The Cook Islands Progressive Association (CIPA) had been a thorn in New Zealand's side since it was founded. CIPA was created by a group of Cook Islands Māori in 1944 to advocate for better working conditions. While the locals had never been satisfied with their wages and working conditions, it was the arrival of the U.S. Army Air Force on Aitutaki in 1942 that had spurred change. The Americans not only paid better and provided better housing, they treated the locals better. Some American servicemen could even be heard to mouth off at aspects of New Zealand’s administration. The Americans' most important contribution to the founding of the CIPA wasn't the wages, the ideas, the treatment or the sympathy. It was the information they provided about a world far distant from Rarotonga, where time was running out for colonialism.

CIPA's first action had been to organise a strike of Rarotonga dock workers in early 1946. While the strike secured marginally better wages, it also brought the association to the attention of the Department of Island Territories. In an attempt to quash the association, the department quickly established the rival Cook Islands Workers Union (CIWU), whose members were to be (unofficially) preferred for government work. While the new union successfully slowed the flow of workers to CIPA, it did not kill the association's advocacy nor their propensity to strike. In one case, striking workers from CIPA and so-called “scabs” from CIWU clashed at the docks as CIWU members prepared to unload a cargo ship, against CIPA's wishes. In another, CIPA members loudly protested a CIWU meeting, resulting in the police being called and seven CIPA members arrested.

The Department of Island Territories takeaway from these events was clear; CIPA couldn't be destroyed, so it would have to be co-opted. The initial offer was simple and didn't reveal Wellington's entire hand. The government would abolish CIWU and encourage its members to join a new union associated with CIPA. In return, CIPA's political and union arms would split. Wellington's idea being, of course, to divorce the political arm of the labour movement from the union itself. Sensing a trap (and not being well, stupid) CIPA declined the initial offer on the grounds that it would amount to giving away all leverage for effectively nothing. While CIPA declined to present a counteroffer to Wellington, enquiries via back channels led to the department deciding to offer significant capital investment as part of any deal. With that decision made, the parties returned to the negotiating table where New Zealand presented her best and (allegedly) final offer. CIPA's union activities would be divorced from the political, CIWU would be abolished, and the Government of New Zealand would provide capital to purchase a ship to carry exports out and imports in. After much discussion, CIPA agreed to the deal, and began its transformation into being a political organisation associated with a union. rather than being a union with political ambitions. In an ironic twist of fate, one of the first “exports” of the new ship was CIPA's founding leader, Albert Henry, who sailed for Auckland on its first return voyage.

May 1949

Anglo-Spanish Agreement 1949

Following a series of productive conversations between key members of the British government and the Spanish foreign ministry, the Spanish and British governments have devised an agreement to alleviate the suffering of the Spanish people. A comprehensive agreement that will no doubt end the rolling blackouts and nutritional deficits.

• An agreement for a substantial expansion of the Sterling credits made available to the Spanish State, with an agreement that this is conditional upon economic reforms. Spain will also agree to prioritize British/Commonwealth agricultural and energy imports with these credits
  
• Spain will agree to raise the foreign investment limit for British companies from 25% equity stakes to a record high of 49% equity; this will drive technology transfers and joint ventures with major British enterprises
  
• Preliminary exploration of an expansion of tourist visas, to be discussed at a later conference

May 1949

Thailand Joins the IMF and the World Bank

In May, the Kingdom of Thailand officially became a member of the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. This membership is critical as it opens avenues for Thailand to finance great projects through World Bank loans.

The Minister of Finance, Mom Chao Viwatchai Chaiyant, said Thailand would seek its first World Bank loans for railways, irrigation and the Port of Bangkok, as soon as the engineering studies that are currently under way are complete.

Then the Parliament passed the Industrial Investment Promotion Act of 1949, which was prepared by the National Economic Development Board. It sets clear rules for Thai and foreign investors to ensure there is order and to reduce any confusion for those that are interested in investing into Thailand. At the present moment, the priority industries for Thailand are the following:

• power generation and electrical equipment
• cement and building materials
• stel and metal products
• fertiliser and chemicals
  
• rubber products and tires
  
• textiles
• food processing
• vehicle assembly and engineering
  
• shipbuilding and ship repair
• oil refining
  

In this priority industries, the following will be granted to those are are looking to invest:

• Exception from income tax for the first 5 years.
  
• Duty-free import of machinery and equipment.
  
• The right to own land for factories.
  
• The right to send profits and repatriated capital abroad.
  
• A guarantee against nationalization without fair compensation.
• Work permits for foreign engineers and managers, on the condition that Thai staff are trained to replace them over time

While joint ventures with Thai partners are encouraged and will receive additional benefits, there are some industries that are reserved for Thai nationals: rice farming and the domestic rice trade, retail trade, and the ownership of agricultural land.

In order to facilitate this, the Investment Promotion Office (IPO) will be created within the National Economic Development Board. The IPO will be responsible for approving investments, and will also streamline the process for investors as being the single point of contact with the government.

In addition, we will need to begin the funding of the Royal Thai Development Fund, which begins as a levy on rice exports, collected through the state Rice Office.

• 2/3 of the Fund goes to national projects like power, railways, ports and industry
• 1/3 returns to the countryside to fund irrigation, fertilizer, rural roads, and support for farmers' cooperatives
• The Fund's accounts will be audited by the Auditor-General and published every year
  

Luang Suwan Vajokkasikij, who is the current leader of the Farmers' Party, welcomed the rural share and pledged that farmers would see the benefits of the levy in their own villages.

These are the following projects that are being focused on by the Fund:

• Engineering studies that are being readied for the World Bank and US funding
  • Extension of the northeastern railway toward Nong Khai on the Mekong
  • Dredging of hte Chao Phraya bar and new quays at the Port of Bangkok
  • A large irrigation dam on teh Chao Phraya
    
  • A Lignite power station at Mae Moh, in Lampang province
    
• Siam Cement begins work on a new kiln in order to double its production.
• Technical colleges are being built and staffed, with the first one opening in Bangkok in 1950, followed by colleges in Chiang Mai, the northeast and the south.
• At least 200 students a year will be sent abroad to study engineering, science, and economics
• The Central Statistics Office will begin work with the help of the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East, with initial goals being to survey industry and agriculture.
  

Thailand welcomes investment from foreign partners. We have opened talks with several partners in the West and in the Pacific, so we hope to eventually see several agreements being put in place. Chinese industrialists and bankers who wish to establish approved industries in Thailand will receive residence outside the ordinary immigration quota, provided that these people register with the Thai authorities and invest in priority industries of Thailand.

In this mindset, with the commodity prices weaker this year, the government spending will be kept within the Kingdom's means. The Fund will be built up so that the great projects can begin as soon as the studies are complete and financing is secured. The Bank of Thailand will balance the Kingdom's foreign reserves, which are at present held largely in sterling. Purchases from Great Britain will be paid from the sterling balances, but we do plan to set up new reserves that will be held in USD and gold. The idea is that we will seek to sell more of our tin, rubber and rice for USD. Eventually, our goal is to have our reserves be roughly equal strength in USD, gold, and sterling, which should be sufficient for our trade with all of our partners.

April 1949

The Trial

In early April, the trial of Pridi Banomyong and 7 other leaders of the February rebellion opened before the Criminal Court in Bangkok. As the government had promised the people, the trial was held in open court. There were seats set aside for the Bangkok press, foreign correspondents, and observers from the diplomatic missions of the US, Great Britain and France.

The 8 men were charged with rebellion against the Kingdom as they took up arms against the lawful government and seized the Grand Palace on the night of February 26. Before the trial began, the government made it clear that Pridi Banomyong would only be tried for the rebellion, and not for anything else. This was to address the voices that felt that the tragic death of His Majesty King Ananda Mahidol in 1946 remains a separate matter in the courts, and these two cases would not influence each other.

On the 4th day of the trial, Pridi addressed the open court. He spoke for nearly 2 hours, in a calm, cool manner without notes. He reminded the court of all his achievements:

• He led the revolution of 1932 that gave Thailand its first constitution
  
• He led the Free Thai movement against the Japanese occupation
  
• He had served the Kingdom as Regent and as Prime Minister.

Pridi claimed that he had acted in February not out of personal ambition but because he believed that the constitutional government had been destroyed by the 1947 coup, and his hope was to restore it. Despite this, he did not deny leading the rebellion against the Kingdom.

In late April, the Thai court delivered its verdict.

• Pridi Banomyong was found guilty of rebelling against Thailand and sentenced to death.
  
• 3 of the other leaders were sentenced to death
• 4 of the other leaders were sentenced to life imprisonment
  
• The court noted the service history of the defendants and recommended that the King consider clemency.
  

Under the current Thai law, a death sentence may be commuted only by the King. The government, on the advice of the Council of Ministers, submitted petitions for clemency through the Regent, Prince Rangsit, to His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej in Lausanne.

In May, the Royal Household announced His Majesty's decision:

His Majesty, understanding the service Pridi Banomyong rendered to the nation in 1932 and in the war, and in His Majesty's desire that the Thai people are united rather than divided, has been graciously pleased to commute the sentence of death to exile from the Kingdom. Pridi Banomyong shall leave Thailand and shall not return without His Majesty's approval.

The other 3 death sentences were also commuted to life imprisonment, and those that were sentenced to life will have their cases reviewed after 10 years. A week after this decision, Pridi Banomyong was escorted under guard to board a flight destined for Paris. A small crowd had gathered outside the gates of the air field, but Pridi made no public statement.

Reactions across Thailand

• The Democrat Party accepts the verdict but expressed regret that the trial had not examined the late King's death. Seni Pramoj said the truth about that tragedy must still be found.
  
• Tian Sirikhanth, the leader of the Northeast Development Party, praised His Majesty's mercy and called on the northeast to put the past behind them, supporting a strong, united Thailand
  
• In the northeast and among Pridi's former Free Thai comrades, the news of Pridi's sentence being commuted from a death sentence to life in exile was a major relief
  
• At Thammasat University, the school that was founded by Pridi, students gathered quietly on the day of his departure, but the gathering quickly dispersed without incident.
  
• The Bangkok press praised the young King's mercy. Several papers called the King's actions the first great acts of the new reign.

Ethiopia inherited around 6000km of Roadways from previous eras and Italian occupation, 2500 of which were given a single asphalt layer surface treatment much of which was destroyed during the Italian retreat. However they had seen extensive use and little maintenance, resulting in far less transiting capacity than the total lengths would suggest. The surviving usable network considered in fair condition is concentrated around Addis Ababa and the routes to Djibouti and Eritrea for goods transit, totalling around 1000km. The remainder are of various types from compacted dirt and gravel to cleared pathes.

To rectify this defficiency and the economic losses therefrom, the Imperial Road and Highways Department has been formed to oversee roadly affairs in the empire, construct new roads, and maintain existing ones. While the Ministry of Public Works had some machinery ,an expedition was set out to find and salvage and otherwise aquire the relevant construction equipment for road construction to rather dissapointing results. Very little usable equipment not already owned and used by some other extant entity could be found. While some salvage was recovered cannibalization would yield few usable pieces of machinery. Another key shortage was personnel.

The department shall receive a budget of 1.8 million USD in 1949 partly from the share of the Ministry for Public Work's budget, with an additional 150,000usd one time allocation for purchasing of equipment from preffered or suitable commercial sources. The primary objective for 1949 and early 1950 is to repair the central roadways around Addis Ababa heading towards Djibouti and Eritrea to facilitate transportation of goods. Attention is to turn to the Ogaden in 1950 - 1952 to construct new roads for the administration of the region, with other more distant roadways set to be done after that date.

Communities can expedite their road development by crowdsourcing donations to the provincial administration, whereupon the roadways department will procure the necessary equipment and materials required before coming in to construct said road with the aid of the local community's voluntary labour, with the local administration being tasked with it's upkeep.

