06.1 Hist 20 podcast: 1950-1959

events in the 6th decade of the 20th C

Transcript

University of California UCOP | podcast 6.1

Hello, and welcome to the 1950s. We have left the dark 1940s behind. And we are now entering a time of-- well,

significant hopefulness. I mean, we're going to go over some of the not-so-hopeful parts in this lecture.

But the 1950s are-- well, it's not war anymore. And the world is changing. There are significant innovations that

are part of the 1950s-- mainframe computing to start. But some of the things that really led to World War I and

World War II seem to have been essentially-- well, if not eradicated, don't exist anymore. The big empires, the

European empires, were destroyed by World War I. And the end of World War II pretty much sort of rings the

death knell for European colonialism in Africa. And that's really what I'd like us talk about for the next couple of

minutes.

What happens in the 1950s is that Europe really realizes that it can't continue-- or European countries that have

colonies in Africa realize that it really can't continue to essentially plunder this continent that does not belong to it,

in the aftermath of a war that many consider to have been a war against evil, right, a war against an inhumane

actor that eradicated a large proportion of a population. Colonialism, what European countries were doing--

European companies were doing in Africa just didn't seem like-- it just didn't pass the smell test anymore. And at

the same time, Africans themselves, African citizens themselves had sort of found their voice in pushing back

against this European power.

So let's review, first, which European powers still had colonies in Africa. Great Britain still controlled huge areas of

Nigeria, Gambia, Sierra Leone. And white Britons had settled in Kenya and Southern Africa. France ruled a huge

area of North and West Africa. And many French citizens were living as French citizens in Algeria. Portugal had

long settled Angola and Mozambique in the 16th century. And they were still there.

Belgium had control over the area along the Congo River. And this had been King Leopold's own property. He had

claimed it for himself in the 19th century. And in 1908 the Belgian government bought it, but essentially, to the

same ends. Italy still occupied parts of Ethiopia and Somaliland. And the territories that Germany had colonized

before World War I-- Togo, Cameroon, South West Africa, and Tanganyika-- were being now controlled by Great

Britain and France.

So that ended over the course of the 50s and 60s. And a large part of that had to do with the fact that African

colonial subjects had been educated. In the same way that public education in Europe and in the United States

was developed because the economy needed educated workers, because if you're going to run trains and you're

going to have factories, you really need your workers to be able to read a train schedule or a factory manual. And

so the same thing was happening throughout Africa, where the people who worked there needed to be trained,needed to have education to be able to function in the context of the colonial economy.

And what happens when you educate someone is that you can't just educate them and say, well I'm going to

teach you to read so you can read the Bible and read the train schedule. That doesn't work that way. And people

were not just being taught to be train operators. There were significant sort of exchanges of students. And many

African elites sent their children to study in European universities. It was possible.

And Africans who traveled and who read were exposed to the idea of nationalism, which is the notion that nations

should rule themselves. And they were also hearing about the concept of socialism, which largely framed the

economic world order as one in which rich or extremely powerful people and companies and nations exploit the

poor for their own advancement. And so when you combine these notions of nationalism and socialism in a

colonial context, what it really led to was the sort of awareness amongst young Africans that if all African people

united, they might be able to end colonialism and white colonial rule. And that's what we call pan-Africanism-- this

notion that all of Africa together could end a system of power that had lasted for centuries.

And so what we see in the 1950s is the beginning of an explicit discourse around the liberation of Africa from

European control. And this discourse is happening in Africa. But it's also happening in Europe, right? So this is

not-- there were moments of great antagonism, but essentially this divestment of power starts being talked about

across the world in the 1950s. And over the course of the 50s and the 60s, African countries indeed became

independent.

Now there is one minor issue that will become a major issue, which is that one of the things that leaders of the

independence in Africa needed to decide was what-- I mean, it wasn't one big continent. The continent wouldn't

become one country, right? So there were going to be a series of different nations in Africa. And they were largely

defined by the borders that had been established by the European colonists.

