America in the world

Press, 29 July 1989, Page 22

America in the world

Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy since 1938. By Stephen E. Ambrose. Penguin, 1988. 357 pp. $16.95 (approx?) (paperback). (Reviewed by Alan Conway) This is the fifth revised edition of a book which with nearly a dozen reprints since 1971 must have netted the author a small fortune — and deservedly so. It is one of the best, concise, single-volume summaries of American foreign policy from Roosevelt to Reagan to have appeared to date. It is well written and cogently argued. Judgments on each President’s foreign policy are made quite dispassionately with even-handed justice whether the Presidents happen to be Republicans or Democrats. He conducts the reader from World War II through the Cold War years to Korea and Vietnam, and finally gives good coverage to more recent events such as the “star wars” concept of President Reagan, the Iran-contra scandal, and summit meetings with President Gorbachev. By avoiding the

pitfall of excessive detail, Ambrose succeeds in making American foreign policy intensely interesting. He has, moreover, by skilful selection ensured that each chapter begins with one or two pithy quotations. Those readers in New Zealand who favour the purchase of frigates will be delighted with the quotation from Winston Churchill, “There is only one thing worse than fighting with your allies and that is fighting without them.” Another quotation which illustrates the speed of change in recent times and which must have come back to haunt exPresident Carter is his declaration in 1977, “Iran is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world.” But pride of place must go to Le Due Tho when negotiating with Henry Kissinger for a peace settlement in Vietnam in 1972, “Let me speak to you honestly, frankly and openheartedly — You are a liar!” Would that there were more such openhearted people in international diplomacy.