The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made

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 20^th 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 19^th 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.

We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History

In We Now Know, John Gaddis uses traditional sources and new documents recently available from Russian and Chinese archives to make the case that the Cold War grew out of the idiosyncrasies of Joseph Stalin’s personality, and was continued, or worsened, by the character flaws of Mao Zedong, Nikita Khrushchev, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy. In essence, Gaddis adheres primarily to the traditionalist pro-American stance that the Cold War began with Stalin’s requirements for territory to act as a buffer for the Soviet state against future German aggression. Further, he believes that the Cold War would have occurred regardless of the existence of individual Western leaders, but would not have existed at all without Stalin. To support this claim he provides a brief summary of relations between the Russian Empire and the United States until the end of World War I and then launches into a much more detailed discussion of U.S.-Soviet relations during and after World War II, which the two nations fought as allies against the Axis Powers. Gaddis closes the volume with a discussion of eight “hypotheses” or “impressions” of what he calls “new” Cold War history.

Organizationally, We Now Know is not strictly chronological. Instead, it is arranged by broad subject area. In some respects the subjects are arranged in more or less chronological order, with the division of Europe first and the Cuban Missile Crisis last, but the subject areas range back in forth in time as necessary to support Gaddis’ thesis. The whole is capped off with over one hundred pages of end notes and bibliographic material.

Gaddis places the blame for the start of the Cold War on two related issues: territorial claims and differences over security issues. Stalin began making territorial claims in 1941, in which he sought to maintain all of the territorial concessions received from the Nazis (The Baltic States, part of Finland, Romania, and Poland). After the war, Stalin made additional territorial demands that included Germany, and then further insisted on having his expanded borders surrounded by “friendly” nations that were under his domination. Stalin’s security concerns played into his territorial demands as much as any desire to expand the Communist Revolution into Europe. Part of this was summed up by Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov’s comment that Russia had returned to the old method of equating additional territory with enhanced security, which combined with Stalin’s dual conceptions that his personal security and that of the State were one and the same, and that the way to ensure his own security was to deny security to others. These are only the first examples of Stalin’s personality and psychological issues that Gaddis believes were the cause of the Cold War.

Another major aspect of Stalin’s personality contributing to the development and continuation of the Cold War, according to Gaddis, was his regular tendency to underestimate American responses to his own political and territorial maneuvering. Gaddis’ first example is the Communist coup d’etat in Czechoslovakia before its democratic elections in 1948. The Communists were not assured of victory in the elections, despite the warmth Czech leaders felt toward Moscow, because of Stalin’s refusal to allow Eastern European countries to participate in the Marshall Plan. The American reaction was to propose a permanent West German state and U.S. leadership in the military defense of Western Europe. In an effort to head off this development, Stalin implemented the now infamous Berlin Blockade, which was not only unsuccessful in forcing the Americans, British, and French from abandoning the city, but further demonstrated to Western Europe the need for collective security arrangements.

Another example of Stalin’s capacity to underestimate American responses is clearly demonstrated by the Korean War, which he authorized Kim Il-Sung to launch based on the belief that the United States would stand aside and allow the North Korean invasion. This misperception on the part of Stalin and Kim Il-Sung was based primarily on a statement by Dean Acheson that South Korea and Taiwan would have to rely on the United Nations for defensive assistance if attacked. While Gaddis claims this was merely careless wording in a statement meant to ease Mao’s fears of American aggression in mainland China, it had the same effect of U.S. diplomacy immediately before the Persian Gulf War in 1990: it gave an aggressor the impression that they could safely invade a neighbor without U.S. intervention.

A third example from Gaddis that shows the impact of Stalin’s personality quirks on the development of the Cold War is his reaction to the advent of atomic weapons. In a move that ensured Western nervousness, Stalin (and Mao) totally discounted the impact of atomic weapons on the balance of power, focusing instead on the strength of conventional forces when dealing with the United States. Given the manner that Harry S. Truman had reduced American forces, this attitude was sure to increase tensions between the superpowers.

Although the focus of Gaddis’ argument is most definitely the impact Stalin had on the creation of the Cold War, the entirety of _We Now Know_ is not devoted to Stalin, his policies, and character traits. Gaddis carefully looks at the policies and personalities of all of the major political players during the Cold War era, which for Gaddis seems to end in 1963. Truman and Khrushchev in particular provide grist for Gaddis’ personality mill. Truman’s policies seem open to particular ridicule. Due to Truman’s domestic priorities, the United States’ conventional forces had been allowed to decline to the point that it was required to rely on atomic arms to project power and for deterrence. Gaddis’ issue with this turn of events is not so much that it happened, but that at a time when the defense of the United States and Europe depended on atomic arms, Truman would not allow planners at the Pentagon to have information regarding the number of weapons available or the capabilities of those weapons.

