Part Five: November 1947 - March 1949
The tenuous fiction that the Soviet Union and the Western democracies could work together had been fully broken after the whirlwind of repression and brutality that turned the occupied territories of Eastern Europe into tightly controlled puppet states for Stalin in late 1947 and early 1948. The brutal behaviour of the NKVD, allowed to operate at will from the River Rhine all the way to Vladivostok and everywhere in between, resulted in the deaths, arrests and show trials of hundreds of thousands of Polish priests, Hungarian scientists, Czech diplomats, Romanian engineers, Yugoslav freedom fighters, Ukrainian peasants, Russian prisoners of war, and Finnish teachers, anyone and everyone who had a thought that strayed from the rigid ideology of the despotic and merciless Bolsheviks, or could pose such a threat…
… farms were forcibly collectivized, factories decreed nationalized with no compensation, their owners driven into exile or death. The Reign of Terror continued behind the empty platitudes of “building a new order where the workers were equal” and “ending the Fascist and corrupt yoke of the bourgeois.” Thousands disappeared into the night, silenced and forgotten by a people who were taught very quickly to not ask too many questions…
… But it is the Red Army, the largest fighting force created in history, forged and sharpened by five years of brutal fighting with an enemy that had nearly conquered the world, that we should be most afraid of. The legions of tanks, swarms of planes, and of millions of men are posed on the Rhine River, ready to strike at France and the Low Countries and Italy and anyone else that dares to oppose Stalin, to unleash a Blitzkrieg many times worse than what Hitler had used in 1940.
That is why now, in this moment of apparent peace and victory, we cannot, should not throw Western Europe, China, all of Eurasia to the megalomania of the Soviets. We need to stand firm. We need to swear to protect those few precarious nations that cling to the Atlantic coast as the last bulwark of Freedom and Democracy against the Red Tide…
The Red Menace: Communism, How it Dominated Europe, And the Threat to America, General Curtis LeMay (ghostwritten), published 1951
MORE AID TO CHINA: 300 TANKS, 900 AIRCRAFT, HALF A MILLION SMALL ARMS AND $3 BILLION TO AID THE KUOMINTANG AGAINST THE REDS
Headline, New York Times, December 7, 1947
The European Reconstruction Program, better known as the Stars and Bars Program in Europe due to the stenciled American Flag that was put on every crate of food that was delivered to Europe, had been billed as a great humanitarian effort, where the wealth of America would be magnanimously given to the ruined nations of Europe to rebuild. At least, that’s what the paper’s in America proclaimed.
The reality was not so clear cut, especially on the ground in Western Europe. Over $6 billion was earmarked by Congress for it, but it was maybe a bit more than half of what even the State Department thought was needed, when trying to determine from the inflated numbers France and the UK gave for what they needed. While the loans that the program provided were interest free, the strings that were attached to them made it nearly impossible to use it for anything other than buying food (from America), coal and oil (from America), building materials (from America), replace factory machinery (from America), and fund anti-communist efforts (with the help of American agents of the reformed OSS). There were demands that tariffs be lowered, regulations undone and big cartels broken up, which the Europeans dutifully did to get their money. But the promises that in turn America would simultaniously make it easier for Europeans to trade with the US were undermined by protectionist businessmen and union leaders who saw a great threat of cheaper European goods flooding American shores...
...President Dewey himself pushed for more generous terms, to offer loans directly to businesses, especially those on the continent that had their productive capabilities stripped from them by the Nazis, and were unlikely to reclaim it from the Soviets. But Senator Taft, with his bipartisan isolationist cohort in the Senate that had gained more power and influence in the years since the war, added so many provisos and amendments to these efforts that they were useless...
...Up until this point, most businesses were aligned with Taft, as they didn’t wish to keep paying the high taxes and continue having bureaucrats give them orders and instructions, but this provide to be a bridge too far. Some of the big companies, like Ford and US Steel, were in favor of providing this aid to Europe, as they would be the biggest beneficiaries of the orders that these nations would place to rebuild. Now, with Dewey undoing war-time regulations and the wave of strikes that dominated the immediate years of the post-war era slowing down, future prosperity seemed assured.
