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The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made
A captivating blend of personal biography and public drama, The Wise Men introduces the original best and brightest, leaders whose outsized personalities and actions brought order to postwar Averell Harriman, the freewheeling diplomat and Roosevelt's special envoy to Churchill and Stalin; Dean Acheson, the secretary of state who was more responsible for the Truman Doctrine than Truman and for the Marshall Plan than General Marshall; George Kennan, self-cast outsider and intellectual darling of the Washington elite; Robert Lovett, assistant secretary of war, undersecretary of state, and secretary of defense throughout the formative years of the Cold War; John McCloy, one of the nation's most influential private citizens; and Charles Bohlen, adroit diplomat and ambassador to the Soviet Union.
864 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
About the author
Walter Isaacson
102 books18.8k followers
Walter Isaacson, a professor of history at Tulane, has been CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He is the author of 'Leonardo da Vinci; The Innovators; Steve Jobs; Einstein: His Life and Universe; Benjamin Franklin: An American Life; and Kissinger: A Biography, and the coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. Visit him at Isaacson.Tulane.edu and on Twitter at @WalterIsaacson
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I purchased this book at the Friends of the Library used book store at the Public Library in Laguna Beach, California. It is a formidable-looking book. I bought it mainly on the strength of one of its authors, Walter Isaacson. I have read some of his other biographies and found them very engagingly written. There is an inscription on the front flyleaf of my copy that reads, "To George & Julie Merry Xmas 1986 Hope this brings knowledge to your whole family Love Francie". The book had all the appearance of never having been read, so I suspect George, Julie, and their family were never enlightened as Francie hoped. It is unlikely that Francie, whoever she is, will ever read this review, but, Francie, if you do, rest assured that at least one person gained much from reading your gift.
I was born when Franklin D. Roosevelt was President, just a week shy of one year before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I don't remember anything about FDR and very little about his successor, Harry Truman. I do remember Eisenhower being elected in 1952 and I've been interested in our country's government ever since. I lived through most of the time period during which the subjects of this book were active in government. Before reading this book I had only heard of 2 of the 6, Averell Harriman and Dean Acheson.
So The Wise Men was for me kind of a trip down memory lane. It was fascinating to me to learn some of the insider information on the decisions that lead to such historic events as dropping the atomic bomb on Japan, the Marshall Plan, the Korean War, the Cuban missile crises, and the Vietnam War among lesser events. Walter Isaacson and his co-author, Evan Thomas, did an excellent job of portraying these events in an interesting and readable manner.
I was born when Franklin D. Roosevelt was President, just a week shy of one year before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I don't remember anything about FDR and very little about his successor, Harry Truman. I do remember Eisenhower being elected in 1952 and I've been interested in our country's government ever since. I lived through most of the time period during which the subjects of this book were active in government. Before reading this book I had only heard of 2 of the 6, Averell Harriman and Dean Acheson.
So The Wise Men was for me kind of a trip down memory lane. It was fascinating to me to learn some of the insider information on the decisions that lead to such historic events as dropping the atomic bomb on Japan, the Marshall Plan, the Korean War, the Cuban missile crises, and the Vietnam War among lesser events. Walter Isaacson and his co-author, Evan Thomas, did an excellent job of portraying these events in an interesting and readable manner.
This is the story of what became known as the "American Establishment." "Establishment" was a term that originated in England to describe a circle of powerful men. Richard Rovere has proposed that the two parties in this country are really either populist or establishment, not conservative or liberal.
The American Establishment were "Atlanticists." Their similar schooling gave them an appreciation for Western European values and the perceived benefit of a traditional Europe. They were instrumental in shepherding the Marshall Plan through a hostile Congress. They felt a cosmopolitan duty to preserve the culture and civilization of the West.
This was to become a problem many years later as Asia became the focus of U.S. concern. Francophile Acheson was fundamental in recommending support for France in its futile attempt to preserve the colonial empire. Acheson's efforts resulted in an avalanche of U.S. funding, ultimately supplying France with far more than we spent on them during the entire Marshall Plan.
The establishment is profiled through the careers of Robert Lovett, John McCloy, Averell Harriman, Charles Bohlen, George Kennan, and Dean Acheson. They were all intelligent, educated at elite private schools, and most came from wealthy families. The six were not ideologues, preferring to adopt a pragmatic outlook, holding moderate views and they believed in consensus. Unfortunately, their sensible world view was translated by more simplistic minds in the fifties into being "soft on communism." They were not highly visible to the public (except when McCarthy made them targets), but preferred to persuade leaders privately and intellectually. They were fervent capitalists which made McCarthy's charges against them ludicrous. They believed in a strong link between free trade, free markets and free minds.
Isaacson and Thomas fill the book with marvelous anecdotes and they describe the unique characteristics of the six lucidly and with humor. For example, Dean Acheson resigned as Under Secretary of the Treasury under FDR in a dispute over whether the United States could legally buy gold at a price higher than that set by Congress. The authors explain differences among the six this way: "Acheson's friend Harriman would never have gone to the mat over a matter of principle with a President, he would likely have sidled away from the conflict to work on problems that he would be left to solve on his own. Lovett would probably have worked out some compromise, making any mountainous dispute seem suddenly like a small bump. So, too, would have John McCloy, the legal workhorse; like Bohlen, he would have been willing to go along. Kennan would no doubt have agonized about resignation only to become lost in philosophical brooding."
I had for many years vastly misunderstood George Kennan's role in the development of the cold war. The famous "X" article, which provided the foundation for containment, was misinterpreted to create the underpinning for Nitze's NSC-68 and development of the arms race. Kennan was really arguing for a non-military, less aggressive stance. Ironically, Nitze, icon of the modern American military was adamantly opposed to U.S. entry into Vietnam because he was aware of the limited resources of the United States. Prophetic indeed.
We may owe current European unity to the efforts of John McCloy who, as High Commissioner of Germany, and its virtual czar, was an exceptionally sincere and honest broker among the war-torn nations of Europe. His word was taken with equal faith in all the capitals and he laid the foundation for the economic miracle that was to take place. (There is a new biography of McCloy out recently - it's on my list.)
By the late seventies and early eighties the Establishment was out of favor. It was blamed for the cold war, Vietnam, and assorted other blunders; but its replacement, the self-centered, undisciplined, partisan, non-professional politicians-diplomats of the Reagan-Nixon era- has historians and revisionists yearning for the old order which had been, at least, consistent, selfless, and devoted to the national interest. "There was a foreign policy consensus back then, and its disintegration during Vietnam is one of the great disasters of our history," said Henry Kissinger. "You need an Establishment. Society needs it. You can't have all these assaults on national policy so that every time you change presidents you end up changing direction."
These men were responsible for building a coalition that resulted in 40+ years of Pax Americana. "They were public servants, not public figures, and did not have to read the newspapers to know where they stood....In their sense of duty and shared wisdom, they found the force to shape the world."
The American Establishment were "Atlanticists." Their similar schooling gave them an appreciation for Western European values and the perceived benefit of a traditional Europe. They were instrumental in shepherding the Marshall Plan through a hostile Congress. They felt a cosmopolitan duty to preserve the culture and civilization of the West.
This was to become a problem many years later as Asia became the focus of U.S. concern. Francophile Acheson was fundamental in recommending support for France in its futile attempt to preserve the colonial empire. Acheson's efforts resulted in an avalanche of U.S. funding, ultimately supplying France with far more than we spent on them during the entire Marshall Plan.
The establishment is profiled through the careers of Robert Lovett, John McCloy, Averell Harriman, Charles Bohlen, George Kennan, and Dean Acheson. They were all intelligent, educated at elite private schools, and most came from wealthy families. The six were not ideologues, preferring to adopt a pragmatic outlook, holding moderate views and they believed in consensus. Unfortunately, their sensible world view was translated by more simplistic minds in the fifties into being "soft on communism." They were not highly visible to the public (except when McCarthy made them targets), but preferred to persuade leaders privately and intellectually. They were fervent capitalists which made McCarthy's charges against them ludicrous. They believed in a strong link between free trade, free markets and free minds.
Isaacson and Thomas fill the book with marvelous anecdotes and they describe the unique characteristics of the six lucidly and with humor. For example, Dean Acheson resigned as Under Secretary of the Treasury under FDR in a dispute over whether the United States could legally buy gold at a price higher than that set by Congress. The authors explain differences among the six this way: "Acheson's friend Harriman would never have gone to the mat over a matter of principle with a President, he would likely have sidled away from the conflict to work on problems that he would be left to solve on his own. Lovett would probably have worked out some compromise, making any mountainous dispute seem suddenly like a small bump. So, too, would have John McCloy, the legal workhorse; like Bohlen, he would have been willing to go along. Kennan would no doubt have agonized about resignation only to become lost in philosophical brooding."
I had for many years vastly misunderstood George Kennan's role in the development of the cold war. The famous "X" article, which provided the foundation for containment, was misinterpreted to create the underpinning for Nitze's NSC-68 and development of the arms race. Kennan was really arguing for a non-military, less aggressive stance. Ironically, Nitze, icon of the modern American military was adamantly opposed to U.S. entry into Vietnam because he was aware of the limited resources of the United States. Prophetic indeed.
We may owe current European unity to the efforts of John McCloy who, as High Commissioner of Germany, and its virtual czar, was an exceptionally sincere and honest broker among the war-torn nations of Europe. His word was taken with equal faith in all the capitals and he laid the foundation for the economic miracle that was to take place. (There is a new biography of McCloy out recently - it's on my list.)
By the late seventies and early eighties the Establishment was out of favor. It was blamed for the cold war, Vietnam, and assorted other blunders; but its replacement, the self-centered, undisciplined, partisan, non-professional politicians-diplomats of the Reagan-Nixon era- has historians and revisionists yearning for the old order which had been, at least, consistent, selfless, and devoted to the national interest. "There was a foreign policy consensus back then, and its disintegration during Vietnam is one of the great disasters of our history," said Henry Kissinger. "You need an Establishment. Society needs it. You can't have all these assaults on national policy so that every time you change presidents you end up changing direction."
These men were responsible for building a coalition that resulted in 40+ years of Pax Americana. "They were public servants, not public figures, and did not have to read the newspapers to know where they stood....In their sense of duty and shared wisdom, they found the force to shape the world."
Part American WWII history, part Cold War history, part biography, part discussion of the "Establishment" in mid 20th century America combine to form a well-written account of several key players in U.S. foreign policy from the 1930s-70s. Isaacson and Thomas decide to focus on six men who they believe embody the views and actions of foreign affairs during and after WWII, and on into the Vietnam War era. This book is now thirty years old, and was written right when two of the six men had just died and two others were still living, so the passage of time that so often helps us to better evaluate and judge the actions and motivations of those in high political office is somewhat missing. But that does not dim the story nor many of the conclusions that the writers focus on. Even with it being written in 1986, almost all of the events that are covered occurred decades before.
Dean Acheson
Along with Averell Harriman, Acheson does seem to be the main character in this book. Perhaps because he was involved in so many important decisions, and held powerful positions both in the Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman administrations, this makes sense. The authors treat Acheson (and just about everyone) fairly, making sure to point out the reasons why they think he deserves so much attention as well as his personality flaws that seriously hampered his authority as Secretary of State. Acheson had a weakness for flattery and vanity, and often indulged in these vices, much to his friends' chagrin at times. Was he responsible for setting in motion the eventual tragedy of the Vietnam War just based on his almost sole focus on Europe and his belief that the Russians controlled all Communist countries? Or did he help architect a winning strategy in an increasingly scary world full of nuclear threats abroad and witch hunts at home?
Averell Harriman
Harriman manages to come off as both a dedicated public servant, logging a staggering amount of miles in airplanes on trips around the world - trips that never seemed to end, and a political opportunist who continually tried (and often succeeded) in injecting himself into important political matters and cozying up to world leaders. This mixture of sacrifice to the public good along with personal gain would play much more cynically in today's world: Harriman had numerous conflicts of interest due to his business dealings, yet paid no heed to such matters. He never achieved the one position that he really wanted (Secretary of State) but he managed to have a lasting impact on American foreign policy.
John McCloy
Like Harriman, McCloy had conflicts of interest as well but he much less disposed to seek out government positions. Instead, positions seemed to find him. While I generally agree with most of the analysis provided by the authors, I do differ strongly on one point concerning McCloy. Assistant Secretary of War during WWII, McCloy had a hand in implementing the horrible order to intern thousands of American citizens of Japanese descent. War hysteria and over-reactions led to this, and McCloy did nothing to stop it. Actually, he further muddied the waters as everyone in a high government position punted the responsibility for making this appalling decision somewhere else. The authors write, on page 197: "Much of the fear was understandable, at least in those jittery times." Forcibly targeting American citizens based solely on their race, and virtually imprisoning them for the duration of the war, was a black mark on everyone associated with the decision, and reflected poorly on the country, even if it was not looked at as so at that time.
Robert Lovett
Lovett and McCloy were so often lumped together that at times throughout the first half of the book, it was difficult to distinguish between the two. Like McCloy, Lovett typically did not seek out positions of power in the government. He preferred to make money on Wall Street and work behind the scenes when he could. But he became trusted adviser during the Truman years and also particularly to President Kennedy later on. Notably, he avoided Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War like the plague. Because of that, Lovett pretty much disappears in the last quarter of the book.
George Kennan
A tortured soul, Kennan for a time was considered the leading authority on all things Russia. He never seemed to be comfortable with himself: always being on the outside at dinner parties, and being on the fringes of government, yet seeming to relish this self-imposed isolation. Kennan is commonly referred to as the mind behind the containment doctrine, yet as he aged he came to view the Soviet Union differently, preferring to push for peace when possible. One interesting thing that the authors mention is Kennan's discovery of U.S. minister's notes from the early 1800s, describing the Russian people even back then as being paranoid. This helped to form Kennan's own image of the Soviet Union and how the U.S. could best coexist with it.
Chip Bohlen
Bohlen seems like he was thrown in as an extra. He is more of a supporting character here than a major player. For long stretches, he is not in the narrative at all. And even when he, it is usually as a counterbalance to Kennan. Throughout the first half of the book, Henry Stimson seems to be featured more than Bohlen; Paul Nitze in the second half. It would have been interesting for Isaacson and Thomas to have explored further the time that Bohlen was detained in Japan during WWII (and Kennan in Germany as well).
