Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

The Fifth Freedom
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
107
As the war proceeded, it became clear that Western Europe would
join the Grand Area as well as the oil-producing regions of the Middle
East, where US control expanded at the expense of its major rivals,
France and Britain, a process continued in the postwar period. Specific
plans were outlined for particular regions, and institutional structures
were proposed for the Grand Area, which was regarded as a nucleus or
model that could be extended, optimally to a global system. 52 It is in this
context that Kennan’s proposals should be understood.
The memoranda of the National Security Council and other
government documents in subsequent years often closely follow the
recommendations of the wartime planners, not surprisingly, since the
same interests were represented, often the same people. They also
accord with Kennan’s principles. For example, NSC 48/1 in December
1949 states that “While scrupulously avoiding assumption of
responsibility for raising Asiatic living standards, it is to the U.S. interest
to promote the ability of these countries to maintain . . . the economic
conditions prerequisite to political stability.” Thus in accordance with
Kennan’s precepts, we should not be “hampered by idealistic slogans”
about “the raising of the living standards,” though economic aid may be
in order when we have something to gain by it.
It is not, of course, proposed that we should assist—or even permit—
the nationalist movement of Vietnam to achieve economic health and
political stability; on the contrary, a State Department Policy Statement
of September 1948 had explained that it is “an unpleasant fact” that
“Communist Ho Chi Minh is the strongest and perhaps the ablest figure
in Indochina and that any suggested solution which excludes him is an
expedient of uncertain outcome,” a serious problem, since plainly we
must seek to exclude him in pursuit of the Fifth Freedom. 53 Political
stability under his leadership was not what was contemplated. Rather,
“stability” is a code word for obedience. Those familiar with the peculiar