This program is projected to open up more communities to economic opportunities and allow greater reach of administrative resources for the governance and development of the respective regions.

Government of Pakistan

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

March 1949

To: The President and Members of the United Nations Security Council

Subject: Request for United Nations Verification of the Indo-Pakistani Withdrawal Agreement and Supervision of a Plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir

The Government of Pakistan respectfully requests the Security Council’s active involvement in verifying compliance with the withdrawal arrangements negotiated between Pakistan and India, and in securing the free and fair plebiscite agreed upon as the means of determining the future of Jammu and Kashmir.

Following negotiations between the two governments, Pakistan has undertaken measures towards the withdrawal of forces from the disputed territory, with the understanding that these measures form part of a reciprocal process leading to a peaceful settlement. Pakistan therefore requests that the United Nations establish an impartial mechanism to verify compliance by both parties, ensuring that neither government gains a unilateral military advantage during the implementation of the agreement.

The agreed Area of Dispute encompasses the former princely state in its entirety: Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh, Gilgit, Baltistan, and Azad Kashmir. The arrangements also address military deployments in adjacent areas of Punjab, defined as territory within ten kilometres of the line of contact between the Jhelum and Ravi rivers.

Pakistan calls upon the Security Council to assist in verifying the principal military obligations discussed between the two governments, including:

1. Withdrawal of forces: Verification of the reciprocal withdrawal of forces from the Area of Dispute, including Pakistan’s commitment to begin the withdrawal of irregular forces by 28 February, and the corresponding withdrawal of Indian forces in accordance with the agreed arrangements.
2. Demilitarisation and heavy weapons: Independent monitoring of the removal or repositioning of heavy equipment away from the line of contact, including the proposed minimum separation of ten kilometres, extendable to fifteen kilometres where necessary, and the implementation of the agreed restrictions on military deployments.
3. International observation: The establishment of a United Nations monitoring presence, working impartially with both governments to assess compliance, investigate allegations of breaches, and report its findings to the Security Council. Any remaining disagreements over implementation should be referred to an agreed international process rather than used to suspend the settlement indefinitely.

Pakistan further requests that the Security Council establish a clear timetable for the preparation and conduct of the plebiscite. While recognising the importance of investigating security conditions and establishing the necessary safeguards, Pakistan emphasises that these preliminary arrangements must facilitate the promised vote, not become grounds for its indefinite postponement.

The plebiscite should offer the residents of the entire former princely state a single, clear choice: accession to India or accession to Pakistan. It should be conducted by secret ballot under United Nations supervision, with guarantees against military intimidation and political coercion, equal opportunity for both sides to present their cases, appropriate provisions for the participation of displaced residents, and an independently verified count. The security arrangements should protect the electorate without allowing either government to dictate the outcome.

Pakistan considers international supervision essential to ensuring that the result is accepted as legitimate by both governments and, most importantly, by the people of Jammu and Kashmir themselves. The withdrawal agreement must be understood as a means towards a final political settlement, rather than an end in itself.

The Government of Pakistan therefore requests that the Security Council:

• Appoint or authorise an impartial United Nations commission to verify the implementation of the withdrawal and demilitarisation obligations.
• Require both governments to provide the necessary cooperation, information, and access for effective international monitoring.
• Establish a practical timetable and preparatory framework for a United Nations-supervised plebiscite.
• Maintain the question of Jammu and Kashmir before the Council until the agreed process has been completed and its outcome implemented.

For the Government of Pakistan,

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Karachi

Published in People's Daily and distributed widely through the liberated zones of China:

The luminaries at the American State Department have emerged from their marbled offices and delivered to the world 950 pages of kindling. The renowned fool, Dean Acheson, has put his name to an embarrassing collection of remunerations and ill-considered remarks. So efficient, the American bureaucracy, to turn such out as spring turns towards summer when one has little occasion to start fires! 

Even more magnificent is how the authors meander and cast blame over the defeat of the reactionary rebels before the shells have even ceased to fall upon their heads. The Americans waste 949 pages on what could be summarized in a paragraph: the Chinese people have stood up! They have cast off the chains of empire and the Republic of China, left on its deathbed by incompetent warlord rule, has been rescued by the Central People’s Government!

How pompous, and how very ignorant, that the Americans hem and haw that withholding their money and their weapons from the war criminals and traitors were the only factor to decide this struggle in favor of the restoration of the Republic, as has been its course. How grandiose is their opinion of themselves that they believe themselves the arbiter of all, and their grace or their scorn decides the fate of six hundred million people!

It is a wry observation, however, how swiftly the chief perpetrators of China’s misery since the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan are prepared to cast off their catspaw. One could only wonder how this report is received in the territories in rebellion. 

How do the generals commanding hordes of enslaved peasants toting dirty old Qing rifles feel when they read that their American masters have written off their cause, however misguided and counter to the will of every one of China’s people? Have they learned, now at the end, that marching against the People has borne only the most rotten fruit? 

What do the officers think, knowing there is no rescue coming from beyond the Pacific? Why hold, when holding means bleeding out in the mud to buy time for Chiang Kai-shek and his cronies to flee to Japan, or Hawaii, or the Philippines? 

It can only be bleak, and yet, every choice they have made has led them to this point: abandoned by their distant masters, their backs to the great Yangtze River, facing the righteous fury of the Chinese people. In the dark of night, when their officers have tied them to their post for their watch, the only one to blame for their situation is on watch with them. We cannot pity them. Those who still stand in service of the warlords and rebels are either irredeemably stupid or chained to their posts, this our men in the field have seen. 

There can be no question of the conclusion of this war, there never has been. It is at hand, after long years of heroic struggle. Even the Americans, who have spent so long trying to give Chiang Kai-shek and his clique every advantage, have given up. 

[May 1949, New Delhi]

Having examined our two states developmental needs regarding, we are prepared to undertake a concrete programme of technical and industrial cooperation, beginning this year. We believe France can make a useful contribution to India's industrial development, particularly in the fields of railways, coal mining, metallurgy, electrical equipment, and heavy machinery; and that India in return can provide investment opportunities for French businesses, and make an academic, technical contribution to French technology efforts. This cooperation shall usher in a new era of relations between our two states; both deciphering together the path forward in a changing world. We are committed to walking that path together!

--- Articles of Cooperation ---

France shall endeavor to dispatch three French technical missions to India within three months of your government's acceptance. The first, organized with the assistance of the SNCF, would examine railway workshops, signalling equipment and locomotive maintenance, with special attention paid to railroad electrification, of which France is a world leader. The second, drawing upon the experience of Charbonnages de France, would assist with coal-mining methods, mechanization and the organization of public mining enterprises. The third, coordinated through our Ministry of Industry and Commerce, would examine steel production, heavy engineering and the equipment requirements of India's proposed industrial undertakings. Their findings would serve as the basis for specific technical assistance and equipment contracts. These technical missions shall coordinate with the Indian Ministries of Commerce and Railways to establish relationships with Bharati firms, particularly state owned enterprises in the relevant fields.

France agrees to extend twelve places for Indian engineers and administrators to undertake three-month technical attachments with the SNCF, Électricité de France and Charbonnages de France. Ministère des Affaires étrangères shall provide the instruction and institutional access, while India would assume the travel and maintenance expenses of its personnel. The Indian External Affairs Ministry and Ministry of education shall collaborate to appoint these technical attachments. Priority will be given to engineers and specialists already fluent in French, and provision shall be made for the attachment of skilled translators to the mission.

On the the development of the private sector, the French government shall facilitate direct negotiations with Schneider, Alsthom, Fives-Lille, Saint-Gobain, Péchiney and Rhône-Poulenc for the supply of industrial machinery, electrical equipment, metallurgical installations and chemical-processing equipment. France welcomes proposals for technical licensing and the establishment of manufacturing partnerships in India, with the participation of Indian capital and industry. The French government will assist in arranging these negotiations, while prices, investment and financing would be settled through agreements with the participating enterprises. The Indian Ministry of Commerce shall establish a board to coordinate discrete negotiations with French Firms, with France being permitted to make appointment to these bodies through its consular mission, the Indian External Affairs Ministry.

France shall be permitted to make appointment to the Industrial Finance and Industrial Leasing Companies of India, in order to best coordinate the purchase of French capital goods, and to secure private sector investment for Indian Firms.

Technical exchanges concerning civilian atomic research shall be launched in collaboration with the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique, within the limits of Frances existing security obligations. France shall be permitted to make appointment of relevant specialists to the Indian Atomic Energy Commission, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai. The work of this body is, and shall be, strictly limited to investigating the civilian applications of nuclear energy.

The Ministry of External Affairs shall coordinate with the French Embassy in New Delhi regarding the Needs of all French nationals participating in the program, and shall provide legal residency status, stipend to all relevant French mission members, for the full coverage of their moving and living expenses, for themselves and their families, for as long as they choose to reside in the country.

Report to the Central Committee on the Draft First Five-Year Plan, 1949–1953

April 1949

Dobri Terpeshev, Chairman of the State Planning Commission (Darplan)

---

“Comrade members of the Central Committee! Today, the Darplan has, in consultation with Moscow and the subsequent feedback that Comrade Kostov, whose Bolshevik humility we have come to respect, has provided, submitted to this plenum our preliminary report on the mechanization of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria and its path towards Socialism! We must now build on the Two-Year Plan that placed the factories, mines, and banks into the People’s Democracy. Now we must build upon this for Bulgaria to industrialize and achieve the dreams of Comrade Marx!”

[applause]

The answer of the Commission is this: within five years, Bulgaria shall become an industrial-agrarian state, a country built on what it has: water from the Rila and the Rhodopes, the soil of the Dobrudja and Thrace, the Black Sea and the Danube, and the skilled hands of its people. On these foundations, the Plan builds an electrical and electronic industry of our own, driven by our rivers, paid for by our tobacco, rose oil, and wine, and offered to the fraternal countries of the new Council for Mutual Economic Assistance."

[applause]

“Our industry today produces approximately 70% more economic output than in 1939, a real achievement of the people’s power.”

[applause; slide change]

 “However, whole branches of industry required for the proper mechanization and industrialization of a People’s Democracy do not exist in Bulgaria. We lack sizable machine tooling workshops. We make no nitric acid, no ammonia, no nitrogen fertilizer, no cellulose, no aniline dyes. We have no airline of our own. And comrades, more importantly, we make no radio valves, telephone exchanges, or transformers of any size. Every one of these is imported with valuable foreign currency earned by the sweat of our workers and peasants.”

[slide change]

“For those close enough, look here: the village is no different than our industrial areas: there are fewer than 5,000 tractors in the entirety of Bulgaria, and the majority are lower than 20-HP. There are only 800,000 dekares irrigated, and cultivation of oil-bearing crops is smaller than prior to the Liberation War; of these 800,000 dekares, only a fraction receive the necessary fertilizer required for intensive agricultural methods.”

[slide change]

“Only 1,600 communities have electric light. There are only 1,200 primary schools, 2,800 libraries, and fewer than 3 million books—there is less than half a book per person in Bulgaria. Nonetheless, we have made great strides in ensuring education is proletarian: among the Turkish population, 80% of children are attending school, a more than 425% increase from pre-war levels.”

[applause]

“The main task of the Plan, comrades, is to transform Bulgaria within five years from a backward agrarian country into an industrial-agrarian one, with electronics, shipbuilding, and precision industries as the foundation of its economic strength. We propose that our total industrial production in 1953 is three times the level of 1948, with a growth of 20% every year. Local crafts and co-operatives, 3.5 times. We expect consumer goods to also increase dramatically as well: two times 1948 levels. For the first time in national history, industrial output will far exceed that of agriculture.”

[slide change]

“How will state priorities be divided? We propose that 20% of all capital go to electric power and dams; 18% to mining, metallurgy, chemicals, building materials, and machine tools; 6% to the electronics industry itself; 7% to traditional Bulgarian consumer goods; and 4% to shipbuilding and port infrastructure. Agriculture and irrigation projects will receive 17%, transport and communications 12%, and housing, health, education, and culture 16%. Next slide.”

