Made out of people

Familiar names from the past

During my travels, I'm trying to read up a little on history and politics: if I'm going to be obsessed with the subject, the least I can do is be well-informed. And maybe getting frustrated with history will be more fun than being frustrated with events where I don't know how they'll turn out.

(more below)
(Update: the book is 1988, which makes this a little more significant: the Cold War is rolling toward its end, but is by no means over; the threat is still Soviet.)

Anyway, the book of the moment is a book from 1988. Entitled Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, it attempts to trace through momentous decisions (Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, parts of the Vietnam and Korean wars, and others) and looks at what people could have done. Their "mini-method" is, essentially, to look at where people and events come from--who do they work with? what events shaped them?--and try to break out the "knowns" from the "unknowns", the "assumptions" from the "desired results". The authors call it "placement", the need to "place" arguments in the views of those who will hear them.

Anyway.

On page 201, we're learning about the SALT treaty, and Jimmy Carter's 1977 attempt to get the Soviets to agree to cutbacks in the number of nuclear missles held by both sides. We learn that even if he had somehow succeeded with the Soviets--and that was dubious--he still needed to get the US Senate on his side. The critical person at the time was Senator "Scoop" Jackson.

And so there I am reading along, and a familiar name pops up.

Richard Perle, Jackson's principal staff aide for such issues, had given deep cuts qualified support, probably on the well-grounded assumption that the Russains would never accept them. Had that assumption proved wrong, Perle would probably have found some previously unnoticed reason why deep cuts were not acceptable either. It was Perle's consistent view that anything the Russians liked had to be against US interests.

Plus ça change...

[Update: It's not "plus la change."]

September 22, 2004 03:52 PM | in Other