FROM TRUST TO TERROR: The Onset of the Cold War, 1945-50

by Herbert Feis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 16, 1970

Feis is a high-ranking State Department official; despite bis access to cold-warrior principals, this book adds little new material. It reiterates the Russian-bear theory of the cold war, without assimilating Fontaine-to-Halle ""both sides contributed"" scholarship or refining the hard line to meet revisionist attacks. Stalin created and executed the cold war; the West was forced to respond. Churchill's 1946 Fulton ""Iron Curtain"" speech was motivated by Stalin's February 10th oration (ludicrously designated ""an election speech!""). At Potsdam Truman ""did not know how subtle and unscrupulous were the Marshal's gifts for dissimulation. . . ""; Feis claims that French refusal to deliver reparations to Russia was mere pique at exclusion from previous consultation, which ignores both the virtual nonexistence of a French government prior to Potsdam and Stalin's concession at Yalta on the French zone (acknowledged in his own Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, 1967). lndeed, Feis implicitly denies that Stalin made any concessions, failing to record Soviet orders to the Western European insurgents to abandon arms and cooperate with the West. Overlooking Soviet instructions to the French Communists to form a popular-front government with the Gaullists, Feis asserts that in 1947 ""the French C.P. with Russian encouragement was ready to take over power"" -- hence the Marshall Plan. The Truman Doctrine receives parallel rationalization: [the Reds (no mention of anti-Nazi partisans) were operating from Albania and Yugoslavia (no mention of Stalin's ban on Yugoslav assistance) against the Greek government (no mention of quislings reinstated by the British)]. The Polish question, Iran, the Russian loan, Berlin and peripherally China prove the West's honorable intentions and the Russians' perfidious designs, while Feis denies but cannot disprove that the atomic bomb played a major role in cold-war maneuvers. Given the assumption that U.S. actions were a defensive response, Feis sees no need to probe their domestic determinants or deal with scholars who do; given the ever-higher level of cold war retrospection from all points of view, this is a disappointment, compounded by the merits of Feis's earlier work; but given his reputation (and literate style) this will find an audience, albeit some of it critical.

Pub Date: Nov. 16, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1970

Categories: NONFICTION