appeasement Archives - Patricia Roberts-Miller

LBJ Deliberations on Vietnam: “Our indolence at Munich”

Prime Minister Chamberlain announcing "peace for our time" — From here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SetNFqcayeA

A common description of the LBJ Administration decision-making regarding Vietnam was that it was an instance of “groupthink”—that decision-makers in the administration were unwilling to disagree with one another (e.g, Irving Janis Groupthink). Another description is that the administration was excessively optimistic, duped, or otherwise unwilling to consider reasonably the likelihood of success.

It turns out it was much more complicated than that. I was looking for times that decision-makers used the cudgel of “but appeasement!” to deflect reasonable dissent, and came across this exchange.

In June of 1965, Westmoreland had asked for additional troops, arguing that escalating US involvement would “give us a substantial and hard hitting offensive capability on the ground to convince the VC that they cannot win.”

George Ball argued that escalation was a mistake. In a July 1, 1965 memo, for instance, he said,

“So long as our forces are restricted to advising and assisting the South Vietnamese, the struggle will remain a civil war between Asian peoples. Once we deploy substantial numbers of troops in combat it will become a war between the U.S. and a large part of the population of South Vietnam, organized and directed from North Vietnam and backed by the resources of both Moscow and Peiping.
“The decision you face now, therefore, is crucial. Once large numbers of U.S. troops are committed to direct combat, they will begin to take heavy casualties in a war they are ill‐equipped to fight in a non‐cooperative if not downright hostile countryside.
“Once we suffer large casualties, we will have started a well‐nigh irreversible process. Our involvement will be so great that we cannot—without national humiliation—stop short of achieving our complete objectives. Of the two possibilities I think humiliation would be more likely than the achievement of our objectives—even after we have paid terrible costs.”

On July 20, 1965, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara sent a memo to LBJ arguing for raising US personnel in Vietnam from 75k to 175k (perhaps even 200k). On July 21, 1965, LBJ and his advisors met to discuss that memo. I was surprised by the transcript of the meeting. It doesn’t show ideal deliberation, but it does show that LBJ wanted to hear what Ball said, and wanted options considered. Ball was invited to make his argument, and LBJ specifically asked McNamara to reply to them. He also asked for a second meeting just to discuss Ball’s argument. The transcript of both meetings is fascinating, but this exchange (from the afternoon meeting) is particularly important for thinking about deliberation.

