Democrats Beaten Back by the Waves of History: Is Rapprochement with Iran a Possibility?

 Outside the American embassy after a mission to rescue hostages failed

January 20th 2012 marked the 31st anniversary of the release of the American hostages held in Iran. 52 people were held for a total of 444 days in Teheran's American embassy, as the world (ie America and its allies) -- to coin a cliche, -- 'held its breath'. In retrospect, it was a somewhat significant period of time to be 'holding one's breath'.  A botched rescue mission by the name of Operation Eagle Claw, in which eight military personnel and one Iranian were killed, buried the Democrats at the 1980 elections, when the Republicans had a landslide victory, returning them to office after the disgrace of the Watergate years.  Incumbent Ronald Reagan was set up and ready instead to welcome back the hostages when they finally returned. The hostage crisis was a symptom of the severe lack of trust between the growing opposition movement to the Shah in Iran and the western powers, who seemed to believe they had the right of sovereignty in Middle Eastern affairs, but actually showed an appalling ignorance when it came to comprehending the aspirations of its people.

Burning an effigy of Uncle Sam outside U.S. embassy in Tehran

 Despite the fact that it actually happened, revolution in Iran was far from the thoughts of the western powers. United States interference in Iranian affairs had long been resented by the predominantly shi'ite population going back at least to 1953. A a coup backed by the United States and Britain, installed Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran as absolute monarch, in direct contravention to the sovereignty of the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mosaddeqq. The Shah of Iran was a Middle East strongman of my parents' generation. His position had always been  compromised by his blind adherence to the United States who were after all, responsible for his sudden influence in world affairs. He was blatantly anti-democratic and kept an autocrat's eye on what his people thought of him through a repressive domestic spy network known as the SAVAK. With the same sense of unreality that we have become used to recently, the Shah had no idea what his people really thought of him, and when the Iranian revolution happened, it came as a shock not only to the rest of the world, but also to the Shah himself.

 Decades of interference, both overt and covert,  had convinced the west that any kind of uprising to get rid of the Shah did not exist, even within the realms of possibility. Opposition to the Shah's rule within Iran was dismissed by the CIA in a report which stated only months beforehand that Persia 'was not even in a pre-revolutionary situation'. In his New Year's Eve toast in 1978 President Carter issued the immortal words, 'under the Shah's brilliant leadership Iran is an island of stability.'

An American flag set on fire by Iranian protesters

When the hostage situation emerged,  American president Jimmy Carter appeared to not grasp the seriousness of the situation, at least not to the voters at home. The hostages were returned safely, but the damage to the self-esteem of the Democrats has probably not been adequately calculated.  Domestically, the deterioration of the relationship between Iran and the United States became a political issue in the 1980's that both Democrats and Republicans used to enhance their chances of getting elected. Consequently neither party escaped with much in the way of integrity, much less public credibility.

 The Reagan  administration was plagued (at least in its second term),  by the possibility of the public finding out about a number of arms for hostages deals. Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the staff of the National Security Council  gave the go-ahead to take twelve million dollars from arm sales to Iran, and give the money to the contra 'freedom' fighters in Nicaragua. This was pointedly against all protestations from Reagan that he absolutely and categorically refused to negotiate with terrorists and that any arms for hostages deal was out of the question. [1]. An ongoing scandal for the Republicans with a Democrat congress to contend with, the exact role of President Reagan in the scandal was never properly delineated, and will probably never be known.

One of many spontaneous mass demonstrations against the Shah

The Concluding Observations of the Walsh Iran/Contra report state  that the Congress was unwilling to engage with a popular president and his executive in order to find out the truth. In doing so, Congress accepted the concept of a conspiracy by subordinate officers, so they could eliminate the need for the testimony of President Reagan and Vice President Bush. Congress was essentially defrauded, and was erroneously led to believe that the administration was acting within the law.  Despite a fighting, all-American  image the Republicans enjoyed promoting, Reagan's image was tainted both at home and abroad. Arms for hostages deals appeared to initiate more terrorism, and the United States could no longer claim the moral high ground against other nations who refused to make concessions to terrorists and their demands.

