The Dissent Papers: The Voices of Diplomats in the Cold War and Beyond 9780231530354

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The Dissent Papers

Hannah Gurman

The Dissent Papers:

The Voices of Diplomats in the Cold War and Beyond

C o l u mb i a U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s N e w Y o r k

Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York  Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Copyright © 2012 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gurman, Hannah. The dissent papers : the voices of diplomats in the Cold War and beyond / Hannah Gurman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-231-15872-5 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-231-53035-4 (e-book) 1. United States--Foreign relations--1945-1989. 2. Cold War--Diplomatic history. 3. Diplomats--United States--History--20th century. I. Title. E840.G87 2012 327.73009'04--dc23 2011024506

Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. This book is printed on paper with recycled content. Printed in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

Contents

Acknowledgment vii Introduction  1 one The Pen as Sword: George Kennan and the Politics of Authorship in the Early Cold War  21 two “Learn to write well”: The China Hands and the Communist-ification of Diplomatic Reporting  71 three Revising the Vietnam Balance Sheet: The Rhetorical Logic of Escalation Versus George Ball’s Writerly Logic of Diplomacy  119 four The Other Plumbers Unit: The Dissent Channel of the U.S. State Department  169 Conclusion The Life After: From Internal Dissenter to Public Prophet  199 Notes  209 Bibliography  249 Index  269

Acknowledgments

I have accrued many debts of gratitude over the course of writing this book, and it is my pleasure to acknowledge some of them here. This book would not have been possible without the inspiration, guidance, and support of my doctoral advisors at Columbia University. I am grateful first to Ann Douglas for opening up the world of the Cold War to me, inspiring me to “know the facts” of Cold War history, and scribbling all over the drafts of my seminar papers and dissertation chapters with substantial critique, generous praise, and always, of course, suggestions for further reading. I thank Bruce Robbins for giving me a reason to continue after my first semester at Columbia, inspiring me with his scholarship and writing, forcing me to clarify and deepen my own thinking and writing, and encouraging me to take intellectual risks. Before I knew what my dissertation was really about, Anders Stephanson pointed out the few interesting snippets of an otherwise tortured paper I had written about George Kennan. These snippets became the basis of my dissertation. I thank him for his keen and clarifying insights into the nature and direction of my project, for teaching me how to think and research as a diplomatic historian, and for believing that I could offer something to the scholarship of U.S. foreign relations. Ezra Tawil taught me how to craft scholarly arguments, write a dissertation, and turn it into a book. I am grateful to him for guiding me

viii acknowledgments through the art of scholarly writing and for giving me moral as well as intellectual support in good times and in occasionally uncertain ones. My time at Columbia would not have been nearly as valuable as it was without my confreres in the English Department. Thanks to Kairos, Karen, Adela and Chris, Greg and Kim, Ellen and David, Patricia and Manu, Eugene, Felicity, and Michele for the many hours of eating, drinking, and library camaraderie over the years. Y muchísimas gracias á José Ángel por tu amistad. I would also like to thank the Bancroft dissertation committee and Columbia’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for the 2008 award that provided me with intellectual encouragement and supported the publication of this book. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Philip Leventhal, who read my manuscript with a keen and understanding eye and gave it a home at Columbia University Press. I thank him for seeing the project’s potential, for believing in the importance of its arguments about writing, and for helping me to hone the manuscript into a more coherent whole. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers who read the manuscript for Columbia University Press, identified its strengths and weaknesses, and offered insightful, incisive, and detailed comments and suggestions that proved invaluable in the revision process. Several other people read and reviewed the whole or parts of this book at various stages of its development. I would like to thank Marilyn Young for reading and commenting on the project at the dissertation stage and for all her support and guidance since I have been at NYU. I am thankful to Nick Thompson, Fred Logevall, and the editors and anonymous reviewers at Diplomatic History and the Journal of Contemporary History for reading and commenting on earlier versions of various chapters. A version of chapter 4 was published in Diplomatic History, volume 35, issue 2, April 2011, and a version of chapter 2 was published in the Journal for Contemporary History, volume 45, issue 2, April 2010 by SAGE Publications Ltd./SAGE Publications, Inc. I am grateful to Robert Newman for his engaging correspondence, for sharing his work on the China hands, and for sending me the cassettes of his interviews with Jack Service and John Davies. Thanks as well to the family of Jack Service, especially John McCormick, for their interest in this project and my work more generally. And thanks to Dan Linke at the Seeley Mudd Manuscript Library for our conversations about Kennan and his willingness to assist whenever help or support was needed.

ix acknowledgments A special thanks to my colleagues at Gallatin, who have become my mentors as well as my friends. I am grateful for the opportunity to work with such wonderful people, who have made the last few years such an intellectually and personally rich experience for me. And to my students at Gallatin, who have enthusiastically joined in the debate, intelligently weighing the legacies of dissenting diplomats, as well as larger questions about the U.S. foreign policy establishment and the role of the United States in the world. I owe the greatest debt to my parents, Benjamin and Gail Gurman, who instilled a love of books, history, and learning in me. I have no doubt that the seeds of my current endeavors were planted at the kitchen table, where I was introduced to pressing social, political, and cultural debates. I also thank the Nikolic and Beadle families—Sarah, Sasha, Rachel, Peter, Nathan, Noah, Isaac, Jacob, and Esther. The commotion and conversation of Friday night dinners at your homes over the last decade have been a welcome reprieve from long, quiet days of writing. In addition to their support, the Alban family has given me a whole new set of kitchen table debates as well as fluffy friends to distract us from them. Thank you, Hedy, Rachel, and Pearl, and of course, Lewis, who is greatly missed but fondly remembered. Last but certainly not least, I thank Joe, who, more than anyone else, has shared in the occasional highs and lows and everything in between that goes along with writing a book. Joe has swung with the highs, buffered the lows, and engaged the everyday preoccupations of this project. He has listened and contributed to my evolving thoughts on just about every aspect of this book on an almost daily basis. More importantly, it is with him that I continue to learn about and experience the world. I dedicate this book to Joe.

The Dissent Papers

Introduction

On November 28, 2010, a date that some called “the September eleventh of diplomacy,” the Internet whistleblower organization WikiLeaks dropped its latest bombshell of classified information—251,287 State Department cables, mostly written in the last three years, exchanged between U.S. embassies and Washington. “Cablegate,” as WikiLeaks called it, constituted the biggest leak of classified information in history. Hundreds of the leaked documents were posted immediately on the WikiLeaks Web site, and the organization’s founder, Julian Assange, promised to post them all in the course of the ensuing days and weeks. Unlike the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs released in previous months, this collection of documents contained reports from around the globe and promised to reveal a much broader glimpse into the secret world of U.S. foreign policy. Over the next several weeks, as the New York Times, the Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and El Pais published and reported on dozens of the leaked cables, the public gained access to some illuminating, if not altogether shocking, information. The cables revealed that, behind closed doors, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states had been pressuring the United States to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Yemen’s president had taken responsibility for U.S. drone attacks on al Qaeda in that country, the State Department had directed diplo-

2 introduction mats to obtain financial and biometric data on foreign officials at the United Nations, and the United States had offered deals to countries in exchange for taking Guantánamo Bay prisoners.1 The cables also offered glimpses into the personalities and antics of foreign leaders. One report, for example, described Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi’s fear of flying over water and dependency on a blond “Ukrainian nurse.” Others characterized French president Nicolas Sarkozy as “thin-skinned and authoritarian,” mockingly dubbed Russian prime minister Vladmir Putin “Batman,” and called Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi “feckless, vain, and ineffective as a modern European leader.” More than mere gossip, these profiles helped to shed light on the broad outlook of these leaders as well as the prospects and limits of specific negotiations. For example, a February 9, 2009, report from the Kabul embassy detailing a meeting with Kandahar Provincial Council chief Ahmed Wali Karzai, known as AWK in official circles, revealed not only AWK’s attempts to charm U.S. officials into funding large infrastructure projects in the region, but also Ambassador Karl Eikenberry’s awareness of AWK’s manipulations. The problem, as Eikenberry concluded, was “how to fight corruption and connect the people to their government, when the key government officials are themselves corrupt.”2 As the news analysis increasingly shifted from the content of the cables to the fate of those who leaked and posted them, a less sensational, albeit equally illuminating revelation of “Cablegate” made a brief appearance in the world of political punditry and radio reportage. Blogging for Salon, Christopher Beam noted that the leaks had given the public a glimpse into “the art of cable writing itself.” “At their best,” Beam observed, “these cables read like their own literary genre” in which diplomats employ elements of sociology and travel writing to paint a picture for senior policymakers. “Somewhere within the diplomatic corps lurks literary genius,” declared Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank. When asked on NPR’s Morning Edition whether and how the leaked documents changed his view of U.S. foreign policy, historian Timothy Garton Ash said, “It revises upward my personal opinion of the State Department. In other words, what I’ve seen about how they report and how they operate is really quite impressive.” “If the WikiLeaks cables are any indicator,” Beam similarly concluded, “this job is in capable hands.” Writing for the New York Times, Mark Landler characterized the world’s praise for the quality and style of the leaked reports as the “silver lining” to the WikiLeaks scandal. In form, as well as con-

3 introduction tent, the State Department cables seemed to offer something of positive value that counterbalanced the leaks’ unseemly portrait of U.S. foreign policy.3 Even as segments of the public who actually read some of the cables expressed appreciation for the documents’ analytical value, the State Department went out of its way to underscore the leaked reports’ lack of influence on policy. “I want to make clear that our official foreign policy is not set in these messages,” said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her initial comments to the press.4 Though Clinton intended to resolve the obvious diplomatic problems created by the leak, she inadvertently revealed another, less obvious problem— the gap between what diplomats had been reporting accurately and insightfully from the field and the policies the United States had actually adopted. “Cablegate” thus raised important but largely unexplored questions about the role of the diplomatic establishment and, more specifically, the nature, purpose, and influence of diplomatic writing, even or especially when that writing runs against the grain of official policy. As the coverage of the leaks exemplifies, these questions have only temporarily and sporadically made it into the national and international debates on U.S. foreign policy. This book is an attempt to put them at the center of the story of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Second World War—to show the place and evolution of diplomatic dissent writing in the larger arc of the “American century.”

~ “The success or failure of a country’s foreign policy and its ability to preserve peace will depend upon the reliability of the diplomat’s reports.” So declared Hans Morgenthau in Politics Among Nations, the classic theory of international relations written in the aftermath of the Second World War.5 When Morgenthau wrote these lines, the memory of the years leading up to the war was still fresh in his mind. It had been only eleven years since Morgenthau left Germany for Spain, after being told that because he was Jewish, he would not get a position in the German university. It had been only eight years since he left Spain for America after his apartment was bombed and his bank account confiscated in the civil war there. Intellectually rooted in the old world, Morgenthau had been a reluctant émigré to the United States. Entering New York Harbor on the SS Königstein in 1937, he did not entertain the stereotypical American dream, but rather brooded over the question of whether the United States was ready to deal with the harsh realities of the brewing international conflict.6

4 introduction The next decade would be as fateful and formative for the United States as the previous one had been for Morgenthau. Before the war, the United States had been a rising power, but still walked in Europe’s shadow. At the end of the war, with Europe in physical and financial ruin and the Soviet Union still reeling from its twenty million dead, the United States was the strongest nation in the world. Against the backdrop of the newly established United Nations, with its vision of world peace, Morgenthau wanted to make sure that American leaders understood the realities of international power politics. In addition to a manifesto, Politics Among Nations was intended as a primer for the statesmen of Morgenthau’s adopted country. In the book, Morgenthau stressed the need for diplomacy, even or especially in a world formally guided by international law. More important than the abstract idea of diplomacy were actual diplomats, who, he believed, understood international conflicts from the ground up as well as from a conceptual grounding in a realistic view of international affairs. The reports and analyses of the diplomatic corps were thus critical to the future of America’s international relations. Diplomats, wrote Morgenthau, ought to be the “fingertips of foreign policy.”7 Politics Among Nations became an instant sensation in international relations and political science theory, paving the way for its author’s occasional role as advisor to the U.S. foreign policy establishment. In the coming years, however, Morgenthau would become frustrated by the contradictions between his theories of international relations and the practice of U.S. foreign policy. In American foreign relations, he lamented, there was “no room for traditional methods of diplomacy,” nor for the “peculiar finesse and subtlety of mind” of the diplomat.8 The odds were against anyone who believed that diplomatic writing might actually influence the course of U.S. foreign policy. Though the last sixty years have been especially trying for the diplomatic establishment, the longer history of the State Department is threaded with the frustrations of diplomats who felt ignored or undervalued. The first secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, resigned in frustration over his inability to undo America’s preferential trade policies with Britain. John Adams, who served as minister to England for three years, wrote from his post: “I am as insignificant here as you can imagine.” In the ensuing decades, diplomats would experience a more systematic form of marginalization that reflected the nature of U.S. foreign policy in this period, as well as broad presidential and popular distrust of the diplomatic establishment.9

5 introduction In Europe, the profession of diplomacy evolved alongside the commitment to a system of strategic alliances that were the centerpiece of what would come to be known as a classical realist approach to international relations. Forged and maintained by diplomats, these alliances were designed to balance and temper the struggle for power between states. While intellectually influenced by this worldview, U.S. diplomats were beholden to America’s avowed desire to avoid permanent alliances. Thus, throughout the nineteenth century, the American foreign policy establishment remained extremely small. While the number of diplomatic missions grew in the first decades of the nineteenth century, in 1861 there were still only thirty-four, almost all in Europe.10 As in Europe, the U.S. diplomatic establishment remained exclusive and exclusionary. The diplomats who occupied the highest posts in the diplomatic corps hailed almost entirely from the white male aristocratic elite. They were generally handpicked by the president or secretary of state to serve on temporary missions, which they often funded themselves. This elite class of diplomatists contributed to the perception of the diplomatic establishment as clubby, cosmopolitan, and more in tune with their European colleagues than with ordinary Americans.11 As the diplomatic establishment grew over the course of the nineteenth century, a new layer of career diplomats emerged. If high-level State Department officers had limited influence on the great international power struggles of the day, these rank-and-file officers had even less. Under the spoils system, high posts were typically filled by political cronies who lacked professional expertise in foreign affairs. This left the careerists to function more as clerks than as foreign policy advisors. As historian Robert Schulzinger describes, rankand-file diplomats in the mid-nineteenth century “copied dispatches into large volumes for their chancery’s archives, while dreaming of doing important political work.” At the end of the century, the department was, according to its own secretary, John Hay, “an antiquated, feeble organization, enslaved by precedents and routine inherited from another century” and burdened with tasks that could only be described as “drudgery.”12 By this time, Europe’s diplomatic establishments had already embarked on the process of transforming themselves into modern bureaucracies. Voices outside the diplomatic establishment highlighted the need for similar reforms in the United States. In his lectures, Max Weber, the seminal theorist of bureaucracy, pointed to America’s preference for cronyism as a symptom of its almost

6 introduction childlike resistance to the inevitability of modern organizational structures. Henry James argued that the lack of a professionalized Foreign Service in the United States reflected America’s naiveté and unsuitability for membership in the circle of major world powers.13 Efforts to reform the diplomatic establishment had already begun in the 1880s as part of a larger project to rein in the spoils system, create a more modern civil service, and build a diplomatic corps that matched the growing power and importance of the United States on the world stage. In 1883, Congress passed the Civil Service Reform, or Pendleton Act, which took steps toward transforming the federal government into a modern merit-based bureaucracy. In the ensuing years, under the leadership of Wilbur Carr, who headed the consular bureau from 1902 to 1924, the State Department moved decisively in this direction. Between 1905 and 1909, the department established regional divisions and a modern filing system for organizing the increasing flow of information from abroad. The department expanded further in World War One, after which the position of undersecretary of state was established. In 1924, at the behest of Massachusetts congressman John Jacob Rogers, Congress passed the Rogers Act, which streamlined the formerly separate consular and diplomatic services and established the modern Foreign Service, with its meritbased entrance exam, as well as regular pay and a promotion schedule. This period marked the transition from a department of political appointees to one of careerists. Attempts to democratize the diplomatic corps and modernize the diplomatic establishment were only partially successful. Especially at the high ranks, the Foreign Service was still mostly composed of the social elite. As in other elite institutions that claimed to be merit-based, undesirables, including Jews, Catholics, and women, were typically weeded out in the oral interview. Despite its holdover elitism, the department continued to grow. By January 1936, it had 33 divisions, offices, and bureaus and 750 officers. Expansion took place at an even faster pace during the Second World War, at the end of which the department had more than 50 divisions. As one Department of State historian noted, 1944 “marked the dividing line between the old Department of State and the present agency.” The 1946 Foreign Service Act created a stronger administration arm to manage the expanded agency.14 However uneven, the bureaucratization of the State Department was premised on the idea that a modernized diplomatic establishment would have

7 introduction more influence over the shape of U.S. foreign policy. But the promise of greater influence remained mostly that. In fact, the opposite happened. As the State Department grew and bureaucratized, tensions and distance between the diplomatic establishment and both the White House and Congress also grew. During the period between World War One and World War Two, as careerist Charles “Chip” Bohlen would later recall, when diplomats wanted to express their views on a specific foreign policy, they were typically told, “Don’t get involved.” A combination of presidential hostility toward the diplomatic corps, congressional isolationism, and economic disaster made the late 1920s and 1930s an especially low moment in the morale of the Foreign Service.15 The department continued to grow throughout the Second World War, but remained largely subordinate to the military offices and personnel in charge of the war effort. After the war, the State Department had to compete with the new organizations that gave rise to the national security state—including the Defense Department, the National Security Council (NSC), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Between 1950 and 1960, as the budgets of these agencies skyrocketed, the State Department budget actually declined. In 1960, while $40 billion were allocated to the Defense Department, only $246 million were allocated to State.16 Morgenthau may have overstated his case on behalf of diplomats, but he did not overstate the degree to which, since the end of the Second World War, presidents and senior policymakers undervalued, if not outright rejected, the analyses and recommendations of rank-and-file State Department officers, further diminishing the role of the diplomatic establishment in the formulation of policy. While each administration had its own reasons for marginalizing the diplomatic establishment, these generally included a combination of substantial disagreement over the direction of major policies and distrust of the State Department as a bureaucracy. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who presided over the rise of the United States to world eminence, was content to write off the Foreign Service as a bunch of “striped-pants boys.” Truman, in whose term the State Department has been seen by many to be at its zenith, fantasized about “firing the whole bunch.” As a result of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s accusations against the State Department in 1950, he and Eisenhower did fire dozens of them, albeit reluctantly. Though he attempted to revitalize the department, Kennedy quickly came to the conclusion that it was just “a bowl of jello.” For Nixon, the State Department did

8 introduction not merit even a derogatory metaphor. It was, quite simply, filled with “sons of bitches.” While a few presidents in this period empowered their secretaries of state, they almost universally belittled and alienated the diplomatic establishment as a whole.17 Through most of the pivotal foreign policy decisions of the “American century,” diplomats largely accepted their marginalized status. This tendency reflected the longer history of the State Department as well as the structure and culture of the institution as it evolved in the twentieth century. As the State Department grew and bureaucratized, it increasingly policed itself through a culture of restraint and passivity, which was reinforced by new bureaucratic layers and checkpoints. Promotions and careers depended on playing by the rules, not flouting them. Dissent posed a social risk, and dissenters were less likely to be welcomed by the “in” crowd.18 The only alternative option, which few careerists chose to exercise, was to leave the State Department altogether. But there were exceptions. In his classic 1970 study of declining organizations, Albert Hirschman used the term “voice” to describe the actions of the few bureaucrats who decide to express their opinions rather than resign or resign themselves to the status quo. China hand John Paton Davies expressed the sentiments of such internal dissenters in a 1945 letter home to his family. “To get out of it and speak the truth would be a refreshing experience. On the other hand, somebody has to carry on with the job. We can stay on hoping that things will be better, that our experience can be productive of some good.”19 This book highlights the experience of Davies and other diplomats who attempted to “voice” their opposition to the status quo. While my title is inspired by the more illustrious and scandalous Pentagon Papers, there are important differences between The Dissent Papers and the forty-seven-volume, top-secret study of U.S. policy in Vietnam leaked to the press in 1971. Unlike The Pentagon Papers, the dissent papers, as I collectively refer to the documents I analyze in this book, are not currently classified nor do they pertain to a single foreign policy. While The Pentagon Papers tells the story of U.S. foreign policy in Vietnam primarily through documents that reflected the status quo, my analysis of the dissent papers tells the story of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Second World War through documents that critiqued the reigning logic. As individuals, and as a group, the diplomats whose stories are told in this book have not been the “fingertips of foreign policy” so much as in-house authors of dissent.20

9 introduction Often, the main purpose of stories about dissent is to heroize the dissenter and increase awareness of alternative perspectives that might have been but were not adopted—in short, to bring some neglected wisdom to the fore. The reports, memos, and telegrams in The Dissent Papers do indeed contain a good deal of neglected wisdom. In its own complicated way, the very act of internal dissent is heroic and deserves some attention as such. That said, The Dissent Papers is decidedly not an ode to the ever wise and always tragic voice of American diplomats. In addition to the fact that not everything the authors of the dissent papers wrote was wise, not all of it was entirely rejected. In the majority of cases, diplomats had only a limited influence on the final decisions of policy. In several of the most pivotal policies of the period, however, dissenting diplomats played a key role in the debates leading up to and following the moment of decision. In the following pages, I examine diplomatic dissent in four pivotal moments in U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. Chapter 1 traces George Kennan’s opposition to the militarization of the Cold War after he helped to formulate the policy of containment that initially defined the conflict. Chapter 2 examines the critique of U.S.-China relations in the 1940s articulated by John Stewart Service and John Paton Davies, who were later accused of “losing” China to the communists. Chapter 3 analyzes George Ball’s dissent against the escalation of the war in Vietnam within the close circle of President Johnson and his advisors. And chapter 4 details the creation of an official Dissent Channel in the State Department in 1971, its role in the Watergate-era politics, and its use in the opposition to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Broadly speaking, the arc from Kennan to Service and Davies to Ball and more recent dissenting diplomats reveals the temporary rise of the State Department’s influence on foreign policy in the immediate postwar period and its subsequent decline in the ensuing decades. Considered separately, the foreign policies that these diplomats challenged had a specific context and logic, which I examine in this book. Collectively, however, they reflect the overarching logic of the national security state that emerged at the end of the Second World War, crystallized in the Cold War, and continues to structure U.S. foreign policy today. While dynamic and complex, this logic encompasses a set of broad tendencies that characterize policy in this period, including the tendency to: frame international conflict in terms of ideology rather than power, understand foreign policy in the context of do-

10 introduction mestic politics, empower the defense establishment, and solve conflicts through military rather than diplomatic means.21 Just as each policy had its own contours and context, so did the authors of the dissent papers have their specific views, which were shaped by where and when they served, their position in the State Department, and their individual backgrounds and personalities. While their specific views differed, Kennan, Service, Davies, Ball, and other diplomats featured in this book shared a general concern about the long-standing impotence of the State Department and its continued decline over the course of the twentieth century. Broadly speaking, they resisted the logic of the national security state and believed in the foundational tenets of diplomacy, in which power matters more than ideology, foreign policy and domestic politics are considered mutually exclusive, and diplomats, rather than the military, forge and maintain a stable international order.

~ This book is as much an account of the tradition of diplomatic writing as it is one of dissenting diplomats. More specifically, it examines the tradition of writing in the diplomatic establishment and traces the evolving promise, practice, and limits of dissent within that tradition, from the administration of Franklin Roosevelt to that of George W. Bush. How did diplomatic writing change over the course of this period? How did those changes both reflect and contribute to the prospects for dissent within the diplomatic establishment? And how might the evolution of diplomatic dissent writing shed light on the logic and formulation of U.S. foreign policy in this period? As the arc of The Dissent Papers suggests, the evolution of diplomatic writing is directly related to both the ongoing process of bureaucratization and the evolving relationship between the diplomatic establishment and the White House in a given administration. State Department writing was most influential in the years immediately following the Second World War. However, as I examine in the context of Kennan’s official writings, career diplomats in this period not only shaped but also responded to institutional, political, and cultural pressures to represent the emerging Cold War as an ideological clash of good versus evil, rational versus irrational, and capitalism versus MarxismLeninism. Generally speaking, the tradition of diplomatic writing and its influence on policy decreased over the course of the Cold War. As chapter 2, on the dissent and fate of the China hands, shows, the power and influence

11 introduction of diplomatic dissent writing was radically diminished in the 1950s. This was the result, in large part, of the McCarthyist attacks on the State Department, which punished diplomats whose reports transgressed the ideological framework of the Cold War, a framework that, ironically, diplomats like Kennan had helped foster just a few years earlier. Under Eisenhower, in order to survive, would-be dissenters in the State Department engaged in a culture of self-censorship, which continued into the 1960s. Characterized by vague bureaucratic prose, diplomatic writing of the early 1960s reflected the repressed culture and thinking of the diplomatic establishment in this period and contributed to President Kennedy’s frustrations with the State Department. The lack of bold diplomatic reportage and analysis in this period both reflected and contributed to the weaknesses of U.S. policy, especially in Southeast Asia. The vexed style and repressed substance of diplomatic dissent continued under Lyndon Johnson. Thus, George Ball, a political appointee, wrote his dissent memos on Vietnam against the backdrop of a particularly low moment in the quality and candor of writing in the diplomatic establishment. As chapter 4 shows, paralleling popular disenchantment with the war, diplomatic writing became bolder and more outspoken toward the end of the Johnson administration. Nixon effectively thwarted and contained its potential power, by implementing an official Dissent Channel, which remained in use for the duration of the Cold War and is still in existence today. One effect of the Dissent Channel was to ensure that diplomatic dissent writing would not be leaked to the public. As Secretary Clinton’s remarks on “Cablegate” suggest, senior policymakers continue to marginalize and contain the voice of rank-and-file diplomats. In recent years, as some dissenting diplomats have publicized the cables they wrote against the invasion of Iraq, and as WikiLeaks has published its stash of diplomatic communiqués, we are perhaps entering a new era of diplomatic dissent writing, in which classified diplomatic writing has played a more substantial role in public debates over policy. While the dissent papers were written over the course of the last six decades, the tradition of diplomatic writing in which they participate goes back much further and itself figures into the history of diplomatic dissent writing in the American century. In 1948, when Morgenthau underscored the potential importance of diplomatic writing, he was consciously invoking the founding era of professional diplomacy, which dates back to approximately the sixteenth century, when the dynasties of Europe began to erect a permanent network of

12 introduction statesmen to manage their foreign relations. The institutionalization of diplomacy continued over the next two hundred years. By the eighteenth century, most European states had the early makings of foreign offices and departments of state. In addition to building departments, institutionalization involved the production of a shared vocabulary, as well as a shared set of principles and practices, for emerging diplomatists. Edmund Burke is credited with first using the term “diplomacy” in the sense of high-level relations between nations, in 1796. Before then, as its etymological root diploma (as in official paper) suggests, “diplomacy” referred not to high-level international relations but instead to the handling of state documents, such as grants, treaties, seals, and passports.22 Although we tend to associate the diplomatic establishment with highly visible moments of oral negotiation—the 1815 Congress of Vienna or the 1918 meeting at Versailles—diplomats have long argued that the most important function of the diplomatic corps is routine reporting as well as synthetic written analysis of ongoing developments and conflicts. One of the first handbooks for diplomats, written by the French statesman Monsieur de Callières in 1716, emphasized the importance of knowing how to “write well.” This book was extremely influential in shaping the practice and self-image of European diplomats. More than two centuries later, British diplomat and diplomatic historian Harold Nicolson upheld Callières’ treatise as the greatest theory of the diplomatic profession. In line with Callières, Nicolson declared, “Diplomacy is a written rather than a verbal art.”23 The diplomat’s most important job was to gather intelligence about the state in which he was posted. “It is precisely for the purpose of getting information that they are maintained in the courts of friendly powers,” argued a prominent international lawyer in the eighteenth century. Diplomatic reporting was institutionalized before the establishment of regular foreign correspondents. Diplomats were thus the first to satisfy the state’s emerging interest in the routine and systematic gathering of information from abroad, information that would be crucial for maintaining or shifting the established balance of power. They were expected to gather and synthesize all information, both welcome and unwelcome, that might affect the state’s interest.24 In describing this task, diplomats made sure to distinguish themselves from mere reporters. Although he cautioned fellow diplomats against adopting an overly elaborate style, Callières also cautioned them against superficial writing. “A letter which gives only a bare account of facts, without entering into the mo-

13 introduction tives,” he wrote, “can pass for nothing else but a Gazette.” Rather than simply report the facts, the goal was to first observe “the dispositions of the minds” of the foreign sovereign and the court elites, as well as the conditions of the region, and synthesize one’s observations in a letter back to the home sovereign. In describing this task, Callières and others stressed the importance of honesty and insight, and thus encouraged diplomats to speak their minds, even or especially when their findings contrasted with the reigning assessments.25 The United States came into being in precisely the era during which the modern tenets and practices of diplomacy, including diplomatic writing, were becoming institutionalized. Notably, the first body to handle foreign affairs for the colonies was called the Committee of Correspondence. Established in 1775 as part of the Continental Congress, the committee, whose members included Benjamin Franklin and John Jay, was responsible for sending directives to foreign agents and receiving and analyzing the information they sent back to the colonies. In 1777, it was renamed the Committee of Foreign Affairs and charged with “obtaining the most extensive and useful information to foreign affairs.” In 1789, after much wrangling between the Congress and the president, a separate Department of State was established as part of the executive branch. The State Department modeled the practices of the U.S. diplomatic establishment on those of Europe. Its first secretary, Thomas Jefferson, had a copy of Callières’ book on his shelf.26 In the United States, as in Europe, diplomatic writing took different forms and included various practices, which evolved with the diplomatic establishment. Changes in the form of diplomatic writing both reflected and contributed to individual diplomats’ capacity for independent thought and analysis. Generally speaking, the earlier, pre-bureaucratic forms provided more space for autonomy of thought and action. In the eighteenth century, diplomats typically wrote epistles or letters.27 The epistolary form was long, leisurely, and intimate. It reflected an age in which there were relatively few diplomats, each of whom had ample time to focus on style as well as content. While State Department officers could not be assured of influence, they could at least assume that the secretary of state, who personally knew his subordinates, would read their reports. Robert Livingston’s detailed and colorful letters from France to Secretary of State Madison on negotiations over the Louisiana Purchase exemplify the leisurely intimacy and almost novelistic narrative style of diplomatic writing. News traveled slowly in the early nineteenth century, and pace itself afforded

14 introduction a degree of autonomy to diplomats serving abroad. When Napoleon asked the United States to make an offer on the entire Louisiana territory, rather than just New Orleans, Livingston spent three hours writing a detailed account of the developments to Madison in which he made sure to credit himself for the stunning turn of events. Before receiving a response, he went ahead with a deal that nearly doubled the size of the United States.28 The relative autonomy enjoyed by Livingston and other diplomats of his era decreased as the State Department grew and the scope of U.S. foreign relations broadened. This phenomenon was a product of several parallel and related developments—including advances in communication and technology and the process of bureaucratization. The transatlantic telegraph, completed in 1866, and the transpacific telegraph, completed in 1902, drastically reduced the time between the writing of a diplomatic dispatch and its reception, on the one hand making timely reading more possible, but on the other hand reducing the diplomat’s scope of independent action. Decades later, jet travel would give rise to the practice of sending presidential envoys on key missions, which further reduced the influence of career diplomats on foreign policy. Combined with the growing role of the United States in world affairs, these technological advances contributed to a rise in the amount of information flowing in from abroad. Bureaucratization entailed changes not only to the social structure of the State Department but also to its process of gathering, synthesizing, and exchanging the growing body of information. In addition to typewriters, which had become widespread by the early twentieth century, the State Department increasingly employed female typists and secretaries to aid in correspondence and filing.29 Desk officers in the newly established area divisions relayed and prioritized information from abroad. The synthetic reports of mid-level officers and the panoramic analyses of high-level officers served as buffers between the foreign embassies and the secretary of state. Both dispatches from foreign posts and internal reports written in Washington had begun to take on a more bureaucratic quality. In contrast to the classical format, the bureaucratic format was short, efficient, and impersonal. As it passed through these layers of bureaucracy, diplomatic writing tended to become increasingly homogenized, leaving less room for interpretation and dissent. If disagreement existed within an embassy’s staff, for example, the chief of mission would often deemphasize or erase it in his homogenized synthesis sent back to Washington. As M. S. Anderson writes, “The more

15 introduction highly organized and consciously efficient foreign offices became, the less scope there was for the individual who did not fit easily into these bigger and more complex machines.”30 The size of the State Department as well as the pace of bureaucratization increased further in the Second World War. According to one estimate, there were more than 100,000 dispatches a year and 7,500,000 words a month streaming into the department after World War Two, all of which had to be processed in a timely manner. Diplomatic dispatches now had to move through even more layers of the State Department bureaucracy—from embassy to relevant regional and functional bureaus to country desk officer to officer in charge to assistant secretary for the relevant region, back to desk officer to write initial response, back to relevant bureaus and desk officer for revisions, then to correspondence review staff of the secretary’s office, and finally to the telegram branch. This elaborate path functioned as a floodgate protecting senior policymakers from the bulk of information streaming in from the field. Diplomats could no longer assume that senior officials in the State Department would read, let alone respond to, their reports. Of the two thousand cables Dean Rusk received each day as secretary of state, he read only about eight in full and skimmed another one to two hundred.31 If, in the classical era, few examples of diplomatic writing lived up to the founding principles and promises of the profession, then even fewer did in the twentieth century. The knowledge that, in all likelihood, one’s writing would never be seen by anyone with the power to make a difference strengthened the pressure to conform. Writing on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War Two, Robert Bendiner observed, “The run-of-mill envoy is generally as noncommittal as possible in the circumstances and his reports rarely err on the side of imaginative foresight.”32 Clarity, honesty, and insight were typically subordinated to vagary, evasion, and superficiality. A Foreign Service officer who might otherwise express dissent would typically be reminded that the job of the diplomat is not to formulate foreign policy but to execute it. Over the course of the Cold War, the State Department continued to bureaucratize and began to adopt corporate management practices. The effects of these policies were reflected in the written reports and analyses of rank-and-file diplomats. Instead of amplifying and enriching the policy debate with new information and innovative analysis, most diplomats wrote routine and innocuous reports, memos, and letters designed to deflect rather than gain attention.

16 introduction Their writing belied the institution’s symbolic emphasis on honest and independent reporting and analysis. Recalling the weakness of diplomatic writing in the first half of the twentieth century, career Foreign Service officer Elbridge Durbrow remarked, “We were compelled to go along a lot. . . . We were pedestrian foreign correspondents, and that’s all we were.”33 Like the authors of the more noteworthy documents leaked in “Cablegate,” the authors of the dissent papers were, in this sense, exceptional. Just as they were not content to accept the marginalization of the State Department, neither were they content to write irrelevant reports, telegrams, and memos. As much as they had a shared concern over the direction of U.S. foreign policy, they had a shared commitment to the promise that their writing could help change policy. In the tradition invoked from Callières to Morgenthau, the authors of the dissent papers were what we might call “writerly” diplomats, who showed a conscious commitment to the genre of diplomatic writing. Importantly, being a “writerly” diplomat in the twentieth-century State Department entailed something less romantic and more strategic than Callières’ and Morgenthau’s idealized vision of diplomatic writing. Intervening in moments of relative uncertainty, before decisions had fully crystallized, the authors of the dissent papers sensed a degree of latent support for their views and an opportunity to shape the outcome of a debate. As historian Kenneth Weisbrode explains, in the twentieth century, if a diplomat wanted to gain influence, he had to “invent and reinvent his own channels, practices, and networks in order to be effective.”34 While they believed in the power of writing, the diplomats featured in this book were all, in different ways, strategic writers. To fully account for the trajectory of their dissent, it is thus necessary to examine the formal strategies and processes of these dissenting diplomat-writers, as well as the substance of their arguments. The dissent papers featured in this book include writing from across the spectrum of the tradition—epistolary and bureaucratic dispatches, internal analytical memos, and even gossipy letters. Each of the episodes described in this book involved different aspects of diplomatic writing and what it means to be a “writerly” diplomat. The chapter on Kennan focuses on the experience of writing for senior policymakers, exploring the influence of institutional and national politics on an individual diplomat’s writing and raising questions about the notion that a rank-and-file diplomat could author the guiding policy of the Cold War. The chapter on the China hands highlights the changing structure and content of diplomatic reporting

17 introduction in the Second World War, with Service and Davies at the forefront of the shift. Chapter 3 focuses on the process of composing dissent and its relationship to the substance of Ball’s dissent against the escalation of Vietnam. And chapter 4 examines an extreme form of bureaucratized diplomatic writing that reflects both the long-term evolution of the State Department and the politics of secrecy that dominated foreign policy in the wake of the Pentagon Papers. Generally speaking, the different chapters reflect the shift from more personal to more bureaucratic and corporate writing. While Kennan and Ball enlisted techniques designed to gain and maintain the favor of specific senior policymakers, the vast majority of dissenting diplomats have had to figure out how to make their voices heard through the more impersonal layers of bureaucracy, which increasingly dictated the forms and paths of diplomatic writing. Through structure, style, audience-specific word choice, strategic labeling, and concerted dissemination, Kennan, Service, Davies, Ball, and other dissenting diplomat-writers both employed and tweaked the available forms and processes of gathering, synthesizing, and disseminating information within the diplomatic establishment in order to advance their views. Rather than presenting a unified and unchanging perspective, The Dissent Papers highlights the complex and evolving positions and strategies of dissenting diplomats in relation to the status quo. In pivotal moments, the critique advanced in the dissent papers involved ideas about the logic and formulation of foreign policy as well as specific views about the policies themselves. Here again, form and process, as well as substance, mattered, and thus represented another aspect of the “writerly” perspective in diplomatic dissent. As I show in the course of analyzing the dissent papers, in different ways, arguments about the logic of a particular policy were often embodied in the form and practice of the dissenter’s own writing, thus revealing important but relatively under-examined connections between ideas about policy and the processes and practices of knowledge production and exchange that undergird them. George Ball’s insistence on radical revision in both the practice and the argument of his dissent memos is perhaps the clearest example of connections between the form and the substance of diplomatic dissent. The dissent writing featured in this book would not merit more than cursory examination were it not for the fact that its authors succeeded in gaining a high-level audience for their writings, one that included senior State Department and White House officials, as well as, in some cases, members

18 introduction of Congress and the American public. Unlike the vast majority of dissenters within the State Department or the foreign policy establishment more broadly, Kennan, Service, Davies, and Ball played significant roles in the most pivotal foreign policy debates of the era. The substance, form, and process of their dissent writing thus stands to shed light on the contours as well as the outcome of these debates and the policies they determined. Kennan’s willingness to shape and revise his language to gain and maintain the patronage of Secretary of Defense James Forrestal is just one example of how looking at diplomatic dissent writing offers a glimpse into the larger political and institutional contours of some of America’s most pivotal foreign policies over the last sixty years. Ultimately, for anyone interested in U.S. foreign policy, it is the reception of the dissent papers that matters most. In each of the chapters that follow, I trace the responses of various readerships and constituencies to the dissent papers—in as well as outside of the foreign policy establishment. How did senior officials in the State Department, White House, and Congress, as well as journalists and the American public, respond to these documents? How did their responses both reflect and impact the status of diplomatic dissent writing in various administrations? And how do debates about the form and process, as well as content, of the dissent papers illuminate the fundamental premises of policy and policy formulation in each administration and the “American century” more broadly?

~ Born in 1904 and dead in 1980, Hans Morgenthau lived through all but the last foreign policy developments I analyze in this book. As a scholar and on a few occasions an advisor to the foreign policy establishment, he participated in the debates over virtually every one of the major foreign policies of the United States. Over the course of his life, he continuously reflected on the philosophy of political realism with which he is associated. Yet, as far as I know, to his dying day, he never engaged in a sustained reflection on his vision of diplomats as the “fingertips of foreign policy.” Had he done so, he would have had to admit that his vision had not been realized. Through most of the “American century,” the promise that diplomatic writing could influence the course of foreign policy has not been fulfilled. The limits of “writerly” dissent in the diplomatic establishment serve, in many ways, to underscore the increasing power of the national security state that the dissent papers sought to curb.

19 introduction At the same time, if he were to focus on the very struggle of diplomats to make their voices heard, and the internal as well as public contests over the products of this struggle, he might conclude that diplomatic writing played a telling, if not always glamorous, role in the history of U.S. foreign policy in the age of American superpower. An analysis of that role reminds us that like most debates, debates of foreign policy are not just about who is right and who is wrong, but also about who is allowed to speak and how the conversation is structured. In giving diplomats a greater voice in foreign policy, the United States and the world stand to gain more than either can afford to lose.

one

The Pen as Sword George Kennan and the Politics of Authorship in the Early Cold War

In 1943, just months after he had been released from a Nazi internment camp at Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt, George Kennan wrote a letter to the administrative office of the State Department. In the letter, he did not complain about the fact that the American government had contacted the internees only once during the five and half months of their imprisonment, nor did he register any dissatisfaction with the one telegram that was sent, which matter-of-factly informed the imprisoned State Department employees that they would not be paid for the term of their internment.1 While the State Department’s obvious lack of concern over the physical well-being of its officers troubled Kennan, he was more concerned about another matter. Upon returning to the United States, Kennan had submitted a memo he had written during his internment. “By a curious coincidence,” he now explained, that memo had been “referred down through the Department until, together with a number of other awkward dossiers, it reached my own temporary desk in the Personnel section; and I was for all that I could tell, the only person who read it.” Kennan saw this as a bad omen for the entire Foreign Service. “Our service is at present deteriorating,” he warned, “sinking back to a point where it will soon no longer present sufficient opportunities for constructive effort and self-expression to warrant the devotion of men who are anything more than bureaucrats.”2 Ironically, the communiqué had contained a proposal

22 the pen as sword for strengthening the training of Foreign Service officers and enhancing the influence of the Foreign Service on policy. What Kennan regarded as a problem for the State Department, many government reformers and foreign policy experts saw instead as progress. In 1924, Congress had passed the Rogers Act, which sought to “dearistocratize” the Foreign Service and officially transformed the State Department from an organization of elites to a meritocracy open to all capable Americans. This reform, which established an entrance exam and streamlined the Foreign and Consular services, coincided with tremendous growth in new recruits. In the first half of the twentieth century, the State Department exploded from an intimate organization of 82 people who informed and advised the president on foreign affairs to a modern bureaucracy of about 14,000, having expanded to meet the needs of America’s enhanced position in world affairs.3 This expansion and bureaucratization of the diplomatic apparatus was something of a double-edged sword for diplomats. In the past, those in charge of making policy had often, though not always, regarded the reports, telegrams, and memos of career diplomats as key sources of information. But their advice was not always heeded in a country whose policies were, at least as far as Europe was concerned, isolationist. On the one hand, the fact that the United States was now abandoning its isolationist stance on behalf of greater engagement offered the prospect of increased influence for the State Department. On the other hand, as the country expanded its role in international affairs, the potential role of individual State Department officials could also become increasingly diluted. It had become rare for senior officials to read the communiqués of rank-and-file Foreign Service officers in depth, if at all.4 During the Roosevelt administration, the ever-growing bureaucracy of the State Department did not constitute the only or even the most important barrier facing Kennan or anyone else who wanted to bolster the influence of the Foreign Service. Of the many things Kennan chose not to discuss in his letter, the most glaring was the thinly veiled hostility between the State Department and the White House. Succeeding a series of weak presidents, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, Roosevelt reinvigorated the office of the chief executive in large part by extending the powers of government and appropriating them into the executive branch. However, in presiding over the United States, FDR did not generally enlist the advice of the bureaucrats working under him in the various departments of the executive branch.5

23 the pen as sword Roosevelt employed a variety of tactics to minimize the State Department’s impact, including preemptive policy speeches, the creation of new foreign policy agencies, and the use of personal advisors and emissaries. Ranking high among the president’s personal advisors was a longtime friend and fellow graduate of Groton and Harvard, Sumner Welles, who served as undersecretary of state between 1937 and 1943. In 1940, Harry Hopkins, who had been the president’s right-hand man on domestic policy to that point, began to play the same role in foreign policy.6 Throughout his presidency, Roosevelt essentially functioned as his own secretary of state. Cordell Hull, who formally held that office from 1933 to 1944, had little sway with the president and was not even shown the Lend Lease bill before it was given to Congress. Hull had an ongoing rivalry with Welles, who reported directly to the president. While sympathetic to the frustrations of the Foreign Service, he did not want to embroil himself in any controversy that might further dilute his influence. William Bullitt, who also served as one of FDR’s personal advisors, had his own rivalry with Welles, which manifested in personal attacks and damaging rumors. Upon widespread rumors that Welles was a homosexual, rumors that Bullitt had helped to spread, Roosevelt reluctantly fired his undersecretary in 1943. The State Department fared no better after Welles’ departure or after Hull’s resignation in 1944. The president marginalized Hull’s successor, Edward Stettinius, rendering irrelevant his attempt to revitalize the State Department.7 Roosevelt especially disparaged the Foreign Service, whose members he mockingly referred to as “striped-pants boys.” His antagonism was not based on class alone, however. After all, the president also hailed from the ranks of the American aristocracy. More specifically, Roosevelt opposed the politics and worldview of the American aristocratic class that dominated the Foreign Service. At its core, the hostility between FDR and the State Department involved deep political disagreements on both domestic and foreign policy issues. Despite efforts to democratize the State Department, it still had a strong conservative and aristocratic outlook. Intent on clinging to their class privilege, many Foreign Service officers had opposed the New Deal. Some had also resisted recognition of the Soviet Union. In the years leading up to the Second World War, several of the division and station chiefs, including Robert Kelley, Ray Atherton, Wallace Murray, and Loy Henderson, considered the Soviet Union a greater threat than Nazism and fascism and were accused by critics of appeas-

24 the pen as sword ing Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. While Roosevelt was paving the way for a new and modern era in both domestic and international policy, the State Department, as he saw it, failed to recognize that the future rested with the United States and the Soviet Union and instead looked backward in history to a time when old Europe and old European culture reigned supreme. “You should go through the experience of trying to get any changes in the thinking, policy, and action of the career diplomats,” Roosevelt complained, “and then you’d know what a real problem was.” Of all the geographic divisions, the Russian specialists most embodied this outmoded worldview.8 George Kennan was such a Russian specialist. Like his colleagues, he had received special training from the State Department in the 1920s in Riga, Latvia. There, he had been schooled in the department’s premise that the Soviet Union had historically been and remained an aggressive, expansionist nation that posed a serious and enduring threat to the U.S. national interest.9 This education had confirmed and deepened Kennan’s existing views on the Soviet Union, views that had been shaped early on by his grandfather’s cousin, a scholar of czarist Russia, whose books exposed the viciousness of its political system. By 1933, Kennan had already concluded that the Soviet Union was not a “fit ally or associate” for the United States.10 Nevertheless, that same year, he had been among the first to serve at the U.S. embassy in Moscow under Ambassador William Bullitt. As with the rift between the United States and the Soviet Union, the eventual rift between Foreign Service officers and Stalin was gradual and contingent. For a brief period, Kennan and other Foreign Service officers stationed in Moscow enjoyed Stalin’s warm welcome, which included access to Russia’s opulent high culture and a steady stream of Russian ballerinas for the embassy’s personal enjoyment. The optimism of this period was dashed when this cordial relationship soured, partly in response to Stalin’s purges and the Nazi-Soviet pact. In 1937, Kennan had been among the Russian specialists removed from the Soviet Union, when the administration replaced Bullitt, who had become disillusioned by the prospects of friendship with the Soviets. The next year, Roosevelt folded the State Department’s Division of Eastern Europe into a single all-European division, further weakening the influence of the Russian specialists.11 Kennan did not return to the Soviet Union until 1944, when the department appointed him to serve as second secretary in Moscow under Averell Harriman, the inheritor of railroad wealth and also a personal friend of Roosevelt’s, who

25 the pen as sword then shared the president’s basic stance of optimism toward Russia. In line with his pragmatic recognition of Russia’s indispensable role in the war effort and conviction that Stalin was a realist when it came to foreign policy, Roosevelt had begun the process of negotiating the end of the war and beginning of the peace with Stalin as well as with Churchill. Two years after Roosevelt’s original promise to the Soviets, the Allies had finally opened up a second front in the West. In turn, Stalin had agreed to wage war on Japan after the defeat of the Nazis. While FDR continued to hedge on the future of Poland, he nonetheless agreed to the basic premise that the Soviets would control areas of Eastern Europe that they liberated, just as the United States would control areas of southern and western Europe liberated by its forces. At the 1943 Tehran conference, which focused on war strategy and postwar planning, Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill promised to participate in the establishment of the United Nations, an organization whose purpose was to foster peace and international cooperation in the months and years ahead. “We express our determination that our nations shall work together in war and in the peace that will follow,” the leaders of the Big Three had jointly declared. This declaration embodied a more general optimism about U.S.-Soviet relations, as reflected in Life magazine’s special issue in March 1943 devoted to the people of the USSR.12 Absorbing these developments from Moscow, where he lamented the absence of his old colleagues, Kennan began to seethe over what he regarded as the president’s deluded understanding of Soviet foreign policies. He expressed this sentiment in his first full report from the post, titled “Russia—Seven Years Later.” It was no ordinary diplomatic dispatch, like the one- or two-page reports written in truncated prose containing generic daily updates or detailed analysis of a specific political development in a given region. Unraveled over the course of thirty pages, Kennan’s report portrayed the Soviet Union as a place of mystery and intrigue, “governed by laws of its own,” which the Roosevelt administration had been unable or unwilling to expose, but whose shroud of secrecy he had nonetheless removed. “The essence of Russia,” Kennan concluded, “is contradiction.” To know the Soviet Union is to understand that it comprises a series of opposites, geographic—“West and East,” “Arctic and tropics”—and geopolitical—“violent xenophobia and uncontrollable yearning for contact with the foreign world,” “prolonged sloth and sudden feats of energy.” At any moment, it is difficult if not impossible, he wrote, to know which aspect of the Soviet national character

26 the pen as sword will be expressed. Today, the Soviets may pay lip service to “Western conceptions of future collective security and international collaboration,” but tomorrow, they may recoil from such efforts. Trusting Russia thus posed a serious danger to the West. “At heart,” wrote Kennan, the foreign diplomat in Russia knows “that until the Chinese Wall of the spirit has been broken down  . . . until new avenues of contact and of vision are opened up between the Kremlin and the world around it,” there will be “no guarantee that” the West’s “efforts will meet with success and that the vast creative abilities of Russia will not lead to tragedy, rather than to the rescue, of Western civilization.”13 In contrast to the administration, whose understanding of Russia he characterized as “naïve and unreal,” Kennan thus offered the realistic wisdom of the diplomat, who penetrated the depths of Russia’s nature. Even as he underscored the diplomat’s expertise and authority, Kennan nonetheless characterized it as tragic. For he who knows and tells the truth about Russia “will not,” he concluded, “find his satisfaction in the achievement of anything practical for his people, still less in any official or public appreciation for his efforts. The best he can look forward to is the lonely pleasure of one who stands at long last alone on a chilly and inhospitable mountaintop where few have been before, where few can follow, and where few will consent to believe that he has been.”14 Like Moses, Kennan would never enter the Promised Land, where the diplomat’s covenant with foreign policy truths might be acknowledged by the nation’s leaders. Kennan’s identity as an unappreciated rank-and-file diplomat was inextricably connected to his identity as a frustrated writer and alienated intellectual. As a solitary adolescent in Milwaukee and a shy undergraduate at Princeton, he read voraciously. Kennan was particularly influenced by the works of the great tragedian Anton Chekhov, whose dramas underscored the decay of Russia under the cultural domination of the bourgeoisie in the last years of tsardom. He identified with F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose Great Gatsby similarly lamented the culture of moneyed decadence in 1920s America. Kennan, like Fitzgerald and Nick Carraway, had been a middle-class Midwesterner self-consciously isolated among the East Coast elite. Edward Gibbon’s massive eighteenth-century tome, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, had also been meaningful for Kennan, who applied its narrative of national entropy to the United States as well as the Soviet Union. “I have always thought of literature as a type of his-

27 the pen as sword tory,” he wrote in his diary in April 1934. “The portrayal of a given class at a given time, with all its problems, its suffering and its hopes.”15 Kennan’s taste in literature reflected his identity as an alienated outsider to both modern American society and modern American foreign policy. Uncomfortable in the twentieth century, Kennan always felt he belonged in the eighteenth century, the age of belles lettres and classical diplomacy in which diplomats and diplomatic writing played a more central role in world affairs.16 Eighteenth-century treatises on diplomacy advocated a world held together through a system of alliances forged and maintained by diplomats. In the classical era, diplomatic writing was seen as key to the maintenance of a stable world order. Classical and classically inspired diplomats and theorists of diplomacy argued that the “success or failure” of a nation’s foreign policy depended upon the diplomat’s reports to his government, highlighted the diplomat’s “peculiar finesse and subtlety of mind,” and stressed diplomacy as a “written art.”17 Not surprisingly, the one course that interested Kennan during his seven months of formal training in Washington was the lesson in diplomatic writing that advanced the mutually reinforcing virtues of classical culture, diplomacy, and diplomatic writing. Along with his preternatural literary bent, these lessons shaped Kennan’s lifelong conviction that the “appropriate and graceful use of language is one of the prime requirements of the diplomatic profession.” Kennan yearned for modern diplomatic writing to be less functionalist and more literary, for the diplomat to paint a picture of a place and its people as a novelist or playwright would. “If Chekhov could describe Russian small town folk with an appeal so universal that even the American reader gasps and says: ‘How perfectly true,’ why cannot the Moscow diplomatic folk be written up the same way?”18 By the 1930s, Kennan had become convinced that if Foreign Service officers could strengthen their knowledge of and writing about the Soviet Union in particular, they would be able to delicately yet forcefully sway the administration in favor of their positions. As expressed in a 1935 letter to friend and fellow Foreign Service officer Charlie Thayer, Kennan dreamed of “a corps of younger officers who will be scholars as well as gentlemen, who will be able to wield the pen as skillfully as the teacup, and who, with their combination of academic training and practical experience will come to develop a point of view much stronger and more effective.”19

28 the pen as sword Unlike most of his colleagues, who preferred to play it safe, Kennan sought to use writing to call attention to himself and his views. Since he had entered the Foreign Service in 1928, he had written several long reports that combined the basic values of diplomatic writing with his own classical worldview and literary style. Like “Russia,” many of his reports engaged a Chekhovian sense of the metonymic connection between individual character and national tragedy, and like Gibbon’s history of the Roman Empire, they often integrated psychological analysis into historical narrative to create what were essentially character sketches of a nation. From these sketches, Kennan would predict the likely course of that nation’s foreign policies. He was, according to one historian, “the best and finest writer about Europe in the interwar years.” Whether or not this was true, Kennan’s habit of challenging the status quo in writing had hardly helped his career to that point. Though a few of his dispatches from earlier posts at Prague and Berlin had received accolades from his immediate superiors, none had been read by more than a few second- and thirdtier officials. Kennan’s 1943 reports from Portugal, in which he railed against Roosevelt’s plans to occupy the Azores, had gained him an audience with the president, but also a reputation as a problem-maker. The decision to send Kennan back to Moscow in 1944 was based in part on the State Department’s desire to get him out of Washington lest he interfere with postwar planning. Kennan was not so far off the mark in regarding the transfer as a form of personal and professional “exile.”20 In both his 1943 letter and his 1944 report on Russia, Kennan foretold the tragedy of diplomats who, like him, had labored in the communication of foreign policy truths only to have their memos and telegrams “sent to the files,” the bureaucratic grave where, as he sardonically wrote in another letter shortly before his return to Moscow, “all good diplomatic papers traditionally find their resting place.”21 Standing alone on the mountaintop, Kennan seemed to be reenacting the real life tragedy of Chekhov, who left the theater in desolation after the glaring failure of his first play. Kennan embodied the diplomatic establishment’s version of the tragic author for whom, as literary theorist Roland Barthes wrote, literature exists only “as a failed commitment, as a Mosaic glance at the promised land of the real.”22 Reflecting back on the writing of “Russia,” Kennan cultivated precisely this image of the alienated and disenfranchised author of truth. “I personally felt, as I finished it,” he wrote in his memoir, “that I was making progress, technically and stylistically, in the curious art of writing

29 the pen as sword for one’s self alone.”23 When Harriman returned the essay to Kennan without comment, this tragic prophecy appeared to be coming true. Over the next two years, however, the State Department would do more to shape foreign policy than it had in the previous two decades. And Kennan in particular would achieve a recognition and level of influence that was unprecedented by someone of his status in the government. In 1946–1947, his reports on the Soviet Union were read and taken seriously by virtually every senior policymaker in the executive branch. So great was the perceived effect of these writings on postwar foreign policy that Kennan soon became known to the American public as the “author” of the overarching strategy of the United States in the emerging Cold War. Two decades later, America’s most prominent über-diplomat, Henry Kissinger, reinforced this characterization, calling Kennan the “author” of the “diplomatic doctrine of his era,” a claim that has since been echoed by many commentators, who have called Kennan the author of “containment,” the defining policy of the Cold War, in which the United States sought to contain Soviet power through political and military means.24 Kennan has thus received blame as well as praise for the consequences of U.S. policy not only toward the Soviet Union but also toward Asia, Africa, and Latin America, where the assumptions of the Cold War justified the use of force and in the case of Korea and Vietnam, hot wars. Was Kennan really the author of the Cold War? If by this title we mean that Kennan actually wrote the Cold War into being, then the answer would obviously have to be no. The tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were there. Kennan did not invent them. And if, by calling Kennan the author of Cold War foreign policy, we mean that his writings directly and immediately became policy, then the answer would also have to be no. Despite his self-styled image as an independent author, Kennan was a second-tier government servant who wrote from inside an institution, where he was, albeit to his chagrin, a mere bureaucrat. It is precisely because he had such a relatively low and frustrating position in the State Department, an organization that itself occupied a strained position in the foreign policy establishment, that writing became such an important tool for Kennan. Capitalizing on the shifting policy tides in Washington, he used and tweaked the available forms of diplomatic writing to reach individuals in high places who were potentially sympathetic to his views. In a time when barriers between rank-and-file diplomats and senior policymakers were

30 the pen as sword increasing, Kennan succeeded in gaining and maintaining a high-level audience for his writings. Though Kennan styled himself as a truth teller, he did not simply convey his own views of the Soviet Union, but also considered those of his desired audience. Throughout his tenure in the State Department, Kennan crafted his reports and analyses in accordance with his perception of the general mood of the foreign policy establishment as well as the views of individual senior policymakers. In this respect, he functioned less as an autonomous writer than a courtesan author within the foreign policy establishment.25 In critical moments, he displayed a willingness and tendency to exaggerate, understate, or muddle his position, at least in part to maintain favor with a particular patron reader. Some of Kennan’s most influential pieces of writing, including “The Long Telegram” and “X-article,” were products of this process. This chapter traces the arc of Kennan’s career as a diplomat-writer between 1944 and 1950, a formative and fateful period in the early Cold War. During this time, Kennan went from dissenter to courtesan author and back again, ending his tenure in the State Department opposing the policies that his writings had informed. An analysis of Kennan’s changing policy positions, as well as his evolving strategies for advancing them, illuminates both the power and the limits of the early Cold War’s most famous courtesan author. Beyond its focus on Kennan, this story highlights the positions and practices of the institutions, politics, ideologies, and individuals that played a role in Kennan’s writing and that, in a literal and symbolic sense, helped to author the policy of containment, and ultimately, militarize the Cold War. “M y Vo i ce N o w C a r r i ed ” : Ga i n i ng a R e p u tati o n

Though Kennan did not receive any feedback on his 1944 report on Russia, the attitude in Washington toward postwar cooperation with the Soviet Union had begun to sour during precisely the same period when he had written it. In the fall of 1944, after the Soviets refused to aid the non-Communist uprising against the Germans in Warsaw, even Roosevelt had moved to establish a harder, albeit still optimistic line with “Uncle Joe.” Harriman had also begun to revise his positions in this period. True, he did not comment on Kennan’s report, but he had in fact relayed it to Washington.26

31 the pen as sword Before becoming vice president, Harry S. Truman had been a rural Missouri farmer, a haberdasher, and a county commissioner. In 1934, he was elected senator of Missouri, largely as a result of his relationship with the most powerful leader of Missouri’s Democratic political machine. As senator, he focused mainly on domestic issues. As vice president, he had little knowledge of or access to Roosevelt, who left him out of virtually every major decision of the war. Needless to say, when Truman assumed office upon Roosevelt’s death in 1945, he had little experience in foreign affairs. In contrast to Roosevelt, who believed in the possibility of mutual compromise with the Soviets, as early as 1941 Truman deemed the Russians as untrustworthy as “Hitler and Al Capone.” While seeking to stay faithful to Roosevelt’s commitments, he also aimed to demonstrate a tougher and less tolerant attitude toward what he and many of his advisors saw as Stalin’s increasing demands and flagrant breach of agreements. Unlike FDR, whose policies the new president regarded as vague and wishy-washy, Truman vowed to speak to the Soviets “in words of one syllable.” This strategy did not go over well with Soviet prime minister Molotov, who denounced Truman’s “imperious tone,” which contrasted sharply with FDR’s diplomatic grace.27 Early on, one aspect of FDR’s foreign policymaking that Truman did not, however, seek to qualify was the president’s consistent marginalization of career diplomats from key decisions. Reflecting an attitude only slightly less caustic than Roosevelt’s, the new president considered the State Department “a peculiar organization, made up principally of extremely bright people who made tremendous college marks but who had very little association with actual people down on the ground.” Foreign Service officers were, he thought, “clannish and snooty,” and he sometimes had the urge to fire “the whole bunch.”28 In shaping his policies, Truman instead instilled considerable trust and responsibility in his secretary of state, James Byrnes, who had been a close advisor to Roosevelt and had almost become FDR’s vice president. In the first months of the Truman presidency, Byrnes, who was known as “assistant president” for foreign policy, personally dominated in this area. Early on, though he attempted to pressure the Soviet Union with talk of the nuclear bomb, Byrnes was more ambivalent than the State Department’s Soviet experts about the possibility of negotiations with the Soviet Union. Combined with his general tendency to concentrate power in his own hands, this conceptual if not quite actual openness to compromise contributed

32 the pen as sword to the secretary’s disparagement of career diplomats, whom he purposely kept uninformed of evolving plans for postwar diplomacy. Notably, at the September 1945 Council of Foreign Ministers meetings, at which Byrnes and Molotov sparred for leverage over the terms of occupation in Eastern Europe and Japan, the secretary of state communicated through army and not State Department channels. “Hell,” said Byrnes to the secretary of the American delegation, “I may tell the President sometime what happened, but I’m never going to tell the State Department.”29 Without a high-level audience for his views, Kennan still found himself on the outside of the elite policymaking circle, and once again protested his marginalized status: “There is little that a person like myself can do with the walls of a diplomatic chancery or in subordinate positions in the Department of State,” he wrote in a resignation letter. As with previous letters of this sort, the department did not take Kennan’s threats to resign very seriously and easily persuaded him to stay on.30 Meanwhile, in preparation for the Big Three conference at Potsdam, Byrnes worked closely with former ambassador to the Soviet Union Joseph Davies, a Roosevelt appointee with a history of passing over the advice of Foreign Service officers who were not similarly interested in improving the tone and image of U.S.-Soviet relations. By this point, Kennan had become a caricature of the career bureaucrat, frustrated with his lack of influence but unwilling to do much more than complain about it.31 Then, in February 1946, Kennan was presented with an opportunity to do something more than protest. In charge of the embassy in Harriman’s absence, and bedridden with the flu, he received a telegram from H. Freeman (also known as “Doc”) Matthews, the State Department’s director of European affairs. Matthews had requested that Kennan comment on Stalin’s fiery election speech of February 9, which Time magazine had provocatively and with significant distortion dubbed “the most warlike pronouncement uttered by any top-rank statesman since V-J Day.”32 In response to the Soviets’ recent breach of their agreement to abide by the stipulations of the World Bank and the IMF, the Treasury Department had also requested Kennan’s comment.33 Since he had entered the Foreign Service, Kennan had been seeking out a high-level audience for his writing. “Now, suddenly,” as he would later recall, “my opinion was being asked. It was no good trying to brush the question off with a couple of routine sentences describing Soviet views on such things as world banks and international monetary funds. It would not do to give them

33 the pen as sword just a fragment of the truth. Here was a case where nothing but the whole truth would do. They had asked for it. Now, by God, they would have it.”34 Miserably sick and feverish at the time, Kennan nonetheless seized the opportunity. In his return dispatch, he not only told the “truth” about Russia but also underscored the fact that he was doing so. The answer to the department’s request, he wrote in the preface to the telegram, “involves questions so intricate, so delicate, so strange to our form of thought, and so important to analysis of our international environment that I cannot compress answers into [a] single brief message without yielding to what I feel would be [a] dangerous degree of over-simplification.”35 In order to convey a comprehensive analysis, Kennan explained that he would frame his response in five parts, “all neatly divided,” as he would later write, “like an eighteenth-century Protestant sermon.”36 “I apologize in advance for this burdening of the telegraphic channel. But questions involved are of such urgent importance, particularly in view of recent events, that our answers to them, if they deserve attention at all, seem to me to deserve it at once.” The truth, Kennan thus underscored, could not be truncated to conform to the conventions of a modern diplomatic dispatch. It could not be pared down or edited for the reader’s ease. And it could not be delayed. In form as well as content, the truth about Russia necessarily posed an inconvenience to the bureaucracy. What followed was an eighteen-page, single-spaced, 5,540word analysis of Soviet foreign policy.37 It was indeed, as it would later become known, the Long Telegram. As in “Russia,” Kennan offered himself as a Dante-esque excavator and guide through the complex historical and political terrain of the Soviet Union. He began with the outer shell, what could easily be seen and heard—the official Soviet line. According to that line, the “U.S.S.R. still lives in antagonist ‘capitalist encirclement’ with which in the long run there can be no permanent peaceful coexistence.”38 Bringing his reader from Russia’s superficial propaganda to its inner core, Kennan once again presented the fundamental truth about the Soviet Union: “At [the] bottom of Kremlin’s neurotic view of world affairs,” he wrote, “is [the] traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity,” its fear of the outside world, which has historically manifested as nationalist expansionism, a “deadly struggle for total destruction of rival power.” Marxist ideology was thus an outer trapping, a “fig leaf,” which covered up the totalitarian tactics employed by the Stalinist state in order to bolster its power. At the official level, Kennan explained, the Soviets will cooperate with plans for

34 the pen as sword the establishment of the United Nations. Meanwhile, at the unofficial level, what Kennan called the “subterranean plane,” Soviet policies will work to “undermine [the] general and political strategic potential of [the] major western powers.” “In summary,” wrote Kennan, in what would become the most famous line of the telegram, “we have here a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with [the] US there can be no permanent modus vivendi, that it is desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our society be disrupted, our traditional way of life be destroyed, the international authority of our state be broken, if Soviet power is to be secure.” Despite the persuasiveness of Soviet propaganda, the power of its xenophobia, and the force of its totalitarian tactics of control, Kennan concluded, Russia was neither omnipotent nor entirely inflexible in its foreign policies. “Impervious to logic of reason,” he wrote, it is, however, “highly sensitive to logic of force. . . . Thus if the adversary has sufficient force and makes his readiness to use it, he rarely has to do so.” Understanding the nature of the Soviet threat, Kennan implied, will thus prevent that threat from erupting into total war between Russia and the West. In the effort to demonstrate our strength to the Soviets, said Kennan, the “health and vigor of our own society” is as important as our direct responses to Soviet actions. For, “World communism is like a malignant parasite which feeds only on diseased tissue.” What we do to “solve [the] internal problems of our own society, to improve self confidence, discipline, morale and community spirit of our own people,” and how we demonstrate our spiritual strength to the world is as important, if not more so, than what we actually say to the Soviets. It is indeed fitting that Kennan would compare his February 22, 1946, dispatch to a Protestant sermon. In its form as well the logic of its conclusion, the Long Telegram drew heavily on the themes and messages of the American Protestant sermon, and in particular, the jeremiad, or “state-of-the-covenant address.”39 In proving its “health and rigor” to the Soviets and to the world, concluded Kennan, the United States would convey its destiny as God’s chosen nation and legitimate world leader. Conversely, if it did not do so, Russia would know that America was not the chosen nation and would feed on its “diseased tissue.” As Jonathan Edwards did in his eighteenth-century sermons, Kennan thus framed America’s mission as a test of its divine worth.40 Though Kennan emphasized the Long Telegram as a truth-telling moment, the truths he told about the Soviet Union in this analysis were far from clear.

