The Wise Men is designed to provide an inside look at
the personalities, background, and quirks of the six men the authors believe
were most influential in the American development of Cold War diplomacy and
policy. It certainly succeeds at
providing what feels like an intimate look into the lives and actions of
several key figures in the U.S. State Department from World War II until their
retirement from public life during the Vietnam era. Isaacson and Thomas choose George Kennan,
Dean Acheson, Charles Bohlen, Robert Lovett, Averill Harriman, and John McCloy
as their subjects for approaching the period, and if their stance that these
six men were the catalysts behind U.S. relations with the Soviet Union during
their government service is accepted, their work is invaluable.
The Wise Men makes a case that is often dismissed in
this post-modern time; that individuals and small groups can make an indelible
mark on the history of the world, changing the direction of peoples and
nations. The subjects of The Wise Men,
according to Isaacson and Thomas, were able to exert such influence because of
their background, dedication, and the virtue of being the men on the spot. All of this was made possible by the long
domination of American politics by the administration of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, the Democratic Party, and the Eastern Establishment. This political
environment mixed with the personalities of the men Isaacson and Thomas
describe as six friends to forge the Anglo-American-Soviet Alliance of World
War II and the uneasy peace of the Cold War afterward.
Isaacson and Thomas start with a quick introductory paragraph
describing each of their protagonists and their role in shaping the foreign
affairs paradigms of the later 20th century. This serves as a useful introduction to the
cast of The Wise Men, particularly for those of us young enough to have
no memory of any of the events of the early portion of the Cold War. These introductions would not be enough on
their own to provide sufficient background on these men for any real
understanding of their motives and intentions, but they provide a good
explanation for their inclusion in the work.
This is no random selection of six friends who worked in government, but
the leading men of their generation.
In addition to the profiles of the cast of characters,
Isaacson and Thomas provide a brief discussion of the concept of the “American”
or “Eastern” Establishment. The authors
define the “Establishment” as the men who created and controlled a “distinguished
network connecting Wall Street, Washington, worthy foundations, and Proper
clubs” in as endeavor to serve the nation.
Further, those who made up the Establishment rejected ideological
divisiveness, preferring “pragmatism, realpolitik, moderation, and consensus.” If
any ideological strain is assigned to the “Establishment” by the authors it is
one opposing isolationism and looking toward Europe as the most important
region of the world. This group,
according to Isaacson and Thomas possessed a more sophisticated variant of the
19th Century Manifest Destiny: they believed that it was America’s
destiny to lead the world into a brighter, freer age of free trade and free
men.
The themes of The Wise Men are complex to
divine. It is equally plausible to
interpret the text as advocating that foreign policy be entrusted to a benign
oligarchy that is free of ideological interests, counting on their sense of
honor and dignity, inherited from family, friends, and like-minded educational
institutions, as it is to say that Isaacson and Thomas are adherents to the
belief that individuals and small groups have a major impact on global
events. As the authors admit, this is a
controversial stance that may not see any general acceptance in the near
future. Finally, The Wise Men
attributes the policy of containment, including missteps and unforeseen
consequences to these six friends. The
problem with this tactic is that while it acknowledges their role is developing
and promoting the theory of containment as applied to the Soviet Union, it
ignores the role of the various Presidents and Congressmen in accepting and
pursuing containment.
Because their thesis is that Harriman, Kennan, Bohlen,
McCloy, Acheson, and Lovett played such a decisive role in formulating American
policy in the post-war era because of their particular background, especially
schooling, Isaacson and Thomas begin by examining their families, early lives
and careers. Averell Harriman is a good example of this strategy.
Harriman’s family arrived in Connecticut in 1795 from
London. His grandfather was an Episcopal
minister, who began his career teaching in mining camps in California before
returning to a more stable position in New Jersey. Averell’s father, E.H. Harriman rejected the
religious life and became a messenger for a Wall Street brokerage firm after
dropping out of school. After buying a
seat on the Stock Exchange and garnering wealthy and prominent clients, E.H
married a railroad heiress and began accumulating his own rail lines through
market speculation, ultimately coming to control the Union-Pacific
Railroad. From his father, the authors
claim, Averrell gained much of his personality and world-view, describing both
as “blunt and unvarnished.” From E.H.,
Averrell also learned the philosophy that, “Great wealth is an obligation and
responsibility. Money must work for the
country.” A further example of this
attitude of helping society is E.H. Harriman’s comment to John Muir that “I
have never cared for money except as a power to put into work. What I enjoy most is the power of creation,
getting into partnership with nature and doing good, helping to feed man and
beast, and making everybody and everything a little better and happier.”