Ball: We can’t win. Long protracted. The most we can hope for is messy conclusion. There remains a great danger of intrusion by Chicoms.
Problem of long war in US:
1. Korean experience was galling one. Correlation between Korean casualties and public opinion (Ball showed Pres. a chart)5 showed support stabilized at 50%. As casualties increase, pressure to strike at jugular of the NVN will become very great.
2. World opinion. If we could win in a year’s time—win decisively—world opinion would be alright. However, if long and protracted we will suffer because a great power cannot beat guerrillas.
3. National politics. Every great captain in history is not afraid to make a tactical withdrawal if conditions are unfavorable to him. The enemy cannot even be seen; he is indigenous to the country.
Have serious doubt if an army of westerners can fight orientals in Asian jungle and succeed.
President: This is important—can westerners, in absence of intelligence, successfully fight orientals in jungle rice-paddies? I want McNamara and Wheeler to seriously ponder this question.
Ball: I think we have all underestimated the seriousness of this situation. Like giving cobalt treatment to a terminal cancer case. I think a long protracted war will disclose our weakness, not our strength.
The least harmful way to cut losses in SVN is to let the government decide it doesn’t want us to stay there. Therefore, put such proposals to SVN government that they can’t accept, then it would move into a neutralist position—and I have no illusions that after we were asked to leave, SVN would be under Hanoi control.
What about Thailand? It would be our main problem. Thailand has proven a good ally so far—though history shows it has never been a staunch ally. If we wanted to make a stand in Thailand, we might be able to make it.
Another problem would be South Korea. We have two divisions there now. There would be a problem with Taiwan, but as long as Generalissimo is there, they have no place to go. Indonesia is a problem—insofar as Malaysia. There we might have to help the British in military way. [Page 195] Japan thinks we are propping up a lifeless government and are on a sticky wicket. Between long war and cutting our losses, the Japanese would go for the latter (all this on Japan according to Reischauer).
President: Wouldn’t all those countries say Uncle Sam is a paper tiger—wouldn’t we lose credibility breaking the word of three presidents—if we set it up as you proposed. It would seem to be an irreparable blow. But, I gather you don’t think so.
Ball: The worse blow would be that the mightiest power in the world is unable to defeat guerrillas.
President: Then you are not basically troubled by what the world would say about pulling out?
Ball: If we were actively helping a country with a stable, viable government, it would be a vastly different story. Western Europeans look at us as if we got ourselves into an imprudent fashion [situation].
[….]
President: Two basic troublings:
1. That Westerners can ever win in Asia.
2. Don’t see how you can fight a war under direction of other people whose government changes every month.
Now go ahead, George, and make your other points.
Ball: The cost, as well as our Western European allies, is not relevant to their situation. What they are concerned about is their own security—troops in Berlin have real meaning, none in VN.
President: Are you saying pulling out of Korea would be akin to pulling out of Vietnam?
Bundy: It is not analogous. We had a status quo in Korea. It would not be that way in Vietnam.
Ball: We will pay a higher cost in Vietnam.
This is a decision one makes against an alternative.
On one hand—long protracted war, costly, NVN is digging in for long term. This is their life and driving force. Chinese are taking long term view—ordering blood plasma from Japan.
On the other hand—short-term losses. On balance, come out ahead of McNamara plan. Distasteful on either hand.
Bundy: Two important questions to be raised—I agree with the main thrust of McNamara. It is the function of my staff to argue both sides.
To Ball’s argument: The difficulty in adopting it now would be a radical switch without evidence that it should be done. It goes in the face of all we have said and done.
His whole analytical argument gives no weight to loss suffered by other side. A great many elements in his argument are correct.
We need to make clear this is a somber matter—that it will not be quick—no single action will bring quick victory.
I think it is clear that we are not going to be thrown out.
Ball: My problem is not that we don’t get thrown out, but that we get bogged down and don’t win.
Bundy: I would sum up: The world, the country, and the VN would have alarming reactions if we got out.
Rusk: If the Communist world finds out we will not pursue our commitment to the end, I don’t know where they will stay their hand.
I am more optimistic than some of my colleagues. I don’t believe the VC have made large advances among the VN people.
We can’t worry about massive casualties when we say we can’t find the enemy. I don’t see great casualties unless the Chinese come in.
Lodge: There is a greater threat to World War III if we don’t go in. Similarity to our indolence at Munich.

As I said it’s far from ideal deliberation, but it isn’t as bad as I’d expected. LBJ wanted disagreement, and wanted people to take Ball’s arguments seriously. And they didn’t. It wasn’t groupthink; it was something more complicated.

Ball’s concerns were legitimate and prescient, and he got shut down. Because Munich.

Arguing like an asshole: the fantasy that history has obvious lessons

The first mistake that people make about politics (and people all over the political spectrum make this mistake, albeit not equally) is to think that our world of policy disagreement is actually a fight between two identities: people who are good, and people who are various degrees of evil.

In the previous post, I criticized Chomsky (and I will in this one too). But, Chomsky has made some good arguments—and, as a scholar of rhetoric, I want to be clear that there is a difference between a “good argument” and “an argument with which I agree.” Democracy requires that we make that distinction. Not all arguments with which we agree are good arguments, and we should have a world of arguments that are good enough[1], many of which we think are wrong.

There are two weak arguments at play in regard to Ukraine: first, that Clinton “provoked” Putin by threatening to expand NATO (and Chomsky isn’t the only one making that argument); second, that Obama was at fault for not responding more aggressively to what Putin did in regard to Crimea. Oddly enough, I’ve seen people make both arguments. They’re contradictory. Appealing to contradictory premises, or making contradictory claims, is a sign that we’re not making a rational argument—we’re just saying whatever will enable us not to think about the problems with our position.

They’re also arguments that can’t be supported by history. They’re both claims that the example of appeasing Hitler shows are deeply flawed.

A lot of people like to quote Santayana who said, “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” Ironically enough, they thereby show they don’t know the history of that quote. He wasn’t talking about global, but personal history. He didn’t think that history was a set of facts that anyone could know, but that’s a different post. In fact, in the section of that same book where he talks about history, he doesn’t present it as something easy to know.

It’s common to say that the political figures who appeased Hitler were fools, and should have responded more aggressively. They posit counter-factuals: he would have backed down [if people had responded aggressively here or there], or there would have been a military coup [at this or that moment].

