The Foreign Service Journal, November 2021

102 NOVEMBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Wilson approached the situation as a pragmatist, with no strong pro-German or pro-British inclinations. In this he was poorly served. Secretary of State Rob- ert Lansing and Walter Hines Page, the American ambassador in London, wanted the United States to enter the war on Brit- ain’s side and were willing to sabotage the president’s diplomacy to pursue that goal. Edward House bought into the fiction, promoted by David Lloyd George and the British pro-war press, that Britain was winning on the battlefield. (Lloyd George knew better but lied to advance his campaign to replace David Asquith as prime minister. George attained that office in the fall of 1916, soon after Asquith’s son was killed at the front in the failed summer offensive.) House was profoundly unwill- ing to confront the British leadership on this or any other point. Wilson had delayed an appeal for the convening of a peace conference until after the 1916 election, but by mid-November he was ready to act. To his surprise, he found House in opposi- tion—the British, said House, would never agree. House, “a fool or a villain” in Zelikow’s phrase, garbled or twisted Wil- son’s messages to London and Berlin and misconstrued the replies. Wilson delayed yet again. Wilson’s failure to act fatally weakened those in Berlin who, up to then, had stalled the U-boat campaign against civilian ship- ping by insisting that Wilson would call for a peace conference as soon as the Ameri- can election was over. In January, the kaiser yielded to his military commanders and authorized unrestricted submarine warfare to begin on Feb. 1, 1917. The move turned Wilson and the American public against Germany, leading to a declaration of war in April. Of nearly equal importance, U.S. banks, which on the basis of Wilson’s instruc- tions to the Federal Reserve had stopped lending to the tapped-out British, reversed course and resumed financ- ing the war. Once the United States was committed on the side of the Allies, the Central Powers had no realistic hope of victory. Zelikow offers a clear judgment: The German high command, “besotted with their victory mirage … rescued their bitterest enemies from defeat.” Such clear judgments and waffle- free language, as well as the novelty and importance of the subject, are what make this book such a fascinating read. Students of history and practitioners of diplomacy will find their imaginations piqued again and again: What if Wilson had pressed his case in 1916? Wilson believed, and Zelikow agrees, that once a peace conference was underway, the fighting would have to stop, and once it had stopped, it could not resume. And then what? The United States would have been spared the war. Would Russia have been spared its Bolsheviks, and Germany its Nazis? Would the 20th century have been spared the need to number its wars, after all? Lessons for the statesman leap from these pages: the importance of staff work and process; the need for clarity and pre- cision in communications; the danger of the political double game; the desirability of conforming public messaging to pri- vate conviction; the need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of staff, and of oneself; the costs of personal ambition. In this splendid book Philip Zelikow retrieves from oblivion “the most conse- quential diplomatic failure in the history of the United States.” We are all in his debt. Harry W. Kopp is a former Foreign Service officer. He is a frequent contributor to The Foreign Service Journal and a member of its editorial board. A Diplomatic Success Story Master Negotiator: The Role of James A. Baker, III at the End of the Cold War Diana Villiers Negroponte, Archway Publishing, 2020, $20.99/paperback, e-book available, 418 pages. Reviewed by Joseph L. Novak James A. Baker’s term in office as Sec- retary of State (1989-1992) spanned the final stages of the Cold War and many other landmark events whose impact continues to reverberate. In examining Baker’s consequential years at Foggy Bottom, Diana Villiers Negroponte’s new book, Master Negotiator , stands out for its light touch and trove of fascinating insights. The author comes to the subject as a scholar with significant international experience. A global fellow at the Wood- row Wilson Center, Negroponte has lec- tured on international politics at several universities. She dedicates the book to her husband, John D. Negroponte, the highly regarded former ambassador, with whom she ably partnered at postings around the world. Major sections of Master Negotiator chronicle James Baker’s priorities and actions as he grappled with the question of German unification in 1989-1990 and the unraveling of the Soviet Union in 1991. Earlier books on these subjects— including To Build a Better World by Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, and Autopsy on an Empire by Jack F. Matlock Jr.—are more panoramic and comprehensive in gathering the complex strands of a turbulent era. That said, Negroponte masterfully keeps her focus on Baker and his impressive diplomatic track record.