Overall an excellent review of the making of American foreign policy during the crucial period just after WWII and into the Vietnam era. Chock full of personal anecdotes thanks to the authors being able to interview most of their subjects themselves, and in cases where that was not possible (Acheson and Bohlen), many people who knew them intimately. This time of bipartisanship is now a bygone era in foreign policy.
Grade: A-
Dean Acheson
Along with Averell Harriman, Acheson does seem to be the main character in this book. Perhaps because he was involved in so many important decisions, and held powerful positions both in the Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman administrations, this makes sense. The authors treat Acheson (and just about everyone) fairly, making sure to point out the reasons why they think he deserves so much attention as well as his personality flaws that seriously hampered his authority as Secretary of State. Acheson had a weakness for flattery and vanity, and often indulged in these vices, much to his friends' chagrin at times. Was he responsible for setting in motion the eventual tragedy of the Vietnam War just based on his almost sole focus on Europe and his belief that the Russians controlled all Communist countries? Or did he help architect a winning strategy in an increasingly scary world full of nuclear threats abroad and witch hunts at home?
Averell Harriman
Harriman manages to come off as both a dedicated public servant, logging a staggering amount of miles in airplanes on trips around the world - trips that never seemed to end, and a political opportunist who continually tried (and often succeeded) in injecting himself into important political matters and cozying up to world leaders. This mixture of sacrifice to the public good along with personal gain would play much more cynically in today's world: Harriman had numerous conflicts of interest due to his business dealings, yet paid no heed to such matters. He never achieved the one position that he really wanted (Secretary of State) but he managed to have a lasting impact on American foreign policy.
John McCloy
Like Harriman, McCloy had conflicts of interest as well but he much less disposed to seek out government positions. Instead, positions seemed to find him. While I generally agree with most of the analysis provided by the authors, I do differ strongly on one point concerning McCloy. Assistant Secretary of War during WWII, McCloy had a hand in implementing the horrible order to intern thousands of American citizens of Japanese descent. War hysteria and over-reactions led to this, and McCloy did nothing to stop it. Actually, he further muddied the waters as everyone in a high government position punted the responsibility for making this appalling decision somewhere else. The authors write, on page 197: "Much of the fear was understandable, at least in those jittery times." Forcibly targeting American citizens based solely on their race, and virtually imprisoning them for the duration of the war, was a black mark on everyone associated with the decision, and reflected poorly on the country, even if it was not looked at as so at that time.
Robert Lovett
Lovett and McCloy were so often lumped together that at times throughout the first half of the book, it was difficult to distinguish between the two. Like McCloy, Lovett typically did not seek out positions of power in the government. He preferred to make money on Wall Street and work behind the scenes when he could. But he became trusted adviser during the Truman years and also particularly to President Kennedy later on. Notably, he avoided Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War like the plague. Because of that, Lovett pretty much disappears in the last quarter of the book.
George Kennan
A tortured soul, Kennan for a time was considered the leading authority on all things Russia. He never seemed to be comfortable with himself: always being on the outside at dinner parties, and being on the fringes of government, yet seeming to relish this self-imposed isolation. Kennan is commonly referred to as the mind behind the containment doctrine, yet as he aged he came to view the Soviet Union differently, preferring to push for peace when possible. One interesting thing that the authors mention is Kennan's discovery of U.S. minister's notes from the early 1800s, describing the Russian people even back then as being paranoid. This helped to form Kennan's own image of the Soviet Union and how the U.S. could best coexist with it.
Chip Bohlen
Bohlen seems like he was thrown in as an extra. He is more of a supporting character here than a major player. For long stretches, he is not in the narrative at all. And even when he, it is usually as a counterbalance to Kennan. Throughout the first half of the book, Henry Stimson seems to be featured more than Bohlen; Paul Nitze in the second half. It would have been interesting for Isaacson and Thomas to have explored further the time that Bohlen was detained in Japan during WWII (and Kennan in Germany as well).
Overall an excellent review of the making of American foreign policy during the crucial period just after WWII and into the Vietnam era. Chock full of personal anecdotes thanks to the authors being able to interview most of their subjects themselves, and in cases where that was not possible (Acheson and Bohlen), many people who knew them intimately. This time of bipartisanship is now a bygone era in foreign policy.
Grade: A-
A fascinating depiction of a world both ancient and modern, and that lies in sharp contrast to our current situation.
First of all, one notes that this was written by the elite, about the elite. The authors are both Harvard alumni, and most of the subjects went to Yale. They served in government partly out of personal satisfaction, partly as noblesse oblige. While the authors occasionally insert mild criticisms, this is almost a hagiography for six statesmen of the cold war. Nevertheless, the book obviously took years of intense scholarship. It offers a detailed picture of the development of American foreign policy over several decades. In a way, the shared aristocracy and educational background of authors and subjects enables the writers to enter the mindset of Acheson et al, and fine writing enables readers to go there with them.
Second, my own reflections as I read were immensely widened because I was reading Thucydides’ The Peloponnisian Wars simultaneously. Yes, once again I coincidentally found myself tackling parallel books.
Wise men: Russia and the United States, after long battles against a deadly mutual foe in WWI, try to expand the number and loyalty of their subject states. They are countries with fundamentally different mentalities and governments. The US has nuclear weapons and the USSR wants them. The US assesses the strength and paranoia of their recent ally, and decides it must get tough. Various statesmen offer opinions on how to deal with the Soviets, ranging from treaties and talk to arms buildups. Great speeches and influential articles come forth. Attempts at negotiation sometimes work, mostly fail. Bluffs, backdowns, alliances, a proxy war that nears disaster but ends in stalemate. A hero general takes a war into his own hands, disastrously. McCarthy forever poisons American politics with lies, hysteria and fear mongering. The US is lured into Vietnam, in part due to fear of appearing soft on Communism, and in a faraway country meets disaster. The six patricians look on as protestors and presidents they can’t abide change their world.
Greece: Athens and Sparta unite to defeat the Persians, then negotiate a peace treaty betwen themselves that lasts a few decades. Sparta, eying Athens growing empire and vast naval advantage, decides it can’t allow this to go on. It rallies its own allies and initiates twenty six years of war. Great speeches abound. Statesmen urge opposing policies and strategies. Allies and potential subject states are wooed, intimidated, defended. Allies switch sides at the drop of a helmet. Sparta builds up its naval capacity in part through its allies. The Athenian Alcibiades is a five or six times traitor as he repeatedly switches sides, makes side deals with the enemy, and generally finds no action to low. Athens is lured into a war of its allies in far-away Sicily. It depletes its treasury and almost its entire military force is destroyed. Back in its own seas, fighting for its life, it agrees to give up its democracy for an oligarchy and contemplates an alliance with the Persians.
Back to the Wise Men. Isaacson and Thomas are very skilled at following the threads of six lives and keeping their men’s personalities and actions distinct but related. These men were loyal friends, who all had some eperience in dealing with the Soviets early in their careers. Most served the State Department in some capacity there before World War II. This gave them varying, but well-founded, opinions on what the Soviet leadership might be up to in the subsequent decades.
Kennan is perhaps the most intriguing, as his early caution gave way to an earnest desire for peaceful co-existence later. Acheson is a key player throughout, although he was side-lined in the fifties after running afoul of McCarthy. Harriman is portrayed as the little boy with his hand in the air all the time eager to be called on to answer the question, serve as ambassador, negotiate with the Russians, be Secretary of State. He is portrayed as a skillful negotiator, but never got his chance as Secretary. Bohlen, Lovett, and McCloy I knew next to nothing about, but found they played essential roles in building air power, shaping and running the Marshall Plan, and generally advising on everything to president after president.
The patrician aspect of the authorial enterprise becomes problematic as we enter the sixties. There is no quarter given to LBJ. He is portrayed as a bellicose low-class grotesque. who single-mindely rejects the growing sentiment among not just the students in the streets but even these creators of the cold war that it is time to withdraw. No doubt there is a great deal of truth to this, but there is no credit given for Johnson’s other accomplishments or his complex character.
A small problem, in an engaging, well-written, and very educational book.
First of all, one notes that this was written by the elite, about the elite. The authors are both Harvard alumni, and most of the subjects went to Yale. They served in government partly out of personal satisfaction, partly as noblesse oblige. While the authors occasionally insert mild criticisms, this is almost a hagiography for six statesmen of the cold war. Nevertheless, the book obviously took years of intense scholarship. It offers a detailed picture of the development of American foreign policy over several decades. In a way, the shared aristocracy and educational background of authors and subjects enables the writers to enter the mindset of Acheson et al, and fine writing enables readers to go there with them.
Second, my own reflections as I read were immensely widened because I was reading Thucydides’ The Peloponnisian Wars simultaneously. Yes, once again I coincidentally found myself tackling parallel books.
Wise men: Russia and the United States, after long battles against a deadly mutual foe in WWI, try to expand the number and loyalty of their subject states. They are countries with fundamentally different mentalities and governments. The US has nuclear weapons and the USSR wants them. The US assesses the strength and paranoia of their recent ally, and decides it must get tough. Various statesmen offer opinions on how to deal with the Soviets, ranging from treaties and talk to arms buildups. Great speeches and influential articles come forth. Attempts at negotiation sometimes work, mostly fail. Bluffs, backdowns, alliances, a proxy war that nears disaster but ends in stalemate. A hero general takes a war into his own hands, disastrously. McCarthy forever poisons American politics with lies, hysteria and fear mongering. The US is lured into Vietnam, in part due to fear of appearing soft on Communism, and in a faraway country meets disaster. The six patricians look on as protestors and presidents they can’t abide change their world.
Greece: Athens and Sparta unite to defeat the Persians, then negotiate a peace treaty betwen themselves that lasts a few decades. Sparta, eying Athens growing empire and vast naval advantage, decides it can’t allow this to go on. It rallies its own allies and initiates twenty six years of war. Great speeches abound. Statesmen urge opposing policies and strategies. Allies and potential subject states are wooed, intimidated, defended. Allies switch sides at the drop of a helmet. Sparta builds up its naval capacity in part through its allies. The Athenian Alcibiades is a five or six times traitor as he repeatedly switches sides, makes side deals with the enemy, and generally finds no action to low. Athens is lured into a war of its allies in far-away Sicily. It depletes its treasury and almost its entire military force is destroyed. Back in its own seas, fighting for its life, it agrees to give up its democracy for an oligarchy and contemplates an alliance with the Persians.
Back to the Wise Men. Isaacson and Thomas are very skilled at following the threads of six lives and keeping their men’s personalities and actions distinct but related. These men were loyal friends, who all had some eperience in dealing with the Soviets early in their careers. Most served the State Department in some capacity there before World War II. This gave them varying, but well-founded, opinions on what the Soviet leadership might be up to in the subsequent decades.
Kennan is perhaps the most intriguing, as his early caution gave way to an earnest desire for peaceful co-existence later. Acheson is a key player throughout, although he was side-lined in the fifties after running afoul of McCarthy. Harriman is portrayed as the little boy with his hand in the air all the time eager to be called on to answer the question, serve as ambassador, negotiate with the Russians, be Secretary of State. He is portrayed as a skillful negotiator, but never got his chance as Secretary. Bohlen, Lovett, and McCloy I knew next to nothing about, but found they played essential roles in building air power, shaping and running the Marshall Plan, and generally advising on everything to president after president.
The patrician aspect of the authorial enterprise becomes problematic as we enter the sixties. There is no quarter given to LBJ. He is portrayed as a bellicose low-class grotesque. who single-mindely rejects the growing sentiment among not just the students in the streets but even these creators of the cold war that it is time to withdraw. No doubt there is a great deal of truth to this, but there is no credit given for Johnson’s other accomplishments or his complex character.
A small problem, in an engaging, well-written, and very educational book.
The Wise Men, while an enlightening history of US foreign policy is a frustrating read.
It is the history of the creation of the US foreign policy establishment, its heyday, and its dissolution in the Reagan years. It is told through the biographies of six friends who formed the core of the establishment.
Each were remarkable men. Perhaps the most famous of them were Secretary of State Dean Acheson and the roving millionaire diplomat and once Governor of New York, Averell Harriman, son of the the 19th century railroad robber baron, E.H. Harriman.
Its biggest flaw is the absence of context for major events.
We enter the innermost conversations of US presidents, their military and diplomatic advisors.
The book’s high point is really the debate amongst war planners on what to do about the advancing Soviet armies in WWII. Despite wartime agreements Franklin Roosevelt never really pinned Stalin down on what he planned to do once Germany was defeated.
It’s one of the great turning points in history and was fun to read. What Stalin is doing, what Stalin might do, but there is no supporting research here about what the other side was actually thinking.
This book was first published in 1986 and we know so much more about the nascent Soviet Union than we did back then. This book really could stand some updating. For one thing we certainly know that Stalin was about self-preservation first.
American policy makers were scratching their heads over the intentions of the Communists, or were they Russians first and Communists second. Wait a minute, Stalin was Georgian, not Russian. Or perhaps more troubling, was the Soviet Union being being run by a criminal conspiracy that neither well-meaning Communists nor ordinary Russians approved of.
Any or all of these conclusions could have influenced American behaviour.
American policy makers certainly had some reason to believe the Soviet Union wouldn’t stop at Berlin. They had brutally butchered 22,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia in the Katyn Forest in April and May of 1940.
They were avowedly opponents of capitalism.
The extent of Stalin’s paranoia wasn’t fully known at the time, but the Western Allies gave him good reason to be paranoid if he wasn’t before:
1. They secretly developed first the A-Bomb then the Hydrogen bomb behind his back. (They didn’t realize a spy had given the Russians a heads up.)
2. No sooner had they defeated Germany than they were talking about re-arming Germany in the war’s aftermath.
3. They invented NATO to unite Western European nations against the Soviet Union and its satellites.
4. In the Truman years the Americans anointed themselves defenders of freedom around the world...even though knew they didn’t have the resources nor the commitment of Congress to make it happen.
5. The Marshall Plan helped rebuild Western Europe but left Eastern Europe a smoldering dump.
6. They were leaving thousands of troops in Western Europe even though the war was over.
7. They were actively recruiting German rocket experts, most notably Werner von Braun.
8. They were also recruiting German spies, incl. senior spies who had worked for the Nazis.
That was the Truman Doctrine. Self-appointed defenders of freedom.
Then they drew a line somewhere in the Pacific as their security perimeter. Unfortunately, that perimeter didn’t include South Korea and that blunder gave the Soviets and their North Korean clients reason to believe America would not come to South Korea’s defence. Thus the Korean War.
