Volume 19, Number 6 · October 19, 1972
Cooling It
By Ronald Steel
Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis
by Graham T. Allison
Little, Brown, 338 pp., $8.95
The Cuban Missile Crisis
edited with commentary by Robert A. Divine
Quadrangle, 248 pp., $2.65 (paper)
Cold War and Counter-revolution: The Foreign Policy of John F. Kennedy
by Richard J. Walton
Viking, 250 pp., $7.95
The Kennedy Doctrine
by Louise Fitzsimons
Random House, 275 pp., $7.95
The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy
by Alexander George, by David Hall, by William Simons
Little, Brown, 268 pp., $7.95
First came the orthodox, who said that everything having to do with the cold war was the fault of the communists who forced us from our self-indulgent isolationism into acceptance of our world 'responsibilities.' Then came the revisionists, who argued that the cold war was largely our fault, and that American interventions against communism were not defensive at all, but rather key elements of our global imperialism. While arriving at opposite conclusions, both the orthodox and the revisionists share the belief that the United States acted deliberately, rationally, and in pursuit of what it believed to be its self-interest. Indeed, both assume there is such a thing as an American government which analyzes a situation, makes a decision, and carries it through.
Review, 3855 words
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