Khrushchev gets Gaddis’ special blame for escalating the Cold War to new levels with his public inflation of Soviet missile and bomber capability, his emotional responses to events, and his precipitation of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The public inflation of Soviet nuclear capabilities grew out of Khrushchev’s belief that the only way to maintain Soviet defenses and prestige in the face of their glaring inferiority to those the Americans maintained. The problems here are obvious. First, given the true strength of Soviet nuclear arms, the Soviets were at great pains to keep their capabilities a secret. If the truth got out, it would be obvious that Khrushchev was bluffing the world. Second, Soviet allies like Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro might take his claims at face value and precipitate a nuclear conflict the Soviets could not win.

Eisenhower’s authorization of U-2 flights over the Soviet Union quickly disproved the existence of a bomber gap as well as the Soviet lack of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) with which to threaten the United States. The Eisenhower Administration chose to keep this information secret, which protected Khrushchev’s prestige, but also encouraged Chinese and Cuban adventurism. This combined with Khrushchev’s emotional response to the Jupiter Medium Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBM) based in Turkey to precipitate the Cuban Missile Crisis. Castro admitted that he believed the Soviets had an inventory of several hundred ICBMs, he did not believe the installation of Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM) and MRBMs in Cuba would provoke the string American response that it did. If he had understood that state of the Soviet inventory, it is possible that he would have chosen a more “prudent” course.

Despite the obvious quality of the research involved in We Now Know, it does have what appear to be some glaring deficiencies. The first and most obvious, although this may be nothing more than a pet peeve, is the gratuitous use and re-use of the phrase “We Now Know” whenever Gaddis makes use of new materials from previously closed archives. It is entirely possible that this phrase stuck out so clearly because it is also the title chosen for the work. Other issues are a much larger problem.

Gaddis maintains the traditional Western interpretation that: the Cold War started at the end of World War II, the Cold War was entirely the result of Stalin’s attempts to dominate Europe in the aftermath of the War, and Western reactions to Stalin and the creation of NATO were entirely in response to fears of renewed warfare in Europe and Communist domination. The first two of these issues are the most problematic. Dating the start of the Cold War is a new and ongoing debate, with dates ranging from the Communist Revolution in 1917 to the aftermath of World War II in 1948. Gaddis’ only attempt at addressing earlier sources of conflict focus on Russian immigration to the United States dating from the 1880s, American support for Great Britain and Japan during the Russo-Japanese War at the beginning of the 20th century, and the potential for symbolic conflict between Lenin’s Bolsheviks and the United States based on ideology. He leaves out entirely Allied fighting near Archangel in 1918-1919, which resulted in the Soviets keeping Allied POWs, including Americans prisoner. The POW issue continued to appear for another fifteen years, and has never been completely resolved. How did this impact Soviet-American relations? The Soviets attempted to use them as a bargaining chip to gain formal recognition from the United States, even threatening that the POWs would be executed if recognition and concession were not extended. This brings up the issue of diplomatic recognition, which the United States did not extend until 1933. Even this did not fully resolve the POW issue, although additional sets of Allied remains were recovered as a result. Finally the United States used diplomatic means during the 1920s to maintain the boundaries of Poland against Soviet incursion, and insisted that other nations not grant them diplomatic recognition.

The ongoing issues do not necessarily indicate that the Cold War started earlier than Gaddis’ proposed date, but they are all issues that affected the American-Soviet relationship in ways that Gaddis does not address. Indeed, he does not even acknowledge them at all. Given his claim that the Cold War is entirely a creation of Joseph Stalin, these issues should have at least been mentioned. This may appear a quibble to some, but by leaving this out of his discussion or previous American-Russian antagonism allows critics to question his impartiality.

That said, Gaddis provides a refreshing look at the major personalities and events of the Cold War era, and includes much data that has not been available to earlier scholars. He also provides an interesting proposal that the Cold War was essentially lost by the Soviets by 1963, based on the idea that economic and military indicators other than merely nuclear strength indicate a vast U.S. preponderance.

This belief is why Gaddis essentially ends his work at the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and does not deal with the Brezhnev era including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan or issues surrounding the fall of Communism and the break-up of the Soviet Union. This is deliberate on his part due to his belief that the Cold War was decided by that point, and therefore not significant to his arguments.