But the authors say nothing about what the Russians were thinking about Korea. Or about Laos. Or what Ho Chi Minh thought about the Chinese Communists north of the border.
And there was only fleeting discussion of CIA-hatched plots to keep countries out of the hands of the Soviets. Italy. Guatemala. Iran. Chile. Bay of Pigs. Funny how the decision to invade Cuba was left out of the book. It was on the Republican’s watch so what the hey. So much for the defenders of freedom.
The authors of this book would probably agree that the western allies time and time again overestimated the Soviet leadership. Stalin ruled his empire with fear. He emerged from the 1930’s having decimated the population of Ukraine with starvation and having slaughtered known and imagined political opponents.
In fact, Stalin’s team were lousy at feeding the population, at preparing for Nazi aggression, and building their foreign reserves. In their march westward they tore up Eastern European railways and industrial plants and left the Warsaw resistors to their fate as the German regiments tore them to pieces with Stalin’s divisions waiting for the dust to settle.
It was a terrible system and the disaster at Chernobyl sealed its fate.
The authors were happy to bury Lyndon Johnson under the debacle of Vietnam. Yes, it was self-inflicted. But the foreign-policy establishment really let him down. We’ll have to wait for Robert Caro’s next volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson to get a better telling.
There is yet one more part of the story which seems little editorialized by the authors, and that is the distain for which the establishment bureaucrats hold the elected members of Congress.
Now given the hours some of them spent testifying in Congress in front of the red-baiting Sen. Joe McCarthy in the 1950’s, the distain and outright hatred for some of them is completely understandable. But on another level, it is reprehensible if you believe in the idea of self-government by the people.
It is nothing for the authors to praise or blame the Executive Branch for action on foreign policy. They assume it is perfectly ok for the President to make policies which have monumental impact on the budget of the Federal Government and the commitment of its soldiers.
In their minds it is no usurpation of authority for the Executive Branch to take these steps, and go cap in hand to Congress afterward for the spending authority. But as we see in this book, there is never any open discussion of ends and means on these issues.
The authors obscure the background of the Cuban Missile Crisis, an important part of which was the placing of Jupiter missiles in Turkey and they ignore much of the backchannel negotiations possibly because it wasn’t done by the heroes of the book.
The American electorate, somewhat intoxicated by the victory of WWII, followed somewhat blindly into the wars that followed. The authors blithely blame the isolationists for keeping America from taking its rightly place at the head of the community of nations.
Donald Trump is unilaterally ending that place of leadership to the horror of the modern day establishment. But his motivations for doing so are probably more destructive than anything tried before.
Books like this also make you wonder about the limits of sovereignty. Foreign policy is if nothing else, a means with which to project one sovereignty abroad. How helpful was that exercise if today we see the true limits of sovereignty? No obvious way to contain a pandemic. No obvious way to contain international crime. No obvious way to attack climate warming in a concerted global effort.
The allies fighting Nazism gave up a sterling chance to create global cooperation. Instead of competing to build nuclear arsenals NATO and the Soviet Union could have used that cooperation to build lasting institutions far more effective than the United Nations.
They tried it with nuclear test bans and non-proliferation treaties. They should have taken it much further.
All it required was giving up a modicum of sovereignty for the collective good. These “wise men” really could have done more. And they could have used a few wise women.
A new era began with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 and, once again, a brief period when Americans were intoxicated with the smell of success. They won the Cold War.
And maybe the seeds the Wise Men had planted flowered after all.
But Putin? Really?
It is the history of the creation of the US foreign policy establishment, its heyday, and its dissolution in the Reagan years. It is told through the biographies of six friends who formed the core of the establishment.
Each were remarkable men. Perhaps the most famous of them were Secretary of State Dean Acheson and the roving millionaire diplomat and once Governor of New York, Averell Harriman, son of the the 19th century railroad robber baron, E.H. Harriman.
Its biggest flaw is the absence of context for major events.
We enter the innermost conversations of US presidents, their military and diplomatic advisors.
The book’s high point is really the debate amongst war planners on what to do about the advancing Soviet armies in WWII. Despite wartime agreements Franklin Roosevelt never really pinned Stalin down on what he planned to do once Germany was defeated.
It’s one of the great turning points in history and was fun to read. What Stalin is doing, what Stalin might do, but there is no supporting research here about what the other side was actually thinking.
This book was first published in 1986 and we know so much more about the nascent Soviet Union than we did back then. This book really could stand some updating. For one thing we certainly know that Stalin was about self-preservation first.
American policy makers were scratching their heads over the intentions of the Communists, or were they Russians first and Communists second. Wait a minute, Stalin was Georgian, not Russian. Or perhaps more troubling, was the Soviet Union being being run by a criminal conspiracy that neither well-meaning Communists nor ordinary Russians approved of.
Any or all of these conclusions could have influenced American behaviour.
American policy makers certainly had some reason to believe the Soviet Union wouldn’t stop at Berlin. They had brutally butchered 22,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia in the Katyn Forest in April and May of 1940.
They were avowedly opponents of capitalism.
The extent of Stalin’s paranoia wasn’t fully known at the time, but the Western Allies gave him good reason to be paranoid if he wasn’t before:
1. They secretly developed first the A-Bomb then the Hydrogen bomb behind his back. (They didn’t realize a spy had given the Russians a heads up.)
2. No sooner had they defeated Germany than they were talking about re-arming Germany in the war’s aftermath.
3. They invented NATO to unite Western European nations against the Soviet Union and its satellites.
4. In the Truman years the Americans anointed themselves defenders of freedom around the world...even though knew they didn’t have the resources nor the commitment of Congress to make it happen.
5. The Marshall Plan helped rebuild Western Europe but left Eastern Europe a smoldering dump.
6. They were leaving thousands of troops in Western Europe even though the war was over.
7. They were actively recruiting German rocket experts, most notably Werner von Braun.
8. They were also recruiting German spies, incl. senior spies who had worked for the Nazis.
That was the Truman Doctrine. Self-appointed defenders of freedom.
Then they drew a line somewhere in the Pacific as their security perimeter. Unfortunately, that perimeter didn’t include South Korea and that blunder gave the Soviets and their North Korean clients reason to believe America would not come to South Korea’s defence. Thus the Korean War.
But the authors say nothing about what the Russians were thinking about Korea. Or about Laos. Or what Ho Chi Minh thought about the Chinese Communists north of the border.
And there was only fleeting discussion of CIA-hatched plots to keep countries out of the hands of the Soviets. Italy. Guatemala. Iran. Chile. Bay of Pigs. Funny how the decision to invade Cuba was left out of the book. It was on the Republican’s watch so what the hey. So much for the defenders of freedom.
The authors of this book would probably agree that the western allies time and time again overestimated the Soviet leadership. Stalin ruled his empire with fear. He emerged from the 1930’s having decimated the population of Ukraine with starvation and having slaughtered known and imagined political opponents.
In fact, Stalin’s team were lousy at feeding the population, at preparing for Nazi aggression, and building their foreign reserves. In their march westward they tore up Eastern European railways and industrial plants and left the Warsaw resistors to their fate as the German regiments tore them to pieces with Stalin’s divisions waiting for the dust to settle.
It was a terrible system and the disaster at Chernobyl sealed its fate.
The authors were happy to bury Lyndon Johnson under the debacle of Vietnam. Yes, it was self-inflicted. But the foreign-policy establishment really let him down. We’ll have to wait for Robert Caro’s next volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson to get a better telling.
There is yet one more part of the story which seems little editorialized by the authors, and that is the distain for which the establishment bureaucrats hold the elected members of Congress.
Now given the hours some of them spent testifying in Congress in front of the red-baiting Sen. Joe McCarthy in the 1950’s, the distain and outright hatred for some of them is completely understandable. But on another level, it is reprehensible if you believe in the idea of self-government by the people.
It is nothing for the authors to praise or blame the Executive Branch for action on foreign policy. They assume it is perfectly ok for the President to make policies which have monumental impact on the budget of the Federal Government and the commitment of its soldiers.
In their minds it is no usurpation of authority for the Executive Branch to take these steps, and go cap in hand to Congress afterward for the spending authority. But as we see in this book, there is never any open discussion of ends and means on these issues.
The authors obscure the background of the Cuban Missile Crisis, an important part of which was the placing of Jupiter missiles in Turkey and they ignore much of the backchannel negotiations possibly because it wasn’t done by the heroes of the book.
The American electorate, somewhat intoxicated by the victory of WWII, followed somewhat blindly into the wars that followed. The authors blithely blame the isolationists for keeping America from taking its rightly place at the head of the community of nations.
Donald Trump is unilaterally ending that place of leadership to the horror of the modern day establishment. But his motivations for doing so are probably more destructive than anything tried before.
Books like this also make you wonder about the limits of sovereignty. Foreign policy is if nothing else, a means with which to project one sovereignty abroad. How helpful was that exercise if today we see the true limits of sovereignty? No obvious way to contain a pandemic. No obvious way to contain international crime. No obvious way to attack climate warming in a concerted global effort.
The allies fighting Nazism gave up a sterling chance to create global cooperation. Instead of competing to build nuclear arsenals NATO and the Soviet Union could have used that cooperation to build lasting institutions far more effective than the United Nations.
They tried it with nuclear test bans and non-proliferation treaties. They should have taken it much further.
All it required was giving up a modicum of sovereignty for the collective good. These “wise men” really could have done more. And they could have used a few wise women.
A new era began with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 and, once again, a brief period when Americans were intoxicated with the smell of success. They won the Cold War.
And maybe the seeds the Wise Men had planted flowered after all.
But Putin? Really?
True statesmen who served in both Democratic and Republican administrations. We need people like this in government today.
I can't believe it's finally over. I feel like I've been reading this book my whole life. It is so. Darn. LONG. And I like long books! Yeesh.
While interesting and thorough, I felt like I couldn't see the forest because there were just too many flippin' trees. There was just way, way too much detail. This is the second Walter Isaacson book I've read, and his writing philosophy seems to be, "If a point is worth making, it's worth belaboring." Not only was the mind-numbingly comprehensive recitation of detail tedious, it was exacerbated by a lack of overarching analysis and connective tissue. The tactical perspective was crystal clear, but the strategic viewpoint was fuzzy at best, and nonexistent at worst.
I really enjoyed the early parts of the book that focused on their roles in WWII and the immediate post war period. Then as it got into the Korean War, it started getting bogged down. And then the epilogue was really snobby and dismissive of public servants since those six men moved on.
Moral of the story - get the abridged version.
While interesting and thorough, I felt like I couldn't see the forest because there were just too many flippin' trees. There was just way, way too much detail. This is the second Walter Isaacson book I've read, and his writing philosophy seems to be, "If a point is worth making, it's worth belaboring." Not only was the mind-numbingly comprehensive recitation of detail tedious, it was exacerbated by a lack of overarching analysis and connective tissue. The tactical perspective was crystal clear, but the strategic viewpoint was fuzzy at best, and nonexistent at worst.
I really enjoyed the early parts of the book that focused on their roles in WWII and the immediate post war period. Then as it got into the Korean War, it started getting bogged down. And then the epilogue was really snobby and dismissive of public servants since those six men moved on.
Moral of the story - get the abridged version.
This is a fascinating "collective biography" of six major, interrelated figures in the American establishment from the 1930s into the 1960s. Some might think of this as another "Best and Brightest," set earlier in time. But Halberstam's use of that term was ironic; here, the authors are not speaking ironically when they refer to the six as "the original brightest and best" (Page 19).
The beginning lays out what follows. Isaacson and Thomas observe that (Page 19): "Six friends. Their lives intertwined from childhood and schooldays, from their early days on Wall Street and in government. Now they were to be destined to be at the forefront of a remarkable transformation of American policy." They (Page 19) ". . .knew that America would have to assume the burden of a global role." And, say the authors, their (Page 19) ". . .outsized personalities and forceful actions brought order to the postwar chaos and left a legacy that dominates American policy to this day."
Those are some powerful statements. Does the book back these up? To a considerable extent, yes. But these six can hardly be said to have been the orchestrators. They were surely players, but to say that they were the architects of the American century (the title of the chapter in which these quotations are embedded) is too strong a statement.
Who were those among this sextet? George Kennan, Dean Acheson, Charles ("Chip") Bohlen, Robert Lovett, Averell Harriman, and John McCloy. From their youth, they were trained to expect doing large things. For instance, Harriman took over his father's economic empire and grew it. Later in his life, he was elected as governor of New York (only to be defeated by Nelson Rockefeller after serving one term).
The story shows the interconnections among them. Harriman coached Acheson in rowing at Yale, for instance. As they matured, they sought careers in business. Later, all became interested in public service under the FDR Administration. The book chronicles their achievements (and some failures) in considerable detail from FDR's term on. The friction that flared among some from time to time is also discussed. They played major roles in the Truman Administration.
Later, when Lyndon Johnson tried to dissect what to do in Vietnam, he held a number of meetings, in which many of the "wise men" participated. Given Halberstam's discussion of the "best and brightest" who got the country into Vietnam and couldn't figure out how to succeed there, the "wise men" were opposed and raised their questions with Johnson.
Then, their final years and their fates. . . .
I think that there could be a somewhat more critical cast to the work, but it does a great job of portraying these eminent players in American politics. If there has been an "establishment," they were surely part of that in their time. I think that the authors may overestimate their impact, but they surely made a difference.
The beginning lays out what follows. Isaacson and Thomas observe that (Page 19): "Six friends. Their lives intertwined from childhood and schooldays, from their early days on Wall Street and in government. Now they were to be destined to be at the forefront of a remarkable transformation of American policy." They (Page 19) ". . .knew that America would have to assume the burden of a global role." And, say the authors, their (Page 19) ". . .outsized personalities and forceful actions brought order to the postwar chaos and left a legacy that dominates American policy to this day."
Those are some powerful statements. Does the book back these up? To a considerable extent, yes. But these six can hardly be said to have been the orchestrators. They were surely players, but to say that they were the architects of the American century (the title of the chapter in which these quotations are embedded) is too strong a statement.
Who were those among this sextet? George Kennan, Dean Acheson, Charles ("Chip") Bohlen, Robert Lovett, Averell Harriman, and John McCloy. From their youth, they were trained to expect doing large things. For instance, Harriman took over his father's economic empire and grew it. Later in his life, he was elected as governor of New York (only to be defeated by Nelson Rockefeller after serving one term).
