History Lies. A start at debunking [NRO interviews Larry Schweikart]

Larry Schweikart, previously co-author of A Patriot’s History of the United States, is author of the new (released today) 49 Liberal Lies About American History (That You Probably Learned in School). A professor of history at the University of Dayton, he takes some opening-day questions from NRO editor Kathryn Lopez, in the hopes of undoing some of the lies early in the school year.

Larry Schweikart: You know, publishers do have cost restraints. The original version was the size of The Historical Statistics of the United States. So we allowed for volume 2, 3, 4, . . . .

Schweikart: This one is quirky, and I admit that textbooks stay away from it — but it’s certainly out there. It began with a liberal, Charles Beard, a Marxist historian. For Marxist historians, every war is the fault of the capitalist class in either England or the United States. You know that. Anyway, over the past 20 years, it has morphed into a conspiracy thesis held by radicals of all political stripes, including a lot of Libertarians. Most recently, it was the subject of a couple of books that spend hundreds of pages asserting that Roosevelt “knew” in advance about the attack without producing one single shred of proof. Ultimately, at the critical point when actual evidence is required, they leap to a line such as, “Roosevelt almost certainly would have received this radio transmission,” or something to that effect. Bottom line: The Japanese maintained strict radio silence, the code breakers didn’t break the pre-December 1941 codes until 1944, and Pearl Harbor, like 9/11, was a failure of intelligence, not a conspiracy by patriotic Americans to drag us into a war.

Schweikart: I don’t think “defending” is an accurate description of the entry. It is, pure and simple, revealing that a) Prohibition was not unpopular when passed — it was a Constitutional amendment, after all, and that entails phenomenal agreement among the electorate; b) it was not the work of “fundamentalist, back-woods hicks” who wanted to “impose their morality” on the rest of us — but rather was most heavily supported by the kinds of “Progressive” urban reformers that your colleague Jonah Goldberg called “liberal fascists”; and c) it did have some positive health effects, which I think are undeniable. Certainly a ban on all cigarette smoking also would have such effects, and we shouldn’t deny the benefits in defense of the more important liberties that were at risk.

Lopez: Is everything this generation of teachers knows about JFK coming from Oliver stone?

textbooks — I examined identified Lee Harvey Oswald as a “Marine,” a “deranged Marine,” a “former Marine,” or some such reference to his military service. But that was entirely irrelevant to his motivation for killing JFK, which was his Communism. Yet fewer than half even identified him as a “communist” or “Marxist.” I think it’s clear that they view the assassination as the result of an American “militaristic” character. While few of them take the next step and directly say JFK was assassinated at the orders of Lyndon Johnson, most leave the issue open with phrases such as “no one knows” what really happened.

Lopez: The Mexican and Spanish-American wars weren’t imperialist efforts drummed up by “corporate interests”? Next you are going say that the Iraq war is about more than oil! Where do you get this stuff?

Schweikart: We tend to forget that real issues existed at different times in history. “54, 40, or Fight!” or “Free Silver at 16:1” sound silly now, but entire political movements were affected by these ideas. So, too, with both the Mexican War and the Spanish-American War. In each case, there were real issues at stake (genuine bloodshed in the former, and what was thought to be a Spanish bombing of a U.S. ship in the latter). Neither was a “spur of the moment” war, but rather war had been building, over numerous issues, over many years in each case. It’s true some “business interests” wanted war with Spain — but many others did not, fearing the competition. Nine times out of ten, narrow economic interests are not the cause of a war.

Schweikart: I hope so. Joe’s timing was a little off — the Communists who were definitely in the administration had mostly been purged (but not entirely) — and his methods were heavy handed. But then, like now, the press was substantially against him, and the Democrats (all except Jack Kennedy and his family!) were opposed to him, because he made them look bad. The undeniable point, though, is that almost all those he tabbed as “Communists” or “Communist sympathizers” were at least that, and often outright agents of the U.S.S.R.

Lopez: Will American students ever learn anything good about Christopher Columbus?

Schweikart: Maybe that Columbus, Ohio, was named for him? Poor old Chris has been the subject of entire multidisciplinary symposia. Slowly, but surely, the word is getting out that Native Americans were nowhere near as numerous as historians and anthropologists once thought; that they suffered from most of the diseases once thought to be “introduced” by the Europeans long before Chris ever dipped his toe in the Caribbean, and that they killed each other off far faster than the Spaniards ever could.

