Times change but methods endure
Telegrams ... do people still send telegrams? Really, in an age of near-instantaneous communication, even at the remotest of locations on Earth, does anyone bother? Regardless, it wasn't that long ago when a telegram was the communication medium of choice, especially for inter- and intra-governmental dispatches.
Such was the case in February of 1946, after the end of World War II and shortly before the onset of the Korean War - during the infancy of a period historians since labeled the Cold War. George Frost Keenan, charge d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, was ordered by the State Department to provide clarification of Soviet conduct and respond to an anti-American diatribe released by Josef Stalin, Soviet Russia's calculating tyrant.
Keenan, in at the onset of wartime diplomatic relations with the communist regime, held a bleak view of Soviet intentions - particularly after the allied powers sold out Eastern Europe to Stalin during the conferences of Yalta and Potsdam. This view turned to hatred after a new round of Stalinist purges began in Russia and the fledgling parliamentary governments of Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria were stubbed out by military might and police terror.
It should be noted that prior to this missive and over time, Keenan repeatedly voiced his concerns about Russia's ulterior designs but in the interest of allied solidarity, he was routinely ignored by his political masters.
"The Long Telegram"
Now given the opportunity to publicly detail his stark Soviet analysis, he did so with fervency. His official 5,540-word State Department cable immediately struck all who read it like a bolt of lightning; it was soon dubbed "The Long Telegram" in allied diplomatic circles.
"... it is desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our society be disrupted, our traditional way of life be destroyed, the international authority of our state be broken ..."
I have read the lengthy, tersely-worded cable in its entirety, and to be sure it is a bare-knuckled condemnation and notice of Stalin's disingenuousness and Soviet repression, but one passage in particular bothered me so much I read it again, then read it once more:
... In the Western powers, efforts will be made to hamstring measures of national defense, to increase social and political unrest, to stimulate all forms of disunity ... poor will be set against rich, black against white, young against old, newcomers against established residents, etc.
Violent efforts will be made to to weaken the power and influence of [the] Western powers [on] colonial, backward, or dependent peoples. On this level, no holds will be barred. Where individual governments stand in the path of Soviet purposes, pressure will be brought for their removal from office ...
Everything possible will be done to set major Western powers against each other. Anti-British talk will be plugged among Americans, and anti-American talk among British. Continentals, including Germans, will be taught to abhor both Anglo-Saxon powers.
In general, all Soviet efforts on unofficial international plane will be negative and destructive in character, designed to tear down sources of strength beyond reach of Soviet control ... we have here a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with U.S. there can be no permanent modus vivendi, that it is desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our society be disrupted, our traditional way of life be destroyed, the international authority of our state be broken, if Soviet power is to be secure.
Well. The official Union of Soviet Socialist Republics might be torn asunder, but if one compares their aims as outlined then to the world state of affairs today, one could reasonably conclude that many of their goals were attained. But what is more troubling than current world opinion of America is how the very same actions described in words written so long ago have been applied on the domestic front as well.
"... efforts will be made to hamstring measures of national defense, to increase social and political unrest, to stimulate all forms of disunity ..."
That is not to say the measured assault from without is not formidable. An incessant drumbeat of anti-Americanism steadily rattles forth from radicalized political forces in Western Europe, despots in the Middle East, South America, and the Far East, and Islamist terrorists wherever they may be hiding. But the sources of such attacks are by no means limited to those beyond America's sovereign borders.
Assailed From Within
At home, political power blocs closely affiliated with those abroad also strive to bring about the weakening of America. For the last five decades, they have methodically undermined traditional American ethics and family values while using our very own education system, media outlets, and democratic processes to instill preferential quotas, multiculturalism, political correctness, divisiveness through diversity, disruption of the family unit — and calculated race, wealth, spiritual, and class warfare.
It would be assumptive to think that these home-grown efforts are not geared to destroying America but to first debilitate and then control it politically. Perhaps. Nevertheless, if you delete any reference to "Soviet" and "Western powers" from Keenan's text, it fairly represents the strategy thus far employed by a clearly-defined segment of Americans against America.
We know that while the influences of ideologies, nations, and heads of state wax and wane, core beliefs conveyed through strategic dogmata and realpolitik machinations endure from one era to the next. And it is no coincidence that since the Vietnam War, those who pursue the course outlined above have not championed a single policy or agenda designed to strengthen the military, international image, domestic tranquility, or traditional values of the United States.
As Keenan accurately observed, "Fig leaves of democratic procedure hide the nakedness of authoritarianism."