The story shows the interconnections among them. Harriman coached Acheson in rowing at Yale, for instance. As they matured, they sought careers in business. Later, all became interested in public service under the FDR Administration. The book chronicles their achievements (and some failures) in considerable detail from FDR's term on. The friction that flared among some from time to time is also discussed. They played major roles in the Truman Administration.
Later, when Lyndon Johnson tried to dissect what to do in Vietnam, he held a number of meetings, in which many of the "wise men" participated. Given Halberstam's discussion of the "best and brightest" who got the country into Vietnam and couldn't figure out how to succeed there, the "wise men" were opposed and raised their questions with Johnson.
Then, their final years and their fates. . . .
I think that there could be a somewhat more critical cast to the work, but it does a great job of portraying these eminent players in American politics. If there has been an "establishment," they were surely part of that in their time. I think that the authors may overestimate their impact, but they surely made a difference.
I purchased this book when it was published in 1986, but never read it because I was unsure about reading a book about the Groton/Yale crowd who became the U.S. foreign policy establishment's "Wise Men." I was not interested in reading about the prep school/Ivy League world that these men emerged from, and, as expected. the book began with a thorough description of that world. However, if one gets through the first hundred pages, with its crew races and polo games, then the reader gets a superb view of how much this group of men helped to shape the foreign policy of the United States in the middle half of the 20th century. Familiar stories are retold, but through the lens of the story of these men, whose names are so familiar, yet whose full stories are not usually fully explored. The subject matter raises some interesting questions: was it wise to have at the center of American foreign policy so many men whose backgrounds were so similar to each other? Was the country better served by these very well educated and very affluent men than the people we get today in the upper echelons of power, whose motivations are often self-serving and political? Did these men help to create the Cold War or did they provide for us the strategy that won it (or both)? My only complaint about the book is that it tends to skip over the events (like the Bay of Pigs) where their imprint was not felt, even if those events had a profound impact on subsequent foreign policy decisions and crises. The bottom line is that, for these men, their particular political party affiliation and that of whoever was President at the time did not matter as much as serving their country. They truly possessed the quality of "civic virtue" that our Founders felt would be essential to the success of the republic, and which seems to be in short supply today.
This book works on two levels. On one, it is an excellent biography of six men dedicated to public service who were involved in American diplomacy during a critical time in the nation's history (WWII & the early Cold War). On another it explains how the powerful ideas (containment, anti-communism) guiding American foreign policy during the Cold War were formed and the force that these ideas took on beyond the control of their creators.
This is the best book I've read about the Cold War. Other books might focus on the theories and implementation of Cold War strategy (John Gaddis' excellent Strategies of Containment A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy during the Cold War for example), but by focusing on six men who were in the thick of it, this book gave me a better understanding of how and why these strategies were formed.
This is the best book I've read about the Cold War. Other books might focus on the theories and implementation of Cold War strategy (John Gaddis' excellent Strategies of Containment A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy during the Cold War for example), but by focusing on six men who were in the thick of it, this book gave me a better understanding of how and why these strategies were formed.
Isaacson is a good writer. Or at least he is now. Thirty five years ago maybe not so much. The idea of this book is intriguing and Isaacson on the title sold it to me, but to put it simply it is just not well written. In attempting to tell the story of the beginning of the Cold War through the lens of these six men it becomes both too big and too small all at once. It is too big because you cannot write a biography of six men all at once. It is too small because in focusing on just the actions of these six men it leaves out numerous extraneous but tremendously important factors in the development of the Cold War. I love history, but I finished it only out of sheer character, and I cannot tell you any one particular thing I learned in consequence.
This is one of those zombie books - resurrected from a past generation - that should have been allowed to rest in peace.
This is one of those zombie books - resurrected from a past generation - that should have been allowed to rest in peace.
"The Wise Men: Six Friends and The World They Made," is an extraordinary, thought-provoking, and captivating look at the six men, most of whom were graduates of the famous Groton school and later graduates of Yale, Harvard, and Princeton who helped shape American foreign policy for way over fifty years. Often working in the private sector as bankers, Wall Street Insiders, and Railroad Tycoons they immediately responded to the call whenever their government and president sought their advice and council... Taking government jobs as Secretary of State, Ambassadors, Secretary of War, and National Security Advisor... Working for Presidents FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, and Ronald Reagan. They differed in political philosophy, some leaning left while others leaned right; yet together they were the chief architectures of the Marshal Plan, convincing President Truman about the importance of rebuilding Western Europe after World War 2, despite Congressional and public reluctance to the idea, keeping lines of communication open with the Soviet Union, despite its aggressive takeover of Eastern Europe, building the alliance that came to be called NATO, and which was a major deterrant to Soviet aggression and fighting Communism wherever it spread leading us into two unpopular wars in Korea and Vietnam.
The six men, Averell Harriman, Dean Acheson, George Kennan, Robert Lovett, John McCloy and Charles Bohlen are hardly household names, even to individuals who think of themselves as knowledgable about American history, but their contributions to American greatness and America's status as a World Power is undeniable and as a nation we should be thankful for their unselfish duty to country... even if at times their philosophy and policies lead us down the wrong path.
A must read. Highly recommend.
The six men, Averell Harriman, Dean Acheson, George Kennan, Robert Lovett, John McCloy and Charles Bohlen are hardly household names, even to individuals who think of themselves as knowledgable about American history, but their contributions to American greatness and America's status as a World Power is undeniable and as a nation we should be thankful for their unselfish duty to country... even if at times their philosophy and policies lead us down the wrong path.
A must read. Highly recommend.
I bought this because it is co-written by Walter Isaacson, who wrote the Jobs biography, and a wonderful book on Kissinger.
I got about half way through. It is the six biographies of men I vaguely remember as being aging luminaries when I was a child. Unfortunately the idea of a 6 person biography (instead of a diplomatic history of the period) doesn't work. None of them was important or interesting enough for me to want to read about their formative years (but I did). And as adults, I couldn't keep them straight. About half way through the book, I admitted defeat.
I picked up 6 Characters in Search of an Author instead. (Just kidding.)
I got about half way through. It is the six biographies of men I vaguely remember as being aging luminaries when I was a child. Unfortunately the idea of a 6 person biography (instead of a diplomatic history of the period) doesn't work. None of them was important or interesting enough for me to want to read about their formative years (but I did). And as adults, I couldn't keep them straight. About half way through the book, I admitted defeat.
I picked up 6 Characters in Search of an Author instead. (Just kidding.)
A study of the men who advised Harry Truman about how to rebuild Europe and contain communism in the years after World War II.
“Washington was filled with excitement that sunny Monday: Dwight Eisenhower, the returning hero, was greeted by the largest crowds in the city’s history as he paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue. Wedged into Truman’s afternoon schedule — between lunches and dinners and other ceremonies honoring Eisenhower — was the meeting on Japanese strategy.”
“Washington was filled with excitement that sunny Monday: Dwight Eisenhower, the returning hero, was greeted by the largest crowds in the city’s history as he paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue. Wedged into Truman’s afternoon schedule — between lunches and dinners and other ceremonies honoring Eisenhower — was the meeting on Japanese strategy.”
In International Relations programs, George Kennan is often venerated as a demigod. His prescient "Long Telegram" is (still) a sacred text of sorts. In the latest issue of Foreign Affairs he was name-checked twice. Similarly, Dean Acheson is famous as one of the great Secretaries of State. By contrast, I'd not heard of any of the other "Wise Men" before reading the book.
The book manages to simultaneously tell a partial history of the Cold War while also documenting the lives of its six protagonists, not an easy feat. It's strongest in how it humanizes everyone; Isaacson establishes how all six - as well as the Presidents they served under - had great flaws, from Kennan's excessive sensitivity to Acheson's arrogance. They made mistakes, predicted events incorrectly, or missed opportunities.
As much as I enjoyed Isaacson's bashing of Joe McCarthy and John Foster Dulles, the criticism seemed to stem less from these antagonists' (enormously problematic) worldviews than from their opposition to The Wise Men.
I do wonder if the book could have been more even-handed in its assessment of foreign policy. Isaacson is on weaker ground when he wanders into hypotheticals as he generally views The Wise Men in a sympathetic light.
The book manages to simultaneously tell a partial history of the Cold War while also documenting the lives of its six protagonists, not an easy feat. It's strongest in how it humanizes everyone; Isaacson establishes how all six - as well as the Presidents they served under - had great flaws, from Kennan's excessive sensitivity to Acheson's arrogance. They made mistakes, predicted events incorrectly, or missed opportunities.
As much as I enjoyed Isaacson's bashing of Joe McCarthy and John Foster Dulles, the criticism seemed to stem less from these antagonists' (enormously problematic) worldviews than from their opposition to The Wise Men.
I do wonder if the book could have been more even-handed in its assessment of foreign policy. Isaacson is on weaker ground when he wanders into hypotheticals as he generally views The Wise Men in a sympathetic light.
This is an amazing story about the origins and early years of the Cold War as told through the lives of six individuals who shaped US foreign policy during the 1930s - 1960s. The book begins with a brief biography of all six and identifies their relationships with each other from college days on. These six men; two bankers, two lawyers, and two diplomats not only shaped US foreign policy but implemented it as well. Their Cold War policy went from wartime collaboration with the Soviets to a policy of firmness to confrontation and distrust to containment to reduction of armaments and to flexible response. However, when it came to the Vietnam War the “Wise Men” were not so wise as they were seemingly handicapped by their Cold War mentality. It was in Vietnam that the Cold War mentality of containment ended. Isaacson and Thomas are amazing story tellers describing events, the interaction of the main players and behind the scenes strategizing that took place between the US and USSR. The authors accurately explain why there was a transition from the “Wise Men’s” foreign policy bipartisan consensus to a “raw new order” and a decline in US foreign policy making. These six men believed they were not only saving the world but shaping a new world order as well. A great read.
This book provides a good overview of American foreign policy. These wise men who became part of the establishment dedicate themselves to public service and help navigate United States foreign policies through World War II, Soviet containment during the Cold War years, Arab Israeli conflict and the Vietnam war. After reading this book one may be more appreciative of the effort put forth by public service personnel to make any policy a “fait accompli”. A country’s political dogma needs to be flexible with changing times, but at the same time it should not be disdained all together with each change in the administration.
While I enjoyed reading about the different events that led to the policy at the time, the read was a bit cumbersome. I got a bit bogged down because there were a lot of moving parts given it’s a six person biography. I’d like to give this book a 3.5 stars if Good reads allowed it.
While I enjoyed reading about the different events that led to the policy at the time, the read was a bit cumbersome. I got a bit bogged down because there were a lot of moving parts given it’s a six person biography. I’d like to give this book a 3.5 stars if Good reads allowed it.
Isaacson traces the careers and personalities of six men of the "political establishment." Averell Harriman, Dean Acheson, George Kennan, Robert Lovett, John McCloy, and Charles Bohlen served 4 administrations and advised 2 more. Their outlook, assumptions and experience shaped the American century, rebuilt Europe and mired the country in 2 land wars in Asia.
Why I started this book: The title caught my eye as I was browsing my library's Overdrive collection. After waiting on hold for months, it was my turn to power thru.
Why I finished it: At 33 hours and 27 minutes this was not for the faint of heart or the casual interest. And yet for all that, with 6 main leads there was lots of times when I wanted more depth about subjects that I knew about... and parts that I wanted to skip completely because who cares? Interesting to relearn the moments of decision and see it thru a prism of friendship and old boy networks.
Why I started this book: The title caught my eye as I was browsing my library's Overdrive collection. After waiting on hold for months, it was my turn to power thru.
Why I finished it: At 33 hours and 27 minutes this was not for the faint of heart or the casual interest. And yet for all that, with 6 main leads there was lots of times when I wanted more depth about subjects that I knew about... and parts that I wanted to skip completely because who cares? Interesting to relearn the moments of decision and see it thru a prism of friendship and old boy networks.
Read
November 12, 2023
Fascinating book about how government used to work. Isaacson follows 6 men who made US post-war foreign policy. He explores how they worked together and argued and learned, and the networks they built and nurtured. Isaacson shows the strengths of these networks and the weaknesses. It is a system that is built on respect but insular and rich and not diverse.
Long read, and lots of detail but very well written as most of Isaacson's books are.
Long read, and lots of detail but very well written as most of Isaacson's books are.
Want to read
May 18, 2019
Right now it's a lot about "Look at this six rich white men and how they got that way" (spoiler: they were mostly born rich white men.)
I will be more interested once they get into their "let's stop the USSR" jobs, but right now I'm a little bored with it.
I will be more interested once they get into their "let's stop the USSR" jobs, but right now I'm a little bored with it.
A fascinating exploration of the enormous role in America's 20th Century geopolitics played by a few career statesmen. I'd know a bit about a few of them but the authors weave a coherent and informative account of all six men.
WHAT DID THE WISE MEN DO?
- Yet collectively, this small group of men, and those who emulated their example, brought to the immense task just the right mixture of vision and practicality, aggressiveness and patience. They came together at one of those moments in history when time and place, upbringing and character, fuse into a kind of critical mass, and give ordinary men the power to forever change the way things are.
- The motives and wisdom of the old foreign policy elite can be fairly debated, but its impact is undeniable. More than any others, this small group of men made the U.S. assume the responsibility of a world power and defined its global mission. And without doubt the Marshall Plan remains their purest and greatest achievement, power used to its best end.
ORIGIN OF USE OF TERM ‘WISE MEN’
- In his memoranda over the next year, Bundy began referring to Acheson, McCloy, Lovett, and other old statesmen brought in to counsel the President from time to time as “the Wise Men.” The term was not altogether reverent.
DIVERSITY OF THOUGHT
- These men did not adhere to a single ideology, nor was ideology a driving force in their lives—Ideological fervor was frowned upon; pragmatism, realpolitik, moderation, and consensus were prized.
- There were, however, some basic tenets these men shared, foremost among them an opposition to isolationism...Their other basic tenet was the doctrine of containment.
BENEFITS OF PRIVILEGE
- Presidents need men and women who are confident enough—independent enough—to level with them. No one would argue that the president’s top advisers should be chosen from an elitist club of Anglo-Saxon white males who graduated from certain schools (the parody version of the Wise Men; also the reality). But it would serve the country to have public figures with the confidence to rise above party or the search for celebrity. The self-confidence of the Wise Men was liberating—it gave them the freedom to be creative and bold.
