Henry A.Wallace as Presidential Candidate: “Am I in America?”

Henry A. Wallace challenged the bipartisan foreign policy of President Truman in 1948. The Progressive Citizens of America opposed Truman’s “get-tough policy” (the Truman Doctrine, loyalty investigations, Universal Military Training, and the Marshall Plan) and founded the Progressive Party. Other “liberals” formed Americans for Democratic Action and supported Truman, who claimed that the Progressive Party was a Soviet construction. Wallace refused to participate in segregated meetings during his campaign in the South and was violently attacked. He advocated the need for federal measures to prohibit segregation, discrimination, the poll tax, and lynching. Wallace was resoundingly defeated but proved right in the long run: military means could not solve social problems. Instead, it spread hatred of the United States in many countries. The 1948 election determined U.S. foreign policy for over 50 years, resulting in missed opportunities to improve housing, education, and social security at home, which still has repercussions today. JEL Classifications: N42, F50

Libraries’ accomplishing military and defense tasks during the Great Patriotic War

During the pre-war and war [WWII] years, the libraries took part in accomplishing military and defense tasks: promoted knowledge on air and chemical defense, sanitation, etc. The libraries participated in universal military training of population. They cooperated closely with Osoaviakhim (Society for the Promotion of Aviation and Chemical Defense) that was publishing a number of specialized publications intensively used by the libraries in their popularization work. The libraries contributed to the country’s defensive power both theoretically and practically. They conformed to the decrees of the Council of People’s Commissars and The State Defense Committee (in the first war days). The author specifies the main vectors of the libraries’ interaction with the Red Army divisions, training of new recruitees, front support. The promotion of military defense knowledge by the libraries all over the country including the capital libraries and the libraries in Soviet republics is also discussed. The article is based on archival materials listed in the bibliography attached.

“Digging for Deferments”

This chapter argues that proposals for universal military training (UMT) for all American men failed for several reasons. Opponents of UMT attacked the idea’s efficacy for national defense, but they also questioned the assumptions that military training made men or should be an obligation of citizenship. Despite the support of the War Department, three presidents, and the majority of American citizens, UMT failed to gain legislative traction, in part because Americans did not share a common definition of masculine citizenship. The failure of UMT confirmed that military service in the United States would be selective rather than compulsory and that it would not be directly tied to masculine forms of citizenship. Its failure reinforced the notion that there were alternative acceptable ways of being a man and a citizen in the United States.

“To Rub Smooth the Sharp Edges”

This chapter contends that members of Congress were reluctant to draft students and fathers during the Korean War because they believed the conflict was just the opening salvo of a much longer Cold War. America was entering an indeterminate period of militarized peace, during which conscription would remain necessary. Therefore, the nation’s economic and domestic future depended on careful and reasoned deliberation over who to draft and who to defer. The draft law that emerged during the Korean War, the Universal Military Training and Service Act of 1951, militarized fatherhood and civilian occupations defined as in the national health, safety, or interest by making them eligible for deferments. Yet, by keeping certain groups of men out of the armed forces in the name of national security, the law broadened the definition of service to the state and limited the reach of the military itself.