Environmentalists Against War

The Cold War Truth Commission

May 2nd, 2021 - by Gar Smith / Environmentalists Against War & Berkeley Daily Planet

Examining (and Exposing) the Cold War

Gar Smith / Environmentalists Against War & Berkeley Daily Planet

On March 21, a remarkable coalition including Witness for Peace, CODEPINK, Project Censored, Veterans for Peace, World BEYOND War and many others, hosted a remarkable webinar dubbed “The Cold War Truth Commission: A Day of Education, Testimony and Action.” The historic CWTC webinar was supposed to run for seven hours but actually continued for nearly ten-hours.

Host Rachel Bruhnke (from Witness for Peace Southwest) underscored the historical thesis to be examined—that the Cold War “was more or less a Trojan Horse for US fascism.”

The roster of 57 participants included Oliver Stone, Medea Benjamin, Daniel Ellsberg, Kathy Kelly, Norman Solomon, Marcy Winograd, Mumia Abul-Jamal, Jodie Evans, S. Brian Willson, Any Wright, and (thanks to a film clip) the late US Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

Topics raised in the webinar included CIA-backed global interventions during the Cold War; McCarthyism and the crushing of labor and the left in the US; the Cold War’s Nuclear Legacy; the culture coup behind Hollywood Blacklist; and the red-baiting of social activists as far back as 1850.

The organizers contend that Cold War constitutes one of America’s three greatest historic crimes—the other two being “the genocide and land-theft against Native Americans and the kidnapping and enslavement of African peoples.”

The Truth Commission argues that the specter of the Cold War was concocted as a means to pursue “illegal and immoral actions in the name of Anti-communism at home and abroad.”

Panel participants charged that, after the death of President Franklin Roosevelt, US intelligence officials intentionally lied to Vice President Harry Truman, feeding him false narratives about a growing threat from the Soviet Union—including spurious reports that the USSR had imminent plans to invade and occupy Western Europe.

Thus, the Cold War was born—mid-wifed by Pentagon hard-liners and a cabal of powerful American businessmen—including some with ties to the “Bankers’ Coup” that plotted the armed overthrow of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933.

The plot to back a fascist takeover to remove Roosevelt from office was exposed by Gen. Smedley Butler, the most decorated Marine in US history. Butler had been secretly approached to lead a 500,000-man assault on the capitol. Instead, Butler revealed the plot to a congressional committee. Here is a video of Butler explaining how some of the wealthiest men in America (including Prescott Bush, the father of George H. W. and his son, George W) conspired to “set up a fascist dictatorship.”

After Rossevelt’s death, warhawks began to run wild under Harry Truman until Dwight Eisenhower (in a parting message) felt compelled to warn his fellow Americans about the rise of the “military-industrial complex.” But it was John F. Kennedy who—after the Bay of Pigs disaster—actually renounced the shadow government and threatened to “splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”

In a speech at American University on June 10, 1963, Kennedy laid it on the line:

“Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind. It is therefore our intention to challenge the Soviet Union—not to an arms race but to a peace race. To advance together, step-by-step, until general and complete disarmament has been achieved under the eyes of an international disarmament organization, a steady reduction in arms — both nuclear and conventional— until it has abolished all armies and all weapons. And we should start that process now, today . . . .”

It wasn’t just talk. Kennedy drafted a plan to remove all US troops from Vietnam by the end of 1965. On October 4, 1963, a reluctant General Maxwell Taylor was ordered to begin preparing for the withdrawal. It didn’t happen. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, That made it possible for Nixon to win election on a promise to “end the war.” It didn’t happen. The US war on Vietnam continued for five more bloody years, further enriching the oligarchs of Pentagonlandia.

During his CWTC appearance, history professor and filmmaker John Hankey reflected: “I don’t think there’s any question that Kennedy was murdered because he planned to end the Cold War.” Hanky also offered the following: “At several cocktail parties, Nancy Pelosi has said that ‘[Dick] Cheney killed [progressive Minnesota Senator Paul] Wellstone.'” And that’s why no Democrat dares talk about the Deep State or JFK’s murder, 58 years after the fact.

Here is a one-hour summation of the event’s highlights:

And here is a link to the entire day-long presentation:

And here’s a time-saver for the rest of us:

There’s no need to binge-watch the entire contents of the CWTC in a single sitting. We’ve prepared a Table of Contents for your browsing convenience that contains links to all the presentations, each of which can be viewed separately.

Opening Remarks by Rachel Bruhnke and Frank Dorrel

1. Plutocracy: Wealth Governs This Country:— Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark: Talk from 1998.

2. Why We Need This Truth Commission to Expose ‘Cold War’ Lies — Jim Lafferty

3. Henry Wallace and the Cold War’s Beginning — Peter Kuznick & Clip from Oliver Stone’s: “The Untold History of The US”

4. The Role of the Military Industrial Congressional Complex — Daniel Ellsberg

5. Excerpt From ‘The Second Bill of Rights’ State of the Union Speech 1944′ — Read by Madison Tang, CODEPINK Youth Peace Collective

6. Anti Communism As a Weapon Against Progress — Rossana Cambron

7. Cold War Revisionism — Michael Meeropol

8. The US Cold War As a Self Inflicted Wound — Gerald Horne – Read by Genesis Mora, PSL

9. The Red Baiting of Abolitionists in 1850 — Carolfrances Likens

10.The Pro-Fascist Nature of US Anti-Communism — Rick Fellows

11. Is the Fear of “Communists” a Big Deal in Europe A Green’s Perspective — Mike Feinstein