CUT FROM THE SAME CLOTH
- It was important, he felt, that the new recruits, whatever their background, be the type who would adopt the values of the old club.
- As his fellow students discussed whom they knew in the State Department, it belatedly dawned on him that college provided not just an education, but a network of professional and social contacts.
- Kennan wrote home excitedly: “I’m beginning to appreciate more than ever the value of a Princeton diploma; it’s helped me out about ten times just since I’ve been in Washington.”
GEORGE KENNAN
- One of the most influential relatives in Kennan’s life was a man he met only once...to visit a cousin of George’s grandfather, a man also named George Kennan. Born in Ohio in 1845, the elder George Kennan had at age twenty explored Alaska and Siberia for a telegraph company and written a popular book called Tent Life in Siberia...During his stay with his distinguished relative, the younger George Kennan became fascinated by Russia.
- As Kennan’s academic expertise grew, so did his intellectual arrogance, particularly about his intuitive judgments. When the legation’s counselor asked him about the sources for one of his reports, Kennan replied: “But I’m the source.”
- Kennan understood that Communism was not monolithic.
- The fact is that Kennan throughout his own career was more intuitive than logical.
KENNAN’S ‘LONG TELEGRAM’
- the Long Telegram was viewed by those who read it in February of 1946 as having two main messages: the U.S. must forcefully draw the line against further expansion of Soviet influence, and it should unabashedly forge an alliance with Britain and other Western nations for this purpose.
- What made the Long Telegram so immensely influential was not what Kennan said (for he had said the same often before) but what Washington was willing to hear.
- One significant result of the Long Telegram was that it unified the thinking of the various advocates of firmness.
CONTAINMENT
- Kennan had even given the new policy a name: containment.
- It was beginning to dawn on him that the article was taking on a meaning and a life of its own, one disturbingly different from the intent of its author.
- Lippmann attacked the “containment doctrine” as a “strategic monstrosity.” To try to “confront the Russians with unalterable counterforce at every point” was folly. It would mean propping up puppet regimes all along the Soviet periphery. The result would inevitably be to “squander our substance and our prestige.” The U.S. should devote its resources to restoring Western Europe, not mucking about in Asia or the underdeveloped world.
CONFRONTING THE RUSSIANS (NOT NECESSARILY WITH MILITARY)
- Kennan concluded in his War College lecture: “There is no reason, in theory, why it should not be possible for us to contain the Russians indefinitely by confronting them firmly and politely with superior strength at every turn.”
- To an audience of Foreign Service officers, he said of Soviet leaders: “While they are political gamblers, they are not gamblers when faced with the reality of military force.”
- The tendency to “see things precisely in black and white terms,” he added was “the great American temptation.”
- Asked at the War College in 1946 if the U.S. did not have something more constructive to offer than military force, Kennan groped uneasily. “I would be happier,” he said, “and I think we would be on sounder ground if we had things that were constructive to offer people in fields beside the military fields. I am still trying to think it out. . . . I just don’t know.”
- In later years, Kennan remained mystified that he was unable to get across his argument that the main Soviet threat was political, not military.
DEMOCRACIES SEE CONFLICT AS ‘ON OR OFF’
- Not only was the military chain of command “addicted to doing things only in the most massive, ponderous, and unwieldy manner,” but so was the American public. “A democracy,” Kennan wrote in a note to himself, “is severely restricted in its use of armed forces as a weapon of peactime foreign policy. It cannot manipulate them tactically on any extensive scale, for the accomplishment of measures short of war.”
- A democracy is suited only to all-out wars. “It soon becomes a victim of its own propaganda. It then tends to attach to its own cause an absolute value, which distorts its own vision of everything else. Its enemy becomes the embodiment of all evil. Its own side, on the other hand, is the center of all virtue.”
EVOLVING PERSPECTIVES
- Bohlen’s and Kennan’s hostility toward Stalin and his system might seem quite unremarkable in retrospect, but at the time it was a stark departure from official U.S. thinking...President Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins, and Secretary of State Hull. Even the American public, despite deep currents of anti-Communist sentiment, was fascinated by press accounts portraying Russia as a potential trading partner and ally.
- “Such was the cast of the military mind that the full potential of air power as an independent, offensive weapon had not penetrated the domain of artillery and battleships,”
- “At irregular intervals in history,” Lovett told the old artillery colonel, “some new development has altered the art of war and changed the fate of peoples and the world.”
THE RUSSIANS
- “The Russian mind, as Dostoyevski has shown, knows no moderation; and it sometimes carries both truth and falsehood to such infinite extremes that they eventually meet in space, like parallel lines, and it is no longer possible to distinguish between them.”
- What Bohlen concluded from his analysis was that it was foolish to base a policy toward the Soviets on anything other than an appeal to their self-interest. Any alliances the Kremlin made would be temporary and cynical, forged solely on the basis of transitory needs rather than true understandings. As he said in a 1938 cable: “The Kremlin does not envisage cordial relations with the capitalist governments on any permanent basis but rather as a temporary expedient.”
RUSSIAN EXPANSION (?)
- The thorniest problem of all was Harriman’s old domino dilemma. Given a friendly sphere (either “open” or “closed”), would the Soviets set their sights on the next layer of countries?
- In addition, the Soviets had created a crescent of crises stretching from Trieste to Teheran, sparking brush fires that made their expansionist motives seem quite clear.
- What had happened? “Suddenly the atomic bomb appeared,” Harriman wrote “This must have revived their old feeling of insecurity . . . As a result it would seem that they have returned to their tactics of obtaining their objectives through aggressiveness and intrigue.”
- But for most U.S. policy makers, the root causes of Moscow’s belligerent attitude remained an enigma.
- In reality, “the Soviet party line is not based on any objective analysis of the situation beyond Russia’s borders.” What actually motivated Russia’s rulers, Kennan argued, was a “centuries-old” outlook: “At the bottom of the Kremlin’s neurotic view of world affairs is traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity.”
- What role, then, did ideology play? Marxism was mainly a “fig leaf” for Russia’s current rulers, one that served to justify police-state tactics, a closed society, and expansionist ambitions.
WHAT THE RUSSIANS REALLY WANTED THROUGH EXPANSION
- The most prescient part of Kennan’s analysis was his awareness, not shared by Willett or Forrestal or many others, that the real threat from Moscow was not the ideology of Marxism. What the Kremlin sought, he said, was not more Communism but more Soviet control, the establishment of “governments amenable to their own influence and authority.” They had “no desire” to see countries move toward a socialist system “except under the guidance of persons who recognize Moscow’s authority.”
THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE
- “It is the policy of the United States to give support to free peoples who are attempting to resist subjugation from armed minorities or from outside forces.” At Acheson’s direction, this passage was lifted almost verbatim from the report and put in the President’s address. It became known as the Truman Doctrine.
- Kennan came over from the War College to the State Department to have a look. He was appalled. He immediately seized on the open-ended commitment to aid “free peoples” everywhere.
- When he finished announcing that the United States was undertaking the role of world defender of democracy, he was greeted not with applause but with stunned silence.
- Walter Lippmann. The distinguished columnist, sniffing the flaw in the Truman Doctrine, had warned in a column that the U.S. was in danger of violating one of his favorite precepts, the balance of resources and commitments. The U.S. would face the Soviets, Lippmann feared, with “dispersed American power in the service of a heterogenous collection of unstable governments.”
- Kennan felt unjustly accused. He had, in fact, strongly and repeatedly opposed the sweeping language of the Truman Doctrine, both to his students at the War College and to Acheson personally. In May, for instance, he had complained to Acheson that “the Truman Doctrine is a blank check to give economic and military aid to any area of the world where the Communists show signs of being successful.”
THE MARSHALL PLAN
- Marshall’s invitation had been open-ended. It was not limited to Western Europe. The Soviet Union and their satellites were free to join in the recovery plan, if they so desired. Inviting Russia was “a hell of gamble,” Bohlen realized; Soviet acceptance would doom the whole exercise.
- The Soviets, Kennan explained, could not afford to accept. They would not dream of opening up their books to an international recovery plan, or of loosening control over their satellites by letting them trade freely with the West.
- but if the Russians did, they would be expected to contribute money to the plan, not withdraw it.
- The Marshall Plan was, said Winston Churchill, the “most unsordid act in history.” Bob Lovett said he was proud of the Marshall Plan on other grounds: it was a government program that stayed within its original cost estimates, and when it had outlived its usefulness, it ended.
RUSSIAN RESPONSE TO MARSHALL PLAN
- To be encircled by capitalist countries was in fact Stalin’s worst nightmare.
- “the Russians saw [the Marshall Plan] as a declaration of war by the U.S. for control of Europe.”
- Stalin’s reaction to the Marshall Plan. Not unreasonably, given Soviet history, he saw a restored Europe, and especially a rebuilt Germany, as a threat to Soviet security.
EAST/WEST GERMANY SPLIT ENSURED DUE TO CURRENCY REFORM
- Currency reform may sound like a technical exercise, but it meant the end of any semblance of U.S.-Soviet cooperation in Germany. It signaled the great divide between East and West.
BERLIN AIR LIFT
- Keeping Berlin alive required 4,000 tons a day, or a C-54 every three minutes and forty-three seconds.
- To accommodate more transports, another airfield was built by twenty thousand Berliners with their bare hands.
- The Soviets began to look like barbarians, bent on starvation, while the Americans seemed like saviors.
NSC-68
- George Kennan was dead set against the writing of NSC-68. He did not believe there was a need for a massive military buildup.
- Too much emphasis was put on the enemy’s capacity, not enough on his intentions.
- He argued for “drastic measures to reduce the exorbitant cost of national defense.” That was precisely the opposite of what Nitze was saying.
- The real question was whether Congress and the Administration would pay for it. The public had to be persuaded. The way to do that, Nitze knew from experience was to scare them: to tell them that the Soviets were intent on world domination, that they were poised to attack, and that the U.S. had to meet them everywhere.
- NSC-68 greatly exaggerated Soviet superiority.
FLEXIBLE RESPONSE
- The most important new idea was a concept later to be known as “flexible response.”
- This was the nub: The U.S. had to be able to fight small conventional wars, and fight them anywhere, or one day it would find the Red Army in Paris. There was no effort to distinguish between vital and peripheral interests. “The assault on free institutions is worldwide now, and in the context of the present polarization of world power, a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere.”
KOREA
- all in agreement: the U.S. had to intervene to save South Korea from the Communists. So total was the support that the Administration did not even bother to get any congressional resolution or declaration of war.
- “The Kremlin did not intend to bring about a general war or to involve itself in a showdown with the U.S.,” he wrote Acheson a few days later. Rather, the Soviets preferred to see the U.S. get bogged down in a “profitless and discreditable war” or to “acquiesce in Communist seizure, thus suffering a tremendous prestige defeat everywhere.”
- “We had the clearest idea among ourselves of the utter madness and folly of what MacArthur was doing up north.” Yet, as he later wrote Richard Neustadt, “We sat around like paralyzed rabbits while MacArthur carried out this nightmare.”
VIETNAM
- “We are getting ourselves into the position of guaranteeing the French in an undertaking which neither they nor we, nor both of us together, can win.”
- By 1960, there were only two officials who could even speak Chinese in the State Department. Significantly, there were no experts on Vietnamese culture and history at all.
- Then the South Vietnamese balked. Secretly encouraged by Nixon to hold out for a better deal from a Republican Administration, Thieu refused to sit down at the same table with the NLF.
- For weeks the talks hung in limbo while the different sides squabbled over the shape of the table. Should it be two-sided, with the U.S. and South Vietnam on one side and the NLF and North Vietnamese on the other? Three-sided, without a seat for the NLF? Four-sided? Round?
- Through November and December on into January, the shape-of-the-table quarrel dragged on.
- The South Vietnamese finally agreed to sit down with the Communists (the NLF as well as the North Vietnamese) on January 16—four days before Richard Nixon’s inauguration.
THE LAST DAYS OF THE WISE MEN
- The moment was as significant for their role in America as it was for America’s in the world. By dismantling their own creation, they were as well diminishing their own raison d’être. Never again would a President put such faith in the collective wisdom of the Establishment. For the Wise Men, this dinner was, in a sense, the last supper.
- Smarting from its quiescence in Vietnam, no longer willing to be used by Presidents as a passive instrument, Congress in the early seventies had begun to assert itself in foreign policy.
- Foreign policy, Kennan believed, had become political theater. By sacrificing realism to polemics, consistency to opportunism, America had forfeited its role as world leader. “For a country to be ruled this way,” declared Kennan in an interview with historian Ronald Steel in the fall of 1984, “disqualifies it from active participation in the world.”
AMERICAN POLICY OPINION MOVES TO THE EXTREMES AFTER VIETNAM
- deep splits that cracked apart the foreign policy Establishment in the 1970s. For two decades, the Establishment had held sway by sitting squarely astride the middle ground of “informed” public opinion. But by the seventies, the center no longer held; Vietnam had shattered the post-World War II consensus. Power swung to the extremes.
- Vietnam forced nearly everyone, even the old guard, to choose sides between “hawk” and “dove.”
- “There was a foreign policy consensus back then, and its disintegration during Vietnam is one of the great disasters of our history,” states Kissinger. “You need an Establishment. Society needs it. You can’t have all these constant assaults on national policy so that every time you change Presidents you end up changing direction.”
FALL OF STATE DEPARTMENT/ RISE OF NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER
- When Carter formed his government in January of 1977, Brzezinski maneuvered to insure that the real insider, the President’s true counsel, was not the Secretary of State but the National Security Adviser; not Vance but himself.
- “If I had gotten in the way of the relationship between the President and the Secretary of State,” he told friends, “I would have been fired, and properly so.”
- When Carter ignored Vance’s warnings and took Brzezinski’s advice to launch the hostage rescue mission that failed so ignominiously in the Iranian desert, Vance resigned from office, defeated and discouraged.
THE COGNITIVE ELEMENT
- All in all, German production in 1944 was three times what it was at the beginning of the war. Especially fruitless had been the attempt to destroy German morale by the bombings; there were no signs that this occurred.
- “We must understand that we are not going to have negotiations,” he told the President. “When these fellows decide they can’t defeat the South, then they will give up. This is the way it was in Korea. This is the way the Communists operate.”
- It was the battle reports from the field commanders that had the deepest impact on Acheson, his son, David, recalled. They conveyed to him an impression of suicidal determination by the enemy, and of confusion and low morale on the American side.