But Taft’s idea that it was the loans of American bankers that kept dragging America into war resounded through the Midwest and South, and it was those Conservative senators who in the 1930s pushed for American neutrality once again rose up, and pushed forward to ensure that they’re grandson’s wouldn’t go fight in the 1960s again…
...In the end, the money given and resources provided made a dent in the suffering of the people in the winter of 1947-48, and into 1949 and 1950, but the great task of rebuilding fell most heavily on the Europeans themselves…
The Little Man: The Presidency of Thomas E. Dewey - 1944-1952: Written by William B. Pickett (published 1990)
I was amazed by the food in the Stars and Bars crate I was given today. There was an incredible amount of food in there, more than I had seen in one place since well before the war. There was canned tins of ham and beef, and fruits and vegetables in a great quantity, powdered milk, and even a chocolate bar. It was more than enough for a week, espeically after the rations we’ve had since early 1940. And for once, I had enough coal to power my heater for a full week. The heat would finally go away!
I have no idea why President de Gaulle would say that the Americans are short changing us, that they are not giving France what it needs. We have food and coal, what more do we need?
Diary of Dominique Bousquet, entry January 18, 1948
CAROL OF ROMANIA FLEES TO ISTANBUL: REDS IN CHARGE OF BUCHAREST NOW
Headline: The Times of London, February 9, 1948
REPUBLIC OF KOREA DECLARED; PRESIDENT DEWEY PROMISES MILITARY AID IN FACE OF RUSSIAN, CHINESE REDS
Headline: Chicago Tribune, April 10, 1948
Palestine has been a pain in Britain’s side since we got the damn desert in 1919. Why did we want this place? Just to protect Suez? To keep the French from it? Maybe to give the Jews a place to finally call home? To liberate the Arabs that lived under Ottoman tyranny? But I really could care less now. This piece of sand would be better under the Trans-Jordan or Egypt or who knows who...
… this deal that we’ve worked out, with power sharing agreements and formulas of how representation between the Israelites and the Mohammedians is enough to make my head spin. Working with the idealistic wonks of the United Nations in crafting a deal that would work for all inhabitants of Palestine was even worse than dealing with David Ben-Gurion and al-Hussaini, who you at least knew where they stood: they hate the other so much, and mistrust each other, that you could at least figure out where they were.
The UN blokes? Now, they were all ‘where does this village go?’ and ‘did this town once have Jews before the Romans showed up?’ and all this inane matterings. Once day they were proposing dividing the nation between the Arabs and Jews, then the next suggesting they stick together. I just want to be done of the whole thing, and I think so does Mr. Beven and Mr. Attlee....
… It’s a Dominion of the Commonwealth now. But I have no idea how much longer for. So the Union Jack will fly alongside their six sided star and crescent moon for now.
I hope you have enough liquor back in Edinburgh when I come next month. I could use it.
Letter from Sir John MacKlein, British Foreign Office, May 9, 1948, from London to Jack Burns
NATIONAL PARTY VICTORIOUS: D. F. MALAN PRIME MINISTER; FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE IN RACE RELATIONS PROMISED
Headline: Cape Times, Cape Town, South Africa, May 18
I was not interested much at all at the time. My husband, Kent, and I had long been supporters of the United Party, and were devastated when the National Party seemingly came from nowhere and won. They promised so many things, like promoting racial purity, and protecting the white man economically and politically, from the criminal nature of the blacks against their white betters. But I couldn’t understand why. After all, the whites already had all the levers of political power, and mixed race relationships was frowned upon, and all the businesses, big and small, were owned by whites. What more could be done?