With a regime change in 1992, President Bill Clinton appealed to many as a progressive who would perhaps reach out to Iran in a show of  friendship (with of course the necessary conditions.) As with most centre-left parties in western democracies, the Democrats had to worry  about managing to stay in power, once they were elected. They had to tread carefully with the voters in order not to seem indifferent to matters of national security. They had to appear resourceful, and able to take the initiative when it came to protecting the country's interests abroad. Yet the bellicosity of the Republicans did not seem to work for them. They had to forge an image which enhanced their ability at making the peace, at reaching out and achieving some kind of dialogue with nations whose customs and religious beliefs were less comprehensible to them than others, in an area of the world as important economically as it was politically.

Reagan receiving the Tower Commission report c1987

Clinton was at first stolid in his refusal to negotiate with Iran issuing Executive Orders 12957 and 12959, banning all trade between the two countries.It could be questioned whether these orders were meant to stand or were merely symbolic of a president who was inexperienced in foreign affairs.  In the late 1990's an apology for the 1953 CIA coup was placed on the table and it seemed that the Democrats were on cue to resume  necessary diplomatic relations which had been revoked since the hostage crisis. However, an apology from the Iranians for the hostage crisis was not forthcoming in return. The executive orders were not rescinded but communications had at least been restored by a combination of private negotiation and a  desire to officially attempt to ease tensions between the two countries.

With a Democrat President currently in office, the rhetoric of the hawks with their itchy trigger fingers is balanced by a more prudent and rational discourse, as the United States attempts to balance national security pre-occupations with its  international responsibilities and its revisionist stance to right the wrongs of the disreputable regime that came before the current administration.  Neither political party has had much success in breaking through the institutionalised antipathy that America and Iran feel for each other. But that isn't to say that it won't happen, and in the process save the world from a confrontation that may be too dreadful to contemplate.

[1] Bob Woodward, Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1999, Ch. 10, p. 110.

The strange journey of Jay Lovestone - from American communist to mole for the C.I.A.

A post-war propaganda poster 

Jay Lovestone speaking at a union rally in 1938

Jay Lovestone is not a name familiar to everyone. He was in fact an extremely influential figure in American public life during the period from  the 1920's, right up to the Cold War -- when the Cold War  was raging at its hottest. To say that he ran the ideological gamut from A to B would be an understatement of glaringly bizarre fact. Starting out in his youth with a commitment to international socialism, by the time he'd reached his  dotage Lovestone was  loved as much as he was feared, his mission in life being the protection of his beloved adopted country America from the menace of Russian communism.

 Lovestone grew up on the streets of New York's Lower East Side after migrating with his parents and siblings from modern day Belarus (at the time Lithuania), and was born in 1897. Originally known as Jacob Liebstein, he was first attracted to the socialist theories of Daniel de Leon and on de Leon's  death in 1914, attended the funeral with 3000 other mourners. One can only wonder what kind of dynamic place New York's Lower East Side, must have been at the time. It was a  haven for Jews, Poles, Irish and Italians  escaping either the pogroms of eastern Europe, poverty, or any other kind of political upheaval imaginable during the war years and their bitter aftermath. America must surely been a haven for them as they were allowed to pursue their basic freedoms of speech and assembly that they had previously been denied. From our own historical vantage point  we can only contemplate what the Lower East Side must have been like for a bright boy like Lovestone.