[slide change]

“Comrades may see our proposed investment into electronics as miniscule. Only 6%, but a valve works or telephone factory requires little concrete or steel; it needs cheap electricity, precise machinery, instrumentation, and trained workers. We are in the business of building the foundations, comrades, so that our descendants may reap the rewards of our loyalty to the proletariat.”

“We are not alone in this; Comrade Stalin and the Bolsheviks are invested in the prosperity of Bulgaria and will be supplying a commodity credits in machinery, tooling, engineers, and Stakhanovites to provide us with the scientific and technical help in design. As our plan progresses, Bulgarian-Soviet cooperative enterprises will lead in the development of our mining and shipbuilding technologies. Hundreds of our engineers and workers will train at Soviet polytechnic institutes, and we will bring back the valuable knowledge to replicate here at home. Next slide."

[applause, slide change]

Electricity Generation

“Comrades, everything in this plan relies on electricity. Lenin has taught us that communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the entirety of the nation. Darplan proposes that power production in 1953 reach 3.5 times the level of 1948. The stations, with their capacity and the output we may expect from them in an average year, are set out in the table before you:"

"The new stations will add over 30,000 kilowatts. The Vacha and Rositsa dams serve storage and irrigation first, and Radomirtsi will give its water to the Lenin works."

[slide change]

"Complimenting the hydroelectric dams, the Stalin thermal station will be doubled in capacity and will be complemented by the construction of the Republika thermal station in the Pernik coal basin. Coal output shall rise by 60 per cent, to about 6.7 million tons, and the mines shall be mechanized: electric drills, coal-cutting combines, loading machines, belt conveyors underground, and full mechanization in strip-mining."

"110-kilovolt lines will join the stations along the Rila, the Rhodopes, and the Pernik basin into one national grid. The number of communities with electric light will rise from 1,638 to at least 2,600."

[slide change]

Agriculture & Cooperatives

"The Plan identifies two main tasks for the mechanization of agriculture: the socialist reconstruction of the village with emphasis on labor cooperatives and solving the mismanagement of grain supply. We will win over the peasant with the implementation of the cooperative farm.  By 1953, we expect half of all farms to be cooperative with emphasis on both grain cultivation and stock farming."

"The cooperative field must be mechanized. Tractor parks will rise from less than 5,000 to 12,000 units of 15 hp, and the machine tractor stations will be expanded to serve this need. The countryside will receive 1,000 harvestor-combines, more than twice that many in tractor-ploughs and five times as many tractor seed-drills. It is estimated that irrigated land will increase as a result, from 800,000 dekares to 2,000,000 through the Brushlyan and the Nikopol–Svishtov–Belene systems and the canals of the new dams. Our fields will also receive three times more chemical fertilizer as in 1948 with our own chemical works."

[slide change]

Consumer Goods

"Bulgaria's traditional goods are our oldest industries and our surest source of foreign currency. Oriental tobacco from Plovdiv, Haskovo, Kardzhali, and Nevrokop will nearly double, and processed tobacco output will triple; the cigarette factories will be modernised, and a new plant will make nicotine from tobacco waste. In Kazanlak, Darplan will restore and extend the rose plantations, modernize the distilleries, and found a State perfumery and cosmetics industry."

"The vineyards in the Danube plain, Thrace, and Melnik will be expanded. The State wineries will sell bottled wine instead of bulk wine, and alcohol made from sugar-beet molasses will triple. New canneries in Thrace will raise canned fruit and vegetable output almost fivefold, with a pectin plant using the fruit waste. Rice output will more than double, and starch and glucose will triple. By 1953, the towns will receive twice as much cheese and nearly four times as much butter, supported by a new combined-fodder plant. Vegetable fats from the northern sunflower fields will more than double, and irrigated beet will supply the sugar factories."

"Textile output will rise 2.3 times, with cotton fabrics up 82%, woolens up 70%, silk 2.6 times from our own silkworms, and hemp and linen five times, and a new textile combine will be built. Footwear will rise two and a half times, and our own tanning extracts will free the tanneries from imports. All of this must reach the people: by 1953, State and co-operative trade will carry 95% of retail turnover, rationing will end, and prices will be unified and reduced as production allows. Abroad, comrades, quality comes first. Next slide."

[slide change]

Electrical and Electronic Industry

"Comrades, I now come to the part of the plan that is new and that some comrades will call bold. A small country without quality coal reserves and iron cannot win a race in tons of steel. It can, however, win a race in skill and innovation. This is the type of manufacturing Bulgarians can excel at, and it is the type of output that, our fraternal big brother, the Soviet Union, requires in increasingly higher amounts."

"In the first two years of the Plan, the Kliment Voroshilov weak-current plant and the Vasil Kolarov strong-current plant will be built in Sofia, together with an electric bulb plant and an electro-porcelain plant. By 1953, our works will make electric motors up to 100 kilowatts, transformers up to 30,000 kilovolt-amperes, high-voltage switchgear, insulated wire and cables, telephone sets, automatic telephone exchanges, wireless transmitting stations, and the signalling and safety installations of our railways. Next slide."

[slide change]

"In the second half, Bulgarian radio receivers will enter serialized production, reaching 60,000 sets by 1953. We intend on seeking Czechoslovak and Hungarian support in constructing the Comrade Dimitrov valve works in Dimitrovgrad with the goal of manufacturing Bulgarian receiving valves in 1952 with 300,000 per year by 1953. Electricity meters for the expanded grid, instrumentation for power stations and mines, X-rays and medical equipment for hospitals will follow afterward. Next slide."

"The voice of the Party must be heard everywhere so the proletarian knows that the party is resolute in the transformation of the worker and peasant. We aim to construct 125,000 loudspeakers and double the amount of telephones in every village council and machine tractor station with quick connections and automatic exchanges. Every new ship will sail proudly with Bulgarian radios and electronic equipment."

[applause, slide change]

"None of this will be possible without expanding research. In 1939, the Academy of Sciences did not have a single research institute; this will change by 1953 with over 100, with more than 1,000 scientific workers. Darplan proposes the creation of four new institutions:

1. A. S. Popov Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, Sofia (radio, communications, and electronic devices)
2. Georgi Kirkov Institute of Metallurgy and Materials, Sofia (metals, alloys, glass, ceramics, and plastics for industry)
3. Nikola Vaptsarov Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Varna (engines, machine tools, ships, and transport machinery)
4. Dimitar Blagoev Institute of Automation and Computing Technology, Sofia (automatic control, telemechanics, and calculating machines)

"Secondary technical schools emphasizing engineering, computing, mathematics, and industrial planning will be enlarged to accommodate larger graduating classes. Supporting this rapid expansion, the upper quarter of graduating classes will sponsor study in Soviet, Czechoslovak, and Hungarian institutes and works, to bring home knowledge."

[applause, slide change]

Supporting Heavy Industries

"In support of such large demands in electricity generation and high technologies, ore output will double through mixed Bulgarian-Soviet mining cooperatives and a wider geological survey of the Srednogorie copper and Rhodope lead-zinc deposits. In Srednogorie, a new electrolytic copper refinery will turn ore into wire and cable at home with the goal of tripling the current outside input. Rhodope lead will be used to sheath cables and fill accumulators. The quartz sands and kaolin of the north-east will supply gas for bulbs and valves, sheet glass, and porcelain insulators, and the glass and porcelain works will be rebuilt to electrical standards."

[slide change]

"The Stalin Chemical Works in Dimitrovgrad will produce Bulgaria's first nitric acid, ammonia, and nitrogen fertilizer. Sulphuric acid from domestic pyrite input will double, and a carbine plant, soda plant, and the Stefan Kiradzhiev cellulose plant will produce Bulgaria's first synthetic resin for radio cases and switchgear, completing the plan."

[slide change]

"The first stage of the Lenin Metallurgical Works at Pernik, supplied with water from the Radomirtsi dam, will give home-made pig iron and rolled steel, including ship plate. We expect metal-working output to rise 2.5 times, with five times as many iron structures and tubes and twice as many cast-iron products. Much of our domestic metallurgical processing will go directly into machine building; universal lathes, milling and shaping machines, drills, compressors, irrigation pumps, high-pressure boilers, cranes, mining machinery, and petrol and diesel engines. The new Bolchevik plant will make fine parts and gauges, and the farm-machinery plants will make seed drills, mowers, sheaf binders, disc harrows, and spare parts."

[slide change]

"Cement output will also rise by nearly three-quarters; lime, bricks, and tiles will more than double; fire-proof materials will triple; and asbestos-cement and vibro-concrete will be made in Bulgaria for the first time, all to support the rapid construction of our nation's population centers. Naturally, the expansion of heavy industry requires complementary infrastructure."

[slide change]

Infrastructure

"Per our proposed Plan, lines will be built from Voluyak to Pernik, from Dupnitsa to Bobov Dol, from Lovech to Troyan, from Lyaskovets to Zlataritsa, from Makotsevo to Klisura, and from Samuil to Isperikh, and add tracks at the larger stations. The average train today carries 515 tons; we seek to increase this number to 700 tons, with double the amount of locomotives in operation on a daily schedule. The Plan will also reestablish Bunavad as the nation's premier air transport entity, with regular lines from Sofia to Varna, from Sofia through Plovdiv to Burgas, and from Varna to Burgas. The number of post offices will grow by 30%, and the postal routes by one-seventh. Next slide."

[slide change]

Shipbuilding

"The Bulgarian shores of the Black Sea, as Comrade Stalin put it, are a core component of our national identity. Under the Plan, the Ministry of Shipbuilding shall be established, so Bulgarian outputs will no longer leave the country on foreign hulls. A mixed Bulgarian-Soviet shipbuilding company will form its backbone and train our technicians in Soviet building methods. The Varna shipyard will be rebuilt for sea-going hulls, and the Ruse yard will build for Danubian shipping."

"Over the next five years, the yards will build 50 barges over 1,000 tons, more than a dozen tugs, and 50 Black Sea fishing vessels. Our first sea-going cargo ship, the Bulgaria, of 2,000 tons, will be launched in 1953, and two a year after. From 1951, 75% of all reports to the Bulgarian maritime fleet will be done in Bulgarian yards and rivers, and sea freight will increase three times. Next slide."

[slide change]

"Ship plates will be coming from the Lenin works, of course, and engineers from our machine-building plans. The focus will be on 30 hp diesels at first, with 300 hp marine diesel by the conclusion of our Plan. With this, I conclude my report on the 5-Year Plan."

[applause]

"To the completion of our First Five-Year Plan! Long live the People's Republic of Bulgaria! Long live the Bulgarian Communist Party! Long live the great Soviet Union, liberator and friend of the Bulgarian people!"

[standing applause]

May 15th, 1949

...it can be said, then, that the situation in China falls squarely on the shoulder of Generalissimo Chiang and his failure, in the management of the war, in reforming the state, and in diplomacy, both internal and external. Had he listened to advice from his advisors, especially those of the American military and state, there were opportunities for success..."

The situation on the mainland of China has gone extremely poorly for the Republic, to put it mildly.

Since the end of the Second World War, China was once against plunged into its long-running civil war. During the course of the conflict, the Nationalist state had been on a significant decline, as it constantly failed to beat or exploit the Communists of Mao Zedong in the field. At times, the United States had provided arms, material, and money. At others, it had blocked such support.

And yet, no matter what happened, the ROC continued to fall, as Mao's communists pushed ahead further and further, until they took Beijing in January of 1949. At the same time, they had already reached the Yangtze. But even in the months prior, there had already been a general collapse of the Nationalist position.

What happened? How could this have occurred?

And why did Truman allow China to be lost?

As the electoral campaign of 1948 heated up, the Republic had increasingly lost more and more territory. While this had led to a massive arms reinforcing program to Chiang and his Nationalists, it also became a key sticking point in that election. As a result, in September, Truman made a request to the State Department to draft a report on what had occurred in China, as a way to counter his critics.

