Roads not taken.

I've noted here before that I'm highly introspective.  Given that, I can't help but look at the road not taken, particularly when I'm oddly reminded of it.

Brian Nesvik was just confirmed as the Trump administrations head of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

Brig Gen. Brian Nesvik.  His Class A uniform here (the horrible blue one that the Army has since ditched) shows him with a 1st Cavalry Division combat patch on his right pocket and what I think is a Combat Action Badge.

I'm not sure when most people start contemplating a career.  I sometimes hear people say the most unlikely things, such as "I always wanted to be a lawyer" or "I always wanted to be an actuary".  When I hear those things, I don't believe them unless the person is downright weird.

Existential occupations, however, are different, and I can imagine a person always wanting to occupy one of them.  I've defined existential occupations in this way:

Existential Occupations are ones that run with our DNA as a species.  Being a farmer/herdsman is almost as deep in us as being a hunter or fisherman, and it stems from the same root in our being.  It's that reason, really, that people who no longer have to go to the field and stream for protein, still do, and it's the reason that people who can buy frozen Brussels sprouts at Riddleys' still grow them on their lots.  And its the reason that people who have never been around livestock will feel, after they get a small lot, that they need a cow, a goat, or chickens.  It's in us.  That's why people don't retire from real agriculture.

It's not the only occupation of that type, we might note.  Clerics are in that category.  Storytellers and Historians are as well.  We've worshiped the Devine since our onset as a species, and we've told stories and kept our history as story the entire time.  They're all existential in nature.  Those who build certain things probably fit into that category as well, as we've always done that.  The fact that people tinker with machinery as a hobby would suggest that it's like that as well.

Indeed, if it's an occupation. . . and also a hobby, that's a good clue that its an Existential Occupation.

Being a soldier is, I think, an existential occupation, but only for men.  I'm not sure what to say about being a policeman of any kind, but I think that's likely the case for that occupation as well.

Growing up as a boy, one of the occupations I really wanted to do was to be a soldier.  It wasn't the only one I contemplated.  As noted here, I've always been really strongly attracted to agriculture.  Most days find me at my office practicing law, but that was never a childhood dream and it didn't occur to me at all until I was in college.  Law is the great middle class reserve occupation, truth be known.

At some point I began to struggle with my childhood desire to be a soldier.  It'd take me away from the state, which I didn't like the idea of.  I knew then, when I was more realistic about life choices than I am now, that I really couldn't hope for a career in agriculture, which is what I'd have done if I could have.  And the days of Wolfers and other professional hunters were long over, of course.  So around about that time, probably 13, 14 or 15 years old, I started thinking about becoming a Wyoming Game Warden.

I didn't give up the soldiering idea right away.  But it occured to me that I could become a National Guardsman, and stay here in the state.  So I hit upon the idea of going to university, then doing a hit in the Army as an officer, and then coming back out and becoming a Game Warden while staying in the National Guard.  This idea was so formulated in my mind at the time that I imagined myself entering the Air Cavalry, which at the time was a really cool branch of the Army, and the serving with the Army National Guard Air Cav Scout Troop in Cheyenne.

I was still on this track when as a junior in high school my father and I spoke about my career plans.  By "spoke" I mean a conversation that probably had three or four sentences in it.  My father wasn't big on career advice for reasons I understand now, but didn't really grasp then.  My mother was much more likely to voice an opinion about education and what I should do than my father, but I tended to flat out ignore my mother, particularly as her mental status declined with illness.  She'd have had me enter one of the hard sciences, which I in fact did (I guess I listened to her some) and go to a school like Notre Dame.

Anyhow, I told my father that I was going to study wildlife management.  He only mentioned that "there are a lot of guys around here with wildlife management degrees that can't find jobs". That was enough to deter me from pursuing that degree right then and there, so rare was his advice in this area.

As it happened, I pursued another field of science but I did join the National Guard, doing so right out of high school as soon as I turned 18 years old.  One of the reasons I did that was that I also was contemplating being a writer, and I thought I'd probably write on history topics. As a lot of history involves armed conflict, being in the Army in some fashion seemed like a good thing to do in order to understand the background.

I was right.

Indeed, joining the Guard was the last really smart career decision I made.  I'm clearly not very good at career decisions.

To play the story out, I was a geology major.  I graduated with a degree in geology, and couldn't find work as the oilfield and coal industries collapsed (sound familiar, Wyoming?).  While at Casper College law was suggested to me by a history professor (I have so many credits in history that I coudl have picked up a BA in it with little effort) and it seemed like a good idea as I didn't know any lawyers and had no idea what they did.

Lots of people become lawyers that way.  Indeed, I know one other lawyer who became one due to the exact same advice from the exact same fellow.

But even at that, when I knew that I wasn't going to get a job as a geologist, I entertained picking up a BS in wildlife management. By that point, my father was supporting me in the goal.  Evan so, his advance five years prior stuck with me, and I didn't do it.  I ended up going to law school, and I ended up letting myself ETS out of the Guard, as I thought, in error, that law school is hard.

Law school, as an aside, isn't hard. Any idiot can graduate with a JD and pass the bar.  And while I only have experience with one law school, I dare say that this is true of any law school  Harvard JD? So fucking what?

Still, the idea resurfaced one more time.  A friend of mine and I went down to the Game Warden exam and I was offered a temporary summer job, the usual introductory way into the Wyoming Game and Fish Department at the time.  At that time, usually those who picked up summer work did it for a few years before being offered a full time job.  My wife and I had just gotten engaged, so I ended up declining the job.

Yes, I'm an idiot.

Well, not really.  But as noted, I'm not good at career decisions.

Brian Nesvik is a Casper native.  He  decided to become a Game Warden when he was fourteen years old and met a game warden on his first big game hunting trip as a licensed hunter.

He's 55 years of age now.  He's a graduate of the University of Wyoming where he received a bachelor's degree.  He was a member of the Wyoming Army National Guard from 1986 to 2021 and rose to the rank of Brigadier General.  Sources say he graduated high school from Cheyenne East in 1988, but I can't make that make sense.  I can accept it was 1987 and he was definitely in the Guard in 1986, the year I got out.  He's a 1994 graduate of the University of Wyoming, which would suggest that he did something else for awhile as even with the late 1988 date, that would have been six years after graduating high school.  I somewhat wonder if he had military service prior to going to university, but I don't know that.  He wears a 1st Cavalry Division DI as a combat patch, as noted, which is interesting.