Lopez: What’s one lie about women in American history that maybe Sarah Palin can take on?

Schweikart: Women not only had numerous legal rights in early American society (and throughout history) but the U.S. has been light years ahead of most of the rest of the world in elevating the position of women. American women, for example, had the right to vote almost 100 years ago that is still denied females in many parts of the earth today, and which the French didn’t enjoy until after World War II.

Schweikart: Yes. They make it seem like a “gun culture” ginned up a fairy tale. The argument, provided in a book called Arming America, claimed that few early Americans had guns, and that the idea that they did was entirely a concoction of a post-Civil War “gun culture.” This is beyond silly. Other than a Bible, virtually every American home that wasn’t in a “big city” had at least one musket or rifle, and they valued them so much that one reason militias were equipped with state weapons was because individuals didn’t want to bring “Old Betsy” to the war and risk damaging their own weapon!

Lopez: What’s a contemporary liberal lie that you can easily see becoming a new myth of history?

Schweikart: Unfortunately — and the reason I included it — the notion that there were no terrorists or WMDs in Iraq prior to 2003 will likely become a staple of U.S. college textbooks. The good news is that sales of these textbooks is following the same trendline as subscriptions of the New York Times, so perhaps fewer students will read them.

Lopez: What’s the worst lie in your estimation? Schweikart: Certainly the lie that terrorists were not behind the 9/11 attacks is not only incomprehensible, but at its root, it is evil. I don’t see this one taking root in too many of the textbooks . . . but all it takes is a couple.

Schweikart: I don’t “defend” Richard Nixon — I say quite clearly that he engaged in obstruction of justice for ordering the CIA to interfere with the FBI investigation. What I do defend him of is the charge that he originally planned and authorized the DNC Watergate break-in. I side with G. Gordon Liddy in arguing that this came from elsewhere in the White House, and the evidence seems to point to John Dean’s office. We can’t be sure, but Dean has been unable to prove in court that Liddy is lying about this.

Schweikart: You’d be surprised. I quote several textbooks gushing about the tremendous strides against poverty made by the Great Society. When these books mention Charles Murray’s Losing Ground or bother to suggest that people actually criticized the Great Society, they follow up with an extensive apology for its failure to eradicate poverty. It seems, according to them, the motivations were good, the programs were sound, but somehow along the way racist Republicans must have done something to undercut it. The sections in lie #28 dealing with the Contract With America reveal the extent to which the authors almost unanimously seek to discredit the substance of welfare reform — while at the same time praising Bill Clinton for signing it!

Lopez: Do you actually think you’ll get anyone to believe George Bush didn’t steal the 2000 election?

Schweikart: Right now, it’s so recent of an event that textbooks usually show a photo and admit that Muslim terrorists flew the planes into the buildings. But they quickly follow up by noting that the “cause” of their “rage” was likely poverty or oppression by the U.S., and that only “understanding” or “communication” can stop future “misunderstandings.” One of my entries shows unequivocally that terrorists are uniformly well-to-do, educated, and completely clear about their goals, which do not involve “understanding” or “communication,” but murder and death in the name of Allah. To my knowledge, I’m one of the few professors who routinely recognizes 9/11 by showing the excellent HBO special, 9/11: In Memoriam, to my classes. Most students tell me they have not seen these images in their entirety, and almost all say they had never seen the people leaping out of the buildings.