From Potsdam to the Cold War: Big Three Diplomacy 1945-1947

Building on earlier works addressing the Potsdam and Yalta conferences, James Gormly examines post-war attempts to build a lasting and stable peace by focusing on activities during the various summits leading up to the Paris Peace Conference in 1947. Gormly asserts that the Big Three: Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union worked feverishly in order to create a good peace along the lines of that established at Vienna following the Napoleonic wars, which prevented warfare in Europe until 1914. The desire to lay the foundations of a lasting peace were based on the belief that World War II was the result of the treaties signed to end World War I. Unfortunately, Gormly believes, the good will of the war-time alliance gave way to the rivalry and tensions that led to the Cold War by 1947; because of the horrors of the war the Big Three worked to lay the ground rules for international behavior which Gormly believes could take the form of a multinational system embodied by the failed League of Nations, a spheres-of-influence system like that of the 19th century, or a bi-polar system dominated by two Great Powers.

 After stating that President Truman and his advisors had determined that working with the Soviet Union to preserve peace would be extremely difficult, Gormly begins his discussion the summits of 1945-1947 by examining the events and circumstances of the end of World War II. Although he mentions the casualties and damage resulting from the war, and compares its impact on each of the Big Three, Gormly focuses on the types of international system likely to develop in the aftermath. Considering that the casualties of war would have such a significant impact on Soviet requests for post-war territorial and governmental concessions from their neighbors in Eastern Europe, more specific information on damage and casualties would further illuminate the situation. A brief example of the desperate defense of Stalingrad to complement the stark figures of 20-25 million Russian deaths, for instance would go a long way to explaining the apparently irrational Stalinist demands for changes in German and Polish borders and creation of Soviet dominated puppet governments in the east.

According to Gormly, most observers believed that the most likely post-war system to emerge would be one in which an international organization such as the United Nations would exist, but have little power and function only to the extent that Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and United States, potentially in conjunction with China and France, allowed it to. The other options were an international organization approaching a true world government, or a true bi-polar arrangement between the United States and Soviet Union. History has shown that the UN had little power when opposed by either the Soviet Union or the United States, and in many ways turned into a debating society, that nevertheless was able to work to alleviate some of the suffering in impoverished areas.

Before dealing with the summits themselves, Gormly provides a brief analysis of the goals and psychology of the main players, but curiously does not discuss Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet “commissar” for foreign affairs and main Soviet negotiator for the 1945-1947 summits and peace conferences while devoting considerable space to James Byrnes, Truman’s Secretary of State. The discrepancy is a significant issue, as Molotov’s negotiating style and philosophies are easily as important as those espoused by Byrnes. Although the stances adopted by Molotov undoubtedly had the approval of Stalin, his behavior and rigid stances allowing few concessions to Great Britain and the United States certainly added to the tension of the summits, just as Byrnes’ initial desire to promote peaceful co-existence led him to grant many concessions to Molotov. Similarly, Gormly does not focus on the mind-set of the primary British negotiator Ernest Bevin. Bevin’s importance lay in his assumption of negotiations after Churchill’s ouster as Prime Minister of Great Britain. His views, including that the United Nations was little more than an “international talk-shop,” dramatically increased tensions during the summits by his persistent opposition to Molotov’s demands for territorial gains in the Mediterranean and Africa. Bevin’s determination is a stark contrast to the conciliatory stance taken by the American Byrnes.

 The Potsdam Conference, which began 17 July 1945, was presided over by President Truman at the suggestion of Stalin. Both Truman and Stalin came armed with agenda topics, while Churchill had none prepared, which implies that he either expected a slower pace than Truman and Stalin desired or preferred to play the role of bridge-builder between the other two powers. The agenda topics presented by Truman and Stalin were decidedly different. Truman’s included establishing the council of foreign ministers, principles of governance for the Allied Control Council, the Declaration on Liberated Europe, and Italian membership in the League of Nations. Stalin brought a longer list of topics for discussion: division of German maritime assets, reparations from Germany and Italy, trusteeships of colonial territories, relations with lesser powers, Franco’s regime in Spain, and the status of Tangiers, Syria, Lebanon, and Poland. The differences in the lists of agenda topics is indicative of the different goals and methods of the different powers, showing that Truman was more interested in stability and international cooperation, while Stalin was primarily concerned with expanding Soviet influence and his own security concerns.