One of the important counter-factuals is the remilitarization of the Rhine. People argue that an aggressive response then would have forced Hitler to back down, and…at this point the counterfactuals get a little vexed. Some people argue that there would have been a military coup. I think those counterfactuals are all contradicted by what happened when France and Belgium responded aggressively to Germany’s defaulting on reparation payments. They occupied the Ruhr.

The French and Belgian occupation of the Ruhr radicalized many Germans (it comes up a lot in narratives about why people became Nazis, in both Abel and Merkl); had France, Belgium, and the UK responded aggressively to the remilitarization of the Rhine, that action might well have had the same consequence as the occupation of the Ruhr. It might well have radicalized even more Germans. Hitler thought France might respond aggressively, and he was prepared for that outcome. It’s therefore dubious that a coup would have been successful.

It definitely wouldn’t have kept him from his goal of another world war—nothing would.

But, had the UK or French governments responded aggressively to the remilitarization of the Rhine, they would have been condemned, not just as war mongers, but as people repeating what was seen as the error of WWI—responding with excessive aggression to an incident that didn’t directly threaten any nation. Any government that did so would have lost the next election.

Neither the UK nor France could have gone to war to prevent the annexation of German-speaking regions of Czechoslovakia without losing the next election. Going to war over the invasion of Czechoslovakia would have been both politically and militarily implausible. Given the difficulties of getting supportive troops there, it’s hard to imagine it would have worked any better than the invasion of France. It might have—my whole point is that counter-factuals are various degrees of guesses–but from a rhetorical perspective, it’s clear that it would have been a difficult case to make. Even Churchill had to persuade his cabinet not to make a treaty with Hitler. It would have been much, much harder in 1939 to get support for a war. Should people have supported going to war over Czechoslovakia? Yes. Absolutely. Should people have supported more aggressive responses to Hitler? Yes. Absolutely. But they didn’t, and had Britain effectively stopped Hitler through aggressive action, the political figures would have been condemned as warmongers.

This post isn’t about military consequences, but rhetorical. Had they prevented Hitler from invading other nations, then their aggression would have seemed unnecessary.

Is Putin trying to get back the USSR boundaries because of security concerns? Maybe. He probably thinks so. But that doesn’t mean his concerns are reasonable, nor that they should be honored by other nations. Everyone striving for regional or world hegemony does so out of “security concerns.” Hitler was trying to get Nazi hegemony for all of central and eastern Europe, and exterminate or subjugate various “races,” out of sincerely held security concerns. The US invaded Iraq and got into Vietnam out of sincerely held security concerns. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor out of security concerns. Britain refused to capitulate to Hitler out of security concerns, and the US declared war on Germany for the same reasons. Ukraine is at war with Russia because of security concerns.

Having security concerns—whether or not sincerely held—doesn’t guarantee that what a nation does is right, necessary, or rational. Sometimes it is, but not always. That a country or leader is acting out of security concerns doesn’t necessarily mean they can be appeased, that they were provoked, or that their concerns should be assumed, without argument, to be reasonable positions in policy negotiation.

Had any President responded more aggressively to Russian violations of sovereignty, such as in 2014, voters would have punished him, just as voters would have responded (and, in the case of France, did respond) to aggressive attempts to constrain Hitler.[2] Am I saying that Putin is Hitler? No, arguments that situations are analogous in specific ways are not claims that the situations are identical in every way. [3]

I’m making three claims: first, that appeasing Putin means granting that Russia can have all the territory the USSR had (exactly what appeasing Hitler meant in terms of “German” lands); second, that a more aggressive response earlier might have been ineffective, but would definitely have been politically disastrous; third, that the argument that Putin was provoked is non-falsifiable because it’s grounded in a post hoc ergo propter hoc motivism.

Here’s what I mean about the third. One could argue, just as plausibly, that Clinton moved to include more nations in NATO because he knew Putin was planning on annexation. Both arguments appeal to similar levels of speculation, deflection, and motivism.

It’s interesting that even this defense of Putin assumes him to be trigger-happy and irrational. That’s hardly a defense. And it certainly doesn’t excuse his invasion of Crimea, let alone war crimes.

But, and this is the point of this post. Had Clinton done nothing, or had Obama responded more aggressively, anti-Dem media—and Chomsky and followers, as well as Republicans, are in that category—would have flung themselves around in outrage. It’s failing to learn from history–from our own personal history–if we condemn a political figure for taking the course of action we advocated at the time, but now think was a mistake.

