Published Review of Gaddis the Cold War a New History

Annotation 1: This book, published by Penguin Press in 2005, was the recent option of our book club for discussion. Since it was my husband Jim's selection, we were in charge of nutrient, and in spite of the fact that I didn't much like the volume, at least I had lots of fun planning "cold war" food. Equally a bonus, I forgot to take the brownies to the coming together (decorated with dots to look like dominos, representing the domino theory of Communism), so we had many leftovers of an endorphin-elevating nature.

Annotation ii: And yeah, this is the longest postal service in the history of my posts, ever! I wouldn't blame anyone for just looking at the entertaining pictures, or skipping to the pithy conclusion! (I concede that those who disagree with me on the merit of this book would spell "pithy" with a couple of esses in information technology…)

The rivalry of the "official" Cold War may have concluded with the dissolution of the Soviet Matrimony in December, 1991, but John Lewis Gaddis still has an ax to grind. In his mind, the USSR was never annihilation just The Evil Empire, and the U.S. never had anything but good intentions. And the most important factor in striking down that Evil was none other than that alleged towering paragon of strategy and tactics, Ronald Reagan.

The Cold War: A New History provides an excellent example of the ideological biases of a historian creating a skewed misrepresentation of the facts about an era in guild to conform with biased perceptions. This and so-called "new history" is full of sweeping generalizations, unwarranted conclusions, and dubious assertions that scream out bias at every turn. I'm just going to signal out a few that irritated me more than than the remainder.

Gaddis is an unabashed Reagan idolizer, although he himself is the only "authority" he tin can come with to footnote when he bestows lavish praises upon Reagan. His thesis is that it was Ronald Reagan, more than anyone or whatsoever event, who was responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Common cold War. In support of this dubious allegation, Gaddis asserts: "Reagan was as good a politico as the nation had seen for many years, and one of its sharpest grand strategists ever." In a sentence worthy of Fauna Subcontract, Gaddis declares about Reagan, "His strength lay in his ability to see beyond complexity to simplicity."

Almost all other accounts tell a different story. Reagan's biographer Lou Cannon wrote that Reagan came to the White House "notoriously ill-informed about foreign affairs" and that Beak Clark, his 2nd national security counselor, found that he could only teach Reagan about issues by showing him movies.

Robert McFarlane (quoted past Pulitzer Prize winning historian Richard Rhodes, in Arsenals of Folly) explained that the fundamentalist Reagan derived his commitment to strategic defense "primarily from his belief that Armageddon was budgeted." McFarlane went on:

"'He sees himself equally a romantic, heroic figure who believes in the power of a hero to overcome even Armageddon. I think information technology may come from Hollywood.' Frank Carlucci, one of Reagan'southward five national security advisers, confirmed that Reagan was guided in his controlling by the conventionalities that, equally Reagan said in 1971, 'Everything is in place for the battle of Armageddon and the second coming of Christ.'"

Without the Bible (or a script) around as a guide, however, Reagan was in trouble. When he met with Gorbachev, he read from a pocket set of color-coded cue cards he carried, full of clichés. As Rhodes reported, Gorbachev was appalled at Reagan'southward alphabetize cards with their vapid maxims and his initial unwillingness to engage Gorbachev straight, recalling 'the blank, uncomprehending eyes of the president, who mumbled banalities from a piece of paper.'"

Rhodes tells about the time Reagan dropped his cue cards, and was literally unable to continue with the coming together after that.

But let's go dorsum to the showtime, when the seeds for the Cold War were merely getting planted. Gaddis traces the intellectual underpinnings of the Cold State of war, which followed Earth State of war II, to the visions of both Wilson and Lenin at the end of World State of war I.

To me, the most egregious misrepresentation in the book is the portrait Gaddis paints of Woodrow Wilson, one of the nigh reprehensible presidents in our American pantheon. Wilson, yet another president guided by his agreement of the Bible (this characteristic seems to elevate the decision-making process of a president in Gaddis's estimation), is made out by Gaddis to exist commonwealth'south champion. Wilson, Gaddis explains, saw a earth that could exist made better past capitalism, and Lenin saw one that could exist improved by socialism. So far, so proficient. But then Gaddis continues that although both ideologies were meant to offer promise, ane of them (socialism) depended upon the creation of fear, while the other "had no need to do so. Therein lay the basic ideological disproportion of the Common cold State of war."

