> Michael Hoover wrote:
>
> >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...
>
> As I recall, the economic argument - that military spending would
> ward off a return of the depression - was included in the document to
> persuade reluctant bureaucrats to go along; the idea of a permanent
> war economy was foreign to many Americans, even in the political
> elite. It was a hard sell until the Korean war; I think Kolko quotes
> Acheson as saying the NK invasion (putting that word under erasure)
> made for the most glorious two weeks in history.
A historian named Frank Kofsky wrote a book a few years ago called "Harry Truman and the War Scare of 1948" in which he alleges that the brief war scare for a few months of 1948 was manufactured by the administration to bail out the aircraft industry. Very persuasive and deeply researched book.
Seth