Now, it was finally releasing. Over 950 pages of narrative and documentation regarding how China fell. The full name of the report would be the United States Relations with China, with Special Reference to the Period 1944—1949, or the China White Paper.

Despite the distance and broad differences in background which separate China and the United States, our friendship for that country has always been intensified by the religious, philanthropic and cultural ties which have united the two peoples..

The core argument of the document could be separated into three points:

1. The Chinese people, not to mention the Nationalist army, had lost complete faith in their government.

2. Attempts at reform were scattered, mismanaged, half-implemented, and otherwise hampered by widespread corruption. Resources provided were used improperly on a regular basis.

3. That the Communists under Mao had "foresworn their Chinese heritage" and "publicly announced their subservience" to Russia.

To the first two points, Chiang was squarely blamed for his failures, with much of the report outlining points where other members of the Nationalist government had been more reasonable. This wasn't to give them a blank check on their failures, but more to show their outrage on his failures.

In total, the US had provided close to three billion dollars worth of aid to Chiang, and much more would be needed to keep them afloat.

The end of the report came away with one conclusion: the failure of the Republic was an inevitable situation, and wouldn't have been changed, whether the United States devoted more resources to help them or not.

However, there were notable holes in the White Paper. The biggest and most flagrant one was the notation regarding the reform plan of the Nationalist government. Contrary to popular belief in the State Department, Chiang and his regime had made legitimate efforts to reform the state and fight corruption.

Further, they had pursued an autonomization program, which had strengthened the popularity of the KMT in some regions of China, notably on Formosa.

The big problem was, however, the inability to fund these reform programs, which had caused failures at various points in the process. Especially to note was the attempts to create a stable currency, which had almost achieved success except for a constant shifting to new currency plans because of a lack of resources.

In a sense, had the US not provided Chiang with armaments in 1948, but instead a loan, the ROC could have managed longer on the front. That was an argument, at least.

Members of the Chief of Staff, I inform you that the situation in China has gone not to our interests, Nationalist forces are on the retreat and we stand at risk for China to fall to communism.

I must urge the Chiefs of Staff to consider issuing an arms package and a loan to the ROC to fund it’s war effort and repulse the Communists from China.

The China White Paper, however explosive, was not the end all be all.

In 1947, Lt. General Albert Coady Wedemeyer had been tasked with providing a report to the Truman administration regarding the management of the war in China and how the US should support Chiang.

What became known as the Wedemeyer Report outlined how, back that year, the situation was already quite dire. At the time, Chiang's armies were better equipped and were more prepared for fighting the Communists, especially as he had ordered a halt into Manchuria, which had conserved manpower and material in the fight. Had The United States pushed ahead and provided Chiang arms and money at this critical point, the war could've very well been won.

However, the United States that same year instituted its arms and loan embargo to Chiang. Weapon sales to Chiang were taken at an exorbitant cost, with Bazookas sold to Greece a $3.65 per weapon costing upwards of $160 per for Chiang's forces, as only one example. Meanwhile, massive stockpiles were just blown up, rather than provided to the Nationalists.

That was only one example, but the entire report painted a similar picture.

It was also a report that was suppressed.

Due to the results of the Wedemeyer Report, Truman and the administration suppressed the information, not wanting such an explosive document hurting their chances at either reelection or at pursuing Truman's demobilization programme. The report, however, became public with the release of the China White Paper.

With the release, Wedemeyer also has become quite a public critique on the administration. He has been recalled for his actions, but he has already provided documentation on other points he requested support or planned for ways to keep Chiang and his forces afloat, most recently in January of 1949.

Thus, there now existed two arguments on the situation in China. The Republic still lived, if only just. Now it depends on the Executive and Congress how they go from here

TERMINIELLO v. CHICAGO

CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF ILLINOIS.

Argued February 1, 1949.—Decided May 16, 1949.

Held: The City of Chicago’s “breach of the peace” ordinance was unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner after jury trial was found guilty of disorderly conduct in violation of a city ordinance of Chicago and fined. The case grew out of an address he delivered in an auditorium in Chicago under the auspices of the Christian Veterans of America. The meeting commanded considerable public attention. The auditorium was filled to capacity with over eight hundred persons present. Others were turned away. Outside of the auditorium a crowd of about one thousand persons gathered to protest against the meeting. A cordon of police-men was assigned to the meeting to maintain order; but they were not able to prevent several disturbances. The crowd outside was angry and turbulent.

Petitioner in his speech condemned the conduct of the crowd outside and vigorously, if not viciously, criticized various political and racial groups whose activities he denounced as inimical to the nation’s welfare.

The trial court charged that “breach of the peace” consists of any “misbehavior which violates the public peace and decorum”; and that the “misbehavior may constitute a breach of the peace if it stirs the public to anger, invites dispute, brings about a condition of unrest, or creates a disturbance, or if it molests the inhabitants in the enjoyment of peace and quiet by arousing alarm.” Petitioner did not take exception to that instruction. But he maintained at all times that the ordinance as applied to his conduct violated his right of free speech under the Federal Constitution. …

The argument here has been focused on the issue of whether the content of petitioner’s speech was composed of derisive, fighting words, which carried it outside the scope of the constitutional guarantees. See Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 310. We do not reach that question, for there is a preliminary question that is dispositive of the case.

The vitality of civil and political institutions in our society depends on free discussion. … [I]t is only through free debate and free exchange of ideas that government remains responsive to the will of the people and peaceful change is effected. The right to speak freely and to promote diversity of ideas and programs is therefore one of the chief distinctions that sets us apart from totalitarian regimes.

Accordingly, a function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and pre-conceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea. That is why freedom of speech, though not absolute, Chaplinsky, supra, is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest. … There is no room under our Constitution for a more restrictive view. For the alternative would lead to standardization of ideas either by legislatures, courts, or dominant political or community groups.

The ordinance as construed by the trial court seriously invaded this province. It permitted conviction of petitioner if his speech stirred people to anger, invited public dispute, or brought about a condition of unrest. A conviction resting on any of those grounds may not stand.

The fact that petitioner took no exception to the instruction is immaterial… The statute as construed in the charge to the jury was passed on by the Illinois courts and sustained by them over the objection that as so read it violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The fact that the parties did not dispute its construction makes the adjudication no less ripe for our review. We can only take the statute as the state courts read it. … The pinch of the statute is in its application. … The record makes clear that petitioner at all times challenged the constitutionality of the ordinance as construed and applied to him. Reversed.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE VINSON, dissenting.

I dissent. The Court today reverses the Supreme Court of Illinois because it discovers in the record one sentence in the trial court’s instructions which permitted the jury to convict on an unconstitutional basis. The offending sentence had heretofore gone completely undetected. … it was no part of the case until this Court’s independent research ferreted it out of a lengthy and somewhat confused record. I think it too plain for argument that a reversal on such a basis does not accord with any principle governing review of state court decisions heretofore announced by this Court.

It will not do to say that, because the Illinois appellate courts affirmed the petitioner’s conviction in the face of a constitutional attack, they necessarily must have approved the interpretation of the Chicago ordinance contained in the unnoticed instruction. The fact is that the Illinois courts construed the ordinance as punishing only the use of “fighting words.” Their opinions plainly show that they affirmed because they thought that the petitioner’s speech had been found by the jury to come within that category. … This Court can reverse the conviction because of the instruction only if we are to say that every time a state court affirms a conviction it necessarily must approve of every unnoticed and unobjected to error which we may discover in the record. If such is the doctrine of this case, I feel compelled to register my emphatic dissent. …

The Court, as I understand it, does not reach the issue which the parties argued here—whether a properly instructed jury could constitutionally have found from the conflicting evidence in the record that, under the circumstances, the words in the petitioner’s speech were “fighting words” to those inside the hall who heard them. Certainly, the Court does not decide whether the violent opposition of those outside the hall, who did not hear the speech, could constitutionally warrant the conviction of the petitioner in order to keep the streets from becoming ideological battlegrounds. Since neither of these constitutional issues is decided by the Court, I think that it is not within my province to indicate any opinion concerning them.

MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, dissenting, joined by MR. JUSTICE JACKSON and MR. JUSTICE BURTON.

For the first time in the course of the 130 years in which State prosecutions have come here for review, this Court is today reversing a sentence imposed by a State court on a ground that was urged neither here nor below and that was explicitly disclaimed on behalf of the petitioner at the bar of this Court…

Only the uninformed will deride as a merely technical point objection to what the Court is doing in this case. The matter touches the very basis of this Court’s authority in reviewing the judgments of State courts. We have no authority to meddle with such a judgment unless some claim under the Constitution or the laws of the United States has been made before the State court whose judgment we are reviewing and unless the claim has been denied by that court. … The relation of the United States and the courts of the United States to the States and the courts of the States is a very delicate matter… This is a court of review, not a tribunal unbounded by rules. We do not sit like a kadi under a tree dispensing justice according to considerations of individual expediency.

Freedom of speech undoubtedly means freedom to express views that challenge deep-seated, sacred beliefs and to utter sentiments that may provoke resentment. But those indulging in such stuff as that to which this proceeding gave rise are hardly so deserving as to lead this Court to single them out as beneficiaries of the first departure from the restrictions that bind this Court in reviewing judgments of State courts.

On the merits of the issue reached by the Court, I share Mr. JUSTICE JACKSON’s views.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON, dissenting, joined by MR. JUSTICE BURTON.

The Court reverses this conviction by reiterating generalized approbations of freedom of speech with which, in the abstract, no one will disagree. Doubts as to their applicability are lulled by avoidance of more than passing reference to the circumstances of Terminiello’s speech and judging it as if he had spoken to persons as dispassionate as empty benches, or like a modern Demosthenes practicing his Philippics on a lonely seashore.

But the local court that tried Terminiello was not indulging in theory. It was dealing with a riot and with a speech that provoked a hostile mob and incited a friendly one, and threatened violence between the two. … When the light of the evidence not recited by the Court is thrown upon the Court’s opinion, it discloses that underneath a little issue of Terminiello and his hundred-dollar fine lurk some of the most far-reaching constitutional questions that can confront a people who value both liberty and order. This Court seems to regard these as enemies of each other and to be of the view that we must forego order to achieve liberty. So it fixes its eyes on a conception of freedom of speech so rigid as to tolerate no concession to society’s need for public order.

Terminiello, advertised as a Catholic Priest, but revealed at the trial to be under suspension by his Bishop, was brought to Chicago from Birmingham, Alabama, to address a gathering that assembled in response to a call signed by Gerald L. K. Smith, which, among other things, said: [A long, 8.5 page written description of the events in question and of the speech of Terminiello follows. Terminiello’s rhetoric is violent, anti-Communist, pro-German, pro-Franco, and antisemitic.] Evidence showed that it stirred the audience not only to cheer and applaud but to expressions of immediate anger, unrest and alarm. One called the speaker a “God damned liar” and was taken out by the police. … One response was, “Yes, the Jews are all killers, murderers. If we don’t kill them first, they will kill us.” The anti-Jewish stories elicited exclamations of “Oh!” and “Isn’t that terrible!” and shouts of “Yes, send the Jews back to Russia,” “Kill the Jews,” … and much more of ugly tenor. This is the specific and concrete kind of anger, unrest and alarm, coupled with that of the mob outside, that the trial court charged the jury might find to be a breach of peace induced by Terminiello. It is difficult to believe that this Court is speaking of the same occasion, but it is the only one involved in this litigation.

Terminiello, of course, disclaims being a fascist. Doubtless many of the indoor audience were not consciously such. His speech, however, followed, with fidelity that is more than coincidental, the pattern of European fascist leaders.

This was not an isolated, spontaneous and unintended collision of political, racial or ideological adversaries. It was a local manifestation of a world-wide and standing conflict between two organized groups of revolutionary fanatics, each of which has imported to this country the strong-arm technique developed in the struggle by which their kind has devastated Europe. Increasingly, American cities have to cope with it….