His career as a game warden was very notable, and he became the state's chief game warden, the pinnacle of the game warden chain of command.  His military career is also impressive, noting the following:

Apr 18 Dec 21 Assistant Adjutant General, Cheyenne, WY

Jan 16 Mar 18 J3/7, Joint Fore Headquarters, Cheyenne, Wyoming

Sep 15 Jan 16 G1, Joint Force Headquarters, Cheyenne, Wyoming

Feb 15 Sep 15 Chief Facilities Maintenance Officer, Joint Force Headquarters, Cheyenne, Wyoming

Jun 10 Feb 15 Commander, 115th Fires Brigade

Apr 09 Jun 10 Commander, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Camp Virginia, Kuwait

May 07 Apr 09 Commander, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Sheridan, Wyoming

Oct 06 May 07 S-3, Headquarters, 115th Field Artillery Brigade, Cheyenne, Wyoming

Oct 05 Oct 06 Operations Officer, Headquarters, 115th Field Artillery Brigade, Cheyenne, Wyoming

Feb 04 Oct 05 Commander, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery (FWD), Baghdad, Iraq

Oct 03 Feb 04 Executive Officer, Headquarters, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Sheridan, Wyoming

Jul 02 Oct 03 S-3, Headquarters, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Sheridan, Wyoming

Aug 01 Jul 02 S-4, Headquarters, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Sheridan, Wyoming

Jun 00 Aug 01 Operations Officer, Headquarters, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Sheridan, Wyoming

Oct 97 Jun 00 Commander, Battery C, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Worland, Wyoming

Jul 97 Oct 97 Fire Direction Officer, Headquarters, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Sheridan, Wyoming

Oct 96 Jul 97 Platoon Leader, Battery A, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Gillette, Wyoming

Jul 94 Oct 96 Executive Officer, Battery A, 3rd Battalion, 49th Field Artillery, Lander, Wyoming

Jul 93 Jul 94 Fire Support Officer, Headquarters Battery, 3rd Battalion, 49th Field Artillery, Laramie, Wyoming

Jul 90 Jul 93 Fire Direction Officer, Battery A, 3rd Battalion, 49th Field Artillery, Lander, Wyoming

Dec 86 Jul 90 Flight Operations Specialist, 920th Medical Company (Air Ambulance), Cheyenne, Wyoming

His time in the National Guard and my own would have overlapped, but only barely.  My Guard service concluded in August, 1986, 39 years ago this month.

Shoot, by this time in 1986, I was probably just about to do my last Guard drill.

I wonder if Nesvik went to Korea with us?

Anyhow, it's interesting how something you thought of doing yourself, worked out for somebody else.

Indeed, frankly, I've known several for whom it did. Was I wrong in my analysis, way back when?

Well, maybe.  I was an indifferent high school student and sort of figured I would be as a college student too, which turned out not to be the case at all.  Externally, I look like a real success.

But then, we always have the backdoor view of ourselves, don't we?

 

This is an interesting article:

Catholic Parents: Free the Hearts of Your Daughters

The author of it, Leila Miller, had to know that she was really swimming against the tide with this one.

Indeed, I'm reluctant to even post on this, as there are a lot of pronatalist nutjobs out there right now that immediately latch on to such things.  But, here goes anyone.

Almost every Sunday I go to Mass at the same Catholic Church.  The celebrant there is an absolutely excellent homilist.  Probably most Priests give homilies that are good from time to time, but his are consistently great, which is rare in the extreme.  So much so, really, that I'd put him alone in this particular class in regard to those which I've personally experienced.

He's very orthodox, which doesn't keep a wide number of parishioners to attending his Masses.  In fact, for the first time last week, I could barely find a place to sit. I was attending with my daughter, who is about to go back to grad school.

Lots of weeks this parish features a fair number of young women wearing mantillas.  Not every week, however.  It's interesting . Some weeks they're all missing.  I don't know for sure, but I suspect that those are the weeks the Byzantine Catholic Church has Divine Liturgy in town.  The Byzantine Catholic service is conservative by default.

These are not the only young women there.  There are quite a few, but most dress like young women in this region do, if a little nicer.  My daughter, for instance, would never consider wearing a mantilla.  I know a few of  them, but only a few. There's the recently married nurse, whom I've known for a long time.  There's the young lawyer and her family.  And there's the girl working in the sporting goods shop.

The latter is particularly interesting as she just graduated high school about a year ago.  She's been working there for about a year as well.  Her concerned grandmother told me that she's been hoping that she goes to college and that she's very smart.  Apparently, she has no desire to do so.

Most of the young women I know, and I know them only barely, are either newly minted lawyers or friends of my daughter.  My daughter, as noted, is in grad school. Some of those young women are as well. Some have graduated from school already and are in the early stages of careers of one kind or another.  Because we live on the shores of jello belt, a few are Mormons, who are already married (Mormons tend to marry young) and have children.

There are a lot of misperceptions about Catholics, including Catholics and marriage.  Catholics do not, and never have, tended to marry young.  The opposite is actually the case.  My parents were in their late 20s and early 30s when then married.  My mother's parents were about the same.  I think my father's parents were in their early 20s, which isn't up there, but it's not as if its a teenage wedding either.    Anyhow, most Catholic women fit in to the general demographics for American women in general on these topics, although not strictly so.  The mantilla women are outliers.

What do they all hope for?

That's hard, if not impossible, to say. Each person's hopes and dreams are personal to them. . . but. . . well, within the confines of the nature of our species.

So perhaps they're more determinabel than we might think.

Non existential careers, which are most careers, are not really something that makes anyone fulfilled.  For that matter, they don't really make anyone actually happy.  But people are sold in the idea that they do.  Indeed, the way that comes in up in the subversive movie Office Space so frequently is what makes the movie actually profound:

Peter, most people don't like their jobs. But you go out there and you find something that makes you happy.

Joanna, in Office Space.

What feminist who yearned for careerism failed to grasp is that men didn't really want it either.  It was foisted upon them.

One of the things about the existential occupations is that they all existed when we were in our aboriginal state, t hat state not really being grasped by a lot of people.  People like to look back and think that we were "cave men" at that point, but that was never actually true for our species.  For most of our time here on Earth we lived as hunter/gatherer/farmers.  Interestingly, the farming aspect of this, which was t hought to have been a revolutionary development, was with us when we were still hunting and gathering, which should have been obvious as modern hunter/gatherers tend to also farm.  Those occupations have stuck with us in one form or another all along.

What also was with us was our basic natures.  No matter how you conceive of our species coming about, we've always paired up, male and female, and we've always had children.  Everything, in fact, centered around that.  While we imagine ourselves to be very complex, we really aren't.  That remains our basic natures and for most of us, defines, if you will, what we really want.  The existential occupations served that purpose.

Things began to become unhinged from that as we developed more complex societies, as once we do, something always goes amis.  Greed has a lot to do with it. Somebody will get into a position where he, and its usually a he, wants more of everything, food, resources, women, than anyone else.  Wealth always corrupts.

Still, even with more and more advanced societies over the centuries, it wasn't really until the Industrial Revolution that the basic nature of life started to be wrecked.  We should not idealize pre Industrial Revolution societies, which had plenty that were wrong with them, but something that wasn't wrong with them is that men and women tended to work close to the land, and close to each other.  A 17th Century English farmer, for example, might not be farming a farm he owned, or tending sheep that were his, but he was working close to nature and probably normally saw his family throughout the day.

