Cold war diplomacy

Two books to come out last year have created a radical revision in the teaching on Cold War history and diplomacy. They're Atomic Diplomacy, by Gar Alperovitz, published by Simon and Schuster. New York (USA price 7.50 dollars), and The Free World Colossus, by David Horowitz, published by Hill and Wang. New York (USA price 6.95 dollars).

Atomic Diplomacy is the history of American policy in 1945 from the death of Roosevelt until the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Well documented and researched, the book explores the role of the atomic bomb in the formulation of American policy, especially towards Russia from the start of Truman's Presidency.

It's clearly shown that possession of the atomic bomb led Truman into a harder line against the Russians, both In Europe and over the Soviet entrance into the Japanese war.

Truman told his Secretary of War that the bomb "gave him an entirely new feeling of confidence." and he believed that the bomb "put us in a position to dictate our own terms at the end of the war."

The other book. The Free World Colossus, is a far more more polemical work. It surveys the whole period of the Cold War. from the death of Roosevelt to the end of the Kennedy era.

It deals effectively and systematically with such developments as the withdrawal of American support from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, the role the Americans played in Greece, the establishing of the United Nations, the Berlin crisis, and right up to such developments as the Cuban missile crisis and American relations with the Soviet Union.

Horowitz's work is well researched and documented. Although the author, unlike Alperovitz, starts out with a view about American and Western policies in the Cold War, he brings new and startling material to the surface, and by using personal diaries of policy-makers he provides the intimate details of how decisions were reached. For example, whether the atomic bomb should be dropped, and why.

The book is well written, in a completely non-academic style.

I read the two books on the Cold War jointly. Even though both were published at the same time there was no contact between the authors (one in England, the other in the United State).

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Their independent research on foreign policies indicates what the true facts are. These two studies should stimulate further research, and Horowitz's book especially will provide many starting points for other books and doctoral theses.

Denis Warner has long been known as a reputable, but conservative writer on Asian affairs.

He's best known for his articles in The Reporter, and is even reprinted in The Dominion as "our writer on Asian affairs."