That’s the problem with anyone who condemns Obama for not having responded more aggressively. It’s the problem with anyone who condemns a political figure for behaving as we wanted them to at the time.

People argued for appeasing Hitler because aerial warfare would be, they believed, unbelievably destructive. Let him have Czechoslovakia. Many said, let him have Poland. But he was always going to take France, all of central Europe, and do his best to take the world. Aerial warfare was unbelievably destructive. For Germany.

[1] This is going to get technical, but the short version is: rhetors cite sources, admit when they’re wrong, and do unto others as they would have done unto them—that is hold others to the same standards by which they’re willing to be judged. Here’s the slightly more technical explanation. Rhetors implicitly and explicitly apply criteria that are externally and internally consistent (i.e., if we think that kind of evidence or way of arguing proves our point, then that kind of evidence or way of arguing can also disprove our point—if being able to cite Scripture proves I’m right, then an out-group member being able to cite Scripture proves I’m wrong); if challenged, rhetors cite their sources; if we are proven to have said something false, we take responsibility for having made a bad argument. In other words, behaving responsibly in public discourse means holding everyone to the same standards, and being able to engage in metacognition.

[2] And, in fact, Chomsky criticized Obama at the time for being too hawkish in regard to Crimea.

[3] Why is this so hard for people to understand?

“A little less talk, a little more action….”

I know that I spend so much time talking about paired terms that people are probably tired of it. But, once you learn to recognize when someone is arguing used binary paired terms, then suddenly so many otherwise inexplicable jumps in disagreements make sense.

Just to recap, binary paired terms are sets of binaries (Christian/atheist, capitalist/communist) that are assumed to be logically equivalent—the preferred term in each pair is equivalent (and necessarily chained to) all the other good terms; and all of them are opposed to other terms that are equivalent (and chained to) all the other bad terms. Christian is to communist as capitalist is to communist—all communists are atheists, all Christians are capitalists.

Paired terms showing that people assumed that integration was communist because they believed segregation was Christian

When someone (or a culture) is looking at the world through binary paired terms, then it seems reasonable to make an inference about an opposition’s affirmative case or identity simply because they’ve made a negative case. It’s fallacious. It’s assuming that, if you say A is bad, you must be saying B is good, as though the world of policy options is reduced to A and B.

For instance, segregationists who believed that segregation was mandated by Scripture (an affirmative case: A [segregation] is good) thought they were being reasonable when they assumed that critics of segregation (negative case: A is bad) were making an affirmative case for communism (B is good)—segregation is Christian; communists are the opposite of Christian; therefore, critics of segregation are communists. The important point is that people who believed that particular set of binary paired terms believed that it wasn’t possible to be Christian and critical of segregation.

Thinking in binary paired terms isn’t limited to one spot on the political spectrum, nor to any spot on the spectrum of educational achievement/experience. Nor are the binary paired terms the same for everyone, and they can change over time. For instance, now many conservative Christians (exactly the point on the religious spectrum that advocated slavery and then segregation) claim that Christians were opposed to segregation because MLK was Christian, thereby ignoring that the major advocates of segregation were white Christian churches and leaders, and even universities, like Bob Jones. They are ignoring that there were Christians on all sides of that argument.

Consider these sets of paired terms. For some people, being proud is the opposite of being critical; for some, it’s the opposite of being ashamed. Thus, for the first set of people, if you’re proud of the US, or proud of being an American, then you must think everything the US did is good; therefore, you think slavery was okay, and you must be racist. So, they assume that, if you say you’re proud of the US, or you fly a flag, then you’re a defender of slavery. Their set of terms is something like this:

paired terms about slavery — Paired terms following from the proud/critical false binary

For the other group, the terms are something like this:

false binary proud/ashamed — Paired terms following from the proud/ashamed false binary

So, while we might put those two arguments in opposition to each other (anti- v. pro-CRT, for instance), it’s interesting that they are both positions from within a world that assumes similarly binary paired terms. The whole controversy ends if we imagine that being proud and critical are possible at the same time—that is, if we dismantle the binary paired terms.

When I criticize, for instance, some practice of GOP politicians as authoritarian (or a GOP pundit for advocating authoritarianism), a supporter of the GOP will surprisingly often answer, “It’s the Dems who are authoritarian,” as though that’s a refutation. (The same happens when I criticize Dems, Libertarians, Evangelicals, or just about any other group.) That response doesn’t make any sense, unless you are working from within binary paired terms.

