Patriotic Betrayal

  

Patriotic Betrayal

Peter Schultz

 

                  A few remarks about some passages in Karen M. Paget’s book, Patriotic Betrayal, which is about the CIA’s covert attempt to control the NSA, the National Student Association during the Cold War.

 

                  Among the leaders of the NSA, there was a “naïve faith … that American know-how could replace politics.” This phenomenon is common among Americans because the real naivete is the American conviction that its embrace of know-how isn’t political.

 

                  As the “students” involved with the NSA sought to recruit students from other parts of the world, they concluded that Asian students, for example, were “prone to agitation.” They concluded that “Asian students needed to move beyond the ‘outmoded tactics’ used during independence movements, when their ‘major purpose was to create havoc and unrest for the Western powers….” They had to learn “to work with the Western powers.” [124]

 

                  So, American “students” were not prone to agitation.  Why not? Because Americans focus on acquiring expertise, achieving success, being ambitious, rather than being political. But this is a political choice or a choice with significant political implications. It may be said that it is as political as the choice to adopt tactics that are used to create havoc and unrest. It might best be called bourgeois politics.

 

                  The Asians adopted such tactics because their purpose was independence and, so, “their energy could be redirected” only by changing that purpose; for example, by giving up the pursuit for independence for the sake of “work[ing] with the West.” The Americans did not understand that working with the West was a substitute for, a replacement, a subversion of the drive for independence. So, their energies could only be successfully redirected if they gave up their drive for independence. Although the Americans did not understand this, those seeking independence did know it, which is why they distrusted Americans as much as they did. Working with the West is, obviously, a political agenda and not one the agitating students were prepared to embrace. They wanted their independence. In fact, advocating for American know-how, advocating against agitation are just covers for opposition to genuine independence. As such, they were bound to fail, at least absent despotic repression.

 

                  Beyond the students, even American elites are guilty of the same ignorance. LBJ, at one point in Vietnam war, offered to build a Vietnamese Great Society if they would end the war. What he did not know, at least not sufficiently, is that the Vietnamese did not want a Great Society. They wanted a unified, independent Vietnam. And they also knew, what LBJ did not, that an American sponsored Great Society would not accomplish those goals. Surprisingly, perhaps, the Vietnamese understood the situation better than LBJ did, which may help explain why they won the war. Ignorance is not always bliss.