The Industrial Revolution changed all of that.

Industrial capital needed labor and it took male labor, at first, out of the village and into the factories.  It's not that simple, of course, but the reasons that it was mostly male is.  Originally most industrial jobs required a fair amount of physical strength and endurance, which men have more of.  Where this was not true, it might be recalled, children and women were in fact employed, although that always meant, at first that they were poor.  

And, additionally, two other things were at play, one of which we've already touched on.

The first one is that biology worked against the conscription of women into the workforce at first.  There was noone to take care of children other than women and almost always those women taking care of the children were the children's mothers, for host of additional biological reasons.  The second one was that domestic life required female employment in the home.  There were exceptions to all of this, of course, but they were exceptions proving the rule.

None of this, however, goes against industrial employment being unnatural in and of itself.  Men whose fathers had come and gone throughout the day now left for industrial employment early in the morning and came back at night.  They didn't see their families throughout the day, and indeed, as time went on, teh gruelling nature of industrial work created a sort of mateship amongst blue collar workers that previously had really only been seen amongst servicemen.  When that occurred, it came to often be the case that when they got off work after a long day, the first thing they did was to hit a blue collar tavern, and then come home.   One lawyer's site on the net notes how the author's father worked a schedule like this, hit a blue collar bar every night, and cheated on his wife with the women found there, who would largely have been working there.

White collar and professional employment followed the pattern.  

If you look, for instance, at the practice of law prior to industrialization, lawyers usually worked out of their houses. Doctors did as well.  Indeed, almost anyone who "ran a business" outside of farming did.  John Adams, for instance, practiced out of the same farmhouse that he farmed from.  Once again, this meant that people were not really separated from their families much.

This even shows with some of the occupations that we regard as the wildest, or perhaps the freest.  Trappers in the American West, for instance, were married into native families at a high rate and took their spouses with them.  Career soldiers who made it to the upper NCO ranks, or who were officers, tended to bring their families to frontier posts with them.  

But as industrialization developed, the workplace industrialized.  Lawyers moved out of offices and into firms that moved into houses used only for that purpose, and then into downtown office buildings.  Doctors moved out of their houses into a professional building.  Every male began to leave early in the morning, and come home at night.

None of that was natural on a day to day basis.

The introduction of domestic machinery made much of the formerly necessary female labor surplus. AS that happened, they too began to be available for out of the home employment.  Between World War ONe and World War Two domestic machinery was revolutionized, but its introduction was retarded by the Great Depression, and then World War Two.  After the war, the new domestic machinery flooded the markets and female labor was released from the home at an enormous rate.

The only thing that kept a greater expansion of female labor in the workplace, and by this we mostly mean the office, heavy industry was still off bounds, was biology.  The pill took care of that.

The results were nearly inevitable, even if never expressly stated as desired.  Now that women could be free of biological reasons not to work, they soon had to work.  First generation feminists took up the cause in publications like Coso, which was basically the flipside of Playboy, with the same evolved message.  Joy and meaning was found in the (white collar) work place.  Sex was for entertainment. Your value is your work, and nothing else.  The same line of crap that men had been force fed for years wsa now force fed to young women.

Problem is, it's all a lie.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I'm not stating that women should not work.  What I'm saying, really, is that men have to.  We have no other choice in the world, and most of us will occupy jobs that are just jobs, and nothing more., even when they are well paying.  But the basic nature of our species, that cries for the home to be the focus of our existence, and in which the old occupations still cry out, is unchanging.  And for women, part for that basic nature is to be mothers. For men, part of it is to be fathers.  

Being a mother remains a more demanding role than being a father, when children are young.  When they get older, this is less the case, but the entire "let's warehouse the children" nature of modern life is existentially immoral and we know it.  We managed to come around, in a capitalist society, to the same position the early communists did, and for the exact same reason, warehousing kids means the mother must work.

Not can, but must.

And the pressure to do so remains massive.  Nobody really advocates for women in this area, as it would men the actual return to a pre pill, pre first generation feminist, world outlook.  That'd be bad for capitalism as there would be fewer workers, and worse yet, consumption would decline.

But, frankly, that's' the way it ought to be.

I've already noted it once, but I was recently at a legal event in which there was a huge number of lawyers.  One thing that was noted was how many Catholic lawyers were there, which was in fact quite a few (Catholics here, however, are a minority).  Something I observed, however, is how many older lawyers there were.

On that, there was in fact a comment, from lawyer in his early 70s (maybe very late 60s) to another in his very late 60s.  "Lawyers don't like retirement".

If that's true, it's phenomenal.

I typed most of this entry out a while ago, but after I did it, Jerry Spence passed away, and I noted it here on the blog.  I'm not sure why I even did.  I guess it's just because he was a notable Wyoming figure.  After I did it, it occured to me that I don't think I noted the passing of former Wyoming Senator Al Simpson, who was also a lawyer from a long established family of Wyoming lawyers who have played significant roles in the state's history.  I should have.  He was quite a character.

One of the reasons that I'm a bit surprised that I noted Spence's passing is that I'm not a Spence fan.  I'm not a Spence enemy either, but the extent to which a certain group of people simply worship him astounds me.  Since he died, those close to him, semi close to him, and others who simply know his name have engaged in near hagiography about him.  I actually had somebody stop me just yesterday to related how they were deposed by Spence and his crew back in the day as a defendant in a case in which he represented a plaintiff.  You could tell he was proud of that fact, and obviously thought I would be really impressed.

I'm not.

I knew of Spence way back when I was in grade school, actually, which means back into some date in the early 1970s and I just don't get it.  I guess I don't get worshipping any lawyer.

I particularly feel that way as I am a lawyer.

Daniel Webster noted that “Most good lawyers live well, work hard, and die poor.”  I think there was a huge amount of truth to that.  There's still an element of true to it, but the "live well" part is pretty questionable..  

Working hard as a lawyer brings in less money than a person supposed, usually, and at any rate, lots of lawyers. . . and lots of other professionals for that matter, spend money as quickly as they make it.  As an oddity, right now, I drive the oldest vehicles of any lawyer I know.  I don't regard them as old, but the newest one I've had for twenty years.  The point is, a lot of people just burn through cash, and at a certain point, they have to keep working.

A bigger factor is, however, that the practice of law just burns out the core of a person's personality until, in many instances, there's nothing left.  Lawyers who have left the law often joke about being a "recovering lawyer", but at a certain point, there is no recovering from it.  All forms of work, if engaged in for a long time, or indeed any human endeavor you engage in for a while, changes you permanently.  It's part of your experience, and you are hardwired to react according to your experience.

I was going to go on and say more about this, but my original draft was extremely harsh, so I took it out.