If Dems are the opposite of the GOP, and Dems are authoritarian at all, then they occupy the slot for authoritarian, and GOP must be anti-authoritarian.

Of course, that’s entirely false. Both parties might be authoritarian, they might be different degrees of authoritarian, neither party might be authoritarian per se but either party might, at this moment, be advocating an authoritarian policy. Instead of arguing which party is authoritarian (as though that gives a “get out of authoritarianism free” card to “the” other), we should argue about whether specific policies or rhetoric are authoritarian, but you can’t do that if you approach all issues through binary paired terms.

Another important and damaging set of paired terms begins with the false binary of talk v. action. It’s both profoundly anti-deliberative, but anti-democratic. And it’s so pervasive that we don’t even realize when we’re assuming it.

I got a really smart and thoughtful email about Rhetoric and Demagoguery, and the person raised the question of whether the desire for deliberation can be destructive, citing the instance of appeasing Hitler. And a common understanding of the appeasement issue is that people tried to deliberate with and about Hitler rather than take action, when action was what was necessary.

For reasons I’ll mention toward the end of this post, I am writing a chapter about the rhetoric of appeasement for the current book project, so I can answer that question. The answer is actually pretty complicated, but the short answer is that the British leaders never deliberated with Hitler, and the British public had severely constrained public discourse about Nazism and Hitler—so constrained that I’m not sure it counts as deliberation.

When we think in binary paired terms, one of the pair is narrowly defined (often implicitly rather than explicitly), and the other is everything else. When it comes to the issue of appeasing Hitler, “action” is implicitly narrowly defined as military action, and everything else is seen as “talk.” But talk is not necessarily deliberation. British leaders didn’t deliberate with Hitler; they bargained with him. Hitler didn’t bargain with British leaders; he deflected and delayed. I don’t think more talking with Hitler would have prevented war, and he wasn’t capable of deliberation (his discussions with his generals show that to be the case). But that doesn’t mean that military action would have prevented war. I used to think that going to war over Czechoslovakia would have been the right choice, but it turns out that course of action had serious weaknesses, as would sending troops in to prevent the militarization of the Rhineland (for more on the various alternatives to appeasement, see especially this book). The short version is that many of the military actions are advocated on the grounds that they would have deterred Hitler, a problematic assumption.

There were other actions that I’ve come to think probably had a higher likelihood of preventing war, such as Britain and the US refusing to agree to such a punitive treaty in 1919, insisting that the Kaiser explicitly agree to a treaty (i.e., not letting him and Ludendorff throw it onto the democracy), enacting something like the Dawes plan long before they did, either explicitly renegotiating the Versailles Treaty or enforcing it. In other words, preventing the rise of Nazism would have been the better course of action.

There are other counterfactuals people advocate: a mutual protection pact with the USSR, preventing France and Belgium from occupying the Ruhr, a different outcome for the Evian Conference, the US joining the League of Nations, a more vigorous response to the aggressions of Japan and Italy, the UK rearming long before it did, intervention in the Spanish Civil War. But, for various reasons, almost all of those options were rhetorical third rails–it was career-ending for a political leader to advocate any of them. The problem wasn’t that the UK engaged in talk rather than action, but that it didn’t talk about all the possible actions it might take, while the US didn’t deliberate about the issue at all.

The British public discourse about Hitler and the Nazis was severely constrained by the isolationism of the US, political complications in France, an unwillingness to deliberate about basic assumptions regarding what caused the Great War or what Hitler wanted, demonizing of the USSR, shared narratives about Aryanism, racism about Jews, Slavs, and immigrants generally.

But, many people ignore all those complexities, and imagine the situation this way:

Paired terms about appeasement resulting from false binary of talk/action

All the various actions that weren’t appeasement, but that weren’t military response, disappear from this way of thinking. And, to be blunt, that’s how the popular discourse about appeasement works.

So, why did I decide to write a chapter about appeasement?

Because I believed that the UK had ignored the obvious evidence that Hitler was obviously not appeasable and it was obvious that they should have responded more aggressively. In other words, I accepted the reductive binary paired terms about the situation. I was wrong.

Binary paired terms are pervasive and seductive, and we all fall for them. Obviously.