- Though the North Vietnamese had been badly bled by Tet, and needed time to regroup and recover, they accurately perceived that Tet had been a tremendous psychological victory, that it had sapped the will of the American people.
- Yet collectively, this small group of men, and those who emulated their example, brought to the immense task just the right mixture of vision and practicality, aggressiveness and patience. They came together at one of those moments in history when time and place, upbringing and character, fuse into a kind of critical mass, and give ordinary men the power to forever change the way things are.
- The motives and wisdom of the old foreign policy elite can be fairly debated, but its impact is undeniable. More than any others, this small group of men made the U.S. assume the responsibility of a world power and defined its global mission. And without doubt the Marshall Plan remains their purest and greatest achievement, power used to its best end.
ORIGIN OF USE OF TERM ‘WISE MEN’
- In his memoranda over the next year, Bundy began referring to Acheson, McCloy, Lovett, and other old statesmen brought in to counsel the President from time to time as “the Wise Men.” The term was not altogether reverent.
DIVERSITY OF THOUGHT
- These men did not adhere to a single ideology, nor was ideology a driving force in their lives—Ideological fervor was frowned upon; pragmatism, realpolitik, moderation, and consensus were prized.
- There were, however, some basic tenets these men shared, foremost among them an opposition to isolationism...Their other basic tenet was the doctrine of containment.
BENEFITS OF PRIVILEGE
- Presidents need men and women who are confident enough—independent enough—to level with them. No one would argue that the president’s top advisers should be chosen from an elitist club of Anglo-Saxon white males who graduated from certain schools (the parody version of the Wise Men; also the reality). But it would serve the country to have public figures with the confidence to rise above party or the search for celebrity. The self-confidence of the Wise Men was liberating—it gave them the freedom to be creative and bold.
CUT FROM THE SAME CLOTH
- It was important, he felt, that the new recruits, whatever their background, be the type who would adopt the values of the old club.
- As his fellow students discussed whom they knew in the State Department, it belatedly dawned on him that college provided not just an education, but a network of professional and social contacts.
- Kennan wrote home excitedly: “I’m beginning to appreciate more than ever the value of a Princeton diploma; it’s helped me out about ten times just since I’ve been in Washington.”
GEORGE KENNAN
- One of the most influential relatives in Kennan’s life was a man he met only once...to visit a cousin of George’s grandfather, a man also named George Kennan. Born in Ohio in 1845, the elder George Kennan had at age twenty explored Alaska and Siberia for a telegraph company and written a popular book called Tent Life in Siberia...During his stay with his distinguished relative, the younger George Kennan became fascinated by Russia.
- As Kennan’s academic expertise grew, so did his intellectual arrogance, particularly about his intuitive judgments. When the legation’s counselor asked him about the sources for one of his reports, Kennan replied: “But I’m the source.”
- Kennan understood that Communism was not monolithic.
- The fact is that Kennan throughout his own career was more intuitive than logical.
KENNAN’S ‘LONG TELEGRAM’
- the Long Telegram was viewed by those who read it in February of 1946 as having two main messages: the U.S. must forcefully draw the line against further expansion of Soviet influence, and it should unabashedly forge an alliance with Britain and other Western nations for this purpose.
- What made the Long Telegram so immensely influential was not what Kennan said (for he had said the same often before) but what Washington was willing to hear.
- One significant result of the Long Telegram was that it unified the thinking of the various advocates of firmness.
CONTAINMENT
- Kennan had even given the new policy a name: containment.
- It was beginning to dawn on him that the article was taking on a meaning and a life of its own, one disturbingly different from the intent of its author.
- Lippmann attacked the “containment doctrine” as a “strategic monstrosity.” To try to “confront the Russians with unalterable counterforce at every point” was folly. It would mean propping up puppet regimes all along the Soviet periphery. The result would inevitably be to “squander our substance and our prestige.” The U.S. should devote its resources to restoring Western Europe, not mucking about in Asia or the underdeveloped world.
CONFRONTING THE RUSSIANS (NOT NECESSARILY WITH MILITARY)
- Kennan concluded in his War College lecture: “There is no reason, in theory, why it should not be possible for us to contain the Russians indefinitely by confronting them firmly and politely with superior strength at every turn.”
- To an audience of Foreign Service officers, he said of Soviet leaders: “While they are political gamblers, they are not gamblers when faced with the reality of military force.”
- The tendency to “see things precisely in black and white terms,” he added was “the great American temptation.”
- Asked at the War College in 1946 if the U.S. did not have something more constructive to offer than military force, Kennan groped uneasily. “I would be happier,” he said, “and I think we would be on sounder ground if we had things that were constructive to offer people in fields beside the military fields. I am still trying to think it out. . . . I just don’t know.”
- In later years, Kennan remained mystified that he was unable to get across his argument that the main Soviet threat was political, not military.
DEMOCRACIES SEE CONFLICT AS ‘ON OR OFF’
- Not only was the military chain of command “addicted to doing things only in the most massive, ponderous, and unwieldy manner,” but so was the American public. “A democracy,” Kennan wrote in a note to himself, “is severely restricted in its use of armed forces as a weapon of peactime foreign policy. It cannot manipulate them tactically on any extensive scale, for the accomplishment of measures short of war.”
- A democracy is suited only to all-out wars. “It soon becomes a victim of its own propaganda. It then tends to attach to its own cause an absolute value, which distorts its own vision of everything else. Its enemy becomes the embodiment of all evil. Its own side, on the other hand, is the center of all virtue.”
EVOLVING PERSPECTIVES
- Bohlen’s and Kennan’s hostility toward Stalin and his system might seem quite unremarkable in retrospect, but at the time it was a stark departure from official U.S. thinking...President Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins, and Secretary of State Hull. Even the American public, despite deep currents of anti-Communist sentiment, was fascinated by press accounts portraying Russia as a potential trading partner and ally.
- “Such was the cast of the military mind that the full potential of air power as an independent, offensive weapon had not penetrated the domain of artillery and battleships,”
- “At irregular intervals in history,” Lovett told the old artillery colonel, “some new development has altered the art of war and changed the fate of peoples and the world.”
THE RUSSIANS
- “The Russian mind, as Dostoyevski has shown, knows no moderation; and it sometimes carries both truth and falsehood to such infinite extremes that they eventually meet in space, like parallel lines, and it is no longer possible to distinguish between them.”
- What Bohlen concluded from his analysis was that it was foolish to base a policy toward the Soviets on anything other than an appeal to their self-interest. Any alliances the Kremlin made would be temporary and cynical, forged solely on the basis of transitory needs rather than true understandings. As he said in a 1938 cable: “The Kremlin does not envisage cordial relations with the capitalist governments on any permanent basis but rather as a temporary expedient.”
RUSSIAN EXPANSION (?)
- The thorniest problem of all was Harriman’s old domino dilemma. Given a friendly sphere (either “open” or “closed”), would the Soviets set their sights on the next layer of countries?
- In addition, the Soviets had created a crescent of crises stretching from Trieste to Teheran, sparking brush fires that made their expansionist motives seem quite clear.
- What had happened? “Suddenly the atomic bomb appeared,” Harriman wrote “This must have revived their old feeling of insecurity . . . As a result it would seem that they have returned to their tactics of obtaining their objectives through aggressiveness and intrigue.”
- But for most U.S. policy makers, the root causes of Moscow’s belligerent attitude remained an enigma.
- In reality, “the Soviet party line is not based on any objective analysis of the situation beyond Russia’s borders.” What actually motivated Russia’s rulers, Kennan argued, was a “centuries-old” outlook: “At the bottom of the Kremlin’s neurotic view of world affairs is traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity.”
- What role, then, did ideology play? Marxism was mainly a “fig leaf” for Russia’s current rulers, one that served to justify police-state tactics, a closed society, and expansionist ambitions.
WHAT THE RUSSIANS REALLY WANTED THROUGH EXPANSION
- The most prescient part of Kennan’s analysis was his awareness, not shared by Willett or Forrestal or many others, that the real threat from Moscow was not the ideology of Marxism. What the Kremlin sought, he said, was not more Communism but more Soviet control, the establishment of “governments amenable to their own influence and authority.” They had “no desire” to see countries move toward a socialist system “except under the guidance of persons who recognize Moscow’s authority.”
THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE
- “It is the policy of the United States to give support to free peoples who are attempting to resist subjugation from armed minorities or from outside forces.” At Acheson’s direction, this passage was lifted almost verbatim from the report and put in the President’s address. It became known as the Truman Doctrine.
- Kennan came over from the War College to the State Department to have a look. He was appalled. He immediately seized on the open-ended commitment to aid “free peoples” everywhere.
- When he finished announcing that the United States was undertaking the role of world defender of democracy, he was greeted not with applause but with stunned silence.
- Walter Lippmann. The distinguished columnist, sniffing the flaw in the Truman Doctrine, had warned in a column that the U.S. was in danger of violating one of his favorite precepts, the balance of resources and commitments. The U.S. would face the Soviets, Lippmann feared, with “dispersed American power in the service of a heterogenous collection of unstable governments.”
- Kennan felt unjustly accused. He had, in fact, strongly and repeatedly opposed the sweeping language of the Truman Doctrine, both to his students at the War College and to Acheson personally. In May, for instance, he had complained to Acheson that “the Truman Doctrine is a blank check to give economic and military aid to any area of the world where the Communists show signs of being successful.”
THE MARSHALL PLAN
- Marshall’s invitation had been open-ended. It was not limited to Western Europe. The Soviet Union and their satellites were free to join in the recovery plan, if they so desired. Inviting Russia was “a hell of gamble,” Bohlen realized; Soviet acceptance would doom the whole exercise.
- The Soviets, Kennan explained, could not afford to accept. They would not dream of opening up their books to an international recovery plan, or of loosening control over their satellites by letting them trade freely with the West.
- but if the Russians did, they would be expected to contribute money to the plan, not withdraw it.
- The Marshall Plan was, said Winston Churchill, the “most unsordid act in history.” Bob Lovett said he was proud of the Marshall Plan on other grounds: it was a government program that stayed within its original cost estimates, and when it had outlived its usefulness, it ended.
RUSSIAN RESPONSE TO MARSHALL PLAN
- To be encircled by capitalist countries was in fact Stalin’s worst nightmare.
- “the Russians saw [the Marshall Plan] as a declaration of war by the U.S. for control of Europe.”
- Stalin’s reaction to the Marshall Plan. Not unreasonably, given Soviet history, he saw a restored Europe, and especially a rebuilt Germany, as a threat to Soviet security.
EAST/WEST GERMANY SPLIT ENSURED DUE TO CURRENCY REFORM
- Currency reform may sound like a technical exercise, but it meant the end of any semblance of U.S.-Soviet cooperation in Germany. It signaled the great divide between East and West.
BERLIN AIR LIFT
- Keeping Berlin alive required 4,000 tons a day, or a C-54 every three minutes and forty-three seconds.
- To accommodate more transports, another airfield was built by twenty thousand Berliners with their bare hands.
- The Soviets began to look like barbarians, bent on starvation, while the Americans seemed like saviors.
NSC-68
- George Kennan was dead set against the writing of NSC-68. He did not believe there was a need for a massive military buildup.
- Too much emphasis was put on the enemy’s capacity, not enough on his intentions.
- He argued for “drastic measures to reduce the exorbitant cost of national defense.” That was precisely the opposite of what Nitze was saying.
- The real question was whether Congress and the Administration would pay for it. The public had to be persuaded. The way to do that, Nitze knew from experience was to scare them: to tell them that the Soviets were intent on world domination, that they were poised to attack, and that the U.S. had to meet them everywhere.
- NSC-68 greatly exaggerated Soviet superiority.
FLEXIBLE RESPONSE
- The most important new idea was a concept later to be known as “flexible response.”
- This was the nub: The U.S. had to be able to fight small conventional wars, and fight them anywhere, or one day it would find the Red Army in Paris. There was no effort to distinguish between vital and peripheral interests. “The assault on free institutions is worldwide now, and in the context of the present polarization of world power, a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere.”
KOREA
- all in agreement: the U.S. had to intervene to save South Korea from the Communists. So total was the support that the Administration did not even bother to get any congressional resolution or declaration of war.
- “The Kremlin did not intend to bring about a general war or to involve itself in a showdown with the U.S.,” he wrote Acheson a few days later. Rather, the Soviets preferred to see the U.S. get bogged down in a “profitless and discreditable war” or to “acquiesce in Communist seizure, thus suffering a tremendous prestige defeat everywhere.”
- “We had the clearest idea among ourselves of the utter madness and folly of what MacArthur was doing up north.” Yet, as he later wrote Richard Neustadt, “We sat around like paralyzed rabbits while MacArthur carried out this nightmare.”
VIETNAM
- “We are getting ourselves into the position of guaranteeing the French in an undertaking which neither they nor we, nor both of us together, can win.”
- By 1960, there were only two officials who could even speak Chinese in the State Department. Significantly, there were no experts on Vietnamese culture and history at all.
- Then the South Vietnamese balked. Secretly encouraged by Nixon to hold out for a better deal from a Republican Administration, Thieu refused to sit down at the same table with the NLF.
- For weeks the talks hung in limbo while the different sides squabbled over the shape of the table. Should it be two-sided, with the U.S. and South Vietnam on one side and the NLF and North Vietnamese on the other? Three-sided, without a seat for the NLF? Four-sided? Round?
- Through November and December on into January, the shape-of-the-table quarrel dragged on.
- The South Vietnamese finally agreed to sit down with the Communists (the NLF as well as the North Vietnamese) on January 16—four days before Richard Nixon’s inauguration.
THE LAST DAYS OF THE WISE MEN
- The moment was as significant for their role in America as it was for America’s in the world. By dismantling their own creation, they were as well diminishing their own raison d’être. Never again would a President put such faith in the collective wisdom of the Establishment. For the Wise Men, this dinner was, in a sense, the last supper.
- Smarting from its quiescence in Vietnam, no longer willing to be used by Presidents as a passive instrument, Congress in the early seventies had begun to assert itself in foreign policy.
- Foreign policy, Kennan believed, had become political theater. By sacrificing realism to polemics, consistency to opportunism, America had forfeited its role as world leader. “For a country to be ruled this way,” declared Kennan in an interview with historian Ronald Steel in the fall of 1984, “disqualifies it from active participation in the world.”
