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(Korea: Police Action - swore up and down we'd be there a few weeks)

Our legacy of Foreign Policy misfires is long and involved and certainly not the exclusive property of the last twenty or so years. Although it does make you wonder how long we've been screwing up and has it always been this bad.

There was that matter of Korea and the Domino Theory of Communist takeovers in the Far East put forth by the Eisenhower Administration. There was also the matter of the Red Scare and how the Marshall Plan was a dismal failure guaranteed to make the U.S. a weaker superpower. There was the blame game where the United Nations was a dismal failure, also guaranteed to make the U.S. a weaker superpower and how we needed to divest ourselves of that body.

But nowhere in all the arguments, even going back to 1950, was there an alternative to what we were doing and doing badly.

Everybody agreed something was wrong and something needed to change drastically over how we were dealing with the rest of the world and both sides of the political aisle varied wildly over what the solution was. This exchange between Senators William Benton (D-Connecticut) and George Malone (R-Nevada) offer ample proof. The program was The American Forum Of The Air, broadcast on July 9, 1950 - the subject: "Do We Need A New Foreign Policy?". The ensuing shouting match said it all.

Sen. George Malone: “We have not yet had a definite Foreign Policy. I note that your subject today, do we need a new foreign policy? I say definitely we do, because we have never yet said and the President has not said in Korea whether or not the integrity of Korea is important to our ultimate safety. He (President Truman) has said he has got us in it on account of the United Nations and half of the world is not with us in the United Nations. Eastern Europe, Russia, Communist China. We better make up our minds just what our foreign policy is and let the American people know it and let the other nations know it. So we can come out. Now if he has any ideas at all, if he has any ideas, I say he ought to let us know what they are.”

Coming up on 60 years and the arguing doesn't look like it's ending anytime soon. Meanwhile, there's the body bags . . .

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(Sen. Claude Pepper - withstood many attempts at mud-slinging)

It's always interesting (and sometimes gratifying) to hear Sunday Morning talk shows from the past, just as a way of reminding yourself things were never as bad as they are now with mainstream media.

Case in point is certainly Meet The Press. Originally begun in 1946 as a feature on the Mutual Broadcast System Radio Network before switching to NBC in 1947, it was the brainchild of Martha Rountree and Lawrence Spivak and produced in association with American Mercury Magazine (of which Spivak was Publisher), Meet The Press pulled no punches and offered some serious grilling to whatever guest happened to be invited on. It prided itself in not asking canned questions and sometimes the results were newsworthy in themselves.

This episode, from November 27, 1947 features Senator Claude Pepper (D-Florida), himself an outspoken FDR Democrat, talking about our Post-war foreign aid policy and what needed to be done about it in view of the increasing presence of Communism in Eastern Europe.

Sen. Claude Pepper: “I’m in favor of spreading democracy in every part of the world. But there are many ways to spread democracy. You can’t cram democracy down the throats of people. And you can’t buy them off from Communism. We haven’t got enough money to buy the people of the world off from Communism. The best way, in my opinion, to spread democracy is to establish democracy so firmly here, that we’ll be able to propagate it to all nations and peoples of the world, we’ll be able to help them, we’ll set them a good example and the like . . not to buy them or cram it down their throats. . .

Lawrence Spivak: “ . . but certainly Senator we oughtn’t help those who are spreading totalitarianism . . or should we?

Pepper: Mister Spivak, we and the Communists have been living in this world a good many years together. Karl Marx started talking about Communism as you know in the last century. And it seems to me that unless we are willing to be blown to some other world to get away from a world where communism exists, we’ve got to live in a world with Communism. And they’ve got to live in a world with Capitalism. And the sensible thing to do is to learn to live together. We’ve got to live together whether we like it or not.”

Needless to say, Pepper didn't endear himself to the right wing fear mongers in the Senate, who nicknamed him "Red Pepper" and repeatedly attempted to smear him during the 1950's.

Times have changed - so have the people and so have the politicians.