The Arrogance of Power

As American power has grown, so, too, has the arrogance of power. Contained within this attitude of arrogance are irrationality, insecurity, and abusiveness of power. Perhaps Vietnam has exemplified the pinnacle of arrogance in American history. In response to Vietnam, J. William Fulbright wrote in 1966:

It is a curiosity of human nature that lack of self-assurance seems to breed an exaggerated sense of power and mission. When a nation is very powerful but lacking in self-confidence, it is likely to behave in a manner dangerous to itself and others. Feeling the need to prove what is obvious to everyone else, it begins to confuse great power with unlimited power and great responsibility with total responsibility: it can admit no error; it must win every argument, no matter how trivial… Gradually but unmistakably America is showing signs of that arrogance of power which has afflicted, weakened, and in some cases destroyed great nations in the past.

Physical extrication from Vietnam has not created a more humble self-image. Events at the beginning of 1975 demonstrate the perpetuation and growth of American arrogance of power.

One of the more touchy political and economic problems facing the Ford Administration is Middle East oil. In a carefully and deliberately worded statement in a January 13 Business Week interview, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger stated, for the first time, that U.S. military force would be used, if necessary, to keep Arabian oil fields open to the Western world. He limited the military option to “only the gravest situation,” an “actual strangulation of the industrialized world.”

The arrogance of power embodied in Kissinger’s military threat becomes obvious if food is selected as the hoarded commodity rather than oil. The U.S., with its over-consumption coupled with a refusal to contribute significantly to the current massive food shortages, would be the depriving nation and the Third World, especially South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, would be the suffering nations. Indeed, for these countries “only the gravest situation” does exist and the “strangulation” of life occurs daily for thousands. According to the Kissinger logic, these countries would be justified in using military force to guarantee that needed food is channeled in their direction. Would Kissinger justify such a threat? Hardly. Only American power can “legitimize” the threat.

During the same interview, Kissinger expressed, with obvious condescension, his view of the role of American power and the correctness of that power in U.S.-European relations:

I think [Europeans] suffer from an enormous feeling of insecurity. They recognize that their safety depends on the U.S., their economic well-being depends on the U.S., and they know that we’re essentially right in what we’re doing. So the sense of impotence, the inability to do domestically what they know to be right, produces a certain peevishness that always stops just short of policy actions.

When power becomes arrogant, the need to protect the national image and to project that image as purely as possible becomes over whelming. President Ford’s so-called blue-ribbon panel investigating CIA domestic activities exemplifies that protective mechanism. The issue at stake is possible CIA violations of the civil rights of American citizens. With the exception of Edgar Shannon (University of Virginia president), the backgrounds of the eight-member panel indicate a clear bias in favor of the CIA and against civil liberties, rendering an objective, critical investigation impossible.

Chairperson for the panel is Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller. For years Rockefeller has been a member of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, set up by John Kennedy in the Bay of Pigs aftermath to provide high-level civilian review of intelligence programs. It has consistently supported the CIA. Furthermore, Rockefeller’s performance during the Attica prison riots leaves much to be desired with respect to civil rights.

Former California governor Ronald Reagan’s inclusion on the panel is probably as much a political as a practical move by Ford to help appease the Republican right wing. Reagan has been one of the CIA’s strongest supporters in all circumstances, and his response to the Berkeley and People’s Park uprisings rivals Rockefeller’s lack of civil rights consideration.

John T. Connor was Secretary of Commerce from 1965 to 1967 and is now chairman of the board of Allied Chemical Corporation. As head of the pharmaceutical company of Merck, Sharpe and Dohme, he played a leading role in the CIA and Kennedy administration’s successful efforts to trade drugs for the captured Bay of Pigs invaders.

C. Douglas Dillon was Secretary of Treasury from 1961 to 1965 and is now an investment banker on Wall Street. During the Eisenhower administration he was a member of the Special Group (now called the 40 Committee), a subcommittee of the National Security Council with the purpose of overseeing the very activities of which the CIA is now accused. He personally authorized the false cover story released when Gary Powers was shot down in a CIA U-2 plane in 1960.

Erwin Griswold was U.S. Solicitor General from 1967-1973 and is currently practicing law in Washington. As Solicitor General, Griswold was the government’s chief attorney in the Pentagon Papers case against New York Times. In March, 1972 he argued before the Supreme Court that the Army’s domestic surveillance of civilians from 1967-1970 violated neither the Constitution nor federal law. Furthermore, Griswold was nearly indicted for perjury in the ITT phase of grand jury questioning in the Watergate trial. At the same time he plea-bargained Richard Kleindienst into a suspended sentence, Watergate Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski refused to prosecute Griswold. Two of Jaworski’s special prosecutors working on the ITT phase of the trial quit over Jaworski’s failure to prosecute Griswold.

Joseph Kirkland is currently secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO and president George Meany’s right-hand man. For more than 20 years, the AFL-CIO’s international affairs division has received multi-million-dollar subsidies from the CIA for overseas activities. During the 1960s, the AFL-CIO was accused of funneling CIA money to foreign labor groups.

Retired Army General Lyman Lemaitzer was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the CIA Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. He endorsed all CIA activities in Cuba at that time and urged Kennedy to send U.S. planes to support the badly failing mission. Kennedy refused.

Gary Wills has perceptively described the panel as a Catch-22. “We appoint panels to find things out. But the only way to make sure they are treated respectfully is to contrive, by their makeup, that they shall not find anything out.” Saving face is all that matters.

Finally, but not least, another event of 1975 demonstrates the irrationality and blatant immorality of arrogance. The Ford administration has shown extreme reluctance to take significant immediate steps to help relieve the global food shortage. An increase of even one billion dollars in food aid has been repeatedly refused. Reasons for rejection have varied, but usually include the inflationary impact of such an increase in spending.

Yet, these factors have not hindered Ford and his colleagues from putting their full political muscle into an effort to raise $300 million in immediate aid and another $1.3 billion to economically and militarily prop up the faltering Thieu regime in Saigon. Almost another one billion dollars is being urgently sought for Cambodia. The U.S. will not let go of Southeast Asia. Our image of greatness is seen more in upholding those dictatorships than in helping the starving masses.

Vietnam, Watergate, and events like those mentioned above reaffirm the notion that the arrogance of power corrupts people and nations. The prince of this world encourages and delights in the consequent suffering and moral decay.

Joe Roos was on the editorial staff at Sojourners when this article appeared.