You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land, back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing's sake, back home to aestheticism, to one's youthful idea of 'the artist' and the all-sufficiency of 'art' and 'beauty' and 'love,' back home to the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, to the cottage in Bermude, away from all the strife and conflict of the world, back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time--back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.

Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again.

Tomorrow it will be 28 years to the day that I've been in the service. 28 years in peace and war. I don't suppose I've been at home more than 10 months in all that time. Still, it's been a good life. I loved India. I wouldn't have had it any other way. But there are times... when suddenly you realize you're nearer the end than the beginning. And you wonder, you ask yourself, what the sum total of your life represents. What difference your being there at any time made to anything - or if it made any difference at all, really. Particularly in comparison with other men's careers. I don't know whether that kind of thinking's very healthy, but I must admit I've had some thoughts on those lines from time to time. But tonight... tonight!

Col Nicholson in The Bridge On The River Kwai. 

Related threads:

Work with meaning and the meaning of work.

Labels: Commentary, Daily Living, Distributism, Existential Occupations., Mid-Week at Work, Retirement, Subsidiarity, The Practice of Law, Women, Work

A conversation with an old friend. The Good Death, and the Good Life and Existential Occupations.

Labels: Agrarianism, Christianity, Death, Existential Occupations., Health, Hobbies, Introspection, Killetarianism, Medieval Europe, Mid-Week at Work, Old Age, religion, Retirement, Work

Friday, August 17, 1945. The long trip of the U-977.

The U-977 surrendered at Mar del Plata, Argentina.  It had left Kiel on April 13th and had sunk a Soviet ship in the Arctic before the end of the war, and the start of its really long journey.

The crew actually intended to defect to Argentina, freighted by a late war Goebbels broadcast which stated the Morgenthau plan intended to turn Germany into a "goat pasture" and that German men were to be sterilized.  The commander, Oblt.z.S. Schäffer, allowed those who did not want to go to be put ashore in Germany, and sixteen were.  The hopes were to integrated into Argentina's German community.  He personally stated:

I left Kristiansand S. on 2 May 1945, normally equipped, and under orders to proceed to the Channel, (i.e. English Channel).  

A few days later I picked up fragments of signals, which I suspected of being the work of enemy deception.  When, however, these signals were not cancelled, I had to assume that the radio stations had fallen into enemy hands and that we had lost the war.  The fact that the uncoded signals signed “Allied Committee” were coming through, convinced me that the orders contained in these signals were illegitimate and not in agreement with the German High Command.  When we began our patrol, an official slogan had been posted on all Naval establishments and ships which said:  The enemy shall find in Germany nothing but rats and mice.  We will never capitulate.  Better death than slavery.  

It must be remembered that radio reception on board the U-977 was only sporadic since, for tactical reasons, we only occasionally came to Schnorchel depth.  However, enough signals had been received so that I no longer had any superiors, and that I was relieved of my oath.  In any case, I did not feel obligated without direct orders from my government to accept enemy orders.  

 I no longer considered my ship as a man-of-war, but as a means of escape, and I tried to act for the best interests of all aboard.  I respected the wishes of members of my crew insofar as they did not imperil the ship or cause damage to it.  

 One of my main reasons in deciding to proceed to the Argentine was based on German propaganda, which claimed that the American and British newspapers advocated that at the end of the war, all German men be enslaved and sterilized.  Another consideration was the bad treatment and long delay in return home suffered by German prisoners-of-war held in France at the end of World War I.  Then again, of course, the hope of better living conditions in the Argentine.  

It was absolutely my intention to deliver the boat undamaged into Allied hands, while doing the best I could for my crew.  I felt that the ship’s engines might be a valuable adjunct to the reconstruction of Europe.  I carried out these intentions and delivered the boat in perfect condition.

In fact they were extradited to the US where they faced charges of having sunk a Brazilian ship after the war, which the US, based upon Argentine information, concluded they could not have done, and then to the UK, where they were accused of having landed German officials in Argentina prior to surrendering, which they also did not do.

Schäffer wrote a book about the boat and its escape after the war.  The entire event gave rise to long lasting rumors and myths as to what the boat was doing.

Hirohito issued a letter to the officers and men of the Japanese military. 

TO THE OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE IMPERIAL FORCES:

Three years and eight months have elapsed since we declared war on the United States and Britain. During this time our beloved men of the army and navy, sacrificing their lives, have fought valiantly on disease-stricken and barren lands and on tempestuous waters in the blazing sun, and of this we are deeply grateful.

Now that the Soviet Union has entered the war against us, to continue the war under the present internal and external conditions would be only to increase needlessly the ravages of war finally to the point of endangering the very foundation of the Empire's existence

With that in mind and although the fighting spirit of the Imperial Army and Navy is as high as ever, with a view to maintaining and protecting our noble national policy we are about to make peace with the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and Chungking.

To a large number of loyal and brave officers and men of the Imperial forces who have died in battle and from sicknesses goes our deepest grief. At the same time we believe the loyalty and achievements of you officers and men of the Imperial forces will for all time be the quintessence of our nation.

We trust that you officers and men of the Imperial forces will comply with our intention and will maintain a solid unity and strict discipline in your movements and that you will bear the hardest of all difficulties, bear the unbearable and leave an everlasting foundation of the nation.

This is likely the message mentioned in yesterday's entry, but I'm noting it here, as this is the date I had for it.

Indonesia, where Japanese occupation had not been wholly unwelcome, declared independence the Netherlands.  They'd have to fight for it.

The declaration was read by Sukarno, with a Japanese officer standing nearby. The Dutch had not reoccupied the islands.

Sukarno had been a pre war prisoner of the Dutch, and had been freed from incarceration by the Japanese.  The Dutch, for that matter, were really hated colonial masters, and nobody was keen about their return, including the British.

The Battle of Tianmen was fought between warlord and Japanese troops turned Nationalist and the Communist in China. The Communists prevailed.

This was small battle, and 1/3d of the troops were Japanese.

Oppenheimer wrote Henry Stimson.

From: J R Oppenheimer

To: Henry Stimson, Secretary of War

Date: August 17, 1945

Dear Mr. Secretary:

The Interim Committee has asked us to report in some detail on the scope and program of future work in the field of atomic energy. One important phase of this work is the development of weapons; and since this is the problem which has dominated our war time activities, it is natural that in this field our ideas should be most definite and clear, and that we should be most confident of answering adequately the questions put to us by the committee. In examining these questions we have, however, come on certain quite general conclusions, whose implications for national policy would seem to be both more immediate and more profound than those of the detailed technical recommendations to be submitted. We, therefore, think it appropriate to present them to you at this time.

1. We are convinced that weapons quantitatively and qualitatively far more effective than now available will result from further work on these problems. This conviction is motivated not alone by analogy with past developments, but by specific projects to improve and multiply the existing weapons, and by the quite favorable technical prospects of the realization of the super bomb.

