© Copyright by James R. Arlington May 2015
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© Copyright by James R. Arlington May 2015 THE ART OF MANIPULATION: AGENTS OF INFLUENCE AND THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL SECURITY STATE, 1914-1960 A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History University of Houston In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By James R. Arlington May 2015 THE ART OF MANIPULATION: AGENTS OF INFLUENCE AND THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL SECURITY STATE, 1914-1960 _________________________ James R. Arlington APPROVED: _________________________ Gerald Horne, Ph.D. Committee Chair _________________________ Thomas O’Brien, Ph.D. _________________________ Martin Melosi, Ph.D. _________________________ Jeremy D. Bailey, Ph.D. University of Houston _________________________ Steven G. Craig, Ph.D. Interim Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Department of Economics ii THE ART OF MANIPULATION: AGENTS OF INFLUENCE AND THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL SECURITY STATE, 1914-1960 An Abstract of a Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History University of Houston In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By James R. Arlington May 2015 iii ABSTRACT Throughout the twentieth century, British and Chinese agents of influence, fellow travelers and their unwitting allies conducted political warfare campaigns designed to exploit America’s rising xenophobia to achieve specific diplomatic goals. The result of these “friendly” political warfare campaigns led the United States to not only fight in two world wars but also lead to a fundamental shift in U.S. foreign and domestic policy. By creating a culture of fear, these political warfare specialists influenced the U.S. political climate making it amiable toward their respective governments’ diplomatic agendas. These foreign agents infiltrated the media, created front organizations, and quietly worked behind the scenes to shape American foreign and domestic policy. During the First World War, British intelligence played on American fears by suggesting that “hyphenated” Americans might be treasonous. Patience, luck, and nerve finally paid off as a reluctant president asked Congress to declare war. Two decades later, England, once again, found itself embroiled in war. By the summer of 1940, Winston Churchill, the newly appointed British Prime Minister, knew the only way the British Empire could survive was to drag the United States into the conflict. Using the lessons learned from the Great War, British intelligence began working to drag a reluctant nation to war. British agents of influence suggested that German Fifth columnists working on American soil sought to undermine the nation. The fear of subversion helped to shift U.S. attitudes. The British were not the only nation struggling to survive. Half a world away, the Chinese fought Imperial Japan, and like the British, the Chinese began lobbying the United State for support. The British and the Chinese iv competed for American aid. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor did not end this competition nor did the defeat of the Axis powers. As the “Good War” ended, the British and the Chinese worked to ensure that U.S. aid would help rebuild their shattered economies. The blowback from these operations led the rise of the American national security state. This is the story of how these agents of influence and their domestic allies worked to change the course of a nation. v ACKNOWLEGEMENTS I have been working on this project for almost five years and this project would not exist without the support, encouragement, and help of my professors, friends, and family. I would like to recognize those professors, working at the University of Houston, who guided me through this project. They include Dr. Gerald Horne, Dr. Martin Melosi, Dr. Thomas O’Brien, Dr. Jeremy Bailey and Dr. Robert Buzzanco. I would also like to take a moment to thank Dr. Kenneth Hendrickson, professor emeritus Midwestern State University, for starting me on this journey. No scholar can navigate the labyrinth of archival research without the help and support of a skilled archivist. I was fortunate enough to find several professional archivists that went above and beyond. I would, therefore, like to thank Virginia Lewick, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Dan Linke, Seeley G Mudd Manuscript Library Princeton University, Hsiao-Ting Lin, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford University, and Colin Harris, University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library. In the end, writing is a solitary affair but this project would have suffered without the support, encouragement, and love of my family. I would like to thank my parents James and Margret Arlington for instilling in me a passion for reading, my son, Spenser, for understanding why his father spent so much time reading, researching and writing. And finally, I would like to thank my wife, Tracy, who read this manuscript more times than she would care to admit. Without her love, support, and partnership this work would not exist. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................................... 30 Saboteurs, Subversives, and Spies CHAPTER TWO .............................................................................................................. 90 Patriotic Fervor CHAPTER THREE ........................................................................................................ 143 Neutrality and War CHAPTER FOUR ........................................................................................................... 191 Empire and War CHAPTER FIVE ............................................................................................................ 242 Architects of Empire CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 292 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 307 vii In the high ranges of Secret Service work the actual facts in many cases were in every respect equal to the most fantastic inventions of romance and melodrama. Tangle within tangle, plot and counter-plot, ruse and treachery, cross and double cross, true agent, false agent, double agent, gold and steel, the bomb, the dagger, and the firing party, were interwoven in many a texture so intricate as to be incredible and yet true. The Chief and the High Officers of the Secret Service reveled in these subterranean labyrinths, and pursued their task with cold and silent passion. —Sir Winston Churchill1 1 Winston Churchill, Thoughts and Adventures, (London: T. Butterworth, 1932), 87-88. viii INTRODUCTION State of Fear Figure 11 ..-. .-. .. -. -.. .-.. -.-- .--. .-. ... ..- .- ... .. --- -. On April 18, 1946, Captain Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking University of Columbia trained Jewish-American psychologist and American intelligence officer, walked through the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany. Making his nightly rounds, Gilbert headed to the prison complex. It was the first day of the long Easter break and Gilbert knew the men awaiting trial would need to talk, which would lessen their apprehension. The psychologist admitted, years later, that his intelligence duties and his medical duties overlapped. Gilbert explained that his real job was to “watch” 1 Figure 1: Herblock, “The Recording Angels,” 1955, Library of Congress. 1 over the prisoners. It was his responsibility to “be with them at all times” to have his finger “on the pulse of morale” and to “ensure the conduct of an orderly trial.” The uniformed military psychologist spent every day with these men. He spoke to them “during court intermissions and during lunch hours.” He had “extensive conversations with them at night in their cells and over the long weekends.” Gilbert’s rapport with these men lasted “from the beginning of the trial to the end of the trial.” He did not miss a day. And since doctor patient confidentiality did not exist; Gilbert passed any information, he considered important, to the International Military Tribunal (IMT) prosecutorial staff. 2 On that Good Friday evening, Gilbert found Hermann Göring, the former Reichsmarschall and the former Commander of the Luftwaffe, “sweating in his cell.” Gilbert described Göring as an aggressive extrovert, who often viewed himself as the hero. Göring protested that Germany, during the war, had been a sovereign state. The IMT, therefore, had no jurisdiction to try him or his associates. The former Reichsmarschall began to realize, however, that his trial would more than likely end with a short walk to the gallows. The self-professed “jovial realist who had played for big stakes and lost” had been replaced by a defensive and despondent man who was “not very happy over the turn the trial was taking.” Gilbert, trying to calm Göring, began discussing international relations, a topic he knew the former Reichsmarschall, enjoyed. The prison psychologist stated that he did not believe “the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.” 2 G.M. Gilbert, The Nuremberg Diary, (New York: Da Capo Press, 1995), 12, 278. 2 “Why of course, the people don’t want war,” Göring shrugged. “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out