The Uses and Limitations of Secrecy and Duplicity

 

The Uses and Limitations of Secrecy and Duplicity

Peter Schultz

 

                  James Rosen’s biography of John Mitchell, The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate illustrates that secrecy and duplicity are intrinsic to politics and that they are both useful and harmful. Rosen seems to think that it was secrecy and duplicity that brought Nixon down, without realizing that secrecy and duplicity are intrinsic to politics. To wit:

 

“The two [Nixon and Kissinger] had come full circle. Less than two weeks after learning of the Joint Chiefs of Staff spying – a ‘lesion’ Nixon admitted having created with his and Kissinger’s incessant back-channel plotting – the president had blithely resumed scheming with his national security advisor, whom he had … described as ‘not a good security risk,’ to use the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a back channel to circumvent the secretary of defense.” [179-80]

 

                  “Had Liddy forsaken the code of omerta, the testimony of Dean and Magruder against Mitchell would have crumbled.” [262]

 

                  “Mitchell harbored few illusions about Haig, whom he came to consider ‘a power grabber …  pleased to abandon Nixon to maintain his power base in Washington and the military.’  Shown the transcript of the Ehrlichman-Welander interrogation many years later, the former attorney general declared that had Nixon seen it, he would never have appointed Haig … as chief of staff. Had that happened, of course, historians would never have had to grapple … with …  questions about Haig’s conduct – and loyalties – in the latter stages of Watergate: the disclosure of Nixon’s taping system, the origins and discovery of the eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap, the pardon.

 

“Thus, by the time he died, Mitchell realized his burial of the Moorer-Radford scandal  –  undertaken to spare the nation a court martial involving the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to give Nixon a ‘whip hand’ over them  –  effectually sealed the president’s own fate. By allowing men he distrusted, and who distrusted him, to remain in place in the White House and at the Pentagon, Nixon ensured that the cultural secrecy and paranoia that infused his first term persisted until the Watergate scandal aborted his presidency.” [175-176]

 

Secrecy and duplicity permeated the Nixon administration but then they are intrinsic to politics, and they flourish in the political arena, even more so, apparently, than the likes of Nixon and Mitchell were aware. Mitchell may have harbored few illusions about Haig as “a power grabber,” but he did harbor illusions about the political. As Machiavelli might have counseled him, Mitchell needed to be dis-llusioned by learning that persons like Haig, who seem most committed to seeking the good, are actually seeking power and fame.  In that way then, Mitchell might have learned the lesson Machiavelli emphasized most heavily, viz., “to learn to be able not to be good.”

 

 

Our Problems

Peter Schultz

 

 

We Americans tend to personalize our problems or the causes of our problems. So, presently, many are committed to the idea that Trump is the cause of our problems. And there is no doubt that is partially correct. But our problems are also political, meaning traceable to the Constitution itself. 

 

The default position, so to speak, of politics is despotism. Politics tends towards despotism, toward repression, and toward war. That is politics “natural disposition,” as human history and our current state of affairs illustrates. Some Anti-Federalists thought of government and its politics as a mechanical screw that, once it was created, would turn down, slowly but steadily repressing the people. The people could resist but they could not reverse the downward direction of the political screw. With government and politics, we humans are always being screwed! 

 

Most Federalists rejected this account of government and politics, seeing government and politics as the engine of progress. So, they created a powerful government that would appeal, would draw in the ambitious, those who loved fame, which Hamilton called the leading passion of the noblest minds. Get the ambitious, the lovers of fame into your government, allow them to control your politics and impressive public projects intended to secure the common good would follow, as night follows day. Such projects would even be seen as normal, and as required if a person wanted to become a great president sitting atop a great nation. 

 

But if the default position of politics is despotism, then the most prominent political actors would prove to be drawn to despotism, as Lincoln pointed out in his address on “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions.” If the default position of politics is despotism, then it is intrinsically dangerous to entrust anyone with a great deal of power or to try to draw into your government those who love fame and seek to prove they deserve it. Benjamin Franklin pointed this out during the constitutional convention when he proposed not paying presidents because creating an office that appealed to the avaricious and the ambitious would lead to endless political battles and the peaceful would not seek such offices, would not be part of the political or governmental scene. Avarice and ambition combined are, Franklin implied, political nitro glycerin. Besides, as Lincoln pointed out in his “Perpetuation” address, fame can be harvested by freeing slaves or enslaving freemen. So when fame, which is a kind of immortality, is the goal, justice and even humanity become less attractive and, perhaps, tend to disappear from the political scene. Something which seems all-too-evident currently. 

