Tom the exterminator

[Michael Hoover]

>>Carrol Cox wrote:
>>I think long ago Chomsky wrote an analysis of a
>>"National Security" document produced during the Truman 
>>administration that both laid out the contours of what came >>to be called the Cold War AND explicitly stated as one of its >>aims to "prime" the u.s. economy. In the late '40s there was >>really widespread fear -- both in public discussion and 
>>apparently in discussion in inner circles -- that the 
>>unemployment of the '30s would reoccur. It was not only >>Stalinists who thought that a "final slump" might be in the >>offing.


>You must be thinking of NSC-68. 
>Doug

called the 'most famous unread paper of its era' by historian gaddis smith (a yale prof if memory serves)...

re. carroll's comment, i too recall chomsky piece on nsc-68 but do not recollect what he wrote, been years since i looked at document itself (and i didn't take time to go to website doug posted about), but as i recall, it doesn't say too much that kennan hadn't already said in either infamous 1947 'foreign affairs' article - using pseudonym 'mr x' - or in 1948 nsc 20/4 policy document calling for expanded militarization and aggressiveness (so-called containment)...

acheson and nitze's nsc-68 proposals represented imperialism of international faction of us capital that was powerful but not yet secure in its hegemony, korean war became legitmizing source for document - military became top federal budget priority, purge of left from unions was intensified, isolationist right was 'isolated', military expenditures in wake of recession that began in 1949 soared, stimulating economy(eventually becoming permanent spending on corporate sector)...

seems less important whether or not nsc-68 addressed 'pump priming' in any specific way, believe there's references to economy running at 'full capacity' (or some such language), because document served such ends...  michael hoover