2. We have been unable to devise or propose effective military counter-measures for atomic weapons. Although we realize that future work may reveal possibilities at present obscure to us, it is our firm opinion that no military countermeasures will be found which will be adequately effective in preventing the delivery of atomic weapons.

The detailed technical report in preparation will document these conclusions, but hardly alter them.

3. We are not only unable to outline a program that would assure to this nation for the next decades hegemony in the field of atomic weapons; we are equally unable to insure that such hegemony, if achieved, could protect us from the most terrible destruction.

4. The development, in the years to come, of more effective atomic weapons, would appear to be a most natural element in any national policy of maintaining our military forces at great strength; nevertheless we have grave doubts that this further development can contribute essentially or permanently to the prevention of war. We believe that the safety of this nation – as opposed to its ability to inflict damage on an enemy power – cannot lie wholly or even primarily in its scientific or technical prowess. It can be based only on making future wars impossible. It is our unanimous and urgent recommendation to you that, despite the present incomplete exploitation of technical possibilities in this field, all steps be taken, all necessary international arrangements be made, to this one end.

5. We should be most happy to have you bring these views to the attention of other members of the Government, or of the American people, should you wish to do so.

Very sincerely,

J. R. Oppenheimer

The latest edition of Yank was out.

 A new book was also out.

Orwell's Animal Farm was published.

I'll confess, I have not read it.

The British government announced the intent to introduce socialized medicine.  It also announced that 38,000 British soldiers and 112,000 British civilians were being held by the Japanese as prisoners.

Last edition:

Thursday, August 16, 1945. Hirohito orders the Japanese military to lay down their arms.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Battle of Yongjiazhen (雍家镇战斗), Chinese Civil War, Collaborators, Hirohito, Japan, Manchukuo, Monarchy, Qing Dynasty, Red Army, The Cold War, the spoken word, Winston Churchill, World War Two

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Thursday, August 16, 1945. Hirohito orders the Japanese military to lay down their arms.

Emperor Hirohito issued a decree at 4:00 p.m. local time ordering all Japanese forces to cease fire. 

The Japanese cabinet resigned.  General Prince Higashikumi became the new prime minister and formed a new government. He ordered the Imperial Army to obey the Emperor's call and lay down their arms.

His post war career was largely unsuccessful, but he lived a very long life, dying at age 102 in 1990.

Marshal Vassilevsky, commander of Soviet forces in Manchuria, called on the Japanese Kwantung Army to surrender by August 20th, to which there was no reply.  Japanese units began to surrender on their own.

Puyi, the last Emperor of  China, and then on the run from the Red Army, abdicated as Emperor of Manchukuo.  Leaving his imperial party behind, including his concubine Li Yuqin, Lady Hiro Saga, and Lady Saga's two children behind, who were thought to be in no danger, he then intended to board an airplane and make good his escape, but rather than the anticipated aircraft, a Soviet one arrived and they were taken prisoner.

Churchill first used the term "iron curtain" regarding the Communist East in a speech to the House of Commons.  This is not the famous Fulton Missouri speech of 1946.

In the House of Commons he stated, in part:

OUR duty this afternoon is to congratulate His Majesty's Government on the very great improvement in our prospects at home, which comes from the complete victory gained over Japan and the establishment of peace throughout the world. Only a month ago it was necessary to continue at full speed and at enormous cost all preparations for a long and bloody campaign in the Far East. In the first days of the Potsdam Conference President Truman and I approved the plans submitted to us by the combined Chiefs of Staff for a series of great battles and landings in Malaya, in the Netherlands East Indies and in the homeland of Japan itself. These operations involved an effort not surpassed in Europe, and no one could measure the cost in British and American life and treasure they would require. Still less could it be known how long the stamping out of the resistance of Japan in many territories she had conquered, and especially in her homeland, would last. All the while the whole process of turning the world from war to peace would be hampered and delayed. Every form of peace activity was half strangled by the over-riding priorities of war. No clear-cut decisions could be taken in the presence of this harsh dominating uncertainty.

During the last three months an element of baffling dualism has complicated every problem of policy and administration. We had to plan for peace and war at the same time. Immense armies were being demobilized; another powerful army was being prepared and despatched to the other side of the globe. All the personal stresses among millions of men eager to return to civil life, and hundreds of thousands of men who would have to be sent to new and severe campaigns in the Far East, presented themselves with growing tension. This dualism affected also every aspect of our economic and financial life. How to set people free to use their activities in reviving the life of Britain, and at the same time to meet the stern demands of the war against Japan, constituted one of the most perplexing and distressing puzzles that in a long life-time of experience I have ever faced.

I confess it was with great anxiety that I surveyed this 1 prospect a month ago. Since then I have been relieved of the burden. At the same time that burden, heavy though it still remains, has been immeasurably lightened. On 17th July there came to us at Potsdam the eagerly awaited news of the trial of the atomic bomb in the Mexican desert Success beyond all dreams crowned this sombre, magnificent venture of our American Allies. The detailed reports of the Men-can desert experiment, which were brought to us a few days later by air, could leave no doubt in the minds of the very few who were informed, that we were in the presence of a new factor in human affairs, and possessed of powers which were irresistible. Great Britain had a right to be consulted in accordance with Anglo-American agreements. The decision to use the atomic bomb was taken by President Truman and myself at Potsdam, and we approved the military plans to unchain the dread, pent-up forces.

From that moment our outlook on the future was transformed. In preparation for the results of this experiment, the statements of the President and of Mr. Stimson and my own statements, which by the courtesy of the Prime Minister was subsequently read out on the broadcast, were framed in common agreement. Marshal Stalin was informed by President Truman that we contemplated using an explosive of incomparable power against Japan, and action proceeded in the way we all now know. It is to this atomic bomb more than to any other factor that we may ascribe the sudden and speedy ending of the war against Japan.

Before using it, it was necessary first of all to send a message in the form of an ultimatum to the Japanese which would apprise them of what unconditional surrender meant This document was published on 26th July—the same day that another event, differently viewed on each side of the House, occurred. The assurances given to Japan about her future after her unconditional surrender had been made, were generous to a point. When we remember the cruel and treacherous nature of the utterly unprovoked attack made by the Japanese war lords upon the United States and GreatBritain, these assurances must be considered magnanimous in a high degree. In a nutshell, they implied "Japan for the Japanese," and even access to raw materials apart from their control, was not denied to their densely-populated homeland. We felt that in view of the new and fearful agencies of war-power about to be employed, every inducement to surrender, compatible with our declared policy, should be set before them. This we owed to our consciences before using this awful weapon.