But there was a problem, because those borders included, very often, tribal boundaries. They crossed tribal

boundaries. And they included people within them that had very little in common with each other culturally and

linguistically except for the fact that they were colonial subjects. So once they were no longer colonial subjects,

what would they have in common?

Some colonies also contained rival religious groups. And so apart from being colonial subjects, they didn't-- they

spoke different languages. They had different religions. They had different cultures. And they thought differently

about what tribe, what nation they belonged to. And this would become a problem.

But nationalist leaders decided that they were going to keep the existing colonial borders because it was more

practical. And that turned out to be true really only in the short term. Now, I want you to keep in mind this sort ofpotential for future conflict as we observe the development of International affairs in other parts of the world,

where both the threat of nuclear war and this breakdown of the world into these two camps, with the US on one

side and the USSR on the other, OK?

Now, we're going to focus a little bit more on the US experience here, largely because it's perhaps a little bit more

relevant to our purposes right now, and look at the case of Iran in the early 1950s, which really allowed the United

States to recognize the amazing amount of power they had in this new world order. Remember, the United States

before World War II had largely decided it did not want to be involved in world affairs. It wasn't going to involve

itself in other people's wars or other people's affairs. It wasn't interested in that. And so now we are in the post-

World War world and the United States is getting a taste for what it means to be a world power.

So the Iranian oil industry had been under British control since 1913. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which

would eventually become British Petroleum, and you might have seen as BP, so still in existence, essentially

operated all the oil fields and extracted oil. And it extracted it for itself. It did not pay Iran any fees for this benefit.

And in 1953, Mohammad Mosaddegh, who was the democratically-elected prime minister of Iran-- Iran had a

king. You would call him a shah, so he was the prime minister. He introduced a range of progressive reforms. So

he actually did that before 1953. He introduced social security. And he had planned land reforms.

And amongst the land reforms was going to be the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. Because in order to

fund social security, what Iran was going to need was a significant amount of money. And the way they were going

to be able to do that is if they sold Iranian oil and kept those profits.

And so what Mosaddegh was doing was not different from what the Mexican president, Lazaro Cardenas, had

done in 1938, before World War II, before the world broke up into these two camps. So Mosaddegh was

nationalizing his country's most valuable resource in order to reinvest it in the Iranian economy and infrastructure

and public goods. Mosaddegh was a secular democrat, so he was not religious. And he was a Democrat-- he was

democratically-elected and he believed in democratic institutions-- who, after decades of foreign involvement in

his country-- in this case it was the British-- really mobilized against foreign domination. But he did it in a

democratic way.

So if you're going to stop colonizing countries and if you understand that the days of plundering other countries for

your benefit are over, maybe you could also understand why Iran might have wanted British Petroleum out of its

oil fields, right? Except the British government just couldn't see it this way. All they saw was that they were going to

lose control of the Iranian oil industry.

And they were completely unwilling to negotiate. They were just not-- there was no-- listen, we'll buy it off you,we'll pay. They just didn't want to hear anything. They were not going to negotiate.

And, in fact, the American secretary of state in the very early 1950s, Dean Acheson, said that the British were, in

fact, destructive and determined on a rule or ruin policy in Iran. So at that time, the US was still a little bit doubtful

about whether the British were right in taking this position.

But then late in 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected president in the US. Change of tactics, and in late

November/December, British intelligence officials start talking to American intelligence. And they suggest that

Mosaddegh really should be ousted.

Winston Churchill-- yes, that very one-- in fact, suggests to Eisenhower that Mosaddegh-- despite being very

explicit about not being a socialist, being disgusted with socialism-- Churchill suggests to Eisenhower, well, you

know, he could potentially become dependent on the pro-Soviet party, a pro-Soviet party in Iran.

And if that were the case, then Iran would increasingly turn towards communism. And essentially, that's the same

as being Communist. And then they would become part of the Soviet sphere. And essentially, that would mean

that the Soviets would have control over the Iranian oil fields.

