How Holocausts Happen: The United States in Central America

Porpora, Douglas
Published by Temple University Press
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction 3
2 The Banality of Evil 15
3 Moral Indifference, the Rise of Hitler, 39
and the Extennination of the Jews
4 The Two Faces of Genocide in
71
Central America
5
Has the United States Become a Party 119
to Genocide? To a Holocaust-like
Event?
6
How We Allowed Ourselves to Become 147
a Party to Genocide
7
In the Footsteps of the Righteous
183
Notes
203
Index
217
CopyrighteMiMaterial
Acknowledgments
There are a great many people who helped or encouraged
me in the writing of this book. While I cannot mention them
all, I do want to thank those who helped the most. I first
want to thank Jonathan Hibbs, who used to meet me for a
weekly breakfast at the Whitedog Cafe, where we discussed
my first few chapters. No saint ever served as a better
Devil's Advocate. Philip Cannistraro, Michael Blim, Kyle
Cleveland, and the Reverend David Gracie all encouraged
me in the early stages of writing and gave me the confidence
to go on with what is clearly a highly contentious thesis. I
am particularly grateful for the editorial advice and com-
ments of Edward Reed on the first few chapters. He helped
me expunge the worst of my academese. Especially since I
was not exactly receptive to his comments at the time, I
would also like to thank Robert Roistacher, who also ad-
vised me to make my first drafts less academic.
Thanks should also go to the workgroup members of the
Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium, who read and cri-
tiqued Chapter 5. Richard Binder, head of the Humanities
and Social Sciences division at Drexel's library, was ever
ready at a moment's notice to do computer searches for me,
secure books through interlibrary loan, and find out arcane
bits of information. He is more appreciated by us faculty at
Drexel than he generally realizes.
COpyrightelfMaterial
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As my writing progressed, chapters were read by Donald
Eckard, Mah Hui Lim, Peter Manicas, George Ovitt, and Eric
Zillmer. I am grateful to all of them for their comments
as well. I would also like to thank Richard Zichlin for our
conversations on the topics in this book, which helped me
to think more clearly about the issues involved.
I must say that one of the things that most gratified and
encouraged me was that in a few of my classes I assigned
Chapters 2 and 4, and my students seemed to be quite genu-
inely enthusiastic about what they read. As a teacher but
especially as a writer, I am forever in their debt. Finally, I
would like to thank Gloria Basmajian for typing the original
manuscript, Senior Acquisitions Editor Jane Cullen for her
support and enthusiasm, and Production Editor Deborah
Stuart for her skillful editing.
---x---
Copyrighted Material
HOW
HOLOCAUSTS
HAPPEN
Copyrighted Material
1 Introduction
"Never Again." That is the Jewish response to the Holo-
caust. It is the response of many non-Jews as well. It is also
the response that motivates this book. 'Fhe Holocaust refers
to the extermination of over six million Jews and millions
of others by the Nazi government of Germany between 1941
and 1945. Elie Wiesel has said that today the Jew must stand
as a witness before humanity that the Holocaust occurred
so that by that witnessing, it may never happen again.
To vow "Never Again" in response to the Holocaust im-
plicitly assumes that it could happen again, that the Holo-
caust is in principle a repeatable offense. And yet there is a
problem here. There is a tendency to treat the Holocaust as a
unique event, an event so beyond the pale of ordinary human
transgression that nothing can ever compare with it. This
tendency is an understandable and, to an extent, an appro-
priate response. The Holocaust was a crime of almost tran-
scendental proportions. To equate it with ordinary human
crimes threatens to dilute its horror, to make it mundane
and so once again thinkable. This is the danger that many
seek to avoid by holding up the Holocaust as a unique event.
There is, however, a parallel danger. If the Holocaust is
intrinsically unique, then it cannot happen again. Thus,
there is no need for the vow "Never Again," and we can all
rest easy. There is nothing we need do; the Holocaust im-
Copyrighted Material
INTRODUCTION
poses no obligation on us. But the Holocaust does impose
obligations on us. There is the obligation to remember it
and the obligation to confront our capacity for evil that the
Holocaust reveals. Above all, there is the obligation on each
of us not to let anything similar happen again. That is what
we owe most to the victims of the Holocaust. The danger is
that if we treat the Holocaust as something that is incompa-
rable with any other event, then we have no way of knowing
whether something similar is under way again. Thus, we
will take no steps to stop it.
After the Holocaust, the meaning of our lives cannot re-
main unchanged. The Holocaust must be incorporated some-
how in each of our lives as a reference point for action. It
has been said that all of the souls who have ever lived were
present at the Holocaust, either as executioner or as victim.
To the extent that we idly stand by today and allow compara-
ble atrocities to go unchallenged, we must count ourselves
as one with the indifferent multitude who kept silent while
six million Jews were put to death.
Many Americans will respond to this by saying that there
is no danger of anything similar happening in this country,
so we do not have to worry. But how do we know that there
is no such danger unless we know how to morally generalize
from the Holocaust, that is, unless we have some idea of
what would count as a similar event? History repeats itself,
but it never repeats itself exactly. Thus, there are always
distinctions between any two events, and those distinctions
can always be appealed to in order to claim that the two
events are not similar. The truth is, without the ability to
morally generalize from the Holocaust, we cannot know
whether we have been, are, or will be a party to something
similar. Without such knowledge, we will inevitably forsake
our obligation to act that we owe to the victims of the Holo-
caust. As incomprehensible as it is that the Holocaust hap-
Material
INTRODUCTION
pened once, how much more incomprehensible that some-
thing like it should happen again.
In light of these reflections, one major objective of this
book is to develop the concept of a Holocaust-like event, an
event similar enough to the Holocaust that it compels us to
rise in challenge in the name and memory of the Holocaust.
What is it that we vow never to let happen again? Is it only
that we must never let there be another attempt to extermi-
nate the Jewish people? This is one possible way to interpret
the vow "Never Again." It is the interpretation that consti-
tutes one of the primary justifications for the state of Israel.
Many Jews and non-Jews believe that only if the Jewish peo-
ple have a nation of their own can they prevent future at-
tempts at their annihilation. One important lesson advocates
of a Jewish state have drawn from the Holocaust is that
many people outside of Germany knew what the Nazis were
doing to the Jews and were in a position to do something
about it but instead did nothing. Accordingly, the advocates
of a Jewish state draw the conclusion that no one will ever
come to the aid of Jews in times of trouble and so Jews must
defend themselves from some home base.
But is it just of another attempt to exterminate the Jewish
people that we must beware? Was it just because the pri-
mary victims of the Holocaust were Jews that no one came
to their aid? Might it not instead be true that no one is likely
to come to the aid of any such victims under similar circum-
stances? This last question raises another problem with the
tendency to treat the Holocaust as a unique event. One of
the greatest tasks before us is to reach an understanding of
the processes that made the Holocaust possible. That cannot
be done adequately by remaining with the examination of a
single case. Comparative analysis is necessary.
Without comparative analysis, there is a danger of mis-
identifying the processes that eventuate in Holocaust-like
events and thus of failing to recognize those processes when
Copyrighted Material
INTRODUCTION
they operate again. For example, an exclusive focus on the
Nazi Holocaust may lead us to suppose that it was certain
unique characteristics of Germany or of the German person-
ality that made the Holocaust possible. Such a conclusion
would tend to make those of us in other societies less watch-
ful than we actually need to be. Likewise, an exclusive focus
on the Nazi Holocaust may lead us to suppose that anti-
Semitism or, more generally, any form of ethnic or racial
hatred is a precondition for a Holocaust-like event. Indeed,
much of the literature on the Nazi Holocaust interprets it
as a natural culmination of centuries of anti-Semitism.
Things are not that simple. Recent historical research
strongly indicates that the Nazi Holocaust cannot be ex-
plained as the outcome of a nationwide frenzy of anti-Semi-
tism. In fact, as we shall see, current research indicates that
the mass of Germans who allowed the Holocaust to occur
actually did not support Hitler's anti-Semitic policies. Even
in the literature that examines other cases of genocide di-
rected at non-Jewish groups, there is too strong a focus on
racial or ethnic hatred and on totalitarian forms of govern-
ment. But people get exterminated even in the absence of
racism and by democracies as well as by dictatorships. Un-
less we carry the comparative analysis further, not only will
we be unprepared for our own potential for Holocaust-like
events but we will not even fully comprehend the processes
at work in the paradigm case-the Nazi destruction of the
European Jewish population.
Whereas one major objective of this book is to develop
the concept of a Holocaust-like event, a second objective is
to examine how even a democratic society can be capable of
something on the order of a Holocaust. These objectives will
be pursued simultaneously by comparing the response of
the United States public to what its government did in Cen-
tral America between 1979 and 1987 with the response of
the German public to what its government did during the
Copynghte8 IV1aterJal
INTRODUCTION
Nazi era. By and large, the responses of these two popula-
tions were the same: indifference.
l
I shall argue that such
indifference about the fate of other peoples is one of the
primary conditions that make Holocaust-like events possi-
ble. Accordingly, I shall be very concerned in this book to
reach an understanding of how such moral indifference is
socially created.
Can what the United States did in Central America be-
tween 1979 and 1987 really be compared with the Holo-
caust?2 Although I must ask the reader to reserve judgment
on this question until after we have more closely examined
both the Nazi Holocaust and the United States involvement
in Central America, I can state in a preliminary way the
general argument I want to make.
Between 1979 and 1987, the United States armed, trained,
and financially backed the military forces of the government
of El Salvador, which over the same period carried out a
policy of ongoing, systematic murder against the Salva-
doran population. I am not speaking here of military actions
taken against guerrilla combatants. Instead, I am speaking
of the systematic murder of over seventy thousand men,
women, and children who were noncombatants-journal-
ists, priests, nuns, teachers, labor organizers, students, po-
litical figures, and others. Roughly 1 percent of El Sal-
vador's population was so destroyed. Also as a direct result
of United States actions, another seventy thousand civilians
were similarly murdered during the same period by the mili-
tary government of Guatemala. Finally, and again during
the same period, the United States created a force of coun-
terrevolutionaries (the "contras") to overthrow the revolu-
tionary Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The contras
rarely confronted the Sandinista army in open battle. Nor,
in contrast with other guerrilla armies, did they focus their
attacks on military targets. Instead, they deliberately at-
Copynghled Malena!
INTRODUCTION
tacked defenseless civilians, including old people, women,
and children.
It is true that the United States did not itself carry out
the systematic murder in any of these countries. Yet it put
the bullets and guns in the hands of the murderers, trained
the murderers how to use them, and organized them for that
end. The United States might just as well have pulled the
triggers of the guns itself. What concerns me is that the
people of the United States, like the people of Nazi Germany,
allowed their government to do such a thing. I am all the
more concerned because, unlike Nazi Germany, the United
States is a democracy in which protest is considerably safer.
One immediate objection I frequently hear about the com-
parison I am attempting to draw is that the United States
was not killing its own people in Central America. That is
true, but it is neither historically nor morally relevant. It
is not historically relevant because, as we shall see, Nazi
Germany did not kill primarily its own citizens either. Only
160,000 of the 6 million Jews murdered during the Holo-
caust were German.
3
For the most part, the Nazi government
of Germany murdered the Jews of other Eastern European
countries. More important, the objection is not morally rele-
vant, and I am amazed that people even raise it. It is no less
immoral for a nation to murder the innocent citizens of
other countries than for it to murder its own citizens. A
human life is a human life, and murder is murder. The very
idea that such a distinction might be morally relevant is
itself revealing of the mind-set that makes Holocaust-like
events possible.
I specifically do not say that what happened in Central
America was another Holocaust, because "the Holocaust"
is the term coined by the Jewish victims of that singular
event. I do dare to use the term "Holocaust-like event"
partly because the term Holocaust has gained general usage
but more importantly because the event so named by its
Copynghte Malenal
INTRODUCTION
Jewish victims does not belong solely to them. It is as much
the legacy of the executioners as of the victims. While the
right to name the event may properly belong to the victims,
the event is something that the rest of us must come to terms
with as well. This book is an attempt to do that. My aim
is to demonstrate that despite the differences between the
Holocaust and what happened in Central America, there are
also important similarities, strong enough similarities that
we can say, without claiming that what happened in Central
America was as bad as the Holocaust, that it was a Holo-
caust-like event.
I interpret the vow "Never Again" in response to the Holo-
caust as our collective commitment never again to allow the
governments that serve us to engage (directly or indirectly)
in ongoing, systematic murder of any group of people. That
is a commitment that we, the people of the United States,
have forsaken. The comparison I want to draw between the
Holocaust and the outrage in Central America is that in both
cases, governments pursued policies of ongoing, systematic
murder and in both cases, the populations served by those
governments allowed it. I call what happened in Central
America a Holocaust-like event because, as I will argue, it
is the type of event that we should resist in the name and
memory of the Holocaust. My hope is that in referring to
the Holocaust in this way I will not dilute its significance
but will instead make it a living principle of action.
One important result of the recent historical literature
on the Holocaust is the essential confirmation of Hannah
Arendt's thesis of the banality of evi1.
4
According to Arendt's
thesis, the Nazi Holocaust was not really the result of an
unprecedented level of moral depravity within Germany but
instead the result of something ordinary, mundane, even
banal: moral indifference. Arendt's point is that despite the
control over the German government exercised by a few de-
praved men around Hitler, the Holocaust could not have
copyngntecfJ Mal ena!
INTRODUCTION
happened without the complicity of countless others who
were not depraved or even very anti-Semitic but who only
did not care or did not know or did not care to know what
was being done to the Jews. In the course of this book I
will review the literature that has come to support Arendt' s
thesis. In addition, I will discuss at length the factors that
help to explain a similar moral indifference to the suffering
of others on the part of contemporary Americans.
Although there were appallingly few cases of overt resis-
tance to Hitler within Nazi Germany, resistance was not to-
tally absent. Among the most noble of the resisters was a
group of university students and their faculty advisor who
went by the name of the White Rose. In fall 1942, the mem-
bers of the White Rose did something that would hardly be
daring in the United States. They distributed leaflets-ten
in all-that called on their fellow citizens to awake from
their apathy, to assume responsibility for what Germany
was doing, and accordingly to take action against it. They
were a light in the midst of darkness, and for that they were
put to death. By the end of 1943, they had all been executed
as traitors to Germany.
When we realize the extent of the role that simple moral
indifference played in permitting the Holocaust to happen,
perhaps the greatest lesson to be learned is expressed in the
first sentence of the first leaflet of the White Rose: "Nothing
is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be
'governed' without opposition by an irresponsible clique
that has yielded to base instinct. liS
As we know, the citizens of a democracy can also exhibit
a lack of knowledge and a moral indifference about the be-
havior of their government. A democratic government as
well, no matter how benign in other respects, can also yield
to base instinct on certain matters. When it does so and the
citizens of that democracy fail to hold their government to
CopynghtefPlV1afenaJ
INTRODUCTION
account, they become complicit in whatever crimes that gov-
ernment commits and share in its guilt.
What is the duty of the individual citizen to his or her
country or government? Is the duty to one's country identi-
cal with the duty to one's current government? Consider
that in Nazi Germany, those who went along with Hitler' s
government were considered good patriots, whereas those,
like the White Rose, who criticized or resisted the govern-
ment were considered traitors. Yet the former brought Ger-
many eternal shame, whereas the latter, like the ten good
men of Sodom, afford Germany whatever redemption it may
hope to find. So who-the supporters of the government, or
its critics-were the better patriots in the end?
It is easy to say that because the Nazi government was a
dictatorship, it would have been more patriotic to be a critic
there and then, whereas because the government of the
United States is democratic and therefore incapable of the
things the Nazi government did, it is more patriotic to be a
supporter here and now. But can we really be so certain that
our own government is incapable of crimes comparable with
those of the Nazi government? Is not such complacency it-
self a dangerous sign of what we may allow? Most of us
realize that our government is engaged in things we would
prefer it were not involved in. But our inclination to object is
dissolved by our uncritical acceptance of our government's
perpetual rationale for such things. We are told after all
that the United States is locked in a cosmic struggle with
communism; in the end, this seems to justify everything.
Here, we find a further similarity with the Nazi case, for
the rhetoric of anticommunism was also one of the principal
factors that led the German people to acquiesce to Hitler.
In the introduction to the second English edition of The
White Rose, Dorothee Solle writes,
I have changed my mind about the so-called youthful "ideal
CupytigllteliiMatenaJ
INTRODUCTION
ism" of the White Rose, and I would like to explain to the
North American reader why it is now in 1983, forty years after
these events, I think differently. When I read their material
again, I was surprised to find a clear political analysis in the
writings of the White Rose. Their leafled repeatedly under-
scored the issue which was to be decisive in delaying the down-
fall of Hitler's Reich-Nazi anti-Communism. Along with anti-
Semitism, to which it was linked in many ways, anti-Commu-
nism was the most virulent force in Nazi ideology. Millions of
'good" Germans did not like the Nazis, yet thought that they
were the lesser evil compared with Communists. These good
middle-class Germans, persuaded by 1933, of the threat of
Communism, voted for Hitler, thereby bringing him to power
via legal and democratic channels.
6
If, as I hope to show in this book, the principal lesson of
the Holocaust is that we must assume responsibility for the
behavior of the governments that rule us, it follows that
we must necessarily also assume responsibility for being
informed about both the behavior of those governments and
the validity of the justifications those governments provide
for their behavior. For better or worse, this responsibility
to know, to be informed, is a never-ending task.
The United States has been described as an anti-intellec-
tual culture, as a culture where intellectual pursuit is con-
sidered to be the exclusive occupation of inactive, ivory-
tower academicians. Intellectual reflection holds little inter-
est for the majority of United States citizens, who tend to
accept uncritically whatever beliefs have been handed down
to them. I shall argue that such lack of interest in critical
reflection is one of the factors that make Holocaust-like
events possible. Right actions require right beliefs, for if
our beliefs are mistaken, our actions can be right only by
accident. Often, the actions guided by mistaken beliefs will
be mistaken as well. For example, if we are mistaken in our
belief that communism is the ultimate evil to be countered
in the world today, then we will be mistaken when we act
COpyJ igfll'eliZMateJ ial'
INTRODUCTION
to support our government in its promotion of anticommu-
nist but genocidal regimes throughout the world.
We cannot expect all of the beliefs that have been handed
down to us to be correct. We all differ so markedly in our
beliefs that we cannot all be right about everything. Thus,
particularly when our beliefs are socially consequential, we
have a moral obligation to take responsibility for our beliefs,
to constantly scrutinize them in light of new evidence, and
if need be to refine them, modify them, or even outgrow
them altogether. In the end, the quest for truth cannot be
left to an intellectual elite in their ivory towers. It is a quest
that each one of us is morally obliged to join. That may be
the most important lesson of the Holocaust.
CopynghteJ-Mafenal
2 The Banality of Evil
The Nazi program to exterminate the Jews was an evil of
monstrous proportions. Does that mean that the men who
actually carried out that program were themselves mon-
strously evil? Clearly, to the extent that these men partici-
pated in such a crime, they behaved like monsters, but the
question is whether they behaved like monsters because
they were fundamentally different from normal human be-
ings to begin with. It is very difficult for us to believe that
the Nazi war criminals were ordinary human beings. We
just cannot imagine ordinary human beings behaving as
they did. For this reason, we tend to believe that the Nazis
must have been abnormally sadistic or at least in the grip
of an abnormal hatred for the Jews. But that does not seem
to be true. Much of the Nazi organization consisted of ordi-
nary men who, for various reasoIJ.S, failed to exhibit an ordi-
nary level of moral sensibility. This is what is meant by
Hannah Arendt's notion of the banality of evil: When we
delve into the origins of horrors even as great as the Holo-
caust, we find not larger-than-life monsters but ordinary,
even small minds.
The available evidence suggests that while there were
some pathological sadists among the Nazi ranks, most of
them, including many of the most prominent, were clinically
normal. Take Adolf Eichmann, for example, who served as
CopynghfJt5Matenal
BANALITY OF EVIL
Arendt's model. Eichmann was the functionary in charge of
deporting millions of Jews to the death camps. Yet half a
dozen psychiatrists certified at his trial that he was clini-
cally well adjusted with, in fact, a very positive attitude to-
ward family and friends.! Eichmann denied that he bore any
ill-feeling toward the Jews and there are reasons to believe
him. He evidently did not join the Nazi party out of any
ideological commitment but to further his career. He had
had Jewish friends, Jewish relatives, and a Jewish mistress.
As late as 1943, he had helped some of these escape
deportation.
How then do we explain Eichmann's willingness to deport
millions of other Jews to their death? It is very simple: It
was his job. As he himself put it, "I sat at my writing desk
and did my work."2 In short, Eichmann was an ordinary
bureaucrat who was merely carrying out the duties of his
office.
3
As incredible as it sounds, this was the conclusion
arrived at by the well-known Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal,
who was one of Eichmann's captors.
I had been wrong to look for a motive in his earlier life. There
was no motive, no hatred. He was simply the perfect product
of the system . ... He would have done the same job if he had
been ordered to kill all men whose name began with P or B,
or all who had red hair.4
Eichmann's concern simply was to excel at his job, with-
out regard for what that job was. In other circumstances, in
another job, he would have been a model citizen.
s
However disconcerting, the Eichmann case is not unique.
The U.S. psychologist G. M. Gilbert found similar personali-
ties among the German war criminals he studied at Nurem-
berg. Like Arendt, Gilbert denies that the behavior of the
men he studied can be explained by any kind of clinical pa-
thology. Instead, he says, they simply relinquished all re-
COPYI ig/lleifJMatel ial
BANALITY OF EVIL
sponsibility for their actions to those above them who told
them what to do.
A case in point is Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of
Auschwitz. The most notorious of the death camps, Ausch-
witz was a nightmare realm, a single spot where three mil-
lion people were put to death. Yet the personality of the man
who ran this camp was not what we would expect.
6
Gilbert
describes Hoess as a mild-mannered man who spoke matter-
of-factly and then only when spoken to. Like Eichmann,
Hoess does not appear to have been a sadist who took plea-
sure in the exterminations he supervised. Instead, Hoess
provides the following account of his attitude toward his
task.
For the SS men who participated in it, it was a terrible job. I
often wondered about it and the men often talked to me about
it. But the order of the Reichsfuhrer and his explanation re-
moved any doubts and gave me strength to remain aloof from
all the frightfulness I had to witness. Of course none of the SS
men who participated in the work cared for it, especially since
most of them, like myself, were married and had children. But
later one became desensitized even in this cruel activity.7
Gilbert asked Hoess whether he ever considered not obey-
ing the orders he had been given. Hoess gave the following
response.
No, from our entire training the thought of refusing an order
just didn't enter one's head, regardless of what kind of an
order it was . ... Guess you cannot understand our world. I
naturally had to obey orders and I must now stand to take the
consequences . ... At that time there were no consequences to
consider. It didn't even occur to me at all that I could be held
responsible. You see, in Germany, . it was understood that if
something went wrong, then the man who gave the orders was
responsible. So I didn't think that I would have to answer for
it myself.s
copynghfellMafenal
BANALITY OF EVIL
Finally, Gilbert asked Hoess whether he had thought the
Jews he had murdered deserved their fate. Again Hoess's
response:
Don't you see, we SS men were not supposed to think about
these things; it never even occurred to us.-And besides, it was
something already taken for granted that the Jews were to
blame for everything . ... But anyway, that really didn't mat-
ter. We were all so trained to obey orders without even think-
ing, that the thought of disobeying an order would simply
never have occurred to anybody, and, somebody else would
have done it just as well if I hadn't.
9
The central explanation for Hoess's behavior seems to
have been, like Eichmann's, an uncritical tendency to obey
orders without thinking about their consequences.
Again, Eichmann and Hoess were not exceptions in the
Nazi bureaucracy of death. Psychological studies of the Nazi
war criminals repeatedly reveal similar personalities. Franz
Stangl, the commandant of Treblinka, was also a man who
was neither sadistic nor strongly anti-Semitic but one who
saw himself as simply following orders for which he was
not responsible.1O Albert Speer, Hitler's architect, consid-
ered himself apolitical and sought only to advance his ca-
reer.
1I
SS officers, while ruthless at work, were frequently
model husbands and loving fathers at home who treated
their families with sensitivity.12
Extensive psychological evaluations performed on high-
ranking Nazi officers during the 1944-45 Nuremberg trials
provided no evidence of a clinically morbid "Nazi personal-
ity." In fact, on the Rorschach inkblot technique conducted
at the time, the pattern of responses of the defendants was
more similar to the standardization sample of six hundred
normal U.S. citizens than it was to any psychiatric popula-
tion including schizophrenics and depressives.13
It still may be difficult to believe that these people were
COPYI iglilefflMatei ia,'
BANALITY OF EVIL
entirely normal. The idea may remain that there must have
been something peculiar about the German mind that al-
lowed these people to act like this. However, as the Milgram
experiments show, ordinary Americans are just as capable
of committing such atrocities if ordered to do SO.14
THE MILGRAM EXPERIMENTS
Back in the early seventies a tremendous stir was created by
a series of experiments conducted by the Yale psychologist
Stanley Milgram, a series of experiments that came to be
known as the Eichmann experiments. Milgram's objective
was to find out how far people will go in complying with the
orders of an authority figure.
Milgram had subjects come to his laboratory in pairs.
They were told that they were participating in a study on
the effects of punishment on learning. A flip of a coin deter-
mined that one subject would be the teacher and the other
the learner. The learner was supposed to master a list of
word pairs and the teacher was to test him or her on it.
Whenever the learner made a mistake, the teacher was to
administer an electric shock of increasing severity.
After the initial instructions, the learner was strapped to
a chair with an electrode attached to his or her waist. The
teacher was then led to an adjoining room and seated in
front of a signal box by which to communicate with the
learner. In addition to the signal box, there was a generator
with thirty switches labeled from 15 to 450 volts. Alongside
the indication of voltage, the severity of shock associated
with each switch was clearly marked, from the designation
"Slight Shock" to "Danger: Severe Shock!"
There was really only one subject in each session: the
teacher. The learner was an actor who received no electric
shocks; the coin that was tossed was two-headed. The actor
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playing the learner was instructed to make many mistakes.
At each mistake, the teacher was to administer another
shock, each time more severe. At 195 volts, the teacher-the
true subject-would hear the learner pounding on the wall,
screaming to be let out. If the teacher turned to the experi-
menter for guidance, he or she would be instructed to ignore
the learner's protests and continue the experiment to its
completion. At 315 volts, the learner would fall completely
silent and no longer provide answers to the questions posed
by the teacher. The experimenter, in a white lab coat, would
then instruct the teacher to treat each nonresponse as an
incorrect answer requiring a further, more severe shock.
Postsession interviews showed that all subjects had been
fooled by this subterfuge and had believed the situation to
be real.
So how did most people behave? Milgram says that when
he asks this question in lectures, almost no one in the audi-
ence believes that many people would proceed very far with
the experiment. Almost everybody believes that most people
would refuse to participate right at the start. Yet that is not
the result that Milgram obtained. As incredible as it seems,
only a few of his subjects refused to participate at all. Over
half were obedient to the end, administering up to 450
volts-six levels beyond the designation "Danger: Severe
Shock!" Now these were ordinary Americans we are talking
about. They ranged in age from twenty to fifty. Twenty per-
cent were professionals and 40 percent had white-collar
jobs. So despite what we would like to think about our-
selves, most of us would evidently make good Nazis.
What makes people obey in such a situation? The simple
answer is the one Eichmann gave: They are doing their job.
In the following passage, Milgram relates how one com-
pletely obedient subject (a forty-three-year-old water inspec-
tor) described his own performance in a follow-up group
discussion.
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Well, I faithfully believed the man was dead until we opened
the door. When I saw him, I said, "Great, this is great. " But it
didn't bother me even to find that he was dead. I did a job.
He {the subject] reports that he was not disturbed by the
experiment in the months just after it but was curious about
it. When he received the final report, he relates telling his wife,
"I believe I conducted myself behaving and obediently, and
carried out instructions as I always do. So I said to my wife,
"Well, here we are. And I think I did a good job. " She said,
"Suppose the man was dead?"
{The subject] replied, "So he's dead. I did my job!"lS
Not all obedient subjects were as unperturbed as this one.
Many obeyed with extreme reluctance and despite terrible
anguish. And yet they still obeyed. Why? Because people
have a very difficult time challenging authority. If an author-
ity figure tells us to do something, then regardless of our
own perceptions, we tend to believe that what we are told to
do is legitimate. In fact, we tend to believe that it is actually
illegitimate for us to disobey authority.
This finding was the whole point of the Milgram experi-
ments. The experiments clearly demonstrate that contrary
to our intuitions, there was nothing peculiar about the Nazi
war criminals. People everywhere are just like them. The
experiments also demonstrate something else of consider-
able importance: For people to commit atrocities it is not
even necessary that they hate the victims. The actor who
played the victim in the experiments was a forty-seven-year-
old accountant whom most people found mild-mannered
and likable. Certainly Milgram's subjects could have held
nothing against him. And so we have to wonder whether
anti-Semitism really was so important a factor in accounting
for the Holocaust. As one Nazi war criminal put it, there is
a limit to the number of people you can kill out of passionate
hatred but no limit at all to the numbers you can kill out of
cold-blooded, bureaucratic obedience to orders.J6 It is this
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BANALITY OF EVIL
bureaucratic tendency in ourselves we must be on guard
against if future Holocausts are to be averted.
A nagging question remains about the Milgram experi-
ments. Although we may now concede that people exhibit a
startling obedience to authority, we still expect them to ex-
hibit some compassion for other human beings. How could
Milgram's subjects reconcile what they were doing with hu-
man decency? Was this not a problem for them? For many it
was a problem, but they solved it by setting up psychological
defense mechanisms that kept them from being fully aware
of what they were doing. Many of the subjects tended to
restrict their thoughts, blocking out the consequences of
their actions and concentrating only on the mechanics of
what they were doing. As one subject remarked, "It's funny
how you really begin to forget that there's a guy out there,
even though you can hear him. For a long time, I just concen-
trated on pressing switches and reading the words.'117
This tendency to disregard the consequences of our ac-
tions and to focus only on the means is common in everyday
life. How many people when they consider a new job worry
whether the company they will be joining actually does
something beneficial for humankind and not something
harmful? It is safe to say that most people do not think
about that at all. Instead, they focus only on pay and benefits
and on what their specific bureaucratic duties will be. If
those concerns are satisfied, the company could be making
napalm for all most people care. Companies themselves are
bearers of authority that seem legitimate simply because
they exist. We tend to believe that if an organization were
not legitimate the authorities would not allow it to exist,
and that is all the thought we give to the matter. And that
was probably all the thought given the matter by German
workers employed by companies making crematoria. And
that was probably all the thought given the matter by many
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other Germans more directly employed in the bureaucracy
of death.
If we are each to do our part not to let anything like the
Holocaust happen again, we need to become more critical
thinkers, to become more concerned about the ultimate ef-
fects of the organizations we serve. If we do not develop
such an approach to life now, we will not suddenly do so
when the circumstances warrant it.
THE NONRESPONSIVE BYSTANDER
So far we have seen that it does not require sadistic or in-
sane people to carry out genocidal activities. Ordinary peo-
ple will perform those functions just as well. But for
genocide to occur, more is needed than just government bu-
reaucrats willing to obey any order. A genocidal government
must have the compliance of its public as well, for if the
public outcry is sufficient, the government will be unable to
carryon. Conversely, it is the absence of such citizen protest
that allows genocide to take place. In the end, genocide is a
crime an entire society commits.
There will be no public outcry if the public either ap-
proves of what its government is doing or is terrorized into
silence. But the disturbing fact is that neither of these condi-
tions is necessary for the public outcry against genocide to
be absent. It is sufficient that the public be indifferent about
what is happening. And that is true all too often.
Indeed, in Chapter 3 I shall argue that not rabid anti-
Semitism but indifference about the fate of the Jews was
what primarily marked the German public during the Holo-
caust. Here, I want to explore the dynamics that explain how
a public of ordinary, even good people can be so indifferent
about such monstrous acts. Unless we understand the manu-
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BANALITY OF EVIL
facture of public indifference to atrocity, we shall never be
able to prevent future Holocausts from occurring.
We can begin by noticing that when a government engages
in the crime of genocide, the citizenry is essentially in the
role of bystander. Our question then is whether the citizen
bystanders will respond. When most people see a person in
trouble, they have enough compassion to offer assistance.
That is, if they are alone. A curious phenomenon occurs
when there are many witnesses to an emergency: There is a
strong tendency for no one to come to the aid of the victim.
A group effect operates that inhibits responsible action. This
same effect operates when multitudes of citizens find them-
selves bystanders to genocide. Let us then attempt to under-
stand what happens to human responsiveness in such
situations.
Widespread attention was first drawn to the phenomenon
of the nonresponsive bystander by the Kitty Genovese case.
Kitty Genovese was a young New Yorker who was attacked
on the street outside her apartment when she returned home
late one night. She struggled with her assailant for over half
an hour, screaming for help all the while. During this time,
thirty-eight of her neighbors watched or listened without
coming to her aid. None even so much as called the police.
As a result, Kitty Genovese was eventually killed by her
assailant.
What happened here? Was it just that New Yorkers are
so apathetic and aloof that Kitty Genovese's neighbors could
not be bothered to help in any way? While ultimately apathy
played a role, this interpretation is not entirely fair. Social
psychologists have come to realize that the responsiveness
of bystanders to emergencies is more complex than that. For
a bystander to respond to an emergency, he or she must first
make some evaluations. Specifically, the bystander must
work through the following three mental steps:18
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1. Notice what is happening and interpret it as an
emergency
2. Assume a personal responsibility in the situation
3. Develop a constructive course of action
The way we work through these steps is affected by the
presence of other bystanders. Take the first step. Emergency
situations are often ambiguous; they are open to other inter-
pretations. We do not always reach for the telephone when
we hear a young woman screaming. Quite often she is harm-
lessly fooling around with her boyfriend. How do we know
whether or not the current situation is really an emergency?
If we are the sole witness to what is happening, we depend
on our intuition. However, if we see that there are other
bystanders around, we tend to look to them for guidance
about how to interpret the situation. If they do not seem to
think the situation warrants concern, then we tend not to
think so either. No use "making a scene over nothing." But
suppose everyone else is doing the same thing we are. Then
each of us will be waiting for someone else to show concern,
and until someone does, it will appear to each of us that
everyone else is unconcerned. As a result, even if the situa-
tion really is an emergency, we may mutually create a condi-
tion called pluralistic ignorance where we reinforce in each
other the mistaken conviction that nothing really is wrong.
As a consequence, no one acts appropriately.19
The presence of other bystanders to an emergency also
affects the second evaluation we must make in order to
come to the victim's aid. This occurs through a process
called the diffusion of responsibility. When one person wit-
nesses an emergency, the whole responsibility for action
may devolve upon him or her, but when many people simul-
taneously witness an emergency, responsibility is diffused
among all. Thus, whereas it may be necessary for only one of
the bystanders to intervene in the situation, each bystander
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assumes that someone else will do so. The end result is that
nobody takes action.
20
Social psychologists have conducted experiments to dem-
onstrate the operation of pluralistic ignorance and the diffu-
sion of responsibility. In one experiment, subjects were
asked to take part in a series of interviews on the problems
of urban life. When they arrived for their appointments, the
subjects were sent to a waiting room where they were to fill
out some preliminary forms . Soon, the room begins to fill
up with smoke through a vent in the w a l ~ After four mi-
nutes, there is enough smoke in the room to obscure vision
and interfere with breathing. If the subjects had still not
reported the smoke after six minutes, the experiment was
automatically terminated.
21
When subjects were in the room by themselves, most re-
ported the smoke within four minutes. In fact, half reported
the smoke within two minutes. That was not true when the
subjects were joined by two accomplices of the research
team posing as fellow interviewees. When the smoke began
to enter the room, the accomplices simply looked up and
continued filling out the forms. If a subject spoke to them
about what was happening, they appeared preoccupied and
gave only curt replies. Under these conditions, only one out
of ten subjects reported the smoke. The others remained in
their seats for the full six minutes, coughing and rubbing
their eyes.
The experiment of the smoke-filled room demonstrates
the phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance. The smoke was
an ambiguous sign of emergency; it mayor may not have
indicated a fire. The experiment shows that when placed in
such an ambiguous situation, we tend not to respond in the
most sensible way but in the way others around us respond.
Again, if those around us are doing the same thing, then no
one will respond to what a single individual would obviously
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BANALITY OF EVIL
interpret as an emergency. In such situations, two heads
seem to be worse than one.
Experiments have also been designed to demonstrate the
diffusion of responsibility. In one of these, subjects were
asked to take part in a discussion on the personal problems
faced by college students. The subjects were placed in sepa- !
rate rooms and told that this was to protect their anonymity!!
in a possibly sensitive exchange. The subjects could commu-,
nicate through an intercom system that permitted only one
subject to speak at a time. The subjects were further told
that they would be left alone during the initial phase of dis-
cussion-they could express their feelings without inhibi-
tion. During this period, one of the participants (actually a
recorded voice) suffers an epileptic seizure while speaking.
The true intent of the experiment was to see how long it
would take subjects to respond to the person in need.
22
Again, the response time depended on the size of the
group. When there were only two participants-the subject
and the recorded voice-all of the subjects came to the vic-
tim's aid relatively quickly. As the size of the group in-
creased, it took longer for subjects to respond and many did
not respond at all. Responsibility clearly became diffused.
These experiments show how our behavior is affected by
the structure of the situation we find ourselves in. In partic-
ular, they illustrate how group effects may undermine our
sense of social responsibility. But it would be wrong to con-
clude that we are powerless in the face of these forces. The
fact is that we are not all equally likely to be nonresponsive
bystanders. Despite pluralistic ignorance and the diffusion
of responsibility, some people still come to the aid of people
in need. Even in the Milgram experiments, a few people re-
fused to comply with the atrocities required by the experi-
menter. What makes these people different? Psychologists
have asked this question as well.
23
One factor seems to be crucial: how committed we are to
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ethical principles of concern for others.24 For example, while
the norm to help one' s neighbor is widespread in our soci-
ety, there is an obvious difference between giving this norm
lip service and taking it seriously. Even among people who
take this norm seriously, there are obvious differences in
how demanding people are of themselves to live up to it. At
one end of the spectrum there are those who find all sorts
of excuses to avoid living up to the principle. At the other
end, there are those who will allow themselves no excuse
for failing to perform what they see as a duty. Naturally,
most of us fall somewhere in between the two ends of this
spectrum, but we would expect that the more committed a
person is to the ethical principle of helpfulness, the more
that person will resist the responsibility-neutralizing fea-
tures built into emergency situations.
Less-committed people will not only succumb to the re-
sponsibility-neutralizing features of the situation but in ad-
dition erect psychological defense mechanisms of their own
to further numb their sense of responsibility. One such de-
fense mechanism, which we have already observed in the
Milgram experiments, is to divert one's attention away from
what is happening, to turn one's head as it were, to prevent
oneself from seeing. Another well-known defense mecha-
nism is to blame the victim. The classic example of this is
rape; it is generally the female victim who is blamed. Simi-
larly, we tend to blame the poor for their poverty and, in the
Holocaust, the Jews for their persecution. In the Milgram
experiments, many subjects came to feel that the learner
deserved the electric shocks he received because he was so
inept at answering the questions. By blaming the victim, we
relieve ourselves and the world to which we belong of all
responsibility for action. Instead, it becomes the victim's
responsibility to correct the situation.
Several experiments have been conducted that demon-
strate the role of personal moral commitment in explaining
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the different tendencies of different bystanders to respond
to people in need. In one experiment, subjects were divided
into two groups according to their answers to a series of
questions on moral responsibility.25 Specifically, the sub-
jects were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with
statements like the following: "You can't blame basically
good people who are forced by their environment to be in-
considerate of others." Since such statements essentially
provide excuses for deviating from a moral standard, sub-
jects who tended to agree with them were judged to be low
on moral commitment and susceptible to excuses for reliev-
ing themselves of responsibility for their actions. Subjects
who tended to disagree with such statements were judged
to be high on moral commitment and, hence, more likely to
accept personal responsibility for the consequences of their
behavior. When both groups of subjects were placed in a
situation that tested their responsiveness as bystanders to
a person in need, the striking result was that pluralistic ig-
norance and the diffusion of responsibility affected only the
group of subjects who tended to accept excuses for denying
responsibility for their behavior.
We may conclude that although when there are many by-
standers to an emergency, situational factors operate to
numb our sense of responsibility, a real personal choice is
involved as well. In fact, our commitment to moral princi-
ples plays a part in each of the three mental steps we need
to take to be responsive bystanders. In the first step, the
person's commitment to moral principles will determine
how he or she resolves whatever ambiguities there are to
arrive at a proper definition of the situation. A person with
a strong commitment to moral principles will exert a
stronger will to truth. Such a person will be more question-
ing and more willing to undertake the intellectual labor of
seeking whatever additional information is needed to deter-
mine whether or not the ambiguous features of the situation
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BANALITY OF E.VIL
do in fact signal an emergency. In contrast, a less socially
responsible person will be content to leave the ambiguities
of the situation unresolved and follow the crowd in pluralis-
tic ignorance. In the second step-the assumption of per-
sonal responsibility for what is happening-the more
socially responsible person is more likely to experience a
personal obligation to do something. In contrast, the person
more prone to defense mechanisms is more likely to blame
the victim, to divert his or her attention, or to yield to the
diffusion of responsibility, leaving it to others to take what-
ever initiatives are needed. In the third step-the formula-
tion of a constructive course of action-the more socially
responsible person will do what it takes to figure out a con-
structive course of action. In contrast, the person more
prone to defense mechanisms will more easily give up the
attempt to figure out a constructive course of action and
adopt a fatalistic attitude.
EXPLAINING CITIZEN NON RESPONSE
TO HOLOCAUST-LIKE EVENTS
If we consider that when a government is engaged in geno-
cide, ordinary citizens are in the position of bystanders to a
crime, we can use the results we have obtained so far to
explain why the public is so often nonresponsive. To be re-
sponsive in such situations, ordinary citizens will have to
work through the same three cognitive steps required by
responsive bystanders to a street-corner crime. Each citizen
will have to notice what is happening and interpret it as
a crime, assume a personal responsibility for action, and
develop a constructive course of action. At each step, situa-
tional factors will operate to neutralize the citizen's sense of
responsibility. Certainly, the effects of pluralistic ignorance
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BANALITY OF EVIL
and the diffusion of responsibility will operate even more
forcibly than at the neighborhood level, for in a sense the
entire nation is witness to the crime. Moreover, with geno-
cide, there are additional responsibility-neutralizing fea-
tures of the situation that are absent from the normal
neighborhood-level crime. For one thing, the perpetrator,
that is, the government, is the ultimate figure of authority,
and so elements found in the Milgram experiments will also
enter the picture. Government propaganda, furthermore,
will be doing all it can to make the situation even more
ambiguous than it already is. For all these reasons, it will
generally take an uncommon will to truth and justice on the
part of the citizenry to come to the aid of the victims. Let
us take a closer look at the problems involved in each evalua-
tion the citizenry must make if it is to become responsive to
the governmental crime of genocide.
Step One: Perception and Interpretation of a Government's
Involvement in Genocide. When a government is involved in
genocide, its actions will usually be ambiguous to most of
its citizens. This is particularly true when the government
is widely perceived to be legitimate. Then a halo effect will
cover whatever the government does, and there will be a
general reluctance to admit that the government is behaving
immorally. Instead, the presumption will be that the victims
are somehow to blame. Government propaganda will at-
tempt to accentuate this presumption by developing a ratio-
nale for what is being done. If the genocide takes place in
the context of open war or even cold war, the victims may
be portrayed as a threat to national security. Public fears
may then be manipulated to legitimize the government's
action.
An important consideration is the consistency of the vari-
ous national authorities about the fate of the victims. Where
all national authorities take the same line, the presumption
in favor of the government's actions will be strongest. Con-
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versely, where noted authority figures voice their dissent,
an important element of suspicion may be cast over the gov-
ernment's policy. In Accounting for Genocide, Helen Fein
demonstrates that the majority of Jews escaped deportation
in all German-occupied countries where prominent church
leaders publicly protested the occupied government's col-
laboration with the Nazis.
26
Where a genocidal government is confronted with such
authoritative voices of dissent, it may attempt to neutralize
their effect through propaganda. The propaganda will at-
tempt to portray the dissenters as unpatriotic or as soft-
minded and unrealistic. To continue with its policy, the
genocidal government may not need to successfully out ar-
gue its authoritative critics. It may be sufficient to create
enough confusion about the situation to dissuade most citi-
zens from the labor of uncovering the truth.
Another consideration is the proximity of the victims.
When the victims are remote, the citizens can generally have
no first-hand knowledge about their fate. The citizens then
become largely reliant on secondary sources of information
such as the media, which may well present a biased picture.
When other secondary sources offer divergent points of
view, problems arise about whom to believe. These prob-
lems just add that much more confusion to the situation.
The Nazis astutely took advantage of the opportunities for
confusion that the remoteness of the victims creates by lo-
cating their primary death camps outside Germany.
As in neighborhood-level emergency situations, the citi-
zens who are bystanders to the national-level emergency of
genocide take cues from each other about how to respond.
As in neighborhood-level emergency situations, a state of
pluralistic ignorance tends to prevail. People look around
and see that their fellow citizens are not reacting to what
is happening. This reinforces their conviction that there is
nothing to be concerned about. Their own consequent lack

