REVISITING the FOUR FREEDOMS by Donald M
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EXCLUSIVE MCUF FEATURE REVISITING THE FOUR FREEDOMS By Donald M. Bishop PHOTO: The Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, located on an island in New York's East River, opened in 2012 3 • MARINE CORPS UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION • SUMMER 2019 EXCLUSIVE MCUF FEATURE Modern political warfare now includes both cyber and information operations. At MCU, Bren Chair of Strategic Communications Donald Bishop focuses his teaching and presentations on the “information” or “influence” dimension of conflict – disinformation, propaganda, persuasion, hybrid warfare – now enabled by the internet and social media. And he emphasizes that Americans, as they confront violent extremism and other threats, must know and be confident of the American values they defend. "Thanks, Grandpa, for coming to my game." Why look back at The Four Freedoms? First, in my classes at Marine Corps University, I’ve discovered that the current "I enjoyed it too, Jack. We men in our eighties don't get generation of Marines have never heard of them. Of Norman out as often as we wish. Seeing you score a run was Rockwell’s four famous paintings, they have seen only one – something. But you know, I noticed something else today. the family at Thanksgiving – and they don’t know they were "When you were at the plate, it carried me back to part of a series. Second – when Americans must articulate watching my older brother in the batter's box. You held the “what we’re for” (rather than “what we’re against”) – whether bat like he did. You have the same stance and the same in the war on terrorism or in a future of great power competi- swing. When you hit the ball, I felt a tug in my heart, you tion – it’s worthwhile to examine whether the Four Freedoms so reminded me of him." still usefully express American values. "Do you mean my great uncle Jack, the one who was killed in the war?" President Roosevelt’s Insight "Yes, his last high school games were in the spring of 1944. In our own time, each annual State of the Union Address is I was twelve. He joined the Marines right afterwards. It months in the making. Speechwriters prepare drafts that are broke all our hearts when he was killed on Okinawa — reviewed by the President’s inner circle. Cabinet secretaries the last great battle. and agency heads provide input. Word choices in the speech may be focus grouped. There are many personal reviews of "I've kept the medals they sent my parents afterward. drafts by the President. Here's his Purple Heart. The one with the yellow ribbon has In 1941, however, these Four Freedoms were not formulated a single campaign star — for Okinawa. And this World War II by a White House speechwriting staff or the President’s brain Victory Medal always gets me thinking. trust. President Roosevelt dictated them personally late in the "We knew what we were fighting against – Hitler's evening of New Year’s Day, 1941. Germany and imperial Japan. Against aggression and FDR may have borrowed the “four freedoms” frame from surprise attacks. But this medal also tells us what we were the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution fighting for. Look at the back side of the medal. What's it say? in 1937. The sesquicentennial celebrated the four freedoms listed in the First Amendment – freedom of “Speech,” “Press,” "Freedom of speech and religion. Freedom from want and fear." “Religion,” and “Assembly.” At the 1939 World’s Fair in Flushing "Yes, we called them the Four Freedoms. Have you seen Meadows, New York, four huge sculptures by Leo Friedlander the paintings?" represented these four First Amendment freedoms in a central square. Just a few years later, however, President Roosevelt’s list was a different one. He named and explained them in In his State of the Union Address of January 6, 1941, President twelve sentences at the end of the address. Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress for authority to provide Lend-Lease assistance to the United Kingdom. To strengthen In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward his appeal, FDR traced a vision of “a world founded upon four to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. essential human freedoms.” The first is freedom of speech and expression – everywhere in the world. “The Four Freedoms” eventually became shorthand for the The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own war aims of the Allies in their struggle with fascism. The power way – everywhere in the world. of The Four Freedoms did not, however, rest on the President’s The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world words alone. They were elaborated in speeches, articles, terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every sermons, books, music, and paintings, and a private-public nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants – everywhere in campaign brought them to millions at home and abroad. the world. SUMMER 2019 • MARINE CORPS UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION • 4 EXCLUSIVE MCUF FEATURE The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world than tariffs, for instance, allows people in each nation to terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point earn livelihoods when they provide goods and services to and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position whomever needs them. Fair trade without subsidies and to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor – rigged exchange rates is another 'economic understanding' anywhere in the world. that has to be part of the free trade package. Trade goes a That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for long way to eliminate 'want.' Protecting patents, copyrights, a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind and trademarks on an international basis also allows each of world is the very antithesis of the so-called ‘new order’ of tyranny nation to keep the rewards of its own work and productivity. which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb. To that new order we oppose the greater conception – the moral order. "Not to mention, Jack, that America has generously A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and shared its knowledge of crops and agriculture and animal foreign revolutions alike without fear. Since the beginning of our husbandry. Across the world, American agricultural science American history we have been engaged in change, in a perpetual, has allowed fewer farmers to keep pace with growing pop- peaceful revolution, a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, ulations. Yes, there's hunger in the world, but it's almost adjusting itself to changing conditions without the concentration always caused by the dislocations of war and tyranny, not camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we seek because farmers or herders or ranchers can't produce." is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society. Norman Rockwell portrays Presidents launch many slogans while campaigning and governing. Most prove ephemeral. The Four Freedoms, as we the Four Freedoms shall see, took hold in the public mind, and during the global In Vermont after the attack on Pearl Harbor, an American artist conflict they became shorthand for the war aims of the Allies. known for his magazine covers and posters was possessed by They helped shape the “certain common principles” of the a desire to “take the Four Freedoms out of the noble language Atlantic Charter, issued by President Roosevelt and Prime and put them in terms everybody can understand.” The result Minister Churchill on August 14, 1941. was Norman Rockwell’s four famous paintings. After President Roosevelt first articulated them, other In the 1920s and 1930s, Rockwell had become famous as a Americans spontaneously fleshed out The Four Freedoms in magazine illustrator. His magazine covers are still collected magazine articles, essays, sermons, books, and art. In February and studied both as art and as Americana. 1943, the Postal Service printed nearly 1.3 billion one-cent Rockwell’s “Freedom of Speech” showed an ordinary work- Four Freedoms stamps, and another was issued after the ingman speaking at a Vermont town meeting, while his better President’s death in 1945. off neighbors (the ones wearing neckties) listen respectfully. President Roosevelt commissioned a Four Freedoms monu- In “Freedom from Fear,” a couple looks down on their ment by sculptor Walter Russell. Unveiled in 1943 in Madison sleeping children. The rag doll on the floor and the bed that’s Square Garden, it can now be seen in Madison, Florida. too large for the small attic room show the family’s modest Four Freedoms murals were painted in Burbank, California circumstances. The father’s newspaper tells the story; the (by Hugo Ballin) and Newark, New Jersey (by Michael Lenson). headline reads “bombings” and “terror.” Irving Berlin’s “Song of Freedom” was sung by Bing Crosby “Freedom to Worship” provided a collage of worshippers. in the 1942 film Holiday Inn. Composer Robert Russell There’s no overt mark of the religion of the characters in Bennett wrote a “Four Freedoms Symphony” the next year. the center of the painting, but they no doubt represent the A special Four Freedoms honor flag was flown at parades and majority Protestant denominations. Significantly, the figure public ceremonies. shown partially in the upper left of the painting is African American. Previously, only whites could be portrayed in "But Grandpa, did President Roosevelt mean that people paintings commissioned by the publisher, and the figure’s in every nation, not just ours, were owed freedom of breakthrough inclusion here represents another stream of speech and freedom to worship? Shouldn't we only care American Christianity.