It turns out there was still much that could have been done. Within months, the lines between the races of South Africa were being delineated. While it wouldn’t be until late 1949 and through the early 1950s that the official laws were passed, already Afrikaner and British Whites were forcibly pushing against their former Black neighbors, causing many to flee to the overcrowded slums of the cities or to the country. The Black, Indian and Coloured workers who kept the factories running during the war were fired or pushed out (though I’m sure those owners would have rather liked their cheap labour to remain). But a rising tide of anger and hatred from us powerful and wealthy Whites against the poor and powerless Blacks still surged.
“This will end in bloodshed,” Kent told me after reading the newspaper one morning in mid 1948. “I’m sure of it.”
“Unless some cooler heads prevail,” I replied back. “Maybe the Indian movement could be an example.”
“I don’t know if we have a Gandhi here,” Kent sadly said. “And the Afrikaners do have the steel to shoot on the blacks who oppose them every time, unlike the British in India. And that could very well lead to civil war.”
I sat very quietly, looking out the window of our nice house in Cape Town that looked out on Table Mountain. It wasn’t unheard of that Whites would help Blacks: that was just simple Christian charity. But I didn’t yet think that I could do much to help.
Freedom for All: An Autobiography of An Anti-Apartheid White Woman in South Africa by Vivienne Cunningham, published 1975
CHINESE REDS LAUNCHED NEW OFFENSIVE STOP KMT TROOPS IN NORTH ARE BEING ROUTED STOP URGENT REQUEST FOR MORE SUPPORT FROM CHIANG STOP
Telegram from US Ambassador John. L. Stuart, June 8, 1948
China was the biggest issue facing President Dewey, and one Foreign Policy issue that he took a lot of interest in, to the greater exclusion of European or Latin America. Dewey would comment that China, if it could just be given a stable, democratic government, could become the industrial power of the future, one of the biggest markets in history, and with them allied to the US, there would be little that could stop them, especially Stalinist Russia…
… But what could be done to help the Kuomintang? Chiang Kai-Shek was, to the administration, a burden and a blessing. He was staunchly anti-communist, and a fairly effective military commander (at least, in the 1920s and 30s before the Japanese invaded), but by 1948, his whole administration was corrupt, with governors and generals siphoning resources and money to promote their lavish lifestyles even as the army suffered from Communist gruella tactics and the people starved. The rich and wealthy became even more so, and the countryside had been effectively ceded to Mao’s communists to prop up the KMT’s waning support in the cities…
...the very real risk of losing China to communism prompted Dewey to instruct Ambassador Stuart to see if there was someone else that could replace Chiang. Stuart replied in a telegram on June 28, 1948, that there was quite a few possible contenders, but the only one that had any semblance of success and support was General Li Zongren, a political foe of Chiang and a former warlord who flirted with Fascism in the 1920s and 30s, and who had been sidelined by Chiang since the Civil War started again. But he was a strident nationalist, and had already secretly proposed to Stuart about negotiating an end to the Civil War with Mao and the Communists and reforming the army. While at first hesitant, Dewey approved Stuart’s suggestion, and the work, known as Operation Dragon, to push Chiang out, began in earnest. But events would soon overtake them...
The Little Man: The Presidency of Thomas E. Dewey - 1944-1952: Written by William B. Pickett (published 1990)
COMMONWEALTH LEADERS MEETS IN INDIA: PARLIAMENT OF THE DOMINIONS OPENS IN CALCUTTA UNDER KING GEORGE VI, GANDHI
Headline, Winnipeg Free Press, June 15, 1948
“...It is the goal of this new, reformed Commonwealth of Nations is to give the citizens of not just India, not just Britain, not just Canada or Australia or the African territories, but all the citizens of this new Commonwealth and Empire, a new future. We can never forget the terrors and hardships that the men in redcoats and their armies of bureaucrats that followed them. We can never forget that they tried, in their misplaced arrogance and duty to the White Man’s Burden, to turn us Indians and Africans and Eskimos and Iroquois into imperfect replications of white men and English civilization. We can never forget that they took our land and resources for themselves to make England grow rich while they made us all poor.