AMERICAN POLICY OPINION MOVES TO THE EXTREMES AFTER VIETNAM
- deep splits that cracked apart the foreign policy Establishment in the 1970s. For two decades, the Establishment had held sway by sitting squarely astride the middle ground of “informed” public opinion. But by the seventies, the center no longer held; Vietnam had shattered the post-World War II consensus. Power swung to the extremes.
- Vietnam forced nearly everyone, even the old guard, to choose sides between “hawk” and “dove.”
- “There was a foreign policy consensus back then, and its disintegration during Vietnam is one of the great disasters of our history,” states Kissinger. “You need an Establishment. Society needs it. You can’t have all these constant assaults on national policy so that every time you change Presidents you end up changing direction.”
FALL OF STATE DEPARTMENT/ RISE OF NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER
- When Carter formed his government in January of 1977, Brzezinski maneuvered to insure that the real insider, the President’s true counsel, was not the Secretary of State but the National Security Adviser; not Vance but himself.
- “If I had gotten in the way of the relationship between the President and the Secretary of State,” he told friends, “I would have been fired, and properly so.”
- When Carter ignored Vance’s warnings and took Brzezinski’s advice to launch the hostage rescue mission that failed so ignominiously in the Iranian desert, Vance resigned from office, defeated and discouraged.
THE COGNITIVE ELEMENT
- All in all, German production in 1944 was three times what it was at the beginning of the war. Especially fruitless had been the attempt to destroy German morale by the bombings; there were no signs that this occurred.
- “We must understand that we are not going to have negotiations,” he told the President. “When these fellows decide they can’t defeat the South, then they will give up. This is the way it was in Korea. This is the way the Communists operate.”
- It was the battle reports from the field commanders that had the deepest impact on Acheson, his son, David, recalled. They conveyed to him an impression of suicidal determination by the enemy, and of confusion and low morale on the American side.
- Though the North Vietnamese had been badly bled by Tet, and needed time to regroup and recover, they accurately perceived that Tet had been a tremendous psychological victory, that it had sapped the will of the American people.
Readers seeking an intricate account of the Cold War years will find much to like about The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made.
Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas sought to trace the development of American foreign policy from the post-World War One years all the way through the 1980s. As their framing, the authors focused on the relationships and interconnections between six key figures in U.S. foreign policy (although Secretaries of War/Defense Henry Stimson and Clark Clifford, as well as advisor Paul Nitze could also have been included in the subtitle) who shaped presidents’ approaches on everything from Russia to Israel and Palestine.
The nickname the Wise Men was applied to these six men due to their gatherings during times of Cold War crises at the request of presidents from Truman to Carter.
Some of their relationships went way back.
Averell Harriman and Dean Acheson were both on the Groton rowing team in the first years of the 1900s. Robert Lovett’s father helped run the Union Pacific Railroad when E.H. Harriman (Averell’s father) passed away. Entry into Skull and Bones at Yale even serves as a connection-and symbol of the elite crowd much of the book deals with-between important players in makers of foreign policy.
George Kennan was shown to play a major role in shaping U.S. Cold War policy after World War Two. He was intimately familiar with eastern Europe thanks to a series of postings in the region during the 1930s alongside diplomats like William C. Bullitt.
Kennan seemed at first to be an admirer of Russian culture and novelists, and his anti-Soviet stance was shown building throughout the years before and after the Great War. Kennan ultimately helped craft National Security Council Paper 68 in 1947. This hawkish cable called for vastly increasing America’s commitment to protecting eastern Europe against current and future Soviet aggression. It laid the groundwork for the Marshall Plan (analysis of the European Recovery Plan can be found in spades, as can the contributions made by George C. Marshall himself to guiding policy development during and after World War Two).
Ambassador to Russia Charles “Chip” Bohlen was a skilled diplomat, and he had the unfortunate job of dealing with obstinate Foreign Affairs Kremlin men like Vyacheslav Molotov and Secretary Andrei Gromyko during the first stages of the Cold War. The inner workings of U.S.-Russian diplomacy, from during World War Two through the Cuban Missile Crisis through the Iranian hostage negotiations, are looked at in microscopic detail in this awesome work of nonfiction.
The Wise Men spends many pages discussing the almost immediate collapse in relations between America and Russia after World War Two ended.
There is a look at nuclear policy in the late 1940s and early 1950s, with Dean Acheson, John McCloy, and TVA director David Lilienthal trying to establish some sort of a workable nuclear framework between the U.S. and Russia. There are a host of players during this section-including Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, James Byrnes, and even President Truman himself-who cannot seem to get on the same page when it comes to cooperating with or cutting the Soviet Union out of the nuclear age that is in the process of dawning.
The primary argument in the late 1940s was over the adoption of containment versus confrontation. Readers can essentially read in real time as Russia goes from an uneasy but necessary ally against the Axis Powers to an almost universally deeply distrusted entity across America. The migration of formerly isolationist Republican Senators like Arthur Vandenburg to Cold Warrior hawks demonstrated just how potent of a force anti-Russian fervor became once former rivals like Germany and Japan were defenestrated.
Hardliners like Dean Acheson seemed more ready to pressure President Truman to directly confront the Soviets and risk a wider war, while George Kennan took the view that Russia needed to be granted a security sphere along their borders but one beyond which they would not be allowed to expand beyond. The book lays out how rational discussion of many of these issues was made nearly impossible thanks to the tactics of Red-hunting conservatives in the U.S. government, tactics which ensured even Democratic men from Truman to Kennedy to Johnson had to remain mindful to always appear "tough on the Soviets."
Poland became an early test case of how far the Red Army would push, as would Germany (and Berlin in particular) in the mid-to-late 1940s. Truman and his Wise Men of advisers’ role in the Berlin Airlift is one of many test situations the book intricately discusses. There was intense disagreement over what Joseph Stalin meant when he said Russia desired “friendly governments” along their borders, and just what he meant by this had to be parsed by American policymakers.
There was even a debate over how much to rely on America’s monopoly of The Bomb versus how much to rely on conventional ground forces to threaten the Soviets into ceasing any expansion plans. Army Air Corps godfather and Strategic Bombing Survey organizer Bob Lovett (who would become Secretary of Defense upon George C. Marshall’s 1951 retirement) was a huge promoter of American air power for decades, while men like General Lucius Clay -who was stationed in the American zones of Germany after World War Two-seemed to potentially favor more traditional ground style attacks on Soviet positions.
Asia came to be a key pivot point in the book.
As there was during the war, a Cold War division occurred between officials who wanted to focus on stopping aggression in southeast Asia versus those who wanted to keep a more whole focus on the European theater. During the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations it seemed to become more accepted to use the CIA as a tool to intervene against American-unfriendly, soft-on-Communism heads of state no matter how repressive they might be. (The removal of Mohammed Mossadeq in Iran would be but one example of this policy being instituted).
The Korean Peninsula quickly became a test case, in the minds of Russian hawks, of how committed the U.S. was to going beyond mere words when it came to defending Asia from the Communist menace. Long an important Asiatic region back to well before the days of the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, U.S. policymakers convinced President Truman to make a stand there against Communist incursions.
The book traces the massive ups and downs in U.S. morale during the war, including Douglas Macarthur’s surprise landing at Inchon and the insubordination which ultimately forces Truman to relieve him of command. Matthew Ridgeway does receive credit for being the general who ends up turning the war around. But more than battles and martial feats, the Korean portion looks more at the behind the scenes maneuvering of the Wise Men, the National Security Council, and Office for Far Eastern Affairs head Dean Rusk in trying to convince President Truman of which course to take.
Both Rusk and John Foster Dulles become incredibly influential figures in the 1950s-60s sections.
The effects of the Korean War on Soviet and Chinese perceptions, two countries whose Stalin-Mao relationship the authors take time to break down in detail, figure heavily on those advising the Commander-in-Chief.
Lessons drawn from the Korean War and the more limited intervention in Laos under Eisenhower were applied, oftentimes incorrectly and disastrously, to Vietnam. The step by step nature of U.S. involvement which escalated mightily under the Johnson administration forms the backdrop for the last fifth of the Wise Men. McGeorge and Bill Bundy loomed large alongside Robert McNamara and the older foreign policy hands in figuring out what to do regarding Vietnam policy.
This portion of the book brings back the ghosts of the domino theory first called into action in Korea, with the belief that the fall of Vietnam to Communists would eventually lead to the fall of Thailand, Japan, India, etc. It is an extremely complex venture, with Johnson seemingly caught between reality on one hand and the fears of being vilified by the hardcore Right wing for being too soft on Communism on the other.
The Vietnam portion was complicated.
Everyone from George McCloy to Dean Acheson to Bob Lovett began to harbor serious concerns about the U.S. war effort, but those who felt the nation had to find some way to extricate itself from a growing debacle also despised long-haired protestors whom they deemed excessive and borderline disloyal. Drawing lessons from Korea, some felt the dark days of the war would, as they did in the former domino theory-based war, turn around as long as the military persisted through all the bed wetting pessimism and came out the other side victorious.
President Johnson increasing appears an unsavory figure as Vietnam spirals downward, with many of the old guard foreign policy types growing to all but despise him and the upbeat appraisal by the Joint Chiefs of Staff of a war that seemed to defy all reality.
The arc from George Kennan's NSC-68 letter to Vietnam slowly unfolded throughout this excellent book. Even Kennan himself all but disavowed the extreme anti-Soviet conclusions hardliners drew from his 1947 letter, indicating later in life that he felt his concerns were basically put on steroids and used by militarists and nationalistic U.S. foreign policymakers for crass and ultimately tragic political ends.
Not all of the Communist-related tiffs are related solely to foreign policy.
Even the most committed of hawks found the extent to which Truman and Eisenhower were forced to cow to domestic Red-baiting for political reasons quite nauseating. Acheson's defense of State Department officials like Alger Hiss from the likes of Joe McCarthy’s committee showed how complex some of these men really were. Acheson was perceived as a consummate Cold Warrior, frequently pushing for meeting strength with strength against Russia in eastern Europe. But even a man with his anti-Communist credentials came to feel some of the domestic Red-baiting was going too far. He even soured on the Vietnam War as the 1960s wore on.
The ease with which men like Averell Harriman and John McCloy seemed to float between government and private sector work stood out in the book. They would be called back into the councils of state when crises erupted; the unraveling of the Vietnam War and the Arab oil embargo were just some of the situations in which the services of the pseudo-retired Wise Men were called back into service.
The authors sum up the age these men participated in and shaped by stating, “It is easy, of course, to put too much of a rosy glow on the postwar heyday of the old foreign policy Establishment. It was not always the ‘Periclean Age’ that McCloy imagined it to be. The bipartisan consensus collapsed over China and Korea, with unfortunate long-term effects on U.S. foreign policy. Acheson’s battles with Congress were epic and destructive. To win congressional support, Truman’s men consistently oversimplified and overstated the truth, and in so doing made anti-Communism dangerously rigid and U.S. commitments overly sweeping. With their penchant for action Acheson and his cohorts sometimes failed to think first; their only visionary, George Kennan, was ignored after he came to be perceived as too soft and indecisive.
…They bore pore part of the responsibility for creating a world divided between East and West, forever and perpetually hovering at the brink…By overselling their cause and becoming fixated by some of their own rhetoric, thy were doomed to watched men less comfortable with subtleties and nuances shattered their vision of a stern yet stable modus vivendi between the U.S. and U.S.S.R.”
The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made really drives home Dean Acheson's feeling that he was "present at the creation" of the post-World War Two international order. The book, which surely took some time to research and document, is one of the most important mass market works written on Cold War policy. From the Marshall Plan to the genesis of NATO to a series of "hot" wars in southeast Asia, readers will be strengthened in grasping the rationales behind why the U.S. adopted the positions it did during this era.
The book is deserving of five stars. Not only does it intricately weave together the life stories of six influential foreign policy figures, it aids in making sense out of what can be a complex web of entanglements and seeming contradictions in the years since 1945.
Reading The Wise Men is one of the best things a lover of history could do to understand the direction America's relations with Europe and Asia have taken over the last three quarters of a century.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas sought to trace the development of American foreign policy from the post-World War One years all the way through the 1980s. As their framing, the authors focused on the relationships and interconnections between six key figures in U.S. foreign policy (although Secretaries of War/Defense Henry Stimson and Clark Clifford, as well as advisor Paul Nitze could also have been included in the subtitle) who shaped presidents’ approaches on everything from Russia to Israel and Palestine.
The nickname the Wise Men was applied to these six men due to their gatherings during times of Cold War crises at the request of presidents from Truman to Carter.
Some of their relationships went way back.
Averell Harriman and Dean Acheson were both on the Groton rowing team in the first years of the 1900s. Robert Lovett’s father helped run the Union Pacific Railroad when E.H. Harriman (Averell’s father) passed away. Entry into Skull and Bones at Yale even serves as a connection-and symbol of the elite crowd much of the book deals with-between important players in makers of foreign policy.
George Kennan was shown to play a major role in shaping U.S. Cold War policy after World War Two. He was intimately familiar with eastern Europe thanks to a series of postings in the region during the 1930s alongside diplomats like William C. Bullitt.
Kennan seemed at first to be an admirer of Russian culture and novelists, and his anti-Soviet stance was shown building throughout the years before and after the Great War. Kennan ultimately helped craft National Security Council Paper 68 in 1947. This hawkish cable called for vastly increasing America’s commitment to protecting eastern Europe against current and future Soviet aggression. It laid the groundwork for the Marshall Plan (analysis of the European Recovery Plan can be found in spades, as can the contributions made by George C. Marshall himself to guiding policy development during and after World War Two).
Ambassador to Russia Charles “Chip” Bohlen was a skilled diplomat, and he had the unfortunate job of dealing with obstinate Foreign Affairs Kremlin men like Vyacheslav Molotov and Secretary Andrei Gromyko during the first stages of the Cold War. The inner workings of U.S.-Russian diplomacy, from during World War Two through the Cuban Missile Crisis through the Iranian hostage negotiations, are looked at in microscopic detail in this awesome work of nonfiction.
The Wise Men spends many pages discussing the almost immediate collapse in relations between America and Russia after World War Two ended.
There is a look at nuclear policy in the late 1940s and early 1950s, with Dean Acheson, John McCloy, and TVA director David Lilienthal trying to establish some sort of a workable nuclear framework between the U.S. and Russia. There are a host of players during this section-including Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, James Byrnes, and even President Truman himself-who cannot seem to get on the same page when it comes to cooperating with or cutting the Soviet Union out of the nuclear age that is in the process of dawning.
