LIST OF TOPICS

1. Consular Reports and 1943 report on “Colonial Relationships”.

II. World Areas. A. Ukraine and Eastern Europe. B. Africa

C. 1 Central America. C. 2. Reagan Terror Wars in Central America.

D. Middle East

III. Climate Change Worldwide

IV. Le Thi Hong Gam.

V. Kerner Commission

VI. The Long Southern Strategy

VII. Voter Role in Foreign Policy

VIII. US in Africa

DOCUMENTS

1. Consular reports

   The US consular reports from Viet Nam are declassified. To ask for a copy of any consular item, readers may contact the US National Archives and provide citation information from below, along with any more specific information from any endnote citing consul material in either of my two books. 

   Step 1. Four main citations exist for parts of the 252 microfilm reels:  

   United States Consulate (1957). Despatches from United States consuls in Saigon, 1889–1906. Washington: National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, Reel 1, Format one micro- film reel.

   United States. Department of State. (1971). Records of the Department of State relating to internal affairs of France, 1919–1929. (National Archives microfilm publications: M560). Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, Reels 150–152. Format 162 microfilm reels.

   United States. National Archives Records Administration. (1986). Records of the Department of State relating to internal affairs of France, 1930– 1939. (National Archives microfilm publications: M). Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, Reels 82–87, Format 89 microfilm reels

   Murphy, G., Hydrick, Blair, & United States. Department of State (1988). Confidential U.S. State Department central files, Indochina. 1955– 1959: Internal affairs, decimal numbers 751G, 751H, and 751J; 851G, 851H and 851J; and 951G, 951H, and 951J: and foreign affairs decimal numbers 651G, 651H, and 651J; and 611.51G, 611.51H, and 611.51J.

   Frederick. MD: University Publications of America, Reels 1, 14, and 18, Format 54 microfilm reels.

   Step 2. Specific citations for a certain report could also be added to the above citations. For example:

   For consul reports in the 1890s to Secretary of State John W. Foster (imperialist grandfather and teacher of two children, John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles), use the above citation of Despatches from United States consuls in Saigon, 1889–1906, and add the following specific citation: .

   Despatches from United States consuls in Saigon, 1886–1906, Reel 1: Frame 11, 32–37 August 13, 1892 through January 28, 1893.

   For a page on a high death rate for road workers, use the above citation for 1919–1929, and add the following:

      Smith, L., Consul. to State Dept (1921, November 16). “Monthly Report on Commerce and Industries for November 1921.” Records of the Department of State relating to internal affairsofFrance, 1910 1929,851g.00/7,Microfilm:A9156,Reel150, Frame0015.

    

2. 1943 report on “Colonial Relationships”. This report was drafted for the State Dept. It can generally be obtained through Interlibrary Loan services in the US. The report is:

   War and Peace Studies, 1939–45, CFR Territorial Group, (November 16, 1943). “The Future Status of

   IndoChina As An Example Of Postwar Colonial Relationships, T-B69,” NY: Council on Foreign Relations,

IL WORLD AREAS.

A. Ukraine and Eastern Europe  In 1991, the Soviet Union ended. But US leaders failed to provide information to the US public for debate and general guidance on the question: Should the US use diplomacy and economic ties with post-communist Russia rather than expand NATO?

  B. Africa    The US public has virtually zero knowledge of US foreign policy in Africa after the 1961 murder of Prime Minister Lumumba of the Congo. See extensive discussion on Africa in Roesch, Foreign Policy Fault Line.

C. 1 Central America. In Guatemala, a dictator friendly to US business, Manuel Cabrera, ruled from 1885 to 1931. In the summer of 1907, Lt. Joe Stilwell (later, General “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell) traveled Guatemala in civilian clothes, using an assumed name. He mapped the country, including topography, political conditions, physical features, weather, and many other topics. Following a 1922 coup that protected American monop-olies, United Fruit Company controlled Guatemala’ railroad, electrical utility, and much of Guatemala’s land. Dictator 1885 friendly to US. Vaughn, L. (2007, 2008). Guatemala– Culture Smart: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture. London: Kupe-rard, p. 34, Kindle location 390. Stilwell mapping Guatemala. Tuchman, B. (1971), Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45, The MacMillan Company, New York, pp. 21–22.