But we can forgive them, and their successors, and hope that the current generation of leaders will uphold the goals and ideals of this new Commonwealth to provide a new future, a new life, to everyone, from the workers of London to the farmers of Bengal to the fishermen of Newfoundland, all 600 million of us that lived under the Union Jack as colonists and colonizers and residents, and now we live as brothers and sisters of democracy, freedom and prosperity.”
Text of the speech given by Mohandas Gandhi, June 18, 1948 in Calcutta at the Commonwealth Parliament, an hour before he was shot by a Hindu Republican activist
The man was skin, bone and a white cloth. How the hell did he survive that?
Winston Churchill, upon hearing of Gandhi’s recovery, June 21, 1948
CHINESE REDS BOMBARD SHANGHAI; GENERALISSIMO CHIANG KAI-SHEK’S LOCATION UNKNOWN; GENERAL LI VOWS TO DEFEND CITY AS HE IS NAMED ACTING PRESIDENT
Headline, New York Times, August 7, 1948
… the death of Chiang is still an unknown mystery. Was he killed in the artillery attacks of the Communists he despised? Did he shoot himself once it was known that he had little chance to make it out? Or did a disgruntled soldier, or a supporter of General Li, or an agent of the OSS or the NKVD make sure that he never would leave the city alive? There is no answer, and likely never to be one.
What is certain was that Li Zongren quickly filled the vacuum of power, issuing orders to the defenders, giving speeches to rally the troops and people, and begin trying to reorganize the army, even as his headquarters were bombarded, day and night, and telegraph lines were frayed and fractured. But he released political prisoners, opened up freedom of the press, abolishing political anti-communist death squads and ending torture and other cruel and unusual punishments.
But he was able to slow the rapid routs of the Kuomintang, and established a successful defense of the Yangtze River. Generals who were little better than warlords were demoted, their confiscated wealth used to bolster the Chinese Republic in its most desperate hour. And Li met with Ambassador John Stuart of the US many times, as well as envoys from the British and Soviets, seeking anyway to try to negotiate. He was willing, hoping even, that the Civil War could be brought to an end through diplomacy.
But by now, Mao was in no mood for negotiation and compromise. China had almost been liberated under the Red Banner, and the corrupt warlords and Imperialist lackeys of the KMT were to be routed and destroyed entirely. His demands were harsh: trying war criminals, abolishing the legal system and dismantling the army and party, which would amount to a capitulation to the CPC. So the fighting went on, and on…
The Chinese Civil War, Written by Sun Xinya (published 1989)
M: When the September Crisis began, what was your thoughts?
R: I was holding together a rickety structure by this point. It was nearly impossible to govern the territory of the Republic of Germany at this time. The Rhineland was still a husk of its former self, and the food we needed couldn’t be grown there, the Soviets provided little, and the French and Belgians even less. By the middle of September, the cries on the street turned from “We Want Bread” to “We Want Revolution!”
M: Communism?
R: I’m sure it was. Of course, it’s hard to know for sure. But for weeks, months, we had found evidence that Soviet agents were infiltrating the crowds, stirring them up for unification and communism. When French troops fired on a crowd of protesters in Koblenz on September 28, they killed 67, and then turned around and blamed me for not doing enough to keep them in line. They were starving! They were cold! They had no work or money! How could I blame them?
M: Because they were shouting communist slogans.
R: Because any man that is starving and cold and have nothing to lose will turn to something that will promise them something better. That is the lesson of the 1917 Revolution in Russia. And the French Revolution. Of all the people to forget that, it was Charles de Gaulle and the French.
Interview with General Erwin Rommel by Edward R. Morrow, at Madison Square Garden, July 19, 1949
DEWEY IN A LANDSLIDE: GOP KEEPS HOUSE, SENATE STILL DEMOCRAT
Houston Chronicle, November 3, 1948
I was at a meeting of the NAACP in Montgomery a few weeks after the 1948 election. We were already coming to the conclusion that President Dewey, despite his desegregation of the Army in 1946, was going to do little more to help the Civil Rights movement, and the feeling at the time was that it was time to organize and plan for a civil disobedience plan, like Gandhi in India.