35 the pen as sword On the one hand, he argued that the Soviets were realists primarily interested in carving out a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and capable of negotiation with the West. On the other hand, this point was clouded by his discussion of Marxism-Leninism, talk of “capitalist encirclement,” and invocation of Russian “fanaticism.” According to historian Hugh De Santis, the confusion was at least in part strategic. Kennan had emphasized realpolitik and spheres of influence in earlier analyses of the Soviet Union with little luck. This time, he decided to play into the moral/ideological framework that had come to dominate official thinking in Washington. In other words, the diplomat-writer was, at least in part, playing to an audience.41 The strategy worked. In contrast to the silent reception of his 1944 essay, this time Kennan’s prophecy of truth was received as such. Doc Matthews, who had first requested Kennan’s report, was also the first to validate Kennan’s prophetic authority. He circulated the dispatch throughout the department offices in Washington and sent it to every U.S. embassy and consulate around the world. “It is about as fine a piece of writing and as clear an analysis of a highly complicated and vital situation as has ever come out of the Foreign Service,” he wrote in a cover letter to one of the American ambassadors to which he attached a copy of the telegram.42 In praising Kennan’s talent as a writer and political analyst, Matthews justified the telegram’s unconventional length. Good and important enough to defy the bureaucratic convention of efficient writing as well as reading, the message, he underscored, “had to be read in full.”43 After reading the Long Telegram, ambassadors and political officers around the globe wrote letters of praise to Kennan. Kennan’s colleagues celebrated him as a true prophet and master in the tradition of diplomatic writing. “I recently read a report from Moscow in which I detect your fine Italian hand,” wrote one ambassador. “It is about the best piece of political reporting I have seen in my thirty years in the Service. Apart from the excellence of its contents, it is a model of how a report should be set up.”44 State Department officers saw the Long Telegram as a form of political protest on their behalf. “Let me assure you that your colleagues are far from deaf to your cries,” wrote the ambassador to Cuba. The political advisor to the army in Vienna encouraged Kennan to continue writing. “If you’ll keep on doing just that,” he wrote, “the rest of us will get along nicely.” By urging him to continue, his colleagues conveyed a belief that Kennan might somehow save the nation from its deluded, if not dishonest, foreign policies. “The country needs you like hell!” wrote Bruce Hopper, histo-

36 the pen as sword rian and fellow Soviet expert, who was then serving as a consultant to the State Department and the War Department.45 No longer was Kennan the lonely Moses-like figure on the mountain. He was now poised to be the Joshua of diplomacy, the prophet who would lead his colleagues into the Promised Land of foreign policy influence and his people into that of truthful foreign policy. In fact, though Kennan did not alone precipitate the change, the Long Telegram did contribute to the changing relationship between the president and State Department bureaucrats in this period. Since he had assumed office, Truman had sought to establish a tougher line with the Soviets, a sentiment that hardened by the beginning of 1946, with the clash over the Soviets’ delay in withdrawing troops from Iran. At the same time, he did not wish to rush to war with Russia, nor did he want to alienate the liberal left wing of the Democratic Party, led by former vice president Henry Wallace, who still represented an important voice in domestic politics. Although he had tried many postures since assuming the presidency, Truman had yet to strike the right diplomatic chord. Just weeks after Kennan had written the Long Telegram, Churchill had given his famous Iron Curtain speech, which, although privately endorsed by Truman, had not been very well received by the American public.46 Though it is not known for sure whether Truman actually read the Long Telegram, it is certain that members of the president’s inner circle read it and discussed it with him.47 In both substance and tone, the Long Telegram articulated the middle road solution that the administration had been looking for. In the weeks and months ahead, Truman moved closer and closer toward the message of Kennan and the “smart boys” in the State Department and handed over more trust and responsibility to them. At the same time, he increasingly distanced himself from Byrnes, who, in addition to overstepping his authority, had become implicated in the emerging public controversy over Roosevelt’s promises to Stalin at Yalta.48 The Long Telegram firmly established Kennan’s status as a diplomat-writer in the executive branch. “If none of my previous literary efforts had seemed to evoke even the faintest tickle from the bell at which they were aimed,” Kennan would later write, “this one, to my astonishment, struck it squarely and set it vibrating with a resonance that was not to die down for many months.” With the Long Telegram, explained Kennan, “My reputation was made. My voice now carried,” and “My official loneliness came in fact to an end.”49 The Long Telegram also brought career bureaucrats and administration appointees together

37 the pen as sword in what Robert Messer has called a “symbiotic” relationship, which initiated and fueled a consensus between the State Department and the president that had not existed for more than two decades.50 Kennan returned to Washington in May, where audiences in and outside the diplomatic establishment latched on to and fostered the moral-ideological thread of his analysis. In July, after reading the Long Telegram, special counsel to the president Clark Clifford sent Kennan a report on U.S.-Soviet relations that he was preparing for Truman. Invoking Moscow’s sense that a conflict with the capitalist world was inevitable, the report called for the United States to oppose every effort of the Soviets to encroach into areas vital to American security. Unwilling to risk his newfound status, Kennan did not take issue with the report’s emphasis on Marxist-Leninist ideology and instead framed his few qualifications to the report as minor emendations. The same month, the State Department sent Kennan on a six-city speaking tour, during which he continued to play up the moral-ideological aspect of his analysis. “Boy, you missed your calling,” remarked one minister in his hometown of Milwaukee.51 Ke nn an a nd F o r r e s tal : The B en efi t s a nd C o s t s of Co urte s a n A u th or s h i p

Senior policymakers sought to capitalize on Kennan’s rapidly rising reputation. More than Truman or his personal advisors, it was cabinet and subcabinet officials who recognized that Kennan could be useful in advancing a tougher but still politically palatable policy toward the Soviet Union. The Long Telegram brought Kennan to the attention of one subcabinet official in particular—James Forrestal, the undersecretary of the navy who soon would become the nation’s first secretary of defense. An early Cold Warrior who had entered government after earning millions as a bond salesman on Wall Street, Forrestal had long opposed the policy of cooperation and negotiation with the Soviet Union. Advocating the need for a strong military in order to check the looming threat of Soviet expansion, he had argued, “The only insurance of peace was to keep the means to wage war . . . in the hands of those nations that hate war.” In Forrestal’s mind, the first battle of the Cold War was conceptual, to be aimed at those officials supporting “soft” foreign policies toward the Soviet Union, policies that he said were based on a “false reading and teaching of history” for which the “intellectuals of our time must bear some responsibility.”

38 the pen as sword Before and during the war, Forrestal had touted the writings of William Bullitt as an example of a “true” interpretation of Soviet history and foreign policy. In 1945 and 1946, he was on the lookout for younger writers and fresh pieces of writing that would support and invigorate his positions.52 The undersecretary had received a copy of the Long Telegram from Harriman, whose cover letter, like the one Matthews had sent, said the essay was “well worth reading.” Impressed with the dispatch, Forrestal disseminated it to the highest levels of the executive branch—the president and cabinet—as well as to newspaper columnists and publishers. At the National War College, the government’s institution for the ongoing education of its senior military officers, Forrestal made it “required reading for hundreds, if not thousands of higher officers in the armed services” and invited Kennan to lecture that fall as the college’s first “deputy for foreign affairs.”53 Though so many in the executive branch described the Long Telegram as having articulated an important truth about Russia, Kennan’s colleagues and senior policymakers continued to gloss over the substantial details of what he had written. The manner in which Forrestal and his staff frequently, yet elusively, invoked Kennan’s dispatch exemplified this tendency to leave the exact truth about Russia unsaid. “There is no need to go into any long analysis of the motives or the reason for present Soviet foreign policy. Mr. Kennan’s exhaustive and excellent analysis in his 511 of February 22 covers this aspect of the problem more than adequately,” wrote one of Forrestal’s staffers less than a month after Kennan had written the dispatch.54 Like Kennan’s colleagues in the State Department, Forrestal’s staff suggested that the Long Telegram required no paraphrasing, that indeed it spoke for itself. Even as he touted the Long Telegram as an authoritative assessment of the Soviet Union, Forrestal was busy promoting another document that addressed the very same problem Kennan had in his communiqué—whether and how Marxism figured into the foreign policies of the Soviet Union. At Forrestal’s request, Edward Willett, the undersecretary’s personal research assistant, had undertaken the study. Though one year earlier Forrestal had rejected Willett’s rough draft, saying that it did not do enough to connect communist philosophy to Soviet foreign policy, he expressed no qualms with the final version, completed in mid-January 1946. Titled “Dialectical Materialism and Russian Objectives,” Willett’s study concluded that “violent conflict between Soviet Communism and Capitalist democracy seems inevitable.” “Communism,” wrote

39 the pen as sword Willett, elaborating this claim, “supplies a Messianic doctrine of deliverance, thus providing Communists an ideal which they can fight for with fanatical and indeed religious fervor.” Arguing that he did not have to prove his position, he maintained that “the burden of proof seems to rest rather heavily upon those who take the viewpoint that Russia is no longer motivated by Communist ideals.” So pleased was Forrestal with the product that he sent copies of it to senior officials in the executive branch, including the president and the cabinet, and even one to the pope.55 After receiving and reading the Long Telegram, Forrestal, far from burying the Willett study, continued to circulate it. In so doing, he implied that Kennan’s dispatch and the study he had commissioned were mutually substitutable, indeed sister texts. Forrestal had thus essentially erased any hint of distinction between Soviet nationalism and communism, as well as Kennan’s conclusion that war with Russia was highly unlikely. For the undersecretary and others, the Long Telegram stood for whatever they considered the emerging Cold War consensus to be. The notion that authors lose control over the interpretation of their writing when they gain readers has become a commonplace in literary theory. It is the recognition of one’s writing as a “work” that paradoxically shifts the authority of interpretation away from the writer and toward readers. The “author,” both Foucault and Barthes have said, metaphorically dies at precisely the moment that the “reader” is born.56 In a large bureaucracy such as the executive branch, subordinate writer and high-level reader may rarely, and in some cases never, meet. That said, their relationship is neither quite so abstract nor so final as the literary model suggests. Over the next several months, partly in response to Forrestal’s ongoing comments, guidance, and supervision, Kennan’s analysis of the Soviet Union would continue to evolve. Early on in this process, Kennan attempted to maintain control over his writing in subtle, discreet ways. Though he never corrected Forrestal’s interpretation of the Long Telegram, he did take advantage of a chance to revise it in a more indirect manner. In October 1946 Forrestal had once again recirculated the Willett study—this time to a group of second- and third-tier government bureaucrats, as well as to relevant academics and outside policy consultants. Kennan was among the recipients. To the undersecretary’s disappointment, the feedback he received was not very positive. Philip Mosley, a Soviet expert and professor at Columbia, strongly disagreed with Willett’s premise that the “Soviet Government operates blindly on the basis of philosophical assumptions”

40 the pen as sword and told Forrestal that the paper had failed to capture the subtle “variations” on Marx adopted by Soviet leaders. John Hazard, an expert on Soviet law who was then serving in the State Department, returned a similar comment. Noting the strong similarity between Willett’s perspective and that of William Bullitt, Hazard wrote: “I am afraid that I must dissent from the key issue.” Marxist theory, he argued, does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that war between the United States and the Soviet Union is inevitable. Others were not as polite. “The paper in its present form and emphasis,” wrote another respondent, “appears suitable for use only with religious groups.” If it were to serve any useful purpose in government or as a public relations piece, it would need to be rewritten.57 That Soviet experts in and outside the government had taken issue with the simplistic and sophomoric conclusions of Willett’s study should not have been surprising. Far from a Soviet expert himself, Willett was in fact a business professor. He had written the first draft of the study after reading only two books on the topic, one of which was a volume that Forrestal had recently read, titled Aspects of Dialectical Materialism.58 In revising the first draft over the course of 1945, Willett had consulted two Soviet specialists with questionable credentials and a distinct anti-Soviet slant—Wilfrid Parsons, a professor of political science at Catholic University, and Tilghman Koons, a nineteen-year-old Russian specialist in the State Department, both of whom shared Forrestal’s basic assumptions about Russia. Willett did the best he could within the limits of his knowledge, background, time, and professional deference to Forrestal. Later, he would admit to this and other grand commissions from his boss: “I cribbed about 50 percent, as I rarely knew anything about the topic assigned to me. Most of my papers were copied from the work of others—from whatever I could find to read.”59 In his comments on the Willett study, Kennan was much more deferential to Forrestal than the other respondents had been. “In general I find it a sound and thoughtful job,” he wrote in his return letter to the undersecretary. Though he highlighted relatively minor points of divergence from Willett’s analysis, particularly his assessment of the relationship between economic conditions in Russia and Soviet foreign policy, Kennan mentioned nothing about Willett’s argument that Soviet foreign policy was at core a manifestation of Marxist philosophy. What broader differences he did raise were, he said, matters of personal opinion, as opposed to professional expertise. By not underscoring his

41 the pen as sword fundamental disagreement with Willett, Kennan seemed to be doing exactly what Forrestal had done—flattening out his positions to the point that they lost a good deal of whatever nuance they had. Notably, however, in his handwritten comments in the margins of the paper itself, next to Willett’s central conclusion that “armed conflict between the United States and Soviet Russia is inevitable,” Kennan had exclaimed, “Too sound [a] conclusion!” Conflict with the Soviets was not, he wrote, inevitable so long as “capitalist countries do not permit these countries to degenerate to the point that revolutionary situations develop.” Though he did not call attention to it in his letter to Forrestal, Kennan had staunchly, fundamentally, and on the basis of his expertise rejected Willett’s argument.60 As with the negative response to Truman’s sophomoric attempts at getting tough with the Soviet Union in his first months in office, the less-thanenthusiastic reception of the Willett study had convinced Forrestal that he needed a more sophisticated approach. Thus, after receiving Kennan’s comments, Forrestal sent him a note through his personal assistant, John Connor, in which Forrestal not only thanked Kennan but also commissioned from him “an up-to-date analysis of Communism that is academically sound.”61 Kennan wrote back: “I would be glad to know whether what the Secretary wishes is a corrected version of the original paper or whether he would mind my writing on the same subject in my own way.” The motivation to write a paper of his own, he explained, would not be “out of any feeling that the existing document is not a valuable and worthy contribution, but simply out of the recognition that no two people approach a subject in quite the same way and no one can quite fit himself into another person’s approach, no matter how free he may be to revise the language.”62 Both Kennan’s colleagues and diplomatic historians like to point out that while Kennan was a great writer, he was a rather incompetent bureaucrat. In fact, they say it was Kennan’s commitment to his impassioned and erudite prose that made him so bad at office politics. Along these lines, fellow Foreign Service officer and senior policy planner Loy Henderson has said Kennan “was so engrossed in his own ideas that he never knew how to go along or get along” in the bureaucracy.63 Kennan’s response to Forrestal’s memo, however, reveals a strategy that those who emphasize Kennan’s bureaucratic naïveté have tended to overlook. Without undermining the findings of the Willett study, Kennan had nonetheless gotten a key point across: Willett’s words and his own were not

42 the pen as sword mutually substitutable. Rather than raise his policy differences with Forrestal, however, Kennan focused on the significance of individual approach in this sort of analysis, which, of course, implied the importance of his own approach. Now solidly aware that Willett, his personal substitute for the “real” author, was, in the eyes of the experts, no substitute at all, Forrestal welcomed Kennan’s offer. “The Secretary will appreciate it if you will write on the same subject in your own way,” wrote Connor in a return note to Kennan. “I believe that he agrees with you that no two people approach the subject in quite the same way.”64 It was at this moment that Kennan effectively became Forrestal’s courtesan author and Forrestal, Kennan’s patron reader. Despite the undersecretary’s reputation for having a distant, even aloof temperament, and despite the fact that the two men had few in-person meetings and rarely socialized with one another, there was a certain personal, even intimate, quality about this relationship.65 The essay that Kennan wrote for Forrestal would become his most famous piece and the one most associated with his name. As in both “Russia” and the Long Telegram, in “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” Kennan first underscored the difficulty of penetrating the inner nature of the Soviet Union, and then nonetheless promised that his essay would accomplish that task. And as in his previous analyses, Kennan structured this piece as an excavation of sorts— beginning with Soviet propaganda and successfully going “down” to the core of the Soviet national character. Whereas the Long Telegram had compared Marxist ideology to a “fig leaf ” covering up the atrocities of the Soviet state, in this essay Kennan similarly compared it to a “fiction” that had been “canonized in Soviet philosophy by the excesses already committed in its name.” In order to understand the basis of this fiction, Kennan penetrated the next layer, that of prerevolutionary Russian history. At its core, declared Kennan, Soviet power is fueled by an “innate” faith in an eternal “antagonism” between itself and the West. Like the wise diplomat in “Russia,” Kennan claimed to understand the Soviets’ pretense to cooperation for what it was, a “tactical manoeuvre” in the larger struggle for world power. The Soviet Union, he maintained, was not now and would not in the foreseeable future be an ally of or even a negotiating “partner” with the United States. Invoking the metaphors of a “toy automobile wound up and headed in a given direction” and a “fluid stream which moves constantly wherever it is permitted to move,” Kennan emphasized the inhuman nature of Soviet policy, a nature that precluded rational discussion and

43 the pen as sword diplomacy. Both toy car and fluid stream respond not to the “logic of words” but rather to that of “force.” Despite its outward show of strength, Soviet power was merely a “crust” concealing the “chaos and weakness” that lay beneath and would over time inevitably surface. Meanwhile, rather than advocating diplomacy or war, Kennan recommended that the United States adopt a policy of “long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” He thus called for the “application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points.” As in the Long Telegram, Kennan argued that a major factor in the success or failure of U.S. policies toward the Soviet Union was a demonstration of its own vitality as a society. If the United States “can create among the peoples of the world generally the impression of a country which knows what it wants, which is coping successfully with the problems of its internal life and with the responsibilities of a World Power, and which has a spiritual vitality of holding its own among the major ideological currents of the time,” it will go a long way toward advancing its cause and thwarting the spread of Soviet power. Once again styling himself as a minister of the predestined truth that the United States had in fact been marked by “Providence” as the “moral and political” leader of the world, Kennan directed the congregation to embrace the challenge before it: “The issue of Soviet-American relations is in essence,” he concluded, “a test of the overall worth of the United States as a nation among nations.” For all the overlaps between “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” and Kennan’s previous analyses of Soviet power, there were differences, particularly in the relationship posited between Marxism and Russian nationalism. In the Long Telegram, though he was ambiguous, Kennan did make some attempt to subordinate the role of Marxism to that of Russian xenophobic nationalism. In “Sources,” however, rather than clarify this relationship, he rendered it even more vague. At times, as in the opening of the essay, Kennan suggested that they were equal factors in current Soviet policy: “The political personality of Soviet power as we know it today is the product of ideology and circumstances.” And at various points, Kennan enlisted the word “ideology” in a way that did not clarify whether it referred to Marxist philosophy or Russian despotism. The image of the “hand” of Russian history reaching out of the soil and “sustaining” Marxist propaganda did not really offer anything in the way of a historical connection between the two.66

44 the pen as sword Kennan had of course been ambiguous about a lot of things in his earlier analyses of the Soviet Union.67 As historians have frequently underscored, the broad concept of “force,” central to both the Long Telegram and “Sources,” did not distinguish between actual military force, the threat of such force, and other forms of diplomatic pressure.68 This linguistic ambiguity undoubtedly lent itself to militaristic interpretations. The suggestion that the Soviets were at their core Marxists contained a somewhat different interpretive danger. Deemphasizing the possibility that the Soviets’ ambition to global power was a function of political realism, the struggle that exists between all sovereign nations, it lent itself instead to the notion of a war of religions, a clash of civilizations between the West and Russia. Historians have sometimes suggested that Kennan enlisted such ambiguities without himself being fully aware of them. “He did not always weigh his words carefully or gauge their effect,” they have said.69 Though such analyses usefully underscore the significance of the reader’s response in official writing, they tend to understate Kennan’s attention to his actual audience. Whether or not Kennan weighed his words depends at least in part on whom he was weighing them for. Forrestal was known by his colleagues as a voracious reader. He was, as one of them once said, “a tremendous student, always learning, always studying, always reading.”70 The descendant of Irish immigrants who grew up in a working-class neighborhood of Dutchess County, New York, he substituted acquired knowledge for the inborn self-assurance of many of his colleagues from the establishment elite. More than change his worldview, however, Forrestal approached acquired knowledge as a mode for confirming his long-held convictions. As Herbert Elliston of the Washington Post said, “Whether he digested what he read is another matter.”71 Forrestal had a lifelong obsession with global conspiracy theories. This preoccupation contributed to his gut feeling that, as he wrote in notes for a speech he delivered in early 1947 at the New York Harvard Club, the Soviets subscribed to a “dialectical materialism, out of which the present Russian government sprang and to which we can assume it is still loyal.”72 Thus, even though he ostensibly made the nature of Soviet policy a question to be answered, in reading about the Soviet Union Forrestal sought to confirm the answer that in his heart of hearts he already knew. In his earlier exchange of memos with Forrestal, Kennan had been able to convince the undersecretary that his authorial imprimatur was needed. This

45 the pen as sword emphasis on his authorship also served to deemphasize the policy differences between Kennan and the more militaristic Forrestal. Kennan employed the same strategy in “Sources,” which was published in Foreign Affairs in July 1947 and became known as the X-article. Importantly, however, he conformed to Forrestal’s views only after experimenting with the limits of Forrestal’s position. Few stock histories of the Cold War acknowledge that Kennan wrote a first draft for Forrestal, which he then revised, at least in part to satisfy his patron reader. Kennan delivered two lectures based on this draft—one on January 7 at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and the other on January 24 at the War College. These talks differed in key respects from the final version of “Sources.” Specifically in terms of the relationship they posed between Marxism and Soviet expansionism, they more closely resembled Kennan’s earlier stance. “Marxist doctrine,” emphasized Kennan at the Council on Foreign Relations, “does not provide the mainspring of Soviet action.” Similarly, at the War College he said, “It is important to remember that Communist dogma contributes to the Soviets’ coloration of background, form of expression, and method of execution, but does not comprise its basic aim.” Other differences between the draft and the final version had more direct implications for U.S. policy. Most notably, rather than recommend that the United States respond to the Soviet threat with “counter-force,” as he did in the final version, in the draft Kennan used the word “counter-pressure.” Though equally ambiguous, this term more clearly conveyed the notion of military readiness, the demonstration of military strength primarily for the purpose of political negotiation that Kennan would advocate more directly in years to come. “No ‘get-tough’ policy was called for,” Kennan emphasized in the War College lecture, in which he also came close to advocating a version, albeit vague, of nonverbal diplomacy with the Soviets. It was “perfectly possible to contain Russian power,” he insisted, so long as “it were done courteously and in a nonprovocative way.” And unlike the final version, in which Kennan prophesied the eventual destruction of one of the powers, in the draft he offered a scenario in which the Soviets would actually respond positively to the logic of Western success. Upon witnessing America’s “self confidence and patience,” the Soviets, he predicted, would recognize that they could survive and thrive as a nation only if they maintained “peaceful and friendly association with other peoples.” There were differences between the draft and the final version, not only in Kennan’s observations about Russia but also in the way Kennan portrayed him-

46 the pen as sword self as an authority on Russia. In the X-article, the declarations and predictions are confident to the point of strident. In the draft version, however, Kennan carved out his authority in part by questioning it. Looking back on previous writing and talks about the fundamental nature of Soviet power, said Kennan at the Council on Foreign Relations, “he had given a diversity of answers.” Kennan cautioned against the danger of believing in one’s assessment of Russia, no matter how seemingly authoritative it might be. He emphasized this point with quotes from Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “From enthusiasm to imposture the step is perilous and slippery . . . a wise man may deceive himself . . . a good man may deceive others,” and “the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud.” The authority that Kennan sought for himself in the rough draft of “Sources” was thus a self-questioning, pensive one.73 Soon after Kennan delivered these talks, Forrestal, without explaining exactly why, returned the draft essay to him with marked disappointment. “Take another crack at it,” he wrote in a note to Kennan. Kennan thus revamped the essay and resubmitted it to Forrestal, who was elated with the new version. “It is extremely well-done and I am going to suggest to the Secretary that he read it,” wrote Forrestal in a handwritten note to Kennan. As with the Long Telegram, Forrestal couched his response to the policies implicit in each version of “Sources” in vague comments about the quality of Kennan’s writing, and in so doing deemphasized the degree to which he had actually changed the policy implications of the piece. Satisfied with the notably more aggressive stance conveyed in the second version, the undersecretary disseminated “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” throughout the State Department and the executive branch.74 Over the next five-plus decades, Kennan would spill a lot of ink defending the premises of “Sources” and describing its problems as ones of interpretation. In Memoirs, he conceded that his language had been problematic. Particularly the oft-quoted line in which Kennan described containment as the application of “counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points,” he admitted, was “at best ambiguous, and lent itself to misinterpretation.” In these and other moments of the essay, he had been, he said, “careless and indiscriminate” in his wording.75 The ambiguities of the X-article were not just the result of carelessness and haste on Kennan’s part. Though Kennan would never admit it, they reflected a

47 the pen as sword deep-seated ambiguity in his own mind about the correct mix between political and military strategy toward the Soviet Union. And though he would never acknowledge it, some of the most problematic vagaries in the X-article reflected Kennan’s willingness to make changes to the piece that ostensibly were only stylistic but actually were quite substantial. As Kennan’s other writings in this period demonstrate, he and Forrestal agreed on many things, including the need for the role of the military in containment. But they differed on the priority of the military in this strategy. Whereas Kennan regarded it as an important but secondary component, Forrestal saw it as the main tool for combating the Soviet threat. In elevating the role of messianic Marxism in Soviet policy and in changing the word “counter-pressure” to “counter-force,” Kennan had once again elided his conceptual differences with Forrestal in order to maintain a position of at least some influence. In the ensuing decades, senior foreign policymakers would invoke the conceptual foundations of the X-article as justifications for the use of military force against the spread of communism, first in Korea, then in Vietnam, Latin America, and Africa. And in 2004, at the celebration of Kennan’s one-hundredth birthday, Colin Powell likened the invasion of Iraq to the Cold War strategy of containment.76 Notably, neither in 1947 nor afterward did Kennan project blame onto Forrestal for his part in the problematic consequences of “Sources.” Instead, he offered only praises for his patron reader. Forrestal “had no fear of fresh and unusual opinion,” Kennan wrote in Memoirs. In private, however, Kennan obliquely acknowledged the price he had paid for successfully working as Forrestal’s courtesan author. “Forrestal,” he wrote in a letter to a colleague, “was a man you could always go to to get an open mind and energetic assistance if you could prove to him that you were right.”77 A N ew Pat r on : M a r s ha ll an d th e PPS

Forrestal continued to play a role in fostering Kennan’s upward mobility in the foreign affairs bureaucracy. In the spring of 1947, the newly appointed secretary of state, George Marshall, was on the lookout for someone to direct his Policy Planning Staff (PPS). Forrestal recommended Kennan for the job.78 Marshall, who had assumed leadership of State in early 1947, had entered office with a sense of optimism about the enhanced role of the United States in the postwar world and a desire to shape the State Department into an intel-

48 the pen as sword ligent and effective instrument of U.S. world leadership. It was in this vein that he created the PPS, a unit designed to formulate long-term policy objectives in light of contemporary political, economic, and military trends, events, and crises around the world. It would be, as Kennan once said, “the first regular office of the Department of State to be charged in our time with looking at problems from the standpoint of the totality of American national interest, as distinct from a single portion of it.”79 In comparison to his predecessor, Marshall had a much more positive view of rank-and-file State Department officers, whose knowledge and skills he believed would complement his own experience as a military officer. He had heeded Forrestal’s recommendation not just because Kennan was a career diplomat, but also, and more specifically, because he admired Kennan’s writing. Marshall knew Kennan as “the Foreign Service officer whose penetrating dispatches from Moscow attracted so much attention among higher officials in the Administration.” Along with many others in the bureaucracy, Marshall recognized that Kennan had refused to allow his prose to become the stale product of a bureaucratic committee. “From Kennan,” as Ernest May has said, “Marshall expected memoranda written with vision.”80 At the same time, however, both Marshall’s position on policy and his idea of good policy analysis were quite different from Forrestal’s. While Forrestal capitalized on and fostered the confusing ambiguity and doublespeak of Kennan’s writing, Marshall rejected it in favor of tight, uniform analysis. “Don’t fight the problem, gentlemen. Solve it!” Marshall would shout when he thought his team had lost sight of the practical purpose of their work. For Marshall, as then Undersecretary Dean Acheson once said, “[t]he time to be devoted to analysis of a problem, to balancing ‘on the one hand’ against ‘on the other’ was definitely limited.”81 Though the PPS was designed to formulate long-term policy objectives, Marshall wanted it to exist not in a bubble but in dialogue with the more immediate and operational aspects of policy. Moreover, he wanted it to exert influence on the other newly established bodies of the executive branch—the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Joint Chiefs of Staff ( JCS), and the National Security Council (NSC). Reflecting the importance that Marshall accorded the PPS, the secretary of state saved a room for Kennan right next to his own office.82 When Kennan accepted the position of PPS director, he expressed an understanding of and appreciation for Marshall’s expectations of him. The gener-

49 the pen as sword al, he anticipated in a letter to a colleague, would not “tolerate for very long the existence of such a unit unless it proves useful” to him. “Unless the work of this unit proves to be hard-hitting and realistic, and unless an intensive and effective contact is established between planning and operations, then I think that the experiment will be shortlived.” Kennan looked forward to the challenge. Sink or swim, the Policy Planning Staff under Marshall would not amount merely to a “series of sterile and dreary exercises in composition.” Kennan recruited Carlton Savage, John Paton Davies, Joseph Johnson, George Butler, and Ware Adams to serve on the staff and help fulfill Marshall’s vision.83 In Kennan’s first months as director, the staff focused on the central aspect of that vision—a plan for economic recovery in Europe. The first report of the PPS, dated May 23, 1947, recommended immediate assistance to European countries in order to stabilize their economies. To address the long-term problem of European rehabilitation, it recommended the establishment of a program designed and executed by the Europeans themselves. Emphasizing the priority of rebuilding as opposed to fighting the Soviets, the staff clarified one of the basic ambiguities in Kennan’s original articulation of containment—whether to fight the enemy directly and militarily, or indirectly by enhancing the health and vigor of Euro-American society. Kennan and his staff advocated the latter. The plan for European recovery, they argued, should aim “to combat not communism, but the economic maladjustments which make European society vulnerable to exploitation by any and all totalitarian movements.”84 The speech that Marshall delivered at Harvard on June 5 was based largely on this document.85 After a summer meeting between U.S. officials and European foreign ministers, the Senate passed a bill establishing the European Cooperation Administration and approving an aid package of $17 billion over four years. While not without its problems and critics, the Marshall Plan was nonetheless hailed by many as a major foreign policy achievement and a victory in the political and spiritual battle with the Soviet Union. In addition to providing the conceptual blueprint for the plan, Kennan had played a key role in devising the diplomatic strategy by which the Soviets were offered a chance to participate, but on such disagreeable terms that they would inevitably reject the offer. Along with most of the PPS reports submitted during his tenure as director, Kennan had written the final draft of PPS 1 himself. Notably, however, in this and other reports of the period, he had moved away from some of the strat-

50 the pen as sword egies he had used as a writer in his earlier and now famous communiqués about the Soviet Union. Instead of cultivating a mystique around a strange and mysterious object, through which he would function as narrator and guide, Kennan made a point of being lucid and straightforward. A typical PPS paper had an introduction, which outlined its main arguments, followed by a series of three or four points, each of which was elaborated in the body of the report. Rather than an excavation, through which Kennan successively reached more “profound” and unverifiable metaphysical conclusions, he framed the arguments of his PPS papers as rationally developed policy positions. On the whole, the PPS papers did not rely on metaphors, ambiguous key terms, or the invocation of spiritual authority. And notably, Kennan did not lead anyone to believe that he was the sole author of these documents. Instead, the positions of the PPS reports were represented as the collective judgment of the staff, which had been reached through collaborative discussions and, in many cases, the collection and analysis of data from various sections of the department.86 The changes in Kennan’s writing in this period were not merely the result of his unbecoming desire to meet the expectations of his new patron reader. They were also a reflection of the fact that, broadly speaking, Kennan’s policy views were now in sync with those of top officials in the State Department and the executive branch more broadly. No longer a self-styled dissenter, Kennan did not go to great lengths, or in his case depths, to impress senior officials with his historical erudition, philosophical sophistication, and memorable prose. Nor did he use ambiguity in order to bury disagreements with his patron reader. In terms of personality as well as policy, Kennan had more in common with Marshall than he did with either previous secretaries of state or Forrestal. Though he rarely socialized with Marshall, who generally absented himself from the Washington social scene, the two men had a shared value of the simple joys of rural home life. Kennan liked to update the general on the status of his weekend labors at his farm in rural Pennsylvania, which Marshall, who longed to spend more time at his home in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, appreciated. Marshall brought out the earthy simplicity in Kennan, the side that strove to be intelligent without being obtuse. By getting Kennan to clarify his ideas, Marshall clarified the sociopolitical emphasis of containment.87 Marshall also brought out the more humble government servant in Kennan. “I shall have to be more careful about what I say and write,” Kennan had written to his friend Hamilton Fish Armstrong, the editor of Foreign Af-

51 the pen as sword fairs (the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations), shortly after assuming the PPS directorship.88 Whereas Forrestal had a strong interest in promoting and publicizing Kennan’s writing both in and out of the government, Marshall wanted his staff to maintain a low public profile. At the time of writing this letter, however, Kennan had already accepted Armstrong’s offer to publish the speech he had delivered at the council. He had made sure to seek departmental clearance first, and had adhered to the department’s condition that the article be published anonymously, under the pseudonym “X.”89 As it turned out, Kennan had not been careful enough. In May, when he had first been appointed to head the PPS, several Washington pundits had profiled him and in so doing, had emphasized his status as an influential diplomat-writer. In their Washington Post column, Joseph and Stewart Alsop had dubbed Kennan the “author” of “the most important single State paper on the Soviet Union to be written since the Soviet problem began to dominate international relations.” Given Kennan’s increased visibility as a result of this coverage, it was not difficult for Arthur Krock of the New York Times to surmise the identity of “Mr. X,” whose “views,” he said, “very closely resemble those marked ‘Top Secret’ in several official files in Washington.”90 Within days, Kennan was named as the author of the X-article, a revelation that initiated a virtual Kennan frenzy among the Washington pundits. Most commentators praised Kennan for his analysis. Ernest Lindley of the Washington Post underscored Kennan’s role as a prophesier of truth about the Soviet Union: “The trends of Soviet policy which he foresaw have materialized.” Kennan’s now-recognized status as a true prophet was in turn linked to his capacities as a writer of sophisticated, profound, and forthright political analysis. “America’s global planner,” as Brooks Atkinson called Kennan, “writes with force and clarity and on a high plane of philosophical thought,” and unlike most “ambitious foreign service officers,” he does not “play [it] safe.”91 For all the praise of the X-article, there was also some trenchant criticism. In a series of syndicated columns in the autumn of 1947, soon after published as a book, The Cold War, the eminent journalist and commentator Walter Lippmann not only named the antagonism between the two superpowers but also critiqued the doctrine of containment that had become America’s guiding policy in the Cold War. Zeroing in on the X-article as the source of the containment doctrine, Lippmann called it a “document of primary importance on the sources of American foreign policy.”

52 the pen as sword Lippmann had serious and substantial issues with the very concept of containment. He was particularly troubled by the idea of engaging in small-scale struggles with the Soviets anywhere and everywhere they threatened to spread their power, all the while waiting indefinitely for Soviet power to wane. “That would mean for ten or fifteen years, Moscow, not Washington, would define the issues, would make the challenges, would select the ground where the conflict was to be waged, and would choose the weapons.” As an alternative and truly realist policy, he advocated the establishment of a treaty with the Soviets by which the two powers would both agree to withdraw their troops from Eastern Europe. If the Soviets abided by that treaty, then fine. If not, the United States would be justified in using diplomatic pressure and concerted military force against them.92 Lippmann also took issue with the aura of truth and prophetic authority in the X-article. Even after exposing Kennan’s identity, he continued to refer to the author of the article as “Mr. X.” In mocking the superhero persona of the X-article, Lippmann critiqued Kennan’s reliance on the powers of intuition rather than those of rationality. Per Kennan’s own admission, Lippmann argued, his analysis “cannot be proved. And it cannot be unproved.”93 With his lucid prose and rational critique, Lippmann thus portrayed himself as the true realist of the early Cold War. Lippmann’s critique pained Kennan deeply, largely because he believed that his views were essentially the same as those of the eminent columnist. Kennan was particularly disturbed by the suggestion that he had essentially written the Truman Doctrine—the policy announced by the president in his speech of March 12, 1947, in which he declared that the United States would commit its resources to any nation in the world that was threatened by the spread of communism. “To be held as the author of the Truman Doctrine,” explained Kennan, “hurt more than anything else.”94 In having his words scrutinized by the press, Kennan had thus for the first time experienced the negative aspects of the image he had built up for himself as the trusted “author” of postwar policy analysis and strategic planning. On the one hand, it implied his capable, even heroic influence on America’s bold new strategy. But on the other, the weight of Kennan’s influence on policy was also proving to be a weight on him. Now that the public saw him as the intellectual source of America’s overarching foreign policy, Kennan could be blamed as well as praised for every development that the public associated with that policy.

53 the pen as sword Marshall preempted Kennan from answering either praise or criticism of Mr. X. “Planners don’t talk,” he scolded, in response to all the media attention. Kennan dutifully complied. “Feeling like one who has inadvertently loosened a large boulder from the top of a cliff and now helplessly witnesses its path of destruction on the valley below, shuddering and wincing at each successive glimpse of disaster,” he would later recount, “I absorbed the bombardment of press comment that now set in.”95 Kennan did belatedly answer Lippmann in his memoirs, where he challenged the notion that the X-article was synonymous with the Truman Doctrine. Arguing that he had in fact objected to the universalist implications of Truman’s speech, Kennan explained that he had submitted a more subdued draft, which senior policymakers had rejected as too subtle to leverage congressional support for the large aid package they were requesting for Greece and Turkey. As it turned out, however, Kennan suggested only stylistic changes to the speech, most of which were incorporated into the final version.96 A D i s s e n t er Ag ai n

Despite his claims to the contrary, in the summer and fall of 1947 Kennan was more in sync than ever with the current leadership in the State Department, which had significantly more sway over the president than at any time since before Roosevelt. At the November 7, 1947, meeting of the cabinet, Marshall actually read the PPS’s end-of-year report aloud to Truman. By delivering targeted economic aid and political support to local resistance forces, the effort to halt the spread of communism in Western Europe was, it argued, proving effective. Acknowledging that this success would likely lead the Soviets to clamp down further on Eastern Europe, it nonetheless expressed tentative optimism about the future. In the face of world public opinion, the Soviets, it said, would have a hard time maintaining their status as occupiers. Upon hearing the report, Truman, who instilled as much trust in Marshall as Marshall did in Kennan, requested a copy for himself.97 In this period, Kennan was actually able to exert a much more direct influence on policy than he had before. The bureaucratic honeymoon between Kennan, his superiors in the State Department, and the president did not, however, last. In 1948 a series of crises in U.S.-Soviet relations and a move to gain financial support for the administration’s policies in response to them resulted in the movement of official

54 the pen as sword consensus toward a more rigid militaristic interpretation of the administration’s “get tough” stance. Meanwhile, in this period, Kennan began to move in a different direction. Though in his earlier writings he had argued against the possibility of diplomacy with Russia, he now began to recommend precisely that course of action. In this period, Kennan became increasingly preoccupied with asserting his own authority, re-engaging the style and conceit of the wise but tragic diplomat-writer that characterized his earlier writings. The first crisis of U.S.-Soviet relations occurred in February. Upon pressure from the Communists in the government, the president of Czechoslovakia, Eduard Beneš, allowed the Communist leader of the coalition government, Clement Gottwald, to form a new all-Communist cabinet. The new regime cracked down on democratic institutions and leaders. Its purge of dissidents included Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, a leading spokesperson for democracy, whose “fall” from a window was publicized by the authorities as suicide. In response to the Communist coup, government officials began to underscore a military clash with the Soviets as not just likely but imminent. In a memo to Washington, Lucius Clay, the commander of U.S. military forces in Germany, wrote, “War might come with dramatic suddenness.” In mid-March, Truman, who faced an uphill battle in the 1948 election, made a speech to Congress in which he accused the Soviets of attempting to spread their “ruthless course of action” to the “remaining free nations of Europe.” He called upon the House to approve the European Recovery Program and to reinstitute selective service to increase the number of ready U.S. military forces. Up to this point, war with Russia had been a distant possibility. The Truman administration was now adamant about getting Americans to believe in and provide support for the urgent potential reality of a military clash.98 The second crisis in U.S.-Soviet relations followed shortly after. In March, upon the announcement by the United States, Britain, and France of a plan to establish a West German government, the Soviets began to stifle the movement of U.S. military supplies to Berlin. By June, this effort had developed into a partial blockade of resources. Truman authorized a temporary airlift and ordered B-29 bombers, capable of carrying atomic weapons, to Germany. Meanwhile, the Soviets rejected a protest note written by the State Department expressing the U.S. resolve to remain in Germany. Clay in turn argued that the United States should demonstrate “determined action,” and recommended informing the Soviets that it would send military supplies to Berlin by road on a specified date.99

55 the pen as sword These events fueled American support for the effort to establish a EuroAmerican military pact, which had been formally initiated by the British in early 1948. “I don’t care whether entangling alliances have been considered worse than original sin since George Washington’s time,” said John Hickerson, director of the State Department’s European Division. “We’ve got to negotiate a military alliance with Western Europe in peacetime and we’ve got to do it quickly.” In the spring of 1948, while Kennan was on mission in Japan, Hickerson teamed up with the PPS staff, temporarily headed by George Butler, to advance such an alliance. “Armed attack against any of the parties,” recommended PPS 27, “shall be considered as an attack against all of them.” PPS 27 served as a template for talks on the topic with the European foreign ministers. And with Truman’s approval, the revised paper was submitted to the NSC and used as the basis for lobbying support for NATO from Congress.100 While the majority of Americans and the Truman administration emphasized the importance of demonstrating force to the Soviets, Kennan instead perceived the mounting tensions as an opportunity to negotiate with Russia before the threat of all-out war manifested into reality. He made this argument in a summary report titled “Current Trends [in] U.S. Foreign Policy,” delivered on February 24, 1948, in the midst of the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia. Rather than address the Soviets’ aggressive stance in Eastern Europe directly, he focused on a plan to deliver economic aid to “key countries outside the iron curtain.” As a result of the success of the European Recovery Program, “[a] new situation will arise,” he prophesied, “and the Russians will be prepared, for the first time since the surrender, to do business seriously with us about Germany and about Europe in general.” Now stressing the realistic, as opposed to ideological, nature of the Soviets, Kennan framed the mounting tensions with Russia as an opportunity for diplomacy. It would be, he wrote, “a great test of American statesmanship.”101 Kennan’s response to the Berlin blockade similarly diverged from that of most Americans and administration officials. Through 1947, he had tacitly supported the continued division between Germany’s Eastern and Western zones and the eventual establishment of a West German government.102 While the blockade hardened the U.S. resolve to stay in Germany, it contributed to Kennan’s emerging position that the occupying powers ought instead to withdraw so that the Germans could establish a unified democratic country. As an admirer of German culture since boyhood, a sentiment that only grew over the period he lived in Berlin before and during the war, Kennan believed strongly

56 the pen as sword that Hitlerism had only temporarily interrupted the “true” spirit and history of Germany.103 In mid-July of 1948, the prospect of compromise with the Soviets on Berlin, if not of mutual withdrawal from Germany, seemed real. Authorizing an expanded airlift and initiating negotiations with the Soviet Union, Truman had decided against the use of force. In mid-August, however, talks with the Soviets had begun to reach a stalemate. In this context, Kennan’s call for “the early abandonment of military government, establishment of a German government with real powers, and withdrawal of the occupying forces entirely from the major portion of Germany” ran against the grain of both popular and official thought.104 In voicing his disagreement with the consensus view in this period, Kennan once again began to demonstrate concern over the status of his authority. Often, as in PPS 23, he framed his apprehension in the larger context of the State Department. Invoking memories of the department’s lowly status during the Roosevelt years, he argued against allowing other departments and ad hoc agencies to administer U.S. policy in Europe. Delegating responsibility for foreign policy away from State would, he argued, “thrust this Department back into the position it occupied in many instances during the recent war:—the position of an advisory, rather than an executive, agency.” In protecting the newfound influence of the State Department, Kennan also emphasized the need to maintain his individual influence on U.S.-Soviet relations. In order to ensure the success of negotiations with the Soviet Union, he argued, the United States would need to designate an individual capable of understanding and dealing with the Russians—someone “thoroughly acquainted not only with the background of our policies but with Soviet philosophy and strategy.” In not so many words, Kennan recommended himself for the job. By this time, Kennan had transformed his veiled critique of the Truman Doctrine into an overt and broader critique of universalism in foreign policy, as embodied in formal international structures like the United Nations, which, he argued, covered up the real issues of foreign affairs with the mere form of international cooperation. Kennan preferred what he called a “particularized” approach to foreign policy, which relied on flexible alliances rather than legal frameworks.105 In preparing PPS 23, Kennan had revised not only key aspects of his policy positions, but also his persona and status as their author. In contrast to many

57 the pen as sword of the PPS reports he had written in 1947, he prepared this one without seeking input from other divisions of the State Department, let alone the executive branch. He did not hide, but rather underscored, the unilateralist nature of the report. “I made no effort to clear it around the Department,” he explained in the cover letter to Marshall and Undersecretary Robert Lovett, “since this would have changed its whole character.” Moreover, whereas many of his earlier PPS papers highlighted the positions they contained as that of the entire PPS staff, Kennan framed this one as a reflection of his personal views. Phrases such as “In my opinion,” “It is my own belief that,” and “It is my own profound conviction that” appear numerous times throughout the report.106 With respect to Germany, Kennan had at least formally sought input from other divisions of State, as well as representatives from the army, which had collectively been assigned the task of studying the problem in preparation for possible talks between the four occupying powers.107 In the cover letter to his report on Germany, Kennan nonetheless emphasized that it represented the consensus view of only the PPS and that it had not been cleared with the others. In the paper itself, Kennan ostensibly weighed the two options—continued occupation or withdrawal. Eventually, he argued, Germany would again become an independent sovereign nation. The “question” was not whether, but “when.” For the time being, occupation, he admitted, had the merit of stability. In addition to allowing the European Recovery Program to advance without interruption, it would also reassure the French against the resurgence of an aggressive Germany. On the other hand, early withdrawal offered the advantage of loosening the current division between East and West Europe, which threatened to “congeal” into a permanent segregation of the two regions. It would provide a solution to the Berlin blockade, by initiating mutual withdrawal there. It would allow for the creation of a Western-style government, as well as reduce America’s military commitment in the region. Withdrawal, Kennan conceded, had its demerits, namely the fact that it posed a “new and great risk.” A unified Germany would most definitely dominate the power dynamic of Central Europe. It is quite possible, he said, that it would be “strongly nationalistic and authoritarian,” and that it would cooperate with the Soviet Union. Furthermore, adding East Germany to the European Recovery Program would create an extra burden and “complicate” the mutual security plan. The current problem thus had no easy solution. Indeed, it posed a true “dilemma” to which “there can be no wholly satisfactory solution.”

58 the pen as sword As the report continued, Kennan nonetheless sought to tip the scales on behalf of withdrawal. In so doing, he emphasized not only the substantive positions of his perspective, but also the fact that they were his subjective positions. “It is my feeling,” he wrote, “that if the division of Europe cannot be overcome peacefully at this juncture . . . it is not likely that prospects for a peaceful resolution of Europe’s problems will be better after a period of further waiting.” By the end of the report, Kennan framed this “feeling” as an objective and foregone conclusion: “The fact of the matter is that there is no solution of this German problem except in terms of a federated Europe into which the several parts of Germany could be absorbed.” What Kennan had initially described as a dilemma, with no one or true answer, he now framed as the product of an “iron logic” to which there could be no other conclusion. This logic, he argued, “is the real reason why Germany must be given back to the Germans.” The “we the PPS believe” had been replaced by the “I Kennan believe,” which had in turn become the prophetic voice of the nation, the voice that said, “we the United States government must.” Kennan submitted a revised paper on November 12, along with a detailed proposal for withdrawal and reunification. “Program A,” as it was called, recommended the dissolution of the Allied Control Council (the governing body of the military occupation in Germany), withdrawal of troops, and the establishment of a constitutional government in Germany. Kennan circulated the document widely, sending copies to Marshall, Clay, and his political advisor, Robert Murphy, all of whom were at the UN conference in Paris.108 Kennan’s last-ditch argument against the establishment of NATO reflected the reemergence of the wise diplomat-writer fighting against a deluded administration and populace. Submitted just weeks before the meeting of the International Working Group that would effectively seal the deal, Kennan submitted a report challenging misguided assumptions about key aspects of the proposed agreement. Though he agreed that it would be beneficial for the United States to support some security agreement, in PPS 43 Kennan cautioned against regarding NATO as the most effective response to the Soviet threat. “It is important to understand that the conclusion of such a pact is not the main answer to the present Soviet effort to dominate the European continent, and will not appreciably modify the nature or danger of Soviet policies.” The Soviet strategy in Europe was still fundamentally political, he argued, and as such, it demanded a counterstrategy that was at its core political. If we do not emphasize the political dimension of the battle against the Soviet Union, he

59 the pen as sword warned, “[w]e will deceive ourselves and permit misconceptions to exist among our own public and in Europe.”109 Kennan had thrown off the shackles of courtesan authorship. In asserting his own authority, however, and underscoring the delusions of the current policy, he was himself somewhat deluded. His influence on policy had always been a combination of his persuasiveness as a diplomat-writer, his willingness to compromise his positions for the sake of influence, and the larger political context in which he wrote. Readers of the Long Telegram and the X-article were not persuaded so much as satisfied to have their views articulated in an authoritative manner. By 1948, Kennan’s characterization of the Soviet Union as an irrational expansionist power had ossified in, as well as outside, the diplomatic establishment. Doc Matthews, who had helped catapult Kennan to eminence in the State Department, rejected his proposal for mutual withdrawal from Germany on the basis that there could be no cooperation with the Soviet Union. As Kennan would later say, “I had oversold my bill of goods.”110 By the end of 1948, Kennan had effectively become a dissenter from the official consensus he had helped to establish. He had already lost the debate on NATO. It was, as he would later say, the “first of the major undertakings of American policy in General Marshall’s time with relation to which I failed to exert any effective influence.” He was clearly losing the debate on Germany. Committed to the creation of a West German state, the American establishment in Germany, led by Clay, Omar Bradley, and Robert Murphy, had flatout rejected Kennan’s alternative proposal for the region. Troop withdrawals, they said, would leave a power vacuum that the Soviets would inevitably fill. Hickerson agreed, characterizing Program A as “impractical” and arguing that its dangers “outweighed the advantages.” And with Marshall’s departure from office, Kennan was losing the senior policymaker who had trusted him most.111 Rather than resign, Kennan remained in the State Department and once again styled himself as the department’s in-house author of dissent. His March 1949 report from Germany to the new secretary of state, Dean Acheson, exemplifies this strategy. The report in many ways constituted Kennan’s attempt to gain the attention, sympathy, and perhaps even patronage of the new secretary. Forrestal had by this time become myopically obsessed with increasing the military budget, and in so doing had alienated himself from the president, who still staunchly opposed such an increase. He would be forced to resign on this matter in March 1949, and tragically, he committed suicide the following month.

60 the pen as sword More than any other person in the Truman years, it was Dean Acheson who most influenced foreign policy. The president and his secretary were somewhat of an unlikely match. Truman, an earthy product of rural Missouri, might have easily distrusted Acheson, who had the appearance, manners, and background of a classic diplomat—aristocratic English breeding, a Groton-Yale-Harvard education, an elite law career, and an angular mustachioed face, which he was known to hold up highly around Washington. But it was this very experience that also made Acheson an asset to the president. Unlike Marshall, whom Truman held in awe despite of or because of his lack of diplomatic experience, Acheson came to the office with formidable experience in the State Department—first in the Roosevelt administration as assistant secretary for economic affairs and political affairs and then as undersecretary of state in the first two years of the Truman administration, during which time he frequently served as acting secretary. Unlike Byrnes, who was equally experienced but had always been somewhat resentful of the fact that Truman and not he had been named vice president, Acheson, comfortable in his role as Truman’s “good right hand,” demonstrated loyalty and commitment to the president. As Kennan’s friend and fellow Soviet expert Charles Bohlen said, “Truman was the boss, and Dean played it that way.” Acheson gave Truman what he wanted, the ability to make the final decision. In return, Truman gave him the latitude he needed to develop strategies. It was Acheson who had emphasized the need to overstate the Soviet threat in order to secure aid to Greece and Turkey. But without Truman’s agreement, there would have been no Truman Doctrine.112 In both office and international politics, Acheson was more of an interventionist than his predecessor. While Marshall hoped to refrain from entangling the United States in too many commitments around the world, Acheson regarded America’s European presence as essential to the mutual security of the United States and Europe, which he believed relied on America to prevent another world war. He managed the State Department with a similar logic. Marshall, he observed, “usually stayed his hand until work upon any matter reached the point where guidance and decision were necessary.” But “I, more aware of the deep-seated differences of view” among subordinates, “would meet with the groups as soon as an issue appeared, to hear and decide upon it.”113 Acheson did not grant Kennan the intellectual trust and autonomy to which he had become accustomed under Marshall. Although the new secretary respected Kennan’s mind, he was often annoyed by Kennan’s tendency to write

61 the pen as sword long, complicated analyses without a clear or obvious point, a tendency that resurfaced as Kennan became increasingly marginalized from the emerging policy consensus. He was less adept than Marshall at conveying that annoyance diplomatically. On more than one occasion, Acheson chastised Kennan, demanding that he write simpler, more straightforward reports. “The task of a public service officer seeking to explain and gain support for a major policy,” Acheson emphasized, “is not that of a writer of a doctoral thesis. Qualification must give way to simplicity of statement, nicety and nuance to bluntness, almost brutality, in carrying home a point.” If Acheson had his way, there would be less writing and more talking. “Papers,” he complained in his memoir, “so often divert readers to trivia.”114 Acheson’s frustration with Kennan did not emanate solely from conceptual differences over the nature of policy analysis in the diplomatic establishment; it also sprang from significant differences over the direction of U.S. policy in the Cold War. As these differences increased over the course of 1949, Acheson would become increasingly intolerant of Kennan’s attempts to court him as a patron reader. Nowhere was this more apparent than with respect to policies toward Germany. In the spring of 1949, Acheson was covering his bases, on the one hand supporting plans for the establishment of a West German state and on the other keeping the door open for alternatives along the lines of Program A. In March 1949, when Kennan decided to visit Germany to assess the situation for himself, Acheson lent his support, telling Kennan to “bring back up to date information and [your] personal appraisal of the present situation to form the basis for long-range policy.”115 Notably, Kennan began his report not with an argument about Germany but with a discussion of his own writing. “Dear Dean,” he wrote, “[s]ince I share your wariness about my own purple prose, I am sending you herewith the personal notes which I made of my visit to Germany. They are the nearest I can come to a bald unvarnished account of what I saw and heard, without editorializing. I think they might be worth your perusal.” This ostensible adherence to Acheson’s demand for a direct and straightforward report actually prefaced a conscious transgression of Acheson’s directives. “I would like though, at the risk of waxing a little purple,” Kennan then wrote, “to add a word or two about the main general impressions which I carry away from these experiences.” In the six-page letter that followed, Kennan repeated his case for troop withdrawal.

62 the pen as sword Kennan structured his report as the tale of a journey into the depths of a strange political terrain, in which he would act as guide. His style, mood, and logic were reminiscent of “Russia,” the essay he had written about the nature of the Soviet Union almost five years earlier. In this report, as in that essay, Kennan established an ominous mood of suspense, which in turn cultivated a sense of historical import for the subject on which he was writing: “This is one of the moments, as Bismarck put it, when you can hear the garments of the Goddess of Time rustling through the course of events. Who ignores this rustling does so at his own peril.” And as in “Russia,” Kennan created an image of postwar Germany layered in mystery and complexity: “This business of governing Germany,” he wrote, “is a vast strange world in itself, perilously remote from our own.” In fact, he said, “[t]he complexities of the German problem today are so terrific that the problem may be said to have its own dialectics.” And as in “Russia,” “Persons unschooled in these dialectics can scarcely help falling into error when they attempt to make judgments.” There is only one “narrow central area” in which the policymaker can make decisions that “might not involve catastrophe.” But “outside that circle, one is easily lost.” “Not everyone,” he warned, “can safely play at this game of hop-scotch.” As he had styled himself as one of the few, if not the only one, that understood Russia, so did he now represent himself as an occupant of that inner circle of wisdom about Germany, a circle outside of which stood the American occupying establishment. This privileged position gave Kennan an ability to enter the mentality of the German leaders: “They see the skepticism of German youth; they see the terrible division of the country . . . and above all, they see the vagaries and undependability of Allied policy,” Kennan wrote, with significantly more sympathy than he had demonstrated when walking around in the heads of the Soviet leaders. No matter what anyone else says, the plans that Washington has for Germany are “thin and fragile. . . . Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise,” warned Kennan, underscoring his own authority as the cautionary diplomat-writer. Kennan advised the United States to “abolish the Military Government” and withdraw “these bloated staffs of Allied officials . . . which still camp on German cities.” Notably, though the form of the report so closely matched that of “Russia,” the ultimate object of Kennan’s study was not a mysterious foreign power—either Germany or the Soviet Union—but the United States itself, which, for Kennan, had now become the biggest threat to American security.116 In 1949, Kennan’s characterization of himself as the lone prophet of foreign policy wisdom would not, as in 1944, serve as the prelude for his recognition

63 the pen as sword as the author of foreign policy truth. Even as he wrote the letter, Kennan himself must have realized this. For instead of sending it, he tucked it away in his files. When he met with Acheson upon his return to discuss the trip, Kennan spoke only from a brief set of notes, articulating the major policy points of the unsent letter, minus the authorial bravado.117 Kennan’s report had little impact on Acheson’s position. Largely as a result of vocal opposition from the French and British, Acheson increasingly leaned in the direction of Clay, Murphy, and Hickerson. Program A was not presented at the meeting of foreign ministers in May.118 The West German government was formally established on October 7, 1949, just one month after the Soviets first detonated a nuclear bomb and weeks before the Nationalist government in China fell to the Communists. These developments further convinced the foreign affairs establishment that it needed to meet the threat of world communism with drastic military escalation. In this eventful second half of 1949, what had to this point been Kennan’s informal marginalization from the policy mainstream became his formal marginalization within the bureaucratic structure of the State Department. In September, Undersecretary of State James Webb, who harbored a general dislike of career Foreign Service officers and of Kennan in particular, enacted a change to the clearance procedure for PPS papers. No longer would they go directly to the secretary of state; instead they would have to be vetted by the undersecretary, assistant secretaries, and operational divisions of the department, and revised according to their comments. Intensely bitter about this change, Kennan would later write in Memoirs, “It was perfectly clear what was involved in this procedure: the staff was to be deprived of direct access to the Secretary of State in the presentation of its views; from now on, staff papers would be subject to the veto of any of the chiefs of the operational divisions of the department.” Kennan saw this as part of a broader onslaught against the few remaining aspects of the pre-bureaucratic State Department. While Kennan struggled to assert his influence, the department proceeded to enact an administrative reform that would streamline the civil and foreign services, implementing what Kennan referred to as the “final liquidation of the old Foreign Service we knew.”119 In truth, Webb’s policy was not the cause of Kennan’s marginalization but rather a symptom of it. Over the last year, Kennan had written many reports directly to Acheson, none of which had resonated with the secretary to the extent that he had hoped. Under Acheson, Kennan had become, as he would later say, more of a “court jester” than a courtesan author, “expected to enliven discussion, privileged to say the shocking things, valued as an intellectual gadfly

64 the pen as sword on hides of slower colleagues, but not to be taken fully seriously when it came to the final, responsible decisions of policy.” Moreover, in focusing on senior policymakers, Kennan had somewhat neglected the need to get his own staff on board. Looking back, Kennan himself realized “how little I had succeeded in conveying to him [Butler] and to the others my own view of what was and what was not needed in Europe at the time.”120 With the increasing policy distance between Kennan and the secretary of state now reinforced by bureaucratic regulations, Kennan once again offered his resignation. He would, he told Webb, leave his position as director of the Policy Planning Staff, effective in December, and the State Department altogether the following June. In the meantime, Paul Nitze, who had recently joined the PPS at Kennan’s request, replaced Kennan as the staff ’s representative to the department’s highlevel policy meetings. Recruited to Washington from Wall Street by Forrestal, Nitze would head the NSC working group that addressed the question of whether or not to build a hydrogen bomb or “superbomb.” The document produced by the group, NSC 68, described the Soviet intention of destroying the “free world” and stressed the military capacity of the Soviets to carry out their plan. To combat the imminent threat, it recommended an unprecedented increase in military spending on a level of parity with that of the Soviets. Though the paper did not offer specific numbers, it suggested as much as 40 percent of the GDP. In style as well as substance, NSC 68 thus reflected the emerging militarism of the Cold War. As Acheson famously explained in his memoirs, the document was not designed to capture the subtleties or ambiguities of the Cold War, but rather to “bludgeon the mass mind of top government.”121 Kennan did not participate in the working group. Acheson had conveniently sent him away on a trip to Latin America, after rejecting an impassioned paper Kennan had written in which he once again underscored the false panacea of military solutions for political problems.122 Even as Kennan wrote himself further into the bureaucratic grave, the document he had been writing against strategically utilized another one that he had written while he was still in the center of things. NSC 68 invoked agreement with and quoted at length a paper Kennan had written at the request of none other than James Forrestal. That document, as the new paper noted, had called for the United States to “develop a level of military readiness which can be maintained as long as necessary as a deterrent to Soviet aggression, as indispensable support to our political attitude toward the USSR, as a source of encouragement to nations resisting Soviet political aggression, and as an adequate basis for immediate military commit-

65 the pen as sword ments and for rapid mobilization should war prove unavoidable.” What NSC 68 did not note was that in the same communiqué Kennan had also argued that the Soviets were “not now planning any deliberate armed action” and were “still seeking to achieve [their] political aims predominantly by political means.” In actuality, Kennan’s original communiqué was, as Hoopes and Brinkley have noted, “tantalizingly ambivalent.” It exemplified the strategic ambiguity of the writing that Kennan did under Forrestal. Though hard-liners interpreted the report as an argument for a drastic increase in the military budget, in 1948 the administration had interpreted it as an argument against such an increase. Aware of Truman’s strong aversion to increasing military spending, an aversion that was shared by Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, Nitze worked hard to build a constituency of support for NSC 68 from within the bureaucracy and from Congress. When Johnson saw that the paper had the backing of key officials in the executive branch as well as the powerful Senator Arthur Vandenberg, he effectively threw in the towel. “In vain,” Kennan remembered, “I pleaded with people to recognize that this was a chimera,” that the “Russians were weaker than we supposed; that they had many internal problems of their own; that they had no grand design” and did not intend “to pursue their competition with us by means of a general war.” But it was too late. In the summer of 1950, upon the outbreak of the Korean War, NSC 68 became synonymous with U.S. policy.123 Ironically, in precisely the same period when Kennan confronted the limits of his influence as a diplomat-writer, his reputation as the “author” of the overarching policy of the United States in the Cold War solidified in the public imagination.124 This double identity—on the inside an actual author of dissent and on the outside a perceived architect of an increasingly militaristic and antidiplomatic foreign policy—did indeed become a double form of alienation for Kennan. But in the ensuing months, years, and decades, it also presented an opportunity—one that transformed Kennan from courtesan author within the government to defender of career diplomats outside it. Bequeat hi ng a L e g a cy t o t he N e x t G e n e r ati o n o f In-H o us e D i s s ente r s

Though all of Kennan’s past resignation letters had induced the State Department to ask for his continued service, Acheson accepted Kennan’s 1949 resignation without objection. Over the coming months and years, Kennan would

66 the pen as sword return to government service several times as a political appointee—as advisor during the Korean War, as ambassador to the Soviet Union (a post that he not surprisingly lost after publicly insulting his host country) and to Yugoslavia (a post that he quit after fighting a losing battle with Congress). But he would never again serve as a career diplomat. Soon after his departure from the PPS in 1950, Kennan reflected on his trials and tribulations within the foreign affairs bureaucracy and wrote a poem in the form of a memo to the Policy Planning Staff. It was in effect an elegy mourning the end of his life as a Foreign Service officer:



From: G. F. Kennan To: The Members of the Policy Planning Staff Subject: Their Peculiar Fate Friends, teachers, pupils; toilers at the wheels; Undaunted drones of the official hive, In deep frustration doomed to strive, To power and to action uncommitted, Condemned (disconsolate, in world of steel and glass confined) To course the foggy bottoms of the mind, Unaided, unencouraged, to pursue The rarer bloom, the deeper hue, The choicer fragrance—these to glean And, having gleaned, to synthesize And long in deepest reticence to hide . . . Until some distant day—perhaps—permitted, Anonymous and unidentified, The Great White Queen at last to fertilize, Such is the life, the function, such the fate Which I, the first to bear, To you bequeathed. Let not the foggy harshness of the air, the season late, The counsels of despair,

67 the pen as sword The prospect of the sword unsheathed, Deter you from persistence in this task. Do not, as I did, importune the skies . . . The bureaucratic heavens do not ask . . . To tell you where the reason lies Why you . . . why no one else . . . should bear this weight. Who knows? Perhaps in moment unforeseen The Great White Queen Made fruitful by your seed, May ye create So dazzling and so beauteous a brood That worlds will marvel, history admire. And then the scorned, no-longer-wanted sire From bondage loosed, from travail freed, Basking beside the rays these progeny exude, May find the warmth in which all souls aspire in autumn late.125 Without even a hint of sarcasm, Kennan described this poem in Memoirs as his “last staff paper.”126 For most, it would be incongruous, even absurd, to suggest that a poem, especially one as personal and metaphorical as this, could function as an official piece of policy writing. For Kennan, as we have seen, the line between poetics and policy was not always so distinct. The story of the rank-and-file “drones of the official hive” trying to fertilize “the Great White Queen” of foreign policy was in fact another variant of the image that Kennan first created for himself in his 1944 report on Russia—the lonely foreign policy prophet on the mountain whose wisdom would not be heeded by his nation’s leaders. Alienated from society by their officialdom and from the Queen by their lowly status, the drones, like the foreign policy prophet, must search for truth, “the rarer bloom, the deeper hue.” But when they find it, that literal profundity that Kennan here frames as a journey into the depths of a flower, they will be, like the foreign policy prophet, forced to “hide” it. “Such is the life, the function, / such the fate / Which I, the first to bear, / To you bequeathed.” Here, as in “Russia,” Kennan used the trope of the alienated diplomat-writer to make a broad, albeit vague statement that

68 the pen as sword extends beyond the battle over specific policies to career diplomats’ larger battle for influence. For all of its solipsism and histrionics, the poem does reflect an important new role for Kennan, namely that of father figure and advisor to the next generation of career diplomats. Despite the knowledge of their limitations and their tragic endings, Kennan tells his progeny not to back down from their fates, but to persist in their struggles. The tragedy of the bureaucratic drones thus ends on a note of hope. “Perhaps,” one day, they would produce “so dazzling and so beauteous a brood” that not only would “worlds marvel” and “history admire,” but Kennan and the other drones, the “scorned, no-longer-wanted sires,” would be “redeemed.” What is perhaps most remarkable about this ending is not what it says, but rather what it does not say about Kennan’s tenure. Though he had in 1950 become rather irrelevant to the foreign policy bureaucracy, Kennan had just a few years earlier been one of the rare drones who had fertilized the Queen bee. Moreover, he had been acknowledged by both the bureaucracy and the public for having done so. Indeed, this recognition, the impossible fantasy of the poem’s speaker—gaining and basking in the world’s perception of him as a key influence on policy—had in reality turned out to be a significant and unshakable burden for Kennan. Over the course of his rise in and departure from the State Department, Kennan had experienced the power, as well as limits, of being a courtesan author. The compromises he made in that position helped to shape the policies of the early Cold War, policies that over time he had increasingly wished to but was unable to revise.

