Considering who wrote the article I'd hardly take it as an objective assessment.
Agreed. But for those who presume the name in the excerpt of the OP, Sam Elliott, was somehow the author, I offer the following:
By Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick
Now we know the source of Murvihill's comment.
And BTW, even CNN had to disclaim, and evidently remove some of their content(?):
Editor's Note: "We've removed several related videos and galleries about World War II and the Pacific Theater as they may risk misinterpreting or contradicting the views expressed in this essay."(CNN)Oliver Stone is an Academy Awarding winning Hollywood writer and director. Peter Kuznick is professor of history and director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University. Together they co-authored the documentary film and book series …. The views expressed here are solely theirs.
All of that said, all caveats applied, how does the analysis stand up (to my own notions)?
Eh … I'm in agreement on a couple minor points, and in disagreement on some MAJOR points.
Despite Churchill's hatred of Bolshevism, the British owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Soviets, without whom they might be speaking German today. They also owe a huge debt to the Americans without whom they might be speaking Russian.
Well now that's an interesting turn of phrase. Can't see too much to disagree with -- except the hyperbole, that is. It is rather more than a bit exaggerated, but illustrates the fundamental issue, none-the-less.
It is interesting to contemplate how the face of Europe would have been different if the US had remained the "arsenal" of the Allied powers without actually joining the war. It was fortuitous that Germany and Italy declared war against the US on December 11, 1941 without which Roosevelt would have had to find another justification for American entry.
I'd have to agree with that analysis too. Perhaps the most interesting "what-if" of the war, in my view.
What would have happened if Roosevelt had retained his visionary and controversial vice president Henry Wallace on the ticket in 1944 instead of the much smaller minded Harry Truman?
OK, that's one I have never considered.
Had Wallace become president upon Roosevelt's death in April 1945 instead of Truman, there would have been no atomic bombings of Japan and possibly no Cold War.
Now hold it right there, pardner! No Cold War?
Wallace envisioned friendship between the Americans and the Soviets and a healthy competition between the two systems in which each would strive to show that it was better suited to serve the needs of humanity. He would have delivered on the $10 USD billion credit that Roosevelt had dangled before the Soviets to help them rebuild from a war that had turned much of the country into a wasteland. The positive repercussions that might have had in Soviet-occupied Europe are incalculable.
Stone and Elliott seem to view the Soviet Union of the 1950s as something of US manufacture. How preposterous!
Good relations take two sides, not just one. There is no evidence of ol' Uncle Joe giving a rat's backside for any of the agreements he signed, nor any evidence that he was just looking for a way to live in peace with his neighbors.
Giving a bucket of money to a megalomaniac doesn't buy friendship and peaceful co-existence, it just buys a stronger megalomaniac.
Gets a bit hard to read from that point on…
-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)
wonders: Can Fernando do 1/285th?