El Salvador 1932, State Dept coffee prices and other farm exports and investments or loans will stop and others, US warships, Martinez killed 10,000. Lauria-Santiago, A. & Binford, Leigh (2004). Landscapes of Struggle: Politics, Society, and Community In El Salvador (Pitt Latin American series). Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, p. 52 (revolt, 1923 treaty), p. 53 (warships and message, 10,000 El Salvador 30,000 killings for business. Clements, C. (1984). Witness To War: An American Doctor in El Salvador. Toronto: NY: Bantam Books, 4, says 30,000, an old village fighter Miguel told Clements; later Miguel was tortured to death). 286

American hemisphere 1950s dictators, savage torture, and US claim of anti-communism. Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard, pp. 315–320, Kindle locations 5687–5743. Coups, Roesch, Corporate Tsunami in Countryside Paradise, App. iii.

Like on Viet Nam, the false claim of anti-communism was made, but the real goal was control for US business expansion by force. For example, faced with Guatemala’s post-WW II attempt at land reforms to benefit poverty-stricken masses at the expense of United Fruit, a State Dept official spoke of Guatemala’s “broad social program of aiding the workers and peasants” having a “strong appeal” to other Central American countries with highly unequal societies. Guatemala is therefore a “threat to the stability of Honduras and El Salvador.” Chomsky, Noam; Robinson, Nathan J.. The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World. Penguin, p. 32). Kindle Location 625.

Guatemala 1954 coup, scorched earth, quota killings. Koonings, K., & Kruijt, D. (1999). Societies of fear : the legacy of civil war, violence and terror in Latin America. Zed Books, pp. 44, 48, 51–52. Rios Montt dictator, violence. Vaughn, Guatemala—Culture Smart, pp. 37–38, Kindle locations 417–430.

C. 2. Reagan Terror Wars in Central America. “Ronald Reagan’s war on terror, declared as soon as he entered office,” is how Noam Chomsky reports on that terror. Chomsky, N. (2015). Culture of terrorism. Chicago: Haymarket Books, p, 18, Kindle location 195.

Reagan’s own policy statement corroborates that he set up a regional war, which Central American nations were required to join: “Our economic and social program cannot work if our neighbors cannot pursue their own economic and political future in peace, but must divert their resources, instead, to fight imported terrorism and armed attack.” Lynch, Edward A. (2011). The Cold War's Last Battlefield: Reagan, the Soviets, and Central America. Global Academic Publishing, p. 152, Kindle Location 1891–1897. Reagan claimed that it was for free trade in the region. But that matches what the Dulles brothers claimed in their ignoble pursuit of US business by force in Viet Nam and other nations. Roesch, Corporate Tsunami in Countryside Paradise, pp. 3174–3379.

As soon as Reagan took office:

“Reagan pledged to restore military aid even as international human rights organizations

documented massacres committed by the Guatemalan army. The government was in fact

carrying out one of the worst acts of genocide in the modern history of the Americas, with

the close collaboration of U.S. military and intelligence units. Chomsky, The Myth of American Idealism, p. 41, Kindle location 778.

In June 1986, the International Criminal Court ruled that on Nicaragua, the US was doing an unlawful use of force” and treaty violations. But two weeks later, Reagan’s $100 million military package for operations there received Senater approval. Chomsky, Culture of terrorism, pp. 64–65, Kindle locations 1147–1154. Nicaragua was one nation that had refused to join Reagan’s regional war. Of 1986, a congressman’s report and eyewitness testimony documented murders, rapes, kidnappings, and other atrocities by US-backed forces. Chomsky, Culture of terrorism, p. 99, Kindle location 1340.

In 2023, The New York Times reported on migrants from around the world arriving at the US southern border. The migrants were fleeing from poverty, desperation, and violence. Kitroeff, Natalie (Published Dec. 27, 2023 Updated Dec. 28, 2023). “‘We Are Not Equipped to Deal With This’: Migrant Surge Overwhelms U.S. Border”. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/world/americas/mexico-border-migration-arizona.html?searchResultPosition=1 Those conditions are produced by the US disruption of Central American economies. So, regarding Central American migrants, the US is at fault.

  D. Middle East    “The mass of the population have never agreed that the wealth of the region should be drained to the West and local collaborators, rather than serving domestic needs,” Chomsky points out. In 2003, throughout the Middle East, almost 95 percent dismissed the idea that the US is committed to more democracy in the Arab or Muslim world.    