~ By 1950, the notion that rank-and-file diplomat-writers effectively controlled U.S. foreign policy had in fact become much larger and more controversial than whether or not Kennan in particular did. Just a couple of months before Kennan wrote his departure poem, Senator Joseph McCarthy had given his notorious Wheeling speech. “The State Department, which is one of the most important government departments,” declared McCarthy, “is thoroughly infested with Communists. I have in my hand,” he continued, “57 cases of individuals who would appear to be either card carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party, but who nevertheless are still helping to shape our foreign policy.”127 According to McCarthy and other members of Congress, the prob-

69 the pen as sword lem was not that the drones failed to fertilize the queen of U.S. foreign policy, but rather that, on behalf of world communism, they had succeeded in doing so. Far from leaving the identities of the alleged Communists anonymous, McCarthy was prepared to accuse them before the American public. As I will discuss in chapter 2, McCarthy’s accusations revealed a broader and more dangerous dimension to the problem that Kennan had experienced: namely, that the central task with which the State Department bureaucracy was charged—informing and shaping policy through prophetic reporting and analytical writing—carried not only the promise of potential influence but also the threat of marginalization or worse should senior officials (whether in the executive or legislative branch) continue to disagree with it. How to cope with the consequences was something that the government in general and the State Department in particular would be slow to address. In the meantime, as the State Department experienced an erosion of its influence, rank-and-file Foreign Service officers would face more threats than promises on the inside. Even as the strength and influence of diplomatic writing receded, diplomats would continue to be critiqued on the outside as extensions of executive power. Luckily for him, Kennan was not among the accused. In the ensuing months and years, in defending, as he did, those implicated by McCarthy, Kennan helped build up public sympathy for rank-and-file diplomats working in the foreign affairs bureaucracy. This would be a slow, uneven, and by necessity always incomplete process that would continue over the next several decades and that still goes on today.

two

“Learn to write well” The China Hands and the Communist-ification of Diplomatic Reporting

Jack Service first met Madame Chiang, wife of Chinese president Chiang Kai-shek, in 1941 at an official banquet hosted by the Chinese government. “Service—what a lovely name! We hope you’ll be of service to China,” she had said to him then, with the confident yet feminine demeanor that had charmed so many of his fellow countrymen. Service, though, was not exactly amused by the pun on his name. He was a U.S. Foreign Service officer, and as such had no particular duty to China.1 John Davies met Madame Chiang for the first time the following April. He was delivering letters from Roosevelt’s advisors and walking shoes from the prominent American scholar of Manchuria Owen Lattimore. The Madamissimo, as Davies and others had nicknamed her, was happy to make small talk about her upcoming articles for the Atlantic and the New York Times. But when Davies broached more serious questions concerning China’s effort in the war against the Axis powers, she gave him “two cold, appraising looks.” In characteristic fashion, after leading Davies to the door, she once again “flashed the charm.”2 Service and Davies had a lot in common, even more than their respective encounters with Madame Chiang suggest. They were both sons of middleclass missionaries from the Midwest, born and raised in the western province of Szechwan, China. They both entered the Foreign Service in the 1930s, and

72 “ learn to write well” became increasingly skeptical of the dynamic between senior officials in the Nationalist government and American diplomats in China. Since the Open Door Policy of 1899, which guaranteed U.S. access to trading ports formerly dominated by Britain, Germany, and other powers, America had styled itself as China’s avuncular ally, helping it escape from the talons of European imperialism. Holding up trade with China as their main priority, Foreign Service officers posted there—known collectively as the China hands—tended not to focus on the domestic policies of their host country, an attitude that became even more ingrained at the onset of World War Two, when China became a strategic ally in the fight against the Axis. Largely free from the interference of U.S. diplomats, members of Chiang’s cabinet sought and maintained relations with influential American congressmen, business interests, and media outlets—colloquially known as the China Lobby—as well as with the president’s envoys and personal advisors.3 Service and Davies shared not only similar backgrounds and worldviews but also a desire to change U.S. policies toward China that were at odds with their positions. Between 1942 and 1945, they wrote a series of complementary reports in which they challenged unconditional support to the corrupt and ineffectual Nationalist government and recommended cooperation with the Chinese Communists, who were actually helping to defeat Japan. During the war, many within the foreign policy establishment, including advisors to Roosevelt, praised these reports and the diplomats who wrote them. After the Chinese Communists defeated the Nationalist government in 1949, the very same reports would be targeted by the China Lobby, as well as other politicians and political functionaries with a stake in the anti-Communist agenda. To them, the reports of the China hands were “Exhibit A in the untold story of American diplomacy”—evidence of a plot to undermine the Nationalist government and give China over to the Communists. McCarthy zeroed in on Service, who, he said, had “urged that we torpedo our ally Chiang Kai-Shek” and argued that “Communism was the best hope of China.” Before long, Davies and others were brought into the circle of suspicion. In February 1950 McCarthy folded these accusations into a broader attack on the State Department, which, as he famously declared, was “thoroughly infested with Communists.”4 The attack on the China hands resulted in a literal decimation of the China service. Between 1950 and 1953, twenty of the twenty-two Foreign Service of-

73 “ learn to write well” ficers who specialized in China were either marginalized or dismissed. In order to fully understand this fateful episode in the history of U.S. foreign policy, it is necessary to consider not only the substance but also the genre of diplomatic writing, as practiced by Service, Davies, and others in the China corps. In the reports of the China hands, as in virtually all diplomatic writing, the form itself conveyed important aspects of the complex and evolving set of policy positions in the diplomatic establishment. In many ways, the formal and procedural qualities of Service’s and Davies’ reports reflected the combined influence of classical and modern worldviews and practices on the diplomatic establishment and on the China hands in particular. One important quality that united these sometimes contradictory forces is the notion of insider writing—the belief that only those on the inside of the diplomatic establishment can fully understand both the complexities of foreign policy and the diplomatic writing in which those complexities are analyzed. As China hand John Melby has said, “Lay judgment of a report on its contents alone is misleading.”5 A focus on the genre of diplomatic writing in the China hands’ recommendations would not merit more than a cursory examination were it not for the fact that in the attacks against the China hands, this tradition of insider writing became subject to outside scrutiny. Drawing on a long history of antipathy toward traditional diplomacy in the United States, which dates back to the early days of the republic, Senator Joseph McCarthy and others pointed not only to the immediate recommendations of the China hands but also to the unarticulated worldview and practices of the diplomatic establishment. Casting suspicion on the very principle of insider writing, they portrayed diplomatic writing as a microcosm of intellectual elitism, the un-American cosmopolitanism and clubbiness of diplomats, and the totalitarian bureaucracy in which they thrived—effectively combining the old and new antipathies toward the diplomatic establishment. Diplomatic writing explained the China hands’ proCommunist sympathies in a broad and systematic way and therefore constituted a more profound attack than focusing merely on the recommendation to cooperate with the Communists. The long-standing tradition of diplomatic writing, the defining form of knowledge production and exchange in the diplomatic establishment, and the substrate in which policy alternatives could be cultivated thus became an unannounced subject of attack during the Red Scare, with broad and deep implications for the future of U.S. foreign policy.

74 “ learn to write well” T he R i s e o f a Repo rt i ng D u o

Davies and Service entered the Foreign Service in 1933 and 1935, respectively, in the midst of what was essentially a double war in China—the war against the Japanese and the civil war between China’s Nationalist government and the ascendant Communists led by Mao Tse-Tung.6 Since Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist army had clashed intermittently with the Japanese while simultaneously battling the Communists who threatened to usurp the government’s power from inside China. In 1937, when the Japanese took over the Marco Polo Bridge in Beijing, the Nationalists and Communists would declare a united front, but this amounted to little more than a facade that masked the internal struggle threatening to destroy China from within.7 Although Service and Davies did not yet have set notions for how to deal with the mounting political chaos in China, they hoped to make important contributions to America’s evolving policies in the region. Like most ambitious Foreign Service officers, they aspired to do so through political reports. “The gravy of Foreign Service work,” Service called them, and the key to “fame and fortune” in the world of Washington officialdom. “To be noticed and advanced in the Foreign Service,” they knew, “one had to write notable reports.” The Foreign Service offered them little in the way of any formal training toward this end. In contrast to the long and substantial training of military officers, before being appointed to the consul at Yunnan-fu in southwestern China, Davies attended only a six-week training course in Washington, which focused mostly on technical matters of consular work. Service, who had worked for two and a half years in Yunnan-fu before being appointed to the Foreign Service, was not required to undergo even that modest course of formal training in Washington. In the long-standing tradition of diplomatic reporting, dating back to eighteenth-century Europe, American Foreign Service officers were expected to learn less from formal training than from on-the-job experience and apprenticeship.8 Like all career diplomats, Service and Davies had to start out at the bottom of the totem pole. Their first posts consisted mainly of dry bureaucratic routine. Davies, a somewhat solitary and skeptical personality, was bored by the quotidian dullness of “immigration laws” and “notarial procedures,” which in others inculcated a “heady self-esteem of official position.” Like Davies, Service’s first post as a clerk at the American consul in Yunnan-fu was rather humdrum,

75 “ learn to write well” consisting mostly of decoding and filing official messages, stamping passports, and issuing visas. It would be another three years before he even had a crack at political reporting. The task turned out to be more challenging than Service had expected. “Terrible, tear it up,” said Monroe Hall, a Japanese language officer who was Service’s boss in the bustling consul of Shanghai.9 It was not until they arrived in the wartime embassy of Chungking that Service and Davies truly began to learn the evolving art of political reporting. Old-time China hand and new ambassador Clarence Gauss, would become an important mentor, in developing both Service’s and Davies’ understanding of U.S.-China relations and their skills as diplomatic reporters. Gauss, an aloof— some would say caustic—personality, had served in China almost continuously since 1912. He harbored some of the classical and conservative views typical of Foreign Service officers there since the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the Open Door Policy. In Gauss’ time, American Foreign Service officers, like their European counterparts, focused almost exclusively on issues of trade. They generally did not have extensive knowledge of, or interest in, the internal politics of China. Gauss didn’t speak Chinese or eat Chinese food, and always had a bottle of Tabasco sauce on hand to eat with his eggs.10 Though Gauss had the traditional tendency to separate himself from Chinese politics and culture, he had a different vision for the future of the China service. As political tensions mounted in China and the role of the United States in world affairs evolved over the first decades of the twentieth century, Gauss increasingly recognized the need for diplomats stationed in China to adopt a new, more interactive and informed approach. He encouraged his subordinates to meet with and interview local politicians and the populace in order to get a feel for political developments from the ground up. Accordingly, Service and Davies were expected to leave the embassy on a daily basis to make and maintain local contacts.11 Service and Davies took up this task with an enthusiasm that reflects key demographic and political changes in the old and new generation of China hands. The old China hands were establishment elites from the East, schooled at Groton and Harvard. Service and Davies came from more modest backgrounds. Their parents, born in the Midwest, joined the nonsectarian missionary movement of the late nineteenth century, a predecessor to today’s Peace Corps, and moved to China. Born in the snowcapped town of Kiatung in western China in 1908, Davies later moved with his family to the capital of

76 “ learn to write well” Chengtu, where Service’s father headed the YMCA and where Service was born in 1909. It was in Chengtu where Service and Davies first met. As nineand ten-year-old boys, they would read and reenact battle stories coming out of the war front in Europe.12 Unlike the old China hands, who didn’t speak Chinese and hardly ventured outside the compound of the Euro-American diplomatic establishment, Service and Davies spoke the Szechwan dialect of Mandarin from a young age and had a penchant for travel and exploration. As a boy, Service immersed himself in the adventure novels of James Fenimore Cooper, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Rudyard Kipling, but was truly entranced by tales of Teddy Roosevelt’s journeys in foreign lands and his father’s books on Tibet and western China, written by British officers of the Indian Army who roamed the mountain ranges on their extended leaves from service. As a young man, Service emulated these officers, hiking hundreds of miles into the hinterlands of northwest China. He could boast, if not a native knowledge of Chinese society, at least a long-standing and earnest quest to understand it. In his twenties, Davies too took every opportunity to explore the countryside in search of a China that remained beyond reach for most foreigners. He also got to know the port cities. As a student in Shanghai in 1925, he witnessed the stirrings of an emerging proletarian movement in China, in the wake of the “May 30th incident” in which a young Chinese factory woman was murdered in a Japanese-owned textile mill. The experience contributed to the young Davies’ curiosity about the future of this rapidly changing but still overwhelmingly rural country.13 Gauss’ desire to integrate substantial fieldwork into the China service meshed with the desire of Service, Davies, and other new China hands to expand on their knowledge of Chinese society and politics. “From this time on,” Service would later recall, “I was to be very much a sort of a traveling man, an outdoors, or outside man instead of an inside or office man.”14 In this role, Service and Davies worked closely with foreign correspondents, who were part of a parallel revolution in journalistic reporting from China. In 1928 Edgar Snow, the most famous of the journalist China hands, had been motivated by a similar thirst for adventure and interest in the changing social landscape of China. In 1936, he traveled to the northern city of Pao An,15 where he was the first Western reporter to meet with Mao Tse-tung, who had previously been reported dead. In addition to independent, left-leaning reporters following in Snow’s footsteps, Chungking was host to foreign correspondents from the ma-

77 “ learn to write well” jor newspapers and magazines, most notably Time and Life, owned and operated by media mogul Henry Luce, whose parents had also been missionaries in China and who had close ties to the Nationalist government. In an international scene brimming with foreign correspondents, some of the most compelling and controversial would make China their focus. On any given afternoon, Teddy White, Agnes Smedley, Brooks Atkinson, and Harold Isaacs could be found at the press hostel, the shabby compound of mud and bamboo buildings where the journalists lived. There was a symbiotic relationship between the new China hand journalists and their diplomat counterparts. Davies, who regularly exchanged information with his analogs in the press, would remember the hostel as the “brightest spot in Chungking.”16 In addition to making local contacts, Service and Davies began to travel deeper into the countryside to get a feel for developments among the Chinese peasantry, who constituted the vast majority of China’s populace. Whenever he could, Davies escaped the banalities of consular work to travel to the lessexplored sections of China, where he detailed conversations with local farmers and merchants. In 1942, Service traveled to the northern provinces with a group of local Chinese officials and journalists. There he witnessed and reported on the impact of the Nationalist government’s policy of heavy taxes, forced conscription, and coerced sharecropping to the army, which left thousands, if not millions, of peasants to starve. Getting to know Chinese politics and the Chinese people from the ground up contributed to Service’s and Davies’ increasing frustration with the abuses of Chiang Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang Party (KMT).17 “There would be hunger but no real famine,” wrote Service from Honan in November 1942, “were [it] not for the war and brutal and oppressive treatment of the farmers by their own government and army.” Service’s fieldwork made him especially sensitive to popular unrest and the potential ascension of the Communist Party (CCP). In Chungking, Service met often with the CCP’s “Vice Chairman,” Chou En-lai, for meals at which they discussed Marxism, American democracy, and China’s future.18 The influential analyses of Marxism in the Soviet Union that George Kennan would write at the end of the war were based largely on books about Marxism as well as other literary influences on Kennan. In contrast, the reports Service wrote about Marxism in China were based on what he actually saw and heard. Later, when Service’s loyalty would come into question, Time’s star reporter, Teddy White, would vouch for his skills as a political reporter, “having report-

78 “ learn to write well” ed on American statecraft from every part of the world.” White was certain that Service’s reporting skills, and particularly his ability to win the trust of the Communists, were simply “unmatched” by any reporter, official or otherwise.19 In addition to putting increased emphasis on fieldwork, Gauss taught his subordinates the importance of writing their reports in a way that increased the chance that they would actually be read in Washington. The art of diplomatic reporting developed in an era when the scope of foreign relations was relatively narrow and the number of diplomats few. Traditionally, diplomats wrote their dispatches in an epistolary form, as part of an ongoing and intimate conversation between diplomat and monarch or later between diplomat and foreign minister or secretary of state. Gauss’ predecessor, Nelson Johnson, wrote all of his reports as personal letters to his friends at the Far East desk in the State Department. The twentieth century saw an increase in the scope of foreign affairs and in the number of individuals working in foreign affairs establishments. Increasingly, the United States followed the lead of Europe in bureaucratizing its foreign affairs apparatus. Gauss, who had risen through the consular service, was himself a product of this shift. In lieu of an intimate audience of senior policymakers in Washington, Gauss wrote his reports through official bureaucratic channels. In the mushrooming wartime foreign affairs bureaucracy, one could not count on one’s reports being read, let alone heeded by senior policymakers. “The first thing to do,” Gauss explained, “is to learn to write well.” Gauss taught Service that, in this effort, “form is sometimes more important than content.” In the mushrooming wartime foreign affairs bureaucracy, efficiency had become a priority. Service proved to be an apt bureaucrat. Drawing on his experiences as a clerk, where he filed and coded the reports written by others, he learned, as he would later say, “how to draft telegrams so that the night duty officer could get the subject right away” and how to “break up a dispatch into various smaller dispatches” so that his reports could be filed and retrieved by readers with greater ease.20 The relatively plain style of investigative reporting that Gauss taught his men fit Service’s personality. “I’m a nuts and bolts—I’m a facts and figures man, and I don’t deal well with abstract concepts,” Service would self-effacingly say. But through these nuts and bolts, he was able to construct a picture of the broader political machine of China. Several of Service’s wartime reports are remarkable not only for their incorporation of previously untapped information from the field, but also for their ability to convey a complex political

79 “ learn to write well” analysis through an efficient illustration. In a July 1943 report, for example, Service illustrated the weakness of Chiang Kai-shek’s government through an analysis of official KMT propaganda. As one commentator would later note, “Jack had uncanny instincts. He could walk along a Chinese street and by the kind of matches sold or the clothing worn or the food being cooked, could analyze the structure of the local society.”21 Gauss recognized Service’s skills, and regularly relayed many of Service’s reports to Washington.22 In contrast to Teddy White’s reports, which Luce routinely edited to match his own political agenda, Service’s reports reached Washington largely untouched by the ambassador or by China’s strict censors. As such, they constituted some of the richest and most unadulterated reporting then available to American policymakers.23 While Service was learning how to get his reports from the field read by “working” the bureaucratic channels, Davies was establishing high-level contacts outside these channels through the more traditional, epistolary art of diplomatic reporting. In 1940 Davies was transferred to the Far East desk in Washington, where through reading and commenting on incoming memos, he acquired more experience in the craft of diplomatic reporting. Before long, he was assigned the task of writing briefs to the secretary of state summarizing the week’s events in the Far East. In 1941, he met Lauchlin Currie, the Harvard economist cum assistant to the president, who had been captivated by China after his recent trip as Roosevelt’s emissary. Currie, Davies observed, was a “voracious consumer of information.” Always in search of more data to digest, he began to contact Davies from time to time to supply him with it. Soon after, Davies proposed his services to General Joseph Stilwell, commander of the China-Burma-India theater. Stilwell, who had a hatred for corrupt elites and an instinct for rugged adventure, encouraged Davies to be as informed and honest as possible in his analysis of the war effort. As Stilwell’s diplomatic attaché in India, Davies further developed his fieldwork and reporting skills and cultivated his epistolary relationship with Currie, copying several reports to the White House. In 1942, when Currie returned to China for another visit, Davies served as his principle point man. Thereafter, he continued to send batches of his memos to Currie, including one in which he stated, “The objective of the Chinese government is to insure its own perpetuation and domestic supremacy,” which is why its policy is to “conserve rather than expend its military strength.” In the ensuing months, Davies began to emphasize the risk of pulling the Soviet Union into the crisis. “Should Chiang attack the Communists,

80 “ learn to write well” it would only be natural,” he wrote, that they “would turn for aid to their immediate neighbor, the Soviet Union.” In that event, “we would find ourselves entangled not only in a civil war in China but also drawn into conflict with the Soviet Union.” “Your letters and reports,” wrote an enthusiastic Currie in one reply, “are awfully good and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate getting them. Occasionally, I pass on little bits to the President as coming from a ‘young foreign service officer friend of mine.’”24 Service’s and Davies’ simultaneous rise as political reporters coincided with two key developments in U.S. foreign policy. One was the involvement of the United States in the war against the Axis powers, which elevated the strategic importance of China. In April 1941, before America’s official entry into the war, the United States expanded the Lend Lease program, initiating a massive campaign of financial, material, and technical aid to China, which continued throughout the war. As Service, Davies, and others reported, the Nationalist government funneled much of this aid not to fighting the Japanese but instead to fighting the Communists. The other development, though related, is less well known. Before Pearl Harbor, the process of gathering, reporting, and analyzing foreign intelligence had remained largely unchanged since the eighteenth century, when the United States had only a handful of high-level representatives abroad who corresponded with the president and secretary directly about countries that were well known to writer and reader alike. To answer the need for more and better intelligence in the war, modern research units were established in Washington and given the task of launching a more systematic process of managing and analyzing the huge influx of new information now streaming in from all over the world, precisely the kind of information that Service and Davies were reporting from the field. Service’s informative, no-nonsense style especially suited this evolving interpretive apparatus in Washington. The first Foreign Service officer to return to the United States from China after Pearl Harbor in December 1942, the budding star reporter was sought after by various high officials, including Currie, who encouraged him to follow Davies’ practice of regularly sending his reports along.25 This enthusiastic reception motivated Service to write a broader and more sweeping analysis of the political situation in China. The tone of Service’s January 23, 1943, “Assessment of the KMT-Communist Situation” was much stronger than that of his previous memos. “The United Front is now definitely

81 “ learn to write well” a thing of the past,” Service confidently declared in the opening line. “It is now no longer whether civil war can be avoided, but rather whether it can be delayed at least until after a victory over Japan.” A consideration of the Communists, Service argued, would serve both the military and the political goals of the United States. Militarily, Communist forces were poised to control strategic areas on the northern border. Politically, American support could prevent the Communists from adopting more radical, anti-democratic policies. A first step would be sending observers to Yenan, the Communist base in northern China.26 Now that Service’s attention-grabbing language and tone were fueling an effort to influence policy more directly, it gained him critics as well as fans in the State Department. Stanley Hornbeck, an old-time China hand then in charge of the Far East desk in Washington, was particularly incensed. “Preposterous,” “Ridiculous,” “Scandalous,” he scribbled in the margins of Service’s memo. Yet the tides in the State Department were turning toward the positions of the new China hands. A reshuffling of the Far Eastern Division and the Chungking embassy put individuals largely in tune with Service’s views at the receiving end of his words. John Carter Vincent, who had served as second in command at the Chungking embassy, replaced Hornbeck, and was in turn replaced by George Atcheson, who shared Service’s desire to change U.S.-China relations. In the summer and fall of 1943, the department commended several of Service’s reports. And in August, upon Davies’ recommendation, Service was assigned to Stilwell’s staff.27 Formal commendations from the State Department and praise from presidential advisors were encouraging signs. But ultimately, the person that needed to be convinced was the president. Typically, Roosevelt did not take the advice of Foreign Service officers very seriously, categorically dismissing them as a bunch of elite aristocrats, a class stereotype that in FDR’s case often masked serious political differences between the president and the diplomatic corps. In the early years of the war, Roosevelt tolerated Chiang’s shortcomings out of an interest in making China a major power after the war, part of his larger vision of a post-European world order. However, by the time of the Cairo conference in the autumn of 1943, FDR’s doubts about Chiang were increasing. “We should look for some other man or group of men to carry on,” the president whispered to Stilwell. Davies attended the conference in Cairo, where he reiterated his concerns about Chiang’s leadership to Roosevelt and Harry

82 “ learn to write well” Hopkins, who intimated that Stilwell and his attaché should be brought into the president’s inner circle for determining China policy.28 After Cairo, Davies continued to send Hopkins both his reports, in which he recommended sending a diplomatic mission to the Communist base in Yenan, and batches of Service’s dispatches. There was indeed, as Service would later say, a sense of “co-authorship” between them.29 This shared effort appeared to be succeeding. Although Roosevelt partly blamed rising tensions with China on a personal clash between Chiang and old “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, in the ensuing months, he took steps to move U.S. policy in the direction that Stilwell and his subordinates were recommending. The president showed an increasing interest in obtaining information about China through channels other than Chiang and showed a particular interest in getting more information from the Communists. In the spring of 1944, on a rare occasion of working through State Department channels, Roosevelt signed a letter drafted by Service to Chiang requesting permission to send U.S. observers to Yenan.30 H ur ley a n d t he B at t le o f th e M e m os

Chiang was not used to the State Department playing anything more than a minor role in high-level diplomacy, and he regarded the enhanced access of Foreign Service personnel to the president as a threat. “There were too many channels through the State Department,” he complained to Roosevelt, which impeded the “closer cooperation and understanding” that he desired. It is not surprising that FDR, who typically practiced diplomacy with China through personal emissaries, immediately granted Chiang’s request to do so again. In appointing a new emissary, Roosevelt could stay in Chiang’s good graces, even while moving to marginalize him. Still, exactly why Roosevelt appointed Patrick Hurley, a swashbuckling, loud-talking Republican functionary from Oklahoma, who had served as secretary of war under Hoover, remains unclear. Having, as one commentator has said, “the appearance of a nineteenth century riverboat gambler,” Hurley exuded the image of the “ugly” American that would in the coming decades severely compromise America’s anti-Communist efforts in Asia.31 Although it was to Stilwell that Roosevelt had whispered his doubts about Chiang, Roosevelt had for some time been contemplating the removal of his general. In fact, Currie had recommended it as early as 1941, after his first trip to

83 “ learn to write well” China. Subsequent presidential emissaries, including Henry Wallace, had also advocated the general’s dismissal. But it was Hurley who most forcefully directed the president to act. “If you sustain Stilwell in this controversy,” he cabled FDR, “you will lose Chiang Kai-shek and possibly you will lose China with him.”32 Service was already in Yenan at the time. His mission to the Communist headquarters, where Mao and his comrades slept and ate in mountain caves, had been going remarkably well. Isolated from the outside world for the past six years by the Nationalist government and before that by the Long March, the Communists were eager to communicate their reason and moderation to the United States. Service had almost unprecedented access to Mao, whom he regularly sat next to at dinner. The chairman appreciated Service’s intellect and his willingness to express disagreement when it existed. The two men often had long lunch interviews in which they bantered about the political future of China and its role in world affairs. One of these meetings lasted more than six hours.33 When Service got word of Hurley’s request, the positive energy of the Yenan mission transformed into seething hostility toward the ambassador. The very idea that Stilwell might lose his job at the demand of Chiang made Service “fulminate.” From Yenan, Service channeled his frustration into the most bold and assertive report of his career. Written in great haste, but with a marked degree of accumulated reflection, Report No. 40, as it came to be called, addressed something much broader than the Stilwell controversy. If there were ever in the past good reasons to support the Nationalist government unconditionally, Service argued, they no longer existed: “We do not need it for military reasons,” as the Chinese army has proved largely “inconsequential” in the war effort against Japan. “We need not support Chiang in the belief that he represents pro-American or democratic groups,” as Chiang no longer commands the confidence of the liberal elements. “We cannot hope to solve China’s problems (which are now our problems),” Service concluded, “without consideration of the opposition forces—Communist, Provincial, and liberal.” Service sent a copy to Davies as well as to Stilwell.34 Report No. 40 epitomizes the combination of old and new in the China hands’ worldview and in the practice of diplomatic reporting through which they conveyed it. In the substance of his recommendations, Service advanced both a traditional realist argument that emphasized the role of China in the war against the Axis powers and a more modern idealist argument that emphasized the possibility of furthering democracy in China. The combination of old

84 “ learn to write well” and new diplomacy was built into the very form of Service’s report. On the one hand, it was an intimate epistle to his boss and immediate colleagues, and thus bore the stamp of a bygone age in which foreign policy focused on a balance of power and was formulated at a slow pace by a small circle of elite statesmen. On the other hand, the report was a synthesis of Service’s fieldwork in China. It thus bore the imprint of a new era in which the China hands were increasingly tuned in to the world outside the confines of the Euro-American diplomatic establishment and sending their reports back to a faster-paced, informationhungry Washington, which operated according to the principles of efficiency and expediency. Critics would later accuse Service of being a bit too charmed by Mao. Even so, his reports to Washington were full of substantial information and important insights from and about the Communist front, the very stuff that Roosevelt had in mind when he approved the mission. Years later, many of Service’s colleagues would argue that Service’s reports were the most valuable aspect of the entire mission.35 Savvy and informative as they had become, the reporting duo of Service and Davies could not compete with Hurley, who had a direct line to the president and played into a rising anti-Communist sentiment in the United States, which became linked to the effort to bolster the Chiang regime. As tensions in U.S.-China relations continued to rise, Service’s and Davies’ reports increasingly gained them more antagonists than allies. Chiang’s advisor and brotherin-law, T. V. Soong, began to put pressure on Hurley to fire Davies. Seeking to extricate himself from the power struggle, Davies transferred to Moscow in January 1945.36 Report No. 40 did not reach Washington until more than a month after Stilwell’s dismissal. By this time, Gauss had retired. Roosevelt replaced him with none other than Patrick Hurley, who jealously guarded his direct access to the president and blamed the increasingly hardboiled stance of the Communists on his own staff. Of all the China hands, Hurley felt most threatened by Service, who had demonstrated a rare ability to capture the Chinese scene in his reports and gain an audience of senior policymakers in Washington. In an April 1945 report to Washington, Hurley lambasted Report No. 40, which, he said, demonstrated Service’s “attempt to bring about the downfall” of the Nationalist government and establish relations instead with “the Communist armed party.”37

85 “ learn to write well” In making these accusations, Hurley was merely echoing those of the Nationalist government. Indeed, the ambassador was not the only American official to be influenced by his host country. It was in collaboration with the Chinese secret police, led by Dai Li, that the FBI first opened a case against Service and, in the spring of 1945, charged him with espionage. Service was accused of divulging some of his classified reports to the editor of Amerasia, a left-leaning journal of U.S.-Asia relations that had been receiving reams of documents from a State Department employee in Washington. Since his return, Service had given the editor of the journal a few of his reports, but insisted that it was only as part of the common practice in which State Department officers provide journalists with classified information for use as background in their stories. Though the grand jury cleared Service unanimously, over the next several years, Service’s opponents would repeatedly raise these charges as a sign of his guilt.38 Hurley had essentially become a functionary of the Chinese government. At the end of 1944, he single-handedly revised his objective. Rather than forge a compromise between the Nationalists and the Communists, it was now his duty, as he saw it, to “uphold the Nationalist government.” In this role, he forwarded a concerned note from Chiang Kai-shek to the Secretary of State questioning Service’s loyalty not to the United States but to China. “Mr. Service has expressed views that are definitely unfriendly to the Central Government of China and clearly reveal their support of the policies of the Communist Party.” For this reason, he argued, it would be unwise to appoint him to General MacArthur’s staff in Japan, where, as Chiang had read in the press, Service would help the general establish postwar relations with the vanquished power. Hurley did not question the basis of Chiang’s attack, let alone the propriety of Chiang’s involvement in the appointment of U.S. Foreign Service officers. In Washington, some State Department officers began to voice their concerns over the “severe restrictions being imposed upon political reporting by General Hurley.” As a result, they cautioned, “the Department can’t count on getting a complete view of the situation in China.”39 In November 1945, after months of unsuccessful attempts to broker a multiparty coalition under the auspices of the central government, Hurley resigned in a huff. In his long and disjointed resignation letter, he blamed the Foreign Service officers working under him for the failure of his mission. “The professional Foreign Service men sided with the Chinese Communist armed party

86 “ learn to write well” and the imperialist bloc of nations whose policy it was to keep China divided against herself.”40 When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigated Hurley’s charges, Hurley once again cited Service’s Report No. 40. With the Cold War still in utero, Hurley’s accusations were premature. High-level support in the State Department also helped the accused. Although Secretary of State James Byrnes had tended to neglect the rank and file in formulating foreign policy, he realized the need to protect careerists from Hurley’s politicized attacks. In defending Service before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Byrnes underscored the importance of honest reporting in the State Department. “I should be profoundly unhappy to learn that an officer of the Department of State  . . . might feel bound to refrain from submitting through proper channels an honest report or recommendation for fear of offending me or anyone else in the Department.” Hurley’s charges were thus temporarily put to rest.41 Over the next several years, the China Lobby and those who sought to advance their political agenda through it periodically bandied about the names of Service and his fellow China hands. In late 1946, the Republican opposition geared up for congressional elections. Rather than blame the president for an embargo on China,42 congressional and corporate associates of the China Lobby accused the China hands of starving the Nationalists of needed supplies. In 1948, as the Nationalist military showed signs of cracking, the Republican Party made China and the loyalty of State Department officers twin pillars of its attempt to regain the presidency. In that year, ex-Communist Whittaker Chambers stood as witness against Alger Hiss, a State Department official who had attended the Yalta conference with Roosevelt, played a key role in organizing the United Nations, and had been accused of espionage. Chambers’ testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee provided the structure of accusation that others would follow in the months and years to come. The China Lobby became increasingly important as the effort to weaken the Truman administration with accusations of communism became more vehement. After the election, which, to everyone’s surprise, Truman won, the administration’s opponents once again invoked the China hands as a dangerous influence.43 But the names of Service, Davies, and their colleagues did not come fully into the spotlight again until 1949, when the long-standing effort to keep Chiang’s government afloat finally collapsed. In accusing the China hands of conspiring to overthrow the Nationalist government on behalf of world com-

87 “ learn to write well” munism, McCarthy and others pointed not only to the immediate recommendations of Service and Davies but also to the very practice of diplomatic reporting, which itself became associated with communism. Chi n a W hi t e Pa p e r : T he Da ng er s o f S u b j ect ing Ins i d e W r i t i ng to O u ts i d e J u d gme n t

Truman was an ardent Cold Warrior who believed in building up a bulwark of anti-communist nations to prevent the expansion of the Soviet Union. Like most in his administration, he prioritized Europe. There, he promised to support any nation threatened by the communist menace, and there, he implemented the massive program of economic aid known as the Marshall Plan. Asia was much less important, and China in particular a lost cause. Though Truman signed the 1948 China Aid Bill, which stipulated $338 million in economic aid and $125 million in military support, he privately considered it the equivalent of “pouring sand in a rat hole.” The primary representative of America’s Europhilic establishment elite, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, on whom the president largely relied in matters of foreign policy, shared this view.44 In mid-1949, as the Communist victory appeared imminent, the president and secretary of state wanted, above all else, to absolve themselves of responsibility for the political future of China. It was in this context that the State Department published what became known as the China White Paper, a 1,054page record of U.S.-China relations containing major treaties, reports of diplomatic missions, and high-level communiqués as well as a narrative to put them into context. The project turned out to be disastrous not only for the administration but also for the China hands. The reception of the White Paper demonstrated both the general risk of using inside writing to justify unpopular foreign policy decisions to the outside and the particular way in which diplomatic writing served as a microcosm of McCarthy’s anti-Communist attacks on the U.S. foreign policy establishment. Unfortunately, Service and Davies were slow to grasp these overlapping realities. The idea of the White Paper was first formally proposed in November 1948 by Davies, who was now back in Washington working under George Kennan on the Policy Planning Staff, where, as much as anyone else, he had demonstrated “good credentials as a Cold Warrior.” Acheson strongly supported the project, and became its most important advocate. Congressional and press criticism of

88 “ learn to write well” U.S.-China policy emanated largely “from ignorance of the facts,” he told the president in the spring of 1949. If we “prepare a thorough account of our relations with China,” the American people would know the facts, and their criticism would effectively be put to rest. Truman’s endorsement of “open diplomacy” in speeches that summer prepared the public for the upcoming revelation.45 After receiving the go-ahead from the president, the State Department organized a group to manage the project. It included Walton Butterworth, then director of the Far Eastern Division, Philip Sprouse, head of the China desk, and John Melby, a Foreign Service officer recently returned from China. Together, they began collecting and collating the primary sources and writing up a narrative that put them in context. Philip Jessup, the eminent expert on international law, was put in charge of editing, and a handful of other academics and journalists were consulted for advice.46 Davies asked Service if he would like to include excerpts from their reports in the compilation. Service had always been eager to get these read within the bureaucracy, but he had refrained from speaking out in public, even in order to defend himself against personal attacks. In a letter to Service written in the wake of his exoneration in the Amerasia affair, old Vinegar Joe, who put a premium on publicly countering Chiang’s rhetoric, confessed, “I was secretly hoping that you would get a chance to sound off where you could be heard.”47 But institutional custom militated against speaking out to the public. Just as Marshall directed Kennan to cease from publicizing his work in the government—“Planners don’t talk!”—so had the traditional convention of separating foreign affairs from democratic politics and career diplomats from politicians directed Service thus far. Service’s mentor was pleased that he had remained quiet. “There is no advantage in questioning motives and resorting to public statements,” wrote Gauss.48 In tune with this advice, Service had not appeared as a witness in either the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s hearing to investigate Hurley’s charges or the House Judiciary Committee’s 1946 hearings to investigate the Amerasia affair, but rather let his superiors speak on his behalf.49 By the summer of 1949, Service had tired of the attacks, and like others who supported the project, concluded that explaining his perspective on U.S.-China relations to the American people would do some good. He immediately went to work gathering several of his and Davies’ reports, which the two then excerpted and organized by subject. The process of rereading and collating them

89 “ learn to write well” reminded both him and Davies of just how right they had been, “a pat on the back to us,” Service would later say. The spirit of Stilwell, who had since died and would have been most proud at this moment, must have been with them. Their selections were accepted without change and incorporated as Annex 47 in the White Paper.50 Acheson initially planned to publish the White Paper after the Communist takeover. Ignoring several objections, he subsequently revised this plan and pushed instead for early publication.51 In the haste to get the document out, the revisions to the fifteen-page introduction were accepted largely without change. Nathaniel Pfeffer, a Columbia professor, had made most of the changes. It was he who penned the introduction’s most famous lines: The unfortunate but inescapable fact is that the ominous result of the civil war in China was beyond the control of the government of the United States. Nothing that this country did or could have done within the reasonable limits of its capabilities could have changed that result; nothing that was left undone by this country has contributed to it. It was the product of internal Chinese forces, forces which this country tried to influence but could not. In addition to removing the administration from the outcome of the Chinese civil war, the China White Paper also announced a de facto state of nondiplomacy with the Communists. Though “our aid and encouragement was intended to help the Chinese resist,” it had been undermined by the “vast crusading movement” of communist internationalism. “The Communist leaders,” the introduction concluded, “have foresworn their Chinese heritage and have publicly announced their subservience to a foreign power, Russia.” Contemporary reports and memos of U.S. officials, which constituted the bulk of the volume, were offered as evidence of the introduction’s twin proclamations.52 Historians have long since debated the Truman administration’s 1949 stance vis-à-vis the Chinese Communists. There is evidence that despite their public excoriation of the Communists in the White Paper, behind-thescenes the president and secretary of state did seriously consider recognition of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). However, they believed that the Chinese Communists were dependent on the Soviets. Only after the administration saw proof that this relationship among the Communist powers was sufficiently severed would they reward Mao with diplomatic recognition. The

90 “ learn to write well” rhetoric of the White Paper was thus in part an early example of the administration’s public attempt to shame the Chinese into making a nationalist break from Russia.53 Though the China White Paper took a decisive anti-communist stand, right-wing critics saw the document as a reflection of the administration’s wavering commitment to America’s anti-communist ally in China. Journalist Joe Alsop, who was also the former aide to aviator and archnemesis of Stilwell, Claire Chennault, wrote: “If you have kicked a drowning friend briskly in the face as he sank for the second and third times, you cannot later explain that he was doomed anyway because he was such a bad swimmer.” This was not governmental transparency, argued critics, but instead evidence that all along, policymakers had obscured their actions from the public. “Those who have prepared the White Paper have debated in secret, decided in secret, and have lost China openly.” Years later, critics would still be calling the China White Paper “one of the most false documents ever published by any country.”54 The fatal flaw of the China White Paper, argues Robert Newman, was that its message ran against the grain of “the rhetorical climate,” which was “simply not hospitable to an argument that challenged America’s virile self-image.”55 Though high-level policymakers got heat for the White Paper, career diplomats felt the blast equally if not more. In zeroing in on Service and Davies in particular, critics associated not only their immediate policy recommendations but also the basic elements of diplomatic writing with communist conspiracy. “During most of their past,” observed diplomatic historian Waldo Heinrichs, “Americans have barely tolerated diplomats.”56 Diplomats have stereotypically been regarded as effete, cosmopolitan elites, lacking in patriotism and guilty of having “gone native,” which, up until the twentieth century, generally meant being too European. The attacks on the China hands combined this stereotype, which evolved in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a newer stereotype, which evolved in the twentieth century, after the U.S. diplomatic corps professionalized and bureaucratized.57 This combination is evident in the criticism of the diplomats whose reports were included in the China White Paper. Projecting blame onto the rank and file, several critics saw the document as a reflection of the bureaucracy’s control of the State Department and U.S. foreign policy more generally. “The antagonist of American bureaucracy is not merely Russia, but the American people,” announced one provocateur along these lines.58 Republican congressman and China Lobby spokesperson William Jenner said foreign affairs bureaucrats were a “self-elected elite” that had

91 “ learn to write well” “seized the reins of government away from the American people.”59 In the anticommunist climate, the idea of bureaucracy thus encapsulated and updated preexisting prejudices against the diplomatic corps. Critics were not entirely off the mark in conflating old and new versions of the diplomatic establishment. One key characteristic shared by the old and new models is the tacit assumption of an insider audience for their reports. The tradition of the White Paper—which emanates from the British parliamentary system, in which government positions are printed and disseminated throughout Parliament—comprises a key exception to the Weberian notion that bureaucracies, and especially the foreign affairs bureaucracy, benefit from keeping as much as possible from the public. Wise bureaucrats know, as Weber wrote, to “make public only what cannot do harm to the intentions of the power-wielding bureaucracy.”60 Since its beginnings, when the State Department replaced a committee of the legislative assembly, the diplomatic establishment struggled with advancing its authority against a distrustful and jealous legislature. One of the perennial challenges of those working in the foreign affairs establishment has been to convince the public and Congress of its right to guide U.S. foreign policy. Along these lines, Joseph Grew, one of the top officials of the Foreign Service in the first half of the twentieth century, taught new recruits that part of their job was to “smooth things over” with the public, but at the same time he conceded that, in this task, they “had to be more careful of the susceptibilities of Americans than of foreigners.” The long-standing distrust between diplomats and the American populace put the State Department in an awkward and somewhat contradictory position. On the one hand, it aimed to protect itself from outsiders meddling in its business. But on the other, it had to convince Congress and the American public that it had the knowledge, skills, and values that legitimated its right to do that business in the first place.61 During the postwar period, the State Department was in the process of building up its public relations department, in essence experimenting with the idea of making the dissemination of White Papers the rule rather than the exception. In cases where these efforts were successful—for example, the publication of George Kennan’s X-article in 1947—there was already a latent level of support for the policy being promoted. In contrast, the China White Paper only highlighted the gap between the official and public perspectives. It reflected and reinforced the government’s weakness in an embarrassingly public way.62

92 “ learn to write well” Ironically, despite its inclusion of Service’s and Davies’ reports, the China White Paper actually marginalized their perspective. Only one of their communiqués—a February 1945 embassy staff memo recommending a modus operandi with the Communists—was included in the body of the document. In contrast to the treatment of several other documents in the report, the narrative introduction provided almost no context for the staff ’s recommendations. A brief addendum tacked onto the conclusion noted simply: “General Hurley strongly opposed the course of action recommended above and it remained the policy of the United States to supply materiel and financial support only to the recognized Chinese National Government.” Portraying the memo only as an example of a de facto rejected perspective, the narrative omitted the fact that it had received official commendation and had even been sent to the White House.63 Even more problematic was the treatment of Service’s and Davies’ reports in the annex. There, the compilers provided absolutely no narrative explanation, not even a framing of the debates to which the reports belonged. Though on their own, the excerpts did offer some sense of Service’s and Davies’ broader argument, portions were nonetheless easy for a non-expert to read the wrong way. Even in its complete version, Report No. 40 is difficult to understand outside the context of U.S.-China relations on a level with which the public remained largely unfamiliar. In Annex 47, Service quoted only one paragraph from it, which included, again in highlighted italics, the claim “We are in no way dependent on the Kuomintang,” but did not include the explanation of why this was the case. Among the most problematic were the excerpts in which Service and Davies had praised the Communists: Their “espousal of democracy appeals to the great majority of the people of China and is a good club for beating the Kuomintang,” from one of Service’s Yenan reports. “The communists are in China to stay. And China’s destiny is not Chiang’s but theirs” from one of Davies’. These bold and memorable one-liners certainly commanded attention, but for a potentially hostile readership, that may not have been such a good thing.64 Like most of Service’s and Davies’ official writings, the reports in Annex 47 were snapshot analyses written on the inside for fellow insiders. As Melby would later say of Foreign Service reports in general, “[T]hey were not designed for public consumption,” but instead were addressed to other government officials, who, because of their familiarity with the political players and context being written about, did not generally need all the claims and word choices explained at great length. In most cases, reader and writer already had a sense of “what kind of person the other is and what he believes.” And where

93 “ learn to write well” confusion or disagreement ensued, it would be elaborated in the process of circulation and comment. Hence Melby’s caution against “lay judgment” of a piece of diplomatic writing.65 Yet in the White Paper, of their own volition, Service and Davies presented their reports to the public, and moreover, a public that had increasingly internalized a rigid Cold War mentality in which their analysis could only be regarded with suspicion. In essence, in preparing their excerpts, Service and Davies were motivated by the same wrong—as it turned out—assumption that fueled the preparation of the China White Paper: that they could convince outside skeptics of the diplomatic establishment’s views through a compilation of inside writings. Much more aware of the inherent dangers of this act than they were, Gauss had conveyed strong reservations when Service had first informed him about the project. Ambivalent about the inclusion of his subordinates’ memos, the ambassador had been adamant that their names should not be attached. Gauss told Service it would be a mistake to name the authors of the reports. Doing so would only make them more vulnerable to charges that they were “the villains.”66 Indeed, soon after the publication of the China White Paper, Report No. 40 once again came into the limelight, this time on the floor of Congress. “The memorandum,” declared Walter Judd, “illustrates the conniving against highest officials of the Government of China, being carried on even during the war by representatives of our government.”67 These remarks were only slightly varied by McCarthy two and a half months later, when he began his tirade against the State Department, in response to which Congress held its first hearing to investigate the loyalty of State Department employees. Over the next year and a half, three congressional committees made Service’s reports a subject of their inquiry. In these hearings, Service’s accusers directly scrutinized his recommendation to cooperate with the Communists. By associating his recommendations with the very tradition of diplomatic writing in which he formulated them, Service’s accusers succeeded in branding the stolidly anti-communist tradition of diplomatic reporting as un-American and pro-Communist. In D e f en se o f D i plo m at i c W r i t i ng : Ac c ou n ti ng to C ong r e s s

A subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations was the first to address McCarthy’s charges. The Tydings Committee, named for its chair, Democrat Millard Tydings of Maryland, heard testimony from thirty-five wit-

94 “ learn to write well” nesses between February and July 1950. McCarthy, the first, testified that he had “succeeded in penetrating Truman’s Iron Curtain of secrecy,” behind which he had found, among others, John Service and his reports. But it was the assistant counsel to the committee, Robert Morris, an early and fervent anticommunist—according to William Buckley, the man who “really accomplished much of what Senator McCarthy is credited with”—who followed up on this charge more avidly. In addition to “a man’s associations,” Morris announced before the committee, a “man’s writing” is “one of the few ways of showing whether or not he is disloyal.” Just as he had not shied away from the bureaucratic battle, Service welcomed Morris’ challenge. A full inquiry into his reports would allow him to put things into context and correct the distortions made by Hurley and those who had since echoed him. Feeling that he had nothing to lose and everything to gain by the investigation, Service requested that his hearing be open to the general public.68 Morris, however, provided Service little opportunity to undo the damage of the China White Paper. In many ways, his line of questioning replicated the problems of Annex 47. Rarely asking Service to explain a report in its entirety, Morris instead cited preselected excerpts from the most potentially contentious of Service’s reports, which he then followed up with leading questions. Especially after the publication of the China White Paper, it was no coincidence that he zeroed in on an excerpt in which Service had characterized the Chinese Communist policies as “democratic.”69 Having come to regret the truncated and decontextualized form of his reports in the White Paper, Service immediately objected to this reliance on excerpts. A thorough investigation, he insisted, would have to consider “my complete work products and have all of it carefully read and carefully analyzed.” To guide their reading, Service submitted an annotated index of his reports and went to great lengths to provide their historical and institutional context. “Now, my use of the term ‘democracy’ requires a great deal of explanation,” he said, in answer to Morris’ inquiry. One needed to consider that he was “reporting to people who have a very long and developed background concerning China,” who knew that he was using the word “democracy” in the context of Chinese politics and “not as compared to the United States.” Despite these caveats, Service expressed confidence that even a layperson could comprehend this point if he or she did a thorough reading of the complete reports. “If you or any person

95 “ learn to write well” read all of my reports,” he told Morris, “they would have a clear understanding that I was not thinking of American democracy at all.”70 Far from satisfying the minority members of the committee, Service’s explanation only incensed them further. Henry Cabot Lodge, the Republican senator from Massachusetts, framed Service’s insistence on examining only complete reports as an attempt not to aid but rather to prevent the investigation. Even if it wanted to, said Lodge, “the last thing that this committee has time to do is read all of Mr. Service’s writings.” As it turned out, the minority committee members read less than one quarter of the personnel files of the State Department employees accused by McCarthy. For those already distrustful of Service, the few reports they read only confirmed their prior convictions. “Well, I read quite a few of them, Mr. Service,” said Morris. “Don’t you think there is a ‘basic contradiction’ between democracy and Communism?” And are not the Chinese Communists adherents of “Marxism, Stalinism, and Leninism?” The average, reasonable man, implied Morris, knows what democracy is and isn’t, and what’s more, he knows a thing or two about Chinese Communists. That would be the case regardless of whether the committee read one or a hundred of Service’s reports.71 The hate mail that Service received in the course of the proceedings reflected a similar anti-expert, anti-bureaucrat hostility. “We are not trained in diplomacy,” wrote Edith Dickey Moses of South Carolina. “Yet the truth is that rank and file Americans have never had any illusions about Communism in China.” “Put your name Service to a worthy cause,” wrote another, “and do your country a real Service by exposing all instead of hiding behind political legal phrasing.” Echoing Morris, these letters projected the antagonism toward the classical, aristocratic Foreign Service onto the modern diplomatic establishment. Service’s supposedly specialized knowledge communicated among fellow diplomats was merely a modern manifestation of the elite, anti-American cosmopolitanism at the very core of the Foreign Service.72 Even as they cast suspicion on the modern, bureaucratic aspects of diplomatic writing, Service’s interrogators invoked the conventional responsibilities of a bureaucrat, as framed by Weber and other theorists of bureaucracy—adherence to procedure, accordance with the official hierarchy, and commitment to the mission of the institution. In writing and circulating his reports, had Service followed the “manuals of instruction”? asked chief counsel of the com-

96 “ learn to write well” mittee Edward Morgan. Did he seek to provide communists with “secret military information” that would harm the U.S. national interest? inquired Bourke Hickenlooper, Republican senator of Iowa.73 As with his reports, Service demonstrated confidence that the more information the committee had, the more likely that it would find him loyal. He tried to explain that his job was not to be a pencil-pushing reader of manuals but rather a field reporter. He spent most of his time away from the embassy making contacts and gathering information. Even in Washington, he was often out of the office, meeting and exchanging information with journalists. The job was similar to that of a “newspaper correspondent,” he said, in which “most of the contacts are not normally in the office sitting down one man across the desk from the other,” but rather “on a personal basis, at meals or at home.”74 Service’s reply flew in the face of assumptions regarding proper bureaucratic mores. There were no detailed regulations, he explained. “It was purely left to the judgment of the employee.” Whether or not to disclose documents to journalists was also, he said, a matter of employee discretion. Hickenlooper was simply shocked: “Do I understand you to say that an officer who goes out to secure information and intelligence for the Government . . . has a right to go around at his discretion and release or withhold information?” In the face of such incredulity, Service defended the soundness of these policies or the lack thereof with a sense of vocational pride: “If a Foreign Service officer is going to get ahead in the service,” he explained, “he has demonstrated that judgment because his judgment is constantly under scrutiny.”75 Service may have been exaggerating the flexibility of the written rules and regulations contained in the Foreign Service manual. But as the contemporary testimonies of several State Department administrators suggest, he was fairly accurately describing the de facto accepted practices in the department at that time. Despite the bureaucratization of the Foreign Service, diplomatic reporting was not significantly proceduralized; it maintained much of the freedom and flexibility it had in the classical era. As Allen Dulles, who taught the flagship course on political reporting in the modern State Department, said, there were “no rules” for diplomatic reporting. In lieu of set guidelines and manuals, Dulles made his trainees read the dispatches of great nineteenth-century European and American diplomats.76 True as Service’s explanations were, they only exacerbated the caricature of the freewheeling diplomatic establishment that McCarthy had invoked. Virtu-

97 “ learn to write well” ally every antagonistic letter that Service received in reaction to the hearings underscored the belief that he thought himself above the rules. “If any of us ordinary citizens tried to do what you did,” wrote one angry correspondent, “we would have seen the bars long ago.”77 The accusations of bureaucratic immunity did have some grounding, although such immunity was not as duplicitous as critics suggested. Early on, one important effect of McCarthy’s charges was a coming together of Foreign Service officers and senior officials to defend the State Department against public criticism. When Service had first returned to Washington to answer McCarthy’s accusations, the Foreign Service Association gave him a standing ovation. “A fraternity brother,” they called him, “entitled to our respect, to our support, to our assistance.” In the higher echelons, John Peurifoy, the deputy undersecretary of state for administration, publicly defended Service on the department’s behalf. Calling Service “an able, conscientious, and demonstrably loyal Foreign Service officer,” Peurifoy condemned McCarthy’s charges as “discredited and disproven.”78 The State Department had demonstrated institutional solidarity before on Service’s behalf, most notably in Byrnes’ 1945 public refutation of Hurley’s charges. Still, in the face of outside political attack, Service could not take such high-level support for granted. When the Amerasia case first broke, Undersecretary of State Joseph Grew had specifically dissociated the department from its subordinates.79 More broadly, in 1946, when Republicans accused the administration of being soft on communism, instead of refuting the charges, Truman promulgated Executive Order 9835, which created the Federal Employee Loyalty Program. Enacted in March 1947, the Loyalty Program stipulated that any federal employee associated with acts of sabotage, espionage, or subversive organizations, or who had otherwise undermined the national interest, was to be dismissed from government service. A State Department Loyalty Security Board was established to review the loyalty of Foreign Service officers, which would be overseen by a Loyalty Review Board of the Civil Service Commission. Since 1947, Service had successfully gone through four department reviews.80 McCarthy’s charges had, however, demonstrated that the image of the State Department was inextricably linked to that of its career diplomats. Cleaning house, as it was euphemistically called, had done little to enhance the department’s reputation. Increasingly, several senior officials in the department pub-

98 “ learn to write well” licly rejected the act of sacrificing their own to the lion’s mouth of the political opposition. Instead, the loyalty of Foreign Service officers would be mirrored by the institution’s loyalty to them. In the process of protecting accused Foreign Service officers, the department defended the tradition of diplomatic writing and the principle of inside writing that was central to it. One month prior to his testimony before the Tydings Committee, Service underwent his fifth Loyalty Security Board hearing. With McCarthy’s changes looming over the entire department, the support that Service received from senior officials signified a challenge to the bureaucracy’s critics in Congress. Not surprisingly, Gauss testified on behalf of his star reporter. Gauss made a point of linking Service’s talents to his official duties as a political reporter. “Jack Service’s job,” he said, “was to go over to the other side of the river and to see everybody that he could,” not just the foreign press, the Chinese press, and officials at the KMT headquarters, but also officials at the Communist headquarters. “That was his job,” and by doing it, Gauss explained, Service played a key role in informing the United States of the evolving situation in China.81 The most significant testimony on Service’s behalf came not from one of his former superiors but from an eminent State Department official who had never met him. Despite his largely failed struggle against the emerging Cold War consensus, George Kennan had become a respected, if not entirely unchallenged expert on the Soviet Union and U.S. policy in the Cold War. He had been given four days to review and assess 126 of Service’s reports for the board. In characteristic fashion, Kennan came to the hearing fully prepared with extensive commentary on the material. Kennan admitted that in his optimism about the Chinese Communists, Service may have been somewhat naive. But in stressing the independence of the CCP from the Soviets, he had been right. Notably, however, more than sanction Service’s expertise on specific matters of policy, Kennan emphasized the importance of “free expression” and debate in the Foreign Service and underscored Service’s skill as a political reporter. Kennan drew a parallel between himself and the defendant. Just as he had had to debunk the propaganda of the Soviet Union in his dispatches from Moscow, so had Service tried to debunk the propaganda of the Nationalist government in his reports from China. Service’s zeal needed to be understood in that context. Finding Service’s reports to be “outstanding,” Kennan challenged the notion that they simplified U.S.-China relations. “People who write excellent reports,” said Kennan, “are not apt to be guilty of the great oversimplifications which

99 “ learn to write well” have been suggested by some people.” The oversimplification, Kennan suggested, came from Service’s accusers, who had misinterpreted his analysis. The parallel with the misreading of Kennan’s reports was implicit, but left unspoken.82 Kennan’s testimony did not convince those outside the diplomatic establishment who had already deemed Service naive, disloyal, or both. The very fact that Service had so much high-level support was cause for suspicion. “All your cronies will rally round you,” wrote one citizen to Service, “but remember the thousands who consider you guilty.”83 Although Kennan’s testimony did not persuade the skeptical, it did crown the conclusions of the Democrats, already inclined to support the State Department against McCarthy’s charges. Issued on July 27, 1950, the report of the Tydings Committee condemned McCarthy’s charges as a “fraud and a hoax.” As for Service’s reports, the committee found that they reflected the very integrity Byrnes had underscored when testifying on Service’s behalf in 1945. Kennan’s assessment had made the most impact. “We feel that Mr. Kennan’s analysis provides a complete answer to the allegation that Service’s reports were an attempt to sabotage Hurley.” Report No. 40, still as always the central focus, “does not by any standard of justice or fair play,” the committee concluded, “reveal Service as disloyal or a pro-Communist.” Four days after the release of the Tydings Report, the State Department board once again cleared Service.84 Aside from the media organs associated with the China Lobby, most notably Henry Luce’s Time-Life-Fortune troika and the Scripps-Howard newspapers, most of the mainstream media celebrated the committee’s finding and applauded the State Department for coming out in support of its rank and file. “It would have been a good deal easier to have thrown Mr. Service to the wolves,” observed one Washington Post editorial. To its credit, the State Department had shown that “[g]overnment administrators owe a certain measure of loyalty to employees of whom they expect loyalty.”85 Indeed, in defending Service, the department had demonstrated the value of American justice—innocent until proven guilty; loyal unless proven otherwise—that McCarthy threatened to erode. Despite the continued misunderstanding and distortions by the opposition, it also demonstrated the value of the tradition of diplomatic writing. Kennan in particular had been key in this effort, reinventing and giving new purpose to the message he had conveyed to senior policymakers in the immediate postwar period. Almost instantaneously, Kennan had transformed himself from a bitter ex-diplomat to a champion of the diplomatic corps.

100 “ learn to write well” W o lv es in t he H en h ou s e : Th e Int er na l At ta ck o n D i plo mati c W r i ting

The Tydings Report only temporarily put an end to the China hands’ troubles. Three weeks before its publication, North Korea invaded the South. In response to the invasion, Truman enacted a broader and more militant anticommunist policy in Asia, albeit made possible by his earlier approval of NSC 68. This turnaround included a more actively hostile stance toward mainland China and a renewed willingness to defend Chiang’s government against it, as exemplified in the president’s order to deploy the Seventh Fleet in the waters between China and Formosa. As head of the State Department’s Far Eastern bureau, Dean Rusk publicly and repeatedly linked the PRC to the Korean invasion and the Soviet Union, later characterizing China as “a colonial Russian government” and a “Slavic Manchukuo.”86 Despite the shift, opponents continued to attack the administration for turning a blind eye to the evils of communism. Capitalizing on the president’s midterm unpopularity, yet once again projecting it onto career diplomats, McCarthy blamed the war on that “group of untouchables” who had first refused to aid Chiang and then neglected South Korea. “Someone should hang for high treason!” he shouted in a speech in Milwaukee. Letters echoing this sentiment and lambasting the Tydings Report poured in from the populace to the House and Senate. “Now, after this whitewash proceeding, just how do you feel when you read of the Reds torturing our boys? . . . Kiss the blood off your hands, you lousy New Dealers!” Largely on this anti-communist, anti-Democrat, and anti-bureaucracy platform, Republicans made big gains in the congressional elections of 1950, leaving Democrats with only a slim majority. McCarthy took special credit for having ousted Millard Tydings.87 After the elections, Truman tried to prevent further damage to his administration by continuing to preempt his critics. He fired Seth Richardson, the first chairperson of the Loyalty Review Board, whom McCarthy had accused of doing “an extremely foul job,” and replaced him with archconservative Hiram Bingham, who had recently called for a tightening up of the Loyalty Program. Best known for having “discovered” the supposedly “lost” ruins of Machu Picchu, Bingham, who had since served as senator from Connecticut, was a personal friend of the president’s and eminent enough to command the respect of Republicans and Democrats alike.88

101 “ learn to write well” Despite these significant policy and personnel changes, the attacks on the China hands continued to mount, gaining new vehemence after the November midterm elections, in which the Democrats retained their control of Congress. The question of the China hands’ loyalty resurfaced in the sensationalized hearings to investigate the dismissal of General MacArthur and became a central pillar of the McCarran Committee’s investigation of the “loss” of China.89 Throughout the congressional inquiries, Acheson stuck to and even strengthened the State Department’s protection of its working officers. Although he provided the joint Armed Services–Foreign Relations Committee with a document written in December 1949 by Foreign Service officers anticipating the fall of Formosa to the Communists, he refused to identify the names of its authors.90 Acheson reminded the senators, “I am the responsible officer, and do not in any way attempt to duck that responsibility.” When the McCarran Committee requested some of the China hands’ memos, Acheson took an even stronger stance, altogether refusing to hand over the documents. Their release, he argued, would “undoubtedly inhibit the free and frank expression of views by the officers of the department” and damage “the integrity of the internal memoranda in which views are exchanged in the formation of policy.”91 By refusing to turn over the reports of the rank and file and invoking the principle of corporate rather than individual responsibility, Acheson simultaneously protected the rank and file and the insider tradition of diplomatic writing. It was a noble stance. But it was also problematic. For one thing, it did not prevent congressional committees from rehashing the reports previously made available to Congress with the State Department’s consent, not to mention what the executive branch had itself put in the public domain with the publication of the White Paper. Using material he already had access to, Morris was thus able to make one of Service’s reports a subject of inquiry in the McCarran hearings. As counsel to the committee, Morris read what he called “pertinent excerpts” into the record, which he then used to suggest that Service had Soviet sympathies.92 Moreover, Acheson’s emphasis on the need to withhold the reports of rank-and-file bureaucrats in order to protect them from the political whims of Congress was misleading. The executive branch was not exactly a benevolent protector of rank-and-file diplomats. Though few knew it at the time, most of the material used by McCarthy and other senators against the State Department originally came not from Congress but from the executive branch—most notably the FBI via J. Edgar Hoover and the Loyalty Review

102 “ learn to write well” Board, whose staff members leaked to key members of the China Lobby, who in turned passed the information on to McCarthy. On top of that, the Loyalty Board’s own leadership increasingly undermined any attempts to protect State Department officers from political attack. Just days before the commencement of the McCarran hearings, Truman implemented a change recommended by Bingham. Executive Order 10241 lowered the bar for disloyalty from “reasonable grounds” to “reasonable doubt.”93 Although the committee found Service innocent under the old bar, it found differently under the new one. There was, it concluded, “reasonable doubt as to his loyalty.” In a letter to the secretary of state, Bingham explained that to maintain Service despite his “indiscretions” would “stretch the mantle of charity too far,” and recommended his discharge.94 The committee had put a premium on bureaucratic ethics, suggesting that in exchanging information with journalists, Service had breached the proper bureaucratic procedures for his duties as a political reporter. Ironically, there is reasonable doubt as to the propriety of the board’s own procedures. Initially, the board had voted 2 to 1 against Service, but pressure had been put on the third member to make the vote unanimous. In order to protect their anonymity, the names of the three reviewers were not released. In line with regulation, the committee insisted that it had considered no new factual information. However, it was the first board to take into account the false accusation made by Chinese secret police and investigated by the FBI that Service had fathered the child of a Chinese Communist agent. Clearly aware of its own indiscretion in the matter, the board destroyed this portion of the transcript. In fact, Service did have an affair with Chinese actress Val Chao, but she was not a Communist spy and he did not father her child.95 In his letter to Acheson, Bingham maintained that government service is a privilege, not a right. Yet, in 1951, he had been one of only three senators in congressional history to be censured by his peers for a conflict of interest. In 1929 Bingham had put a lobbyist of the manufacturing industry on his staff and allowed him to attend closed sessions of Congress that affected the industry’s future.96 Had the mantle of charity been stretched too far in first allowing the senator to serve out his term and later putting him in charge of the Federal Loyalty Program? The board’s recommendation put the administration in an unwelcome position. For some time now, McCarthy had been calling Acheson “the man who

103 “ learn to write well” would not turn his back on Service,” a variation on Acheson’s much-maligned vow not to turn his back on Alger Hiss. Still, Acheson thought, as he told the president, Service had “learned his lesson.” There was no need to fire him. But Truman had already pushed the boulder over the hill. There was little he could do now to stop it from rolling down the mountain, save revoking the Loyalty Program. Unwilling to provoke the political tempest that would likely have resulted from that action, Truman refused to overturn the board’s decision and directed Acheson to move ahead with the firing. In retrospect, the basic criticism of the China White Paper as a reflection of a bureaucracy that had abused its privileges and ceased to be a nonpolitical body was equally if not more apt here. The State Department had “debated” the practices of its Foreign Service officers in “open,” but allowed the Civil Service Commission to decide Service’s fate “in secret,” thus “losing” him to a politicized group of executive branch overseers.97 Acheson has generally fared well in historians’ assessment of this episode. The eminent historian Ernest May has, for example, characterized Acheson’s decision to dismiss Service as “moral.” For his part, Service never blamed the State Department or the secretary of state for his dismissal. “Acheson took no pleasure in firing me,” he would later say. “The White House told him to do it.” Acheson may have had a bureaucratic duty to fire the China hands. Nonetheless, he had no duty to demean their accomplishments as political reporters, which is exactly what he did in 1955, for example, when he referred to the analytic “deficiency” of the China hands. “They didn’t know a great deal about Russia and the Communist movement,” the former secretary would say. “They didn’t realize—very few of our officers did—the procedures of this Communist business.” With this statement, Acheson thus attempted to inoculate himself against the McCarthyist plague that had infected Washington.98 Service’s colleagues knew that his fate had implications for their own. In the wake of his dismissal, several signed on to a Foreign Service Journal editorial demanding that “[e]very effort be made in our collective self-defense to utilize all available means to make certain that justice prevails.” In a letter sent to Service one day after his dismissal, Kennan struck a more somber note: “This is a blow to all of us who have at heart the interests of a good Foreign Service and a successful foreign policy.” Lifting the veil of bitterness over his own marginalization, Kennan regarded Service’s firing as more evidence “that the Government itself does not really want anyone in its service who is imaginative and courageous and subject to the processes of intellectual growth.”99

104 “ learn to write well” Service’s dismissal was only a portent of things to come. Despite the department’s attempt to protect its rank and file, the McCarran hearings turned out to be a particularly low point for those investigated under its auspices. Owen Lattimore regularly denounced the committee for its “McCarthyite” tactics. But outspokenness served only to incense Service’s inquisitors and further fuel their attacks. The Foreign Service officers were, however, quiet—intimidated by the congressional committees on the one hand and directed by the department to be cautious on the other. When interviewed by a sympathetic Washington Post journalist, China hand Oliver Edmund Clubb said he couldn’t explain his side to the public. “The institution will protect me,” he explained. But the foreign policy establishment didn’t protect Clubb. Ruled a security risk, he appealed and won, but nonetheless resigned in February 1952, realizing he would never have a post matching his experience or expertise. The McCarran Report was released in June 1952. Together with Owen Lattimore, it concluded, the China hands had indeed lost China. In an attempt to avoid further problems with outside critics, the State Department shuffled the remaining China hands around the globe. By the end of 1952, only two of the twenty-two officers specializing in China since World War Two still worked on Chinese affairs.100 Kennan tried to curb the tide that now threatened to drown the China service and permanently mar the reputation of the State Department. In December 1952 he wrote a letter to Luce’s Time magazine criticizing the nature of its most recent attack on the China hands, this time Kennan’s former subordinate and friend, John Davies. The magazine had cited a PPS paper written by Davies as evidence that Davies had attempted to undercut General MacArthur’s authority in Korea. Rather than engage the substance of the accusations, Kennan challenged their logic. “Must all reverses be attributable to sinister intrigue? Is it not possible that most of them might be the result of a governmental system, or perhaps even the fact that not all problems are readily soluble?” Following Acheson’s suit, Kennan tried to absorb the liability. If anybody ought to be held responsible for the paper in question, he wrote, it should not be the “junior official” but him. “It was I, after all, not Davies, who was at that time head of the Policy Planning Staff.”101 Three weeks before Kennan wrote this letter, Dwight Eisenhower had been elected. As president, he would perpetuate and extend the foreign policies that Truman had set in motion. To an even greater extent than his predecessor, Eisenhower adopted a tough public posture toward the Chinese Communists