Schweikart: Okay, I’ll give you that while “FDR Knew About Pearl Harbor” started with a liberal, it includes wackos of all stripes now, and that there are a few radical libertarians who still think Thomas Jefferson was a “small-government guy” (who proposed the largest “infrastructure” expenditure in American history, and who engaged in the first foreign war, without a declaration of war). But every one of these at times has been a mainstay of liberal groups. The challenge was to find quotations in textbooks (as opposed to slant, or a broad inference) that stated as much. And I guess that’s what surprised me, was that in so many cases, it wasn’t hard to find liberals flat-out stating their views. We read from one, for example, that the Rosenbergs were “convicted in a controversial trial . . . [and that] the controversy over their guilt has continued to the present day.” We see in another that “McCarthy never uncovered a single Communist agent in government,” and in another that “the state doctored evidence and witnesses changed testimony” in the Sacco-Vanzetti trial. Still another popular text says “the changes [whites produced on the frontier] were nearly as cataclysmic as those that occurred during the Ice Age” [!], or that “transcontinental railroad building was so costly and risky as to require government subsidies.” (So . . . how did James J. Hill do it without government subsidies?) We see of the Reagan tax cuts that they resulted in “slashing rates for the rich . . . [meaning] less money for federal programs,” when revenues for federal programs rose by more than 40 percent. They propagate utter nonsense such as the claim that Ronald Reagan’s election was due to massive “nonvoting,” or that Reagan’s supporters (none of them named Marc Rich) ushered in a “decade of greed.” They continue to perpetuate utter absurdity by claiming that Richard Nixon “escalated” the Vietnam War when he reduced troop levels there by 90 percent before he resigned. In short, I was a little depressed that it was so easy to pin the liberals down.

Schweikart: I’m doing my part. Many other excellent historians — Burton Folsom at Hillsdale, Bill Forstchen at Montreat, for example — are fighting these battles in the trenches every day. People who aren’t historians by training — Victor Davis Hanson and Paul Johnson — have provided more, and better, American history than 90 percent of the textbooks out there. So-called “popular” history — written by guys such as the late Stephen Ambrose — is steadily eroding the “scholarly” ediface. And one of the most reassuring developments is that on the micro level, there are dozens of good studies coming out every year that, taken together, undermine the traditional liberal scaffolding. But it’s a fight, and, like the Spartans, those who enter the Gates of Hell from our side better be prepared!

I, and Phil, have refuted this nonsense enough times.

Now there's a sterling defense of your thesis. You may be a wonderful professor with a wonderful book--although 320 pages to cover 48 lies doesn't leave much room for in depth analyses. You meet expectations--at least with respect to FDR and Pearl Harbor.

But there's also much missing from your argument--just like your name is missing from Jacobsen's book reviews. You can call people "boobs" and "conspiracists" in attempt to advance your position, but that's the tactic of one who knows he's lost the argument. I'm unimpressed. What if I declared that I've argued my position too many times to accord you the courtesy of a reply? It would come off as a tad arrogant, wouldn't you say?

First, let's deal with "conspiracist" smear. Of course, many think there is no such thing as a conspiracy. They believe that people in government and on this message board don't converse with each other; that Al Qaeda operatives never conspired with Saudis or Yemenis or Egyptians or Pakistanis or Sudanese to attack the U.S. That the media would never think of conspiring to embarrass Palin or McCain in order to promote the election of Obama. Maybe existence depends on the conspiracy and the facts as we know them.

Some think conspiracies give conservatives a bad name but, thankfully, you blame only Marxists and Libertarians. What happened to the Liberals who Lie? You never discussed them in your interview above. I think we can agree that Admiral Robert Stinnett fits neither category. He's probably not even an FDR-loving neo-conservative who came over from the Democratic Party when he discovered its weakness on national defense issues.

You know where to find all the refutation you want.

Actually, I don't, and I wonder how you jumped to this conclusion. You provided no links, presumably to dodge my request. There's very little on the Internet about your views on Pearl Harbor, almost no customer reviews, and some outlets have already deep-discounted your book. I took the liberty in the interim to peruse Lie #3 at the local B&N (one copy on the discount table), but I noticed you used less than six pages to "debunk" months of testimony and documentation with absolutely no evidence of your own--only your opinion. In your 21 footnotes, you reference yourself and Jacobsen among others--against 45 pages of documents Stinnett reproduces as well as 595 footnotes. No contest.

You charge that recent authors used "new facts," so they are revisionists. Shocking. Weren't those who examined the Venona Files released by Russia revisionists? Shouldn't a professor of history try to stay updated. Other professions are required to do so.

You write that "Stinnett repeatedly assumed that intercepted documents ... were forwarded to Washington, all in time to stop the attack." Here you make the mistake of assuming that FDR wanted to stop the attack--a direct contradiction to the McCollum memo, the existence of which you seem reluctant to acknowledge existed. Also, remember that the Brits' ULTRA project was decrypting, translating, analyzing and forwarding some German messages even before Hitler saw them. You and Jacobsen too often use your own "mush phrases" such as: your interpretation is "abundantly clear." You have also committed egregious mistakes on your misinterpretation of dates.