Secondly, by repeated warnings, emphasized by heavy bombing attacks, an endeavour was made to procure the general exodus of the civil population from the threatened cities. Thus everything in human power, short of using the atomic bomb, was done to spare the civil population of Japan, though there are voices which assert that the bomb should never have been used at all. I cannot associate myself with such ideas. Six years of total war have convinced most people that had the Germans or Japanese discovered this new weapon, they would have used it upon us to our complete destruction with the utmost alacrity. I am surprised that very worthy people, but people who in most cases had no intention of proceeding to the Japanese front themselves, should adopt the position that rather than throw this bomb, we should have sacrificed a million American, and a quarter of a million British lives in the desperate battles and massacres of an invasion of Japan. Future generations will judge these dire decisions, and I believe that if they find themselves dwelling in a happier world from which war has been banished, and where freedom reigns, they will not condemn those who struggled for their benefit amid the horrors and miseries of this gruesome and ferocious epoch.

The bomb brought peace, but men alone can keep that peace, and henceforward they will keep it under penalties which threaten the survival, not only of civilization but of humanity itself. I may say that I am in entire agreement with the President that the secrets of the atomic bomb shall so far as possible not be imparted at the present time to any other country in the world. This is in no design or wish for arbitrary power but for the common safety of the world. Nothing can stop the progress of research and experiment in every country, but although research will no doubt proceed in many places, the construction of the immense plants necessary to transform theory into action cannot be improvised in any country.

For this and many other reasons the United States stand at this moment at the summit of the world. I rejoice that this should be so. Let them act up to the level of their power and their responsibility, not for themselves but for others, for all men in all lands, and then a brighter day may dawn upon human history. So far as we know, there are at least three and perhaps four years before the concrete progress made in the United States can be overtaken. In these three years we must remould the relationships of all men, wherever they dwell, in all the nations. We must remould them in such a way that these men do not wish or dare to fall upon each other for the sake of vulgar and out-dated ambitions or for passionate differences in ideology, and that international bodies of supreme authority may give peace on earth and decree justice among men. Our pilgrimage has brought us to a sublime moment in the history of the world. From the least to the greatest, all must strive to be worthy of these supreme opportunities. There is not an hour to be wasted; there is not a day to be lost.

It would in my opinion be a mistake to suggest that the Russian declaration of war upon Japan was hastened by the use of the atomic bomb. My understanding with Marshal Stalin in the talks which I had with him had been for a considerable time past, that Russia would declare war upon Japan within three months of the surrender of the German armies. The reason for the delay of three months was, of course, the need to move over the trans-Siberian Railway the large reinforcements necessary to convert the Russian-Manchurian army from a defensive to an offensive strength. Three months was the time mentioned, and the fact that the German armies surrendered on May 8th, and the Russians declared war on Japan on August 8th, is no mere coincidence but another example of the fidelity and punctuality with which Marshal Stalin and his valiant armies always keep their military engagements.

I now turn to the results of the Potsdam Conference so far as they have been made public in the agreed communique and in President Truman's very remarkable speech of a little more than a week ago. There has been general approval of the arrangements proposed for the administration of Germany by the Allied Control Commission during the provisional period of military government This regime is both transitional and indefinite. The character of Hitler's Nazi party was such as to destroy almost ail independent elements in the German people. The struggle was fought to the bitter end. The mass of the people were forced to drain the cup of defeat to the dregs. A headless Germany has fallen into the hands of the conquerors. It may be many years before any structure of German national life will be possible, and there will be plenty of time for the victors to consider how the interests of the world peace are affected thereby.

In the meanwhile, it is in my view of the utmost importance that responsibility should be effectively assumed by German local bodies for carrying on under Allied supervision all the processes of production and of administration necessary to maintain the life of a vast population. It is not possible for the Allies to bear responsibility by themselves. We cannot have the German masses lying down upon our hands and expecting to be fed, organized and educated over a period of years, by the Allies. We must do our best to help avert the tragedy of famine. But it would be in vain for us in our small island, which still needs to import half its food, to imagine that we can make any further appreciable contribution in that respect The rationing of this country cannot be made more severe, without endangering the life and physical strength of our people, all of which will be needed for the immense tasks we have to do. I, therefore, most strongly advise the encouragement of the assumption of responsibility by trustworthy German local bodies in proportion as they can be brought into existence.

The Council which was set up at Potsdam of the Foreign Secretaries of the three, four or five Powers, meeting in various combinations as occasion served, affords a new and flexible machinery for the continuous further study of the immense problems that lie before us in Europe and Asia. I am very glad that the request that I made to the Conference, and which my right hon. Friend—I may perhaps be allowed so to refer to him on this comparatively innocuous occasion—supported at the Conference, that the seat of the Council's permanent Secretariat should be London, was granted. I must say that my right hon. Friend the late Foreign Secretary, who has, over a long period, gained an increasing measure of confidence from the Foreign Secretaries of Russia and the United States, and who through the European Advisory Committee which is located in London has always gained the feeling that things could be settled in a friendly and easy way, deserves some of the credit for the fact that these great Powers willingly accorded us the seat in London for the permanent Secretariat. It is high time that the place of London, one of the controlling centres of international world affairs, should at last be recognized. It is the oldest, the largest, the most battered capital, the capital which was first in the war, and the time is certainly overdue when we should have our recognition.

I am glad also that a beginning is to be made with the evacuation of Persia by the British and Russian armed forces, in accordance with the triple treaty which we made with each other and with Persia in 1941. Although it does not appear in the communique, we have since seen it announced that the first stage in the process, namely the withdrawal of Russian and British troops from Teheran, has already begun or is about to begin. There are various other matters arising out of this Conference which should be noted as satisfactory. We should not, however, delude ourselves into supposing that the results of this first Conference of the victors were free from disappointment or anxiety, or that the most serious questions before us were brought to good solutions. Those which proved incapable of agreement at the Conference have been relegated to the Foreign Secretaries' Council which, though most capable of relieving difficulties, is essentially one gifted with less far-reaching powers. Other grave questions are left for the final peace settlement, by which time many of them may have settled themselves, not necessarily in the best way.

It would be at once wrong and impossible to conceal the divergencies of view which exist inevitably between the victors about the state of affairs in Eastern and Middle Europe. I do not at all blame the Prime Minister or the new Foreign Secretary, whose task it was to finish up the discussions which we had begun. I am sure they did their best. We have to realize that no one of the three leading Powers can impose its solutions upon others and that the only solutions possible are those which are in the nature of compromise. We British have had very early and increasingly to recognize the limitations of our own power and influence, great though it be, in the gaunt world arfeing from the ruins of this hideous war. It is not in the power of any British Government to bring home solutions which would be regarded as perfect by the great majority of Members of this House, wherever they may sit. I must put on record my own opinion that the provisional Western Frontier agreed upon for Poland, running from Stettin on the BaltiC., along the Oder and its tributary, the Western Neisse, comprising as it does one quarter of the arable land of all Germany, is not a good augury for the future map of Europe. We always had in the Coalition Government a desire that Poland should receive ample compensation in the West for the territory ceded to Russia east of the Curzon Line. But here I think a mistake has been made, in which the Provisional Government of Poland have been an ardent partner, by going far beyond what necessity or equity required. There are few virtues that the Poles do not possess—and there are few mistakes they have ever avoided.

