The dissent papers : the voices of diplomats in the Cold War and beyond / Hannah Gurman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gurman, Hannah.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cold War--Diplomatic history.

Cold War.

Diplomats--United States--History--20th century.

Diplomats.

United States--Foreign relations--1945-1989.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (293 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Beginning with the Cold War and concluding with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Hannah Gurman explores the overlooked opposition of U.S. diplomats to American foreign policy in the latter half of the twentieth century. During America's reign as a dominant world power, U.S. presidents and senior foreign policy officials largely ignored or rejected their diplomats' reports, memos, and telegrams, especially when they challenged key policies relating to the Cold War, China, and the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. The Dissent Papers recovers these diplomats' invaluable perspective and their commitment to the transformative power of diplomatic writing.Gurman showcases the work of diplomats whose opposition enjoyed some success. George Kennan, John Stewart Service, John Paton Davies, George Ball, and John Brady Kiesling all caught the attention of sitting presidents and policymakers, achieving temporary triumphs yet ultimately failing to change the status quo. Gurman follows the circulation of documents within the State Department, the National Security Council, the C.I.A., and the military, and she details the rationale behind "The Dissent Channel," instituted by the State Department in the 1970s, to both encourage and contain dissent. Advancing an alternative narrative of modern U.S. history, she connects the erosion of the diplomatic establishment and the weakening of the diplomatic writing tradition to larger political and ideological trends while, at the same time, foreshadowing the resurgent significance of diplomatic writing in the age of Wikileaks.

Contents:

Introduction

The pen as sword: George Kennan and the politics of authorship in the early Cold War

Learn to write well: the China hands and the communist-ification of diplomatic reporting

Revising the Vietnam balance sheet: the rhetorical logic of escalation versus George Ball's writerly logic of diplomacy

The other plumbers unit: the dissent channel of the U.S. State Department

Conclusion the life after: from internal dissenter to public prophet.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9786613629616

9781280599774

1280599774

9780231530354

0231530358

OCLC:

826476574