On April 18, 1946, the railroads’ two key brotherhoods announced that they would withdraw all their men in 30 days. The nation’s transportation grid would collapse.
The two unions had been longtime allies of the Democratic Party. And a Democrat–Harry S. Truman–was then sitting in the White House.
Harry S. Truman
Calling them to the White House three days before the strike deadline, Truman offered them generous arbitration awards. And expected them to accept.
To his surprise–and outrage–they didn’t.
“If you think I’m going to sit here and let you tie up this whole country,” said Truman, “you’re crazy as hell.”
“We’ve got to go through with it, Mr. President,” one of the labor leaders replied. “Our men are demanding it.”
“All right,” said Truman, rising. “I’m going to give you the gun. You’ve got just 48 hours to reach a settlement. If you don’t, I’m going to take over the railroads in the name of the government.”
Two days passed and, true to his word, Truman acted.
On May 17, 1946, he signed an executive order seizing the railroads. He gave the unions another five days of reprieve.
And what did he get in return? A brief note saying, “Your offer is unacceptable.”
Summoning his cabinet, he announced that he would appear before a joint session of Congress on May 18. He would then ask for authority to draft all railroad men, regardless of age, into the Army.
Tom Clark, Truman’s Attorney General, declared such a move unconstitutional.
“We’ll draft ’em first and think about the law later,” said Truman.
Then he ordered his press secretary to clear all the radio networks for a major fireside address that same night.
He planned to tell Americans that while their military had faced bullets, bombs and disease to win the victory” in World War II, the leaders of the railroad unions had virtually “fired bullets into the backs of our soldiers.”
They were all liars, and he personally attacked John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers of America (the coal miners were on strike, too).
Truman also savaged Philip Murray, president of the United Steel Workers of America: “Mr. Murray and his Communist friends” had intimidated “a week-kneed Congress.”
Finally, Truman meant to rouse the nation to fury against the strikers with these words:
“Let’s give the country back to the people. Let’s put transportation and production back to work, hang a few traitors, and make our own country safe for democracy. Come on, boys, let’s do the job!”
What Truman actually said proved less blazing. But only slightly less.
Truman’s press secretary, Charles G. Ross, warned the President that the “hang a few traitors” line might lead to wholesale lynchings of union leaders. And Clark Clifford, already an influential Washington attorney and power-broker, agreed.
Together, they persuaded Truman to tone down his address. Even so, it proved devastating.
“The crisis at Pearl Harbor was the result of action by a foreign enemy,” said Truman. “The crisis tonight is caused by a group of men within our own country who place their private interests above the welfare of the nation.”
He said that he would call Congress into session the next day, May 19, if the railroad workers weren’t back on the job by then, he would call in the military.
With union leaders still refusing to budge, Truman carried out his threat. He entered Congress, mounted the podium, and asked for authority “to draft into the Armed Forces of the United States all workers who are on strike against their own government.”
Five minutes into the President’s speech, the labor leaders capitulated, signing an agreement drawn up by Truman’s negotiator.
Clifford handed Truman–still at the podium–a note: “Mr. President, agreement signed, strike over.”
Departing from his speech, Truman announced: “Gentlemen, the strike has been settled.”
An ovation resounded. And when Truman asked for authority to draft future strikers who endangered public safety, the House of Representatives passed it at once.
That was the Truman way–and it worked.
Contrast his decisive and public-spirited approach with that of “leaders” of cities and states who lack the spine to stand up to greedy and arrogant labor leaders.
While 2,400 highly-paid train operators, station agents, mechanics, maintenance workers and professional staff refused to work, public transit within the Bay Area came dangerously close to a standstill.
Only the Herculean efforts of other transit agencies such as the San Francisco ferry service and the MUNI bus lines prevented a total collapse.
Not that BART management should escape criticism. On the contrary, its managers receive far too many paid holidays and far too much severence pay.
And allowing them to save unused vacation and holidays without any limits is a disgraceful practice that should be immediately abolished.
These people–so-called managers and workers–aren’t “public servants.” They serve only their own selfish interests, and invite only public contempt and outrage.
But this disgraceful situation can change.
“One man with courage,” said Andrew Jackson, “makes a majority.” And as Harry S. Truman proved during a far more dangerous time.
