The Book of Daniel (33 page)

    As is well known the senior man in the cabinet, Henry Stimson, believed that the diplomatic use of a temporary bomb monopoly to ultimately change conditions in Soviet Russia was a terrible miscalculation that could lead to disaster. Let us look at Stimson. A long life devoted to the interests of his nation. A professional life not without its flush of patriotism, and a hot error or two. A member of the ruling class, as they say. But thirty-five or forty years of high governmental service polishes the skull to a wisdom that is almost oriental in its translucidity. At the level of international relationships life is not complicated
at all, but polished by the large simple facts of national self-interest it can shine in simple beauty (and as all the sages of the East point out, the truth
is
simple and beautiful and unnecessary even to articulate). Perhaps Stimson feels that like genetic change induced by radiation the sole possession of this crackling nuclear energy is changing our national character—or fulfilling it. Either way, he sees with the polished eyes of an old man soon to die. We are at a moment when we have the power to alter human history or confirm it finally in its ancient awful courses. He writes a memo to Harry dated September 11, 1945. It’s not Lao-tzu but for a diplomat it’s not bad at all. It is not bad at all shouldering these concepts as only an old man could have the strength to do in the ultimate flush of youth the spirit blossoms, the last extrudescence before death: “If we fail to approach them now but merely continue to negotiate with them having this weapon ostentatiously on our hip, their suspicions and their distrust of our purposes and motives will increase…. Unless the Soviets are voluntarily invited into the partnership upon a basis of cooperation and trust, we are going to maintain the Anglo-Saxon bloc over against the Soviet in the possession of this weapon. Such a condition will almost certainly stimulate feverish activity on the part of the Soviet toward the development of this bomb in what will in effect be a secret armament race of a rather desperate character. There is evidence to indicate that such activity may have already commenced.” Harry, listen to me. This is the moment for remaking the world.

     Harry, at dawn, walks briskly through the White House grounds. Someone, Byrnes, has told him what terrible shape the Russians are in—at a moment when the United States is the most powerful country in the world. Stimson is losing his grip. He wants to negotiate a treaty directly with Russia whereby we would impound our bombs, cease their development provided she (and Britain too) would do the same, and that the three nations would agree not to use the bomb unless all three decided on that use. The idea is to cede a military edge that he thinks
is temporary anyway to strike an international bargain that has some chance of being kept and saving civilization—not for five years, or twenty years, but forever. Harry at dawn walks briskly in the White House gardens. Stimson has been around an awfully long time. The President, I mean Franklin, was around too long too. The both of them. Of Stimson the suspicion leaks through that he has lost his usefulness to us. Instead of thinking of our interests he’s thinking of humanity. Let him get Joe Stalin to think of humanity.

     To confirm how wrong Stimson is, the Russians themselves propose at the UN a treaty close to the Stimson model. The memo of Sept. II is filed. The Honorable Secretary is filed. Harry and his Sec. of State, Byrnes of So. Car., will use the bomb the way it ought to be used. War-weakened, man-poor, Russia is seen as a tottering bear who can be brought down. Simply don’t give her anything to hold onto. A month after Roosevelt’s death all Lend Lease shipments and finances to the Russian ally are suddenly and without warning canceled. Leo Crowley, Harry’s Foreign Economic Administrator, tells Congressmen the theory behind this move: “If you create good governments in foreign countries, automatically you will have better markets for ourselves.” With that honeycunt staring you in the face, you’d forget your grammar too.

    There is no evidence that even before the end of the war against Germany and Japan a policy of coexistence with the Russians is seriously considered, let alone put to the test. The false popular view of Yalta. The profound confusion of diplomacy with appeasement. Diplomacy in the formulation of Truman, Byrnes and Vandenberg, is seen not as a means to create conditions of peaceful postwar détente with the Soviets, but as a means of jamming an American world down Russia’s throat. Historian W. A. Williams’ analysis is that recalling the Depression the American leaders are worried about a postwar economic slump. The solution is to secure foreign markets for American goods. This is the traditional solution to ensure American prosperity.
It is called many things by many people but by the State Department it is called the policy of the Open Door.

    We may prefer a more primitive analysis: that when you defeat an enemy you are required to eat his heart. In this way is your victory recorded with The Gods. In this way too do The Gods ensure the continuation of their amusement: You consume the heart of your enemy so that it can no longer be said of him that he exists—except as he exists in you.

    Horowitz in
THE
FREE
WORLD
COLOSSUS
quoting Blackett, another historian of the cold war, demonstrates that the Soviets make comparable reductions to our own in land-army strength: With her potentially hostile borders in Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East, she drops to 25 percent of her strength in 1945. We, with the bomb, and no threatening borders, reduce to 13 percent of our strength in 1945.

    At Potsdam Russia tells the Americans they need reparations from Germany, preferably in the form of heavy industrial equipment so as to get her shattered economy going again and also to lessen the chance of future German incursions, Germany being now a nation of whom she has historical reason to be morbidly suspicious, deathly afraid. The Americans reply that this is out of the question. At this point the bear has nothing. The art, however, is not in giving your adversary nothing, for with nothing he has nothing to lose by going to war. The art is in giving him nothing while making him think that you’re giving him something. James Byrnes of So. Car. knows this. Here is one of the great moments in international relations. Molotov and Stalin sit impassive in their badly tailored suits. They do not permit themselves the luxury of rage. They are the
rulers of a vast violent multination bound in ice whose major industry is death, whose only plenitude is violent death. Byrnes opens his carpetbag. He understands that all the aides, translators, guards, microphones, headsets, ranks of negotiators around the table are nothing. He understands the coals of the fire are growing cold in the lodge. And as Harry next to him drums his fingers in miniature representation of artillery fire, clouds of sparks and smoke glinting on Harry’s glasses, he removes with loving hands from his carpetbag for the eyes of these savages a sample of glittering cloth. This has always been the way to deal out savages—with bits of glitter and tasteless design. And what is this, they inquire as he bows his Southern aristocratic; neck and begs of them to feel the texture.

Byrnes closes his valise. We’ve got them on the reservation, now let them realize we own it. The trouble is the Russians assume differently. Did we or did we not exactly mean a free hand? Having reluctantly accepted Byrnes’ proposal as a poor substitute for German reparations, the Soviets are determined to make the best of it. This is not according to the American plan. In March 1946, Churchill makes a speech in Fulton, Missouri, with Truman on the platform applauding vigorously. Churchill finds provocative menace in the “iron curtain” the Soviets have dropped in front of Eastern Europe.