BookWorld: The 75- year political war between the U. S. and Russia

The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare 1945- 2020 By TimWeiner Holt. 325 pp. $ 29.99 - - - Inhis timely newbook, “TheFolly and theGlory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare 1945- 2020,” Tim Weiner guides us briskly through 75 years of mistrust andmachinations between Moscow and Washington, setting Vladimir Putin’s offensive against our democracy in context. A veteran tiller in the field of national security, Weiner offers a well- written and provocative journey to this era’s perilous fight.

Reflecting current concernsabout Moscow’s use of social media and foreign allies to widen our internal political, social and cultural divisions, Weiner focuses on the central role that political warfare has long played in the contest between the United States and Russia. Defined in 1948 as “the employment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives,” politicalwarfarewas the weapon of choice for both sides that helpedkeepthewar coldrather than hot. AndWeiner is especially adept atunearthing andexplaining the covert side of it all.

The United States engaged in ad hoc political warfare as far back as the early days of the republic. But theTrumanadministrationbecame the first U. S. government to institutionalize the practice, in the 1940s, amidmounting evidence that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin sought to dominate Europe. The Soviets were already engaging in politicalwarfare throughout the continent, aided by thepresenceof theRedArmy in the East and by communists and their supporters, open and concealed, in Western Europe. In June 1948, the National Security Council issued a directive that formally assigned responsibility for “covert operations” in peacetime to the recently established Central Intelligence Agency andauthorizedthe creationof a specialunitwithintheCIAtorunthese activities.

Pickingupon a themeofhisNational Book Award- winning history of the CIA, “Legacy ofAshes,” Weiner highlights the self- defeating hubris that often accompanied the use of this weapon. A gifted storyteller, he creates memorable portraits of the players. The State Department’s George Kennan, the first significant voice on American national security in the Cold War, sparked theNational Security Council’s adoption of politicalwarfare. In May 1948, “Kennan delivered a manifesto,” Weiner writes, that was titled “The inauguration of organized political warfare.” It was so explosive, “crucial paragraphs . . . remain classified top secret today.”

Weiner, who won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1988, renders a mixed verdict on the American deployment of the dark arts in the struggle with Moscow. In his telling, the efforts were sometimes successful and other times disastrous, often resulting in a range of unintended consequences. His page- turning account of U. S. complicity in creating JosephMobutu’s kleptocracy in Congo is a reminder of how policies can succeed on one level and fail on another. Backed by the CIA, Mobutu became a reliable anticommunist who then exploited his position to pillage his country.

Another covert action described inmarvelous detail is theU. S. role in assisting Pope John Paul II and the forcesof freedomtoundermine Soviet rule in Poland. Amid Lech Walesa’s Solidaritymovement, President

Ronald Reaganmet with the pope in June 1982. “Both men had survived assassination attempts the year before, six weeks apart,” Weiner writes. “Reagan believed that they had amystical bond, that they had been spared death for a divine purpose.” In the absence of an official record of the meeting, Weiner quotes Thomas P. Melady, who later becameU. S. ambassador to the Holy See: “The President brought up to the Pope that he had read that the Pope had said that one dayEasternEuropewill be free, and Eastern Europe will join with Western Europe. And President Reagan said, ‘ Your Holiness, when will that be?’ And the Pope said, ‘ In our lifetime.’ The President sort of jumped out of his chair and . . . grabbedhis hand and said, ‘ Let’s work together.’ “Five months later Reagan authorized a covert program to liberate Poland, the CIA’s $ 20million operation code- named QR/ HELPFUL, which included giving Solidarity “sophisticated printing and broadcasting capabilities.” Ultimately, itwas thecitizensofPoland, led by Solidarity, who defeated theSovietUnion’srepressionandits accomplices, but the United States and the Vatican put a heavy finger on the scale.