I am particularly concerned, at this moment, with the reports reaching us of the conditions under which the expulsion and exodus of Germans from the new Poland are being carried out. Between 8,000,000 and 9,000,000 persons dwelt in those regions before the war. The Polish Government say that there are still 1,500,000 of these not yet expelled within their new frontiers. Other millions must have taken refuge behind the British and American lines, thus increasing the food stringency in our sector. But enormous numbers are utterly unaccounted for. Where are they gone, and what has been their fate? The same conditions may reproduce themselves in a more modified form in the expulsion of great numbers of Sudeten and other Germans from Czechoslovakia. Sparse and guarded accounts of what has happened and is happening have filtered through, but it is not impossible that tragedy on a prodigious scale is unfolding itself behind the iron curtain which at the moment divides Europe in twain. I should welcome any statement which the Prime Minister can make which would relieve, or at least inform us upon this very anxious and grievous matter.

There is another sphere of anxiety. I remember that a fortnight or so before the last war, the Kaiser's friend Hen Ballen, the great shipping magnate, told me that he had heard Bismarch say towards the end of his life, "If there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans." The murder of the Archduke at Sarajevo in 1914 set the signal for the first * world war. I cannot conceive that the elements for a new conflict exist in the Balkans to-day. I am not using the language of Bismarck, but nevertheless not many Members of the new House of Commons will be content with the new situation that prevails in those mountainous, turbulent, ill-organized and warlike regions. I do not intend to particularize. I am very glad to see the new Foreign Secretary sitting on the Front Bench opposite. I would like to say with what gratification I learned that the high hon. Gentleman had taken on this high and most profoundly difficult office, and we are sure he will do his best to preserve the great causes for which we have so long pulled together. But as I say, not many Members will be content with the situation in that region to which I have referred, for almost everywhere Communist forces have obtained, or are in process of obtaining, dictatorial powers. It does not mean that the Communist system is everywhere being established, nor does it mean that Soviet Russia seeks to reduce all those independent States to provinces of the Soviet Union. Mr. Stalin is a very wise man, and I would set no limits to the immense contributions that he and his associates have to make to the future.

In those countries, torn and convulsed by war, there may be, for some months to come, the need of authoritarian Government. The alternative would be anarchy. Therefore it would be unreasonable to ask or expect that liberal Governments—as spelt with a small "l"—and British or United States democratic conditions, should be instituted immediately. They take their politics very seriously in those countries. A friend of mine, an officer, was in Zagreb, when the results of the late General Election came in. An old lady said to him, "Poor Mr. Churchill. I suppose now he will be shot." My friend was able to reassure her. He said the sentence might be mitigated to one of the various forms of hard labor which are always open to His Majesty's subjects. Nevertheless we must know where we stand, and we must make clear where we stand in these affairs of the Balkans and of Eastern Europe, and indeed of any country which comes into this field. Our idea is government of the people by the people, for the people—the people being free without duress to express, by secret ballot without intimida- i tion, their deep-seated wish as to the form and conditions of the Government under which they are to live.

At the present time—I trust a very fleeting time—"police governments" rule over a great number of countries. It is a case of the odious 18b, carried to a horrible excess. The family is gathered round the fireside to enjoy the scanty fruits of their toil and to recruit their exhausted strength by the little food that they have been able to gather. There they sit. Suddenly there is a knock at the door and a heavily armed policeman appears. He is not, of course, one who resembles in any way those functionaries whom we honour and obey in the London streets. It may be that the father or son. or a friend sitting in the cottage is called out, and taken into the dark and no one knows whether he will ever come

back again, of what his fate has been. All they know is that they had better not inquire. There are millions of humble homes in Europe at the moment in Poland, in Czechoslovakia, in Austria, in Hungary, in Yugoslavia, in Rumania, in Bulgaria—where this fear is the main preoccupation of the family life. President Roosevelt laid down the four freedoms and these are extant in the Atlantic Charter which we agreed together. "Freedom from fear"—but this has been interpreted as if it were only freedom from fear of invasion from a foreign country. That is the least of the fears of the common man. His patriotism arms him to withstand invasion or go down fighting; but that is not the fear of the ordinary family in Europe tonight. Their fear is of the policeman's knock. It is not fear for the country, for all men can unite in comradeship for the defence of their native soil. It is for the life and liberty of the individual, for the fundamental rights of man, now menaced and precarious in so many lands that peoples tremble.

Surely we can agree in this new Parliament or the great majority of us, wherever we sit—there are naturally and rightly differences and cleavages of thought—but surely we can agree in this new Parliament, which will either fail the world or once again play a part in saving it, that it is the will of the people freely expressed by secret ballot, in universal suffrage elections as to the form of their government and as to the laws which shall prevail, which is the first solution and safeguard. Let us then, march steadily along that plain and simple line. I avow my faith in Democracy, whatever course of view it may take with individuals and parties. They may make their mistakes, and they may profit from their mistakes. Democracy is now on trial as it never was before, and in these islands we must uphold it, as we upheld it in the dark days of 1940 and 1941, with all our hearts, with all our vigilance and with all our enduring and inexhaustible strength. While the war was on and all the Allies were fighting for victory, the word "democracy," like many people, had to work overtime, but now that peace has come we must search for more precise definitions. Elections have been proposed in some of these Balkan countries where only one set of candidates is allowed to appear, and where, if other parties are to express their opinion, it has to be arranged beforehand that the governing party, armed with its political police and all its propaganda, is the only one which has the slightest chance. Chance, did I say? It is a certainty.

Now is the time for Britons to speak out. It is odious to us that governments should seek to maintain their rule otherwise than by free, unfettered elections by the mass of the people. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, says the Constitution of the United States. This must not evaporate in swindles and lies propped up by servitude and murder. In our foreign policy let us strike continually the notes of freedom and fair play as we understand them in these islands. Then you will find there will be an overwhelming measure of agreement between us, and we shall in this House march forward on a honourable theme having within it all that invests human life with dignity and happiness. In saying all this, I have been trying to gather together and present in a direct form the things which, I believe, are dear to the great majority of us. I rejoiced to read them expressed in golden words by the President of the United States when he said:

"Our victory in Europe was more than a victory of arms. It was a victory of one way of life over another. It was a victory of an ideal founded on the right of the common man, on the dignity of the human being, and on the conception of the State as the servant, not the master, of its people."

