Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs.

Spalding, Elizabeth Edwards

RICHARD M. BISSELL, JR., WITH JONATHAN E. LEWIS AND FRANCES T. PUDLO, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 250 pp. plus notes $30.00 cloth (ISBN 0-30006430-6).

If John LeCarre were to write a novel about the ultimate American insiders in the tradecraft of Cold War foreign policy, Richard M. Bissell, Jr., would qualify as a little gray man. Bissell, however, is neither as ambivalent nor as ambiguous as a LeCarre character. Nevertheless, he is not without ambivalence and ambiguity.

In this elegantly and compactly written memoir, the late Bissell attests that the liberal technocrat's challenge is to serve his country through mastery of the bureaucratic system. He establishes his background credentials for this undertaking by briefly describing his New England family and education at Groton and Yale. For the most part, though, he recounts his career in government: from helping to administer the American wartime economy to detail work in implementing the Marshall Plan to top-level positions in the Central Intelligence Agency with respect to overhead reconnaissance and covert operations. While not a well-known figure to a general reading audience, Bissell proves that he and, perhaps, several of his colleagues deserve to be almost as familiar as Dean Acheson, Allen Dulles, and Robert McNamara to students of the Cold War and post-war American foreign policy.

The volume combines recollection and analysis with some reference to primary documents and little dependence on secondary literature. While there is no explicit hypothesis to be tested, Bissell develops several implicit themes, including the impact of bureaucratic process on policy making; the role of the intelligence sector in a democracy; and intragovernmental tensions between civilian and military agencies. As explained by his assistants, Jonathan E. Lewis and Frances T. Pudlo, the book was finished after Bissell's death but was based almost entirely on tape-recorded sessions with and drafts reviewed by Bissell. Above an, Bissell aims to recount and analyze bureaucratic successes and failures at pivotal points in Cold War policy making.

Although the chapters in which Bissell presents his political and economic interpretation of the war years and the Marshall Plan are of interest, the book's most fascinating and revealing sections concern the development of American overhead reconnaissance technology (particularly the U-2) in the 1950s and early 1960s, and the Bay of Pigs episode of 1961. Bissell lucidly relates the mechanics and surprisingly rapid development of the U-2 and his role as facilitator of the program while working under Director Allen Dulles of the CIA. While his assessment of the Gary Powers' incident at times sounds strained, he ably assesses the U-2 as the precursor to more sophisticated reconnaissance systems, including the satellite.

In presenting these case studies on the U-2 and the Bay of Pigs, Bissell offers a telling juxtaposition of Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy that is perhaps unintentional. The contrast between the presidents reveals a tension within Bissell's technocratic liberalism. It is obvious that Bissell liked Kennedy personally, and he writes that he agreed politically with Kennedy more than with Eisenhower. But it is also evident that Bissell finds Eisenhower's abilities and leadership to be superior. In large part, this opinion stems from the fact that Bissell uses his own mirror to judge the presidents, and Eisenhower emerges as the ultimate manager and technocrat who knew both how to retain strict control and delegate authority appropriately. The charismatic Kennedy, by contrast, is depicted as unclear about bureaucratic channels and unwilling to let his subordinates run and implement policies. In the case of the Bay of Pigs, Bissell lets others (such as Allen Dulles) speak for him in criticizing Kennedy's statesmanship, while he accents that organizational problems were the primary factor leading to the mission's failure.

Although his forte remains tradecraft, Bissell shows a gap in statecraft between the two presidents. He applauds Eisenhower for a comprehensive understanding of national security and of fiscal prudence. Eisenhower took legitimate risks to gather sensitive information, according to Bissell, in defense of the national interest and the west. Although he does not put it in so many words, Bissell suggests that Kennedy lacked strategic vision and concerned himself excessively with domestic public opinion. His narrative and scrutiny of the Bay of Pigs debacle demonstrates the difference between the two presidents: unlike Kennedy, Eisenhower explicitly would have approved the stages of the operation at each critical juncture; directed a night landing, if necessary, for tactical rather than popular reasons; ordered sufficient, modern air support in advance for the Cubans who opposed Castro and his Communists; and defended the operation to the American public.

Overall, the book would be appropriate for upper-level undergraduates and introductory level graduate students in history and political science classes covering bureaucratic politics, foreign policy making and analysis, case studies in American foreign policy and international relations, and the Cold War. Students will benefit from Bissell's eye to detail, bureaucratic expertise, and history of technology.

The greatest weakness of the work derives from its strength and will not be helpful to students and other readers. Bissell states that he is pleased with his achievements and proud to be called a liberal cold warrior. He provides illuminating details but, unfortunately, does not build a conceptual framework in which to place the particulars. "My interests were always those of an operator, and it is no exaggeration to say that I was concerned less with what the planes and satellites might bring back than with the process of getting it," Bissell says of the American program in overhead reconnaissance. "As soon as we had a few successful overflights, however, it did occur to me that, if you could demonstrate to an enemy country that you could overfly it with impunity and it couldn't do a goddamn thing to prevent you, that in itself would be a good deterrent." Even if he wanted to, he cannot resolve his ambivalence about the country he served and the ambiguity of the policies he helped to implement, because he writes from a limited vantage for his fellow insiders and for those who study them. Primarily, Bissell is a technocrat; as an afterthought, he is a liberal.