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of reaction in turn reinforces the same conviction in every-
one else.
In addition to the responsibility-neutralizing mechanisms
built into any genocidal situation, different cultures may
exhibit a range of traits that may also diminish the likeli-
hood of the population's arriving at the truth. One such trait
is a strong cultural current of anti-intellectualism. The task
of uncovering the truth about the government's policy may
require substantial intellectual effort, particularly when
government propaganda contains a grain of truth. If the
public tends to be suspicious of its intellectuals and to be
impatient with extensive argument, it will tend to accept the
point of view it finds most emotionally appealing. Since no
one wants to believe that one's own government is commit-
ting unspeakable acts, the most emotionally appealing view
will tend to be that of the government.
Yet regardless of all the obstacles to truth that could be
catalogued, concerned people can find out the truth of what
their government is up to. One difference between a Holo-
caust-like event and an episodic atrocity like a massacre is
that a Holocaust-like event takes place over time. It is ongo-
ing. As a result, traces of the truth are bound to leak out.
Cracks in the government's line eventually surface. Doubts
inevitably arise. At first knowledge may be limited to a few
individuals who are specially placed. Intellectuals and ideo-
logical opponents of the government will undoubtedly be
among the first to perceive the truth. So will those who are
personally involved in carrying out the genocide. But in
time, regardless of how secret the program is kept, informa-
tion spreads.
In the end, the issue comes down to the level of social
responsibility among the citizenry. To the extent that people
hold themselves responsible for the consequences for others
of their own action or inaction, they will make it their busi-
ness to resolve their doubts about what their government is
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doing. They will exert the effort to follow up on the hints
that something is terribly wrong. Conversely, to the extent
that people are morally indifferent to the fate of possible
victims, they will do little to clear up whatever confusion
they may have about their government's actions. Instead,
they will become desensitized to the issues altogether. It is
the will to truth that determines whether or not the truth
is ultimately arrived at, and the will to truth is sapped by
indifference.
Step Two: Public Acceptance of Responsibility for Its Gov-
ernment's Policy of Genocide. Whether or not individual citi-
zens accept personal responsibility for the actions of their
government should it be engaged in genocide depends on
several factors. Among the most important is whether or not
the government is accountable to the people. If the govern-
ment is accountable to the people, then the people are in
turn accountable for what their government does. However,
even where a government is not accountable to the people,
the government depends on their support. It depends on
them at least to conduct business as usual. To the extent
that the individual citizens do conduct business as usual-
even if they do so out of fear-they contribute to the contin-
ued existence of the genocidal government and are therefore
partly responsible for its actions. However, this connection
between personal conduct and government policy is ab-
stract and likely not to be perceived. It evidently takes a
character uncommonly scrupulous about moral conduct to
draw this connection. And yet such characters do exist as
Hans and Sophie Scholl and the other members of the White
Rose demonstrate. For the most part, however, we may as-
sume that the more accountable to its citizens a government
is, the more the citizens will tend to assume responsibility
for what the government does.
If a government is engaged in genocide, then regardless
of how accountable to its people it is, the diffusion of re-

BANALITY OF EVIL
sponsibility will nevertheless operate. As previously noted,
it will in fact operate more forcibly at a national level than
at the neighborhood level because, first, at a national level,
there are more people among whom responsibility is dif-
fused. Second, anyone person's actions are likely to be
much less efficacious in a national-level emergency than in
a neighborhood-level emergency. Third, distinct spheres of
responsibility operate at the national level that further dis-
incline ordinary people from assuming responsibility for
what is happening. Most people tend to attribute such re-
sponsibility to authority figures in the churches, the media,
and government.
Just as the proximity of the victims plays a role in the
perception of what is taking place, it plays a further role in
the level of concern. Generally, the farther away the victims
are, the less of an obligation they present. When the victims
cannot be seen first hand, the citizenry is less apt to care
about them as real people. Instead of being perceived as real
human suffering, the victimization of remote people takes
on the character of abstract statistics. Television may miti-
gate this dehumanization to an extent, but only if the suffer-
ing of the victims is regularly shown. For its part, the
genocidal government will attempt to accentuate the dehu-
manization of the victims by portraying them as alien. To
the extent that the victims are remote, there is little that
can be done to counteract the stereotypes the government
presents. Thus, in general, the more remote the victims are,
the more they will be removed from what Helen Fein calls
the universe of obligation.
27
As in the first step of evaluation, there are cultural factors
that determine the extent to which the citizenry will assume
responsibility for what is happening. Most obvious is the
prevalence in the culture of relevant ethnic or racial antago-
nisms. Again, Helen Fein's statistics show that among the
German-occupied countries in World War II, proportion-
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ately more Jews were lost in anti-Semitic countries than in
non-anti-Semitic countries.
28
It also matters whether or not
there are cultural norms enjoining concern for the welfare
and just treatment of others. Where no such cultural norms
exist, the nonresponse of citizens to genocide does not con-
stitute much of an intellectual problem. It is where the citi-
zens profess to adhere to such norms that the puzzle arises.
Citizen nonresponse to genocide is certainly a puzzle in
.cultures that lay claim to Judeo-Christian values. Perhaps
part of the solution to that puzzle lies in the privatization
and secularization of religion. The privatization of religion
refers to the contraction of the sphere of religious morality
to domestic life. The admonition to love one's neighbor then
applies only to one's primary group. Business and politics
correspondingly come to be regarded as amoral domains
beyond the scope of religion. The secularization of religion
refers to the convergence of religion and nationalism in the
development of a civil religion. In civil religions, God ceases
to be a higher authority over and above the claims of the
state. Instead, God comes to resemble a tribal deity who
ultimately symbolizes the worship of the nation. The Na-
tional Reich Church of Nazi Germany is one example of a
civil religion. The pietistic fundamentalism of the new reli-
gious right in the United States is another example, as I will
argue in Chapter 6. Wherever the privatization and secular-
ization of religion occur, religious morality ceases to pre-
sent a moral check on the conduct of the state.
Privatized, secularized Judaism and Christianity are per-
versions of Judaism and Christianity. The foremost princi-
ple of true Judaism and true Christianity is love for one's
neighbor. And who is our neighbor? Just the person next
door? Just the people we meet face-to-face? No. For true
Judaism, for true Christianity, and for that matter, for true
secular humanism, our neighbor is any fellow human being
in need, regardless of race, creed, or nationality. Thus, when
BANALITY OF EVIL
followers of true Judaism, true Christianity, or true human-
ism see their neighbors suffering at the hands of their gov-
ernment, they have a responsibility to do something. At the
very least, that responsibility means that we do not vote-
if we are in a democracy-for the leaders who are causing
others to suffer unjustly. This is so even if those leaders
otherwise make us feel good about ourselves or our country
and even if they seem to represent our interests in other
respects. For true Jews, true Christians, and true humanists,
self-interest takes second place when others are suffering
unjustly. Whether or not we act accordingly is a personal
choice.
Many people want to have it both ways. They want to
think of themselves as good Jews, good Christians, or good
humanists and yet not respond to their neighbors' need.
Thus, they erect defense mechanisms against the demand
that their neighbors' suffering presents. They allow all the
responsibility-neutralizing mechanisms operating in the sit-
uation to numb their souls. That too is a personal choice.
Step 3: The Formulation of a Constructive Course of Ac-
tion. Perhaps the most important factor determining
whether a citizenry succeeds in formulating a constructive
course of action against its government, should it be en-
gaged in genocide, is the government's accountability to and
power over its people. Where a government is not account-
able to its people but holds tremendous power over them,
the effect of counteraction may be small and the personal
costs may be great. Certainly, in Nazi Germany, where one
could be executed for simply passing out leaflets critical of
the government, one may have to pay with one's life for
resisting genocide. Not many people are prepared to do this.
Do we nevertheless have a moral obligation to make such a
sacrifice? The answer depends on the morality to which we
subscribe. For Jews and Christians and for those secular
humanists whose morality is derived from the Judeo-Chris-
Copynghfe?tlvJafenal
BANALITY OF EVIL
tian tradition, the answer may well be yes.
For Jews, the Talmud teaches that one is not obligated to
risk one's life for another as long as one is not implicated
in an unjust threat to that other person's life. However, ac-
cording to the Talmud, if we are faced with a choice between
risking our own life or unjustly endangering the life of an-
other, then morally we must choose to risk our own life. The
reasoning is that one is not entitled to endanger the life of
another unjustly even to save one's own life.
29
For Christians, the demand to face death for the sake of
others is, if anything, even more pronounced. The central
image of Christianity is the cross. Whatever else the cross
may mean, it symbolizes a love for others great enough to
offer the ultimate self-sacrifice. Christians who do not feel
themselves called to emulate that love have missed the
whole point.

3
Moral Indifference, the
Rise of Hitler, and the
Extermination of the Jews
Popular opinion has it that Hitler was carried into power
on a wave of intense anti-Semitism. The lesson we generally
draw is that to prevent anything like the Holocaust from
happening again, we must be on guard against anti-Semi-
tism in particular and racism in general. This focus, how-
ever, is misguided. The real lesson of the Holocaust is that
it is not necessary for us to be extremely hateful for us to
give power to extremely hateful people. All we need do is
overlook the evil in leaders we otherwise find appealing.
That, in fact, is how Hitler came to power. According to
recent historical research on the Holocaust, anti-Semitism
was not ' the decisive element motivating people to support
Hitler. In fact, many people supported Hitler despite rather
than because of his anti-Semitism.
Hitler appeared on the German scene in a period of eco-
nomic depression, national humiliation, and a strong Marx-
ist challenge to the existing order. In this context, Germans
were attracted to Hitler because he represented powerful
leadership, the promise of a reborn Germany, the interests
of the common people, and, above all, strong anti-Marxism.
Although Hitler was known to be virulently anti-Semitic, for
the most part, those Germans who supported him did not
care enough about the fate of the Jews to let that seriously
influence them. They consequently allowed the Holocaust to
Copyt igllteJf-Matet ial
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
occur more out of moral indifference than out of actual ra-
cial hatred.
Hitler promised to inaugurate a third German Reich, es-
sentially a promise to restore the national unity and military
greatness that Germany had once enjoyed but subsequently
lost. Thus, to understand Hitler's appeal, it is necessary to
appreciate how Germans themselves understood the con-
trast between their past and their present. The place to be-
gin is imperial Germany.
IMPERIAL GERMANY
Germany's first Reich was the old Holy Roman Empire.
When that finally disintegrated in the 1600s, Germany was
left divided into over three hundred separate principalities,
many of which were under the domination of other nations.
As a result of this disunity, German national development
lagged considerably behind that of France and Great
Britain.'
It was power-military power-that in the 1860s eventu-
ally forged a reunified Germany. The power was that of
Prussia, which became the largest and strongest of the sepa-
rate German states. Under its prime minister, Otto von Bis-
marck, Prussia developed into a Macht-Staat, a "power
state." Two-thirds of state revenues were channeled into
Prussia's highly disciplined military, eventually making
Prussia the most formidable military power on the conti-
nent. It was even said at the time that Prussia was not a
state in possession of an army but an army in possession of
a state.
2
As a result of a series of wars against Denmark,
Austria, and finally France, Prussia reunified all of the for-
merly separate German states in a military and political
union. In 1871, this federation was proclaimed the second
Copyrigflte'lAvtaz etial
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
German Reich with William of Hohenzollern-the Prussian
king-as its emperor.
3
This triumphant reconsolidation of Germany through the
force of armed might would ever after be a source of great
pride among the German people. After Germany's defeat and
humiliation in World War I and the forced transformation
of the empire into a republic, a great many Germans would
experience a deep resentment over the loss of their former
glory and an intense desire to regain it. It was among such
Germans that Hitler would strike a responsive chord.
The German federation was dominated by Prussia, which
in turn was dominated by the wealthy landowning nobility
known as Junkers. Like most of Europe at that time, Ger-
many was still very much an agricultural country. As late
as 1907, 40 percent of the population still lived in rural vil-
lages of under ten thousand people.
4
Land, however, was
highly concentrated. Approximately 60 percent of the land
was held by the top 5 percent of the rural population.
s
As
is usually true, political power in Prussia coincided with
economic power. Representation in the Prussian House of
Peers was determined by tax contributions, and so the
wealthy minority, who contributed most of the tax revenues,
were highly overrepresented. Because of their power inside
Prussia and because of Prussia's power within the Reich as
a whole, the Junkers exerted a considerable influence over
all German politics. And both the Junkers and the parochial
peasants who deferred to them were to become deeply dis-
trustful of the urban working class that industrialization
would create. Thus, the foundation was already laid in impe-
rial Germany for a sharp schism between town and country.
Between 1870 and 1914, Germany underwent extremely
rapid modernization and social change. First, its population
of forty-one million people mushroomed to sixty-five mil-
lion. Along with the population increase, Germany experi-
enced rapid urbanization: The number of people living in
COf)}'rifjf:Jte4JJVf.ateria!
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
cities rose from two million to fourteen million.
6
Finally,
during the same period, Germany went from being one of
the most technologically backward of the great European
powers to become the world leader in industrial output.?
With the increase in manufacturing and industry, there
came both large-scale capitalist enterprise and, concomi-
tantly, large-scale organized labor. Between 1882 and 1907,
the number of large companies tripled and absorbed about
half of the manufacturing labor force. The Krupp conglom-
erate alone employed sixty-eight thousand workers.8
Accompanying Germany's rapid modernization were the
strains of class conflict. Small businesses and artisans were
threatened by the competition from the emerging large cor-
porations, breeding a growing resentment against big busi-
ness. This resentment intensified during the First World
War when heavy industry and the arms manufacturers in
particular were favored at the expense of the smaller, arti-
sanal businesses. At a time when the sons of middle-class
families were dying in the trenches and the middle-class
family businesses were facing ruin, the large corporations
were amassing huge fortunes. This was also a source of re- '
sentment among the peasants, who for their part felt that
the was losing out as the cities prospered.
9
As
a result, :various sectors of the population harbored consid-
erable anticapitalist feeling.
These same sectors were also hostile to organized labor.
Organized laborers enjoyed greater financial security and
even higher income than many independent producers and
artisans.
1o
Organized labor, furthermore, was also politi-
cally prominent if not really powerful. By World War I, the
German Social Democratic party (SPD)-the party of the
workers-had over a million members and more seats than
any other party in the Reichstag (the lower house of the
German parliament). Not only was the SPD a Marxist party,
but it was the foremost party in the Second Socialist Inter-
CO{ig
h
fe4J2Mater;al
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
national. Although, like most of the parties of the Second
International, the SPD was reformist rather than revolution-
ary, it still spouted the rhetoric of equality, class struggle,
and the supersession of capitalism.
ll
As a Marxist party, the
SPD stood for democracy as opposed to monarchy, for secu-
larization as opposed to religious privilege, and for an end
to the feudalistic status distinctions that many Germans still
regarded as proper. Accordingly, many Germans of both
higher and lower station considered the SPD a threat to tra-
ditional German values. To them, the SPD smacked of anti-
nationalism, atheism, and cosmopolitan, intellectual elitism.
As it happened Jews were simultaneously linked to the
evils of capitalism and the evils of socialism, because Jews
were extremely visible in both business and socialist poli-
tics. Jews accounted for less than 1 percent of the German
population. In fact, in 1933, there were only half a million
Jews in all of Germany. Yet, the visibility of the Jews was
heightened by their concentration in the cities such as Ber-
lin and by their overrepresentation in certain businesses
such as retail, where they comprised 25 percent of the work
force. Jews owned about 20 percent of the German banks
and held 80 percent of the top positions on the Berlin Stock
Exchange. For their number, Jews comprised huge percent-
ages (between 10 and 25 percent, depending on the profes-
sion and year) of Germany' s lawyers, doctors, journalists,
and university instructors. Jews also figured prominently
among Germany's leading playwrights, theater critics, and
actors and actresses. Finally, in politics, Jews were dispro-
portionately represented in the leadership of the SPD, gen-
erally comprising 10 percent of its delegation to the
Reichstag.
12
For all that, Jews were hardly as powerful as they
seemed. Big business and big agriculture were the most de-
cisive components of the German economy, and Jews had
little share in eitherY What the visibility of Jews in German
COpyJ igfil'etU lAaleJ iaf
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
society does indicate is a far lower level of anti-Semitism
than prevailed in Eastern Europe. Well before Germany en-
tered the twentieth century, German Jews enjoyed freedom
of religion and legal equality, including the right to vote. In
contrast, Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe were still flee-
ing pogroms. That, in fact, is why there were so many for-
eign Jews in Germany.
While there certainly was anti-Semitism in Germany as
well, it is crucial to see that it crystallized along the lines
of other cleavages that were dividing the country. In the
opposition between town and country, the Jews were over-
whelmingly associated with urbanism. In the opposition be-
tween traditionalism and modernity, the Jews were
associated with capitalism. In the oppositions between mon-
archy and democracy, between nationalism and internation-
alism, and between capital and labor, the Jews were
associated with socialism. The problem with these associa-
tions was not that they were completely unfounded but that
given their small numbers, the Jews could play only a minor
role in these cleavages, which would have occurred whether
there had been any Jews in Germany or not.
THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC
Germany's crushing military defeat in World War I and the
Treaty of Versailles that sealed it in 1919 proved to be politi-
cally and economically disastrous.
To comply with the Allies' demand that Germany become
more democratic, control over the civilian government was
provisionally passed on to the socialist SPD. Meanwhile,
Germany was in utter turmoil. Throughout the country, peo-
ple were suffering from severe shortages of food and fuel.
Strikes, protests, and mob violence were breaking out every-
where. Returning soldiers, finding high levels of unemploy-
COPYI igln'tfI:J4Matel ia,'
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
ment, were signing up with right-wing paramilitary groups
known as the Free corps. In November 1918, the Indepen-
dent Socialists and Spartakists seized control of Berlin and
called for the establishment of a German Soviet Republic.
14
Almost simultaneously, radicals in Munich overthrew the
monarchy there and announced the creation of the Socialist
Republic of Bavaria. Then, in January, the city of Bremen
too was declared a Workers' Republic under the governance
of radical councils of workers and soldiers. IS
The leaders of the SPD in the provisional government
were caught between pressures from the right and the left.
Applying some limited pressure on the right, they were able
to bring about the abdication of Kaiser William II on No-
vember 8, 1918. But the SPD was even more afraid of the
Bolshevik threat on the left.16 Thus, allying themselves with
the right, the leaders of the SPD authorized the army and
Free corps to stamp out the radical insurgencies. Pitched
battles were fought in cities throughout Germany, leaving
thousands dead. Although by the spring of 1919 the various
Bolshevik revolutions had all been turned back, many anti-
Marxist Germans would remember and forever fear the
power of the Communist movement.
17
In July 1919, a new constitution was approved, consider-
ably strengthening the power of the Reichstag in German
politics. Since the SPD was the party with the largest con-
stituency, it had the most seats by far and, consequently,
continued to run the government. Around the same time, the
Allies issued the terms of peace to Germany. According to
the treaty, Germany had to accept entire responsibility for
the war and to cede land to Belgium, Poland, Denmark, and
France. Furthermore, Germany had to deliver to the Allies
among other things all of its battleships, a major portion of
its merchant marine, a quarter of its fishing vessels, and
five thousand locomotives. The German army was to be re-
duced to one hundred thousand men and to be denied the
COf7jTiglikJdJ:MakJrial
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
possession of any offensive weapons such as planes and
tanks. As humiliating as these terms of the treaty were-
particularly the requirement of disarmament, the single
most damaging stipulation was that holding Germany ac-
countable to the allies for 132 billion gold marks in
reparations. IS
The transfer of the German government to the SPD in
November of 1918 and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles
in 1919 were events that would assume major symbolic im-
portance in subsequent German history. Given their pride
in their legacy of imperial military might, many German
people refused to admit that they had been beaten on the
battlefield. Instead, the myth developed that Germany lost
the war only because it had been "stabbed in the back" by
treacherous, un-German elements-the Jewish, capitalist-so-
cialist conspirators in the SPD. Accordingly, for years to
come, many Germans would identify the "November Crimi-
nals" in the SPD with Germany's humiliation and economic
collapse. Such people would remember the old imperial or-
der with fondness and long for its rebirth.
As Germany entered the 1920s, its economy rapidly dete-
riorated. This was largely due to the way the war had been
financed. Instead of increasing taxes on the wealthy who
had been the major supporters of the war, the government
had relied mainly on revenues from war bonds. When these
proved meet expenses, the government simply
printed more money. As a result, by the end of the war, there
was six times more money in circulation than in 1913. With
the postwar shortages and the extra strains imposed by the
terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the German economy col-
lapsed, and the German mark lost all value. Whereas in 1918
the equivalency rate was 4 marks to the dollar, by 1923 it
had plummeted incredibly to 4.2 trillion marks to the
dollar}9
The effects of the hyperinflation were catastrophic. Over-
Copyrighf:e#jMaferjal
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
night, a family's life savings would buy no more than a loaf
of bread. Businesses collapsed and unemployment rose to
over 60 percent. At the same time, the situation allowed the
already wealthy to amass truly incredible fortunes. Export-
ers or those otherwise able to acquire foreign currency were
suddenly worth millions and thus were in a position to buy
up valuable properties that were being desperately sold.
Similarly, certain commodities such as food retained their
value and those who sold them stood to gain as well. As
disastrous as the hyperinflation became for creditors, it be-
came that much of a boon for borrowers. Thus, large indus-
trialists and landowners who had accumulated sizeable
debts during the war could repay them with worthless cur-
rency, in effect acquiring whatever they had purchased with
the borrowed money virtually free.
20
The impoverished majority who lost their jobs and busi-
nesses deeply resented the rapid concentration of industry
in the hands of a fortunate few. Yet it was the democratic
government that they tended to blame. Although the hyper-
inflation was most directly caused by the way the old impe-
rial government had financed the war, people with short
memories considered only that life had been better during
the time of the empire and that they were now suffering
miserably under Germany's new democratic leadership. By
the time the economy was stabilized at the end of 1923, the
damage had been done and the resentments remained.
From 1925 to 1949, the German economy improved con-
siderably. This improvement was largely due to loans from
abroad, particularly from the United States. The loans al-
lowed Germany to pay its reparations and invest in its own
redevelopment. Thus, whereas in 1923 Germany' s industrial
output had sunk to half its 1913 level, by 1927 it was experi-
encing its best performance ever. Unemployment dropped
to under 2 percent and both retail sales and real wages were
far above 1924 levels. Although the National Socialist Ger-
"Material
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
man Workers' party (NSDAP), or the Nazis as its members
were called, had been in official existence since 1924, it
made little headway during this period. For example, the
Nazis received only 3 percent of the vote in the 1928 elec-
tions. In contrast, the German Communist party (KPD) won
almost 9 percent of the vote while a full 30 percent went to
the SPD. William Shirer reports that when he first arrived
in Germany as a foreign correspondent in 1928, Hitler's
name was hardly ever mentioned except as the butt of
jokes.
21
That would quickly change.
What principally brought about the change was the 1929
crash of the Wall Street stock market and the worldwide
economic depression that ensued. This not only cut off the
flow of American loans but dissipated the demand for Ger-
man exports as well. As a result, German factories began
laying off workers in droves. Between 1929 and 1932, Ger-
man industrial output declined by almost 50 percent. Mil-
lions of Germans were once again unemployed and German
family businesses were once again collapsing. With drasti-
cally lowered exports, Germany could no longer import the
food and raw materials it needed, and shortages once again
became prevalent.
22
Amid widespread rumors of a Bolshevik revolution, an
increasing number of voters turned to the Nazis for salva-
tion. Hitler was calling for Germany to repudiate the Ver-
sailles treaty and to refuse further payment of the war
reparations. He promised to make Germany strong once
again and to bring about economic recovery. Above all, he
vowed to break the hegemony of the Marxist SPD and to
repel the Bolshevik menace of the KPD. At the next Reichs-
tag elections in September 1930, the Nazis polled 18 percent
of the vote, a sixfold increase over their previous perfor-
mance in 1928. But the Communists had also increased their
percentage of the vote to 12 percent.
The growing polarization between the political right and
CopyngnrfflfilV1afenaJ
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
left made it increasingly difficult for any kind of majority
coalition to form in the Reichstag. As it was, this condition
had already led President Paul Von Hindenberg to invoke
the Enabling Act in March 1930, giving the chancellor, Hein-
rich Bruening, the power to rule by decree. For his part,
Bruening struggled to ameliorate the effects of the depres-
sion until May 29, 1932, when he was finally asked to resign.
His place was taken by Franz von Pappen.
23
Meanwhile, Hin-
denberg's seven-year term as president had corne to an end
and it became time to hold a new election. In order to pre-
serve the stability of the republic, the aging but popular
field marshall was induced to run again. Hitler then an-
nounced his own candidacy, calculating on preserving the
political momentum the Nazis had achieved in the previous
Reichstag elections. Completing the list of candidates were
Ernst Thaelmann of the Communist party and Theodor
Duesterberg of the German National party. The election was
held on March 13, 1932, with the following results.
24
Hindenberg
Hitler
Thaelmann
Duesterberg
18,651,497
11,339,446
4,983,341
2,557,729
50%
30
13
7
Although Hindenberg had won a definite plurality of the
vote, his failure to achieve a majority meant that another
election had to be held. This time Duesterberg withdrew and
placed his support behind Hitler. The second election was
held on April 10, and as indicated below, Hindenberg now
won a clear majority of the vote.
25
Hindenberg
Hitler
Thaelmann
19,359,983
13,418,547
3,706,759
53%
37
10
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
Although the German people had rejected Hitler in favor
of Hindenberg by a wide margin, the results were not a total
defeat for Hitler. He had placed himself at the center of
political attention and had shown himself to be the leading
hope of German conservatism. The dividends were reaped
in the next Reichstag elections on July 31. In the aftermath
of fierce street fighting with the Communists, leaving eighty-
two people dead and four hundred wounded, the Nazis
polled 37 percent of the vote, a little more than double their
previous percentage and enough to make them the number
one party in the Reichstag.
26
Hitler was now a force to be reckoned with in the political
intrigues that were taking place in the executive branch of
government. And as long as the formation of a majority co-
alition continued to elude the Reichstag, the executive body
wielded power. As it happened, stability was no greater in
the executive body than it was in the legislature. Pappen,
who had been appointed chancellor in June, stepped down
in December. His replacement, General Kurt von Schleicher,
resigned less than two months later. On January 30, Adolf
Hitler stood in his place.
27
WHO SUPPORTED HITLER IN HIS
RISE TO POWER AND WHY
Contrary to popular opinion, we cannot automatically as-
sume that those Germans who supported Hitler in his rise
to power did so because they shared his hatred of the Jews.
In fact, recent scholarship indicates that Hitler's followers
often supported him for other reasons and were simply in-
different about what Hitler's ascension to power would
mean for the Jews. It is well to remember that Jews consti-
tuted only 1 percent of the German population and that for
most Germans, there were more pressing considerations
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
than the Jewish question. Accordingly, it is not difficult to
understand how many people who were attracted to Hitler
for other reasons ignored his extreme anti-Semitism.
Because we have all been so thoroughly conditioned to
associate the Nazi movement with anti-Semitism, it will be
very difficult for many readers to accept what I have just
suggested. Let us take some time, therefore, to examine the
evidence that anti-Semitism was of secondary importance in
Hitler' s rise to power.
The Electoral History
As the historian Sarah Gordon has argued, if anti-Semitism
were so important a part of German political history, we
should expect to see some reflection of that in German elec-
tions. In particular, we should expect to see consistent sup-
port for political parties that made anti-Semitism the
primary basis of their appeal. Yet, if we look at the sixty-
year period between 1870 and 1933, that is not what we find.
Although all German political parties exhibited some de-
grees of anti-Semitism, that was never the primary appeal
of the major parties. If a person were primarily disposed
toward anti-Semitism, he or she could turn to one of several
minor parties that made that their specific platform. The
combined support for these parties, however, never ex-
ceeded 3 percent of the vote and was virtually nonexistent
after 1912.28 Although the Nazi party was founded in 1924,
it achieved no electoral success until the first depression-
year election of 1930, when it received 18 percent of the vote.
In contrast, the Catholic ~ n t e r party received 12 percent of
the vote in that election, while the Communists received 13
percent and the SPD 25 percent.
The historical lack of success of the anti-Semitic parties
in general and of the Nazi party in particular suggests that
most of the eventual Nazi voters were not drawn to the party
copynghte?l Malena!
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
primarily by its anti-Semitism. Were they drawn to the party
primarily for this reason, they ought to have voted for the
Nazis much earlier. Why would they wait until the depres-
sion? Again, the Nazis stood for many things besides anti-
Semitism, such as debt relief, repudiation of the war repara-
tions, and anti-Marxism, all of which were more salient dur-
ing the economic crisis.
29
The Attitudes of Early Nazis
So much for German voters in general. What about those
who actually joined the Nazi movement? Were they not mo-
tivated primarily by anti-Semitism? A unique and revealing
record of the attitudes of early members of the Nazi party
is provided by 581 essays submitted in 1934 to a Columbia
University sociology professor named Theodore Abel. The
essays were submitted in response to an essay contest Abel
announced for "the best personal life history of an adherent
to the Hitler movement." Among other things, the respon-
dents were asked to describe their political and social views
and how they had evolved. The announcement was distrib-
uted to all the local Nazi offices, some of which actively
encouraged their memberships to respond. According to Pe-
ter Merkl, who analyzes them in his book Political Violence
Under the Swastika, the essays do not seem to have been
censored either by the writers themselves or by the Nazi
organizations. Merkl says that "the collection still includes
many cases that any prudent censor would have wanted to
remove because of their patent prejudice, the violent or
hateful behavior they report, or the obvious lack of mental
balance. The impression made by the Abel vitae is not ex-
actly flattering to the NSDAP."30
Although we may want to regard these essays with cau-
tion, they are invaluable as the only such collection of early
Nazi attitudes we have. Our trust in the picture they present
iaf
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
is reinforced by its correspondence to the electoral data re-
viewed above and with the other sources of information we
shall examine.
What do the essays reveal about the importance of anti-
Semitism to early members of the Nazi party? Fully one-
third of the respondents exhibit no evidence of anti-Semi-
tism in their essays (Table lA). If we add to these the mild
anti-Semites, who use anti-Semitic language only in a per-
functory way, then it appears that almost half of the respon-
dents joined the Nazi party without any particular interest
in the Jewish question. Looked at from the other end, only
about 13 percent of the respondents were extreme anti-Sem-
ites, committed to political countermeasures against the
Jews.
3l
If not the Jews, who were the chief objects of Nazi hostil-
ity? Merkl classified the respondents according to whom
they targeted as their major political enemies (Table IB).
By far the largest category consists of those who targeted
Marxists in general as the chief enemy. In fact, if we com-
bine the categories of "Marxists in general"; "Communists";
and "Socialists, free trade union leaders," then roughly 63
percent of the respondents targeted Marxists as the main
political enemy. In contrast, only 12.5 percent of the respon-
dents targeted the Jews as the enemy or 14.6 percent if we
include Jewish Marxists and Communists. The preponder-
ance of respondents citing Marxists as the chief enemy
prompts Merkl to ask whether or not the Nazi movement
might more accurately be described as an anti-Marxist
movement.
32
Indeed, when we consider how prominent the
Marxist threat seemed to many Germans, Merkl's sugges-
tion is not at all implausible.
The secondary importance of the Jewish question
emerges even more clearly when we look at the respondents'
expectations for the future. Since the Nazi movement had
largely attained its goal by 1934 when the respondents were
COPYrifjl''1te83V1ateriaJ
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
TABLE 1
Distributions of Attitudes Exhibited in the
Essays Contained in the Abel Sample
Attitude
A. Shadings of Anti-Semitism
None exhibited
Mild anti-Semitism
Moderate anti-Semitism
Extreme anti-Semitism
Total
B. Chief Objects of Hostility
Jews, the "Conspiracy"
Jewish Marxists, Communists
Socialists, free trade union leaders
Communists
Marxists in general
Catholics, Church, Center party
Liberals, capitalists
Reactionaries
All of the above
Others (personal hostilities)
Total
Percent
33.3
14.3
39.5
12.9
100.0 (N = 440)
12.5
2.1
8.0
10.6
44.7
4.5
7.8
1.7
2.4
5.7
100.0 (N = 424)
SOURCE: Peter H. Merkl, Political Violence Under the Swastika (Prince.
ton: Princeton University Press, 1975), tables, FD-62, p. 499; FD-61, p. 522.
writing their essays, the essays generally concluded with
some expression of hope or expectation of what the future
would bring. Less than 5 percent of the respondents ex-
pressed a hope or expectation that involved any serious ill-
consequences for the Jews. The majority of respondents
(50.7 percent) e ~ p e t e d or hoped for some kind of national
renaissance. Thus, it appears that a regained national glory
C(){J(ightf!5l1.Mate
d
a
l
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
and economic recovery were uppermost in the minds of
many members of the Nazi party.33
The Experience of a Single German Town
One way to get a better feel for the motivational dynamics
in place on the eve of the Nazi takeover is to do an in-depth
case study of what happened in one town. William Sheridan
Allen provides us with such a study in his highly acclaimed
book The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single
German Town, 1930-1935.
34
Allen's case is the rural town of
Thalburg with a population of ten thousand in 1930. It is
located in Prussia and more specifically in what was once
the kingdom of Hanover. Allen compiled his information
from two types of sources. First, he drew on newspaper ac-
counts and on the public and private documents that had
survived the war. Second, he conducted extensive interviews
with many of the townspeople, including most of the town's
leading figures.
During the period of Allen's study, 86 percent of Thal-
burg' s residents were Lutheran and 6 percent were Catholic.
In the entire town, there were only 120 Jews. Allen describes
Thalburg occupationally as a community of civil servants.
One-third of the economically active adults worked for the
government, particularly for the government-owned rail-
road.
35
Class divisions evidently ran very deep in Thalburg. In
fact, the different classes seem to have inhabited different
worlds or subcultures, each characterized by its own news-
papers, social clubs, and political organizations. The SPD
was the major political organization for the working class,
uniting its members under a common ideology of class con-
sciousness and commitment to democracy. The SPD was
also the umbrella organization for a wide range of workers'
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MORAL INDIFFERENCE
clubs and associations. Besides the Reichsbanner, the SPD's
paramilitary organization, there were also such groups as
the Infants' Aid Society, the Workers' Funeral Savings Asso-
ciation, and the Householders Consumers' Cooperative.
36
Middle-class Thalburgers joined such clubs as the County
Farmers' League and the County Artisans' League. Also, the
middle and upper classes were drawn to a large array of
militaristic and nationalistic organizations: for example, the
Society of Former Reserve Ninety-Firsters, the Cavalry As-
sociations, the League of the War Wounded, the Warriors
League, and the Society of Former Artillerists. There were
also middle- and upper-class clubs affiliated with the Ger-
man Nationalist party or with the Nazis such as the Steel
Helmet, the National Socialist Women's Club, and the Hitler
Youth. At their sponsored speeches, parades, and social
gatherings, these various militaristic and nationalistic clubs
were responsible for stirring up patriotic fervor. Allen tells
us that they had all joined together in 1930 for a petition
campaign to ban Erich Maria Remarque's antiwar book All
Quiet on the Western Front from schoollibraries.
37
There seems to have been comparatively little overt anti-
Semitism in Thalburg, and anti-Semitism does not seem to
have been a major source of Nazi appeal there. According
to Allen, "Thalburgers were drawn to anti-Semitism because
they were drawn to Nazism, not the other way around. Many
who voted Nazi simply ignored the unpleasant aspects of
the Nazi movement."38
Again, we must ask what was the major appeal of the
Nazi party in Thalburg if not anti-Semitism. Allen's answer
agrees with Merkl 's: anti-Marxism. Allen explains that under
the old empire, the City Council was controlled by a small
clique of wealthy people. When, as part of the transition to
the Weimar Republic, however, representation on the basis
of wealth was abolished and replaced by a direct and equal
voting system, the SPD became the dominant voice in the

MORAL INDIFFERENCE
City Council. For that matter, the SPD became the dominant
voice in Thalburg politics as a whole. This turn of events
was deeply resented by middle- and upper-class Thalburgers
who had themselves previously enjoyed political control. Ac-
cordingly, they viewed the Nazi party as a vehicle for putting
the workers back in their place.
39
To most Thalburgers the NSDAP was first and foremost an
anti-Marxist party. When a Thalburger thought of Marxism he
was not likely to think of the Communists, who, in 1928 had
received only 28 of the 5,372 votes cast in the town. The "Marx-
ist" party in Thalburg was the Social Democratic party, the
SPD, the Socialists. The Socialists were the dominant political
force in Thalburg. In the 1928 elections they cast almost 45
percent of the town's votes-more than the next three largest
parties combined.
The fact that the SPD was a non-revolutionary party (es-
pousing in fact the status quo) and "Marxist" only in rhetoric
probably did not matter to most of the town's burghers. The
Socialists carried a red flag. They sang the Intemationale.
There had been laws against them in the days of Germany's
glory. They were associated with the cataclysm of 1918. They
represented the proletarians, the unwashed workers, the res-
tive unemployed. They preached Marxism and class struggle.
Their leaders who sat in the City Council were cited by improb-
able occupations: "oiler," "union secretary," "trackwalker. "
One never met them socially, yet there they were in City Hall-
touchy, aggressive, demanding. To oppose these radical apos-
tles of equality was of paramount importance in a depression
environment.
4O
Voting figures support Allen's conclusion that the depres-
sion had a decisive effect in pulling many Thalburgers into
the Nazi camp. Whereas in 1928 the Nazis polled only 123
votes in Thalburg or 2.3 percent of the total, in the 1930
elections, they polled 1,742 votes or 28.0 percent of the total.
However, according to Allen, the pull factor was not anti-
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MORAL INDIFFERENCE
Semitism but anti-Marxism. Although middle- and upper-
class Thalburgers had never liked or trusted the SPD, the
depression made their fears suddenly more urgent. For mid-
dle- and upper-class Thalburgers, the unemployed were a
growing symbol of impending catastrophe. Although it was
the workers rather than those of the middle and upper
classes who were most immediately hurt by the depression,
the members of the middle and upper classes began to won-
der whether they would be next. To most Thalburgers of the
middle and upper classes, the Socialists were identified with
"national humiliation and economic ruin."41 They had to be
stopped, and the conservative parties Thalburgers had pre-
viously been supporting were not doing the job. It seems
they saw the Nazis as their only alternative.
Who Voted for Hitler and Why
Who exactly were the people who voted for the Nazis and
why did they do so? Two recent studies examining German
electoral returns attempt to answer this question: The Nazi
Voter by Thomas Childers and Who Voted for Hitler? by
Richard Hamilton.
42
Together, they provide us with a clear
picture of the Nazi constituency. In brief, three factors were
crucial in determining whether or not a person voted Nazi:
location, religion, and social class.
Half of the votes in the elections of the 1930s were cast
in the countryside in communities of under twenty-five thou-
sand people. In such rural areas, religion was the decisive
factor in determining a person' s vote. In rural Protestant
communities, support for the Nazis was generally high, of-
ten as high as 60 or 70 percent. In contrast, in rural Catholic
areas, support for the Nazis was generally low, the bulk of
the Catholic vote going instead to the Catholic Center party.
This religious difference in rural voting patterns was the
result not so much of a greater degree of anti-Semitism on

