HISTORY: WHERE IS THE KEY?

By Edwin Cooney

“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.” So spoke Winston Churchill in the late fall of 1939 when he was Neville Chamberlain's First Lord of the Admiralty.

Although lacking Mr. Churchill's intellect, experience, responsibility, and certainly his knowledge, even I recognize that every nation in the world will strive to act according to what it perceives to be its national interest. The real question is, how accurately do the leaders of nations with nuclear missiles assess reality? Even the richest, most powerful nation, and I hope and believe that it's still us, understands that even if successful at the close of a nuclear war, victory, as President Kennedy once asserted, "would be ashes in our mouths.” China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and North Korea would be overwhelmed with the task of governing a polluted and impoverished planet. They would not have the advantages the United States had in the late 1940s to launch a new Marshall Plan dedicated to cleaning up and restoring international equity and economic stability. 

  

You can be sure that both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, as well as Hungary's Viktor Orban and Turkey's head of government Recep Tayyip Erdogan have read enough history to know that one of the reasons World War II came about was because Adolf Hitler’s political contemporaries didn't take him seriously even though he made his intentions public.

Beyond the demands of immediate national interest lie the traditions of established culture, society and government. Just this week, a federal jury convicted four Proud Boys of sedition including one who wasn't at the Capitol. As I understand it, that conviction makes the fact that President Trump wasn't at the capitol less significant than many of his defenders believe.

Those of us who regularly advocate for political, social and economic  change face the frustration that significant change in the United States of America can be painfully slow at a cost to the environment and to our very well-being. An example is too much gunplay in our schools.

To study history meaningfully is not to sign on to a political doctrine, although people often do just that. Just as we all have a personal story, history is our national story. Our personal stories often have twists and turns in intentions and justifications. We are seldom consistent in what we believe or in what we do.

For me, May of 1960 marked a turning point in my understanding of what America was all about. However, it doesn’t contradict what I'd prefer America to be! Every nation and every individual is a contradiction to the ideal. However good or bad, constructive or destructive we are, it's almost all on the record.

As the late, great Casey Stengel used to say, "You can look it up!"

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY