My Review of James Graham Wilson's "America's Cold Warrior: Paul Nitze and National Security from Roosevelt to Reagan"

A Man of Action

 

Where is Paul Nitze when we need him? Paul Nitze engaged in national security policy for every president from Roosevelt to Reagan. The lesson he learned from Pearl Harbor carried through his entire career and that was in order to defend the United States, the United States had to be stronger than any potential aggressor. His policy was the essence of peace through strength.

 

James Wilson’s biography fully discusses Nitze’s professional career from being an investment banker in the 1930’s to being a tribune in the highest councils of government on national security affairs.  Nitze modeled himself on what he called “men of action.” They included his first boss Clarence Dillon, Navy Secretary James Forrestal, Secretary of State Dean Acheson and presidents Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan. While working for Clarence Dillon at the Dillon Reed banking firm Nitze was involved in putting together the Cal-Tex agreement which sent middle eastern oil to Asia and the financing of the Triboro Bridge.

 

As war clouds loomed in 1940 Nitze followed his mentor at Dillon Reed, James Forestal into government. He could well afford to work in government because of his wife’s wealth and his own personal investments. During World War II he worked on the strategic bombing survey and after the war he found himself at the State Department working under George Kennan. In 1950 he succeeded Kennan as the Director of Policy Planning. There he authored the now famous NSC-68 memorandum which called for a massive defense build-up wrapped in American values. The build-up would come with the onset of the Korean War a few months later.

 

In the mid-1950’s he would switch parties and became a Democrat because of his disagreement over Eisenhour’s massive retaliation strategy and his thinking was very influential in the Kennedy campaign of 1960. Nitze was in the room when during the height of the Cuban missile crisis. Nitze thought Kennedy’s policy only worked because the U.S. had superior forces relative to the Soviet Union. That advantage would erode away in the 1960’s and turn into a severe disadvantage in the 1970’s. Though now a Democrat, Nitze participated in arms control negotiations under Nixon. He was respected by hawks across the aisle.

 

When not in government during the Nixon-Ford era he found a home at the Johns-Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, which is now named after him. His interns there included Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz who would soon become real players in the Reagan Administration and beyond. His contribution to the arms debate in the 1970’s was his leading role in the Committee on the Present Danger which anteceded the Reagan military build-up of the 1980’s.

 

Reagan hired him as an arm control negotiator and in 1982 he had his famous walk in the woods with his Soviet counterpart, Kvitsinsky. Although nothing came of it at the time, it was a percussor of all of the arms control agreements that would follow. In the 1980’s Nitze was far too suspicious of Gorbachev and overestimated Soviet strength. He didn’t realize how much the Soviets feared Reagan. ( See: Shulmaven: My Review* of Sergey Radchenko's "To Run the World: The Kremlin's Bd.........." )Nitze wasn’t perfect, but he got most of the big things dead right. Further his brittle personality kept him from being either Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State, although he served admirably in both departments. Wilson has done us a real service in writing Nitze’s biography at this time. We surely need someone like him today.