President Woodrow Wilson

Writing this about Wilson is only pure, unadulterated garbage. Wilson is the president who, equally World War I began, put into strength a 200,000 member American Protective League, who reported to the Justice Department'south new internal security agency headed by J. Edgar Hoover, and whose mission was to spy on neighbors and coworkers for "loyalty." Another force, the "Minute Men," ultimately exceeding over 100,000 in number, gave patriotic speeches earlier meetings, movies, and shows. George Creel, named past Wilson to head the Infinitesimal Men, told his workers that "fear was an of import element to be bred in the civilian population" (my emphasis). Creel's organization also advised citizens to spy on one some other and "If you notice a disloyal person in your search, give his name to the Department of Justice in Washington and tell them where to find him."

Wilson's government arrested union men for "disloyalty," and put socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs in prison for ten years for "opposing the war." Wisconsin Congressman Victor Berger, the first Socialist elected to Congress, was sentenced to twenty years nether the Wilson-initiated Espionage Act for doing the same.

[The Espionage Act of June, 1917, made information technology a law-breaking to "convey imitation reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the performance or success of the military or naval forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies when the United states of america is at war, to cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or to willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the U.s.." The violator of this Human action could be fined $10,000 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. In May 1918, Congress at Wilson's asking increased the government'southward power to control opinion with the Sedition Act, which basically was a set of amendments to the Espionage Human activity. It added to the listing of punishable crimes anyone who used "disloyal, scurrilous, profane or abusive language" about the U.S. government, the military, the flag, or the Constitution. The Sedition Act was repealed on December xiii, 1920, but the Espionage Act is still in force.]

It is as well truthful that Wilson's devotion to hope and liberty only extended to the "superior" white race. His response to seeing the racist motion-picture show "Birth of a Nation" is indicative of his attitude. ["The Nativity of A Nation," the highest grossing film of the silent film era, portrays black men (played by white actors in blackface) as unintelligent and sexually aggressive towards white women, and shows the Ku Klux Klan as a heroic strength.] Reportedly Wilson said, "My simply regret is that it is all so terribly true." When the NAACP tried to have the motion picture banned, Wilson's endorsement was used to promote the movie for months, before political pressure caused him to dissociate himself from it. But Wilson of class is likewise the one who allowed his Chiffonier leaders to extend segregation throughout the federal bureaucracy, telling black leaders that it would reduce friction and therefore "It is as far equally possible from beingness a movement against the Negroes. I sincerely believe it to be in their interest." (For more than on Wilson, see The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I by Thomas Fleming).

Racism is likewise absent from Gaddis's very brief coverage of the McCarthy Era during the Cold War, when Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy led a witch chase against American citizens, and in particular those who had "leftist" sympathies. During the McCarthy era (lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the belatedly 1950s), thousands of Americans were defendant of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject field of aggressive investigations and questioning before regime or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. In spite of inconclusive or questionable evidence, many people suffered loss of employment, destruction of their careers, and even imprisonment. Some committed suicide. Amidst those who lost their jobs was the bright J. Robert Oppenheimer, who helped develop the diminutive bomb in Earth State of war 2. His opposition to its continued utilize and to the development of the hydrogen flop was seen as "proof" of his disloyalty.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1946

Information technology also happened that many prominent blacks during this time were determined to accept leftist sympathies, since vocalizing objections to the handling of blacks in America was too considered disloyal. Among those attacked were Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Lena Horne, and W.Eastward.B. DuBois.

This horrible catamenia in American history merits a whole i and 1 half paragraphs in this book, with Gaddis'southward summarizing information technology by commenting: "with the onset of McCarthyism in the United states and with irrefutable evidence that espionage had taken place on both sides of the Atlantic…." In other words, it wasn't so bad, and anyway, McCarthy was right.

