A few years ago, Jayson Stark wrote, “Baseball isn’t just America’s sport anymore” for ESPN.com. He concluded that, “What is actu- ally being invaded here is America and its hold on its theoretical na- tional pastime. We’re not sure exactly when this happened—possi- bly while you were busy watching a Yankees-Red Sox game—but this isn’t just America’s sport anymore. It is Latin America’s sport.” While it may not have gone that far yet, the presence of Latino players in baseball, especially in Major League Baseball, has grown enormously. In 1990, the Racial and Gender Report Card recorded that 13 percent of MLB players were Latino. In the 2009 MLB Racial and Gender Report Card, 27 percent of the players were La- tino. The all-time high was 29.4 percent in 2006. Teams from South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean enter the World Baseball Classic with superstar MLB players on their ros- ters. Stark wrote, “The term, ‘baseball game,’ won’t be adequate to describe it. These games will be practically a cultural symposium— where we provide the greatest Latino players of our time a monstrous stage to demonstrate what baseball means to them, versus what baseball now means to us.” American youth have an array of sports to play besides base- ball, including soccer, basketball, football, and hockey.
    [Show full text]
  • Communication the Director, National Legislative Division
    114th Congress, 2d Session – – – – – – – – – – – – – House Document 114–116 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 97TH NATIONAL CONVENTION OF THE AMERICAN LEGION COMMUNICATION FROM THE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE DIVISION, THE AMERICAN LEGION TRANSMITTING A FINANCIAL STATEMENT AND INDEPENDENT AUDIT OF THE AMERICAN LEGION, AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE 97TH ANNUAL NATIONAL CONVENTION OF THE AMERICAN LEGION, HELD IN BALTIMORE, MARYLAND FROM SEPTEMBER 1–3, 2015, AND A RE- PORT ON THE ORGANIZATION’S ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR PRE- CEDING THE CONVENTION, PURSUANT TO 36 U.S.C. 10101(b)(1); PUBLIC LAW 105–225, 10101(b)(1); (112 STAT. 1283) MARCH 15, 2016.—Referred to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and ordered to be printed U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 99–451 WASHINGTON : 2016 02:09 Mar 24 2016 Jkt 099451 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 4012 Sfmt 4012 E:\HR\OC\HD116P1 XXX HD116P1 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL THE AMERICAN LEGION, Washington, DC, March 10, 2016. Hon. PAUL RYAN, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Washington, DC. DEAR MR. SPEAKER: In compliance with current public law we herewith transmit for printing as a House document a financial statement and independent audit of The American Legion, pro- ceedings of our 97th annual National Convention held in Balti- more, Maryland from September 1, 2, and 3, 2015 and a report on our organization’s activities for the year preceding the convention. For God and Country, IAN DE PLANQUE, Director, National Legislative Division. (II) Table of Contents Foreword.......................................................................................................................... vii National Convention and Officers of The American Legion 1919-2015.......................... ix Proceedings of the 97th Annual National Convention Tuesday, September 1, 2015 Call to Order: National Commander Helm .......................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Doherty, Thomas, Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, Mccarthyism
    doherty_FM 8/21/03 3:20 PM Page i COLD WAR, COOL MEDIUM TELEVISION, McCARTHYISM, AND AMERICAN CULTURE doherty_FM 8/21/03 3:20 PM Page ii Film and Culture A series of Columbia University Press Edited by John Belton What Made Pistachio Nuts? Early Sound Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic Henry Jenkins Showstoppers: Busby Berkeley and the Tradition of Spectacle Martin Rubin Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II Thomas Doherty Laughing Screaming: Modern Hollywood Horror and Comedy William Paul Laughing Hysterically: American Screen Comedy of the 1950s Ed Sikov Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema Rey Chow The Cinema of Max Ophuls: Magisterial Vision and the Figure of Woman Susan M. White Black Women as Cultural Readers Jacqueline Bobo Picturing Japaneseness: Monumental Style, National Identity, Japanese Film Darrell William Davis Attack of the Leading Ladies: Gender, Sexuality, and Spectatorship in Classic Horror Cinema Rhona J. Berenstein This Mad Masquerade: Stardom and Masculinity in the Jazz Age Gaylyn Studlar Sexual Politics and Narrative Film: Hollywood and Beyond Robin Wood The Sounds of Commerce: Marketing Popular Film Music Jeff Smith Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Popular Culture Michael Anderegg Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, ‒ Thomas Doherty Sound Technology and the American Cinema: Perception, Representation, Modernity James Lastra Melodrama and Modernity: Early Sensational Cinema and Its Contexts Ben Singer
    [Show full text]
  • Authoritarian Figures in U.S. Politics: How Joseph Mccarthy Can Inform Our Understanding of Donald Trump Daniel Huddleston
