The Ambassadors and America's Soviet Policy by David MayersReview by: David C. HendricksonForeign Affairs, Vol. 74, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 1995), pp. 170-171Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20047333 .

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Recent Books

Truman over containment in 1946. In so

doing, Wallace set out a critique of Ameri

can policy whose main lines would later

be revived by revisionists but at the time

met with calumnious rejection by Truman

and ultimately the American people. The authors think badly overdone the charge of mysticism that continued to dog

Wallace, though they acknowledge the

authenticity of the "Guru letters" he wrote

in the 1930s (merrily brought to light by columnist Westbrook Pegler during Wal lace's humiliating 1948 run at the presi

dency). Though mildly reproving of his na?vet? toward Stalin's Russia, they insist

that "Wallace's pacifism was far from

woolly idealism'" and think his vision of material abundance in a world at peace had many sensible and courageous aspects.

That his vision made sense in 1948, how

ever, they do not exactly show. Wallace

himself recanted in 1950 and reverted to

a "conservative, patriotic orthodoxy"?

demonstrating anew his proclivity to

see the world in black and white.

JoeAlsops Cold War: A Study of Journalistic

Influence and Intrigue, by edwin m.

yod er, jr. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995, 220 pp. $24.95.

An affectionate and amusing biography,

largely focused on the 1950s, of one of

the premier columnists of his day. A

militant cold warrior perennially sound

ing the tocsin against the worldwide

Kremlin conspiracy, Alsop?along with

his younger brother and collaborator,

Stewart?also saw early the poison of

McCarthyism and fought bravely against the various idiocies then perpetrated in

the name of loyalty and 100-percent Americanism. The interplay between

their fierce anticommunism abroad and

their insistence on civility at home is the

large theme of the book. Yoder advances

the obvious paradox?that the Alsops were

"fighting a fire that they themselves

had helped to set"?but in the end clears

them ofthat charge. Less plausible is his

claim that the Alsops' dire forecasts of

tumbling dominoes and missile gaps "turned out to be not so much incorrect

as inconsequential." "Inconsequential" is

an epitaph that Alsop would doubtless have loathed, and rightly so: his alarums

did have consequences, Vietnam among

them, and it is odd that Yoder would so

casually exorcise that particular ghost. But the author s stumble here is unchar

acteristic; he is normally sure-footed and

indeed graceful in evoking the controver

sies of the 1950s and uncovering the com

plicated role that Alsop?an inveterate

intriguer and fearsome iconoclast?man

aged to play in nearly all of them.

The Ambassadors and Americas Soviet Policy. by david mayers. NewYork: Oxford

University Press, 1995,335 pp. $35.00. The author, a professor at Boston

University, assesses the outlook and

effectiveness of U.S. diplomats in Rus

sia, from the beginnings of relations in

the late eighteenth century to the col

lapse of the Soviet Union. Mayers con

siders the envoys up until World War I, with a few exceptions, to have been

mediocre?"strangers in a strange land"

sent for reasons other than their exper

tise, which was normally minimal. He

views the Moscow embassy much more

favorably from the opening of U.S.

Soviet relations in 1933. The sympathetic treatment of Averell Harriman's ambas

sadorship in the mid-i940s is emblematic

[170] FOREIGN AFFAIRS -Volume 74 N0.5

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Recent Books

of the qualities Mayers prizes. Harriman

moved from warning against Roosevelt's

inflated expectations of Soviet coopera tion to cautioning against hyperbolic

conceptions of the Soviet threat, all the

while retaining his usefulness and tact in

dealing with Stalin. Mayers' skill in evok

ing the travails of the Moscow station

and in assessing the advice and impact of

U.S. ambassadors, together with his keen

sense of the functions of diplomacy, makes for enthralling reading. This is

scholarly history at its best: sharp in its

judgments but at the same time scrupu

lously fair and exhaustive.

For the Presidents Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American

Presidency from Washington to Bush. BY CHRISTOPHER ANDREW.

NewYork: HarperCollins, 1995, 600 pp. $30.00.

A prolific British historian (the joint author of a

well-regarded history of the

kgb) provides a richly detailed account of the uses to which American presidents have put U.S. intelligence agencies. Most

of the work deals with the Cold War period (although George Washington emerges as

a minor hero for his adept use of spies in

the Revolutionary War). Andrew tends to

be harder on Cold War presidents than he is on the intelligence community;

although the latter had its share of failures,

presidents tended to deprecate its product because of exaggerated expectations,

simultaneously underestimating the value

of intelligence (for instance, in stabilizing the Cold War competition in armaments)

while overestimating "the secret power that covert action put at their command."

The brisk narration, unfortunately, is sel

dom leavened by much analysis, lending to the work a certain sprawling character and

creating a (symbolically interesting) gap between the immensity of the data pre sented and what it all means.

After more than three decades of splendid reviews, Fritz Stern has stepped down

from the Western Europe section. We will

miss his intelligent advice and finely tuned

prose. His successor, Stanley Hoffmann,

Founding Chair of the Center for Euro

pean Studies at Harvard University, will

write his first batch of reviews for the November/December issue.

Western Hemisphere KENNETH MAXWELL

Argentinas Lost Patrol: Armed Struggle,

I?69-I979. BY MARIA JOS? MOYANO.

New Haven: Yale University Press,

1995, 226 pp. $25.00.

Moyano, an assistant professor in the

Department of National Security Studies

at the Naval Postgraduate School in

Monterrey, has produced an outstanding

diagnosis of actions and psychology in the violent and bloody guerrilla struggle in 1970s Argentina, arguably the central

element in understanding Argentinean

politics over the past 20 years. She seeks

to answer why "the Argentine guerrillas

became the lost patrol," developing after

1973 a blind adherence to military as

opposed to political strategies, rejecting compromise, and increasingly isolating

To order any book reviewed or advertised in Foreign Affairs, call 1-800-255-2665.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS September/October i99$ [171]

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