Potsdam set the stage for later conferences in several ways. First, it witnessed the creation of the Council of Foreign Ministers, which consisted of the chief diplomats from each of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. This body was designed to handle the nuts and bolts negotiations between the powers, which Gormly states was an attempt to reduce the likelihood of drawn out and acrimonious negotiations like those at Versailles after World War I. Whether the council of foreign ministers reduced tensions is a dubious proposition considering that the summits leading to the peace conference laid the ground work for the Cold War. It did however foster the illusion that Stalin, Truman, and Attlee (British Prime Minister after Churchill) got along well and generally agreed on things. This, of course left the heavy lifting to Molotov, Byrnes, and Bevin.

The rest of the text examines the remaining summits leading up to the Paris Peace Conference in minuscule detail, including the details of the agreements reached at each, the controversies arising from them, and the personalities involved. The agreements are well-documented, with no party truly receiving everything it wanted, especially Britain. The Soviets successfully claimed most of Eastern Europe as their sphere of influence after much argument from the British. Molotov ultimately secured dominion over a Poland with borders moved west to the Oder, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. Hungary’s borders were pushed west toward Trieste at Italian expense, and the Soviets also received reparations of $100 million from Italy. The question of Germany at its allies proved difficult for all four of the occupying powers to resolve.

Although the issue of Germany seemed resolved at the end of the Yalta Conference with each of the four European allies receiving a zone to control, reparations, demilitarization, and potential German governments became a source of strain among the powers. Russia and France both objected to a reconstituted Germany, particularly France, which wanted the Ruhr, Rhineland, and the Saar under its political control. Russia also preferred that Germany be kept divided and weak both politically and economically, but also wanted $20 billion in war reparations. Both of these issues were difficult political problems. Byrnes and Bevin worked to address them by suggesting that the Soviets receive their reparations from the factories and output of the Eastern Zone, which the Soviets had already begun despoiling. Given that the Allies estimated that t 50% of Germany’s wealth existed in the East, this had the advantage of providing the Soviets with their reparation demands while ensuring that the United States would not be provided the funds to pay reparations as had occurred after World War I. Byrnes also insisted that the $20 billion figures had only be agreed to at Yalta as a starting point. Molotov and Stalin ultimately agreed to accept a percentage figure of 25% of German industrial output, of which 20% could come from the western zones. However, of only part of the 20% would be a “free grant,” the rest being purchased with food and coal from the east.

While Gormly shows the discussions surrounding Germany as difficult and causing tensions to develop, they are nothing compared to his discussions of the negotiations regarding the peace treaties of Italy and the Axis satellites. Italy, with its Northern African colonies proved to be a sore point for all of the Allies. Italy sticks out among the other items in From Potsdam to the Cold War due to complexity of the issues and the bitterness with which they were debated. The issue of diplomatic recognition and admission to the UN started the argument. When the United States and Great Britain requested that Italy be immediately admitted to the UN, Stalin flatly refused. The basis for the Soviet refusal on Italy was that Stalin recognized no difference between Italy and Poland, Finland, Romania, and Bulgaria. He believed that if Italy was admitted, all of the former Axis satellites should be admitted equally. Churchill and Truman disputed Stalin’s statement that Italy was no more democratic than the other former Nazi allies, with Churchill stating that while Italy was about to have free elections the others were firmly under the thumb of the Soviets, with no freedom of the press, no free elections, and dissent quashed. Gormly presents this as the opening gambit in the game for Italy and her possessions. The British and Americans strive to prevent any Soviet influence from gaining hold in Italy, her possessions, or the Mediterranean.

According to Gormly, these goals are the reason for the hard line taken by the United States and Great Britain against Russia here. There were three main sticking points: the Italian border with Yugoslavia, reparations, and the colonies. Each issue increased tensions. The colonies were a special interest, with the Soviets and British both attempting to gain parts of Libya as a sole trusteeship. Bevin wanted the territory to replace Royal Navy bases in the Eastern Mediterranean, while the Soviets were looking to expand their influence, which Gormly claims as the primary motivator during many of the conferences. The French supported a continued Italian trusteeship, perhaps in order to keep the power of other powers in check, while the Americans advocated an international trusteeship of the Italian colonies. Throughout the summits the Soviets continued to push for recognition of the Balkan states, while the United States insisted on recognition for Italy. Each time the British and Americans refused to recognize Bulgaria and Romania, the Soviet renewed efforts to gain Italian colonies in North Africa. Even before discussions of borders and reparations, the talks devolved into what Gormly described as a brawl, or a “war of words”. Reparations again divided the Allies, with France and the Soviet Union demanding reparation from Italy in the amount of $600 million. The United States had already poured $500 million into Italy, and with the British considered even $300 million to be too great an amount.  The issue stymied the Council of Foreign Ministers until months of wrangling had elapsed, with Molotov and Bevin engaging into a “verbal duel.” Suddenly, a breakthrough occurred during the summer of 1946, before the Paris Peace Conference, when Molotov offered to Byrnes that in exchange for reparations of $100 million from Italy, he would no longer push Yugoslav claims to Trieste. Byrnes then offered that the United States would concede that the reparation could come from current Italian production. At a single stroke both issues were settled. This signaled the final breakthrough for the Big Three, as Byrnes also agreed to sign the treaties for the Soviet-dominated states as well.

