70 MARCH 2025 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL that Nitze had the luxury of concentrating on his professional career in Washington without the usual monetary concerns. Nitze’s Wall Street years came to a close when he received a telegram in 1940 that read: “Be in Washington Monday morning. Forrestal.” The stark summons was sent by James Forrestal, a former Dillon, Read colleague. Forrestal, who later became the Secretary of Defense, was an important mentor for the young Nitze. He tragically committed suicide in 1949. In Washington, Nitze assisted in drawing up the Selective Service Act of 1940. He later served on the pioneering U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, a body charged with probing the efficacy of Allied air power. As part of that assignment, he visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki weeks after the two cities were devastated by atomic weapons. Wilson cogently examines Nitze’s work on the Marshall Plan as well as his successful advocacy for the development of a thermonuclear weapons capacity. Nitze went on to serve as the director of policy planning at the State Department from 1950 to 1953. While there, he oversaw the production of a top-secret report known as NSC-68. The author correctly underscores the seminal nature of this document, which, in broad strokes, outlined the dire nature of the threat posed by the Soviet Union and called for a buildup of U.S. military capabilities. NSC-68 was declassified in 1975, but its core propositions continued to guide policymakers until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Nitze joined the Kennedy administration in 1961. America’s Cold Warrior adeptly places a spotlight on Nitze’s participation as a representative of the Pentagon in the Executive Committee (ExComm) meetings convened to advise President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. While not a central player in the deliberations, he was a hard-liner on the need to remove the nuclear missiles placed in Cuba by Moscow. His service on the “now-fabled ExComm”— to use the author’s apt characterization— solidified his reputation as someone who was in the room when crucial decisions were made. Wilson also shows how Nitze was able to influence the national security agenda even when he was out of office. Fearing that the Soviets were gaining the upper hand at the negotiating table, he publicly assailed the second round of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II). President Carter signed the SALT II accord in 1979, but the U.S. Senate never ratified it. In 1981 the Reagan administration turned to Nitze for his expertise in nuclear arms control. With geopolitical tensions on the rise, he soon became a major force in the U.S. government on how to negotiate with Moscow. The narrative on Nitze’s effort to resolve disagreements with the Soviets over intermediate-range missile deployments is particularly gripping. While the initiative failed, his “walk in the woods” with a Soviet negotiator in 1982 became famous. It even inspired a wellreceived play, which in its West End production paired Alec Guinness with Edward Herrmann. The advent of Mikhail Gorbachev as the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985 would lead to a thawing of the Cold War. As succinctly related by the author, however, Nitze distrusted the “self-professed reformer with a sunny disposition.” While he remained wary of Soviet intentions, arms control talks made progress, with both sides signing landmark accords in the following years. Nitze left government service for good in 1989 but remained active as an elder statesman. He died at age 97 in 2004. The author touches on some of Nitze’s other contributions. Along with Christian Herter, a future Secretary of State, he founded the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington in 1943. SAIS merged into Johns Hopkins and was later renamed in Nitze’s honor. As an investor, he also helped establish Aspen, Colorado, as a popular ski destination. On the rare occasions when he was not grappling with weighty issues, he liked to get away from it all on the slopes. Additional resources on Nitze include his memoir From Hiroshima to Glasnost (1989), which contains candid snapshots of such luminaries as Harry Truman, Dean Acheson, Lyndon Johnson, and Henry Kissinger. Another illuminating study is The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War (2009) by Nicholas Thompson. When presenting Nitze with the Medal of Freedom, President Reagan observed that he was “an exceptional individual, a great man and a great public servant.” America’s Cold Warrior provides a richly textured and penetrating account of the many ways in which this unique figure shaped statecraft during a turbulent era. It is a brilliant addition to the Cold War library. n Joseph L. Novak is a writer based in Washington, D.C. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in London and a retiree member of the American Foreign Service Association. A former lawyer, he was a Foreign Service officer for 30 years.
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