105 “ learn to write well” that masked a private flexibility toward the prospect of negotiation. This public-private contrast paralleled the approach of both the Truman and the Eisenhower administrations on the domestic issue of government loyalty. Again following, but amping up the strategy of the previous administration, Eisenhower made a concerted effort to preempt the wrath of Congress. McCarthy campaign staffer Scott McLeod, who had denounced the previous administration’s “phony cry of civil liberties,” was appointed head of the State Department’s loyalty program. In April 1953, Eisenhower enacted Executive Order 10450. In addition to proving their loyalty, employees now had to prove that they worked in the “national interest.”102 Before the new order was announced, its language and implications were introduced to Foreign Service officers and the public by incoming secretary of state John Foster Dulles. Decrying the need to save the world from “godless” communist regimes, Dulles demanded “liberation” and “rollback,” instead of mere “containment.” But this anti-communist gospel, Dulles knew, would not make him automatically immune from right-wing attacks. Having played a role in the previous administration’s foreign policy—he had settled the peace treaty with Japan and served as U.S. delegate to the UN—Dulles realized that his record could be as easily critiqued as praised. In demanding that Foreign Service officers demonstrate “positive loyalty” to policies “that our President and Congress may prescribe,” the secretary was also demonstrating his own positive loyalty to the China Lobby.103 As part of its broader effort to take strong action on loyalty cases before the extreme right wing could cry foul, like its predecessor, the Eisenhower administration cast suspicion not only on the substance of the China hands’ recommendations, but also on the quality of their reporting skills. Dulles was an eminent and respected statesman who descended from a long line of diplomats. In addition to being the grandson and nephew of two secretaries of state, he was the brother of Allen Dulles, who, before serving as director of the CIA, had taught the first course on political reporting in the modern State Department. This diplomatic lineage made Dulles’ attack on career diplomats and the practice of diplomatic writing all the more striking. One of McLeod’s first actions as head of the loyalty and security program was to recommend the dismissal of John Carter Vincent, who had directed the Far Eastern Division between 1944 and 1947. Dulles knew that he would have to fire Vincent for political reasons, but he was hesitant to do so on the basis

106 “ learn to write well” of disloyalty. In January 1953, he nonetheless requested Vincent’s resignation on the grounds that his “reporting of the facts, evaluations of the facts, and policy advice” had shown “a failure to meet the standard which is demanded of a Foreign Service officer of his experience and responsibility at this critical time.”104 The unarticulated conclusion that Vincent harbored pro-communist sympathies thus became linked to the stated conclusion that Vincent’s practice of diplomatic reporting was itself faulty. Although Allen Dulles had said there were “no rules” for diplomatic reporting, John Foster Dulles nonetheless found that Vincent had broken the rules. Like the China Lobby, the secretary of state linked an unsubstantiated attack on the practice of diplomatic writing to an unproven claim about the communist leanings of the accused diplomat.105 Somewhat ironically, the heightened loyalty initiative opened up a space for Dulles to publicly defend the loyalty of the State Department. With the severe McLeod doing most of the dirty work, the secretary could opt to play the role of public protector of the diplomatic corps. Throughout 1953, Dulles cautiously and selectively took stands against the extreme right wing of Congress. In March, he adamantly supported the appointment of Soviet expert and career officer Charles Bohlen as ambassador to Moscow. Bohlen, who had served as Roosevelt’s translator at Yalta, had become implicated in the right wing’s vilification of that 1945 conference and Roosevelt’s dealings with Stalin more generally. When McCarran demanded that the State Department hand over Bohlen’s security file, Dulles refused. Echoing Acheson and others who had invoked the principle of insider writing, Dulles maintained that it was his job to assess the information, which he would only then hand over in summary form.106 In December, McCarthy once again went on a foreign policy tirade, accusing the new administration of being soft on communism. “Are we going to continue to send perfumed notes following the style of the TrumanAcheson regime?” Dulles condemned McCarthy’s attack on the higher-ups in the executive branch and warned him against further interference in loyalty cases. The case in question was that of John Davies, whose loyalty was now under investigation.107 The Loyalty Review Board made Davies’ reports a central focus of its investigation. The more extreme members of the committee cited Davies’ writings as evidence that he had “actively opposed and sought to circumvent United States’ policy toward China,” while the moderates masked their politics under the concern that, in writing his reports, Davies had not demonstrated due cau-

107 “ learn to write well” tion. Why, they asked, had Davies written such speculative reports about the communists, many of which he based on “insufficient evidence”? Why didn’t he label the various sections of his reports to distinguish between polished analysis, informed speculation, and “raw intelligence”? Like Service, Davies believed that part of the board’s suspicion stemmed from its “unfamiliarity with the traditional form of reporting in the Foreign Service.” In a letter to the board shortly after his hearings concluded, Davies tried to explain. State Department reporting, he said, evolved out of “classical diplomatic correspondence,” in which the information exchanged was often “personal and discursive,” and in which both writer and reader take for granted that the report is not really a final product so much as part of an ongoing dialogue. “As in a battle,” wrote Davies, “to wait for all the intelligence to come in is to be paralyzed while decisive events pass one by.” Moreover, because writer and reader engage in an extended “back and forth,” through which they become familiar with each other’s views, it is not generally necessary to “categorize and label every paragraph.” Like Service, Davies did not realize the extent to which the tradition of diplomatic writing had become associated with communist conspiracy. In November 1954, Davies was fired for “failing to demonstrate proper forbearance and caution in making known his dissents.”108 Davies and not the board, Dulles implied, had misunderstood the practice of diplomatic reporting and analysis. It was one thing for an embattled Congress to cast suspicion on the process of knowledge production and exchange in the executive branch bureaucracy. It was another for an internal unit of the executive branch and the secretary himself—supposedly versed in the culture and attuned to the needs of the agency—to denigrate and criminalize the process and tradition of reporting that had been so central to the work of the foreign affairs bureaucracy. The double form of alienation that George Kennan had experienced—from both senior officials on the inside and a distrustful public on the outside—had now itself become institutionalized. Sur v i v o r Ta ct i cs an d t he E r o s i o n o f D i p l o mati c Re p orti ng

Davies’ dismissal marked the apex of the Red Scare against the State Department. For the remainder of the 1950s, the Far Eastern Division of the State Department largely returned to the stance of the old China hands in its support

108 “ learn to write well” of Chiang Kai-shek. Walter Robertson, who headed the division throughout the Eisenhower years, combined this prewar and less active conservatism with a post-1950 military interventionism. The few China hands to begin service in the war and survive the political onslaught generally supported the policy of harsh rhetoric that characterized U.S.-China relations throughout the decade as well as the military skirmishes off the Chinese coast that backed this posture with the threat of force. Everett Drumright epitomized the China hand survivor. Always the most conservative of the new China hands, he had earned the nickname “Right.” During the war, Madame Chiang had rewarded him with a dog, a gift for being one of the strongest supporters of the Nationalist government and staunchest opponents of communism. In the 1950s, the State Department rewarded him with high posts in Washington and then two key posts as ambassador, first to Hong Kong, between 1954 and 1958, and then to Taiwan, between 1958 and 1962.109 While none of the survivors outright recommended cooperation with the Communists, as had Service and Davies, not all of them were political conservatives. Ed Rice, who also served at the Chungking embassy during the war, had written several memos underscoring the deficiencies of the Nationalist government. He would nonetheless remain in Asia policy through the Eisenhower years, and eventually become assistant secretary of state for the Far East. Philip Sprouse, who largely shared the view of Service and Davies, also survived, working on Indochina policy via France and eventually becoming ambassador to Cambodia.110 That none of the survivors had piqued Hurley’s wrath certainly played a role in their fates. In part, this was a matter of luck and timing. Rice had wanted to report on the Communists but had been denied, leaving him with the Nationalist beat. The unpredictable Hurley had occasionally used Rice’s memos in his attempts to negotiate with Chiang. And because he was not at the embassy in February 1945, Rice did not sign the notorious staff memo. For his part, Sprouse saw that just being in Hurley’s presence posed a danger, and thus successfully avoided his boss at every opportunity.111 In addition to the less stark recommendations of their reports and their luck with Hurley, the survivors differed from Service and Davies in their reactions to the political onslaught against the State Department and, more specifically, what they did with their inside writings. Before and even after relying on the paternal protection of the State Department, Service and Davies attempted to

109 “ learn to write well” share their reports and explain themselves to Congress and the public. In contrast, both Rice and Sprouse did as much as possible to prevent their in-house writings from becoming the subject of congressional inquiry. They, like many others, destroyed their notes from the period. According to one of his colleagues, Sprouse even went into the files and erased his initials from several documents.112 Certainly, this effacement of authorship was a form of self-protection, for which potential victims of McCarthyism could hardly be blamed. But it was not only that. Erasing the evidence of their attempts to influence policy was also, in a sense, a physical manifestation of the larger debate over whether or not to make the reports of rank-and-file diplomats part of the public record. The decades-long disagreement between Service and Sprouse over the China White Paper was in many ways an argument about this issue. “Policy,” argued Sprouse, “is what the President says and does. FDR sent PJH [Patrick Hurley] back to China in 1945. Therefore, unlimited support of CKS [Chiang Kai-shek] as enunciated by PJH—was US policy.” Because it did not matter in the end, what was said and considered by others along the way ought not to be part of the public package. Notably, though Sprouse helped compile the China White Paper, his name appears in it only once, and then only on a personnel roster. As Service argued in his 1971 book, Amerasia, however, he believed that the State Department should have presented the public with a more complete sense of the alternative policy that he and other officers had advocated, especially because it had been “backed” by numerous senior officials in the executive branch. Sprouse’s view prioritized corporate responsibility and a unified message, while Service’s emphasized corporate transparency and a chance to make public the competing views being debated within the executive branch. One view emphasized the end of the policymaking process, while the other emphasized the process itself.113 Tellingly, these opposing perspectives mirrored the two men’s different practices of report writing. Service, as we have seen, always sent his reports up the bureaucratic ladder as his reports, albeit supported by his midlevel superiors. Sprouse’s three most important projects, in contrast, were not written on his own behalf but rather on that of the State Department and its high-level officials. Though few histories acknowledge this fact, in addition to many sections of the White Paper, Sprouse drafted both the report of the 1946 Marshall mission and that of the 1947 Wedemeyer mission to China. Because Sprouse served as amanuensis rather than author in both cases, the final version of the

110 “ learn to write well” document he wrote bore no mark of his contribution, but was instead circulated as a report of a high-level official.114 All this is not to suggest that Service and Davies were purged because of arrogance or hubris or that they might have survived if only they had removed their initials from their reports. Rather, it is to emphasize that like the attack on the China hands, the reaction inextricably linked the substance of diplomatic reports recommending cooperation with the Communists and the tradition of diplomatic writing. Sprouse’s erasure of his initials was a surface symptom of part of a larger retreat not only from making diplomatic reports public but also from engaging in more significant aspects of diplomatic reporting. Years later, when Undersecretary of State Chester Bowles suggested to Sprouse that diplomats do more field reporting, Sprouse exclaimed, “My God, that was what we were doing in China and look what we got out of it!”115 Sprouse feared not only reproducing conclusions that resembled those coming out of China in the 1940s but also engaging the practices that fueled those conclusions and got them attention in Washington. This fear, which took hold of many Foreign Service officers, contributed to a general malaise in diplomatic reporting in the ensuing decades. In Vietnam, the problem was not simply that rank-and-file diplomats were more conservative politically or that they didn’t put their names on their reports. It was also that they did not engage in fieldwork, strategic bureaucratic design, or the classic epistolary practices that made Service’s and Davies’ reports as important as they were on the inside and as controversial as they were on the outside. Sprouse’s strategy was in essence a strategy of hibernation. Indeed, he and others survived long enough to see the political tides turn once again—to witness McCarthy’s censure in 1954 and a tentative relaxation of hostilities toward China. Sprouse was still on the inside in 1957, when Jack Service was exonerated by the Supreme Court, which ruled that, in recommending Service’s discharge, the Loyalty Review Board had acted unconstitutionally.116 Davies was not officially cleared until 1969117—not long before, without saying so, Nixon and Kissinger initiated their highly praised policy of opening up a diplomatic dialogue with Mao. In the State Department, however, the tradition of bold diplomatic writing—which had been integral to broadening and deepening the policy debate two decades earlier—still lay largely dormant.

Figure 2.1 George Kennan, portrait. Public Policy Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University.

(top) Figure 2.2 George Kennan at his desk in Moscow, 1944. Public Policy Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University. (left) Figure 2.3 George Kennan writing at his desk in the State Department, June 25, 1947. Public Policy Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University.

Figure 2.4 John Service with top Chinese Communist leaders in Yenan, 1944. From left: Chou En-lai, chuh-teh, Service, mao Tse-tung, and Yeh chien-ying. Courtesy of the Service family.

Figure 2.5 john davies, Vice Consul at the Consulate, Hankow 1938. Courtesy of the Davies Family.

Figure 2.6 john davies in Germany, following the release of his 1951 testimony at the Senate Internal Security subcommittee, October 10,1952. AP wire photo. Courtesy of the Davies Family.

Figure 2.7 John Service testifying before the Senate Subcommittee Investigating the Loyalty of State Department Employees in 1950. Courtesy of the Service family.

Figure 2.8 George Ball, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and President Lyndon Johnson looking at a document at a national security meeting on Vietnam, Cabinet Room, White House, Washington, DC, July 21, 1965. LBJ Library. Photo by Yoichi Okamoto.

Figure 2.10 John Brady Kiesling and Daniel Ellsberg. Courtesy of Kiesling.

(left page, bottom) Figure 2.9 George Ball and Dean Rusk at a national security meeting on Vietnam, Cabinet Room, White House, Washington, DC, July 26, 1965. LBJ Library. Photo by Yoichi Okamoto.

Figure 2.11 The Old State, War, and Navy Building, home of the State Department until 1947. Photo between 1900 and 1920. Detroit Publishing Company. Figure 2.12 The current State Department Building, since 1947, colloquially known as Foggy Bottom, renamed the Harry S. Truman Building in 2009.

three

Revising the Vietnam Balance Sheet The Rhetorical Logic of Escalation Versus George Ball’s Writerly Logic of Diplomacy

Re-vision is the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction. A drien n e R i c h , “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision”

George Wildman Ball was obsessed with revisions. When he wrote an important piece of policy analysis or speech, he would scribble all over the drafts, condensing phrases, qualifying claims, and shifting paragraphs around, literally cutting sections of his paper and stapling them to others. He would mark documents in need of revision with a note at the top—“To be Revised”— and track successive drafts by putting a number in parentheses at the top left corner of the page.1 “It was a rare paper,” Ball recollected of one important writing stint in the 1950s, “that did not go through at least seventeen or eighteen drafts.” When deadlines arrived and Ball was still not satisfied, he would include a cover letter to his reader underscoring the unfinished nature of what he had written. “This is the document in its present state,” he wrote with reference to an article in progress. “I am not at all happy with it, and after Tuesday I expect to redraft it considerably.”2 More revision was almost always in order. History does not remember Ball foremost as a revision-obsessed writer, but rather as the undersecretary of state during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who became the highest-level official in the executive branch to oppose the escalation of the Vietnam War. As a political appointee to the State Department, Ball had more opportunities to be heard at the highest levels than did the rank-and-file careerists working in the State Department and other

120 revising the vietnam balance sheet executive agencies. Indeed, as undersecretary, Ball far outranked virtually all of the dissenting State Department officers that preceded him in the previous two decades, including Jack Service, John Davies, and even George Kennan. While these rank-and-file careerists had to devise specific strategies in order to get their voices heard at the highest levels, Ball was expected to participate in policymaking. And in contrast to the effects of dissent upon the careers of earlier Foreign Service officers, dissent posed little risk to Ball’s career, making it easier for him to speak up. Ball has received both praise and blame for his dissent against the war. In the eyes of many liberals, his dissent reflects the very “essence of statesmanship.”3 For more left-leaning critics of the war, Ball represents the consummate “devil’s advocate,” the “safe” dissenter who merely and meekly performs his disagreements, knowing all along that he will have no impact.4 When Ball entered office in 1961, the United States had 11,000 troops in the villages and jungles of Vietnam. When he left office five and a half years later, there were 385,000. In the first six months of 1966 alone, B-52s and other bombers dropped more than 600,000 tons of bombs on North Vietnam. The escalation appeared to have no end in sight. By the time the last helicopter departed from the roof of the American embassy in 1975, eight million tons of bombs had been dropped over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, more than four times that dropped on the Axis powers in the Second World War. In Vietnam 58,000 American G.I.s had died and more than 350,000 were injured. On the Vietnam side, an estimated 4 million civilians were killed, in addition to 3 million combat deaths. At the cost of millions of lives, the war merely prolonged the outcome of a civil war in which the Communists had the popular advantage.5 Admittedly, Ball’s obsession with writing does not appear to be especially relevant in the larger story of the Vietnam War or the question of his role in challenging it. And yet what could be dismissed as a mere idiosyncrasy can also serve as a lens for understanding not only Ball’s dissent against the war but also the escalation itself. It is impossible to fully understand Ball’s dissent without understanding the place of writing in it. Between October 1964 and September 1966, Ball wrote eight major memos to President Johnson and his cabinet challenging the logic of escalation. Despite, or perhaps because of, his insistence that Vietnam did not represent a major area of interest to the United States, Ball toiled tirelessly

121 revising the vietnam balance sheet over these documents, each one attempting to fill in the gaps left open by the last. The labor he exerted in crafting his dissent suggested an inextricable connection between the writing of his memos and the “righting” of foreign policy. As in his previous writings, revision was a central aspect of Ball’s dissent. It constituted not only the practice of his countless drafts but also a major theme of his argument against the war. “What most disturbed me,” Ball would later recall, “was the rejection of any turning back, the declaration of an irrevocable policy.” On the eve of escalation, Ball insisted that the United States had an opportunity to revise the misguided axioms that had thus far guided its policy in Vietnam. In particular, Ball wanted to revise the assumption that withdrawing from Vietnam would irreparably damage America’s self-image as well as its image in the world. More broadly, he wanted to revise America’s image-centric foreign policy in Vietnam and replace it with a more balanced set of strategic principles that did not rely so heavily on “face.”6 Ball may have been the most writing-obsessed participant in the high-level debates about whether or not to escalate the war. However, he was not the only one to prioritize words. Indeed, the perceived effect of words—on the American public, U.S. allies, and the enemy—was central to Johnson’s understanding of the war, as well as to that of his most important advisors. Vietnam was a military battle; it was also a rhetorical battle in which image mattered as much if not more than reality. Ball understood and even participated in the administration’s rhetorical war, thus fueling the subsequent criticism that he was a weak and halfhearted dissenter. While this critique raises important ethical questions about internal dissent, it nonetheless ignores the fact that a key aspect of Ball’s argument against the escalation was that the administration should distinguish its internal analysis of the war from its public rhetoric. In this context, inside writing was not just Ball’s medium. It was also a major component of his argument against the escalation. By the same token, in responding to Ball’s memos, Johnson and his advisors reflected an unarticulated argument on behalf of equating public rhetoric and internal policy. Indeed, we can analyze both Ball’s dissent and the escalation more generally, in terms of the evolving and fluctuating opposition between Ball’s inside writerly approach on the one hand and the administration’s public rhetorical emphasis on the other. Needless to say, Ball did not win his battle against the escalation. While he worked hard to revise fundamental aspects of U.S. policy in Vietnam, Johnson and senior poli-

122 revising the vietnam balance sheet cymakers argued against any radical changes in policy. They were unwilling to admit that escalation was itself a radical revision of current policy in Vietnam. T he Wri t er ly B a ll a n d t he Inf lue n c e o f J e a n M o nn e t

The story of Ball’s writerly vision of foreign policy predates the writing of his dissent memos and even the birth of George Ball. A love of literature ran in the Ball family. Ball’s grandfather, a working-class Englishman, used to boast of being gardener to Charles Tennyson in Cornwall and claimed to have delivered bread to Victor Hugo, before moving the family to America in 1882. His father, Amos, who grew up in Des Moines, where he worked for the family’s general store, had very little formal education but a great command of literature and philosophy. He frequently recited the first five books of Paradise Lost to his three sons. Ball’s father worked his way through the managerial ranks of Standard Oil. In the upwardly mobile Ball household, dinner table talk consisted of literature and politics. Ball came of age against the backdrop of the European cataclysm. In response to the Great War, the elder Ball cultivated an interest in original sin and cast doubt on theories of civilizational progress. As a young man, Ball himself gravitated toward T. S. Eliot and other modernist poets who announced the decimation of civilization in the wake of the Great War.7 At Northwestern, Ball majored in English, and became interested in the “Age of Reason.” He briefly considered pursuing a doctorate in literature before studying law instead. The advent of the Great Depression turned the focus of the nation to the economy and the role of government in regulating it. Like many of those who became elder statesmen in the Vietnam era, Ball’s first experience in government was in the New Deal administration. His terms in the Farm Credit Administration and the Treasury Department were brief (1933–1934), but important in developing his lifelong interest in economic and trade policy. After leaving public service for private practice, Ball once again returned to government, now with the United States on the brink of war. In 1942–1943, he served as counsel for the Lend Lease program and became an advocate of increased aid to European countries defending themselves against Axis aggression. As the war drew to a close in 1944, he was appointed by the U.S. Air Force to analyze Allied bombing. As director of the Strategic Bombing Survey, Ball organized personnel to collect and analyze the data and submitted interim reports on the relationship between the German economy and

123 revising the vietnam balance sheet the bombing raids. Ball’s experience in the wartime administration had a major impact on his worldview. Lend Lease convinced him that the fate of America, and indeed the world, depended on the economic security of Europe. The Strategic Bombing Survey convinced him that while aerial bombing could inflict catastrophic damage on cities and their inhabitants, it did little to advance the strategic objectives of war.8 But it was Ball’s work with Jean Monnet, the “father of Europe,” that was perhaps most defining, in terms of both Ball’s policy positions and the importance he placed on writing. A short, stocky son of a Cognac merchant who traveled the French and American countryside selling his spirits, Monnet never went to university and never held elected office. But he did more than any other individual to advance the cause of a united Europe. Monnet designed the Schuman Plan, which resulted in the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Commission, the predecessor to today’s European Union.9 Ball and Monnet met after the war. Monnet, who had been in charge of the French Supply Council, the arm of the French government that coordinated imports from the United States under Lend Lease, now headed the Commissariat général du Plan (Planning Commission) for rebuilding the French economy. By this time, Ball had returned to private practice, and the French Supply Council had hired his law firm. On his frequent trips to Paris, Ball worked in a tiny nine-by-ten office in the townhouse from which Monnet ran the Planning Commission. It was Ball’s job to help Monnet pitch his plan for an economically integrated Europe to American policymakers who would finance it. Monnet’s faith in the promise of European integration would become Ball’s faith. Like his fellow Europeanists in the State Department, Ball held Europe and the United States as inextricably intertwined. American peace and prosperity depended on the strengthening of Europe. Though he was widely known for his Vietnam dissent, the project to build a republic of Europe was actually the cause closest to his heart.10 Ball’s work with Monnet would nonetheless prove central to his Vietnam dissent. In addition to fomenting a sense of the importance of Europe in Ball, Monnet taught him a process of thinking and persuading that put a premium on the relationship between thinking and writing, and writing and revision. Monnet was not himself a writer per se. In fact, as his biographer François Fontaine would say, “The act of writing was so painful that he evaded it as long as possible in favor of the spoken word.” Rather than a writer, Monnet was a

124 revising the vietnam balance sheet thinker and mentor of subordinates who thought with and wrote for him. “This is a man who used other men’s pens.”11 A simultaneously disciplined and romantic man, Monnet began his workday with a long walk from his villa thirty kilometers outside Paris through the hills of the French countryside. This walk, he would say, allowed him to clarify complex thoughts. “I find that in walking the ideas get clearer; I get conclusions without forcing them.” When staffers worked at home with Monnet, they would frequently be asked to accompany him on his walk. As Ball described these occasions, “We would have breakfast together. Then Jean would hand me a cane, open the door, and say, ‘Start talking.’” Monnet was a “Cartesian” thinker, interested in “distilling” complex problems into their simplest forms. As the mountains came into view, he would articulate a broad and complex issue or position on, say, the appropriate role of Germany in postwar Europe. He and his walking companion would then work with that position, continually elaborating the multiple perspectives and counter-arguments for the ultimate purpose of reducing them to an idea so simple that it seemed natural. The only way to solve the German problem was to integrate Germany into a united Europe. Monnet would conduct similar exercises at the office with one or several staff members, often distilling ideas through the night.12 Though Monnet was considered a master of persuasion, he demonstrated an unusual commitment to the thinking that occurs before persuasion. In this sense, Monnet was less interested in politics than in logic. While the end goal was to persuade the Americans of the benefits of European unity, the writing process itself was less about persuasion and more about establishing a strong internal logic for a particular policy position. As Ball would remember of his work with Monnet, “We thought together as we wrote together.” This thinking took the form of a bilan, or “balance sheet.” The term appears numerous times in Monnet’s memoir. One person who worked with Monnet would later describe the balance sheet as an effort to step back from the specifics of a complex problem and produce an “overall view” in order to “change the context that a problem is posed in.”13 Despite its title, the balance sheet was not really a quantitative calculation of costs and benefits. In his memoirs, Monnet confessed, “I am not at home with statistics, and their intrinsic significance has always escaped me.” More interesting were the “relative orders of magnitude that reveal either balance

125 revising the vietnam balance sheet or disequilibrium.” The balance sheet was, in essence, a documented version of the process that took place during Monnet’s walks and dialectical sessions. Through the balance sheet, Monnet’s team could reframe the broader stakes of an issue and the factors contributing to them. “Only in that way,” Ball himself would later explain, “could Monnet compel less imaginative men to view a problem as a whole.” The balance sheet was Monnet’s tool for “penetrating to the heart of problems,” focusing on the big picture, “the logic of Europe.” One commentator explained the process as an art in which the goal is to “seize the opportunity offered by a crisis to break through the conditions that protect the status quo and introduce new elements that favor change.”14 In directing these efforts, Monnet was a true taskmaster, always seeing room for improvement, always seeing room for revision. As Monnet’s biographer writes, while “the thinking is global, the method is meticulous.” And as Ball remembers, Monnet “applied to even the most marginal exchange excruciating efforts to achieve the right phrase, the precise nuance, so that, as I came to expect in working with him, even the simplest letter might have to be redrafted fourteen or fifteen times.” One participant claims that a draft went through 140 revisions. For his part, Monnet admitted to nine versions of a single text. “How can one be sure,” he asked, “that the first version is the best, except by comparing it with what one believes to be better still?” Ball and many others would later refer to this process as the “Monnet method.” The “ritual,” as Fontaine once called it, constituted the “very heart of the experimental method.” Its influence on Ball’s conception of the role of writing in foreign policy cannot be overstated.15 Ball helped Monnet and his team write and revise the reports of the French Supply Council and the subsequent Schuman Plan that were supplied to American policymakers. His papers from these efforts are exemplars of the Monnet method, with scratching and scribbling all over the page, as Ball revised and revised the balance sheet in an effort to explain the “logic of Europe” to himself and an audience of American businessmen and legislators. In these documents, it was not eloquence that Ball was after so much as dialectical thought. He wanted to write a paper that demonstrated logical and structural symmetry and synthesis.16 Monnet worked in the aftermath of a war that left much of Europe in physical, financial, and psychological ruin. For many, like Amos Ball, the war reflected the darkest aspects of human nature epitomized in European civili-

126 revising the vietnam balance sheet zation. In arguing against the postwar assumption that “European influence is permanently lost to the world,” Monnet claimed that the problem was not human nature, but rather outmoded institutions, particularly the institution of the nation-state. “The skeptical may contend that by institutional revisions we cannot change human nature,” wrote Monnet in 1951. “The fact is, however, that by changing institutions we can change the way men act toward one another.” For Monnet, there was an inherent, synecdochic connection between the grand project to revise international institutions and the detailed revision of the documents arguing on behalf of such a project. “With each revision,” Monnet explained in his memoirs, “the draft became more orderly, and the institutional system stronger.”17 Ball internalized Monnet’s faith in institutions. “I am convinced that the fundamental problem is structural,” he would later write. “If we find the key to the puzzle, it will come only from fully understanding to what extent the political organization of power has failed to keep pace with the changing requirements of a world in rapid evolution.” Structural perfection in writing was thus the necessary first step to structural perfection in international institution building. Through writing, the policymaker could structure his thoughts: “One could best test and order his thoughts,” Ball said, “by writing them down.” Writing was a way of reconceptualizing the international order—revising, even dismantling, outdated assumptions and building new institutions that would bring coherence to international relations.18 T he Hi st o ry o f Am er i ca’s R het o r i c al P ol i c y i n V i e t n am

In almost every aspect, Ball’s worldview and philosophy of policy formulation ran against the grain of U.S. foreign policy in Vietnam. The particular assumptions shaping that policy had been in the making since the 1950s. Although the Truman administration had not originally prioritized Asia, its response to events in the region—first the Chinese Communist victory in 1949 and then the Korean War—effectively increased the U.S. commitment to the area. Less than six months after the People’s Republic of China was declared, the National Security Council issued a document underscoring the risk that communism would spread to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam and emphasizing the necessity of preventing such a disaster.19 Largely guided by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, the Eisenhower administration transformed this abstract commitment to Southeast Asia into

127 revising the vietnam balance sheet a material one. In 1954, the United States created the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), a military defense pact with Western allies and proWestern Asian nations designed to protect Southeast Asia from the communists. Furthering this objective, the United States gave $1.5 billion to France to aid its vain effort against Ho Chi Minh’s war of liberation.20 This was just a prelude of what was to follow. Over the next two decades, the United States would pour $150 billion and hundreds of thousands of soldiers into the region, propping up anti-Communist leaders in South Vietnam and attempting to intimidate North Vietnam and curb its effort to reunify the country under Communist leadership.21 Ball played a key role in the successive presidential campaigns of Eisenhower’s Democratic opponent, Adlai Stevenson, whom Ball had first met in 1935 as a young lawyer, and whom traditional New Dealers embraced as Roosevelt’s successor. Like many others, Ball gravitated toward Stevenson in part because he was witty and articulate. Ball would later attribute Stevenson’s appeal to the fact that he “lifted the political discussion to a level of literacy and eloquence.”22 Ball did a fair amount of writing for Stevenson, most of which was aimed not at the public but rather at other policymakers. Most importantly, he wrote the foreign policy report that the Stevenson campaign gave to Kennedy after it lost the primary in 1959. With its focus on NATO and the integration of Europe, the balance-of-payments problem, free trade, and the Atlantic Community (the United States, the United Kingdom, and Western Europe), the report reflects Ball’s sense of the importance of Euro-American relations. Notably, issues concerning the developing world—China, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America—were relegated to the appendix.23 Kennedy was impressed with the report. He even told the Stevenson campaign that he used it as a guide in the early days of his administration. While this may have been the case, the claim is somewhat distorting since in many ways the report reflected positions that Kennedy, and even Stevenson for that matter, regarded as unnecessarily narrow. Certainly, Kennedy was sympathetic to the idea of an integrated Europe, and was, like many, in awe of Monnet. (Ball had introduced the two.)24 But while Ball addressed the developing world only in his appendix, Kennedy placed it right in the center of his foreign policy strategy. The report also reflected more basic intellectual differences between Ball and Kennedy. While Ball thought in terms of a priori abstract concepts, Kennedy wanted to focus on what worked. Or at least that is the stereotype. As Ball

128 revising the vietnam balance sheet would later point out, the “young movers and shakers of the Kennedy administration thought of themselves as pragmatists.” However, when they “generated a surfeit of theories regarding the economic development of the Third World,” they happily dealt in abstractions. In contrast, they had “fewer settled views on the structure of relations among the Western industrialized democracies.”25 Ball was skeptical of Kennedy-style pragmatism. Without a conceptual underpinning, he believed, raw data and analysis were subject to narrowness and distortion. Being practical in the long run, Ball believed, sometimes necessitated a degree of remove from the immediate situation. Notably, Ball explained his frustrations with the Kennedy administration in terms of language. The New Frontiersmen, he would later say, were simultaneously a “few high priests, who talked a strange sacerdotal language” and who were prone to neologisms that had a “quaintly Madison Avenue ring,” such as “takeoff,” “the big push,” and the “great ascent.”26 Kennedy’s image-centric pragmatism contrasted sharply with Monnet’s Cartesian ways, which elevated clarity among policymakers over the notion of public spin. As many historians have argued, “image” was a central factor in U.S. foreign policy toward Southeast Asia. By 1960, while many senior policymakers believed in the domino theory that warned against the takeover of a region and eventually of the world by direct military means, there was an increasing emphasis on indirect communist takeover, as a result of America’s lack of credibility, which would in turn tarnish its prestige in the world. An extension of the doctrine of containment, as formulated by George Kennan, the psychological domino theory, as it came to be called, emphasized the importance of maintaining America’s strong image in the world, lest the world populace begin to doubt America’s superiority.27 Under Kennedy, this image depended in part on the success of U.S.-sponsored development programs. Officially, the 11,000 U.S. military advisors were in Vietnam to aid the Vietnamese as the country developed its own military, political, and economic capacities. The sea of speculations about whether Kennedy would have withdrawn from Vietnam arises from evidence that Kennedy himself had begun to recognize the ambiguity of this mission.28 Lyndon Johnson’s approach toward Vietnam reflected an even greater tension between development as a tool for lifting up the poor on the one hand and enhancing America’s image in the world on the other. Remembering the incredible effects of the Tennessee Valley Authority in the Tennessee River

129 revising the vietnam balance sheet valley and the Works Progress Administration in his home state of Texas, LBJ foresaw similar possibilities in the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta. “I am a river man,” said Johnson. “All my life, I have been interested in rivers and their development.” At the same time, in the midst of the escalation, development and the invocation of freedom became a way of publicly justifying America’s presence in Vietnam, even as the question of whether the Vietnamese people really wanted us there became more pressing, and even after senior policymakers privately admitted that the war could not be won by military force alone.29 Image mattered on the home front as well. Looming over both Kennedy’s and Johnson’s decisions to maintain and expand America’s presence in Vietnam was the factor of domestic politics. Fully aware of how Truman had been accused of “losing” China, and how that accusation had damaged the last Democratic administration, both Kennedy and Johnson made a point of avoiding anti-Communist criticism. In the spring of 1963, Kennedy privately expressed a desire to withdraw from Vietnam, but delayed in order to ward off “another Joe McCarthy Red Scare.” When Johnson assumed the presidency just months later, he insisted, “I will not be accused of ‘losing’ Vietnam,” drawing from the same political narrative as his predecessor. As the U.S. commitment to Vietnam increased in the 1960s, the political risk of withdrawal became increasingly central to those in charge of shaping policy.30 In this image-centric strategy, words functioned primarily as tools for public persuasion. The political role of language in foreign policy and governing is so obvious in the modern era that we tend to take it for granted as the only way in which words are valued in the executive branch. In The Rhetorical Presidency, Jeffrey Tulis argues that American presidents actually became “rhetorical,” in the sense of persuading the populace, only in the twentieth century. Before that, they addressed their speeches primarily to Congress and referred to the Constitution, rather than democratic sentiment, to justify their policies. As Tulis asserts, in the twentieth century, public rhetoric became so central to the American presidency that it threatened to marginalize all other approaches.31 There were several sides to the rhetorical strategy in Vietnam—each aimed at a different audience. One, aimed at the American populace, used words and images to gain and maintain domestic support for the war. Another, aimed at American allies, used words to gain and maintain international support for the U.S. intervention. Still another side of the rhetorical war was aimed at enemies. It consisted of selling peace to North Vietnam and its allies through a combi-

130 revising the vietnam balance sheet nation of words and bombs. As Brian Van de Mark has explained, the administration thus tried to use force as a “rational weapon.” Later in the war, senior policymakers would euphemistically refer to this latter activity as “signalling.”32 Verbal and military suasion are of course central components of statesmanship and key aspects of strategy in all wars. What is winning, if not persuading the enemy to surrender? One of the remarkable aspects of the Johnson administration’s Vietnam policy is the extent to which suasion threatened to displace the geopolitical strategy that justified the war in the first place. As it became clear that it was not going to be easy to persuade South Vietnam into stability or North Vietnam into defeat, senior policymakers’ argument for continuing the war had less to do with victory than with an unwillingness to admit defeat. The Cold War doctrine of containment, and the psychological domino theory it entailed, effectively put a premium on “credibility” and “prestige” in the eyes of the world. For Johnson and many of his advisors, the perceptions of the American public and the Vietnamese government were the most important, if not sole, determining factors in the war. As Ball’s public actions on behalf of the administration would demonstrate, he appreciated the importance of image in foreign policy. At the same time, however, Ball believed there were other factors to consider—including the history of France’s experience in Vietnam—which cast doubt on the premise that the war could be won at all, and which emphasized the importance of formulating an internal logic to extricate the nation from an otherwise inevitable disaster. Thus, it was not just geopolitical differences that fueled Ball’s Vietnam dissent; it was also differences over the need for an internal, writerly process, in addition to an external, rhetorical process. While Ball’s framework for an internal logic revolved around the importance, even necessity, of revision, the reigning framework made revision difficult, if not impossible.33 T he W o uld - b e D i s s e n t er s a n d T h e i r L i m i ts

Ball was not the only one who saw problems with the current approach toward Vietnam and the assumptions fueling it. But in the lead-up to escalation, he was part of a very small and cautious minority. Popular dissent was low, in large part because the public had not yet taken a critical interest in Vietnam. (A May 1964 poll showed that only 37 percent of Americans followed events in Vietnam.) Inside the beltway, while some harbored doubts about the war, few

131 revising the vietnam balance sheet articulated them. In 1964, when Johnson pressed Congress to pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, the vast majority gave him their wholehearted support. Senator Michael Mansfield (Democrat of Montana) privately questioned the war’s logic, but did not speak out publicly. Only Congressmen Wayne Morse (Democrat of Oregon) and Ernest Gruening (Democrat of Alaska) cast their votes and spoke publicly against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.34 Within the executive branch, the Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff strongly advocated America’s ever-increasing commitment to Vietnam. While factions would develop within the different branches of the military, and while some of the most important dissenters would eventually hail from civilians in charge of the military, before 1966 the Defense Department was fairly unanimous in its message of persistence despite impediments, and could be counted on to press Johnson to send more manpower and resources to Vietnam. The situation was similar in the State Department. Secretary of State Dean Rusk ardently believed in the domino theory and the importance of Asia to U.S. security. After the McCarthy purges of the department in the 1950s, the State Department and the Foreign Service were increasingly populated with individuals who shared Rusk’s view that the military had to work first to establish security in Vietnam, and only then could the wheels of diplomacy get spinning. Most of those who disagreed in whole or part with Rusk made sure not to tell their boss about it. Philip Sprouse, the Foreign Service officer who served as ambassador to Cambodia in the Kennedy administration, epitomized the culture of caution that had taken hold in the diplomatic establishment. At a meeting of ambassadors, Sprouse responded with shock to the seemingly innocuous idea of encouraging Foreign Service officers to do more field reporting. “My God!” he exclaimed. “That was what we were doing in China and look what we got out of it!”35 Sprouse was, of course, alluding to the attacks on the Foreign Service officers who had served in China during the Second World War and had recommended cooperation with the Communists. The China hands, as they were called, had witnessed the futility of standing in the way of popular nationalist wars in the region. These men might have spoken up if they had still been in Asia policy or anywhere in the State Department, for that matter. But by the mid-1950s, the most outspoken of the China hands had been either fired or marginalized, “blown like dead leaves all over the earth.” After his dismissal in 1954, John Paton Davies went into a decade of self-imposed exile in Peru, from

132 revising the vietnam balance sheet where he would observe in his bitter and incisive way that “[m]any cautious mediocrities rose to the top of the Service” in the post-McCarthy era. Davies would have to wait until the end of the Johnson administration to receive the clearance first promised him by Kennedy. Fellow China hand Jack Service had received an official clearance from the Supreme Court in 1959. Upon reinstatement, he was also, however, essentially exiled. From the customshouse in Liverpool where he was stationed, he could not contribute to Asia policy, let alone any other serious aspect of policy. He resigned in 1962.36 Ball played a minor but admirable role in defending government officials against McCarthy’s attacks in the 1950s, when he served as counsel to former vice president Henry Wallace whom McCarthy had accused of being a Communist sympathizer. In so doing, Ball became one of the few who had risked putting himself in the line of anti-Communist fire and survived wholly unscathed.37 Though the red-baiting of the McCarthy era was gone at the beginning of the Johnson administration, the fate of some early detractors in the State Department served as a reminder that it was still dangerous to dissent. In early 1964, a slew of mid- and high-level officials were fired for their role in the notorious “coup cable” of 1963, which advocated ousting the corrupt and impotent president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem.38 Although Kennedy had approved the coup, which took place in November 1963, Johnson lamented the action, regarding the assassinated Diem as the last best hope for the country. He fired Roger Hilsman, the head of the State Department’s Bureau for Research and Intelligence (INR), and White House aide Mike Forrestal for their role in drafting the cable that gave the green light for the coup. Senior statesman Averell Harriman, who had helped orchestrate the cable, was transferred and demoted to the Bureau of African Affairs—in his own words, “exiled to Africa,” a post that matched neither his status nor his experience.39 While there were a few midlevel dissenters in the State Department who survived despite voicing doubts about the war, they were largely isolated from senior policymakers and to some degree from each other.40 Historian Kenneth Weisbrode has referred to the post-McCarthy, postDulles period as an “era of discontinuity and fluctuation” in the State Department. Pointing out that the Foreign Service had been “purged from the right under Dulles, now from the left under Kennedy,” Davies asked, “How can you expect these men to do a good job?” The marginalization of the State Department under Kennedy was not, however, part of Kennedy’s initial strategy. Upon

133 revising the vietnam balance sheet assuming office, Kennedy had hoped to reinvigorate the State Department. However, he quickly grew frustrated with what he regarded as the bureaucracy’s lack of creativity and innovation. This organizational malaise was epitomized by the weakness of diplomatic writing since the 1950s. The president’s early conclusion that the State Department was a “bowl of jello” stemmed in part from his discontent with official diplomatic prose, which emblematized the culture of conservatism and repression in the post-McCarthy diplomatic establishment. Departmental memos and reports were vacuous pieces of what Arthur Schlesinger called “bureaucratic patois.” They lacked evidence of individual thought and relied instead on self-serving clichés articulated in the passive voice and endlessly recycled from one document to the next, not to mention the spelling and grammatical mistakes. As Hans Morgenthau would later write, the “eyes” of the State Department had become “blind, its ears, deaf, and its brain dull.”41 This state of affairs would no doubt have stirred the ire of George Kennan, who placed a premium on diplomatic writing and who had wished to reinvigorate it in the postwar era. (Kennan served a brief stint as ambassador to Yugoslavia in the Kennedy years, put to an end by irreconcilable differences with a Congress not willing to work with a Communist state.) Similarly, Ball lamented the poor quality of the analysis being done by his subordinates in the State Department, or “fudge factory,” as he called it. For Ball, as for Kennan, this weakness in diplomatic writing had serious implications for the nation’s foreign policy.42 Attempting to school State Department officers in the discipline of good writing, Ball adopted the habit of sending “particularly inept memos” back to their authors. This practice frustrated many of Ball’s subordinates, who respected him but sometimes felt that in his preoccupation with writing, their boss was missing the forest for the trees. For Ball, as for other officials in the senior echelons, however, the problem was not only that these memos lacked “proper” grammar and style, but also, and more importantly, that they lacked honesty and boldness. “All too many career officers,” lamented Ball, “have developed an overly cautious reticence, fearing the disdain of the Secretary if their ideas do not happen to coincide with his preconceptions or meet his stylistic standards.” As Ball lamented, internal policy writing on the Vietnam conflict hardly differed from the administration’s public rhetoric. In 1949, the China hands had made the mistakes of recommending cooperation with the Communists

134 revising the vietnam balance sheet and of publishing their internal policy writings. Diplomats who survived the purges internalized the lesson never to write policy analyses that could be read the “wrong way” by the public.43 In the Johnson administration, this rule manifested in the fact that most of the internal policy writing on Vietnam did not differ from the public rhetoric on the war, but instead mirrored it. Concluding that the State Department was “inarticulate,” Ball at least temporarily resigned himself to the role of lone dissenter.44 Ba ll R epr es e nt s Am er i ca’s Rhet o r i c al P ol i c y i n V i e t n a m

In the first year of the Johnson administration, despite his aversion to the public rhetoric justifying Vietnam policy, Ball did more to sell the war than to stem it. Lyndon Johnson knew a thing or two about sales. Before becoming a congressman, he worked briefly as a public relations man, an experience that served him well in the U.S. Senate, where he developed a reputation for getting his colleagues to see the merits of supporting particular pieces of legislation.45 As president, Johnson put a special premium on marketing the war, and when asked to be a key salesman, Ball said yes. In the first half of 1964, Ball’s only formidable role in Vietnam policy was that of Johnson’s emissary. His first task was to get the support of the French president. Instead of being convinced by the American messenger, however, the unflappable de Gaulle gave Ball a bit of advice. Vietnam, he said, was “rotten country.” Ball, who was already deeply aware of France’s history in Vietnam, took de Gaulle’s warning to heart, but did not voice it back in Washington. In addition to persuading foreign governments of the administration’s stance on Vietnam, Ball also worked on Johnson’s behalf to persuade key members of Congress, most notably William Fulbright. After the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Ball had a meeting with Fulbright at which he secured the senator’s vote for the resolution that granted Johnson the power to wage war in Vietnam as he saw fit, a vote the senator would grow to regret deeply.46 Some of Ball’s speeches explaining and supporting the war were so effective that the State Department turned them into pamphlets for public distribution. As Ball and others have noted, Ball fulfilled this role of public emissary out of two impulses—loyalty to the president as a public servant and a pragmatic desire to gain Johnson’s trust. Notably, although Ball had himself been involved

135 revising the vietnam balance sheet in the 1963 coup cable, Johnson never punished him the way he did the others. Instead, Ball earned Johnson’s favor as a “can-do” man. In representing the administration so effectively, Ball willingly participated in Johnson’s rhetorical Vietnam policy.47 At t em p t s t o R ev i s e P o li cy: T he D i s s e nt M e m os ( 1964– 1966)

Though Ball played a key role in helping Johnson pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, he was troubled by the path it set for America’s involvement in Vietnam. Within a month of the resolution’s passage, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and National Security Council (NSC) advisor McGeorge Bundy made the case for an enhanced military commitment to Vietnam.48 After attending these meetings, Ball realized it was time to apply the Monnet method to Vietnam. In mid-September, he began his first, longest, and most comprehensive memo on Vietnam. The memo, which he did not finish until October 5, was titled “How Valid Are the Assumptions Underlying Our Vietnam Policy?” As this title suggests, in writing the memo, Ball wanted to take a step back from the path toward escalation in order to scrutinize the logic of the argument supporting it. Ball wrote the October 5 memo alone and at home, waking up before dawn, locking himself in his office, and dictating into a microphone.49 It took him two weeks to complete what amounted to a tightly structured, deliberately argued seventy-two-page examination of the logic of escalation. The memo opened with a gravitas that reflects Ball’s perception of the changing foreign policy winds and belies the argument that 1964 was a “year off ” for Vietnam policy.50 “Within the next few weeks,” wrote Ball, “we must face a major decision of Vietnam policy. The political situation in Saigon is progressively deteriorating.” Ball summarized the possible options. In the face of the continued insurgency and unstable government in South Vietnam, the United States could either continue the present course of action, take over the war in South Vietnam by sending in substantial ground troops, bomb the North, or devise a situation that would “permit a political settlement.” Instead of simply offering his assessment, Ball prefaced it with a discussion titled “How to Approach the Problem,” in which he essentially explained the Monnet method. He articulated the current set of assumptions that prioritized the military context. So far, “we have proceeded on the assumption that once

136 revising the vietnam balance sheet having undertaken a program of military action in South Viet-Nam, we must pursue it until we achieve military success. We have assumed that without military success a negotiated solution could be achieved only at an unacceptable cost to the United States.” But this assumption needed to be tested, he argued. How? By a balance sheet. We must “undertake a vigorous balancing of accounts,” insisted Ball. “We must examine the range of possible costs that might result from the widening of the war and the enlargement of the United States military commitment and balance those costs against the costs of a carefully devised course of action designed to lead to a political solution.” In attempting to shift the context from military to diplomatic solutions, Ball applied the Monnet method of moving from complex details—how to defeat the communist insurgency—to the more basic question of whether victory was possible in Vietnam. The first half of the balance sheet consisted of establishing the benefits and costs of the current context of widening the war, particularly through aerial bombing. In the body of the memo, Ball framed the potential benefits through a series of hypothetical questions that embodied the logic of escalation. “Can we, by military pressure against North Vietnam, persuade the Hanoi Government to stop Viet Cong action in the South or at least reduce that action to the point where the Viet Cong insurgency becomes manageable?” “If a complete military victory is not possible, can we, by military pressure against North Viet-Nam, at least improve our bargaining position to the point where an acceptable negotiated solution might be achieved?” In answering these and related questions, Ball underscored the potential flaws in the logic of escalation and the costs of escalating in light of them. “The Hanoi Government has been deeply committed to its present course of policy for many years.” Bombing would not necessarily affect the north-south infiltration rate. And high casualties would not necessarily lead Hanoi to capitulate. Hanoi had repeatedly insisted it would only negotiate on the basis of U.S. withdrawal. Most immediately, there was the risk of an enhanced counterresponse. In all likelihood, Hanoi would increase its ground forces and might even launch a full-scale invasion of South Vietnam. In a broader geopolitical context, there was the risk that China would enter the war, which could upset the delicate balance created by the current Sino-Soviet schism. Ball also calculated the costs and benefits in terms of U.S. prestige. “Would the clear evidence of our intention to carry out our commitments increase United States prestige around the world?” According to the balance sheet, the answer

137 revising the vietnam balance sheet was no. “What we might gain by establishing the steadfastness of our commitments we could lose by an erosion of confidence in our judgment.” Instead of lauding the United States for keeping its commitments, argued Ball, our European allies believed that we were naive to remain in Indochina, while the non-aligned countries regarded the war as a potential threat to their own sovereignty. But it was in answer to the question of whether a wider war could be managed that Ball underscored what for him was the most important danger of adopting the logic of escalation: It is in the nature of escalation that each move passes the option to the other side, while at the same time the party which seems to be losing will be tempted to keep raising the ante. To the extent that the response to a move can be controlled, that move is probably ineffective. If the move is effective, it may not be possible to control— or accurately anticipate—the response. Once on the tiger’s back we cannot be sure of picking the place to dismount. Without a coherent internal strategy, Ball warned, the external momentum of war would soon take over, and further revision of strategy would become impossible. As Ball foresaw, the logic of escalation was inherently inflexible.51 The October 5 memo exemplified what James Schlesinger has insightfully referred to as Ball’s “reflective intelligence,” which focuses on why we are interested in certain questions and not others and interrogates the very basis of our strategy in Vietnam. For Ball, such a policy could best be initiated through reflective writing. The act of writing, he believed, allowed one to detach oneself from raw data and experience. In addition to resembling Monnet’s practice, the memo resembled the practice of former internal dissenters like Kennan and the China hands, who, in different ways, also sought to rethink long-standing policy assumptions through reflective pieces of policy analysis.52 In addition to Ball’s reflective capacity, the October 5 memo also exemplifies what might be called Ball’s anti-rhetorical logic. First, in terms of the substance of his policy recommendation, in critiquing the prestige argument, Ball attempted to shift the context away from public rhetoric and toward internal logic. Second, in shifting the context from the logic of escalation to the logic of diplomacy, he did not really attempt to persuade his colleagues of a diplomatic solution but instead to cast doubt on the military solution. As he explained in

138 revising the vietnam balance sheet the foreword to his memo, “[T]his memorandum creates only a prima facie case for a possible alternative to intensifying our role in the Vietnamese war. Having met this burden of going forward, I suggest that the burden of proof is upon those who advocate the third option.”53 Notably, Ball did not elaborate the second half of the balance sheet, the costs and benefits of a diplomatic solution, until the last few pages. And when he did, he argued that the benefits of negotiating after “sustained military pressure” were not necessarily greater than those of a “negotiation that was not preceded by such pressure.” Besides the existing risks of escalation, there was the risk that the United States would be treated as an aggressor at the negotiating table. In contrast, negotiation without escalation would afford the United States more flexibility at the conference table and relieve its burden to police the area thereafter. Ball acknowledged the risk of withdrawal to U.S. prestige, but argued that it could be prevented by emphasizing the conditional nature of the U.S. presence in Vietnam, which depended on: (1) the desire of the Vietnamese people for us to be there and (2) the stability of the South Vietnamese government, both of which were in doubt. Ball reserved only a few paragraphs for a consideration of the costs and benefits of various diplomatic solutions. Direct negotiation between Hanoi and Saigon posed the danger of turning South Vietnam into a “satellite” of the North. A large conference, like the one that neutralized Laos in 1962, would allow more international oversight. But there would be no guarantee that a cease-fire would last for the duration of the conference or that China would not gain influence in the region. On balance, Ball favored what he called “localized negotiation” between the South Vietnam government and the National Liberation Front (NLF), the Hanoi-supported Communist insurgency. The obvious cost would be the likelihood that the Communists would dominate the government and steer the country toward unification with the North. But the benefit would be that such an outcome would be delayed and would reflect the will of South Vietnam as a sovereign nation, thus relieving the United States of its responsibility to intervene.54 It is difficult to read this memo, which reflects Ball’s core stance on Vietnam as well as his process of thinking and writing, and conclude that he was merely playing “devil’s advocate.” Ball himself deeply resented the epithet and the associated but even more sinister label of “house prostitute.”55 Defending the integrity of his dissent, he would later say, “What I was doing was deeply felt out of my own guts here.” Otherwise, “I wouldn’t have sat up until three or

139 revising the vietnam balance sheet four o’clock in the morning doing it . . . it was never a stylized affair as far as I was concerned.”56 Nonetheless, the October memo does support another sense in which Ball was a devil’s advocate. Building on his work with Monnet and his legal background more generally, Ball framed his dissent as though it were a case to be made before a grand jury. Although he worked extremely hard to refine his case, revising his memo and by implication the assumptions fueling the decision to escalate, he believed that he was essentially holding the line, revising and revising his words, somewhat paradoxically, in order to prevent a “radical change” in the “character of the war.”57 Ball proceeded on the assumption that the balance sheet did not have to demonstrate the benefits of diplomacy so much as the cost of escalation. However, that wasn’t the logical standard guiding most of the high-level officials shaping Vietnam policy in the end of 1964. Ball’s boss, the secretary of state, allowed Ball’s dissent, in the interest of friendship and tolerance. Ball and Dean Rusk had an organic, personal, and quite fraternal relationship. They met regularly on the seventh floor of Foggy Bottom at the end of a long day’s work to have a drink, share stories, and engage in good-spirited debate over the events of the day and of the age. “Our years together were the best years of my life,” Ball would later write to Rusk, in praise of Rusk’s “tolerance” and “understanding.” Indeed, Ball’s intimacy with Rusk allowed him to dissent without being marginalized from the inner policymaking circles. That said, Rusk saw Vietnam as primarily a military conflict and believed the public rhetoric of the administration, that aerial bombing was not a radical change but merely a continuation of current policy. In this context, it was a diplomatic approach, particularly one that involved U.S. withdrawal, which required a positive argument.58 Ball faced similar barriers with Johnson’s top Vietnam advisors, McGeorge Bundy and Robert McNamara, with whom he did not have the same level of personal intimacy. Bundy, who served as NSC advisor under both Kennedy and Johnson, epitomized the pragmatism of the newest generation of eastern establishment intellectual elites who had risen to power in the Kennedy era. He believed that the war was fundamentally a test of America’s credibility, and that the one thing to avoid was the appearance of defeat. And he worked hard to make sure that the presidents he served believed the same. During the Kennedy years, Bundy had significantly increased the influence of the NSC staff on policy. Under Johnson, Bundy continued to coordinate the endless series

140 revising the vietnam balance sheet of “task forces” on Vietnam, a position from which he effectively shaped the stream of information on the war in the White House. Mac Bundy regarded Ball’s dissent as an interference in his own attempt to manage and administrate the war smoothly.59 But it was McNamara who was most threatened by Ball’s dissent. In contrast to Bundy, and like Ball, McNamara tended to emphasize internal analysis over public opinion. However, in the fight for establishing the perfect internal logic, Ball and McNamara were in many ways archcompetitors and methodological combatants, much like George Kennan and Paul Nitze had been in the late 1940s, when the foreign establishment was weighing diplomatic versus military options in dealing with the Soviet Union. As Nitze’s capacity for statistical straight talk had rivaled Kennan’s capacity for the written word in that debate, so did McNamara’s gift with numbers and statistical analysis rival Ball’s capacity for conceptual writing in this debate. Johnson, who took great pride in his secretary of defense, once said that “you could almost hear the computers clicking away” in McNamara’s brain. In addition to their opposing talents, Ball and McNamara differed over their respective philosophies of cabinet-level culture. Ball believed that the State Department and the Pentagon were inherently at odds. State had knowledge and experience in the political aspect of foreign affairs; therefore, its job was to advocate the political approach to foreign policy. Defense had knowledge and experience in the military aspect of foreign affairs, so its job was to advocate the military approach to foreign policy. The two agencies had the responsibility to openly and regularly debate their positions. Out of this exchange, sound foreign policy could be reached. McNamara, however, disagreed. He believed that members of the president’s cabinet should voice “consensus” rather than differences among themselves. Anything short of unanimity created an impasse and made getting the job done that much more difficult. He wanted the wheels of foreign policy to run smoothly, more like the Ford Motor Company and less like a democracy.60 Subsequently, the military angle often received more attention than the diplomatic one. This imbalance was perpetuated by the political imperative of presidents to appear strong in Vietnam. In the image-oriented war, public reports of military activity could be enlisted as signs of America’s strength. Diplomatic efforts were primarily important as signs of good intentions on the part of the United States. However, in the rhetorical war, real compromise, especially the idea of unconditional negotiation, was regarded as a sign of weakness.

141 revising the vietnam balance sheet McNamara would later claim that none of the recipients of Ball’s memo took it very seriously. According to Ball, however, McNamara treated the October memo “like a poisonous snake” that threatened to inject the venom of critical debate into the body of consensus.61 Despite NcMamara’s attempt to trivialize the October memo, there is evidence that it did have an immediate influence on William Bundy, Mac Bundy’s brother, who was assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs. After reading Ball’s memo, Bundy, who had been wrestling with his own doubts about the best plan for moving ahead, wrote a memo of his own, which echoed Ball’s emphasis on the costs of further military involvement and considered withdrawal as a serious option.62 If there was anyone who initially downplayed Ball’s dissent, it was Ball himself. When he completed his memo, he did not even give it to his potentially most important reader, the president. With Johnson distracted by his reelection campaign, Ball had decided to hold off for the time being. As Ball’s critics on the left have argued, he probably kept the memo from Johnson for as long as he did in order to avoid the president’s wrath. In addition, if it was true that the burden of proof rested with those who wished to escalate, then his opposition wasn’t yet urgent. In actuality, opposition was urgent. In November, Ambassador Maxwell Taylor returned from Vietnam with a bleak report, in response to which the administration embarked on what Van de Mark has called the “most comprehensive Vietnam policy review” in the entirety of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Bill Bundy had been put in charge of writing the report for the NSC task force. The draft report reflected elements of the position Bundy had articulated in his October memo. However, the final report, which was the result of a compromise with the Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs, decidedly rejected both the status quo and withdrawal. Instead, it called for “controlled” escalation that would take place in two phases, the first consisting of reprisal bombing and the second of a general and sustained increase in aerial bombing.63 According to Taylor, who dominated the discussion of the task force recommendations, the case for escalation was simply self-evident. As he would reiterate to Johnson on January 6, 1965, “To take no positive action now is to accept defeat in the fairly near future.”64 McNamara agreed, saying, “We have got to do something.” The logic of escalation effectively linked McNamara’s internal analysis to the rhetoric of strength and persistence that had been and would continue to be central to the administration’s political calculus and public justification of the war.