 Gormly continues to enumerate the events of the Paris Peace Conference and the beginning of the Cold War embodied Averrell Harriman’s assertion that the Soviet Union had declared psychological war on the United States, and that as a war of opposing ideologies it was a war to the death. Harriman and other saw the power structure of the world changing from a cooperative alliance toward a bi-polar model dominated by two hostile powers. Tensions continued to rise between the West and the Soviets at the Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in New York during sessions to adopt peace treaties for Italy, Hungary, Romania, Finland and Bulgaria. Molotov accused Byrnes of violating past agreements when Byrnes suggested that Yugoslavia not receive reparations from Italy until it had signed the Italian treaty. The stalemate on treaties was finally broken when Byrnes suggested that the conference be ended and an announcement made that the sides could not reach an agreement. Suddenly, Molotov became motivated to solidify the agreements and the five treaties were completed by December 5th 1946.

In From Potsdam to the Cold War Gormly charts a radically different course that Gaddis’ We Now Know, which lays the blame for the beginning of the Cold War firmly on Stalin’s paranoiac shoulders. Gormly, on the other hand focuses on the personalities of the Foreign Ministers: Molotov, Byrnes, and Bevin. This difference is crucial, as it changes the level at which the diplomatic tension occurs, and raises the question of whether the conflict came from Stalin, Churchill, and Truman or from the goals of lesser ministers. Gormly is only able to address the issue effectively from the side of the United State’s Byrnes, who stiffened his method of negotiation with Molotov after being criticized for being too accommodating of Soviet demands. Gormly is able to make an analysis of Byrnes’ mental state because he had access American interviews, diaries, and government documents. Unfortunately, due to the time period in which Gormly is writing, he does not have access to as much documentation from the other side of the negotiations, meaning that he has to rely on official transcripts and the accounts of Western diplomats of Soviet actions and demands at the conferences. At this level, Gormly’s work suffers in comparison to Gaddis’ We Now Know, but such criticism may not be fair: Gaddis had access to Soviet and Chinese archives not open to Americans in the late 1980's when Gormly was writing. Strangely, Gormly does not attempt to evaluate the state of mind of British officials like Bevin, when it is most likely that he could have gained access to British documents and memoirs. The documents chosen require that Gormly focus primarily on the American perception of events.

Stylistically, the information in From Potsdam to the Cold War feels as if it is all jumbled together with little organization other than chronologically. The text is broken in to time-bound sections focused on the summits leading to the Paris Peace Conference, and there is nothing inherently wrong in this method. Indeed, it lays out events as they happened, which may be critical in understanding the organic changes in Big Three attitudes toward one another. This perception may be enhanced by reading the work entirely in electronic format, the more traditional paper-bound format may be easier to digest.

 Positively, Gormly leads the reader through all of the minute details of the summits starting at Yalta and Potsdam through the finalization of peace treaties for Germany and her allies and the beginnings of the policy of containment and the Marshall Plan for the economic recovery of Europe. Despite getting the story primarily from the American perspective, the change from the cooperation of the war effort to the competition of the post-war era is well presented. It also shows that cooperation developed in spite of the wishes of war-time leaders. Gormly makes the case that Roosevelt’s desire for continued amicable relations gave way to Truman’s more hard-headed approach, and that as the talks wore on and each party focused on its own narrow needs. Gormly makes particular use of the issue of Italian colonies in North Africa to illustrate this new conflict, with both Great Britain and the Soviets pushing for trusteeships to further their own interests.

Gormly’s focus also graphically illustrates the manner in which the Soviets were able to assert domination over Eastern Europe both by virtue of physical conquest and stubbornness at the negotiation table. The fact that the Red Army occupied Eastern Europe enhanced Soviet demands that they be allowed to create institutions friendly to them. The only option for the British and Americans would be to start a new war to push the Soviets out. Although Gormly briefly mentions Russia (and French) security concerns after multiple German invasions, he seems to see it more as a negotiation tactic than a real concern, which puts him at odds with Gaddis. Despite the issues of the one-sidedness in his perspective, Gormly provides a useful look at the start of the Cold War from the perspective of some of the participants, and explores the details of the conflicts that launched a new type of conflict, which dominated world events for the next fifty years.

