Review: John Foster Dulles
| Author | Ole R. Holsti |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207503000120 |
| Published date | 01 March 1975 |
| Date | 01 March 1975 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
175
by
Cabot
Lodge.
I
venture
to express
the
hope
that
Ambassador
Lodge
will
supplement
this
memoir with
a
more
detailed
autobiographical
account
to
do
justice
to
his
eminent
career
and
active
life.
Paul
Martin/London
JOHN
FOSTER DULLES
A
Statesman
and
His
Times
Michael
A.
Guhin
New
York:
Columbia
University
Press
[Montreal:
McGill-Queen's
University
Press],
1972,
xii,
404pp,
$12.95
Among
recent
interpretations
of
American
foreign
policy,
revisionist
critiques
from
the left
have
been
much
in
vogue.
But
most
of
this
literature
-
for
example,
works
by
Gabriel
and
Joyce
Kolko,
David
Horowitz,
or
Gar
Alperovitz
-
is
simplistic
in
conception
and
marred
in
execution
by
such
gross
methodological
flaws
that
it
will
satisfy
only
true
believers
in
American
culpability
for
every
facet
of
the
cold
war.
Michael
Guhin's
study
of
Dulles
is
also
a revisionist
work,
but
of
a
very
different
type.
He
seeks
to
dismantle
the
public
image
of
a
moralistic-ideological
Dulles,
portraying
him
instead
as a
'thoroughly
pragmatic
craftsman
whose
approach to
international
politics
was
un-
impaired
by
ideological
or
moral
precepts.'
Guhin
has
carefully
analysed
Dulles' formative
years,
the
development
of
his
political
philosophy,
his
political
career
prior
to
1953,
and
a
number
of
episodes
during
his secretaryship.
Guhin
argues
his
case
forcefully,
placing
special
emphasis
on the
political
pressures
impinging
on
the
secretary
of
state.
Dulles
emerges
from
this sympathetic
and beautifully written
book
as
a
statesman
who
operated
skilfully
and
realistically
within
the
limits
imposed by
the
political
climate
of
his
times.
Nevertheless,
this
study
is
for
several
reasons
less
than
totally
con-
vincing.
Guhin
develops
his
case
too
much
against
a
straw
man
-
the
contention
that
Dulles
had
a
'free
hand'
in
making
foreign
policy.
Moreover,
Guhin
asserts
that
his
goal
is
to
understand
rather
than
to
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