But there was a white man in a black suit who was there that night. He looked so out of place, as the suit was every expensive and very fancy, clearly not a local person. I can’t remember his name, but he was introduced as a member of the Republican Party, coming from up north, and that he was sent by the Republican National Committee to look into the discrimination of Negros in the south, and what could be done to fix it.
Most of us were stunned. Several people laughed at him. “Fix it?” One man yelled. “Good lord, sir? How do you plan on fixing this?”
“The law. There is nobody above the law. And there should be nobody below it,” he replied.
That silenced the hecklers.
“I’m currently looking around to see what can be done. I can’t promise anything at the moment, per say, but hopefully before the 1952 US election, we can have you all vote.”
That was rather presumptuous and radical, even beyond our wildest dreams. We couldn’t even use the same bathrooms as the whites, or the same drinking fountain, and this man, who sounded like he was from Boston or somewhere way up north, thought he could just have us all be voters with a wave of his hand? Espeically when the Democrats controlled the South, and would do everything in their power to ensure that we remained down and out.
It was going to take a lot more than a decree by the President to get us the vote.
Rosa Parks Oral Interview, June 17, 1979
The plan to focus on Civil Rights was one that had been brewing for a while, as Dewey had commented many times that he saw the segregation of white and black, the economic and political disenfranchisement of the Negro as the only thing that held the South back from improving their economy. It was incredibly inefficient, not to mention backwards and downright medieval.
But the grasp that the Democrats had on the South, which allowed them to maintain their control of the Senate, continued to force Dewey to work with such men as Senator Taft and the right-wing of the Republican Party. And he wanted to break free of them, especially as negotiations over the North Atlantic Treaty were ongoing.
So it was necessary to find a way to break up the Democrats hold on the South. They held it through racism, cronyism, lack of education, and the brutal tactics of the Ku Klux Klan. Already, at the Justice Department, work was going on to try to bring members of the KKK to justice for lynchings and murders, but it was hard going.
But the rewards were great. If the African Americans could vote, it would provide a great opening for the Party of Lincoln to break the hold of the Dems on the South. Getting the black vote in places like Mississippi and Alabama would allow Republicans who, since the end of Reconstruction, served as little more than a perfunctory opponent in elections, could once again be viable, and possibly provide a new bastion for the Republican Party…
The Little Man: The Presidency of Thomas E. Dewey - 1944-1952: Written by William B. Pickett (published 1990)
RHINELAND CRISIS: FRENCH ARMY CROSSES BORDER, DISPOSES ROMMEL, CLAMPS DOWN ON COMMUNIST UNREST
Headline: New York Times, December 6, 1948
M: You were in London at the time, yes?
R: I was getting no further answers or help from the French, so I sought further held from the British. Mr. Bevin, the Foreign Minister, was receptive, but he couldn’t provide much. I was going to meet with the American ambassador to the UK when I recieved word that the French had invaded the Rhineland, and had placed a new puppet government in charge. The French place (Johannes) Hoffmann, some pre-war anti-Fascist, in charge of the new government and used him as a puppet, and did away with the pretense of German independence.
M: How so?
R: They took all the coal and iron of the Rhine, and sent it to France to be turned into steel. Various machinations were undertaken to tie the Rhineland to France. It had long been the goal for the French, since Napoleon and Louis XIV to make the Rhineland French. And under de Gaulle, the succeeded.
M: They’ve declared you person non grata, correct?
R: If I step foot in France or the Rhineland, I’ll be arrested and charged as a Soviet Agent, for allowing the riots and such to get out of control. But I did what I could with what I had. I wasn’t going to send the few soldiers I had to die shooting their own brothers and fathers. And if I called the French during the Crisis, they would have gladly mowed down every person. So let the French try to rule Germany. I don’t see them lasting long.
