V o L u m e I : a d

of all criminal charges against the Huks. The Huks also sought agrarian

reform, including a more equitable crop-sharing arrangement, and represen-

tation in the Philippine Congress.

President Roxas unveiled his iron fist policy in August 1946 by pro-

claiming his intention to crush the Hukbalahap revolt within sixty days. The

resultant repression only fueled peasant anger and further bolstered the Huks’

popularity. In March 1948, as the Huk rebellion continued, the Roxas ad-

ministration outlawed the Hukbalahap. Its leaders responded by changing

its name to the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan (HMB, People’s Liberation

Army) in November 1948.

In 1950, during the Elpidio Quirino administration, the Huks threat-

ened Manila itself and the stability of the government. In September 1950,

Ramon Magsaysay became secretary of national defense, and U.S. President

Harry S. Truman responded to Quirino’s appeal for help by dispatching the

Bell Mission (headed by Daniel W. Bell) and extending military aid. Mean-

while, Magsaysay’s unorthodox methods and experience as a former guerrilla

helped check the Huk rebellion. He devised a clever reward system for the

identification of Huks and a system for their rehabilitation. In a single raid

conducted in October 1950 in Manila, the entire communist-Huk politburo

was arrested. Magsaysay also developed a Huk resettlement program in which

he used the army under the Economic Development Corporation (EDCOR)

to resettle the Huks in Mindanao.

In December 1953 Magsaysay became president of the Philippines. His

personal charisma and folksy demeanor appealed to rural Filipinos, helping

to short-circuit the Huks’ popularity. Magsaysay also introduced agricultural

reforms to raise productivity, which helped mollify the peasants. By the mid-

1950s, Huk activity had been significantly decreased.

Udai Bhanu Singh

See also

Magsaysay, Ramon; Philippines; Southeast Asia

References

Chaffee, Frederic H., et al. Area Handbook for the Philippines. Washington, DC: U.S.

Government Printing Office, 1969.

Jones, Gregg R. Red Revolution: Inside the Philippine Guerrilla Movement. Boulder, CO,

and London: Westview, 1989.

Kerkvliet, Benedict J. The Huk Rebellion: A Study of Peasant Revolt in the Philippines.

Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977.

Romulo, Carlos P., and Marvin M. Gray. The Magsaysay Story. New York: Pocket Books,

1957.

U.S. secretary of state (1933–1944). Born in a log cabin in Overton (later

Pickett) County, Texas, on 2 October 1871, Cordell Hull studied law at

National Normal University in Lebanon, Ohio, and the Cumberland Law

932

Hull, Cordell

Hull, Cordell

(1871–1955)

---

School in Lebanon, Texas. In 1892 he entered Tennessee state politics as a

Democrat. During the Spanish-American War of 1898, he volunteered for

service and spent several months in the army. Elected to Congress in 1903, in

1930 he became senator for Tennessee, a position he resigned in 1933 when

President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him secretary of state.

An old-fashioned Jeffersonian Democrat and progressive, Hull admired

President Woodrow Wilson and after World War I supported American mem-

bership in the League of Nations. As secretary, Hull favored free trade,

peace agreements, international conferences, and reliance upon legal prin-

ciples and institutions. During the 1930s he negotiated numerous reciprocal

trade agreements with other states. He also devoted particular attention to

revitalizing U.S. relations with Latin America through the Good Neighbor

policy, whereby his country renounced the right to intervene in Latin Amer-

ica, and related hemispheric security agreements.

President Roosevelt, who preferred to retain personal control of Ameri-

can foreign policy, frequently bypassed Hull, a tendency that became more

pronounced as World War II approached and that Hull found both irritating

and frustrating. Even so, since the two men fundamentally shared the same

perspective on international affairs, Hull chose not to resign. He believed

that the European dictators posed a dangerous threat to all free nations. He

also believed that arms embargoes were ineffective and generally favored

aggressors, and thus he opposed the various American neu-

trality acts passed between 1935 and 1939. Inclined to be

slightly less conciliatory than Roosevelt, Hull was unen-

thusiastic toward Roosevelt’s 1938–1939 peace messages

to European powers.

Once war began in Europe, however, Hull staunchly

supported Great Britain and France against Germany

and Italy, but he was virtually excluded from the Anglo-

American destroyers-for-bases deal of summer 1940 and

the drafting of Lend-Lease legislation some months later.

He also did not attend either the Anglo-American military

staff conversations held in Washington early in 1941 or the

mid-August 1941 Argentina Conference that drafted the

Atlantic Charter.

Preoccupied with European affairs, from April to De-

cember 1941 Roosevelt delegated to Hull responsibility for

protracted American negotiations with Japan, their objec-

tive being to reach a modus vivendi in Asia, where Japan

had since 1937 been at war with China, and sought further

territorial gains from British, French, and Dutch territorial

possessions. Despite the expressed concern of American

military leaders that the United States was unprepared for

a Pacific war, by late November 1941 Hull—who was privy

to intercepted Japanese cable traffic—believed that war

was inevitable and refused to contemplate further Ameri-

can concessions to Japanese demands.

Hull, Cordell

933

Cordell Hull, U.S. secretary of state under Franklin D.

Roosevelt from 1933 to 1944 and winner of the Nobel

Peace Prize in 1945. (Library of Congress)

---