Ante Litteram

Nick Thompson’s new book, The Hawk and the Dove, has hit the shelves, and it’s been a hit in other ways as well.

Just published this weekend are reviews of Nick’s book in The New York Times (by Patricia Cohen) and The Washington Post (by Jacob Heilbrunn). These two papers join Gregg Herken of The Washington Monthly in delivering well-deserved encomiums for Nick’s history of the Cold War told through the lives of two of its principals: George Kennan and Paul Nitze. Others such as Walter Isaacson, the former CEO of CNN, and John Lewis Gaddis, a prominent military historian at Yale, have already praised Nick’s book, and I’m confident many other public intellectuals and book reviewers will concur with the judgments of Herken, Isaacson, Gaddis, Cohen, and Heilbrunn.

Nick, a good friend of mine, is Nitze’s grandson. As such, he had both exclusive access to Nitze’s private papers and introductions to many of his associates from both the Soviet and U.S. camps. In Nick’s hands, these hundreds of boxes of documents and more than 150 interviews are weaved into an engaging and informative narrative of a critical period in world history. He approaches this larger story through the relationship of two men who, while often on opposite sites of policy and possessed of diametrically opposed personalities, shared many parallels in their lives, particularly in the decade immediately following WWII.

Both Nitze and Kennan analyzed the immediate aftermath of the war and worked in the State Department to understand the dynamic politics of the evolving Cold War. Together, they tried chart a path for the United States through waters treacherous not only for the interests of the U.S. and the USSR, but also for the survival of humankind. Kennan made his stamp on policy early, authoring from his aerie in the U.S. embassy in Moscow the Long Telegram, the document that first advocated a policy of containing the expansive tendencies of the Soviet Union. It was a missive that Kennan would later worry had been misappropriated to support an aggressive and militaristic stance towards the Soviets. Kennan decided in the mid-50s to largely retire from official Washington, choosing to advocate his position via his pen.

Nitze might be considered amongst those philistines who turned the Long Telegram into the armed brinkmanship of the Cold War based on his later support of hawkish policies, but Nick is careful to show a nuanced picture of the future Secretary of the Navy and nuclear arms negotiator. Nick emphasizes not only Nitze’s support of military strength in dealing with the Soviets but his wisdom, for example, in hiding evidence of Soviet intervention in the Korean War, documents that almost certainly would’ve escalated that conflict had they been made public. While Kennan lobbed his articles and books into Washington from a research position at Princeton University, Nitze remained convinced that the best way to advocate for his position was as Beltway insider.

Too many histories of the Cold War focus on one or the other: the inside baseball of Washington or the ivory tower of academic analysis. Nick’s book is the first one I know of that weaves together the two, and he does it masterfully.

To complement the book, Nick is maintaining a website that should be a required reference for anyone interested in insight into the Cold War and its personalities. Nick has promised to release excerpts of the primary documents he discovered in the course of his research. Whether one is a amateur or professional historian or just a curious student of the period, the documents Nick will publish will expose much of the hidden history of the Cold War. I’d recommend keeping tabs on the site, reading the excerpt there, finding a copy of the book, and keeping an eye out for Nick’s future books, talks, and articles.

Of course, what this article doesn’t mention is that things seem to be much better off without his “involvement.” A nice op-art piece could compare on two axes Bush’s involvement with a matter and its effectiveness.

While the traditional supporters of strong DRM have been economic conservatives, libertarians, and corporations, there is a category of advocates who represent an untapped well of support for strong DRM. This reserve: social conservatives who are suspicious of new social ideas and new content promoting them.
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Reading over the text of JFK’s 22 October address during the Cuban missile crisis, I noted a curious linguistic phenomenon. Of the seven points towards the end of the speech—JFK’s call to action—only one lacks any agent. Arguably, it’s the most serious of the constellation.

Third: It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.