MORAL INDIFFERENCE
the part of the Protestants as of a basic disparity in political
organization. The Center party continued as a strong voice
of Catholic interests throughout the depression. In contrast,
the more conservative parties the Protestants had tradition-
ally supported no longer seemed effectual in promoting
their interests against what they perceived as an increased
Marxist threat. This left many rural Protestants feeling that
they had no choice but to support the Nazis. Electoral re-
turns in the thirties show a consequent desertion in favor
of the Nazis from such conservative parties as the German
People's party (DVP) and the German Democratic party
(DDP).43
In the cities, there was much less of a difference between
Protestant and Catholic voters. Instead, there, social class
was the crucial factor determining how a person voted. In
general, only about 25 percent of the working class voted
for the Nazis. Most of their votes went to the SPD or to the
Communists. The basis of Nazi support in the cities was
the more affluent sectors of the population-the middle and
upper classes-which resented and feared the power the
workers exercised through their left-wing parties.
44
Although it is much easier to determine who voted for the
Nazis than to explain why, Childers and Hamilton both offer
some inferences from their data. Significantly, both once
again emphasize anti-Marxism over anti-Semitism. Accord-
ing to Childers, "Whether in addresses to farmers, shop-
keepers, or workers, the party's assault on Social Demo-
cracy and communism was by far the most conspicuous and
consistent aspect of Nazi electoral literature. "45 Hamilton's
position is similar.
In the rural areas, the principal emphasis appears to have been
on the economic disaster and on the various means the party
would undertake to relieve the problem, the most important
of which was the promise of debt relief. In the middle-sized
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MORAL INDIFFERENCE
and larger cities, the principal emphasis was on the Marxist
threat and on the National Socialists' ability to check or
counter that allegedly imminent danger. Other elements un-
questionably appeared in their presentations. There was the
revolution, the stab in the back, and the work of the "Novem-
ber Criminals." There was the whole Versailles question, in-
cluding the war-guilt clause and the reparations, the last being
a key contributing factor in the financial disaster. And of
course there was a persistent focus on the Jews with their
supposed deleterious effect on German culture and institu-
tions. But these other elements were peripheral, ancillary con-
tributions to the larger or central themes of the message, debt-
relief in the countryside and anti-Marxism in the cities.
46
Childers's and Hamilton' s common conclusion-that anti-
Marxism was a more decisive aspect of Nazi appeal than
anti-Semitism-is all the more important because they come
to it on the basis of independent sources. Hamilton exam-
ines the way the issues were presented in the major city
newspapers. Childers examines Nazi leaflets, pamphlets,
and posters. Hamilton finds that in cities like Munich and
Cologne where the leading middle- and upper-class newspa-
pers did not accept Nazism as a legitimate conservative
movement, the middle- and upper-class vote for the Nazis
was comparatively low. In contrast, in cities like Berlin and
Hamburg where the middle- and upper-class newspapers le-
gitimated the Nazis as a respectable party, the middle- and
upper-class vote for the Nazis was comparatively high. In
such cities, the middle- and upper-class papers stressed the
Bolshevik threat and the need to counter it. Street fighting
between the Nazis and Communists was routinely blamed
on the latter, and even the Catholics were depicted as
"Reds. "47
Summary
The scholarly research we have just examined all points in
the same direction: Despite how strongly anti-Semitic the
COf3jTiglilOOOVlaroriaJ
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
Nazi party obviously was, anti-Semitism was not the pri-
mary basis of its appeal. People were attracted to the Nazis
because they exuded strength, because they were a bulwark
against Marxism. People were attracted to the Nazis because
they promised to deal with the depression forcefully and not
cave in to the demands of the urban working class. The Na-
zis, in short, would restore traditional German values and
make Germany great once again.
But what about the Nazis' obvious hatred for the Jews?
Were German voters not concerned about that? No, by and
large they were not. Nor should that surprise us. Are Ameri-
cans concerned about the poor, about minorities, about peo-
ples in other countries when they vote? "It's not my
problem." "They deserve what they get." "No, I don't ap-
prove of that, but there are other things I like." "Who else
is there to vote for anyway?" "It's all just rhetoric; probably
nothing will come of it." These are the selfish but entirely
natural attitudes through which voters help evil people
come to power everywhere.
GERMAN ATTITUDES TOWARD ANTI-
SEMITISM DURING THE NAZI PERIOD
If anti-Semitism did not playa major role in attracting sup-
port to Hitler during his rise to power, were the German
people nevertheless won over to anti-Semitism after Hitler
actually gained power? Was it general public support for
Hitler's anti-Semitic policies that enabled him to carry out
genocide against the Jews? In the absence of scientific polls,
the picture we have of public opinion in the Third Reich
comes from observations in police reports, court records,
and government memos and from the sporadically issued
reports of the Socialist underground. These materials have
been studied extensively by Sarah Gordon in her book Hitler,
copynghteSi Matenal
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
Germans, and the "Jewish Question." Her findings are cor-
roborated by Ian Kershaw, who relied on the same materials
in a more limited study of Bavaria in his book Popular Opin-
ion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich.
48
The picture
that emerges is not one of a population driven into a frenzy
by anti-Semitism.
After Hitler was made chancellor in 1933, he consolidated
his power with extraordinary speed. His first objective was
to get the Reichstag to pass an enabling act granting him
dictatorial powers for the next four years. Since that neces-
sitated a modification of the constitution, it required the
approval of two-thirds of the Reichstag delegates. This Hit-
ler could not achieve as long as the Communist delegates
were present. Accordingly, on the pretext of averting a Com-
munist insurrection, Hitler launched an intensive campaign
of political suppression. Civil liberties were revoked and
powers of house search and seizure were expanded. Nazi
paramilitary units stormed through the streets arresting
thousands of Communists and Social Democrats, including
their delegates to the Reichstag. Then, on March 23, 1933,
with all eighty-one Communist and twenty-five Social Demo-
cratic delegates missing, the Reichstag gave its approval to
the enabling act. Three months later, Germany was declared
to be a one-party state with heavy fines and imprisonment
for anyone remaining active in the organizational structure
of any other party. Then in 1934, Hindenberg died at the
age of eighty-seven. Hitler subsequently announced that the
office of president was abolished and that under the new
title of fuehrer or Reich chancellor, Hitler would be assum-
ing the combined powers of both chancellor and president.
The Nazification of Germany was now complete.
49
Hitler proceeded with a massive program of rearmament
that virtually placed the economy on a war footing. That
together with a tremendous expansion of public works proj-
ects actually succeeded in taking Germany out of the depres-
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MORAL INDIFFERENCE
sion by 1936. Between 1933 and 1937, Germany effectively
attained full employment as five million of the jobless re-
turned to work. During the same period, the gross national
product actually doubled in size.
so
Economically and mili-
tarily, Germany was becoming strong once again just as Hit-
ler had promised it would. For many Germans, pride and
well-being had been restored.
In this socioeconomic context Hitler began to mount his
persecution of the Jews. In April 1933, Hitler ordered a boy-
cott of all Jewish businesses. Then he had Jews expelled
from public office, the civil service, journalism, radio, the-
ater, and film.s1
The effectiveness of the boycott varied by region. It drew
more support in Munich and Middle Franconia but consider-
ably less support in Berlin and the RhinelandY Citing police
reports for Dusseldorf between 1934 and 1935, Gordon finds
that "the population was either indifferent or hostile to anti-
Semitism."s3 That was also true in Aachen. There, the state
government received many letters decrying the dismissals
of Jewish civil servants. Public response to anti-Semitic
rhetoric was often negative, and the Government President's
Report "bemoaned the lack of public comprehension of how
the 'Jewish Question' had to be settled."s4 Summarizing the
general public reaction in the period between 1933 and 1935,
Gordon says "there was both support for and opposition to
anti-Semitic measures, even though the predominant senti-
ment was probably indifference."ss
In September 1935, the Nuremberg laws were passed, de-
priving Jews of their citizenship and prohibiting them from
having sexual relations with Gentiles, an act that was re-
ferred to as Rassenschande (racial defilement). The majority
of Germans accepted the Nuremberg laws as a definitive
clarification of the legal status of Jews.
s6
Many evidently
thought that no further persecutions would follow. The re-
ports of the Socialist underground and of Nazi officials re-
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MORAL INDIFFERENCE
veal that there was still considerable public opposition to
anti-Semitism. Many Germans still continued to conduct
business with Jews, and in defiance of the Nuremberg laws,
hundreds of cases of Rassenschande were still being brought
to court. 57 Summarizing German attitudes during the period,
Gordon says that while both support for and opposition to
anti-Semitism grew among distinct minorities, the dominant
attitude was indifference.
These examples of public opposition, Rassenschande, business
relations between Jews and "Aryans" and verbal and written
criticism of racial persecution indicate that just as some Ger-
mans hardened their attitudes against Jews, other Germans
strengthened their opposition to Nazi racial policies. The ma-
jority probably remained indifferent as the advocates and op-
ponents of anti-Semitism adopted more extreme attitudes. 58
The mixed nature of public reaction continued up through
1938. The reports of the Socialist underground indicate both
increasing anti-Semitism and increasing opposition. For ex-
ample, some reports cite complaints by ordinary Germans
of continued contact between Jews and Gentiles. Other re-
ports cite cases of Germans attending the funerals of Jews
who had committed suicide in response to the persecution.
Business contacts with Jews evidently continued as did fre-
quent cases of Rassenschande.
59
The latter seems to have
been a particular source of annoyance for the SS. Again,
however, Gordon finds the dominant public reaction to have
been indifference.
These examples for the months of January to November 1938
indicate support for the racial persecution as well as opposi-
tion. Once again, however, these were extremes of opinion;
most people were indifferent to the Jews, who comprised a
very small percentage of the population, and who were in any
case decreasing their numbers by emigration.
60
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MORAL INDIFFERENCE
In November 1938 an event took place that became known
as Kristallnacht or "the night of the broken glass." It was
essentially a night of mass-scale Nazi-directed vandalism,
which ended in the destruction of 7,500 Jewish businesses
and 200 synagogues. Nearly a hundred Jews were killed and
over twenty thousand arrested. Contrary to the impression
we get from popular movies on the Holocaust, the public
reaction to Kristallnacht was overwhelmingly negative, even
among many of the formerly indifferent. What many ob-
jected to was the lawlessness of the violence, the character
it had of a thugish pogrom.
61
Given the adverse public reaction to Kristallnacht, the
Nazis became more secretive in their subsequent persecu-
tion of the Jews. This was particularly true of the deporta-
tions, which began in 1941. By this time, over 300,000 Jews
had emigrated from Germany, leaving fewer than 160,000
behind. These were spirited away under the cover of night
in unmarked vehicles. Most Germans, who had had no con-
tact with the victims, did not miss them.
62
Given the small number of Jews left in Germany, Hitler's
"Final Solution" was directed primarily at the non-German
Jews of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. When the
German armies crossed the Soviet border, they were accom-
panied by what were called Einsatzgruppen or mobile killing
units. It was the task of the Einsatzgruppen to systemati-
cally massacre all Jews caught behind German lines. By the
end of 1941, the Einsatzgruppen had murdered over half a
million Jews. Then, in 1942, the gassings began. Six million
Jews were exterminated before the gassings were stopped
by the Allied victory in 1945.
How much did the Germans know of the mobile killing
units and of the mass-scale gassings? How much should they
have known? These questions are difficult to answer consid-
ering the scanty information available. Certainly, the monu-
mental task of systematically killing millions of people was
CopynghtfRAViatenal
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
not carried out by a few. It involved thousands of soldiers
and major portions of the German bureaucracy. It required
the efforts of construction companies and railroad workers
as well.6
3
Did at least these people who were directly in-
volved know what was going on and if not should they have?
Clearly, some of them did know. At the very least, what was
happening was known by the soldiers who actually per-
formed the killings and by the SS officers who orchestrated
it. It also had to be known by the corporate executives who
contracted for and who ultimately designed and built the
crematoria and gas chambers. But these still constituted a
minority of those who were directly involved in one way or
another. What about the others? Did they know?
It must be borne in mind that the whole operation was
conducted with the utmost secrecy and that in general each
individual cog of the bureaucracy of death knew only what
concerned its own specific task. Thus, even many of the peo-
ple involved in the deportations might not have known that
the Jews were being deported to their deaths. After all, al-
though the concentration camps had been in existence since
1933, until 1939 they had not been sites of mass murder but
only detention centers for dissidents, most of whom were
non-Jewish. Thus, it is very possible that even many of those
involved in the deportations did not know that the function
of the camps had changed.
64
It must also be remembered
that the most important death camps were located outside
Germany and that most of the Jews consigned to them were
non-German. Only about 130,000 Jews were actually de-
ported from Germany, and they had already been segregated
from the rest of the German population.
Since most Germans did not witness the deportations, it
is not surprising that in a survey conducted immediately
after the war, most Germans did not seem to know what
actually went on in the camps. Fifty-seven percent of the
respondents still seemed to think that the camps were pri-
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MORAL INDIFFERENCE
marily for political dissidents, while only 4 percent said they
were for the extermination of the Jews. Even many Jews,
including Jewish leaders, were unaware of the systematic
gassings until very late in the process.
65
If even the Jewish victims and many of those involved in
the bureaucracy of death did not know about the extermina-
tions, how much can we expect the average German to have
known? Gordon argues that many Germans did know about
the deportations and had heard rumors of mass shootings
on the eastern front, but that, except for some limited aware-
ness in eastern Germany, most Germans did not know about
the true nature of the concentration camps in Eastern
Europe.
66
But perhaps we are asking the wrong questions. Instead
of asking how much the Germans knew or should have
known, perhaps we should ask how much they did to find
out what was going on. Here, the answer is simple and dis-
turbing: very little. According to Gordon, "Certainly the bulk
of research on public opinion indicates that the majority of
Germans simply did not think much about Jews during the
period of their deportation and extermination."67
CONCLUSION
If we take the Nazi Holocaust as the paradigmatic example
of genocide, there are some important lessons to be learned
from the historical causes that allowed it to happen. First,
it is an analytical mistake to focus attention on Hitler's de-
ranged anti-Semitism. There are always going to be people
with dangerously deranged ideas and nothing will ever stop
that. What can be avoided is the elevation of such people to
positions of power. Thus, the real analytical questions
should be focused on the nonderanged majority. Why do we
allow malevolent people to assume positions of leadership
Copyrigf:lretflllllaroria.'
MORAL INDIFFERENCE
or why, at least, do we not stop such leaders when they begin
to transform their malevolence from idea to reality?
For Germany, the answer to these questions is not that
the majority shared the derangement of their leader. From
the available evidence, it appears that they did not. Thus,
studies that attempt to explain the Holocaust as the result
of collective insanity, bloodlust, or even a tradition of anti-
Semitism are misguided. It was not that the German people
by and large supported Hitler's persecution of the Jews;
they simply did not sufficiently care about it. This is not
to deny that anti-Semitism played an important part in the
Holocaust. Outside Germany in the Nazi-occupied territor-
ies, anti-Semitism was crucial in determining the extent of
Jewish victimization. But this was not true inside Germany,
and so anti-Semitism does not explain the nucleus of the
Holocaust. The explanation for that is instead a general
moral indifference about the suffering of others.
Why were the Germans indifferent about the fate of the
Jews? It was probably not because the victims were primar-
ily Jewish. Herein lies the value of comparing the Nazi Holo-
caust with a similar case such as the u.S. persecution of the
peoples of Central America. As we shall see, the American
people were likewise not supportive of what their own gov-
ernment was doing in Central America, but they were just
as indifferent about it as the German people were about the
insane policies of their leaders. There are three factors that
help to explain such indifference both in Nazi Germany and
in the contemporary United States: selfishness, nation-wor-
ship, and anticommunism.
Selfishness makes "pocketbook" issues the overriding po-
litical concern for many people. It is not that people should
be unconcerned with their personal economic situation in
making political decisions. As Rabbi Hillel once asked, "If I
am not for myself, who will be?" But in a world where there
is little danger of people not being for themselves, the sec-
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MORAL INDIFFERENCE
ond question Hillel posed is the more pressing: "If I am only
for myself, what am I?" What, indeed? A large part of the
German people voted for Hitler or supported him once he
was in power because he promised to and actually did take
Germany out of the depression. These people were not wont
to quibble about Hitler's malevolent obsession with the
Jews. Such selfishness rather than hatred of the victims is
the more common cause of genocide.
The eminent theologian Paul Tillich defined religion as
ultimate concern. We are religious, in other words, about
that which concerns us ultimately. As Tillich put it, the ob-
ject of ultimate concern demands total allegiance and prom-
ises total fulfillment. According to this definition, many
nominally secular commitments may assume the character
of religious devotion. For many within Germany during Hit-
ler's reign, the nation became the object of ultimate concern.
The essence of nation-worship is the elevation of the nation,
its power and glory, beyond any other standard of human
conduct. When that happens, when we as a people no longer
judge the conduct of our nation by a standard above what
leads to national power and glory, then we have truly suc-
cumbed to nation-worship. Then the nation replaces God as
the object of ultimate concern. According to the Judeo-Chris-
tian tradition, this is nothing more than a form of religious
idolatry. It is an idolatry, moreover, that in the modern
world threatens to become the ultimate evil.
The third factor contributing to the Holocaust deserves
particular attention today: anticommunism. For American
readers, gripped by their own government-induced fear of
communism, it must seem odd that in the story of the Holo-
caust, the German Socialists and Communists emerge in a
comparatively positive light-the most consistent organized
opponents of the Nazis both before and after Hitler took
power. It must seem odd as well that after the First World
War, the Allies took the transfer of the German government
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MORAL INDIFFERENCE
to the Socialists as a gesture of commitment to democracy.
If that does not seem odd, it should, for today our leaders
need do no more than label a country "Marxist" to convince
many Americans that that country is a "totalitarian dun-
geon," meriting attack. And yet, for all its oddity, we can see
a pattern repeating itself. Ever since Karl Marx wrote the
Communist Manifesto, communism has been the bogeyman
against which support has been rallied for all kinds of nefar-
ious causes. As we have seen, the Nazis drew far more sup-
port by stirring up fears of the "Red Menace" than they did
by appeals to anti-Semitism. There is a lesson here if only
we would see it.
Copyngnt61cfJ Matel ial
4 The Two Faces
of Genocide in
Central America
There were actually two processes transpiring in Central
America during the 1980s that could arguably be compared
with the Holocaust. There was first of all the genocidal
violence so much in the news: the government-organized
murders, disappearances, torture, and even wholesale elimi-
nation of village populations. But there was also a quieter
genocidal process-the process of mass hunger. Although
we heard much less about this quieter and still continuing
genocide, it was the root cause of the first. It was because
the poor of Central America were attempting to resist the
quiet genocide of mass hunger that the second, violent geno-
cide became necessary. The violent genocide was the at-
tempt by Central American governments to silence dissent
and prevent the reform of a hunger-producing social struc-
ture.
If mass hunger were a natural phenomenon-the result
of poor climate or the lack of technology-then it would not
qualify as a Holocaust-like event. It might be a tragedy, but
not genocide. Genocide must be somebody's doing. How-
ever, the mass hunger of Central America is not a natural
phenomenon caused by climate or by technological back-
wardness, for Central America is one of the most agricultur-
ally productive areas in the world. While their populations
go hungry, the countries of Central America export beef,
CopynghfetlMafenal
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
cotton, coffee, tobacco, and cut flowers to the developed
countries of the north, most particularly the United States.
Thus, the cause of mass hunger in Central America is not
nature but social structure.
The countries of Central America are overwhelmingly ag-
ricultural. In Honduras, EI Salvador, and Guatemala, for
example, agriculture accounts for over 60 percent of em-
ployment and is the major source of national income. In
Honduras beef, coffee, cotton, and bananas account for 60
percent of export earnings. Countries like Honduras whose
economies are based on one or at most a few export crops
are termed monocultures. In countries with such economies,
land is the single most important asset and land distribution
is the most important dimension of social structure. In vir-
tually all of the countries of Central America (with the ex-
ception now of post-revolutionary Nicaragua), a tiny
oligarchy, no more than 3 percent of the agricultural popula-
tion, owns between 40 percent and 60 percent of the land.
In contrast, the poor majority do not possess enough land
to meet their basic needs. (See Figure 1.)
If the land concentrated in the hands of the oligarchies
were used to grow food for the people of Central America,
the situation would not be so bad. However, that does not
happen because of the structure of the world market. We
generally think of the world market as a competitiye arena
of producers. It is that, but it is also a competitive arena of
consumers. Consumers compete with each other to get the
producers to produce what the consumers want them to pro-
duce. Consumers who want cut flowers want the producers
to produce cut flowers. Consumers who want food want the
producers to produce food. In the world's market economy,
this competition is resolved by power rather
than by relative need. Those with the greatest purchasing
power command the decisions of the producers. When the
market mechanism is combined with gross inequality, we
Copyrifj,"It&fl.MakJria,'
FIGURE 1
Elite
Middle
Class
Poor
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
Land
Land
The Social Structure of the Typical Central American
Country
get a situation where the producers fail to produce necessi-
ties for the poor who have little but instead produce luxury
items for the affluent who already have much. In the case
we are examining" this means that the oligarchies use their
Copynghte7AvJatenal
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
TABLE 2
Land Distribution in Central American Countries
Top % of % Total Bottom % % Total
Popula- Land of Popula- Land
Country Year tion Controlled tion Controlled
Guatemala 1964 3.0 56 87 19
Honduras 1966 2.4 46 67 12
EI Salvador 1971 3.0 64 48 5
Costa Rica 1970 3.1 50 50 5
Nicaragua 1963 0.2 20 51 4
1.5 40
Panama 1971 0.1 15 45 4
1.2 32
SOURCE: Statistical Abstracts of Latin America 23 (Los Angeles: UCLA Lat-
in American Center Publications, 1984).
land to produce luxury crops-coffee, tobacco, cut flowers,
and so on-for the affluent consumers in the developed
countries rather than food for the poor consumers in their
own countries.!
As a consequence, very little of the land concentrated in
the hands of the oligarchies is devoted to the cultivation of
food crops; much of it is uncultivated. In El Salvador and
Guatemala, over half of such land lies fallow.
2
For example,
the Del Monte Company, the largest landowner in Guate-
mala, owns fifty-seven thousand acres of Guatemalan land
but plants only nine thousand.
3
The rest either lies fallow or
is used for grazing cattle.
Of the land that is used throughout Central America, 29
percent is devoted to just three crops that are hardly capa-
ble of sustaining life: coffee, cotton, and sugar. Another 19
percent of the land is used for such other non-life-sustaining
crops as okra, cucumber, pineapple, and cantaloupe. To get
a more graphic sense of the magnitude of this diversion of
COPYi igMflJI. Material
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
land to luxury crops, consider that in a typical year Guate-
mala supplies the United States with over 159 million cut
flowers-roses, daisies, chrysanthemums, and so on.4 When
we add up the land that lies fallow, the land devoted to cof-
fee, cotton, and sugar, and the land devoted to such luxury
crops as tobacco and cut flowers, it is easy to see that not
much is left for the cultivation of life-sustaining food.
As might be expected, the overall effect of the current
social structure is death. In the passage below, Joseph Col-
lins presents a composite picture of what it wa!'i like to live
in Somoza's Nicaragua (that is, before the Sandinista revolu-
tion). His account is still applicable to present-day Guate-
mala and El Salvador.
Imagine it's 1977 and you are a 17-year-old Nicaraguan. Your
family, like two-thirds of all rural families, has either no land
at all or not enough to feed itself. If yours is "lucky" enough
to have a little plot of land, half or even more of what you
grow-or a steep cash rent-goes to the landowner in the city.
Last year you watched helpless as your little sister became
repeatedly ill with diarrhea. Your parents saw her losing her
strength but there was no one to help. In all of rural Nicaragua
there are only five clinics with beds. By then she was so weak
that when measles hit, you watched her die after four painful
days. The year before your brother died right after birth; your
mother and father have lost five of their children.
5
The death of children is a constant feature of life in Cen-
tral America (see Table 3). According to United Nations esti-
mates, 75 percent of the children under five years of age
were malnourished in prerevolutionary Nicaragua, and sim-
ilar figures still characterize present-day Guatemala and El
Salvador.6 Infant mortality rates tell us that in prerevolu-
tionary Nicaragua, over one out of every ten infants died
Copynghte7?Matenal
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
TABLE 3
Infant Mortality and Life Expectancy in Central America
Average Life
Infant
Expectancy
at Birth
Mortality
Country Year Rate* M F
U.S. 1975 13 68.7 76.5
Cuba 1970 24 68.5 71.8
Guatemala 1972-73 77 53.7 55.5
Honduras 1970-75 117 52.4 55.9
El Salvador 1960-61 53 56.6 60.4
Nicaragua 1970-75 122 51.2 54.6
*Infant mortality per thousand live births.
t NA = Not available.
Average Life
Expectancy
After One Year
M F
68.9 76.6
NAt NA
58.7 59.8
NA NA
60.8 63.9
NA NA
SOURCE: Statistical Abstracts of Latin America 23 (Los Angeles: UCLA Lat-
in American Center Publications, 1984).
within a year of their births and that the situation continues
to be almost as dire in Guatemala, Honduras, and EI Salva-
dor, where nothing has changed. The poor nourishment of
their mothers insures that children in these countries are
born already weak and susceptible to infectious diseases
that would not be fatal to healthier infants. This initial dis-
advantage is compounded by the infants' subsequent inade-
quate nourishment.
Aside from the deaths of infants, there is the lower life
expectancy of adults. Even when we remove cases of infant
mortality, the average life expectancy of people in Central
America is significantly lower than that of the people of the
United States (see Table 3, col. 4). These lower rates of life
expectancy can be read as years stolen from the lives of the
people of Central America. As long the present conditions
persist, Central America will remain a regionwide death
camp that slowly but inexorably exacts its toll in human life.
Copyngnt61cP Matel ial
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
HOW THE GENOCIDAL SOCIAL STRUCTURE
WAS ORIGINALLY CREATED
The countries of Central America are in need of a thorough-
going land reform. It seems manifestly unjust that a few
should own such huge tracts of land, much of it not even in
use, while the majority of the people go hungry. Yet the
landed oligarchies of these countries refuse to give up any
of their land, even with the offer of compensation. The oli-
garchies claim that such proposals are an infringement on
their property rights. This argument strikes a responsive
chord among Americans who are wont to believe that no
matter how unequal the distribution of property is, the rich
have earned their wealth and cannot be morally dispos-
sessed of it against their will. However, the oligarchies of
Central America did not acquire their vast holdings through
what we think of as honest work and enterprising spirit.
Instead, their holdings are largely the inheritance of Spanish
colonial policies, which concentrated land in the hands of a
few through the force of arms. The Spanish conquistadors
granted huge tracts of land called encomiendas (entrust-
ments) to their lieutenants as compensation for their ser-
vices and loyalty. The encomiendas were like feudal
fiefdoms where the encomenderos (trustees) had control not
only over the land but over the native populations as well.
The encomendero was required by law to instruct the native
Indians in Christianity and in the ways of European civiliza-
tion. In return, the encomendero was entitled to demand
labor and tribute from the Indians. When the Indians were
not working on the land or in the mines owned by the encom-
endero, they were free to grow crops for their own subsis-
tence on land that was communally owned by their village.
Many Indians died during Spanish rule as a combined
result of malnutrition, abusive labor conditions, and suscep-
tibility to such European diseases as smallpox, measles, and

TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
typhus. Between the years 1519 and 1650, about 70 percent
of the Indian population of Central America and the Carib-
bean was wiped out.7
At least some Catholic missionaries were outraged by the
abuses and enslavement of the Indians. In response to the
pleas of the Dominican bishop Bartolome de la Casas, Pope
Paul III issued a papal bull in 1537 declaring that Indians
have souls and that their liberty and property should not be
taken away. In response, King Charles V of Spain issued the
New Laws in 1542 prohibiting the enslavement of Indians as
well as the further establishment and inheritance of encomi-
endas. After that, the encomienda system declined in
importance.
8
But the Spanish colonists soon learned other ways of ac-
cumulating land and requisitioning Indian labor. Under the
repartimiento system, reparto being the Spanish word for
part, the Indians were required to render a part of their
labor (several days each week) for a specific task, either in
the mines or on the plantations.
9
The Spanish colonists em-
ployed other methods as well, which are succinctly summa-
rized by E. Bradford Burns.
Over generations many of the original grants of land grew to
gigantic proportions. The more astute landowners bought out
their neighbors or simply encroached upon other lands. The
declining Indian population freed more and more land which
the Iberians grabbed up as their awareness of its value in-
creased. A series of legal devices confused the Indian and fa-
vored the Spaniard in acquiring land: the congregaci6n,
denuncia, and composici6n. The congregaci6n concentrated
the Indians in villages and thereby opened their land for sei-
zure; the denuncia required the Indians to show legal claim
and title to their property-a legality for which their ancient
laws had not prepared them-and failure to do so meant that
the land could he seized; the composicion was a means of
claiming land through legal surveys, a concept once again for
which the Indians had little preparation. By these as well
COPYI iglilelJ3Matei ia,'
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
as other means, the Spanish landowners steadily pushed the
remaining Indians, whom they had not incorporated into
their estates as peons, up the mountainsides and onto arid
soil, in short into the marginal lands. Coupled with the many
ways the Spaniards had of acquiring land were the entail-
ment and primogeniture laws which protected the land and
prohibited its division. The Spanish crown tolerated if it did
not encourage the large landholdings in its American pos-
sessions. 10
This inequitable concentration of land did not decrease
but only increased after Central America gained its indepen-
dence from Spain in 1821. This was particularly true in the
1870s with the worldwide boom in the demand for coffee.
To take advantage of the financial opportunities the new
coffee market opened up, the oligarchies of Central America
needed both more land and more labor. Accordingly, in
1881, the government of El Salvador decreed that from then
on, it would no longer recognize the Indians' communal
form of land ownership but only formally titled private
property. Although instructions for obtaining titles were
published in the national newspapers, this did not do the
illiterate peasants much good. As a consequence, the com-
munal lands that had previously managed to endure were
now abolished, transforming the Indians into a servile labor
force for the coffee estates.
11
The story was quite the same
in Guatemala, where as a result of a similar series of laws,
over one hundred thousand acres of Indian land was privat-
ized in 1884 alone.
12
The Indians were not always submissive throughout this
process. In EI Salvador, peasant revolts broke out repeat-
edly throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century.13
The Salvadoran government responded with a military
build-up and with the creation of the national guard. In Gua-
temala, the Indians protested to the president. Listen to the
voice of one.
CopynghfelPMafenaJ
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
You have ordered us to leave our land so that coffee can be
grown. You have done us an injustice .. . . You ask us to leave
the land where our grandfathers and fathers were born . .. . Is
it because we do not know how to grow coffee? You know
very well we know how ... . Are we not the ones who sow the
coffee on the fincas, wash it, harvest it? .. But we do not want
to grow coffee on our lands. We want them only for our corn,
our animals, our wood. And we want these lands where our
grandfathers and fathers worked. Why should we leave
them?14
In summary, the oligarchies of Central America did not
acquire their vast holdings through honest work and indus-
triousness. In the first place they gained these lands as the
fruit of conquest and in the second place through the politi-
cal maneuvering that their initial position of power enabled
them to carry out.
THE POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES
IN THE GENOCIDAL STRUCTURE
Although the United States did not create these unjust condi-
tions, it has taken advantage of them. Central America pro-
vides the United States with 69 percent of its bananas, 15
percent of its coffee, 17 percent of its sugar, and 14 percent
of its imported beef. IS United States agribusiness firms are
among the largest landowners in Central America. That Del
Monte owns 57,000 acres of land in Guatemala has already
been mentioned. In Honduras, Castle and Cook (Dole) owns
140,000 acres, and United Brands (Chiquita) several mil-
lion.
16
Even where the agribusiness companies do not di-
rectly own the land-and they are less inclined to do so now
that there is an increased danger of postrevolutionary ex-
propriation-they still control it through subcontracts with
the large Central American farmers. The United States agri-
copyrightl lPMaterial
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
business companies are able to do this because they retain
a monopoly over distribution. For example, Castle and Cook,
Del Monte, and United Brands together control over 70 per-
cent of the world banana market. Similarly, with coffee, just
23 firms control 82 percent of the world market.
17
The mo-
nopoly over distribution that the agribusiness firms share
means that they can dictate prices at both ends-to the
growers and to the consumers. This is an extremely strategic
and profitable position to be in, and the agribusiness firms
consequently have a strong interest in maintaining the sta-
tus quo.
It is the poor, who if they are lucky can earn two dollars
a day on a plantation, that suffer from this arrangement.
But the suffering of the Central American poor goes even
beyond low pay and lack of food. Pesticides like DDT, toxa-
phene, and parathion, which are banned or severely re-
stricted in the United States, are widely used in Central
America.
18
The fields are sprayed with these pesticides even
while they are being farmed by the workers. In fact, many
of the workers live in shacks on the fields and their homes
get sprayed along with the cropS.19 The Central American
Research Institute for Industry reports that in the cotton-
growing areas of Guatemala, the DDT content in human
blood is over ten times what it is in Florida. And the DDT
content in mothers' milk is often 18 times beyond the safety
levepo As a result of conditions like these, thousands of
workers routinely suffer the immediate symptoms of pesti-
cide poisoning: dizziness, vomiting, and skin burns.
21
Desperately poor people make for a compliant labor
force, willing to work-because they have no choice-for
low wages and under terrible conditions. Thus, even in the
industrial sector, Central America provides an ideal busi-
ness climate for United States corporations. According to
the Survey of Current Business (February 1982), in the manu-
facturing sector, Central American workers receive one-
CopynghtflJiJVIatenal
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
eighth the wages paid to workers in the United States. As a
consequence, the average rate of return on U.S. investments
in Central America is over 19 percent. To take advantage
of these conditions, over a thousand U.S. companies have
operations in Central America, including 70 of Fortune's top
100.
22
Behind the United States investment in Central
America stands a powerful corporate lobby called Carib-
bean Central America Action, which includes among its
members representatives from Chase Manhattan, Maiden-
form, Grace Foundation, Bank America, United Brands, the
National Security Council, Congress, and the U.S. Informa-
tion Agency.23
Although there are powerful corporate interests that reap
tremendous profits from the conditions in Central America,
it can hardly be argued that Central America itself is vital
to the U.S. economy. The economic importance of Central
America is instead geopolitical.
Since the Second World War, the United States has been
the global guarantor of the free market and the principle of
private property. Unfortunately, throughout the third world
as in Central America, the rigid adherence to these princi-
ples has meant the persistence of widespread poverty and
hunger. Thus, the real threat to the United States in Central
America is, as Michael Harrington has put it, the threat of
a good example. If the peoples of Central America-in the
very "backyard" of the United States-can break out of the
economic system that keeps them poor, then peoples else-
where might attempt the same thing. Should such attempts
prove successful in many third world countries, a serious
challenge would be posed to the global hegemony of the mar-
ket and the principle of private property. Thus, to maintain
the entire world economic system over which it presides,
the United States must insure that no member of that sys-
tem-not Vietnam, not El Salvador, not Nicaragua-is ever
allowed to exit from it, at least not intact.
CopyngmJii.Matel ial
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
This requires that the United States betray its political
commitment to democracy by denying the right of self-deter-
mination to others, but that is something the United States
has been very willing to do. It has been willing to do it,
moreover, as we will see, through the mechanism of state
terrorism. For its role in keeping millions of people in a
chronic and death-inducing state of hunger and for its com-
plicity in the state terrorism necessary for that end, the
United States bears a double burden of guilt.
HOW THE UNITED STATES ACTS TO
MAINTAIN THE HUNGER-PRODUCING SOCIAL
STRUCTURE: THE CASE OF GUATEMALA
Is it any wonder that the people of Central America want
to change their circumstances? Is it any wonder that when
democratic avenues of change are denied to them, they re-
sort to armed guerrilla struggle? Our own revolutionary
struggle against the British was motivated by injustices that
were far less egregious. Yet, with United States complicity,
democratic avenues of change have been denied to the peo-
ple of Central America. What happened in Guatemala illus-
trates this point.
In 1950 Jacobo Arbenz was democratically elected to the
presidency of Guatemala with 65 percent of the vote. Arbenz
was a man who was committed to moving Guatemala in a
progressive direction, and one of his principal measures was
an agrarian reform law, which was enacted in 1952. The
law authorized the expropriation of unused land in estates
larger than 223 acres, but it did not expropriate any culti-
vated land regardless of the size of the estate. All owners of
expropriated land were to be compensated by an amount
equal to the value the owners had declared the land to be
worth on their tax returns. While the law was in force, it
CopynghtJh3Matenal
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
transferred over 1 million acres of land to one hundred thou-
sand peasant families.
24
The United Fruit Company was at this time the largest
landowner in Guatemala with some 550,000 acres. Since the
company had only about 50,000 of these acres under cultiva-
tion, it had over 200,000 acres expropriated. The government
offered to compensate United Fruit with $627,000 in bonds,
reflecting the company's own declared value of the land for
tax purposes. However, since United Fruit had been under-
valuing its land for years-paying lower taxes as a conse-
quence-it was not at all pleased with this settlement.
Instead, it demanded $15 million in compensation, a sum
well beyond the government's ability to pay.25
Unfortunately for the Arbenz government and for the peo-
ple of Guatemala, the United Fruit Company had powerful
friends. Both Henry Cabot Lodge, the United States ambas-
sador to the United Nations, and John Moors Cabot, the as-
sistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs, were
major stockholders in United Fruit. The secretary of state,
John Foster Dulles, was a senior partner in Sullivan and
Cromwell, United Fruit's law firm.26 Besides these govern-
ment contacts, United Fruit's public relations consultant,
Edward Bernays, was a man with an extensive friendship
network in the United States media, including the owners
and editors of the New York Times, the Christian Science
Monitor, the Herald Tribune, Time, and Newsweek.
27
Before
long, both the United States government and the press were
creating a furor over the danger the Arbenz government
posed of communism in the western hemisphere. And it was
not long after that that the Eisenhower administration be-
gan arming, training, and financing Guatemalan dissidents
in Honduras and Nicaragua. The leader of these dissidents
was Carlos Castillo Armas, a graduate of the United States
Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas. On June 18, 1953, Armas invaded Guatemala from
CopyrightJilMafenal
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
Honduras with a force of 160-200 men. This small contin-
gent could have been repelled easily had the United States
not made it clear that its power was behind the attack. In
fact, it was less the invasion of Armas's force that ultimately
destabilized the government than the CIA's aerial bombard-
ment of Guatemala's major cities from planes piloted by
Americans. As the Guatemalan military leaders began to
withdraw their support from the government, Arbenz's posi-
tion became more tenuous, and he finally resigned on June
27.28
Armas arrived in the capital along with the United States
ambassador, John Peurifoy, in the ambassador's plane.
29
On
July 8, Armas was made president of Guatemala. The elec-
tion of Jacobo Arbenz was the last valid one Guatemala was
to have for thirty years. Instead, from then on, Guatemala
would be ruled by a series of military.dominated regimes
that have increasingly resorted to terror to maintain their
position.
With the assumption of the presidency of General Efrain
Rios Montt in March 1982, the terrorism reached genocidal
proportions. Entire-villages were wiped out where the peo-
ple, mostly Indians, were suspected of sympathizing with
the growing guerrilla movement. Other communities were
entirely relocated to "model villages" where the populace
could be kept under constant surveillance. According to a
report issued by the American Friends Service Committee,
many of the twenty-three different Indian groups in Guate-
mala experienced disintegration as the people tried to dis-
tance themselves from their traditional customs and dress
in order to evade suspicion of guerrilla sympathies. Accord-
ing to Americas Watch, the Ixil in EI Quiche were virtually
exterminated as a cultural entity.30
The increased terror under Rios Montt was a reaction to
the way the Guatemalan situation had changed by 1982. The
guerrilla movement had become strong and unified with
etiaJ
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
widespread support aI?ong the rural Indians, who comprise
almost half .of Guatemala's total population. As a conse-
quence, by mid-1982, guerrilla forces were regularly able
to occupy-at least temporarily-plantations and villages in
sixteen of Guatemala' s twenty-two departments.
31
Mao Tse-dung had once compared guerrillas to fish who
swim in a sea composed of a supportive population. Ironi-
cally, this metaphor has been taken to heart by the right-
wing governments in Central America; they say that the way
to catch the fish is to drain the sea. This was precisely the
principle that underlay Rios Montt's strategy of terrorism.
Listen to his justification of this policy as he related it to
Allan Nairn of the New York Times .
When asked about army killings of unarmed civilians Gen.
Efrain Rios Montt ... replied: "Look, the problem of the war is
not just a question of who is shooting. For each one who is
shoo Ling there are 10 working behind him."
His press secretary, Francisco Bianchi, explained. "The guer-
rillas won over many Indian collaborators, " he said. "Therefore,
the Indians were subversives, right? And how do you fight sub-
version? Clearly, you had to kill the Indians because they were
collaborating with subversion. And then they would say, 'You're
massacring innocent people.' But they weren't innocent. They
had sold out to subversion. " 32
And under Rios Montt, the Guatemalan army surely did
go about killing the Indians in an indiscriminate and brutal
way. Americas Watch accumulated numerous testimonies of
the brutality from refugees fleeing the carnage. The extracts
cited below are just a sample.
Time and again we listened to detailed eyewitness accounts of
the use of planes and helicopters to bomb villages, settlements
and cooperatives, followed by ground assaults by soldiers who
opened fire on men, women, and children. Other refugees told
us that when the soldiers entered their village, rather than

TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
shooting randomly, they separated the men from the women
and children; the men were taken into the local Catholic
church and shot; the women and children were placed in sepa-
rate buildings where they were burned alive or shot after first
being raped by soldiers_ 33
Most of the testimony reveals that the army does not waste its
bullets on women and children. We were repeatedly told of
children being picked up by the feet and having their heads
smashed against the walls, choked to death by hand or with
ropes or killed with machetes or bayonets.
34
Guatemalan army soldiers entered their village and began
shooting men, women, children and livestock. Soldiers mur-
dered children by cleaving their heads with machetes, stran-
gling them with rope, and throwing them in the air and then
bayonetting them. Women who did not escape were raped.
Those who survived fled to the hills and tried to live off the
crops and food supplies the army had not destroyed. In Janu-
ary and February 1983, the army again returned to the village
and burned crops that the survivors had recently cultivated in
nearby parcelas. No longer able to subsist in the mountains,
221 survivors from Kailhil Balam fled to Mexico.
35
Such stories are almost too difficult to believe. Yet the
Germans under the Nazis had the same reaction to accounts
of the death camps. People just do not want to believe that
their government could be implicated in such things. Never-
theless, this is the legacy that the United States has left to
the people of Guatemala. The United States did not simply
destroy Guatemala's original democracy; it continued to
supply the instruments of death that successive dictator-
ships have used to terrorize their own people. The helicop-
ters used to bomb Indian villages were United States made
as were the jeeps used to transport the Guatemalan army.
By 1986 the sea was apparently drained and the guerrilla
movement temporarily crushed. As a consequence, the Gua-
temalan military turned the government over to a civilian
CopynghtJ!jl Malena!
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
president. However, to date, there has been no land reform,
and nor is land reform likely. The Guatemalan elites did not
fight a dirty war for thirty years just to accede to popular
demands at the moment of their victory. It is far more likely
that the country will remain quiescent for the time being
with the Guatemalan people quietly living as before in mis-
ery and hunger.
THE COMPLICITY OF THE UNITED STATES
IN EL SALVADOR'S STATE TERRORISM
Although before 1979 the United States involvement in El
Salvador was less extensive than in Guatemala, the United
States had supplied EI Salvador with $16.7 million in mili-
tary aid since 1946 and had trained over two thousand Salva-
doran soldiers.36 The United States had also been instru-
mental in the creation of what ultimately came to be the
death squads.
3
? But with or without direct United States
involvement, the electoral road to social change has been as
effectively denied in EI Salvador as in Guatemala. The 1972
presidential election is a case in point.
As the 1972 election approached, the Salvadoran Commu-
nist party, the Social Democratic party, and the Christian
Democratic party forged an alliance called the National Op-
position Union (UNO). The UNO candidates were Jose Napo-
leon Duarte of the Christian Democratic party for president
and Guillermo Ungo of the Social Democratic party for vice
president. (Ironically, Duarte later became president of EI
Salvador with United States backing while Ungo became the
leader of the oppositional Democratic Revolutionary Front.)
The principal candidate opposing Duarte and Ungo was Col-
onel Arturo Molina of the Party of National Conciliation
(PCN), who had the endorsement of the incumbent president,
Fidel Sanchez Hernandez.
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
On the morning of February 22, 1972, the General Elec-
tion Board announced that the peN had narrowly defeated
UNO, 314,000 votes to 292,000. However, by the afternoon,
the Election Board reversed itself. According to the new re-
sults, UNO had won with 321,000 votes to the peN's 315,000
votes. At this point, the Hernandez government imposed a
news blackout for three days after which the Election Board
reversed itself again, proclaiming the peN to be the victor
after all. Documentation subsequently presented in testi-
mony before the United States House of Representatives re-
vealed the outcome of the election to be as fraudulent as it
was widely perceived to have been at the time.
38
In reaction, a faction of the army launched a coup against
the government with the belated support of Duarte. But the
coup was unsuccessful, and Duarte sought asylum at the
Venezuelan embassy. That, however, proved to be of no
avail. Soldiers broke into the embassy despite its diplomatic
immunity and seized him. They subsequently "broke his
cheek bones with rifle butts and cut off the tips of three
fingers as souvenirs."39 Molina assumed the presidency and
initiated a period of intensified repression. The army, sup-
ported by tanks, planes, and artillery, was unleashed against
the National University, shutting it down for the next two
years.
40
The fraudulent election of 1972 was a turning point in
Salvadoran history. It convinced many that fundamental so-
cial change would never be permitted to occur through the
electoral process. As a result, the period after 1972 saw the
increasing development of a nonelectoral strategy. That did
not necessarily mean armed insurrection-at least not at
first . What it did mean was a greater effort devoted to grass-
roots organizing with the purpose of pressuring the govern-
ment through general strikes, demonstrations, and civil
disobedience.
Several popular organizations emerged with extensive
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
memberships. The largest of these was the Popular Revolu-
tionary Block (BPR) with more than eighty thousand mem-
bers. Although its base was primarily among the peasantry,
its membership included students, teachers, trade unionists,
and the urban poor. The second largest popular organization
was the Front of United Popular Action (FAPU), which drew
its membership from the urban working class. Another large
popular organization was the Popular League of February
28 (LP-28), which was mainly student based.
41
At the same time, the Salvadoran church began to side
decisively with the poor. In villages throughout EI Salvador,
clergy organized Bible studies in which the Scriptures were
read for their concrete application to the Salvadoran con-
text. The clergy began to teach the people that God hears
the cry of the poor and that through them he will overcome
injustice. Thus, throughout EI Salvador words like those of
Father Jose Innocencio Alas began emanating from the
pulpits:
There is a pyramid of oppression at whose base are the hungry,
sick and naked campesinos, intimidated by tendentious
phrases like "You'll be accused of Communism! We'll call the
National Guard. Seek eternal Salvation. Give thanks to God if
your child dies of hunger-he will go to heaven!" There are too
many Christians who go to Communion but avoid community
organizations; who are afraid to join the peasant leagues or
the workers' movement. To live Christianity dreaming of
heaven is to forget this earth, which is also of God,,
2
In response to this mobilization of the poor, there was an
upsurge in death squad activity. Paramilitary groups such
as ORDEN (Order), the White Warriors Union, and the Se-
cret Anti-Communist Army formed lists of church workers,
labor organizers, and teachers and went about killing them.
Flyers circulated throughout San Salvador saying, "Be a pa-
triot. Kill a priest."43 In April 1977, one priest, Father Rutilio
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
Grande, was riveted with bullets from machine-gun fire on
his way to mass and another, Father Alfonso Navarro, was
similarly cut down in his own home.
44
In July, the White
Warriors Union sent the following message to EI Salvador's
community of Jesuit priests:
All Jesuits without exception must leave the country forever
within thirty days . ... If your order is not obeyed within the
indicated time, the immediate and systematic execution of
those Jesuits who remain in the country will proceed until we
have finished with all of them.
45
As the killings continued, the popular organizations re-
sponded with their own armed wings, which targeted gov-
ernment officials and death-squad members. Thus, EI
Salvador soon resembled Weimar Germany where members
of the Nazi and Communist parties fought each other in the
streets. The resemblance to Weimar Germany was sharp-
ened by the explicit way in which the members of the death
squads identified with the Nazis. They revered Hitler, stud-
ied Mein Kampf, and adorned their walls with Nazi in-
signia.
46
Events were rapidly approaching a crisis when in May
1979, Walter Cronkite led off a CBS News report with on-
scene camera shots of Salvadoran policemen firing into a
crowd of three hundred peaceful demonstrators gathered
on the steps of the Metropolitan Cathedral in San Salvador.47
In September, the Carter administration dispatched a spe-
cial negotiator, William Bowlder, to urge President Carlos
Humberto Romero to resign. Then in October Romero was
overthrown by a coup launched by the younger army offi-
cers, who were concerned about the deteriorating con-
ditions.
A junta was formed that included prestigious civilian rep-
resentatives: Guillermo Ungo of the Social Democratic party
and Roman Mayorga, the rector of the Central American
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
University. In addition, Enrique Alvarez Cordova, a wealthy
dairy farmer who was nevertheless committed to land re-
form, was named minister of agriculture. Ruben Zamora, a
Christian Democrat, was named minister of the presidency,
and his brother, Mario Zamora, another Christian Demo-
crat, was named attorney general. Finally, yet another Chris-
tian Democrat, Hector Dada, was made foreign minister.
Because of the prestige of these civilian representatives,
the United States hailed the junta as the political center be-
tween the extremes of right and left and recognized the new
government almost immediately. Later, when these same ci-
vilians would resign from the junta to form the leadership of
the united opposition, the Democratic Revolutionary Front
(FDR), the United States would refer to them as Marxist-
Leninists, Communists, and the extreme left.
Despite the presence of the civilians, the government was
still largely under the control of the military, which had
representatives in both the junta itself and the cabinet. Yet,
at first the junta did seem to promise change. It outlawed
ORDEN and raised the minimum wage for farmworkers to
$4.50 a day.48It even began talking about land reform. How-
ever, such measures were strongly resisted by the oligarchy,
and their representatives in the government saw to it that
the reforms were delayed or otherwise diluted.
By December 1979, the outlawed ORDEN had resurfaced
under a new name: the Broad National Front. At its head
was a relatively young former army major named Roberto
D'Aubuisson whose looks and charisma were beginning to
gain him wide popularity in the more affluent neighbor-
hoods of San Salvador.49 D'Aubuisson would later be tied to
the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador
and then go on to became the major opposition candidate to
Jose Napoleon Duarte in the 1982 presidential election.
As the promised reforms failed to materialize and as the
death squads stepped up their activity, the level of protest
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
from the popular organizations increased as well. The gov-
ernment responded to this with violence. On December 18,
1979, members of the popular organizations were staging
strikes at three separate locations. In a massive show of
force, ground troops, tanks, and helicopters assaulted each
site, killing over thirty workers in all and wounding many
more. Clearly, the civilians in the government had been su-
perseded. In protest, Guillermo Ungo and Roman Mayorga
resigned from the junta. They were accompanied by Enrique
Alvarez Cordova and several other members of the cabinet.
With these resignations, the centrist credentials of the junta
began to fade.
50
One of the Christian Democrats who remained with the
government was Mario Zamora, the attorney general. In
February 1980, he was denounced as a subversive by Ro-
berto D' Aubuisson over Salvadoran television. A few days
later, armed assailants broke into his home in the midst of
a party, hauled him into his bathroom, and shot him in the
head.
51
In the absence of any arrests or even questioning of D'Au-
buisson, Hector Dada and Zamora's brother, Ruben, re-
signed from the junta. The Christian Democratic party had
been sharply divided over its continued support of the gov-
ernment. After the murder of Mario Zamora, Ruben Zamora
and the whole left wing of the Christian Democrats-20 per-
cent of the membership-left the party altogether.
52
In the same month, the Carter administration was prepar-
ing to send $5 million in military assistance to the Salva-
doran government. Archbishop Oscar Romero personally
called on President Carter not to send the aid as long as the
Salvadoran government persisted in its repression, but the
archbishop's plea was not heeded.
53
While the original civilian members of the government
were resigning en masse, the remaining members of the
Christian Democratic party got together and selected their
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
replacement for Hector Dada: Jose Napoleon Duarte. The
Carter administration was enormously relieved since it be-
lieved that Duarte, who had been deprived of the presidency
in the electoral fraud of 1972, would lend international cre-
dence to the centrist image the Carter administration was
desperately trying to attach to the Salvadoran government.
Under pressure from the United States, the Salvadoran
government finally announced a land reform program on
March 6, 1980. The problem was that the reform remained
largely on paper. The first phase of the program was to af-
fect the largest estates of over 1,235 acres, but most of those
had already been decomposed into separate holdings in an-
ticipation of just such a reform. The second phase, which
was to affect the medium-sized holdings, was never carried
out. The third phase was supposed to transfer holdings from
landlords to tenants. The problem here was that the land-
lords were forcing their tenants to renounce their claims to
the land or simply evicting them before their claims could
be filed. However, the greatest problem with the entire pro-
gram was that the military, which was supposed to be super-
vising it, was actually relying on it to expose the popular
leaders for elimination. For example, an article in the Wash-
ington Post described how the National Guard arrived at
one peasant cooperative with a list of leaders considered to
be subversives. After the guard killed twelve of them, the
160 families that made up the cooperative abandoned the
land in terror.
54
Amnesty International reported many other
such cases.
As Archbishop Romero pointed out, the reform had to
be "judged in the context of death and annihilation."55 On
Sunday, February 18, 1980, Archbishop Romero concluded
his sermon with the following appeal to the members of the
various Salvadoran security forces:
Brothers, each one of you is one of us. We are the same people.
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
The campesinos you kill are your own brothers and sisters.
When you hear the words of a man telling you to kill, remem-
ber instead the words of God, "Thou shalt not kill." God's law
must prevail. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary
to the law of God. It is time that you come to your senses and
obey your conscience rather than follow a sinful command.
The church, defender of the rights of God, the law of God,
and the dignity of each human being, cannot remain silent in
the presence of such abominations.
We should like the government to take seriously the fact
that reforms dyed by so much blood are worth nothing . ... In
the name of God, in the name of our tormented people who
have suffered so much and whose laments cry out to heaven,
I beseech you, I beg you, I order you, in the name of God, stop
the repression.
56
The next day, Archbishop Romero was shot to death while
saying mass.
57
The United States ambassador, Robert White,
was convinced that Roberto D' Aubuisson was behind the
slaying, but no charges were ever brought against him.
In April 1980, the various popular organizations united to
form the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR) under the
leadership of three men whom the United States had for-
merly identified with the moderate center: Guillermo Ungo,
the Social Democrat who had been Duarte's running mate
in 1972 and a civilian representative in the junta; Roman
Mayorga, the rector of the Central American University who
had also been a member of the junta; and Ruben Zamora,
the Christian Democrat who had been minister of the presi-
dency and whose brother had been gunned down in Febru-
ary. Subsequently, the FDR would unite with the finally
unified guerrilla movement, the Farabundo Marti National
Liberation Front (FMLN) to form the FDRlFMLN. From then
on, the United States would characterize this movement as
the Communist proxy of the Soviet Union from whom the
western hemisphere had to be made safe.
In November, Ronald Wilson Reagan was elected presi-
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
dent of the United States and Jose Napoleon Duarte was
appointed to be EI Salvador's first civilian president in over
fifty years. Later that month, the slain body of Enrique Al-
varez Cordova was found just outside San Salvador along
with those of four other leaders of the FDR. Alvarez, it will
be recalled, was the former minister of agriculture who, al-
though a large landowner himself, was strongly committed
to land reform. All of the bodies showed signs of torture.
Alvarez, for example, was missing an arm.58
On December 3, four American church women-Mary-
knoll Sisters Ita Ford and Maria Clarke, Ursuline Sister Dor-
othy Kazel, and lay volunteer Jeanne Donovan-were found
dead off a back road near Santiago Nonvalco. According to
a press release from the United States State Department,
"All four women had been shot in the head. The face of
one had been destroyed. The underwear of three was found
separately. "59
Such was the situation when Ronald Reagan assumed of-
fice in January 1981. A full-fledged civil war was under way
with the Salvadoran government adopting a strategy of mass
terror in order to suppress all support for the opposition.
During 1980 alone, over eight thousand noncombatants-
that is, innocent civilians, not guerrillas-had been killed by
the military and nonmilitary forces. During that year, the
survival of the Salvadoran government, what one United
States official referred to as a "genocidal nun-killing re-
gime," was bolstered by United States diplomatic efforts,
counterinsurgency training, and $69 million in military and
economic aid.
60
In February 1981, the death squads struck again. Among
others, three San Salvadoran school teachers and their
wives were shot to death in front of their children. Then
in March, the death squads murdered another thirty-four
civilians in Chalcuapa. Not only did they slaughter one fam-
ily in its entirety, they raped the two daughters and hacked

TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
off their breasts. In the same month, President Reagan an-
nounced that he would be sending El Salvador another $25
million in military aid on top of the $5 million that had
already been requisitioned by Jimmy Carter. This time, the
aid would include more lethal items such as helicopters,
ammunition, and guns.
61
In April, the Treasury Police went from house to house in
a working-class neighborhood of San Salvador searching for
subversives. This operation resulted in the murders of yet
another twenty-three civilians. Among the dead were eight
teenagers. To leave their mark, the police had severed one
young man's testicles and thrown them on top of his dead
body.62
In June, the Catholic Legal Aid Office in San Salvador
reported a year-to-date murder rate of 9,060 civilians-over
1,000 more than it had reported in ~ of 1980.
63
These were
just the murders that had been reported to the Catholic
church. There were undoubtedly many others in remote ar-
eas of El Salvador that had gone unreported. In over 90
percent of the cases where the perpetrators were known
(about 80 percent of the total), the perpetrators were either
the death squads or government security forces.
64
In July, the Treasury Police went through the rural village
of Los Hernandez, abducting anyone they considered to be
sympathetic to the guerrilla cause. Twenty-eight ' villagers
were later found dead, their throats slit and their bodies
mutilated by machetes. Two of the women's bodies showed
signs of rape. Later the same month, the army murdered
another 40 civilians in the small village of Armenia. In No-
vember 1981, there was another massacre perpetrated by
the army. This time, 200 people were left dead, mostly
women and children.
65
By the end of 1981, 13,353 civilians had been killed by the
death squads, the army or the security forces.
66
Although the
Reagan administration would later try to argue that these
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
murders were largely the work of right-wing extremists be-
yond the control of the government it was supporting, this
was manifestly untrue. In the first place, Americas Watch
reported that based on its study of the statistics compiled
by the Catholic Legal Aid Office, the army was responsible
for over 60 percent of the murders.67 In the second place,
the members of the security forces were often the same peo-
ple who, on their off hours, made up the membership of the
death squads.
During 1981, while the Salvadoran government was wag-
ing a genocidal campaign against its own people, the Reagan
administration was doing everything it could to keep that
government in power. The Reagan administration had un-
dertaken the training of Salvadoran troops. It had supplied
the weapons-the bullets, grenades, and helicopters-that
made the genocide possible. During 1981, the United States
directly supplied the Salvadoran government with $185 mil-
lion in military and economic aid. It had also used its lever-
age to pressure the International Monetary Fund, the World
Bank, and the Inter-American Development Agency to chan-
nel another $81 million to El Salvador. Thus, all told, the
Reagan administration had arranged for El Salvador to re-
ceive a total of $266 million in aid during 1981. At the time,
El Salvador was the second largest recipient of United
States aid after Israel,68
The Reagan administration intended to keep the aid flow-
ing and to increase it if possible. However, by the end of
1981, Congress had finally made the continuance of aid to El
Salvador contingent upon an improvement in the country's
human rights record. Accordingly, in order for President
Reagan to continue the aid, Congress required that he bian-
nually certify improvement in El Salvador' s human rights
situation. Only if Congress accepted the president's certifi-
cation could the money allocated for the next pe-
riod be released. Over the next two years, Reagan would
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
certify four times that the human rights situation in El Sal-
vador was improving, All four certifications would be ac-
cepted by Congress. The first certification was scheduled
for January 28, 1982. Thus would begin one of the most ap-
palling farces in modern United States history.
The Atlacatl battalion, which had been trained by United
States advisors in EI Salvador, had not performed well on
the battlefield. In fact, it had been routed by the guerrillas.
Consequently, the Reagan administration determined that
there was a need for more intensive training of Salvadoran
troops on American soil. So in January 1982, a whole battal-
ion of Salvadoran soldiers was brought to Fort Bragg, North
Carolina, for training. Simultaneously, another five hundred
Salvadoran soldiers were to receive office training at Fort
Benning, Georgia.
69
During the same month, both the New York Times and
the Washington Post carried reports about a major massacre
perpetrated by the Atlacatl battalion. The Atlacatl battalion
had evidently stormed the town of Mozote in Morazan prov-
ince early one morning shortly before Christmas. The villag-
ers were taken from their homes and shot. Over half of the
480 villagers killed were children. From there, the Atlacatl
battalion went on to the neighboring villages.
In La Capillo and Guacamaya, the soldiers wiped out en-
tire families, including both the very young and the very old.
In one home, they raped both a mother and her twelve-year-
old daughter before killing them. In Cerro Pando, the Atla-
catl battalion killed another 149 people, sparing neither in-
fants nor people seventy and eighty years old. Raymond
Bonner, who wrote the story for the New York Times, re-
ports being with the guerrillas shortly after the massacre.
Bonner says the guerrillas were in the process of compiling
a list of the names and ages of the people killed. At the time
Bonner spoke with them, the list already numbered 733
victims.
70
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
One day after this story broke, January 28, President
Reagan certified that the human rights situation in EI Salva-
dor was improving. The administration's argument was that
the staff of the Catholic Legal Aid Office was left wing and
that its statistics on murdered civilians were therefore bi-
ased against the government. According to the United States
Embassy in EI Salvador, only 5,407 civilians had been mur-
dered in 1981, not the 13,353 reported by the Legal Aid Of-
fice. But the United States Embassy obtained its statistics
from the Salvadoran newspapers, which tended to underes-
timate the deaths for two reasons. First, they tended to re-
port only the murders that took place in San Salvador and
the other large cities, while most of the murders were occur-
ring in the countryside. Second, the newspapers that were
in operation at this time were the most conservative and
tended to play down the government's offenses. The more
critical newspapers, including La Cronica del Pueblo and El
Independiente, had been closed by government decree since
January. In contrast with the Reagan administration, all of
the major human rights organizations from Amnesty Inter-
national to Americas Watch and the American Civil Liber-
ties Union accepted the validity of the Legal Aid Office's
statistics.
In March 1982, EI Salvador held an election for represen-
tatives to its Constituent Assembly. As in other parliamen-
tary systems, the party or coalition of parties with a
majority of members in the Assembly is entitled to appoint
the new president. The major contending parties in this elec-
tion were the PCN, which had long been tied to the oligar-
chy, ARENA, an ultra-right party led by the charismatic
killer Roberto D' Aubuisson, and what was left of the Chris-
tian Democratic party led by Jose Napoleon Duarte.
The Reagan administration clearly viewed the election as
an instrument to legitimate its role in EI Salvador. As long
as the balloting itself was done properly, the administra-
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
tion could declare that El Salvador was a fledgling democ-
racy under attack from totalitarian Communists. The ad-
ministration's hopes in this regard were more than ex-
ceeded as seven hundred United States journalists de-
scended on El Salvador to cover the elections. Edward
Herman and Frank Brodhead have pointed out that the mere
presence of so many journalists in itself made the election
a media event that signaled to the North American public
the occurrence of something momentous. In actuality, what
took place was what Herman and Brodhead refer to as a
demonstration election-that is, an election that gives the
appearance of democracy, particularly to the North Amer-
ican audience, but which lacks the substance of real de-
mocracy.71
We shall postpone a fuller analysis of this election until
Chapter 6 when we discuss the role of the media in these
events. We shall see in that chapter that a comparison of
this election with the one Nicaragua held in 1984 provides
almost experimental conditions for assessing the collusion
of the United States media with government policy. For now,
a few remarks may suffice to indicate how fraudulent this
election really was. First, the entire left was excluded from
participation. To participate, many of the stronger left par-
ties affiliated with the FDR would each have had to supply
the government with a list of names and addresses of three
thousand members. In the context of the right-wing terror-
ism in which the election took place, that would have obliged
the left to compile and submit a virtual death list for itself.
It must also be remembered that in 1980, five top political
leaders of the FDR had been dragged away from one of their
meetings and murdered with no charges ever brought
against their assailants. There was certainly no more guar-
antee now than there was in 1980 that campaigning leaders
of left parties would be protected from assassination. As it
was, even the Christian Democrats reported that six hun-
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
dred of their activists had been killed by security forces
during the campaign. A second consideration to bear in
mind is that it is difficult to hold a free election without a
free press, and the press at this time had been effectively
squashed. As previously mentioned, the two most critical
newspapers had already been closed down. Furthermore,
there was even censorship of the more conservative newspa-
pers, which were still in operation. Just two weeks before
the election, one of the death squads, the General Maximi-
liano Hernandez Martinez Brigade, issued a list of thirty-
five "pseudojournalists" it had "condemned to death" as
traitors to the country.72 Nevertheless, the election was
hailed by the United States press as the first legitimate one
in El Salvador's history.
Yet, the results of the election were inconclusive. The
Christian Democrats had obtained a plurality but not a ma-
jority. Had they formed a coalition, the various right-wing
parties could have comprised a majority of seats and ap-
pointed Roberto D'Aubuisson as president. However, the
Reagan administration made it very clear that further
United States aid would be jeopardized if the man whom
former United States Ambassador Robert White had called
a pathological killer were made president. Consequently, the
coalition was not formed and a runoff between Duarte and
D' Aubuisson was scheduled for 1984.
On July 27, 1982, President Reagan once again certified
that the human rights conditions in El Salvador had im-
proved. There had been 3,052 civilians murdered by the mili-
tary and paramilitary forces since the previous certification.
This time, the administration' s argument for certification
was that the number of political murders had dropped ove:t;
each of the previous two six-month periods. This was cer-
tainly true, but given the still appallingly high level of mur-
ders, the administration's argument was absurd. It was like
arguing that the Nazis would have shown an increased re-
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
gard for human rights had they just reduced by half the rate
at which they were exterminating the Jews. The administra-
tion's argument further failed to take into account that over
time there were just fewer people to kill. Continuing, sys-
tematic terrorism takes its toll. After a terroristic govern-
ment eliminates the original leadership of a popular
resistance, new leaders may arise, but after the new crop of
leaders are also killed, the rate of emergence of new leaders
will probably slow. That, after all, is the point of a terrorist
campaign. Therefore, a slowdown in a rate of political mur-
ders does not necessarily indicate that the government in
question has begun to reject terror as a political tool.
By the end of 1982, the Catholic archdiocese of San Salva-
dor had reported a yearly total of 5,397 murders of noncom-
batants attributable to the military and paramilitary forces.
Under increased criticism for not reporting abuses by the
guerrillas, the archdiocese had also been keeping a record
since June of civilian murders attributable to the guerrillas.
By the end of the year, they totaled 46.
73
The author Joan Didion visited El Salvador in 1982. Her
recorded impressions give a vivid sense of what life was like
there.
Terror is the given of the place. Black-and-white police cars
cruise in pairs, each with the barrel of a rifle extruding from
an open window. Roadblocks materialize at random, soldiers
fanning out from trucks and taking positions, fingers always
on triggers, safeties clicking on and off. Aim is taken as if to
pass the time. Every morning El Diario de Hoy and La Prensa
Grafica carry cautionary stories . ... A mother and her two
sons hacked to death in their beds by eight desconocidos, un-
known men. The same morning's paper: the unidentified body
of a young man, strangled, found on the shoulder of a road.
Same morning, different story: the unidentified bodies of three
young men, found on another road, their faces partially de-
stroyed by bayonets, one faced [sic] carved to represent a
c ross. 74
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
The dead and pieces of the dead turn up in El Salvador every-
where, every day, as taken for granted as in a nightmare or a
horror movie. Vultures of course suggest the presence of a
body. A knot of children on the street suggests the presence of
a body. Bodies turn up in the brush of vacant lots, in the
garbage thrown down ravines in the richest districts, in public
rest rooms, in bus stations. Some are dropped in Lake Llo-
pango, a few miles east of the city, and wash up near the
lakeside cottages and clubs frequented by what remains in
San Salvador of the sporting bourgeoisie.
75
In 1982 the Reagan administration arranged for a govern-
ment perpetrating such things to receive half a billion dol-
lars in aid. The United States itself directly supplied $303
million, $82 million of it military aid. Another $197 million
came, under United States pressure, from the Inter-Ameri-
can Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund,
and the World Bank.
76
On January 21, 1983, President
Reagan again certified before Congress that the human
rights situation in El Salvador had improved, and the United
States Congress once again accepted that certification.
When President Reagan devoted his State of the Union Ad-
dress of January 27, 1983, to Central America and when he
stood there and lied before Congress on national television
about the situation in El Salvador, the members of Congress
gave him repeated standing ovations.
By the end of President Reagan's first term in office in
1984 and into his second in 1985, a number of major changes
marked the struggle in El Salvador. Jose Napoleon Duarte
had been elected president in another fraudulent election,
this time with the apparently direct intervention of the
Reagan administration to prevent D' Aubuisson from win-
ning. The guerrillas controlled about one-third of the coun-
try and were establishing their own political institutions,
schools, and food production. In the United States, El Salva-
dor dropped almost completely out of the news as media
attention turned to the contra war in Nicaragua.
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
Although death-squad activity dropped markedly after
1984, it might be more appropriate to ~ that in this new
period the death squads took to the air. The reason is that
after 1984, the Salvadoran military began a concerted drive
to break the guerrillas' hold over the third of the country
under their control. The military's strategy was to bomb
the civilian population on which the guerrillas depend for
support, destroying their homes, their crops, and their lives.
The Salvadoran government was deliberately following
the Guatemalan strategy of catching the fish by draining
the sea.
To accomplish its objective, the Salvadoran military re-
lied on the following weapons supplied by the United States:
C-47 planes equipped with 50-caliber machine guns, capable
of firing 1,500 rounds a minute; A-37 planes carrying 200-,
500-, and 7S0-pound bombs; "push and pull" planes carrying
high-explosive rockets and white phosphorous bombs; and
Huey helicopters armed with rockets and machine guns.
77
Such weapons are incapable of discriminating combatants
from noncombatants, and, indeed, the guerrilla combatants
adopted tactics to neutralize the effects of these weapons on
themselves such as decomposing their forces into small
units. It was instead the civilian population that directly
suffered from the new assault.
With the onset of this operation, the number of displaced
persons in El Salvador increased by an estimated fifty thou-
sand to seventy thousand as homes and crops were de-
stroyed.
78
Americas Watch collected eye-witness testimonies
from dozens of displaced persons documenting the indis-
criminate bombing of civilians-women with hands missing,
children with phosphorous bums.
Ms. E. showed us burn scars on her back and face resulting
from a February 1984 bombing incident in Guazapa. The
bombs that caused her burns also killed her ll-year-old daugh-
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
ter and 16-year-old son, as well as another 2-year-old child. The
plane that dropped the fatal bomb dropped three bombs in all.
One of the other bombs killed a 24-year-old woman who was
seven months pregnant. The woman was split open horizon-
tally. She learned this from neighbors; she herself had been
knocked unconscious by the bomb that scarred her.79
On June 1 of the present year, 1984, a bombing started of the
Canton Platanares of the jurisdiction of Sucitoto, department
of Cuscatlan by the Salvadoran Air Force. It was about 5 A.M.
and my family and myself had not gotten up yet when it
started. We had to leave the house we live in and seek a refuge
in the bushes. The planes that day threw some six bombs just
near the place where I used to live. The planes which arrived
were "Gradillas" and one A-37. I could see four wounded peo-
ple. After the "Gradillas" had left, I came out and saw an old
man wounded in his head, arm and elbow; a woman 38 years
old with a wounded leg; a 30-year-old man with a wounded
arm and with his buttock blown off; a boy with a wound in
his right side; all of them wounded as a result of fragments
from the explosion of a bomb.
80
To date, the misery of EI Salvador continues. The guerril-
las are in firm control of about one-third of the country, but
beyond that the war appears to be in a stalemate. In late
1989, the guerrillas mounted their greatest offensive of the
war, occupying portions of the capital, San Salvador, for
days. The army bombed the poorer neighborhoods and
routed the guerrillas out of the more affluent districts. It
also unleashed a new wave of terror. In December, the mili-
tary, which had surrounded the Central American Univer-
sity, dragged off six Jesuit priests from their rectory and
shot out their brains. While Washington claimed to share
the world's outrage at the incident, it continues to support
the government responsible and to fund it at the rate of one
million dollars a day. As we in the United States go about
our daily business, as we pay our taxes and worry about
constitutional amendments to protect the American flag, we
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
are each of us simultaneously implicated in the terrorism
inflicted on the people of EI Salvador.
HOW THE UNITED STATES ACTS TO
MAINTAIN THE HUNGER-PRODUCING SOCIAL
STRUCTURE: THE CASE OF NICARAGUA
Just as the United States collaborated to deny democracy to
the people of Guatemala and EI Salvador, so has it denied
democracy to the people of Nicaragua. For over forty years
the presidency of Nicaragua was occupied by members of
the Somoza family, and during that time, the Somozas
amassed enormous wealth. By 1979 the Somoza family
owned almost 20 percent of the country's cultivated land
and the twenty-six largest of Nicaragua's industrial cor-
porations.
Throughout their reign, the Somozas were steadfast
friends of the United States. They allowed Nicaragua to be
used as a staging ground for the successful overthrow of the
Arbenz government of Guatemala and for the unsuccessful
Bay of Pigs invasion of Castro's Cuba. Anastasio Somoza III
liked to boast that his was the only government in the United
Nations whose vote the United States could always count
on.
The United States rewarded the Somozas with regular fi-
nancial and military aid. Over five thousand of the Somozas'
National Guardsmen received training at United States
schools of counterinsurgency. This National Guard was
nothing more than an arm of terrorist control. It is esti-
mated that even before the revolution that led to Anastasio
Somoza,'s overthrow, over thirty thousand Nicaraguans (ap-
proximately 1 percent of the total population) had been
killed for opposing the regime. The National Guardsmen
were particularly loyal to the Somozas because they were
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
amply rewarded for the terrorism they practiced. When they
killed innocent peasants or chased them from their land, the
Guardsmen frequently gained title to the land themselves.
According to one estimate, officers of the National Guard
owned as much as 10 percent of Nicaragua's arable land. In
addition, they had control over the lucrative prostitution
and gambling rackets that were a major feature of prerevo-
lutionary Nicaragua.
81
With the successful Sandinista revolution in 1979, the
people of Nicaragua finally broke out of the genocidal social
structure that the United States had imposed on them. The
United States was enormously displeased about this, and
under the Reagan administration, it did everything that it
was politically possible to do to topple the Sandinistas and
reverse the course of events. To make its outright terrorist
aggression against Nicaragua politically possible, the
Reagan administration had to vilify the Sandinistas in the
most exaggerated terms and to brand them as totalitarian
Communists. In a televised speech on May 9, 1984, Reagan
denounced Sandinista rule as "a communist reign of ter-
ror."82 On July 18, 1984, he said that the Nicaraguan people
"are trapped in a totalitarian dungeon worse than the So-
moza dictatorship."83
For Sandinista rule to have been worse for the people of
Nicaragua than the Somoza regime, it would have had to
have been pretty bad indeed. The Sandinistas would not only
have to have been subjecting the Nicaraguan people to the
miseries of mass hunger, they would also have to have been
"disappearing," torturing, and murdering the population by
the thousands. President Reagan indeed maintained that
this was going on. In one of the wildest lies of his May 9
speech, the president said:
There has been an attempt to wipe out an entire culture, the
Miskito Indians, thousands of whom have been slaughtered
TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
or herded into detention camps where they have been starved
and abused. Their villages, churches and crops have been
burned.
84
If this was not simply an outright lie, the president must
have confused Nicaragua with El Salvador or Guatemala. In
any event, Americas Watch told a different story.
It is completely untrue that "thousands . .. have been slaugh-
tered"; even the U.S. State Department's Country Reports fails
to make such a serious allegation. Indeed, a week after the
president's speech, the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights (IACHR) of the OAS released a long-awaited report on
the situation of the Miskitos that indicated only one incident,
on December 23, 1981, when Miskito prisoners were killed by
Sandinista guards in Leimus, near the Honduran border . ...
The IACHR found this one incident of noncombatant kill-
ing. Americas Watch has learned of one other case, in Walpa
Siksa in 1982. There, seven young Miskitos were killed by
Sandinista soldiers, who were later severely punished by their
officers. These episodes are indeed serious and merit condem-
nation. But they fall far short of the "thousands" that have
been "slaughtered" according to the president.
8s
Reagan pulled out all the stops in a televised speech on
March 16, 1986, as part of a renewal effort to get a further
$100 million in aid for the counterrevolutionary army
known as "contras," which his administration had created
to topple the Sandinista government. In a stunning litany of
long-refuted claims and outright lies, Reagan accused the
Sandinistas of every imaginable evil under the sun, from
drug trafficking and persecution of the nation's Jews to the
outside subversion of Brazil. But, three days later (March
19), the headlines in the New York Times belied Reagan's
claims: "Drug Agency Rebuts Reagan Charge," "Brazil Sur-
prised to Be on Reagan's List," "Rabbi Disputes Reagan
Point About the Jews in Nicaragua."
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TWO FACES OF G E ~ O I D E
Unfortunately, when the president of the United States
utters such outrageous lies so forcefully and so often, the
press and even opponents in government feel compelled to
concede at least some ground. It is offensive to Americans
to accuse the president of actually lying, and I imagine that
some readers are offended that I do so here. Yet it is pre-
cisely this reluctance to call a lie a lie when it comes from
the president that allowed so many of our president's distor-
tions to go unchallenged. And so in the case of Nicaragua
the president's framing of the issue became accepted with
the Sandinistas regarded as some kind of outlaw regime.
The president's liberal opponents disagreed only on the tac-
tics of eliminating them. As a consequence, it was very diffi-
cult for most Americans to accept how totally different the
actual situation in Nicaragua really was.
When the Sandinistas came into power, one of their first
actions was to implement a land reform program, which
benefited over forty thousand formerly landless families. As
a result, there was subsequently a dramatic increase in the
production of basic food crops. Compared with 1977 figures,
by 1982 corn production had risen by 10 percent and bean
production by 45 percent. Food consumption in turn also
rose. In particular, there was a 30 percent increase in na-
tional corn consumption since 1978, a 40 percent increase
in bean consumption, and a 30 percent increase in rice con-
sumption. Putting the point most dramatically, by 1982 Nic-
aragua had become self-sufficient in food production!86 All
of these gains were subsequently lost with the escalation of
the contra war and the Reagan administration' s enactment
of a devastating economic embargo on Nicaragua.
In addition to the land reform program, the Sandinistas
almost immediately launched a major literacy campaign,
which earned them the annual education award of the
United Nations Educational Social and Cultural Organiza-
tion (UNESCO).87 The literacy campaign began with the 80-
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
member Patria Libre Brigade, which trained 560 teachers.
Those 560 teachers in turn trained another 7,000 teachers.
By the time this snowball process was finished, there were
95,000 "alphabetizers," 60,000 of whom went out into the
countryside to teach the peasants to read. Between March
and August 1980, peasants throughout the country were
spending two hours each night with reading teachers. As a
result of this campaign, Nicaragua's illiteracy rate dropped
from 52 percent to 13 percent.
88
Adult education classes
were established to help peasants retain what they learned.
When supporters of the Reagan administration mentioned
the literacy campaign at all, they tended to impugn its suc-
cess.
89
But what does it say about the Sandinistas that they
would even undertake such a mammoth effort while the gov-
ernments of Guatemala and El Salvador murder those who
try to do the same thing on their own? In labeling Nicaragua
a totalitarian dungeon, President Reagan adopted an Orwell-
ian doublespeak where up is down and freedom is slavery.
There was yet a third Sandinista accomplishment that
needs to be recognized. As a 1982 article in the New England
Journal of Medicine recounted, the Sandinistas greatly ex-
tended health care facilities, making them accessible to an
estimated 70 percent of the population. Formerly, access to
regular health care was available to only about 28 percent
of the population. For example, oral dehydration centers
were set up all over the country to combat the often fatal
danger of diarrhea to young children. At first, the health
care program was combined with the literacy campaign, the
reading texts providing hints on health maintenance. Then
in 1981, eighty thousand volunteers were organized to dis-
tribute antimalarial drugs to some 75 percent of the popula-
tion. According to the regular monthly statistics, the effect
of this campaign was a 98 percent drop in new cases of
malaria. The antimalarial effort was then followed up in
1982 with the dissemination of five hundred thousand doses
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
of polio vaccine.
90
Again, many of these gains were subse-
quently lost, partly because of the deliberate targeting of
clinics and health workers by the contras and partly because
of the growing need of the Sandinista government to divert
funds from these allocations to the military effort.
These various programs, however, certainly paint a dif-
ferent picture of Sandinista rule from what President
Reagan presented. Yet with the collusion of Congress, the
Reagan administration worked for seven years to topple the
Sandinistas from power. It had in a sense worked to plunge
the people of Nicaragua back into the misery from which
they had managed to escape. It had, moreover, set out to do
this through the organization and funding of a mercenary
army led by former members of the Somozas' National
Guard.
President Reagan's "overt covert war" as it came to be
called generated some embarrassing controversies within
the United States. First, in 1984, news leaked out that the
CIA had bombed Nicaragua's oil reserves in the port city of
Corinto and then had mined Nicaragua's harbors, damaging
French and Soviet trading vessels. (In response to this viola-
tion of international law, France offered to sweep the har-
bors free of the mines itself.) Then, in 1985, wide press
coverage was given to the fact that the CIA had been circulat-
ing training manuals among the contras, advising them on
how to kidnap, murder, and otherwise "neutralize" local
Nicaraguan leaders. Although Congress professed to be out-
raged by this disclosure, many Congressional leaders were
evidently less outraged about the action itself than about
not having been informed of it in advance. An embarrassed
Congress limited the next year's appropriations to the con-
tras to $27 million and took the funding operation out of the
hands of the CIA.
For its part, Nicaragua brought a suit against the United
States before the World Court, causing the United States
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
even further embarrassment. The Reagan administration
tried to maintain that the case was beyond the World
Court's jurisdiction, but the court voted nine to two in favor
of hearing the case. The Reagan administration's reaction
was to boycott the World Court, arguing that it merely pre-
sented a platform for Nicaraguan propaganda. Amid news
editorials that the United States had run from the judge, the
case before the World Court was conducted with the United
States in absentia. In 1986, the World Court returned its
verdict, deciding against the United States, but the decision
was virtually ignored by both the U.S. government and the
media.
President Reagan repeatedly referred to the contras as
"freedom fighters" comparable with our own founding fa-
thers. For example, on March 1, 1985, he addressed the Con-
servative Political Action Conference in the following terms.
These freedom fighters are our brothers and we owe them our
help. You know the truth about them, you know who they are
fighting and why. They are the moral equal of our Founding
Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resis-
tance. We cannot turn away from them. For the struggle here
is not right versus left, but right versus wrong.
91
President Reagan was a moving speaker, but the real
truth about the "freedom fighters" was that they were noth-
ing but terrorists. They lacked the ability to match the San-
dinista army on the battlefield and so they preyed on
undefended villagers. The cost in Nicaraguan lives was very
high. With a total population of only three million, the con-
tra war left an estimated thirty thousand Nicaraguans dead,
fifty thousand wounded, and three hundred thousand
homeless.
92
Contra atrocities were systematic and very well docu-
mented. It was the concerted policy of the contras to under-
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
mine support for the Sandinistas by terrorizing the rural
population and by negating the various Sandinista advances
through the deliberate targeting of those civilians attempt-
ing to implement them: literacy teachers, religious leaders,
health care workers, and cooperative farmers. Many of these
attacks were brutally reminiscent of the tactics of the Salva-
doran security forces. Young men were kidnapped, tortured,
and killed or tortured and killed on the spot. Young women
were raped and mutilated in front of their parents or hus-
bands. The following testimony from Sister Sandra Price,
an American nun working in northern Nicaragua, is typical.
The other sister, who's a campesina herself and a native of
that locality, is raising a little boy who was brought to us as
a survivor of a massacre of a family by the contras on Novem-
ber 20, 1984. This happened in Cope rna. The contras came to
the house and killed the dad and mom, killed the little boy's
young uncle, the uncle's bride, and a four-year-old boy . ... I
have the story from a twelve-year-old girl who survived along
with the little boy and another little brother of hers, eight
years old. The contras came one night and machine-gunned
the house. There were six children in the house with their
parents, sleeping. One bullet killed a little boy in bed. Another
hit the legs of the dad and also of the other little boy, the eight
year old. Another bullet wounded the mom in the head. Then
the contras came into the house and dragged the dad and
uncle outside . ... Then they shot them-four shots. The first
killed the young uncle. The dad was wounded again, then they
cut his throat. Then they came back into the house.
93
One of the most extensive lists of contra atrocities was
compiled by Reed Brody, former attorney general of the
state of New York, and independently confirmed by the
church-based Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).
The Brody report was released jointly by WOLA and the
International Human Rights Law Group in 1985. As Con-
gressman Sam Gejdenson (D, Connecticut) observes below
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
after having read it, the report clearly belied Reagan' s claim
that the contras were freedom fighters and showed them
instead to be an instrument of mass terror:
What economic objective or military gain is there to be had
in killing a five year old child, or in raping a grandmother?
What military objective can be found in slaughtering a young
bride in front of her parents, or in burning the home of a
coffee picker, or in slitting the throat of an old man? The only
achievement is that of imposing a climate of total fear. And
therein lies the contra's objective: to blanket the population
in fear.
The most disturbing thing in all of this is that these acts of
brutality cannot be simply attributed to the errant bdhavior
of a few renegade contras. It appears to be the conscious policy
of the contra leadership and it permeates the whole force.
Disregard for internationally accepted standards of conduct
regarding the treatment of civilians in conflict appears to be
systematic.
94
The Reagan policy finally succeeded under the steward-
ship of George Bush, Reagan's successor. Nine years of war
and the economic embargo had taken their toll. In an inter-
nationally supervised and widely covered election held on
February 25, 1990, the Sandinistas were voted out of office
in favor of a coalition of fourteen opposition parties led by
Violeta Chamorro, the editor of the opposition newspaper
La Prensa.
The United States had never expected the contras to de-
feat the Sandinistas militarily, and they never did. Instead,
the expectation and hope was that the demands of the war
would prove costly enough to undermine the Sandinistas'
popular support. That did happen. An earlier election had
been held in Nicaragua in 1984. Although it too was interna-
tionally supervised, the climate in the United States at that
time was such that it received little media attention. In that
election, the Sandinistas won 65 percent of the vote, proving
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
that they had the overwhelming support of the people.
Much, however, had changed by 1990.
Loans from international lending agencies had been effec-
tively cut off by u.s. pressure. The economic embargo the
Reagan administration imposed in 1985 eliminated Nicara-
gua's traditional export market in the United States and its
access to American-made parts and goods. Nicaragua was
consequently without many necessary items for production
and consumption with devastating effects on its economy.
Finally, as the war continued, more and more resources had
to be diverted from its literacy and health campaigns to the
military, which soon absorbed 60 percent of the national
budget, a budget that in a poor country like Nicaragua was
not very large to begin with.
By 1990, the economy was in shambles. Unemployment
soared, chronic hunger and malnutrition returned, and the
infant mortality rate was again on the rise. Consumer goods
were in short supply, leading to over 10,000 percent inflation
and the eventual worthlessness of the currency. With infla-
tion came the black market and corruption. And looming
over all these problems was the constant spectre of the con-
tras and an increasingly unpopular draft. No incumbent gov-
ernment could expect to survive an election in such
circumstances.
In contrast, the Chamorro coalition could at least promise
release from the torment. Given the express U.s. interest in
and financial support for it, a Chamorro victory could be
expected to bring the end of the contra war, the lifting of
the embargo, international loans, and perhaps the same kind
of financial support for Nicaragua that the United States
had extended to Granada and Panama after they too had
been bent to its will. Accordingly, the weary and increas-
ingly disaffected Nicaraguan people finally surrendered,
giving 55 percent of their vote to Chamorro and only 41
percent to the Sandinistas.
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TWO FACES OF GENOCIDE
In the United States, the Chamorro victory was hailed as a
great foreign policy success, and success-minded Americans
think little about how that success was achieved. The exten-
sive media coverage given the 1990 election and the neglect
of the one in 1984 seemed to vindicate the claim of the U.S.
government that the Sandinistas had been unpopular all
along, that the contras were in fact the freedom fighters
Reagan said they were.
The real victory in Nicaragua was the victory of American
power, the power to crush, the power to wear down, and the
power to make it all seem right. The defeat was not just of
the Nicaraguan people. The Sandinista defeat was a signal
to oppressed people everywhere that overthrowing their in-
digenous despots is not the end of the story, that after that
they must face years of further torment by the United
States. The third world's poor now will shrink from that
prospect. They will remain quiet. They will not disturb us.
We will forget they are there.
The end the United States pursued-the destruction of
the first humane government Nicaragua ever had-was un-
worthy, but even had it not been, it could never justify the
means used to achieve it. For nine years the U.S.-sponsored
contra guerrillas carried out a policy of indiscriminate ter-
ror against the Nicaraguan people, resulting in the loss of
thirty thousand lives-almost 1 percent of the Nicaraguan
population. For nine years, this is something we, the people
of the United States, allowed to transpire.
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5 Has the United States
Become a Party to
Genocide? To a
Holocaust-like Event?
Are the atrocities the United States has been sponsoring in
Central America genocidal? Can we legitimately refer to
those atrocities and to the complicity of the United States
public in them as a Holocaust-like event? What is genocide?
What would count as a Holocaust-like event? These are the
questions we shall address in this chapter.
The words genocide and Holocaust both originated with
the reaction to the Nazis' wholesale attempt to destroy the
Jewish people during World War II. The word Holocaust,
which literally means burnt offering, gained currency in the
late 1950s.
1
It was coined by Jews to label a uniquely mo-
mentous event in Jewish history. As its literal meaning indi-
cates, the word Holocaust originally carried theological
overtones. It conveyed the unfathomable mystery of God' s
allowing his chosen people to face complete annihilation.
Although Holocaust still does carry that theological conno-
tation for certain religious Jews, the word has subsequently
become for both Jews and non-Jews and for both the reli-
gious and the nonreligious the most common designation
for what the world allowed the Nazis to do to the Jews. As
such, the word Holocaust still generally designates a singu-
lar event.
The word genocide was coined by Raphael Lemkin in his
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, which he wrote in 1944.
Lemkin derived the word from the Greek genos, meaning
tribe or race, and from the Latin cide, meaning to kilP Thus,
literally, genocide means to destroy a people as an organized
social totality. In Lemkin's original use of the term and in
the use later formally adopted by the United Nations, geno-
cide does not necessarily mean the complete physical annihi-
lation of all the members of a group. It is sufficient that the
peoplehood of the group be destroyed. According to Lemkin,
this is generally effected through a coordinated assault on
the various social, political, and cultural dimensions that
make for a stable social group. That may involve, among
other things, the killing or removal of the group's intelligent-
sia and spiritual leaders, the elimination of its institutions
of self-government, and the destruction and supplantation
of the group's cultural heritage.
Soon after Lemkin's book appeared and largely through
Lemkin's efforts, the United Nations General Assembly de-
clared genocide to be a crime under international law. Ac-
cording to the U.N. resolution, "Genocide is a denial of the
right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is a
denial of the right of existence of individual human beings."3
The resolution went on to call for the drafting of an official
U.N. statement or convention on the subject of genocide.
After much heated discussion and politicking, a draft of the
statement was finally approved on December 9, 1948, by a
unanimous vote of the fifty-six participants.
4
Ironically, al-
though the U.S. delegation was very active in the work of
drafting the statement, it was not until 1985 during Ronald
Reagan's second term in office that the U.S. Senate approved
our joining the ninety other nations that have now ratified
the convention.
The official U.N. definition of genocide is contained in
Article II of the Genocide Convention and reads as follows:
CopyrightJ8'Material
HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the follow-
ing acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the
group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calcu-
lated to bring about physical destruction in whole or in
part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the
group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another
group.5
THE FLAW IN THE U.N. GENOCIDE CONVENTION
According to the U.N. definition, genocide involves three dis-
tinct elements. First, although it is not strictly necessary,
the most clearcut cases of genocide involve mass killing.
Second, the killing must be directed at a national, ethnic,
racial, or religious group. As previously mentioned, it is not
required that the group be threatened with annihilation. It
is sufficient that just a significant part of the group be killed
as long as the killing of that part threatens the peoplehood
of the group. Again, this takes note of the fact that a reli-
gious group, for example, might be threatened with annihila-
tion if the leaders, scholars, teachers, and other transmitters
of the religion are all killed. The third element of genocide
involves intent. There must be an intent by the perpetrators
to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as
such. It follows that according to the U.N. definition, mass
murder by itself is not genocide. Neither is it genocide if
there is only mass murder directed at a national, ethnic,
racial, or religious group, which may even threaten to de-
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
stroy the group, as long as there is no intent to commit geno-
cide. The intent to commit genocide is not simply the intent
to destroy a group of one of the specified types. The 'intent
must be the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or
religious group "as such." This is a subtle distinction, but an
example may make it clear. Suppose that a religious group is
also a political group-a political group, moreover, that is
strongly opposed to the prevailing government. Suppose as
well that the government attempts to deal with this opposi-
tion by destroying the group through mass murder. Now if
the government intends to destroy the religious group on
the grounds that it is a religious group, then that is genocide
because the government intends to destroy the religious
group as such. On the other hand, if the government intends
to destroy the group not as a religious group but as a politi-
cal group, then that is not genocide because the government
is not attempting to destroy a religious group as such. It is
attempting to destroy a political group as such, but political,
social, and economic groups are not protected by the Geno-
cide Convention. In short, if a group is wiped out on reli-
gious grounds, it is genocide; if the same group is wiped out
on political grounds, it is not genocide.
To see some of the difficulties this distinction raises, let
us consider for a moment the debate that was waged over
whether or not the United States was guilty of genocide in
Vietnam. In a paper presented before the International War
Crimes Tribunal, held in Denmark in 1967 under the spon-
sorship of Bertrand Russell's Peace Foundation, the French
philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre argued that the U.S. actions
were indeed genocida1.
6
While Sartre's discussion was com-
plex, his strongest line of argument can be briefly summa-
rized. According to Sartre, by late 1965, the U.S. government
had embarked on a policy of destroying the political power
of the Viet Cong guerrillas by separating them from the Viet-
namese people. When the initial tactic of winning the loyalty
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
of the people through peaceful pacification failed, the
United States then tried to destroy the Viet Cong's civilian
support base by a policy of wholesale destruction of at least
a significant part of the rural Vietnamese population. Ac-
cordingly, the United States adopted the tactics of defolia-
tion, free-fire zones, saturation bombing, and search and
destroy missions, all designed to destroy lives, villages, live-
stock, and ultimately social organization.
7
It has often been
noted in this regard that the number of bombs the United
States dropped on Vietnam was more than the combined
number dropped by both sides in World War II. Moreover,
unlike most of the bombing raids made during World War
II, the bombing raids over Vietnam did not distinguish civil-
ian from noncivilian targets. Indeed, if the point was to de-
stroy the civilian support base of the Viet Cong guerrillas,
then the civilians themselves were the target. Thus, Sartre
concluded, the United States had finally adopted a policy of
genocide as a means of winning the war.
In an article written in 1973 entitled "Genocide in Viet-
nam?" the American philosopher Hugo Adam Bedau ana-
lyzes Sartre's argument from a legal perspective.
8
He
concludes, I believe correctly, that according to the defini-
tion stipulated in the U.N. Genocide Convention, the United
States was probably not guilty of genocide. Bedau is cer-
tainly no apologist for the U.S. actions in Vietnam, which he
condemns, so his argument is interesting. Actually, Bedau
concedes quite a bit of ground to Sartre. He concedes that
"many of the acts in question were acts of the sort enumer-
ated in and prohibited in Article II of the Genocide Conven-
tion, and so in that sense were genocidal acts." He also
concedes that "the acts, of course, did destroy the group
in part." "But," he says, "that does not prove the point in
contention. "9
If, as we have seen, the issue of genocide in Vietnam were
,
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
simply the issue whether the United States military forces
have killed thousands of innocent Indochinese peasants, there
would be nothing to discuss. If the issue were simply whether
this killing, in its mode and circumstances, evidences a reck
less and dangerous disregard for the life and limb of the inno-
cent, in the pursuit of objectives which do no honor to those
in our government who sought them, there would be, again,
nothing to discuss. But, as we have also seen, what is chiefly
at issue is the intention with which these things have been
done, and whether that intention coincides with the require-
ments of genocidal intention under the Genocide Con-
vention.
10
Bedau goes on to argue that the United States did not
commit genocide in Vietnam b e c ~ s e its actions were not
motivated by the intent to commit genocide.
In any case, the genocide-like acts were not genocidal, because
they were not done with the intention of killing any part of
the people of South Vietnam 'as such. " These acts were done
with the intention of killing people who were simply in the
way, simply there, because, in the judgment of field officers,
they might at a later point prove to be Viet Cong or because
they were in a zone or area of South Vietnam where one could
not be sure that any of the natives were loyal to the Saigon
government. Finally, the people who were killed, wounded,
and caused to become refugees were not caused to become
these things in order to destroy the people, as such."
The crucial phrase in Bedau's argument is "as such."
What he is saying is that the United States did not intend to
destroy a part of the Vietnamese people as such, that is,
as a national group. It intended to destroy a part of the
Vietnamese people only as a political group. And that is suf-
ficient to reject the charge of genocide according to the defi-
nition contained in the U.N. Genocide Convention. The
United States gets off, as it were, on a technicality.
While Americans may be wont to take comfort in this
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
ruling, it does not place them in very good company. Con-
sider some of the other cases that also escape the label of
genocide on the same technicality. According to the U.N.
definition, Stalin's wholesale elimination of some fifteen
million Soviet citizens does not count as genocide. The peo-
ple killed were not targeted for extermination because of
their race or ethnicity but because of their political opposi-
tion to the Soviet regime. Even though certain ethnic minori-
ties were highly over-represented among the victims of this
extermination, it still was not genocide because the Soviet
government did not intend to destroy in whole or in part
those ethnic minorities as such.12 For similar reasons, the
slaughter of over a quarter of a million Communists and
alleged Communist sympathizers by the Indonesian army in
1966 was not genocide either.13 For that matter, neither can
the label of genocide be applied to the killing of any but a
minority of the millions of victims wiped out by the Pol Pot
regime in Cambodia.
14
Some people will say that all of this is as it should be,
that although these are all cases of terrible mass murder,
they should not count as genocide on the grounds that the
meaning of the term will be diluted if it is extended to in-
clude political groups. To people who feel this way, I raise
the following question: Are the cases of mass murder cited
above at least the moral equivalent of genocide as currently
defined by the United Nations?
If the answer is no, then it needs to be explained why mass
murder motivated by national, ethnic, racial, or religious
considerations is morally worse than mass murder moti-
vated by political considerations. One argument I have
heard is that a person can change his or her politics and
thereby escape destruction, but there is nothing anyone can
do to change his or her race or ethnicity. The assumption
here seems to be that it is morally worse to murder people
for a quality they cannot change than to murder them for a
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
quality they can change. This focus on the victims, however,
is misplaced. The moral focus should be on the perpetrators.
The perpetrators have no more right to murder people for
a quality they can change than to murder people for a qual-
ity they cannot change. On the level of an individual homi-
cide, suppose Smith murders Gonzalez because he does not
like his ethnicity and later also murders Jones because he
does not like his politics. Is Smith's murder of Jones less
criminal or less immoral than Smith's murder of Gonzalez
simply because Jones could change his politics whereas
Gonzalez could not change his ethnicity? Whatever differ-
ences there may be between the two cases, they pale in sig-
nificance before the brute fact that both are murders. The
same is true on the level of mass murder. Whatever moral
differences there may be between politically and ethnically
motivated mass murder-and I do not concede that there
even is such a difference-that difference pales before the
brute fact that both are cases of mass murder. It is not even
true, I might add, that in politically motivated mass murder,
individuals can escape death by changing their politics. In
Vietnam, individual peasants were not asked what their poli-
tics were before being bombed with napalm. If they were in
a certain area, they were simply presumed to have the wrong
politics. And that is the way it has been in Central America
from Guatemala to El Salvador to Nicaragua.
Alternatively, someone might answer my original ques-
tion by saying, "Admittedly, any kind of mass murder is
morally equivalent to genocide, but a distinction should still
be maintained between genocidal and nongenocidal mass
murder." Two arguments might be made in behalf of this
position, one conceptual and one causal. Let us take the con-
ceptual argument first. It might be argued that there are a
lot of different equally immoral acts, but that does not mean
that we should call them all by the same name. To do that
just blurs our categories and dilutes the term genocide.
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
My question with regard to this argument is, What quality
is it about genocide that is in danger of being diluted by
extending the term to the destruction of political groups? It
cannot be the moral gravity of the term because it is now
being conceded that genocidal and nongenocidal mass mur-
der are morally equivalent. I suppose it might be argued
that what is diluted is the precision of the term. However,
precision is always a matter of degree and relative to the
purposes at hand. For example, it might just as well be ar-
gued that murder is not precise enough a term for the
crimes it labels and that we should accordingly replace it
with a whole set of new words. To illustrate, we might have
one word for an illegal killing where the killer kills in order
to obtain money, another word for an illegal killing where
the killer kills in order to eliminate a love rival, and so on.
We could very well end up with a thousand different words
for illegal killing instead of the less precise word murder.
Now although each of these separate words would be more
precise than the single word murder, no one would seriously
entertain the thought of such a replacement, because it
serves no purpose and in fact would do harm. We intend
to treat all of these cases the same way. Despite whatever
differences in motivation there may be, by calling them all
murder, we affirm that in the primary respect in which
these cases are of moral significance to us, they are the
same. Although within the category of murder, we distin-
guish murders of the first, second, and third degree to sepa-
rate degrees of moral gravity, these degrees are assigned not
on the basis of the killer' s particular intention but on the
basis of how fully developed and voluntary that intention
was. We distinguish premeditated murder from a murder of
passion not because the motives are different, although they
often are, but because the level of deliberation is different.
Replacing the word murder by a thousand other words
would do positive harm because people would have to be
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
aware of a thousand different words for what used to be
called murder and keep in mind, moreover, that they all
carry the same moral weight. The problem would be com-
pounded if, instead of throwing out the familiar word mur-
der altogether, it were reserved for just one of the thousand
cases, say the illegal killing of white, Anglo-Saxon Protes-
tants. In such case, it would be quite understandable if most
people were to believe, regardless of the official position,
that somehow the illegal killing of white Anglo-Saxon Prot-
estants was being assigned greater moral gravity than the
other cases of illegal killing. Thus, precision for precision's
sake is no virtue and, contrary to popular belief, further
precision is seldom pursued without purpose.
To press the point further, how many people know that
neither Eichmann nor any of the Nazi war criminals tried
at Nuremburg was charged with the crime of genocide? In-
stead, they were all charged with "crimes against human-
ity," which, according to the U.N. definition, does include
the destruction of political groups}S According to the U.N.
definition, crimes against humanity include "murder, exter-
mination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts
done against any civilian population, or persecutions on po-
litical, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done
or such persecutions are carried out in execution of or in
connection with any crime against peace or any war
crime."16 All of the cases of mass murder cited earlier would
fit this definition, including the conduct of the Vietnam war
by the United States. Thus, the notion of crimes against hu-
manity places the leaders of the United States during the
Vietnam war in the same company as Eichmann and the
other Nazi war criminals. But how many people know this?
Most people who know of the word genocide have never
heard of the term "crimes against humanity." And many of
those who have heard of both terms do not consider crimes
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
against humanity to be morally equivalent to genocide.
As it happens, genocide is the label that has gained cur-
rency as the designation for crimes like those committed by
Eichmann and the other Nazi war criminals. As such, it is
almost universally recognized as the ultimate crime. In this
context, any crime that is not genocide is regarded-rightly,
I believe-as less than genocide. Therefore, as a purely prac-
tical matter, we cannot make a distinction between geno-
cidal and nongenocidal mass murder and still have the two
regarded as morally equivalent. After the Holocaust, what-
ever is labeled nongenocidal mass murder will necessarily
receive less moral weight than mass murder that is consid-
ered to be genocidal. If it really is conceded that the two
varieties of mass murder are morally equivalent, then a dis-
tinction that serves no purpose but to lower the moral con-
cern for the victims of the one variety only delivers those
victims a further injustice.
This leads us, finally, to the causal argument for main-
taining a distinction between genocidal and nongenocidal
mass murder. It might be argued that despite the moral
equivalence of the two, genocidal and nongenocidal mass
murder have different causes, so for the purposes of social
scientific analysis, the distinction should be maintained.
This argument is without foundation, particularly given the
moral reasons for not making a distinction. Sociologists
have studied all kinds of behaviors and in particular crimi-
nal behaviors from rape, vandalism, and white-collar crime
to murder. If there is one thing we have found out, it is that
there is no one causal process that explains any of these
behaviors. Each may be elicited as the product of a myriad
different causes. That has never prompted sociologists who
study murder, for example, to reject the term murder and
adopt instead an array of other labels to identify the differ-
ent causal processes involved. At most, sociologists might

HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
give different prefixes to the phenomena they are studying
to indicate a causal typology. For example, one of the found-
ers of sociology, Emile Durkheim, believed that suicide had
four different causes. He did not therefore invent four new
terms to replace suicide. Instead, in his classic study Sui-
cide, he identified these different causes by referring to four
different types of suicide: egoistic suicide, altruistic suicide,
anomic suicide, and fatalistic suicide. Similarly, this is just
what Helen Fein, the author of Accounting for Genocide,
does in an article entitled "Scenarios of Genocide: Models
of Genocide and Cultural Responses." In that article, she
develops a typology that includes such categories as "devel-
opmental genocides," "despotic genocides," "retributive
genocides," and "ideological genocides.'1l7
In summary, the destruction of political, social, and eco-
nomic groups belongs together conceptually with the de-
struction of religious, ethnic, national, or racial groups and
therefore ought to be included under the label genocide. Ac-
tually, the original U.N. resolution in 1946 did include the
destruction of political groups within the compass of geno-
cide. It was the Soviets who voiced the most forceful objec-
tion.
ls
The Soviets argued that etymologically genocide is
linked to the type of racism practiced by the Nazis. Thus,
according to the Soviets, it would seriously weaken or dilute
the term genocide to extend its usage beyond the objective
characteristics of race and ethnicity. However, the Soviets'
etymological argument rests on shaky foundations. Etymo-
logically, the word genocide only goes back to Lemkin, who
coined it, and he used the term more broadly. Thus, on ety-
mological grounds, a more inclusive definition is warranted.
The Soviets' argument was more likely motivated by politi-
cal rather than conceptual considerations. As we have seen,
had the destruction of political groups been included in the
U.N. definition of genocide, the Soviets too would have been
found guilty of the crime. The French delegation took the
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
opposite position, noting that "whereas in the past crimes
of genocide had been committed on racial or religious
grounds, it was clear that in the future they would be com-
mitted mainly on political grounds."19 Interestingly, the u.s.
delegation concurred, but in the interests of reaching a con-
sensus, it was willing to compromise. Thus, the original ref-
erence to political groups was left out of the final statement
of the U.N. Genocide Convention.
20
We are faced with two options. We can accept the U.N.
definition of genocide as definitive and decline to call the
mass murder of political groups genocide, or we can recog-
nize that the final U.N. definition was shaped by political
motivations and therefore use the more inclusive definition,
which has a greater conceptual integrity. I propose that we
use the more inclusive definition. It is arbitrary and obfus-
cating to say that if a group is wiped out on religious
grounds, it is genocide, but that if the same group is wiped
out on political grounds it is not genocide. There is a strong
temptation to hide behind such a distinction for it allows us
to say that if what my government is doing is not genocide,
then my silence on the matter is not as irresponsible as the
silence of all those respectable German citizens who were
silent during the Nazi Holocaust. If we are concerned that
masses of people are wiped out at all on whatever grounds,
this is a temptation we will refuse.
DID THE U.S. SPONSOR GENOCIDE IN
CENTRAL AMERICA DURING THE 1980s?
Once we have concluded that the mass murder of civilians
on political grounds is as much a form of genocide as is
the mass murder of civilians on national, ethnic, racial, or
religious grounds, the hard work on this question is already
done. After all, there is no question that in Guatemala and
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
EI Salvador the United States sponsored governments that
carried out systematic programs of mass murder against
their civilian populations and that in Nicaragua the United
States sponsored a mercenary army that likewise made the
civilian population its major target of attack. In all three
countries, it was the deliberate intention of the U.S. proxies
to use the mass murder of noncombatants as a political
weapon to destroy the social organization of the populations
resisting them. In fact, in all three countries, there was an
intention to destroy the very peoplehood of the targeted pop-
ulations. It could not have been otherwise since the people-
hood of these various populations-their religion, their
culture, their social organization-came to be centered on
resistance itself. That is why priests and nuns and lay
church workers were all systematically killed, "disap-
peared," or tortured. That is why students, journalists,
union leaders, reading teachers, college professors, and po-
litical candidates were likewise all systematically targeted
for death. Since the peoplehood of these various populations
was organized around resistance, it was the peoplehood that
had to be destroyed. The intention was to leave, in the place
of an organized people, a demoralized and docile mass.
Consider for a moment what it meant to employ mass
murder in both Guatemala and EI Salvador as a way to drain
the sea in which the guerrilla fish swam. Is not the explicit
adoption of such a policy a clear statement of intent to use
genocide as a military and political weapon? Consider as
well the meaning of a CIA training manual distributed to
the contra forces in Nicaragua, advising them to murder
Nicaraguan civilians. When that is combined with an actual
contra policy of attacking civilians in villages, farms, and
cooperatives, do we not have here too an explicit intent to
use genocide as a military and political weapon? If it is ac-
knowledged that the willful destruction of civilians on politi-
cal grounds should count as genocide, then in all three
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
countries-Guatemala, EI Salvador, and Nicaragua-the
United States was indeed sponsoring genocide.
It is sometimes argued that the distinction between com-
batants and noncombatants is difficult to make in a guer-
rilla war because the guerrilla combatants are like fish who
swim in a sea of civilians. This argument, however, is ambig-
uous. On the one hand, it may be interpreted as a plea in
behalf of a greater tolerance for inadvertent civilian casual-
ties in guerrilla warfare. If we interpret the argument in this
way, we need not consider it here, for in Central America we
are not talking about the inadvertent killing of civilians. As
I pointed out above, priests and nuns, babies and old women
were not being inadvertently killed in Central America be-
cause they were honestly mistaken for combatants. They
and other noncombatants were instead being deliberately
targeted as a matter of policy. They were being murdered,
not inadvertently killed. That brings us to the second inter-
pretation of the argument. On the second interpretation, the
argument may be construed as saying that because some
sector of the civilian population is actively supporting the
guerrilla combatants, those civilians become as eligible tar-
gets of attack as the guerrilla combatants themselves. As we
saw in the previous chapter, this was the position explicitly
adopted by General Rios Montt of Guatemala.
What are we to say to people who can adopt this argu-
ment? There are several different responses we might offer
to try to make them see that what they are attempting to
justify is morally reprehensible. We could point out that the
same argument could be used to justify terrorist attacks
aimed at American civilians. For example, using the same
logic, it could be argued that because the U.S. government
is supporting some side in a guerrilla war overseas and be-
cause that support is only made possible by the support of
U.S. civilians through their tax dollars and votes, U.S. civil-
ians are legitimate targets for attack. After all, it could be
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
argued, if enough u.s. civilians are killed through terrorist
attacks, those remaining alive may start to pressure our gov-
ernment to withdraw its support from the side in the over-
seas conflict it is supporting, thus changing the military
balance in favor of the side conducting the terrorist attacks.
Whether or not such a terrorist strategy would actually
work is irrelevant. It might be tried just as the mass-scale
terrorism we have been discussing was tried in Central
America, where its success is likewise certainly not clear. It
is also irrelevant that many of the American civilians killed
by terrorist attacks may not actually be supporters of the
policy of the u.s. government. Many of the civilians targeted
for attack in Central America were also not supporters of
the guerrillas. The point in both cases is not simply to elimi-
nate those who are killed but to terrorize those who remain
alive. Finally, it is irrelevant that, unlike the peasants of
Central America, the u.s. civilians killed by terrorist attacks
are not anywhere near the scene of fighting. It is not proxim-
ity that is essential to the argument we are examining but
the provision of support. Thus, the fact that American civil-
ians can provide long-distance support for their side of a
conflict whereas Central American peasants cannot does not
alter the basic relationship that exists in both cases between
civilian supporters and armed combatants.
Now, lest I be misunderstood, the point I want to make
here is not that terrorism directed against American civil-
ians may sometimes be legitimate. On the contrary, the
point is that such terrorism is always morally illegitimate,
regardless of whether or not American civilians are directly
or indirectly supporting one or another side of some armed
conflict overseas. The distinction between civilians and com-
batants must be maintained. But by the same token, it is
just as morally illegitimate for the United States to sponsor
terrorist attacks on the civilians of other countries, regard-
less of the tactical motivation.
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It should be pointed out that the deliberate mass killing
of civilians is not an ineluctable feature of guerrilla warfare.
As we saw in the previous chapter, the FMLN guerrillas in
EI Salvador did not adopt a policy of killing civilians en
masse and neither did the Sandinista guerrillas in Nicara-
gua when they were struggling against Somoza. Admittedly,
in both of these cases we are speaking about the guerrilla
side of the conflict rather than the side of the established
government. But then, in Nicaragua it was not the Sandini-
sta government that was engaged in the mass killing of civil-
ians but the contra guerrillas. In general, the side that needs
to resort to the mass killing of civilians is the side that does
not have the support of the people. Yet these are the sides
the United States has consistently supported in Central
America, whether they represent the established govern-
ment or the guerrilla opposition. One thus has to wonder
not just about the means the United States used to achieve
its ends but also about the ends themselves. It seems that in
Central America the United States was attempting to impose
its will on the various indigenous peoples and was willing
to have them slaughtered en masse in order to accomplish
that. A rather shameful showing for what is supposed to be
a great nation. At the very least the United States seriously
implicated itself in crimes against humanity. As we saw in
the previous section, that is enough to place our leaders, in
the same category as the Nazi war criminals and, by implica-
tion, the rest of us in the same category as the good Germans
who gave those criminals their support. Since the United
States was obviously intent on destroying the peoplehood of
the various Central American populations at least in part,
and since it adopted the use of proxies who deliberately en-
gaged in a policy of mass murder toward that end, I see no
reason not to use the word that seems to fit here and admit
that we, the people of the United States, became a party to
just what it seems: Genocide.

HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
DID THE U.S. ACTIONS IN CENTRAL
AMERICA DURING THE 1980s CONSTITUTE
A HOLOCAUST-LIKE EVENT?
Let me say at the outset that I do not raise this question as
one who takes the Holocaust lightly. On the contrary, I raise
the question as one who regards the Holocaust as the refer-
ence point-the ground zero, as Elie Wiesel puts it-for all
future history. I raise the question as one who asks search-
ingly and anxiously how I would have behaved if I had been
an average German citizen during the Nazi persecution of
the Jews. Would I have been silent or would I have acted in
behalf of my fellow human beings? I raise the question fi-
nally out of a deep sense of obligation to the victims of the
Holocaust. I feel the only way to honor that obligation is to
act now to try to stop anything similar from happening
again-not just to Jews but to anybody. I feel that if we do
not respond this way, then we ourselves will have allowed
the victims of the Holocaust to have died for nothing. In
the course of future human history, their deaths will have
mattered not at all. If we let this happen, then, whether we
be Jew or Gentile, we must count ourselves among their
persecutors, among those who degrade their memory.
The question to be raised is, What counts as an event
similar to the Holocaust? Under what circumstances must
we acknowledge a call to act in the name of the Holocaust?
History repeats itself, but it never repeats itself exactly.
Thus, we can always point to the differences between the
Holocaust and any current atrocity and relieve ourselves of
any responsibility to act by saying that they are not the
same. Sometimes this is justified. Always it is a temptation.
We must ever be vigilant, therefore, to grasp the essential
commonalities between the Holocaust and any current
atrocity and not allow ourselves to hide behind inessential
differences.
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
In an article comparing the role of the United States in
Central America and in Vietnam, Noam Chomsky makes the
following insightful comment:
If you take any two historical events and you ask whether
there are similarities and differences, the answer is always
going to be "yes" and "no." At some sufficiently fine level of
detail, there will always be differences, and at some suffi-
ciently abstract level there will be similarities. The question
we want to ask in the two cases we are considering, Central
America and Vietnam, is whether the level at which there are
similarities is, in fact, a significant one. And I think the answer
is that it is.
21
I want to say the same thing about the comparison be-
tween Central America and the Holocaust: Despite the dif-
ferences between the two, there is a level of abstraction at
which they are similar and that similarity is significant.
That is not to say that what is going on in Central America
is of the same order of magnitude as the Holocaust. But we
are not called to act in the name of the Holocaust just when
events reach the same order of magnitude. The Holocaust
was the most extreme of a family of collective crimes that
still leaves plenty of room for such crimes of lesser magni-
tude to belong to that family. I refer to this family of collec-
tive crimes as Holocaust-like events rather than as
Holocausts per se because it is not my right to usurp the
name given to that singular event by the victims themselves.
Yet it is my duty-as it is the duty of all of us-to respond
to events similar to the Holocaust, and to do that we need a
designation that makes that similarity clear. Thus, what I
want to say in calling Central America a Holocaust-like
event is that what is going on there is such as to oblige us
to act in the name and memory of the Holocaust. I shall try
to show this by first identifying what I believe to be the
essential similarity between the Holocaust and what is going
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
on in Central America. Then, I will show that objections
about the differences between the two events do not over-
ride this essential similarity.
What the United States did in Central America was like
the Holocaust in that it was a case of a government's perpe-
trating ongoing systematic mass murder without a suffi-
cient outcry on the part of the public led by that government
to stop the killing. This is the essential similarity between
what the United States did in Central America and the Nazi
Holocaust. It is this similarity that makes me say that what
the United States did and is continuing to do in Central
America constitutes a Holocaust-like event. Before going on,
let me emphasize three features of this similarity. First, in
the Holocaust and in Central America, we are not talking
about a government inadvertently killing people. We are
talking about deliberate murder. Second, we are not talking
about the deaths of a few. We are talking about the deaths
of millions in the Holocaust and the deaths of tens of thou-
sands in Central America. Finally, we are not talking about
episodic events like a massacre or even like the dropping of
the atom bomb on Hiroshima. We are talking about pro-
tracted policies going on for years. The difference between
an episodic event like a massacre and an ongoing policy of
mass murder is that whereas in the former case the public
served by the perpetrator government has no time to react
to and stop its government's crime, in an ongoing policy of
mass murder, the public has plenty of time to bring the kill-
ing to a halt. Thus, in the case of an ongoing governmental
policy of mass murder, a burden of responsibility falls on
the public that is absent from an episodic massacre. We can
thus raise questions about ongoing policies of mass murder
that we cannot raise about episodic massacres: Why does
the public allow it to continue? Why does it do nothing to
stop it? It is as legitimate to raise these questions about
the U.S. public with regard to its government's policies in
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
Central America as it is to raise them about the German
public with regard to its government's policies toward the
Jews. The mass murder, its ongoing nature, and the acquies-
cence of the public in the crimes of its government are the
family resemblances between what the United States did in
Central America and the Nazi Holocaust.
Now I am prepared to meet all of the objections that will
be raised in order to hide from and deny this terrible truth.
First, it may be objected that the two events are of vastly
different orders of magnitude, that the Holocaust involved
the loss of millions of lives whereas the United States policy
in Central America involved the loss of only tens of thou-
sands. As I have said before, I grant that this disparity exists.
However, as I have also said before, it does not really re-
quire millions of victims before we can say that a program
of mass murder is like the Holocaust. I will grant that there
must be a substantial number of victims before we can begin
speaking of a Holocaust-like event, but certainly whatever
that number may be, figures in the tens of thousands are
well above it. Numbers, however, are not the decisive issue.
After a certain point, it is not the number of victims that is
important but the ongoing, routinized nature of their victim-
ization. That point has been long exceeded in Central
America.
It may next be objected that in the Nazi Holocaust the
Germans were murdering their own people whereas that
was certainly not what the United States was doing in Cen-
tral America. There are two replies to this, one historical
and one moral. Contrary to what is suggested by this objec-
tion, the historical fact is that in the Nazi Holocaust the
Germans were not murdering predominantly their own peo-
ple. Remember that Jews represented only about 1 percent
of the German population and that many of them had emi-
grated before the deportations began. More important, out
of the total of 6 million Jews that were killed, only 160,000
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
were German. The major death camps were not even located
in Germany. Thus, for the most part, the Germans were mur-
dering the people of other countries. The moral reply, how-
ever, is the more decisive. What difference does it make
whether the innocent people your government murders are
of your own nationality or not? A human being is a human
being, equally sacred regardless of nationality. It is no less
immoral to murder people of other nations than to murder
people of your own.
Another possible objection is that in the Nazi Holocaust
the Germans were directly responsible for murdering their
Jewish victims whereas in Central America the United
States was not directly responsible for the murders that
took place. The direct responsibility for that lay not with
the United States but with the governments of Guatemala
and EI Salvador and with the contra guerrillas in Nicaragua.
This objection is more than a little disingenuous. The United
States armed, trained (even on its own soil), advised, and
otherwise sponsored the forces that did the killing. How
then can the United States wash its hands of what those
forces did? When I put this question to students in my
classes, I sometimes get a reply like the following: "Look, if
you give someone a gun and he goes out and shoots some-
body, is that your fault?" My response to this is that it may
or may not be your fault if it happens once. But if you read
in the newspaper about this person's having murdered
someone and you give him more bullets when he comes back
to you again and he again shoots somebody and this cycle
repeats itself again and again, then of course it is your fault.
Without you, he would not be able to do what he is doing.
Similarly, without the United States, the murderous govern-
ments of Guatemala and EI Salvador would have fallen long
ago and the contras would never have existed in the first
place. The United States government clearly knew what was
happening. So, if the United States knowingly continued to
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
support the heinous crimes of others for its own ends, it
thereby deliberately became a causal agent in the perpetua-
tion of those crimes and thus a party to them.
Another possible objection is that in the Nazi Holocaust
the Germans murdered their Jewish victims gratuitously on
biological grounds because of anti-Semitism. In other
words, the Jewish victims of the Nazi persecution were not
at all a part of any armed struggle and were not even a
peaceful political threat. In contrast, the people killed in
Central America were not being killed out of any racism
comparable to anti-Semitism but because they constituted
at least a political threat and often a military threat as well
to the extent that they provided support to combatants. This
objection, like a similar one considered in the previous sec-
tion, assumes that it is somehow more immoral to murder
a human being gratuitously than to murder him or her for
instrumental or strategic reasons. Again, the mistakenness
of this assumption becomes clear if we apply it to the level
of the individual homicide. If Smith murders his wife for
instrumental reasons, say, for example, in order to inherit
her wealth, that is no less immoral or illegal than if Smith
murders Gonzalez gratuitously because he just does not like
his ethnicity. Similarly, the instrumental or strategic mur-
ders the United States sponsored in Central America are no
less immoral than the gratuitous murders committed by the
Nazis. It needs repeating that civilians-even civilians that
are perceived to constitute a political threat-are not legiti-
mate military targets, whether or not they are supporting
combatants. If we violate this principle for whatever ends,
then we are no different from those terrorists who have
made American civilians their targets.
As I pointed out in the conclusion of Chapter 3, it is a
mistake to overemphasize the role of anti-Semitism in the
Nazi Holocaust, because doing so places too much emphasis
on the motives of the Nazi government and not enough on
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the responsibility of the German public whose indifference
allowed its government to get away with its atrocities. Thus,
the Central American case is not particularly distinguished
by the fact that it was not racism that prompted the Ameri-
can public to allow its government to commit similar atroci-
ties. Like the German public, the American public just did
not care.
A final objection is that the Nazis did not just commit
mass murder; they intended to annihilate an entire people.
In contrast, whatever other objectives the United States
might have had in Central America, it certainly did not in-
tend to annihilate an entire people. Thus, although the
United States may have been a party to mass murder in
Central America, that is still not the same thing as mass
murder with the intent of annihilating an entire people, and
therefore what the United States did in Central America can-
not be reasonably compared with the Holocaust.
Again, it must be admitted that the disparity cited in the
objection exists. Again, it must be admitted that the Holo-
caust was a horror of the vastest proportions. Yet, again, it
must nevertheless be affirmed that that very fact leaves
plenty of room for lesser horrors to fall in the same cate-
gory. I maintain that what happened in Central America falls
within that category, because, despite the significance of the
distinction raised in this final objection, it can be overstated.
The objection makes an issue of the fact that the Nazis
were not just mass murdering individual human beings but
in addition were thereby attempting to annihilate a people.
The assumption here is that a social whole is somehow
greater than the sum of its parts, that in attempting to anni-
hilate a people, the Nazis committed an even greater crime
than just the mass murder of six million individual human
beings. Perhaps there is something to this. Perhaps there is
a value to a social collective beyond the aggregate value of
the individual lives that comprise it, and perhaps in attempt-
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
ing to annihilate such a collective, the Nazis were guilty of
a greater crime than just the taking of millions of individual
lives. But how much greater a crime was the Nazi mass
murder because of this particular feature? To put this an-
other way, once we acknowledge the enormity of murdering
six million individual innocent human beings, how much
worse is the crime because those six million people consti-
tuted a social whole?
I do not see that it is that much less atrocious to murder
six million innocent people who do not comprise a social
whole than it is to murder six million innocent people who
do comprise a social whole. For me, what is so staggering
about the Holocaust is the mass murder of innocent human
beings, not the further intent to thereby wipe out a specific
gene pool or culture. I value human beings far more than I
do gene pools or even cultures. Let me pose an example to
those who see things differently. One last time let us refer
to our murderous friend Smith. Suppose that Smith has a
vendetta against a certain family and so he goes out and
cold-bloodedly murders all five members of that family. Is
that a crime on a different scale than if Smith with similar
cold-bloodedness similarly murders five unrelated people
against whom he has a grudge? I suppose that if some of the
members of the family were children, that might make the
first set of murders worse than the second. But to focus on
the single distinction we are considering, assume that the
family members are all adults. They nevertheless comprise
a social whole unlike the five unrelated victims in the second
set of murders. It might be possible to persuade me that the
first set of murders is somewhat worse than the second, but
certainly not that it is incomparably worse. Similarly, my
reaction to the Holocaust would not be much different had
Hitler chosen to murder six million Communists or Social
Democrats rather than six million Jews. To me, an innocent
human life is an innocent human life and a murder is a
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HAS THE UNITED STATES BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE?
murder. Whatever else might be destroyed beyond human
lives such as a gene pool or a culture is secondary not pri-
mary. There is a Jewish saying that if you save a single hu-
man life it is as if you have saved the entire world. I think
this saying aptly affirms that our primary value, what we
hold sacred, is the individual human being not whatever
other abstract entity that human being participates in. So,
while I will admit that one respect in which the Holocaust
may be worse than what happened in Central America is
that only in the Holocaust was the intent to destroy a whole
people, I deny that this is a decisive enough distinction to
place the two events in different categories. Instead, I still
maintain, despite the various objections that have been
raised, that what happened in Central America is similar
enough to the Holocaust in the primary respect that is of
moral significance to us to regard it as a Holocaust-like
event.
CONCLUSION
One of the factors that will continue to make the United
States susceptible to repetitions of the genocide associated
with the Holocaust is the tendency of the United States pub-
lic to reify and mystify the Holocaust. This is a tendency to
regard the Holocaust as simply the product of some kind of
collective madness that Americans can see for themselves is
not going on around them. Thus, an enormous gulf is estab-
lished between the German society that produced the Holo-
caust and the society that citizens of the United States think
they belong to. That, together with an insufferable smugness
about the greatness and nobility of the United States, in-
sures that whatever atrocities the United States government
becomes a party to, United States citizens will never see
them as comparable to the Holocaust.
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Since history never repeats itself exactly, those who think
they would respond responsibly if the Holocaust were ex-
actly repeated will in all likelihood never feel themselves
called upon to act. The Holocaust will never occur in just
the same way again. Accordingly, whereas many people see
a danger in diluting the meaning of the Holocaust by inter-
preting it too broadly, I see a far greater danger in failing
to respond to current Holocaust-like events because the Ho-
locaust has been interpreted too narrowly.
When all is said and done, it is actually not so important
whether the reader has been convinced that what happened
and continues to happen in Central America is exactly like
the Holocaust in all significant moral respects. The objective
of this chapter will have been achieved if the reader per-
ceives that the outrage being committed by the United States
government in Central America is just the sort of event that
the legacy of the Holocaust demands we respond to. The
objective of this chapter will have been achieved as well if
the reader perceives that a people capable of allowing their
government to do what the United States government is do-
ing in Central America is really not much different from the
people who allowed the Hitler government to do what it did.

