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“Pennsylvania was key to Trump’s presidential victory, Westmoreland County was key to Pennsylvania, and District Seven was key to Westmoreland County.”  READ MORE . . .

This article was posted by Political Research Associates and by the History News Network.  The author, Margaret Power, grew up in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and has often returned.  She teaches history at the Illinois Institute of Technology and is a co-chair of Historians for Peace and Democracy.

General David Petraeus – featured speaker at diplomatic historian meeting

In May 2018, H-PAD assisted in the distribution of a letter protesting the selection of U.S. Army General David Petraeus as keynote speaker at the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) conference in June.  Initiated by New York University professor Hannah Gurman, the latter garnered 277 signatures from scholars.  The letter did not question the general’s right to speak but challenged the special honor accorded him, especially in light of his claims to “success” in the counterinsurgency wars he led in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Among the notable historians signing the letter were Andrew Bacevich, Greg Grandin, Alfred McCoy, Lloyd Gardner, Carol Anderson, and Christian Appy.   See The Nation article, July 5, 2018.

Vietnam War commemoration

H-PAD joined with the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee (VPCC) and the Veterans for Peace is cosponsoring and publicizing events and conferences related to the 50th anniversary of the My Lai massacre in March 1968.   The VPCC is challenging the Pentagon’s mandate to present the history of the Vietnam War to the public.  Contributing to this effort is peace history website essay on the Vietnam War and the antiwar movement.  Two H-PAD Steering Committee members, Ellen Schrecker and James Swarts, traveled to Vietnam with a Veterans for Peace delegation and attended the Memorial Observation in My Lai on March 16.   (See March 2018 blog posts.)