Two books on the early days of the cold war now provide new ammunition for the conspiracy theorists. Based in part on recently declassified documents, “Operation Rollback” by Peter Grose and “Undermining the Kremlin” by Gregory Mitrovich offer compelling evidence that the United States wasted no time in launching covert operations against the Soviet Union after World War II. Make no mistake: there was, as Ronald Reagan put it much later, an evil empire ruthlessly subjugating half of Europe; it deserved to be undermined. But the fact that Washington did everything from sending hot-air balloons with anti-communist leaflets to parachuting saboteurs into Soviet-held territory hardly constitutes proof that the CIA brought down the Soviet Union. As Grose and Mitrovich argue, most of those early attempts at “Rollback” of the Iron Curtain failed miserably.
A former New York Times correspondent, Grose transforms the potentially dry bureaucratic battles over Soviet policy into a rip-roaring yarn, complete with a colorful cast of characters both in the back corridors of power and in the field. His book focuses on the Truman administration, ending with the 1952 election victory of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. Mitrovich, unfortunately, has none of Grose’s narrative flair. He often gets bogged down in arcane details, which is hardly surprising, since his book is an adaptation of his doctoral dissertation. But he sheds valuable light on policy debates that Grose skips over quickly, and he extends the story through the first term of the Eisenhower administration. Taken together, the two books chart the complete trajectory of Rollback.
At the center of the action was diplomat George Kennan. Writing under the pseudonym “X,” he published his seminal article in Foreign Affairs in 1947, calling for “a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” To his critics on the right, this smacked of passivity, even appeasement. But Grose paints a radically different picture of Kennan, who went from his posting as Moscow deputy chief of mission to head the State Department’s Policy Planning staff in early 1947. If he was Mr. Containment in public, Grose points out, behind closed doors he was “the architect and champion of American covert action” against the Soviet Empire. In popular lore, Eisenhower’s Secretary of State John Foster Dulles is usually cast in that role. (In later life, Kennan turned distinctly dovish, reinforcing this myth.)
The most reckless, tragic part of the Kennan team’s Rollback strategy was the dispatching of saboteurs to foment unrest. Anti-communist exiles were parachuted into the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Albania or sent in by boat. Most were immediately caught and executed. This was no accident. Kim Philby and other Soviet agents in London and Washington were providing the Kremlin with all the details. Far more successful were American initiatives to discredit communist movements in Western Europe by underwriting respectable publications that opposed Stalinism, and efforts to beam real news into the Soviet bloc. Radio Free Europe, which would be funded by the CIA until Congress openly took over the task in 1973, proved to be one of the most effective weapons of the cold war.
Toward the end of its term, the Truman administration recognized that the most aggressive methods should be abandoned; they were both counterproductive and dangerous, particularly amid growing fears of a nuclear war. Ironically, when Republicans lambasted their opponents for not pursuing the liberation of Eastern Europe vigorously enough, the Democrats couldn’t admit that they had already tried most of the actions that their critics were proposing. And once in power, the Eisenhower administration began its own quiet retreat from Rollback–but not soon enough to discourage Hungarians from believing they’d get the West’s support in their 1956 rebellion. The cold war finally ended only when growing internal dissent and a collapsing economy triggered the implosion of the Soviet system. Yes, Western policies contributed to that outcome, but covert operations weren’t the key factor. Don’t bother telling that to the conspiracy theorists, though. They’ll be too busy gobbling up–and misinterpreting–these scrupulously researched new books.
Undermining the KremlinGregory Mitrovich (Cornell University Press) 235 pages. $32.50
