bout de papier, Vol. 15, No. 4 (1998-1999) — Winter 1998/99 // Hiver 1998/99, pp. 41–42
WE NOW KNOW: RETHINKING COLD
WAR HISTORY by John Lewis Gaddis;
Oxford University Press, 1997, 425 p. $45. 95
Reviewed by Hector Mackenzie
Two years ago, John Lewis Gaddis spoke about the impact of the release of Russian and East European records on our understanding of the Cold War in a seminar at the Lester B. Pearson Building which was arranged in collaboration with the University of Ottawa. Since then, his inquiry and the pathbreaking work of others have provided the basis for an outstanding study which simply adds to the deserved reputation of Professor Gaddis as the leading interpreter of the history of the Cold War. We Now Know raises vital questions, not only for historians and other scholars but also for those policy-makers whose grasp of history and its “lessons” may go beyond self-justifying anecdotes from the past or glib (mis)quotations from dead heroes or villains. In this examination of evidence from a wide range of published and unpublished sources, Gaddis demonstrates as well the essential link between historical research and any attempt to derive “lessons from the past.” As he points out on numerous occasions, the “lessons learned” from even the most thoroughly examined episodes, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, were often skewed by the sources of information or the perspectives of those interpreting it. The specific theme may be the superpower confrontation which shaped the Cold War, but the questions posed are relevant as well to any attempt to understand and to explain the behaviour and policies of an adversary from limited and/or misunderstood intelligence. For members of the foreign service and other analysts of international relations, this is an insightful and provocative assessment of a significant subject.
At first glance, some readers may be intimidated by a volume which includes 90 pages of annotation and 27 pages of bibliography, but these are quarantined at the back of the book, where they serve their intended scholarly purpose. As for the text, it is witty and well-written. Though organized as chapters, the narrative in this volume essentially consists of a series of inter-linked essays. These in turn are subdivided thematically or episodically, with the result that Gaddis neither burdens nor bores his audience. There are delightful asides, as when Gaddis twice chides an unnamed historian for mistakenly but unequivocally proclaiming, without access to Soviet records, an American victory in the Cuban Missile Crisis — the end-notes reveal the foolhardy triumphalist as John Lewis Gaddis. Other reputations for insight and profundity suffer as well, including that of Henry Kissinger, while George Kennan perhaps predictably emerges as both right and wrong.
But this is much more than an exercise in historiographic second-guessing or debunking of diplomatic and political reputations. Gaddis interweaves the archival revelations with a sophisticated argument about how the past has been interpreted. Curiously, the result is not an appeal for more elaborate frameworks of analysis (with attendant jargon) but instead a reminder that memoirists and scholars alike often miss the most obvious values and interests while searching for more subtle and complex explanations. That point is effectively illustrated in the discussion of the revolutionary romanticism that eventually attracted Joseph Stalin to Mao Zedong’s China and Nikita Krushchev to Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Both relationships underline the importance of personality and ideology to an understanding of the development of the Cold War. Indeed, Gaddis concludes that, whatever the intellectual arguments about relative responsibility for the bi-polar division of the world, the Cold War would not have taken place without Stalin as the Soviet leader. Though the interplay of the characters of Krushchev and Kennedy has been the subject of considerable commentary for 35 years, Gaddis notes that less attention has been paid in the West to the unintended consequences of Krushchev’s “Potemkinism” for the Soviet Union’s relations with Cuba and China.
Moreover, as Gaddis effectively demonstrates, the superpower confrontation was often exacerbated by the truculence of supposed “puppet states” such as East Germany. That reinforces the fundamental observation that the “alliance” forged under the authoritarian direction of the Soviet Union was considerably less effective than that developed under the North Atlantic Treaty. In other words, what is emerging from formerly closed archives — including some revelations from the Central Intelligence Agency — is a more nuanced and complicated picture, which will change as more research is conducted in the vast array of documentary sources.
In the final chapter, Gaddis puts forward a series of hypotheses — some original and others familiar but reassessed — derived from this overview of current evidence and analyses, appropriately ending with the proposition that “’new’ Cold War historians should retain the capacity to be surprised.” As Gaddis notes, the propositions he advances are “first impressions” or points of departure, not definitive conclusions. Though the Cold War may be over, many of the factors or influences which affected its course were part of world affairs before and remain with us today. Even so, personal experience and the wisdom of hindsight shape our perceptions of relatively recent events, often misleading us into the presumption that what took place was inevitable or natural. There are numerous instances recounted in this book when circumstances appeared to imply a very different outcome from what actually happened or when irrational and unpredictable forces distorted policy-making or the assessment of an opponent’s capacity and intentions. These themes are not unique to the Cold War and it is one of the strengths of this interpretation that the author does not exaggerate the significance of this peculiar conflict, while still heeding the dangers which it posed to humanity. This is an excel lent book and it deserves to be widely and carefully read.
“History does not end,” Gaddis reminds his readers before concluding his text, “but historians sooner or later must.” So too must reviewers.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 15, No. 4 (1998-1999) — Winter 1998/99 // Hiver 1998/99, pp. 41–42. Read the rest of this issue →