I think there is not such great disagreement between us. Emphasis may be cast this way and that in particular incidents, but surely this is what the new Parliament on the whole means. This is what in our heart and conscience in foreign affairs and world issues we desire. Just as in the baleful glare of 1940, so now, when calmer lights shine, let us be united upon these resurgent principles and impulses of the good and generous hearts of men. Thus to all the material strength we possess and the honoured position we have acquired, we shall add those moral forces which glorify mankind and make even the weakest equals of the strong.

I am anxious to-day to evade controversial topics as far as possible, though I am under no inhibition such as cramped the style of the two hon. and gallant Gentlemen to whom we have listened. There is one question which I hope the Prime Minister will be able to answer. What precisely is Mr. Laski's authority for all the statements he is making about our foreign policy? How far do his statements involve the agreement or responsibility of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs? We know that Mr. Laski is the Chairman of the Labour Party Executive Committee—Everybody has a right to describe their own party machine as they choose. This is a very important body. I have been told—I am willing to be contradicted and to learn—that it has the power to summon Ministers before it. Let us find out whether it is true or not. Evidently it has got great power, and it has, even more evidently, a keen inclination to assert it. The House, the country and the world at large are entitled to know who are the authoritative spokesmen of His Majesty's Government.

I see that Mr. Laski said in Paris a few days ago that our policy in Greece was to be completely changed. What is the meaning of this? I thought we were agreed upon our policy towards Greece, especially after Sir Walter Citrine's and the trades unions' report. I would say to hon. Members not to speak disrespectfully of the report or they may be brought up before that body. That policy in Greece is to help Greece to decide upon its own future by plebiscite and elections according to the full, free, untrammelled will of the Greek people, and that those elections shall be held as early as practicable. The Greek Government have invited official foreign observers to be present and report, so that everyone in the world may judge whether the vote and elections are a free, fair and honest expression of the popular wish. The British, United States and French Governments have accepted this invitation. I was sorry we could not persuade Russia to come along too. Has there been any change in this question, or are we to understand, as Mr. Laski seems to suggest, that, though the Greek people may vote freely, they must only vote the way which he and those who agree with him would like.

Mr. Laski also made a declaration about France which has most important and far-reaching effects, namely, that if the French people vote Socialist at the impending election, Great Britain will renew the offer which was made in June, 1940, that Britain and France should become one nation with a common citizenship. That offer was made in the anguish and compassion which we felt at the fate of France. It is remarkable that the Cabinet of those days, when we in this island were in such dire peril, really seemed more shocked and pained at the French disaster than at our own very dangerous plight. Much has happened in the five years that have passed, and I am of opinion that the idea of France and Britain becoming one single nation with common citizenship-alliance is another question—must, at the very least, be very carefully considered by the responsible Ministers before any such proposal is made to Parliament, still less to a foreigncountry. I ask, therefore, did the Prime Minister authorise this declaration? Does the Foreign Secretary endorse it? Were the Cabinet consulted? Is the offer to France open only if a Socialist Government is elected? I hope the Prime Minister will be able to give reassuring answers on those points.

Broadly speaking, it is very much better that declarations about foreign policy should be made by Ministers of the Crown responsible to the House of Commons. I am sure the new Government will get into very great difficulties if they are not able to maintain this position firmly. Also, I consider it a great mistake for us to try to interfere in the affairs of foreign countries, except in so far as is necessary to wind up any obligations we may have contracted during the war. It is impossible to understand the domestic politics of other countries. It is hard enough to understand the domestic politics of ones' own. But Mr. Laski has spoken with great freedom about French, Spanish and United States affairs during the last fortnight. He has told the United States on the broadcast, for instance, that free enterprise is the most ingenious fallacy which American businessmen ever put over on the American people. At a time when we have vital need of the material aid of the United States, I cannot feel—and perhaps the Chancellor will agree with me—that such a remark is exceptionally helpful. To-day, we read that Mr. Laski says that the attitude of the British Government towards the United States is favourable whereas towards Russia there is "a profoundly brotherly affection." I wonder very much—and this is an extremely serious matter—whether these invidious distinctions are likely to bring about the good results which were anticipated and which are absolutely necessary.

Somebody asked about General Franco. I am coming to him. Mr. Laski appears to contemplate vehement intervention in Spain against General Franco. Anybody who has had the opportunity to read the letter which I wrote, with the full agreement of my Coalition colleagues in the War Cabinet, to General Franco some months ago, in reply to one he wrote to me—and I should be very glad to see my letter published here as it has already been practically verbatim in the United States—will see what calumny it is to suggest that I or my friends on this side are supporters, admirers or partisans of the present regime in Spain. We are proud to be the foes of tyranny in every form, whether it comes from the Right or from the Left. Before I left Potsdam, the three major Powers had agreed upon the form of the public announcement about the exclusion of Spain, while under the Franco regime, from the world organization of the United Nations. No alteration was made, as far as I am aware, by the new Prime Minister or the new Foreign Secretary in the terms of that most wounding, and deliberately calculated wounding, declaration against that regime.

It would, however, be wrong to intervene in Spain in a forcible manner or to attempt to relight the civil war in that country which has already and quite recently lost between one and two millions of its none too numerous population in a horrible internal struggle. However, if that is the policy of His Majesty's Government, it is they who ought to say so, and then we can debate the matter here in full freedom. Let me point out in leaving this unpleasant subject that I make no suggestion to the Government that they should endeavour to muzzle Mr. Laski. Anybody in a free country can say anything, however pernicious and nonsensical it may be, but it is necessary for the Government to let us know exactly where they stand with regard to him. Otherwise, I assure hon. Gentlemen opposite that their affairs will suffer and our affairs, which are mixed up inseparably with their affairs, will also suffer.

I now turn to the domestic sphere,—

Poland and the USSR signed a treaty fixing their new borders.

The Battle of Yongjiazhen (雍家镇战斗) commenced in the Yongjiazhen (雍家镇) region of central Anhui, China between Communist forces and Kuomintang forces who had allied with the Japanese.  An oddity of this, and some other battles of this period, is that collaborationist Nationalist were throwing in with Chiang Kai Shek rather desperately in order to prove their loyalty.  If they prevailed,that was to his benefit, if they were wiped out, that was too.  In this case, they were wiped out, sa they tended to be.

Japanese Admiral Takijirō Ōnishi committed suicide at age 54.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 15, 1945. VP Day.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Australia, Blog Mirror, China, Chinese Civil War, France, Hirohito, Imperial Japanese Navy, Japan, Manchuria, Philippe Pétain, U.S. Navy, Vichy France, VJ Day, VP Day, World War Two

Sunday, August 16, 1925. Cuban Communists, Big Beer Haul, Dainty Ankles.

Backed with Soviet money the Cuban Communist Party was founded.  It became the Popular Socialist Party in 1939, and merged with Castro's Organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas in 1961, the two becoming the Communist Party of Cuba in 1965.

The Herald noted a big beer haul, and that dainty ankles were passe.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 15, 1925.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art