Brad,
   Whether or not these "had"'s belong is a context sensitive question. I
suspect that an audience for this kind of analysis already knows that
the Cold War was preceeded by the Great Depresasion and the New Deal
and the Second World War and are no doubt aware that Germany and Japan
had been defeated in the war. "Less than five years earlier" means we
are focused on late forties. Here, it probably is just a reminder that
they were recent enemies. "Restored political stability by closing the
gap between American expectations and the economic reality" seem to be
important background observations that are here presented as the same
kind of "fact", though it seems more theoretically driven, certainly a
pro FDR and pro new deal perspective being presented as a given.
   I could probably work my way through it without some of the aids to
time order of events and to primary locus of attention (that we are
concerned with U.S. foreign policy in the late forties, with other
observations as background.) But am I a typical reader of the text? Am
I the audience it was intended for? Does it help at times to have the
same meaning reinforced in two or three ways? If so, is it meaningful
to call two of them "unnecessary", or to ask if they belong?
   Perfect aspect is not simply an archaic or redundant feature of English
grammar. It conveys important nuances of meaning that can be reinforced
in other ways and/or might be filled in by shared knowledge.

    If I say "John Lewis changed his pledged vote yesterday," I have
redundant references to time. I'm likely to say he "had been pledged
to Hillary Clinton,but now is pledged to Obama." "Now" and "yesterday"
reinforce the shift from past to present, with a past perfect thrown
in to refer to the state of affairs prior to the change that is the
locus of attention for the report. I could also say "Previously, he
was pledged to Clinton", but I don't think you want to use that kind
of observation to discount perfect aspect as useful or to campaign
against all its reinforcing uses.
 "I could be a contender."
  "I could be contending."
  "I could have been a contender."
These three statements differ from each other in aspect. The fact that so
many students write "could of" or "should of" instead of "could've" or
"should've" demonstrates how often it shows up in speech.
   If you want to make a case against it, you need to begin with a case
for it. What is your view of the role of perfect aspect? Is it always
problematic, or just sometimes? Is there a general editing rule to cut
it out, or is that context sensitive?
   Are you asking us to denigrate perfect aspect on the basis of a few
examples?

Craig

In context, do the five 'had's belong in or out?
>
>   "Beyond containment, the major thrust of American Cold War diplomatic
> foreign policy was to return the defeated enemies, Germany and Japan, to
> the emerging international system as full-fledged members. This task,
> unprecedented in respect to nations on which unconditional surrender
> (had been) was imposed less than five years earlier, made sense to a
> generation of American leaders whose formative experience (had been) was
> overcoming the Great Depression of the 1930s. The generation that
> organized resistance to the Soviet Union (had) experienced Franklin D.
> Roosevelt's New Deal, which (had) restored political stability by
> closing the gap between American expectations and economic reality. The
> same generation (had) prevailed in World War II, fought in the name of
> democracy."
>
>
>
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