Be nicer to Hitler, and he’ll stop being Hitler: The Marquess of Londonderry’s Ourselves and Germany (1938)

In March of 1938, The Marquess of Londonderry published an argument that Britain had failed to respond to Germany’s often (and still) outstretched hand for peace, that Germany wanted nothing but that to which it was due, and that Hitler was a leader with reasonable goals that could be met (although Londonberry also mentions that he frequently asked German leaders to list their policy goals explicitly and clearly, and it never happened). Londonderry’s argument was that British foreign policy had caused Germans to be extremist because the British hadn’t been accommodating enough to the Germans who only wanted [keep in mind he’d never gotten German leaders to say what they wanted].

Londonderry published two versions of this book. One after the “Anschluss,” when Hitler forcibly annexed Austria (something Londonderry blames on Kurt von Schuschnigg, basically for resisting). While the annexation appears to have been popular in both Germany and Austria, the celebration consisted of extraordinary brutality toward the Jews. That violence was very public.

March 1938 was also long after the Nuremburg Laws (1935), after Hitler’s violations of various treaties and agreements and his going back on multiple promises, and over ten years after he published Mein Kampf, which clearly lays out his eliminationist, militaristic, and hegemonic goals. That agreement is generally considered a disaster, that emboldened Hitler, betrayed Czechoslavkia, and cemented his popularity with Germans.

Penguin published the book in October of 1938, with a new preface. On September 30, 1938, Chamberlain had signed the “Munich Agreement,” which gave Hitler a large chunk of Czechoslovakia because Hitler promised, for realz this time, that he wouldn’t try to get any more territory and wanted peace.

Londonderry says, in that preface to the October 1938 edition, that the disastrous Czechoslovakia agreement represented “the fulfillment of my hopes,” that “the international barometer […] is at ‘Set Fair’,” and “ I can only have a feeling of great happiness at this moment that all I have advocated has been brought about in a moment of time” (xi, xiii). He believed that the events of September proved he had been right all along. He had the outcome he had long wanted, the outcome he thought was success, and so he concluded the process—relentless appeasement on the part of Britain—was a good one.

Londonderry is a great example as to why what might be called “folk pragmatism” (“the proof is in the pudding”) is a disastrous way to think about policy deliberation.

Londonderry’s argument was that the Versailles Treaty dishonored Germany (he wasn’t making an economic argument), and denied Germany the right to be treated as an equal in regard to decisions about Europe. (t’s interesting to think about why Londonderry assumed that Germany was entitled to be treated as an equal to France and Britain.) There are, and have long been, lots of arguments as to why WWI (aka, “The Great War”) happened, and the scholarly consensus is that it wasn’t mono-causal, but the consensus is also that Germany bore a large portion of the responsibility. There is also a consensus that the conditions imposed on Germany were no worse than what Germany had imposed on Russia, in the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, or on France, after the Franco-Prussian War.

Londonderry wasn’t the only major British political figure who supported the policy of appeasement, and the British policy of appeasement was supported for very complicated reasons (best explained by Benny Morris, Abraham Ascher, Tim Bouverie, and Ian Kershaw). But Londonderry’s argument wasn’t particularly complicated: Londonderry accepts the Nazi victim narrative that Germany being treated as it had treated France is so dishonoring of Germany that its putting Hitler in power is the fault of the British. Londonderry argues that Nazis want to be the friend of Britain. Nazi Germany can be an ally, and that we need to stop engaging in rhetoric that alienates them. Londonderry’s argument is, at its heart, an argument about feelings: the Versailles Treaty made Germans feel bad; Hitler is acting the way he is because he feels bad; if we make him and Germans feel better, they’ll have different policies. We can changes their policies by changing their feelings.

Londonderry postures himself as a reasonable person willing to look at both sides, but notice that France’s position is not one of the “sides” that needs understanding. He doesn’t need to understand the feelings of the French or the people opposed to his policies.

In fact, he argues that Germany and Britain have far more in common than Britain and France because “There are many points of similarities between our two countries [Britain and Germany], and there is a racial connection which in itself establishes a primary friendly feeling between us which cannot be said to exist between us and the French” (19).

Not only is that statement racist, but it’s typical of how incoherent racism is. “Racial” categories are always just politically useful ways of grouping people that racists want to believe are real. Madison Grant—the man who wrote “Hitler’s Bible,” whose arguments about race meant we sent away boats of Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany, and who was still being cited as an expert in the 1960s–was very clear that “race mixing” was bad, by which he meant a “Nordic” and a “Mediterranean.” For Grant, and people like him, Italians, Poles, Czechs, Romanians weren’t really white, so a Pole marrying a Brit would lead to the downfall of civilization just as much as a Brit and an African. I mention this just because I routinely run across people with Polish, Ukrainian, Greek, or Italian last names who claim praise Grant as a credible source.

