Joseph M. Jones (1908–1990)

A behind-the-scenes account of the Truman’s decision to take up the mantle of world leadership from the crumbling British Empire in the face of Stalin’s moves to turn Greece, Turkey and Iran into Soviet satellites, and how the main administration players, Dean Acheson and George Marshall, were able to sell the plan to a new Congressional Republican majority who viewed foreign aide as an impediment to cutting taxes by 20 percent.

Jones was an employee of the State Department at the time, though he includes almost no first person narration of events. The prose is dry and a bit official—lists of attendees of important meetings take up a good percentage of the text—and there is some hammering in of the momentous nature of the decisions, but it is illuminating to see how things played out on a day by day basis and to know of the opposition–from right-wing isolationists like Senator Taft as well as left wing accommodationists such as Former Vice President Wallace—to decisions that led to the current state of affairs: the US as a superpower that exercises global influence through money and military force.

Jones basically describes the dawn of the Cold War not as a struggle between Freedom and Totalitarianism but as a reboot of the Great Game—the centuries old jockeying for control of Asian and Middle Eastern resources—with America serving as Britain’s replacement, and the Soviet Union standing in for Czarist Russia. Recent events in Georgia show that the game is still afoot.… (meer)