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JAMES BOND FOR HIRE: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 11, 2013 at 10:33 pmA movie critic, reviewing John Wayne’s 1968 gung-ho film, “The Green Berets,” said that Wayne had reduced the complex issues behind the Vietnam war to the simplicity of a barroom brawl.
In the same vein, the American news media displays a genius for ignoring the complexities of a major news story and focusing on just a single, sensationalistic aspect of it.
Take the Paula Deen scandal. The media have universally focused on Deen’s admitted use of the “N-word”–and utterly ignored far more important aspects of the story.
According to the complaint, employees at the restaurant were routinely subjected to violent behavior, racial and sexual harassment, assault, bettery and sexual discrimination in pay.
Similarly, in covering the odyssey of Edward Snowden, the former NSA worker turned mass secret leaker, the media have followed the same path.
Edward Snowden
In an updated version of “Where’s Waldo?” the media have focused their attention on charting the almost daily whereabouts of Snowden.
Will Snowden receive amnesty in Hong Kong? In Russia? In Cuba? China? Venezuela? Nicaragua?
The blunt truth is that Snowden, as an individual, doesn’t matter.
Either he will obtain aslym in a country that hates the United States–or he won’t.
Even if he obtains such asylum, there’s no guarantee it will last.
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the international terrorist better known as “Carlos the Jackal,” can attest to that.
By 1994, he had spent almost 20 years on the run from the French Intellilgence agents. They were seeking him for a series of terrorist attacks across France–and for the 1975 murders of two counter-intellilgence agents and their informant.
Carlos “The jackal”
After living in a series of countries that had no extradition treaty with France–such as Syria, Iraq and Jordan–he settled down in the Sudanese city of Khartoum.
He felt utterly safe, since he had been accorded official protection by the Sudanese government. But he had misjudged his protectors.
French and American Intelligence agencies offered a number of deals to the Sudanese authorities. In 1994, Carlos was scheduled to undergo a minor testicular operation in a Sudanese hospital.
Two days after the operation, Sudanese officials warned him of an assassination plot–and moved him to a villa for protection. They also provided him with bodyguards.
One night later, the bodyguards entered his room while he slept, tranquilized and tied him up–and slipped him into the custody of his longtime pursuers.
On August 14, 1994, Sudan transferred him to French Intelligence agents, who flew him to Paris for trial. He is now serving two sentences of life imprisonment.
There is no guarantee that any nation that guarantees the security of Edward Snowden today won’t decide, in the future, to betray him.
So for all the efforts of the news media to treat him like the Flying Dutchman, he is just one man.
And, eventually he will run out of secrets to spill. That’s assuming that Russian and/or Chinese Intelligence agents haven’t already helped themselves to the secrets on his laptop.
As Mr. Spock once famously said during an episode of “Star Trek”: “Military secrets are the most fleeting of all.”
So where does the significance of the Snowden story lie?
In the fact that Americans have become too lazy or fearful to do most of their own spying.
Yes, that’s right–60 to 70% of America’s Intelligence budget doesn’t go to the CIA or the National Security Agency (NSA) or the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
Instead, it goes to private contractors who supply secrets or “soldiers of fortune.”
One such contractor is Booz Allen Hamilton–which employed Snowden and gave him access to the super-secret NSA.
The outsourcing of government intelligence work to private contractors took off after 9/11.
This was especially true after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003–and found its Intelligence and armed services stretched to their furtherest limits.
The DIA estimates that, from the mid-1990s to 2005, the number of private contracts awarded by Intelligence agencies rose by 38%.
During that same period, government spending on “spies/guns for hire” doubled, from about $18 billion in 1995 to about $42 billion in 2005.
Many tasks and services once performed only by government employees are being “outsourced” to civilian contractors:
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli warned of the dangers of relying on mercenaries:
“There are two types of armies that a prince may use to defend his state: armies made up of his own people or mercenaries….
“Mercenaries…are useless and dangerous. And if a prince holds on to his state by means of mercenary armies, he will never be stable or secure; for they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, disloyal; they are brave among friends, among enemies they are cowards.
“They have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is. For in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.”
Machiavelli, on meeting Edward Snowden, would no doubt find his judgment confirmed.
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