A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam

The United States snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam argues Lewis Sorley in A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam.  Sorley blames General William Westmoreland, American politicians, and the antiwar movement for squandering a victory earned by U.S and South Vietnamese forces after General Creighton Abrams assumed command of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam.  Abrams abandoned Westmoreland’s bankrupt war of attrition to fight a “better war” focusing on the pacification of South Vietnam, interdicting supplies and troops from the Communist North, and training South Vietnam’s military.  A Better War claims that Abrams achieved military victory in South Vietnam by 1972, despite continuing troop reductions, budgetary constraints, and the efforts of the antiwar movement in the United States.  Sorley believes that the antiwar movement fueled by biased media coverage pushed the Nixon administration to prematurely suspend American support of South Vietnam, and that diplomats with their own agendas acted to end the war by every means possible.

From 1965 – 1968, General William Westmoreland pursued a war of attrition against Communist forces by requesting large numbers of American troops to achieve his goal killing enough of the enemy to break their will to continue the war.  Westmoreland preferred large unit operations, in which battalions conducted search-and-destroy operations that Communist guerillas easily avoided.  Sorley argues that these large-scale operations were expensive in casualties and materiel and achieved few results.  Concentration on large operations also led Westmoreland to neglect the tasks of pacification and training of South Vietnamese forces.

Dissent in the United States forced a change in strategy and leadership in Vietnam.  After the 1968 Tet Offensive, General Creighton Abrams assumed command of MACV.  Abrams implemented a new strategy to pacify South Vietnam based on population security, destruction of the Vietcong infrastructure, and development of intelligence sources.  Small units were the focus of the new strategy, which secured South Vietnam’s villages, reducing the Viet Cong’s ability to operate and broadening support for the government. 

Sorley asserts that Abrams arrived at the unique understanding that Communist forces deployed logistics support before operations rather than bring their supplies with them when it was time to do battle, which drove American forces to concentrate more on interdicting supply movement than simply killing the enemy.  The focus on disrupting Communist access to South Vietnam led Abrams to concentrate American artillery and air assets on closing the Ho Chi Minh trail and the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville.  Despite constraints due to force and budgetary reductions, Abrams was able to innovatively utilize bombers and fixed-wing gunships to continue disrupting North Vietnamese logistics through 1972.

A Better War argues that the United States had won the war by 1972 by securing all South Vietnam, repelling multiple North Vietnamese invasions, and destroying sanctuary areas in Laos and Cambodia.  However, the Nixon administration negotiated away victory by not requiring North Vietnam to remove its troops from the South at the Paris cease-fire negotiations.  Worse, the United States failed to live up to its commitment to defend South Vietnam against renewed North Vietnamese aggression.

While Sorley demonstrates the progress made in Vietnam through the focus on pacification of the countryside and training of South Vietnamese troops, there are significant problems with his argument.  He frequently steps aside from his argument to criticize negative media coverage and the antiwar movement while ignoring the effect of the Johnson administration’s lack of coherent objectives or Westmoreland’s ineffectiveness.  The emphasis on the horrors inflicted by Communist atrocities also detracts from Sorley’s argument when he ignores civilian casualties inflicted by the United States in North Vietnam, atrocities by allied troops on civilians in South Vietnam, and North Vietnamese dedication to reunification.

Sacred War: Nationalism and Revolution in a Divided Vietnam

William Duiker addresses the Vietnam War from the neglected Vietnamese perspective in Sacred War: Nationalism and Revolution in a Divided Vietnam.  By focusing on the Vietnamese, he attempts to answer the question of why Vietnamese Communists were able to defeat France, the United States, and the Republic of Vietnam in succession.  Duiker argues that Vietnamese Communists won the war by creating a popular front focused on nationalism acceptable to a broad spectrum of the Vietnamese populace, by their ability to meld political and military struggles to gain control of Vietnam, and by modifying Mao Tse Dong’s doctrine of people’s war to combine political and diplomatic action with graduated levels of force.  The crusade for independence became a sacred war for Vietnamese nationalists.

The historical roots of nationalism and revolution in Vietnam were deep ones.  Vietnamese cultural heroes were those like Ngo Quyen who fought for independence against China, and drove out the Chinese invaders in the tenth century A.D.  The Vietnamese tradition of resisting invaders combined with V.I. Lenin’s 1920 call for Communists to join the national liberation struggle attracted Vietnamese radicals like Ho Chi Minh.  Soon after becoming a Communist, Ho traveled to China to organize a Marxist revolutionary party to liberate Indochina.  His infant revolutionary group preached a doctrine of national liberation and egalitarian reform that appealed to many Vietnamese, allowing it to grow into the Viet Minh Front.