White supremacists aren’t very good at reading comprehension.

But, back to Londonderry. He has two points to his argument. First, the current problems between Britain and Germany, he says, can “only” be solved “by a sympathetic understanding” of the German position.

As far as the first, Londonderry’s book makes clear something I’m not sure he himself saw—he repeatedly asked Nazis to say exactly what they wanted, and they never did. Yet, he insisted that Germany had continually extended the hand of friendship to Britain, and it had been rejected. In other words, Londonderry thought the world of politics was one in which people need to feel good about each other, and feel respected by one another. And that was his mistake. He thought the problem with Germany was not that its culture had a victim narrative of being entitled and encircled, that powerful political groups (including the Catholic party, communists, monarchists, fascists, and nationalists) wanted to make sure that democracy failed, but that Germans felt bad, and therefore they advocated aggression. If we treated them more honorably, they wouldn’t feel bad, and so they wouldn’t be so aggressive.

I’m all for understanding exactly what the other sides are saying. I believe to my core that effective deliberation—political, personal, professional—requires that people really understand the arguments that other people are making. Understanding those arguments doesn’t necessarily mean that you think they have any legitimacy; understanding how a bad argument works is like understanding how a bridge collapsed. But that isn’t what Londonderry means.

And it’s interesting to think about just what arguments he argued needed understanding. Hitler’s arguments about honor needed understanding. Arguments about Nazi genocidal policies didn’t. Londonderry exemplifies one way that people argue for a dodgy in-group policies. Londonderry argued for “fairness” regarding Nazis because he didn’t really have any problem with their political agenda, as far as he understood it.

He includes in his book, after a long description of how charming his 1936 visit to Germany was, a letter to Ribbentrop he wrote February 21, 1936. In that letter he says,

“As I told you, I have no great affection for the Jews. It is possible to trace their participation in most of those international disturbances which have created so much havoc in different countries, but on the other hand one can find many Jews strongly ranged on the other side who have done their best with the wealth at their disposal, and also by their influence, to counteract those malevolent and mischievous activities of fellow Jews” (97)

This is a perfect example of someone making what appears to a gesture of fairness, but is actually just a tone of fairness, all the while endorsing Nazis. Fairness shouldn’t be a tone, but an ethic.

There are people (and I try to be one of them) who can say, “I disagree completely with this argument, but it is a valid argument.” This is kind of old-school logic: being true and being valid aren’t the same. That appeal to fairness is wildly different from what Londonderry is here doing. He is engaged in the kind of bothsidesism that nurtures genocide. He is saying that, on the whole, the logic of the Nazis genocidal policy is legit, but don’t go overboard.

Londonderry argued for listening to Nazis, not because he was, in principle, committed to listening to all groups, let alone holding all groups to the same ethical or rhetorical standards—he didn’t try to be fair to the French, let alone to Churchill. He didn’t argue for listening to Nazis in order to understand how to argue against them. He argued for sympathizing with Nazis because he didn’t really have a problem with their wanting a country free of Jews.

As it turns out, being nice to Hitler didn’t change Hitler’s policies. It rarely does. Hitler’s rhetoric (public and interpersonal) was all about feelings; he was all about making “Germans” (his supporters) feel that he was looking out for them, and he enacted policies that got his supporters short-term benefits. He was like a con artist who seduces someone by wining and dining them, all the time on the credit cards he’s stolen from the mark. What mattered about Hitler wasn’t how he felt about Germany, whether he made people feel proud to be Germans, or even, really, how he felt about Jews or Poles or Sinti or Slavs—what mattered is that his policies ensured that Germany would find itself in a two-front war, a kind of war it couldn’t win, unsustainable economic policies, serial genocides. As they say, fuck Hitler’s feelings.

When someone says we should be nicer to Nazis as though that will persuade Nazis to be less Nazi, they’re saying they don’t really have a big problem with Nazi policies. What’s wrong with Nazis isn’t how Nazis feel; it’s the policies they support. We should stop arguing about Nazis’ feelings, and just oppose policies that help Nazis. Fuck their feelings.