Interview with General Erwin Rommel by Edward R. Morrow, at Madison Square Garden, July 19, 1949
SHANGHAI FALLS: CHINESE REDS NOW OCCUPY CITY; NATIONALISTS EVACUATE CITY; LI VOWS TO FIGHT ON
Headline, New York Times, December 29, 1948
The Fall of Shanghai was a blow to the KMT, but the long, grueling fight for the city, described by some as a repeat of Stalingrad or Paris, and cost almost over a million lives in total, had slowed down and weakened the Chinese Communists in their drive to occupy all of China.
The long fight for Shanghai, and his being in the center of it all for over five months, had proven that he was going to keep fighting had helped rally people to the Kuomintang. The speeches and posters and great promises to help the Chinese people, to restore the Republic of Sun Yat Sen and end the corruption and exploitation of the people by outside powers had found an ear with the people. He helped provide food and medicine to the poor, and did everything in his power to battle the corruption and waste of Chiang’s KMT.
That didn’t mean he didn’t accept help from the outside though. The aid from the US that Li had received had been used to great effect. The massive numbers of surplus equipment, rifles, ammunition, planes, tanks, trucks and artillery had outfitted many new units, and provided him with a lot of firepower, more than enough to hold the Communists indefinitely across the Yangtze River.
Even with the fall of Shanghai, then, he had some support, and a basis for opening negotiations with Mao. But Mao was still convinced he could win the whole of China, and he wasn’t going to let this former warlord and fascist to undermine him now…
The Chinese Civil War, Written by Sun Xinya (published 1989)
Killing some fish isn’t really the best idea for the bomb, Mr. President.
General Curtis LeMay, head of Strategic Air Command, to President Dewey, December 30, 1948
A-BOMB DETONATED NEAR SHANGHAI: RECENTLY FALLEN CITY IN SHADOW OF MUSHROOM CLOUD; PRESIDENT DEWEY VOWS SUPPORT OF CHINESE NATIONALISTS
Headline, New York Times, January 4, 1949
...there is perhaps no greater signal to the people of the world of our promise to help one of our own, a fledgling democracy in the Far East, than the atomic bomb. This great weapon that helped end one war can now be used to ensure that we will never have to fight another, and that we strongly encourage the peoples of China to set aside their differences and come to the negotiation table… but we recognize that the Republic of China is the true representative of the Chinese people, and that we have entered into diplomatic and military negotiations with them to further their security and interests...
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in a prepared statement to the press, January 5, 1949
UNITED NATIONS TO TAKE OVER CHINESE CIVIL WAR NEGOTIATIONS; MAO, LI TO MEET IN TAIPEI TO WORK OUT A DEAL
Headline, New York Times, January 17, 1949
Dewey was quite pleased that he had figured out an answer to ending the Chinese Civil War, and one that provided a chance, in the future, for a fully democratic and capitalist state that could become the greatest colossus of modern times. The “Shanghai Demonstration” as it came to be known after an editorial in the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, was a success for Dewey, and popular with a vast swath of the population.
The generals were not so pleased. Atomic weapons were expensive, and though the Atomic Energy Agency had many tests scheduled for the next decade to determine the true effects and dangers of the weapon, using one in a publicity stunt off the coast of China was not one that they were so keen on. Curtis LeMay, alone among the generals, advocated instead to drop the bomb on Shanghai to wipe out the Communist army all together. But Dewey quickly shot down that plan.
But Mao had been forced to the negotiating table, and by March a deal was agreed too: a ceasefire along the Yangtze River, with the North in the hands of the Communists, and the South under the Kuomintang, and plans for future elections to try to unify the whole nation in 1950…
… The Shanghai Demonstration was also used by Dewey to convince the UK, France and the other countries negotiating the North Atlantic Treaty to set up a mutual defense alliance that the US could, and would, respond to an attack by another nation (ie, the Soviet Union), with a massive nuclear response. With the flip-flops and general feeling of unease and confusion as to the American position since the end of the war and the rising isolationist tide, this was sign enough that the US would stand by any nation that was a democratic and free society.
