Rehabilitating and Revising Collective Memory

https://original.antiwar.com/Danny_Sjursen/2018/11/15/the-reclamation-of-george-w-bush-is-an-american-tragedy/

It used to take a generation or so for the revision to begin. And then as we entered the Internet age, things began to change. The information age turned out to be the age of myth, the age of ignorance. Reagan was scarcely in the grave and already the legend was being written and the mythology created about his deeds and legacy. We'll now see the same with regard to George HW Bush.

I recently took note of a conservative writer harping about the DNC's leftward turn and that Kennedy wouldn't be electable today. That's true. But it's also true of the GOP vis-à-vis figures like Reagan and Nixon. They wouldn't have a chance. They're not Right-wing enough. These factions lionise these people and yet in reality they would reject them were they to appear again. The parties have changed but the history/legend weaves a narrative that won't allow for it. They've got a story to tell and the fact that today's parties are cut from a different cloth, that's too complicated. That doesn't sell or inspire.

There's so much history that has been forgotten. John McCain was once something of a villain to the MIA/POW community. Sydney Schanberg wrote convincingly of McCain's role in the post-Vietnam cover-up. What cover up you ask? The fact that the US left behind hundreds (or more) POW's in Indochina. The US was (as per the peace agreement) to pay reparations to Vietnam and yet Nixon had no intention of making the payments.

When the Nixon administration found out that Hanoi was holding back and failing to release many of the unacknowledged prisoners that the US knew they had... which they were holding because they didn't trust Kissinger and Nixon to keep their word, Nixon cut them loose and simply abandoned them. They went with the official figures released by Hanoi and ignored the figures given to them by the military and intelligence communities. I have to imagine there were some rather stunned people within the corridors of Langley and the Pentagon. But they couldn't say anything. Perhaps they weren't all that surprised. By the end of Vietnam even the ignorant and willfully blind were forced to reckon with the endless revelations of corruption and deceit. The deep rot had always been there but it had escalated in the wake of WWII and by the early 1970's it had metastasised and percolated to the surface. The cynicism was pervasive and palpable and then amplified by the economic woes of the decade. The culture changed as a result and despite all the propaganda efforts has never been the same.

Well it's easy to vilify Nixon and blame him, but then Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton continued the charade. They did nothing about it and yet they knew the truth. It was and remains a 'no go' area of discussion.

But perhaps it was the North Vietnamese leadership that was most surprised in the end. They were shocked to watch the White House and Pentagon revise the numbers of those still held. The US chose to abandon the soldiers rather than pay the money, face the humiliation and get bogged down in the congressional bureaucracy regarding the funds and the shady nature of the peace negotiations. Nixon took the original offered number of prisoners, refused to pay the money, proclaimed the war over and walked away.

And thus rather than put the peace deal and the war's ending in jeopardy, they washed their hands of the whole affair. Of course the Vietnamese didn't really consider the issues resolved and thus while Kissinger absurdly (and obscenely) took his Nobel Prize, Hanoi simply marched on and finished the business. As far as they were concerned a US withdrawal had been negotiated... but there was no peace.

Figures like John McCain and John Kerry helped to cover up the real history of the war's end and attacked anyone who raised the issue of POW's left behind. To admit the US had abandoned soldiers would bring national shame and place the government in an impossible situation. To the public it would be a betrayal. Never mind the fact that the whole war was a betrayal, but for the average citizen the abandonment of US soldiers was a wound too deep, a shame too great to bear.

This is even while there was still evidence, even as late as the 1990's of US soldiers still being held in country or living perhaps as fugitives on the run.

McCain was a criminal on many levels but if this truth were ever revealed his name would be associated with shame and deceit. He needn't fear, the historians and news media will protect his legacy. There are other suggestions as to why he kept quiet but on a basic level it was the wish of the Establishment that the chapter be closed. McCain the pseudo-maverick was happy to comply and thus his real military record as well as his complicity in the cover-up has disappeared down the memory hole.

In many respects the rehabilitation curve has been shortened. Look at George W. Bush. In light of Trump he suddenly seems docile, respectable, credible and even dignified. How soon people forget. He was a serial liar and monster and just because we have a different monster haunting the Oval Office it in no way rehabilitates what the Bush clan was and is.

Even someone as deplorable as Sean Spicer has been at least partly rehabilitated and this has been facilitated by figures like the pseudo-Left Stephen Colbert. Though it was all in 'good fun' and Spicer had to take his licks, the moves initiated by Colbert help Spicer to inch his way back into the public's good graces. A serial liar and deceiver, Spicer is still nevertheless safe. He's not really challenging the system. He represents no existential threat and thus in time he'll find his place. It may be sooner than anyone could have imagined.

Movies play no small role in the rehabilitation of public figures. In some ways they seem to be the only way to reawaken the public consciousness about certain historical events, but without exception Hollywood distorts the record. Frost/Nixon while an interesting film was egregious in that it literally changed the historical record.

Ted Kennedy was certainly able to recover from the scandal of Chappaquiddick and yet not fully. Many believe the scandal ruined his chances at the White House in 1976 and 1980. Did the recent film on the 1969 incident hurt his legacy or harm it? Has the Left made Ted Kennedy into something of a myth? For some, people like Ted Kennedy and Nixon are seemingly forever flawed and yet even they will be rehabilitated in the end. They'll just need a little more time to be fully reformed in the public eye.

Nixon is almost unique in that he (for a time) all but rehabilitated himself. He went from an all time low in 1962 to winning the presidency in 1968. And yet he then proceeded to destroy himself and tarnish his legacy. By 1973 he was in ruins and by August 1974 his roller coaster ride came to an end.

The deeper one delves into the past, the more one realises just how common this 'rehabilitation' and revision really is. What is remarkable about our day is that the rehabilitation seems to begin while the figures are still alive and sometimes within just a very short time of their leaving office. It's indicative of what's happening to collective memory and the power of media and its ability to manipulate. Politically it also points to the dangerous factional divide that has emerged. It's a world of heroes and villains and 'our' side, no matter the extent of their crimes must be held up, praised and celebrated. Aside from living in a fog of lies, this trend is dangerous. We all know what happens to those who ignore history or refuse to heed its warnings.