 III. Climate change worldwide  The US has led the world in squandering 4 years of what a 2018 IPCC report says are 12 remaining years for drastic action to curb global warming. US adults today who fail to act to curb climate change are at lower risk than the children of today, who face an increasing risk that global warming will kill them early.

THE HARVARD GAZETTE: SCIENCE Exxon disputed climate findings for years. Its scientists knew better.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/

IV. US Southern border and border wall.

As the following paragrach from Wikipedia shows, causes of refugess streaming to the border include (1) US economic domination that has harmed economies in Central America, and (2) US failure to take appropriate emergency action to help curb climate change:

“The migrants, who are mostly of Guatemalan, Salvadoran, Honduran, and Venezuelan citizenship, are reported to be escaping economic hardship, gang violence and environmental disaster in their home countries (particularly acute in Guatemala and Honduras) to seek asylum in the US.[6] Unlike the demographic of migrants in the preceding years, an increasing proportion of current migrants arriving at the Mexico–US border are children, including unaccompanied children[13] and from countries outside Latin America.[14] “ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_border_crisis

IV. LE THI HONG GAM.

In 1964, Le Thi Hong Gam was 13 years old in Thanh Hoa Hamlet, in the region of Hong Nhut’s village. As a child, she had tended her family’s two buffalo. One day artillery fire from the US proxy force killed one of the buffalo. That caused her to begin hating the invaders, a predictable emotion, from Kieu and Macbeth.922 Roesch, Brian D.. Corporate Tsunami in Countryside Paradise: 1875–1900 Origin of US War in Viet Nam . BooknookBiz. Kindle Edition.

At age 16 in 1967, Le Thi Hong Gam began helping the resistance against the invaders who had killed her buffalo. Born in Thanh Hoa Hamlet in the southern delta, she was the fourth of nine children, eight of whom joined the resistance. The youngest stayed at home with their parents.1057 Roesch, Brian D.. Corporate Tsunami in Countryside Paradise: 1875–1900 Origin of US War in Viet Nam . BooknookBiz. Kindle Edition.

For youth like her, exciting opportunities abounded: “The Viet Cong still controlled 80 percent of South Vietnam territory,” the US Senate Armed Services Committee observed early in 1967. That year, she began carrying guerrilla messages up to seven times a day. To avoid capture, she once covered herself with mud and acted like a farmer. In 1968, she joined a guerrilla unit. As a teenager, she fought in 49 battles, led ambushes, and laid secret traps.1058 On April 18, 1970, 19-year-old Deputy Platoon Commander Le Thi Hong Gam and two other guerrillas were preparing for battle. Two UH-1 helicopters dove at them. She pointed a way for the others to escape, and she drew the helicopters toward her. She fired and hit one, which crashed. Soldiers from the other Huey attacked. She killed three before falling mortally wounded. In 1971, Le Thi Hong Gam was named a Heroine of the People’s Armed Forces.1059 Roesch, Brian D.. Corporate Tsunami in Countryside Paradise: 1875–1900 Origin of US War in Viet Nam . BooknookBiz. Kindle Edition.

V. KERNER COMMISSION.

The bi-partisan 1968 Kerner Commission Report observed that “White racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II.” The Kerner Commission investigated the causes of African American citizens in many cities rioting in 1967–1968. In southern rural areas, discrimination had caused low ownership of farmlands by African Americans that, along with lynchings, forced many to move to city ghettoes in the North. The Commission found “that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.” Ghettoes had poverty, inferior schools, few jobs, lacked opportunities for youth, and allowed little or no ownership of capital-generating property.

Racism, effects. Kerner Commission Report, pp. xxvii, 1, 207–10, 218–20, 436, Kindle locations 479, 948, 7160–7224, 7385–7432, 13137. Ghetto quote from Kerner; ghettoes and land ownership. Gonzalez, J. (2017). Reclaiming Gotham : Bill De Blasio and the movement to end America’s tale of two cities. NY: The New Press, Chapter 2, Kindle locations 839, 1054 (quote), 1170, 1516–1648, 1773–1825.

