Opponents to Nixon's open foreign policy created generation of neo-cons

SALISBURY — Town resident, prolific author (he has published 22 books) and Lakeville Journal columnist Tom Shachtman is at it again. This week his latest book, “The Forty Years War: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons, from Nixon to Obama†(written with Len Colodny) hit bookstores. Over the summer,  he released “Airlift to America: How Barack Obama Sr., John F. Kennedy, Tom Mboya and 800 East African Students Changed Their World and Ours.â€

A revisionist vision

“‘Forty Years War’ is about foreign policy, what we call the war since the election of Nixon in ’68,†Shachtman said. “It was a war between people who are very pragmatic about what the United States is doing in foreign policy and those who are very ideological.â€

President Nixon was very open in his approach to foreign policy, Shachtman said. He talked with the Soviet Union, he visited China and he “shut down†the Vietnam War. Other politicians at that time were espousing “containment†philosophies: They would rather isolate the USSR and China to prevent the communist influence from spreading around the world.

“Nixon’s idea was to engage with our enemies so we don’t have to be at war all the time,†Shachtman said. “There were many people who didn’t like that idea. They formed the nucleus of opposition to Nixon’s policy and they undermined Ford and Carter.

“Reagan seemed to be doing things their way for a while, but they didn’t like when he said he wanted to make pacts with Russia. They didn’t really get another chance until after the Cold War was over, until George W. Bush. After 9/11, they started talking about invading Iraq, which had nothing to do with the attacks but fit into military plans they’d had for a long time.â€

The book also focuses on the role Fritz Kramer, an intellectual German émigré, had on the discussion. He spoke out against the idea of “provocative weakness,â€the worry that if the United States looked weak in any way, it would encourage enemies to attack.

“His true influence has never really been put between the covers of a book until this time,†Shachtman said.

The forward of the book is written by Roger Morris, a biographer of Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Alexander Hague and Bill Clinton.

“He thinks this is a pretty revolutionary book in the sense of upsetting previous versions of events,†Shachtman said. “I hope that’s true. There’s no sense in doing this kind of history unless it’s revisionist in nature.â€

‘Airlift to America’

Shachtman said his previous book, “Airlift to America,†came into being after he was contacted by the son of one of the Africans who came over on one of the airlift trips.

“It was one of the most wonderful stories I’ve been handed,†he said. “It is a fabulous, unknown piece of American history I was fortunate enough to be able to rescue.â€

Between 1959 and 1963, a small group of Americans and East Africans sponsored a program that brought young African men and women to the United States to study at American universities. The alumni of the airlift program went on to become the nation builders of postcolonial East Africa. Their number also included a Nobel Peace Prize laureate — and the father of the first black U.S. president. The program also had an impact on the 1960 presidential election. John F. Kennedy supported the airlift through his family’s foundation.

“It became a political football because Nixon’s friends in the Senate tried to portray Kennedy as spending his money on ‘black folk,’†Shachtman said. “That backfired. The black vote in about five states is believed to have made the difference in electing Kennedy.â€

Many famous African-Americans, such as Harry Belafonte (who wrote the forward to the book), Jackie Robinson, Sidney Poitier and Martin Luther King Jr. were vocal in their support of the program.

“The airlift is an example of a great black and white combined effort and one of the most successful ones that I know of,†Shachtman said. “It’s just a lovely book. It’s about a great, positive thing in American history. We don’t have too many of those. People stepped up and did the right thing.â€

To learn more about Tom Shachtman’s books, visit tomshachtman.com. Many are available online and through Oblong Books & Music in Millerton.