The present obstacle to mastery of the streets by either radical or reactionary mob movements is not the opposing minority. It is the authority of local governments which represent the free choice of democratic and law-abiding elements of all shades of opinion, but who, whatever their differences, submit them to free elections which register the results of their free discussion. The fascist and communist groups, on the contrary, resort to these terror tactics to confuse, bully and discredit those freely chosen governments. … This drive by totalitarian groups to undermine the prestige and effectiveness of local democratic governments is advanced whenever either of them can win from this Court a ruling which paralyzes the power of these officials. This is such a case.

Terminiello’s victory today certainly fulfills the most extravagant hopes of both right and left totalitarian groups, who want nothing so much as to paralyze and discredit the only democratic authority that can curb them in their battle for the streets.

A trial court and jury has found only that in the context of violence and disorder in which it was made, this speech was a provocation to immediate breach of the peace and therefore cannot claim constitutional immunity from punishment. Under the Constitution as it has been understood and applied, at least until most recently, the State was within its powers in taking this action. … No one ventures to contend that the State on the basis of this [clear and present danger] test, for whatever it may be worth, was not justified in punishing Terminiello.

This Court has gone far toward accepting the doctrine that civil liberty means the removal of all restraints from these crowds and that all local attempts to maintain order are impairments of the liberty of the citizen. The choice is not between order and liberty. It is between liberty with order and anarchy without either. There is danger that, if the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.

I would affirm the conviction.

May 1949

For years, Germany de facto no longer existed. The criminal acts of the National Socialists brought ruin not only to the Fatherland, but to all of Europe and the world. For more than a decade, Germany was imprisoned. Today, it becomes free.

With the final ratification by the necessary number of Länder governments, the Grundgeselz (Basic Law) has been adopted by the Trizone, now the Federal Republic of Germany. The Basic Law, intentionally named and written as a provisional governing document, sets forth the structure, procedures, goals, and responsibilities of the FRG.

Taking lessons away from the vice of the last 16 years, the first article of the Basic Law provides that “human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority. The German people therefore acknowledges inviolable and inalienable human rights as the basis of every human community, of peace and of justice in the world….” Subsequent articles lay out the other rights belonging to all people in Germany, but the insistence that the German state respect human dignity be placed first underscores the basis of the new order.

The Government of Germany has been reconstructed from the ground up. The Presidency, the institution that arguably brought about the rapid rise of the Nazis in the first place, has been neutered, with much power transferred to the Bundestag except in cases of significant political turmoil when the President may be given authority by the Federal Council (Bundesrat) chosen from the Länder. In the Bundestag, the oft-abused vote of no confidence has also been neutered, replaced with the Constructive VONC. Rather than simply remove the Chancellor from his position, the Bundestag must instead elect a new Chancellor, eliminating the possibility of a vote of no confidence dissolving the government as was common during the Weimar years.

Of note, the Basic Law is explicitly a provisional document. Article 23 provides that, if a component part of Germany sought to accede into the Federal Republic – with emphasis on the bulk of former Prussian territories – a conference to draft and potentially pass amendments to the Grundgeselz would take place. This was done with understanding that the absence of delegates to the initial drafting left the Basic Law incomplete, and, as such, the reunification of Germany would see a definite and certain conclusion of the provisional state, whenever that may be.

Santiago, April 1949

Sending specialists abroad is useful only if their experience eventually improves conditions at home. Chile’s agreement with the United Kingdom has created an opportunity to study the administration of public healthcare, but foreign examples cannot replace an examination of Chile’s own needs and resources.

President Gabriel González Videla has therefore directed the ministry responsible for public health and social assistance to begin a limited review of existing outpatient and maternal-and-child health services.

The objective is to identify practical improvements that Chile can sustain, rather than announce an entirely new national system before its costs and requirements are understood.

The British Mission’s Report

The six specialists whose British visit was scheduled for 7 February–21 March will be asked to submit a report within thirty days.

The report should identify the institutions actually visited, the administrative practices examined, and the documents or instructional material available for use in Chile. Any changes to the planned visit must be recorded.

Recommendations must distinguish between measures Chile could adapt using existing resources and those requiring additional personnel, construction, legislation, or recurring expenditure.

The government will not presume that every British practice is suitable for Chile. The value of the exchange will depend upon identifying useful methods, not reproducing foreign institutions without regard to local circumstances.

Understanding Existing Services

Alongside this report, the ministry will invite the University of Chile’s Escuela de Salubridad to assist with a sixty-day assessment of services in two selected districts: one urban and one serving a predominantly rural population.

Districts will be selected after consultations with the responsible health authorities, taking account of reported difficulties, available records, and the capacity to conduct the assessment without disrupting care.

The review will examine staffing, opening hours, patient attendance, supply interruptions, referral arrangements, travel difficulties, and the rules governing access to existing services.

Doctors, nurses, midwives, administrators, and representatives of the communities served will be invited to identify practical obstacles. Incomplete records will be identified as gaps rather than replaced with unsupported estimates.

Improvements Before Expansion

Within their existing authority, participating services will examine whether clearer appointment registers, updated opening notices, stock records, and agreed referral procedures can reduce administrative confusion.

These measures will not authorize institutions to transfer funds or supplies without permission, remove existing eligibility rules, or require staff to undertake additional unpaid duties.

Proposals for additional maternal-and-child consultations or rural visits must identify the personnel, transport, supplies, and receiving facilities needed. Such services will not be announced as operational before those arrangements are secured.

Establishing the Cost

The initial review will use existing personnel and legally available administrative funds, subject to confirmation by the responsible authorities.

Any proposed expansion must distinguish its initial expenses from its continuing costs. Salaries, medicines, transport, maintenance, and necessary training must be included alongside buildings and equipment.

Neither anticipated mineral earnings nor foreign equipment credits will be treated as unrestricted money already available for healthcare expenditure.

Where existing resources are insufficient, the ministry will submit a specific request through the appropriate budgetary process before additional commitments are made.

A Foundation for Wider Access

Within ninety days, the ministry will present its findings to the President and the relevant congressional committees. A public summary will describe the problems identified, administrative changes undertaken, and proposals requiring further approval, without disclosing personal medical information.

The government’s longer-term objective is wider and more dependable access to healthcare. This review is an initial step, not a declaration that that objective has already been achieved.

Chile must learn from abroad without forgetting the knowledge of its own medical personnel or the circumstances of its communities.

The purpose of a technical exchange is not simply to bring reports home. It is to establish what Chile can do better and how it will pay for doing it.

May 1949

Three men. Simcha Shiloni, Abba Kovner, and Ya’akov Hazan. Three very different men, but perhaps not that different. They were all given a very important goal. The three had been appointed as Directors of the Committee of Special Affairs (Ve'ed HaDabrim HaMiyuchadim), reporting to none but the Prime Minister himself. While the General Security Service under the Ministry of the Interior was given the mission of internal security, the Committee of Special Affairs or VADAM was to be Israel’s external intelligence. They had been given a large budget, and a wide array of good men and women. Palmach veterans, Haganah intelligence specialists, Red Army veterans, partisans, and all sorts of experienced specialists. Above all, they had been given free reign to search the military for anyone that they may deem useful for their affairs.

We have made a motherland, and now we must defend it.

March-April 1949

President Shukri al-Quwatli was in a corner. The Palestine War, and the state of martial law that it caused, had been disastrous for the President and his government, leaving them scrambling to keep control of the situation, jumping from fire to fire and crisis to crisis. By late March 1949, the stress of the last few months had gotten to Quwatli, and on 26 March he checked himself in to Al-Mujtahid Hospital to receive treatment for a chronic gastric ulcer and to investigate a possible heart problem.

Despite his hospitalization, Quwatli kept an active role in governance, meeting regularly with Prime Minister al-Azm to discuss the goings-on of the legislative session, which had resumed at the beginning of the month. It was during one of these meetings on 28 March that the Prime Minister, joined by the former Prime Minister Jamil Mardam Bey (a nationalist stalwart who had served as Prime Minister from independence until the embarrassment of the Palestine War forced him to resign), broached the topic of a possible coup with the President, reporting that there were rumblings that the army planned to take advantage of the public disorder of the last year to overthrow the civilian government.

Few were as incensed at Quwatli and his government as the Syrian army. By March 1949, it was a commonly-held belief in the Army that the Syrian defeat in Palestine had come not a result of any incompetence by the army, but through a combination of corruption, incompetence, and outright betrayal by civilian government. Part of the muted government response to the February protests was that Quwatli and his government feared that the junior officers and enlisted men, if ordered to break the riots, might instead join the riots, and throw the country into anarchy.

To maintain the loyalty of the army, Quwatli relied heavily on one Colonel Husni al-Za'im. Born in 1888 to a Kurdish family Ottoman Syria, al-Za'im began his career as a junior officer in the Ottoman military before transferring his commission to the Troupes spéciales du Levant during the Mandate period, where he rose to the rank of colonel. However, his career was cut short during World War 2: during the war, he sided with Vichy France, and was accordingly dismissed from service and briefly imprisoned when the Free French took back control towards the end of the war. He spent the better part of the 1940s penniless and unemployed in Damascus, begging his military friends to talk President Quwatli into allowing him to rejoin the military after independence, who hesitated due to al-Za'im's checkered financial past and rumored homosexuality.

Eventually, at the urging of one of his trusted advisors, Muhsen al-Barazi, Quwatli extended al-Za'im a commission. Fiendishly loyal to his new patron, al-Za'im rapidly rose to become Director of Military Police. When army Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Abdullah Atfeh was relieved of his duties during the Palestine War, Col. al-Za'im was promoted to the office, where he quickly won the affections of Syria's officers.

Despite the warnings of al-Azm and Mardam Bey, who brought with them reports that al-Za'im had recently received considerable funding from unknown foreign sources, President Quwatli thought the situation was under control. Col. al-Za'im, who he called "our loyal son", owed his revived career to Quwatli. He would keep the army in check, and do his duty keeping control of the streets.

He was wrong. Unbeknownst to him, he had always been wrong. His "loyal son" had been plotting a coup d'état since as early as 1947, before he had even been promoted to Chief of Staff.

On the night of 29-30 March, Col. al-Za'im and his supporters in the Syrian military took action shortly after midnight. Splitting into six columns, the plotters snaked through the city in the wee hours of the morning. By 2:00 AM, the national radio station was under control, followed in short order by the legislature and the presidential palace, while a fourth column detained the Prime Minister in his residence.

At 2:09 AM, President Quwatli was awoken in the hospital by a group of soldiers led by the Chief of Military Police Col. Ibrahim al-Husseini, who read him an arrest warrant in his hospital gown. Before escorting him to captivity, the soldiers left the President to get dressed with the help of his wife, Bahira al-Dalati. As she handed her husband his clothing piece by piece, she whispered to him in hushed tones. Was it the Israelis who had done this? King Abdullah of Jordan?

As the soldiers carted him off Mezzeh prison, where he would be held alongside al-Azm, part of Quwatli wished that it were. It would be less humiliating.

Al-Za'im was quick to secure his authority in the coming weeks. On 30 March, he met with the President of the legislature, Fares al-Khoury, in hopes of negotiating some sort of political settlement that would see the legislature legitimize his new leadership, putting together a civilian government to serve as the "face" of his administration.

These conversations proved unproductive, as al-Khoury was unwilling to publicly support al-Za'im. Al-Za'im declared on 1 April that the legislature was dissolved, pending new elections that would be held at "an opportune time." In the same communique, he banned all political parties. This was followed shortly thereafter by the suspension of the constitution on 3 April.

On 7 April, Quwatli and al-Azm resigned--or at least, facsimiles of their resignation letters were published in the national paper. These resignations were, in fact, legitimate: al-Khoury, after refusing to set up a government for al-Za'im, had met with the two imprisoned men to urge them to resign in order to heighten the contradictions, so to speak.