It's a long shot. It requires a lot of sort of paranoid assumptions about Iranian politics, as well as the strength of

the pro-Soviet party in Iran. But it really didn't help that the Shah of Iran-- essentially the King of Iran-- didn't like

Mosaddegh too much either, because the Shah was worried that Mosaddegh might, in fact, at some point, also

mobilize to an end of the monarchy.

And so that really helped the CIA and MI6, which is the British Secret Service, support a small opposition. So there

was a small opposition to Mosaddegh, which was largely people who were dependent on the Shah or who were

part of the aristocracy. They supported the small opposition that grew into a full-fledged political coup. And that

coup removed Mosaddegh from power on August 19th, 1953.

And with the support of the CIA and MI6, they replaced Mosaddegh with a military general. And for the next 25

years the Shah ruled, with significant support from the United States. And that, at some point, would become the

reason why there was this enormous anti-US backlash and a religious revolution in Iran in the late 1970s.

But the effect of the Iran overthrow of 1953 would have long-lasting effects throughout the world. And the first of

those would be in Guatemala in 1954. Before World War II, Guatemala's economy depended almost entirely on

exporting fruit through the US. It was United Fruit Company, which was American.

And in 1951 the new president, Juan Jacobo Arbenz-- just think of him as Arbenz-- announced that the

government would take over all unused land. So it wasn't going to take the lands that were currently planted. TheUnited Fruit Company grew bananas, right? It wasn't going to take land on which banana trees grew, but just the

land that wasn't being used, and was going to give it to poor peasants in order to fight poverty. Now, that unused

land also belonged to the United Fruit Company.

And the idea that land would be confiscated or nationalized sounded a bit like what Mosaddegh was doing in Iran.

And so in the early 50s John Foster Dulles was the Secretary of State under Eisenhower. So we're talking 1952.

And his brother, Allen Dulles, was the director of the CIA. So you had these two brothers, who one was secretary

of state, the other one was director of the CIA. They're both like complete anti-communist-- which, again, was not

rare in America at the time.

But apart from that, Allen Dulles was also a member of the board of the United Fruit Company. So early in the

1950s, so 1952, Eisenhower and his cabinet are hearing that land reform and nationalization might be a sign of

socialism, which could lead to communism. And they start an overthrow in Iran. So fresh off this experience in

Iran, which was not just-- in a sense had solidified this connection between land reform nationalization and

communism, but also given them the experience that they could actually overthrow a government that they

considered to not be aligned with their interests.

The Dulles brothers become convinced that Arbenz would become a communist. And so what they do is they go

all out. And they organize covert support for a coup against him. And there was barely any opposition to Arbenz,

right? In Iran there was some opposition to Mosaddegh-- whether it was legitimate or not is up for discussion. But

there was barely any opposition to Arbenz.

And yet the CIA manages to do a series of black flag operations. And they start a coup against him. And Arbenz

was removed from office in 1954, after which a president who was much, much more friendly to the United States

was installed. And all the confiscated lands were returned to the United Fruit Company.

So what were the lessons here-- the lessons of the 1950s, in this context? Well, any kind of government policy

that stood to cost American companies or the United States a risk would most likely be identified as Communist

and would then be overthrown by covert US-led or US-supported forces. And the governments-- the other lesson -

- the governments that followed after the coup knew that as long as they seemed to be protecting the country

from communism, as long as they seemed to support the United States, the United States would support them.

So imagine you're the president of country X and you have an enemy. All you need to do is brand him a

communist and the United sense would more than lend you support to get rid of that person. And if the press in

your country doesn't cover your actions in a positive light, well, you can just attack them as Communist

mouthpieces and the US would send support to either stop them talking or shout an opposing message louder.Ultimately, the message in these early years of the Cold War was, either you are with us or you're against us,

yeah. And in Latin America it would really be difficult to remain neutral. And that's really what the Guatemalan

lesson showed.

