The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2023

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2023 19 T o a striking extent, the revisionist interpretation of the events of the post WorldWar II period—the “Cold War”—has been accepted by a significant number of stu- dents and professors. The orthodox view of the origins of the ColdWar, as held by the vast majority of persons in the foreign affairs establishment, maintains that the ColdWar started at the end of WorldWar II when the Soviet Union rebuffed U.S. efforts to establish international cooperation and began to forcibly impose Communist regimes on the liberated European states. The traditionalists have maintained that were it not for the massive U.S. assistance to the continent,Western Europe would have fallen under Soviet dominance. Further, the establishment of NATO provided the military strength which “contained” further Soviet expansion. Revisionists regard specificWestern actions as crucial in arousing Soviet suspicions. The revisionists claim that Moscow was practically compelled to react to such “aggres- sive”American actions as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the rearmament of Germany, and the establishment of NATO, all of which aroused traditional Russian fears of hostile aims on the part of the outside world. To revisionist historians, the U.S. bears the guilt for initiat- ing the ColdWar because of America’s never-ending search for newmarkets for investment. To the radical revisionist, there is no such thing as accident or chance; in his perspec- tive, U.S. policy throughout the 20th century has operated according to a design, with the underlying motive being the single-minded protection of U.S. imperialist-capitalist interests. The current revisionists indict the very nature of American society in the 20th cen- tury, and denounce what had once seemed to be our most enlightened policies as imperialism in its worst form. Probably the majority of persons over 30 working in the foreign affairs agencies have held the view that U.S. policy sinceWWII, whatever its mistakes, has been founded on a basic American idealism, and carried out by well-intentioned (if all too human) leaders under difficult circumstances in an imperfect world.We have conceived of such policies as the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan as master strokes which combined successfully our idealistic impulses with shrewd practicality, and which not only staved off a Soviet take-over on the Continent, but brought about the revival of postwar Europe. And as practitioners, aware of the complex factors which go into the formulating and implementing of foreign policy, we generally find that the revisionist analyses do not ring true. It is a frustrating experience for someone who has lived through the period to convey the atmosphere of urgency, even of desperation, in which theWestern leaders made their decisions following the end of WWII, as freedomwas crushed in country after country in Eastern Europe. — FSO John P. Owens, excerpted from his article, “The Universities and Historical Revisionism,” in the August 1973 FSJ . 50 Years Ago Historical Revisionism, the Cold War, and NATO located far from the existing American Corners, the tour reached more than 4,000 youth. The Mobile American Corner is now an annual project for Tirana’s PD section, and State Department PD offices are using it as a model for other posts to follow. Honorable mentions went to the public affairs section of the Venezu- ela Affairs unit based at U.S. Embassy Bogotá; Erica Thibault, public affairs officer at U.S. Embassy Tunis; and Lau- While the FY24 budget request for the State Department and USAID together stands at $63.1 billion, $32 billion of that is earmarked as foreign assistance for USAID fully and partially managed accounts—an increase of $3 billion (or 10 percent) over the FY23 level. Administrator Power also testified in the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Sub- committees in both chambers. rence Socha, public affairs officer at U.S. Embassy Mogadishu. SFRC and HFAC Hearings: Power Testifies U SAID Administrator Samantha Power testified on April 26 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) and on May 17 before the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC). Both hearings were to review the USAID Fiscal Year 2024 budget request to Congress.