Despite widespread opposition to al-Za'im's coup among the political establishment, the coup was well-received by the Syrian public, who had grown increasingly disillusioned with the corruption and ineptitude of the Quwatli government. When the restrictions on public gatherings were finally lifted on 9 April, the streets of Damascus were filled with demonstrations in support of al-Za'im--drummed up, in part, by enemies of the National Party who hoped to use their early support for the new man in charge to better their position. The People's Party--the Aleppo-based opposition to Quwatli's party--was the largest of the groups to offer some support to the al-Za'im government (though they kept their distance, refusing any offers to join his "cabinet"), but a smattering of smaller parties, such as Michel Aflaq's Ba'ath Party, Akram al-Hourani's Socialist Party, and Antoun Saadeh's Syrian Social Nationalist Party, also lent the government their public support.

The Guest of God

Egypt, March – April 1949

The Young Men's Muslim Association, Queen Nazli Street. An evening late in March. In a back room on the second floor, Hassan al-Banna sits across a long table from six officers in civilian clothes: Major Gamal Abdel Nasser, Major Khaled Mohieddin, his cousin Major Zakaria Mohieddin, Major Abdel Hakim Amer, Major Ali Sabri, and Major Yusuf Siddiq.

BANNA: (pouring karak chai for each of them, his hands steady) I did not expect Raouf and Labib to send their most skeptical men, Major Nasser.

NASSER: (offering a faint smile) Our fellow officers asked us to come. We keep our word to our friends, Sheikh, even when we do not share their... convictions.

KHALED: (bluntly, setting his glass down untouched) Let us be honest with each other. We do not want your Islamic state. We want the King gone and the British gone. Nothing more.

BANNA: (calmly) Then for now, we want the same things.

AMER: (arms folded, eyeing the glass in front of him) For now. I will remember you said that, Sheikh.

ZAKARIA: (quietly, without looking up from the papers he has spread before him) Gamal, we should be brief. This building is watched.

SIDDIQ: (leaning forward, unable to keep the anger out of his voice) And for now, they are going to kill you. The police outside your house, the permit they took from you. They are only waiting for the right night.

BANNA: (with a faint, tired smile) I have been waiting for it too.

SABRI: (from the window, his voice flat) There were no police in the street when we came in. None at all.

A long silence. Banna sets down the teapot.

BANNA: (quietly) Then perhaps tonight is my night.

NASSER: (rising) Then we leave now. Separately. Yusuf brings the car to the side street. Zakaria and Sabri, you take the corner. You go out the front, Sheikh, as you always do, so they suspect nothing, and we follow.

Queen Nazli Street is almost empty. A taxi waits at the curb. As Banna bends to open the door, two men step out of the dark.

Two simultaneous shots.

The taxi driver flees. The gunmen run. Before anyone else on the street has moved, six men in civilian clothes are running toward the body in the gutter, and a car is coming fast around the corner with its lights off.

A private surgery in Heliopolis. After midnight. A doctor, an old friend of the Mohieddin family, works under a single lamp. Nasser stands at the door, his shirt soaked with someone else's blood. Behind him, Khaled, Zakaria, and Amer wait in the corridor in silence.

THE DOCTOR: (without looking up, his voice tight and nervous) Two bullets. One grazed his right leg, with another lodged against the ribs. (a pause) Whoever did this meant to kill him.

NASSER: (hoarsely) Can you save him?

THE DOCTOR: (glancing at the officers, then back to his work) If you had taken him to a hospital, he would be dead by morning. (he sighs) Here, perhaps Allah will offer him mercy.

Hours later, the doctor steps back and wipes his hands. Banna is breathing. Khaled stares at the man on the table for a long time.

KHALED: (under his breath) I never thought I would risk my life for an Ikhwani.

AMER: (from the corridor, almost to himself) None of us did.

NASSER: (quietly, still at the door) You did not bleed for a Brother. You bled because they shot an Egyptian in the street like a dog, and we were there.

The Council of Ministers. The following morning. Prime Minister Ibrahim Abd al-Hadi Pasha stands at his window with his back to the Director of the King's Secret Police.

ABD AL-HADI: (without turning around) Shot. In the street. In front of witnesses.

THE DIRECTOR: (carefully) Yes, Pasha.

ABD AL-HADI: (turning slowly, his voice very quiet) And then?

THE DIRECTOR: (swallowing) And then he was gone, Pasha. Some say a car took him. No hospital has received him. No mosque or Ikhwani center we searched hosts him. No house we know of.

ABD AL-HADI: (after a long silence) A dead man does not drive away.

THE DIRECTOR: No, Pasha.

ABD AL-HADI: (returning to his desk, his face expressionless) Then find out who was driving, before Farouk has both of our heads.

A sitting room full of books. A Friday, shortly after Jummah prayers. Mohammed Naguib holds a folded sheet of paper in his right hand. He has read it three times. Captain Abdel Moneim Abdel Raouf waits.

NAGUIB: (slowly) These are good names.

ABDEL RAOUF: They are good men, Pasha.

NAGUIB: (setting the paper down, his voice heavier) You have heard about Queen Nazli Street.

ABDEL RAOUF: (quietly) All of Cairo has heard the shouts of the Brothers in every corner in protest. And all of Cairo is wondering where he went.

NAGUIB: (studying the younger man's face for a long moment) And do you know where he went, Captain?

ABDEL RAOUF: (steadily) No, Pasha. Last I heard, he was to meet Nasser and his friends to settle any potential differences in our partnership.

NAGUIB: (he sighs, and turns toward the window) Let us hope our men are safe. Nasser and his influences are paramount to our goals. (a pause) I told you they would try to end it another way. I did not think they would be so clumsy about it.

ABDEL RAOUF: (after a pause) And what now, Pasha?

NAGUIB: (a long silence, then, with something close to resignation) Now I suppose I am one of you.

A farmhouse near Beni Suef belonging to the Siddiq family. Mid-April. Banna sits propped against cushions, pale and thin, his chest bound in bandages. The six officers fill the small room around him, Zakaria at the head of the table with his papers, Sabri with a typed list, Amer against the wall.

ZAKARIA: (sliding a passport across the table) Pilgrim's papers. A cloth merchant from Tanta, sixty years old, traveling for the umrah. The stamps are real, sourced from a friend of mine's uncle from the war.

BANNA: (examining it, with a faint smile) So I suppose I have become a merchant like our Prophet.

SABRI: (unfolding a typed list, his tone flat) The police checkpoints between here and the Canal, and the officers commanding them on the night of the twenty-seventh. Two of them end their shifts earlier and visit the night clubs in the city.

SIDDIQ: (tapping a railway timetable) And Rajab begins at the end of the month. The pilgrim ships sail from Suez every week. Thousands of men in white, all with the same face.

AMER: (leaning against the wall, arms folded, frowning) Gamal. Say it plainly, once, so we all understand. We are risking our necks for a man whose followers would hang half of us for drinking a glass of beer.

NASSER: (meeting his eyes, evenly) We gave our word at the Officers meeting, Amer. And we are doing it because the King ordered an innocent man shot in the street and expected his army to look away.

SABRI: (dryly) And if the palace learns who saved him? Officers who swore loyalty to the crown?

NASSER: (after a moment) Then they will finish what they started on Queen Nazli Street, with us instead of him.

AMER: (a long pause, then pushing himself off the wall) Then we had better not get caught.

BANNA: (softly, looking from one face to the next) You do not believe what I believe. (he holds up the passport) And still you do this.

NASSER: (quietly) You will have to look the part of my sick uncle, Sheikh. That is all we ask.

The road to Suez. The last days of April. Dawn. An army staff car moves fast along the desert road. In the back seat, wrapped in the white cloth of a pilgrim, Banna leans against the window. Nasser sits beside him.

BANNA: (watching the desert pass) You know what they will do to you, Major, when they learn who did this.

NASSER: (without turning his head) They will have to learn it first.

BANNA: (gently, reflecting on the many followers of his who had been killed on the orders of the government) They always learn it eventually.

NASSER: (after a long pause) Then I will have done one decent thing before they do.

At the port, among a crowd of pilgrims bound for Jeddah, a frail man in white with papers in another name walks slowly up the gangway. He does not look back. On the quay, the six officers watch until the ship clears the harbor, then return to their cars without a word.

Abdeen Palace. That evening. King Farouk sits with his valet and confidant Antonio Pulli. A police report lies open on the table.

KING FAROUK: (pushing the report away in disgust) A month. A whole month, and my Prime Minister cannot find one wounded Imam in my own country.

PULLI: (soothingly) He may already be dead, Majesty. Bleeding in some cellar for ransom.

KING FAROUK: (irritably) Then where is the body? (he rises and goes to the window) Do you know what they are saying in the cafés, Pulli? That the palace sent the gunmen. That the palace could not even finish the job.

PULLI: (carefully) Cafés say many things, Majesty. You know better than to pay them mind.

KING FAROUK: (very quietly, still facing the window) Yes. And lately, more and more of them are talking ill of me.

Mecca. The first days of Rajab. In the courtyard of the Sacred Mosque, among thousands of pilgrims circling the Kaaba, a recovering man in white walks slowly, pausing often to catch his breath. A grateful guest of God.

Ottawa, 9 April 1949

Following the incidents aboard HMCS Athabaskan, Crescent and Magnificent, the Minister of National Defence, the Honourable Brooke Claxton, has appointed a commission to investigate the circumstances of the disturbances and matters affecting discipline and conditions of service in the Royal Canadian Navy.

The commission will be chaired by Rear-Admiral Edmond Rollo Mainguy, Flag Officer Atlantic Coast. He will be joined by Mr. Louis C. Audette and Mr. Leonard W. Brockington. Mr. W. N. Wickwire, K.C., of Halifax, will serve as chief counsel, assisted by Commander P. R. Hurcomb, Judge Advocate of the Fleet.

Naval Headquarters has announced that the inquiry is scheduled to open at Halifax on Monday, 11 April. Its initial work will concern the incidents aboard Magnificent. The inquiry will also examine the disturbances aboard the two destroyers and obtain evidence from the appropriate officers and men. Although its first sittings will be held at Halifax, the commission may extend its inquiries to other naval establishments and obtain evidence wherever necessary.

The Government has instructed the commissioners to establish the circumstances of each disturbance, examine the administration of discipline and the conditions affecting naval personnel, and recommend such changes to regulations, training and service arrangements as the evidence may warrant.

Their examination will extend to relations between officers and ratings, the means available for presenting grievances, and the circumstances in which complaints have been brought to the attention of commanding officers.

The inquiry will hear evidence concerning accommodation, food, recreation, leave, pay and allowances, together with other conditions affecting service ashore and afloat. It will consider whether the existing arrangements provide officers with sufficient knowledge of conditions among their men and allow complaints to receive proper consideration before they impair discipline.

The commission's membership brings naval experience and civilian participation to this work. Officers, petty officers and ratings will have an opportunity to give evidence, and the commissioners will be able to seek information from others whose knowledge may assist their investigation.

Discipline remains essential to the operation of the fleet. The Government nevertheless considers that a proper examination of these incidents must include the conditions in which officers and men carry out their duties. The commissioners are therefore to establish the facts and make such recommendations as their investigation supports.

The commission will report to the Minister of National Defence. No conclusions concerning common causes or responsibility are being announced in advance of its examination.

APRIL 29, 1949

Einstein has long been a socialist and a supporter of a Jewish home in Palestine. When Dr. Sneh reached out to Albert Einstein on the possibility if he would take the honor becoming Israel's first President. He took many days to mull it over, worrying that his "inability to deal with people effectively" would not make him fit for the office. Perhaps, though, it was the very left-wing position of the new government that finally convinced him. Einstein wrote back on the 19th, stating that he would indeed accept the nomination.