This point makes a statement of fact. It does not indicate an action undertaken by “I” (Kennedy directly) or “we” (the Nation as a whole, presumably). The remaining points in the speech often utilize the passive voice, but they always introduce either Kennedy or the Nation / government as the agent. (Interestingly enough, the most “passive” of the remaining points is the first, which announces the blockade and is entirely passive, without a subject, in its first sentence. It is the second-most serious point of escalation. As JFK gets closer to the brink, he uses agentless language more frequently …)

On one level, this is appropriate. Using agentless language can—somewhat paradoxically—display conviction and a sense of irrevocability. It is part of the state of affairs, a non-negotiable part of the context of the crisis, not a human action.

But by the same token, it further polarizes the crisis. It forces the Soviets to choose between A and B, since issues of fact are less negotiable.

Reading this also left me with a curious question about the current administration. If we make no distinction between the terrorists and the states that habor them, to use the president’s words, then what are we to make of states, like Pakistan, that proliferate nuclear technology? If Iran gets the bomb, do we blame Pakistan in part for this state of affairs, threatening to retaliate against them if Iran uses the technology in unwelcome ways? From the perspective of this calculus of deterrence, what’s the limit between providing technology or raw materials and providing a finished weapon?

WNYC’s On The Media picked up my recent Legal Affairs story about ordinary folks striking back at 419 scams.

In a somewhat sad coda, late last week, it was reported that a prominent psychiatrist seems to have been caught quite badly in one of these scams. Remember, readers, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

The New York Times recently reported on some of the loopholes pharmaceutical companies use to avoid paying U.S. taxes on their profits, even though the majority of their profits come from U.S. sales. In essence, the companies are able to shift accounted profits to overseas subsidiaries where they escape the reach of U.S. law. U.S. consumers, through higher drug costs, and U.S. taxpayers, though their subsidies for the research underlying patented drugs, are the losers here, but there is at least one proposal which may solve this problem.
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In a recent article in Legal Affairs, Nicholas Thompson discusses the question of genocide in Burma (Myanmar). In Burma, as in Sudan, the Balkans, and Rwanda, this question elicits both vocal assent and strident discord — agreement that genocide should happen “never again,” and bickering over whether it has. Most of the time, everyone agrees that something bad is occurring. Unresolved is the question of what to call it: genocide, or something less? If not genocide, what?

The all-or-nothing nature of “genocide” has repeatedly led to semiotic sermons and analysis paralysis, during which the ongoing massacre often obviated the debate. Escape is possible, but it requires a simple choice: expanding our vocabulary rather than imprisoning ourselves in it.

Just as we distinguish degrees of murder or petty versus grand theft, the world may benefit by considering degrees of genocide. In place of Churchill’s “crime with no name,” we may have created one with too few.
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The Week in Review this week includes the article “Who Do You Trust More: G.I. Joe or A.I. Joe?’. After talking about the Pentagon’s future plans for an AI-driven battlefield, it concludes with a series of doubts about the trustworthiness of computers in an command and control role:

If that comes to pass, doubting some future incarnation of Multivac might be an act of mutiny. Yet there would always be a nagging suspicion: The machine will have been designed by the imperfect species called homo sapiens. What if we got something wrong?

This sort of fearmongering betrays a peculiar view of trust.
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The CS Monitor recently ran an article about digital manipulation in photojournalism.

Photojournalism is only one aspect where the readership is demanding more influence over, or at least insight into, judgment calls in news media. I believe that with regard to dominant media outlets which claim objectivity, these demands deserve recognition. The New York Times acknowledged as much in creating the position of Public Editor / Omsbudsperson. Photojournalism is an interesting submedium, though, because of the much stronger cognitive bias in favor of “seeing is believing” (versus “reading is believing”). The larger degree of attributed veracity demands greater accountability.
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I’ve heard it said that at graduation, each newly-minted architect should receive two things: a diploma, and a lifetime supply of dynamite — the diploma to create anew; the dynamite to rub out mistakes.

Does this sentiment apply to legislators as well? In a recent essay, David Hitt suggests that every law have a built-in expiration date (sunset clause). Hitt proposes that under automatic expiry, a debate would be forced on each and every law on the books at the time of its demise. Would this lead to the retention only of that legislation which has passed the test of time?

I’m afraid not, but Hitt does get at something else entirely.
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