6 How We Allowed
Ourselves to Become a
Party to Genocide
Why for eight years did the people of the United States allow
the Reagan administration to pursue what were virtually
genocidal policies in Central America? It was not because
the American people by and large supported these policies;
quite clearly, they did not. Public opinion polls showed over
and over again that the overwhelming majority of the Ameri-
can people disapproved of their government's involvement
in Central America. Then, why in "the world's greatest de-
mocracy" did this popular disapproval not bring these poli-
cies to a halt? Because, just as clearly, although the
American people disapproved of what was going on, they
did not much care about it either. The majority of Americans
were certainly not about to vote for or against Ronald
Reagan or members of Congress because of their position
on Central America. Other issues were more important, par-
ticularly the state of the economy. In fact, Reagan's level of
popularity was almost totally tied to how the economy was
faring. When the United States went into its deepest postwar
recession in spring 1981, Reagan's popularity plummeted.
When the economy recovered in the beginning of 1983, so
did Reagan' s standing in the polls. By the presidential elec-
tion of 1984, Reagan was one of the most popular presidents
in U.S. history, the "teflon president" whose popularity
nothing could tarnish.
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Perhaps the most striking indication of the American pub-
lic's disinterest in Central America was its utter lack of
knowledge on the subject. According to a poll taken in June
1988, most Americans had no idea whether we were support-
ing the government of El Salvador and opposing the govern-
ment of Nicaragua or whether it was the other way around.!
The public's lack of such minimal knowledge certainly can-
not be blamed on the absence of information. Throughout
much of the previous seven years, Central America had been
the top story in newspapers and on television. Yet, despite
the administration's intense propaganda campaign, despite
all the protests by the administration's critics, it was discov-
ered late on that the majority of Americans knew literally
nothing about what was happening. That was a stunning
revelation.
Of course, most Americans know amazingly little about
politics in general, even where it most directly affects their
own well-being. Only about half of the people in this country
know the names of their senators or representative to Con-
gress, let alone anything about their positions on the issues.
Most people do not know which party currently controls the
Senate or the House of Representatives, and only about half
of the eligible voters ever vote.
2
It is perhaps only because
of this pervasive ignorance that 89 percent of the respon-
dents in a 1986 Gallop poll could describe themselves as
"very proud" to be an American (as opposed to "quite
proud," "proud," "not very proud," or "not at all proud").3
Perhaps if people knew what was really going on, their re-
sponses would be very different.
It is difficult to understand how Americans can believe
that democratic rule by the people can function with the
people so grossly ignorant. The truth is, under such a condi-
tion, you get something that looks like democracy but is not
democracy. In America, however, appearances are all that
matter. In American politics, where people are paying atten-
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WE ALLOWED OURSEL YES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
tion with only half their minds, it is much more important
for a politician to appear right than actually to be right. And
a politician appears to be right not by putting forward co-
gent arguments that few people will ever listen to but by
appealing to popular imagery, by sloganeering. Although
President Reagan was a master at this, his Democratic oppo-
nents in Congress had to play the same game. Thus, as we
shall see, even Reagan's Democratic opponents sought not
so much for the correct position on Central America as for
a position that would appear correct within the confines
of popular imagery. The result was a debate over Central
America within establishment politics that took place within
strictly limited parameters, parameters that left reality and
morality out of account.
THE DISEMPOWERMENT OF
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
It would be unfair to suggest that the American people' s
indifference about Central America was entirely their own
fault. Actually, such political apathy is largely a social cre-
ation, manufactured by the basic structure of American so-
ciety. Despite appearances, the American people have very
little say in political affairs, and as a result, most lose inter-
est in politics altogether.
A democracy is a form of government in which everyone
has an equal say in determining political decisions. This
principle is supposed to hold even in a representative de-
mocracy or republic such as ours: Everyone is supposed to
have an equal say in determining who the representatives
are and what interests they represent. Unfortunately, in the
United States, the institution of democracy has been under-
mined by gross inequalities in wealth. Most Americans are
aware that wealth is very concentrated in the United States,

WE ALLOWED OURSEL VES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
but most do not realize how much. Considering all the vari-
ous forms of wealth-corporate stock, government bonds,
real estate, and so on-the most recent government statis-
tics reveal that the top 0.5 percent of the population pos-
sesses 34 percent of the nation's wealth. To put this in other
terms, approximately 500,000 adults-or 250,000 if we con-
sider just heads of households-account for one-third of the
nation's wealth. Incredibly, this is more than the combined
wealth owned by the over 200 million people in the bottom
90 percent of the population.
4
This vast economic power gets translated into compara-
ble political power with the result that political power be-
comes unequal as well. Although we each have only a single
vote in the elections that choose the candidates for office,
the wealthy have much more say in determining who the
candidates are in the first place. It takes a great deal of
money to mount a viable political campaign for national of-
fice-either for president or for a seat in Congress-and this
money is very disproportionately supplied by wealthy indi-
viduals and by the large corporations they control.
This was particularly blatant before 1974 when most poli-
ticians relied on a relatively few wealthy backers to finance
their campaigns. In 1972, for example, President Nixon
raised over $19.8 million from fewer than two hundred peo-
ple who gave his campaign $10,000 or more.
5
Partly as a
result of widespread abuses during this election, a series of
amendments were added to the Federal Election Campaign
Act of 1971 to limit the amount of campaign contributions.
Now, no single individual can give more than $25,000 a year
in political contributions to all candidates and committees
combined. The provision of matching funds for presidential
elections now also encourages smaller contributions of un-
der $250.
The electoral reforms, however, have not so much solved
the problem as reshaped it. Instead of a few prominent fig-
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WE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
ures among the wealthy supplying the bulk of campaign
funds, the task is now more evenly spread among the
wealthy class in general through direct-mail campaigns,
fund-raising dinners, and Political Action Committees
(PACs). Even liberals like Edward Kennedy have to seek
funding from the wealthy. In his 1980 campaign for the Dem-
ocratic party's nomination for presidency, more than 40 per-
cent of Kennedy's campaign contributions from individuals
were in amounts of $500 or more.
6
Because of their disproportionate ability to finance elec-
toral campaigns, the wealthy have much more say than the
rest of us in determining who runs for office and what posi-
tions they represent. Since such candidates do not adopt
policies that seriously threaten the interests of their wealthy
backers, the range of views that get political voice in this
country is very constrained. In contrast with the democra-
cies of western Europe, there are no viable leftist parties in
this country to represent the interests of the poor and work-
ing classes. Instead, we are all left to choose among candi-
dates considered acceptable to the wealthy. As a result, we
who are not wealthy are usually in the position of choosing
the lesser of two evils-not the candidate who best repre-
sents our interests but the candidate who is least opposed
to them.
Because such a narrow range of positions is voiced in
national-level politics, those whose interests have been ex-
cluded from discussion lose interest in politics and disen-
gage from the process altogether. The United States has the
lowest level of voter turnout of any of the advanced indus-
trial democracies, and as time goes on, it seems to be declin-
ing even further. Those with the greatest tendency not to
vote-the poor and working classes-are precisely those
who in other countries tend to vote for socialist or commu-
nist parties. The interests expressed by such parties are no-
where represented in the American political landscape. If
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WE ALLOWED OURSEL YES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
those interests were given voice here, the United States
would feel far less threatened by the presence of socialist or
social democratic tendencies in EI Salvador and Nicaragua.
The role of money in politics is not the only factor contrib-
uting to the political apathy of the American people. The
role of money is compounded by the winner-take-all rules
according to which American elections are decided. In pro-
portional systems of representation like those in Europe,
everyone wins in accordance with the proportion of votes
they receive. Such a system would have provided a move-
ment like Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition with something
like 30 percent of the seats in Congress. However, under our
winner-take-all rules, voting for such third-party movements
is institutionally discouraged. In Congressional districts
where the movement does not have majority support, a vote
for the movement's candidate is essentially a vote thrown
away. Since the supporters of a movement like the Rainbow
Coalition may not be in the majority in anyone Congres-
sional district, the 30 percent or so of the population sympa-
thetic to it is effectively without a voice in Congress.
The result of the winner-take-all rules is a two-party sys-
tem, and the result of the two-party system is that candi-
dates have to appeal simultaneously to many different blocs
of heterogeneous voters with different political interests.
The key to success in this situation is not to alienate anyone.
To speak directly to the issues will almost always alienate
some groups even if it gains the support of others. The way
to maximize the necessary support under our system is to
not address the issues at all. Since all candidates in a politi-
cal contest have this same objective, it is in the interests of
all to avoid the real issues and to focus instead on matters
of secondary importance that will alienate no one. Thus,
American politics has degenerated into a largely issueless
affair, which focuses on personalities and symbolism-
whether or not the candidate is a "wimp" or cheats on his
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wife or supports the saying of the pledge of allegiance in
public schools.
The unfortunate thing is that this trivialization of Ameri-
can politics is self-reinforcing. As real issues fail to get ad-
dressed and as American voters continue to be disinterested
in the process, those politicians that have something to say
generally cannot get a hearing. They are forced to confront
an electorate that really is not listening. Such politicians
face a choice: to stick to a position that is substantially cor-
rect but the cogency of whichis difficult to convey to a half-
attentive public or to seek a position that is less correct
but which has more of the imagery that the public will find
immediately appealing. The choice is even tougher. If more
and more of your political colleagues are choosing image
over substance, your own choice of substance is likely to
place you more and more out of the mainstream of political
opinion. You are even likely to appear to be an extremist. In
such circumstances, the choice is not that difficult after all:
Regardless of what morality and principle may dictate, you
choose image over substance like everyone else.
This was the political context in which the debate over
Central America took place in this country. As we shall see,
the ultimate result of that debate was to allow the Reagan
administration free rein to pursue its genocidal policies in
Central America.
THE DEBATE OVER CENTRAL AMERICA:
CONGRESS AND THE MEDIA
Responsibility for what the United States has done in Cen-
tral America does not reside only with the presidency. With-
out the complicity of Congress and the media, Reagan's
genocidal war in Central America would have been impossi-
ble. Congress and the media are supposed to act as checks
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WE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
on the power of the presidency, particularly when that
power is abused. This is an obligation these institutions
failed to fulfill. The question we have to ask is why.
The answer lies in a whole complex of different factors.
The overarching factor is the socially shaped inattentiveness
of the American public to political issues, its unwillingness
to lend issues the concentration necessary to appreciate a
sophisticated analysis.
This inattentiveness sets the context in which Congress
and the media must operate. The media, particularly televi-
sion, respond by focusing on what the public will attend
to: personalities rather than social forces. Thus, it was the
tendency of the media to analyze the situation in EI Salva-
dor, for example, by emphasizing the personality of Duarte
rather than his inability to do anything in opposition to the
military. The image that the media consequently conveyed
was that since Duarte was honorable and moderate, so was
his government. Since public opinion is largely shaped by
the media, Congressmen responded in kind. Thus, in early
1982, Jim Wright (D, Texas), the future Speaker of the
House, could reasonably declare, "I agree with the adminis-
tration's position and I very actively oppose any effort to
withhold assistance to the moderate government of Du-
arte."7 If issues are framed by the media in such a way that
the question becomes whether or not Duarte personally is
honorable and moderate, then that will tend to be the basis
for the position members of Congress adopt; it matters little
that, given the power of the military, Duarte's personal mod-
erateness was an almost irrelevant consideration. In this
way, both the media and Congress approach complex prob-
lems in a superficial manner that misses the fundamental
issues at stake.
Unfortunately, this too is a self-reinforcing process. To
the extent that the public is paying attention at all, it sees
Congress and the media approaching issues in this simplis-
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tic manner and responds in one of two ways. Part of the
public concludes that the superficial considerations are all
that matter. Another part of the public finds that it cannot
resolve the issues or even make sense of them in the superfi-
cial terms in which they are presented and thus loses even
more interest in what is going on. The effect of both of these
responses is to promote continued simplistic attempts to get
their attention.
The process is self-reinforcing in another way as well. The
government and the media are like echo chambers, con-
stantly reflecting back each other's superficial view. The me-
dia get their direction, the issues to focus on, from what the
politicians in government say and do, and the politicians, in
turn, orient themselves by what the media say about the
issues as the politicians have framed them. This does not
mean that the media always tell the politicians what they
want to hear. For example, between 1980 and 1984, the hu-
man rights situation in EI Salvador was a constant subject
of controversy in Congress. In focusing on this issue, the
media did a very good job of reporting the true horror of
the situation, much to the chagrin of the Reagan administra-
tion and its supporters in Congress. However, because the
media get their direction on the issues from government,
the media's attention and priorities can be shifted as the
politicians reframe the issues. This often means that the me-
dia get refocused on trivial matters.
That was what happened in the first half of 1982 when
Reagan issued his first certification to Congress that the
human rights situation was improving in EI Salvador. Given
the continuing atrocities reported by the media, this certifi-
cation was blatantly dishonest, and many of Reagan's Con-
gressional opponents said so. However, as a whole, Congress
at that time was reluctant to take a strong stand against the
president by deciding to discontinue funding for EI Salva-
dor. Thus, the members of Congress sought to defer their
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WE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
decision until some dramatic event in EI Salvador could pro-
vide the imagery to defend it. As it turned out, such a dra-
matic event was about to occur: EI Salvador's March
elections for Constituent Assembly. Consequently, Congress
decided to postpone a decision on Reagan's aid request until
after the results of this election. As Representative Clai-
borne Pell (D, Rhode Island) put it, "We shouldn't rock the
boat until after the elections."8 In a similar vein, Representa-
tive John Murtha (D, Pennsylvania) urged that the United
States continue its support for EI Salvador as long as the
elections were free and fair and the proposed land reform
program was carried out.
9
How could the elections possibly be free and fair, how-
ever, when the major opposition papers had been shut down
in January with the murders of their editors, when the right
to assemble, organize, and otherwise participate in the elec-
tions was completely denied to the left by continuing death
squad activity? Furthermore, what difference could the elec-
tions possibly make when the civilian government was so
thoroughly dominated by the military? Would the military
and their constituents in the oligarchy really allow a genuine
land reform to be carried out as a result of the elections? If
so, why was the military so busy murdering anyone who
advocated that?
The only thing the formal act of voting could provide was
the appearance of democracy in EI Salvador, but this ap-
pearance was vitally important to many of the undecided in
Congress as the proper imagery to justify continued support
of the president's policy. By deferring matters until the
votes had been cast, they were ignoring all of the obvious
objections to the validity of the elections. All that remained
to be seen was how many people would show up to vote and
whether the votes would be counted fairly. We have just
discussed how these considerations alone do not make for
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WE ALLOWED OURSEL YES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
a democratic process, but since these matters were all that
remained to be seen, they were all the media focused on.
The media certainly know how to cover an election to
make it seem an exciting and meaningful event; in fact, they
excel at it. Thus, in the months preceding the elections, hun-
dreds of journalists flocked to EI Salvador to conduct polls,
to discuss the differences between Roberto D'Aubuisson's
ARENA party and Jose Napoleon Duarte's Christian Demo-
crats, and to conjecture on how many people would show
up to vote. The level of voter turnout was a particularly
spurious criterion of the validity of the elections since vot-
ing was mandatory-failure to vote was taken as an indica-
tion of leftist sympathies, immediately making one a target
of the death squads.
10
However, since the guerrillas had
threatened to disrupt the elections, considerable attention
was focused on whether or not they would succeed. Actually,
the level of voter turnout would largely show only who the
people were more afraid of-the guerrillas or the military.
Since it was the military and paramilitary forces that were
responsible for virtually all of the civilian murders, the an-
swer to this question should have been clear.
As it happened, large numbers of people did turn out to
vote, and the votes, in fact, were counted fairly, giving the
Christian Democrats a slight majority of seats in the Constit-
uent Assembly. The response from the media in the United
States was ecstatic. According to Dan Rather of CBS News,
the election "was a triumph-a million people at the polls."
ABC described the elections as "the biggest and most hon-
est" in Salvadoran history. EI Salvador "clearly had a real
election," according to the Wall Street Journal, with a "huge
turnout, annoying to some American commentators since it
destroyed the basic thesis about the war there." The Wash-
ington Post called the elections "a tremendous victory for
the political process," and maintained, along with John
Chancellor of NBC, that "the losers today were the rebels
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WE ALLOWED OURSEL YES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
who told the people not to vote." Perhaps the most honest
assessment was provided by Marvin Kalb of NBC: "The elec-
tions helped to legitimize United States policy." Indeed
they did.
Looking to the media, the Congressmen saw their own
casting of the issues reflected back at them, vindicating the
way they themselves had framed things. With the Salva-
doran elections such a resounding success, the undecided
in Congress now easily could justify joining with Reagan' s
supporters in voting continued aid to EI Salvador's murder-
ous government. That was how in 1982 Congress came to
give its support to Reagan's policy in EI Salvador despite
the obvious invalidity of his two certifications that the hu-
man rights situation was improving.
Although by 1984 Reagan no longer had to worry about
making such certifications, the drama was essentially re-
played. Congress again was deferring on a Reagan request
for aid to EI Salvador-this time for $93 million-until the
electoral results were in from the presidential contest be-
tween Duarte and D'Aubuisson. Again, in establishing the
electoral results as the criterion for continued aid, Congress
was ignoring the fundamental issues at stake. It was true
that there was a real difference between Duarte and D'Au-
buisson-Duarte being a moderate and D'Aubuisson a right-
wing extremist-but that did not necessarily mean there
would be a real difference in the governments they led; the
military was still in control. While Duarte served as the ap-
pointed president between 1980 and 1982, death-squad activ-
ity had been at an all-time high, and no progress had been
made on land reform. There was no reason to believe that
his actual election to office would give Duarte any more
power to correct these problems than he had had before.
Indeed, while there had been some lessening in the level of
political murders since the elections for Constituent Assem-
bly in 1982, death squad activity was still occurring at an
aterial
WE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
appalling rate and there had still been no movement on land
reform. That election had made no real difference in the
Salvadoran situation, so why should this one?
By attaching so much importance to the outcome of El
Salvador's presidential election, Congress had again
shunted all such questions aside. And again, the media fo-
cused on the issues as framed by the politicians in govern-
ment: Would the votes be counted fairly and would Duarte
win? This time, the media could also do what they like to
do best: focus on definite political personalities. Thus, con-
siderable attention was paid to the choice between Duarte,
the moderate, and D' Aubuisson, the extremist. To be sure,
there was by this time an undercurrent of cynicism. News-
week, for example, did sometimes acknowledge that the elec-
tion would probably make no difference and that the
political murders would continue. However, that sentiment
was always an undertone that never stopped Newsweek
from hajling the basically democratic nature of the election.
On May 7, one week before the votes were to be cast, News-
week ran a column called "A Miracle of Moderation." The
article said that although the left regarded the election as a
farce, the miracle was that the election was to be held at
alJ.l2 We shall have to remember this generous interpreta-
tion of democracy when we turn our attention in a moment
to the 1984 elections in Nicaragua.
The Salvadoran election was held on May 16 and Duarte
did win. Within the week, Reagan delivered a televised
speech on the need to combat communism in Central
America, and the very next day the House of Representatives
authorized the new funding Reagan requested. In its next
issue, Newsweek declared, "Mr. Reagan Has It His Way," a
"Salvadoran government worth supporting and the means
with which to support it."13
After Duarte's election, the public debate was effectively
closed on El Salvador. From 1986 on, that country would
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quietly receive half a billion dollars in U.S. aid annually.
Although the promised land reform still never occurred,
death-squad activity did diminish substantially enough for
the politicians and media in the United States to lose inter-
est in it. As we saw in Chapter 4, although the death-squad
activity never entirely disappeared, it was largely replaced
by saturation bombing in the countryside. Since this was
never raised as an issue by those within the U.S. govern-
ment, the U.S. media virtually ignored it as well. Media at-
tention shifted to Nicaragua, and not much more was heard
about EI Salvador until the implementation of the Arias
peace plan in late 1987.
What we see here is an interactive process between the
government and the media in which those in government
frame the issues and the media respond by addressing the
issues in the ways they are framed by those in government.
Those in government then look to the media for vindication
at least for their framing of the issues if not for the specific
position they are disposed to adopt within that framework.
When no one in government makes an issue of such a matter
as the bombing of the Salvadoran countryside, the media do
not pick it up as an issue either. The Iran-contra scandal of
1987 only proves the point. It was obvious to anyone follow-
ing what was going on that the Reagan administration was
illegally funding the contras somehow. Yet, neither Con-
gress nor the media cared to notice. The diversion of money
to the contras only became news because it was linked to
the sale of arms to Iran, which involved an important issue
that the Reagan administration itself had raised: no arms
for hostages. Had the media and Congress not been paying
attention to that issue, the contra part of the scandal proba-
bly would have continued to have been ignored. Since in
formulating the issues that are important, the media rarely
take an independent course, rarely formulate the issues dif-
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ferently from the politicians in government, the politicians
are rarely pushed to a different point of view themselves.
The problem is actually worse than this, for the media
take their lead on issues predominantly from the presi-
dency. This again reflects the media's focus on personalities
and preferably on familiar, recognizable personalities. The
most familiar, recognizable political personality is the presi-
dent of the United States and after him certain members of
his cabinet such as the secretary of state and the secretary
of defense. Whenever the president or other members of the
executive branch speak or act, it is automatically important
news. As a result, the president and his staff have tremen-
dous power to define the issues, to shift the range of respect-
able opinion. If the president takes an extreme right-wing
view of a situation, then the whole range of respectable opin-
ion must shift to the right to accommodate it. That was what
happened in the case of Nicaragua.
In televised news conferences, speeches, and press re-
leases, the president adamantly and insistently labeled Nica-
ragua a "totalitarian, Communist dungeon" that could not
be trusted. When the president of the United States insists
on something so strongly, it is possible to disagree and still
remain within the realm of respectable opinion covered by
the media, but it is not possible to contradict the president
altogether. It is certainly not permissible to call the presi-
dent a liar or an ignoramus outright. (In contrast, it is en-
tirely permissible for Assistant Secretary of State Elliot
Abrams to use the word "liar" on national television with
reference to the president of Nicaragua.) Given his author-
ity, the views of the president of the United States command
a great degree of deference in this country. Thus, with the
president taking such a strong stand against Nicaragua,
even the president's Congressional opponents felt obliged
to preface their arguments with the disclaimer, "NoboclY's
saying Nicaragua is a democracy, but ... " While the term
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WE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
democracy was interpreted generously for EI Salvador,
Honduras, and Guatemala, respectable opinion judged Nica-
ragua against absolute standards that tolerated no short-
comings at all.
The 1984 elections in Nicaragua were actually fairer and
more meaningful than those in any of the Central American
countries that the United States considered to be "fledgling
democracies." Seven parties participated in the Nicaraguan
elections, three to the left and three to the right of the San-
dinistas. Each of the participating parties received free tele-
vision and radio time daily to present their views.
14
In
Nicaragua, where there were no death squads, where the
opposition press was not shut down by murder, everyone
who wanted to was free to participate in the political pro-
cess. The entire electoral process was observed by, among
others, a large delegation from the Latin American Studies
Association (LASA), the professional association of U.s.
Latin American scholars. According to the very detailed re-
port the LASA delegation submitted, the Nicaraguan elec-
tion was "remarkably clean and fair."ls Eight-five percent
of those eligible turned out to vote, and 65 percent voted
for the Sandinistas. The Sandinista victory was a popular
endorsement comparable to Reagan's landslide defeat of
Mondale that same year.
All this went unnoticed in the United States. Some months
before the election, Reagan had declared, "There isn't any-
thing yet to indicate that the election will be anything but
the kind of rubber-stamp that we see in any totalitarian gov-
ernment."16 The tone was thus set for the way the United
States would respond. With no governmental interest in the
election and no real uncertainty about the outcome itself,
the media hardly covered it all. People who exclusively read
Time or Newsweek would not even have known that the elec-
tion was actually held: Neither one ran a single story on the
outcome. As for the New York Times, its attitude was
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summed up by one of its headlines: "Going Through the Mo-
tions in Nicaragua.'m Apparently, the first real election
after forty-five years of dictatorship was not the "miracle"
in Nicaragua that the demonstration elections were in EI
Salvador and Guatemala.
As far as respectable opinion in the United States was
concerned, the Nicaraguan election might never have oc-
curred. Reagan continued to lambast Nicaragua as a totali-
tarian dungeon and no one in government or the media said
otherwise. More generally, no prominent voice in govern-
ment ever challenged the morality of the Reagan administra-
tion's Central American policies. For example, like almost
everyone else of prominence, the democratic presidential
nominees in 1984, Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro,
challenged only the administration's tactics. They more or
less conceded that Central America was crawling with Com-
munists but maintained that diplomacy was better than a
military approach. Although giving the president his due
may have been a rhetorical tactic on their part, by not con-
demning the immorality of U.S. policies, Mondale and Fer-
raro helped foster the impression that nothing immoral was
going on. If even the president's political opponents fail to
raise the moral dimensions of the issues, it is all the more
difficult for the general public to see them. Throughout the
Reagan years, respectable opinion in the United States was
quite effectively shifted, not by the weight of reason, but by
the rhetorical power the media afford the president.
The U.S. media paid much more attention to the 1990 elec-
tion in which the Sandinistas were voted out of office. That
attention was due to two factors. First, confident that they
would win again and with a clear memory of what had hap-
pened in 1984, the Sandinistas had arranged for the election
to be monitored by a truly impressive array of outside ob-
servers-among others, delegations from the United Nations
and the Organization of American States and even former
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WE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
u.s. president Jimmy Carter. The presence of such presti-
gious onlookers helped insure that this election would be a
much greater media event than the previous one. Even that,
however, might not have been enough to legitimate the elec-
tion for observers in the United States had it not been for
a second factor: Washington's own interest in viewing this
election as legitimate.
By 1990 the contras had become a burden to both Con-
gress and the new president, George Bush. Congress was
utterly weary of debating the contra cause, and, given his
own agenda, President Bush was less interested than his
predecessor in expending his Congressional good will de-
fending it. Thus, both Congress and the president saw in the
election the perfect opportunity to resolve the matter once
and for all: If the Sandinistas lost, there would no longer be
any need for the contras; if they won, the interests of fair
play could justify allowing the contras to just fade away.
Official Washington could then move on to other things.
Since official Washington was willing not only to regard the
election as legitimate but to base future policy on its out-
come, the U.S. media accepted the legitimacy of the election
as well .
There is one final factor to be considered here and that
concerns the nature of Congress itself. Why, throughout the
Reagan years, was Congress so apparently gutless when it
came to challenging the president's policies? To be sure,
there were some people of conscience in Congress-perhaps
a hundred representatives in the House and a similar per-
centage in the smaller Senate-who did oppose Reagan's
Central American policies consistently and strongly, people
like the Speaker of the House, Eugene (Tip) O'Neil (D, Mas-
sachusetts); Congressmen Michael Barnes (D, Maryland),
Clarence Long (D, Maryland), and Edward Boland (D, Mas-
sachusetts); and Senators Christopher Dodd (D, Connect-
icut), Mark Hatfield (R, Oregon), and Edward Kennedy
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(D, Massachusetts). However, this liberal minority was coun-
terbalanced by a conservative minority of similar size that
vigorously supported the president's anti-Communism: for
example, Senators Jesse Helms (R, North Carolina), Orrin
Hatch (R, Utah), John Heinz (R, Pennsylvania), and David
Boren (D, Oklahoma). While some of the people in this con-
servative minority genuinely agreed with the president,
many, particularly among the Republicans, supported the
president because it was in their political interest to do so.
It is with regard to this last group that we can begin to talk
about a lack of moral ,courage. However, the lack of moral
courage is clearest in the case of the final and perhaps
largest bloc of representatives in Congress, who held no
ideological position on the issues at all and who would sim-
ply have preferred to avoid the controversy altogether.
A great many members of Congress prefer to avoid all
controversial issues because these members represent con-
stituencies so divided that having to take a stand on contro-
versial issues is bound to make enemies even if it also makes
some friends. It is therefore preferable to take no stand at
all. Consequently, many members of Congress would like to
avoid such controversies and spend their time on casework,
that is, performing personal favors for the folks back home.
The political scientist Howard Reiter describes casework in
the following way.
On the congressional level, casework may involve everything
from helping a constituent get a tardy Social Security check,
to sending new parents a federal pamphlet on baby care, to
helping someone plan a vacation trip to Washington, to run-
ning an internship program for college students, to having a
constituent's flag flown up the Capitol flagpole. All of these
services are individualized, helping at most a few people at a
time and not dealing with the problems of large groups, as
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WE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
major legislation does; all of these services are uncontrover-
sial; and all can be distributed on a non-partisan basis. As
such, they are as attractive to members of Congress as the
Christmas turkey and the bucket of coal were to machine poli-
ticians, for nobody gets angry at the politician for distributing
them.
ls
In recent years, casework has come to occupy a signifi-
cant portion of the time of members of Congress. Since it
alienates no one, only makes friends, and keeps representa-
tives in contact with their constituents, it is a no-lose affair.
All members of Congress benefit from casework. The prob-
lem arises when a substantial minority prefers to focus on
it and avoid controversy at all costs. Then, these members
of Congress along with the minority of members who will
support the president whatever he does will keep Congress
from being an effective check on the power of the pres-
idency.
Controversial issues can be avoided most easily in the
area of foreign policy, for traditionally, foreign policy has
been the prerogative of the presidency, and only when the
president acts irresponsibly or even illegally as did Reagan,
may Congress be forced to act. During the Reagan adminis-
tration, however, Congress pretended not to see what was
happening in Central America, particularly in Nicaragua,
for as long as possible.
In 1981, the Reagan administration secretly began fund-
ing the Nicaraguan contras, ostensibly to interdict arms be-
ing shipped from Nicaragua to the guerrillas in EI Salvador.
Congress authorized continued funding in 1982 under a re-
striction sponsored by Senator Boland, which became
known as the Boland Amendment. According to the Boland
Amendment, the funding could not be used "for the pur-
poses of overthrowing the Nicaraguan government," which
plainly would have been a violation of international law.
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It had to be clear to everybody, however, that this was
precisely what the administration intended. Although no siz-
able shipment of arms from Nicaragua was ever intercepted,
the contras grew to ten thousand strong by early 1983. Al-
though those following the issue knew this was happening
from the beginning, neither Congress nor the major media
took any notice. Finally, in April 1983, Newsweek "broke"
the story for the major media. After that, further articles
followed in the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Congress was now forced to confront the issue. Boland
firmly believed that the administration's actions were ille-
gal, and as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, he
undertook an investigation.
Reagan publicly denied that the administration was fund-
ing the contras for any purpose other than to intercept arms,
even though the contras were clearly more interested in
overthrowing the Sandinista government. Thomas Enders,
the assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs,
explained why the administration was not violating the Bo-
land Amendment: Although it was the purpose of the contras
to overthrow the Nicaraguan government, this was not the
administration's purpose in aiding them. Incredibly, the Re-
publican-controlled Senate accepted this logic. After meet-
ing with the CIA director, William Casey, Barry Goldwater
(R, Arizona), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
concluded that there was no violation of the Boland Amend-
ment. Subsequently, with the approval of many Democrats,
the Senate authorized more funding for the contras. The
Democrats in the House took a more responsible stand. Five
members of the House Intelligence Committee traveled to
Nicaragua on a fact-finding mission. Predictably, the three
Republican members found no evidence of illegality, but the
two Democratic members disagreed. In the end, the House
voted down further funding.
19
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WE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
Unfortunately, this was not the end. When the House and
Senate conferees got together to reconcile their differences,
the best compromise the House could get was a cap at $24
million on more aid to the contras.
In 1984, Reagan came back for another $21 million. While
Congress was considering this request, news broke about
the CIA's role in the mining of Nicaragua' s harbors and then
about a CIA manual that instructed the contras to undertake
political assassinations of Sandinista leaders in local gov-
ernment. Nicaragua now took the United States to the World
Court, which ordered the United States to "cease and desist"
these activities. Although many Senators like Goldwater
were outraged over these developments, the Senate still ap-
proved the funding request. The House, however, refused
the appropriation and further refused to compromise on it.
The Senate then backed down, and the Reagan administra-
tion turned its attention to appropriations for 1985.
20
What happened in 1985 was indicative of Congress's gen-
eral behavior. In February, Reagan dropped all pretense and
essentially admitted that his intention was to overthrow the
Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Reagan went on to say
that U.S. pressure on Nicaragua would cease if the Sandini-
stas would only cry "uncle."21 In April, the House rejected
another Reagan request for contra aid by a vote of 248-180.
The Senate again approved the funding by a vote of 52-46.
The Reagan administration then launched a major lobbying
campaign on radio and television, in which he accused the
House Democrats of "shameful surrender" to Communism.
Under this barrage, many House Democrats began to waver.
Then, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega had the temerity
to make a trip to Moscow to seek more aid, particularly
more oil. The reaction in Congress was immediate. Many
nervous Democrats saw this relatively trivial development
as the perfect imagery to justify a reversal of their vote and
thus shore up their anti-Communist credentials. For ex-
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ample, David McCurdy (D, Oklahoma), who had formerly
voted against contra funding, now said, "We should not be
tying our own hands while Daniel Ortega is shaking those
in the Kremlin.'>22 At the next vote in June, the House dra-
matically reversed itself and approved the funding by a vote
of 271-156.
23
It was also in 1985 that the Reagan administration began
the machinations that would culminate in the Iran-contra
scandal. When the House had turned down the administra-
tion's aid request in 1984, it left the contras strapped for
cash up through the first half of 1985. Even when funding
was again approved in 1985, it was limited to humanitarian
aid. The contras still needed funding for weaponry. An addi-
tional problem for the administration was that a second Bo-
land Amendment had been signed into law in October 1984,
which specifically prohibited any intelligence agency in the
U.S. government from using any funds available for any pur-
pose "which would have the effect of supporting, directly or
indirectly, military or paramilitary operations in Nicara-
gua by any nation, group, organization, movement or in-
dividual. "24
As we now know, the Reagan administration flagrantly
violated the law throughout this period. First, in February
1985, National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane arranged
for Saudi Arabia to contribute $24 million to the contra
cause. (Another $10 million was later secured by Assistant
Secretary of State Elliot Abrams from the sultan of Brunei.)
Second, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, a staff
member of the National Security o ~ c i l collaborated with
the political fundraiser Carl ("Spitz") Channel to collect an-
other $4.5 million for the contras from private U.S. citizens.
(President Reagan, who actually met with the largest of
these donors, supposedly had no knowledge of why he was
meeting with them.) Finally, there was the diversion to the
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WE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
contras of several millions dollars from the sale of arms to
Iran.
25
Throughout this period, enough had surfaced in the me-
dia about the activities of the key players in these various
scams for any objective observer to know what was going
on. However, Congress obviously did not want to know.
When the stories began to appear in summer of 1985,
Reagan offered the predictable denial that any laws were
being violated. As more stories surfaced and several cargo
planes were shot down over Nicaragua, Abrams, McFarlane,
North, and National Security Advisor John Poindexter were
all eventually called into Congress to give an account of
what was happening; all assured the members of Congress
that nothing untoward was going on. Of course this was
enough to satisfy Congress which pretended to believe that
an administration that had lied to it so many times before
could not possibly be lying to it now. Consequently, Con-
gress acted appropriately surprised and betrayed when the
whole thing came to a head in the later part of 1986.
There then ensued the long, televised, Congressional hear-
ings of summer 1987. The Democrats, now in control of both
the House and the Senate, were extremely anxious not to
appear to be gloating over the popular president's problems.
They thus allowed the Republicans to turn the hearings es-
sentially into a propaganda platform for the contra cause.
Not surprisingly, Oliver North emerged as an all-American
hero, and it was left to Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh
to establish the true criminality of what North had done.
In short, because of its make-up, Congress generally pre-
tended not to notice the president's outlaw behavior as long
as possible, and when not noticing became politically impos-
sible, Congress generally acted on imagery rather than sub-
stance to avoid as much as possible having to take a
controversial stand.
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POPULAR CULTURE AND THE U.S. PUBLIC
The u.s. public was not getting much direction on Central
America from either its political leaders or the media. How-
ever, if we believe that the German public should have
known what its government was doing during the Nazi Holo-
caust, then the u.s. public should certainly have known and
cared about what its government was doing in Central
America. The United States after all is a much more open
society than was Nazi Germany, and the policies of the u.s.
government in Central America were much more public than
Hitler's "final solution." To understand why the u.s. public
did not respond appropriately to the moral challenge with
which it was faced, we need to return to the framework
developed in Chapter 2.
There is, first of all, a considerable degree of authoritari-
anism in the United States, which, again, is the tendency
to defer uncritically to figures of authority. Americans are
actually trained to be this way from their earliest experi-
ences in school, where they are not taught to question their
teachers or their textbooks but to studiously memorize facts
that they will later be asked to regurgitate on exams. And
the facts are not neutral. Curricula in social studies and
history, for example, are not designed to make students into
critical evaluators of their nation and its history but to make
them into loyal supporters of the United States and the way
we do things here.
26
To think critically, students need to re-
ceive a fairly presented alternative point of view, for it is
only from the standpoint of an alternative perspective that
one learns the critical questions to ask of one's own. Such
an alternative perspective is rarely taught. For example, al-
though students are taught that the United States is locked
in a great cosmic struggle with world communism, the ideas
of Karl Marx are seldom presented except to be quickly dis-
missed. Since students are not diligently taught the art of
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WE ALLOWED OURSEL YES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
argumentation, they never learn how to argue with their
own selves, to question the basic assumptions that they and
everyone else take for granted. Instead, they become passive
receptacles of information rather than autonomous, critical
thinkers.
Unfortunately, these educational experiences only get re-
inforced when students go on to find jobs and fit themselves
into one or another hierarchy of authority. Just as all work-
ers know they need not explain their own directives to work-
ers below them, so does it not occur to them to question
the directives they receive from above. Thus, Oliver North
resonated favorably with many Americans watching the
Iran-contra hearings when he said, "If the Commander in
Chief tells this Lieutenant Colonel to go stand in the corner
and sit on his head, I will do SO."27 However high sounding
these words may be, they are actually a chilling echo of the
mentality of Eichmann.
It is no wonder that Americans find it difficult to question
the authority of their president when he embroils the nation
in an immoral venture. Nothing in their training or their
daily lives prepares them to do that. But there is something
else going on here as well. In contrast with many other coun-
tries, in the United States, the president is not only the chief
executive but also the ceremonial head of state. As a conse-
quence, the president tends to take on the trappings of a
king and to symbolize the nation as a whole; thus, criticism
of the president is easily interpreted by many as criticism
of the nation. For this reason, it is not simply that Americans
do not think to criticize their president; many positively re-
sent and resist such criticism. This was particularly true
under Reagan, who, like Hitler, was a restorationist leader.
It will be recalled that Hitler appeared on the scene at a
time when Germany was suffering from international humil-
iation and economic despair. The humiliation at Versailles,
the memory of the run-away inflation, and the current expe-
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WE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
rience of economic depression all made many Germans long
for a restoration of Germany's imperial might and glory. It
was the promise of a reborn Germany that Hitler embodied
that made him inspiring to so many of his compatriots. Simi-
larly, when Reagan made his election bid in 1980, the people
of the United States were likewise cognizant of their own
decline from military and economic greatness. Barely five
years had passed since the humiliating conclusion to the
Vietnam War, the first military defeat in United States his-
tory-and this at the hands of a fifth-rate power. Then came
the gas lines with Americans forced to confront their vulner-
ability to the foreign power of the oil cartel. After that there
was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Finally, and coincid-
ing with the 1980 presidential election, "America [was] held
hostage" to the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran. As Reagan put it
then, America was beginning to seem like a "pitiful helpless
giant." The economic situation was no better. Because of a
decade of increasingly uncontrollable inflation, the position
of the middle class was steadily eroding. First in 1973 and
then repeatedly in the latter half of the decade, the United
States marked its first imbalances in international trade
since 1893.
28
Something was certainly wrong with America,
and Ronald Reagan was going to fix it. Reagan represented
pride in America. He was going to end the "Vietnam Syn-
drome," the economic "malaise" of Jimmy Carter, and the
"blame America first" mentality. In short, Ronald Reagan
was going to restore America to her former "small town"
greatness.
Things did appear to get better under Ronald Reagan's
two terms in office. As Reagan entered office in 1981, the
hostages came home from Iran and the oil cartel fell apart.
Through the mechanism of a major recession, the fires of
inflation were abated. Then, tax cuts and an immense mili-
tary build-up stimulated the economy. On the international
front, Reagan exuded strength and a willingness to stand
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WE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
up to the Russians. The result was an era of tremendous
optimism and good feeling about America. As the commenta-
tors in the media told us at the time, America had fallen
in love with itself. The cry "We' re number one!" rang out
repeatedly at the summer Olympics in 1984 as American
athletes won more medals than ever because of the boycott
by the Soviet bloc countries. The Fourth of July celebration
in 1986 at the restored Statue of Liberty, presided over by
Mr. and Mrs. Reagan and commemorating the bicentennial
of the Constitution, had almost religious overtones. The na-
tion, the Valk, was restored.
Herein lay the source of the teflon presidency. To middle
America in this era of unabashed patriotism, it mattered
little what Reagan was doing to the poor, to the blacks, to
women, and to the struggling peoples of Central America.
Middle-class America was doing just fine-or at least
thought it was. As a consequence, middle-class America ig-
nored or actively resisted criticisms of its popular leader.
Middle-class America did not want to know about the dirty
underside of the Reagan Revolution and accordingly did
nothing to find out about it.
There were still other factors that contributed to the
American public's indifference about Central America. First
among these were the phenomena of pluralistic ignorance
and the diffusion of responsibility. Because of its effective
disempowerment, the American public has largely with-
drawn from the political process. It tends to believe that its
political role is fulfilled by voting once very four years. Dur-
ing the times in between these ritualistic elections, the
American public generally defers political responsibility to
its elected representatives and does not watch too closely
what they do-particularly what they do in foreign lands.
Because "everyone" more or less defers responsibility in
this way, a condition of pluralistic ignorance develops.
When people look around, they do not see anyone concerned
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WE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
about Central America-not their families, not their friends,
not their neighbors, not their coworkers. Thus, for most peo-
ple, Central America does not even emerge as an issue.
As in all cases of pluralistic ignorance, the situation in
Central America appeared highly ambiguous to most of the
American public. The popular president of the United States
said one thing, his critics another. Who were people sup-
posed to believe? The amount of effort that was required to
sort through the Reagan administration's lies, distortions,
and half-truths was beyond the time and energy most Ameri-
cans were willing to expend. By thus complicating the issue,
the Reagan administration effectively neutralized its critics.
For most Americans, it was simply easier and less disturb-
ing to trust the president. And because the president's
elected critics recognized that this was so and thus feared
antagonizing their constituents, many of them toned down
their denunciations, further dampening the American pub-
lic's appreciation of the gravity of the situation. In such a
context, it is no wonder that most Americans consider it to
be utterly unbelievable that the United States could have
become a party to genocide in Central America.
There is another reason it is so hard to believe. From all
the movies Americans have seen about the Holocaust, they
have a certain image of a genocidal regime. They think of
totalitarianism and of storm troopers rampaging through
the streets. They think of Kristallnacht and of the secret
police. Certainly nothing like this was going on in Reagan's
America. When Americans looked around themselves, every-
thing appeared entirely normal. There were still the same
advertisements on television, the same personal freedoms,
the same ritualistic elections, the same apparent absence of
anything like terrorism.
How could all this apparent normality be reconciled with
the charge of genocide? Here, we have to recognize that al-
though history repeats itself, it never repeats itself exactly.
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WE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
It has been said that for fascism to come to America, it will
have to be a "friendly fascism," and that was essentially
what the Reagan administration provided-a fascism with
a happy face that disturbed nobody's life-at least nobody's
life in middle-class America.
29
As I have argued throughout
this book, a government need not be totalitarian for it to get
away with genocide, particularly if that genocide is carried
out in a distant part of the world. All it takes is a compliant,
indifferent population. And such a population can be found
in a democracy like the United States as well as in totalitar-
ian states like Nazi Germany. The complete refusal of our
democratic people to believe this is part of what makes it
possible.
Under the circumstances, it would have required a dedi-
cated will to truth for most Americans to see the reality of
the situation in Central America. Unfortunately, a strong
will to truth is sorely lacking in the contemporary United
States. Americans are used to being lied to or having the
"truth stretched" as they prefer to describe it, not only by
their politicians, but also by the entire consumer culture of
the United States. Consider that commercial advertisements
are perhaps the most widely shared form of nonfiction in
American culture and that such advertisements routinely
"stretch the truth" in obvious ways. Consider all the adver-
tisements telling us that such and such a product will make
us lose weight or dry up our wrinkles or make our wash
come out clean and bright. Consider all the obviously staged
dramatized interviews with happy customers. Although
these advertisements are obviously effective, does anyone
actually believe what they say? To the extent that we do
not believe them, the one conclusion we may draw from the
profusion of such advertisements is that it is perfectly all
right and indeed part of the game to stretch the truth. Given
how constantly bombarded we are by the obviously false
messages of the advertisers, it is tempting to say that ours
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WE ALLOWED OURSEL VES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
is essentially a culture of deceit. Is it any wonder that truth
is not highly valued in this context?
Advertising is not the sole cause of the devaluation of
truth in our culture. Another cause is the virtual absence of
truth seekers as heroic role models. A society's heroes say
a lot about its fundamental values. Who are the popular
heroes of our culture and what virtues do they exemplify?
Are they figures who have exhibited a heroic degree of intel-
lectual or moral courage or are they instead representatives
of nothing other than success-rock singers, movie stars,
ball players, business executives, and, always, the presi-
dent? The question hardly needs an answer.
Our children will model themselves after the heroes that
are held up to them. If as a culture we systematically pres-
ent them with heroes exemplifying success rather than
moral and intellectual courage, it should be no surprise that
they grow up without even knowing what it means to coura-
geously seek truth in the manner of a Thoreau or a Socrates.
In tum, it should be no surprise that they tend to believe
what is easy, undemanding, and comforting. Ultimately, we
should not profess surprise when we find that we have be-
come a nation of sheep.
The very concept of truth is widely devalued in our cul-
ture. A college professor like myself need not share the con-
servative views Allan Bloom expresses in his The Closing of
the American Mind to agree completely with his opening
statement: "There is one thing a professor can be absolutely
certain of: almost every student entering the university be-
lieves, or says he believes, that truth is relative."JO In my
experience too, the majority of students from a wide range
of backgrounds believe that there is no absolute truth of a
matter but instead, many different opinions, each equally
valid. For this reason, students are often reluctant to argue
about their opinions in class, either with me or with each
other. They seem to feel that it is intolerant to challenge
COpyJ igln'fI(fMateJ iaf
WE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
another person's opinion, that doing so threatens to deprive
the other of something he or she is entitled to.
This is a disastrous mistake. One can be tolerant of an-
other person's opinion and still believe that it is incorrect.
We may all be entitled to our own opinions without their all
being equally right. We simply have to acknowledge that
people have a right to be wrong on certain matters. When
pressed, most of my students will admit that there are abso-
lute truths in mathematics, the natural sciences, and per-
haps even in such domains as accounting. In matters of
religion, morality, and social phenomena, however, they still
demur. These areas are much more complicated, and in each
of them, we are often much farther from a single right an-
swer. Nevertheless, even in these areas all opinions are not
equally valid. One may be entitled to believe, for example,
that the world was literally created in seven days, but for
many reasons, this is just not a tenable opinion.
The problem with such widespread relativism is that it
engenders intellectual laziness. If all opinions are equally
valid, why work to improve one's own? Why learn more if
the opinion you will arrive at is ultimately no better than the
one you started out with? In political matters, the relativist
orientation is particularly dangerous. If all political views
are equally valid, why not believe those that you find most
comforting? If the president's views on Central America are
as valid as those of his critics, why follow the critics? With
a relativist orientation, it does not even make sense to try to
find out more about the issue. If one side comes out looking
stronger after such an investigation, it must be only because
the other side was not taken sufficiently into account.
"There are two sides to everything." "Nothing is black or
white." These sayings have been ingrained in all of us. When
they challenge us to a thorough investigation of a contro-
versy, they serve an important purpose. More often than not,
however, they excuse us from such intellectual effort and
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WE ALLOWED OURSEL YES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
become defense mechanisms for the avoidance of both
thought and commitment. There were people to whom I
talked at length about Central America only to have them
tell me at the end, "Well, that's your side." They were sure
that someone representing the Reagan administration could
defend the other side just as compellingly. When I chal-
lenged them to find out if this was so, they told me they had
not the time or the interest. While there may be tWb sides
to everything, the two sides are not necessarily equally valid.
There were not two equally valid sides to the Holocaust-
the Jewish side and the Nazi side. That was true as well for
Central America.
What makes the weakness of the American will to truth
so disturbing is that the United States prides itself on its
Judeo-Christian heritage. This was particularly so under
Reagan, whose electoral victories owed much to Christian
fundamentalists. For both Judaism and Christianity, truth
is of paramount value. Both religions, moreover, stress jus-
tice and concern for one's neighbor. Well, in Central
America, our neighbor was being crucified, and our govern-
ment was supplying the nails. Where were the voices of our
good, religious folk crying out in protest? Why did their
religious concern for their neighbor not compel them to an
unwavering search for truth?
To be fair, as we will see in the next chapter, a substantial
segment of the higher and lower clergy-both Christian and
non-Christian-did protest loudly and with some real effect.
So did many among the laity. But this was always a minority
response among the clergy but especially among the laity.
Where was the rest of religious America? To answer that,
we need to remember once again that America is the land
of appearance and that with religion too, the appearance is
different from the reality.
The Christian right that lent so much support to Reagan's
presidency shares very little with the simple message of