142 revising the vietnam balance sheet Johnson grudgingly approved, but did not enact Phase One. By early 1965, though he had not formally approved Phase Two, he sent out feelers that he would have no other choice but to do so in the near future. Step-by-step escalation, through which Johnson sought to keep his options open, was well on its way to becoming the unacknowledged de facto policy of the war in Vietnam. On February 7 the administration got the “spectacular Viet Cong action” it needed to execute the logic of gradual escalation. The Viet Cong attacked U.S. forces at Pleiku, inflicting the most casualties to date. The so-called surprise attack was actually the latest in a string of offensive actions, which served as a pretext for retaliatory bombings of the North that senior officials had been planning for weeks.65 At the NSC meeting the morning directly after the attacks, rather than dissent, Ball firmly supported the decision to retaliate. Later that afternoon, he challenged Senator Mansfield’s proposal to handle the matter through the United Nations and supported McNamara’s call for a more comprehensive bombing response. “Our officials in Saigon want a graduated response to the entire North Vietnamese military effort rather than merely retaliatory strikes.” Ball recommended getting approval from Congress for such action, and as acting secretary in Rusk’s absence, he joined McNamara in delivering a televised statement on the approved retaliation. Once again Ball was selling the war, participating in the public rhetoric of escalation, a policy that was framed as a mere continuation of the status quo. “We seek no wider war” was the unanimous message from the executive branch to the public.66 The following week, Ball finally submitted a memo to Johnson on the subject of Vietnam. In his February 13 memo, he once again stressed the risks of escalation. However, rather than conclude that the military solution still required proof, Ball expressed his support for a “program of gradually mounting military pressure on the North.” According to this memo, there was only one basic difference between Ball’s position and that of the other cabinet members. While Bundy and McNamara believed that bombing could stop the insurgency altogether, Ball believed that bombing could only enhance the United States’ bargaining position in an international settlement. In other words, in contrast to what Ball said in the October 5 memo, bombing could be used as a diplomatic tool.67 Like the October 5 memo, this one had undergone some revision, not in the Monnet vein but rather in the more compromising vein of bureaucratic col-

143 revising the vietnam balance sheet laboration. The piece had first been vetted with McNamara and Bundy. It was Bundy who revised the section on diplomatic options, stressing the importance of avoiding a Geneva-style conference unless the United States had already agreed on the bargaining chips. Just as the administration was understating the differences between its former Vietnam policy and the one on which it was embarking, so did this memo understate the differences between Ball and the rest of the cabinet. It was an altogether disjointed piece, not Ball’s finest moment as either dissenter or writer. Two days before submitting the memo, Ball went on Face the Nation and publicly touted the clarity of the administration’s policy.68 Despite Ball’s effort to gain allies by revising his arguments in light of his colleagues’ positions, the memo did little to change the terms of the debate over escalation. Earlier that week, Bundy had submitted a memo of his own to the president, which put a premium on the war as a test of America’s strength in the world. In putting forth his own recommendation for a “policy of sustained reprisal,” Bundy argued, “The international prestige of the United States, and a substantial part of our influence, are directly at risk in Vietnam.” Bundy went to great lengths to caution against “negotiation.” He did not fear the substance of a negotiated settlement as much as he feared how the term “negotiation” would be perceived. The United States would look weak if it agreed to negotiate. Above all else, Bundy did not want the United States to be seen as a “paper tiger.”69 The idea of war as political rhetoric was fundamental to the argument on behalf of escalation. Already at this early point, very few of the many who supported the bombing campaign believed it would result in a clear-cut victory. Instead, as Ambassador Taylor insisted, the demonstration of military force was intended primarily as a psychological remedy, a “pulmotor treatment” or morale booster for the government of South Vietnam. On a broader level, the escalation was intended as a message of America’s strength and persistence to the enemy as well as to U.S. allies. McNamara referred to it as “communicating” with bombs. When Johnson approved the bombing, he told his advisors to “make it clear to the world that the U.S. will spare no effort.” Controlled force was thus considered more for its symbolic power than for the destruction of specific targets. At a White House meeting on February 13, Johnson entertained Ball’s halfhearted attempt to argue against a strategy in Vietnam built on a misguided notion of America’s public image in the world. He returned Ball’s memo without comment, and approved Phase Two of the task force’s recommendations—a campaign of sustained bombing on North Viet-

144 revising the vietnam balance sheet nam. Polls showed increased public support for the war in response to the president’s action.70 Even as he willingly participated in the administration’s public posturing on the war, Ball began to work behind the scenes to convince Johnson of the value of a more reflective approach to Vietnam. Ball had recently lunched with Johnson’s young and trustworthy aide Bill Moyers. As the two men talked sympathetically about the situation in Vietnam, Ball decided to reach out to Moyers and renew his effort to turn the tide against escalation. He informed Moyers of the October 5 memo and gave him a copy of it, which Moyers then gave to Johnson as part of his weekend reading. Contrary to his usual intolerance of dissent, Johnson demonstrated an appreciation for Ball’s effort. He read the memo closely, with interest and concern. He then instructed Moyers to call Ball and encourage him to keep writing.71 While Johnson is known for his intolerance of dissent, his positive response to Ball was in keeping with his general attitude toward internal dissenters. As many of Johnson’s staffers have explained, LBJ preempted dissent once a decision had been reached. Before the moment of decision, however, he often allowed and sometimes even welcomed opposing views. “I wanted to hear every argument, pro and con.” While this statement belongs to Johnson’s larger effort to airbrush his image, it was not entirely fatuous. There was such a thing as an ideal dissenter in the Johnson administration. Ball, in many ways, fit this bill. First and foremost, he could be counted on to keep his views within closed circles. Also, unlike the president’s other top-level advisors, he was not a product of the elite eastern establishment and posed no threat to Johnson’s ego. Finally, he shared but did not rival Johnson’s capacity for metaphor and humor. The Emersonian metaphor of Ball’s October 5 memo was incisive, but simultaneously quaint in comparison to McNamara’s statistics and Bundy’s rigid prose.72 Of course Ball was not the only high-level official writing reports to the president in hopes of guiding his decisions on the war. During the first six months of 1965, Johnson, who was a voracious reader of documents, read and weighed hundreds of reports on Vietnam from cabinet members, advisors, and embassies. In the thirteen days between the submission of Ball’s memo and the White House meeting at which it was discussed, Bundy wrote seven memos to the president on Vietnam, the embassy in Vietnam sent seven telegrams to Washington, a National Intelligence Estimate on Vietnam was delivered to the president, and Johnson met with the British and French foreign ministers, as

145 revising the vietnam balance sheet well as with President Eisenhower to discuss the war. On February 23, Rusk, who rarely wrote to Johnson, delivered a memo to the president in which he argued firmly on behalf of escalation. Nonetheless, at a White House meeting on February 26, Johnson asked the undersecretary to present his views and then rebutted many of Ball’s points with references to specific page numbers. Not surprisingly, McNamara challenged Ball’s assault on his claims through a series of countering facts and statistics.73 Though Ball “had made no converts” at the meeting, he took Johnson’s detailed treatment of the memo as a positive sign. Ball’s tentative optimism persisted against the backdrop of Operation Rolling Thunder, which took effect on March 1, 1965. One week later, the first U.S. combat troops, which General Westmoreland had requested in February, arrived in Vietnam to protect the American air base at Da Nang. The momentum of war that Ball had foreseen in the October memo began to play out in the ensuing weeks. On March 29, the Viet Cong blew up the American embassy in Vietnam, and Westmoreland called for an increase to 82,000 troops. At the White House meeting held to discuss the troop increase, Johnson appeared noncommittal and in search of an alternative. “I have a paper,” announced Ball. “I’ll write it today.”74 Like the October 5 memo, Ball’s April 21 memo “Should We Try to Move Toward a Vietnamese Settlement Now?” urged the president and his advisors to step back and reflect before taking any hasty action: “Now is the time to take a hard look at where we are going.” In contrast to the October 5 memo, however, which offered a balance sheet primarily on the costs of escalation, this memo shifted the context, putting the question in terms of the relative costs and benefits of diplomacy: “Should we try to set in train a possible diplomatic solution before the rainy season or should we wait until fall?” The bilan weighed heavily in favor of diplomacy. The one advantage to postponing negotiation, Ball argued, was the hypothetically strengthened position of the United States after a victorious summer of fighting against the Viet Cong. But there were at least three major risks. One, bombing without negotiating would inevitably lead to “erosion of our world position.” Two, continued bombing would risk public support for the war. And three, bombing would increase the chance of a Chinese and Soviet counter-response. All three of these risks involved America’s image. Clearly, Ball had come to understand the need to put his balance sheet in terms of public and international opinion. At the same time, however, he argued that the path to

146 revising the vietnam balance sheet a diplomatic solution required a space outside of the administration’s public rhetoric on the war. “If we are to move off dead center, we must define for ourselves what we can really accept. In other words, we must separate what we publicly state as our objectives from a realistic definition of the achievable and acceptable.” In elaborating just such a definition, Ball offered a balance sheet that calculated the common ground relative to the irreconcilable differences between the United States and North Vietnamese positions, as recently articulated in the Four Points, a statement delivered from Hanoi to the United States via the French.75 The balance sheet suggested that there was actually more agreement than the escalationists acknowledged. While the United States opposed the automatic reunification of the country under Communist leadership, it agreed with North Vietnam that the Vietnamese people deserved the basic rights of “peace, independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.” It also shared with North Vietnam the principle that the Vietnamese people should decide their political future. In fact, as Ball pointed out, failure to include the Communist Party in elections would delegitimize our current intervention, which was based on the premise that the Vietnamese government and populace wanted us there. In the final section of the memo, Ball offered an “Outline of a Possible Settlement,” which included cessation of bombing and attacks on the Viet Cong, a declaration of amnesty, preparation for elections overseen by an international commission, and reunification “at a specified future date if desired by the people of South Viet-Nam and their government.” It was certainly a more detailed and gutsy proposal than the one glossed over in the October 5 memo. Ball had finally put a substantive proposal for a diplomatic solution on the line. Compared to the escalation proposal, however, replete with numbers and statistics, it was still vague. In his conclusion, Ball conceded that his case was not complete. He did not, as he explained, address “the refinements of any diplomatic approach that might be made.” For the moment, he attributed the still sketchy nature of his diplomatic initiative to time constraints in the drafting process. “I have dictated it hurriedly this afternoon in order to meet the schedule we agreed upon.” The full details, in other words, would be fleshed out in another version of the plan.76 Johnson’s response to the memo was positive but tentative. He gave Ball the green light to devise a comprehensive plan for peace. In so doing, however, he also told Ball that he now had to “pull a rabbit out of a hat.”77 No more rough

147 revising the vietnam balance sheet drafts or grand jury statements. Reversing the course of the war now had to be proven. That, Johnson implied, required a touch of magic at this point. Some of the best minds in Washington were put to work on the project. In addition to letting Moyers work on the plan, the president gave Ball the go-ahead to collaborate with two ex-government insiders, former secretary of state Dean Acheson and prominent lawyer and presidential advisor Lloyd Cutler. As Ball and Moyers began to work on the first draft of the plan, formerly dispersed dissenters started to coalesce around the project. This group included William Trueheart and other State Department employees who had been dismissed largely as a result of their positions on Vietnam. Ball also reached out to his staff. In drafting what became known as the Acheson-Cutler Plan, he delegated significant responsibility to his assistant, Thomas Ehrlich. In size and hierarchical diversity, the team that was organized to advance the logic of diplomacy in Vietnam resembled the team Monnet had put together to advance the logic of Europe. Also in line with the Monnet method, a premium was put on revision. The report went through at least six drafts.78 The final memo, dated May 13, filled in many of the gaps left open in Ball’s April 21 memo. The plan it set forth highlighted the positive case for a diplomatic solution in much greater detail than Ball’s previous memos. There would be an offer of amnesty to the Viet Cong followed by scheduled elections for establishing a constitutional government, which would allow local self-rule, provided that the Viet Cong refrained from terror. Social and economic development programs would be instituted, with U.S. financial and technical support. Political stability would be followed by phased withdrawal of U.S. troops. The execution of the plan would begin with an explanation to our ambassador in Saigon and to the South Vietnamese government. Hanoi and Moscow would be informed through “secret channels.” The plan would first be announced by the prime minister of South Vietnam and would coincide with a bombing pause to demonstrate the seriousness of the proposal. Despite the memo’s greater cogency and clarity, there were obvious weaknesses, including the fact that negotiation was largely dependent on the establishment of political stability in South Vietnam, for which there was no evidence. Furthermore, the report did not acknowledge the risk that in the eyes of both the world and the enemy, U.S. prestige would actually be weaker after an unsuccessful attempt at negotiation. But the biggest weakness of the report

148 revising the vietnam balance sheet emanated from the larger difficulty of shifting the context from the logic of escalation to the logic of diplomacy. In the previous months, and arguably years, the assumptions associated with escalation had become effectively ingrained to the point that they had become resistant to revision. Ehrlich was sick with the flu when Ball asked him to go to Saigon to deliver the plan to co-ambassadors Max Taylor and U. Alexis Johnson. “Even before reading the plan,” Ehrlich would recall, “he told me he thought it was wrongheaded.” At that moment, seeing the “set” of Taylor’s jaw, Ehrlich realized the extent of the general’s commitment to military victory in Vietnam. “He was polite, of course, but I was in some ways worse than the enemy—at least the enemy was fighting, while I was helping to undercut the U.S. ability to fight.” Ball was disheartened by this response, which in effect was a veto of his plan. “America,” he was now convinced, “had become a prisoner of whatever Saigon military clique was momentarily in power.”79 Two days before the Acheson-Cutler Plan was submitted, the administration had announced a bombing pause. At the White House five days later, the debate revolved not around the possibility of stopping the bombs indefinitely but instead around the question of when to resume the bombs. “We are anxious to pursue every diplomatic venture possible. But we can’t throw our gun away,” said Johnson. “No one has even thanked us for the pause.” Throughout these discussions, Johnson demonstrated almost greater interest in how the pause played with the American public than with the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. “My judgment is that the public has never wanted us to stop the bombing,” he surmised. Acheson himself agreed with the president. “Important thing is you haven’t bombed in six days and now you are going to bomb again. This is good thing for people to know.” In direct contrast to Ball’s plea to articulate an internal strategy for ending the war, Johnson and his advisors were continuing to fixate on how to frame the use of controlled force as a diplomatic tool. Even before it was completed, the Acheson-Cutler Plan was at least temporarily moot. Johnson had submitted his request for congressional funds for the 82,000 troops on May 4. As Ball had predicted, despite the notion that a gradual military increase could be managed or even reversed, every escalatory move further decreased the possibility of revising or reversing the escalation.80 In this climate of continual and seemingly unstoppable escalation, Ball continued to revise his attempt to revise Vietnam policy. He decided to circumvent the bureaucracy and write directly to the president. His June 18, 1965 memo,

149 revising the vietnam balance sheet “Keeping the Power of Decision in the South Vietnamese Crisis,” reiterated the importance of a conceptual policy to prevent events from taking over. As in his first dissent memo, Ball stressed the uncertainties involved with escalation: “We cannot yet be sure that we will be able to beat the Viet Cong without unacceptable costs.” Accordingly, he recommended that after the monsoon season, the United States should “take a serious look at our accumulated experience.” Once again, Ball advocated self-assessment over public posturing. Compared to the logical balance sheets Ball had been writing, this memo was more literary. Reaching back to his undergraduate days as an English major, Ball framed the logic of escalation with a cautionary quote from Emerson: “Things are in the saddle and ride mankind.” In this vein, the memo questioned the pretense of hard science implicit in the escalationists’ balance sheets. The French, wrote Ball, “quoted the same kind of statistics that guide our opinions—statistics as to the number of Viet Minh killed, the number of enemy defectors, the rate of enemy desertions, etc.”81 In contrast to the impersonal nature of social science and even the Monnet method, Ball appealed personally and directly to the nation’s military commander: “Your most difficult continuing problem in South Vietnam is to prevent ‘things’ from getting into the saddle—or in other words to keep control of policy and prevent the momentum of events from taking command.” Tell your advisors, Ball urged, “that you are not committing U.S. forces on an open-ended basis to an all-out land war in Viet-Nam.” Ball put the decision firmly in Johnson’s hands: “A good general picks his own terrain,” he wrote, “and is prepared to execute tactical redeployments when events require it.”82 Johnson’s response to the June 18 memo differed significantly from his reaction to the April 21 memo. After reading the first memo, Johnson had told Ball to “pull a rabbit out of a hat.” But after Johnson read this one, the burden ostensibly shifted to McNamara, who was still arguing on behalf of escalation but now urging Johnson to be more transparent with the public about the fact that there had indeed been a change in policy. “I told McNamara that I would not make a decision on this and not to assume that I am willing to go overboard on this—I ain’t. If there is no alternative, the fellow here with the program is the way I will probably go.”83 The president was now suggesting that it was Ball and not the escalationists who had a program. Once again, however, Johnson told Ball to do more work to prove that the balance sheet supported diplomacy. “I want George to work

150 revising the vietnam balance sheet for the next 90 days—to work up what is going to happen after the monsoon season.”84 Johnson directed Ball to form yet another task force, and once again Ball was put in the position of enlisting subordinates to help him make the case for the logic of diplomacy. With the help of Bill Bundy and several staff people at INR, Ball wrote the first draft of a June 28 memo in preparation for the upcoming “July debates.” The June 28 memo, titled “Cutting Our Losses in South Viet-Nam,” built on the urgency of Ball’s previous memo to the president. “We are losing the war in Vietnam,” Ball declared. While he once again framed the task of decision in terms of a balance sheet, it was not the general and unthreatening act of diplomacy whose consideration Ball now demanded, but rather the specific and politically stark act of withdrawal: “We must balance the risks and costs of a war fought by United States forces against the risks and costs of a carefully organized tactical withdrawal.” On one side of the ledger, Ball acknowledged that “imminent peril” justified continued escalation. On the other side, he argued that if the United States could minimize the cost of withdrawal, then escalation would not be justified. In order to do that, Ball recommended an emphasis on the conditional nature of America’s commitment in Vietnam. If South Vietnam continues to be politically unstable, then we will have no choice but to withdraw our support, he reasoned. Ball simultaneously deemphasized the notion that withdrawal would destroy U.S. prestige, calling it “exaggerated,” and instead underscored the political benefits. The United States stood only to gain respect for owning up to the reality that “the government of Saigon is a joke.” The draft was circulated to Rusk, McNamara, Mac and Bill Bundy, John McNaughton (McNamara’s assistant at Defense), and Lawrence Unger (Bundy’s assistant from the Far Eastern Division of the State Department) and discussed at a June 29 meeting. Not surprisingly, readers denounced it as an outline for defeat, “the worst way to lose, if it came to that.” Moreover, they underscored and objected to revising relations with South Vietnam at this critical moment. It was “absurd,” they said, “to insist on a new perfection just as the going was at its worst.” A policy that was initially adopted for its flexibility and openness to revision had now become a policy of necessary continuity.85 For his part, Ball continued to insist on a new perfection, not only from the government of South Vietnam, but also from himself. In response to these criticisms, he significantly revised the memo. He softened the language of the title, changing it from “Cutting Our Losses in South Viet-Nam” to the less stark “A

151 revising the vietnam balance sheet Compromise Solution for South Vietnam.” He also changed the initial premise from “We are losing the war in Vietnam” to “The South Vietnamese are losing the war to the Viet Cong,” thus linguistically and conceptually shifting the war from America to Vietnam. He also revamped the voice of the memo. Whereas the first draft was written in the first and third persons—an amorphous “we” think that an unnamed “President” should do such and such—the final draft engaged the personalism that Ball knew Johnson had responded to in the past. Throughout the memo, Ball invoked the president directly as “you” and underscored his own individual presence as “I.” He emphasized the understated risks of the hawks’ position—“No one can assure you that we can beat the Viet Cong or even force them to the conference table on our terms”—against the exaggerated risks of withdrawal. Indeed, the longest section of the paper comprised a repetition of Ball’s argument against the premise that withdrawal would damage U.S. prestige in the world: “On balance I believe we would more seriously undermine the effectiveness of our world leadership by continuing the war . . . than by pursuing a carefully plotted course toward a compromise solution.”86 Ball’s July 1 memo was just one of several being collected by Mac Bundy in preparation for the July debates. On June 26, McNamara had circulated his own memo to Johnson’s principal advisors on Vietnam. The memo recommended that U.S. military pressure in both the north and south be “expanded substantially” to forty-four battalions and probably more in the future. Shocked by what he read, Bill Bundy called McNamara’s plan “rash to the point of folly” and opted to write a memo himself that called for a “middle way” between Ball’s plan to cut losses and McNamara’s plan for a full-scale escalation. In essence, Bundy’s plan deferred but did not reject either the recommended troop increase or an escalation of aerial bombing. Although Bill Bundy lamented the logic of escalation, unlike Ball, he thought it was too late to reverse. It could be tweaked and delayed, but not fundamentally revised. While Ball and others worked to write convincing memos to Johnson, Mac Bundy effectively managed these views in order to guide Johnson’s decisions: “My hunch is that you will want to listen hard to George Ball and then reject his proposal. Discussion could then move to the narrower choice between my brother’s course and McNamara’s.”87 Mac Bundy’s attempts to remove Ball’s position from the discussion table were not, however, successful. In his handling of the July 2 meeting at which the three papers were discussed, Johnson made a point of treating his compet-

152 revising the vietnam balance sheet ing advisors in an evenhanded and judicious manner. As Bill Bundy recalls, “Like a Judge, the President expected to mull over the pleadings, and gave no direct indication what his final decision would be. Instead, he plucked ideas from each of the papers and set them in motion.” It was as a result of this meeting that Harriman made something of a comeback. Surviving to this point on the margins of the administration, he was now enlisted as official peace ambassador and directed to consult Moscow on the possibility of Russia mediating peace in Vietnam. At the same time, however, Johnson sent McNamara to Saigon to consult the generals and Lodge about the ongoing military strategy. The president then turned to Ball and once again directed him to further refine his diplomatic plan.88 Efforts to mold the president’s interpretation of Vietnam continued. The U.S. embassy in Saigon sent a cable to Johnson on July 20 that said, “The only report worth your reading this week is the one which Bob McNamara is carrying back on his plane to you tonight.” McNamara’s report admitted certain truths that the administration would not admit publicly. “The situation in South Vietnam is worse than a year ago (when it was worse than a year before that).” The Viet Cong continues to “dismember the nation and to maul the army,” while the South Vietnamese government “is able to provide security to fewer and fewer people.” Furthermore, there was no evidence that the U.S. military action had significantly affected the supply route from the north or motivated Hanoi to negotiate. Nonetheless, the report repeated the administration’s public stance that military escalation was necessary for peace, a “prerequisite to any acceptable settlement.” The report called for the expansion of bombing, to be complemented by an increase in troop levels from 75,000 to 175,000, with possibly 100,000 more in 1966. The tone of the Defense Department’s report was confident and authoritative. Its use of numbers regarding troop levels and related military calculations served to displace the fact that escalation was actually being taken for granted rather than balanced against any alternative strategies. It was enough to convince many of those who had been harboring doubts. Bill Bundy was persuaded, “even though,” as he said, “it meant accepting the chance that the war would be increasingly Americanized.”89 Johnson, however, appeared reticent. At the July 21 meeting held to discuss the report, he expressed frustration over the fact that events had indeed taken over. “What has happened in the recent past that requires this decision on my part?” he asked, and cautioned, “We must make no snap judgments” and “must

153 revising the vietnam balance sheet consider carefully all our options.” Throughout the morning, the president repeatedly provided opportunities for Ball to voice his dissent. “Is there another course in the national interest that is better than McNamara’s?” “George,” he appealed to Ball directly at one point, “do you have another course?”90 So much of our view of Johnson’s attitude toward the escalation depends on how we interpret this moment. Was it, as many have suggested, a performance of judiciousness to convince the president and public that all options had been considered? Or was it a genuine plea to keep Ball’s plan alive? If so, why was Ball continually being asked to revise what he had already written several times and in several ways? For his part, Ball had never doubted Johnson’s sincerity. But he read the fact that Johnson kept repeating the same questions without moving forward on them as a sign that his dissent had failed. “I can foresee a perilous voyage,” he said. “But let me be clear, if the decision is to go ahead, I’m committed.” Johnson, however, was unwilling to let the matter conclude so easily. “I don’t think we have made a full commitment,” he said, and in frustration, turned directly to Ball: “You have pointed out the danger, but you haven’t proposed an alternative course.” Ball repeated the alternative he had been offering all along, this time making no effort to euphemize his plan: “[T]ake losses—let their government fall apart—negotiate—probable takeover by the Communists.” He knew and articulated the rebuttal himself. “This is disagreeable, I know.” Instead of confirming Ball’s defeat, the president once again asked whether Ball could “make a case” for his plan, “discuss it fully.” In frustration, Ball insisted: “We have discussed it. I have had my day in court.”91 Even if Johnson regarded his entertainment of Ball’s dissent as a performance, it was a performance that outlasted its function as a mere political tool. Johnson had adopted McNamara’s policy of step-by-step escalation in large part because he wanted to avoid making a decisive action, one that would isolate him politically, and one that he could not revise at a later date. He called for a resumption of the meeting that afternoon, where Ball reiterated the basic premises of his opposition to the proposed course. It would be tantamount, he said, to “giving cobalt treatment to a terminal cancer case.” Although Johnson expressed sympathy for Ball’s doubts, he also expressed his belief that the Vietnamese people were “trying to fight” and naively compared the military cliques in Vietnam to Republicans “who try to stay in power, but don’t stay there long.” More than anything else, Johnson worried about how his policies would

154 revising the vietnam balance sheet play in the public eye. To this end, he asked Ball how pulling out of Vietnam compared to withdrawal from Korea. “We will pay a higher cost in Vietnam,” conceded Ball, who once again explained, “This is a decision one makes against an alternative.” All along, however, it was not escalation but rather Ball’s plan that had been framed as the possible alternative. Ball had not succeeded in switching the context of decision. In fact, according to Bill Bundy, the problem with Ball’s plan was that it constituted a “radical switch without any evidence that it should be done.” This is exactly what Ball had argued in early 1965 when he made his case against escalation. The argument for radically revising fundamental assumptions before the war got too big had now become a case for a “radical switch” in policy. In the consensus shared by the president and his advisors, it was not the stalemated war and loss of lives, but rather the admission of error and defeat that posed the gravest danger to the national interest. As the JCS warned, “[O]ur words won’t be respected.” Ironically, nobody at the meeting took words as seriously as Ball did, unless those words were part of the administration’s spin strategy. Now that Johnson had averted the danger of being perceived as a paper tiger, he tried to ward off the danger from the other side, the growing number of Americans who had become disenchanted with the war. He concluded the meeting with a directive to “constantly remind the people that we are doing other things besides bombing” and publicly insisted that the troop increase did “not imply any change in policy whatsoever.”92 In the ensuing months, bombing pauses constituted the centerpiece of the U.S. diplomatic initiative. In the summer and fall of 1965, Ball frequently appeared on television news programs to explain and defend the policy. On Face the Nation, he argued that there were many signs of “improvement” in Vietnam. Admitting that the war would continue “for a considerable time,” he nonetheless insisted that the North Vietnamese regime would ultimately conclude that the war was “too costly for them to continue.” These public statements directly contradicted Ball’s internal balance sheets, which argued that in light of Hanoi’s commitment to the war, the cost would eventually prove too great—not for Hanoi but for the United States.93 Inside policy circles, Ball tried to challenge the strategy that he defended on the outside. In December and January 1965, he reiterated the logical fallacy of the pauses to his colleagues, who were advocating yet another bombing increase to punctuate the current pause. Tellingly, Ball characterized the

155 revising the vietnam balance sheet pause strategy as “inarticulate.” In fact, as many historians have concluded, the pauses were never really part of a coherent internal strategy for ending the war. Instead, they functioned as a form of public rhetoric, in this case an effort to sell America’s desire for diplomacy without appearing weak. In addition to demonstrating America’s restraint to the world, the pauses, were, as Johnson said, an “effort to sell our enemies that we want peace.” As Ball predicted, the pauses were not an effective form of salesmanship. After Johnson left office, he himself would refer to the pause strategy as “one of the greatest mistakes of the war.” The mistake, he implied, was to believe that Hanoi was really interested in negotiation. However, the United States was no more willing than North Vietnam to enter into unconditional negotiations. This impasse made the bombing pauses inherently temporary. With each resumption of the bombing, the war escalated further. Paradoxically, a policy meant to enhance the credibility of the United States was not itself credible. As Soviet foreign minister Alexei Kosygin said to his counterparts in Washington, “People with the noise of bombs in their ears are not anxious to negotiate.”94 The logic of military force as an effective form of diplomacy climaxed in the recommendations of development economist Walt Whitman Rostow, who replaced Bundy as NSC advisor in February 1966. Whitman was a fitting middle name for Rostow, whose prose enlisted the jingoistic masculinity of his namesake and applied it to the cause of war.95 In April 1966 Rostow framed the possible implementation of an American-style constitution in Vietnam as an opportunity to force Hanoi’s hand. “Then will be the time to pour it on and see if we can’t force, in the months ahead, a resolution of the conflict.” It was Rostow who first enlisted the word “signalling” to describe the strategy of bombing as a form of coercive public conversation between the United States and Hanoi. Throughout the spring and early summer, Rostow wrote reports to Johnson that advanced the paradoxical strategy of bombing in order to communicate America’s willingness to stay the course and to prevent the Communists from taking over and its willingness to negotiate with the Communists, which would almost inevitably result in such a takeover. As though he were rehearsing the public message to the president, Rostow insisted that bombing Hanoi was “simply an extension of our bombing program, not a change in our policy.”96 In the spring of 1966, as the administration debated the merits of resuming bombing after the latest pause, Ball made one last-ditch effort to challenge the logic of escalation. Scribbling away to perfect his paper, he resembled Kennan

156 revising the vietnam balance sheet in January 1950, who had similarly tried to caution against a military solution—specifically nuclear warfare—while Paul Nitze and others were composing NSC 68, the document that provided the rationale for the creation of a “superbomb” and the effective militarization of the Cold War.97 Despite not being perfectly satisfied with what he had written, Ball nonetheless submitted the memo, which incorporated the latest intelligence into a comprehensive argument that bombing did not serve any tactical purpose in the war. At the June 22 meeting at which the bombing was debated, Johnson directed his last words to Ball: “Any warnings you want to give me before I go to commune with myself and my God?” Ball reiterated his concerns, but concluded, “If we are going to do it, do it now.” Bombs were dropped around the Hanoi-Haiphong area on June 29 and June 30.98 Ball’s tireless efforts to revise his writing in dissent of the war and his ability to revise U.S. foreign policy were two sometimes overlapping but nonetheless distinct things. As Ball himself admitted, he was able to delay the escalation, but never able to stop it. Just as it is illuminating to consider the personal and larger forces fueling Ball’s writerly dissent, so is it illuminating to consider the personal and larger forces fueling Johnson’s rejection of a writerly policy in Vietnam. In the final analysis, Johnson’s attitude toward Ball’s dissent was more complex than most historians who emphasize LBJ’s hawkishness have acknowledged. It is not enough to conclude that Johnson took interest in Ball’s memos merely to engage in a performance of judiciousness. That stance fails to account for why Johnson went beyond the call of such a performance; it also fails to consider the possibility that performance and sincerity are not mutually exclusive. At the very least, Johnson’s response to Ball suggests a sincere, albeit desperate effort to delay a decision that, at some level, Johnson always regarded as self-destructive. As Walter Lippmann would later put it, Johnson knew early on that he was “trapped between the devil of unlimited war and the deep blue sea of defeat.”99 The question is not really whether Johnson was sincere in his desire for a diplomatic alternative, but how, in considering his options, LBJ was limited by personal as well as political factors. Acheson once said that Johnson had “as many sides to him as a kaleidoscope.” Accordingly, Johnson’s interest in Ball’s memos reflects some aspects of his personality that do not generally make it into stock accounts of LBJ. It could be said that in reading Ball’s memos,

157 revising the vietnam balance sheet Johnson exercised his writerly side—the side that took logical, as opposed to rhetorical, strategy seriously, and the side that actually contemplated a radical revision of U.S. policy toward Vietnam. Johnson’s private fantasies of withdrawal existed in tension with his conviction that U.S. policy toward Vietnam could not, in fact, be revised. As early as 1964, Johnson invoked the necessity of continuing on with the current policy. “I inherited this problem,” he would say to his advisors. “I don’t like it, but how can I pull out?”100 For Johnson, the logic of escalation was really the logic of continuity. In this context, Ball’s recommendations were rejected not just because they were associated with defeat but also because they were associated with change more generally. Johnson would frequently frame continuity as a question of patience. It would be “easy to get in or out,” he said, “but hard to be patient.” While Johnson’s personal principles played a role in his desire to “stay the course,” there is no question that the emphasis on continuity derived largely from the political lens through which Johnson viewed the war. That lens was shaped in part by the legacy of McCarthy. In the 1950s, Truman had been accused of not doing enough to save China from the Communists. Johnson wanted to avoid being associated with the defeatism of the Truman administration, desiring instead to be linked with the proactive legacy of Eisenhower and Kennedy. Facing the possibility of defeat in the war, LBJ insisted, “There have got to be still some things to do.” In this context, Ball was Johnson’s “can-do” man only when he publicly defended the war. In contrast, his recommendation of withdrawal paradoxically constituted a radical revision of foreign policy that would ultimately be regarded by the public as a form of inaction.101 As Johnson saw it, the possible forms of action available to him were severely limited. If Ball’s version of radical revision was politically unpalatable, then so was the idea of massive escalation, the radical revision occasionally put forth by the Joint Chiefs throughout Johnson’s administration. Step-by-step escalation seemed to be the only way to act without upsetting the precarious balance of Cold War domestic and international politics. In line with the Goldilocks principle, gradual escalation qualified as action that was neither too hard nor too soft, and that could be publicly framed as a continuation of the preexisting policy. By slowly and steadily dropping more bombs and sending in more ground troops, the Johnson administration demonstrated that it was doing everything it could to win in Vietnam and at the same time that it

158 revising the vietnam balance sheet wanted peace. Ball himself would later refer to this strategy as part of Johnson’s “oversimplified lexicon of politics.”102 The great scandal of Johnson’s policy of continuity was that it actually masked a significant and arguably radical shift in America’s strategy in the war. According to the logic of escalation, there was theoretically no end to the U.S. military commitment in Vietnam. Johnson had opted for step-by-step escalation in order to gain public support for the war. However, he was not being honest with the public about the actual implications of that policy, which entailed neither victory nor defeat, but instead indefinite stalemate at the cost of thousands of American and millions of Vietnamese lives. By insisting on an equation between continuity and victory, Johnson withheld the unpalatable truth of escalation—that continuity only led to more war.103 Ba ll’ s R e s i gn at i o n a nd t he L e g a cy o f In te r n al D i s s e n t

Ball had been the consummate internal dissenter, refusing to publicize his disagreement with the administration’s policies. In keeping with his emphasis on internal dissent, he did not worry much about Johnson’s lack of public transparency. However, he did worry about the logical chasm between diplomacy and escalation. The bombing of Hanoi convinced him that the gap was too wide to bridge. Rather than resign in protest, he went quietly, a decision he would justify to the country’s most eminent journalist and his own close friend, Walter Lippmann. Lippmann had long chided Ball for not going public with his dissent. But Ball disagreed. “To raise hell merely for the psychic glow and the adulation of the already persuaded” was, as he saw it, “merely self-indulgence.” Were he to make noise upon resignation, he would be “at most a one-day wonder.” In addition to raising ethical questions about Ball’s dissent, this justification further reflects Ball’s disdain for an image-oriented foreign policy. He recoiled against anything “flamboyant” and “sensational.” Notably, he used these terms to describe resignation under protest and the popular antiwar movement that courted him after he resigned. Ball decidedly rejected the antiwar protesters. “I did not want to be a hero of the yippies.” As he details in his memoirs, he was “repelled by the hysteria and crudity of the antiwar movement.” With respect to style, as Ball saw it, the escalationists and the antiwar protesters were actually more alike than different. They both prioritized inflammatory public rhetoric over calculated internal coherence.104

159 revising the vietnam balance sheet Ball has been severely and quite legitimately criticized for his vitriolic and narrow-minded characterization of the popular antiwar movement. Without justifying his stance, we can nonetheless use it to understand his consistent desire to make an impact from within policymaking circles. In fact, there is a case to be made that Ball’s internal dissent memos had an important, albeit delayed and indirect, influence on Johnson’s decision to de-escalate the war in 1968. At the same time, any analysis of this moment must acknowledge the continued gap between the rhetoric of peace and the realities of war in the months following this decision. Ball planted the seeds of this delayed influence at the height of the 1965 debates over whether to escalate the war. During this period, Ball began to circulate his dissent memos with other high-level colleagues who he sensed shared his positions. The most important of these was Clark Clifford, who had been serving as informal advisor to Johnson and who Ball had assumed supported the escalation. To Ball’s surprise, at the heated July 21, 1965, meeting, Clifford argued cogently and articulately against the introduction of more troops. After the meeting, Ball took Clifford to the room where he kept a bound copy of his dissent memos. Clifford stayed up late into the night reading through the memos, which he said to Ball the next day were “impressive and persuasive.” Despite the fact that Clifford had opposed escalation in 1965, once the decision was made, he, like Ball, believed it was his duty to support the president’s policy. When Clifford became secretary of defense in 1968, he, like Ball, developed a reputation for outwardly defending the war while privately opposing it.105 For Clifford, as for several other internal dissenters in 1966 and 1967, the need for restraint emanated from an awareness that Johnson, who had increasingly internalized the logic of escalation, would not be moved by blatant arguments against it. Throughout 1967, naysayers had to compete with optimistic reports and prophecies of military commanders and embassy officials in Vietnam who perpetuated Johnson’s commitment to the path he had chosen. In the fall of 1967, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker underscored a “constructive attitude” of the South Vietnamese military toward the new government there. At the same time, Westmoreland insisted that “friendly forces have seized the military initiative from the enemy,” and “we are making solid progress” in the effort to turn the war around. Rostow and Rusk seconded this view.106 McNamara had been integral to cultivating the logic that supported this optimism. Over the past year, however, he had begun to develop serious doubts

160 revising the vietnam balance sheet about the policy he had helped to enact, doubts that he now articulated to the president. On November 1, McNamara submitted a memo to Johnson in which he opposed further expansion of any bombing campaigns and recommended a full bombing halt to precede the transfer of responsibility from the United States to the South Vietnamese.107 One can only speculate as to whether Ball influenced McNamara’s increasing doubts about the war. For his part, McNamara went out of his way to suggest that, on the contrary, he did the influencing: “During the winter and spring of 1965, George’s thinking evolved toward my position, negotiations following military pressure against the North.” However, McNamara had begun to doubt the policy of escalation as early as 1966. He opposed Westmoreland’s troop request the following spring, and throughout 1967 he commissioned several studies within the Department of Defense that cast doubt on the logic of escalation. With McNamara’s approval, John McNaughton helped organize two studies, one at the end of 1966 and one at the end of 1967, which concluded not only that Rolling Thunder did not work but also that no other bombing strategy would. Another study, done by the Office of International Security, concluded that bombing had actually increased the number of available soldiers for Hanoi. With the help of impressive young subordinates in the Department of Defense—including Morton Halperin and Leslie Gelb—Paul Warnke, second in command at the Division of International Security Affairs, integrated these studies to recommend a full bombing halt. Meanwhile, in addition to putting forth their own studies, McNaughton’s group had begun to gather and compile a comprehensive set of documents detailing the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, which would be dubbed the Pentagon Papers after they were leaked to the public by Defense Department dove Daniel Ellsberg in 1971. Internal dissent was clearly on the rise in the Defense Department.108 Ball believed strongly that policymakers should be allowed to do their jobs without too much interference from outside voices. By this time, however, he had set aside some of his reservations about being an outside critic. Rather than march with protesters in the street, however, he directed his efforts to those on the inside. In November 1967 he participated in the first meeting of the group of former eminent statesmen whom Johnson had begun to consult on Vietnam. Johnson’s choice to seek advice from the Wise Men, as Bundy called them, reflected both his particular sense of shock over McNamara’s reversal and his general frustration with the internal analysis of the civilians in the Defense

161 revising the vietnam balance sheet Department, who increasingly dissented from the escalation. Johnson could count on the Wise Men to support his middle way between extreme aggression and extreme submission to the enemy. To Johnson’s comfort and Ball’s frustration, the Wise Men confirmed Johnson’s sense that the internal dissenters were misguided. In an uncharacteristic outburst, Ball cast moral aspersion on the Wise Men. “I’ve been watching across the table. You’re like a flock of old buzzards sitting on the fence, sending the young men off to be killed. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.” Despite the dismal state of affairs in Vietnam, the Wise Men, like Johnson, saw no alternative to the logic of escalation.109 Confirmed by the support of the “Cold War Knighthood,” Johnson made arrangements for McNamara’s resignation and directed the new secretary of defense to conduct a study of Vietnam policy.110 At the end of 1967, the military situation in Vietnam was actually much bleaker than Westmoreland had reported. During this period, Hanoi had enacted a strategy of distraction, drawing U.S. troops deeper and deeper into the countryside, while it prepared for a series of attacks in the cities and towns of South Vietnam. These attacks began at the end of January, during Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, and lasted through February. Public opposition to the war had been mounting in 1967, particularly in response to television images of wounded and dead soldiers and Vietnamese civilians. Vietnam was indeed America’s first “living room war.” More than any other event, the defeat at Tet shook Americans’ confidence in Johnson’s war strategy, if not the war itself. Internally, Johnson had justified the war as a test of America’s “credibility.” But Tet, which highlighted the administration’s very lack of “credibility,” showed how the logic of escalation had backfired.111 In the wake of Tet, Westmoreland requested 206,000 troops to shore up the military effort in Vietnam. Uncertain of how to handle his response, but not prepared to dismantle the logic of escalation, Johnson asked Clifford to put together a task force to provide him with the “lesser of two evils.” The Clifford task force brought together and emboldened formerly silent or relatively quiet dissenters in both the State Department and the Defense Department. At the senior levels, the dissenters included Nicholas Katzenbach, who had replaced Ball at State, and Paul Nitze, who was now deputy secretary of defense. Nitze’s turnaround was particularly noteworthy. In the 1950s, he had been a key architect of the policy of containment being used to justify the war in Vietnam. And in 1965, as secretary of the navy, he supported escalation. However, he had now

162 revising the vietnam balance sheet become an important voice of dissent, arguing that to increase the troops would be to “reinforce weakness.” The Clifford task force relied heavily on the work of Warnke and his subordinates in the ISA. Clifford had, in effect, organized a Monnet team of his own inside the Defense Department. By his own account, the secretary of defense was using his status as the “new boy” to ask basic questions that veteran insiders had stopped asking a long time ago. As Ball had done in the course of his dissent, Clifford was now seeking to shift the logical context of the war.112 The report of the Clifford task force, which was delivered on March 4, called for a cessation of the bombing above the twentieth parallel and a troop increase of only 22,000, complemented by a call-up of additional reserve forces, as well as a more comprehensive review of Vietnam policy in the forthcoming weeks.113 Johnson did not jump to approve Westmoreland’s request, but was nonetheless distrustful of the task force’s recommendation. Characterizing the members of the task force as “out of touch” with events on the ground, the president concluded, “Staff studies or review will not determine our future course of action.” As with Ball, Johnson had marginalized civilian dissenters in favor of the military reports, which could be more easily translated into rhetoric that would justify continued escalation to the public. In mid-March, Johnson was more publicly hawkish than ever. The drafts of his upcoming speech on Vietnam made no mention of peace. In a speech delivered in Minneapolis on March 18, LBJ instead rallied the nation to war: “Your President has come to ask you people, and all the other people of this nation, to join us in a total national war effort to win the war. . . . We will—make no mistake about it—win. . . . We are not doing enough to win it the way we are doing it now.”114 Concerned about the path the president appeared to be taking, but convinced that Johnson wouldn’t listen directly to the growing cacophony of internal dissent, Clifford recommended that Johnson meet again with the Senior Advisory Group. Johnson had little reason to believe that the Wise Men would do anything but confirm his current course, as they had the previous November. On the morning of March 26, the president had Wheeler and Westmoreland’s deputy, Creighton Abrams, brief the Wise Men. They were optimistic and confident. “General Westmoreland has turned this around,” said Wheeler. “I feel good about the way the thing is going,” reported Abrams, who insisted that nothing like Tet could happen again.115

163 revising the vietnam balance sheet That afternoon, when Johnson met with the Wise Men, however, he discovered that many of them had now reversed their positions. In November, Ball had been the lone dissenter. Now, he was joined by Arthur Dean, Cy Vance, Douglas Dillon, and most notably, both Mac Bundy and Dean Acheson.116 Acheson, the most eminent of the Wise Men, spoke for the group when he said, “[W]e can no longer do the job we set out to do in the time we have left and we must begin to take steps to disengage.” Mac Bundy agreed with Acheson and with his former colleague, who was also present at the meeting. “I must tell you what I thought I would never say—that I now agree with George Ball.” There had been, as Bundy conceded, “a significant shift” in the Wise Men’s position. Already suspicious of the internal dissenters in the Defense Department, Johnson took Clifford outside and asked him, “Who poisoned the well?”117 Nobody, including Clifford, knew what Johnson would do. Two days later, at a meeting held to discuss the president’s upcoming speech on Vietnam, Clifford suggested revisions based on the responses of the Wise Men. “They want to see us get out of it.” Both the original hard-line draft and an alternate draft, which enacted the recommendations of the Clifford task force, were given to Johnson. The next day, Johnson’s speechwriter, Harry McPherson, went to discuss the speech with Johnson. McPherson, who privately shared Clifford’s position, left the meeting in a state of elated surprise, and immediately called Clifford. “We’ve won! The President is working from our draft.” Though Ball was no longer in office, the turnaround constituted a belated victory for him. To that point, Ball’s position had been regarded as a criticism of the status quo devoid of a real solution because it could not be presented to the public as such. Now, however, it appeared to be the only solution possible. In Johnson’s speech, Ball’s desire to revise the logic of escalation and enact the logic of diplomacy had come to fruition. Two days later, in a televised address, Johnson announced the immediate cessation of bombing above the twentieth parallel and his decision not to run for reelection.118 Johnson’s announcement surprised everyone. As Newsweek said, the most political of politicians had, in the end, “shunned power and partisanship to achieve national unity.” Indeed, Johnson had described his March 1968 decision as a move to prioritize sound policy in Vietnam over the politics of campaigning. Certainly, in the grandest of senses, this was the case. However,

164 revising the vietnam balance sheet Johnson’s reliance on the Wise Men was not purely apolitical. In fact, he read the positions of the Wise Men through the lens of public perception that had guided him throughout the war. As Johnson explained in his memoir, he neither agreed with the Wise Men nor followed their advice simply because they had sway with the public. Instead, he used them as a gauge of American public opinion. “If they had been so influenced by the reports of the Tet offensive, what must the average citizen in the country be thinking?”119 The Wise Men had indeed been influenced by what Johnson described as the “general mood of depression and frustration” resulting from the media’s portrayal of the war. Even Omar Bradley, who supported some troop increase, noted, “People in the country are dissatisfied” and said that we needed to “stop the bombing.” However, those who advocated de-escalation were also influenced by the rising tide of dissent within the foreign affairs establishment, which predated the defeat at Tet and differed significantly from the popular arguments against the war. The night before the Wise Men met with the president, they had dinner on the seventh floor of the State Department with Clifford and several of the key internal dissenters at State and Defense, including Katzenbach and Nitze. After dinner, they went downstairs to the Operations Center, where they were briefed by William DePuy, assistant to the Joint Chiefs, as well as CIA staffer George Carver, and Philip Habib, deputy assistant secretary of state for Asia. DePuy echoed the post-Tet optimism of the military, but was effectively undermined by UN ambassador Arthur Goldberg, who questioned the need for more troops if things were going as well as the JCS insisted. Carver gave a less optimistic report, emphasizing the difficulties on the civilian front of the war. But Philip Habib’s report was the most dire of them all. Neither military nor political victory was possible in Vietnam, he said, and he recommended a bombing halt.120 The influence of these briefings on the Wise Men was reflected in their remarks at the March 26 meeting. In explaining the group’s overall position to Johnson, Bundy suggested that the briefings had played an important role. “Last night and today,” he said, “the picture is not so hopeful.” Arthur Dean referred even more specifically to the impact of the briefings. “Mr. President,” he said, “all of us got the impression last night listening to General de Puy, Mr. Carver, and Mr. Habib, that there is no military conclusion in this war— or any military end in the near future. I think all of us here very reluctantly came to the judgment that we’ve got to get out, and we only came to it after

165 revising the vietnam balance sheet we listened to the briefing last night.” The others voiced their agreement. “The briefing last night,” said Dillon, “led me to conclude we cannot achieve a military victory.” Cy Vance had been silent at the briefing, but he took careful, detailed notes, which had clearly influenced his claim on March 25: “I agree with George Ball.”121 Johnson had a hunch that it was in fact the briefers who had “poisoned the well.” At the meeting, after hearing the report, he told the Wise Men, “The first thing I am going to do when you all leave here is to get those briefers last night.” Everyone laughed at the implication that the briefers would be getting Johnson’s famous “treatment.” When the laughter died down, Johnson sought to correct his response. “I want to hear what they said because I want to see—because I want to evaluate it. I haven’t heard of that kind of pictures [sic].” While Johnson did get a repeat briefing from DePuy and Carver, Habib made sure to be out of town to avoid the president’s wrath.122 In truth, the Wise Men hadn’t heard anything that Johnson hadn’t already heard as early as October 1964 from Ball and from the growing tide of dissenters at the staff levels of the State Department and the Defense Department over the last year. The only difference was that the Wise Men valued the internal challenge to the logic of escalation more than they valued the military’s illogical argument on behalf of it and more than they valued public opinion against the war. Notably, the positions of the Wise Men did not simply echo that of the popular antiwar movement. Acheson and the others who were now calling for de-escalation did not argue that the war was unethical; rather, they argued that it was unfeasible. As Acheson said, “The issue is, can we do what we are trying to do in Vietnam. I do not think we can.” The de-escalationist members of the Clifford task force also took positions that differed in significant ways from the public antiwar movement. Nitze, a Cold Warrior of the postwar generation, opposed the Vietnam War not on the basis that it was colonialist or imperialist but rather because it constituted a diversion from the central battle with the Soviet Union. Warnke thought the corruption of the Saigon government made the war unwinnable. Like Ball, neither the Wise Men nor the dissenters in Defense and State expressed their opposition in terms of pacifism or even a general critique of containment. The Clifford task force and the Wise Men advanced arguments that differed in source and substance from the popular antiwar movement. For better or worse, theirs was the logic of internal dissent.123

166 revising the vietnam balance sheet In his dissent, Ball had emphasized internal policy analysis as both the current problem and the potential solution to the illogic of the Vietnam war. The historical narrative perpetuated by Johnson and conservative historians suggests that this emphasis played no role in Johnson’s eventual decision to change strategy. Emphasizing how Johnson’s efforts to win the war were stifled by a lack of public support for his policies, this narrative places all the blame (or praise) on the American public. Certainly Johnson cared about public opinion. At the same time, he hesitated to make foreign policy decisions without the support of key advisors. And certainly Johnson’s advisors were themselves influenced by a rising tide of public opposition to the war. However, a key aspect of their evolving positions also involved a shift in internal policy analysis from the logic of escalation to the logic of diplomacy. Ball had failed in 1965. By 1968, however, his principle of internal, writerly revision had gained considerable ground, although in a less clear and more indirect path than he had originally envisioned.

~ It is tempting to see Johnson’s shift as a fundamental, albeit belated victory both for public protest against the war and for the principle of internal revision that was so central to Ball’s dissent. Such a conclusion requires qualification in light of what actually happened in the war after Johnson announced his decision not to run for reelection. In the spring of 1968, the administration escalated the air campaign in the south, using B-52s and fighter bombers to attack supply and communication routes, as well as enemy base camps. The largest “search and destroy” mission of the war occurred in March and April in the region around Saigon, complemented by an intensified pacification program to subdue the enemy. The number of U.S. combat deaths peaked in mid-1968, and U.S. troop levels continued to rise throughout the remainder of the year, reaching 540,000 in January 1969. Peace talks with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam stalled for four months, until October, when Johnson finally agreed to a bombing halt. If Johnson’s policy qualifies as de-escalation, it was a qualified, tenuous, and even contradictory form of de-escalation that cannot be entirely divorced from his earlier strategies.124 These strategies continued under Nixon. In his memoirs, Ball would reflect on Nixon’s failure to capitalize on the 1968 bombing halt that might have opened the door to lasting negotiations. As Ball observed, when Nixon insisted,

167 revising the vietnam balance sheet “I’m not going to be the first President to lose a war,” he effectively “plagiarized” Johnson. In so doing, he perpetuated the Cold War narrative that persistence in the face of an enemy is enough to surmount the inherent challenges of defending a country that was created by arbitrary boundaries and never existed as a stable independent entity. The administration’s secret choice to step up the bombing campaigns and expand the war into Laos and Cambodia reminded Ball of T. S. Eliot’s commentary on the World War One generation. “We had the experience,” wrote Eliot, “but missed the meaning.”125 In actuality, while Nixon pursued a policy of continuity despite fundamental flaws in the logic of escalation, millions of people did understand that Vietnam was an un-winnable war. In addition to the marches on Washington and the opposition in the Defense Department, there was also now a rising tide of dissent inside the diplomatic establishment, which built on the legacy forged by Ball in 1965 and Clifford in 1968. When Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia in 1970, twenty Foreign Service officers wrote a letter to Secretary of State Rogers protesting the invasion. It was the largest act of internal dissent to date in the history of the State Department. Diplomatic dissent writing was threatening to emerge from its hibernation in the post-McCarthy years and incubation in the early years of Ball’s dissent. As we will see, the bubbling cauldron of frustration inside the diplomatic establishment was intense enough to warrant action from senior policymakers in the Nixon administration. That action would eventually become the basis of a heated political battle over whether or not to disclose internal dissent writing to the public. Out of that battle would arise yet another vision of internal dissent—in which diplomatic dissent writing could help make the foreign policies of the United States simultaneously more logical and more democratic.

four

The Other Plumbers Unit The Dissent Channel of the U.S. State Department

“If I have done a good job of anything since I’ve been President, it’s to ensure that there are plenty of dissenters.”1 Lyndon Johnson called attention to this bitter irony at a press conference in November 1967. Though Johnson had worked hard to maintain public support for the war in Vietnam, by the end of 1967 an increasing number of Americans vocally disapproved of the administration’s handling of the war. For many, opposition to the war stemmed not just from disagreement with U.S. intervention in Vietnam but also from the fact that Johnson had kept the extent of such intervention secret. In 1968 the American public did not yet know the details of the administration’s covert operations in Indochina, including the bombing campaign in Laos, which had started four years earlier. Nonetheless, a strong and pervasive sense that Johnson was never really telling the truth about the war had already begun to take hold. Images and reports from the war front, which documented the civilian casualties and low morale of American troops, conflicted with Johnson’s insistence that the war could and was being won. The president’s ensuing “credibility gap” played a key role in the public’s disapproval of Johnson and his war in Vietnam.2 Richard Milhous Nixon offered himself to the American people as the candidate who would put an end to the chaos and horrors of the war and the policy

170 the other plumbers unit of secrecy in the White House. In his campaign for the presidency, he promised to conclude the war not only with “peace and honor” for America but also with candor and honesty toward the American people. Upon accepting the Republican Party’s nomination, Nixon declared, “Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth, to see it like it is and tell it like it is, to speak the truth and to live the truth.” In contrast to Johnson, who had gained a reputation for trying to suppress dissent, Nixon vowed to “bring dissenters into policy discussions.”3 Once in office, however, Nixon adopted an approach toward Vietnam that differed little from that of his predecessor, directing a massive military campaign, which included the bombing and invasion of Cambodia, reconnaissance bombings of North Vietnam, and a ground offensive in Laos. Like Johnson, Nixon conceived of his military offensive as part of a broader diplomatic strategy, intended to further negotiations with the North Vietnamese. When Nixon spoke to the American public about his strategy in Vietnam, he underscored the importance of transferring responsibility to the South Vietnamese—a strategy that he referred to as “Vietnamization.” As many historians have pointed out, these activities did little to make Vietnam any more responsible for the war or the United States any less so. Between 1969 and 1972, as Nixon moved ahead with his plan to end the hostilities, 22,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died in the war. Like Johnson, Nixon conducted many of these operations covertly, initiating the expanded bombing and land campaign without consulting Congress, the State Department, or the rest of the foreign policy establishment. So much for candor and honesty.4 In May 1969, the New York Times broke the story on the bombs being dropped over Cambodia. The news put an end to the broad popular support of Nixon’s strategy in the war. Of the nearly 1,800 antiwar demonstrations in 1969–1970, most took place after the revelation of the Cambodia invasion. In October 1969, the Vietnam Moratorium Committee hosted the largest protest in American history, only to be surpassed by another one the following month. The shooting of student protesters at Kent and Jackson State colleges in May 1970, which killed six and injured twenty-one, further fueled the antiwar effort. For many young Americans who opposed the war in Vietnam, dissent from U.S. foreign policy was both legitimate and necessary. To be silent was to condone the status quo.5 The same sense of frustration with Johnson’s policies in Vietnam that led young Americans to demonstrate their dissent outside the halls of government

171 the other plumbers unit led young civil servants to do the same within those halls. Nowhere was the proliferation of internal dissenters more striking than in the State Department—the agency that was in principle responsible for the nation’s diplomacy and which in theory advocated diplomatic (as opposed to military) solutions to international crises. During the Johnson administration, George Ball had been the highest-level dissenter in the department, but he was certainly not the only one. The Foreign Service officers working under him were generally less willing than their boss to remain loyal to the institution. Like their counterparts outside the bureaucracy, many spoke with their feet. In 1968, the climax of anti-establishment activity in the Johnson administration, 266 Foreign Service officers resigned, and only 103 new officers entered, as compared to 219 the previous year.6 By the time Nixon assumed office in 1969, those who had chosen to remain in government service began to speak with words. When the president announced his decision to invade Cambodia in April 1970, twenty Foreign Service officers sent a letter to Secretary of State William Rogers condemning the invasion. It was the largest collective protest in the department to date. The outspokenness of the signatories contrasted sharply with the passivity of previous generations in the State Department, who had effectively gone into hibernation in response to the attacks of McCarthy and his allies. John Marks, one of those who resigned in opposition to the war, gave a name to the emergence of a new type of “skeptical diplomat” who distrusted the State Department “as an institution.” In a play on Nixon’s failed policy in the war, he called it the “Vietnamization of the Foreign Service.”7 It was in this, the worst crisis of legitimacy in the history of American foreign relations, in which diplomats as well as the public had come to distrust the foreign policy establishment, that the State Department created its official “Dissent Channel.” Implemented in 1971, the Dissent Channel allowed Foreign Service officers to send their disagreements with the policy status quo directly to the secretary of state, who would then have the responsibility of reading the messages, considering their merits, and responding with a substantive message of his own.8 This organizational mechanism reflects the degree to which diplomatic writing had become bureaucratized since the establishment of the modern State Department in the early twentieth century. The channel stands out not only as an elaborate and formal bureaucratic mechanism, but also as a form of public relations, through which the Nixon administration and succes-

172 the other plumbers unit sive ones have tried to enhance their image as embracers of dissent. In institutionalizing dissent and marketing the institutional mechanism to the public, the State Department became, as one commentator has noted, “unique as a historical entity and government bureaucracy.”9 Needless to say, in the forty years of its existence, the Dissent Channel has done little to impact U.S. foreign policy.10 Case closed. Or maybe not. The very failure of the Dissent Channel to affect policy reflects the channel’s success at quelling internal dissent in a way that the public could actually support. The Dissent Channel thus deserves attention as a neglected but illuminating element of the politics of secrecy and the public’s fight for transparency in the Nixon administration, a fight that continues to the present day. T he Em er g e n ce o f t he D i s s e n t C h a nn e l

Given Nixon’s post-Watergate reputation as an anti-democratic reactionary, it is easy to overlook his administration’s desire to be seen as progressive reformers, especially in the arena of foreign policy. While the president and his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, made foreign policy largely in secret, they made a substantial effort to promote the larger geopolitical philosophy undergirding their strategy, and to underscore the extent to which that policy constituted a creative departure from the orthodoxy of the past two decades. In a series of National Security Council (NSC) reports, written by NSC staff and Kissinger himself and published between 1970 and 1973, the administration emphasized the newness and freshness of its approach to foreign policy. No longer relying on the “isms” of the postwar period, Nixon and Kissinger continually furthered the impression that they were advancing a wiser and more flexible foreign policy that appreciated differences within the communist bloc and moved beyond the stale ideological divisions of the past.11 Although Nixon and Kissinger focused on the new and progressive nature of their geopolitical strategy, their concept of how policy should be formulated in Washington was anything but that. In Nixon’s framework, however new and revised, foreign policy was made only by the president and his national security advisor. By the time Nixon assumed office, the State Department, though it was still the smallest of the long-standing executive agencies, had developed into a much larger and more unwieldy organization than it had been just a few

173 the other plumbers unit decades earlier. While Nixon and Kissinger strategized about how to singlehandedly move America to a new kind of foreign policy, a different kind of reform was being discussed in the State Department, where a new generation of management professionals had come to power. Since the early 1960s, some in charge of managing the diplomatic establishment had become advocates of “new” management theory. Calling for a more open and egalitarian style of communication between employees at all levels of large bureaucracies, they argued that it was in the department’s best interest to affirm rather than denounce the emerging culture of dissent.12 These State Department officials were responding to the same cultural shift that Nixon had tapped in his presidential campaign against Johnson. Unlike Nixon, however, administrators in the State Department actually took steps to back their rhetoric with action. Following some false starts and reverses in the sixties, in 1970 Deputy Assistant Secretary of State William Macomber formed a tentative alliance with radical young leaders in the rank and file known as the Young Turks. Together, they launched a large-scale reform project, in which volunteers from all levels of the bureaucracy joined task forces to gather and analyze State Department employees’ opinions about their work environments. Out of their reports, the State Department published a six-hundred-page set of recommendations, titled Diplomacy for the 70s. On the issue of dissent, nearly everyone agreed. Although every administration since Truman had paid lip service to the value of policy debate in government service, there was no formal mechanism through which rank-and-file bureaucrats could safely and effectively express their “alternative” or “adversarial” views. Implemented less than a year after the release of Diplomacy for the 70s, the Dissent Channel was supposed to give some institutional teeth to the official support for rank-and-file dissent.13 Or at least that was the official line. As critics have pointed out, “new” management practices can do as much to stifle real reform as to advance it.14 Even if we grant that Macomber and other administrative heads in the State Department were relatively progressive, in dealing with the State Department the president decidedly was not. Nixon was distrustful of the State Department, which he suspected of undermining his policies, rather than carrying them out. This suspicion stemmed in part from the perception of the department’s liberal leanings. The fact that Kissinger characterized the Foreign Service as “Kennedy liberal” reflects just how much had changed since the days of Franklin

174 the other plumbers unit Roosevelt, who complained that the State Department was filled with crusty conservatives. Still, the association of the State Department with Kennedy was somewhat ironic considering that Kennedy, like most presidents, had marginalized the diplomatic establishment. While Kennedy had been frustrated by the bureaucracy’s slow pace and lack of innovation, Nixon suspected the bureaucracy of disloyalty. “We have no discipline in this bureaucracy,” he complained early on in the White House. “We never fire anybody. . . . We always promote the sons of bitches that kick us in the ass. . . . When a bureaucrat deliberately thumbs his nose, we’re going to get him. . . . The little boys over in state particularly, that are against us, we will do it.” Along the same lines, Kissinger saw the bureaucracy as something to tame, rather than tap. “The nightmare of the modern state,” he argued, “is the hugeness of bureaucracy, and the problem is how to get coherence and design in it.” Nixon appointed William Rogers as secretary of state primarily because he believed Rogers would be an effective disciplinarian of his subordinates. Practicing what Stanley Kutler had called “the administrative presidency,” Nixon used Rogers and other administrators to control the bureaucracy. Though bureaucratic reform was framed as part of an effort to reinvigorate the State Department, to return to the strength of the years following World War Two, foreign affairs bureaucrats of the 1970s were decidedly less visionary and less confrontational than their postwar predecessors. With the State Department and the secretary of state thus controlled and marginalized, Nixon and Kissinger could dominate foreign policy without worrying that their efforts would be undermined from within.15 However progressive the creators of the Dissent Channel may have been, they were surely aware that this mechanism would be implemented in an administration intent on keeping the State Department weak and disciplined. The principle of controlling and containing State Department officers applied especially to those who were partial to the antiwar movement. In 1971, despite the fact that the popular antiwar movement had actually subsided in response to curtailment of the draft and initiation of troop withdrawals from Vietnam, the administration’s effort to crack down on antiwar protesters remained in full gear.16 In some cases, the president’s tactics were overtly draconian. When members and supporters of the May Day antiwar coalition tried to occupy the capital and paralyze the federal government, Nixon had thousands arrested without charge and sent to RFK Stadium, where they waited without food, water, or

175 the other plumbers unit sanitation until the threat subsided. By the end of the two-day skirmish, more than 10,000 protesters had been arrested, making it the largest mass arrest in American history. Most of Nixon’s crackdown on dissenters and political opponents took less violent, albeit more sinister forms. Whenever possible, the administration tried to smear and discredit protesters. As would later be revealed, Nixon and his advisors oversaw the wiretapping of designated political enemies, through which they hoped to obtain unseemly information that could be used to tarnish otherwise reputable opponents.17 These and other “dirty trick” tactics of the Nixon administration are now well known to the point of cliché. Less well known is the administration’s somewhat surprising approval and marketing of the Dissent Channel. Ironically, by promoting internal dissent, Nixon was able to quell and contain dissenters in his midst, and moreover, to do so with the support of some of his otherwise staunchest critics. C o n ta i n i ng D i s s e n t: T he D i s s ent C hannel a nd t he P e n tag o n Pap e r s

Nixon and his predecessors loathed dissenters not so much because they posed a threat on the inside, but rather because they might make their views public. Especially in the age of mass media, to be a dissenter is to be a potential leaker to the press of one’s conflict with the White House. While Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had both harbored a special distrust of the State Department as a source of such leaks, Nixon took this long-standing hostility to new heights. As early as May 1969, the administration began to wiretap suspected leakers. When the letter protesting the Cambodian invasion actually did leak to the press, Nixon directed senior officials in the department to “make sure all those sons of bitches are fired first thing in the morning.” Though in this instance U. Alexis Johnson, then undersecretary of state for political affairs, managed to prevent their dismissal, he and other senior officials could not continue to vouch for dissenters in their midst without themselves falling under the suspicious eye of the president.18 In June 1971, the insecurity of internal dissenters in the executive branch became a matter of national scandal. Former Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers—the forty-seven-volume, topsecret study of inside decision making on Vietnam since 1940—to the New

176 the other plumbers unit York Times and the Washington Post. The documents offered concrete proof of what many Americans already suspected—that for two decades, successive administrations had purposively shielded the extent and nature of U.S. actions in Vietnam from the American public. Though the Pentagon Papers did not deal directly with the current administration, Nixon and Kissinger nonetheless worried that they would perpetuate a credibility problem and further fuel the antiwar movement.19 The crisis unleashed the full force of conservatism in the White House. The federal government issued an injunction against the newspapers and pressed charges against Ellsberg. Suspecting the State Department’s involvement, Nixon ordered a loyalty test for every one of its employees. While Nixon’s staff never actually carried out this order, they did respond to the president’s implicit directive to plug the leaks once and for all. “If we can’t get anyone to do something about the problem that may be the most serious one we have,” railed Nixon, “then, by god, we’ll do it ourselves.”20 In addition to dirty tricks carried out by the secret Plumbers Unit, administrators in executive branch agencies transformed themselves into other overt and unabashed plumbers units, who would accomplish with legal means what Nixon’s staff was attempting to accomplish secretly. In the court proceedings against Ellsberg, the government’s star witness was none other than William Macomber.21 As they finalized the guidelines of the Dissent Channel over the course of the year, senior department officials increasingly prioritized the prevention of leaks. In order to ensure that dissent telegrams and memos would not fall into the wrong hands, agency heads stipulated that the messages be given top-secret classification. “The right of dissent is very important,” Macomber assured the public. “And no one’s been pushing for it harder than I. But we want to keep it in the house.”22 An A ut o m at i c H ig h- L e v e l A u d i e n c e : To Q uell a nd C on ta i n D i s s e n t

As president, Nixon frequently claimed that he would do what was best for the country, regardless of how it might affect his reputation. Contrary to what he said, Nixon cared greatly about his public image. In the fall of 1971, while the president continued to keep the details of his unsuccessful diplomatic overtures in Vietnam secret, he made sure the cameras were there to capture his trips to

177 the other plumbers unit Beijing and Moscow.23 The Nixon administration, with the same motive of enhancing its own reputation, similarly distorted the Dissent Channel, presenting it to the public as a tool that would increase the influence of rank-and-file diplomats on foreign policy. Touting the importance of internal dissent to a group of reporters, Macomber proclaimed, “We want to get it to those people in positions of authority who can do something about it.”24 The very first telegram submitted through the Dissent Channel in April 1971 illustrates just how distorting this claim actually was. In December 1970, East Pakistan, whose population was majority Bengali, a group that had historically been treated as second-class citizens by the ruling elite of West Pakistan, voted overwhelmingly for representatives of the Awami League, which advocated for an autonomous East Pakistan. Rather than accept the outcome, the leader of the military junta ruling Pakistan, General Yahya Kahn, cracked down, arresting the leaders of the Awami League and prompting mass protests in the streets. In response, Yahya unleashed the military on East Pakistan, initiating what was essentially genocide against the Bengali people. State Department employees specializing in South Asia had foreseen such a crisis and had cautioned the administration to take steps to prevent it. But when the administration chose not to act, Dacca consulate members were forced to wait in the shadows as thousands were killed in death squads on the streets—7,000 in a single night—and millions fled to India, creating one of the worst refugee crises in history.25 Dismayed and frustrated, members of the Dacca consulate sent a Dissent Channel message to Washington on April 6. The dissent memo challenged the administration’s decision not to publicly condemn the genocide being committed against the Bengalis by the Pakistani military. “Our government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy. Our government has failed to denounce atrocities. . . . We, as professional public servants express our dissent with current policy and fervently hope that our true and lasting interests can be defined and our policies redirected in order to salvage our nation’s position as a moral leader of the free world.”26 Nixon had long harbored hostility toward the leaders of India and a striking warmth toward those of its enemy, Pakistan, a feeling that was only strengthened when Pakistan offered to play a role in aiding a renewal of U.S.-China relations. Nixon and Kissinger regarded Yahya as an important ally and as their main connection to China. Convincing them to put pressure on Yahya would

178 the other plumbers unit have been virtually impossible for a high-level advisor, let alone a rank-andfile diplomat, expressing his views through a formal bureaucratic mechanism.27 When the White House first learned of the likelihood of violence on a massive scale, Kissinger had decisively directed against action of any sort. One week before the dissent cable was sent, Nixon wrote to Yahya, expressing his happiness that Yahya had been able to cement his role as leader of all Pakistan.28 Not surprisingly, the Dissent Channel did not change the president’s position. But it did contribute to a growing concern about leaks. This much is clear from the response of Secretary of State William Rogers to the cable. Upon receiving the message, Rogers called Kissinger. The telegram was, he said, “miserable,” “terrible,” and “inexcusable.” It was bad enough that they “had bitched about our policies,” but the real problem was that “they had given it lots of distribution so it will probably leak,” railed Rogers to Kissinger.29 Kissinger agreed, and was particularly concerned that the memo would leak to Ted Kennedy, a vocal opponent of the administration’s South Asia policy. The head of the Dacca consulate, Archer Blood, was transferred to another post, as were many of his colleagues. Thereafter, Nixon and Kissinger cut themselves off completely from the South Asia experts in the State Department, whose voices were ignored when the situation escalated from humanitarian crisis within Pakistan to a full-blown war between Pakistan and India.30 As its inaugural message demonstrates, the Dissent Channel reveals the limits not only of dissent in the diplomatic establishment but also of bureaucratized diplomatic writing, which threatened to displace the more traditional forms of diplomatic writing. Many Foreign Service officers lamented the shift and were nostalgic for the days when political reporting had more weight and prominence in the department. “Since the more traditional skills of analysis and reporting were identified with the old elitest [sic] concept of the foreign service,” regretted an old German hand, “they were consciously downgraded in favor of the more modern approaches, i.e. management and various technical specialties.”31 Exemplifying the limits of bureaucratized diplomatic writing, the channel did more to isolate, discipline, and contain dissent than to advance the policy positions of dissenters. The administration’s preoccupation with leaks is evident in its response to the journalist who publicized the story that the users of the Dissent Channel could not. In December 1971, using materials from the White House Special Action Group, Jack Anderson of the New York

179 the other plumbers unit Times announced that Nixon had directed a “tilt” toward Pakistan, despite the administration’s public posture of neutrality. One White House official contemplated having Anderson assassinated. As it turned out, Anderson’s source was JCS staffer Charles Radford, who had seized the Special Action Group’s documents merely to help his superiors in the JCS find out more about policy. The White House put wiretaps on Radford and others, including an officer in the State Department.32 The Di sse n t C ha nn el a s E xcept i o n t o t h e P ol i ti c s o f Wate r gate

There was a self-replicating and escalating logic to the Nixon administration’s secret efforts to contain and vilify its opponents. Each effort left loose ends that needed to be tied up and revealed bigger and more powerful enemies, whose containment would require more extreme tactics. The closer Nixon and his advisors came to the edge of the law, the greater the need to keep their tactics secret. It was only a matter of time before the president and his henchmen would become dependent upon secrecy to shroud their elaborate and widespread attempts at quelling the opposition. This is precisely what happened in the months following the botched robbery of the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters at the Watergate hotel on June 17, 1972, by five men associated with the Committee to Re-elect the President. Over the next two years, as the scandal came to dominate the American political scene, Nixon would go to great lengths to cover up what he himself would later call a “second-rate burglary.” More than the burglary itself, Nixon’s response to it had become the emblem of his administration’s abuse of power. The Watergate scandal dominated the political scene from 1973 to Nixon’s resignation in August 1974. Its shadow loomed over the Ford administration, putting the issue of accountability at the forefront of American foreign policy and presidential power and revealing the absurdity of Nixon’s claims to be a candid and honest president who wished to create an open White House in which dissenting views would be welcome. Watergate became the exemplum of the “imperial presidency” and abuse of executive privilege that former government officials, journalists, and academics identified and denounced, thus shaping the historical legacy of the Nixon administration for decades to come.33 In the midst of this backlash against the imperial presidency, a public debate over a Dissent Channel message became the exception to the new ear-

180 the other plumbers unit nestness in challenging the abuse of executive power. For what it reveals about the limits of post-Watergate reform, particularly in terms of transparency in foreign policy, the case is worth illuminating in some detail. In 1975, the House Select Committee on Intelligence, also known as the Pike Committee (for its chair New York’s Democratic congressman Otis Pike), began to investigate the process of gathering intelligence and making decisions in recent foreign affairs crises. As part of its inquiry, it subpoenaed an official dissent memo on U.S. foreign policy in Cyprus. The memo had been written in August 1974 by Thomas Boyatt, who had served as chief of the Cyprus desk during the coup in which the Greek military junta had overthrown the Cypriot president. Before the coup, Boyatt had sent a series of messages through the regular cable channels, predicting that continued passive support for the rebels would result in an overthrow of the Cypriot government, giving Turkey an excuse to invade the island on behalf of the Turkish minority there. Events played out according to Boyatt’s dire predictions. Months of war in the region resulted in the eventual partition of Cyprus between Turkish and Greek enclaves still in existence today. In his Dissent Channel message, Boyatt argued that the United States could and should have done more to prevent the coup, specifically by informing Dimitrios Ioannides, the head of the Greek military junta and mastermind of the coup, that it did not support his plan and warning him that it would lead to serious hostilities between Greece and Turkey. Yet, in line with the administration’s passive attitude toward the Greek junta, the American ambassador, Henry Tasca, had resisted his subordinates’ calls to this end. After the coup, Boyatt argued, the United States could have done more to prevent the Turkish invasion, by putting pressure on Greece to remove Nikos Sampson, who had taken over in Cyprus. But again, following the policy of passivity endorsed in Washington, the American ambassador did no such thing, thus making Turkey’s intervention inevitable. Boyatt critiqued the current policy of partition, arguing that it did not solve the fundamental problem and warning that it was only a matter of time before the current instability erupted into renewed violence.34 Experts on Cyprus generally agree that Kissinger was willfully ignorant of the area’s complex political dynamic. “He knew nothing about Cyprus and did not bother to inform himself,” wrote George Ball who had been critical in preventing such a disaster in the Johnson administration.35 Almost imme-