VI. THE LONG SOUTHERN STRATEGY

In 1968, presidential candidate Richard Nixon and the Republican Party used a “Southern Strategy” to appeal to white racism. Key southerners were told: “If Nixon becomes president, he has promised that he won’t enforce either the Civil Rights or the Voting Rights Acts.” White racism, in a backlash to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act became a voting force, courted into 2020 in national elections. At times, the strategy avoided direct racial terms, instead using “dog whistle” terms such as “welfare queen” or immigrant criminals. Thus “white racism” includes “racial resentment” in which the per-son claims not to be racist, but opposes redressing the eco-nomic damage done to most African Americans by decades of white racism that included murder, mutilation, terror, and economic discrimination.

Citations: Nixon’s promise against Civil Rights Act; racism voting strategy continues in 2019. Maxwell, The Long Southern Strategy, pp. 3–4, 6, 37–41, 105–06, and 323, Kindle Locations 353–373, 416–421 (Nixon promise), 1101–1217, 2608–2621 (resentment), and 7195–7202 (con-tinues in 2019). Chairmen on Southern Strategy; welfare queen; immigrants as criminals. Haney-López, I. (2014). Dog whistle politics : How coded racial appeals have reinvented racism and wrecked the middle class. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, Introduction, pp. 58, 157, Kindle location 162, 1296, 3253. Racist voters and Republican Party. Chomsky, N., with Amy Goodman (Apr 20, 2019). “Chomsky perfectly Explains Trump and Russiagate,” 0:00–5:27 of 10:10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLyS0E91H1o.

VII. Voter Role in Foreign Policy. The proper and traditional role that US voters play in foreign policy is pinpointed in a 2004 book by a Coucil on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow. Walter Russell Mead:

And while American foreign policy is studied in great

detail by professionals and scholars, it must ultimately

be debated and decided by tens of millions of voters.”

Voters ultimately decide. Mead, Power, Terror, Peace, and War, p. 6, Kindle location 129.

VIII. US in Africa.

In 1960, the NSC and CIA used the Signature Technique of rejecting the use of skillful diplomacy where good possibilities existed for mutual development, instead pursuing control for business expansion and access to resources by force by backing a coup in the mineral rich Congo. In 1960, the Congo was one of the 17 nations in Africa that gained independence. Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the democratically elected government of the Congo traveled to the US and spoke at the United Nations. He asked for help in getting Belgian troops out of the country. But some wealthy Americans had investments in Katanga in uranium and copper. That was Lumumba’s “fatal mistake,” says Gerard Colby. And, he said the Congo was now a sovereign nation and thus had a right to a fair percentage of profits from its own mineral wealth. The children could then attend decent schools, and the people could have a higher standard of living221

The Congo plunged into decades of bloodbaths for control of valuable minerals, rather than decades of US-Congo-Ghana cooperation in development based on fair sales of minerals. That could have been a model for sub-Saharan Africa and the Sahel. But other African nations also suffered destabilizations, used by the US, France, and other Western nations to secure access to resources while majorities lived in poverty. This Signature Technique gave the US access to Congo copper during the 1960s, in high demand for military use in the war in Viet Nam.230

Ludo de Witte writes:232

the assassination of Lumumba and tens of thousands of other Congolese nationalists, from 1960 to 1965, was the West’s ultimate attempt to destroy the continent’s authentic independence development.

A UN Security Council Panel of Experts reported:233

The conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has become mainly about access, control and trade of five key mineral resources: coltan, diamonds, copper, cobalt and gold. The wealth of the country is appealing and hard to resist in the context of lawlessness and the weakness of the central authority.

In 2007, Africom, a US military command was created, but it is for the US-created war on supposed terror that follows from the false claim on Viet Nam. For, in Africa, US leaders provided security for France, not for the nations whose resources it used. In Niger, for example, the US provided “security” as France paid 1/250 the value of Niger uranium.

231 Independence to 17 nations 1960. Mwakikagile, Post-colonial Africa,

Chapters Two, Seven, Kindle locations 1155, 6078–6222, 6436, 9500.

West 1960–65 responsibility. Gondola, C. (2002). The history of Congo

(Greenwood histories of the modern nations). Westport, Conn.:

Greenwood Press, p. 115. Avery of CIA on Mobutu screwing up the

Congo. In search of enemies, pp. 96–97.

232 Congo coup to destroy continent, Lumumba bar way so he had to go,

1960–65 killings; 1960 Congo coup. Witte, L. (2001). The assa

Africom open 2007, war on terror. Vallin, V-M (2015). “France as the Gendarme of Africa, 1960-2014.” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 130, No. 1 (Spring 2015), pp. 79-101 (23 pages), espec 92–93 (Africom).