    University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Senior Theses Honors College 5-5-2017 Authoritarian Figures in U.S. Politics: How Joseph McCarthy Can Inform Our Understanding of Donald Trump Daniel Huddleston Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/senior_theses Part of the Political History Commons Recommended Citation Huddleston, Daniel, "Authoritarian Figures in U.S. Politics: How Joseph McCarthy Can Inform Our Understanding of Donald Trump" (2017). Senior Theses. 167. https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/senior_theses/167 This Thesis is brought to you by the Honors College at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. AUTHORITARIAN FIGURES IN U.S. POLITICS: HOW JOSEPH MCCARTHY CAN INFORM OUR UNDERSTANDING OF DONALD TRUMP By Daniel Huddleston Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation with Honors from the South Carolina Honors College May, 2017 Approved: Dr. Kent Germany Director of Thesis Dr. Patricia Sullivan Second Reader Steve Lynn, Dean For South Carolina Honors College Contents Thesis Summary ......................................................................................................................... 2 Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction ...............................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Historical Analysis of Chemical Warfare in World War I for Understanding the Impact of Science and Technology
    Historical Analysis of Chemical Warfare in World War I for Understanding the Impact of Science and Technology An Interactive Qualifying Project submitted to the faculty of WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science By Cory Houghton John E. Hughes Adam Kaminski Matthew Kaminski Date: 2 March 2019 Report Submitted to: David I. Spanagel Worcester Polytechnic Institute This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its web site without editorial or peer review. For more information about the projects program at WPI see http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Projects ii Acknowledgements Our project team would like to express our appreciation to the following people assisted us with our project: ● Professor David Spanagel, our project advisor, for agreeing to advise our IQP and for helping us throughout the whole process. ● Amy Lawton, Head of the Access Services at Gordon Library, for helping us set up and plan our exhibit at Gordon Library. ● Arthur Carlson, Assistant Director of the Gordon Library, for helping us set up and plan our exhibit as well as helping us with archival research. ● Jake Sullivan, for helping us proofread and edit our main research document. ● Justin Amevor, for helping us to setup and advertise the exhibit. iii Abstract Historians categorize eras of human civilization by the technologies those civilizations possessed, and so science and technology have always been hand in hand with progress and evolution. Our group investigated chemical weapon use in the First World War because we viewed the event as the inevitable result of technology outpacing contemporary understanding.
    [Show full text]
  • Abstract the Swords of Damocles: Explaining
    ABSTRACT THE SWORDS OF DAMOCLES: EXPLAINING UNCONVENTIONAL WEAPON NON-USE IN MODERN WAR Martin Claar, Ph.D. Department of Political Science Northern Illinois University, 2017 Andrea Radasanu, Director This dissertation investigates the logic for unconventional weapon non-use during wars in the 20th Century. International relations scholarship has offered two primary explanatory factors for the non-use of radiological, biological and chemical weapons: either it is a result of power concerns and utility or due to adherence to taboo norms. However, these logics are insufficient in explaining oscillations in policy, near misses and instances of actual use. Thus, I argue that normative concerns based on the rules of war as associated with Just War theory impact the decisions concerning unconventional weapons. Consideration of the discriminatory and proportionality norms associated with Just War theory best reflect why states with opportunity and motive would abstain from use, while instances of supreme emergency would explain a state’s use policies or narrow misses. To test this explanation, a series of case studies will examined involving the only state to ever use both chemical and nuclear weapons – the United States. Using primary decision- making documents, supplemented with secondary historical sources, the motivation for U.S. policies should be apparent. Afterward, considerations of applicability to other cases or new weapons technology will be considered. NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY DE KALB, ILLINOIS DECEMBER 2017 THE SWORDS OF DAMOCLES: EXPLAINING UNCONVENTIONAL WEAPON NON-USE IN MODERN WAR BY MARTIN CLAAR © 2017 Martin Claar A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE Doctoral Director: Andrea Radasanu TABLE OF CONTENTS Page 1.
    [Show full text]
  • One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research
    Bretislav Friedrich · Dieter Hoffmann Jürgen Renn · Florian Schmaltz · Martin Wolf Editors One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences Bretislav Friedrich • Dieter Hoffmann Jürgen Renn • Florian Schmaltz Martin Wolf Editors One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences Editors Bretislav Friedrich Florian Schmaltz Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Max Planck Institute for the History of Society Science Berlin Berlin Germany Germany Dieter Hoffmann Martin Wolf Max Planck Institute for the History of Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Science Society Berlin Berlin Germany Germany Jürgen Renn Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Berlin Germany ISBN 978-3-319-51663-9 ISBN 978-3-319-51664-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51664-6 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017941064 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017. This book is an open access publication. Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/), which permits any noncom- mercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
    [Show full text]