The Dissent Papers: The Voices of Diplomats in the Cold War and Beyond
The Dissent Papers: The Voices of Diplomats in the Cold War and Beyond
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Abstract
Beginning with the Cold War and concluding with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, this book explores the overlooked opposition of U.S. diplomats to American foreign policy in the latter half of the twentieth century. During America's reign as a dominant world power, U.S. presidents and senior foreign policy officials largely ignored or rejected their diplomats' reports, memos, and telegrams, especially when they challenged key policies relating to the Cold War, China, and the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. The book recovers these diplomats' invaluable perspective and their commitment to the transformative power of diplomatic writing. It showcases the work of diplomats whose opposition enjoyed some success. George Kennan, John Stewart Service, John Paton Davies, George Ball, and John Brady Kiesling all caught the attention of sitting presidents and policymakers, achieving temporary triumphs yet ultimately failing to change the status quo. The book follows the circulation of documents within the State Department, the National Security Council, the C.I.A., and the military, and it details the rationale behind “The Dissent Channel,” instituted by the State Department in the 1970s, to both encourage and contain dissent. Advancing an alternative narrative of modern U.S. history, the book connects the erosion of the diplomatic establishment and the weakening of the diplomatic writing tradition to larger political and ideological trends while, at the same time, foreshadowing the resurgent significance of diplomatic writing in the age of Wikileaks.
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Front Matter
- Introduction
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one
The Pen as Sword: George Kennan and the Politics of Authorship in the Early Cold War
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two
“Learn to Write Well”: The China Hands and the Communist-ification of Diplomatic Reporting
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three
Revising the Vietnam Balance Sheet: The Rhetorical Logic of Escalation Versus George Ball’s Writerly Logic of Diplomacy
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four
The Other Plumbers Unit: The Dissent Channel of the U.S. State Department
- Conclusion The Life After: From Internal Dissenter to Public Prophet
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End Matter
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