But at home, this use of the bomb as a symbol of American power and friendship was cheered by many, but rubbed just as many the wrong way. And one of them was Senator Robert Taft of Ohio…
The Little Man: The Presidency of Thomas E. Dewey - 1944-1952: Written by William B. Pickett (published 1990)
America shall not, will not, fund the Europeans to rebuild their economies only to destroy it again in 20 years. The loans we gave in 1914 and 1915 resulted in us being dragged into war in 1917. The loans provided to Europe in the post-war years did little to prevent the rise of dictators and war… And now with a weapon that can destroy an entire city in an instant, one that costed the American taxpayer five billion dollars or more, it will be only a matter of time before someone else can develop a similar weapon that can be used on us. It may be ten or more years, but not so long as we may wish or hope… I will not allow the next generation of young men to be sent to Europe to be turned into nuclear ash because of their debts to us.
Senator Robert A. Taft, speech on the Senate floor, February 17, 1949
NORTH ATLANTIC DEFENSE ORGANIZATION DEAD; SENATE VOTES AGAINST TREATY; UK AND FRANCE “REGRET AMERICA’S RETREAT”
Headline, Houston Chronicle, March 19, 1949
The news that America was abandoning us shook us all. I remember seeing the American soldiers here, just four years ago, helping free us from the Nazis. And now they will leave us to be taken by the Soviets…
… maybe de Gaulle was right, and we can’t trust anyone but ourselves. So we will have to fight to make sure we stay free of communism…
Diary of Dominique Bousquet, entry March 23, 1949
Attlee was stunned at the news, and was reported to have retreated to the bedroom of 10 Downing Street for three days, during which only a few people authorized to see him came in. He had hoped that the North Atlantic Treaty, more than the Stars and Bars Plan, more than the failed Bretton Woods, more than even having Britain’s own Atomic bomb, would have been enough to protect the UK, to allow them to downsize, continue with reforming British society for the common man and getting the Empire to decolonize itself peacefully. But with the French already taking potshots at Britain, it was becoming clear that an effort to work with de Gaulle to create a smaller North Atlantic Treaty was most likely out of reach as well.
So it was time to plan big.
He emerged on March 26 to address Parliament. The balding man with the round glasses, Clement Attlee had never been much of a speaker or a public figure, and the speech he gave that day was not the most impressive ever given in the Commons. But it is one of the most important.
“The United Kingdom effectively stands alone now. The United States may not be able to come to our assistance should we need it if we are attacked by an outside power. The loans and relief they gave us is a tiny fraction of what we need, and we are unlikely to get much more…
“...Therefore, I believe it is best that we, as a nation, as a Commonwealth, should instead prepare to work together, to rebuild ourselves as best as we can, to defend each other as well as possible. And too that end, we will have to embrace ideas that were anthema to us just a few years ago, and accept what was unacceptable before…”
… the first Council, the Council of Defense, would begin meeting on July 8.
Paul Johnson, How The Empire Survived: The Establishment of the Commonwealth of Allied Nations Published 1982
ROBERT A. TAFT DEAD AT 60; CAR CRASH IN COLUMBUS, OH TAKES ISOLATIONIST REPUBLICAN SENATOR'S LIFE
Headline, New York Times, April 8, 1949
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Wow, that took longer than I expected.
So, here we are. China is (temporarily) divided in two, America is both stepping out and stepping off the international stage, France is clamping down on the little sliver of Germany they own, the UK is planning some big reforms, and, in general, the Cold War is shaping up to look a lot different. Oh, and the Civil Rights movement might becoming more relevant, more quickly than OTL...
I have some ideas of how the 50s will go, and now that we are approaching five years past the POD, I think it's generally fair to say that the butterfly's are in control now. So, yes, in isolation some of the events that happen from here on out may seem implausible and unlikely, but in this timeline should make some sense.
This isn't to say that I won't edit and fix up some of this, but I'm unlikely to rewrite huge sections of this, because then I'll have to scrap the whole thing and start over again, and I really, really don't want to do it, now that I'm a good 20,000 words in.
But if you have a comment, or what works/doesn't work, please comment below and I'll answer them.
