Chester Bowles: (Ahead of His Time)
Williams, David C.
Chester Bowles: Ahead of His Time by DAVID C. WILLIAMS Chester Bowles' modest account of three decades of public service reminds one how much America owes to this able and dedicated man, and...
...It was for this reason, rather than his un- doubted tendency to talk at length and draft memoranda at even greater length, that he was relegated to the sidelines after a few short months...
...Ches- ter Bowles' reminiscences are no rem- edy for insomnia...
...As Under Secretary of State, he was principally responsible for the appointment of the most bril- liant array of ambassadors who have represented this country...
...He demonstrated—something to remember in today's ongoing debate —that wage and price controls, ably administered, can be effective...
...Kennedy's humiliation over Cuba seems to have given Khrushchev the idea that he could, at Vienna, be bluffed and bullied...
...It was this whole fatal combination which led within three months to the Bay of Pigs...
...MEL PHILLIPS, inmate li- brarian at the Missouri state penitentiary, is serving a ten-year sentence...
...Despite Bowles' earnest, almost desperate efforts, that opportunity was not grasped...
...In the absence of the application of clear principles, as Bowles points out, problems are analyzed and dis- cussed endlessly, and issues small enough to deal with in the beginning tend to get out of hand...
...It was a disaster from which the Administration never quite recovered...
...Yet, in retrospect, the overriding impression of the years covered in Promises to Keep is that of a tragical- ly missed opportunity...
...But following the Bay of Pigs, his confrontation with Khrushchev in Vienna and the resumption of nuclear testing by the Soviets, I sensed that, subconsciously at least, he was search- ing for some issue on which he could prove at relatively low cost that he was, in fact, a tough President who could not be pushed around by the Soviets, the Chinese, or anyone else...
...PHILIP G. ALTBACH, associate professor of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin, is co-editor, with Seymour Martin Lipset, of "Students in Revolt...
...Chester Bowles: Ahead of His Time by DAVID C. WILLIAMS Chester Bowles' modest account of three decades of public service reminds one how much America owes to this able and dedicated man, and how much more he might have con- tributed had he been given the chance...
...Governor of Connecticut...
...But, as liberals and intellectuals look forward to another chance at power, this book should be required reading...
...THE REVIEWERS DAVID C. WltLIAMS, a specialist in for- eign affairs, served for six years in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations...
...If people knew how they were gov- erned, a wise Englishman observed, they would not sleep of nights...
...After eight years of drift under President Eisen- hower, the United States in 1961 could have opened a new era in world affairs...
...dedicated to do- ing what came naturally to them— only perhaps with more "vigor," in an Administration that seemed to prize action for action's sake...
...As Governor, he was well ahead of his time, but the initiatives he took bore fruit in later years...
...Moreover, it seems that the same lessons have to be learned over and over again...
...Un- der Secretary of State...
...Generous always, Bowles is metic- ulous in recording the fact that some of the Administration's early hawks—- Robert Kennedy, Robert McNamara, possibly the President himself—had come to have sober second thoughts...
...In Bowles' account of the first crucial months of the Ken- nedy Administration, however, the element of human fallibility comes through strongly...
...As Ambassador to India, he early grasped the central importance of agriculture there and planted the seeds for what later blossomed as the "green revolution"—a revolution with every prospect of making India self- sufficient in grain...
...As Bowles percep- tively observes: "Anyone in public life who has strong convictions about the rights and wrongs of public morality, both domestic and international, has a very great advantage in times of strain, as his instincts on what to do are clear and immediate...
...Perhaps it is the lack of fixed prin- ciples in some of our leaders—the per- vasive "pragmatism"—that has done the most damage...
...And even if the pragmatist may come out right in the end so long as he keeps his head, Bowles warns: "What worries me are the conclusions that such an individual may reach when he is tired, angry, frustrated, or emotionally affected...
...We know all too well how high that "relatively low cost" turned out to be...
...Indeed, any citizen concerned about the future of his country would do well to read and ponder what Bowles has distilled out of his deep feelings and wide experience...
...But it must in all conscience be said that the Presidency is one post in which the price of "learning on the job" is too high to afford...
...Congressman from the same state...
...Despite his years of experi- ence—or perhaps because that experi- ence was limited mainly to domestic affairs—Lyndon Johnson was as un- prepared in his way to be President as John Kennedy had been in a different way...
...Bowles has served in a wide range of responsible posts: head of the Of- fice of Price Administration in World War II...
...There are some observers—and not only economic determinists—who re- gard America's involvement in Viet- nam as inevitable...
...As Bowles writes: "When I had discussed American policy in regard to South Vietnam with Kennedy shortly after his elec- tion, he expressed only a marginal in- terest...
...And a year ago President Nixon launched the Cambodian incursion to prove that the United States is not a "pitiful, helpless giant," just as if the disasters of his predecessors had taught him nothing...
...As a Congressman, he helped to found the Democratic Study Group, which to this day makes liberal Democrats in the House more effective than they would be as indi- viduals...
...The consequences are still with us...
...There were the great Cold War bureaucra- cies (the Pentagon, the State Depart- ment, the C.I.A...
...There was the in- experienced young President, elected by the barest of majorities, looking to Establishment figures for the prestige he felt he needed and lacked...
...and twice as Ambassador to India...
...To his great credit, Bowles fought this and other disastrous pol- icies every inch of the way...
...In each of these capacities he made a distinctive and substantial contribu- tion...
...And there were the intellectuals brought into the Government, relishing the novel taste of power, determined to show that they were not woolly-mind- ed sentimentalists, but "tough-minded" realists in word and deed...
Vol. 35 • August 1971 • No. 8
