Econ_May_05

The Economist

May 5th 2018

Books and arts 81

HECubanMissileCrisis of1962was ter-

rifying, but at least both sides knew the

world was on the brink of catastrophe. As

Taylor Downing’s snappily told account

lays bare, what arguably made the near-

miss of November 9th 1983 worse was that

the West had almost no idea the Soviet

leadership believedwarwas imminent.

East-West relations had been in dire

straits for years. Ronald Reagan’s soaring

anti-communist rhetoric, terming the Sovi-

et bloc an “evil empire”, inspired freedom-

lovers on both sides of the Iron Curtain,

but panicked the Politburo gerontocracy.

So too did his idealistic belief that missile-

defence (“StarWars”) might keep the peace

better than

MAD

(mutually assured de-

struction). A hi-tech arms race spelled

doom for the Soviet Union.

As communication had shrivelled, mis-

understandings mushroomed. When the

Soviets shot down a Korean airliner that

had veered drastically off course into their

airspace, nobody in the American admin-

istration could countenance the idea that

the tragedy might be (as it was) a blunder,

not an atrocity. The Soviets were certain

the planewas on a spyingmission.

NATO

’s “Able Archer” exercise was also

wildly misinterpreted. The Kremlin was

convinced it masked war preparations. A

routine change of

NATO

codes made the

Soviets assume a nuclear first strike was

imminent. In fact the

KGB

had an agent in

the heart of

NATO

, Rainer Rupp. In re-

sponse to an emergency request, he as-

sured Moscow, with some bemusement,

that everything in the alliance’s civilian

bureaucracy was ticking along as normal.

But the spymasters discounted the infor-

mation, while “toadying

KGB

officers on

the ground…sent backalarmist reports.” If

the Soviet misreading of

NATO

intentions

was a colossal intelligence failure, so was

the inabilityofWestern intelligence to real-

ise just how jittery and ill-informed the

Communist leadership had become.

As the Soviet Union put its nuclear

forces on high alert, Lieutenant-General

Leonard Perroots, the American air-force

intelligence chief in Europe, reacted with

puzzlement. A quid pro quo might have

triggered an all-out nuclear war, which

would, as Mr Downing puts it, leave only

“cockroaches and scorpions” alive. Luckily,

Perroots did nothing. After a sleepless

night, the Kremlin leadership, huddled in a

clinic outside Moscowwith the ailing gen-

eral secretary, Yuri Andropov, realised

nothingwas going to happen.

Mr Downing’s book gives abundant

historical background, perhaps too much

for readers familiar with the period. A use-

ful later chapter depicts how realisation of

the Soviet panic unfolded in the West, first

in classified assessments and eventually,

long after the event, in the public domain—

not least thanks to Mr Downing’s televi-

sion documentary, screened in 2008. He

wisely avoids questions of the morality of

nukes. Insteadhe focuses on the shortcom-

ings that made accidental nuclear war far

too plausible.

Mutually assured destruction

Cockroaches and

scorpions

1983: Reagan, Andropov and a World on

the Brink.

By Taylor Downing.

Da Capo Press;

400 pages; $28. Little, Brown; £20

The end of the world as they knew it

EORGE MARSHALL’S name is immor-

tal, for ever attached to the visionary

plan for rebuilding Europe that he oversaw

as America’s secretary of state in 1947-49.

By then, as chiefofstaffofthe army, he had

already been, in Winston Churchill’s esti-

mation, the true “organiser of victory” in

the second world war. A new book re-

counts what he did between winning the

war and securing the peace: he spent a year

in China, trying to save it.

He failed, leaving behind a bloody civil

war followed by communist dictatorship.

“The ChinaMission”, an account of the de-

bacle byDaniel Kurtz-Phelan, a former dip-

lomat, is both a compelling portrait of a re-

markable soldier and statesman, and an

instructive lesson in the limits ofAmerican

power, even at its zenith.

As Allied victory curdled into cold war,

this was a pivotal if little-known episode.

The question of “Who lost China?” fedMc-

Carthyite conspiracy theories, which

smeared even towering war heroes like

Marshall. Yet, as Mr Kurtz-Phelan makes

clear, his embassy started in late 1945 in a

mood of great optimism, founded largely

on veneration of the man himself. It is 200

pages into the story before any of its char-

acters voice anythingother than awe for its

hero. Harry Truman called him the “great-

est militaryman” ever.

Even his main Chinese interlocutors re-

spected him. They were Chiang Kai-shek,

China’s prickly and reserved leader (that

page-200 critic) andZhouEnlai, the urbane

but two-faced Communist representative.

The Communists and Chiang’s National-

ists had formed a fractious front against the

Japanese occupation. At first, Marshall’s ef-

forts tomaintain that unity and prepare for

elections and multiparty democracy went

well. He even secured Zhou’s agreement to

aborted plans for an “elementary school”

for Communist soldiers, to train them

for a merger with American-supplied

Nationalist forces. As much as losing the

country to the Communists, America may

have wasted the chance offered by this in-

cipient detente for a different relationship

with “Red China”.

The book hints at reasons for the grim

outcome. One is that, for once, Marshall

was not up to the job. He made blunders.

InMay1946 he lent Chiang his own aircraft

to fly fromNanjing to north-eastern China

for four days, to stop Nationalist troops

fighting the Communists. Chiang stayed 11

days, leading the offensive himself. Com-

munist propaganda saw proof of Ameri-

ca’s duplicity and imperialism.

But Marshall’s mission, probably im-

possible anyway, also exhibited three ha-

bitual flaws of American foreign policy.

First, he was not immune to “the great

American faith in the curative power of his

country’s formof government and persua-

sive power of his country’s example”. In

China, this meant an inability to grasp its

sheer complexity and the aims of the two

big parties. Second—and as later wars in

Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraqhave

attested—America has been slow to accept

“the near-impossibility of resolving some-

body else’s civil war”.

The third lesson concerns the difficulty

of achieving consensus in America itself.

Marshall had to contendwith a “very large

group…opposed to practically anything

outside of theUnited States”. The idealistic

ambition behind his mission had tri-

umphed over the isolationists. Today the

loss of that idealism seems as poignant as

Marshall’s failure.

America and the Chinese civil war

Feet of clay

The China Mission: George Marshall’s

Unfinished War, 1945-1947.

By Daniel

Kurtz-Phelan.

W.W. Norton & Company; 496

pages; $28.95

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News"

VK.COM/WSNWS