Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement, 1933-1983 PDF
Preview Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement, 1933-1983
Rebels Against War , The American Peace Movement 1933-1983 Rebels Against War The American Peace Movement, 1933-1983 LAWRENCE S. WITTNER Temple University Press PHILADELPHIA Temple University Press, Philadelphia 19122 © 1984 by Temple University. All rights reserved Published 1984 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Wittner, Lawrence S. Rebels against war. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Peace. I. Tide. JX1961.U6W53 1984 327.172^0973 83-27523 ISBN 0-87722-346-7 ISBN 0-87722-342-4 (pbk. ) The book is a revised edition of a work origi nally published as Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement, 1941-1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969). To Dorothy Preface In this study I attempt to describe and analyze the American peace movement of the past half-century. The project originated at the University of Wisconsin more than twenty years ago, when Professor Merle Curti suggested to the gradu ate students in his American history seminar—myself among them— that a study of the peace movement since the 1930s was long overdue. Although Curti was already known as one of the great American historians of the twentieth century and had written some pioneering studies of the American peace movement, I promptly forgot his advice. Fortunately, I recalled it a few years later as a Ph.D. candi date in history at Columbia University. There, under the very able direction of Professor William Leuchtenburg, I turned out a lengthy doctoral dissertation on the American peace movement from 1941 to 1960. This description, however, considerably understates my enthu siasm for the project. In fact, unlike most of my counterparts, who burrowed dutifully through university libraries and manuscript col lections, I was entranced by my work! The main reason was that my research was not done in a vacuum, but in the midst of height ening protest against the Vietnam War. From 1965 to 1967, as I examined the peace movement and its meaning, the bombs were falling, the antiwar demonstrations were growing, and the death count was rising. In the assumption, reader, that these last sentences have awak ened you from the usual torpor instilled by academic studies, let me take this opportunity to make a rare confession for a scholar: I loathed the Vietnam War and was delighted by the movement viii PREFACE against it. And it was a joy to meet and talk with peace movement leaders and activists. But I was also fascinated by the knowledge that I was doing meaningful scholarly work. Indeed, I wondered if anything could be more important than unravelling the mysterious relationship be tween the forces of war and peace. Others felt similarly, and began producing the first studies of the peace movement to be written since the 1930s. These scholars established the Conference on Peace Research in History, an organization with which I was soon affili ated. Through books, articles, conferences, and long discussions, we attempted something that unfortunately is still rare ( and decidedly controversial) in scholarly life: to apply intellectual energies to rid ding humanity of one of its deadliest scourges, modem war. We are still at work. Meanwhile, in 1969, Columbia University Press published the first version of Rebels Against War, which charted the story of the peace movement to 1960. Much, of course, has happened since. Now, at the suggestion of Michael Ames, editor-in-chief of Temple University Press, I have updated the book—however briefly—with an Epilogue covering the period from 1961 to 1983. To sharpen some ideas and incorporate new insights, I have also slightly modi fied the Conclusion and deleted the original Preface. It is always a bit jarring to look back at what one has written years before. And indeed, there are occasional places where—but for my promise to retain the original ten chapters—I would happily change a word, a phrase, or an idea. But overall, I remain satisfied with what I wrote. My hope remains that this work will contribute to humanity’s age-old quest for peace. LAWRENCE S. WITTNER Albany, New York September 1983 Contents i The Peace Movement in the Thirties 1 n Wartime Collapse 34 m Men against the State 62 iv The Best of All Possible Wars 97 v Hiroshima: The Good News of Damnation 125 vi Organizing for a New World, 1945-1948 151 vn Retreat, 1948-1950 182 vra Midcentury Nadir, 1950-1956 213 ix Breakthrough, 1957-1958 240 x The Peace Movement Reborn, 1959-1960 257 Epilogue: Contending for Power, 1961-1983 276 Conclusion: The Political Relevance of the Peace Movement 301 Bibliography 307 Index 353
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