181 the other plumbers unit diately after reading Boyatt’s dissent memo, Kissinger had Boyatt removed from the Cyprus desk.36 In so doing, he sent Boyatt and other would-be dissenters a clear message about the consequences of voicing opposition to the administration’s policies. Yet, just as Macomber and others had originally presented the Dissent Channel to the public in a rather rosy light, so did Kissinger now present his relationship to internal dissenters in a way that masked his actual hostility toward them. In a letter to the Pike Committee, he explained that he could not possibly comply with the request, as doing so would breach the loyalty he owed his subordinates in the State Department. “The ‘Dissent Channel,’ through which this memorandum was submitted,” he wrote, “provides those officers with the Department of State who disagree with established policy, or who have new policies to recommend, a means of communicating their views to the highest levels of the Department.” If these officers are to “give their best,” he explained, they “must enjoy a guarantee that their advice or criticism candidly given, will remain privileged.” “There have been other times and other committees—and there may be again—where positions taken by Foreign Service Officers were exposed to ex post facto public examination and recrimination. The results are too well known to need elaboration here.” But he elaborated them nonetheless: “gross injustice to loyal public servants, a sapping of the morale and the abilities of the Foreign Service; and serious damage to the ability of the Department and the President to formulate and conduct the foreign affairs of the nation.” Kissinger was, of course, invoking the specter of McCarthyism, which had taken such a great toll on the State Department in the 1950s, the scars of which had not yet fully healed. In accusing the diplomatic establishment of tilting U.S. foreign policy in the interest of world communism, McCarthy and others made a point of obtaining the policy papers of the rank and file, which they used as evidence of communist conspiracy.37 In the months, years, and decades following these attacks, the department vowed to protect the rank and file from future political assaults. Never again, department heads promised, would outsiders be able to hold a Foreign Service officer responsible for his positions. In place of individual responsibility, in its dealings with Congress and the press, the department would stress a sort of collective or organizational responsibility. This meant that individual Foreign Service officers were not to be held publicly accountable for the words they wrote as government servants. In effect, the department permanently removed

182 the other plumbers unit the notion of individual authorship and in its place substituted a version of corporate authorship. The secretary of state used the ghost of McCarthyism to advance his own and the administration’s interests. Mobilizing the image of himself as benevolent protector of the Foreign Service against the threat of a McCarthyist renewal, Kissinger argued that he and other senior policymakers in the department, and not the rank and file, should be “held accountable” for the agency’s foreign policy decisions. To this end, the secretary volunteered to testify before the committee. In lieu of handing over the memos submitted to him, he offered to prepare a “summary” of all the dissenting documents he had received (and rejected) in relation to the Cyprus crisis on the grounds that the names of the individual authors would remain confidential.38 When the department’s stance was thus framed, no decent liberal, or any American for that matter, could take issue with it. Or could they? Congress had certainly witnessed these tactics before. It had been only two years since the scandal of Watergate had begun to rock the nation. In his grand effort to cover up the scandal, Nixon had instructed his subordinates to do everything they could to prevent the investigation from airing the administration’s dirty laundry. The precise directive was to “stonewall” it. When Congress began to request tapes from the White House in the spring of 1973, stonewalling took the form of executive privilege.39 During Watergate, Sam Ervin, who chaired the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, became one of the strongest critics of Nixon’s attempt to undermine the investigation through executive privilege. A Southern Democrat from North Carolina, who had opposed desegregation, Ervin was no liberal, but instead a conservative defender of civil liberties and a fundamentalist in his readings of the Bible and the Constitution. Ervin regarded Nixon’s leadership as a tyrannical threat to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution. Questioning the attorney general in April 1973, he demonstrated the extremity of the administration’s stance, insofar as it completely cut Congress off from information coming out of the lower rungs of the executive branch. If the White House were to have its way, it would in effect “deny to the Congress the testimony of any person working for the executive branch of the Government or any document in the possession of anybody working for the Government.”40 This is precisely what Nixon attempted to do in July 1973, when he refused to answer the subpoena on grounds of national se-

183 the other plumbers unit curity. The same month, the Justice Department’s special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, delivered subpoenas of his own to the White House, with which Nixon also refused to comply.41 Up to this point, Nixon had weathered the storm of Watergate fairly well, coasting on his landslide victory in the reelection race, due in part to relatively broad support for his Vietnam policies, as well as his emphasis on fighting crime and achieving stability on the domestic front. Despite severe criticism of the Christmas bombing campaign in North Vietnam and the beginning of the Watergate investigation, Nixon’s popularity peaked in early 1973, after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. It was the legal battle between Nixon and Congress on the one hand and Nixon and Cox on the other that sparked the first dramatic decline of confidence in the president. After a series of decisions and appeals on behalf of the Justice Department, the case went to the Supreme Court, which in 1974 delivered a unanimous verdict against the White House. Executive privilege, while not without its merits, was not absolute.42 Yet, in 1975, only one congressman on the Pike Committee voiced concern over Kissinger’s invocation of executive privilege. Not so fast, said Chairman Pike, who, along with several members of the committee, distrusted Kissinger’s unprecedented power in U.S. foreign policy.43 More than any other member of the committee, Pike saw a relationship between Kissinger’s foreign policy power and his power to control and contain the writing of his subordinates in the State Department. When the secretary testified before the committee on October 31, the senator questioned whether a summary could ever substitute for the original. “This Congress,” Pike told Kissinger, “has been subject to alleged ‘summaries’ before. There is no such thing as a ‘full summary.’ Even if the Secretary did not deliberately intend to distort the policy recommendations contained in Boyatt’s memo, by summarizing it and the other documents, Kissinger would, by definition, alter them. Congress must follow the ‘best evidence rule,’” argued Pike. And “the best evidence of what Mr. Boyatt said is not your summary of it, or anybody else’s summary of it. It is what Mr. Boyatt said.”44 In a compromise gesture, Kissinger offered to provide the committee with an “amalgamation” of the dissenting views on Cyprus. Unlike a summary, the amalgamated document would, he promised, contain “the full contents of Mr. Boyatt’s memorandum to me.” These words would be “interspersed among the other paragraphs and without any identification of authorship.”45 For Pike, it would not suffice to say that all the words of Boyatt’s memo would be in the

184 the other plumbers unit amalgamated document. By that measure, he pointed out, “[t]he submission of a dictionary to the committee would be in compliance with the subpoena.” “What I am trying to find out,” Pike explained to his peers, “is the form in which the words are going to be presented to us.” The most fundamental problem with both a summary and an amalgamation, argued Pike, was the fact that they blurred perspective. “If we are not familiar with say, 4 or 6 documents, and all the paragraphs of 4 or 6 documents were interspersed and mixed up like some sort of magnificent jigsaw puzzle and there was no picture, [how could] we could elicit from those mixed-up paragraphs what we are trying to get?”46 In lumping together the telegrams and memos of several dissenters, Kissinger would erase the particular perspective of each one. In order to understand the process of shaping policy from a conglomeration of admittedly partial perspectives, doesn’t one need to have some sense of who wrote what? As Pike pointed out, in an amalgamation it would be impossible to know whether the dissenting position “comes from the doorman or the Ambassador, and that,” he said, was a “ridiculous proposition.”47 By offering to submit a summary of Boyatt’s and others’ written dissent, the department implied that the words of rank-and-file Foreign Service officers were to be interpreted not from the perspective of the individuals who wrote them, but rather from that of the senior policymaker who read them. The principle of corporate responsibility thus made it possible for Kissinger to justify presenting the public with a flattened-out version of the rank and file’s policy analyses. The absence of authority and authorship thus became mutually reinforcing. By emphasizing the corporate status of career diplomats’ writing, the department underscored the rank and file’s impotence in the formulation of foreign policy. Conversely, by emphasizing the need to protect Foreign Service officers from being held accountable for foreign policy decisions, it strengthened its position about the corporate ownership of the rank and file’s written words. The pendulum had swung full circle. Whereas McCarthy had branded State Department officers authors of the U.S. policy that made America vulnerable to world communism, the State Department now implied that career diplomats were not authors of policy, in either the symbolic or the literal sense of the term. As Pike noted, Congress had been subjected to alleged summaries before. In voicing his concern over Kissinger’s offer, Pike was also invoking a specter— namely, the specter of Watergate. In 1973, after it became clear that neither

185 the other plumbers unit Congress nor the White House would allow the president to shield the White House tapes from the public, Nixon had proposed a similar compromise to the one Kissinger was now proposing. He offered to hand over an edited or what he called “authenticated” version of the tapes, which would paraphrase relevant portions and excise conversations that were not relevant to the committee’s inquiry. An intermediary, Democratic senator John Stennis of Mississippi, would oversee and verify the process. After giving the offer some consideration, Cox rejected that proposal, explaining that third-party transcriptions, editing, or paraphrasing of the tapes could not be admissible as evidence in a trial.48 In usual fashion, Nixon responded to the challenge by trying to disempower his opponent. He ultimately succeeded in firing Cox, but only after prompting the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy, William Ruckelshaus, who did not approve of the decision and refused to carry it out. This episode, known as the Saturday-night massacre, stirred the ire of Nixon’s opponents in Congress and the press. The media referred to Nixon’s “Gestapo tactics,” and Senator Mike Mansfield openly worried that Nixon wanted to establish a “one-branch government.” Nixon’s public approval rating plummeted even further, and calls for his impeachment began to mount.49 Nixon did finally hand over seven tapes in November 1973, after an adverse ruling from the court of appeals. One of these tapes contained the famous eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap that Nixon claimed his secretary had mistakenly erased. In April 1974, after refusing to hand over any more tapes, Nixon made what he framed as a concession. He handed over edited transcripts of the remaining tapes. While the seamy, hostile, and underhanded character of Nixon and his advisors contained in these transcripts was enough to turn the public and Congress further against the administration, it was not enough to impeach the president on the grounds of criminal wrongdoing.50 During Watergate, several congressmen directly challenged Nixon’s offer to provide an authorized transcript rather than the tape itself. Peter Rodino, Democrat of New Jersey, argued, “We did not subpoena a presidential interpretation of what is necessary or relevant to our inquiry.” Congressman Mezvinsky, Democrat of Iowa, similarly declared, “To give us sanitized, cleansed transcripts of conversations just won’t wash.” In May 1974, by a vote of 20–18, the House committee voted to reject the transcripts as compliance of its subpoena. More subpoenas followed. Nixon’s continued refusal to hand over the remaining tapes became part of the articles of impeachment against him. The

186 the other plumbers unit Supreme Court ruling of July 1974 stipulated that Nixon must hand over the tapes. This ruling produced the “smoking gun” tape of June 23, 1972, which definitively revealed that Nixon had lied when he said he did not know about or participate in an effort to impede the FBI’s investigation of Watergate. Rather than suffer the embarrassment of impeachment, Nixon tendered his resignation on August 8, 1974.51 It could be said that Nixon’s resignation marked the end of a chapter in American history. That is certainly how Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford, wanted the American people to see it when he took office and reassured America that “[o]ur long national nightmare is over.”52 But Watergate was not over. Its memory would profoundly shape the limits of the presidency and the regulatory power of Congress in the Ford administration, which was severely criticized for pardoning Nixon. Ford inherited a presidency weakened by public distrust and was forced to face a Congress that had revitalized its mission to check the power of the executive branch. The change had started even before Nixon’s resignation. In 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Act, intended to curtail the president’s abuse of power in declaring and waging war. In the summer of 1973, it voted to cut off funds for the bombing of Cambodia. After Nixon’s resignation, Congress passed the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, which gave the National Archives control over Watergate materials. In November 1974, Congress overrode Ford’s veto of a bill to amend and strengthen the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Through these and other actions, Congress heeded Arthur Schlesinger’s call for the legislature and other government institutions to check the imperial presidency, “reclaim their own dignity and meet their own responsibilities.”53 Nowhere was this reclamation more evident than in foreign policy. Watergate had distracted Nixon from his foreign policy agenda, making Kissinger the dominant player in foreign affairs, a status which he maintained in the Ford administration. Inspired by Watergate to reassert its power over foreign policy, Congress created a series of committees to check the power of the executive branch in general and the power of Henry Kissinger in particular. Along with the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission, the Pike Committee was a product of this broader effort.54 In 1971, when the scandal over the Pentagon Papers erupted, the White House had attempted to silence the press, issuing injunctions to the New York Times and the Washington Post, among others. These efforts only turned

187 the other plumbers unit the press into an increasingly staunch advocate of government transparency, particularly on issues of foreign policy. During Watergate, when Kissinger accused the media of tainting foreign policy with domestic politics, the editors of the Washington Post reminded the secretary of state that “our crisis at home was created by the president.” The commitment of the press to checking the power of the executive branch, and of Kissinger in particular, continued into the Ford presidency. On virtually all other issues, columnists in the Washington Post and the New York Times continued to rail against the excesses of the secretary’s power. Just before the Boyatt affair began, court testimony revealed that Kissinger had directed the FBI’s wiretaps of federal employees. And the liberal press denounced him. In the midst of the Pike Committee’s proceedings, President Ford fired Defense Secretary James Schlesinger. And the liberal press denounced him as well, citing Kissinger’s inability to tolerate Schlesinger’s dissenting views as the main cause. “The firing virtually completes the purge from the executive branch of those who dissent from Kissinger’s policies,” wrote George Will in the Washington Post.55 The very papers that regularly lambasted Kissinger did not, however, see the Boyatt affair in the same terms. Instead, following Kissinger’s lead, they underscored the need to protect the State Department against a resurgence of McCarthyism. Joseph Kraft, well known for his criticisms of the Nixon and Ford administrations, did not denounce Kissinger for refusing to comply with the subpoena; rather, he denounced Congress for having issued it in the first place. “To demonstrate its zeal to the public,” wrote Kraft, Congress “is resorting to practices reminiscent of Joe McCarthy’s infamous tactics . . . harassing junior officials in ways that subvert decent administration.”56 None other than George Kennan joined the chorus of support for Kissinger’s fight against a new McCarthyism. The secretary of state is “entirely justified” in his refusal to hand over the Boyatt memorandum, wrote Kennan in a letter to the editors of the Washington Post. To hand it over, he argued, would not only “deprive both President and Secretary of State of the sort of information and advice they require” in order to formulate foreign policy, but would also “demoralize the Department and Foreign Service.” Secretary Kissinger, Kennan concluded, “stands on the firmest ground in his uncompromising resistance to such demands—he has, indeed, no choice. He deserves vigorous public support in the position he has taken.”57 The irony of Kennan’s stance cannot be overstated. Kennan had served as an inspiration

188 the other plumbers unit for the kind of “creative dissent” those who designed the channel had hoped to revive. Moreover, Kennan had been one of the most outspoken defenders of the China hands.58 Despite the importance of getting the complete and exact words of the White House tapes in the Watergate investigation, commentators did not emphasize the importance of getting the Boyatt memo in its original form. Focusing on McCarthyist attacks from the “outside” as the main threat to the morale of Foreign Service officers and their potential influence on policy, commentators effectively neglected the threat on the “inside.” In so doing, they overlooked the secretary of state’s intolerance of internal opposition, and more specifically, the way in which Kissinger had interfered with and distorted the words of the rank and file in order to squelch that opposition. It was strange that, in their commentaries on the Boyatt affair, newspaper columnists, who swear by their words, were not sensitive to this factor. The support of journalists and ex-diplomats for Kissinger reveals just how far the department’s prerogative to protect rank-and-file authors of dissent had gone. So far that nobody except a few outspoken congressmen recognized the potential parallels between Watergate and the Boyatt affair. Perhaps even more important than the specter of McCarthyism was the desire on the part of many Americans to put Watergate behind them and end the mood of bitterness and mistrust between the legislative and executive branches, which threatened to paralyze the federal government. It would be a long time before Congress would compromise on major issues of foreign policy such as war powers. In this sense, the Boyatt case played an important role, precisely because, in most people’s eyes, it did not constitute a major issue and could thus serve as a symbol of congressional compromise without actually giving up very much. Under pressure from the press as well as the American public, the Pike Committee acquiesced to this logic. In an 8–5 vote, it accepted Kissinger’s amalgamation.59 In the Boyatt case, Congress agreed to accept precisely the kind of distorted evidence it had refused to accept in Watergate. Boyatt signed an affidavit saying that the entirety of his memo was in the amalgamated document. Years later, he would reveal the extent to which the original document had been distorted: “The Boyatt memorandum was cut into pieces, and those pieces were interspersed with other drivel made up by S/P [Policy Planning] designed to disguise what was the Boyatt memorandum.”60

189 the other plumbers unit

~ In the months, years, and decades to come, there would be hundreds of other Dissent Channel messages, including a critique of militarization in the Persian Gulf in the late seventies and condemnation of U.S. policy toward Argentina in 1977, in light of the atrocities committed by the American-supported military junta in power there between 1976 and 1983. Although the number of Dissent Channel messages decreased significantly in the Reagan and Bush years, a few Foreign Service officers nonetheless used the channel to challenge the administration’s strategy in the Cold War. From his post in Afghanistan, Foreign Service officer Ed McWilliams wrote several messages through the Dissent Channel in 1988 and 1989. In these messages, he criticized the United States’ tacit support of the Islamist forces taking power in the wake of the Soviet withdrawal, as well as their overreliance on Pakistani intelligence.61 The fact that none of these messages had an effect on the policies they protested reflects both the failure of the Dissent Channel to live up to its original promise and the success of the Dissent Channel in quelling and containing dissent. The Dissent Channel made it possible for the State Department to formally encourage dissent, while at the same time deflating the most serious threat posed by internal dissenters. The channel proved that dissent could be tolerated so long as it remained inside the bureaucracy. To be sure, several users of the Dissent Channel were fired. And many more received negative evaluations.62 But on the whole, the department was relatively lenient on authors of Dissent Channel messages. Most were simply transferred to other posts, where they no longer posed a threat to the policies they protested. Having effectively stifled their dissent, the department, in the long run, actually promoted many of these individuals. There are even awards given out by the American Foreign Service Association for “constructive dissent.”63 Thomas Boyatt was the recipient of one such award. After receiving the William Rivkin Award for constructive dissent, Boyatt went on to a successful career in the State Department. He was sent to Santiago, Chile, where he served as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy. He then served as ambassador to Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso) in 1978 and ambassador to Colombia between 1980 and 1983.64 Looking back, Boyatt voiced some cynicism about the Dissent Channel, but no regrets: “I used the Dissent Channel in the proper way,” he has since

190 the other plumbers unit said, “and the old boy network did what they could to take care of me.”65 Like Boyatt, several State Department officers have thus seen the channel’s containment of dissent in a positive light, as it has more or less allowed them to articulate their views without cost to their careers. The channel, they say, has “helped defuse the inevitable tensions policy disagreements generate.”66 As long as State Department officers accept the inherent limits of the writing they submit through the Dissent Channel, the mechanism does more to pacify than empower dissenters. Along these lines, a few diplomats who are even more skeptical than those who helped create the Dissent Channel have described the channel as “merely a management tool for letting the system vent bottled-up pressures . . . without affording these dissenting voices a real impact on policy.”67 The metaphor of a steam valve is apt. The system will allow internal dissenters to let off steam, provided that it doesn’t seep out of Foggy Bottom. A N ew F o r m a nd F u n c ti o n : The Di s s e nt C ha nnel a nd th e I r aq War

The Boyatt affair was the first and last time that Congress and the press engaged in public debate about access to Dissent Channel messages. Although Watergate put questions of transparency and accountability at the forefront of American presidential politics, in the presidencies of Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Clinton, neither Congress nor the public made an issue of making Dissent Channel messages public. In the 1970s, the great political reporter and dismissed China hand Jack Service had argued with his colleague Philip Sprouse that, at the very least, the public should have ex post facto access to the debates about foreign policy taking place within the executive branch. Sprouse disagreed, on the basis that because the president has complete power over foreign policy decisions, all that matters is the final decision and not the debate leading up to it. In actuality, Sprouse’s position stemmed as much from fear of political retribution as from respect for presidential power.68 For the next several decades, the Dissent Channel served to support the mutually reinforcing arguments of careerist Foreign Service officers and senior policymakers against public access to internal dissent. Such access was prevented not only directly, as in the Boyatt affair, but also indirectly, through administrative barriers. Although Dissent Channel mes-

191 the other plumbers unit sages should become declassified after twenty years, successive administrations have stalled in responding to FOIA requests. In many cases, key parts of declassified documents remain blacked out. And despite the fact that all Dissent Channel messages go to the secretary of state’s office, there is no separate file for such messages. Instead, they are lumped together in the separate country and area files, making it difficult to find them and almost impossible to consider the connections between them.69 It would appear that Nixon’s other plumbers unit implemented a mechanism that effectively managed and curtailed, if not entirely solved, the problem of dissent in the State Department. However, as recent events have demonstrated, the ability of senior policymakers to contain diplomatic dissent is far from absolute. There will always be some diplomats who will not experience sufficient relief from the bureaucratic exhaust mechanism that is the Dissent Channel. Like all civil servants, these individuals actually do have a choice. Either they can play by the rules or they can go public with their opposition. Since the Iraq War, many U.S. diplomats have chosen to resign in protest. Using the Dissent Channel in this process, they have contributed to what might be considered a new genre of diplomatic writing, one that blurs the boundaries between internal and public dissent writing. In July 2003, four months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, career Foreign Service officer Joseph Wilson wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times claiming that the Bush administration had distorted his intelligence report on uranium ore in Niger in order to justify going to war with Iraq. In Vietnam, George Ball and other internal dissenters had questioned the conclusions of their colleagues, but by and large, not the body of information on which they relied. In contrast, Wilson’s dissent raised questions about the source and veracity of the information enlisted by the Bush administration in making and defending its case for war. The events that followed, including the administration’s exposure of the identity of Wilson’s wife as a CIA agent, are well known. Wilson, who has since retired from the Foreign Service, holds a place in history as the most visible and controversial dissenting diplomat of the period. Even those who question his aggressive publicity credit him with initiating a necessary dialogue about “the way in which the administration deals with dissent,” as well as “the selling of the war” and “official mendacity.” Wilson played a key role in reinvigorating a dialogue about presidential transparency and accountability in the White House.70

192 the other plumbers unit Wilson was not, however, the first career diplomat to publicly challenge the basis of the war in Iraq. He was preceded by John Brady Kiesling, the political counselor at the U.S. embassy in Athens, who resigned in opposition to the war in February 2003, before the actual invasion.71 Notably, it was through the Dissent Channel that Kiesling resigned. Written from the perspective of a diplomat with one foot in the government and one outside it, his letter provocatively bent the strictures of the Dissent Channel and in so doing challenged its ability to contain dissent. Per the long-standing departmental guidelines still in effect for both the Dissent Channel and resignation letters, Kiesling addressed his words to then Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was serving as the administration’s primary public advocate for the war. Even as he ostensibly followed the template of the Dissent Channel, Kiesling augmented it. Instead of opening the letter with the requisite line announcing his dissent, Kiesling began with a personal story: “The baggage of my upbringing,” he wrote, “included a felt obligation to give something back to my country. Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job.” Here and throughout, Kiesling represented himself as a model public servant and bureaucrat, one who had believed that by representing the president’s policies, he was also “upholding the interests of the American people and the world.” But the administration’s Iraq policy had dissolved that belief. Kiesling’s rationale against the Bush administration’s posture has since become common sense for many. By “arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq,” he argued, “we spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind. The result and perhaps the motive,” he wrote, “is to justify the vast misallocation of public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government.” Underscoring the negative impact that the road to war had already had on the ability of the United States to persuade its allies, he asked, “Who will tell them convincingly that the United States is as it was, a beacon of liberty, security, and justice for the planet?” Kiesling closed by returning to his personal narrative, now speaking as a citizen rather than a government servant. “I hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share.”72 It was not Powell, but Richard Haas, then director of policy planning, who issued the reply. Like the responses to Dissent Channel messages that came before it, the “follow-up” from Haas was bland and bureaucratic. Haas thanked

193 the other plumbers unit Kiesling for his “depth of conviction” and expressed “regret” over his decision to resign. He then reiterated the talking points that the State Department had been delivering somewhat successfully to the American people and much less convincingly to foreign governments.73 Kiesling’s message had little direct effect on the higher-ups in the bureaucracy. However, it did have a significant impact on the public, especially the segment of the populace already inclined to oppose the war. A few days after submitting his resignation, Kiesling asked a friend to forward his resignation letter to a reporter he had met at a party. The next day, the full text of the letter appeared in the New York Times and soon after in the New York Review of Books.74 Readers e-mailed it around the world and political activist groups linked it to their Web sites. Kiesling had become a hero of the emerging antiwar movement. Though somewhat taken aback by the extent of the hoopla and fanfare he received upon his resignation, Kiesling did not, as had many internal dissenters in previous generations, recoil from the prospect of becoming a public dissident. His decision to resign was, as he has said, a decision to become a “champion” of “the antiwar camp.”75 Notably, Kiesling’s evolution from internal dissenter to public protester of the war was inextricably linked to his evolving thoughts about the most effective audience for his dissent. Before deciding to resign, Kiesling had first attempted to write a Dissent Channel message that might actually convince Powell to change his position on the war. Sitting awake at four a.m. with his laptop on his knees, Kiesling realized, however, that he had little chance of persuading the secretary of state.76 Powell, he decided, should not be his sole or even his most important reader. A week later, Kiesling rewrote the memo. The first draft, which had been intended only for Powell, had been, as Kiesling says, “a policy analyst’s cold critique of policy.” The redrafted letter, however, was written with a sensitivity toward the perspective of the American public, who Kiesling saw as “struggling from the outside to understand whether our slide into war with Iraq would make them safer or not.” Kiesling believed “the grimy logic of national selfinterest” would not appeal to most Americans, but thought that they might respond to “the language of American character and values.”77 This rationale helps explain why, in addition to the national interest, Kiesling’s Dissent Channel resignation letter also underscored the moral, ideological, and even theological notion of America as a light unto nations. Employing the language of American

194 the other plumbers unit values and character, Kiesling appealed to his unofficial yet sympathetic audience—Americans who opposed the war and Bush’s foreign policies in general. Emphasizing his identity as a loyal diplomat, Kiesling nonetheless grounded his authority in his experience of foreign policy issues from the inside. We need not celebrate or critique Kiesling’s “speech act”78 in order to appreciate its effect on the Dissent Channel.79 In resigning, Kiesling transformed the channel in a way that entertains few illusions about the current limits of internal dissent. At the same time, in tweaking the form, content, and audience of his Dissent Channel message, he initiated a distinct genre of policy writing that is neither wholly inside nor wholly outside, a hybrid that aptly reflects the particular role played by Kiesling and other former government servants in the antiwar movement. Capitalizing on the positive reception of his dissent message, after leaving the State Department, Kiesling went on a national speaking tour. He continued to frame his argument against the war with a mixture of realism—based on a calculus of the national interest—and idealism—based on the power of American values. An “honorable alliance” between “Hamiltonian pragmatism” and “Wilsonian idealism,” he called it in a speech at Princeton.80 Like his strategy of writing simultaneously to Colin Powell and to disenchanted Americans, Kiesling’s combination of realism and idealism proved popular with a wide array of American audiences. Not only at Berkeley, where Kiesling was “met by a throng of adoring fans six feet deep,” was he received warmly, but also at more conservative institutions, including the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.81 In the 2004 presidential campaign, Kiesling gave speeches on behalf of Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, a group of retired diplomats and military officials who challenged Bush’s Iraq policy. As with Kiesling’s Dissent Channel letter and subsequent speeches, the group’s message drew its collective authority from the fact that its members had been loyal government servants—as one commentator noted, “the kind who have never spoken out before on such matters.” The generals and diplomats who called for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s resignation in the spring of 2006 got their wish the following November.82 Building on the momentum of this insider-come-outsider force, Kiesling wrote the book Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower, published in September 2006. Through stories of his own experiences as a career diplomat, the book elaborates Kiesling’s critique of U.S. foreign policy in Iraq

195 the other plumbers unit and around the world. Like his Dissent Channel message, through form as well as content, it also provides a commentary about the executive branch’s effort to contain policy debate. Throughout the text, Kiesling includes thick black bars to designate sections of his prose that were deemed classified and thus censored from the public. Some protect factual classified information, such as names and locations. But the most striking one concerns then Undersecretary of State John Bolton: “Judging from press reports of Bolton’s unsavory bureaucratic habits,” writes Kiesling, “I assume . . .” And the rest is blocked out.83 As one commentator has noted, Kiesling’s inclusion of these “ugly” black marks is deliberate. Although he could easily have revised the text in order to avoid them, he kept them in order to make a point. Foreign Service officer Ted Wilkinson has suggested that black marks underscore the ad hoc basis for classifying information. In addition, the black marks draw attention to the administration’s continued attempts to shield the public from the writing done by dissenting diplomats.84 In this respect, the mocking jab at Bolton is particularly apt. As both undersecretary of state and U.S. representative to the United Nations, Bolton made a point of antagonizing careerists in the executive branch who “fight against the President’s policies.” To the extent that Bolton did sanction debate, he publicly underscored the necessity that it be “confidential.”85 Demonstrating the problems of this stance, key aspects of which are not unique to Bolton but central to the State Department’s regulations over the past five decades, Kiesling’s book gives the public a glimpse into the internal battles over both policy positions and the words used to influence policy. Given the unpopularity of the war in Iraq in 2006, it is not surprising that Kiesling’s book was a hit with the public.86 More noteworthy, perhaps, is the fact that rank-and-file diplomats inside the State Department were equally influenced by Kiesling’s words. In the months and years following his Dissent Channel message, several other Foreign Service officers used the channel to register their dissenting views on Iraq. Some followed the preordained route set by the department,87 but several others instead followed Kiesling’s lead. Less than a month after his Dissent Channel message was published, two more State Department officers publicly resigned in protest of the war. Both John Brown, a Foreign Service officer and expert on Eastern Europe and Russia, and Ann Wright, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Mongolia, pointed to Kiesling’s letter as their inspiration. Echoing the form as well as the content of Kiesling’s departure, Wright resigned through the Dissent Channel.88 Ex-

196 the other plumbers unit cluded from the high-level policy dialogue, users of the transformed Dissent Channel have actually created an alternative dialogue among the rank and file, which takes place somewhere in between the realm of officialdom and that of the public sphere. As Kiesling has suggested, his accomplishment is indirect. Rather than reversing policy immediately and on his own, he has planted seeds in the minds of others, who have contributed to a larger and ongoing movement. “A lot of people were looking for some words that they could use to express the anguish that they felt that we were on the wrong course,” he has said.89 As a donor of reproducible words and ideas, Kiesling offers something to insiders and outsiders alike. To those on the inside looking for a way to express their views, he has modeled a new, more flexible form and manner of dissent that belongs simultaneously to the official and public debates over U.S. foreign policy, and that addresses both the administration and the populace. This comes at the cost of direct influence on policy, but at the same time opens up opportunities for indirect influence through public opinion. To those on the outside, Kiesling has provided a vocabulary and set of arguments against the current policies in the war on terror.

~ From the end of the Nixon administration to the beginning of the Iraq War, diplomatic writing constituted one of the few exceptions in the otherwise vigorous effort to make presidents accountable to Congress and the public in matters of foreign policy. This exception showed just how limited the postWatergate effort to force transparency really was, as it failed to account for the abuses of power taking place within the executive branch and allowed for the effective isolation of dissenting diplomats from both senior policymakers and the public.90 In 2011, eight years after the invasion of Iraq, questions about the transparency and accountability of the Bush administration are all too familiar. As many have argued, responsibility for transparency lies not only with the White House but also with the press and with Congress, both of which severely neglected, if not entirely abandoned, their oversight duties before the invasion. In the lead-up to and the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, when Congress and the press failed to do so, rank-and-file members of the State Department stepped in to call attention to the administration’s lack of transparency and account-

197 the other plumbers unit ability. By breaking the rules of the Dissent Channel, dissenting diplomats played a key role in stimulating a debate on these issues as well on the substantive issues of U.S. policy toward Iraq, both within and outside the foreign policy establishment. This accomplishment is especially remarkable in light of the fact that since Watergate, critics of White House secrecy failed to appreciate the problem of shielding diplomatic writing from Congress and the press. And it is even more remarkable when considered in the larger context of the postwar history of the State Department—an institution kept weak by Bush as well as by virtually every president since Roosevelt, and whose relationship with the public was historically one of distance and mutual distrust. Diplomatic writing once again became a lens for thinking about the larger issue of government transparency in late November 2010, when the Internet whistle-blowing organization WikiLeaks began posting the 250,000 State Department cables allegedly given to it by army private Bradley Manning. Many of the leaked cables posted on the WikiLeaks Web site were illuminating not just for their revelations of foreign policy secrets but also for their revelations of disagreement between rank-and-file diplomats and senior policymakers. Cables written by Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry and other State Department officials posted in Afghanistan revealed, for example, a marked degree of cynicism about the prospects of curbing corruption in Afghanistan when, as Eikenberry wrote, “the key government officials are themselves corrupt.”91 In her attempt to downplay the significance of the leak, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton assured the international community that “our official foreign policy is not set in these messages.”92 In contrast to the Boyatt affair, WikiLeaks thus gave the public a chance to see for itself what is lost when the words of rank-and-file diplomats are omitted from the public debates on key foreign policy issues. As it did after the release of the Pentagon Papers, since “Cablegate,” the State Department has made a concerted effort to clamp down on leaks. As the recent twists in the Dissent Channel reveal, efforts to quell and contain dissent are never foolproof, however. In the digital age, when leaks inevitably go viral on the Internet, the State Department will have an increasingly difficult time preventing the public from gaining access to diplomatic dissent writing. The recent wrinkles in the story of diplomatic dissent writing do not reflect the original intent of the frustrated young diplomats looking for a way to en-

198 the other plumbers unit hance their influence on American foreign policy. Neither do they suggest the abandonment of more traditional views and practices of the diplomatic establishment. They do, however, give the public a glimpse into the longer story of the diplomat’s struggle to influence the course of policy through the evolving tradition of diplomatic writing. The Dissent Channel and Cablegate are just the most visible examples of how the apparently small battles over the form, process, audience, and authority of diplomatic writing continue to play a role in the larger battle to make America a more intelligent, realistic, and humane force in the world.

Conclusion

The Life After From Internal Dissenter to Public Prophet

“The success or failure of a country’s foreign policy and its ability to preserve peace will depend upon the reliability of the diplomat’s reports.”1 When Hans Morgenthau wrote these lines in 1948, he was not describing the actual role of American diplomats so much as establishing an ideal. Morgenthau looked to the American diplomatic establishment as the antidote to the poison of ideological fervor that had characterized American foreign policy and that threatened to contaminate international relations in the postwar era. As Morgenthau argued in Politics Among Nations, it was the diplomat’s duty to analyze the present state of foreign affairs in order to predict the future.2 In carrying out this duty, the diplomat, he hoped, could temper America’s ideological excesses and help to reestablish stability in the world order. Morgenthau thus cast U.S. diplomats as the potential prophets of American foreign policy. In elevating the diplomatic establishment, Morgenthau was no doubt conveying a certain ideology of his own, one fueled by many of the same cultural and intellectual forces that had helped to shape the Euro-American diplomatic establishment since the eighteenth century. Thus American diplomats who were critical of the status quo also regarded themselves as foreign policy prophets. As in virtually all prophetic traditions, the “word” played a defining role in the dissenting tradition of the U.S. diplomatic establishment. In this tradition,

200 conclusion form and content are inextricably linked. How the message is formulated is part of the message. The power of the prophecy is at least partly embedded in the power of the word itself.3 Arguably, the tradition of diplomatic writing became more rather than less important to diplomats in the twentieth century. In the face of serious threats to the authority of the diplomatic establishment—most important, the creation of the Defense Department and the National Security Council, as well as the bureaucratization of the State Department itself—dissenting diplomats increasingly identified their message with the time-honored traditions that shaped the diplomatic establishment. In the diplomat’s effort to reassert his authority, prophetic writing was potentially powerful, but also risky. Prophecy in general is a very dangerous business. Most prophets do not have a following in their lifetime, many are exiled, and some are even killed.4 During their respective tenures in government, each of the authors of the dissent papers approached the status of true prophet. All along, however, their status as in-house visionaries had been tenuous, and ultimately it proved to be only temporary. From the standpoint of the president and the senior policymakers under whom these dissenting diplomats worked, their predictions were at best foolhardy and at worst dangerously anti-American. At the moment of their resignations, Kennan, Service, Davies, and Ball were not embraced as true prophets; rather they were rejected as false ones. While each of them went on to lead a valuable and long life, with the exception of Kennan, who served briefly as ambassador to Moscow in 1953 and as ambassador to Yugoslavia under Kennedy, their lives as government servants were effectively over. Each of the authors of the dissent papers went into a version of self-imposed exile from government officialdom. Kennan fled to the welcoming halls of the academy, as did Service, after a brief but lucrative stint in business. Ball escaped to Wall Street and the world of finance. Both physically and mentally, Davies went the farthest, moving to Peru, where he became an award-winning designer of handcrafted furniture. But each of them in his own way would continue to make his voice heard, now as public rather than internal dissenters. In the 1950s, in addition to being one of the few Cold Warriors who consistently opposed nuclear buildup, Kennan was also one of the few to publicly defend the China hands against the McCarthyist attacks being waged against them. And during the escalation in Vietnam, he became an important voice of protest, testifying before Senator William Fulbright’s Foreign Relations Committee, which investigated the

201 conclusion policies that were fueling the war. In his testimony, Kennan poked holes in the idea of a universal communism that linked the Soviet Union to Southeast Asia. Though reluctant to criticize the war while Johnson was still president, once Nixon took office, George Ball also became an important critic of the war. In speeches as well as in testimony before the Fulbright Committee, Ball called for immediate and complete withdrawal of troops, arguing that Vietnam was not a war we should have embroiled ourselves in to begin with and underscoring the problems of executive war powers.5 In books, articles, and public appearances, both Kennan and Ball criticized U.S. foreign policy more broadly, setting the current ideological and expansionist agenda against their own realist visions.6 Though the China hands kept a relatively low profile in the two decades following their dismissals, in the lead-up to and the aftermath of Nixon’s “opening” of China, they became important voices of dissent against both the reactionary platform of the China Lobby and the excessive praise of Nixon’s and Kissinger’s agenda. In 1971 Service published The Amerasia Papers, a response to the Senate-sponsored book by the same name, written by Anthony Kubek, a conservative academic who essentially recirculated the McCarthyist claims against Service.7 In October of that year, on the heels of Kissinger’s second trip to China and before Nixon’s visit, Service returned to China for the first time since 1945 and met with Chou En-lai, among others. Upon his return to the United States, in editorials and interviews, Service called the public’s attention to the differences between the appearance and actuality of change in U.S.-China relations.8 In editorials and before Congress, he argued that despite détente with China, the “two-China” policy posed a fundamental barrier to real progress. Although he was forever bitter and somewhat hardened by McCarthyism, Davies too began to speak publicly about China in this period. His book Dragon by the Tail, published in 1972, was a rare example of an Englishlanguage analysis that did not engage the standard reductionist and infantilizing view of China as America’s lost and now found child but rather focused on China’s complex internal dynamic, drawing connections among geography, culture, and politics.9 Over time, the status of these dissenting diplomats changed, reflecting not only the impact of their words as public dissenters but also, and probably more importantly, a larger shift in attitudes toward America’s role in the world brought on by opposition to Vietnam. By the end of the Vietnam War, Ball, Service, Davies, and Kennan had essentially been transformed from false

202 conclusion prophets of the U.S. foreign policy establishment to true prophets of the nation’s foreign policy. In the eyes of liberal and many conservative critics of American foreign policy, these diplomats had foreseen the merits and mistakes of the status quo. The emerging consensus was that presidents and senior policymakers had rejected their advice at the nation’s peril. In the final years and aftermath of Vietnam, George Ball became an emblem of neglected wisdom in the war. Had Johnson and his cabinet taken Ball’s dissent seriously, implied David Halberstam in his best-selling critique of the Kennedy and Johnson cabinets, the United States would not have staked its reputation on Vietnam and would not still be embroiled in a war it could not win. In 1972 the Atlantic published Ball’s October 5 memo. On the front cover, the magazine billed the top-secret document as “the prophecy the president rejected,” and inside, it referred to the memo as “the light that failed,” thus representing Ball as the prophet who had tried in vain to illuminate a path out of Vietnam. Some speculate that had it not been for his controversial stance on Israel, Ball would have been Carter’s secretary of state.10 In the same period, Service and Davies were also elevated to the status of wise but rejected prophets. Again, Halberstam’s analysis of the major players in the Vietnam War debate played a central role in the recasting. In this case, the argument rested on the fact that the China hands played no role in the debate. Had they not been fired from the State Department during the McCarthy years, argued Halberstam, Service and Davies might have been able to sway the foreign policy establishment from its misguided assumptions about the Communists in Vietnam, in the same way they had tried to convince senior policymakers to rethink their stance toward the Chinese Communists.11 For many, the “opening” of China by Nixon and Kissinger in 1972–1973 constituted nothing less than a vindication of the China hands who were fired for recommending the type of policy that Nixon had adopted to such fanfare. While Nixon’s and Kissinger’s trips to China sparked some old flames among the China Lobby, they also contributed to a new celebration of the China hands, inside as well as outside the diplomatic establishment. E. J. Kahn profiled Service in the New Yorker after his trip to China. The story, titled “Foresight, Nightmare, Hindsight,” further established a link between Service’s analysis of the Communists during the war and the current direction of U.S.-China policy. In January 1973, the Foreign Service Association honored the China hands at a luncheon. The event received a lot of positive press. Tying it to the White House’s new policy toward China, journalists declared that the “Old

203 conclusion China Hands” had been “Restored to Grace” and cited the event as a belated “vindication” of Service, Davies, and their colleagues. Service in particular had become a hero among liberals who did not want to give Nixon and Kissinger sole credit for détente with China. Amid the fanfare and hoopla, New York Times columnist Brooks Atkinson wrote a letter to Service. Atkinson, who had known Service since their days together in China during the war, wrote, “In the 1940s you were a traitor. In the 1970s you are a patriot and a seer. This must give you enormous pleasure and satisfaction, both of which you deserve.”12 Of all the diplomats who left the State Department as rejected prophets of foreign policy, George Kennan would go on to become the most celebrated true prophet. In virtually every foreign policy debate between the postwar era and the end of the Cold War, both liberal and conservative critics of U.S. foreign policy upheld Kennan as a paragon of neglected wisdom. During the Eisenhower administration, he became the emblematic critic of the nuclear buildup that was so central to the foreign policy vision of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. While some on the left as well as the right pointed out flaws and imperfections in Kennan’s positions, critics of Cold War militarism increasingly cast him as the voice of the wise but neglected minority that lamented the series of missed diplomatic opportunities with Russia in Eisenhower’s second term.13 Kennan was also cast as an important voice in the opposition to the war in Vietnam. Though his testimony before the Fulbright Committee was actually cautious and shrouded in his typical ambiguity, critics of the war nonetheless invoked it as proof that the war was unwise and unwinnable.14 When the Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse in the late eighties and when it did finally collapse in 1991, critics of the Reagan administration declared that the U.S. victory in the Cold War had been not the result of Reagan’s drastic policy of tough talk and military spending but rather of Kennan’s more patient and gradual policy of containment.15 More recently, Kennan’s name has figured prominently in the debates about the war on terror. The U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Kennan had warned against, occurred just one year before Kennan’s death in 2004. Many an editorial against the war invoked containment as the wisest strategy in the war on terror, pitting Kennan’s views against the rash and ideological approach of George W. Bush. “Kennan’s insight,” argued Nicholas Thompson in the New York Times, was that a long-term, complex struggle wasn’t best judged in terms of winning or losing. Communism wasn’t something we could im-

204 conclusion mediately conquer. The same holds true for Al Qaeda, a movement that, like Soviet communism, offers its subjects oppression and poverty. Time is on our side—particularly if we act in a way that doesn’t inflame our enemies’ pride and anger and win them new recruits. Taking stock of the many respected policy analysts who opposed attacking Iran along the same lines, Yale University political science professor Ian Shapiro insightfully declared, “Containment is back.”16 No sooner was Barack Obama elected than Kennan was invoked as a potential guide of the new president on issues of foreign policy. Knowing that he would face pressures to step up the war on terror, journalists advised Obama to “abide by the tenacity of Kennan’s containment model,” in an effort to avoid the ideological arrogance and moral contradictions that characterized Bush’s war on terror. When asked what one book Obama should read before taking office, Alan Brinkley, the eminent professor of American history at Columbia University, recommended none other than Kennan’s memoirs. Like others, Brinkley wanted Obama to internalize the message of containment, as a strategy not just for containing communism but for “containing the United States” and ensuring that it would “exercise caution and restraint in its international ventures.”17 Considering the trying history of the State Department, this positive recognition of the past and potential contributions of U.S. diplomats to American foreign policy is no doubt remarkable. At the same time, in elevating dissenting diplomats to the status of true prophets, perhaps we are focusing on the wrong thing. Despite his idealization of the diplomat as prophet, Morgenthau was the first to point out that true prophecy in international affairs is impossible. “Even the wisest and best informed of men would still have to face all the contingencies of history and of nature.” In actuality, “the assumed perfection in intellect and information is never available.”18 As I have underscored throughout this book, skepticism about the predictability of foreign affairs and about the possibility of knowledge more generally is in fact a central tenet of the tradition of diplomatic writing. With some exceptions, most diplomats don’t actually think that they can predict the future or even make complete sense of the present. As Service and Davies tried to explain when they defended themselves against the charge of communist sympathy in the 1950s, the diplomat is constantly accruing and synthesizing new information. What he writes is a snapshot of his position at any given moment

205 conclusion in a process that is never-ending and always imperfect—but still necessary. The provisional nature of knowledge and the possibility of its evolution were also fundamental to the position of George Ball, who constantly revised his own arguments against the war in Vietnam in an attempt to get President Johnson to revise the nation’s course in the war. On the possibility of absolute or scientific knowledge of international relations, in his most humble moments, Kennan could be the biggest skeptic of them all. This was despite, or perhaps because of, his own tendency to present himself as an expert and to be regarded as such. Kennan’s occasional critique of official prophecy was linked to his regret about the virtual enshrinement of the Long Telegram and the X-article, which even he felt had undue influence on policy, especially after the height of tension with the Soviet Union in the early 1960s. Even more than his own writings, Kennan’s arguments against true prophecy evolved out of reflections on the writings of his colleagues who had been attacked by McCarthy in the 1950s. In a 1953 article published in the Atlantic, Kennan defended the loyalty of diplomats who had been accused of communist sympathy. In so doing, he challenged the notion that diplomats should be judged on the accuracy of their past predictions rather than the “picture of the living human being as he stands before us today.” More fundamentally, he took issue with the very idea that foreign affairs should be understood in terms of facts and empirical knowledge that could be either proven or disproven. International affairs, Kennan explained, was but human affairs, or as he called it, the “nature of man,” on a grand scale. Accordingly, foreign affairs could be truly understood only through the humanities—through history, through art, and through literature.19 As with Morgenthau, Kennan’s critique of scientific knowledge in international relations was part of a larger critique of absolute knowledge. In foreign affairs, as in everything, knowledge is provisional, always subject to change, and ever capable of being perfected. This sentiment may seem romantic, naive, and beside the point. But it is arguably a very practical insight. The job of the diplomat is as much about process and evolution as product and permanence. Thus it is only fitting that when the State Department honored Service and his fellow China hands at a luncheon in 1973, Service gave a speech not about the substance of U.S.-China relations but rather about the “craft” of political reporting in the Foreign Service. It was the practice of this craft, he explained, that shaped his knowledge of China during the Second

206 conclusion World War. For this reason, Service argued that political reporting constituted the most “vital” task and potential contribution of the diplomat.20 Like the tradition of diplomatic writing, which was itself subject to the forces of change and evolution, the diplomats who practiced this tradition were more committed to process than to product. As I have been arguing throughout this book, not everything dissenting diplomats wrote was necessarily and absolutely wise. But it was part of an ongoing and necessary debate. Though WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may have intended to embarrass and derail the U.S. foreign policy establishment by posting 250,000 classified cables on the WikiLeaks Web site, the leaked cables ended up demonstrating the positive value of diplomatic reporting. As “Cablegate” revealed, the practice and tradition of diplomatic writing is valuable precisely because it enhances the field of knowledge and the scope of debate over foreign relations—offering a perspective that is different from that of presidents and the military as well as the populace, a perspective that relies on dynamism and flux as much as on fixed principles. Like those who accused State Department officers of disloyalty in the 1950s, those who are now invoking containment as the panacea in the war on terror are similarly emphasizing product over process. In this framework, smart foreign policy boils down to a set of principles rather than a set of practices that contribute to the evolution of principles. I have no doubt that Kennan’s memoir could be useful to Obama, or to any president who wishes to craft a wiser course of foreign policy, for that matter. But that is not because Kennan was either right or wrong about containment per se. Rather, it is because of his deep engagement with the process of producing and assessing knowledge of international relations. Paying attention to this aspect of Kennan’s legacy reminds us of what we miss when we focus so narrowly on what dissenting diplomats have concluded, effectively marginalizing the process of gathering, producing, and exchanging knowledge through which they have reached their conclusions. When one examines the evolution of this process within the diplomatic establishment, it is hard to see a time when things were ever perfect. At the same time, despite the merits of the WikiLeaks cables, it is also hard not to see a decline since the end of the Second World War, a decline that both reflects and fuels the State Department’s capacity for effective dissent.

207 conclusion In his hailed speech on race and the nation, Obama declared, “This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected.”21 In the same spirit, the diplomatic establishment will never be perfect, but it is nonetheless capable of being perfected. Arguably, the way to strengthen the State Department is not by recruiting individuals with the “right” views on foreign policy, but rather by encouraging practices through which diplomats can gather, synthesize, debate, revise, and resynthesize information with each other and with senior policymakers. In this effort, the state and influence of diplomatic writing can serve as an important bellwether for the state of genuine and rigorous debate in the foreign policy establishment and its ability not just to tolerate but actually listen to dissenters. Thus, in ways that neither Morgenthau nor Assange intended or even imagined, there is some larger truth to the claim that the success or failure of a country’s foreign policy can depend upon a diplomat’s report.

Notes

Introduction 1. “Around the World, Distress Over Iran,” New York Times, November 28, 2010; “Saudi Arabia Urges U.S. Attack on Iran to Stop Nuclear Programme,” Guardian, November 28, 2010; “Leaked Cables Offer Raw Look at U.S. Diplomacy,” New York Times, November 28, 2010; U.S. Department of State, “Reporting and Collection Needs: The United Nations,” July 31, 2009, http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/07/09STATE80163.html; “Cables Depict U.S. Haggling to Clear Guantanamo,” New York Times, November 29, 2010. 2. “Leaked Cables Offer Raw Look at U.S. Diplomacy,” New York Times, November 28, 2010; “WikiLeaks Cables: ‘Nicolas Sarkozy Thin-Skinned and Authoritarian,’” Guardian, November 30, 2010; “WikiLeaks Cables Gallery: Washington’s View of World Leaders,” Guardian, November 29, 2010; U.S. Department of State, “Ahmed Wali Karzai and Governor Weesa on Governance,” October 3, 2009, http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/10/09KABUL3068. html.

3. Beam, “Dispatches: The WikiLeaks Cables as Literature,” Slate, December 1, 2010; Milbank, “Amidst WikiLeaks Documents, Novel Diplomacy,” Washington Post, November 30, 2010; “Historian Relishes WikiLeaks Cable Dump,” NPR Morning Edition, December 1, 2010, http://www.npr.org/2010/12/01/131719047/historian-relishes-wikileaks-cable-dump; Landler, “From WikiLemons, Clinton Tries to Make Lemonade,” New York Times, December 4, 2010.



4. U.S. Department of State, “Remarks to the Press on the Release of Confidential Documents,” November 29, 2010, http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/11/152078.htm.

210 introduction 5. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 422–423. For ease of reading, I have slightly altered Morgenthau’s syntax. In its original, the line reads, “Upon the reliability of his [the diplomat’s] reports and the soundness of his judgment, the success or failure of the foreign policy of his government and its ability to preserve peace will rely.”

6. Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau, 44–62.

7. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 105, 285, 368, 419–422, 443.

8. Bernard Johnson, “Interview with Hans Morgenthau,” 371–373; Morgenthau, In Defense of the National Interest, 132, 51. Morgenthau served as a regular consultant to the State Department’s Policy Planning Council between 1949 and 1951. He ceased consulting activities in the Eisenhower administration. Between 1962 and 1965, he served as consultant to the Department of



Defense but resigned in opposition to the Vietnam War. 9. Stuart, The Department of State, 17–20; Adams, quoted in Gary May, “The ‘New China Hands’ and the Rape of the China Service,” 120. 10. On the links between the modern diplomatic establishment and classical diplomacy, see Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 368, 419–430; Morgenthau, In Defense of the National Interest, 132; Morgenthau, Dilemmas of Politics, 231. On the link between entangling alliances and the U.S. diplomatic establishment, see Plischke, U.S. Department of State, 656. On Europe as a model for the U.S. diplomatic establishment, see Schulzinger, The Making of the Diplomatic Mind, 15–39. 11. On the aristocratic composition and clubbiness of the Euro-American establishment and resultant popular hostility, see Schulzinger, The Making of the Diplomatic Mind, 3–4; Harr, The Professional Diplomat, 171–172; Bendiner, The Riddle of the State Department, 124, 137; Ander

son, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy, 121; De Santis, The Diplomacy of Silence, 11, 18. 12. Schulzinger, The Making of the Diplomatic Mind, 3; Leacacos, Fires in the In-Basket, 3; Stuart,

The Department of State, 193–194. 13. Stuart, The Department of State, 274–275, 439–440; Barnes and Morgan, The Foreign Service of the United States, 203–214, 257; Estes and Lightner, The Department of State, 35, 241; Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” 110. In his 1879 biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James invoked the nonexistence of a U.S. diplomatic service in a laundry list of “items of high civilization, as it exists in other countries, which are absent from the texture of American life, until it should become a wonder to know what was left.” This description complemented James’s gloomy depiction of Hawthorne’s tenure as a customshouse officer, which ended when the Whigs won the 1848 presidential election. James, Hawthorne, 55, 170n. 104. 14. For a history of the professionalization and bureaucratization of the American diplomatic corps, see Schulzinger, The Making of the Diplomatic Mind, 155–229; Plischke, U.S. Department of State, 187–344; Heinrichs, American Ambassador, 95–108; Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century, 12, 17, 31.

211 introduction 15. On congressional hostility toward the State Department in the first half of the twentieth century, see Plischke, U.S. Department of State, 466; Bendiner, Riddle of the State Department, 212. On State Department morale in the 1920s and 1930s, see De Santis, Diplomacy of Silence, 21.

16. Plischke, U.S. Department of State, 466. 17. Gary May, China Scapegoat, 108–109; McCullough, Truman, 753; Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy, 245–246; Warwick, Theory of Public Bureaucracy, 72; “How Nixon’s White House Works,” Time, June 8, 1970; U. Alexis Johnson, The Right Hand of Power, 531. For a competing view, in which the State Department is portrayed as threateningly powerful in the Roosevelt years and dangerously so in the Truman administration, see Glantz, FDR and the Soviet Union. 18. De Santis, Diplomacy of Silence, 5, 20, 201. 19. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, 16, 17, 30; Davies, letter, 1945, quoted in Kahn, The China Hands, 183. 20. It should be noted that while they did not constitute the centerpiece of the Pentagon Papers, several dissenting documents were included in the compilation, among them some of

George Ball’s memos, which I examine in chapter 3. 21. See Yergin, Shattered Peace; Michaels, No Greater Threat. 22. For a brief history of diplomacy from the beginning of human society to modernity, see Anderson, Rise of Modern Diplomacy, vii–41; Nicolson, Diplomacy, 17–33; Macomber, Angel’s Game, 13–18. Both Nicolson and Macomber cite 1815 as the year in which diplomatic establishments were recognized as distinct entities and codified in international agreements. Nicolson, Diplomacy, 33; Macomber, Angel’s Game, 15. For a clear and concise elaboration of the key differences between Renaissance and Classical diplomacy, see Rosie-Marie Hagen and Rainer Hagen, What Great Paintings Say, 134. 23. Callières, The Art of Negotiating with Sovereign Princes, 180–181; Nicolson, Diplomacy, 113. 24. Anderson, Rise of Modern Diplomacy, 43, 12–13. According to most histories of newspapers, the modern tradition of foreign correspondence dates back to the mid-eighteenth century. See Hohenberg, Foreign Correspondence, 1–25. 25. Callières, Art of Negotiating, 180–181. 26. Stuart, Department of State, 1–13; Estes and Lightner, Department of State, 21; Barnes and Morgan, Foreign Service of the United States, 5; McCamy, The Administration of American Foreign Affairs, 41; Pope, “Callières, François de, monsieur de rochelay et de Gigy,” Biographical Entry, www.pierre-mateau.com. 27. The eighteenth century has often been dubbed the “age of letters.” See, for example, Ditz, “Formative Ventures,” 65.

212 1. the pen as sword 28. Eicher, ed., Emperor Dead and Other Historic American Diplomatic Dispatches, 61–63; Fleming, Louisiana Purchase, 117. 29. Anderson, Rise of Modern Diplomacy, 113. 30. Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century, 14; De Santis, Diplomacy of Silence, 22; Anderson, Rise of Modern Diplomacy, 119.

31. Elder, The Policy Machine, 8–9; Ogburn, “The Flow of Policy Making in the Department of State,” 83–91; Sapin, The Making of United States Foreign Policy, 111; Leacacos, Fires in the InBasket, 71–72. 32. Bendiner, Riddle of the State Department, 127. 33. D urbrow, quoted in De Santis, Diplomacy of Silence, 77. 34. Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century, 14.

1. The Pen as Sword

1. Kennan did belatedly register these complaints in his memoirs. See Kennan, Memoirs, 1925– 1950, 136–139.

2. Kennan to Howland Shaw, 1943, George Kennan Public Policy Papers (hereafter cited as GKPPP), box 23. Shaw was the State Department’s assistant secretary of administration.

3. De Santis, Diplomacy of Silence, 12–13. The figure of 82 reflects the number of personnel in 1898. By 1909, the department had 210 employees. And by 1939, it had about 4,000, of which 800 were career officers. Barnes and Morgan, The Foreign Service of the United States, 155, 160, 189, 267.

4. “Isolationist” is admittedly a misleading term. In practice, it had meant non-interference in European conflicts, and did not include the expansion of the United States into Indian territory or into Mexico.

5. As a group, career diplomats looked highly on Harding and Coolidge, who professed ignorance of foreign affairs and delegated authority to the “experts.” Schulzinger, The Making of



the Diplomatic Mind, 103–104. 6. Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century, 58; Bendiner, The Riddle of the State Department, 206–208. It is not my intent to indict FDR as a strong executive. As Matthew Dickinson has argued, Roosevelt’s particular style of running the White House proved largely effective not only for him but for the country as well. Emphasizing the degree to which this style involved splitting up the power of presidential advisors between personal staff and cabinet heads, Dickinson draws a contrast between the way FDR aggrandized the executive branch and the way other “strong” presidents subsequent to him did. Johnson, Nixon, and Reagan, he argues, relied too much on specialized White House staff, whereas FDR relied on a combination of general White House staff and cabinet heads, each of which had institutional as well as personal loyalties. Dickinson, Bitter Harvest, 1–42.

213 1. the pen as sword

7. De Santis, Diplomacy of Silence, 25; Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century, 35, 38; Leffler, A Preponderance of Power, 28.

8. Harper, American Visions of Europe, 47–56; Roosevelt, quoted in Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy, 250; Warren Kimball, The Juggler, 30–31. For accusations against State Department officers as appeasers, see Bendiner, The Riddle of the State Department, 7, 109, 192–196.

9. Daniel Yergin dubbed these tenets the “Riga Axioms.” Yergin, Shattered Peace; Harper, American Visions of Europe, 37–42. Of course, Russia was not synonymous with the Soviet Union. Aware of the inaccuracy and dangerous cultural-political implications of this substitution, I perpetuate it partly in order to deal with American discourse on its own terms and partly because it is linguistically convenient.

10. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 8–9; Kennan, “Introduction to George Kennan”; Harper, American Visions of Europe, 148; Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 57.

11. Harper, American Visions of Europe, 50, 171; De Santis, Diplomacy of Silence, 27–31, 198; Costigliola, “Unceasing Pressure for Penetration.”

12. “Declaration of the Three Powers”; Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947, 64–78; Kimball, The Juggler, 18, 83–105; Offner, Another Such Victory, 25–30; De Santis, Diplomacy of Silence, 82–83. 13. Kennan, “Russia—Seven Years Later,” in Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 528–529 (hereafter cited as “Russia”). 14. Kennan, “Russia,” 503, 530–531. 15. On Chekhov, see Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 7, 49; Kennan, Sketches from a Life, xi, 26; Stephanson, Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy, 251. On Fitzgerald, see Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 13. On Gibbon, see Harper, American Visions of Europe, 167–171; Kennan, “The Soviet Way of Thought and Its Effect on Foreign Policy,” GKPPP, box 16, folder 12; Kennan diary entry, April 5, 1934, GKPPP, box 230, folder 24.

16. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 8. 17. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 423, 51; Nicolson, Diplomacy, 113. 18. Kennan, diary entry, April 5, 1934, GKPPP, box 230, folder 24. 19. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 20; Miscamble, George F. Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, 1947–1950, 18; De Santis, Diplomacy of Silence, 209. 20. Kennan’s reports from Prague between 1938 and 1940, where he served as second secretary under Wilbur Carr exemplify the effort Kennan poured into crafting his almost novelistic dispatches to Washington. See especially his “Report on Conditions in Ruthenia,” March 1939, “The Trend of Development in Bohemia and Moravia,” May 15, 1939, and “General Trend of Development in Bohemia and Moravia,” August 19, 1939, in GKPPP, box 1. For praise of these reports, see Wilbur Carr to State Department, March 2, 1939; Messersmith

214 1. the pen as sword to Kennan, March 13, 1939, GKPPP, box 1, and Garry Acherson to Kennan, May 15, 1939, GKPPP, box 28. Kennan’s October 1940 report from Berlin, “Conditions in Bohemia and Moravia,” was rated “excellent” by the State Department. See Breckenridge Long to Leland Morris, January 13, 1941, GKPPP, box 1. Notably, Kennan received no comment at all on his long narrative of internment by the Nazis. The report can be found in GKPPP, box 1, and The Foreign Service Journal (August–September 1942). John Lukacs is the historian who claimed that Kennan was the “best writer and thinker about Europe in the interwar years.” For annoyance and frustration with Kennan for his outspokenness and recalcitrance, see De Santis, Diplomacy of Silence, 92–94, 118. 21. Kennan to Gene Hotchkiss, April 18, 1944, GKPPP, box 28. 22. Barthes, “Authors and Writers,” 188. 23. Kennan, Sketches from a Life, 245; Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 230–231. 24. Kissinger, White House Years, 135. Just to cite the major monographs that focus on Kennan: Walter Hixson, George Kennan: Cold War Iconoclast (1989); Wilson Miscamble, George F. Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy (1992); Anders Stephanson, Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy (1989). Though it does not focus exclusively on Kennan, Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas’ The Wise Men (1986) has become central in establishing Kennan’s role in Cold War policy. More recently, historians have focused on Kennan as an antidote to current U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. See, for example, Lukacs, George Kennan (2007). As of the time I am writing this manuscript, John Lewis Gaddis’ long-awaited official biography has not yet been published. 25. De Santis draws a parallel between Kennan and the professional soldier described in Morris Janowitz’s 1960 analysis, which asserts that unconventional careers “must be developed within the framework of existing institutions if officers expect to survive.” De Santis, 228n. 8. 26. Hixson, George Kennan, 25; Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 230; Kimball, The Juggler, 159–183. Parts of Kennan’s paper were later published in Foreign Relations of the United States. 27. Offner, Another Such Victory, 1–16, 17–18, 31, 33. 28. McCullough, Truman, 753; Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy, 245–246. 29. Messer, End of an Alliance, 8, 97, 126; Miscamble, From Roosevelt to Truman, 27–28, 62, 94, 173, 180; Hixson, George Kennan, 29; Leffler, Preponderance of Power, 38–40; Byrnes, quoted in Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 285. 30. GKPPP, box 28. 31. For Byrnes’ relationship with Davies, see Miscamble, From Roosevelt to Truman, 182; Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 83. 32. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, 255; “Text of Premier Stalin’s Election Speech Broadcast by Moscow Radio,” New York Times, February 10, 1946. For press reaction to the speech,

215 1. the pen as sword see, for example, “Stalin Blames Capitalism for Two World Wars,” Chicago Tribune, February 10, 1946. Stephanson argues that Washington misinterpreted this speech as a sign of belligerence. Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy, 45. 33. Miscamble, George F. Kennan, 25; Stephanson, Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy, 45; Hixson, George Kennan, 29. 34. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 293. 35. George Kennan, telegram, No. 511, February 22, 1946, GKPPP, box 23. Excerpts from the Long Telegram can also be found in Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 547–559. 36. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 294. 37. Stephanson has corrected the commonly-cited word count of 8,000. Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy, 45. 38. In supporting this claim, Kennan quoted Stalin from a 1927 speech, not from the 1946 speech he had been asked to comment on. 39. Bercovitch, American Jeremiad, xiv, 4. 40. As Bercovitch notes, “The Puritan revivalists made probation their overriding metaphor . . . If quoting Edwards, ‘the state of the nation . . . never looked so threatening’—then there was no cause to rejoice. It was precisely through such a ‘time of testing’ that Christ’s American soldiers could prove their sainthood.” Bercovitch, American Jeremiad, 102. 41. De Santis, Diplomacy of Silence, 174–175. 42. Matthews to Ambassador Caffery, February 26, 1946, quoted in Gimbel, Origins of the Marshall Plan, 131. 43. Hixson, George Kennan, 31. 44. Henry Norweb to Kennan, March 25, 1946, GKPPP, box 28. Even Hoopes and Brinkley suggest that the enthusiastic and emotional reception of Kennan’s dispatch cannot be entirely explained on a rational level. Invoking the near-mystical force of the document, they write, “Like a powerful magnet, it quickly attracted the various scattered pieces of evidence, theory, and emotion which at the time comprised the still confused and confusing elements of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union.” Driven Patriot, 272. 45. Erhardt to Kennan, GKPPP, box 28; Bruce Hopper to Kennan, March 29, 1947, GKPPP, box 28. 46. Offner, Another Such Victory, 122–123, 138–139; Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 281–283; Martin Walker, The Cold War, 42; Sand, Defending the West, 7. 47. Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 303; Offner, Another Such Victory, 134. 48. Messer, End of an Alliance, 184–185; McCullough, Truman, 490; Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 288–289. In January 1946 congressional hearings began to cast suspicion on the actual terms of the Yalta Conference. Byrnes had been the main “salesman” of Yalta to the public. See Messer, End of an Alliance, 168–176.

216 1. the pen as sword 49. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925—1950, 293–295. 50. Messer, End of an Alliance, 184; De Santis, Diplomacy of Silence, 2, 139. 51. De Santis, Diplomacy of Silence, 189–190. 52. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, 49–74, 255, 261–262; Leffler, 46; Gaddis, “Reconsiderations,” 298. 53. Miscamble, George Kennan, 27; Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, 272; Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 298. 54. Admiral Sherman, memo draft, March 17, 1946, James Forrestal Public Policy Papers (hereafter cited as JFPPP), box 18. 55. The first draft of Willett’s study was dated December 21, 1945. For the final draft, see “Dialectical Materialism and Russian Objectives,” January 14, 1946, JFPPP, box 18, and GKPPP, box 28. Forrestal made only minor editorial suggestions to the revised version, none of which had a significant bearing on Willett’s central thesis. See JFPPP, box 17. See also Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, 266–269. 56. Foucault, “What Is an Author?” 346; Barthes, “The Death of the Author.” 57. Philip Mosley to John T. Connor, October 14, 1946; John Hazard to John T. Connor, October 18, 1946; P.E.A. to John T. Connor, October 9, 1946, all in GKPPP, box 28. 58. The other book was James McFadden’s The Philosophy of Communism (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1939). 59. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, 266. 60. Kennan to Admiral Hill, October 7, 1946, GKPPP, box 28. 61. John T. Connor to Kennan, October 22, 1946, JFPPP, box 70. Hill had relayed Kennan’s comments to Forrestal on October 18. JFPPP, box 70. 62. Kennan to Connor, October 30, 1946, JFPPP, box 70. 63. Hixson, George Kennan, 5. 64. Connor to Kennan, October 31, 1946, JFPPP, box 18. 65. See, for example, Miscamble, George Kennan, 35, and Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, 274, for characterizations of Kennan’s relationship with Forrestal as distant and impersonal. 66. Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” 567, 571, 569–570, 580, 574–575, 579–580, 575, 576, 581–582, 567. A copy can also be found in Kennan’s papers under the title “Psychological Background of Soviet Policy.” January 31, 1947, GKPPP, box 1. 67. In 1958 Henry Kissinger referred to Kennan as “the premier ambiguist in public life in America,” a characterization perpetuated by William Buckley in 1978. Buckley, “George Kennan’s New Views.” 68. Kennan, writes Stephanson, “was capable of saying very different and contradictory things within one and the same analysis, particularly if it was long and literary in form.” His ambi-

217 1. the pen as sword guity about the Soviets in particular led to “confusion and fear.” Stephanson, Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy, 30, 51. 69. Harper, American Visions of Europe, 184. 70. Captain Alfred Smedberg, Forrestal’s naval aide, quoted in Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, 299. 71. “ The Tragedy of James Forrestal,” Washington Post, May 23, 1949. 72. For drafts and final version of Forrestal’s January 18, 1946, Harvard Club speech, see JFPPP, box 29; Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, 265. 73. Discussion Meeting Report, “The Soviet Way of Thought and Its Effect on Soviet Foreign Policy,” January 7, 1947, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, GKPPP, box 16; George Kennan Lecture to the National War College, “The Soviet Way of Thought and Its Effect on Foreign Policy,” January 24, 1947, GKPPP, box 16. See also Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, 274–281. 74. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, 276; Connor, “Impressions of the Secretary,” Arthur Krock Public Policy Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, quoted in Hixson, George Kennan, 40. The revised essay was dated January 31; GKPPP, box 1. 75. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 359–360. 76. Stephanson, “The X-Files,” 32. 77. Kennan to John Osbourne, July 31, 1962, GKPPP, quoted in Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, 274. At only one point in Memoirs does Kennan even suggest Forrestal’s role in the actual shaping of the essay. Discussing the failure of the X-article to address the Soviet Union’s weakness as an unwelcome occupier of Eastern Europe, he wrote, “To this day, I am not sure of the reason for this omission. It had something to do, I suspect, with what I felt to be Mr. Forrestal’s needs at the time when I prepared the original paper for him” (358). Notably, Kennan attributed Forrestal’s “needs” not in terms of policy but rather in terms of the conventions of bureaucracy as well as of writing. Forrestal needed him to produce a paper focused on a single question. “To go into the problem of the satellite area would be to open up a wholly new subject, confuse the thesis I was developing, and carry the paper beyond its intended scope” (358). Kennan thus framed Forrestal’s role in shaping the X-article as passive and procedural, rather than what it really was—active and policy-oriented. 78. Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, 276. Acheson had also spoken on behalf of Kennan for the post. 79. Kennan, American Diplomacy, v. As Stephanson points out, although the PPS was charged with a global mission, its actual emphasis was on Europe. It tended to neglect, if not altogether ignore, the developing third world. Stephanson, Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy, 115.