The entire orientation of this book is that the U.S. was a largely innocent force of good in the globe, and the USSR wanted aught more than to sabotage the American style of life. But the so-chosen American way of life was (1) only open up to whites; (ii) but free to the extent the regime decided to allow it at any one time; and (3) characterized by organizations defended to spying and demolition that were equally as nefarious as those operating in the Soviet Marriage.

George Kennan, whose 1946 analysis of the Soviet Union became the basis for U.S. Cold War strategy, stated that he "believed that the American focus on the Russian military threat was a misguided American projection onto Russian federation of a danger that would confer legitimacy on the continued existence of the immense armed forces establishment that the formerly isolationist Us had built upward during the war." ("Wise Men Confronting the Grain," William Pfaff, NYReview of Books, June 9, 2011)

Credit: Richard Cole, in Z Magazine

Years after the fact, "tidbits" become admitted, such equally:

• The overthrow of the democratically-elected-simply-leftist Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh in the 1950's [this mission led by none other than Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., grandson of Theodore, and the blowback for which included the taking of American hostages in 1979];

• Operation Northwoods, a 1962 plan drafted by the Articulation Chiefs of Staff, calling for terrorist attacks on Americans secretly committed by the U.Due south. merely blamed on the Cubans to justify an attack on Cuba;

• The CIA-backed ouster of the democratically elected leftist President Allende of Chile in 1973;

• CIA-backed Contra invasions in Nicaragua directed by Reagan in the 1980's; [In 1984 the CIA mined 3 Nicaraguan harbors. Nicaragua took this action to the World Court, for which an $18 billion judgment was rendered against the U.South. In response, the U.South. refused to recognize the Court's jurisdiction in the example.]

Ane could get on and on. (See, for example, this New York Times editorial "Russia Isn't the Just One Meddling in Elections. We Do It, Too.")

None of these episodes are explored by Gaddis. His recital of Cold War crimes is almost exclusively limited to those committed by the USSR.

Gaddis continues his biased reporting into the modern era. He devotes considerable verbiage to the multiple crises in the early on 1960's, attributing blame on Krushchev for bringing u.s.a. to the brink of nuclear war. Yet Frederick Kempe, in his disarming analysis of John F. Kennedy's contributions to the Cold War (Berlin 1961), concludes that:

"Kennedy'southward indecisiveness in the early states of the [Berlin wall] crunch produced the wall itself, an exponential increment in East-Westward tension, and, in the one-half-century that followed, other fateful consequences that included the Cuban missile crisis…"

Yes, it was Krushchev who sent the missiles to Cuba. Only Krushchev also needed to restore his prestige after Kennedy approved "The Bay of Pigs Invasion." The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful invasion of Republic of cuba by a CIA-trained strength of Cuban exiles, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an effort to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than 3 months after John F. Kennedy causeless the presidency in the United States. (Nixon proposed information technology, Eisenhower planned information technology, and Kennedy approved it.)

Gaddis, notwithstanding, claims that all the arraign should be laid on the door of Krushchev; it was he who did non call back things through, and "immune his ideological romanticism to overrun any capacity he had for strategic analysis." [Sounds to me like an analysis of The Bay of Pigs invasion….] "He was similar a petulant child," Gaddis asserts, and claims that Khrushchev got some of what he wanted "equally children sometimes do." In that location was no suggestion any that the fault was at to the lowest degree in office due to Kennedy's blunders rather than Krushchev's tantrums.

(Gaddis claims that the Cuban missile crisis is "universally regarded now every bit the closest the world came, during the 2d one-half of the 20th century, to a third world war…" This is patently untrue, yet, and represents yet another effort by Gaddis to put the onus for irrationally risky behavior on the Soviets. In 1983, a ix-solar day NATO military machine exercise designated ABLE ARCHER 83 came closer. The drill turned out to be unlike from previous ones, and a fleck too realistic. Robert Gates is amidst those who observes that the KGB was convinced American forces had begun a inaugural to nuclear war. The Soviets took a number of steps to enhance their armed forces readiness short of mobilization. Afterwards, Reagan was "surprised and shocked that the Soviets had taken his years of militant rhetoric and his massive artillery buildup seriously." (Gates, Robert M., From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War, 1996, and Rhodes, Arsenals of Folly.) As British author Fred Inglis points out (The Cruel Peace: Everyday Life and the Common cold War):

"The foreign policy of the Reagan years turned out to exist an unappetizing mixture of grudging hypercaution at the artillery limitation negotiating tables, reckless and unendearing braggartry in front of the microphones, and pocket-size acts of state of war that combined bullying and cowardice in about equal proportions."

