From yalta to vietnam: American foreign policy in the cold war

Perhaps the major American casualty of the cold war has been the idea of history. This wound in the American intellect has, for the most part, gone unnoticed: yet to neglect it is to chance the cancer of cynicism. For the idea of history is the secular conscience of the West, the moral and intellectual impulse which enables us to face up to the implications of Auden's classic lines about the decay of Hong kong in the late thirties:

We cannot postulate a General Will: For what we are, we have ourselves to blame.

History is the record of man's efforts to transform the real into the ideal. It is therefore a mirror in which man can look himself in the eye. Thus the idea of history is nothing less than the notion of bonesty which provokes us a mesure our performance. WILLIAM AFFLEMAN WILLIAMS

EVERY war generates myths that serve to justify and perpetuate it, and the cold war has been no exception. In both camps, public consciousness has long been dominated by historical legends which invest the central actions of its own side with unasailable righteousness, and identify its own cause with the cause of all mankind.

Naturally, the myths of one camp tend to appear in more accurate light only whes viewed by members of the other; viewed from their own side, they staunchly retain the appearance of truth. In such a situation, historians of the two camps become the bearers of a possible enlightenment from within", which is of more than more academic significance. For these myths have been employed to justify repression in the name of freedoms and to perpetuate conflicts in the name of peace. Moreover, unless the myths of two decades of cold war can be replaced with premisses more firmly rooted in reality, it seems likely that the opportunities offered by the US-USSR die will be squandered, and the prospects for peace will grow dim.