218 1. the pen as sword 80. Pogue, “Marshall and Acheson,” 216; Ernest May, ed., American Cold War Strategy, 5; Miscamble, George Kennan, 5, 35; Hixson, George Kennan, 51. 81. Acheson, Present at the Creation, 216. 82. The State Department appointed Kennan as its representative to the NSC. Over the next year, Kennan would contribute significantly to policy through that body. Many of his PPS papers became NSC papers. Miscamble, George Kennan, 77; Pogue, “Marshall and Acheson,” 216. 83. Kennan to Norris Chipman, March 18, 1947, GKPPP, box 28, folder 8. Miscamble, George Kennan, 40. Carleton Savage had served as assistant to former secretary of state Cordell Hull. John Davies was a Foreign Service officer, one of the “China hands” who had served in China during the war and Japan in the immediate postwar period (see chapter 2 for more details of his career in the State Department). Joseph Johnson, an academic, was then serving as director of the State Department Division of International Security Affairs. When he accepted the PPS post, George Butler had just returned from two years’ service as ambassador to the Dominican Republic. Ware Adams was a Foreign Service officer, especially experienced in German and Austrian affairs. Miscamble, George Kennan, 37, 38–39, 48. 84. PPS 1, May 23, 1947, The State Department Policy Planning Staff Papers (hereafter cited as PPSP), 1:4–5. 85. PPS 1, 7; George C. Marshall, address, Harvard University. 86. PPS 4, PPSP, 1:28. For more in-depth histories of the Marshall Plan, see Gimbel, Origins of the Marshall Plan, and Hogan, The Marshall Plan. 87. For Kennan’s and Marshall’s epistolary relationship, see, for example, Kennan to Marshall, June 10, 1949, GKPPP, box 28, folder 18. 88. Kennan to Armstrong, May 20, 1947, GKPPP, box 28, folder 8. 89. Notably, Kennan had elected to publish the revised version of “Sources” and not the talk he had given at the council. In seeking Forrestal’s permission to do so, he had suggested that the two differed in form but not substance. The later version, he said, was simply “set forth in a more orderly fashion.” Kennan to John Connors, March 10, 1947, GKPPP, box 28, folder 8. 90. Joseph Alsop and Stewart Alsop, “Matter of Fact: The Kennan Dispatch,” Washington Post, May 23, 1947. In his July 7 article, Krock did not actually use Kennan’s name. Arthur Krock, “A Guide to Official Thinking About Russia,” New York Times, July 7, 1947. 91. Lindley, “The Article by ‘X’,” Washington Post, July 11, 1947; Atkinson, “America’s Global Planner,” New York Times, July 13, 1947. 92. Lippmann, The Cold War, 13–14, 40–51. 93. Lippmann, The Cold War, 9–11. 94. For Kennan’s reaction to Lippmann’s critique, see Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 359–360. For the text of the Truman Doctrine, see Harry S Truman, “Special Message to the Congress on Greece and Turkey,” 176–178.

219 1. the pen as sword 95. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 356. 96. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 331–332; Frazier, “Kennan, ‘Universalism,’ and the Truman Doctrine.” Frazier does an excellent job of demonstrating the factual inaccuracies of Kennan’s version and how it became canonized in the account of Joseph Jones, which Kennan then used in the writing of his memoirs. See Joseph Jones, The Fifteen Weeks, 154–155, as well as Acheson, Present at the Creation, 221; Hixson, George Kennan, 59; and Miscamble, George Kennan, 32. 97. PPS 13, PPSP, 129, 132, 130; Hixson, George Kennan, 50. 98. Divine, “The Cold War and the Election of 1948,” 95–97. 99. Divine, “The Cold War and the Election of 1948,” 105. 100. PPS 27, March 23, 1948, PPSP, 164; PPS 27/1, April 6, 1948, PPSP; Miscamble, George Kennan, 117, 124–125, 127. 101. PPS 23, February 24, 1948, PPSP, 118–119. 102. See PPS 4, PPSP, 55–59. 103. Stephanson, Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy, 133–135; Miscamble, George Kennan, 145; Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century, 90–91; Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 107–112, 415. In addition to his admiration of German high culture, and the fact that his Russia training had taken place in Germany, Kennan’s sympathy for the German people was also influenced by his upbringing in Milwaukee, a city with a strong German presence. Harper, American Visions of Europe, 137–142. 104. PPS 37, August 12, 1948, PPSP, 324. 105. PPS 23, PPSP, 124–125; Stephanson, Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy, 134–143. 106. PPS 23, PPSP, 108, 118–119, 104, 113, 118, 126, 129. 107. Participants in the discussions about Germany included Charles Saltzman, assistant secretary of state for the occupied area, Jacob Beam and Howard Trivers from the Division of Central European Affairs, and Paul Nitze, as well as two representatives from the office of General Albert Wedemeyer. Miscamble, George Kennan, 145–146. 108. PPS 37, PPSP, 33, 331, 325, 329–330, 332, 333, 334. For Kennan’s revised paper, see PPS 37/1, PPSP, 349–357; Miscamble, George Kennan, 152. 109. PPS 43, November 24, 1948, PPSP 491, 495; Miscamble, George Kennan, 133. 110. Herz, ed., Decline of the West? 22. 111. Stephanson, Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy, 125; Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 39; Miscamble, George Kennan, 168–169, 147–154; Hixson, George Kennan, 82. 112. McCullough, Truman, 753, 917; Hamby, “Mind and Character of Harry S. Truman,” 43; Donovan, Tumultuous Years, 35. 113. Acheson, Present at the Creation, 737. 114. Brandeis, quoted in Miscamble, George Kennan, 156; Acheson, Present at the Creation, 287.

220 2. “ learn to write well” 115. May, American Cold War Strategy, 8; Miscamble, George Kennan, 160–171, 162. 116. Kennan to Acheson, March 29, 1949, GKPPP, box 23, folder 59. 117. Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter cited as FRUS), 1949, 3:137–138. 118. Miscamble, George Kennan, 171. 119. Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century, 135. 120. Miscamble, George Kennan, 157–162, 122; Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 465, 426–427. 121. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 466; Hixson, George Kennan, 90; Miscamble, George Kennan, 304; NSC 68, printed in May, American Cold War Strategy, 26–27, 74–75; Acheson, Present at the Creation, 374. 122. Kennan, “International Control of Atomic Energy,” FRUS, 1950, 1:37–38; Harper, American Visions of Europe, 166; Miscamble, George Kennan, 306. 123. NSC 68, 30–31, 68, 79; PPS 33, PPSP, 286; Hoopes and Brinkley, Driven Patriot, 407; Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 90–92. 124. In September 1949, the Alsop brothers singled out Kennan as the author not only of a recent speech by Truman but more broadly of the concept of European Union. Joseph Alsop and Stewart Alsop, “Matter of Fact: Boldness at Last,” Washington Post, September 2, 1949. Though Kennan had been a proponent of such a union, his specific proposals were summarily rejected by his American colleagues as well as by most European officials. 125. Italics in the original. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 469–470. 126. Kennan, Memoirs: 1925–1950, 469. 127. McCarthy, speech, printed in Congressional Record, 81st Cong., 2d sess.

2. “Learn to write well”

1. I use the pre-revolutionary Wade-Giles spelling of Chinese names and places in this chapter solely to maintain consistency with the language I am quoting extensively. See notes throughout for current Pinyin spellings: Madame Chiang: Song Meiling; Chiang Kai-Shek: Jiang Jieshi. Madame Chiang’s remarks to Service quoted in Kahn, The China Hands, 67. Service mentions this moment in his oral history: John S. Service, State Department Duty in China (hereafter cited as Service Oral History), 166. As detailed in his book One World, Wendell Willkie, Roosevelt’s emissary in 1942, was perhaps Madame Chiang’s biggest admirer.



2. Davies, Dragon by the Tail, 234.

3. Sichuan in the Pinyin. For explanations and criticism of the Open Door Policy, see Kennan, American Diplomacy, and Schaller, The United States and China in the Twentieth Century; Wylie and Hsu, “The China Hands in Historical and Comparative Perspective”; Powell, “The China Hands and the Press,” 142; Koen, The China Lobby in American Politics, 31; Warren Kimball, The Juggler, 139; Harper, American Visions of Europe, 47–56; Schaller, The United

221 2. “ learn to write well” States and China in the Twentieth Century; 52–57. As late as 1937, Foreign Service officers in China were not especially interested in the ongoing civil war, regarding it as a “petty political squabble.” De Santis, Diplomacy of Silence, 53. 4. McCarthy first attacked Service in the Senate on January 5, 1950, the same day that Truman announced that the United States would not aid Chiang’s forces now exiled in Taiwan; Joseph McCarthy, speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate, February 20 and March 30, 1950, printed in U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee to Investigate State Department Loyalty, State Department Employee Loyalty Investigation: Hearings Pursuant to S. Res. 231, 81st Cong., 2d sess., 1950 (hereafter cited as Tydings Hearings), 140, 2031–2032; Toledano, Spies, Dupes, and Diplomats, 133; McCarthy, Wheeling, WV, speech, February 9, 1950.

5. Melby, “The Marshall Mission in Retrospect,” 277.



6. Mao Zedong in the Pinyin.



7. For histories of the Chinese Civil War, see Dreyer, China at War; Lutze, China’s Inevitable Revolution; and Feis, The China Tangle.

8. Service Oral History, 99, 125–126. For an analysis of the formal training program in the modern State Department, see Schulzinger, Making of the Diplomatic Mind; Anderson, Rise of Modern Diplomacy, 88. 9. Davies, “The China Hands in Practice,” 40; Davies, Dragon by the Tail, 160–172; Service Oral History, 102. 10. Gary May, “The ‘New China Hands’ and the Rape of the China Service,” 1–24; Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 337; Service Oral History, 163–164. 11. Service Oral History, 144–145, 164; Kahn, China Hands, 64. 12. Service Oral History, 1–87; Davies, Dragon by the Tail, 15–19; Kahn, China Hands, 54–56. 13. Service Oral History, 13, 55, 122–123; Kahn, China Hands, 58; John S. Service Papers (hereafter cited as JSSP), carton 3, folder 72; Davies, Dragon by the Tail, 125. 14. Service Oral History, 179, 199; Esherick, Lost Chance in China, 169; Davies, Dragon by the Tail, 9, 143–150; Kahn, China Hands, 54–57. 15. Bao’an in the Pinyin. 16. On Snow, Rand, China Hands, 134, 165; Lauren, The China Hands Legacy, 158; on the foreign press corps, see Lauren, The China Hands Legacy, 140–161, Rand, China Hands, 208; on Luce, see Herzstein, Henry Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia, 1, 2, 9, 13, 40–41, 141; Davies, quoted in Lauren, The China Hands Legacy, 42–43. 17. Guomingdang in the Pinyin. 18. Service, “The Famine in Honan Province,” November 5, 1942, printed in Esherick, Lost Chance in China, 9–19; Zhou Enlai in the Pinyin. John Service, “In Memory of Premier Chou EnLai,” JSSP, carton 3, folder 4; Esherick, Lost Chance in China, 149, 259; Service Oral History, 199–200.

222 2. “ learn to write well” 19. Theodore White, letter to New York Times, April 22, 1950, in JSSP, carton 1, folder 41. 20. Service Oral History, 148, 103; Kahn, China Hands, 64l; Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 337. 21. Service Oral History, 127; Kifner, “John Service, a Purged ‘China Hand,’ Dies at 89,” New York Times, February 4, 1999. 22. Service, “Chinese Propaganda as Shown by Wall Slogans in the Northwest,” July 5, 1943, printed in Esherick, Lost Chance in China, 65–74; Kahn, China Hands, 84. 23. Herzstein, Henry Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia, 4, 24, 45, 201; Rand, China Hands, 206, 222–223. 24. Davies, “The China Hands in Practice,” 40–41; Davies, Dragon by the Tail, 164, 225–249, 252, 261–267; Davies to Currie, “The China-Burma-India Theatre: A Reappraisal,” July 31, 1942; Lauchlin Currie to John Davies, November 26, 1942, Lauchlin Currie Papers; JSSP, carton 2, folder 48. 25. De Santis, Diplomacy of Silence, 54; Warwick, Theory of Public Bureaucracy, 15; Service Oral History, 194. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), predecessor to the CIA, was established in June 1942 to collect and analyze strategic information. The State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) grew out of the OSS and was established at the end of the war. 26. Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter cited as FRUS), 1943, China, 5:170–174. 27. Esherick, Lost Chance in China, 170; FRUS, 1943, China, 5:201; Service Oral History, 228a–c, 230–233; JSSP, carton 2, folder 59. For Service’s official commendations, see Howland Shaw to Gauss, August 16, 1943, JSSP, carton 1, folder 22. See also George Atcheson to State Department, July 5, 1943, JSSP, carton 2, folder 7. 28. For FDR’s attitude toward the Foreign Service, see Gary May, China Scapegoat, 108–109; Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 310. For FDR’s vision of China and doubts about Chiang at Cairo, see Tuchman, 21, 309–310, 483, 506, 517, 588–589; Herzstein, Henry Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia, 41; Lauren, China Hands Legacy, 59; Esherick, Lost Chance in China, 158, 160. 29. “I enclose a great wad of Service memos, several of which are very good indeed,” Davies wrote to Currie. “I shall continue to send them on to you for your perusal and subsequent distribution, if you so wish.” JSSP, carton 2, folders 45–46. Memoranda sent to Hopkins by Davies include: Davies, “American Chinese Relations During the Next Six Months”; Davies, “The Generalissimo’s Dilemmas”; and Davies, “Proposed Statement of American Policy,” December 12, 1994. These have been collected in FRUS, 1944, China, 6:695, 724–727, 734–735; Service Oral History, 269. 30. Carter, Mission to Yenan, 17. In October 1943, Roosevelt directed his top intelligence advisor, William Donovan, to obtain as much information as he could from the Communists; John

223 2. “ learn to write well” Service, “The Situation in China and Suggestions Regarding American Policy,” June 20, 1944, printed in Esherick, Lost Chance in China, 138–152; U.S. Department of State, United States Relations with China (hereafter cited as China White Paper), 559–560; Service Oral History, 269; Service, The Amerasia Papers, 140. 31. China White Paper, 559; Rand, China Hands, 243. 32. Herzstein, Henry Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia, 44; Kahn, China Hands, 129. Wallace had stressed to FDR “the importance of having an American commander in China who could win the confidence that Stillwell had not won.” Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Internal Security Subcommittee, Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, Second Session on the Institute of Pacific Relations (hereafter cited as McCarran Hearings), 1368–1369. 33. JSSP, carton 3, folder 82; Service Oral History, 277; Esherick, Lost Chance in China, 288. 34. FRUS, 1944, China, 6:707–714. 35. Carter, Mission to Yenan, 206. 36. Davies, “The China Hands in Practice,” 47. 37. MacKinnon and Friesen, China Reporting, 142–143; FRUS, 1945, China, 7:351–352. 38. Kate Mitchell, coeditor of Amerasia, and Mark Gayn, a freelance journalist, received votes against them, but not enough to indict. When it became clear to the Justice Department that the entire body of evidence could be thrown out because the initial search-and-seizure of the Amerasia office had been conducted without a warrant, Philip Jaffe, the editor of the journal, was quickly offered and accepted a plea bargain, which exchanged a prison sentence for a fine. Subsequently, Emmanuel Larsen, the State Department employee who had passed most of the documents on to Jaffe, pleaded no contest and was also fined. The Justice Department decided not to prosecute Navy intelligence officer Andrew Roth. For summaries of the Amerasia Case, see Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, State Department Employee Loyalty Investigation: Hearings Pursuant to S. Res. 231 (hereafter cited as Tydings Report), 81st Cong., 2d sess., 96–144; Congressional Record, 81st Cong., 2d sess., 7428–7469. For the conspiratorial version, see U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Internal Security Subcommittee, The Amerasia Papers: A Clue to the Catastrophe of China, ed. Anthony Kubek, 91st Cong., 1st sess., 31–70. 39. China White Paper, 71; FRUS, 1945, China, 7:565; FRUS, 1945, China, 349. 40. FRUS, 1945, China, 722–727. 41. Tydings Hearings, 1266; also in FRUS, 1945, China, 739. 42. George Marshall, whom Truman had appointed emissary to China three days after Hurley’s resignation, had recommended the embargo. Marshall had left Washington holding the contradiction-laden official position of the government he represented. On the one hand, as

224 2. “ learn to write well” Lyman Van Slyke explains, the United States was to act as neutral mediator. On the other hand, it officially recognized the Nationalists as the rightful government. Van Slyke, introduction to Marshall’s Mission to China: December, xix. Though many at the embassy largely agreed with Marshall’s hard-reached conclusion that there was little the United States could do to mediate the strife between the KMT and the CCP, they had been given the opportunity neither to help formulate it nor to relay it to the policymakers in Washington. In fact, as John Melby, a member of that staff, noted, during the Marshall mission, per the general’s instructions, “The embassy did almost no reporting.” Robert Newman, “Self-Inflicted Wound,” 150. See also Oral History Interview, John Melby, November 1972, 130. 43. Koen, China Lobby in American Politics, 77, 87, 94, 82; Larsen, “They Called Me a Spy,” Plain Talk (October 1946), printed in Tydings Hearings, 1739–1753. 44. Kusnitz, Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, 29; Koen, China Lobby in American Politics, 94; Herzstein, Henry Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia, 20, 84; Buhite, “Major Interests,” 425–451. 45. Service, interview by Robert Newman, Berkeley, CA, February 25, 1976; Acheson, Present at the Creation, 397; Van Slyke, China White Paper, 5; Truman, “The People and American Foreign Relations,” address delivered in Chicago, July 19, 1949, quoted in Plischke, Modern Diplomacy, 109–110. 46. Newman, “Self-Inflicted Wound,” 142. Melby had first proposed an X-article format, but soon decided that the situation was too complex to cover in a single article. 47. J. W. Stillwell to Jack Service, September 17, 1945, JSSP, carton 2, folder 76. 48. JSSP, carton 4, folder 1. 49. The Hobbs committee (October 1946) specifically investigated the government’s investigation of the Amerasia case and found that no government agency or officer had committed any wrongdoing in its handling of the case. In effect, it confirmed Service’s exoneration. 50. Newman, “Self-Inflicted Wound,” 155; Service, interview by Robert Newman, Berkeley, CA, February 25, 1976; Service Oral History, 354. 51. Oral history interview, Philip D. Sprouse, February 1974, 429. In terms of a release date, perhaps the only thing that everyone agreed upon was that it could not come before Ambassador Leighton Stuart’s safe departure from China, which the Chinese officials had been delaying. Newman, “Self-Inflicted Wound,” 143. 52. China White Paper, xvi. 53. Offner, Another Such Victory, 344–346; Kusnitz, Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, 26; Herzstein, Henry Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia, 154. Notably, a Policy Planning Staff Paper of February 2, 1950, which emphasized the importance of “fostering a Sino-Soviet split” was prepared by John Davies. FRUS, 1950, East Asia and the Pacific, 305–306.

225 2. “ learn to write well” 54. Alsop, “The Feud Between Stillwell and Chiang,” 16; Linebarger, “The Failure of Secret Diplomacy in China,” 213; Newman, “Self-Inflicted Wound,” 144. 55. Newman, “Self-Inflicted Wound,” 144, 155. 56. Heinrichs, American Ambassador, vii. 57. See introduction. The professionalization of the Foreign Service occurred over a protracted period. Two key benchmarks are the 1924 Rogers Act, which instituted an entrance exam and a regular promotion system, and the Foreign Service Act of 1946, which furthered these reforms and created a stronger administrative arm to manage them. 58. Linebarger, “Failure of Secret Diplomacy in China,” 214. 59. Jenner, quoted in Barron, Inside the State Department, 89. 60. “Every bureaucracy seeks to increase the superiority of the professionally informed by keeping their knowledge and intentions secret.” Weber, “Bureaucracy,” 233. “To weigh the effect of a word properly falls within the range of the lawyer’s tasks,” wrote Weber, “but not at all into that of the civil servant. The latter is no demagogue, nor is it his purpose to be one. If he nevertheless tries to become a demagogue, he usually becomes a very poor one.” Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” 95. 61. McCamy, The Administration of American Foreign Affairs, 41–48; Barnes and Morgan, The Foreign Service of the United States, 3–26; Dulles, “Colonial to Constitutional Diplomacy,” 3–28; Stuart, The Department of State, 1–9; Schulzinger, The Making of the Diplomatic Mind, 87–88. 62. The British White Paper of 1922, also known as the Churchill White Paper, and the White Paper of 1939, both concerning the Palestine question, exemplify the two contrasting receptions of White Papers in general. 63. China White Paper, 92; Service Oral History, 355; Newman, “Self-Inflicted Wound,” 52. Service, The Amerasia Papers, 132. 64. China White Paper, 574, 566, 573. 65. Melby, “The Marshall Mission in Retrospect,” 277. 66. Service Oral History, 355; Koen, China Lobby in American Politics, 174. 67. Congressional Record, October 19, 1949, quoted in Tydings Hearings, 1985. 68. Buckley, quoted in “Robert J. Morris Is Dead at 82; Crusader Against Communists,” New York Times, January 2, 1997; Tydings Hearings, 1257–1258, 1434. 69. Tydings Hearings, 1327–1328. 70. Service, “Reports to be Noted,” JSSP, carton 1, folder 60; Tydings Hearings, 1265, 1329, 1335. 71. Tydings Hearings, 1403, 1374; Tydings Report, 11–12; oral history interview, Conrad Snow, July 1973, 25; Tydings Hearings, 1330, 1334–1335; Service Oral History, 374. 72. Service Oral History, 374; Edith Dickey Moses to Service, June 28, 1950, JSSP, box 8, folder 27; Mrs. J. E. Neuhaus to John Service, July 1, 1950, JSSP, box 8, folder 27. In zeroing in on

226 2. “ learn to write well” bureaucracy as the problem, associate of the China Lobby Bryton Barron expressed faux nostalgia for the State Department of old. In 1929, he wrote, the State Department was a “small, compact group of men and women, experts in their field, who were competent to advise the Secretary of State and the President on the conduct of foreign policy.” Barron, Inside the State Department, 11–12. 73. Weber, “Bureaucracy,” 197, 238. I am paraphrasing Paul Du Gay’s more recent definition of the ideal bureaucrat in In Praise of Bureaucracy, 4; Tydings Hearings, 1290, 1387, 1311. 74. Considering the fact that several journalists who covered China, including Edgar Snow and Theodore White, had themselves been accused of Communist sympathies, Service’s parallel wasn’t exactly politically safe. For an account of wartime reporting in China, see MacKinnon and Friesen, China Reporting, and Rand, China Hands, both cited above. 75. Tydings Hearings, 1303. 76. Tydings Hearings, 1301, 1309, 1310, 1302–1303, 2382. U.S. Department of State, “Regulations and Procedures,” Foreign Service Manual, 1941, JSSP, carton 2, folder 20; Schulzinger, The Making of the Diplomatic Mind, 88–89, 102–103. The department’s instructions on political reporting epitomize the way in which, as Schulzinger discusses, the notion of professionalism in diplomacy differed from that of other modern professions, such as medicine and law. In line with classical diplomacy, the modern Foreign Service did not emphasize a special body of knowledge as much as a broad understanding of human affairs. Even though an entrance exam had been established, the Foreign Service School underscored experience and learning from one’s superiors over the course of one’s career, more in line with an apprentice-vocation model than the modern professional one. 77. Neuhaus to Service, JSSP, box 8, folder 27. 78. Service Oral History, 367; “State Department Lashes Back at McCarthy,” Washington Post, March 17, 1950. 79. “In order to stop completely the illegal and disloyal conveyance of confidential and other secret information to unauthorized persons,” Grew had assured the public, “a comprehensive program is to be continued unrelentingly.” “Inquiry on ‘Leaks’ Is Pushed; Grew Indicates More Arrests,” New York Times, June 8, 1945. Though Truman did not himself direct this statement, he did sanction the prosecution, telling FBI officials that it would function as “an example to other persons in the Government service who may be divulging confidential information.” M. E. Gurnea to Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Philip Jacob Jaffe,” memo, May 31, 1945, copy in JSSP, box 4, folder 16. 80. Since the Pendleton Act of 1883, applications for federal employment had been subject to investigation by the Civil Service Commission. The 1939 Hatch Act made a potential employee’s political beliefs legitimate cause for rejection if such beliefs were thought to subvert the national interest. From this point on, one could not profess communism and work for the

227 2. “ learn to write well” State Department. In 1942, the Civil Service Commission enacted specific loyalty criteria for federal employment. See Ellen Schrecker, “McCarthyism,” 17; Buckley and Bozell, McCarthy and His Enemies, 5–17; “Clearances” List, JSSP, carton 2, folder 24. 81. U.S. State Department, Loyalty Security Board Meeting in the Case of John S. Service, May 26–June 24, 1950, printed in Tydings Hearings, 2063–2072. 82. Tydings Hearings, 2120–2126. 83. Martha Lyons to Service, June 28, 1950, JSSP, box 8, folder 27. 84. Tydings Report, 94, 79, 78, 167; McCarran Hearings, 4840–4841. 85. “Loyalty to Employees,” Washington Post, June 30, 1950. 86. John Lewis Gaddis has argued that the outbreak of the Korean War was more decisive than the Truman Doctrine for Cold War foreign policy. “Reconsiderations”; Henry and Espinosa, “The Tragedy of Dean Rusk,” 177; Kusnitz, Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, 23–24; Offner, Another Such Victory, 406; Koen, The China Lobby in American Politics, 202; Herzstein, Henry Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia, 147, 156. 87. Reeves, Life and Times of Joe McCarthy, 327–328, 331–332, 346. The Republicans gained twentyeight seats in the House and five in the Senate. 88. Koen, The China Lobby in American Politics, 100; May, “The ‘New China Hands,’” 126; oral history interview, Donald Hansen, 72. 89. Reeves, Life and Times of Joe McCarthy, 324. 90. U.S. Department of State, Formosa, Policy Information Paper, December 23, 1949, printed in Senate Committee on Armed Services, Inquiry Into the Military Situation in the Far East and the Facts Surrounding the Relief of General of Army Douglas MacArthur (hereafter cited as MacArthur Hearings), 82d Cong., 1st sess., 1951, 1667–1669. 91. MacArthur Hearings, 1683. 92. Service’s full report criticized Chiang for attempting military occupation of an area in north central China that it had not historically controlled. This move, he warned, would not only prove disastrous for Chiang’s forces in the short run but would also alienate China from the Soviets, who would perceive the occupation as a threat to their historic influence in the region. Morris quoted only the following lines: “Russia will be led to believe—if she does not already—that American aims run counter to hers, and that she must therefore protect herself by any means available.” After reading this into the record, Morris asked, “It would be fair to say that he wanted U.S. policy to follow Russia’s desires rather than what was well for America or the world?” See John Service, “Pertinent Excerpts,” Foreign Service Journal, October 1951, in JSSP, carton 1, folder 27. 93. Koen, China Lobby in American Politics, 55; May, China Scapegoat, 240–241; Buckley and Bozell, McCarthy and His Enemies, 165–166; Koen, China Lobby in American Politics, 204; May, “The ‘New China Hands,’” 126.

228 2. “ learn to write well” 94. McCarran Hearings, 4845–4849, 4837. 95. Service Oral History, 402, 404. John Davies, interview by Robert Newman, Pittsburgh, PA, April 26, 1981. For Service’s official refutation of the claim that he had fathered the child of a Chinese Communist, see Service to Snow, April 10, 1951, JSSP, carton 1, folder 40. Lynne Joiner’s biography of Service, Honorable Survivor, is the first balanced account of Service’s affair with Val Chao. 96. For an account of Bingham’s indiscretions and his censure, see “Light on Lobbying,” Time, November 11, 1929. 97. Service Oral History, 393; Hansen Oral History, 76; Koen, China Lobby in American Politics, 181. 98. May, “Ethics, Diplomacy, and Statecraft,” 104; Service, Philadelphia Inquirer, November 28, 1975; Service Oral History, 393; Acheson, Transcript of Conversation, February 17, 1955, PostPresidential Files, Memoirs, box 1, Truman Library, copy in JSSP, carton 2, folder 32. 99. Foreign Service Journal, January 1952, quoted in Kahn, The China Hands, 240; George Kennan to Service, December 14, 1951, JSSP, carton 2, folder 62. If he chose not to follow Service out of government duty, Kennan explained, it was only in the “hope to do greater good by retaining my public usefulness for the more distant future.” Kennan was appointed to serve as ambassador to Moscow the following March. 100. Halberstam, The Powers That Be, 199; oral history interview, John Melby, November 1972, 129; May, China Scapegoat, 236; May, “The New China Hands,” 120. 101. Kennan, “Responsibility in Government,” 4–5; Davies to Service, December 4, 1953, JSSP, box 2, folder 15. 102. Schaller, United States and China in the Twentieth Century, 138–139; Kusnitz, Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, 69–72, 77; Bernkopf Tucker, China Confidential, 90; Graebner, “Eisenhower and Communism,” 69–71; Brown, “The Federal Loyalty-Security Program,” 145; “Executive Order 10450—Security Requirements for Government Employment,” 18FR; Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles, 156–157; Koen, The China Lobby in American Politics, 204; Reeves, Life and Times of Joe McCarthy, 267. 103. “It is time to think in terms of taking the offensive in the world struggle for freedom and of rolling back the engulfing tide of despotism,” wrote Dulles in his 1950 book, War or Peace, 175; Schaller, The United States and China in the Twentieth Century, 139; Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles, 3. 104. Halberstam, The Best and Brightest, 138; Kahn, The China Hands, 247; May, China Scapegoat, 273, 275–276; Hoopes, 155. 105. May, China Scapegoat, 273, 275–276; Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles, 155. 106. Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles, 153; “Dulles Holds Firm in Senate Attacks on Bohlen Security,” New York Times, March 20, 1953; “Secretary Is Accused of Security Over-

229 2. “ learn to write well” riding,” Washington Post, March 21, 1953; “The Nation,” New York Times, March 22, 1953. 107. Reston, “McCarthy Is Wrong on Foreign Policy: President Agrees,” New York Times, December 1, 1953. 108. Davies, “The China Hands in Practice,” 54; Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles, 155; Kahn, The China Hands, 261. 109. Drumright served as deputy assistant secretary of FE from 1953 to 1954 and ambassador to Taiwan from 1958 to 1962. Jack Service to Sally Irvine, JSSP, box 4, folder 16; Bernkopf Tucker, China Confidential, 116, 134, 146; Kahn, The China Hands, 38. 110. For examples of Sprouse’s account of KMT-CCP relations, see FRUS, 1944, China, 6:491– 493, 584 and FRUS, 1945, China, 7:476–479, 826–827. See also Sprouse, letter to Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 1973, in JSSP, box 8. 111. Kahn, The China Hands, 257, 115. In 1945, Sprouse was scheduled to take a plane back to Chungking with Hurley, but fortuitously got posted to the UN conference in San Francisco instead. Kahn, The China Hands, 159n. 112. Service’s wife destroyed his notes from Yenan. Service Oral History, 274; Melby discusses Sprouse’s erasure of his initials in Melby Oral History, 173. 113. Sprouse to Service, JSSP, box 2, folder 15; “Members of Mission,” China White Paper, 765; Service, The Amerasia Papers, 132. 114. The Marshall Report was not released to the public until 1975. The Wedemeyer Report was first published in the annex of China White Paper, 764–775. 115. Sprouse, quoted in Kahn, The China Hands, 279. 116. Service v. Dulles, 354 U.S. 363 (1957). 117. Kahn, The China Hands, 283–285. 3. Revising the Vietnam Balance Sheet

1. A document titled “Organization, Timing, and Strategy of Impending Discussions with the United States” is literally cut and pasted and reattached with staples, in addition to having editing marks all over it. December 1945, George Ball Public Policy Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library (hereafter cited as GBPPP), box 48. See also Ball’s October 22, 1945, document for the French Supply Council in GBPPP, box 48. In Ball’s file for the French Supply Council, there are five versions of one paper. “Joint Declaration of the President of the United States and the President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic,” May 24, 1946, GBPPP, box 47, folder 13; Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century, 158.



2. Ball, The Discipline of Power, 40; Ball to Douglas Ball, September 21, 1990, GBPPP, box 129.

3. Bill, George Ball, 203–232. See also Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, 492–497; Clifford, Counsel to the President, 408; Arthur Schlesinger, foreword to David DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, xi–xv.

230 3. revising the vietnam balance sheet

4. Weisband and Franck, Resignation in Protest, 153, 165, 191; Logevall, Choosing War, xxii; Gelb,



5. The literature on the escalation of the Vietnam War is vast. A short list would include: Lloyd

The Irony of Vietnam, 125. Gardner, Pay Any Price (1995); Leslie Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam (1979); George Herring, America’s Longest War (1979); David Kaiser, American Tragedy (2000); Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War (1999); Brian Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire (1991); Robert Schulzinger, A Time for War (1997); Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990 (1991). Aggregate bombing statistics in Marilyn Young, “Bombing Civilians from the Twentieth to the Twenty-First Centuries,” in Marilyn Young, ed., Bombing Civilians, 157. Statistics for U.S. casualties can be found at the National Archives, “Statistical Information About Casualties of the Vietnam War.” The exact number of Vietnamese deaths is less certain. According to the Agence France Presse, which received an official report from the Vietnamese government in 1995, 1.3 million North and South Vietnamese soldiers died, and 1.8 million were wounded, with a total of 4 million civilian casualties. “Casualties-US vs NVA/VC,” http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html.

6. Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern (hereafter cited as Past), 168; GBPPP, August 18, 1980, box

7. Ball, Past, 1–14. Later in life, the elder Ball occasionally lectured at local literary societies on

68. the question of civilization’s progress. Amos Ball, “Hoc Multum est velie Servari,” lecture before the Chicago Literary Club, April 23, 1951, GBPPP, box 16, folder 6.

8. Ball, Past, 11–50. For Ball’s reports from the Strategic Bombing Survey, see GBPPP, box 96.

9. In a 1976 letter to Monnet, Ball wrote, “I think I have learned more from you, Jean, than from anyone else.” GBPPP, box 70, folder 15. See also Douglas Brinkley, ed., Jean Monnet: The Path to European Unity (1991); Jean Monnet, Memoirs, translated by Richard Mayne (1978); Clifford Hackett, ed., Jean Monnet and the Americans (1998).

10. Ball, “Thoughts on the ‘Notes de Reflexion,’” October 13, 1978, GBPPP, box 70, folder 15; Ball, Past, 69–77; DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, 25–26; Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century, 26, 100, 157. 11. Fontaine, “Forward with Jean Monnet,” 22, 63. 12. Monnet, interview, December 5, 1974, GBPPP, box 70; Ball, introduction to Monnet, Memoirs, xxi; Duchene, “Jean Monnet’s Methods,” 190–191. Monnet took similar walks when he lived in Washington during the war. A small park monument commemorates his time there. Robert Schaetzel to Ball, “Monnet Council Project,” April 24, 1989, GBPPP, box 85; Ball, Past, 84–99. 13. D uchene, “Jean Monnet’s Methods,” 206; Ball, Discipline of Power, 40; Monnet, Memoirs, 133, 170, 239, 376; Kohnstamm, “Jean Monnet: The Power of Imagination,” November 23, 1981, GBPPP, box 70.

231 3. revising the vietnam balance sheet 14. Monnet, Memoirs, 133; Fontaine, “Forward with Jean Monnet,” 40; Ball, introduction to Monnet, Memoirs, 13; DiLeo, “George Ball and Jean Monnet,” 153; Duchene, “Jean Monnet’s Methods,” 192–193; Richard Mayne, “Gray Eminence,” 188. 15. Fontaine, “Forward with Jean Monnet,” 41; Ball, introduction to Monnet, Memoirs, 13; Mayne, “Gray Eminence,” 123; Monnet, Memoirs, 297; Ball, quoted in DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, 26; Fontaine, “Forward with Jean Monnet,” 22. 16. GBPPP, box 122. 17. Monnet, draft, July 14, 1951, GBPPP, box 70; Monnet, Memoirs, 297. 18. Ball, Discipline of Power, 26; Ball, Past, 232. 19. The document, NSC-64, is frequently cited as a key source in what would later be called the domino theory. For analyses of NSC-64, see Robert Divine, in Gardner, Vietnam, The Early Decisions, 13; John Prados, in Gardner, Vietnam, The Early Decisions, 90; and Schulzinger, A Time for War, 46. 20. “Aid for France in Indochina, 1950–1954,” The Pentagon Papers, 1:179–214. 21. Between 1965 and 1975, the ten most intense years of the war, the United States spent $111 billion on the war effort. U.S. Department of State, Costs of Major U.S. Wars. 22. George Ball, “With WS in War and Politics,” in Doyle, Stevenson, GBPPP, box 128. Notably, however, Ball didn’t think that Stevenson was particularly good at structuring his speeches. “You are a fine poet but a lousy architect,” he would say to Stevenson. “You say the right things and say them eloquently, but you don’t let the structure of your speeches show through.” Here again, we see how Ball prioritized logic over eloquence when it came to writing and speaking about policy. 23. “Report to John F. Kennedy from Adlai Stevenson,” GBPPP, boxes 89 and 90. Ironically, in the appendices to which he relegated the developing world, Ball argued that each of these regions be “treated as major policy area on a par with other areas of the world” (a–10). For a succinct description of the report, see DiLeo, “George Ball and Jean Monnet,” 154–155. 24. DiLeo, “George Ball and Jean Monnet,” 157–158. 25. Ball, Past, 164. 26. Ball, Discipline of Power, 224. 27. Logevall, Choosing War, 388–393; Gardner, Pay Any Price, 185; Ball, Past, 387. Jonathan Schell coined the term “psychological domino theory.” See Theodor Windt, Presidents and Protesters, 101. It should be noted that although the concept of credibility had come into play by the early 1960s, the term “credibility” did not crystallize in foreign policy circles until the late 1960s. 28. The speculative literature on what Kennedy would have done in Vietnam had he not been assassinated is vast. Arthur Schlesinger’s A Thousand Days still represents the most detailed

232 3. revising the vietnam balance sheet effort to suggest that Kennedy would indeed have withdrawn. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 982–1017. See also John Newman, JFK and Vietnam, 456; Kaiser, American Tragedy, 6; Thomas Preston, The President and His Inner Circle, 189. For analyses that cast doubt on whether Kennedy would have withdrawn, see Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, 36, 92, and Brian Van de Mark, in Gardner, ed., Vietnam, The Early Decisions, 27–34. 29. Johnson, quoted in Gardner, Pay Any Price, 56. For Johnson’s public presentation of the war in terms of economic development, see his April 1965 Johns Hopkins speech, quoted in Gardner, Pay Any Price, 191–192. As early as 1964, McNamara recommended bombing primarily as a morale booster for South Vietnam. Three years later, at the height of the escalation, Rostow would put it more bluntly: “We have never held the view that bombing could stop infiltration.” Bombing, he said, “could contribute marginally—and perhaps significantly—to the timing of a decision to end the war. But it was no substitute for making progress in the south.” Rostow, quoted in Lyndon Baines Johnson, The Vantage Point, 367. For senior policymakers’ implicit or overt admissions that the war could not be won by military force alone, and that image played a central role, see Gardner, Pay Any Price, 118, 184–185, 190, 277, 454; Logevall, Choosing War, 232–233, 261, 271–272, 388; Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, 1, 189–196, 243. 30. Kennedy, quoted in Gardner, Pay Any Price, 73; Johnson, quoted in Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire, 25, 206; Gardner, Pay Any Price, 87; Logevall, Choosing War, 76–77.

31. Tulis, The Rhetorical Presidency, 3–23, 201. Although Tulis cites LBJ’s symbolic war on poverty as a prime example of the rhetorical presidency (161–173), he makes no mention of the rhetorical aspects of the actual war in Vietnam, an equally stark if not more stark example of Tulis’ theory. 32. Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire, 114–115; Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, 256. 33. Logevall, Choosing War, xvi, 304; Kaiser, American Tragedy, 381. As noted above, it should be acknowledged that while the concept of credibility had come into play by the early 1960s, the term “credibility” did not crystallize in foreign policy circles until the late 1960s. 34. May 1964 Gallup poll, cited in Logevall, Choosing War, 148. For congressional support of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, see Logevall, Choosing War, 137; Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, 111. 35. Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, 234; Sprouse, quoted in Kahn, The China Hands, 279. 36. Kahn, The China Hands, 9; Davies, quoted in Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 411; Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, 103–104; Kahn, The China Hands, 272; John S. Service, State Department Duty in China, the McCarthy Era, and After, 1933–1977 (hereafter cited as Service Oral History).

37. Ball, Past, 107–109; DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, 49. This episode came up in Ball’s confirmation hearings in 1961. See DiLeo, “George Ball and Jean Monnet,” 161, and Ball’s FBI file in GBPPP, box 45, folder 9.

233 3. revising the vietnam balance sheet 38. Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter cited as FRUS), 1961–1963, Vietnam: January– August 1963, 3:628–629. 39. Abramson. Spanning the Century, 611–623, 632–633. 40. L ogevall, Choosing War, 267. This group included James Thomson, who worked for Chester Bowles (himself a casualty of the Kennedy administration) and then Harriman, as well as Thomas Hughes and Allen Whiting, who worked in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). Paul Kattenburg, who served in Kennedy’s Vietnam Working Group and had been the only one to advocate withdrawal from Vietnam in 1963, was not fired but was marginalized from Vietnam policy. Logevall, Choosing War, 49–51; Kaiser, American Tragedy, 244–245. 41. Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century, 300; Davies, quoted in Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century, 368n. 23; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 413, 418; Morgenthau, Dilemmas of Politics, 320. 42. Kennan, Memoirs: 1950–1963, 145–167, 266–318; Jespersen, Interviews with George Kennan, 65–81, 109–112; Ball, quoted in Plischke, U.S. Department of State, 393. 43. See chapter 2. 44. Ball, Diplomacy for a Crowded World, 339, 201. Ball once sent a two-page memo to his assistant, Thomas Ehrlich, in which he listed abstruse phrases articulated at a meeting of State Department officials. For each instance of bureaucratese, Ball offered a clearer and more concise formulation. Ball to Ehrlich, July 3, 1965, GBPPP, box 42. Robert Schaetzel, who worked on Ball’s staff, said, “It had to be his own work whether it was a speech or an article or what. He’d work his tail off on those things, upsetting the whole routine. He had his priorities wrong.” Schaetzel, quoted in DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, 47–49. 45. Kaiser, American Tragedy, 393. 46. Ball, Past, 378, 403; DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, 140. 47. DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, 140. Ball had approved and sent the coup cable. Ball, Past, 371; Hilsman, To Move a Nation, 487; DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, 60; Bill, George Ball, 155; Abramson, Spanning the Century, 621; Johnson, quoted in Ball, Past, 318. 48. Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to the President, September 8, 1964; Memorandum of a Meeting, White House, Washington, September 9, 1964, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964, 746–755. 49. Transcript, George Ball Oral History Interview I (hereafter cited as Ball Oral History I), 9–10. 50. McGeorge Bundy, quoted in Logevall, Choosing War, 108. Bundy and others thus contributed to the misleading claim, often perpetuated by historians, that due to the elections, 1964 was a relatively dormant year for Vietnam policy. See Logevall, Choosing War, 108–133.

234 3. revising the vietnam balance sheet 51. Ball, “How Valid Are the Assumptions Underlying Our Viet-Nam Policies?” October 5, 1964, printed in Atlantic Monthly ( July 1972): 35–44. 52. Schlesinger, quoted in Bill, George Ball, 207. 53. Ball, “How Valid Are the Assumptions Underlying Our Viet-Nam Policies?” 36. 54. Ball, “How Valid Are the Assumptions Underlying Our Viet-Nam Policies?” 44–49. 55. Hilsman, quoted in Bill, George Ball, 252. 56. Ball Oral History I, 12. 57. Ball, “How Valid Are the Assumptions Underlying Our Viet-Nam Policies?” 44. 58. DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, 95, 97; Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, 307–329; Logevall, Choosing War, xxi; Ball to Rusk, February 7, 1989, GBPPP, box 83. 59. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, 45–71, 395, 560–561, 584–608; Hilsman, To Move a Nation, 25–27; DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, 110–113; Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century, 153. For a full account of how Bundy played a key role in shaping the escalation, see Preston, The War Council. 60. DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, 100; Johnson, quoted in Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, 218; Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, 215–250; Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire, 12. 61. Ball Oral History Interview I, 10. 62. Kaiser, American Tragedy, 351–352, 356. 63. Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire, 23. Taylor, “The Current Situation in South Vietnam,” November 1964, FRUS, Vietnam, 1:948–957; Gardner, Pay Any Price, 153; Logevall, Choosing War, 261; Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire, 34. See Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire, 28, for a discussion of Bundy’s draft. Paper prepared by the National Security Council Working Group, November 21, 1964, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 1:916–929. 64. Taylor, quoted in Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire, 52; McNamara, quoted in Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire, 53. 65. Gardner, Pay Any Price, 151–169; Logevall, Choosing War, 324–325; Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire, 31. 66. Summary Notes of the 546th Meeting of the National Security Council, February 7, 1965, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 2:167, 169; Meeting of the National Security Council, February 8, 1965, FRUS, Vietnam, 1965, 2:192; Logevall, Choosing War, 327–328. The transcript of the televised statement can be found in Department of State Bulletin, February. 22, 1965, 239–240. The claim “We seek no wider war” was part of the White House’s immediate public response to Pleiku. White House Statement, February 7, 1965, Department of State Bulletin, February 22, 1965, 238. 67. George Ball, “Vietnam,” February 13, 1965, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 2:252–261.

235 3. revising the vietnam balance sheet 68. George Ball, “Vietnam,” February 13, 1965, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 2:261n. 6; Face the Nation, transcript, Sunday, February 11, 1965, GBPPP, box 129. 69. McGeorge Bundy, “The Situation in Vietnam,” February 7, 1965, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 2:174–185. 70. Gardner, Pay Any Price, 175, 184, 204; Kaiser, American Tragedy, 393; Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, 336; McNamara, quoted in Young, Bombing Civilians, 163. After Pleiku, public support for the war grew from 41 to 60 percent. Clifford, Counsel to the President, 408. 71. Ball Oral History Interview I, 11. 72. Thomas Preston, The President and His Inner Circle, 160–161; Johnson, Vantage Point, 366; See Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest for the now classic interpretation of Johnson’s inferiority complex in response to the likes of McNamara and Bundy. On the topic of Johnson and metaphors, Ball wrote that Johnson was persuaded by the “vividness of his metaphors, since, like all men of elemental eloquence, he spoke in images.” Past, 319. 73. FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 2:262–359; DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, 130; Ball Oral History Interview I, 12. 74. McNamara made the formal request for troops after the April Honolulu Conference. FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 2:574–576; Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire, 128. 75. L ogevall, Choosing War, 143–147. For the text of the Four Points, see Kahin, Intervention, 326. 76. Ball, “Should We Try to Move Toward a Vietnamese Settlement Now?” April 21, 1965, FRUS, 1964–1968, 2:582–592. 77. DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, 115. 78. GBPPP, box 97. The successive drafts of the Acheson-Cutler plan are dated April 28, May 4, May 6, May 7, May 10, and May 11. 79. Ehrlich to Ball, December 2, 1992, GBPPP, box 42, folder 11; Ball, Past, 395. 80. Notes of a Meeting, White House, May 16, 1965, FRUS, 1964–1968, 2:665–668; Gardner, Pay Any Price, 202. 81. Notably, in an October 1965 interview with ABC, Ball argued that our experience in Vietnam was “totally different” from that of the French. George Ball, ABC Interview, John Scali, October 18, 1965, GBPPP, box 129. 82. George Ball, “Keeping the Power of Decision in the South Viet-Nam Crisis,” June 18, 1965, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 3:16–21. 83. Gardner, Pay Any Price, 212; FRUS, 1964–1968, Vietnam June–December 1965, 3:33. 84. FRUS, 1964–1968, Vietnam June–December 1965, 3:33. 85. George Ball, “Cutting Our Losses in South Viet-Nam,” June 28, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 3:62–66; FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 3:62n. 1.

236 3. revising the vietnam balance sheet 86. George Ball, “A Compromise Solution for South Viet-Nam,” July 1, 1965, FRUS, 1964–1968, 3:106–113. 87. Memorandum from Secretary of Defense McNamara to President Johnson, July 1, 1965, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 3:97–104; William Bundy, “A ‘Middle Way’ Course of Action in South Vietnam,” July 1, 1965, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 3:113–115; Bundy to Johnson, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vietnam June–December 1965, 3:117; Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire, 168–171; Gardner, Pay Any Price, 235–237. 88. FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 3:18–119. 89. FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 3:169–174. The report was actually drafted by Unger pursuant to discussions with all those involved in the mission. William Bundy, quoted in FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 3:171n. 2. 90. FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 3:191–193. 91. Notes of Meeting, July 21, 1965, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 3:192–195. 92. Notes of Meeting, July 21, 1965, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 3:94–197. For Ball’s account of the meeting, see Past, 402. JCS, quoted in Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire, 193, 198. 93. George Ball, interview, Face the Nation, September 26, 1965, and August 1, 1965, GBPPP, box 129. 94. Notes of Meeting, December 17, 1965, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 3:644–647; Ball, “The Resumption of Bombing Poses Grave Danger of Precipitating a War with China,” January 25, 1966, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 4:129–138, DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, 85; Gardner, Pay Any Price, 272–275; Johnson, quoted in Gardner, Pay Any Price, 275, 284; Kosygin critiqued the pause strategy at a July 15 meeting at the State Department in Washington. See FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 3:152. 95. This is not to say that Walt Whitman would have advocated escalation of the war. Despite his jingoism, Whitman was a sharp critic of wars fought by the United States in the interest of manifest destiny. See, for example, “Song of Myself,” 1855, in Leaves of Grass, 51–54. 96. Memorandum from Rostow to President Johnson, April 5, 1966, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 5:329; See also FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 4:357–360, 378–379; Rostow quoted in Summary Notes of the 559th Meeting of the National Security Council, FRUS, 1964–1968, 4:441; Milne, America’s Rasputin, 158–180; Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, 256. 97. See chapter 1. 98. In his cover letter to Rusk, Ball’s assistant wrote, “Mr. Ball did not have an opportunity to work this over as fully as he would wish.” Springsteen to Rusk, “Memorandum for the Secretary,” May 5, 1966, GBPPP, box 97; DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, 85; Notes of President Johnson’s Meeting with the National Security Council, June 22, 1966, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 4:448–452.

237 3. revising the vietnam balance sheet 99. Lippmann, quoted in Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire, 213. Gelb discusses Johnson’s desire for delay in the context of presidential pragmatism. Johnson took “small steps” to escalate the war to avoid criticism from either the hawks or the doves. Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, 284–285. 100. Acheson, quoted in Clifford, Counsel to the President, 386; Johnson, quoted in Logevall, Choosing War, 280. 101. Johnson, quoted in Logevall, Choosing War, 270; Johnson, quoted in Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire, 36. 102. Van de Mark, Into the Quagmire, 31; Ball, Past, 422. See Logevall for the argument that Johnson miscalculated the political situation and that he had more room for maneuver than he thought. 103. Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, 319. 104. Ball, Past, 431–433, 444, 448. Ball publicly supported the escalation in Discipline of Power (1967), the book he wrote shortly after he resigned, in which he argued that, unfortunately, there were no alternatives to current strategy. Ball, Discipline of Power, 329. 105. Ball, Past, 402–403. Clifford had voiced his opposition to escalation to Johnson in May 1965 and again at Camp David during the July debates. Clifford, Counsel to the President, 410, 420–422. 106. Telegram from the embassy in Vietnam to the Department of State, September 20, 1967, FRUS, 1964–1968, 5:814–816; Westmoreland, quoted in Clifford, Counsel to the President, 468; Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, 329. 107. Johnson, Vantage Point, 372–373; FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 5:943–950. 108. McNamara, In Retrospect, 159, 263–271; Gardner, Pay Any Price, 365–393; Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, 167; Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, 642–644, 652; Young, The Vietnam Wars, 164. The study that resulted in the Pentagon Papers began in the spring of 1967 but was temporarily halted due to McNamara’s distress. It was reinitiated in June 1967. Halperin supervised the project, but Gelb oversaw it on a day-to-day basis. Tragically, McNaughton died in a plane crash in July 1967. Rudenstine, The Day the Presses Stopped, 17–38. 109. Meeting with Foreign Policy Advisors, November 2, 1967, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 5:954– 970; Clifford, Counsel to the President, 436, 455; Ball, Past, 407. 110. Don Oberdorfer, quoted in Clifford, Counsel to the President, 511; McNamara, In Retrospect, 273–317; Gardner, Pay Any Price, 395–403. Clifford was not actually secretary of defense when Johnson gave him the directive to study U.S. strategy in Vietnam. He was confirmed on January 30, 1968, but did not become acting secretary of defense until March 1. Clifford, Counsel to the President, 472. It was Rostow who recommended Clifford to head the task force. Johnson, Vantage Point, 390.

238 3. revising the vietnam balance sheet 111. Clifford, Counsel to the President, 469–473; Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, 171; Gardner, Pay Any Price, 418–427. In the wake of Tet, public support for the war effort remained divided, but support for Johnson’s handling of the war was plummeting. Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, 172. 112. Clifford, Counsel to the President, 486, 491, 493; Preston, The War Council, 172; Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, 174–175. 113. Clifford Task Force, Draft Memorandum for President Johnson, March 4, 1968, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 5:314–316. The memorandum represented a compromise that Clifford thought necessary in order not to alienate Johnson. Clifford, Counsel to the President, 494–495; Gelb, Irony of Vietnam, 398. 114. Johnson, Vantage Point, 398; Clifford, Counsel to the President, 491; Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks to Delegates to the National Farmers Union Convention, Minneapolis, March 18, 1968, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Johnson, Lyndon B., 1968–1969, January 20–June 30, 1968, 1:406–413. 115. Clifford, Counsel to the President, 507; Johnson, Vantage Point, 409; Notes of the President’s Meeting with His Foreign Policy Advisors, March 26, 2008, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 6:466–470. 116. Even Henry Cabot Lodge, the former ambassador to Vietnam, who had been a strong supporter of the war, was now supporting a version of de-escalation. FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 6:473; Clifford, Counsel to the President, 413. 117. Senior Advisory Meeting, March 26, 1968, Summary of Notes, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vietnam January–August 1968, 6:471–474; Gelb, The Irony of Vietnam, 176; Clifford, Counsel to the President, 518. 118. FRUS, Vietnam 1964–1968, 6:483–484; Clifford, Counsel to the President, 483, 520–521. Clifford claims that if he had known that Johnson was not going to run, he would have felt free to pull out the stops and call for a full bombing halt, which would have reflected his actual position. Clifford, Counsel to the President, 525. 119. Johnson, quoted in Clifford, Counsel to the President, 385; Johnson, Vantage Point, 418. 120. FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 6:473; Clifford, Counsel to the President, 518. For a description of the briefings, see FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 6:457–458 and Clifford, Counsel to the President, 512. 121. FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 6:471, 473; Clifford, Counsel to the President, 517; Ball, Past, 407–410. 122. FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 6:473; Notes of Meeting, March 27, 1968, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964– 1968, 6:481–483, Clifford, Counsel to the President, 518. 123. FRUS, Vietnam, 1964–1968, 6:474; Clifford, Counsel to the President, 490–491. 124. Herring, America’s Longest War, 207–220. 125. Ball, Past, 420–422. For a scholarly critique of Nixon’s Vietnam policy, see Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War. Between 1969 and 1973, 539,129 tons of bombs were dropped on Cambodia. Marilyn Young, in Young, Bombing Civilians, 157.

239 4. the other plumbers unit 4. The Other Plumbers Unit

1. Lyndon B. Johnson, White House Press Conference, November 17, 1967, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon Johnson, 1967, 2:495.



2. Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 24, 18, 21. 3. Nixon, quoted in Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 618–619; Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, 208; Nixon, quoted in Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 131.



4. Suri, “Henry Kissinger and American Grand Strategy,” 75; Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, 175, 219; Nguyen, “Waging War on All Fronts,” 196; Suri, “Henry Kissinger and American Grand Strategy,” 74; Dominic Sandbrook, “Salesmanship and Substance,” 91; Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, 166, 215, 221; Nguyen, “Waging War on All Fronts,” 188.



5. Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 119, 157; Lukas, Nightmare, 9; Nguyen, “Waging War on All Fronts,”

6. Jones, “Advise and Dissent,” 37.

194; Greenberg, “Nixon as Statesman,” 52; Lukas, Nightmare, 9.

7. Marks, “From Diplomat to Dissident,” 34.



8. In 1971 there had yet to be a woman secretary of state.



9. Jones, “Is There Life After Dissent?” 26.

10. Perhaps this is partly why there is so little historical scholarship on the channel. Writing what is to my knowledge the only historical article on the Dissent Channel, Kai Bird concluded that “none” of the dissent cables submitted through the channel “actually changed policy.” Bird, “Dissent in the Foreign Service.” Most of the little else that has been written about the channel has appeared in the Foreign Service Journal. While illuminating, these pieces tend toward personal narrative and offer only glimpses into the larger history of the Dissent Channel. In addition to the above-cited article by Jones, other articles about the Dissent Channel in the Foreign Service Journal include David T. Jones, “Advise and Dissent: The Diplomat as Protester,” Foreign Service Journal (April 2000): 37, and John Marks, “From Diplomat to Dissident: A State Department Odyssey,” Foreign Service Journal (April 2000): 34. Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, individual users of the Dissent Channel have been interviewed on radio and television programs. These programs mention the Dissent Channel, but mainly as a platform for revealing the extent of dissent in the diplomatic establishment, which then becomes a pretext for generic discussions of U.S. foreign policy in Iraq. See, for example, “The Man Who Knew,” 60 Minutes, February 4, 2004, and “Channeling Dissent from the Foreign Service,” NPR Morning Edition, October 14, 2004. Neither the diplomats who tell their stories nor the news shows that popularize them have made an effort to analyze the Dissent Channel itself. 11. Caldwell, “The Legitimation of the Nixon-Kissinger Grand Design and Strategy,” 643–645. 12. U.S. Department of State, A Management Program for the Department of State. For background and assessment of the State Department’s management reform effort in the late 1960s and early 1970s, see Mosher, “Some Observations about Foreign Service Reform”;

240 4. the other plumbers unit Scott, “Environmental Change and Organizational Adaptation”; Bacchus, “Diplomacy for the 70s”; and Harris, “AFSA Becomes a Union.”

13. Donald Warwick, A Theory of Public Bureaucracy, 9–10; U.S. Department of State, Diplomacy for the 70s, 295–297, 391–393; U.S. Department of State, Toward a Modern Diplomacy, 55–59.

14. Frank, The Conquest of Cool.

15. Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century, 250, 268; Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 94; Lukas, Nightmare, 18; Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 95–96; Logevall and Preston, “The Adventurous Journey of Nixon in the World,” 5; Destler, Presidents, Bureaucrats, and Foreign Policy, 8. 16. Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, 221, 227, 231. As Sandbrook notes, relative to the Johnson years, antiwar movement decreased between 1969 and 72. Sandbrook, “Salesmanship and Substance,” 92.

17. Lukas, Nightmare, 9; Greenberg, 53. 18. Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 173; Lukas, Nightmare, 45; Johnson, The Right Hand of Power, 531. Though Nixon often blamed leaks on State and Rogers, it was actually Kissinger who was responsible for much of the leaking. Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, 148, 150. 19. Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 109; Lukas, Nightmare, 69. 20. Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 108, Nixon quoted in Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 112; Hoff, Nixon



Reconsidered, 296. 21. Rudenstine, The Day The Presses Stopped, 200, 208, 380n. 5; Wells, Wild Man (2001); Ellsberg, Secrets. 22. “State Department Tells Envoy to Mute Dissent,” quoted in Esterline and Black, 231–232. 23. Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 167; Sandbrook, “Salesmanship and Substance,” 94. 24. “State Department Tells Envoys to Mute Dissent,” quoted in Esterline and Black, Inside Foreign Policy, 232. 25. McMahon, “The Danger of Geopolitical Fantasies,” 257. For primary sources on the U.S. response to the 1971 crisis in Pakistan, see Sanjit Gandhi, ed., “The Tilt”; Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter cited as FRUS), 1969–1976, Documents on South Asia 1969–1972; FRUS, 1969–1976, South Asia Crisis. For a discussion of the telegram from the perspective of Archer Blood, chief Foreign Service officer at the Dacca consul, see Archer K. Blood, interview by Henry Precht, 15–18. Kissinger discusses the crisis in White House Years, 842–919. See also Van Hollen, “The Tilt Policy Revisited,” 339–361. 26. U.S. Department of State, Telegram, “Dissent From U.S. Policy Toward East Pakistan,” April 6, 1971, in “The Tilt.” 27. The State Department had been deliberately kept out of conversations between Yahya and White House regarding overtures to China. McMahon, “The Danger of Geopolitical Fantasies,” 255. 28. Nixon to Yahya, August 7, 1971, in “The Tilt”; McMahon, “The Danger of Geopolitical Fantasies,” 250, 252, 258.

241 4. the other plumbers unit 29. “ Transcript of Telephone Conversation Between Secretary of State Rogers and the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger),” April 6, 1971. FRUS, 1969–1976, South Asia Crisis, 11:47; Kissinger, White House Years, 853; McMahon, “The Danger of Geopolitical Fantasies,” 244. 30. McMahon, “The Danger of Geopolitical Fantasies,” 259, 264; Archer Blood Oral History, 24–39. 31. The old German hand quoted here is John Kornblum, quoted in Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century, 301. 32. Lukas, Nightmare, 104–105. 33. Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, 304. For the contemporary condemnation of Nixon’s imperial presidency and abuse of presidential power, see Schlesinger, The Imperial Presidency (1973); Berger, Executive Privilege (1974); Hardin, Presidential Power and Accountability (1974); Galnoor, “Government Secrecy,” 32–42; Sigal, “Official Secrecy and Informal Communication in Congressional-Bureaucratic Relations,” 71–92; and Relyea, “Opening Government to Public Secrecy,” 3–10. 34. U.S. Department of State, “Critique of the Substantive Handling of the Cyprus Crisis from Boyatt to Kissinger,” Dissent Channel Message, August 9, 1974. Thanks to Bill Burr for persevering with the National Archives to get them to release this document. 35. Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern, 359. 36. Boyatt, Presentation at the Foreign Service Institute, September 30, 1992, 2. 37. See, for example, Joseph McCarthy, speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate, February 20 and March 30, 1950, printed in Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations, State Department Employee Loyalty Investigation: Hearings pursuant to S. Res. 231, 81st Cong., 2d sess., 1950, 140, 2031–2032. 38. Henry Kissinger, “Letter of Secretary of State Kissinger to Chairman Pike,” October 14, 1975, printed in House Select Committee on Intelligence, 94th Cong., 2d sess., 1975, 913–919. Hereafter cited as Pike Committee Hearings. 39. Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 264. Kutler notes the irony that Nixon was on the other side of executive privilege in the Alger Hiss case. Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 515. 40. Lukas, Nightmare, 386; Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, 291; Ervin, quoted in Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 348. 41. Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 371, 384: Lukas, Nightmare, 383, 385. 42. Sandbrook, “Salesmanship and Substance,” 92, 96–97; Nguyen, “Waging War on All Fronts,” 200; Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 323, 388, 400. In his 1974 book, Executive Privilege, legal scholar Raoul Berger argued that, in fact, there was no legal foundation for executive privilege. 43. In addition to being one of the most dominant secretaries of state in the nation’s history, Kissinger was still national security advisor at the time. Brent Scowcroft had been appointed NSC advisor but had not yet been sworn in.