The crux of your argument is that information about the forthcoming attack, "if passed on to Washington--would have implicated American leadership in allowing the attack to occur." Duh. I don't know if you are naive or stupid to think there might have been larger, laudable motives on the part of FDR.. As you point out, he already had a pretext for war against Germany. What he didn't have was public support for another bloody world war.

You quote Jacobsen as saying "It is sad that revisionists do not seem to consider the implications of allegations of foreknowledge ... necessarily have on the reputations of dead intelligence personnel who re unable to defend themselves." What about Stinnett, who served in the same unit as George G. W. Bush, earned ten battle stars and received a Presidential Unit Citation. (Check it. It's there on Wikipedia, contrary to your assertion.)

How about Charles Tansill, Walter Millis, John Toland and Gordon Prange, and how this is any of this at all relevant to what happened? You come across as a history denier without a shred of proof, unlike those you denigrate. Besides, no one is attempting to smear our intelligence personnel. Quite the contrary, they didn't fail in their mission and deserve much more credit than you and Jacobsen are willing to give. It is the two of you who are harming their reputations by calling their sworn testimony false.

Your argument is narrowly focused on radio codes--that the Japanese fleet was under strict radio silence, but no one disputes that. The fact is that they broke that radio silence, as testimony reveals, which allowed our listening posts to track the fleet. You never deal with the McCollum memo, the Vacant Sea Act, the quick movement of the newer naval assets out of Pearl Harbor before the attack, subsequent actions by Congress and the President to reverse the judgments of history against Adm. Kimmel and Gen. Short, and whether FDR was able to use Pearl Harbor to maneuver the U.S. into war. He got what he wanted. He was a master at deception stemming from his earlier days in New York.

So, the Japanese proved the "experts" wrong: that they could attack Pearl Harbor, even while occupying China. They accomplished the unthinkable, and inadvertently fell into FDR's trap. The reputations of Kimmel and Short were rehabilitated by Congress in 1995 because the evidence shows they were taken out of the intelligence loop by Gen.Marshall and constrained as to what actions they could take to prevent an attack; e.g., they were denied permission to conduct reconnaissance flights and take other preparatory measures.

I hope the rest of your book is better. If it is, I will keep my copy. If not, back it goes.

I wrote an extensive review of "Day of Deceit," that was praised by the WW II codebreakers and cryptanalysts---who then went on to add their expertise to it.

So we can all benefit from your expertise in general history of the west, as a member of a rocker band and as the son of ranch foreman, why not post a link to your most competent and pertinent article? More to the point, since you are unwilling or unable to defend your position on FDR, why don't you post all of Lie #3 on this thread so that all can read your analysis and decide for themselves? If they like it, they may choose to buy your book.

Show me your refutations of Phil Jacobsen's radio work. I'm waiting.

I am attempted to play tit for tat and ask that you show me your refutations of Adm. Stinnett's work. It is surely not contained in the 5+ pages you wrote. But I can't escape the irony of your avoidance of an opportunity to set forth your proof by demanding that I refute someone else's theories. That's laughable.

Nevertheless, I'll play your game. Jacobsen argues that Stinnett made misinterpretations of the data. For instance, take Yamamoto's "Climb Mount. Niitaka 1208" message of 2 December 1941 that was widely interpreted to signal implementation of attack plans. Jacobsen writes in his book review: "Stinnett does not clearly point out to his readers that 'Climb Mount Niitaka' was prefaced by the words, 'This dispatch is Top Secret. This order is effective at 1730 on 2 December #10.' Can you imagine the Japanese sending a Top Secret message in the clear and depending on a transparent underlying meaning for security? Except for battle tactical reports during the war, the Japanese seldom used plain language and even then preferred tactical codes. These are only a small part of the omissions, errors and misinterpretations contained in the [Stinnett] book to try to make its revisionist conspiracy theory seem plausible to the uninitiated."

Clearly, the operative words are "clearly" and "seldom" but this is not an valid argument.

Larry, I wish you and your book well. I would like it to be a success overall, but on this topic you fall woefully short. To bolster your case, you have assembled the weakest set of arguments, witnesses and documents, if any, imaginable. There, your wait is over.

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