The next piece of the portrait of Averell Harriman provided
is his schooling at Groton, and experience shared by at least one of the other
“Wise Men”, Dean Acheson. Isaacson
describe Groton as the Eton of New England, having been established to model
the English public school system. As
such it was rigidly disciplined and emphasized sportsmanship over
scholarship. The curriculum leaned
toward a “classic” education, emphasizing Latin, Greek, ancient history, and European
studies. Applied to the thesis of The
Wise Men, Groton’s most important role was its emphasis on public service,
as indicated by Theodore Roosevelt’s message to students that “much has been
given you. Therefore we have a right to
expect much from you.”
An important aspect of Isaacson and Thomas’ thesis is that
the Eastern Establishment was in part merit based, that outsiders could be
adopted in if they demonstrated common values, dedication, and ability. The Wise Men provides a shining
example of this in the form of John McCloy.
After McCloy’s father and brother died when he was six, his mother
became determined that he would become part of the “world of wealth and power
she admired from her vantage as a hairdresser.”
Mrs. McCloy made sure to introduce her son to her wealthy clients, and
chose summer jobs for him that kept him in close contact with the wealthier
portions of Philadelphia society.
Anxious that a public school education would not be rigorous enough to
boost McCloy to the heights she dreamt of, she saved money and sent him to a
series of “inexpensive” preparatory schools that landed him a scholarship to
Amherst. While at Amherst he spent summers
in Maine’s resort areas teaching history, sailing, and tennis to children of
great families. Amherst led him to
Harvard Law School, but WWI interrupted his education at Harvard. He returned to Harvard after the war, and
upon graduation, set his sights on Wall Street, which seemed more interesting
than private practice in Philadelphia.
Isaacson and Thomas continue to follow their subjects
through what could easily be described as their “early” careers in business,
law, and the Foreign Service. The time
period of booming business and the endeavors of these paragons of the
Establishment serve as an early indicator of the type of policies they will
pursue when they occupy offices at the State Department during and after
WWII. The first example provided is that
of Averrell Harriman’s shipping venture with Germany at the end of WWI and his
mining concession in the Soviet Union.
Both ventures came at a time when the United States had not established
normal relations with either country. It is easy, if simplistic, to dismiss
these ventures as mere money making schemes, but they also show an
understanding for the need to rebuild Europe and establish ties with foreign
powers for the good of all, which would find its culmination in the Marshall
Plan after WWII. (Isaacson and Thomas, 122) The deal with Soviets led to
skepticism about the Soviet system, but the deal Harriman made to end the
mining concession allowed the Soviets to claim they were a good credit risk and
enabled Harriman to claim he understood Soviet-American negotiations better
than anyone else.
Isaacson and Thomas round out the early part of The Wise
Men with Chip Bohlen and George Kennan’s entry into the Foreign
Service. George Kennan arguably had the
largest impact on the development of the early years of the Cold War with his
“Long Memo” and anonymous article for Foreign Affairs stated baldy that
the Soviet Union was a threat to world peace and that the appropriate reaction
was to meet the Soviets at every turn with diplomatic, political, and military
force. Isaacson and Thomas show the
seeds of his perception of the Soviet Union in their discussion of his and Chip
Bohlen’s early careers with the Foreign Service.
Even if everything else in the text is ignored, The Wise
Men proves its worth by presenting the source of George Kennan’s animosity
toward the Soviet Union. Kennan and
Bohlen were chosen as two of the first Foreign Service Officers to enter a
program designed to create Soviet specialists.
The program included a three-year course of study in Europe followed by
additional training. Kennan chose the
Oriental Seminary of the University of Berlin, which Isaacson and Thomas claim
as the source of Kennan’s belief in realpolitik and pragmatism in
diplomacy. In Berlin, instructors who
specialized in the czarist era and Russian refugees, which colored his opinions
against the Soviets, taught Kennan. This
exposure enhanced the feeling of “foreboding” he felt upon seeing his first
Communist demonstration in Hamburg.
Where others place the antagonism of U.S. diplomats toward
the Soviet Union to the period after diplomatic recognition of the Soviets in
the late 1930s, Isaacson and Thomas place this change in attitude much earlier,
stating that by 1930, Kennan was already a hard-liner on the Soviets. The 1947 Long Memo was hardly the first
Kennan paper, with his first official report in 1931 advocating that Americans
who spread anti-American propaganda overseas lose their citizenship benefits. Kennan
also believed, in the early 1930s, that the Soviet and American systems were so
completely incompatible that any long term relationship was questionable,
particularly in economic terms.