242 4. the other plumbers unit 44. Pike Committee Hearings, 843. 45. Pike Committee Hearings; Leslie Gelb and Anthony Lake, “Washington Dateline,” 227. 46. Pike Committee Hearings, 1312. 47. Pike Committee Hearings, 843. 48. Sandbrook, “Salesmanship and Substance,” 92, 96–97; Nguyen, “Waging War on All Fronts,” 200; Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 323, 388, 400. Ironically, in Nixon’s 1977 interview with journalist David Frost, when he complained that Frost was reading the transcript of the White House tapes out of context, the former president articulated a view similar to the one he opposed during the investigations into Watergate. Frost/Nixon: The Original Watergate Interviews (1977). 49. Lukas, Nightmare, 432–434, Mansfield quoted in Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 444; Sandbrook, “Salesmanship and Substance,” 97; Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 406, 410, 411, 413; Lukas, Nightmare, 391. 50. Lukas, Nightmare, 423; 462; Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 449, 452. 51. Mezvinsky, quoted in Lukas, Nightmare, 493; Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 485, 455, 456 518; 513, 534; Lukas, Nightmare, 493, 516, 520; “The Smoking Gun Tape,” June 23, 1972, transcript. 52. Gerald R. Ford’s Remarks on Taking the Oath of Office of Office as President, August 9, 1974. Ford had critiqued Kennedy for invoking executive privilege after the Bay of Pigs. During Watergate, although he publicly supported Nixon, he privately supported the House committee’s right to the full transcript of the White House tapes. Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 420, 486. 53. Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 570–572, 438, 381, 563, 591, 126, 155; Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, 330; Schlesinger, Imperial Presidency. 54. Sandbrook, “Salesmanship and Substance,” 99; Logevall and Preston, “The Adventurous

Journey of Nixon in the World,” 14; Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 579, 587. 55. Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 111, Washington Post editors, quoted in Kutler, Wars of Watergate, 411; “Dampening Dissent,” Washington Post, November 5, 1975. 56. Joseph Kraft, “A Nation in Unfamiliar Territory,” Washington Post, November 2, 1975. 57. George Kennan, “Support for Kissinger,” letter to the editor, Washington Post, October 14, 1975. 58. See U.S. Department of State, Diplomacy for the 70’s, 291, 299. See also Elder, The Policy Machine, 159. See chapter 2 for Kennan’s testimony and other activities on behalf of the China hands. 59. Gelb and Lake, “Washington Dateline,” 227. 60. Boyatt, Presentation at the Foreign Service Institute, March 8, 1990, 7. 61. Bird, “Dissent in the Foreign Service.” Coll, Ghost Wars, 180–197. 62. Bird, “Dissent in the Foreign Service,” 6. Among Foreign Service officers, the most famous

243 4. the other plumbers unit case of retribution involved H. Allen “Tex” Harris, who was denied promotion after reporting human rights abuses in Argentina in 1977. Notably, however, Harris himself has written approvingly of the reforms that led to the creation of the Dissent Channel. “AFSA Becomes a Union,” 27. 63. Bird, “Dissent in the Foreign Service,” 3–4. The higher one’s status is at the time of using the Dissent Channel, the less adverse the impact is on his or her career. A statistical assessment of Foreign Service officers who have received one of the awards for dissent given out annually by the American Foreign Service Association bears this out. See Jones, “Is There Life After Dissent?” 27–30. 64. Boyatt, Presentation at the Foreign Service Institute, September 30, 1992, 8. For a list of the recipients of the Rivkin Award, see http://www.afsa.org/awards/awardwinners_rivkin.cfm. 65. Boyatt, Presentation at the Foreign Service Institute, March 8, 1990, 8. 66. Jones, “Is There Life After Dissent?” 2000, 40; Bird, “Dissent in the Foreign Service,” 7. 67. This quote comes from a group of would-be reformers in the 1980s who called themselves the Sages. Bird, “Dissent in the Foreign Service,” 7. 68. See chapter 2. 69. I would like to thank the staff of the National Security Archive and especially Bill Burr for his efforts in obtaining the Boyatt memo in particular. 70. Wilson, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” New York Times, July 6, 2003; Schaffer, “Joseph Wilson’s Selfless Self-Promotion: Hot Air,” New Republic, July 19, 2007. 71. As early as 2001, Gregory Thielmann, a Foreign Service officer in charge of the State Department’s Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs, had written reports questioning intelligence on the supposed relationship between uranium ore and metal tubes in Africa and Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. As scheduled, he retired in late 2002, and he went public with his dissent in October 2003. “The Man Who Knew,” 60 Minutes, February 4, 2004. 72. John Brady Kiesling, Dissent Channel Message Resignation Letter, February 24, 2003, printed in Kiesling, Diplomacy Lessons, appendix A, 281. 73. U.S. Department of State, Policy Planning Staff, “Your Dissent Channel Message Regarding U.S. Policy Toward Iraq,” March 17, 2003, printed in Kiesling, Diplomacy Lessons, appendix B, 283–285. 74. “U.S. Diplomat Resigns, Protesting ‘Our Fervent Pursuit of War,’” New York Times, February 27, 2003; Kiesling, “Iraq: A Letter of Resignation,” New York Review of Books, April 10, 2003. 75. Kiesling, Diplomacy Lessons, 28, 32. 76. Kiesling, Diplomacy Lessons, 27. 77. Kiesling, Diplomacy Lessons, 30. 78. W hat linguist John Austin described as utterances that not only “say something” but also “do

244 4. the other plumbers unit something.” J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 5. 79. Others have tried, in my view rather unpersuasively, to assess such decisions by imposing a rigid philosophy that begins and ends with assumptions that fetishize either bureaucratic fealty or democratic protest. See, for example, John Burke, Bureaucratic Responsibility (1986) and Edward Weisband and Thomas Franck, Resignation in Protest (1975). 80. Kiesling, “Our Withheld Tribute to Virtue.” 81. Waldman, “Resigning in Protest, A Career Diplomat Turns Peace Envoy,” Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2003. 82. “Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change,” Official Statement, June 16, 2004; “Letter to President Bush from U.S. Diplomats,” April 30, 2004, http://www.wagingpeace.org/ articles /2004/05/06_letter-diplomats.htm; http://www.wagingpeace.org/; Slevin, “Retired Envoys, Commander Assail Bush Team,” Washington Post, June 17, 2004; “More Retired Generals Call for Rumsfeld’s Resignation,” New York Times, April 14, 2006; “Bush Ousts Embattled Rumsfeld; Democrats Near Control of Senate,” Washington Post, November 9, 2006; Vanden Heuvel, “Former Bush (41) and Reagan Officials Say Bush (43) Must Go,” Nation, June 28, 2004. 83. Kiesling, Diplomacy Lessons, 17. 84. Wilkinson, “A Unique Perspective,” 75. 85. John Bolton, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, March 20, 2007. 86. The book received five stars in every one of its Amazon.com reviews, as well as a scholarly endorsement from Stanley Hoffman, one of the current deans of international relations studies, who has said that it “should be required reading by all students and practitioners of foreign policy.” Hoffman, “The Foreign Policy the U.S. Needs,” New York Review of Books, August 10, 2006. 87. In May 2003, Keith Mines, a Foreign Service officer coordinating local governance in Iraq, used the channel to argue that the UN and not the U.S. should manage the effort. Though his recommendations were not implemented, Mines received an award for “constructive dissent” and has since used the channel again to argue for a phased-out withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region. In 2004 Arab specialist Ronald Schlicher challenged the administration’s prioritization of military over diplomatic initiatives through the Dissent Channel. He too received a dissent award, but has since been transferred out of the region. “Channeling Dissent from the Foreign Service,” NPR Morning Edition, October 14, 2004; “Officers Question Visibility of Army in Iraq,” Washington Post, July 26, 2004; Mines, “Iraq: The Next Stage,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, June 28, 2004; Slevin, “Diplomats Honored for Dissent,” Washington Post, June 28, 2004; Glain, “Freeze-Out of the Arabists,” Nation, November 1, 2004. 88. “Second Foreign Service Officer Resigns in Protest Over Iraq,” March 12, 2003; “Tony Blair in the Doghouse,” Washington Post, March 13, 2003; Ann Wright, “Why Dissent Is Important

245 conclusion and Resignation Honorable,” 15–19. 89. John Brady Kiesling, interview by Bill Moyers, Now with Bill Moyers, Public Broadcasting System, March 14, 2003. 90. Hoff similarly argues that the politics of Watergate focused too much on the personalities in the Nixon administration and neglected the more fundamental problems of executive power, thus leaving the door open for later scandals, most notably the Iran-Contra affair in the Reagan administration. Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, 335–336. 91. “Leaked Cables Offer Raw Look at U.S. Diplomacy,” New York Times, November 28, 2010; “WikiLeaks Cables: ‘Nicolas Sarkozy Thin-Skinned and Authoritarian,’” Guardian, November 30, 2010; “WikiLeaks Cables Gallery: Washington’s View of World Leaders,” Guardian, November 29, 2010; U.S. Department of State, “Ahmed Wali Karzai and Governor Weesa on Governance,” October 3, 2009, http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/10/09KABUL3068. html. 92. U.S. Department of State, “Remarks to the Press on the Release of Confidential Documents,” November 29, 2010, http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/11/152078.htm.

Conclusion

1. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 422–423. For ease of reading, I have slightly altered Morgenthau’s syntax. In its original, the line reads, “Upon the reliability of his [the diplomat’s] reports and the soundness of his judgment, the success or failure of the foreign policy of his government and its ability to preserve peace will rely.”

2. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 111.

3. Virtually all scholarship on prophecy emphasizes a connection to the written word. In his study of prophecy in literary modernism, Louis Martz, for example, calls prophecy the “poetry of presence.” Martz, Many Gods and Many Voices, 8. In his theory of authorship, Roland Barthes characterizes the author’s task as sacred, and thus connects the word and prophecy. Barthes speaks of the author’s “power to disturb the world” through his words. Barthes, “Authors and Writers,” 188.



4. In their respective books on prophecy, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Sacvan Bercovitch underscore the link between prophecy and loneliness. Heschel, The Prophets, 18; Bercovitch, The American Jeremiad, 88. Barthes’ author-prophet is similarly rejected. Like George Kennan in 1944, he offers us “a mosaic glance at the promised land of the real,” which he himself cannot enter. Barthes, “Authors and Writers,” 188. The author as the unfulfilled, rejected, and rebuked prophet resonates with Foucault’s observation that “[t]exts, books, and discourses really began to have authors to the extent that authors became subject to punishment.” Foucault, “What Is an Author?” 346.

246 conclusion

5. DiLeo, George Ball, Vietnam, and the Rethinking of Containment, 178. Ball published excerpts of his testimony in the August 5 edition of the Wall Street Journal under the title “On the Decision to Make War.” 6. A short list of Kennan’s books to this end would include American Diplomacy (1951); Russia, the Atom, and the West (1958); On Dealing with the Communist World (1964); and Memoirs, vols. 1 and 2 (1967, 1972). Ball’s books include The Discipline of Power: Essentials of a Modern World Structure (1968); Diplomacy for a Crowded World (1976); The Past Has Another Pattern (1982); and The Passionate Attachment (1992).

7. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, The Amerasia Papers, ed. Anthony Kubek, 91st Cong.,



8. “John S. Service Reports on China,” Chicago Tribune, November 4, 1971; John Service, Testi-

1st sess.; Service, The Amerasia Papers: Some Problems in the History of U.S.-China Relations. mony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, September 18, 1974, John S. Service Papers (hereafter cited as JSSP), “Clearances,” carton 3, folder 2, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

9. Davies, Dragon by the Tail (1972). 10. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, 173–175, 304, 368, 378, 491–499, 502–506; “A Light That Failed,” 33–49; Kenneth Weisbrode asserts that Ball would have been Carter’s choice for secretary of state. Weisbrode, The Atlantic Century, 201.



11. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, 111–112. 12. “Old China Hands Restored to Grace,” Washington Star News, January 31, 1971; New York Times, February 4, 1973; “China Hands Get Their Due—a Generation Too Late,” Philadelphia Inquirer, February 5, 1973, in JSSP, carton 4, folder 1; Kahn, “Foresight, Nightmare, and Hindsight,” 43–53. Atkinson to Service, JSSP, box 1, folder 23. 13. “Foreign Policy Revision Called For by Kennan,” Washington Post, April 22, 1956; “Minority Diplomat,” New York Times, November 18, 1957; “Kennan Provides Food for Cold-War Thought,” Los Angeles Times, March 23, 1958; “Kennan on Today’s Great Dialogue,” Washington Post, May 14, 1961. 14. “ Viet Debate Builds Pressure for Johnson Action,” Christian Science Monitor, February 19, 1966; Alsop, “On a Theme from Kennan,” Washington Post, February 23, 1966; “Vietnam: An Opening for Diplomacy?” New York Times, April 18, 1970. 15. “Diplomat as Prophet,” Ottawa Citizen, April 22, 1989; “The Statesman as Moral Authority, George Kennan Took Us from Containment to Perestroika,” Boston Globe, February 16, 1992; “Kennan: A Vindicated Prophet,” Star Tribune, September 5, 1991; “Who Killed Communism?” Washington Post, April 12, 1996. 16. “Cold War Offers Lessons on What We Do Next,” Seattle Times, March 27, 2005; Bremmer, “George Kennan’s Lessons for the War on Terror,” March 24, 2005; “Idealism and Foreign

247 conclusion Policy,” International Herald Tribune, May 21, 2007; “A War Still Seeking a Mission,” Washington Post, September 11, 2007; Thompson, “A War Best Served Cold,” New York Times, July 31, 2007; Bremmer, “The Idea of Containment Is Back,” Gazette, March 4, 2007. 17. “Heed the Lessons of the Past,” Connecticut Post, December 24, 2008; “Obama and Change We Can Believe In,” Gulf News, December 12, 2008; Alan Brinkley, quoted in Benen, “Recommended Reading for Obama,” Washington Monthly, January 21, 2009. 18. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 116. 19. Kennan, “Training for Statesmanship,” Atlantic Monthly, April 1953, 41–43. 20. Service, “The Craft of the Political Reporter Abroad,” 23. 21. Obama, “A More Perfect Union,” speech, March 18, 2008.

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263 bibliography Suri, Jeremi. “Henry Kissinger and American Grand Strategy.” In Fredrik Logevall and Andrew Preston, eds., Nixon in the World: American Foreign Relations, 1969–1977. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Toledano, Ralph. Spies, Dupes, and Diplomats. New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1952. Tuchman, Barbara. Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–1945. New York: Macmillan, 1970. Tulis, Jeffrey. The Rhetorical Presidency. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987. Van de Mark, Brian. Into the Quagmire: Lyndon Johnson and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Van Hollen, Christopher. “The Tilt Policy Revisited: Nixon-Kissinger Geopolitics and South Asia.” Asian Survey 20, no. 4 (April 1980): 339–361. Van Slyke, Lyman, ed. The China White Paper. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1967. Walker, Martin. The Cold War: A History. New York: Henry Holt, 1993. Walker, R. B. J. Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Warwick, Donald. A Theory of Public Bureaucracy: Politics, Personality, and Organization in the State Department. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975. Weber, Max. “Bureaucracy.” In H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, trans. and eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, 196–244. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958. ——. “The Chinese Literati.” In H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, trans. and eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, 416–444. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958. ——. “Politics as a Vocation,” In H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, trans. and eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, 77–128. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958. ——. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (1947). Translated by A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons. New York: Free Press, 1964. Weisband, Edward and Thomas Franck. Resignation in Protest. New York: Grossman, 1975. Weisbrode, Kenneth. The Atlantic Century: Four Generations of Extraordinary Diplomats Who Forged America’s Vital Alliance with Europe. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2009. Wells, Tom. Wild Man: The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself ” (1855). In Leaves of Grass. New York: Dover, 2007. Willkie, Wendell. One World. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1943. Windt, Theodor. Presidents and Protesters: Political Rhetoric in the 1960s. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1990. Wylie, Raymond F. and Immanuel C.Y. Hsu. “The China Hands in Historical and Comparative Perspective.” In Paul Gordon Lauren, The China Hands: Ethics and Diplomacy. London: Westview, 1987.

264 bibliography Yergin, Daniel. Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1977. Young, Marilyn. The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. ——, ed. Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth-Century History. New York: New Press, 2009. Newspapers and Periodicals Alsop, Joseph. “The Feud Between Stilwell and Chiang.” Saturday Evening Post, January 7, 1950. ——. “Matter of Fact: The Deceptive Calm.” Washington Post, November 23, 1964. Unless otherwise noted, articles from the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal were accessed through Proquest Historical Newspapers Online, http://www.proquest.com, or directly through each newspaper’s Web site. ——. “On a Theme from Kennan.” Washington Post, February 23, 1966. Alsop, Joseph and Stewart Alsop. “Matter of Fact: Boldness at Last.” Washington Post, September 2, 1949. ——. “Matter of Fact: The Kennan Dispatch.” Washington Post, May 23, 1947. Altschul, Frank. “‘X’ Article Analysis.” Washington Post, September 21, 1947. “Around the World, Distress Over Iran” New York Times, November 28, 2010. Atkinson, Brooks. “America’s Global Planner.” New York Times, July 13, 1947. Ball, George. “A Call to Revolt.” Newsweek, December 22, 1969, 108. ——. “How Valid Are the Assumptions Underlying Our Viet-Nam Policies?” Atlantic Monthly (July 1972): 32–44. ——. “On the Decision to Make War.” Wall Street Journal, August 5, 1971. ——. “We Should De-escalate the Importance of Vietnam.” New York Times, December 21, 1969. Beam, Christopher. “Dispatches: The WikiLeaks Cables as Literature.” Slate, December 1, 2010. Benen, Steve. “George Kennan’s Lessons for the War on Terror.” New York Times, March 24, 2005. ——. “Recommended Reading for Obama.” Washington Monthly, January 21, 2009. http://www. washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_01/016542.php. Bremmer, Ian. “The Idea of Containment Is Back.” Gazette, March 4, 2007. Buckley, William. “George Kennan’s New Views.” National Review, January 3, 1978. “Bush Ousts Embattled Rumsfeld: Democrats Near Control of Senate.” Washington Post, November 9, 2006. “Cables Depict U.S. Haggling to Clear Guantánamo.” New York Times, November 29, 2010. “Cold War Offers Lessons on What We Do Next.” Seattle Times, March 27, 2005. “Dampening Dissent.” Washington Post, November 5, 1975. “Diplomat as Prophet.” Ottawa Citizen, April 22, 1989.

265 bibliography “Dulles Holds Firm in Senate Attacks on Bohlen Security.” New York Times, March 20, 1953. “Foreign Policy Revision Called For by Kennan.” Washington Post, April 22, 1956. Glain, Stephen. “Freeze-Out of the Arabists.” Nation, November 1, 2004. Harris, Tex. “AFSA Becomes a Union: The Reformers’ Victory.” Foreign Service Journal, June 2003, 18–27. “Heed the Lessons of the Past.” Connecticut Post, December 24, 2008. Hoffman, Stanley. “The Foreign Policy the U.S. Needs.” New York Review of Books, August 10, 2006. “How Nixon’s White House Works.” Time, June 8, 1970. “I Do Not Intend to Turn My Back.” Time, February 6, 1950. “Idealism and Foreign Policy.” International Herald Tribune, May 21, 2007. “Inquiry on Leaks Is Pushed; Grew Indicates More Arrests.” New York Times, June 8, 1945. “John S. Service Reports on China.” Chicago Tribune, November 4, 1971. Jones, David. T. “Advise and Dissent: The Diplomat as Protester.” Foreign Service Journal, April 2000, 37. http://www.afsa.org/fsj/Journal2000.cfm. ——. “Is There Life After Dissent?” Foreign Service Journal, June 2002, 26. http://www.afsa.org/fsj/ Journal2000.cfm “Kennan: A Vindicated Prophet.” Star Tribune, September 5, 1991. Kennan, George. “Responsibility in Government.” Time, December 29, 1952. ——. “Support for Kissinger.” Washington Post, October14, 1975. ——. “Training for Statesmanship.” Atlantic Monthly, April 1953. “Kennan Describes Isolation in Soviet.” New York Times, September 20, 1952. “Kennan Is Attacked in Moscow’s Pravda.” New York Times, September 26, 1952. “Kennan on Today’s Great Dialogue.” Washington Post, May 14, 1961. “Kennan Provides Food for Cold-War Thought.” Los Angeles Times, March 23, 1958. Kiesling, [John] Brady. “Iraq: A Letter of Resignation.” New York Review of Books, April 10, 2003. Kifner, John. “John Service, a Purged ‘China Hand,’ Dies at 89.” New York Times, February 4, 1999. Kraft, Joseph. “A Nation in Unfamiliar Territory.” Washington Post, November 2, 1975, 101. Krock, Arthur. “A Guide to Official Thinking About Russia.” New York Times, July 7, 1947. Landler, Mark. “From WikiLemons, Clinton Tries to Make Lemonade.” New York Times, December 4, 2010. “Leaked Cables Offer Raw Look at U.S. Diplomacy.” New York Times, November 28, 2010. “Light on Lobbying.” Time, November 11, 1929. Lindley, Ernest. “The Article By ‘X’: Containment of Russia.” Washington Post, July 11, 1947. Lippmann, Walter. “The Cold War: A Study of U.S. Foreign Policy.” Los Angeles Times, September 4, 1947.

266 bibliography ——. “Today and Tomorrow: The Key to the Door.” Washington Post, October 11, 1949. “Loyalty to Employees.” Washington Post, June 30, 1950. Marks, John. “From Diplomat to Dissident: A State Department Odyssey.” Foreign Service Journal, April 2000, 34. http://www.afsa.org/fsj/Journal2000.cfm. Milbank, Dana. “Amidst WikiLeaks Documents, Novel Diplomacy.” Washington Post, November 30, 2010. “Minority Diplomat.” New York Times, November 18, 1957. “More Retired Generals Call for Rumsfeld’s Resignation.” New York Times, April 14, 2006. “The Nation.” New York Times, March 22, 1953. “Obama and Change We Can Believe In.” Gulf News, December 12, 2008. “Officers Question Visibility of Army in Iraq.” Washington Post, July 26, 2004. “Old China Hands Restored to Grace.” Washington Star News, January 31, 1971. “Pravda Calls Envoy Kennan ‘Ecstatic Liar.’” Washington Post, September 27, 1952. “Robert J. Morris Is Dead at 82; Crusader Against Communists.” New York Times, January 2, 1997. Reston, James. “McCarthy Is Wrong on Foreign Policy: President Agrees.” New York Times, December 1, 1953. ——. “A New Role for a New State Department.” New York Times, May 25, 1947. “Saudi Arabia Urges U.S. Attack on Iran to Stop Nuclear Programme.” Guardian, November 28, 2010. Schaffer, Michael Currie. “Joseph Wilson’s Self-Promotion: Hot Air.” New Republic, July 19, 2007. “Second Foreign Service Officer Resigns in Protest Over Iraq.” March 12, 2003. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0303/031203h1.htm. “Secretary Is Accused of Security Overriding.” Washington Post, March 21, 1953. Slevin, Peter. “Diplomats Honored for Dissent.” Washington Post, June 28, 2004. ——. “Retired Envoys, Commander Assail Bush Team.” Washington Post, June 17, 2004. “Stalin Blames Capitalism for Two World Wars.” Chicago Tribune, February. 10, 1946. “State Department Lashes Back at McCarthy.” Washington Post, March 17, 1950. “The Statesman as Moral Authority, George Kennan Took Us from Containment to Perestroika.” Boston Globe, February 16, 1992. Stephanson, Anders. “The X-Files.” Nation, April 25, 2005, 32. “Text of Premier Stalin’s Election Speech Broadcast by Moscow Radio.” New York Times, February 10, 1946. Thompson, Nicholas. “A War Best Served Cold.” New York Times, July 31, 2007. “Tony Blair in the Doghouse.” Washington Post, March 13, 2003. “The Tragedy of James Forrestal.” Washington Post, May 23, 1949. “U.S. Diplomat Resigns, Protesting ‘Our Fervent Pursuit of War.’” New York Times, February 27, 2003.

267 bibliography Vanden Heuvel, Katrina. “Former Bush (41) and Reagan Officials Say Bush (43) Must Go.” Nation, June 28, 2004. “Viet Debate Builds Pressure for Johnson’s Action.” Christian Science Monitor, February 19, 1966. “Vietnam: An Opening for Diplomacy?” New York Times, April 18, 1970. Waldman, Peter. “Resigning in Protest, A Career Diplomat Turns Peace Envoy.” Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2003. “A War Still Seeking a Mission.” Washington Post, September 11, 2007. “Who Killed Communism?” Washington Post, April 12, 1996. “WikiLeaks Cables: ‘Nicolas Sarkozy Thin-Skinned and Authoritarian.’” Guardian, November 30, 2010. “WikiLeaks Cables Gallery: Washington’s View of World Leaders.” Guardian, November 29, 2010. Wilkinson, Ted. “A Unique Perspective.” Foreign Service Journal, December 2006. Wilson, Joseph. “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.” New York Times, July 6, 2003. Wright, Ann. “Why Dissent Is Important and Resignation Honorable.” Foreign Service Journal, September 2003, 15–19. http://www.afsa.org/fsj/sept03/wright.pdf. Sound and Television Recordings Bolton, John. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, March 20, 2007, Comedy Central. http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=84011&title=john-bolton&byDate=true. “Channeling Dissent from the Foreign Service.” NPR Morning Edition, October 14, 2004. http:// www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4108763. “Historian Relishes WikiLeaks Cable Dump.” NPR Morning Edition, December 1, 2010. http:// www.npr.org/2010/12/01/131719047/historian-relishes-wikileaks-cable-dump. Kiesling, John Brady. Interview by Bill Moyers. Now with Bill Moyers. Public Broadcasting System, March 14, 2003. http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/kiesling.html. “The Man Who Knew.” 60 Minutes. CBS, February 4, 2004. http://www.cbsnews.com/ stories/2003/10/14/60II/main577975. Rosenblatt, Roger. “An Honest Diplomat.” NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Public Broadcasting System, February 11, 2000. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/essays/february00/rosenblatt_2–11.html. “The Smoking Gun Tape.” June 23, 1972. Transcript. http://watergate.info/tapes/72–06-23_smoking-gun.shtml.

Index

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. Abrams, Creighton, 162 Acheson, Dean, 87: on bombing of Vietnam. 148; as dissenter, 163, 165; on LBJ, 156; Kennan and, 59–61, 63, 65, 217n68; on Marshall, 48; McCarran Committee and, 101–4, 106; on NSC 68, 64; Jack Service and, 228n97. See also Acheson-Cutler Plan Acheson-Cutler Plan, 147–48, 236n78 Adams, John, 4 Adams, Ware, 49, 218n83 Afghanistan: U.S. embassy in Kabul, 2; WikiLeaks and, 1, 197 al-Qadafi, Muammar, 2 al Qaeda, 1, 204 Alsop, Joseph, 51, 90, 220n124 Alsop, Stewart, 51, 220n124 Amerasia case, 85, 88, 97, 223n38; Hobbes committee on, 224n49 American Foreign Service Association, awards for dissent by, 243n63 Anderson, Jack, 178–79 Anderson, M. S., 14–15 antiwar movements, 240n16; against Iraq War, 193, 194; against Vietnam War, 158–59, 161, 165, 170, 174–76, 201–3. See also doves Armstrong, Hamilton Fish, 50–51

Ash, Timothy Garton, 2 Assange, Julian, and WikiLeaks, 1, 206–7 Atcheson, George, 81 Atherton, Ray, 23 Atkinson, Brooks, 77, 203; on Kennan, 51 Ball, Amos, 122, 125, 230n7 Ball, George, 116, 117; Acheson-Cutler Plan and, 147–48; April 21 memo of, 145–47; Diem coup cable and, 234n47; on diplomatic writing, 133; Discipline of Power, 237n104; dissent by, against escalation, 119–21, 143–44, 148–57; dissent by, against Vietnam War, 130, 137–41, 162–63, 165–66; early career of, 122–23; foreign policy and, 156; as internal dissenter, 158–60; on LBJ, 235n72; June 18 memo of, 148–49; JFK and, 127–28; on Kissinger, 180; McCarthy attacks and, 132; memos and reports of, 147, 150–51, 159, 211n20, 230n1, 232n23, 233n44; Monnet as influence on, 123–26, 135–37, 139, 142, 230n9; on Nixon, 166–67; October 5 memo of, 135–39, 142, 144–45, 202; as prophet, 200–202; in support of Vietnam War, 134, 142, 154; on Vietnam War, 9, 11, 17, 205, 236n81; on writing, 126, 231n22 Barron, Bryton, 226n72

270 index Barthes, Roland, 28, 39, 245–46n3, 246n4 Bay of Pigs, 242n52 Beam, Christopher, 2 Beam, Jacob, 219n107 Bendiner, Robert, 15 Beneš, Eduard, as president of Czechoslovakia, 54 Berlin blockade, 54–57 Berlusconi, Silvio, 2 Bingham, Hiram, 100, 102 Bird, Kai, on Dissent Channel, 239n10 Blood, Archer, 178, 240–41n25 Bohlen, Charles (“Chip”), 7, 60, 106 Bolton, John, 195 bombing of North Vietnam, 120, 142–44, 166– 67, 232n29, 238n118; cessation of, 162–63; ineffectiveness of, 156, 160; under Nixon, 170; pauses in, 148, 154–155. See also escalation of Vietnam War; Vietnam War Bowles, Chester, 110, 233n40 Boyatt, Thomas, 188; Boyatt affair and, 183–84, 187, 190, 197; as dissenter, 180–81; William Rivkin Award given to, 189 Bradley, Gen. Omar, 59, 164 Brinkley, Alan, 204 Brinkley, Douglas, 65, 215n44 Britain, 54, 63, 72, 225n62 Brown, John, 195 Buckley, William, 94, 216n67 Bullitt, William, 23–24, 38, 40 Bundy, McGeorge, 155, 160, 234n50; Ball’s dissent and, 139–41, 144, 150–51; as dissenter, 163; in favor of escalation, 135, 142–43; LBJ and, 235n72; report of, on escalation, 152–53, 236n89 Bundy, William (“Bill”): Ball and, 141, 150; on LBJ, 152 Bunker, Ellsworth, 159 bureaucracy, bureaucratization, 29, 97, 189; anti-, 95, 100; Ball and, 148–49; bureaucratese and, 233n44; of diplomatic establishments, 5–13, 78; of executive branch, 39, 107; Kennan and, 21, 32, 33, 41–42, 47, 53, 64, 66–69; Jack Service and, 102, 109; of State Department, 14–15, 22, 36–37, 63, 90–91, 103, 133, 171–74, 200, 226n72; totalitarian, 73; Weber on, 225n60 Bureau for Research and Intelligence (INR), State Department, 132, 150, 222n25, 233n40 Burke, Edmund, on diplomacy, 12 Bush, George H. W., 190

Bush, George W.: administration of, 196; Iraq policy of, 192, 194; Kennan and, 203; war on terror of, 203–4; Wilson affair and, 191 Butler, George, 49, 55, 218n83 Butterworth, Walton, 88 Byrnes, James, 60, 97, 99; as secretary of state, 31–32, 36, 86; Yalta conference and, 215n48 cable, cables, 15, 152; authorizing Diem coup, 132, 135, 234n47; of Boyatt, 180; content of, 197; dissenters and, 11, 178, 239n10; of Hurley, 83; writing of, 2–3. See also “Cablegate”; WikiLeaks “Cablegate” (November 28, 2010), 1–3, 11, 16, 197–98, 206 Callières, François de, sieur de Rochelay et de Gigny, on diplomatic writing, 12–13 Cambodia, 108, 167; Vietnam War and, 120, 170–71, 175, 186 Camp David, 237n105 Carr, Wilbur, 6, 213n20 Carter, Jimmy, 190, 202 Carver, George, 164–65 CCP. See Communist Party of China Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 7, 48, 222n25; Wilson affair and, 191 Chambers, Whittaker, 86 Chekhov, Anton, as influence on Kennan, 26–28 Chennault, Claire, 90 Chiang Kai-Shek, 92; cabinet of, 72; China Hands’ support of, 108; KMT and, 77, 79; FDR and, 81–82, 83, 109; Jack Service and, 85, 227n92; in Taiwan, 221n4; wife of, 71, 108, 220n1 China: civil war in, 221n3; Communist takeover of, 63, 126; democracy in, 83; journalists covering, 226n74; Manchuria, 71, 74; Marshall mission to, 223–24n42; Nixon and, 201; U.S. ambassador to, 224n51; U.S. relations with, 9, 81, 92, 98, 177, 224n51; Vietnam War and, 136. See also Communist Party of China; Taiwan; and other China entries China, Communist (PRC). See Communist Party of China; People’s Republic of China China, Nationalist (KMT): China Hands accused of working against, 86; Communist conflict with, 74, 79–81, 83; Korean War and, 100; policies of, 77; propaganda of, 98; recognition of, 224n42; U.S. relations with,

271 index 71–73, 75, 81–82, 84–85, 87–88, 108, 201–3. See also Taiwan China Aid Bill (1948), 87 China Hands, 218n83; accused of aiding CCP, 86, 90, 100–101; analytic deficiency of, 228n97; after Davies and Service, 107–8; diplomatic reporting by, 16; dismissal of, 103–4, 131–34, 201; dissent of, 10, 137; identification of, 72; marginalization of, 73; McCarthy’s attacks against, 200; new generation of, 75–77, 81; reporting of, 83–84; vindication of, 201–3 China Lobby, 72, 90, 99, 102, 105, 106, 201–2; Barron and, 226n72; Jack Service and, 86 China White Paper, 87–93, 94, 101, 103, 104, 109 Chou En-lai, 77, 113, 201 Chu-Teh, 113 Churchill, Winston, 225n62; Iron Curtain Speech by, 36; FDR and, 25 CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency Civil Service Commission, 226–27n80 Clay, Lucius, 54, 58, 59, 63 Clifford, Clark, 37; bombing of Vietnam and, 238n118; opposition of, to escalation, 159, 167, 237n105; as secretary of defense, 238n110; task force of, 161–65 Clinton, Bill, 190 Clinton, Hillary Rodham, on WikiLeaks, 3, 11, 197 Clubb, Oliver Edward, 104 Cold War: diplomatic writing in, 10, 15, 65; Dissent Channel and, 189; escalation and, 157; Forrestal on, 37; Kennan and, 29–30, 68; militarization of, 9, 64, 156, 203; U.S. policy in, 87, 98, 227n86 Commissariat général du Plan (Planning Commission), 123 Committee of Correspondence, 13 Committee of Foreign Affairs, 13 communiqués, 11, 87, 92; Kennan’s, 21, 38, 50, 65; neglect of, by senior officials, 22 Communist Party of China (CCP), 63, 72–74, 77, 79–82, 222n30; leaders of, 113; Long March and, 83; Jack Service hearing and, 94–96, 98; Soviets and, 98, 224n53; U.S. policy toward, 82, 89–90, 92–93, 108, 224n42; U.S. relations with, 84–86; victory of, 126. See also People’s Republic of China Communists, Communism: China Hands and, 228n97; diplomatic writing linked to, 110; State Department employment and, 226–

27n80; sympathizers of, 226n74; in Vietnam, 120. See also Cold War; Communist Party of China; Marxism; Red Scare; Russia; Soviet Union Congress, U.S., 215n48; as audience for dissent writing, 17–18; Chiang Kai-Shek and, 72; diplomatic establishment and, 7; Dissent Channel and, 190; elections for, 100, 227n87; Lend Lease bill and, 23; power over foreign policy asserted by, 186–87; president vs., 13, 182–83, 185–86; Rogers Act and, 6, 22. See also Senate, U.S. Congress of Vienna (1815), 12 Connor, John, 41, 42 containment policy: domino theory as extension of, 128, 130; Kennan and, 9, 29, 43, 45– 47, 203–4; Lippmann on, 52; Vietnam War justified by, 161; war on terror and, 206 Continental Congress, 13 Coolidge, Calvin, 22, 212n5 corruption: in Afghan government, 2, 197; in China, 72, 79; in South Vietnam, 132, 165 Council of Foreign Ministers (1945), 32 Council on Foreign Relations: journal of, 51; Kennan and, 45–46 Cox, Archibald, 183, 185 Currie, Lauchlin, 79–80; on Chiang, 81–82; in China, 82–83; Davies and, 222n29 Cutler, Lloyd, 147. See also Acheson-Cutler Plan Cyprus, 180–83 Czechoslovakia: Communist coup in, 54–55; Kennan in, 213n20 Davies, John Paton, 113, 114, 218n83; accusations against, 87, 104, 106–7, 204; CCP and, 81–82, 108; China White Paper and, 87–90, 92–93; Currie and, 222n29; dismissal of, 107; Dragon by the Tail, 201; exile of, 131–32; as internal dissenter, 8, 17; Madame Chiang and, 71; on Policy Planning Staff, 49, 224n53; as prophet, 200, 202–3; reporting in China by, 74–75, 77, 79–80; reports by, significance of, 108–10; Jack Service and, 76, 83–84; U.S.-China relations and, 9, 72–73 Dean, Arthur, as dissenter, 163–64 de-escalation of Vietnam War, 159; Clifford task force and, 165; dissent and, 164; under LBJ, 166; Lodge as supporter of, 238n116; Vietnamization and, 170. See also escalation of Vietnam War; Vietnam War

272 index Defense Department: consultants to, 210n8; dissent in, 161, 163, 165; establishment of, 7; U.S. involvement in Vietnam and, 131, 152, 160 democracy, 140; American, 77, 95; capitalist, 38; in China, 83, 92, 94; in Czechoslovakia, 54; in Pakistan, 177 Democrats, 93, 131, 185; in congressional elections of 1950, 100, 227n87; Southern, 182. See also politics DePuy, William, 164–65 De Santis, Hugh, 35, 214n25, 221n3 Diem, Ngo Dinh, assassination of, 132 Dillon, Douglas, as dissenter, 163, 165 diplomacy, 10, 84, 139, 171; with China, 72, 73, 82, 89; classical, 27; Diplomacy for the 70s and, 173; Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower and, 194–95; institutionalization of, 12, 13; logic of, 137, 147, 148, 149–50, 163, 166; Morgenthau on, 4; nonverbal, 45; open, 88; professionalism in, 5, 11, 226n76; with Russia, 54, 55; as term, 12; with Vietnam, 155, 158 diplomatic dissent, 9, 173, 178; awards for, 243n63, 244–45n87; in bureaucracy, 17; diplomatic writing and, 10–11, 18, 199; institutionalization of, 171–73, 176; internal, 159–62, 165–67, 175; Internet and, 197; in LBJ administration, 233n40; pressure to conform vs., 15; public access to, 190–91. See also Dissent Channel; escalation of Vietnam War: opposition to diplomatic establishment, 5–6; bureaucratization of, 90–91; codification of, 211n22; elitism in, 73, 95; marginalization of, 4–5, 7–8; process of, 206–7. See also diplomatic dissent diplomatic writing: analysis and, 12; Ball on, 126, 231n22; bureaucratization and bureaucratic aspects of, 17, 35, 74, 88, 109, 133, 142–43, 171–73, 178–79, 217n77; “Cablegate” and, 3; classical, 27; Communism linked to, 110; corporate authorship of, 184; evolution of, 10–16; of dissent, 167, 191, 195–98, 206; foreign correspondence in newspapers, 12, 211n24; influence of, 206–7; as insider writing, 101, 106, 121; internal, 133–34, 158–61; McCarthy accusations against, 90, 94–96, 98–99, 105–7; Morgenthau on, 7, 11; prophecy in, 199–200, 204; risks of, 87; U.S. foreign policy and, 18–19, 29–30, 69,

73. See also cable, cables; communiqués; dispatches; letters; memo, memos; reports; white papers diplomats: influence of, 67–68, 198; internal dissent and, 8–9; as prophets, 199, 204; reduced influence of, 14, 31–32; resignations of, in protest, 191, 192; role of, 15, 199; as separate from politicians, 88; State Department image and, 97; voice of, 18, 19 Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, 194 dispatches, 25; bureaucratization and, 15, 16; epistolary, 78; of Kennan, 28, 33, 34, 35, 38– 39, 48, 98, 213n20; in nineteenth century, 5, 96; of Jack Service, 82; telegraph and, 14 dissent. See diplomatic dissent; Dissent Channel; dissenters Dissent Channel, 182, 189–90, 197–98, 243n63; Bengali genocide and, 177; Bird on, 239n10; Boyatt’s Cyprus memo and, 180–81, 183, 184; as bureaucratic exhaust mechanism, 191; challenges to, 192; creation of, 9, 171– 76, 243n62; governance in Iraq and, 244– 45n87; invasion of Iraq and, 239–40n10; Iraq War and, 190–98; Kiesling and, 192– 96; leaks in, 178; Nixon and, 11, 179; public access to, 190–91 dissenters: Ball as ideal, 144, 158; Boyatt as, 180–81; China Hands as internal, 137; Davies as internal, 8; debate in foreign policy and, 207; internal, 137, 144, 159, 164, 171, 175–76, 190; in LBJ administration, 159–61, 233n40; Kennan as internal, 137; Kiesling as, 192–96; public, 200–201. See also diplomatic dissent; Dissent Channel domino theory, 131, 231n19; psychological, 128, 130, 232n27 Donovan, William J. (“Wild Bill”), 222n30 doves, 160, 237n99 Drumright, Everett, 108; as ambassador to Taiwan, 229n109 Dulles, Allen, 105; on diplomatic reporting, 96, 106 Dulles, John Foster, 132; as secretary of state, 105–7, 126, 203; War or Peace, 229n103 Durbrow, Elbridge, 16 Edwards, Jonathan, 34, 215n40 Ehrlich, Thomas, 147–48, 233n44 Eikenberry, Karl, as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, 2, 197

273 index Eisenhower, Dwight D.: administration of, 104–5, 126, 203, 210n8; Executive Order 10450 and, 105; legacy of, 157; State Department and, 7, 11; Vietnam War and, 145 Elliston, Herbert, 44 Ellsberg, Daniel, 117, 160, 175–76. See also Pentagon Papers embassies: cable communication of, 1; in Kabul, 2; nonreporting by, 224n42 Ervin, Sam, 182 escalation of Vietnam War, 120, 141–42, 151–53, 166–67, 232n29, 235n74; Ball and, 148–49, 237n104; diplomacy vs., 145–50, 158, 163; LBJ and, 153, 157–58, 162, 237n99; Kennan and, 200–201; opposition to, 119–21, 143– 44, 154, 159–60, 165. See also de-escalation of Vietnam War; Vietnam War Europe: diplomacy in, 12; imperialism of, 72; Kennan and, 214n20; PPS and, 217n79; Soviet Union and, 217n77; United States and, 22, 212n4 European Cooperation Committee, 49 European Recovery Program, 54–55, 57 European Union, concept of, 220n124 executive privilege, 242n42, 242n43; JFK and, 242n52; Nixon and, 182–83, 242n39 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 85, 101– 2, 226n79 Federal Employee Loyalty Program, 100–103; creation of, 97 Fitzgerald, F. Scott, as influence on Kennan, 26 Foggy Bottom, 66, 118, 139, 190 Fontaine, François, on Monnet, 123, 125 Ford, Gerald R.: administration of, 179, 186–87; Nixon and, 242n52 foreign policy: advisors on, 226n72; toward China, 82, 83–84, 88; in Cold War, 29, 41, 51, 61, 87; credibility in, 232n27, 233n33; diplomatic writing and, 4, 18–19, 73, 125; dissent and, 240n10; Foreign Service right to guide, 91; idealism in, 83; image and prestige as factors of, 128–29, 136–40, 147, 158; influence of diplomatic establishment on, 6–7; influence of Kennan on, 29–30, 37, 52; toward Iraq, 194; McCarthyism and, 181; Morgenthau on, 210n5; Nixon and, 172–74; NSC 68 and, 65; in The Pentagon Papers, 8; realism in, 83; toward Russia and Soviet Union, 25, 37, 215n44; secrecy of, 1; transparency in, 180, 187,

190; universalism in, 56; in Vietnam, 126, 170; WikiLeaks and, 2–3; in World War Two, 80 Foreign Service: anti-establishment activity in, 171; China and, 85–86; corporate authorship in, 181–82, 184; Davies in, 71–72; dissent and, 243n63, 243n71; Dissent Channel used by, 189; elitism in, 95; establishment of, 6; Harris in, 243n62; Jack Service in, 71– 72; Kennan on, 21–22; McCarthy’s accusations and, 97–98, 104–5; modern, 226n76; as nonprofessional, 6; practices of, 96, 103; professionalization of, 225n57; FDR and, 81, 82; Soviet Union and, 27; Truman on, 31; Wilson in, 191; World War Two and, 7, 15. See also China Hands Foreign Service Act (1946), 6, 225n57 Foreign Service Association, 97, 189, 202, 243n63 Foreign Service School, 226n76 Forrestal, James, 64; as patron of Kennan, 18, 37–42, 44–47, 50, 65; recommendation of Kennan by, 48; suicide of, 59; Willett’s study and, 216n55; “X Article” and, 217n77, 218n89 Forrestal, Mike, 132 Foucault, Michel, 39, 246n4 France, 2; Berlin blockade and, 54, 57; U.S. involvement in Germany and, 63; Vietnam and, 236n81 Franklin, Benjamin, 13 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 186, 191 Frost, David: interviews of Nixon by, 242n48 Fulbright, Sen. J. William, 134; Fulbright Committee on Foreign Relations and, 200–201, 203 Gauss, Clarence, 75–76, 78, 88, 93, 98; retirement of, 84 Gelb, Leslie, and Pentagon Papers, 160, 237n108 Germany, 57–58, 114, 124, 218n83; China trade and, 72; Kennan’s report on, 61–63, 219n103, 219n107; U.S.-Soviet involvement in, 54–56, 59. See also Nazis; West Germany Gibbon, Edward, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 26, 28, 46 Goldberg, Arthur, 164 Gottwald, Clement, 54 Greece: aid for, 53, 60; Cyprus and, 180; U.S. embassy in Athens, 192

274 index Grew, Joseph, 91, 97, 226n79 Gruening, Ernest, 131 Guantánamo Bay, 2 Haas, Richard, 192–93 Habib, Philip, 164–65 Halberstam, David, 202 Hall, Monroe, 75 Halperin, Morton, and Pentagon Papers, 160, 237n108 Harding, Warren G., 22, 212n5 Harriman, Averell, 24, 29, 30, 32, 38, 132, 152; as dissenter, 233n40 Harris, H. Allen (“Tex”), 243n62 Harry S. Truman Building (Washington, D.C.), 118 Harvard University: Currie and, 79; graduates of, in State Department, 23, 60, 75; Forrestal’s address to Harvard Club, New York, and, 44; Marshall’s speech at, 49 Hatch Act (1939), 226n80 hawks, 151, 156, 162, 237n99 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 210n13 Hay, John, 5 Heinrichs, Waldo, 90 Henderson, Loy, 23; on Kennan, 41 Hickenlooper, Bourke, 96 Hickerson, John, 55, 63; on Program A, 59 Hilsman, Roger, 132 Hirschman, Albert, 8 Hiss, Alger, 86, 103; Nixon and, 242n39 Ho Chi Minh, 127 Honolulu Conference, 235n74 Hoopes, Townsend, 65, 215n44 Hoover, Herbert, 22, 82 Hoover, J. Edgar, 101 Hopkins, Harry, 81–82, 222n29; as FDR’s righthand man, 23 Hopper, Bruce, 35 Hornbeck, Stanley, 81 House Select Committee on Intelligence. See Pike Committee “How Valid Are the Assumptions Underlying Our Vietnam Policy?” (Ball). See Ball, George: October 5 memo of Hughes, Thomas, as dissenter, 233n40 Hull, Cordell, as secretary of state, 23, 218n83 human rights, 243n62 Hurley, Patrick, 108, 229n111; resignation of, 223n42; FDR’s appointment of, 82, 84,109; Jack Service and, 84–86, 88, 94, 97, 99; on Stilwell, 83

hydrogen bomb, 64 imperial presidency: Congress and, 186; Watergate and, 179 Iran, 204; Soviets in, 36; U.S. attack on nuclear facilities of, 1 Iran-Contra affair, 245n90 Iraq: Bush’s policy in, 194; invasion of, 9, 47, 191, 192, 196, 203, 239n10; nuclear weapons program of, 243n71; U.S. foreign policy toward, 194, 197 Iraq War: compared to containment policy, 47; Dissent Channel and, 190–98, 239–40n10, 244–45n87; WikiLeaks and, 1, 11 Isaacs, Harold, 77 isolationism: abandonment of, by United States, 22; of Congress, 7; definition of, 212n4 Italy, 2 James, Henry, on professional Foreign Service, 6, 210n13 Japan, 72, 74, 83 Jay, John, 13 Jefferson, Thomas, 4, 13 Jenner, William, 90 Jessup, Philip, 88 jingoism, 155, 236n95 Johnson, Joseph, on Policy Planning Staff, 49, 218n83 Johnson, Louis, 65 Johnson, Lyndon B. (LBJ), 116, 212n6; administration of, 119, 132, 134, 141, 240n16; Ball and, 120–21, 134–35, 141, 145–46, 149–52, 156–57, 202; Clifford and, 237n105, 238n110; decision of, not to run for reelection, 238n118; Diem assassination and, 132; dissent under, 11, 144, 153, 159–64, 169–71, 233n40; inferiority complex of, 235n72; policy of continuity of, 157–58; Tonkin Gulf Resolution and, 131; Vietnam War and, 9, 128–30, 142–44, 148, 152, 154–57, 166, 170, 205, 232n29, 235n66, 237n99, 238n113; war on poverty and, 232n31; Wise Men and, 160–61, 163–65 Johnson, Nelson, 78 Johnson, U. Alexis, 148, 175 Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS): Anderson and, 179; Policy Planning Staff and, 48; U.S. involvement in Vietnam and, 131, 154, 164 journalists and the press, 18, 51, 158, 204; covering China, 76–77, 85, 90, 104, 202, 226n74;

275 index Kennan and, 52; Nixon and, 178–79, 185, 186–87, 188, 242n48; Jack Service and, 96, 102; State Department and, 3, 88, 181–82, 190; transparency and, 196–97. See also leaks; newspapers and magazines; and under the names of individual journalists Judd, Walter, 93 Kahn, E. J., 202 Kahn, Gen. Yahya, 177 Kattenburg, Paul, as dissenter, 233n40 Katzenbach, Nicholas, 161, 164 Kelley, Robert, 23 Kennan, George, 88, 155, 246n4; Acheson and, 59–61, 63, 65, 217n78; as ambassador in Moscow, 228n99; ambiguity used by, 44–47, 216n67, 216–17n68; Berlin Blockade and, 55–56; China Hands and, 103–4, 107; containment policy and, 9, 29, 43, 45–47, 128, 203–4; as courtesan author, 42, 47, 50, 59, 68; “Current Trends [in] U.S. Foreign Policy,” 55; Davies and, 87; declining authority of, 54–58; De Santis on, 214n25; on diplomatic writing, 133; as dissenter, 59, 137; European Union and, 220n124; on Foreign Service, 21–22; Germany, report on, 61–63; historiography of, 214n24; influences on, 26–27; influence of, on foreign policy, 29–30, 37, 52–53, 59, 65, 68–69, 204; internment of, in World War Two, 21; Kissinger and, 187–88; legacy of, 205–6; “The Long Telegram,” 30, 32–39, 42–44, 46, 205, 215n44; Lukacs on, 214n20; marginalization of, 63–65; on Marxism, 77; memoirs of, 212n1, 219n96; Milwaukee upbringing of, 219n103; in Moscow, 112; as “Mr. X,” 51–53; on NATO, 58–59; Nitze and, 140; NSC and, 218n82; as Policy Planning Staff director, 47–51, 64, 65; portrait of, 111; Prague reports of, 213n20; Program A and, 58–59; as prophet, 200–203; as Russian specialist, 24; “Russia—Seven Years Later,” 25–26, 28, 67; at Jack Service’s hearing, 98–99; “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” 42–47, 51–53, 217n77, 218n89; Truman Doctrine and, 52–53, 56; on Willett study, 40–42; writings of, 10, 16–17, 28, 30; “X-Article,” 30, 91, 205 Kennedy, John F. (JFK): administration of, 119, 141; Ball and, 127–28; dissent under, 233n40; executive privilege and, 242n52;

legacy of,157; on State Department, 7, 11, 175; State Department marginalized by, 132–33, 174; Vietnam War and, 129; Vietnam Working Group of, 233n40 Kennedy, Sen. Edward M. (“Ted”), 178 Kiesling, John Brady, 117; Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower, 194– 95, 244n86; Dissent Channel and, 192–96 Kissinger, Henry: Boyatt memo and, 180–84, 187–88; check on powers of, 186–87; China and, 201–3; foreign policy and, 172–73; on Kennan, 29, 216n67; leaks by, 240n18; Mao and, 110; as national security advisor, 242n43; Pentagon Papers and, 176; State Department and, 174, 178 KMT. See Kuomintang Party Koons, Tilghman, 40 Korean War: effect of, on U.S. foreign policy, 126; outbreak of, 65, 100, 227n86 Kosygin, Alexei, 155, 236n94 Kraft, Joseph, 187 Krock, Arthur, 51, 218n90 Kubek, Anthony, 201 Kuomintang Party (KMT), 77, 79, 80, 92, 98 Kutler, Stanley, 174 Landler, Mark, 2 Laos: bombing of, 120, 169; Vietnam War and, 126, 138, 167, 170 Lattimore, Owen, 71, 104 leaks, 8, 178; dissenters and, 11, 175, 197; McCarthy and, 101–2; Nixon and, 175–76, 240n18. See also “Cablegate”; Pentagon Papers; WikiLeaks Lend Lease program, 23, 80, 122–23 letters, 11, 14, 15, 16; of Ball, 119; Callières on, 12– 13; of Davies, 79–80, 88, 107; in eighteenth century, 211n27; of Kennan, 21–22, 27, 28, 35, 38, 40–41, 47, 49–51, 56–57, 61–63, 103, 104, 187; of Kissinger, 181; personal, 8, 78; of protest, 167, 171, 175; of resignation, 32, 63, 85–86, 192, 193–94; of Jack Service, 82 Libya, 2 Lindley, Ernest, 51 Lippmann, Walter, 51–53, 156, 158 Livingston, Robert, 13–14 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 95, 152, 238n116 “Long Telegram, The” (Kennan, 1946): force in, 44; influence of, 205; length of, 33, 215n37; on Marxism, 42–43; reception of, 35–39, 46, 59, 215n44; writing of, 33–35 Louisiana Purchase, 13–14

276 index Lovett, Robert, 57 Loyalty Review Board, 97, 100, 106–7, 110. See also Federal Employee Loyalty Program Luce, Henry, 77, 79, 99, 104 MacArthur, Douglas, 85, 104; dismissal of, 101 Macomber, William, 173, 176, 181 Madame Chiang Kai-Shek (Soong May-ling), 71, 108, 220n1 Madison, James, 13–14 manifest destiny, 236n95 Manning, Bradley, and WikiLeaks, 197 Mansfield, Sen. Michael, 131, 142, 185 Mao Tse-tung, 76; Jack Service and, 83–84, 113; U.S. recognition of, 89 Marks, John, 171 Marshall, George, 60–61, 88; mission of, to China, 223–24n42; NATO and, 59; as patron of Kennan, 47–51, 53, 57; Program A and, 58; report of, 229n114 Marshall Plan, 49, 87 Marxism, 77; in Soviet policy, 38, 40, 42–43, 45, 47. See also Communists, Communism Masaryk, Jan, 54 Matthews, H. Freeman (“Doc”), 32, 35, 38, 59 May, Ernest, 48, 103 McCarran Committee, 101–2, 104, 106 McCarthy, Sen. Joseph, and McCarthyism: accusations by, 7, 11, 87, 132, 187, 205; China Hands accused by, 87; Davies and, 201; effects on diplomatic reporting of accusations by, 109–10; Kissinger and, 187–88; legacy of, 157, 171, 181–82; Jack Service attacked by, 221n4; State Department accused by, 68–69, 72–73, 93–99, 100–106, 131, 184; Wheeling speech by, 68–69 McLeod, Scott, 105–6 McNamara, Robert S.: Ball’s dissent and, 139–41, 144–45, 149–50; on bombing of Vietnam, 142–43, 159–60, 232n29; escalation and, 135, 151–53, 235n74; LBJ and, 152, 235n72; Pentagon Papers and, 237n108; resignation of, 161 McNaughton, John, 150, 160, 237n108 McPherson, Harry, 163 McWilliams, Ed, 189 Melby, John, 73, 88, 224n42, 224n46, 229n112; on Foreign Service reports, 92–93 memo, memos, 222n29; by Ball, 135–39, 142–47, 233n44; Boyatt dissent memo on Cypriot coup, 180–81, 183, 184, 188; of Clifford Task Force, 238n113; Davies on, 222n29; by

Kiesling, 193; as part of Pentagon Papers, 211n20; by Rice, 108 Mexico, 212n4 Milbank, Dana, 2 Mines, Keith, and Dissent Channel, 244–45n87 missionaries in China, 71, 75, 77 Molotov, Vyacheslav, 31, 32 Monnet, Jean, 127–28, 142, 231n12; influence of, on Ball, 123–26, 135–37, 139, 230n9; method of, 125, 147, 149 Morgan, Edward, 96 Morgenthau, Hans, 199; consultancies of, 210n8; on diplomatic writing, 7, 11, 18–19, 133, 206; Politics Among Nations, 3–4, 210n5; on prophecy in international affairs, 204–5 Morris, Robert, 94–95, 101, 227n92 Morse, Wayne, 131 Mosley, Philip, 39 Moyers, Bill, 144, 147 Murphy, Robert, 58–59, 63 Murray, Wallace, 23 national security advisor, 172, 242n43 National Liberation Front (NLF), 138. See also Viet Cong National Security Council (NSC), 242n43; Bundy in, 135, 139, 141; establishment of, 7; Kennan and, 218n82; Policy Planning Staff and, 48, 55; reports of, 64–65, 100, 172; Rostow in, 155; on spread of communism, 126; Vietnam War and, 142 Nazis, 21, 23, 25, 214n20 Nazi-Soviet Pact, 24 New Deal, 100, 127; Ball and, 122; opposition to, 23 Newman, Robert, 90 newspapers and magazines: Atlantic, 71; history of, 211n24; New York Times, 71, 178–79, 191, 193; WikiLeaks and, 1. See also journalists and the press; leaks Nicolson, Harold, on diplomatic writing, 12, 211n22 Nitze, Paul, 64–65, 140, 156, 161, 164–65, 219n107 Nixon, Richard M., 212n6; China and, 201–3; Dissent Channel and, 11, 171–72, 175–79; executive privilege and, 182–83, 242n39; Ford and, 242n52; Frost interviews of, 242n48; leaks in administration of, 240n18; Mao and, 110; Pakistan and, 177–79; personalities in administration of, 245n90; resignation of, 186; secrecy and, 179; State

277 index Department and, 7–9, 172–75, 240n18, 241n27; Vietnam War and, 166–67, 169–71; White House tapes and, 185. See also Watergate North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 55, 58–59, 127 North Vietnam, 130, 148, 155. See also bombing of North Vietnam; Vietnam NSC 68 (document), 64–65, 100 Obama, Barack, 204, 206, 207 Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 222n25 Old State, War, and Navy Building (Washington, D.C.), 118 Open Door Policy (1899), with China, 72, 75 Operation Rolling Thunder, 145, 160 Pakistan, and Dissent Channel, 177–79 papers, white, 225n62; China White Paper, 87– 93, 94, 101, 103, 104, 109 Paris Peace Accords, 183 Parsons, Wilfrid, 40 Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, 6, 226n80 Pentagon Papers, 8, 17, 160, 175–76, 186, 197, 211n20, 237n108 People’s Republic of China (PRC), 63, 72–74, 89, 100. See also Communist Party of China Persian Gulf, and Dissent Channel, 189 Peurifoy, John, 97 Pfeffer, Nathaniel, 89 Pike, Otis, 180, 183–84 Pike Committee and Boyatt affair, 180–81, 183, 184 Pleiku, Viet Cong attack on U.S. forces at (1965), 142, 235n66, 235n70 Plumbers Unit, 176 Policy Planning Council, and Morgenthau, 210n8 Policy Planning Staff (PPS), 47–51, 64, 66; Davies on, 87, 104, 224n53; Eurocentrism of, 217n79; reports of, 53, 55–58; Webb and, 63 politics: congressional elections of 1950, 100, 227n87; elections of 1964, 234n50; presidential election of 1968, 238n118 Powell, Colin, 47, 192, 193–94 presidency, presidents: foreign policy advisors of, 226n72; personal emissaries of, 81, 83, 220n1; problems of executive power and, 179–80, 245n90; “strong,” 212n6; transparency and, 190, 191, 196–97; weak, 22, 212n5. See also executive privilege; imperial

presidency; and under names of individual presidents Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, 186 press, the. See journalists and the press “Program A,” 58–59, 61, 63 prophecy, scholarship on, 245–46n3, 246n4 public rhetoric: internal policy vs., 133–34, 155; use of, by presidents, 129; in Vietnam War, 139, 146, 158 Putin, Vladmir, 2 Radford, Charles, 179 Reagan, Ronald, 189, 190, 203, 212n6, 245n90 Red Scare, 73, 107, 129. See also McCarthy, Sen. Joseph, and McCarthyism Report No. 40 (Jack Service, 1944), 83–86, 92–93, 99 reports, 92–94, 224n42, 229n114; composition of, 230n1; downgrading of, 178; drafting of, 236n89; hybrid form of, 83–84; as information sources, 22, 80; institutionalization of, 12, 15; as internal writing, 109–10; in McCarthy hearings, 94–96, 107; novelistic style of, 213n20; reliability of, 3; as routine, 12; significance of, 74–75, 86, 205–6; on Vietnam, 144; writing of, 78–79, 96. See also under authors and titles of individual reports Republicans, 82, 153; as anti-communist, 97, 100; in Congress, 90, 95, 96; in congressional elections, 86, 100, 227n87; Nixon and, 170. See also politics Rice, Ed, 108–9 Richardson, Elliot, 185 Richardson, Seth, 100 Rodino, Peter, and Watergate, 185 Rogers, John Jacob, 6 Rogers, William, 167, 171, 174, 178; Nixon and, 240n18 Rogers Act, 6, 22, 225n57 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (FDR), 81; administrative style of, 212n6; advisors of, 71, 72; Azores and, 28; China and, 82; Donovan and, 222n30; emissaries of, 83, 220n1; on Foreign Service, 7, 23; Hurley appointed by, 84, 109; relationship of, with State Department, 22–24; Soviet Union and, 30–31, 36. See also New Deal Rostow, Walt Whitman, 155, 159, 232n30, 238n110 Ruckelshaus, William, 185

278 index Rumsfeld, Donald, resignation of, 194 Rusk, Dean, 116, 117, 142, 237n98; Ball’s dissent and, 139, 150; domino theory and, 131; escalation and, 145, 159; on Korean invasion, 100; as secretary of state, 15 Russia, 2, 213n9; China Hands and, 228n97; Kennan and, 228n99; reports on, 25–26, 28, 227n92. See also Soviet Union “Russia—Seven Years Later” (Kennan), 25–26, 28, 33, 62, 67 Sages, the, 243n67 Saltzman, Charles, 219n107 Sampson, Nikos, 180 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 2 Saudi Arabia, 1 Savage, Carlton, 49, 218n83 Schaetzel, Robert, 233n44 Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr., 133, 186 Schlesinger, James, 137, 187 Schlicher, Ronald, and Dissent Channel, 245n87 Schulzinger, Robert, 5, 226n76 Schuman Plan, 123, 125 Scowcroft, Brent, as national security advisor, 242n43 secretary of state, 13–14, 23, 226n72, 228n97, 242n43. See also State Department; and under names of individual secretaries of state Senate, U.S.: elections of 1950 for, 100, 227n87; McCarthy hearings in, 115, 221n4 Service, John Stewart (“Jack”), 113, 115, 226n74; accusations against, 86–87, 204; Amerasia affair and, 85, 88, 97, 223n38, 224n49; The Amerasia Papers, 201; “Assessment of the KMT-Communist Situation,” 80–81; CCP and, 77, 108; China White Paper and, 90, 92–93; Davies and, 76; dismissal of, 103–4, 228n97; as dissenting diplomat-writer, 17; exile of, 132; Madame Chiang and, 71; Mao and, 83– 84; McCarthy accusations against, 93– 99, 101–3, 221n4; on political reporting, 205–6; as prophet, 200–203; on public access to internal dissent, 190; reporting in China by, 74–75, 76–80, 83–84; Report No. 40, 83–86, 92–93, 99, 101, 227n92; reports by, significance of, 108–10; U.S.China relations and, 9, 72–73; Val Chao affair with, 102; wife of, 229n112 Shapiro, Ian, 204

Shaw, Howland, 212n2 Smedley, Agnes, 77 Snow, Edgar, 76, 226n74 “Sources of Soviet Conduct, The” (Kennan): Forrestal and, 217n77, 218n89; influence of, 105; published in Foreign Affairs, 50–53; reception of, 44, 47, 59; revision of, 45–46; Soviet Union in, 42–43 Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), 127 South Vietnam, 127, 130, 136, 150–52, 232n29; government of, 138, 143; Vietnamization and, 170 Soviet Union, 213n9, 217n68; China and, 80, 98, 224n53, 227n92; detonation of nuclear bomb by, 63; diplomatic writings about, 27, 29, 51; Eastern Europe and, 217n77; foreign policies of, 33–35, 38, 40, 42–44; Germany and, 54–58; NATO as response to, 58; relations of, with U.S., 25–26, 30–32, 36–37, 40–43, 53–56; U.S. policy toward, 215n44; U.S. views of, 23–24, 39, 49, 52, 59, 64–65; Vietnam War and, 165. See also Cold War; Russia spoils system, in State Department, 5–6 Sprouse, Philip, 88, 108–10, 131; Hurley and, 229n111; on public access to internal dissent, 190 Stalin, Joseph: election speech of, 32, 215n38; rift of, with Foreign Service, 24; FDR and, 25, 36 State Department: accusations against, 86; administration of, during World War Two, 21, 212n2; Ball in, 119–20; Berlin blockade and, 54–55; bureaucratization of, 6–8, 10, 14–17, 22, 78–79, 90–91, 226n72; Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) of, 222n25, 233n40; cable writing in, 2–3; China and, 82, 241n27; China White Paper published by, 87–88; corporate responsibility in, 184; data gathering and, 1–2, 78, 80, 96; Diplomacy for the 70s, 173; dissent in, 11, 120, 161, 164–65, 171, 189–90, 206–7; Division of International Security Affairs of, 218n83; espionage in, 223n38; establishment of, 13; Europeanists in, 123; foreign policy and, 29; frustrations of diplomats in, 4–5; growth of, 212n3; Iraq War and, 193, 195; LBJ and, 160–61; journalists and, 85; JFK and, 132–33; Marshall and, 47–48; McCarthy’s accusations against, 68–69, 72–73, 93–99, 101–6, 108, 181–82, 187; Mor-

279 index genthau and, 210n8; Nixon and, 172–76, 178, 191, 240n18, 241n27; NSC and, 218n82; office buildings of, 118; Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs of, 243n71; Pentagon at odds with, 140; relationship of, with president, 36–37, 53, 197; FDR and, 22–25; Jack Service and, 99, 115, 228n97; Truman and, 31; U.S. policy and, 56; Vietnam War and, 131. See also Dissent Channel; secretary of state state documents, 12 Stennis, Sen. John, 185 Stilwell, Joseph (“Vinegar Joe”), 79, 81–82, 84, 88–89, 90; dismissal of, recommended, 82–83; lack of confidence in, 223n32 Stettinius, Edward, 23 Stevenson, Adlai, 127, 231n22 Strategic Bombing Survey, 122–23 Stuart, Leighton, 224n51 Supreme Court, U.S., 110, 186 Taiwan, 108, 221n4, 229n109 Tasca, Henry, 180 Taylor, Maxwell, 141, 143, 148 terrorism, 192, 203–4 Tet offensive, 161, 162, 164, 238n111 Thayer, Charlie, 27 Thielmann, Gregory, 243n71 Thompson, Nicholas, 203–4 Thomson, James, as dissenter, 233n40 Tonkin Gulf Resolution, 131, 134–35 trade policy, 122, 127; with Britain, 4; with China, 72, 75 Trivers, Howard, 219n107 Trueheart, William, 147 Truman, Harry S., 226n79; accused of losing China, 129, 157; Acheson and, 60, 103, 228n97; administration of, 86, 89, 126; China policy of, 221n4, 223n42; as Cold Warrior, 87; executive orders of, 97, 102; on Foreign Service, 7; Kennan and, 37, 53; Korea and, 100; military spending and, 65; open diplomacy and, 88; Soviet Union and, 31, 36, 41, 54; speeches of, drafted by Kennan, 220n124 Truman Doctrine, 52–53, 56, 227n86 Tulis, Jeffrey, The Rhetorical Presidency, 129, 232n31 Turkey: aid for, 53, 60; Cyprus and, 180 Tydings, Sen. Millard, 93, 100 Tydings Committee, 93–94, 98; report of, 99– 100

Unger, Lawrence, 150, 236n89 United Nations (UN), 58, 105; ambassador to, 164; foreign officials at, 2; establishment of, 25, 34; governance in Iraq and, 244–45n87; San Francisco conference for, 229n111; universalism in, 56; Vietnam War and, 142 Val Chao, Jack Service’s affair with, 102, 228n95 Van de Mark, Brian, 130, 141 Vance, Cyrus, as dissenter, 163, 165 Vandenberg, Sen. Arthur, 65 Versailles Treaty negotiations (1918), 12 Viet Cong, 148, 151–52; American embassy blown up by, 145; attack of, on U.S. forces at Pleiku, 142; in Ball’s April 21 memo, 147. See also National Liberation Front Vietnam: diplomats in, 110, 238n116; dissent against escalation in, 17; French in, 236n81; U.S. foreign policy in, 126–29, 138–39, 141– 43, 157. See also bombing of North Vietnam; North Vietnam; South Vietnam; Viet Cong; Vietnam War Vietnam War, 9, 133–34; antiwar movement against, 158–59, 161, 165, 170, 174–76; Ball on, 11, 17, 201, 205; deaths in, 120, 166, 230n5; as image-oriented, 140;; media portrayal of, 164; Morgenthau and, 210n8; 1964 elections and, 234n50; opposition to, 201–3; Paris Peace Accords and, 183; public interest in, 130; public rhetoric in, 129,139, 145, 155, 158; public support for, 144, 154, 158, 166, 169, 235n70, 238n111; Tet offensive during, 161, 162, 164, 238n111; Tonkin Gulf Resolution during, 131, 134–35; as unfeasible, 165; U.S. strategy in, 238n110. See also bombing of North Vietnam; de-escalation of Vietnam War; escalation of Vietnam War Vietnam Moratorium Committee, 170 Vietnam Working Group, 233n40 Vincent, John Carter, 81, 105–6 Wallace, Henry, 36, 83, 132; on Stillwell, 223n32 War Powers Act, 186 Warnke, Paul, 160, 162, 165 Watergate: break in and cover up, 179; Ford during, 242n52; investigations of, 182–86, 188, 242n48; politics of, 187, 245n90; presidential transparency after, 190, 196–97 Webb, James, 63–64

280 index Weber, Max, 5–6, 91, 95, 225n60 Wedemeyer, Gen. Albert, 219n107, 229n114 Weisbrode, Kenneth, 16, 132, 246n10 Welles, Sumner, as friend of FDR, 23 West Germany, 61, 63; Berlin blockade and, 54–57. See also Germany Westmoreland, Gen. William, 145, 159–60, 161, 162 White, Teddy, 77, 79 White House Special Action Group, 178, 179 white papers, 225n62; China White Paper, 87– 93, 94, 101, 103, 104, 109 Whiting, Allen, as dissenter, 233n40 Whitman, Walt, 155, 236n95 WikiLeaks, 1–3, 11, 197, 206 Wilkinson, Ted, 195 Willet, Edward, “Dialectical Materialism and Russian Objectives,” 38–42, 216n55 Willkie, Wendell, 220n1 Wilson, Joseph, dissent of, 191–92

Wilson, Valerie Plame, 191 Wise Men, and LBJ, 160–61, 163–65 World War One, 7. See also Versailles Treaty negotiations World War Two: bombing in, 120; China in, 71, 72, 80, 83; growth of Foreign Service during, 7, 15; Kennan’s internment in, 21; Lend Lease program in, 23, 80, 122–23 Wright, Ann, 195 “X Article, The.” See “Sources of Soviet Conduct, The” Yahya Khan, 241n27 Yalta conference, 215n48 Yeh Chien-Ying, 113 Yemen, U.S. drone attacks on al Qaeda in, 1 Yenan, China, 81, 82; Jack Service at, 83, 113, 229n112 Young Turks, 173