Mikhail Gorbachev, Fourth dimension's Human being of the Decade

As for Gorbachev, whose brilliance and vision is noted by other historians, Gaddis is condescending, charging that U.Southward. Secretary of State Shultz had to "educate" Gorbachev on economics. (Hither he footnotes Shultz'due south self-serving memoirs.) Gaddis even goes so far equally to aver that when Gorbechev made a dramatic voice communication, he was "borrowing a trick from Reagan." Good grief! And finally, he holds that Gorbachev, who was was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his role in ending the Common cold War, "was never a leader in the fashion of Vaclav Havel, John Paul Ii, Deng Xiaoping, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Lech Walesa – even Boris Yeltsin." Boris YELTSIN? Come up on! Equally Neil MacFarlane, professor of international relations at Oxford says of Yeltsin, "his record of governance is pretty mixed, and the regime was substantially weakened during his time." It was also Yeltsin who failed to control the growing political influence of wealthy oligarchs who still wield inordinate ability in Russia. Later on Yeltsin's death, the Economist reported that:

"Mr Yeltsin's corking rival, Mikhail Gorbachev, reflected the mood of about Russians when, amongst the polite tributes and saccharine television montages, he alluded to the dead man's 'serious mistakes.' Mr. Yeltsin's had been a 'tragic fate,' said Mr Gorbachev. Even before he left office, a majority of Russians, from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka, despised him, partly on account of the raging inflation, unpaid salaries and oligarchic larceny of his rule, but fifty-fifty more for the shame many thought he brought on Russia through his clownish drunkenness."

It is credible that for Gaddis to elevate the role of Gorbachev, even over Yeltsin, would exist to diminish the function of Reagan, a path the writer wants to avoid. In Rhodes'due south history of the Common cold War, however, Gorbachev is the incontrovertible hero of the situation.

Gaddis begins and ends his book with a discussion of the nature of war, every bit function of his eventual argument that the Cold War inverse that nature forever. He cites Thucydides who predicted that there would always be a propensity for violence, "human nature being what it is." Gaddis draws the ridiculous conclusion, yet, that because of the success of the political game strategy Mutual Bodacious Destruction (or MAD), "Contrary to the lesson Thucydides drew from the greatest war of his time, human nature did change – and the shock of Hiroshima and Nagasaki began the process by which it did so." What?!!! MAD is a strategy that in fact is based on the inevitability of violence, that posits that only by each side holding a gun to each other's head simultaneously (and assuming participation by rational actors), would that violence be deterred. Note: the violence is deterred by a rational calculation of odds. In that location is no change in propensity! The relentless continuation of wars and skirmishes since the Cold War make manifest the utter absurdity of Gaddis's argument.

Raytheon's AMRAAM Missiles

Gaddis has two chief conclusions about the Cold War in general. One is that the Cold War is "the betoken at which military force, a defining characteristic of 'power' itself for the past v centuries, ceased to be that." Gosh, that'due south non what the military-industrial complex thinks. I wonder if Raytheon, Boeing, Northrup Grumman, General Dynamics, and and then on take heard the news…. The 2nd is that the Cold War "disproved Marx's indictment of commercialism as elevating greed above all else." I'm glad to hear that. All those CEOs making millions and the bankers taking reward of the poor's desire for housing in gild to ensure their own enrichment are but aberrations. Thank heavens!

Evaluation: Beware of books claiming to be history books! This ane doesn't come across the most basic criteria of objective reporting of the facts.

Rating: 1.five/five

Published by Penguin Press, 2005

lambleforearth38.blogspot.com

Source: https://rhapsodyinbooks.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/review-of-%E2%80%9Cthe-cold-war-a-new-history%E2%80%9D-by-john-lewis-gaddis/

Share this post