 

Trump is not a human being who should be respected. Far from it. But he is playing in an arena, the political arena, that gives him, so to speak, home field advantage. In that arena, respectability is of very limited value, as has been shown by more than a few presidents and other politicians. And, as some Anti-Federalists realized, there is little that can be done to limit the repression, the violence Trump’s rule will cause. Decisions were made a long time ago and now there is only acceptance. [The Counselor] Or as Billy Pilgrim reminds us: So it goes. [Slaughterhouse Five] 

 

Comments on The Rule of Empires

 

Comments on The Rule of Empires

Peter Schultz

 

                  Timothy H. Parsons has written an excellent book entitled The Rule of Empires: Those Who Built Them, Those Who Endured Them, and Why They Always Fail.

 

                  In his concluding chapter, Parsons comments on George Bush’s invasion of Iraq as part of his project to liberate Iraq by deposing Saddam Hussein and making Iraq democratic. Referring to critics of Bush, Parson’s wrote:

 

                  “The critics of Operation Iraqi Freedom often overlook [certain] realities. To be sure, scholars of empire such as Nicholas Dirks did their part by linking theorists, politicians, and military contractors that profited from the invasion of Iraq with the conquistadors, nabobs, and other specialist groups behind earlier imperial projects…. [Moreover], most opponents of President Bush’s preemptive war made the mistake of equating empire and imperialism solely with the unjust use of hard power…. Empires are indeed immoral, but it would have been more convincing to argue against the Iraq invasion by using historical precedents to show why it was doomed to fail. Instead, the Bush administration’s leftist critics assumed that empire was still practical; they just differed from the neoconservatives and imperial apologists in branding it a sin.” [426-27]

 

                  Parson’s view is that “it is simply no longer feasible to reorder another society through military force alone…. The central mistake running through much of the debate over the Iraqi occupation was the assumption that imperial methods were still effective and could be put to legitimate uses. The Bush administration … planners made the fundamental mistake of believing their own legitimizing rhetoric.” [427]

 

                  But it should be emphasized that the failure of empires or of imperialism is not merely a historical phenomenon. It is also a political phenomenon.  Empires and other imperialistic projects destroy themselves. They are, for various reasons, unmaintainable, even futile. And one of the reasons even the leftist critics of Bush’s imperial project assume that empire is practical is because they are still “believers;” that is, they don’t realize that ultimately, like empires, politics is futile. Failure is intrinsic to the political. Or as Socrates put it: Only when philosophers rule of rulers become philosophers will humankind be cured of its ills. And those, like George Bush, who think that they have a moral obligation to right the world’s wrongs will repeatedly subject the world to savagery, death, and destruction.

Connections: JFK, Vietnam, and the British Empire

 

Connections: JFK, Vietnam, and the British Empire

Peter Schultz

 

                  JFK said he would pull out of Vietnam after winning the 1964 presidential election. This means, among other things, that JFK was willing to wage war in Nam – and defend waging it – in order to win the 1964 election. Winning the election was more important than ending (or losing) the war. Winning re-election was more important than doing justice or ending the injustice of the war.

 

                  JFK did not take on the injustice of the war; that is, he did not take on American imperialism. He was, essentially, an imperialist.

 

                  JFK’s version of success: ending the Vietnam War without undermining American imperialism, dominance, hegemony. The war was “a mistake,” but American imperialism, hegemony was not.

 

                  What follows once you embrace imperialism/ hegemony? Don’t you end up with war(s)? Don’t you end up with Kenya, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Ukraine, and Iraq?

 

                  Plus, you end up justifying imperialism. That is, you cannot see the injustice of empire, of imperialism. You can only see its justice, despite the appearance of great injustices like those committed by the British in Kenya and Malaysia or those committed by the United States in Vietnam. As a result, there is no way out.