Duiker claims that the Viet Minh’s superior preparations and organization allowed it to seize control of northern Vietnam at the end of World War II, and to establish the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.  Although Ho Chi Minh sought to avoid war with France, militants in his new government forced the issue in the face of aggressive French actions.  The DRV adopted a modified version of Mao’s people’s war, which avoided the use of static liberated areas and relied on diplomatic stratagems to weaken the French resolve.  This strategy allowed the Viet Minh to survive long enough to defeat the French in the battle at Dien Bien Phu, resulting in the temporary partition of an independent Vietnam.

The DRV turned to rebuilding the northern economy and civil government.  Duiker contends that Ho Chi Minh initially moved slowly to reform the economy and prepare for peaceful reunification with the south.  When Ngo Dinh Diem refused to allow reunification under the terms of the 1954 Geneva Conference, the DRV chose to wait for his regime’s collapse.  Diem’s repressive policies led to the growth of a guerilla movement dedicated to his overthrow.  Because Ho Chi Minh prevented the DRV from becoming involved in the south, Duiker argues that the insurgency was a civil war, not an invasion.  DRV forces were not directly involved in the south until after the introduction of American combat forces.

Sacred War focuses on the Communist perspective of Vietnam’s wars for independence, a viewpoint missing from most works on the conflict.  However, Duiker ignores the experience of non-Communist Vietnamese.  This oversight is defensible in that Communist-led Vietnamese nationalists were successful in liberating and uniting their nation.  Duiker relies on newly available Vietnamese documents to support his claims that Ho Chi Minh’s strategy was to allow the Diem regime to collapse on its own, and that the American introduction of ground forces in South Vietnam led the North to involve its own forces.  In contrast to the cruelty shown by many American depictions of Communist forces, Duiker glosses over the issues of treatment of prisoners, terrorist acts, and intimidation of villagers.  This approach weakens his argument in the same way American refusal to acknowledge incidents such as the My Lai Massacre does – by calling his objectivity into question.

Bury Us Upside Down: The Misty Pilots and the Secret War for the Ho Chi Minh Trail

For modern Americans the Vietnam War is the source of poignant tales of valor and dedication in defeat.  Rick Newman and Don Shepperd provide a sterling example of this literature in Bury Us Upside Down, which documents the exploits of the pilots of Commando Sabre, also known as Misty.  Commando Sabre was a secret operation that dedicated F-100 Super Sabre jet fighter planes as Forward Air Controllers over North Vietnam, replacing the older propeller driven planes used to find targets for air strikes.  As a new operation its pilots had to devise new tactics and doctrine for finding hidden trucks and supplies, finding anti-aircraft artillery sites, and calling in fighters equipped with bombs and missiles.  The unit was infamous for finding breaks in cloud cover, aggressively seeking out the enemy, and for tenaciously working to recover downed airmen.  With the bravado of fighter pilots everywhere, the Misty pilots hoped their friends would bury them upside down “So the world can kiss our ass.”

           

Newman and Shepperd argue that losses of slow propeller driven FACs to anti-aircraft fire over the Ho Chi Minh Trail forced the Air Force to find a more survivable airframe.  Locating anti-aircraft artillery and surface to air missiles was a primary mission for Misty pilots due to the necessity of protecting B-52 bombers and other aircraft working to interdict North Vietnamese supply lines.  The B-52s were critical to the American efforts to close the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and were particularly vulnerable to missiles due to their lack of maneuverability.  In Newman and Sheppherd’s estimation, the Ho Chi Minh trail was the key to North Vietnamese efforts in South Vietnam, justifying intensive efforts to curtail its usefulness as a supply line.

The Air Force created Commando Sabre to deal with the need for “fast” FACs, and staffed it with volunteers who served a four-month rotation before returning to their regular unit it Vietnam.  Because they were volunteers who either understood the criticality of their mission or were frustrated by the normal pattern of air operations in South Vietnam, Misty pilots were both inventive and tenacious.  They flew missions twice as long as a “normal” combat mission, frequently returning to the base at Phu Cat with damage to their planes.  Rather than avoiding anti-aircraft sites, the pilots marked them with white phosphorous rockets and called in fighter-bombers to destroy the batteries, sometimes resulting in hours-long battles involving dozens of aircraft.