 He entered  college, dabbled in student politics and dropped out of law school in order to be a career member full time of the Communist Party. He helped to form the Communist Party of America in 1919 along with the legendary John Reed as a representation of a left slanting Leninist group that believed in the on-going revolution of the masses. With the death of Lenin in 1924 the Bolsheviks were reduced to factional in-fighting and the Americans, it could be argued, were no match for the ruthlessness, and bitterness of ideological conflict that the Europeans were so expert at since the French Revolution. Lovestone, as one of the prime factional leaders of his party, followed the doctrine of Bukharin, whilst other more conservative communists preferred to follow Stalin. This was, in hindsight, a disastrous judgment on Lovestone's part, for when Stalin purged Bukharin from the Soviet Politburo in 1929, Lovestone suffered the consequences. Lovestone made the journey to Moscow from New York to state his case, but Stalin brushed him off as a lightweight, pointing to a cemetery outside the window where they were talking, and exclaiming that this was where Lovestone would end up if he peristed in adhering to the doctrine of the disgraced Bukharin. Lovestone was eventually expelled from the party, but this only made a difference in 1938 when Bukharin was shot. This put the Bukharinites in the graveyard which Stalin had planned for them, if not literally, then certainly metaphorically, and as a symbol that the American's one-sided  battle for ideological supremacy with the Russians was at an end once and for all.

 Lovestone developed a virtual network of spies, and informers in his efforts to keep the American trade union movement, through his contacts with the AFL-CIO, free of what were then known as communist infiltrators, or agitators. Amongst a host of other activities abroad that were never monitored or commented upon at home in America, it is clear from a document freely available on the web and linked here, that Lovestone was responsible for the Free Trade Union Movement in South America. The group was nothing more than a front for American business interests. It has been subsequently  blamed for its inflammatory influence on the rise of a number of fascist dictators in the region  whose powers were only challenged after decades spent  repressing the political rights of  their own populations.

When the CIA was created in 1947, Lovestone's connection to it through his association with the head of counter-intelligence James Angleton was never discovered till the CIA was put to heel by a number of government investigations into its activities in the period 1974-76. There was an internal war going on within the CIA itself as new head William Colby was attempting to get rid of Angleton, maintaining that his paranoia from years of counter-intelligence work was making him unproductive and a millstone around the agency's neck. Long-time associate George Meany, the President of the AFL-CIO, a shadowy figure despite (or because of) his pre-eminence in the history of American labor, took it upon himself to get rid of Lovestone as it was too embarrassing for the union to have to admit its connection with James Angleton.


I have always found it difficult to explain the nature and somewhat alarming  extent of American patriotism. It seems almost a necessary evil for some Americans, in order that they may re-assure their fellow Americans that they are not traitors, or outsiders The sea change that came over Lovestone after he was expelled from the party seems difficult to explain, except for the fact that he had met Stalin in person, and felt threatened by him. Well...let's fact it. He was threatened by him. It seems like a superficial motivation, but being threatened by someone as powerful as Stalin could not have been a pleasant experience  It appears to be something that stayed with Lovestone for the rest of his life. Unfortunately within the context of the cold war and McCarthyist  manouevres to expose enemies of the state, Lovestone's sea change exhibits a small minded jingoism, comparing himself as a sophisticated American in contrast to the peasant Stalin.   I would interpret Lovestone's sea change as an example of  an unwritten  propaganda subtext that   ruling elites at the time used  in their battle for supremacy,  by converting  the hearts and minds of the general population to a more global way of looking at the world. I believe that Lovestone was probably used in some form or other and merely went along with it because he felt ashamed  to have other Americans think that he didn't love his country.

 In a book review of Lovestone's biography  published in the New York Times, I was surprised to find him described as a 'fanatic'. Maybe this is correct, but I would also suggest that he was just less of a fanatic than the rest of the fanatics who existed at this particular historical point in time. He was also unlucky enough to have been caught, thanks to the emergence  of a new honesty and openness that was emerging in American society in the '70s. By the time of his death in 1990 Lovestone was not known to the public and must have felt a man out of his time, as rapproachment with the Soviet Union became a reality and a new world order emerged which had no time for the kind of native American idealism that I would argue Lovestone's life exemplified, for better or worse. It is a strange journey indeed and one that hopefully will receive more attention from academics and other writers in the future.

Articles referred to in this article include: Jay Lovestone on Wikipedia here; Edward Jay Epstein on the wars of the CIA article here; Thomas Braden article  on Spartacus here; Questions and Answers to American Trade Unionists from Joseph Stalin available at marxist.org  here; New York Times book review Under the Beds of the Reds here.