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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOliver Stone's Untold History
OK I am late to the game. While cat sitting for a friend (who gets Showtime) I am working my way through Oliver Stone's Untold History. I am currently on Episode 4 on the Cold War. Between Episodes 3 & 4 it seems to me that Truman was in over his head when he became president. Knowing that the US might have put the planet on the road of self destruction it seems like he had no problem with threatening the continue to use the atomic bomb. He strikes be as short sighted and bull headed. The series is making me want to read more about Henry Wallace.
The other thing that makes sense, given the road we have followed is that there were people in the Roosevelt/Truman presidency who thought that the US needed a military that would be kept a permanent war footing. I can't remember the names of who favored it.
I kind of wish I were taking notes so that I could research some of what is in the show.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)I received it yesterday as a gift from a friend who's decided I'm not subversive enough in my knowledge of history. I did notice it's heavily footnoted and the appendices are large, so that give me hope it's a history book rather than a collection of editorials.
It will get a reading this weekend.
avebury
(10,952 posts)not to buy the kindle version. Please let me know what you think when you finish it.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)I just wrote my self a note as a reminder, and will send you a PM as soon as I'm done with it.
avebury
(10,952 posts)Little Star
(17,055 posts)Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)Successfully pushing him out marked the major turning point in the course of this nation and the beginning of the end of dissent in American politics.
Learn at your own risk, it will piss you off.
avebury
(10,952 posts)country had the potential to have gone in a totally different direction had Wallace become president (if they didn't find a way to knock him off).
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)the whole McCarthy red scare thing would have taken, and the post-war labor issues as well...
I think America would be unrecognizable today.
Or maybe the fascists would have found another way to win, either way, learning from the mistakes of the past is our best hope for the future.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)He supported the war in Korea. Backed Nixon against JFK.
I tried searching "Henry Wallace would not have nuked Japan," and every link on the first page of links ultimately traced back to LaRouche.
Smarmie Doofus
(14,498 posts)It should fill-in a lot of the blanks fer ya'.
HW's pretty-much been written-out of the official history.
It's like he didn't exist.
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)Archae
(46,335 posts)Yes, I said it.
Oliver Stone is a rabble-rousing liar.
His series is revisionist "history" that has Stone's far-far left politics influencing it.
Stone himself blamed "the Jews" for the series not getting more airplay.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/19/oliver-stone-s-junk-history-of-the-united-states-debunked.html
Stone used as a "source" for his revisionist movie "JFK" a vicious gay-bashing liar, Jim Garrison.
He used a history revisionist to write this bullshit.
avebury
(10,952 posts)if accurate. He portrays Truman as short sighted and short minded. If Truman thought that the US could keep atomic weaponry to ourselves then he was naive to say the least, particularly if he used the US atomic capability to blackmail other countries like the USSR.
Archae
(46,335 posts)Read the link I posted.