We've got one more chapter in Latin America that makes that particularly relevant. And it was a chapter that really

was important to the rest of the world. Cuba in the 1950s-- early 1050s-- was basically an extension of the United

States. Under the terms of the Platt Amendment, the US had the right to intervene in Cuba's internal affairs

whenever it wanted to. And it kept a large Naval base in Guantanamo Bay.

Cuba's economy served America's needs, largely. And Americans really got used to hopping to Havana for a

weekend of tropical fun. There are a ton of movies from the 1950s that really make that explicit. Cuba's middle

class benefited enormously from this relationship, right? I mean there were casinos in Cuba. Tourism was a huge,

huge source of income for the island.

But there wasn't a lot of money that was trickling down to poor Cubans. And General Batista-- he had seized

power in 1952, around the time Eisenhower became president-- was slightly-- he was authoritarian. I mean, he

was just, I'd say, slightly to the left, I guess, of Benito Mussolini. He was very much inspired by populist

authoritarians like Juan Peron in Argentina, who controlled power very centrally and then handed it out by favors,

depending on who they needed to impress and who they needed to have on their side.

This rise in authoritarianism was new in Cuba. And it was deeply opposed by Fidel Castro and younger law

students who started a resistance movement. But the resistance movement was not just against Batista. It was

against Batista and his authoritarian rule, and largely also-- and this is a theme, right-- against foreign

intervention, foreign immersion in a nation's economy. So what Fidel Castro wanted was both a return of Cuba to

Cuba, right-- the Cuban economy should be Cuban-- and a democratic government.

Now the resistance movement to Batista did not just have Cubans in it. Among the Cuban resistance was a young

Argentinian who had also been in Guatemala in 1954 when Arbenz had been overthrown. Yeah. This young man,

whom everyone called Che, was a key element in the transformation of Cuba. This is Che Guevara.

So Che Guevara had been in Guatemala in 1954. He saw the overthrow. He left Guatemala in 1954. Ended up in

Mexico City, where he met Fidel, who had been exiled out of Cuba because of a failed coup against Batista. And

together they would form a pretty powerful group.

And they eventually managed to overthrow Batista in 1959. So they overthrew a corrupt ruler, like many African

independent leaders. And like many Africans and like Iran, they just wanted Cuba to govern itself. They wanted

the Cuban economy to be owned by Cubans, and to be allowed to invest in Cuba.Fidel Castro was not a Communist when he resisted Batista. Like Mosaddegh, he might not have trusted the

foreign companies that exploited his country, but he wasn't opposed to the notion of economic growth. And he

wasn't opposed to the notion of working with them.

But Eisenhower would have absolutely none of it. To him, Castro was a Communist, just like Mosaddegh had

been a Communist and just like Arbenz had been a Communist, right? They weren't. But to Eisenhower, the

justification for their actions against them was because, well, they weren't quite aligned with the United States

enough. Therefore, they must be Communists.

Remember, you're either with us or you're against us. And the goal of US policy in the 1950s would be to crush

anybody who wasn't aligned with the United States. And in this case, that would mean to crush Che Guevara. And,

in fact, they tried to kill-- I'm sorry, not Che Guevara, Fidel Castro.

They tried to kill Fidel Castro any way possible. So exploding cigars? Check, they tried those. Poisoned cigars?

Tried those as well. Poisoned socks? Yep, they tried it. Didn't work.

They even tried to put poisoned lipstick on a woman sent to seduce him. This is like straight out of a Bond movie.

And that didn't work either. In fact, there's sort of a completely apocryphal calculation that the CIA came up with

638 different plots to assassinate Castro, none of which worked. He died in 2016.

And I'm going to leave you-- in a world that is dominated by two extremely powerful nuclear sort of empires, to call

them that, one man managed to avoid being killed by one of those two powers. And so I'm going to leave it with

that. Castro lives.