The primary argument in the late 1940s was over the adoption of containment versus confrontation. Readers can essentially read in real time as Russia goes from an uneasy but necessary ally against the Axis Powers to an almost universally deeply distrusted entity across America. The migration of formerly isolationist Republican Senators like Arthur Vandenburg to Cold Warrior hawks demonstrated just how potent of a force anti-Russian fervor became once former rivals like Germany and Japan were defenestrated.
Hardliners like Dean Acheson seemed more ready to pressure President Truman to directly confront the Soviets and risk a wider war, while George Kennan took the view that Russia needed to be granted a security sphere along their borders but one beyond which they would not be allowed to expand beyond. The book lays out how rational discussion of many of these issues was made nearly impossible thanks to the tactics of Red-hunting conservatives in the U.S. government, tactics which ensured even Democratic men from Truman to Kennedy to Johnson had to remain mindful to always appear "tough on the Soviets."
Poland became an early test case of how far the Red Army would push, as would Germany (and Berlin in particular) in the mid-to-late 1940s. Truman and his Wise Men of advisers’ role in the Berlin Airlift is one of many test situations the book intricately discusses. There was intense disagreement over what Joseph Stalin meant when he said Russia desired “friendly governments” along their borders, and just what he meant by this had to be parsed by American policymakers.
There was even a debate over how much to rely on America’s monopoly of The Bomb versus how much to rely on conventional ground forces to threaten the Soviets into ceasing any expansion plans. Army Air Corps godfather and Strategic Bombing Survey organizer Bob Lovett (who would become Secretary of Defense upon George C. Marshall’s 1951 retirement) was a huge promoter of American air power for decades, while men like General Lucius Clay -who was stationed in the American zones of Germany after World War Two-seemed to potentially favor more traditional ground style attacks on Soviet positions.
Asia came to be a key pivot point in the book.
As there was during the war, a Cold War division occurred between officials who wanted to focus on stopping aggression in southeast Asia versus those who wanted to keep a more whole focus on the European theater. During the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations it seemed to become more accepted to use the CIA as a tool to intervene against American-unfriendly, soft-on-Communism heads of state no matter how repressive they might be. (The removal of Mohammed Mossadeq in Iran would be but one example of this policy being instituted).
The Korean Peninsula quickly became a test case, in the minds of Russian hawks, of how committed the U.S. was to going beyond mere words when it came to defending Asia from the Communist menace. Long an important Asiatic region back to well before the days of the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, U.S. policymakers convinced President Truman to make a stand there against Communist incursions.
The book traces the massive ups and downs in U.S. morale during the war, including Douglas Macarthur’s surprise landing at Inchon and the insubordination which ultimately forces Truman to relieve him of command. Matthew Ridgeway does receive credit for being the general who ends up turning the war around. But more than battles and martial feats, the Korean portion looks more at the behind the scenes maneuvering of the Wise Men, the National Security Council, and Office for Far Eastern Affairs head Dean Rusk in trying to convince President Truman of which course to take.
Both Rusk and John Foster Dulles become incredibly influential figures in the 1950s-60s sections.
The effects of the Korean War on Soviet and Chinese perceptions, two countries whose Stalin-Mao relationship the authors take time to break down in detail, figure heavily on those advising the Commander-in-Chief.
Lessons drawn from the Korean War and the more limited intervention in Laos under Eisenhower were applied, oftentimes incorrectly and disastrously, to Vietnam. The step by step nature of U.S. involvement which escalated mightily under the Johnson administration forms the backdrop for the last fifth of the Wise Men. McGeorge and Bill Bundy loomed large alongside Robert McNamara and the older foreign policy hands in figuring out what to do regarding Vietnam policy.
This portion of the book brings back the ghosts of the domino theory first called into action in Korea, with the belief that the fall of Vietnam to Communists would eventually lead to the fall of Thailand, Japan, India, etc. It is an extremely complex venture, with Johnson seemingly caught between reality on one hand and the fears of being vilified by the hardcore Right wing for being too soft on Communism on the other.
The Vietnam portion was complicated.
Everyone from George McCloy to Dean Acheson to Bob Lovett began to harbor serious concerns about the U.S. war effort, but those who felt the nation had to find some way to extricate itself from a growing debacle also despised long-haired protestors whom they deemed excessive and borderline disloyal. Drawing lessons from Korea, some felt the dark days of the war would, as they did in the former domino theory-based war, turn around as long as the military persisted through all the bed wetting pessimism and came out the other side victorious.
President Johnson increasing appears an unsavory figure as Vietnam spirals downward, with many of the old guard foreign policy types growing to all but despise him and the upbeat appraisal by the Joint Chiefs of Staff of a war that seemed to defy all reality.
The arc from George Kennan's NSC-68 letter to Vietnam slowly unfolded throughout this excellent book. Even Kennan himself all but disavowed the extreme anti-Soviet conclusions hardliners drew from his 1947 letter, indicating later in life that he felt his concerns were basically put on steroids and used by militarists and nationalistic U.S. foreign policymakers for crass and ultimately tragic political ends.
Not all of the Communist-related tiffs are related solely to foreign policy.
Even the most committed of hawks found the extent to which Truman and Eisenhower were forced to cow to domestic Red-baiting for political reasons quite nauseating. Acheson's defense of State Department officials like Alger Hiss from the likes of Joe McCarthy’s committee showed how complex some of these men really were. Acheson was perceived as a consummate Cold Warrior, frequently pushing for meeting strength with strength against Russia in eastern Europe. But even a man with his anti-Communist credentials came to feel some of the domestic Red-baiting was going too far. He even soured on the Vietnam War as the 1960s wore on.
The ease with which men like Averell Harriman and John McCloy seemed to float between government and private sector work stood out in the book. They would be called back into the councils of state when crises erupted; the unraveling of the Vietnam War and the Arab oil embargo were just some of the situations in which the services of the pseudo-retired Wise Men were called back into service.
The authors sum up the age these men participated in and shaped by stating, “It is easy, of course, to put too much of a rosy glow on the postwar heyday of the old foreign policy Establishment. It was not always the ‘Periclean Age’ that McCloy imagined it to be. The bipartisan consensus collapsed over China and Korea, with unfortunate long-term effects on U.S. foreign policy. Acheson’s battles with Congress were epic and destructive. To win congressional support, Truman’s men consistently oversimplified and overstated the truth, and in so doing made anti-Communism dangerously rigid and U.S. commitments overly sweeping. With their penchant for action Acheson and his cohorts sometimes failed to think first; their only visionary, George Kennan, was ignored after he came to be perceived as too soft and indecisive.
…They bore pore part of the responsibility for creating a world divided between East and West, forever and perpetually hovering at the brink…By overselling their cause and becoming fixated by some of their own rhetoric, thy were doomed to watched men less comfortable with subtleties and nuances shattered their vision of a stern yet stable modus vivendi between the U.S. and U.S.S.R.”
The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made really drives home Dean Acheson's feeling that he was "present at the creation" of the post-World War Two international order. The book, which surely took some time to research and document, is one of the most important mass market works written on Cold War policy. From the Marshall Plan to the genesis of NATO to a series of "hot" wars in southeast Asia, readers will be strengthened in grasping the rationales behind why the U.S. adopted the positions it did during this era.
The book is deserving of five stars. Not only does it intricately weave together the life stories of six influential foreign policy figures, it aids in making sense out of what can be a complex web of entanglements and seeming contradictions in the years since 1945.
Reading The Wise Men is one of the best things a lover of history could do to understand the direction America's relations with Europe and Asia have taken over the last three quarters of a century.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
The Wise Men
Without fear of exaggeration, I call this tome a masterpiece of important historical writing. The era of the 1930s thru the 1980s was filled with momentous decisions with results likely to reverberate thru the ages and the wise men were at the fulcrum of history in the best tradition of American life. The chronicle is a must read for those who seek to plan for and impact the next century.
Without fear of exaggeration, I call this tome a masterpiece of important historical writing. The era of the 1930s thru the 1980s was filled with momentous decisions with results likely to reverberate thru the ages and the wise men were at the fulcrum of history in the best tradition of American life. The chronicle is a must read for those who seek to plan for and impact the next century.
This is, without a doubt, one of the best, easiest to read yet incredibly deep and detailed, history books I've ever read. Yet it's more than that. It's also book about diplomacy and how it's done, about relationships between friends, foes, rivals, and more. It's about how Washington works, or at least worked, and what it means for those who play the game.
The book undoubtedly admirers the six men involved, Dean Acheson, Charles E. Bohlen, Averell Harriman, George Kennan, Robert Lovett, and John J. McCloy, but it doesn't shy away from their limitations, particularly later on once their day had passed. The author makes a strong case, perhaps too strong, that they were all wrong about Vietnam for various reasons. But by that time, their place in history as great men was already well earned. The role they played in the end of World War 2, the reconstruction of Europe, and the building of alliances and mollification of rivalries that would last till the end of the Cold War, was unparalleled.
Beyond that though, it shows, I thought, why the separation of powers works so well. Each man had limitations, severe in some ways. Yet they managed to balance each other out, even serving in different ways in different places and times. Kennan's pessimism could easily have been disastrous, but for Harriman's relative optimism. Acheson's haughtiness could have caused bigger problems if not for others being there to provide different perspectives and put different skill sets to the problem.
Anyhow, I doubt I can really say much about this book that hasn't already been said. It's worthy of its reputation and will probably be worth a re-read. I'm sure I'll thumb through it from time to time. It's a tome that has more wisdom than 10 more like it.
The book undoubtedly admirers the six men involved, Dean Acheson, Charles E. Bohlen, Averell Harriman, George Kennan, Robert Lovett, and John J. McCloy, but it doesn't shy away from their limitations, particularly later on once their day had passed. The author makes a strong case, perhaps too strong, that they were all wrong about Vietnam for various reasons. But by that time, their place in history as great men was already well earned. The role they played in the end of World War 2, the reconstruction of Europe, and the building of alliances and mollification of rivalries that would last till the end of the Cold War, was unparalleled.
Beyond that though, it shows, I thought, why the separation of powers works so well. Each man had limitations, severe in some ways. Yet they managed to balance each other out, even serving in different ways in different places and times. Kennan's pessimism could easily have been disastrous, but for Harriman's relative optimism. Acheson's haughtiness could have caused bigger problems if not for others being there to provide different perspectives and put different skill sets to the problem.
Anyhow, I doubt I can really say much about this book that hasn't already been said. It's worthy of its reputation and will probably be worth a re-read. I'm sure I'll thumb through it from time to time. It's a tome that has more wisdom than 10 more like it.
A portrait of The Establishment: the men--estrogen levels all but undetectable in this circle--responsible for defining the international role America was to play following the second world war. Very well written, and not an easy task, I imagine, intertwining the biographies of six men. It did take me a while to get a handle on the dramatis personae, though. At first, I was a bit dismayed that there was so little reference to the domestic situation of the times until I realized to what extent US foreign policy makers of the post-war era were impervious to local politics. The authors obviously admire their subjects yet offer up a largely dispassionate and impartial analysis. They do a fine job of examining the evolution of America's cold war foreign policy and vividly depict how the Establishment sowed the seeds of its own destruction. All in all, a work worthy of that old chestnut of back-cover blurbs: "a remarkable achievement."
I read this book a long time ago, and it was interesting to see how my perspective on these men and their effect on foreign policy in particular has changed. This is still, in my opinion, a well researched and well written book, and while not perfectly balanced, Isaacson presents fairly balanced very of men who he clearly admired greatly.
The author does a very detailed job in explaining the webs that connect these men to each other, and to other people of power, and how those webs allowed them to influence policy, government and move back and forth in between government and the private sector. These are the sorts of ties and movements that we look at today with askance - and in more extreme cases conflict of interest and questioning their legality - but in the rough and tumble intra-war and post-WWII years, these ties were seen as natural and convenient.
This remains a great book for anyone interested in pre-and post WWII foreign policy development in the US.
The author does a very detailed job in explaining the webs that connect these men to each other, and to other people of power, and how those webs allowed them to influence policy, government and move back and forth in between government and the private sector. These are the sorts of ties and movements that we look at today with askance - and in more extreme cases conflict of interest and questioning their legality - but in the rough and tumble intra-war and post-WWII years, these ties were seen as natural and convenient.
This remains a great book for anyone interested in pre-and post WWII foreign policy development in the US.
Court History that shows that even at the height of democratic success in America (contrary to popular perception) relatively few individuals actually ruled the State in ways largely unbeknownst to the general public (who were mostly content not knowing having “authorized” those in office via elections).
Fast read despite the length. Covers the full gamut of history in the 20th century. The first chapters, in particular, are of interest in explaining the rise to power of the six men discussed, especially McCloy.
Elihu Root and Henry Stimson were the de facto "godfathers" of Harriman & company, who then went on to rule the post-war or cold war world.
Written for those who predominantly want to admire the characters involved, with only rare criticism or editorializing.
Fast read despite the length. Covers the full gamut of history in the 20th century. The first chapters, in particular, are of interest in explaining the rise to power of the six men discussed, especially McCloy.
Elihu Root and Henry Stimson were the de facto "godfathers" of Harriman & company, who then went on to rule the post-war or cold war world.
Written for those who predominantly want to admire the characters involved, with only rare criticism or editorializing.
What a great book! The authors give us a sympathetic, yet frank study of the six men who dominated American foreign policy making from the 1930s through the 1950s. Dean Acheson, Chip Bphlen, Averell Harriman, George Kennan, Robert Lovett and John McCloy constituted a foreign policy elite that crossed institutional lines to shape our policy towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War Era. This is not to say that thy always agreed with each other. Indeed they they had some pretty nasty fights, but there is no denying their impact on America, and on the world. The book is very readable and provides so much information that I simply did not know. I am glad I read the book and recommend to all readers.
Truly, a remarkable tour de force by Isaacson and Thomas about the six men that shaped the post-World War II world and the Pax Americana. If one wants to find out how the world got to where it was during the Cold War, read this book. For a Cold War enthusiast like myself and someone who wrote their master's thesis on NATO, this book really allowed me to see deeper into how these six men pushed America to become the indispensable nation that it is today. There are great thinkers in foreign policy now, but none that rival the likes of Acheson, McCloy, Bohlen, Harriman, Kennan, and Lovett anymore.
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