Isaacson and Thomas have clearly provided the background
that makes it possible to understand many of the decisions made between
regarding American foreign policy and the Cold War, including the Vietnam War.
They also provide important insight to the inner workings of foreign policy
decision-making during the Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson
Administrations, particularly the effects of political infighting and domestic
politics. Examples from each
administration illustrate the highs and lows of The Wise Men’s six
friends.
During his presidency, FDR preferred to make foreign policy
decisions himself and maintained the belief that the Big Three could continue
their alliance in the post-war period to ensure peace around the world. The philosophy was based on a generous
assessment of Stalin and the Soviet system as non-threatening to the United
States or Europe. During the war this
could easily be seen as simply pragmatic, but Kennan and Harriman disagreed
with this policy, with Kennan contending that even trying to maintain a post-war
Grand Alliance was “hopelessly naïve” and that the United States should force
its wishes upon the Soviets when possible and not waste the effort in areas
where they were helpless. The Polish issue further enhanced Kennan’s belief
that the Soviets were interested expansion along traditional Russian
imperialist lines.
According to Isaacson and Thomas, the Truman Administration
was beset by a radically different set of foreign policy challenges, at least
from the point of view of Foreign Service Officers and Ambassadors. The new President had only been Vice
President for 90 days when FDR died, and his only trip outside the United
States was his service during WWI. The
effect of this was that Truman had little knowledge of foreign affairs, no
knowledge of the Manhattan Project, and no exposure to Churchill or
Stalin. Luckily for Dean Acheson and the
others, the new President was willing to learn and take decisive action based
on what he learned. Truman also had
strongly held foreign policy ideals not evidenced in the policies of FDR, “I’ve
no faith in any totalitarian state, be it Russian, German, Spanish,
Argentinean, Dago, or Japanese?” while continuing to support the Grand Alliance
with Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
Unlike FDR, Truman utilized his advisors assiduously to navigate the
crises of hi first thirty days: a visit by Molotov demanding recognition for
the Soviet puppet in Poland, the public rift between the Allies, the decision
to test the atomic bomb, the end of the war in Europe, and the question of
whether Soviet intervention against Japan was desirable. The arrival of a new President, say Isaacson
and Thomas, allowed the State Department to finally warn the Chief Executive of
problem areas around the world, especially those concerning Soviet expansion in
Europe. In a stark contrast to FDR,
Truman saw the question of Poland in moral terms, a relief to Chip Bohlen. Clearly
the six men that are the subject of The Wise Men would have a larger
level of influence with the new President.
The Korean War is probably the best example, other than the
larger policy of containment, of the influence of the six friends of The
Wise Men at the height of their careers in government service. Although, as Secretary of State, Dean Acheson
did little to control General MacArthur’s offensive into North Korea due to
domestic political considerations, he was the only White House adviser to
insist that the U.S. could not give up hope in Korea. He bullied the Generals of the Joint Chiefs
when they claimed they needed a cease fire to withdraw American troops, saying
that “There is a great danger of our becoming the greatest appeasers of all
time if we abandon the Koreans and they are slaughtered; if there is a Dunkirk
and we are forced out, it is a disaster, but not a disgraceful one.” Truman
later admitted that Acheson’s resolve on Korea helped him stand firm and
continue the war.
It is difficult to find fault with Isaacson and Thomas’ work
in The Wise Men, but not impossible.
One issue is that it sometimes feels like the authors focus is not so
much on describing what happened during the early Cold War years as justifying
the decisions that were made. An example
of this is the continued emphasis on George Kennan’s discomfort with the use to
which his strategy of containment had been put.
Isaacson and Thomas continue to harp on this topic, emphasizing first
that Kennan intended containment to be a primarily diplomatic and political
doctrine that was perverted into a solely military one resulting in the
conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. Although
they admit that Kennan was far more interested in writing great literary
documents rather than straightforward reports appropriate for a Foreign Service
Officer, they rarely lay the blame for the misinterpretations of his Long
Telegram or X article at his feet.
The lack of criticism runs throughout the text, and this may
be by design. If the objective of The
Wise Men is to provide an in-depth description of events and the character
of the men involved in them, Isaacson and Thomas certainly fulfill that
goal. The lack of substantial criticism
sometimes makes the text feel like Isaacson and Thomas are cheerleaders despite
the faux pas of their main characters.
This extends from the “literary” reports of Kennan to Acheson’s
unfortunate defense of Alger Hiss, which hamstrung many of his efforts. It is possible that Isaacson and Thomas meant
for their criticism to be implicit in the text by completely illustrating all
of the actions, comments, and occasional failures of the “six friends”. If this is the case their success is tremendous.
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