Many conservatives cursed Obama for liberalizing relations with Communist Cuba. Many other conservatives applauded him for abandoning failed sanctions in exchange for free enterprise.
Meanwhile, an article by Tom Hayden in The Nation, the liberal American magazine, applauded Obama’s decision as a “victory for the Cuban revolution” and a final vindication for the Castros.
The Nation article doesn’t reflect the majority view on the American Left. But at the moment that Communist dictatorships Cuba and North Korea come back into the news, its love letter to Castro reminds us how divided the American Left was during the Cold War.
As late as the 1970s and early 1980s, many on the Left opposed or ridiculed the “Cold Warriors’” goal of dismantling the USSR. A minority on the American Left, and a large number in Europe, actually preferred the Soviet government to the U.S. government, especially when Ronald Reagan was in office.
I’m not talking about tactical disagreements or criticism of methods. Yes, Vietnam was a mistake, Joe McCarthy went too far, and the whole Iran-Contra affair was illegal. But some lefties preferred Soviet leaders to Reagan for more substantial reasons than anything like that. Many thought “winning” the Cold War and defeating the USSR was a silly idea, not a goal to be worked toward.
Let’s start with the New York Times. Their Moscow Bureau chief Walter Duranty had misled American readers and carried water for Josef Stalin, denying an obvious famine, and — according to some critics — covering up for a series of show trials. The Times has since condemned Duranty’s reporting.
While many Democratic politicians throughout the Cold War sought to defeat the communists, others sought to partner with them.
“In 1978,” a KGB report to the Communist Party stated, “American Sen. Edward Kennedy requested the assistance of the KGB to establish a relationship” between the KGB and a firm run by Kennedy’s former colleague, former Sen. John Tunney a California Democrat. During the 1980 election, as Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter in the Democratic primary, Tunney traveled to Moscow on Kennedy’s behalf to help devise a strategy to counter what he saw as Carter’s excessive bellicosity towards the USSR.
In May 1983, Kennedy sent Tunney to Moscow on a confidential mission to undermine Reagan. As a Soviet agent wrote it in a contemporaneous letter, Kennedy asked for Soviet help “to counter the militaristic politics of Reagan.”
Kennedy wanted to visit the Soviet Premier, Yuri Andropov, in order “to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they may be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA.”
Reagan, of course, had the goal of dismantling the Soviet Union and ending the scourge of global Communism. Some Democrats did not share that goal.
When Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” he was, of course, correct. It also gave hope to those suffering behind the Iron Curtain. Many Democrats didn’t see it that way. They mocked Reagan for his rhetoric and for his support for space-based strategic missile defense. Ed Markey, then a congressman and now a Senator, mocked Reagan’s positions from the House floor: “The force of evil is the Soviet Union and they are Darth Vader. We are Luke Skywalker and we are the force of good.”
Of course, it is important to point out that we actually were the force of good, at least in that standoff.
House Speaker Tip O’Neill, D-Mass., disagreed with Reagan’s assessment as well. “The evil is in the White House at the present time,” O’Neill told reporters during the 1984 campaign.
Four years later, Reagan visited Berlin and challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” O’Neill’s successor, House Speaker Jim Wright, reportedly said of the statement: “It just makes me have utter contempt for Reagan. He spoiled the chance for relations between our two countries.”
President Obama, in one of his two memoirs, wrote that there had been “near unanimity” in the Cold War, and that back then “politics usually ended at the water’s edge.” That just isn’t true. He could have asked Ted Kennedy or read up on Senator Tunney.
But it is mostly true now. With regard to Cuba, the current debate is mostly over the best means for ending a Communist dictatorship, and how to bring political and economic freedom to the island. It’s a nice change to have everyone aiming for the same goal this time.
Well, everyone but The Nation magazine.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Sunday and Wednesday on washingtonexaminer.com.