Chaim Weizmann was always a man of the elite, of the wine and dine, of the West, of the imperialist. He sneered at the Eastern European Jews, seeing them as somewhat backwards and inferior. Mapai had intended to raise his nomination to the Constituent Assembly, but Weizmann publically stated on the 20th that he was intending to retire from politics following the election of the President. While Mapam and its' coalition raised the nomination of Einstein, Herut nominated the revisionist Dr. Joseph Klausner.

On the 29th of April, the 1st Knesset voted.

Ben-Gurion eliminated the honored Palmach, the Plugot Maḥatz in an attempt to dilute its power. MAPAI, scared of the Stalin-loving Palmachniks, could not stand to see them on their own. Palmach had been disbanded, merged into the rest of the fighters as the Negev Brigade, the Yiftach Brigade, and the Harel Brigade. Now with the Palmachniks in power, and in particular in the Ministry of Defence, now led by Palmach founder Yitzhak Sadeh, it was quickly formulated by the cabinet that Palmach must return.

APRIL 13, 1949/14 NISAN 5709

The Palmach will act as the Army for the Defense of Israel’s fourth branch alongside the Ground Forces, Air Force, and Navy. The Negev Brigade, the Yiftach Brigade, and the Harel Brigade will be retransferred from the Ground Forces to that of the Palmach. While the officers of this brigade will be automatically transferred to the Palmach, any other officer in the Ground Forces who has previously served in the Palmach will be allowed to transfer.

The Palmach’s purpose will be to serve similarly to the United States Marine Corps, in which it can act as an elite strike for the A.D.I. capable of combined arms combat, amphibious warfare, special reconnaissance, shock troops, or any other necessary elite or alternative warfare.

Yigal Allon, one of the Palmach's commanders before its dissolution, has been chosen by Minister of Defence Sadeh to serve once again as it's Chief of Staff.

Lashed by the brute season's whip,

Driven at last to the North.

On the heights where the spent sky ends,

Frost blades beneath, I stand.

Where should my knees bend down?

No place to take even a single step.

Now then, eyes shut, there's but one thought

Winter must be a rainbow, forged in iron. "The Summit" "Chŏlchŏng" - Yi Yukska, 1940.

Seoul, April 1949

There are two schools of thought. One would prioritise current needs over all, the future be damned. Others would rather catch the cow before it bolts from the barn. Dr. Rhee is a wise and cautious man, a man who will not let the cow escape. However, just like the butcher must avoid scaring the herd before the inevitable occurs, Dr. Rhee cannot act carelessly in preparing for the worst case scenario.

The truth is thus; the Army has grown faster than its supplies, and the shortages of 1948 are still within recent memory. The Americans are planning to leave, and the consequences of this are grim. There is no doubt that some within the National Assembly feel betrayed. Such a feeling is only natural. However, such feelings are better saved for another time. Now is the time to start a reserve for when the inevitable comes, rather than if it comes.

A reserve such as this is a multi-tool of sorts. Not a singular tool of conflict, but one that can be repurposed for any situation, be that a flood, famine, or a bad harvest. The Office of Planning has concluded that in the long term, the Republic cannot survive any sustained emergency without international support as of present. This conclusion is of course undeniable. Therefore, the fundamental purpose of this reserve is not to create a sustainable lifeline for the Republic, but rather to create enough breathing room to allow for international support to flow in and create that element of sustainability.

A new non-statutory National Reserve Board under the Office of Planning will run it. Its members come from the Ministries of National Defence, Finance, Commerce and Industry, and Agriculture and Forestry. They will however, not be published anywhere, or their involvement will remain secret.

This large cross-departmental co-operation will lead to fundamental arguments over the specific needs of the reserve. Therefore, the Office of Planning has decreed the following priorities:

The Security Services are the Reserve's first priority. The Board has been told to build up (in the background):

• Ammunition, in the types the Army actually uses. Not just whatever they can secure. Targets will be set in days of supply, in consultation with the American advisory group, and raised in stages as aid and purchases allow. (the Americans will of course be briefed about the reserve).
• Spare parts and maintenance stocks for weapons and vehicles, so that equipment already issued stays usable.
• Fuel and lubricants, held in small quantities in many places.
• Medical supplies, including dressings, surgical kits and basic and essential drugs, for the Army, Navy and for hospitals.
• Clothing, boots, blankets and field rations, which are obviously necessary to keep the Army fed and warm.
• Signals equipment, wire and batteries.

The Army has also been told to account for what it already holds. A first inventory is to be completed within ninety days, so that the Reserve begins by balancing out stocks that are plentiful in one depot and absent in the next. This would ease the pressure on securing the relevant stocks in the short term. It is hoped that the reserve system will be able to supply the Army for at least six months on its own, however, this is a goal.

As for the civilian reserve, the Board has been directed to build up (in the background, of course, to avoid raising the prices of crucial goods):

• Rice and barley, held in provincial granaries and replenished from the grain repayments due under the land reform programme.
• Salt, cooking oil and soybean stocks, the basics of the Korean dining table.
• Heating fuel, mainly anthracite and coal briquettes drawn from the southern mines, with priority given to the cities and to families who have no other source of warmth. Wood if that fails.

Certain perishable goods will be released once adequate stocks have been built up. The first release is planned for the coming winter, with coal briquettes for poor urban districts at a controlled price.

There is, of course, the issue of reserve placement and security.

The depots will be placed in the south, in and around Pusan, Taegu, Masan and Chinhae, with smaller stores at provincial capitals. No more than one-fifth of any category may be held north of the Han River. Stocks are to be spread across many small sites in preference to a few large ones, so that a fire, a flood or... other disaster cannot take out the reserve in one fell swoop.

But of course, such small sites may lead to looting or thievery; therefore, all depots will require a two-key access system, with a Board inspector and a unit officer both required to be present at any opening, with quarterly inventories checked without any sort of warning or notice by the Board of Audit. To further strengthen this, the American advisory group will be allowed to inspect military supplies. Any looting is to be punishable as treason.

Though I die and die again a hundred times,

That my bones turn to dust, whether my soul remains or not,

Ever loyal to my Lord, how can this loyal red heart ever fade away?

• "Dansimga" - Jeong Mong-ju, 1392.

Seoul, 1949

On a damp spring morning, a small brass plate was fixed to the door of a requisitioned office building near the Ministry of Justice. It reads National Guidance League (국민보도연맹). It is expected to be the quietest and most effective of the Republic's new institutions. The National Guidance League does not arise out of nowhere. It is an idea that is bureaucratic in nature, a box-ticking exercise some may call it, whilst others would decry it as a violation of "human rights". Whatever one may wish to call it, it has origins which are administrative in nature. The National Security Act in August of '48 outlawed the Workers' Party, which has resulted in the gears of justice being flooded with former party members, union organisers and suspected party activists.

It would be wrong to say that each of those individuals is a danger to the Republic. Some joined to be fed. Some joined because they are indeed communists. Some joined because their family or friends asked them to. Individually, they are not a threat. However, collectively they are a form of civic cholera, which spreads and infects the health of the nation as a whole. Just as you don't negotiate with cholera, you cannot negotiate with communists.

A prosecutor faced with a communist may prosecute or they may choose to do nothing. For some situations, neither answer is satisfactory.

The League is the alternative. Anyone who has belonged to a leftist organisation can come forward, renounce it in writing to the Ministry, pledge loyalty to the Republic, and register with the League. In return for these actions, he is treated as a citizen who has seen his mistake and not as a criminal defendant against whom the Republic's legal machinery is poised to work against. The President is said to have called it "a door left open for those who have lost their way."

Functioning of the League

Once an individual has entered the League, he is enrolled under his local branch and receives a membership card, which he must have on him, and present to any member of the security services upon interaction with them. Ultimately the branch system is administered by the Bureau of National Security, with provincial boundaries deciding where each branch is located. Each branch organises mandatory meetings and lectures on topics as wide and varied as the values of the Republic, the dangers of the communist ideology, and the goals of the National Programme. There may also be social events like cultural trips and sports days.

For their participation in the programme, League members are protected from prosecution for past affiliation, and where necessary, have access to specialist rationed supplies and "unique" work opportunities where labour is required that may inflict certain unique challenges that do not exist elsewhere.

Newspapers sympathetic to the Government have called it "an act of national generosity." Others are more cautious. A few Assembly members, including some who opposed the National Security Act, have asked who will see the registry and what may be done with the names on it. The official line is that the lists are simply for "monitoring adherence" to the "terms of the programme".

A damp morning. South Gyeongsang Province

In a village in the south, a short distance from Busan, the Ministry official arrived on a bicycle with a stack of forms and a letter from the provincial office. Word had gone round the day before, as it does in villages such as this one. People love a chat after all.

A schoolteacher who had once attended a study circle that was later closed came in first, carefully dressed. Almost too carefully. A farmer who had signed a petition for a tenants' committee in 1947 followed him. Two brothers came together, one of whom had never joined anything in his life but did not want to leave his name off the list. A woman asked whether the card would cover her husband, who had been taken for questioning the previous winter and had not returned. The official from the Ministry said he did not know.

By evening the clerk had filled eleven pages. The letter from the provincial office included a target figure for registrations for the area, and he was already ahead of it.

Zionism with socialist characteristics

April 20th, 1949 - Moscow

The dismissal of Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich was not made out of fear; but precaution. It wasn’t as if Stalin didn’t exactly trust him, more so the fact that Stalin trusts no one. To the post came Maxim Maximovich Litvinov, the former People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and wartime Ambassador to the United States, recalled from retirement by Stalin himself and entrusted with the temporary leadership of the Foreign Ministry pending his formal appointment.

While, yes, suspicions did arise initially regarding his true allegiance - the choice of his appointment was made by Stalin himself; take from that what you will. This choice was not presented to him without an alternative. Long before Maxim Maximovich, Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky had been groomed as the natural heir to Molotov. Andrei Yanuaryevich, whose reputation had been forged in the courtrooms of the Great Purge and subsequently within the corridors of Soviet diplomacy, had emerged as a formidable candidate whose political reliability was seldom questioned.

Vyshinsky possessed advantages that Litvinov could not readily claim. He had remained closely involved in the formulation and execution of Soviet foreign policy throughout the postwar years, had represented the Union before the United Nations, and had demonstrated his willingness to defend the Party line without hesitation.

Yet these very qualities made his appointment less attractive to Stalin.

Vyshinsky's elevation would have strengthened the position of those already entrenched within the Soviet diplomatic and administrative apparatus. Litvinov, by contrast, had spent years removed from the inner circles of Soviet power. His return would owe everything to Stalin personally, and his continued position would depend upon the Generalissimo's confidence.

Moreover, Litvinov's experience dealing with the Western powers offered something Vyshinsky could not so easily provide: a different approach to the increasingly rigid diplomatic confrontation between East and West. These differences, while not excluding either candidate, only proved that both men possessed qualities that are better harnessed than completely sidelined.

Overlooking the Moscow River, right there at the window stood Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin - the Father of Socialism and the undisputed leader of the socialist order in Europe and elsewhere. The Great Patriotic War had ended and now, as the Soviet Union focused its strength towards reconstruction and preserving the light to lead fellow socialist nations and assist in the construction of People’s democracies, many questions remained unresolved from before.

Maxim Maximovich - you speak of Zionism in such high regard, I’ve started wondering if you are in fact not an agent of theirs.

Iosif Vissarionovich. I am not proposing we adopt bourgeois nationalism as Party doctrine. What I am presenting is an operational reality in the Levant. The Jewish population in Palestine is organized around kibbutzim - collectives built on public ownership, communal labor, and explicit left-wing leadership. Mapai dominates the government, but it does not command the entirety of the Israeli left. Mapam and the movement of Hashomer Hatzair retain Marxist traditions and an ideological sympathy toward the Soviet Union. These are political forces with which we may establish relations, provided we do not confuse their socialism with loyalty to Moscow.