WE ALLOWED OURSEL YES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
Jesus of Nazareth. Love for one's enemies, concern for the
poor, none of this is much in evidence among the Christian
right. With their expensive suits, theme parks, and huge
bank rolls, the televangelists of the Christian right symbol-
ize nothing so much as economic success. And Jesus is re-
duced to a divine partner in this success. Believe in Jesus
and you will be saved, healed, and prosperous-a veritable
"gospel of prosperity." Salvation itself is portrayed as a self-
ish, economic investment, a way of securing a piece of the
heavenly pie. Moreover, the gospel of success is simultane-
ously a gospel of the nation, of the Volk. As God's chosen
people, a new Israel, the United States, according to this
gospel, is destined to shed its light among nations. America's
godless enemies will be defeated and literally banished from
the earth. God thus becomes a tribal deity of the United
States, leading it successfully into battle against atheistic
communism. No, there would be no cries of protest arising
from this crowd. What arose instead were men like Senator
Jesse Helms (R, North Carolina), who would vigorously de-
fend Roberto D'Aubuisson's ultra-rightest ARENA party in
EI Salvador, who would argue that the Reagan administra-
tion was not going far enough in countering Central Ameri-
can communism. There arose instead men like the Reverend
Jerry Falwell, who would defend the white minority govern-
ment in South Africa and later invite the indicted Oliver
North as the commencement speaker at his Liberty College,
comparing the indictment of this man with the indictment
of Jesus Christ. Anti-urbanism, anticommunism, prosperity,
and the nation are the idols worshipped by the Christian
right. Like the Volkish element in Nazi Germany, the Chris-
tian right would applaud the cult of strength, not protest
against it.
There was, nevertheless, one thing the Christian right saw
correctly: the intimate connection between religion and poli-
tics. Although the Christian right's liberal critics excoriated
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WE ALLOWED OURSEL YES TO BECOME A PARTY TO GENOCIDE
it for mixing politics and religion, the Christian right saw
correctly that political issues are simultaneously moral is-
sues and that, therefore, religious commitments cannot but
have political implications. Mainstream American Chris-
tendom missed this connection completely. Mainstream
American Christendom has completely compartmentalized
its religion so that it has force only in the private sphere.
Mainstream Christianity consists mostly of family holidays,
Sunday services, and perhaps saying one's prayers before
going to bed. Its morality is largely a list of don'ts: Don't lie,
don't cheat, don't steal, and don't commit adultery. The idea
is to have as good a time as possible within the confines
of these don'ts. Beyond the don'ts and the family holidays,
religion plays little role in the lives of mainstream Chris-
tians. Beyond lip service, there is very little of the positive
and truly radical morality that Jesus preached: Serve God
by serving your neighbor.
There is very little in a negative morality of don'ts or in
a religion of family holidays and church services to push
religious concern beyond the private sphere into the politi-
cal domain. It takes a positive morality of radical commit-
ment to one's neighbor to extend the concept of neighbor to
those one does not see face to face, to extend the responsibil-
ities of neighborliness to suffering peasants in a remote
country. It takes such a radical commitment to neighborli-
ness to care about the effects of political decisions on our
neighbors everywhere. That, however, is a commitment that
is largely unknown in mainstream American Christendom.
CoPyrighte1Jf..Aaterial
7 In the Footsteps
of the Righteous
Yad Vashem.1t is a memorial park in Jerusalem, established
in 1953. Literally, it means name and place. The places are
embedded in the massive, stone floor of the Hall of Remem-
brance located there: Treblinka, Buchenwald, Ausch-
witz ... The names are recorded in the Hall of Names: over
two million by now with more continually being added: the
names of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Yad Vas hem
is a place of remembrance. It contains a synagogue for medi-
tation and a museum for learning. An eternal flame burns
in memory of the lives lost. It is an austere and somber
place.'
Yet there is another memorial at Yad Vashem: the very
entranceway itself, extending from the parking lot to the
main site. Although it does not appear to be anything impor-
tant and hence is often overlooked by the throngs of tourists
on their way to the snack bar or to the major monuments,
it is a symbol of human decency and courage. As the en-
trance to this memorial to the world's hate, it serves as the
victims' humble reminder that there were also those who
loved. It has come to be called "the Avenue of the Righ-
teous." Over seven hundred trees line this path, and at the
base of each there is a plaque also noting a name and a
place. They are the names and nations of "righteous" gen-
tiles, people who put themselves at terrible risk throughout
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FOOTSTEPS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
Nazi-occupied Europe to save the lives of Jews. Some hid
Jews in their homes. Some smuggled Jews into safety. Still
others helped in other ways. Each tree that has been planted
here, and their number too is still growing, has been planted
to honor one of them. Because it was life they gave to others,
they are each remembered not with stone but with a tree
that is itself a living thing.
Usually, the names of the righteous at Yad Vashem are
initially put forward by Jews who are still alive today be-
cause of what they did. Researchers at Yad Vashem then
begin a rigorous process of examination. The candidate
must have acted selflessly and not from any pecuniary mo-
tive. Originally, the "righteous of nations" referred to those
non-Jews who nevertheless complied with God's law and
were therefore worthy of God's favor. Today, it connotes
those who are untouched by evil.
To be truly untouched by evil, it is not enough to person-
ally refrain from evil deeds or even evil thoughts. It is not
enough, for example, to refrain from discrimination or to be
free of prejudice. To be truly one of the righteous, one has
to act against evil. As Peter Hellman explains, the Commit-
tee on the Righteous at Yad Vashem places great emphasis
on the good deed, the "mitzvah."
The deed counts. Jeremiah's exhortation to "deliver from the
hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed" became most
urgent in Nazi-ruled nations. It was not enough for a Christian
to express sympathy for Jews or even to pray for them in their
terminal misery. Action had to be the order of the day, how-
ever inconvenient or dangerous. Many of the Righteous, in
fact, seem more adept at action than explanation. Asked why
they did what they did, it is characteristic for them to shrug
their shoulders and say, "I did nothing special. Anybody would
have done it."2
There is wisdom in this emphasis on action. In our highly
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FOOTSTEPS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
bureaucratized modern world, we are all a part of complex
organizations and societies whose acts transcend our own.
As long as we continue to go to work or pay our taxes or
otherwise conduct business as usual, we contribute to the
continued functioning of the various social systems to which
we belong. Our very identities are formed not as atomized
individuals but as Americans, Germans, Swedes, and such.
We are therefore implicated in the deeds of our group, even
if they are not our own deeds. In such circumstance, we are
not untouched by evil simply because our own hands are
unbloodied, because we did not personally drop a bomb, or
sign a release for a bomb, or direct where a bomb would be
dropped. Behind every bomber and behind every bomb,
there is an entire society, a society that in countless ways
materially supports and enables those who build the bombs,
train the bombers, and direct where they will be dropped.
Thus, as long as we are alive and conducting business as
usual, we are participants in the deeds of our group. Having
no conscious role in evil, therefore, is not the same as having
the purity of the righteous. Doing nothing leaves us tainted,
by default.
There is no escape from this complicity unless we remove
ourselves from society altogether. That was the option exer-
cised by one of our American symbols of righteousness,
Henry David Thoreau. In his "Essay on Civil Disobedience,"
Thoreau clearly articulated the role he saw himself as play-
ing both in the imperialist Mexican war of 1848 and in the
institution of slavery just by being a "good" citizen. He saw
that his silence gave assent to the wrongs committed by his
society and that his tax contributions aided and abetted
those wrongs. He resolved to say no to what society was
doing. He refused to pay his taxes. He went to jail.
In Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's play The Night
Thoreau Spent in Jail, there is a scene where Ralph Waldo
Emerson comes to the jailhouse and asks his friend what
coPyrightJ! 1.Aaterial
FOOTSTEPS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
he is doing in there. Thoreau, however, turns the question
around. The question, he said, is What are you doing out-
side?3 To Thoreau, jail is the only proper place for a just
person in an unjust society. Only by placing oneself in total
opposition to one's unjust society can one wash oneself en-
tirely clean of that society' s wrongs.
This will strike many as an extreme position. Indeed, it is
extreme. But what is extreme is only the extent to which
Thoreau went to cleanse himself, not the need for such
cleansing in the first place. There are times, moreover, when
extremes are called for. While one's government is impli-
cated in genocide, one perhaps cannot do less than the ex-
treme and remain innocent. One cannot draw a line when
people's lives are at stake and say, "There, I have done
enough." That is why even today the tradition of civil disobe-
dience remains so strong. That is why even today there is a
War Tax Resisters' League, made up of people who regularly
withhold that portion of their taxes that goes to military
expenditures. That, finally, is why there is an illegal sanctu-
ary movement around Central America and why a small con-
tingent of the Central America protest movement regularly
engages in illegal acts of civil disobedience.
Most of us, myself included, will not go the extreme. So
be it. We must instead live with our measure of the collec-
tive guilt. Perhaps, however, our sense of that complicity
will awaken us from the everydayness in which we routinely
slumber away our lives. Perhaps it will stir us to recognize
that something extraordinary is afoot, demanding that we
behave in ways beyond the ordinary. Perhaps, when we stop
to think that the very lives of fellow human beings are at
issue, we will at least be motivated to deeds of righ-
teousness.
The righteous are perhaps the paramount heroes of the
modern age and righteousness perhaps the paraJllount vir-
tue of modernity. That is because today it is our govern-
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FOOTSTEPS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
ments and our bureaucracies that will let loose the greatest
evils on the world. They are the contemporary dragons we
shall have to slay. Today the dragon-slayers will have to
come from the ordinary folk. The age of princes is past. The
princes themselves are often the source of the evil. Thus, if
the world is to be delivered now, it must be delivered by us.
The righteous of Yad Vas hem were ordinary women and
men like ourselves. They lived through a time when ordinary
human decency was an act of tremendous courage. To honor
them, we must do more than plant a tree in their memory.
We must follow in their footsteps.
There were those in Reagan's America who did indeed
follow in the footsteps of the righteous. Although they were
never a large percentage of the American population, those
who fought U.S. policies in Central America were many in
number. On the eve of EI Salvador's sham election in 1982,
some twenty-three thousand people gathered in Washington
to march in protest against contiilUed aid to El Salvador.
They were there again in similar number in November 1983
and yet again in 1984.4 A full seventy thousand people signed
a nationwide "pledge of resistance," committing themselves
to engage in civil disobedience or other forms of protest
should the Reagan administration have sent troops to Cen-
tral America.
By 1984 a whole subculture of resistance had developed.
Scores of national groups had emerged to organize around
the issue, groups such as the Coalition in Solidarity with the
People of EI Salvador (CISPES), Neighbor-to-Neighbor, New
EI Salvador Today (NEST), the Washington Office on Latin
America (WOLA), the Interreligious Task Force on EI Salva-
dor and Central America, Nurses Against U.S. Aggression,
the Lawyers Committee Against U.S. Intervention in Central
America, Witness for Peace, the Sanctuary Movement, Tec-
nica, Quest for Peace, the National Central America Health
Rights Network, and the Ex-Peace Corps Volunteer Com-
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FOOTSTEPS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
mittee on Central America. There were also numerous local
groups that sprang up. In just Philadelphia, for example,
there were at one point eighteen different groups organizing
around Central America. There was Medical Aid to EI Salva-
dor, the Central America Organizing Project, Las Madres,
Artists Collective, Veterans for Peace, the Central America
Working Group, Democratic Socialists, Christians Con-
cerned About Central America, and the Coffee Brigades, to
name a few. Entire cities declared themselves in opposition
to Reagan's policies and established sister relations with
towns and cities in Central America. Throughout the coun-
try material aid was collected for Nicaragua and the resist-
ing people of EI Salvador. Thousands of ordinary Americans
went down to Central America to see for themselves what
was going on. Many even stayed to serve and work and make
up for what their own government was doing. Charles Clem-
ents, for example, a physician and Vietnam veteran, traveled
with the guerrillas in EI Salvador, providing them with med-
ical assistance. Paul Rice and Benjamin Linder (eventually
shot and killed by contras at close range) lent their assis-
tance to appropriate technology projects in the war-torn
parts of Nicaragua. Finally, to disseminate information and
document what was happening, an avalanche of books, arti-
cles, newsletters, and documentaries appeared.
Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the Central
America protest movement was the strong and influential
involvement of the U.S. religious community. Karl Marx
once dismissed religion as the opiate of the people, and, to
be sure, for most of America's religious, religion is not much
more than that. For most of America's religious, religion
has no social conscience. There was, however, a substantial
minority who took their religion seriously, and for the issue
of Central America, they revealed just how subversive and
politically important true religious commitment actually is.
According to the Congressional Quarterly, it was the power-
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ful pressure emanating from America's churches and syna-
gogues that sensitized members of Congress to the human
rights dimension of the conflict and motivated many to op-
pose Reagan's policies. It was the religious pressure that
made the Reagan administration itself much more cautious
than it otherwise might have been.
5
As one high-ranking gen-
eral observed, "The greatest challenge to all that we do now
comes from within the churches."6 Indeed, it would have
been one thing for the U.S. government to overlook the cries
of marginalized, secular, leftist critics, and quite another to
ignore the protests from America's religious mainstream.
Thus, if there was one thing that ultimately prevented the
Reagan administration from invading Nicaragua or sending
troops to EI Salvador, it was this pressure from America's
religious. Notice had to be taken even by the secular left,
itself often dismissive of religion. The Central America issue
had made it clear, as nothing else could, that the religious
left is the only efficacious left the United States has.
The striking thing is that the religious pressure came not
only or even primarily from lay people but from the clergy
and went all the way up the various denominational hierar-
chies. On this issue, the clergy were way out in front of
their more conservative congregations.? Catholic missionary
orders such as the Jesuits and Maryknoll knew what was
happening in Central America first hand. In fact, it was often
their own priests and nuns down there who were being tar-
geted for murder. They were thus early critics of the Reagan
administration. The Jesuits accordingly organized teach-ins
and letter-writing campaigns at their various schools and
universities, and Maryknoll published numerous books on
Central America through its publishing house, Orbis Press.
But the American Catholic hierarchy responded as well. The
U.S. Catholic Conference, the association of America's three
hundred Catholic bishops, maintained a department of So-
cial Development and World Peace in Washington, D.C.,
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FOOTSTEPS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
which unstintingly lobbied against Reagan's policies on Cap-
itol Hill.
s
In November 1982, twenty-two Catholic bishops joined
with three hundred religious leaders from other denomina-
tions, including nine rabbis, in a pastoral letter, stating in
part, "We deplore our government's role in the militariza-
tion of Central America, including the slow but steady in-
crease of u.s. military advisors in El Salvador, Honduras,
and Guatemala."9
The protest against U.S. policies in Central America was
truly ecumenical in scope. Protestant clergy in particular
remembered their silence during the Holocaust and re-
solved not to let that happen again. 10 Thus, particular Protes-
tant denominations such as the Quakers and Presbyterians
were also early and fervent critics of the Reagan administra-
tion. The Other Side and Sojourners magazines, associated
with politically active evangelical communities, were
strongly critical as well. The Boston-based Unitarian-Univer-
salist Service Committee sponsored numerous Congres-
sional fact-finding tours to EI Salvador. For its part, the
Protestant National Council of Churches housed the Interre-
ligious Task Force on El Salvador and Central America,
which lobbied for cessation of U.S. military aid to EI Salva-
dor and negotiations with the FMLN rebels. Still another
ecumenical lobby group, WOLA, maintained strong ties with
Michael Barnes (D, Maryland), who chaired the House Sub-
committee for Inter-American Affairs. However, although it
was influential in Congress, like the secular CISPES, WOLA
was considered "too leftist" for many Congressional mem-
bers, who simply ignored its appeals'"
On February 24, 1984, in an unprecedented show of una-
nimity, the leaders of eleven Protestant denominations is-
sued a joint declaration, denouncing Reagan's Central
American policies. "The Salvadoran government" the state-
ment said, "slaughters brutally its own people .... It is mor-
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ally repugnant for the U.S. to assist in such brutality .... For
our moral integrity as a nation, we dare not support further
bloodshed."12 Around the same time, Bishop James Malone
of Youngstown, Ohio, then president of the U.S. Catholic
Conference, observed that the "core problem" in EI Salva-
dor was not outside Communist subversion as the Reagan
administration maintained but the "endemic social inequal-
ity and brutal military repression that has characterized
Salvadoran society."13
Unquestionably, the two most dramatic responses of re-
sistance to the policies of the Reagan administration were
Witness for Peace and the Sanctuary movement. Witness for
Peace was religiously inspired and the Sanctuary movement
came squarely out of America's churches and synagogues.
Witness for Peace began in April 1983 with an ecumenical
group of North Carolina religious leaders who had gone to
Nicaragua on a fact-finding tour. The group discovered that
while they were present in a border town, expected contra
attacks did not occur. Evidently, the contras knew the
Americans were there and did not want to risk the public
relations damage that might ensue if U.S. citizens were in-
jured or killed during an attack. The idea was thus born for
an "unarmed human shield" consisting of U.S. citizens. The
idea was to place contingents of U.S. volunteers in the bor-
der towns of Nicaragua for two-week stints on a rotating
basis. By thus sharing danger with the Nicaraguans, the
Americans could resist the actions of their own government
and "do penance" for them at the same time. A call went
out through the activist network, and by July of the same
year, the first contingent left for Nicaragua. One hundred
and fifty in all, the volunteers came from all over the coun-
try-housewives, students, teachers, clergy, and professors,
from all walks of life they came. They were about to risk
their lives. They were headed for Jalapa, a region where
journalists had been ambushed and over three hundred Nic-
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FOOTSTEPS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
araguans had been kidnapped over the previous six months,
some having been tortured and killed. These ordinary
Americans were about to risk their own lives for peace, and
they each had had to pay their own way in order to do SO.14
By 1986, over two thousand volunteers had made the jour-
ney, and Witness for Peace, now administered by the Inter-
religious Task Force, was a vibrant movement.
The danger was real. In August 1985, for example, the
contras lambasted Witness for Peace volunteers as "wolves
in sheep's clothing" and threatened to shoot if a Witness for
Peace contingent attempted to travel down the San Juan
River toward the Costa Rican border. When the volunteers
made the trip anyway, they were all taken captive and held
for twenty-nine hours. As frightened as they were, the volun-
teers realized that this was the sort of terror that Nicara-
guans lived with every day because of what the u.S.
government was doing}S
They realized as well that theirs was a witness of courage
and solidarity with the oppressed that history also would
remember when it came time to tally the record of the Amer-
ican people during this period. The Nicaraguan people them-
selves certainly remember. One of the surprises that met
the American traveler to Nicaragua even in the midst of the
American-sponsored contra war was the complete lack of
antipathy toward Americans on the part of the Nicaraguan
people. Because they realized the magnitude of the resis-
tance movement in the United States and because they ap-
preciated the solidarity of those who, like the volunteers of
Witness for Peace, put their lives on the line for the sake
of justice, the Nicaraguan people made a clear distinction
between the American people and the American govern-
ment. The American government was clearly their enemy,
but the American people they knew only as their friends.
I traveled to Nicaragua myself during this period, though
not with Witness for Peace. It was a time when Nicaragua
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was almost crawling with Americans: church groups, uni-
versity groups like the one I was with, groups visiting their
sister cities, Witness for Peace volunteers, and many more.
I remember passing a Nicaraguan man and his small son in
the rural town of Estali. The boy had evidently asked why
there were so many foreigners in his country, for the man
was explaining that we were friends and that it was very
important to Nicaragua that we were there. Clearly, it was
extraordinary for a people under such attack-and a third
world people at that-to make such a sophisticated, socio-
logical distinction between an enemy government and its
people. Yet, it was clear that groups like Witness for Peace
had had a profound effect. Although they represented only
a tiny fraction of the American people, it was as Witness for
Peace volunteers that the American people would be remem-
bered by the people of Nicaragua. If our government in this
period was heaping the United States with shame, there
were those among our people who were clothing us with
pride.
The Sanctuary movement, arising around the issue of
Central American refugees, was yet another source of pride.
The state terrorism in El Salvador and Guatemala had cre-
ated a mass exodus from those countries. By the early 1980s,
there were almost half a million refugees from El Salvador
and Guatemala in the United States alone.
16
Their very pres-
ence here was an indictment of the Reagan administration.
How could the Reagan administration maintain that it was
supporting "the right sides" in the various Central American
conflicts when so many refugees were entering the United
States to flee the very governments the administration was
backing?
It was clear that the Reagan administration could not tol-
erate the presence of these people within our borders. It
therefore undertook to send them all back to the terror from
which they had fled. Throughout the early 1980s, the Immi-

FOOTSTEPS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
gration and Naturalization Service (INS) was deporting Sal-
vadoran and Guatemalan refugees at a rate of almost one
thousand a month.
17
With a cynicism typical of the adminis-
tration, the assistant secretary of state for human rights.
Elliot Abrams, declared that these people were not political
refugees at all but rather economic migrants in search of a
higher standard of living. As such, they were all ineligible
for refugee status. Of the nearly twenty thousand Salva-
dorans who formally applied for political asylum between
1983 and 1986, fewer than six hundred actually received it.
For Guatemalans, the statistics were even worse: Political
asylum was granted to fewer than 1 percent of those who
applied for it. The rest were considered illegal aliens. IS
The observer at this time could only be impressed, could
only marvel at the sheer brazenness of the hypocrisy that
ruled Reagan's America. While all this was going on, the
hearts of many Americans were as warmed as Ronald
Reagan's by a news story then hitting the front pages of a
private fund that was being collected to renovate our now-
decrepit Statue of Liberty, that enduring symbol of Amer-
ica's open arms to refugees everywhere. America, Ronald
Reagan had told us, needed to take more pride in itself. Here
then were concerned citizens pitching in together as is our
way to enable us to do just that.
Of course, America does have open arms for refugees if
they come from the right place. If one wanted to leave the
Soviet Union or another Communist country, then naturally
one could be considered a political refugee, for Communist
governments were our enemies and hence clearly bad. How-
ever, if one were already living in the land of the free, say
in one of the "fledgling democracies" in Central America,
then the only possible reason one could have for fleeing to
the United States was impatience to partake of the bounty
of the American way of life.
A substantial number of religious people did not see
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things this way. They knew about the systematic torture,
the rapes, the disappearances, and the massacres in Central
America. They knew what the Central American refugees
were fleeing. They knew as well that by fleeing such condi-
tions the refugees had marked themselves even more dis-
tinctively as opponents of their governments. They knew,
therefore, that to send these people back into the arms of
their governments was in all probability to send them back
to their deaths. These religious people remembered the
world's abandonment of the Jews during the Holocaust but
remembered as well the righteous courage of those who had
illegally hidden Jews in theirnomes. They did not want to
be compared with the millions of "good Germans" who had
done nothing during the Holocaust. They accordingly fol-
lowed in the footsteps of the righteous.
That last point is especially significant. Perhaps the ulti-
mate justification for the comparison I have made in this
book between the Holocaust and Central America is that this
connection was already consciously made by many Central
America activists themselves. It was in part their sense of
this very connection that impelled them to act in the first
place. For such people, this connection did not at all dilute
the meaning of the Holocaust. Instead it brought it to life.
The Sanctuary movement began in Tucson, Arizona, with '
Jim Corbett, a Quaker convinced that "a full-scale holocaust
was going on in Central America."19 In spring 1981 he began
to maneuver around the INS patrol cars to usher Guatema-
lan and Salvadoran refugees into safety. In the beginning,
that meant getting them to Southside Presbyterian Church,
where the pastor, the Reverend John Fife, was willing to
offer them sanctuary. It was an illegal and risky business
for all involved. The penalty for illegally aiding the transport
of "aliens" into the country was a two-thousand-dollar fine
and up to five years in prison. Nevertheless, Southside Pres-
byterian Church was openly defiant in what it was doing,
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FOOTSTEPS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
literally daring the government to take action. The point of
going public was to witness to the plight of the afflicted, to
"speak truth to power."20
And the power of truth had an effect. Soon, churches and
synagogues throughout the country were declaring them-
selves sanctuaries for Central American refugees, first in
Los Angeles, then in Chicago, later in Minneapolis, Washing-
ton, D.C., New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. The first
Catholic sanctuary church was in Milwaukee. With the Holo-
caust clearly in mind, Archbishop Rembert Weakland pub-
licly gave his support to any church in the diocese that chose
to harbor Guatemalan and Salvadoran refugees. Such a
high-level endorsement was critically important. In other
dioceses such as Philadelphia, where the hierarchy showed
no concern, there was not a single Catholic sanctuary
church. Within a few years, over two hundred churches and
synagogues had declared themselves sanctuaries and more
than fifteen hundred others were providing auxiliary sup-
port. A new "underground railroad" had been constructed,
and it spanned the entire country and nearly all major reli-
gious denominations.
21
At first the U.S. government tried to ignore the Sanctuary
movement. It desperately wanted to avoid creating a scandal
by breaking into churches and hauling refugees out. How-
ever, as the Sanctuary movement began to draw increasing
media attention, including a "Sixty Minutes" interview with
Jim Corbett, something had to be done.
22
The INS began to
infiltrate Bible studies and place churches under surveil-
lance. The first arrests were made in February 1984. Along
a back Texas road, Stacey Merkt and Sister Diane Muhlen-
kamp were pulled over and arrested in the act of transport-
ing illegal aliens. Then came the arrest of Jack Elder. More
arrests were to follow.
23
Public statements made by Merkt and Elder again re-
vealed an acute consciousness of the Holocaust. Comment-
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FOOTSTEPS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
ing on the war in Central America and the reasons for her
own arrest, Merkt observed that "we United States citizens
will have no excuse. We will never be able to say, 'I never
saw, I never heard, I never knew.' "24 Elder's comments were
similar:
As a member of the sanctuary community, and one of the
growing number of Americans who are repulsed by the war
we are waging in El Salvador, I am proud to be able to live
my life in a way that allows my own alleged criminal actions
to illuminate our nation's shameful policies. Let no one claim,
as did many Germans under Hitler, "We did not know. "25
Many Americas of course will say, must say, "We did not
know." That is our shame, as it was the shame of Germany
before us. It was our duty to know. Right action requires
right belief, to do the right, we must know what the right is.
Otherwise, no matter how well-intentioned, our actions may
do more harm than good. After the Holocaust, knowledge
itself must become our responsibility.
Most people are not used to considering knowledge a re-
sponsibility. When it comes to responsibility, we tend to fo-
cus on our actions, not on what is inside our heads. We tend
to assume that if we act in good faith, that is, if we act on
whatever knowledge we have with the best of intentions,
then what we do is not really blameworthy, even if it has
negative consequences. Of course, we are aware that in some
contexts we are responsible for being knowledgeable. Igno-
rance of the law, most of us realize, is no excuse for illegal
activity. If we are to be law-abiding citizens, it is our respon-
sibility to know what the law is. There are other contexts
where we also recognize that someone is blameworthy for
some well-intended but uninformed action because that per-
son had a responsibility to know more than he or she did.
Of such cases are medical malpractice suits made.
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FOOTSTEPS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
For most of us, however, such contexts appear marginal
to our lives. Our morality is centered more on our actions
than on our knowledge. That must change, for knowledge
too is an act. Most of us think of knowledge as something
we acquire passively, as something that is poured into us.
That is perhaps why we do not hold ourselves as strenuously
responsible for what we know. It appears rather to be more
the responsibility of those others-schools, parents, govern-
ment, the media-who socialize us.
This receptacle conception of knowledge is, however, a
grievous distortion. Consider that if our actions are based
on what we know, and all we know is what has been fed to
us by others, then we are nothing but wind-up toys that
perform as programmed. We are nothing but the objects of
causal forces operating on us. As the German philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche observed, we are nothing but so many
"factory products," traveling "herd" fashion through our
lives. Is this our destiny, to be part of a herd; to be factory
products, all mouthing the same ideas; to be objects?
Oh, but in America, we are all individuals. So my students
tell me. Yet 90 percent of these young adults are majoring
in the same thing. Ninety percent have the identical goal in
life-to make lots of money. Virtually all believe without
question that the United States is the best country in the
world. Nearly all accept as a matter of faith that human
beings are by nature selfish, aggressive, and competitive.
Where is their individuality? In what they consume. Some
want Porsches and some want BMWs. Some listen to Sting
and some listen to the Stones. Some drink Coors and some
drink Bud. There you have it: a nation of individuals. A peo-
ple like this who can mistake differing consumption pat-
terns for individuality are themselves victims. They are
victims, however, who as part of a society gone mad can also
be victimizers.
For our own sakes, our individuality must become more
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than the mere intersection of different market segments.
There is more to living a rich life than consuming different
brands of the same things. We must become what we were
meant to be: subjects, not objects. How are we to do that?
Again, Nietzsche tells us: "Live dangerously."
Without danger, there is no growth. Without danger, we
stay as we are. However, the danger we must face is not
primarily physical but spiritual. We must put our ideas, our
values, and our goals to the test. We must constantly exam-
ine our lives. Self-examination must be a life-long vocation.
We must confront points of view that differ from our own.
We must never allow ourselves to simply accept what we
have been told, what has been programmed into us. We must
instead demand of ourselves that we have good reasons for
what we believe. When we cannot find such reasons, we
must reevaluate our thinking. That does not mean that we
necessarily have to totally reject our own point of view, al-
though it may sometimes come to that. It does mean, at
least, that our views will have to become more sophisticated,
more nuanced, less prejudiced.
This is a process of personal growth. It is the only way to
make our ideas our own. Unless we subject our ideas to
rigorous test-rejecting those that are indefensible, refining
others, perhaps keeping the rest unchanged-our ideas re-
main someone else's input, and we remain objects, acted
upon. Only through critical examination do we become the
subjects of our own knowledge, the initiators of what we
believe, the authors of our own lives.
Let there be no mistake. The path of critical . reflection is
a dangerous one. We risk losing our illusions, in many of
which we are strongly invested. No one, for example, can
find it pleasant to learn that one's country is not what it is
supposed to be, that one's leaders are engaged in a colossal
evil. That is a painful truth to face. It is all the more painful
when one considers one's own complicity in such evil. How-

