The Devil We Knew: Americans and the Cold War

In the late 1950s, Washington was driven by its fear of communist subversion: it saw the hand of Kremlin behind developments at home and across the globe. The FBI was obsessed with the threat posed by American communist party--yet party membership had sunk so low, writes H.W. Brands, that it could have fit "inside a high-school gymnasium," and it was so heavily infiltrated that J. Edgar Hoover actually contemplated using his informers as a voting bloc to take over the party. Abroad, the preoccupation with communism drove the White House to help overthrow democratically elected governments in Guatemala and Iran, and replace them with dictatorships. But by then the Cold War had long since blinded Americans to the ironies of their battle against communism. In The Devil We Knew, Brands provides a witty, perceptive history of the American experience of the Cold War, from Truman's creation of the CIA to Ronald Reagan's creation of SDI. Brands has written a number of highly regarded works on America in the twentieth century; here he puts his experience to work in a volume of impeccable scholarship and exceptional verve. He turns a critical eye to the strategic conceptions (and misconceptions) that led a once-isolationist nation to pursue the war against communism to the most remote places on Earth. By the time Eisenhower left office, the United States was fighting communism by backing dictators from Iran to South Vietnam, from Latin America to the Middle East--while engaging in covert operations the world over. Brands offers no apologies for communist behavior, but he deftly illustrates the strained thinking that led Washington to commit gravely disproportionate resources (including tens of thousands of lives in Korea and Vietnam) to questionable causes. He keenly analyzes the changing policies of each administration, from Nixon's juggling (SALT talks with Moscow, new relations with Ccmmunist China, and bombing North Vietnam) to Carter's confusion to Reagan's laserrattling. Equally important is his incisive, often amusing look at how the anti-Soviet struggle was exploited by politicians, industrialists, and government agencies. He weaves in deft sketches of figures like Barry Goldwater and Henry Jackson (who won a Senate seat with the promise, "Many plants will be converting from peace time to all-out defense production"). We see John F. Kennedy deliver an eloquent speech in 1957 defending the rising forces of nationalism in Algeria and Vietnam; we also see him in the White House a few years later, ordering a massive increase in America's troop commitment to Saigon. The book ranges through the economics and psychology of the Cold War, demonstrating how the confrontation created its own constituencies in private industry and public life. In the end, Americans claimed victory in the Cold War, but Brands's account gives us reason to tone down the celebrations. "Most perversely," he writes, "the call to arms against communism caused American leaders to subvert the principles that constituted their country's best argument against communism." This far-reaching history makes clear that the Cold War was simultaneously far more, and far less, than we ever imagined at the time.

About the Author :
H.W. Brands is Professor of History at Texas A&M University. His books include Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines, and Inside the Cold War: Loy Henderson and the Rise of the American Empire.

Review :
"Interesting."--Peter Goudinoff, University of Arizona "Brands writes with consummate wit and good humor....The Devil We Knew should firmly establish his reputation--at least among his professional peers--as one of the best and certainly one of the most prolific young historians of the post-war period. His work shows evidence of many hours spent in the archives. And yet his histories are eminently readable....No reader can possibly finish this book without being disquieted and intrigued."--The Washington Post "A sophisticated interpretation of America's involvement in the cold war that appears calculated to draw fire from the left as well as right....In assessing the conflict's origins and costs, Brands provides a wide-ranging survey of US foreign policy from Yalta through the Berlin Wall's collapse....A provocative audit of an adversarial world order whose passing, in retrospect at least, seems to have been long overdue."--Kirkus Reviews "Brands' study deftly probes the interplay of psychological, strategic, economic, and political factors in forming--and then freezing--U.S. policy from the Marshall Plan to 'Star Wars,' from loyalty oaths to the Gulf War....Convincingly demonstrates the cost--to the U.S. and other nations, in lives and dollars, human rights and moral principle--of an unchallenged and unchallengeable paradigm that is 'better as a literary device than as a description of international reality."--Booklist "Briskly written....[Brand's] book will be hard to beat."--The Economist "In this thought-provoking, controversial study, Brands charges that the responsibility for fomenting the Cold War, and especially for its prolongation, rests heavily on the United States....Discusses the current awkward, enemy-less mode in which the U.S. finds itself as the government strives to develop a new national security agendy and politicians work out new campaign rhetoric to replace obsolete anticommunism."--Publishers Weekly "William Brands, who has written important scholarly analyses of the Cold War, now provides an outspoken overview of the post-1945 years that is one of our first from a post-Cold War perspective. Its cast of interesting characters ranges from Harry Truman and Dean Acheson to J. Edgar Hoover and Hal Lindsey, and Brands is direct in discussing those Americans who had a strong interest in intensifying the 45-year conflict. Some of them, such as certain columnists and members of the infamous 'Team B' of the CIA, should not welcome Brands' reminder of how wrong they were and how much it cost us."--Walter LaFeber, Cornell University, author of America, Russia and the Cold War and The American Age "Sprightly written, incisive, and up-to-date, The Devil We Knew will find a wide audience. Brands' final summing up of pluses and minuses is the best treatment of the question, 'who won the Cold War?' that I have seen."--Lloyd Gardner, author of A Covenant with Power and Approaching Vietnam