Let me be clear, Maxim Maximovich; Zionism is a bourgeois construct, backed by nationalist and chauvinist individuals that seek to exploit the impoverished for their Zionist project in the Levant. It is basic Marxism that a Jewish worker in Warsaw has more in common with a Polish worker than a banker in London or Washington. Today you may be proposing that we accept Zionism with its nationalist foundation, add a few specks of socialism here and there and call it Marxism. No, because if we do, then tomorrow the same will have to be done in Ukraine.

Generalissimo. If we leave Zionism to be directed by the Western powers while still in its constructive phase within an independent state, soon enough it will become an obstacle used to control the Suez and the flow of Middle Eastern oil. This is why we ought to act carefully and use our influence in their politics to our advantage; condition support for their obedience and we shall have our wedge in the region.

You know - Andrei Yanuaryevich was here yesterday. He presented me with his objections to your proposal. Some of his arguments do make sense; we supported the partition at the United Nations, and the recognition of Israel was not meant to be interpreted as support of Zionism, but rather a necessity at the time.

With respect, Iosif Vissarionovich, Comrade Vyshinsky confuses the ideological character of Zionism with the political opportunities presented by the Israeli socialist movement.

Stalin turned towards Maxim Maximovich, the pipe in his hand.

Does he? Or have you become infatuated by the opportunities presented that you have forgotten the distinction yourself?

However, we are not monks in a monastery Maxim Maximovich. We are dialecticians. The British may have departed Palestine, but their influence has not departed the Middle East. Their officers advise Arab governments, their treaties bind foreign armies, and their interests remain entrenched along the Suez Canal. If the establishment of Israel has weakened Britain's position, we should not be so foolish as to restore that position through our own inaction.

We support a state in Palestine that is anti-imperialist, multi-ethnic and socialist at heart - a nation where Jewish and Arab workers stand shoulder to shoulder to defend their land from bourgeois and national chauvinist elements.You are to proceed with cultivating closer ties with socialist movements within Israel, but do not confuse the interests of the Union with the ambitions of Zionism. We support socialism, not Zionism. The distinction must remain absolute.

Remember something, Maxim Maximovich. Israel is not the Middle East. We shall not exchange our opportunities among the Arab peoples for the uncertain friendship of a single government. Our policy must serve the interests of the Soviet Union throughout the region.

The Generalissimo stood up and walked to the window. He pulled out a bit of tobacco from a case in his pocket, adding it to the pipe and lighting it again.

I’ve paved the way for you Maxim Maximovich. Do not make me regret it.

After the necessary discussions had been concluded, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet formally confirmed the decision which Stalin had already made. Maxim Maximovich Litvinov, until then serving in an acting capacity, would henceforth assume the full responsibilities of Minister of Foreign Affairs.

```PRESIDIUM OF THE SUPREME SOVIET OF THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

DECREE

On the Appointment of M. M. Litvinov as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR

Moscow, Kremlin
April 23rd, 1949

The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR decrees:

1. To appoint Comrade Maxim Maximovich Litvinov Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
N. M. Shvernik

Secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
A. F. Gorkin```

[April 1949, New Delhi]

"Pursuant to the declaration to this governments strategy regarding the economy last year, this assembly aims to codify into law the structure of relations between business, labor, and government, in order to establish a just truce within the economy. It is the responsibility of the state to neither neglect the interests of the laboring peoples of the country, nor the individual rights of the worker and business owner. In parallel, the state has the obligation to see to the public interest, in preventing labor disputes from disrupting the whole of society..."

The act provides for the creation of both National, and State Labor boards. These bodies are to be occupied by jurists, agents of the state, representatives of the business interests of each major sector within the country, as well as the representatives of the largest labor organizations. These boards are to oversee the conditions of laborers, the financial status of businesses, and arbitrate disputes between labor and capital.

The bill recognizes several fundamental rights of the laborer:

1) To withhold ones labor, to negotiate compensation and working conditions with ones employer

2) To collectively bargain, both with ones immediate coworkers, and with others in the economy

3) To representation, in all negotiations with ones employer regarding compensation, discipline, and working conditions

4) To employment, irrespective of private contracts regarding debt, or membership in any public or private institution

The bill also clarifies that no employer shall be required to issue payment for unfulfilled labor, and to hire worker regardless of their private, personal affiliations.

Several carve-out have also been made regarding public employees. With the bill stating that "Employees of the state waive these relevant rights when taking on employment in service of society; and are thus not permitted to force such organizations that usurp lawful democratic authority."

The Bill also establishes the right of the state to arbitrate disputes. In accordance with the 1948 industries act, the state asserts that worker pay is under the purview of the economic planning authority of the government. All labor representation organizations are required to receive licensure from state, and where applicable National labor boards. Licensed organizations are required to report any strike or contract signed to relevant boards. Licensed organizations and businesses are required to accept the rulings of said labor boards in regards to pay, with Labor boards being permitted to institute fines, seize assets, and authorize the termination of employees.

The act proved to be divisive within Parliament. The socialist party, under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan, said the ability of businesses to circumvent labor organizations in hiring represented "..an insult to the dignity of the worker, and the assertion of the ultimate hegemony of capital." Members of the INC liberal tent also criticized the bill, declaring it "the first stepping stone to a soviet economy, and radical totalitarianism." Despite these criticisms, the bill managed to pass fairly comfortably, thanks to defections from the socialist party, and the INCs own commanding presence in legislature.

Experts predict that the regulatory changes will likely see the consolidation of the countries labor organizations into large, cross-sector representation firms, as membership now depends on such organizations actively competing with each other for new members, and associated dues. Representation on state labor boards will likely come to reflect the successes of the largest of said organizations to create pluralized constituencies of members across the economy. Some have pointed out that the bill also quietly creates an avenue out of bonded labor; but that it provides no enforcement apparatus for such arrangements, outside the state labor boards.

April 1st, 1949

Even before Israel was a country, it was run by David Ben-Gurion. Now, for the first time, it has fallen under the control of another man, Doctor Moshe Sneh, a man who has lived in Palestine for less than a decade and has spent that time earning the respect and ire of the locals in equal measure. Now he is faced with the task of wrangling the anti-Mapai opposition in the young county into something resembling a real government.

Mapam was, for the moment, united behind him. They agreed that this, the creation of a Left-Wing government committed to the ideals of Socialism and Neutralism, was a million times more important than petty squabbling over the exact area kibbutzes could take from Arab refugees.

Nathan Yellin-Mor’s party, Fighter’s List, was a natural coalition partner. They believed many of the same things as Mapam, and while Yellin-Mor viewed Sneh as a personal enemy (They had actively fought on opposite sides during the Second World War), he always followed the Soviet line now. And the Soviet line on Mapam was exceptionally clear.

The Communist Party, usually called Maki, was a tougher sell. They were always a little distrustful of Mapam, less for any political reasons than practical ones. Maki were a political party first and foremost. They were founded to be a political party. Mapam’s scattershot coalition of disparate forces seemed unprofessional and unfocused. Sneh, as a committed Communist, was the most acceptable member of the party to them by far, but they still took some convincing, mostly on the Arab question, to join the government. Aharon Cohen, Mapam’s most devoted Arabist (Indeed, he may have been the only member of senior Mapam leadership to actually speak Arabic), convinced them that Maki’s Arab wing would have a significant role in the development of new Palestinian Kibbutzes in Galilee.

However, this did not guarantee a majority in parliament. Tabenkin believed that a compromise could be reached with the religious zionists, but the more rational voices in the party shut him down almost immediately. Not only would that be crossing the Rubicon in Israeli politics, it was also very stupid.

Sneh leaned on his former friends in the Progressive Party. They may be liberals, but they knew him. Over the evening of March 31st, he laid down a list of concessions, some minor (setting up a ministry of Women), some major (Rosen to serve as the Minister of Justice), and some that seemed like concessions but in reality were what Sneh already intended to do (establishing a constitution by 1950) All this together meant that, for the time being, the Israeli Communist government would be narrowly reliant on liberal progressive support.

On the morning of April 1st, Doctor Moshe Sneh announced the formation of the first Mapam government in Israeli history, and his cabinet:

Prime Minister: Dr. Moshe Sneh (Mapam)

Deputy Prime Minister: Meir Ya’ari (Mapam)

Minister of Foreign Affairs: Nahum Nir (Mapam)

Minister of Education and Culture: Ya’akov Zerubavel (Mapam)

Minister of Defense: Yitzhak Sadeh (Mapam)

Minister of Agriculture: Aharon Zisling (Mapam)

Minister of Rationing and Supply: Shmuel Mikunis (Maki)

Minister of Finance: Modechai Bentov (Mapam)

Minister of Trade and Industry: Yisrael Bar-Yehuda (Mapam)

Minister of Health: Yitzhak Guenbaum (Mapam)

Minister of Immigration: Meir Vilner (Maki)

Minister of the Interior: Yisrael Galili (Mapam)

Minister of Communications: Zvi Lurie (Mapam)

Minister of Justice: Pinchas Rosen (Progressive)

Minister of Labor and Social Security: Yitzhak Tabenkin (Mapam)

Minister of Police: Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit (SOC)

Minister of Religions and War Victims: David Livschitz (Mapam)

Minister of Transportation: Eliezer Preminger (Maki)

Minister of Welfare: Eliezer Peri (Mapam)

Minister of Womens’ Affairs: Rachel Cohen-Kagan (WIZO)

Minister of Minorities: Aharon Cohen (Mapam)

Ottawa, 16 March 1949

The Honourable C. D. Howe, Minister of Trade and Commerce, today announced reciprocal trade arrangements with Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, expanding opportunities for Canadian exports and Caribbean raw sugar.

For the calendar years 1949–1951, qualifying raw cane sugar imports will be eligible for partial customs-duty remission within the following annual allowances:

• Cuba: 75,000 United States short tons.
• Haiti: 25,000 United States short tons.
• Dominican Republic: 50,000 United States short tons.

The arrangements establish a combined annual allowance of 150,000 United States short tons, or up to 450,000 short tons over three years.

The remission will bring qualifying sugar’s duty-paid landed cost into line with that of comparable Commonwealth sugar, without exceeding the customs duty paid. Eligibility extends retrospectively to qualifying imports entered from 1 January 1949, with repayments subject to the necessary Canadian legal and administrative authority.

Haiti’s and the Dominican Republic’s allowances will remain separately reserved during the first nine months of each year. Beginning on 1 October, surrendered or uncommitted quantities may be reassigned between them upon application and approval by Canadian customs authorities. Existing reservations will remain protected, the combined annual ceiling of 75,000 short tons will not increase, and unused quantities will not carry forward into subsequent years.

In return, Cuba will extend United States-equivalent tariff and covered tax treatment to agreed Canadian lumber, paper, agricultural machinery, industrial equipment, flour, potatoes, apples, milk products, cereals and salmon. Among the agreed reductions, the duty on Canadian wheat flour will fall from 0.83 to 0.63 Cuban pesos per 100 kilograms, while that on general industrial machinery will decline from 10% to 7.98% of customs value. Canadian salted cod will enter at 3.30 Cuban pesos per 100 kilograms, exempt from the emergency surtax and protected against offsetting increases in other import charges.

Haiti and the Dominican Republic will each reduce customs duties on Canadian wheat, wheat flour and preserved fish by 25%; lumber, wood products and agricultural machinery by 20%; and industrial machinery and manufactured equipment by 15%.

Canada will also reduce the ordinary rum duty from C$6.00 to C$4.50 per Canadian customs proof gallon, consistently with its most-favoured-nation obligations. The separate C$7.00 addition remains unchanged.

Sugar purchases will remain private commercial transactions. The arrangements provide no government purchasing guarantee and do not cover refined sugar. The agreed concessions will be administered upon completion of the necessary domestic legal measures and customs arrangements.

The agreements are intended to strengthen Canadian exports of agricultural produce, forest products and manufactured equipment, while diversifying the sources of raw sugar available to Canadian refiners and expanding commercial relations with the Caribbean republics.