Only downed pilots could draw Misty pilots away from their quarry.  Newman and Shepperd document several instances where aviators broke off attacks on large supply depots or truck convoys to cover comrades shot downed over North Vietnam.  Rescue missions sometimes turned into major battles themselves, as they took extreme measures to prevent downed pilots from suffering as Prisoners of War or being killed at the hands of their captors.  The issue of captured and missing airmen dominates that last third of Bury Us Upside Down, as Newman and Shepperd focus on the fates of pilots and families.  In addition to a vivid description of conditions in North Vietnamese prisons, Bury Us Upside Down follows the struggles of families trying to get information from the Vietnamese and United States governments.

Because Rick Newman is a war correspondent and Don Shepperd is a retired Air Force general and former Misty pilot, Bury Us Upside Down reads like a novel or a report from the front line.  They criticize Communist atrocities such as the massacre of civilians in Hue while ignoring American or South Vietnamese atrocities.  Additionally, Newman and Shepperd occasionally use the labels “Viet Cong” and “North Vietnamese Army” interchangeably, particularly in the case of the Tet Offensive.  Otherwise, Bury Us Upside Down is a well-researched and powerful account of the air war over Vietnam.

Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu

The siege of the French airhead at Dien Bien Phu from November 1953 until May 1954 was the decisive battle of the First Indochina War.  The French defeat by the Vietminh radically shifted the balance of power at the Geneva Conference of 1954 toward Ho Chi Minh and forced France to withdraw from Southeast Asia as a defeated colonial power.  Fall argues that France’s failures at Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Conference were not inevitable, but the result of tactical and strategic mistakes.  The Vietminh, led by General Vo Nguyen Giap, surprised French military planners by locating large amounts of artillery in the rugged hills surrounding Dien Bien Phu, and obtain adequate stocks of ammunition from China after the end of the Korean War.   At the same time, France overestimated both its ability to airdrop supplies to the garrison, and the willingness of the United States to come to its aid.  The result was that by the end of the siege, survivors described the muddy outpost as “hell in a very small place.”

Located in a river valley in northwest Vietnam, Dien Bien Phu occupied a strategic location in the Vietminh’s rear area. In addition to blocking an important route into Laos and depriving the Vietminh of rice supplies, French Generals Navarre and Cogny expected the garrison to conduct mobile operations against the Vietminh.  They hoped that the fortress would divert a large number of Vietminh troops from their operations in the Red River Valley, enhancing security in the critical areas of Hanoi and Haiphong.  Like the earlier airheads at Nau San and Chai Lau, Dien Bien Phu relied solely on aerial resupply. 

The French plan went awry almost immediately when the paratroops met stiff resistance on landing at Dien Phu.  Instead of a lightly defended remote valley, French troops found a large number of Vietminh conducting exercises as they recuperated from combat.  The Vietminh 316^th Division was also operating nearby, with its infantry and artillery battalions laying siege to the fortress almost as soon as French troops arrived.  The close proximity of the enemy forced a change in the nature of the garrison, which had to construct permanent fortifications.  The Vietminh’s unexpected ability to transport and supply artillery in the rugged terrain surrounding Dien Bien Phu increased the need for extensive fortifications.  Unfortunately for the French, the valley did not contain sufficient lumber to construct bunkers capable of withstanding heavy artillery, and the available air transports did not have the capacity to quickly deliver the 30,000 tons of construction materials required.

As the siege continued, French miscalculations took a deadly toll.  France was unable properly supply the garrison due to the accuracy of Vietminh anti-aircraft fire, reducing the amount of munitions and spare parts available.  Accurate and heavy artillery fire closed Dien Bien Phu’s runway to incoming aircraft eliminating evacuation of wounded and reducing the replenishment of troops.  France’s miscalculation was on the willingness of the United States to provide direct air support to relieve the siege.  Senate Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson halted American plans to relieve the siege using heavy B-29 by insisting that Great Britain also join the effort.  Not have heavy bombers or airlift capability of its own doomed the garrison at Dien Bien Phu and France’s reoccupation of Vietnam.

Killed in 1967 while covering the war in South Vietnam, Fall writes from the perspective of his era.  From his perspective, the war appears only as a conflict between Communist ideologues and the democratic West.  Writing during the 1960’s also forced Fall to rely exclusively on sources outside of North Vietnam, although he did contact North African survivors of the siege after Algerian independence from France.  This prevents Hell in a Very Small Place from examining the entire siege, although Fall attempts to provide balance by including comments of captured Vietminh troops on the low morale, high casualties, and poor supply position of Giap’s forces.