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Double prices and we double national income. ... Our great
national debt is a blessing in disguise, because we owe it to For his cold war revisionism, he was accused of being a Soviet
ourselves. ... Cold war is peace. ... A free nation is any na- apologist. The absurdity of that claim is demonstrated in the fol-
tion whether liberal and democratic, socialist, fascist, or lowing passage:
anti-Kremlin communist which will join the anti-Russian
Stalin and his successors were content with the Cold War be-
crusade. Aiding socialist nations of Europe under the Mar-
cause war scares and the alleged threat of capitalistic attack
shall Plan is a bold stroke to promote free enterprise abroad.
enabled the Politburo to maintain unity and prevent any threat
... Launching the atom bomb will assure peace and security.
of civil war in Soviet Russia, despite much slave labor and
Barnes argued that a study of revisionist history relating to the low living standards.29
two world wars was essential in order to formulate a foreign pol-
(One might, indeed, argue in retrospect that the confrontational
icy for the cold war period. The condemnation of appeasement
brinkmanship policies towards the Soviet bloc pursued by US
of Germany, Japan and Italy in the 1930s, Barnes argued, led to a
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in the 1950s tended to rein-
needlessly confrontational approach to the Soviet Union. He ar-
force Soviet power, while the détente of the 1970s at least enabled
gued instead that the US should
some progress towards human rights and multilateral disarmament
... return to neutrality ... combined [with] every possible effort agreements, and an increase in trade. This increase in East-West
to limit warfare, and to encourage better international under- trade, it might be argued, involved the construction of those mod-
standing.25 ern telecommunications and computer networks which enabled
dissident organisations like Solidarity and Charter 77 to function,
In 1959, he deplored the fact that
and gradually led to the peaceful collapse of the entire Soviet sys-
... when we are unable to enforce the law in Little Rock with-
tem and its transition to multi-party democracies.)
out upsetting the nation, it is proposed that we enforce the
Barnes, in short, was none of these things. Instead, as the late
law in Saigon, Bangkok, Rangoon, and Nairobi.26
Murray N. Rothbard, the economist who was the most important
He regretted the fact that American conservatives, who had in
figure in the development of post-war American libertarianism,
many cases opposed intervention in the two world wars, had al-
wrote of Barnes:
most all become vigorous cold war partisans:
Absolute fearlessness, absolute honesty, absolute independ-
the conservatives overlook entirely the fact that this very glo-
ence have been his guiding stars. He has, therefore, been
balism and spatial fantasy, with the astronomical expenditures
nothing if not anti-Establishmentarian in a world where
involved, are the main cause of the growing statism, debt
such a quality has been so desperately needed. And his
burden, inflation ... which are destroying the free economy
presence has been particularly vital precisely in leading the
that they abstractly worship. ... The building of a dam costing
opposition to the great barbarity of our day the war system
some millions is denounced as pure socialism, while a rig-
and its manifold intellectual myths.
idly State-controlled armament economy costing forty or
In the face of the two great wars of this century, and of the
more billions each year is hailed as the chief bulwark of free
enormous pressures to fall into step behind them, Barnes has
enterprise.27
intrepidly led the revisionist movements in analyzing the
THE VILIFICATION OF BARNES causes, the nature, and the consequences of both wars. Revi-
sionism, of course, means penetrating beneath the official
Needless to say, Barnes was subjected to sustained vilification for
propaganda myths spawned by war and the war-making state,
his historical researches. Because of his 1914-18 revisionism he
and analyzing war independently of court pressures and court
was accused of being a tool of the Prussian general staff. The
emoluments. ... Throughout his life, whether surrounded by
absurdity of that claim was demonstrated by his enthusiastic pro-
9
the leading lights of his day or battling alone, whether heaped Israel is given in James M. Ennes, Jr s Assault on the Liberty, an
with laurels or with abuse, Harry Barnes has fought uncom- account of the Israeli attack on the US communication ship Lib-
promisingly for truth and justice, for reason and peace. In a erty during the 1967 war, which killed 34 sailors and injured an-
century of craven other-direction, he has always been his other 117 in an attempt to prevent the Americans from learning
own man ... a worthy embodiment of the better, and let us about Israel s plans for the illegal seizure of more Arab territory.
hope, the truer America.30 The Israelis intended to kill the Liberty s entire crew and blame
the attack on the Egyptians. The author was a US Navy officer
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