 

                  Caroline Elkins’ title for her excellent history of the British Empire, Legacy of Violence, is misleading. It should have been “Legacy of Imperialism” because imperialism was/is the root issue, not violence. General Giap was correct: (1) Robert McNamara was an imperialist and (2) the Vietnam war occurred because he – and the United States – was imperialist. To catalogue “the mistakes” that allegedly led to the war obfuscates, “disappears” the root phenomenon, imperialism. McNamara’s alleged realism blinded him – and us – to reality.

Thoughts on Elkins "Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire"

 

Thoughts on Elkins’ Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire

Peter Schultz

 

Here are some thoughts that arose as I was reading Caroline Elkins very fine history of the British Empire, mainly pertaining to understanding the political.

 

#1

Which more accurately describes the political: Elkins’ “systematized violence” or “pathological violence?” The former carries with it justifications: it’s ordered violence created by rational persons and bureaucratized. The latter calls it what it actually is, “sickness.” 

Elkins tends to rationalize the Mau Mau: “It was a rational response of rural people seeking to understand the enormous socioeconomic and political changes taking place…while attempting to respond collectively to new and unjust realities.” (547) 
Sounds like the Kikuyu would be open to and would profit from seminars on their situation! 

Politics, given its injustices, produces rage; and did so both in the Brits in Kenya and in the Kikuyu. Both sides responded pathologically, which is to say they responded politically. The result: pathological violence. 

“Going postal:” pathological violence creating more pathological violence. Is telling people that they have a constitutionally guaranteed right to weapons a good idea? Kirk’s fate might be taken to indicate it isn’t. Oh, there’s that irony again!  

 

#2

What Elkins labels “legalized lawlessness” is more accurately called “pathological lawlessness.” This is similar to her “systematized violence,” which I think should be labeled “pathological violence.” Elkins has trouble getting to the point of recognizing that the political is the arena of the pathological. But I believe it is this recognition that is the gateway, so to speak, to political philosophy. The absence of this recognition is what characterizes “believers,” those who affirm the political like Carl Schmidt or Alexander Hamilton, et. al. The absence of this recognition is what distinguishes political thought from political philosophy. 

Insofar as the political is the arena of the pathological, is it wise to guarantee that people have a constitutional right to weaponize? Is it wise, generally, to militarize such an arena? And Aristotle’s description of the best location for a polis as one that requires only a minimal amount of militarization is a reflection that he too understood the political as pathologically violent and lawless, intrinsically so. ( Austen’s Wickham is a reflection that she understood this as well., as well as her joke about anal sex among the navy’s “rear admirals!”) 

Just sayin’. 

Politics: Normalizing the Abnormal

 

Politics: Normalizing the Abnormal

Peter Schultz

 

 

Oh, but it is normal; it's the normal continuation of normal politics by normal means. 

 

Remember 1963? 1968? Remember the Bay of Pigs, JFK/Dallas, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X, Chicago 1968, Kent State, Jackson State, George Wallace, Fred Hampton, My Lai, the Phoenix program, Watergate, Reagan shot, Ford shot at, 9/11, the War on Terror, ”MIssion Accomplished,” 20+ years in Afghanistan, 1/6? 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/opinion/trump-senate-democrats-shutdown.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daydream Believers

 

Daydream Believers

Peter Schultz

 

                  A question occurred to me as I was reading Fred Kaplan’s very good book, Daydream Believers, where he was critiquing George W. Bush’s understanding of the world. Bush was not concerned about creating vacuums in other nations because “the natural forces of freedom would fill” the vacuum. “Gaza would become a democracy almost of its own accord.” [p. 164]

 

                  My question was: Are there vacuums politically speaking? Well, no, because we humans are, as Aristotle argued, “political animals.” Hence, not only is it necessary to cultivate democracies, or any other political order, it is a cultivation that requires some sophistication, to say the least. Not only can existence be arranged; it must be arranged and in that task politics is architectonic.  

 

                  Moreover, because we humans are not only political animals but while history might bend toward justice, politics, the political, bends toward extremism. Extremism is intrinsic to politics, to all regimes, and therefore constitutes the abiding issue for human societies, even for those labeled “civilized.” Hence, T.E. Lawrence’s take on daydream believers:

 

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.” [Seven Pillars of Wisdom]