FOOTSTEPS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
ever, if we allow ourselves to shrink from such truths, if we
allow ourselves to set up psychological defense mechanisms
to deny what is true, if we do not even allow ourselves to
question for fear of what we may find out, we forsake our
responsibility to others and lose our integrity. If we stay
neutral while good and evil clash in front of us, we end up
leading small, meaningless lives.
There is the danger too that the truth will change us,
make us different from what we were. That too can be dis-
comforting. We Americans live in a comfortable world of
designer jeans, McDonald's hamburgers, and situation com-
edies. There is an everydayness to it all in which evil has no
place. Certainly, we see crime and we see fires, but nothing
that we personally have to do anything about, nothing that
personally touches us. When that everydayness is shattered
by the recognition not only that evil is in our midst but that
our own lives are a part of it, we are confronted with an
existential choice: to radically change our lives or go on liv-
ing as before. We saw protesters and thought them fanatical.
We heard critics and thought them cranks. Now, we have to
consider becoming alien like them, not our old comfortable
selves at all. Of course that is frightening.
This is why intellectuals, truth-seekers require courage.
This is why the pursuit of knowledge is a heroic act. How-
ever, it is a heroism that is demanded by our times, by our
responsibility to others around us, and finally by our re-
sponsibility to ourselves. Unless we summon the courage to
face the danger, we will not grow. We will die with the be-
liefs we were born with.
The pursuit of truth is demanding. It is not for the lazy.
It means we have to read, reflect, and engage in dialogue
with those we disagree with. It means we have to debate
with others those things we were all taught never to discuss:
politics and religion. However, the pursuit of truth is also
rewarding. We do not always find that our comfortable no-
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tions have to be discarded. Sometimes they are confirmed
and deepened. But that is not all. By testing and confirming
what we may have previously thought, we have made those
thoughts our own; we have transformed them from input
into self-generated ideas. When we seek answers to ques-
tions of our own making, when our answers lead us to new
questions, we acquire knowledge not as passive receptacles
but as active subjects. When this knowledge changes and
makes us grow, it is we who are changing and growing our-
selves. In the process, we become true human individuals.
To live life this way is to live as an intellectual. This is all
that being an intellectual means: to assume responsibility
for our own beliefs and to summon the courage and effort
necessary to test them. Today, we must all become intellec-
tuals. Being intellectual is not just the job of bookworms in
the ivory tower. It has to be a dimension of each of our
lives. If we do not live this way our entire lives, we will not
suddenly do so when the situation calls for it. We owe it to
ourselves, and we owe it to others. We live in what is still the
most powerful nation on earth, and its actions reverberate
throughout the entire world. People elsewhere rely on us to
insure that our government behaves responsibly. What are
we to tell them? That we do not know how to think; we leave
that to university professors. That we do not know how to
rule; we leave that to our rulers. What will the world think
of us if we are not more responsible than this?
Copyng"flt&cfJMatenaJ
Notes
CHAPTER 1
1. Rainier Baum, in his book The Holocaust and the German
Elite: Genocide and National Suicide in Germany, 1871-1945 (To-
towa, N.J .: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981), also cites indifference
as a significant causal factor in the Holocaust. As his title suggests,
however, he focuses on indifference among the German elites,
while I am more centrally concerned with the general German
public.
2. Throughout this book, I refer to the period between 1979
and 1987, which roughly coincides with the Reagan administration.
It should not be thought, however, that the processes I describe
are now over, a thing of the past. The hunger and killing in Central
America continue as does the United States complicity in them.
3. Sarah Gordon, Hitler, Germans, and the " Jewish Question"
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 119.
4. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the
Banality of Evil (New York: Viking Press, 1963).
5. "The First Leaflet," in Inge Scholl, The White Rose, trans-
lated by Arthur R. Schultz (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan Univer-
sity Press, 1983), p. 73.
6. Dorothee Solie, "The Legacy of the White Rose," in ibid.,
pp. x-xi.
CHAPTER 2
1. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the
Banality of Evil (New York: Viking Press, 1963), pp. 25-26.
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NOTES TO CHAPTER 2
2. Peter Papadatos, The Eichmann Trial (New York:
Praeger, 1964), p. 28.
3. Hans Askenasy, Are We All Nazis? (Secaucus, N.J.: Lyle
Stuart, 1978), p. 28.
4. Cited in ibid., p. 27.
5. Ibid.
6. Askenasy makes this point about many prominent Nazi
leaders.
7. G. M. Gilbert, The Psychology of Dictatorship (New York:
The Ronald Press Company, 1950), p. 245.
8. Ibid., p. 255.
9. Ibid.
10. Gitta Sereny, Into That Darkness: From Mercy Killing to
Mass Murder (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974).
11. Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York: Macmil-
lan, 1970).
12. Henry Dicks, Licensed Mass Murder: A Socio-Psychologi-
cal Study of Some SS Killers (New York: Basic Books, 1972).
13. E. A. Zillmer, R. P. Archer, and R. Castins, "Rorschach
Records of Nazi War Criminals: A Reanalysis Using Current Scor-
ing and Interpretation of Practices," Journal of Personality Assess-
ment 53, no. 1 (1989): 85-99.
14. Stanley Milgram Obedience to Authority (New York:
Harper & Row, 1969).
15. Ibid., p. 88.
16. Dicks, Licensed Mass Murder, p. 256.
17. Ibid., p. 38.
18. Bibb Latane and John W. Darley, The Unresponsive
Bystander: Why He Doesn't Help (New York: Appleton-Century-
Crofts, 1970).
19. Ibid., p. 41.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Leon Sheleff, The Bystander (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington
Books, 1978).
24. Shalom Schwartz, "The Self, Selfishness, and Altruism,"
in J. Macaulay and L. Berkowitz, eds., Altruism and Helping Behav-
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NOTES TO CHAPTER 3
ior (New York: The Academic Press, 1970), pp. 143-54. Shalom
Schwartz, "Normative Influences on Altruism," in Leonard Ber-
kowitz, ed., Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 10
(New York: Academic Press, 1970), pp. 222-80.
25. S. H. Schwartz and G. T. Clausen, "Responsibility,
Norms, and Helping in an Emergency," Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology 16 (1970): 299-310.
26. Helen Fein, Accounting for Genocide (New York: The Free
Press, 1979).
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Adin Stein saltz, The Essential Talmud (New York: Basic
Books, 1976).
CHAPTER 3
1. William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
(New York: Fawcett Crest, Ballantine, 1983), p. 133.
2. Ibid., pp. 133-42.
3. Gordon A. Craig, Germany, 1866-1945 (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1978), pp. 11-12. Shirer, Rise and Fall, p. 139.
4. Arno J. Mayer, The Persistence of the Old Regime: Europe
to the Great War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981), p. 23.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., p. 71.
7. Simon Taylor, The Rise of Hitler: Revolution and Counter-
Revolution in Germany, 1918-1933 (New York: Universe Books,
1983), p. 45.
8. Mayer, Persistence of the Old Regime, p. 51.
9. Taylor, Rise of Hitler, pp. 46-47.
10. Ibid., p. 45.
11. Ibid., p. 1.
12. Sarah Gordon, Hitler, Germans, and the "Jewish Ques-
tion" (princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 8,
11-14, 23.
13. Ibid., p. 16.
14. Shirer, Rise and Fall, pp. 83-87.
15. Taylor, Rise of Hitler, p. 18.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3
16. Ibid., pp. 7-10. Shirer, Rise and Fall, pp. 83-87.
17. Taylor, Rise of Hitler, pp. 14-35. Craig, Germany, pp. 397-
433.
18. Taylor, Rise of Hitler, p. S1. Shirer, Rise and Fall. pp.
89-93.
19. Taylor, Rise of Hitler, pp. 49, S1.
20. Ibid., pp. 48-53. Shirer, Rise and Fall. pp. 95-96. Craig,
Germany, pp. 434-69.
21. Shirer, Rise and Fall, pp. 167-68.
22. Ibid., p. 192.
23. Ibid., pp. 194, 229-30.
24. Ibid., p. 222.
25. Ibid., p. 223.
26. Ibid. , pp. 230-33. Craig, Germany, pp. 560-68.
27. Shirer, Rise and Fall, pp. 245-61.
28. Gordon, The "Jewish Question," pp. 29-41.
29. Ibid. , pp. 82-84.
30. Peter H. Merkl, Political Violence Under the Swastika: 581
Early Nazis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), pp. 6-7.
31. Ibid., p. 31.
32. Ibid. , pp. 522-23.
33. Ibid., p. 469.
34. William Sheridan Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The
Experience of a Single German Town, 1930-1935 (New York: New
Viewpoints, 1973).
3S. Ibid. , pp. 10-16.
36. Ibid., pp. 15-19.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid., p. 77.
39. Ibid., p. 38.
40. Ibid., pp. 26-27.
41. Ibid., pp. 33-34, 48.
42. Thomas Childers, The Nazi Voter: The Social Foundations
of Fascism in Germany, 1919-1933 (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1983). Richard F. Hamilton, Who Voted for Hitler?
(princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982).
43. Hamilton, Who Voted for Hitler? pp. 37, 39-41.
44. Richard F. Hamilton, "Braunschweig 1932: Further Evi-
---206---
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NOTES TO CHAPTER 4
dence on the Support of National Socialism," Symposium: Who
Voted for Hitler? Central European History 27, no. 1 (1984): 3-36.
45. Childers, The Nazi Voter, p. 268.
46. Hamilton, Who Voted for Hitler? p. 422.
47. Ibid., p. 125.
48. Ian Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the
Third Reich: Bavaria, 1933-1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).
49. Shirer, Rise and Fall, pp. 263-73, 314. Craig, Germany,
p.557.
50. Craig, Germany, pp. 320-23, 362-65.
51. Shirer, Rise and Fall, p. 323.
52. Gordon, The "Jewish Question," p. 168.
53. Ibid., p. 170.
54. Ibid., pp. 169-70.
55. Ibid., p. 171.
56. Ibid. Shirer, Rise and Fall, p. 323.
57. Gordon, The "Jewish Question," pp. 172-73.
58. Ibid., p. 173.
59. Ibid., pp. 174-75.
60. Ibid., p. 175.
61. Ibid., pp. 123-24, 177-78.
62. Ibid., pp. 181-82.
63. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (Chi-
cago: Quadrangle Books, 1967).
64. Gordon, The "Jewish Question," p. 182.
65. Ibid., pp. 183, 201.
66. Ibid., p. 186.
67. Ibid., p. 185.
CHAPTER 4
1. Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins, Food First: Be-
yond the Myth of Scarcity (New York: Ballantine Books, 1977).
2. Lawrence R. Simon and James C. Stephens, Jr., "The
Need for Agrarian Reform," in Marvin E. Gettleman, Patrick Lace-
field, Louis Manashe, David Mermelstein, and Ronald Radosh, eds.,
El Salvador: Central America in the Cold War (New York: Grove
Press, 1981), pp. 159-62. Lappe and Collins, Food First, p. 192.
---207---
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NOTES TO CHAPTER 4
3. Lappe and Collins, Food First, p. 197.
4. Ibid., pp. 283, 295.
5. Joseph Collins, What Difference Could a Revolution
Make? Food and Farming in the New Nicaragua (San Francisco:
Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1982), p. 13.
6. Lappe and Collins, Food First, p. 221. Robert Armstrong
and Janet Shenk, El Salvador: The Face of Revolution (Boston:
South End Press, 1982), p. 6.
7. E. Bradford Burns, Latin America: A Concise Interpretive
History (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall, 1972), p. 30.
8. Ibid. , p. 32.
9. Jonathan L. Fried, Marvin Gettleman, Deborah T. Leven-
son, and Nancy Peckenham, eds., Guatemala in Rebellion (New
York: Grove Press, 1983), pp. 19-21.
10. Burns, Latin America, p. 36.
11 . Lisa North, Bitter Grounds: Roots of Revolt in El Salvador
(Toronto: Between the Lines, 1981), pp. 17-19.
12. Fried et aI., Guatemala in Rebellion, p. 25.
13. North, Bitter Grounds, p. 19.
14. Fried et aI. , Guatemala in Rebellion, p. 25.
15. Tom Barry, Beth Wood, and Deb Preusch, Dollars and
Dictators: A Guide to Central America (Albuquerque: The Resource
Center, 1982), p. 10.
16. Ibid., p. 246, and Penny Lernoux, Cry of the People: The
Struggle fo r Human Rights in Latin America: The Catholic Church
in Conflict with U.S. Policy (New York: Penguin Books, 1980),
p. 117.
17. Lappe and Collins, Food First, pp. 218-19.
18. Barry, Wood, and Preusch, Dollars and Dictators, pp.
28-30.
19. Ibid. See also Donald Weir and Mark Schapiro, Ci rcle of
Poison: Pesticides and People in a Hungry World (San Francisco:
Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1981).
20. Barry, Wood, and Preusch, Dollars and Dictators, pp.
28-29.
21. Tom Barry and Deb Preusch, The Central America Fact
Book (New York: Grove Press, 1986), p. 158.
---208---
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NOTES TO CHAPTER 4
22. Barry, Wood, and Preusch, Dollars and Dictators, pp.
38-40.
23. Barry and Preusch, Central America Fact Book, p. 171.
24. Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, Bitter Fruit:
The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (Garden City,
N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1982), pp. 54-55.
25. Ibid., pp. 75-76.
26. Susanna Jonas (Bodenheimer), "Guatemala: Land of Eter-
nal Struggle:' in Ronald Chilcote and Joel Edelstein, eds., Latin
America: The Struggle with Dependency and Beyond (New York:
John Wiley & Sons, 1974), p. 165.
27. Schlesinger and Kinzer, Bitter Fruit, pp. 80-81.
28. Jonas, "Guatemala:' pp. 162-63.
29. Ibid., p. 163. Schlesinger and Kinzer, Bitter Fruit, p. 214.
30. Michael McClintock, The American Connection: State Ter-
ror and Popular Resistance in Guatemala (Totowa, N.J .: Zed Books,
1985), p. 257.
31. Ibid. , p. 155.
32. Allan Nairn, "Guatemala Can't Take Two Roads," New
York Times, July 20,1982, sec. A. Also quoted by McClintock, Amer-
ican Connection, p. 258.
33. McClintock, American Connection, p. 245.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid. , pp. 244-45.
36. Armstrong and Shenk, EI Salvador, p. 260.
37. Allan Nairn, "Behind t he Death Squads," The Progressive,
May 1984, pp. 20-29.
38. Armstrong and Shenk, EI Salvador, pp. 60-62, 62 n. 4
39. Ibid. , p. 63.
40. Ibid., p. 64.
41. Latin American Regional Report, August IS, 1980. Re-
printed in Gettleman et aI., EI Salvador, pp. 111-13.
42. Armstrong and Shenk, EI Salvador, pp. 78-79.
43. Ibid., p. 94.
44. Ibid., p. 93. Robert Armstrong and Janet Shenk, "EI Sal-
vador: Why Revolution, " NACLA [North American Congress on
Latin America] 14 (March-April 1980): 24.
45. Ibid., p. 94.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4
46. Robert Armstrong and Janet Shenk, "El Salvador-A Rev-
olution Brews," NACLA 14 (July-August 1980): 8.
47. Armstrong and Shenk, El Salvador, p. 112.
48. Ibid., pp. 121, 126.
49. Ibid., p. 126.
50. Ibid., pp. 126, 129-30.
51. Ibid., p. 141.
52. Ibid., p. 142.
53. Ibid., p. 139.
54. Peter Shiras, "The False Promise-and Real Violence-
of Land Reform in El Salvador," in Gettleman et aI., El Salvador,
pp. 163-70.
55. Armstrong and Shenk, El Salvador, pp. 146-47.
56. Ibid., p. 149.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid., p. 172.
59. u.S. Department of State press release, reprinted in Get-
tleman et aI., El Salvador, pp. 139-44.
60. Committee for Health Rights in El Salvador, Health and
Human Rights in El Salvador, a publication sponsored and en-
dorsed by American Medical Student Association, American Ortho-
psychiatric Association, American Public Health Association,
Committee of Interns and Residents, District Council 37, American
Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees [AFSCME],
Massachusetts Nurses Association, National Association of Social
Workers, and the Physicians Forum (New York, 1983). pp. 25-26.
61. Raymond Bonner, Weakness and Deceit: U.S. Policy and
El Salvador (New York: Times Books. 1984), pp. 322-23, 240.
62. Ibid., p. 323.
63. Committee for Health Rights in El Salvador. Health and
Human Rights, p. 25.
64. Cynthia Brown, ed., With Friends Like These: The Ameri-
cas Watch Report on Human Rights and U.S. Policy in Latin
America (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), pp. 127-33.
65. Ibid., pp. 323-24, 337.
66. Committee for Health Rights in El Salvador, Health and
Human Rights, p. 25.
67. Brown, With Friends Like These, pp. 127-33.
---210---
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NOTES TO CHAPTER 4
68. Committee for Health Rights in EI Salvador, Health and
Human Rights, p. 36.
69. Bonner, Weakness and Deceit, p. 277.
70. Ibid., pp. 338-40.
71. Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead, Demonstration
Elections: u.s. Staged Elections in the Dominican Republic, Viet-
nam, and El Salvador (Boston: South End Press, 1984), p. 134.
72. Ibid. , pp. 118, 120, 124.
73. Committee for Health Rights in EI Salvador, Health and
Human Rights, p. 25.
74. Joan Didion, Salvador (Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys,
1983), pp. 14-15.
75. Ibid., p. 19.
76. Committee for Health Rights in EI Salvador, Health and
Human Rights, p. 36.
77. Americas Watch, The Continuing Terror, 7th supplement
to the Report on Human Rights in EI Salvador (New York: Ameri-
cas Watch Committee, 1985), p. 12.
78. Americas Watch and the Lawyers Committee for Interna-
tional Human Rights, Free Fire, 5th supplement to the Report on
Health Rights in EI Salvador (New York: Americas Watch Commit-
tee and the Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights,
1984), p. 32.
79. Ibid., p. 15.
80. Ibid., p. 22.
81. Lernoux, Cry of the People, pp. 83-84, 94.
82. Brown, With Friends Like These, p. 162.
83. Ibid., p. 162.
84. Ibid., p: 164.
85. Ibid., pp. 164-65.
86. Collins, What Difference Could a Revolution Make? p. 4.
87. Russell Kleinbach, "Nicaragua Literacy Its
Democratic Essence," Monthly Review, July-August 1985, pp.
75-85.
88. Interracial Books for Children Bulletin 12, no. 2 (1981);
reprinted in Peter Rosset and John Vandermeer, eds. , The Nicara-
guan Reader: Documents of a Revolution Under Fire (New York:
Grove Press, 1983), pp. 334-37.
---211---
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NOTES TO CHAPTER 5
89. See, for example, Robert Leiken, "Nicaragua's Untold
Stories," New Republic, October 8, 1984, pp. 16-22.
90. David Halperon and Richard Garfield, "Developments in
Health Care in Nicaragua," New England Journal of Medicine 307
(1982): 388-92. Reprinted in Rosset and Vandermeer, Nicaraguan
Reader, pp. 340-46.
91. Cited in Teofilo Cabestrero, Blood of the Innocent: Vic-
tims of the Contras' War in Nicaragua (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis
Books, 1985), p. 3.
92. Noam Chomsky, Turning the Tide: U.S. Intervention in
Central America and the Struggle for Peace (Boston: South End
Press, 1985), p. 14.
93. Ibid., pp. 99-100.
94. Cited in Reed Brody, Contra Terror in Nicaragua (Boston:
South End Press, 1985), p. 7.
CHAPTER 5
1. Helen Fein, Accounting for Genocide (New York: The Free
Press, 1979), p. 3.
2. Leo Kuper, Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth
Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), p. 22.
3. Cited in ibid., p. 23.
4. Irving Louis Horowitz, Taking Lives: Genocide and State
Power (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1980), p. 11.
5. Cited in whole in Kuper, Genocide, pp. 210-14.
6. Jean-Paul Sartre, "On Genocide," Ramparts, February
1968, pp. 37-42.
7. Hugo Adam Bedau, "Genocide in Vietnam?" in Virginia
Held, Sidney Morgenbesser, and Thomas Nagel, eds., Philosophy,
Morality, and International Affairs (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1974), p. 40.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., p. 42.
10. Ibid., pp. 44-45.
11. Ibid., pp. 42-43.
12. Lyman H. Legters, "The Soviet Gulag: Is It Genocidal?"
in Israel W. Chamy, ed., Toward the Understanding and Prevention
---212---
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NOTES TO CHAPTER 6
of Genocide: Proceedings of the International Conference on the
Holocaust and Genocide (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984), pp.
60-65. See also James E. Mace, "The Man-Made Famine of 1933 in
the Soviet Ukraine: What Happened and Why, " in ibid., pp. 67-83.
13. Kuper, Genocide, pp. 150-54. See also Helen Fein, "Sce-
narios of Genocide: Models of Genocide and Cultural Responses,"
in Charny, Toward the Understanding, pp. 3-4.
14. David Hawk, "Pol Pot's Cambodia: Was It Genocide?" in
Charny, Toward the Understanding, pp. 51-59. See also Fein, "Sce-
narios of Genocide, p. 4.
15. Bedau, "Genocide in Vietnam?" p. 11.
16. Cited in ibid., p. 10.
17 . Fein, "Scenarios of Genocide."
18. Kuper, Genocide, pp. 24-26.
19. Cited in ibid., p. 27.
20. Ibid., pp. 24-29.
21. Noam Chomsky, "Intervention in Vietnam and Central
America, " Monthly Review, September 1985, pp. 1-30.
CHAPTER 6
1. Charles Green, "Americans Confused on Central
America," Philadelphia Inquirer, June 3,1988, p. 12A. For a similar
poll, see David Shipler, "Poll Shows Confusion on Aid to Contras,"
New York Times, April 15, 1986, sec. A.
2. W. Russell Neuman, The Paradox of Mass Politics (Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Press, 1986).
3. "Political, Social, and Economic Trends, " Gallop Report
(Princeton, N.J.), no. 249 (June 1986).
4. Jerry Kloby, "The Growing Divide: Class Polarization in
the 1980s," Monthly Review, September 1987, pp. 1-8.
5. G. William Domhoff, Who Rules America Now? (Engle-
wood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1983), p. 124.
6. Howard Reiter, Parties and Elections in Corporate
America (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987), p. 170.
7. Steven Roberts, "Rift on Salvador Grows in Congress,"
New York Times, February 4, 1982, sec. A.
8. Barbara Crossette, "Congressman Asserts Salvador Does
Copyrightl-J Material
NOTES TO CHAPTER 6
Not Want U.S. Troops," New York Times, February 20, 1982,
sec. A.
9. Ibid.
10. Edward Herman arid Frank Brodhead, Demonstration
Elections (Boston: South End Press, 1984).
11. "EI Salvador Certification Report," Congressional Record
128, no. 100 (July 28, 1982): S9251-S9261.
12. "EI Salvador: A Miracle of Moderation, " Newsweek, May
7, 1984, p. 64.
13. "Mr. Reagan Has It His Way," Newsweek, May 21, 1984,
pp. 40-43.
14. "Report of the Latin American Studies Association Dele-
gation to Observe the Nicaraguan General Election of November
4, 1984," LASA [Latin American Studies Association] Forum 15, no.
4 (Winter 1985): 9-28.
15. Ibid.
16. Congressional Quarterly Almanac 40 (1984): 87.
17. Steven Kinzer, "Going Through the Motions in Nicara-
gua," New York Times, November 4, 1984, sec. E.
18. Reiter, Parties and Elections, p. 198.
19. Congressional Quarterly Almanac 39 (1983): 126, 127-28.
20. Ibid. 40 (1984): 89-90.
21. Ibid. 41 (1985): 164.
22. Ibid., p. 72.
23. Ibid., p. 74.
24. Joel Brinkley and Stephen Engelberg, eds., Report of the
Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affai r
(New York: Times Books, 1988).
25. Ibid.
26. Jonathan Kozel, The Night Is Dark and I Am Far from
Home: A Political Indictment of the u.s. Public Schools (New York:
Continuum, 1980).
27. Taking the Stand: The Testimony of Lieutenant Colonel
Oliver L. North (New York: Pocket Books, 1987), p. 342.
28. Paul Blumberg, Inequality in an Age of Decline (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 111.
29. Bertram Gross, Friendly Fascism (New York: Evans
1980).
---214---
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NOTES TO CHAPTER 7
30. Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), p. 25.
CHAPTER 7
1. I have not visited Yad Vashem. The description in this
and the next few paragraphs is taken from Peter Hellman's book
The Avenue of Righteous (New York: Bantam Books, 1981), pp.
v-xii.
2. Ibid., p. vii.
3. Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, The Night Thoreau
Spent in Jail (New York: Hall and Way, 1970).
4. Caryle Murphy, "20,000 Protest Against U.S. Policy,"
Washington Post, November 13, 1983, sec. 1.
5. Bill Keller, "Interest Groups Focus on El Salvador Pol-
icy," Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 40, no. 17 (1982): 895-
900.
6. Jim Wallis, "The Rise of Christian Conscience, " Sojourn-
ers, January 1985, pp. 12-16.
7. Ann Crittenden, Sanctuary (New York: Weidenfeld & Nic-
olson, 1988), p. 12.
8. Keller, "Interest Groups," pp. 898-99.
9. Charles Austin, "300 Church Leaders Protest U.S. Policies
in Central America," New York Times, November 28, 1982, sec. A.
10. Crittenden, Sanctuary, p. 7.
11. Keller, "Interest Groups," p. 897.
12. Joanne Omang, "Church Leaders Urge Congress to Repu-
diate U.S. Latin Policy," Washington Post, February 25, 1984,
sec. A.
13. Ibid.
14. Richard Taylor, " For Penance and Peace:' Sojourners,
September 1983, pp. 13-15.
15. "Witness for Peace Held Hostage:' Sojourners, October
1985, pp. 7-8.
16. Crittenden, Sanctuary, p. 19.
17. Renny Golden and Michael McConnell, Sanctuary: The
New Underground Railroad (Maryknoll, N.Y. : Orbis Books, 1936),
pp. 1, 14.
Index
Abel, Theodore, 52
Abrams, Elliot, 161, 169-70, 194
Alas, Father Jose Innocencio, 90
Allen, William Sheridan, 55-58
Alvarez Cordova, Enrique, 92-
93, 96
American Broadcasting Com-
pany (ABC), 157
American Civil Liberties Union,
100
American Friends Service Com-
mittee, 85
Americans: and authority, 110,
161, 171-75, 185- 86; and
complicity in genocide, 9,
135-45; disempowerment
of, 149-53; ignorance of, 148;
moral indifference of. 51,
68,138-39,147-49;moral
obligations of, 106-7, 142,
171; and protest, 185-97; re-
sponse to Holocaust, 7, 144,
175; and sense of national
decline, 173-74; the will to
truth of, 29, 33-34, 176-79
Americas Watch, 85-87, 98,
100, 105-6, 109
Amnesty International. 94, 100
Anti-intellectualism, 33
Anti-Marxism, 11-13, 171, 180,
194; relating to Central
America, 84-85, 92, 95, 101,
108-9, 159-63, 168; in Ger-
many, 39-40, 45, 52-60, 69-
70
Anti-Semitism, 6, 109; as a
cause of the Holocaust, 6-
18, 21, 36, 39, 50-66, 141-42
Arbenz, Jacobo, 83-85
ARENA (National Republican
Alliance), 100, 157, 180
Arendt, Hannah, 9-10, 15, 16
Arias peace plan, 160
Armas, Carlos Castillo, 84-85
Artists Collective, 188
Atlacatl battalion, 99
Auschwitz, 17
Authority, 163; consistency of.
31; obedience to, 16-23, 31,
95, 171-75, 197-200
Avenue of the Righteous, 183-
85
Banality of evil, 9, 15
Barnes, Michael, 164, 190
Bedau, Hugo Adam, 123-24
CopyrightlJ Material
INDEX
Bernays, Edward, 84
Bismarck, Otto von, 40
Bloom, Allan, 177
Boland, Edward, 164, 166-69
Bonner, Raymond, 99
Boren, David, 165
Bowlder, William, 91
BPR (Popular Revolutionary
Block),90
Broad National Front, 92
Brodhead, Frank, 101
Brody, Reed, 114-15
Bruening, Heinrich, 49
Burns, E. Bradford, 78
Bush, George, 115-16, 164
Cabot, John Moors, 84
Careerism, 16, 18, 22
Caribbean Central America Ac-
tion,82
Carter, Jimmy, 91, 93-94, 97,
164, 173
Casas, Father Bartolome de la,
78
Casework, 165-66
Casey, William, 167
Castle and Cook Company, 80
Catholic Center party (of Ger-
many), 51, 58-59
Catholic Legal Aid Office, 97-
100, 103
Central America: early history
6f, 77-80; genocidal policies
in, 83-117, 131-35; and the
Holocaust, 6-9; hunger in,
71-77; land tenure in, 72-74;
landed oligarchies in, 72-
74, 77; U.S. economic inter-
ests in, 80-83; U.S. political
analysis of, 154-70
Central America Organizing
Project, 188
Central America Working
Group, 188
Chancellor, John, 157-58
Channel, Carl ("Spitz"), 169
Childers, Thomas, 58-60
Chomorro, Violeta, 115-17
Chomsky, Noam, 137
Christian Democratic party (of
El Salvador), 88, 92-94,
100-102, 157
Christian Science Monitor, 84
Christians Concerned About
Central America, 188
Civilians: under attack, 7-10,
85-89, 93-107, 109-10, 112-
115; versus combatants,
132-135, 141; and genocide,
123-35
Clarke, Sister Maria, 96
Clements, Charles, 188
Coalition in Solidarity with
the People of El Salvador
(CISPES), 187, 190
Coffee Brigades, 188
Collins, Joseph, 74
Columbia Broadcasting System
(CBS), 157
Communist party of El Salva-
dor, 88; of Germany (KPD),
48-51, 59, 62, 69-70
Comparative analysis, need for,
5-6
Compartmentalization, 16
Composici6n, 78
Congregaci6n, 78
Contras, 7,109-17,135,188,
191-92; funding for, 164,
166-70
Corbett, Jim, 195-96
---218---
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INDEX
Crimes against humanity, 128,
135
Critical thinking, 171-72, 197-
201
Dada, Hector, 92-93
D'Aubuisson, Roberto, 92-95,
100, 102, 104, 157-59, 180
Defense mechanisms, psycho-
logical, 22, 28, 37, 199-200
Del Monte Company, 74, 81
Democracy: and genocide, 6, 8,
10,176; meaning of, 149-50;
in Nicaragua, 115-17, 162;
and protest, 8; in the United
States, 148-53, 165-66, 172;
U.S. commitment to abroad,
83,87
Democratic Revolutionary
Front (FDR), 88, 92, 95-96,
101, 103-4
Democratic Socialists (of
America), 188
Demonstration elections, 101
Denuncia, 78
Didion, Joan, 103-4
Diffusion of responsibility, 25,
27,34-35, 174-75
Dodd, Christopher, 164
Donovan, Jeanne, 96
Duarte, Jose Napoleon, 88-89,
94, 96, 100, 104; U.S. politi-
cal analysis of, 154, 157-59
Duesterberg, Theodor, 49
Dulles, John Foster, 84
Durkheim, Emile, 129-30
Eichmann, Adolf, 15-16, 19-20,
128-29, 172
Einsatzgruppen, 65
Eisenhower administration, 84
Elder,Jack,196-97
El Salvador: early history of,
77-80; genocide in, 131-35;
land reform in, 94; medical
aid to, 188; popular organi-
zations in, 89-90, 93; quality
of life in, 75-76; religion in,
90-95, 106; social structure
of, 72-74; systematic mur-
der in, 7, 88-107; U.S. politi-
cal analysis of, 154-60
Encomiendas, 77
Enders, Thomas, 167
Everydayness, 175-76, 186,200
Ex-Peace Corps Volunteer
Committee on Central
America, 187-88
Falwell, Jerry, 180
Farabundo Marti National Lib-
eration Front (FMLN), 95,
103-4, 135
FDR. See Democratic Revolu-
tionary Front
Fein, Helen, 32, 35-36, 130
Ferraro, Geraldine, 163
Fife, Rev. John, 195
Ford, Sister Ita, 96
Free corps, 45
"Friendly fascism," 176
Front of United Popular Action
(FAPU),90
Gejdenson, Sam, 114-15
General Maximiliano Hernan-
dez Martinez Brigade, 102
Genocide: and apparent nor-
mality, 175-76, 186,200: in
Cambodia, 125; in Central
America, 6, 9, 71-117,131-
35; general causes of, 23-38;
COPYI iglilOCI t e l iai
INDEX
Genocide (cont.)
in Indonesia, 125; meaning
of, 119-31; quiet genocide,
71-76; in the Soviet Union,
125, 130; in Vietnam, 122-
24
Genovese, Kitty, 24-25
German Catholic Center party,
51, 58-59
German Communist party
(KPD), 48-51, 59, 62, 69-70
German Social Democratic
party (SPD), 42-45,51,55-
59, 69-70
Germany: anti-Semitism in, 6,
9-10, 23, 44, 50-67; Nazi
policies of, 8-9, 61-67; peo-
ple of, 7-10, 12, 22-23, 68;
uniqueness of, 6, 9-10, 19-21
Gilbert, G. M., 16-18
Goldwater, Barry, 167-68
Gordon, Sarah, 51, 61-67
Grande, Father Rutilio, 90-91
Guatemala: early history of,
77-80; genocide in, 131-35;
quality of life in, 75-76; so-
cial structure of, 72-74; sys-
tematic murder in, 7, 83-88
Guerrillas: in Central America,
8, 103-6, 113-15, 135, 157-
58; tactics of, 7, 103, 113-15,
133-35, 157-58
Guilt, collective, 10-11, 185-87,
200
Halo effect, 31
Hamilton, Richard, 58-61
Harrington, Michael. 82
Hatch, Orrin, 165
Hatfield, Mark, 164
Heinz, John, 165
Hellman, Peter, 184
Helms, Jesse, 165, 180
Herald Tribune, 84
Herman, Edward, 101
Hernandez, Fidel Sanchez, 88-
89
Heroes, 177, 183-201; and
truth, 197-200
Hillel. Rabbi, 68-69
Hindenberg, Paul Von, 49-50,
62
Hiroshima, 138
History, repetition and com-
parison of, 4,136-37,175-
76
Hitler, Adolf, 6, 9, 12, 39-40,
49-50; attraction of, 50-61;
popular support for, 61-67
Hoess, Rudolf, 17-18
Holocaust: causes of, 5-10, 15,
23,39-40,51-66; andCen-
tral America, 6-9, 136-44;
lessons of, 12-13, 39, 67-70;
meaning of, 3, 119, 129, 136;
and the meaning of our
lives, 4, 9; obligation arising
from, 4-5, 9, 136-37, 145,
186, 197-201; resistance to,
10, 183-84; responses to, 3,
7-8, 183-87, 195-197; as a
unique event, 3-10, 136-45
Holocaust-like events: causes
of, 12, 23-38, 144; and Cen-
tral America, 136-45; mean-
ing of, 5, 8-9, 33, 71, 137-38,
145
Hunger, mass, 71-76
Immigration and Naturaliza-
tion Service (INS), 194-96

INDEX
International Human Rights
Law Group, 114-15
Interreligious Task Force on EI
Salvador and Central
America: 187, 190-91
Iran-contra scandal, 160, 169-
72
Jackson, Jesse, 152
Jesuits (Society of Jesus), 91,
189
Jews: German persecution of,
4-5,8-9, 16-19,23,39,61-
66, 119; German stereotypes
of, 43-44, 46; Jewish re-
sponse to Holocaust 3, 5, 8-
9, 119, 183-85; as a percent-
age of German population,
43, 50
Junkers, 41
Kalb, Marvin, 158
Kazel, Sister Dorothy, 96
Kennedy, Edward, 151, 164
Kershaw, Ian, 62
KPD. See German Communist
party
Kristallnacht, 65, 175
Las Madres, 188
Latin American Studies Associ-
ation (LASA), 162
Lawrence, Jerome, 185-86
Lawyers Committee Against
U.S. Intervention in Central
America, 187
Lee, Robert E., 185-86
Lemkin, Raphael, 119-20, 130
Linder, Benjamin, 188
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 84
Long, Clarence, 164
McCurdy, David, 169
McFarlane, Robert, 169-70
Malone, Bishop James, 191
Market, free, 72
Maryknoll,96, 189
Marx, Karl, 70, 171, 188
Mayorga, Roman, 91-95
Medical Aid to EI Salvador, 188
Merkl, Peter, 52-55
Merkt, Stacey, 196-97
Milgram, Stanley, 19
Miskito Indians, 108-9
Molina, Arturo, 88-89
Mondale, Walter, 163
Monoculture, 72
Moral indifference: and Ameri-
can popular culture, 171-
81; as a function of disem-
powerment, 149-53, 174;
general theory of the cre-
ation of, 30-38; and the Hol-
ocaust, 51-70; and Holo-
caust-like events, 7-10, 23-
40, 61, 68, 138-39; in the
United States as a function
of Congress and the media,
153-70
Muhlenkamp, Sister Diane, 196
Murder: and genocide, 119-45;
of own citizens, 8, 86-117;
systematic, 7-9, 86-117
Murtha, John, 156
Nairn, Allen, 86
National Broadcasting Com-
pany (NBC), 157-58
National Central America
Health Rights Network, 187
National Council of Churches,
190
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INDEX
National Opposition Union
(UNO), 88-89
Navarro, Father Alfonso, 91
Nazis: attraction of, 50-61; and
the Holocaust, 3, 6-8, IS, 32,
119; ideology of, 12, 52-60;
personal characteristics of,
15-21; political ascendance
of, 48-50; popular support
for, 48-51, 57-66
Neighbor, love of, 28-29, 33,
36-37, 179-81, 183
Neighbor-to-Neighbor, 187
"Never Again," the vow, 3-5, 9
New EI Salvador Today
(NEST),187
New York Times, 84-85, 99,
109, 162-63, 167
Newsweek, 84, 159, 162, 167
Nicaragua: early history of, 77-
80; embargo on, 110, 115- '
16; genocide in, 131-35; peo-
ple's attitude toward Ameri-
cans, 192-93; quality of life
in, 75-76; Sandinista poli-
cies of, 108-12; social struc-
ture of, 72-74; systematic
murder in, 7, 107-17; U.S.
political analysis of, 161-70
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 198-99
Nixon, Richard, 150
Nonresponsive bystander:
macro level, 30-38; micro
level, 23-30
North, Oliver, 169-70, 172, 180
"November Criminals," 46, 60
Nuremberg, 18, 128
Nuremberg laws, 63-64
Nurses Against U.S. Aggres-
sion, 187
O'Neil, Eugene (Tip), 164
Orbis Press, 189
ORDEN, 90, 92
Ortega, Daniel, 168-69
Pappen, Franz von, 49-50
Party of National Conciliation
(PCN), 88-89, 100
Pell, Claiborne, 156
Peurifoy, John, 85
Pluralistic ignorance; 25-26,
32, 174-75
Poindexter, John, 170
Popular League of February 28
(LP-28),90
Popular Revolutionary Block
(BPR),90
Presbyterians, 190
Proximity of victims. See Vic-
tims
Quakers, 190, 195
Quest for Peace, 187
Racism: overemphasis of, 6-7,
39, 68, 141-42; role of, in
genocide, 35-36, 67-68
Rassenschande, 63-64
Rather, Dan, 157
Reagan, Ronald Wilson, 95-
117,120,153,160,189; and
Central American refugees,
193-97; and Hitler, 172-74;
and public opinion, 147-49,
174; in relation to Congress
and media, 155, 158-70
Refugees, Central American
193-97 '
Reiter, Howard, 165-66
Relativism, 177-79
Religion: in EI Salvador, 90-95,
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INDEX
106; moral obligations of,
37-38, 179-81; and politics,
180-81; privatization of, 36;
and protest in the United
States, 179-81, 188-97; and
the religious right, 36, 179-
80; secularization of, 36, 69;
and truth, 179
Repartimiento system, 78
Responsibility, of citizens, 11-
13, 23, 27-38, 185-87, 197-
201
Responsibility-neutralizing ef-
fects, 28, 30-38
Rice, Paul. 188
Righteous, the, 183-87; the
footsteps of. 187-97
Rios Montt, Efrain, 85-86, 133
Romero, Carlos Humberto, 91
Romero, Archbishop Oscar, 91,
93-95
Salvadoran Communist party,
88
Sanctuary movement, 186-87,
191, 193-97; and the Holo-
caust, 195-97
Sandinistas, 7, 108-17, 135,
161-70
Sartre, Jean-Paul. 122-23
Schleicher, Kurt von, 50
Scholl, Hans and Sophie, 34
Secret Anti-Communist Army,
90
Shirer, William 48
Social Democratic party: of EI
Salvador, 8; of Germany
(SPD), 42-45,51,55-59,69-
70
Social structure, 72, 149
Socrates, 177
Sojourners magazine, 190
SolIe, Dorothee, 11-12
Somoza family, 75, 107-8
Southside Presbyterian
Church, 195
Spartakists, 45
Speer, Albert, 18
Stangl. Franz, 18
Talmud,38
Technica, 187
Thaelmann, Ernst, 49
The Other Side magazine, 190
Thoreau, Henry David, 177,
165-86
Tillich, Paul. 69
Time magazine, 84, 162
Treblinka, 18
Truth: American will to, 29, 33-
34, 176; exemplary seekers
of, 177; and relativism, 177-
79; and responsibility, 12-
13, 197-201; versus power,
196
Tse-dung, Mao, 86
Ungo, Guillermo, 88, 91-95
Unitarian-Universal Service
Committee, 190
United Brands Company, 80
United Nations Genocide Con-
vention, 120-21; flaw in,
121-31
United Fruit Company, 84
United States: complicity in a
Holocaust-like event, 136-
45; concentration of wealth
in, 150; Congress and the
media in, 153-70; culture of
deceit in, 177; democracy
in, 148-53; economic inter-
Copyrightj3Material
INDEX
United States (cont.)
ests in Central America, 80-
83; and genocide, 131-35;
global decline of, 172-74;
people of. 8-12,19-21,61;
political apathy in, 147-49;
policies in Central America,
6-9, 83-117; policy toward
refugees, 193-97; trivializa-
tion of politics in, 152-53
Universe of obligation, 35
UNO (National Opposition
Union), 88-89
U.S. Catholic Conference, 189-
91
Versailles, Treaty of, 44-45, 60
Veterans for Peace, 188
Victims: dehumanization of,
35; Jewish, 4-5, 8-10, 16, 39;
proximity of, 32, 35; re-
sponsesto, 5, 23-39, 61
"Vietnam Syndrome:' 173
Wall Street Journal, 157
Walsh, Lawrence, 170
War Tax Resisters' League, 186
Washington Office on Latin
America (WOLA), 114-15,
187,190
Washington Post, 94, 99, 157,
167
Weakland, Archbishop Rem-
bert, 196
White, Robert, 95
White Rose, 10-12,34
White Warriors Union, 90-91
Wiesel, Elie, 3, 136
Wiesen thaI, Simon, 16
Witness for Peace, 187, 191-93
Wright, Jim, 154
Yad Vashem, 183-85
Zamora, Mario, 92-93
Zamora, Ruben, 92-93, 95
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